What says “One MInnesota” better than living in a million dollar lakeside mansion on the taxpayers dime?
As Minnesotans stagger through inflation, gas prices and an economy that is teetering on the brink of crisis, the state is putting $6 million into repairing the govenor’s mansion. The governor and his family will be parked in a lakeside house on Sunfish Lake, for $17,000 a month, for 18 months.
The state had a 17-point list of qualifications and indicated that the property would need to have security features, be relatively close to the Capitol and be open to “official ceremonial functions,” as is required by state law.
Now, I’m no expert, but I suspect the state’s got no shortage of suitable places for “official ceremonial functions”. We’ll come back to that.
And, we’re told, it’s partly security:
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, the top DFLer in the Minnesota Legislature, said she understands why space, security and neighborhood considerations make temporary lodging for the governor so expensive.
“When you have folks going to protest a governor at his house, you have the entire block of people who are there, not only the governor’s wife and children but the neighbors who didn’t necessarily sign up for this,” she said. “So, I’m not surprised that it’s an expensive proposition to house a governor in a secure location.”
As Hortman’s fellow DFLer Lisa Bender said, public safety is a privilege.
As someone whose house was on the edge of the DFL’s “room to destroy”, I think it’d be perfectly appropriate for the Walzes to get a place in the city, subject to the DFL’s capricious notion of law enforcement. Maybre someplace up at Plymouth and Sheridan.
Governor Klink responded with his usual grace and evenhandedness:
“I’m pretty agnostic, where I lay my head,” Walz said. “I certainly welcome if the legislators’ job is oversight. Go do it. It’s better than banning books. It’s better than demonizing kids. Go do that oversight. I accept whatever they find.”
Speaking of “doing the job” – Governor Klink has been making himself pretty scarce. He hasn’t responded by my repeated invitations – not even a curt “F*** Off” – but even the largely DFL-friendly Blois Olson:
Olson is being a bit of a pollyanna; their strategy is to stay within the bubble wrap; the Governor comes out of the mansion to do carefully stage-managed dog and pony shows like going to pizzerias and donut shops and the occasional train derailment, surrounded by his comms people and nice tame social media droogs, for some cheesecake photos, and then it’s back in isolation.
“Official ceremonial functions?” All the governor does is stuff his face while “Lieutenant Governor” Flanagan looks on, beaming like a proud mom.
They really do think they are royalty, don’t they?
Governor Walz is “turning power over” to Lt Governor Flanagan for a few hours while he has a colonoscopy.
I don’t not expect DFL goons to roam the streets looking for wreckers while she’s in power. Fingers crossed, everyone. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
However, if all goes well, hopefully we’ll get word as to whether the endoscopist found the code for the model that predicted 20-70,000 dead Minnesotans by July 2020.
SITD Bonus: Rejected names for the post:
They Found Esme Murphy
Endoscopy Discovers Every Metro Newsroom
“Nurse, What’s With All The Lip Marks?”
Governor’s Riot Strategy Found
MN Media Metaphor Alert
But again – I’m trying to be a better person than that.
Sixteen years ago, Rochelle Olson and the Strib put out one of the yellowest bits of reporting there has ever been – a hatchet job against CD5 GOP candidate Alan Fine, who was up against Keith Ellison in his first run for Congress. A month before the election, Olson wrote a piece about an incident where Alan Fine was arrested for domestic abuse – somehow, without finding room to mention that there was no physical evidence, that he was never charged, that Fine eventually got custody of their son (which doesn’t generally happen for men with domestic abuse raps) and that in fact his soon-to-be-ex had been arrested for abuse later.
Bad Republican Draft Dodger Pounces On Good Democrat.
Well, no. That wasn’t the title. But close enough. Here’s the real thing:
GOP opponent who never served criticizes Gov. Tim Walz’s exit from National Guard
The rest of the story doesn’t get any better.
Joseph Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the guard who led the same battalion as Walz, said the governor fulfilled his duty.
“He was a great soldier,” Eustice said. “When he chose to leave, he had every right to leave.”
Eustice said claims to the contrary are ill-informed and possibly sour grapes by a soldier who was passed over for the promotion to command sergeant major that went to Walz.
Eustice is indeed listed as a “Command Sergeant Major” (CSM) in the 125th Field Artillery, the Mankato National Guard unit in which Walz served.
Olson’s article refers to one “Command Sergeant Major” whose stories are dogging the Governor – Tom Behrends, whose story first came out four years ago.
And while CSM Eustice blames “sour grapes” by someone who maybe got passed over, all three of the men who’ve gone on record against Walz were Command Sergeants Major – the same rank Walz held before accepting demotion on retirement. And one of those exceptionally senior NCOs was in fact the CSM of the entire 34th Infantry Division – two levels of hierarchy above Walz. There weren’t many positions to move up to in the MInnesota Guard.
Command Sergeant Major (Retired) Douglas L. Julin most recent assignment was as the Division Command Sergeant Major of the 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division, headquartered in Rosemount, Minnesota
If Julin is upset about not being promoted, one wonders exactly how.
But Julin is upset:
Julin said he spoke with Walz directly in 2018 after Behrends sent a letter to the media about Walz’s military record. He said he expressed his frustration and concerns to Walz, who said he appreciated Julin talking to him about it, but “that was about it,” Julin said.
Julin told Alpha News he doesn’t really take issue with Walz using the CSM title after not completing all of the requirements to earn the rank. What matters to him most is how he walked away from his troops.
He wanted to share his story ahead of the election because he believes Minnesotans deserve better.
“Why should we be quiet? He uses the military to promote himself when he abandoned his soldiers,” he said. “He let the soldiers down. How can you be entrusted to be the governor of Minnesota when if something is not to your liking, you quit or you serve yourself and not others?”
Olson’s piece studiously avoids mentioning Julin, or the other retired CSM, Paul Herr – who spoke with Alphanews over the summer:
And apparently Olson and the Strib are counting on readers not investigating their claims, and just gullibly accepting their assertions as fact. CSM Eustice said:
Somehow, the Strib, Olson or the editors apparently found room to mention Jensen’s draft record (he became eligible for the draft as the Vietnam War and conscription were both winding down) and repeatedly chanting Jensen “didn’t serve” – like the vast majority of men in his age bracket whose numbers weren’t drawn in the waning days of the war.
One day, he’s launching snitch lines, open-ended “emergency orders” and sending mask inspectors out to restaurants (once he’s allowed them to open).
The next?
Well, hey, that’s an improvement, isn’t it?
The DFL really does depend on voters being low-information, having no critical thinking skills or historical context (even since 2018), but being pretty darn impressed with themselves…
A third National Guard Command Sergeant Major – the top non-commissioned officer in a battalion of 500-800 soldiers, all of them very long-term soldiers/guardsmen with impeccable credentials – has come out against Tim Walz:
I need to find these sergeants and get them on the air, since I don’t suspect the Strib, the TV stations or MPR will.
The governor – hurriedly switching from a T-shirt to some sort of suit, and from chucklehead fairgoers to “tough on crime“ governor – wants extra special consequences for the apparent gang banger who fired shots in the “gun free zone“ that is a Minnesota State Fair:
“If someone’s going to use a firearm in a crowded area where there’s innocent people and children, there needs to be a heavy penalty for that,” said the governor, calling on judges to get tougher.
Of course, the means to do that exist; the state already has a sentence enhancement – not only for people who shoot up the states biggest public relations vehicle, but for people who use guns in crimes at all.
Of course, the Ramsey County attorney John Choi, who would have jurisdiction in prosecuting the state fair shooter (if he’s ever arrested, much less prosecuted) has never, ever, not once sought that enhancement; at best, he’s dropped it as a sweetener for a plea deal; mostly – as in this shameful incident in 2015 – he doesn’t even bother.
Either did Susan Gertner, the prosecutor before him.
Either did Tom Foley, the prosecutor before her.
That’s 30 years worth of DFL prosecutors who have never, not once, applied in the sentence enhancement that governor “Dirty Harry“ Walz suddenly wants.
The Twin Cities media did its darndest to make the story go away.
But Tom Behrends – retired Command Sergeant Major in the Minnesota in National Guard unit, and the man who replaced former provisional CSM Tim Walz in that position when our current governor abruptly left the guard to run for Congress, a departure that just happened to coincide with a deployment to which he had committed – is speaking out again.
And this time he’s really angry.
The riots of 2020 – especially the burning of the third precinct – confirmed everything Behrends tried to warn us about:
“Allowing that to be burned down was just like having the Alamo be burned down. It was like, you defend that to the last man,” Behrends said of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct.
“If he would have went to Iraq, he’d still be hiding under his desk over there because that’s just, you know, just the cowardice that I see portrayed with him,” Behrends added.
Walz’s August 2020 description of National Guard members as “19-year-old cooks” added to Behrends’ anger.
“I would take any 19-year-old cook before I’d go to war with him,” he quickly replied.
“I don’t know how he could even utter such a statement. I mean, it’s just absolutely sad,” he added.
And beyond all that? Waltz is still referring to himself as a retired Command Sergeant Major.
“He was saying that and there were campaign letters coming in the mail saying that. They said, right on therehe’s a retired command sergeant major. Just tooting his own horn, hanging on the coattails of people that actually are command sergeant majors that went through all the process and put all the time in,” Behrends said…Documents show the Army corrected Walz’s service record. He was reduced in rank to an E-8 master sergeant after retirement.
And yet there it is:
The media is going to memory hole this story – just like they did before:
A spokesperson said this has been in the news before and pointed Alpha News to a past story where Walz said “normally this type of partisan political attack only comes from one who’s never worn a uniform.”
Like stories about Mark Dayton‘s physical and mental health – which reported on in the most cursory way possible, nine months before anyone was paying attention to the 2010 election – nothing that reflects badly on a DFL politician will be allowed for the next 60 days.
You should read the whole thing, and pass it around, since God knows the Star Tribune and MPR aren’t going to do it.
The line of people looking to find out more about Scott Jensen at the State Fair yesterday:
The crowd outside the Tim Walz booth:
I’m not saying crowds at the fair translates necessarily to results at the ballot box; the state fair is sort of like red Minnesota’s daycamp in the city, and Republican booths pretty routinely draw better crowds.
But I’ve never seen it quite this unbalanced, before.
To: Governor Walz From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant Re: Priorities
Your Highness:
You wrote this on Twitter yesterday:
Let’s look at this past four years:
Crime wave, abetted by DFL policy
Riots, encouraged by your administratiion’s passive-aggressive bureaucratic gamesmanship with the National Guard
Collapse of respect for the rule of law, as a result of DFL policy
Educational outcomes for minorities, already terrible, collapsed
State divided between “essential” and “non-essential” workers – meaning dividing people
“Science” bastardized by your administration hiding the code for the “model” “predicting” tens of thousands of dead from Covid by July 2020, as a best case. That’s how how science is done,
To the extent Minnesota is doing well, it’s in spite of you.
To: Governor Walz From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant Re: Debates
Governor,
You pretty terrible performance in his debate with Scott Jensen at FarmFest last week.
Which is, I suspect, why you’ve backed out of the traditional debate at the State Fair:
Governor Walz: Don’t like the noise, heat and humidity?
After doing like 14 years at the State Fair, I totally get it.
So I’d like to formally invite you and Dr. Jensen – either or both of you, honestly – to join me either Sunday afternoon, or any Saturday between August 27 and election day.
Of course, we’ll be talking about your response to Covid and the riots, as well as you propensity for naming giveaways for self-glorification (“Walz Checks”) and claiming credit for tax cuts you opposed, and the like.
The Pioneer Press, apparently knowing (what little is left of) its audience, says:
Now, I don’t pry into other peoples personal healthcare decisions, and I’m pretty merciless to any idiot who tries to yap about mine.
But it’s worth noting that Dr. Jensen, though not vaccinated, appears to have missed zero days of work or campaigning due to Covid.
In the meantime, the people who run this state – Lt. Governor Flanagan and her figurehead, the…uh, somewhat comorbid Tim Walz – have both had Covid and been off the job in the past couple years.
Correlation – especially with three data points – isn’t causation.
But it’s a better correlation than the one data point the PiPress ran with.
During his 2018 campaign, Governor Klink used the slogan “One Minnesota”.
To those of us who study history, that caused a mirthless chuckile; German historians finished the slogan out: “One People, One Minnesota, One Leader”.
And those of us who remember history were right; when politicians yap about “unity” and “One” anything, it’s about making everyone equally miserable and straitened, not happy and prosperous.
People filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Data Practices Act (DPA) requests over the past few years have wondered how it is that Governor Walz leaves such a light state-documented electronic trail.
Could he just be old fashioned? Or, like Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas, maybe he just never does business electronically?
Well, no:
Because information is privilege. And privilege is power.
The Pioneer Press and MPR report that the state of Minnesota is “selling” the former Bix warehouse – purchased in 2019 to serve as a “back up morgue” for the COVID thousands fatalities the state was predicting.
And since this is a government operation, you may be assured that when we say “selling“, we mean “shifting around the books, to further serve as a wealth transfer“:
The state purchased the refrigerated warehouse at 1415 L’Orient St. and the five acres of land it sits on from private ownership last year for nearly $5.48 million. Under pressure from St. Paul and Ramsey County officials opposed to the idea of warehousing bodies there, the state used the site instead as storage for personal protective equipment. On Tuesday, the board of the Port Authority will meet to vote on whether to purchase the site — which now sits vacant — from the state for $5.65 million, the property’s current appraised value and the purchase amount required under state statute.
Conservative social media or portraying this as a “boondoggle“. Nothing could be further than the truth.
Even if you ignore the conspiracy theory (launched and spread by me) that Ken Martin stored John Thompson there to keep them out of the public eye after the Hugo incident before the 2020 election, the morgue served its primary purpose; as a prop in setting an ominous backdrop for the public health security theater the state has been subjecting us to for the last 20 months.
The crosstabs are even more ominous for Walz, and show President Biden to be a bit of a drag down-ticket.
Fearless predictions:
The Strib, Channels 4, 9 and 11, and the rest of the media will switch into full PR mode for the DFL for the next 13 months. Indeed, they have; Esme Murphy’s interview with Jennifer Carnahan – complete with the sort of on-air toenail-painting she normally reserves for DFLers – can be seen as nothing but an attempt to keep the MNGOP even more divided and impotent than normal.
MPR will be a little more artful about it – but the output from the DFL’s opposition research will get prominent placement.
And a quick reminder to Tom Hauser, perhaps the only genuinely detached journalist in Twin Cities TV or print news: drapes don’t have shoes.