Open Letter To Kathy Griffin

To:  Kathy Griffin, Comedian-Turned-Not-Very-Intelligent Political Satirist
From:  Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

Ms. Griffin,

I say this as someone who actually used to enjoy your standup routine, until you decided you had to be Culturally Important.  Please take it in the spirit intended.

You are not being “bullied”.   The people you (and people like you, including your former employers and most of your fellow A-through-D-list “entertainment” figures) have been bullying punched you back.

Like most bullies (cultural or physical), you don’t like it.

Waaah, waaah, waaah.  There.  That’s my sympathy for you, like all bullies.

That is all.

(P.S. to those of you who call yourselves “the Resistance” to Trump:   While you are a demographic minority, you have vast, disproportionate control over this culture’s news, entertainment, culture, style, and national conversation.  You were the occupiers; the Trump voters were “the resistance”).

Threshold

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

We complain that young people act like children.  Why shouldn’t they?

 

A Minnesota resident can start having sex and get a driver’s license at 16, abortions and cigarettes at 18, and liquor and beer at 21; but he doesn’t have to get his own health insurance until 26.

Is that when he’s finally grown-up enough to be responsible for taking care of himself?  Is that when he becomes an “adult?”  Why would anybody want to be an adult when all the good stuff is available to kids?

Want to reform behavior?  Make the ages all the same and vigorously enforce the law.  No fun until you’re an adult in all respects.

Now, what age should that be?

Joe Doakes

When they can pay their own rent for a year without help. Could be 17, could be 35.

In an unrelated matter?  The whole notion of “fetal viability” in the abortion debate is a red herring.  A “fetus” isn’t vital until it can get a job, a place of its own, and start its own 401K.

Uneventful

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.

Tolerance = 0

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Remember in school when one kid refused to stop talking when the bell rang to start class, so nobody got recess?  Remember how much that used to annoy you?  It still annoys me.

 There were rumbles at a dozen malls across the country.  Now comes the inevitable response: nobody gets recess.  Everybody gets punished.  The local PD acknowledges the mall fights were caused by “a pretty discrete group of people . . . it tends to be teenage boys,” but the new policy extends to everybody. 

 Look at the video.  The brawlers are Black teenage males.  They’re the problem group, they’re the ones who ought to be banned and everybody knows it.  We see the news, we know about FBI crime statistics, we know who the troublemakers are.  You’ve got a problem?  Solve the problem.

 But that would be politically incorrect and therefore society can’t do what everybody knows it ought to do, and also why nobody can talk about it.  Liberals claim they’d rather let 10,000 guilty men go free rather than convict 1 innocent man, but in practice they punish 10,000 innocent girls so the 100 guilty boys doesn’t feel they’ve been disrespectfully singled out.

 Black Lives Matter blocking State Fair traffic didn’t raise awareness, it raised blood pressure.  So will this new policy.  I don’t think it will help ease racial tension.  It will drive it underground, festering, same as when the idiot in class cost you recess.

 By the way – what group in society has more disposable cash to piss away at the mall than unaccompanied teenage girls?  This policy is deadly in more ways than one.

 Joe Doakes

It’s hard to pick just one policy that’s screwed up our schools. But Zero Tolerance on on the short list.

Don’t Let The Door Hit You

Barbara Boxer is leaving Congress.

Unfortunately, that departure is a result of being feted at a retirement party, rather than frog-walked out of her office by the FBI.

But gone is gone – not that it matters much given California’s delegation.    It remains blinkered far-left, and is still home to some of the our worst Congresspeople, even absent Boxer.

Boxer moved to the Senate a generation ago as female candidates rode a burst of popularity, she noted in her official farewell address Wednesday. She departs just after the defeat of the first female presidential nominee.
She entered public life when it was considered a “noble” profession, she reminded listeners, and will leave just before the inauguration of a man who succeeded in large part by denouncing politicians.

The sooner that idea is mocked out of existence, the better we all will be.

Representing the people isn’t dishonorable.  Turning government into a cash cow for one’s self and one’s special interests is no more “honorable” than being a pimp.

Devils Of Our Nature

I hate to indulige in schadenfreude.

Part of it is because I’m a pretty emphathetic guy.  I put myself in others’ shoes pretty easily.

Part of it is that while I don’t believe in karma, I do believe what goes around comes around.

However, hearing about the psychic trauma some “blue-staters” are feeling over this past weeks, I’m rapidly giving into my worse nature and saying “Good.  Suffer, you vacuous hamsters.  If your well-being is so wrapped around a presidential election that it affects your mental health, you should really not participate”.

“But Mitch – isn’t that an unfair caricature?”

Sorry, but no – it’s not.

Bulls, China Shops

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

In the olden days, people recognized differences.  Sunday morning, you wore one set of clothes, went to a specific place and behaved in a specific manner.  Monday morning, you wore different clothes, went to a different place, and behaved in a different manner.  And dinner, you changed into yet a third set of clothes, went to different places and behaved in still different ways.

Nowadays, Liberals cannot distinguish differences in time and place.  Every place and every time is Political.  Every activity is Political.  Making dresses is Political.  Playing football is Political.  Every gathering is Political.

Which is why Democrats thoughtfully distributed the Know Your Stuffing guide to help you start Political arguments over Thanksgiving dinner.

Which is why I never vote for Democrats. 

Joe Doakes

To be fair, it’s just one of the latest reasons on the pile.

Open Letter

To: Anti-Trump Protesters, Celebribities moving to Canada, Garrison Keillor, People curled up in your safe spaces, and other people who are angry at the world today
From:  Mitch Berg, ornery peasant an Scott Walker vote
Re:  Why Trump Won

I  didn’t vote for Trump, but I most definitely voted for the GOP majority that he helped usher in.

I’ll just leave you with this:

Everyone who’s out there breaking things and beating people up?

Everyone who’s calling the election result a macroaggression and running for your safe space?

Everyone who keeps repeating that Trump called all Mexicans rapists (he didn’t) or that he’s going to bring on a wave of anti-gay repression (even the NYTimes called him the most pro-LGBT candidate among the GOP field, a year ago)?

Every teacher who called in “Grief Counselors” for the kids they’d painstakingly trained to be distraught over the election?

Everyone who took Wednesday off from work to cry about the election? Posting “He’s not my president” memes on Facebook? Jabbering about moving to Canada?

And above all, everyone who sniffs down your nose at what a bunch of morons your fellow citizens seem to be?

YOU are why Donald Trump won.

Not “racists”. Not Wall Street (they donated overwhelmingly to Hillary). Not ignorant rubes. Not me, a humble weekend talk show host who cordially disliked Trump’s public persona twenty years before most of you were making The Apprentice appointment TV.

You.

I’m All About The Help

To:  Jon Stewart, Chelsea Handler, Miley Cyrus, Neve Campbell, Lena Dunham, Cher, Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, Babe Streisand, Amy Shumer, Samuel L. Jackson, Natasha Lyonne, George Lopez, Raven Symone, Whoopi Goldberg, and Byron Cranston.

From:  Mitch Berg, ornery peasant

Re:  Moving to Canada

Need help packing?  Say when.  I’m there for you.

That is all.

(Is it just me, or is this the first time in 15 years that Neve Campbell’s been in the news at all?)

What A Difference Eight Years Makes

2008:  Discussion of secession from the union (by Texas, were the sentiment is pretty strong) or from oppressive an alienating state governments (inland and northern California) are “treason” and a call for a return to slavery.

2016:  Calls for secession are all the liberal rage.

I say keep it up.  You may never get seceded (although good riddance, California), but you’ll give me the impetus I need to revive one of my old online larks into a full fledged book.

Mayflower Stock

Hark.  Is that the sound of packing tape and boxes being stacked? 

I tend to doubt it.

At 1AM this morning, I35 northbound in Duluth is jammed with cars heading from Kenwood, Crocus Hill and Edina to Canada.

At 1AM this morning, I35 northbound in Duluth is jammed with cars heading from Kenwood, Crocus Hill and Edina to Canada.

I’ve been up front about my ambivalence about Donald Trump.  I cordially disliked him back when most liberals were watching The Apprentice faithfully.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police erecting a wall along the British Columbian border with Washington State, to head off a wave of refugees from California.  Word has it Justin Trudeau intends to send the bill to Jerry Brown. 

But I do suppose legislation making “If [something I don’t want to happen happens] I’m moving to Canada” a legally binding contract.

Every Saint Paul Republican’s Fantasy

When you’re a conservative/Republican in Saint Paul, you get used to having your campaign lawn signs stolen or vandalized.

“It’s just kids”, the local DFLers say – but then you notice your neighbors’ Obama and Hillary and Betty McCollum and, probably as late as 2010, Wellstone signs are utterly unmolested.

And ideas – dreams, really – form in your head.  Dreams that are probably illegal.  Given that it’s Saint Paul, they’re likely illegal to dream.

In Michigan, a woman got tired of tolerant liberals driving on her lawn to knock over her Trump signs.  So she took direct action.

And boy, did it pay off:

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She put a homemade spike strip under one of her signs.

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One tolerant liberal wrote a check she couldn’t cash; after blowing out a tire, she couldn’t actually change the tire.  She had to call for help.

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Giving me idea?  Oh, heck yeah.

Steer Clear Of Any Mirrors

Democrats behave pretty atrociously around women.

JFK had a thing for banging interns less than half his age.

LBJ was a philanderer who had a thing for letting the cow out of the barn in deeply inappropriate places.  Indeed, he seemed to be fairly obsessed with, er, Lyndon Baines’ johnson – which, it occurs to me, may be one of the reasons so many liberals’ arguments inevitably swerve back toward genitalia today.

And of course, Clinton – a serial mass philanderer who harassed, groped and raped women with the assurance of a conquering Mongol – and his wife, who actively used her power to shut his victims up.

Now – pointing out the true facts of fifty years of Democrat presidents’ abuse of women (often with the nodding, grinning compliance of the major media) doesn’t excuse Donald Trump’s piggish comments and behavior over a (I am flabbergasted)  open mic during his 2005 video with (ugh) Access Hollywood.   As I pointed out on the show Saturday, this wasn’t entirely unpredictable; when the interview was recorded, Trump had been a “Master of the Universe” for over 30 years; party to the kind of wealth, power and access that allows people like him to get away with things (or at least think so) that’d have had most people drummed out of polite society.  His marital record shows it hasn’t been entirely without consquence.  It’s one of the reasons I’ve been a vocal non-fan of Trump’s public persona for over 30 years.

But saying “Democrats did much worse, and did it first” doesn’t excuse Trump, any more than “they started it!” excused me when I was a kid, or my kids when they were.

But…

To support Hillary Clinton for president, one has to ignore, or rationalize, or plead ignorance of, decades of her aiding and abetting her husband’s predations; at least one rape, several cases of blatant sexual harassment, constant philandering, and predation on younger, star-struck women who were – let’s be clear, here – his employees and staff (the kind of behavior that’d have any responsible corporate board ushering a CEO toward the exits faster than you can say “grab that cat” in this litigious age).

So, Clinton supporters?  I’m not saying this to attack Hillary and Bill’s character.

I’m attacking your character.

No Pain…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Social Security admits outgo will exceed income in four years, as older workers retire and start taking money out instead of paying it in.  They think they can stave off disaster until 2034, if the General Fund will repay the IOUs it has written over the last 40 years.  But everyone agrees that eventually, the program will collapse unless changes are made.

Liberals claim the program can be saved by small changes.  I don’t think that will work.

Social Security is like trying to fill a bathtub that you forgot to plug.  When the bath faucet was running full blast, the water level was good.  But when you begin to close the bath faucet, the water coming in can’t keep with the water going out.  Eventually, the tub runs dry.

The small changes that Liberals propose are like adding water from the sink.  By teaspoon. 

It’s not going to work.

That’s what I wish the presidential debates would have covered.  “Candidates, how will you solve this problem?”  I already know Hillary’s plan is to tax the rich (use a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon).  I would have liked to hear the details of Trump’s plan.

Joe Doakes

The problem we have is that both parties have suggested they can “solve” the problem – not just Social Security, but the entire debt and deficit issue – via means that cause no pain to the taxpayer, or in Hillary’s case only pain to other taxpayers.

“We, The Undersigned…

…group of actors – people who earn an intermittent living acting like people we’re not, who almost universally live in a place and culture, Hollywood, that has no bearing on the objective reality most Americans live in – who are mostly famous for playing roles in a series about a fictional, utopian, creepily big-brotherish universal government, playing to a fan base that has treated us and the franchise (of, let me repeat, fiction) in which we acted like a pseudo-religion, which has continued to keep many of us paid via two generations of fan fairs and other residuals, ask  you, the people of the real world, to take our political advice seriously“.

I guess there’s a reason I’m not in PR for the Screen Actors Guild.

Pre-Written

Did Chelsea Clinton take a private jet to a “clean energy” conference that was a mere five hour drive (or one-hour commercial flight) away?

Oh, what do you think?

The Clinton campaign promised during the Democratic primary that their entire operation would be “carbon neutral” and had some friendly reporters write stories about how even campaign manager John Podesta took the bus.

The campaign doesn’t talk about that pledge much anymore, given the how much the Clintons love flying on private jets, presumably out of class envy.

Here’s the problem; after 15 years of writing a blog, I’m running out of synonyms and other ways to write “some animals are more equal than others”.  One can only quote Solzhenitsyn so many times, if only because one only rarely spells Solzhenitsyn correctly.

 

The Kids Are Not Really Alright

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I get calls from people wanting to know how to fix problems with real estate title documents, almost always sound like 20-something women, who treat commas as question marks with a rising voice inflection.  It’s painful to listen long enough that I can give the obvious answer.

 “Hi.  My name is Kelli?  From Big Title Company?  I just have a quick question and I’m hoping you can help me.”

 “Okay.”

 “We have this customer?  And she got married?  And changed her name?  But she used her old name on the documents and the County won’t accept them for recording because the name doesn’t match.”

“Okay.”

 “So how do we fix that?”

 “Throw them away and start over.  Do it right this time.”

 Maybe the hesitancy is a generational thing, afraid to make a statement that someone might pounce on as offensive?  I don’t notice it with male callers or older women. 

 Joe Doakes

I don’t know.

But I do know the Millennial generation is on track to replace the Baby Boomers as the most overanalyzed, overhyped generation in history.

By Gaslight

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’m old enough that having amateur debaters attempt to play their tricks on me has become tiresome.  In a recent on-line exchange, my opponent said “I can see you have a lot of anger on this issue.  You need help.”  Nice try, but no cigar.  I know that trick and it no longer works on me.

 Accusing me of being angry is a rhetorical device intended to disqualify my opinion by implying that I’m not rational, I’m hysterical.  It’s also intended to thereby divert attention from the hollowness of my opponent’s intellectual position and therefore acts as an admission that her position IS hollow since, if my opponent had a worthwhile argument to make, she’d have made it; the fact she didn’t make one is compelling evidence she had none to make.

 My response was along the lines of: “Don’t snivel.  It’s not seemly to sit there bawling when you’ve been bested.  Stiff upper lip!  Oh, you weren’t crying?  Of course not, no more than I was angry, so let’s both can drop the posturing.  Talk sense if you have it; if not, shut up.”

 Didn’t want that person as a “friend” anyway.

 Joe Doakes

“People who believe as you do are often compensating for something, ifyaknowhatImean.”

“Yes,  We’re compensating for the fact that there are a lot of stupid, evil people in the world.  Oh, as to the blue reference, you “know what I mean” in only the most abstract possible sense, ifyaknowwhatImean.

With Nominees Like This…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

It’s painful to watch the Republican Presidential nominee join in clamoring for a secret, non-appealable Enemies List of un-persons who have been stripped of civil rights by some unaccountable bureaucrat in the federal administration: four years ago, no right to raise money for voter education; last year, no right to private communication by email or cell phone; today, no right to travel by air; tomorrow, no right to self-defense.  Secret blacklists are the McCarthyism that my teachers warned me about.  

I’m going to add emphasis to this next bit:

 How can people not see that empowering the government to decide Who has rights is empowering it to decide Nobody has rights?  Sure, it’s great while your guy is the President, but what if the unthinkable happens and my guy wins?  Will you still be happy when you’re on the receiving end?  Are Americans really that eager to roll back the clock to 1775, to be subjects instead of citizens, to live by sufferance instead of right?

 What’s heartbreaking is the ONLY civil rights organization standing up for Due Process of Law is the NRA.

 Joe Doakes

Not only are about half of Americans unclear on the difference between “Citizen” and “Subject”, but a good chunk of them actively yearn to be subjects.

Provided nobody tells them who to marry or whether they can get an abortion…

…are you seeing a pattern yet?

Quote Of The Day

Williamson’s Victor Davis Hanson’s 1 piece – on the bureaucracy full of smug, entitled, thirtysomething bureaucrats who have such disporportionate control over this country today – is worth a read from beginning to end.

But this quote was the payoff:

Most men in Dayton or Huntsville do not lounge around in the morning in their pajamas, with or without built-in footpads, drinking hot chocolate and scanning health-insurance policies. That our elites either think they do, or think the few that matter do, explains why a nation $20 trillion in debt envisions the battle over transgender restrooms as if it were Pearl Harbor.

But read it all anyway.

1 Yeah, it’s been that kind of morning.

Further Proof Western Civilization Is In Deep Trouble

Pet owners demanding “Paw-Ternity” leave.

Money quote:

 I couldn’t help but think that, just as Jameson was getting used to me, he feared I, too, was abandoning him. The guilt continues today: While my co-workers with kids walk out the door at 6 p.m., no one seems to care that I also have a child at home waiting for dinner.

You don’t have a “child” at home waiting for dinner.  You have a pet.  An animal whose instincts amply suit it to survived without “mom” juuuuuust fine.

Y’know where you teach your (two-legged) children not to mock people who look, think, act or believe differently than them?    Let’s all make an exception for people who think pets are “children”.

(And if the free market can afford to pay for “paw-ternity” leave, I’m all for it.  But you just know this is going to become yet another government mandate, don’t you?)