I never quite know what to say to veterans.

Hear me out, here.

Saying “thank you for your service” seems trite – almost mawkish.   Someone who never served saying “Thanks for going overseas and getting shot at!”?

See what I mean?

In the meantime, what I want to say is “glad you made it home”.  But I can see that being taken the wrong way.

So I’ll wing it.

Veterans:  thanks for spending the best years of your lives in barracks, troops ships, foxholes, berthing spaces, CVC helmets, cockpits and gun mounts, doing things most of us can’t imagine, to protect the freedoms too many Americans take very much for granted.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it doesn’t have to.

To:  New GOP Majorities in the MN House and US Congress
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  Agenda

All,

Want something to show you’re serious about getting the boot of government off of innocent citizens’ necks? 

Reform civil-forfeiture laws.  Now. 

Including, preferably, eradicating laws that allow corrupt pettifoggers to run rackets with the blessing of “the law”. 

Do it now, so we can see who the real enemies are. 

That is all.

 - 5:08PM, November 2, 2015 – Kitchen of the Full Court Press Lounge, Downtown Minneapolis, MN

“Jessica Hardman.  We’ve been looking for you”.

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There’s an old saying; “success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan”. 

In the wake of the Democrat party’s nationwide electoral humiliation, the left is looking for things to hang their hopes on. 

It’s human nature; the good guys were doing it two years ago, too.

So here’s what the Democrats are hanging their hats on; in a blue state, a 67 year old governor who gets mistaken for his entrepreneur anscestors, a superannuated standup comic, and a couple of congressmen dragged out of mothballs at the Museum of Pettifogging eked out wins in a state where…they were expected to eke out wins. 

But remember – whatever success there is has a thousand fathers.  Er, parents.  And the local left is stepping all over itself to claim their piece of the success less-failure. 

“In These Times” is the sort of “progressive” publication you can imagine a room full of Grace Kellys producing.  I don’t read it much, because it’s just not a challenge. 

But in their post mortem of the MN elections, they made an interesting and, dare I say, surprising claim.

No, it’s not the callow reference to stereotypes.  That’s no surprise from any “progressive” publication:

Mike McIntee, who lives in Eagan and is executive producer [Hah!  - Ed] of The UpTake, a citizen journalism-driven, online video streaming website, has seen his first-ring suburb change politically. The residents of Eagan’s cul-de-sacs no longer exclusively resemble an episode of The Brady Bunch, but include different ethnicities and low-income housing.

“White People” = “Brady Bunch”. 

Huh. 

Anyway – here’s the interesting part (emphasis added by me):

McIntee also credits the work of Protect Minnesota, which works to end gun violence by turning it into a political issue in urban and suburban areas. Protect Minnesota sent out mailers this election season attacking candidates who opposed gun control. Its gun-safety champions who won on Tuesday include Ron Erhardt, who represents the suburb of Edina. Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association’s influence may be waning in Minnesota. Three rural DFLers who were endorsed by the NRA all lost.

Protect Minnesota?

The gun grabber group led by Heather Martens known mainly for its comic ineptitude, has done more harm than “good” for the gun grabber movement in the past…couple of decades.  They mobilize no significant people (a couple of dozen might turn out for a vital hearing, as opposed to hundreds of Real Americans. 

But what of their claims? 

• McIntee claims “Protect” Minnesota sent out “mailings attacking candidates“:  Now, the Minnesota Human Rights community is pretty good at keeping tabs on what the orcs are doing.  And nobody seems to have seen a “Protect Minnesota” mailer.  None.  Michael Bloomberg and the DFL both hit on guns – but both groups carefully excised the hapless “Protect Minnesota” from their strategy.
• What “Gun Safety Champions?”  Protect MN is a lobbying group, not a PAC.  Did they endorse candidates?  If so ,they broke the law; lobbying groups can’t endorse candidates.
• They’re claiming credit for Ron Erhardt?  If Mike McIntee or Heather Martens wants to make the claim that guns were behind Ron Erhardt’s razor-thin win in Edina, feel perfectly free.  But be ready to be slapped down hard.   It’s an absurd claim. 
• They’re Claiming They Have The Momentum?:  “Three rural DFLers endorsed by the NRA” lost – but then, most rural DFLers lost, whatever their NRA and MNGOPAC endorsement. The election wasn’t about guns! But even so, over 3/4 of MNGOPAC’s endorsed candidates, GOP and DFL, won on election night – and many of the ones that lost in Greater Minnesota lost to other candidates with high GOCRA and MNGOPAC ratings.  Either way, gun owners won.  To claim the Gun Rights movement lost last Tuesday is a Baghdad-Bob-level bit of delusion. 

But delusion is Heather Martens’ stock in trade.  From the “Protect” MN website:

From the “P”M website. Click on the link to actually see it.

Look, “Progressives”; if it makes you sleep easier at night thinking that…:

• Mark Dayton, who has spent the past two cycles trying to defuse Real American opposition by claiming he has a couple of .357 Magnums at home for self-defense, and
• Al Franken, who touches on guns as obliquely as his caucus will allow him to, and
• Rick Nolan, who ran away from the anti-gun movement (ineptly), and
• Colin Peterson, with an NRA “A” rating, along with…
• 11 new Republicans, all of them pro-gun, mostly MNGOPAC endorsed, all of them Second-Amendment-friendly, and
• a solidly pro-Human Rights MN House, with Michael Paymar’s Metrocrat caucus demoted to the cheap seats…

…are a “victory” for “gun safety?”  Go for it!

It’s Heather Martens’ take, and it’s delusional…

…but I repeat myself. 

Note to Mike McIntee and the rest of the “progressive” feed trough; if that’s the best source you can pick, no wonder you guys are getting your asses kicked on Second Amendment issues.

For starters, I think schools today resort to suspension way too quickly; sometimes it seems it’s the only sort of consequence schools offer anymore. There seem to be either no meaningful consequences to an action – or a three day vacation. And don’t kid yourself – that’s what suspension is, to any kid who’s actually getting suspended.

To the extent that black and Hispanic kids were getting suspended more? That’s at least partly the sign of a lazy administration.

But the news that the Minneapolis public schools have officially adopted a “separate but equal” system, where most students can be suspended without further ado, but black and Hispanic students require further review, makes me wonder if these people have ever heard of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.

When it comes to stating and defending their points under fire, American politicians are pansies.

British parliamentarians?  They are like the Mike Ditkas of political speech.

And here’s one, courtesy of Margaret Thatcher, that I would love to see some Minnesota Republican, some how, some way, exhume and use in the coming session.

Because it applies to us, here and now.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Obama is sending more troops to Iraq. Ordinarily, I’d use a colorful expression to explain why that’s a dumb idea. Not this time.

If I said “not our circus, not our monkeys,” then Liberals would gibber that I’m comparing Africans to Apes, proving I’m racissss.

And if I said “we don’t have a dog in that fight,” Liberals would howl that dogs are offensive to Muslims, proving I’m an intolerant religious bigot.

If I said “There is no Constitutional authority to deploy US troops to a foreign land without a Congressional declaration of war,” Liberals would solemnly opine that disputing The First Black Constitutional Scholar proves my utter ignorance of law and history.

So I’ll just say “it’s a dumb idea” and let it go at that.

Joe Doakes

If progressivism built the economy like it builds rhetorical gotchas, this country would be humming along right now.

UPDATE: The contest now has a prize.

The winner of this contest gets a $150 gift certificate at the St. Paul Grill. So you can eat – for a night, anyway – like the DFL plutocrats who rule you!

Gift certificate courtesy the sponsorship of…

… Well, I can’t actually say. They want to remain anonymous. I can neither confirm nor deny that it’s the Koch brothers. I can also neither confirm nor deny that is Grover Norquist.

RULES UPDATE: When the prize was nothing but bragging rights, I wasn’t going to fuss too much about duplicate entries.

However, now that there’s an actual prize, I will allow people with duplicate entries to make one change to their submission.

——-

Now, if you’ve followed Minnesota politics this past four years, you know that Mark Dayton has been “Governor” is the same sense that Danny Bonaduce was the “bassist” for the Partridge Family.  He’s been a marionette, a flapping jaw revealing the will of the special interests who installed him in office.

And his health is not at all good.

And once he cut the crap and made it official by bringing Tina Flint Smith on as his running mate (putting Yvonne something or other out to pasture), the plan’s been pretty much common knowledge:  ”Governor” Dayton is going to resign and turn the office over to Tina “The Butcher” Flint Smith.

The only real question is when.

And that calls for a pool.

The Pool:  Pick the date that Mark Dayton resigns from office.  Whoever is closest wins, and earns – I dunno, a drink from me when we have another get-together.

Closest – before or after the actual retirement, counted in calendar days – wins.

Leave your predictions in the comment section, in the form of a date and year.

Example:  July 1, 2015 (that’s my prediction, BTW).  I’ll make sure this thread gets saved for the long haul – not that I (obviously) think we’ll need to save it for that long…

The deadline will be the beginning of the next session.

UPDATE:  See current selections and standings here. 

And, in a sense, why I’m a conservative. 

Yesterday was a double-anniversary in Germany; the fall of the Wall, and of Kristallnacnt, the 1938 pogrom that marked the active, public advent of the Holocaust, during which Jews, unarmed by force of law, were beaten, brutalized and murdered, their shops and homes ransacked, and the value of a Jewish life set at “lower than dog”.

Some Second Amendment activists note that Germany had strict gun control.  Anti-gunners chirp that guns were legal in Germany.  Second Amendment activists who’ve actually read the history respond that yes, Germans could own firearms – but they were closely registered.  And when the Nuremberg Laws banned guns in the hands of Jews, the Germans knew exactly where to go to find them. 

Just as they do with every community of desired victims around the world:

 And that is precisely the point the Real Americans are making; “gun control” doesn’t so much “control” “gun violence” as it redistributes the capacity for lethal force away from unfashionable minorities.

Like black Americans.  “Gun safety” efforts in America, since colonial times have served almost entirely to disarm black people.

And law-abiding black people in places like Chicago, Camden and Detroit are largely disarmed.  And at the mercy of the criminals among us. 

Which is, of course, the goal.

So that’s why, even before I voted Conservative, I voted Second Amendment.

It was 25 years ago yesterday that the Berlin Wall fell.

I was in a not-so-great place in November of 1989.  But I watched the news – as I’d been watching the gathering disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, and of the “Second World”.

And seeing the stories of the swirling vortex of history into which Communism was falling…:

…even I, a simple nightclub DJ from northeast Minneapolis, knew something big was going on.

Even today, watching the footage, and watching Germans celebrating, I feel moved.  It was one of the most amazing events of my lifetime.

Of course, I had a dog in the fight:

That dog was, of course, freedom.  I was on the side that supported it.

For years, though, the mainstream media always seemed torn about the fall of the wall, the fall of communism.  I remember in 1992, Tom Brokaw reporting on economic problems in Poland – after three whole years of freedom, after 45 in slavery – and solemnly declaring that Eastern Europe’s experiment with economic freedom was a failure.

I wondered if it was merely myopia.  But no – it seems the American media had trouble processing the fall of the Wall because they largely supported the wrong side.

…and registration of all kinds.

Because this is the inevitable result.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I need advice from SITD readers.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve ordered brandy-soaked Monastery Fruitcake from the Cistercian Monks at Holy Cross Abbey in Virginia. My mother served it to her old lady friends and their verdict was “It’s very good for store-bought,” which, coming from those people, is the second-highest possible rating behind “as good as my Mother used to make.”

The monks aren’t selling fruitcake this year. They’ve suspended fruitcake production for 2014 to embark on a spiritual renewal to deepen their commitment to monastic life. Arrrgh! Okay, yes, monks, spiritual, I get it. But where will I get my fruitcake???!!!

Recommendations?

Joe Doakes

They can’t possibly be the only fruitcake making monks in America, can they?