Women berating Trump supporter on a plane is ejected as fellow passengers, likely of all political stripes, cheer.

The guy – a working schlub who flew to DC to watch the inauguration – was trapped in the window seat by a HIllary supporter who oozed hate and entitlement.

While I enjoy flying, I hate sitting in airliners.  Being trapped by someone with pathological Urban Liberal Privilege is among my worst nightmares.

Cary Grant – one of classic Hollywood’s greatest actors, and a lifelong Republican – on expressing his political opinion:

“I’m opposed to actors taking sides in public and spouting spontaneously about love, religion or politics. We aren’t experts on these subjects. Personally, I’m a mass of inconsistencies when it comes to politics. My opinions are constantly changing. That’s why I don’t ever take a public stand on issues.”

Smart guy.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’m glad the women had fun marching, nice weather for it. But I remain unclear on what it’s all about or why I should care.
Votes for women? Already have them but don’t bother to use them, which is why Trump won.
Equality? So, what, end affirmative action for women in education and employment? I’m okay with that.
Abortion on demand, no-fault divorce, presumption of custody, mandatory child support, homosexual marriage, vigorous prosecution of sexual assault and domestic abuse . . . already have all that.
Look, I’m all in favor of ending oppression but you’ve got to give me a hint, here. How, exactly, are American women oppressed and what, specifically, must be done to end it? Mansplain it to me, please. I seriously want to know: what do women want?
Joe Doakes

My hunch – and it’s just a hunch?  It’s the Democrat party trying to whip up support / hysteria as a hedge against complete electoral catastrophe in 2018, and beyond that to gin up support for a field likely to be led by another geriatric white ultraliberal in 2020.

One of my blog resolutions (besides “laughing over the online graves of so many liberal blogs”) is to spend a little less time on politics this year, and a little more on some of my other main subjects – history and of course music.

The band I played in back in 1987. This was the poster for the gig I wrote about in this story, almost ten years ago.

Music’s gotten short shrift lately; I wrote a grand total of thirteen posts about music all last year, and three of them were obituaries.

So it’s time to do a sort of musical palate-cleanser, I’m just going to reprise something that was going around social media the week of New Years; the top ten albums that affected you as a teenager.

Which is of course, a curve-ball; there are albums that have had a bigger influence on my life than some of these; “Shoot Out the Lights” by Richard Thompson, most of the Dire Straits catalog, and so on.

But here’s a start, in rough ascending order.

Gordon Lightfoot, “Gord’s Gold”

Yep. You heard that right. Loved that album back then. Still do.   Part of it was just that Lightfoot had a real way with a hook.   Part of it was that I learned a lot about playing acoustic guitar from listening to him.

And part of it was because even then, I very counterintuitively liked Lightfoot’s persona.  Not sure why that very un-teenagery image grabbed me, but it did.  So sue me.

Styx, “The Grand Illusion”

This one’s going to be a little counterintuitive.  If you know me, it may even come as a shock.

I detest Styx. Especially anything sung by Dennis DeYoung. However, one of the defining things about my identity as a teenager – really, the first part I liked – was as a guitar player and a rock and roller.

And “Come Sail Away”, “Fooling Yourself” and “Miss America” were the first songs I figured out how to play on guitar by ear, without any help or sheet music or anything. And once I figured them out, the dam broke and I learned *hundreds* of songs just by listening to the radio. Indeed, throughout high school my evening homework-time ritual was to tune in KFYR in Bismarck and listen as I did my reading and math; if I heard a song I liked, I’d grab my guitar and figure it out along with the radio.

And so as much as I loathe Styx, being able to play “stump the band” with the best of them was a yuuuge influence on me as a teenager.

Pretenders

Yeah, I’ll cop to it; the album had the whole “Chrissy Hynde meets teenage hormones” bit.  And you had the same issue, back then (assuming you’re a straight male of a certain age, a lesbian with impeccable taste, or a hetero-curious gay guy, I suppose.  I dunno).

Anyway, the album (especially James Honeyman-Scott’s guitar parts) was just as manic and all-over-the-place as I was back then. Listening to Honeyman-Scott, I started to think “maybe I can do this “lead guitar” thing.

And that was a very, very big thing for me.

And did I mention Chrissy Hynde?

Boston

To a genation of hipper-than-thou punks, “Boston” was to music what WalMart was to shopping.

But even at the nadir of my hipper-than-thou punk phase, I loved this album. The *sound* of the record itself was just freaking thrilling. I think even before I knew anything about *producing* music, I was drawn to the whole idea of production as art, and this record is why.

Case in point:  the wall of guitar feedback from 1:49 to 1:57 of this song.  Feedback was nothing new – Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend had made it an art form – but this particular little squall was a simultaneously a raw blast of power combined with a subtle harmonic progression (like opening up the drawbars on a Hammond organ) and and rhythmic, like using feedback as a drum fill.  It was a little production filigree, a gorgeous little instrumental aside that turned a run-of-the-mill seventies pop-rock song into something you could dissect for hours, and years, and write about (ahem) forty years later, and always find something new in.   It was about as organic as Splenda – it was the product of layering guitars like a Phil Spector “wall of sound”, and more high-tech processing than a Queen album.  But who cared?  It – among many similar little bits of production magic – was just glorious and made you feel glad to be alive.

Also – “More than a Feeling” was the first guitar solo I ever learned how to play.  I sat down when I was probably 15 and learned the whole thing, note for note, like someone trying to learn how to order food in Japanese phonetically.

And once I knocked that out, I was a lead guitar player – ergo, for the first time in my high school life, I was cool.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Damn the Torpedoes”

This album was, and is, my audio encyclopedia of everything that is great about rock and roll.

Seriously – it’s hard to even count the number of ways this album smacked me, 37 [koff koff] years ago.

But goodness knows I’ve tried; this article here did as good a job of it as I’ve ever managed to pull together myself.

And the song “Even the Losers” gave me hope, back then; sometimes, even us losers did get lucky.  And it probably did the same to you.

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, “Men Without Women”

Men Without Women is a glorious record in its own right – all huge hooks and raw, blazing emotions and pure brilliance. It’s still one of my three favorites of all time.

Beyond that? There wasn’t a lot of musical diversity in rural North Dakota when I was a kid. Seventies R&B never really spoke to me.

And I listened to Mw/oW, and a light went on over my head, and I wandered into the back room at the station I was at at the time, and dug out a bunch of Sam and Dave and Smokey Robinson and Four Tops records, and felt that clicking sound when ideas drop into place.

Mw/oW opened the door, first to Stax/Volt, then Motown, and an entire new world of music.

John Denver’s “Greatest Hits”.

When I was 14, I was a little too tall, coulda used a few pounds.  I was a junior high loser, never made it with the ladies…

…’til I decided to give myself a “cool” transplant and teach myself the guitar.  And I figured, using my analytical sense, that I needed to learn to play something.

I’d heard a few John Denver songs.  They sounded accessible.  And so I bought a copy of his Greatest Hits for $3 in a cutout bin, because I figured (correctly) it’d be a good way to each myself at least something on guitar.

And it worked!

“Follow Me” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” were the first songs I ever managed to play coherently, reading from book of sheet music. “Back Home Again” was where I had my “ah hah!” moment on how fourths and fifths play together, and how to do a rolling sixth (which you use in every Chuck Berry song, and thus most everything the Rolling Stones and Mike Campbell ever played). “Take Me Home, Country Roads” taught me how relative minors work – and you can’t play anything on Born to Run without relative minors!

“Sunshine On My Shoulders” is the perfect song for teaching yourself the basics of fingerpicking (the whole thing is a languid eighth-note pattern – hard NOT to play right!). And “Rocky Mountain High” is a great little workout on how chords fit together (and, I discovered after thirty-odd years of being too cool for it, not a half-bad album or song); combine that with your finger-picking from “Sunshine”, above, and kablooie, you’re Mark Knopfler.  Just like that!

So while I hushed up about the whole “I own a John Denver record” thing by about eighth grade, it was that record that was the key to playing the guitar, and playing the guitar was the key to whatever self-confidence I had as a teenager – including the self-confidence I needed to walk up to Bob Richardson and apply for my first radio job.

So it’s kind of a big deal.

The Clash, “London Calling”

Mostly first and second takes, recorded rough and ready, it was sort of the “do it yourself” album that spoke to my chaotic nature, making me think “I could do this!”.

Also, nobody else at Jamestown High School was into the Clash in 1979.  Which made me, for the first time in my life, way way way ahead of the curve.

Maybe the last, too – but let’s not get side-tracked, here.

Also, so good that I thought “I am going to have to get much better at what I do to do this”.

Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”

I know, no surprise, if you’ve read this blog at all.  But I don’t care.

If you’ve known me *since* high school, you probably remember me talking about this album. The best album ever written about isolation – which certainly spoke to a kid in one of the most isolated places in the country.

Still my favorite album of all time.

The Who, “Who’s Next”

But let’s forget about “all time” here.

I was a nerdy, gawky, athletically inept teenager in a town that revered athletes. This album showed me that the guitar I was plinking away on could be my weapon of mass destruction, my full contact sport, my identity.  With a windmilling slash at my Fender, I slew dragons.

If you knew me in high school, you knew I wanted to be Pete Townsend.   I had enough gashes and bruises on my hand from “windmilling” accidents to prove my dedication.

Apropos not much.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Trump proposes cuts at Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Justice, State. 

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be privatized; National Endowments for the Arts and Humanity to be abolished.

OH, YEAH.

Joe Doakes

Finally.

Back when legalizing same-sex marriage started gaining traction, I noted that its supporters – at least, many of its most vocal ones – seemed to have a pollyannish view of same-sex couples.  Because their love was (officially) denied, it was so much more real than unions of straight people.  “I wish I had gay parents; they’d be better than my parents!”, said not a few overpraised teenagers, to the barking-seal-like praise of camera-toting activists who, I suspect mostly, had never raised teenagers, and know they would say the same thing about satanist, Nazi or Yankee fan parents, if that would piss their real, boring, imperfect hetero parents off enough.

In the heady days when same-sex marriage was all about activism, gay couples were perfect couples, in the public imagination.

I wondered, out loud (figuratively and literally), what would happen when it turned out that gay couples are only human?  And (admittedly, somewhat cynically) that the real beneficiaries would be divorce lawyers?

Because as it turns out, they are.

The whole piece is worth a read, by the way.    I have friends and colleagues who are in same sex marriages, and I certainly don’t wish them any of the misery divorce brings.

And I have to wonder – how many couples got married for the same reasons those teenagers up above threw their parents under the bus – to flip a bird at all the squares?

There are lots of dumb reasons to get married, no matter who you’re marrying.  That’s one of them.

Donald Trump, as I’ve noted on my show more than a few times, is not only more gay-friendly than any of the Republicans in the 2016 field, but was in fact more consistently pro-gay longer than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were:

On gay-related issues, the news media couldn’t have picked a Republican president more in sync with their views than Donald Trump.

But the country isn’t dealing with a rational press right now.

The GOP was stuck on gay stuff until a New Yorker came along and cleared the field for them by saying he was not only “fine” with same-sex marriage but also by actively embracing gays in a bigger way than President Obama did.

Meanwhile, Trump, having grown up in the most diverse city in the world, is an outcast among the gay-supporting national media.
In a cover piece for Newsweek in 2012, Andrew Sullivan dubbed Obama “the first gay president.”

He also choked up on national television, calling Obama a “father figure” because he said he supported gay marriage.

Obama’s main claim to gay celebrity was changing his mind on marriage. He opposed same-sex marriage before he was first elected in 2008 and then he came to support it before his second term. (By the way, the Supreme Court handled the dirty work, Obama simply nodded in approval.)

Trump was not the first to support gay marriage, but he did a lot. After the mass terror shooting on the Orlando gay nightclub in June, he did what no other Republican would have ever done. He called it an attack on “the members of Orlando’s LGBTQ community” and said the tragedy was done “in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation.”

In July, Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and a big Trump supporter, was the first person ever to declare on stage at the Republican National Convention that he’s “proud to be gay.”

Further proof that the left’s narrative is:

1. Entirely left over from 2006, down to the last specious “Hitler” reference.
2. Aimed at gullible non-critical thinkers – whose votes, let’s never forget, count just as much as those of smart, curious people with functioning BS detectors.

I’m amazed it didn’t work last November.

One of the things that first put this blog on the map, back in 2002-03, was the “DFL Dictionary” – a compendium of DFL language translated into English.

The Dictionary first published in 2003.  The second edition came out in 2009.

It’s time for another!

If you see any new terms that deserve inclusion, add the terms and their definitions in teh comment section; likewise, suggest edits to older terms there, as well.

Posterity will thank us all.

You have sown the dumb-protest-sign wind.

You shall reap the dumb protest sign whirlwind.

If you had “as many rights as” a gun, you…:

• would be liable to getting shot by nervous cops
• You couldn’t get on an airplane
• You may not be able to vote because you can’t carry guns in polling centers.
• Any business can deny you entry
• Going to school would be a federal crime
• You would need to be locked in a safe when not in use
• You’d have to be transported in a trunk or lock box in the trunk when not in someone’s pocket.  Even women in Saudi Arabia don’t have to do that. 
• you would be blamed for things that are not your fault (which, let’s be honest, is more of a male thing)
• If you were poor, you couldn’t afford yourself because of arbitrary government regulations designed to destroy you
• government will pay good money to incinerate you

Sounds like women have more rights under the Taliban.

Still game?

Back during the glory days of the Tea Party, we – the good guys – were famous, among other things, for leaving the sites of our demonstrations cleaner than they were when we arrived.  It was a bit of a point of pride…

…especially when compared with the rat-infested rape camps of the media darlings of the “Occupy” movement.

Last weekend’s “Bernie Bro Women’s March against Trump” continued the narrative:

Not sure where this was taken – i got it off social media – but on a deeper level, it doesn’t matter. The “protests” of the Big Left are all centrally planned, and are about as regionally unique as McDonalds’ french fries.

Does it ever fail?  No.  Not really.

Two men tried to rob a jewelry store in a mall in San Antonio, Texas.

One Good Samaritan tried to intervene – and was killed in the process.

What could possibly go wrong? Accused mall shooter Jason Matthew Prieto.

That’s when a second Good Samaritan – a good guy with a carry permit and a gun – intervened, shooting one suspect and the other one fleeing like the prison shower-room bitch he no doubt is.

The suspects – including Jason Matthew Prieto, shown above, who is alleged to have fled the scene but wound up crashing his car – are up for capital murder.  Much as I oppose the death penalty, I doubt I’ll be found protesting if the State of Texas ever does end up executing them (should they be found guilty).

Six others were injured in the encounter with robbers before police could arrive.

So there were two good guys.  One had courage, but no gun; he is no longer with us.  One had courage and the means to back that courage up with force.  He – and others – are alive today.

Any questions?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Science proves that humanity is getting dumber.   This is consistent with my personal observations, driving around the Twin Cities.

 Joe Doakes

I blame Twitter.

One of my favorite sociopolitical tales is that of Alan Dershowitz, the not-remotely-conservative legal scholar who once castigated the faculty of Harvard Law School for seeing diversity as “someone with different color skin, than you, or wearing a skirt, who thinks exactly the same as you do”.

As predicted, the “Womens March” over the weekend, in DC and Saint Paul, was precisely that.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve fallen a little behind on our World War I series.  Over the next few weeks/months, we’re going to work to get caught-up to the calendar.

As the night of November 7th, 1916 became the early morning hours of November 8th, supporters of Charles Evans Hughes were becoming increasingly confident.

The former New York Governor, Supreme Court Justice and Republican nominee for President, Hughes had waged a brief campaign – he hadn’t sought the office but accepted the nomination in June – but looked as though he was on the verge of winning.  Hughes had all but swept the Eastern states, racking up victories in large electoral college states like New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois.  By the time the reported results had turned to the Western states, Hughes already had nearly 249 electoral votes (New Hampshire was still too close to call) out of the 266 he needed to win.  The early numbers in the West had favored incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, but Hughes’ camp felt secure that he would obtain at least Oregon and California’s votes.  Together, they would deliver the Presidency to Hughes.

Despite Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and numerous acts of terrorism, America had remained neutral in Europe’s conflict.  Wilson had campaigned largely on his ability to keep America out of the war, while Hughes had spent the last five months questioning the nation’s preparations.  Despite Hughes wanting to side-step any mention of the war directly, the campaign’s final weeks had devolved into a pro-neutrality versus pro-Entente/pro-war election.

The results from Oregon and California, although not official, arrived early in the morning – Hughes looked likely to win them both.  As Hughes drifted off to sleep, it was as the President-elect of the United States.  America had taken one step closer to preparing for war.

It’s not quite “Dewey Defeats Truman” but the nation assumed they had narrowly elected Charles Hughes as President

The common historical refrain of America’s attitude about the Great War in 1914 was that the nation staunchly preferred peace.  In reality, the nation was strongly divided on a variety of issues surrounding Europe’s conflict.   Read the rest of this entry »

The more politics I watch, the more I realize Berg’s Seventh Law – which started as a flippant observation of casual hypocrisy…:

“When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds”

…truly does pretty much explain the entire American left.

To wit:  the left is barbering about the suffocating control an Eastern European kleptocrat has over the American right?  Look for an Eastern European kleptocrat pulling the strings behind the American left.

Ding ding di freaking ding:

By my draft research, which I’m opening up for crowd-sourcing on GoogleDocs, Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s “partners,” including “key partners” Planned Parenthood, which opposes Trump’s anti-abortion policy, and the National Resource Defense Council, which opposes Trump’s environmental policies. The other Soros ties with “Women’s March” organizations include the partisan MoveOn.org (which was fiercely pro-Clinton), the National Action Network (which has a former executive director lauded by Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett as “a leader of tomorrow” as a march co-chair and another official as “the head of logistics”). Other Soros grantees who are “partners” in the march are the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. March organizers and the organizations identified here haven’t yet returned queries for comment.   

Presumably because they’re jetting off to Riyadh to protest treatment of women in the Middle East.

Oh, I slay me.

Perhaps for the first time in 25 years, I agree with Michael Moore on something.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I watched the inauguration.  I was expecting an earth-shattering kaboom when Trump was sworn in and the world ended, as Liberals have been telling me it would do.  Makes me wonder what other lies I’ve been told.

 Remember the federal employees who promised to quit and celebrities who promised to move if Trump became President?  Can we get an updated head count on that?

 Joe Doakes

As Bogey reminds us…

…word of mouth is not always a good guide in life.

Today’s ♫ music playlist.  

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air!

Today on the show:

• The “Peaceful Transfer of Power”
• A Look Back at Obama
• The “Womens’ March”
• “Lie First, Lie Always”

Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is normally heard on “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 2-3PM.

So tune in the Northern Alliance! You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

All this week we’ve been talking about “Protect” Minnesota’s press release, a week ago today.

And when I say “talking”, I mean “checking its many false assertions, and mocking it to a fine sheen”.

I – like the release itself – saved the worst for last.

Like Going To Courtney Love For Legal Advice:  We noted yesterday – the Reverend Nord Bence is utterly unclear on how self-defense law works.

In this next bit, she transposes that ignorance onto society at large.   I’m going to add emphasis:

Moreover, the Stand Your Ground bill represents a particular threat to people of color and immigrants, who are often met with suspicion by Minnesotans because they look and dress differently. If it were to pass, almost any shooting could be justified because the shooter “felt threatened,” even if the “threat” was a hoodie or a hijab.

This is a flaming lie.

You can not kill people because they make you nervous. Don’t be a moron.

Nord Bence isn’t the first to use it, of course; when self-defense reform was passed (with a bipartisan majority) in 2012, liberal commentators – from bloggers to Dakota County Prosecutor Jim Backstrom and Chaska police chief Scott Knight – made the same claim; that you could kill someone who “gave you stink-eye” or who “made you feel uncomfortable”.

It’s a lie, of course; “I felt uncomfortable” or “I’m scared of hijabs” is not “reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm.”

And if the legal system started letting people off the hook for shooting people for those reasons, then it really, really wouldn’t be the guns’ fault.

And I can’t prove it, but I suspect Nord Bence knows this; while she eschews discussion with people who actually know the issue, she’s certainly had people try to set her straight.    At any rate, it’s a cynical lie, made in a complete vacuum of truth.  She should be ashamed, and I am looking forward to the chance to tell her to her face.

Already minorities are purchasing more guns than ever before because they feel afraid²;

Well, to be fair, the media did spend an entire election cycle pumping up irrational fear.  And they do have the same legal right to arm themselves that everyone else does.  I encourage law-abiding minorities to avail themselves of their rights (not “privileges”) along with the rest of us.

And for all the media’s manufactured barbering over “Stand Your Ground”, there are two facts they somehow never get around to:

• “Stand Your Ground” was not a factor in the Zimmerman/Martin case.  Not even a little:   Even the prosecutor admitted that Zimmerman never had a chance to retreat.  The defense never invoked Florida’s “duty to retreat” exemption in Zimmerman’s defense, because he never had to.  It was a non-factor.  It was the media, and liars like The Reverend Nord Bence, who made it an issue.
• Minorities invoke “Stand Your Ground” laws more often than whites when claiming self-defense:  In the only stats we have on the subject, it turns out that black citizens are twice as likely to invoke Florida’s “Stand your Ground” law, per capita.

passage of this bill could lead to a wholesale arming of communities that feel threatened by it.

Which, I suspect, is the part that bothers Nord Bence and her followers the most.  There’s a reason why their events – every last one – take place in lilywhite places like Eagan, and Burnsville, and Kenwood, and at the south end of the Stone Arch Bridge, and not at Plymouth and Sheridan, after all.

We’re Almost Done!:  Finally:

 And more guns mean more gun violence.³

No, they don’t.

Finally:  We wrap up with the big finish:

Protect Minnesota calls upon all Minnesota citizens—84% of whom support comprehensive background checks to keep firearms out of dangerous hands–to voice their opposition to the passage of these radical bills. We call upon leaders from both parties in the legislature to keep these bills from moving forward.

Every anti-gun legislator outside the metro area has been defeated; ask them how many Minnesotans support background checks?  Support for both bills is bipartisan and spread throughout this state, just like in 2012.

So when The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence says:

Yep, Reverend. Game on indeed. See you at the Capitol. I’ll be the one that’s part of a big freaking crowd of friendly, courteous, hardworking Minnesotans. You’ll be the one mincing about at the head of your pack of shrill husks. Bring the pain, ma’am.

And we call on Gov. Dayton to promise to veto these bills if they pass, confident that he will recognize them as bad for Minnesota and dangerous for Minnesotans.

Yes.

Yes, Governor Dayton.  Please, please please please please please.  I beg of you.

Once again, answer to your party’s lunatic fringe, and veto two bills that will pass with unanimous GOP support, and that of every DFLer who’s more than half an hour from downtown Minneapolis.

Give the GOP a club to use to smack up every DFL representative in the third tier of ‘burbs.  Give the GOP a statewide rallying point against the next DFL candidate for governor.  Turn the masses of shooters out; they tend to dial back the intensity of their activism unless they have something to rally around, more’s the pity, but this will serve nicely.

By all means, follow the advice of a woman who, to be charitable, has just expressed cataclysmic ignorance of every single fact she presented in this Doestoyevskian press release.  Of a woman who, as I’ve shown, is wrong on every single substantive claim she tried to make (and she knows it; it’s why she never, ever faces Human Rights advocates in open debate).

Follow the advice of a woman who might, on a big day, muster 100 middle aged white people with ELCA hair to phumpher and rut about, against the masses who turn out on sub-zero evenings in Saint Paul against her, and routinely melt down the Capitol switchboard, just in time for the gubernatorial campaign.

So yes, Governor Dayton.  Take the advice of the Right Reverend, and sow the wind.  The DFL will reap the whirlwind in 2018.

Sounds like a lovely plan to me!

Or, y’know, just sign the bills, follow the will of the people (who’ve been paying attention), and leave the state a slightly better place, at least in one area.

Your call.

• Monday:  Game On!
• Tuesday: Data, Data Everywhere!
• Wednesday:  That Golden Ticket
• Yesterday:  I Don’t Think That Word Means What The Rev. Nancy Nord Bence Thinks It Means
• Today:  Everyone With ELCA Hair Looks The Same

Warren Henry, in writing about the “Womens March” for women against Donald Trump, notes sort of clubby fragmentalism that accompanies so much of the far left these days:

Black feminists have turned off white women with calls to check their privilege. The march’s inclusion of a pro-life group as a partner in a march that cites abortion rights as one of its “unity principles” was proven controversial and “horrified” the usual suspects. The march has now disowned the pro-life group. Given the march’s problems with alienating women, it is not surprising that the enterprise has had some difficulty attracting men.

The New York Times helpfully explains that “[t]his brand of feminism — frequently referred to as ‘intersectionality’ — asks white women [and presumably everyone else] to acknowledge that they have had it easier.” Moreover: “[T]hese debates over race also reflect deeper questions about the future of progressivism in the age of Trump. Should the march highlight what divides women, or what unites them? Is there room for women who have never heard of ‘white privilege’?”

Under Urbal Liberal Privilege, there are no contradictions.

I cite this partly to diagnose some of the problems with the American left today – and partly to give me an excuse to run this video which is the ultimate illustration of the phenomenon:

But let’s not get too smug, conservatives.  We’ve got problems of our own too – starting with the fact that while we started this cycle with over a dozen great conservatives, none got to the White House.  Remember how the Cruz faction hated the Rubio faction?

We’ve got our own homework to do.

Ever thing you’d see the day I’d agree with John Choi’s office about…well, much of anything?

Mazel tov.  Here we go.

Choi’s office responded to Saint Anthony PD officer Geronimo Yanez’s attorneys’ motions to dismiss the charges stemming from the shooting of Philando Castile last summer.   The motion cites the claims that Castile – a carry permittee – wasn’t complying with Yanez’ commands during the traffic stop, and that as traces of THC were found in his bloodstream at autopsy, he simply must have lied on his carry permit application.

The response:

The memo from prosecutors asks Ramsey County District Judge William Leary to deny the defense’s motion to dismiss.

“Probable cause adequately supports the charges (in this case).  Any potential negligence by Castile is a question of fact for the jury,” according to the memo.

Prosecutors further stated that Minnesota courts have “repeatedly affirmed” criminal convictions where negligence on the part of the victim was in play. They also said the defense couldn’t prove Castile was using illegal drugs when he applied for his permit to carry his gun because that application was submitted more than a year before the shooting.

Additionally, even if Castile didn’t have a permit to carry, Yanez’s decision to shoot him seven times still would have been reckless, according to prosecutors.

“A police officer does not have the right to kill someone just because they possess a firearm they may or may not be entitled to have” prosecutors said in the memo.

The memo also questions the defense attorney’s clairvoyance in deducing that Castile was using marijuana when he applied for his permit – certainly a difficult claim to prove without use of Dionne Warwick’s friends.

Kudos to Choi’s office for refraining from gratuitously putting carry permittees at grave risk for no good reason.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I enjoy live theater.  Well, some of it.  I go for entertainment, not consciousness-raising (I get enough of that from the newspapers, television, internet, Bar Association, Academy awards . . . I’m inundated with people wanting to raise my consciousness to the point where all I want is a couple of hours of escape).

So what does the Guthrie offer this season? A Winter Sale, buy 4 plays for as little as $80, choose from among:

The Royal Family, a comedic valentine to the theater, loosely based on the Barrymore family.

King Lear, Shakespeare’s epic tragedy

The Bluest Eye, a moving adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel exploring the destructive power of racist society

Refugia, a relevant and evocative world premiere exploring exile, borders and displacement of people.

Sunday in the Park with George, Sondheim’s artistic masterpiece featuring songs I’ve never heard of.

Native Gardens, a hilarious hot button comedy exposing notions of race, taste and privilege.

So that’s one classic, two musicals that may be okay, and three consciousness-raisers.   Leaving aside the fact that $80 gets me a seat in Area 4 (worst seats in the house) on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings (slowest days of the week), I know I’m not willing to pay that kind of money to be harangued about racism, refugees or privilege.  So who is?

Behold, the Guthrie’s list of corporate sponsors.  And notice who’s number one, giving over $250,000 per year to fund this dreck?  That’s right – you, the taxpayer.  

Joe Doakes

Some animals are more equal.

On Tuesday and yesterday, we discussed “Protect” Minnesota’s factually vacuous response to the House’s Constitutional Carry bill – which would allow people who are otherwise entitled to carry firearms to do so without having to jump through hoops.

Today, we’ll shift the focus to “Protect”‘s response to the self-defense reform bill – which The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence refers to as “stand your ground”, because the left and media paid a lot of good money to try to stigmatize that term after the Trayvon Martin episode, of which more later.

Field Marshal Of The Legion Of Invincible Ignorance:  I keep thinking I’ve found the Reverend Nord Bence’s dumbest lie of the lot.  I keep finding worse ones.  But this one may be the bottom of the barrel:

The Stand Your Ground bill (HF0238) would change Minnesota’s existing authorized use of force law by removing the obligation to retreat from danger before using deadly force. If passed, it would be admissible to use deadly force any place and anytime a person subjectively believed their life to be threatened, except against peace officers.

This part is actually true – not that it does Nord Bence’s larger point any good.

The presumption of innocence would be given to the shooter, while burden of proof for prosecution would be with the state. This is the law in Florida that enabled George Zimmerman to get away with the murder of Trayvon Martin.

It’s only two sentences – but they are steeped to saturation in ignorance and untruth.

Reverend: Please read the Fifth Amendment. Get back to us. Thanks.

Read the Fifth Amendment.  The accused always have a presumption of innocence!  The burden of proof is supposed to be with the state!

One wonders if the Reverend truly doesn’t know this – or if she is aiming on purpose for the dumb and illl-informed.

Minnesota currently allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, which is appropriate. But it’s an objective standard.

That is 180 degrees removed from correct.  It is subjective!

It’s called the “Reasonable Person” standard; would a “reasonable person” – or 12 of them on a jury, as Joel Rosenberg explained it – believe that you were in immediate danger of death or great bodily harm?   That was a start; those same reasonable people had to believe you also used lethal force appropriately, and weren’t taking part in a fight you were willingly part of.

It’s simple in concept, it’s intensely complicated in court, it’s generally logical, it makes lawyers rich…

…and it’s anything but objective.

You have to be able to show you actually were in danger and that you tried to retreat before resorting to deadly force. This bill removes the obligation to retreat and specifically gives the presumption of innocence to the shooter.

No.  The Constitution does.

The bill merely means that a prosecutor can’t try to hold an arbitrary, subjective definition of “retreating” against someone who is otherwise legitimately defending their life.

This is a major change in our understanding of what it means to defend yourself, a completely subjective standard.

Well, the Reverend Nord Bence is close to a point.  If she and her followers were to learn the current law and what the bill would actually do, it’d be a major change in their understanding, all right.

The Future:  The Reverend Nord Bence asks:

Is that what we want for Minnesota?

You’re a 120 pound woman who works at a shopping mall.  As you walk to your car, a man approaches you, draws a knife, and says “Bitch, get in the car”.  As he steps to grab you, you draw a handgun and shoot him.  He bleeds out as you wait for the police.

A decision you made in a fraction of a second ended one life – perhaps justly – and has just changed yours forever; as the late Joel Rosenberg said, you’ve just dropped a nuclear bomb into your life.

The county attorney will look at the evidence, and weigh it against the statute and, in Minnesota, a lot of case law.

• Did you legitimately fear death or great bodily harm?  There was a knife, and his statements indicated he was bent on mayhem. Check.
• Were you a willing participant?  Obviously not.  Surveillance camera footage showed you were clearly accosted.  Check.
• Did you use appropriate force?   You shot him, he dropped, you ceased fire.  You ended the immediate threat.  Check.
• Did you make a reasonable effort to retreat?   You were 120 pounds and in reasonable shape.  He was 250 and kind of a slob.  Could you have outrun him, thus avoiding the incident?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But here’s what will happen; a decision that you had to make in a second, in a dark parking lot, under the most stress you will ever feel, will be gone over by someone with a BA in Political Science and a JD, sitting in a warm, well-lit office, protected by deputies with badges and metal detectors and guns, to determine if you tried hard enough, in his utterly subjective opinion, to retreat.   If he decides you did not?  You will go to trial, and spend your life’s savings trying to stay out of jail – not over whether you were reasonably afraid, but over the prosecutor’s opinion of your reflexes.    In the hands of a zealous-enough prosecutor, “duty to retreat” becomes an utterly subjective way of punishing people for otherwise perfectly-legitimate shoots.Like the one we just demonstrated.

That is why we need this law.

Oh, it gets worse still.  More tomorrow.

• Monday:  Game On!
• Tuesday: Data, Data Everywhere!
• Yesterday:  That Golden Ticket
• Today:  I Don’t Think That Word Means What The Rev. Nancy Nord Bence Thinks It Means
• Friday:  Everyone With ELCA Hair Looks The Same

To:  Some Of You Trump Opponents Out There
From:  Mitch Berg, Ornery Peasant
Re:  Terminology

Dear Hollywood and New York Showbiz and Media “Elites”

As we come up on inauguration day, some of you are still sore about Donald Trump.  I get it.  I mean, I didn’t vote for him, either.

You’d like to pretend he’s not your president.  Yadda yadda.  Whatever.  Gotcha.  It’s a free country (and will stay that way, so quit  your whining), so you can say what you want, and I can mock you for it.  But relax; I’m not mocking you for that.  Not now.

No, this is worse.

It’s come to my attention that some of you Hollywood types are calling yourselves “the Resistance”.

Stop.  Now.

You are among the wealthiest, most privileged, most untouchable residents in one of hte wealthiest, most privileged parts of the wealthiest and free-est society in the world.   You lost an election.  In four years, you’ll get a rematch (although the way you all are going at this point, most of you will stroke out by mid-terms).  And you will get the rematch; there’ll be no dictatorships, no camps, no nothing.  Why, I bet a President Trump won’t even jabber about siccing the Federal Elections on your blogs, or turn a politicized IRS and DHS loose on your political movements, the way Obama did for eight years.  Our democratic process, imperfect as it is, will go on, and if you don’t go full-blown Joan Crawford on us, you might have a shot, again, someday, God help us all.

So stop using – I believe the term these days is “Appropriating” – the term “Resistance”.  That’s a term used by people who had actual skin in the game; the Jews who, as disarmed as you want us all to be, fought back against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto; the Norwegians who overcame the impossible and destroyed the Nazi nuke program; the Polish fighters who rose and took Warsaw, only to be betrayed by one dictator and hunted down like rats by another; the Danes who, the risk of a summary execution hanging over their heads, snuck their nation’s Jews out to safety; people who, with all hope extinguished, still pulled together and rose up and, mostly, died, but gave their tormentors and murders and bloody nose and, in a few cases, against higher odds than Michael Moore winning the NYC Marathon, survived the war to witness against their captors.

Real people, who left behind whatever hadn’t been taken from them, and fought a real enemy who promised to kill them and their families if they failed.

Not overpaid, plushbottom Hollywood prima-donnas upset that they can’t install their choice of president by coup now that the hoi polloi have rejected their candidate.

Here’s my promise to you; call yourselves “the resistance” to my face, and I will spit in yours.

That is all.