I’m going to guess most of you didn’t know that Sunday was “World Toilet Day“ (I personally celebrate the Eastern Orthodox Toilet Day, which is December 3)

Something I didn’t know about the humble toilet; to at least one part of Big Left and, to at least one part of Big Left, it’s a social justice issue:

So, if you’re having trouble keeping this straight – and if you’re sane, you should – let me break this down for you:

Separate, safe toilets for women are in essential to human dignity – except in the United States, where they are a sign of toxic bigotry.

I hope that’s clarified things for you.

Are you old enough to remember when our Expert Class (TM) sicced it’s PR machine, and Big Left’s army of howler monkeys, from Stephen Colbert down to its horde of demi-human twitterbots, on anyone who expressed even ambivalence about Ivermectin?

“Hahaha, he’s peddling horse medicine!” was about the level and extent of the discourse?

Are you that old?

If you’re a toddler, yes – you are.

If you’re older than a toddler, you remember the “expert” response – from the ridicule…

…to the regulators:

But never mind history; they’re trying to change that:

“Hey, it’s not our fault if you took all that gaslighting and all those insults seriously! We’re the FDA, maaaaan”.

Don’t get gaslit.

Shooting at an LGBTQetcetc club in Colorado over the weekend.

While the perp was apparently “on the radar” (in a state where the progressive prosecutor ensures there are no consequences for being there), expect this atrocity to be used less for gun control and more to demonize any criticism of LGBTQetcetc activism of any kind in any place – pushing the notion of “stochastic terrorism”:

“Stochastic terrorism” is just a silly concept that dovetails with “words are violence” and opens the gate for any favored group to shut down all debate because the very existence of the debate will drive people to violence. Of course, no one, at least no sane people, believes it exists, but it is a handy cudgel with which you can belabor your opponents.

“If you say you disagree with me, it must be because you want me dead”.

That’s how society gets to Orwell’s “Duckspeak” – when it becomes impossible to commicate in any but the most innocuous terms without fear of some consequences, rational or not.

Hard to live in a civil society with that hanging over every social question.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Liberals call for Covid Amnesty.   They say Conservatives should forgive
Liberals for all the bad things resulting from government’s response to
Covid.  They say none of those bad things are Liberals’ fault because
They Didn’t Know.

Nonsense.  We knew when the Diamond Princess docked in February 2020
that Covid afflicted mostly old people with existing co-morbidities.  We
knew the death rate was 2% of those affected while the death rate of the
entire cruise ship population was 14 out of 3711 or .3%.   And that’s
using the phony numbers from counting all respiratory illness deaths as
Covid deaths.  Covid was never a threat to the population at large – it
was never more than a bad flu – and we knew it early on, which is why we
learned to elbow bump and wash our hands while singing the alphabet song.

Yes, but Liberals were forced to impose lockdowns, mask mandates and
school closings because all the best scientists said so.  If there were
alternatives, They Didn’t Know.

Nonsense.  The Great Barrington Declaration was signed in October 2020
by some of the worlds leading experts in epidemiology to codify in a
simple statement what medical and statistical experts had been saying
since the panic began.  Lockdowns, mask mandates, and school closings
were never the correct way to respond to the outbreak – traditional
responses were the correct way – and we knew it within a few months.

Yes, but those people were outliers, malcontents, reactionaries and
nay-sayers.  Liberals were forced to rely on government bureaucrats and
computer models because Liberals had no other source of information. 
Liberals were left with no choice but to implement lockdowns, mask
mandates and school closings to avoid the looming surge of infections
and resulting hospital overloads.

Nonsense.  Governor Walz announced his lockdown based on computer
modeling that was proven wrong within two months.  There was no surge
and hospitals were not overloaded but instead laid off staff for lack of
business, keeping beds open for Covid patients who never arrived.  The
models were worthless and we knew it long before school resumed.  Nurses
knew it too but danced in the hospital to prove how much smarter they
were than those of us watching.  They had time to dance.  They had no
patients.

Yes, but lockdowns, mask mandates and school closings were necessary to
prevent the virus from spreading until we had a safe and effective
vaccine, which was not generally available to the public until after
President Biden took office.  Liberals had no choice but to enact
temporary stopgap measures to keep the public safe.

Nonsense.  There was never any compelling evidence that lockdowns, mask
mandates or school closings prevented the virus from afflicting those it
targeted most – the elderly frail population – and considerable evidence
that warehousing sick elderly with healthy resulted in killing far more
of them. Controlling for age, existing illness, and quality of medical
care, there is very little difference in Covid mortality between states
like Minnesota (strict restrictions) and Florida (few restrictions). 
There is substantial difference in economic difference and, I suspect,
in education outcomes.

The blogger Sundance writing at Conservative Treehouse coined the phrase
“pretending not to know” to explain why Liberals keep doing things which
Conservatives can plainly see are wrong, but never expect to be held
accountable for the consequences.  That’s what’s happening with Covid
Amnesty.  Liberals are pretending they didn’t know so they shouldn’t be
held to account.

They knew.

And did it anyway.

And we’re never going to forgive the damage they’ve done.

Now, let’s talk about the election.

Joe Doakes

Forgiveness without atonement is meaningless.

And that’s what those asking for the “amnesty” are trying to sideslip.

No amnesty. As noted elsewhere, I’ll settle for a Truth and Reconciliation commission.

So you read the headline of this Strib article, and you think perhaps straw-purchased guns are turning up more often, or maybe that some people out there with clean criminal records are going out to Fleet Farm, picking a gun from the display case, conducting a completely legal and above board purchase, and then embarking on the life of crime.

But then you read the lead, and it’s…

…about stolen guns being used in crime.

That were purchased legally, at one point or another.

I’m not sure if they’ve thought this through.

Unless some enterprising gang conducts a heist from the loading dock add Glock USA, literally every firearm available in the United States was legally purchased at one point or another.

“Even the Mauser KAR 98K grandpa brought back from World War II?“

Well, yeah, the German government purchased it from Mauser in the 1930s or 1940s, and give it to some soldier, from whom your grandfather got it by means fair or foul.

I don’t mean to make light of what is, honestly, a fairly scabrous campaign on the part of big left, the anti-gun movement and the media; the latest chanting point is “there’s a very fine line between legal guns, and legal gun owners, and criminals“.

Of course, with the owners, there is almost invariably not. The overwhelming majority of people who commit crimes with guns have significant criminal records and aren’t allowed to touch, much less own, a firearm.

With the guns? I mean, as long as you gloss over theft (or the federal felony of straw purchasing), it’s both technically true and complete balderdash.

It’s the Woodstock of perfidy! Hail, hail, the gang’s all here*:

*Kinda disappointed that ol’ Klaus Schwab couldn’t make it, but there’s hope George Soros will appear in animatronic form.

Nancy Pelosi – who has been Speaker of the House for most of the time this blog has been a thing – is back to being a mere Congresswoman from San Francisco.

Dean Phillips feted her on Twitter:

You can say exactly the same thing about Francisco Franco and Pol Pot.

No, she’s neither. But she is cynical, opportunistic, theatrical, has a dubious relationship with the Constitution, and somehow became immeasurably wealthy while “serving” in Congress, not that that means she’s corrupt nosirreebob.

But it’s fair to say she has certainly lowered the bar for “powerful female leaders”.

Have you noticed a lot of news stories detrimental to the narrative the left wrapped itself around before the midterms, have suddenly come out now that the (most of) the votes are counted?

Why, yes you have.

Same as it ever was.

Via Zeynep Tufekci – One of the very few reporters who actually reported on Covid – the answer is “not much at all“.

Read the entire thread:

My theory as to whatever happened to it as a news story? The Democrats didn’t need it as a campaign wedge.

I’ve always detested “Generational” politics. Among all the things that divide us as a nation, artificial, externally-defined demographic trends have to be the dumbest of all.

Still, a huge chunk of the population perceives them – and perception is reality.

David Hogg – like many “prog” human message bots before and many more to come – repeats a set of chanting points that years of indoctrination have inflicted on a disproportionate share of Generation Zs:

Among all the ideas that are sapping the vitality of American civilization, there may be few more corrosive than the devaluation of the term “right”. To much of GenZ, the term is interchangeable with “virtues” at best, “stuff we want” at worst.

The notion that inalienable rights come with ineluctible responsibilities eludes many of all generations – but Millennials and Zeepers appear to be the most vocal in imposing their misapprehension on the world.

So if you’re a Zeep and reading this:

• There is no more “right not to be shot” (or to “Go to school and survive”) than there is a “right not to have a car crash” . There is a right to live – with a concomitant responsibility and moral imperative to see to your safety, and the safety of those you’re responsible for (a responsibility that law enforcement at Parkland fell dismally short at).
• You desire peace and tranquility – but it’s not an inalienable right. It can, indeed, be taken away arbitrarily and horrifically. One has a responsibility as an adult to maintain both of them – neither is guaranteed in anyway in the real world.

Hope that helps.

Reading this piece by John Phelan at the Center of the American Experiment about the rise and fall of Hubert Humphrey, it’s a little bit amazing how little, in someways, has changed over the past 60 years:

“We’re not going to let the political philosophy of the DFL be dictated from the Kremlin,” Humphrey said. “You can be a liberal without being a Communist, and you can be a progressive without being a communist sympathizer, and we’re a liberal progressive party out here. We’re not going to let this left-wing communist ideology be the prevailing force because the people of this state won’t accept it, and what’s more, it’s wrong.” His Republican opponent in Minnesota’s 1948 senate race had voted against the Marshall Plan for European aid, and Humphrey charged that “if American policy had been decided by the vote of the senior Senator from Minnesota, we might be negotiating with the Russians now in London instead of Berlin.”

Especially regarding the behavior of the left’s vanguard elite (emphasis added):

Whatever the motivation, Humphrey was now in the front line of an increasingly bitter civil war in the Democratic Party. Many young activists, drawn into politics and the party by the struggle for civil rights, were bitterly opposed to the Vietnam war. Known as the New Left, as distinct from the old left of Rauh’s coalition, their opposition escalated along with the war. Wherever Humphrey went, he was met with abuse from anti-war protestors. At Stanford in March 1967, for example, demonstrators mobbed his car screaming, “War criminal!” “Murderer!” and “Burn, Baby, Burn!” Several tried to break through the police cordon, and a can of urine was thrown over one of Humphrey’s Secret Service men. Humphrey had little affinity for the student radicals. Recalling his time as a student at the University of Minnesota in the 1930s, he said, “I didn’t have much time to join a protest movement, I was concerned about being able to earn enough to eat.” He compared the protestors’ “foul language and physical violence” to “Hitler youth breaking up meetings in Germany.” In 1966, referring to his battle with the DFL Communists, he told reporters “I fought those bastards then and I’m going to fight them now.”

Of course, that was at a time when “the greatest generation“ were still in their prime working years, and the degenerate radical left was a relatively new abscess. Today’s “new, new left“ is the children, grandchildren and indoctrinees of the hippies Humphrey was talking about.

Remember when Jesse Ventura got elected governor?

He had what appeared to be a “deer in the headlights” look about him – like he never expected to win the race, I had no idea what to do when he did. When he said “we shocked the world“, he was being inclusive.

There are those who say Donald Trump was in the same basic boat; He never really expected to become president. I don’t necessarily believe that.

But I could read this next story and wonder if he’s really thought all that terribly hard about running again.S

Stay with me, here.

Now, I was never a Donald Trump fan, but it would be dishonest not to say that he did some great things in office, and punched way above his weight on many levels.

One of his greatest achievements? The sentencing reforms he drove halfway through his term, reducing federal sentences for petty drug distribution convictions and renegotiating sentences imposed during the insanely oversentenced crack epidemic, started breaking the log jam of the black vote.

This was one of his announcements last night:

Is he actually going to do a complete 180 on one of the best things he ever did for the actual party that nominated him?

The number of assaults on teachers in classrooms.

The superintendent’s salary.

The achievement gap.

Two of those numbers are getting worse. One of them is getting better.

Any guesses?

Here you go:

There is, of course, a highly competitive market for Big city schools superintendents. The market for “top” candidates is incredibly competitive, and the salaries show it.

I’ve been trying to figure out why for a couple decades now. All of them talk about metrics that improve, but year over year things always get worse.

I’m trying to figure out any other field were actual accomplishment plays no factor in skyrocketing salaries.

How do you upstage a 900 pound gorilla?

By upping the ante on the gorilla’s battle:

And now there are two serious GOP candidates for President other than Trump.

Douglas McKinnon, in The Hill, suggests an option for Democrats uneasy about Joe Biden as President in 2024 (with emphasis added):

That reality speaks to the need for a proven vote-getter with lots of money and a logistical machine behind him. In Politics 101, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) meets — maybe even exceeds — those qualifications…

…If the answer is “yes,” the “solution” is really not complicated at all. In one scenario, Biden could ask Harris to resign and replace her with Newsom, who then becomes the heir apparent for 2024. Or Biden could replace Harris with Newsom and then resign himself, making Newsom the president before 2024 and arming him with the full force of the Oval Office.

Now, I may just be a caveman, but I see nothing in Article II, Section 1 about the President appointing the Veep under any circumstances.

Ever.

Still, Mr. McKinnon might be onto something.

Biden can’t “appoint” a Vice President. But he can appoint his cabinet.

So here’s the plan the Dems could use:

Alternate plan:

1. Appoint Newsom Secretary of State
2. Spread the word that Harris, Pelosi and Leahy have dirt on Hillary.
3. Resign.
4. Await the suicides of Harris, Pelosi and Leahy.
5. Newsom becomes president via order of succession.

It makes as much sense as McKinnon’s idea, and is actually (more or less) Constitutional…

…for all that’ll matter for the next two years.

Biden and Trudeau, prancing about Beijing…

…in Mao jackets:

I’d say “call the metaphor police”, but I guess it’s “Metaphor Red Guards” in this case…

I mean, I’m not wrong…

… it apparently also is to “diversity“:

It’s raising a hackle or two:

Where, indeed?

You voted for Mary Moriarty for Henco Attorney.

Granted, it was a closer race than one might have expected; the endorsed DFLer won by 20 points, rather than the expected 40-50.

Still, Henco spoke: they’re OK with carjackings, home invasions, random gunfire ripping through (black and brown people in North Minneapolis) houses, and criminals getting sprung over and over.

They made their choices. Now, they’ll be getting the consequences, good and hard:

Great job, voters. Enjoy the abortions.

[1] Yes, formally you’re still “citizens”. But honestly, “subjects” is a better term.

Democrats, 2020: “It’s time to eliminate the Electoral College and make the Senate more “democratic” and reflective of the popular vote!”

Democrats, 2022, probably: “Uh…”

“…checks and balances and enumerated powers are good, Winston!”

Gen Z has a shockingly high suicide rate:

The new data suggests Gen Z – or the generation of Americans born during 1997 onward – might be seeing a mental health crisis even worse than that faced by the older millennial generation.

Since 2014, millennials (or people who turned 23 to 38 in 2019) have seen a 47% increase in major-depression diagnoses. “Deaths of despair,” or dying from suicide, alcohol, and drugs, increased in the millennial population in the last 10 years, and they are more likely to report feeling lonely than other generations.

While the article doesn’t break suicide out by sex, men in general are four times more likely to commit suicide than women, and I’m seeing no reason to think GenZ men are any different.

Let’s get this straight – bad things happen when you raise a generation of men disproportionately without fathers?

When you pathologize and medicate boyhood traits ’til boys check out of higher education – men are now 40% of college students, headed toward 33% at this rate, which in turn limits their potential for a life partner, since women have an evolutionary preference for men who are more capable of providing, not less?

While labeling male traits “toxic” and actively demonizing them?

Or while mocking and taunting them – look at who plays the buffoon in most advertisements today; while it’s mostly white men, black men are moving into the role more and more. It’s not hard to imagine an 18 year old, coming into a world with a straitened future, where masculinity is demonized and popular culture seems to be grooming you for a future as an impotent nebbish who will at best be the comic relief for a (inevitably, in pop culture) strong, powerful woman, and at worst a villain in waiting?

Bad things happen to people who grow up that way?

Huh. Weird.

I’m not sure we could have lost a generation any more effectively if we’d sent them to fight in the trenches of Flanders.

To all the veterans out there:

Glad and thankful you made it home. The nation is a better place for your service.

Signed,

A non-veteran.

Unsurprising on one level, and still a little shocking:

One thing that should help 2024: there’s not going to be another Dobbs decision.

Not sure how to word it, but it’s got to be a Berg’s Law in some way, shape or form:

“Democrats, knowing their key demographics are driven by emotion and don’t think critically, can say pretty much anything they want; given the media’s bovine kowtowing, they know there will be no consequences for the lie”.

Case in point:

Neither were in any danger. But given the bovine emotionalism of the typical DFL voter, Walz could have warned of Martian landings or floods of snipes, and gotten the same crowd to not onyl turn out, but angrily lash out at people who didn’t openly worry about Martians or snipes.

Fleshing out my first thoughts on the most recent election:

In Minnesota, the age-old wisdom prevails: money talks, bullshit walks. Tim Walz is sputtering fool, but he will be governor for the next four years. Unless his A1C level approaches triple digits, it’s highly likely he’ll complete his term and step aside for another sideshow act once he passes his sell-by date, some time around 2027. The DFL has the money and the infrastructure to control this state for the foreseeable future and the GOP has nothing. The DFL proved they could elect any droolbucket with a brand name when they pushed Mark Dayton across the line in 2010 and 2014. A guy with Walz’s skillset and mien wouldn’t get beyond middle management for any respectable company in the state, but he’s won twice. We can see all see it for what it is, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest — for the fourth election running, the DFL showed Team Rocks and Cows their ass. I don’t doubt they’ll find another standard bearer who is (a) absurd and (b) likely to win in 2026.

Keith Ellison is corrupt as the day is long, a 30-year grifter. He let a $250 million fraud run without interruption for the better part of two years. He’s now won statewide office twice. We’re pretty far gone if he can’t be defeated. I don’t doubt Jim Schultz is a competent lawyer, but his affect was of a guy who doesn’t get out of the conference room nearly enough and he was too nice a guy to run against a bully. To take the AG’s office back, the Republicans need a crusading litigator type who can prosecute the prosecutor and expose the rot within. There has to be one of those out there.

On the national level, it has to be said: Donald Trump didn’t help. He was and continues to be horribly wronged by what he’s gone through at the hands of his persecutors. And since civic education in this country is essentially dead in the water, most citizens can’t recognize that Trump is living example of why the Founders were against bills of attainder. Having said that, Trump will never get a sympathetic audience. He’s an obnoxious boor and he can’t get past his own solipsism; if he had even a scintilla of self-awareness, he might understand where he is, but we’ve been watching him for well over 40 years and that’s not in his skill set. Trump fancies himself the indispensable man, the conquering hero, but if he sincerely loves his nation, he’d recognize that martyrdom is a better career move. Not a chance in hell he’ll accept his fate, though.

Aside from the utter domination of Ron DeSantis in Florida, election results did not go well as one might have expected. Even so, the Republicans could still flip the House and the Senate. Based on reports from Arizona and Nevada, the Republicans could get over the line despite the Fetterman debacle in Pennsylvania. It appears likely that Adam Laxalt will win his seat in Nevada and there’s reason to believe Blake Masters may squeak by with Kari Lake becoming the governor in Arizona. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker will be going to a runoff in Georgia and has a good chance of prevailing this time. Even if the Senate ends up 50/50 again, I can imagine Joe Manchin may try to cross the aisle to save his ass in 2024. What will be interesting is whether Mitch McConnell would want him. I am not convinced McConnell enjoys being majority leader; he has more opportunities for self-enrichment in his current position.

Meanwhile, the Donks own the next two years. And they are going to hate that. There is still an urgent need for them to ease out Biden before too long, but they aren’t going to have an easy path to removing him, unless they decide to use Hunter Biden’s depredations as the pretext. Still, they will need a plausible successor. Kamala Harris impresses no one. Gavin Newsom is an empty suit. Pete Buttigieg? I don’t think so. Maybe it will be time for President Fetterman.