A friend of the blog writes:

I say we name a snow plow “Amy Klobuchar”.

She’s not getting named to anything else.

Not making it to post(electoral) season. How very Minnesotan.

Minnesota legislature passes bill to help victims of state government, unless someone else does.

That’s not how they worded it, of course. The state legislature adopted a bill to give aid to small businesses closed by Governor Walz and to extend unemployment benefits for workers laid off by Governor Walz, but the aid is conditional. If the federal government adopts an aid package, then we use the federal money and the state does nothing. So it’s conditional virtue signaling, based on gaslighting the public that the Covid pandemic is a force of nature, not a product of arbitrary and destructive rule-by-executive-order.

I award Republicans one point for at least voicing the objection that Walz is the problem, not Covid. But I penalize them 10 points for going along with business as usual. Acquiescence is approval. Let the Democrats try to pass laws without a single Republican vote, until Walz relinquishes power to the Legislature, where it belongs. Otherwise, what do we need Republicans for? Just let Walz run everything forever and save the per diems.

In a state as Great-Sorted as Minnesota is, voters who are swingable are going to need a reason to choose GOP in 2022.

The Senate GOP has given them some little reasons. They need big ones. Stat.

No Republican should vote for anything in this Specisl Session until Governor Walz relinquishes his dictatorial and arbitrary control of the state.

Participation is acquiescence. 

Acquiescence is surrender.

Joe Doakes

I couldn’t agree more.

House and Senate GOP caucuses – give us a reason to get passionate about supporting you in 2022.

It’s been nine months since Minnesota landlords have been able to evict people for non-payment.

Charity? Well, sure – and an easy one for the State to pay for, since it’s all coming out of the pockets of landlords.

In Democrat parlance, landlords are an easy, cheap villain to demonize in order to rally support among renters. They’ve been the kick toy of both cities’ administrations for decades. The small, private landlord – a working stiff renting out his parents’ old houses or his own investment property – has been treated as a convenient Man in Black for a generation; there are urban non-profiteers who literally cannot refer to these people as anything but “slumlords”.

And the campaign has largely succeeded – both Minneapolis and Saint Paul have done a fine job of zoning, coding and harassing the small landlord out of existence in the Cities (replaced largely with public housing authorities who are, frequently, slumlords, by the way).

So – is the “eviction moratorium” an act of charity, or just another way for the DFL-addled state to help the cities finish extincting the small landlord?

The state’s defense to this lawsuit may help provide some answers to that.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Governor Walz has ordered restaurants closed for dine-in service. So on Saturday morning, I buzzed over the new Highway 36 bridge to eat breakfast at a cafe near Somerset.

Dine-in service. Normal table separation. Packed with customers. Cheerful wait staff running non-stop. Generous portions. Reasonable prices. No masks required.

If Minnesota doesn’t want my business, I’ll take it elsewhere. Because that’s The American Way, right? Maybe that will get the Governor’s attention.

Joe Doakes

I don’t know. His paycheck isn’t going anywhere.

Governor Walz [last Tuesday] announced a new Executive Order intended to save Minnesotan lives from the deadliest virus ever known, Covid-19.

“More than 100 people died of Covid-19 the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s sad, but it’s their own fault.  They failed to follow my instructions to cancel Thanksgiving and they paid the price for it.  I’m only sorry the scofflaws took so many of their aged neighbors with them.  This blatant disregard of my Executive Orders cannot continue.   Effective immediately, all Christmas parties are banned during the month of December.  And since we now know I cannot depend on people to voluntarily obey the arbitrary rules, I’m announcing a new compliance program.  You’ve heard of Toys for Tots?  Well, this is Cash for Christians.  Report your neighbor’s holiday gathering and receive a check from the state.  The more violators, the bigger the reward.”

In response to Republican claims that such an order would somehow violate the “Constitution,” a spokesman for Attorney General Ellison stated, “Since the Governor’s order is authorized by statute and has not been overturned by the Legislature, it is presumptively valid. There is ample legal precedent to take action against people who threaten public peace under pretext of religion, particularly Executive Order 44 issued by the Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri in 1838. The notion that the Governor lacks the authority to suspend people’s so-called “Constitutional rights” during the time of state-wide emergency is absurd on its face.”

Local ministers called a press conference to protest the order but were summarily arrested and have not been heard from since.  An aide to the Governor confirmed he has reserved the Xcel Center for several events in coming weeks and also has instructed the Minnesota Zoo to stop feeding the big cats, but rumors of plans to feed Christians to the lions on pay-per-view were denied.

In Saint Paul, Joe Doakes, reporting.

Given that the state owns a freezer morgue that is empty (since Ken Martin let John Thompson out after the election), I suppose it brings new meaning to “putting suspects on ice”….

“Science”, Minnesota Style

Governor Klink reminds us “we are all in it together“.

I thought about that as I was driving through Eagan after the show on Saturday. I drove past a Eagan Outlet mall – a clump of national big box outlet stores.

He was the parking lot:

Seems an off a lot of people are, indeed, “in it together”, doesn’t it?

Then, I turned around and took a look at Jensen’s supper club – a locally run, one of a kind small family run business that is an Eagan institution, as well as being perennially besieged by the ever expanding vagaries of Minnesota’s regulatory state and tax regime.

Here it was:

A sign on the door hopefully suggests “curbside pick up available“.

Normally at 3o’clock on a Saturday afternoon during the weekend after Thanksgiving – one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year under normal circumstances, and clearly a day seeing quite a bit of traffic at the state sanctioned “essential“ businesses across the street – there would be more than a few cars in the parking lot, with people grabbing dinner and or a cocktail or three after a day of dealing with the madding crowd.

Science.

The New York Times, 2020: “Our elections are unimpeachably honest and fair and not problematic at all”.

New York Times, 2016: “Not only did the Russians install Donald Trump, but we’ll show you how they probably did it by doing it ourselves:

I could keep saying “Democrats and the NYTimes (ptr) can reverse themselves all they want, because their target audience is unthinking lemmings”…

…but I’m starting to feel like I’m repeating myself.

Governor Walz was a National Guard noncommissioned officer.

As such, it’s not unreasonable to believe he knows one of the key principles of leadership – never ask those you’re leading to do something you’re not willing to do yourself.

I thought about that when I read this…

…the latest in an eight month series of such platitudes.

Is it plausible that someone presumably promoted by the Army for demonstrating some leadership skill actually believes that someone with a government income and benefits chanting platitudes like “we’re all in this together” to people who are losing, have lost or will lose everything is sound leadership?

Is he unaware?

Or given the Twin Cities’ obsequious media, does he just know it doesn’t matter?

The cure for election fraud is scrutiny.  Make sure every ballot is legitimate, then count all legitimate ballots.  The process takes place in two parts.

First, scrutinize the paper ballots, same as we did in the “hanging-chads” count in Florida.  This requires three steps:

Step A: segregate ballots where the chain of custody is unclear.  If the elections officials can’t prove that the ballots in this box were slid into the voting machine at the Como Precinct, transferred to a locked box by John, transported to the County Elections Office by Stephanie, opened there by Roger, scanned by Trudy and re-locked, then stored by Darlene until the recount; then we cannot be confident they are legitimate ballots.  They might have been fraudulent ballots smuggled in under cover of darkness.  Segregate them for separate counting when and if the court decides to include them.

Step B: segregate ballots that lack procedural compliance: missing signature, spoiled ballot, arrived late, back-dated, etc.  They might have been accepted in violation of the law.  Some of these might be allowed, some might be rejected, but they cannot be dumped into the general mix.  Segregate them for separate counting when and if the court decides to include them.

Step C: make the court decide which ballots to count, which to exclude.  It’s critical to do this BEFORE the counting begins, to avoid influencing the decision. The last thing the public wants to hear is: “It doesn’t matter because it won’t overturn the results of the election.”  We don’t know that yet; we haven’t done the manual recount.  Make an impartial decision on the merits of the ballots, not the results you anticipate.

Finally, do a manual recount of each group of ballots.  Do NOT scan them into the voting machines.  The machines have a known history of vote switching.  Senator Klobuchar complained about it.  And counting machines are vulnerable to errors caused by missed software updates, on-line hacking, fractionalized voting, and security breaches.  At this point, we have no guarantee the machine counts were correct so we must verify them by a manual recount, eyeballs on paper. 

Yes, it would cost a fortune.  Do you want an honest election or a cheap one?

Joe Doakes

This will require a clean GOP sweep at the polls in 2020. There is no other way. Steve Simon is hiding too much (on the behalf of the DFL, natch).

Clerk: “Here’s your change.”

First Customer: “Hey, you shorted me.”

Clerk: “Sorry, my mistake, here you go.”

Clerk: “Here is your change.”

Second, Third, Fourth Customers: “Hey, you shorted me.”

Clerk: “Sorry, my mistake. Here you go.”

All Customers: “There is something going on here.”

Store Manager: “No, we just make a lot of innocent errors, always in our favor.”

Policeman: “Nothing to see here. Move along.”

Reporter: “Haters claimed without evidence that the store systematically short changes people.”

Joe Doakes

When you bring an allegation, they say “bring it to court”.

When you bring it to court, they say “it doesn’t meet the standard set in a law that was written by the party that benefits from the corruption”.

I suspect when and if that gets fixed, it’ll morph to “it wasn’t peer-reviewed”.

I’m not a computer programmer and don’t pretend to be; therefore, this is a serious request for an answer from a person who was a knowledgeable computer programmer BEFORE the election (not an instant expert on computers today, the Constitution last week, and epidemiology the week before).

The State of Michigan admitted 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden in one county. They explained it was because the county clerk failed to install a software. The ballots were properly counted when scanned, but vote totals were incorrectly reported.

My question: if the software is a simple addition program, totalling up the number of votes for each candidate, what kind of a programming “glitch” could make it switch votes from one candidate to another, but not all of them, only some of them?

Also, if the software knows how many ballots were scanned, how can some of them be omitted from the total?

I ask because some people are claiming there are algorithms available to generate Switched and Lost ballots, which may have been present in the software used in the voting machines. Is that even possible?

Joe Doakes

I won’t claim to be an expert – but I’m trying to imagine the JAD session (because you just know it was a JAD session, amirite, geeks?) where they described the requirement for the system to be able to finesse totals for weighting, estimates of lost ballots, and other inputs derived from, er, modeling.

After a session of being neutered and stripped of their leadership positions by the increasingly metro-dominated DFL, there’ve been rumors bouncing around CD8 circles that Senators Bakk and Tomassoni were going to bolt the DFL.

And according to Tom Hauser, that may be in the near offing…:

…although not quite to the point of joining the GOP.

Rumors are bouncing about as to which party the “Independent Caucus” will work most closely with – but either way, Bakk and Tomassoni are going to be the most popular guys on Capitol Hill when the session starts.

It doesn’t seem a stretch that on issues of mining and gun rights – and, likely, a few more – the Senate has gone from 34-33 GOP to 34-31-2, and the DFL agenda just got even farther out of reach.

What’ll it mean for Governor Klink’s emergency powers?

My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that the House DFL will dig in harder and get more extreme.

Thoughts?

Democrats in the Senate couldn’t get President Obama’s judicial
nominations approved under the old rules, so Chuck Schumer changed the
rules.  Republicans saw the rule change and used it to President Trump’s
judicial nominations approved.  Rule changes cut both ways.

Democrats couldn’t get Joe Biden elected using legitimate ballots, so
they kicked out poll watchers and dumped half-a-million phony ballots in
key counties to steal the election.  Democrats refused to play by the
old rules in this election.  Republicans, seeing this . . . what?  Will
keep playing by the old rules in the next election?  That means losing
for certain.  Even die-hard RINOs like Pierre Delecto and Susan Collins
aren’t that stupid.

In 2022, if Republican activists block polling places armed with
AR-15’s, burn down Democrat poll watchers’ homes, storm into vote
counting centers to throw ballots on the floor amidst thousands of fake
ballots . . . who can complain?  The old rules no longer apply, remember?

And if Democrat activists try to do the same but Republican activists
resist and innocents are killed in the cross-fire . . . is this truly
how we want future elections to run?

Will there even BE future elections?  Will President Harris allow them? 
The rules have changed . . . .

Joe Doakes

It’s only “paranoid” until it comes true.

“Anti”-Fa and the parts of BLM that are more forthright about their Marxism make no bones about the fact that it’s a revolution they want.

Violence?

With or without, they are clearly fine either way.

Testing reveals the Covid virus is spreading rapidly throughout the state; therefore, we must lock down again to prevent a Surge of Covid cases resulting in a huge number of hospitalizations which will overwhelm the medical system, leaving patients to die untreated in hallways and parking lots.  So claims the Walz Administration.

Someone should tell the Star Tribune.  As of last week, they reported:

” . . . 614 Minnesota hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients, including 149 who needed intensive care . . . Minnesota hospitals still have intensive care capacity, though, with 1,028 of 1,467 immediately available ICU beds filled with patients who have COVID-19 or other unrelated medical problems.”

We have 400 ICU beds immediately available for all comers, not just Covid patients.  The “immediately” is important, because in his second press conference announcing the extension of the two-week Stay Home Order, Governor Walz admitted we had the ability to ramp up to 3,000 ICU rooms within 72 hours. 

Unless something has changed that the Walz administration won’t talk about, we are using 149 of 3,000 ICU beds for Covid patients DESPITE the virus spreading rapidly throughout the state. There is no evidence of a Surge and even if there were, the medical system has plenty of excess capacity to serve it.

There is no medical reason for the lock down. End it now.

Joe Doakes

Pretty sure it’s all about showing the peasants who’s boss.

Whenever we discuss election fraud, Liberals are quick to point out the lack of convictions.  No convictions = no fraud.  They are using the wrong measurement and therefore reach an incorrect conclusion.

To obtain a conviction for voter fraud, the County Attorney must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a specific individual cast a specific ballot with full knowledge that it was against the law to do so.  That’s a high burden and in cases of massive fraud, would take years to clear up all the trials plus it would cost a fortune. No prosecutor wants to spend time and money on paper crimes over violent crimes.
In contrast, to find election fraud, we look for evidence that not all of the ballots were legitimate. A ballot cast by a person who’s been dead for years, cannot be legitimate, and there were lots of them cast.  A normal voter marks most of the races.  A ballot that only marks one race, a highly contested race, is not normal.  Is it possible that it’s a valid vote?  Sure, but when you get tens of thousands of them, all voting for a single race, all voting for the same candidate, the candidate who was losing until those ballots showed up . . . you begin to wonder.

Further evidence that not all ballots were legitimate comes when we see the supposedly neutral election officials violating established procedural safeguards. Election judges count ballots while poll watchers observe. Both sides having poll watchers is a quality control measure to ensure fairness.  But when the election officials kick out poll watchers but only one side’s watchers are expelled, that increases the likelihood of fraud.   

Ballots delivered to the polling place in an unusual manner, at unusual times, raises doubt about the legitimacy of those ballots.  Backdated ballots cannot be legitimate.  When the voting software incorrectly assigns votes to one candidate, always to the losing candidate, across several states, that’s an indication of fraud. 

Ridiculously high voter turnout (in some cases 200%) but only in select counties, is a red flag. 

Finally, the distribution of tallied votes can be mathematically analyzed using established formulas which have been used to detect election fraud in other elections.  The science shows likely fraud in key places.

Does this prove there was serious and widespread election fraud?  It does for me.  There’s just too much evidence to ignore.  If I had a Facebook account, I’d be changing my background.

Joe Doakes

The hard part, of course, is proving it in court, in blue states where the election laws were written to protect ballot-stuffing.

The real answer, of course, will be to take the Presidency in 2024, and clean out the leadership at the DOJ, and then go after Blue city election authorities the same way they went after Klan-run boards in the sixties and seventies.

Governor Walz, I have some questions.

In your press conference announcing the Stay Home order, you said the
Covid virus would kill 75,000 Minnesotans if we did nothing but only
50,000 if we implemented the strictest lock-down.  We needed to do that
to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICU rooms wouldn’t be overwhelmed.  Two weeks
later, you announced we had ramped up ICU rooms from 235 to 3,000 but we
still needed ventilators, which were on back-order.

Since then, we’ve been in continuous lock-down and now have the mask
mandate but ICU rooms are not overwhelmed with Covid cases; indeed,
hospitals are closing their doors for lack of patients.

Your administration gives daily briefings on the spread of Covid cases
and daily reported deaths as if these were bad things.  But weren’t they
part of the plan all along?  We locked down to Slow the spread, not to
Eliminate the spread.  We knew people would die, we just wanted them to
die more slowly.  Your plan is working perfectly.  Why aren’t you happy?

Which brings up the next point: when do you anticipate the lock-down
will end?  Right now, closings and quarantines seem to be based on case
rates, not ICU rates.  I understand that in theory, more cases could
lead to more ICU admissions which could overwhelm the system; but so
far, the statistics show that’s not happening.  We have plenty of excess
ICU bed capacity.

If all goes according to plan, eventually, everybody in the state will
have Covid but most of them will neither display symptoms nor require
hospitalization.  Is that what you’re waiting for?  If so, shouldn’t we
speed up the process by lifting all restrictions now?

Joe Doakes

It’s neither about science nor logic.

But Joe knows this.

Last week, Dictator-for-Life Walz assured us rising numbers of Covid cases was due to 18-35 year olds not following appropriate mask and social distance procedures. He issued Executive Order 20-96 which limited gatherings to 10 people for two weeks, then 50 people for two more weeks, then 25 people thereafter. That Order was based on SCIENCE.

This week, he changed it to zero. No gatherings for four weeks. This Order also was based on SCIENCE.

What changed about the SCIENCE? The Governor says:

“I recently issued Executive Order 20-96, which placed limits on the social gatherings and establishments that posed the most serious concern according to MDH data. In the week since, MDH has confirmed over 30 additional outbreaks connected to the gatherings, bars, and restaurants that were encompassed by Executive Order 20-96. Unfortunately, these numbers, our statewide cases, hospitalization rates, and our levels of community spread demonstrate that a temporary dial back on in-person social activity and restrictions on certain businesses are necessary.”

Okay, so we’ve identified the problem and it’s 18-35 year olds going to social gatherings in bars and restaurants. But then what does this mean:

“Minnesota’s rate of “community spread”—meaning those cases that MDH cannot link to another case or a source of exposure—is particularly concerning. At least one third of all new COVID-19 infections in Minnesota have no known source.”

and also:

“Minnesota is currently averaging over 100 cases per 100,000 residents each day. These numbers tell a troubling story. The virus is everywhere, meaning that every interaction we have with people outside of our households poses a risk of transmission. When we cannot effectively trace infections due to community spread, we cannot keep COVID-19 out of our businesses, our schools, or the congregate care facilities that house our most vulnerable residents.”

So . . . last week, we knew enough to leave everything open with some limits. Today we don’t know anything so we must lock down everything even though the virus is everywhere and nothing we’ve tried to stop it, has done anything.

The evidence does not support the conclusion.

I’m starting to get the impression Kevin Roche at Healthy Skeptic is right. The Dictator-for-Life is not a bold leader protecting us from certain disaster; he is an Incompetent Blowhard.

Joe Doakes

He’s a gym teacher, using the tools of his trade – yelling and putting people in corners.

I have been confidently assured there is no ballot fraud.  I’m dubious.

The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an opinion in DSCC v. Simon, court
file A20-1017.  It’s eye-opening.

Minnesota law has long allowed a voter to have someone help them mark
their ballot.  It’s historically been used by the blind or disabled,
given by a friend or family member, and done inside the polling booth. 
The opportunity for fraud or mistake exists, but it’s a single vote. 
The law allows one person to help no more than three voters.

The Democrat party asserted they had the right under federal law to
“help” an unlimited number of voters mark their ballots off-site, and
then to deliver all those marked ballots to the polling place. 
Democrats asserted the Minnesota law that allows one person to “help” no
more than 3 voters, and to deliver the ballots of no more than 3 voters,
was a violation of federal voting rights law.

The Secretary of State disagreed (amazingly).  The Republican party
joined the suit to object. The trial court agreed with the Democrats and
issued a temporary order allowing the practice.  The Supreme Court
disagreed, slightly.

Democrats can “help” an unlimited number of people mark their ballots,
but no one person can deliver more than three of the marked ballots to
the polling place.  No more bringing in boxes full of marked ballots
from the trunk of your car.  Instead, Democrats must recruit more
runners to deliver all the marked ballots.

It’s probably just me, but if I were of a mind to cheat the vote, I
could think of a way to do it under this system.  Able marks hundreds of
ballots in the names of blind, disabled, elderly, dead, and non-English
speaking voters.  Baker, Charlie, David, Emily, Frank and many more,
earn a few bucks delivering three ballots to each of Ramsey, Hennepin,
Dakota, Carver, Wright, Sherburne, Anoka, Isanti and Washington
counties.  Better still, they earn no money, they get class
participation credit for their college Political Science course.  The
odds of counties comparing names is nil.  Multiply by 86 counties and
the chance to influence the results is . . . significant.

Good thing there is no ballot fraud.

Joe Doakes

Strap in. This next two months may well make us pine for the good times back in 2000.

That’s the sound of DFLers realizing they’re going to have to jam ten days worth of fraud into one evening.

And they’re not happy about it.

The 8th Circuit returned a decision in Carson v. Simon yesterday. The presser from the Minnesota Voters Alliance explains:

 The 8th Circuit reversed a lower court decision which authorized the Minnesota Secretary of State to accept ballots seven days after the election, and required an injunction against Simon for extending the statutory deadline for election day for receipt of absentee ballots. 

In our view, this was a scheme concocted by Secretary Simon in the first place, where he identified and encouraged his allies to file a lawsuit against him, knowing all along that he would enter into a consent decree with them just to circumvent the legislature and the will of the people.  We can not prove that of course, but in our view, that is exactly what happened.  

To sum it up:

1. “Progressive” “group” “files” a “suit” against a “progressive” Secretary of State.
2. The SOS “settles out of court”, signing a consent decree with his allies signed off on by a “progressive” judge.

Presto change-o. Law changed by executive fiat (under cover of a convenient bit of “litigation”), without any pesky “checks and balances” or “legislatures” getting in the way.

It’s an end-run around state law, and due process.

And it’s a foreword to what we can expect – well, expect much more of – if the Democrats win on Tuesday, or whenever the actual decision is announced.

The DFL PR nomenklatura are doing their best to obscure the facts:

Could Murphy have gotten anything about the story less right?

Dear Governor Wallz.

Follow the science!

Joe Doakes

Joe is mistaking “science” – means of focused questioning, observation and analysis – with “science”, a set of memes and commandments designed to exhort compliance.

Common mistake.

I’d like a list of the 25 former GOP members who crossed the aisle to keep Governor Walz’ one-man-regime in power, in exchange for endorsements from trade unions who will benefit from the spending bill.

Please include home addresses, so I can send fruit baskets to thank them for selling out the people of Minnesota.

Joe Doakes

Not gonna lie – and if you are a MNGOP staffer, by all means feel free to pass this on to Jennifer Carnahan, Paul Gazelka and Kurt Daudt – but the whole “acting like DFLers” thing wasn’t amusing even before the state got swallowed up in a DFL coup.

It’s not been an easy few weeks to be a Minnesota Repubican.

Usual disclaimers about “the only poll that counts is on November 3 [1] inserted here.

But pessimist that I am, I really didn’t see this coming

KSTP/SURVEYUSA: Tina Smith 43%; Jason Lewis 42%; 12% undecided; 3% people other. Confidence Interval +/- 5%. Smith had 11-point lead in September and 7-point lead earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/mX91q0MI6X

— Tom Hauser (@thauserkstp) October 21, 2020

Fluke?

Polls finding more-likely voters, ones who’ve actually been paying attention?

We’ll see.

I’ve heard more than a few fellow D-list pundits exclaim disbelief at “12% undecided”. I’m going to chalk that up to some misdirected Pauline Kael syndrome, from people who “write”/tweet about politics constantly, thinking everyone is the same as they are. Smith has tried hard to follow A-Klo’s model of being innocuous and invisible. We’ll see if it works.

Lewis beating the Butcher Of Vandalia would be an early Christmas present.

[1] And, let’s be honest, as we saw in 2008 and 2010, it still may not count, really, but let’s try not to go completely down the rabbit hole.

Aaaaaah.

It makes sense now.

…if citizens can’t trust their institutions.

And we can’t trust our institutions. And they know it, and don’t care.

So what choice does that leave us?