…rest assured, they are doing it to distract from all their voting fraud.

But we knew that.

More infants voting.

This comes up every couple of years. It usually founders when people remember how ghastly young people are – why “we” have raised age limits for drinking, buying tobacco and renting cars.

But determining the future of a democracy most of them don’t understand and many have been indoctrinated to hate?

Why, it’s almost like there’s a malicious plan…

This past weekend on the NARN I talked about Carson v. Simon – a case that’s been filed with the Supreme Court of Minnesota over the Secretary of State’s plan to allow up to a week work of counting of ballots, including mail-in ballots with no postmarks – which as we saw earlier this week, could scarcely be better-designed to facilitate fraud.

The case, by the way, went a little like this:

1. A far-left advocacy group brought a suit…
2. …against a far-left Secretary of State…
3. …who, mirabile dictu, reached a settlement and signed a “consent decree”, that was…
4. …approved by a far-left judge, mandating enforcement of the decree…
5. …by the far-left secretary of state.
6. All parties passed this at least tacitly as an “adversarial” process, although some previous, lamentably deceased DFL-leaning Strib columnists would have referred to it as a “circle jerk”.

Now, word comes that this same pattern – leftist activists getting sweetheart consent decrees from friendly judges and election authorities – intended to warp the election systems toward unrestricted, unverifiable mail balloting.

We’ll be talking about this on the NARN on Saturday.

Once upon a time, I got some great life advice.

“Find what you’re good at, and run with it”.

John Thompson, would-be DFL rep from District 67A, the East Side, apparently got and practices the same advice.

He does seem to like burning down suburbs. Or at least talking about it.

A lot:

Sure, that’ll solve police overreach against blacks. Run with it.

Hey, DFLers – this is the mainstream of your party.

I joke, fairly often, that satire is more like the news than the news is, these days – and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

But sometimes, actual journalism is the best journalism there is.

The latest from Project Veritas:

And it’s in Minneapolis.

This is what Republicans face in the Metro.

If this were a Republican plot to stuff ballot boxes, the Justice Department would have both Cities wrapped up in a consent decree faster than you can say “l’etat c’es mon mére“

#ShockedFace

Any bets on whether the Strib can be shamed out of its smug indolence?

Let’s assume Governor Walz’ response to Covid-19 is not part of a larger
Democrat hoax, not an attempt to frighten voters into believing
President Trump has failed them, not a coordinated attack on the
American way of life.

Let’s assume Governor Walz truly has Minnesotans’ best interests at
heart.  That’s why he declared a Peacetime Emergency.  That’s why he
implemented one of the strictest Stay Home orders in the nation.  That’s
why he implemented the mask mandate and why he refuses to relinquish his
emergency powers.  Assume that’s all true.

What’s his end game?  When does the Peacetime Emergency end – when the
virus is defeated?  How will we know when we’ve won?

Walz was on television September 3rd reminding viewers that masks are
mandatory to prevent the spread of the virus.  But his own Health
Commissioner admitted days earlier that we cannot stop the spread, we
can only hope to manage it at some unspecified level of transmission. 
Oh, and if you are sick, wearing a mask doesn’t protect the people you
interact with.

So we know the virus will continue to spread and that’s okay, just not
as fast as it’s presently spreading.  Why does that matter?  The curve
is flat.  No hospital is overwhelmed.  There was no surge.  The
refrigerated warehouse bought to store plague corpses, sits empty. 
We’re at fewer than 2,000 deaths – even crediting the phony numbers –
which is 72,000 deaths short of the computer model prediction. No child
has died, no teen, but schools are closed.  Daily deaths are in the
single digits which is indistinguishable from the normal death rate (123
Minnesotans die every day, from all causes).

“Cases” tell us that people are carrying the virus in their bodies, but
people carry around lots of viruses.  The rhinovirus causes the common
cold.  Herpes simplex virus causes cold sores. Everybody has them and
they flare up occasionally, but we don’t count “cases” of them because .
. . nobody cares.  People don’t die of a cold sore.

And they’re no longer dying of Covid-19, either.  The vulnerable
population has died off.  The hardy survived, same as every epidemic
throughout the history of humankind. We don’t need to keep fighting the
virus.  We’ve won.

Time to declare victory and move on.

Joe Doakes

All of those assumptions at the beginning of the article were for purposes of argument. I will give Governor Klink the benefit of no such doubt.

To be a conservative in Minnesota (forget for a moment that neither Trump nor today’s GOP are “conservative”) is to assume all hope is illusory, even a little bit cruel.

And yet Biden and Harris are spending time here – a state that should be a gimme for them, at least at the Presidential level.

I hate to harbor hope.

But sometimes I still do.

The Story of the Little Governor Who Cried Surge, by Joe Doakes

Once there was a Governor named Timmy.  He had a fine house and many servants, but he was bored.  “I know,” he thought, “I’ll cause some excitement. That’ll be fun.”

So Timmy ran through the streets yelling “Curve! Curve! We’re all gonna die!”  People panicked and bought hand sanitizer, toilet paper and bottled water.  But they did not die.

Timmy laughed and laughed.  But then he got bored again.  He ran through the streets again, yelling “Covid! Covid! We’re all gonna die!” People panicked and worked from home.  They wore masks.  They ate take-out food. But they did not die.

Timmy laughed and laughed.  But then he got bored again.  He ran through the streets a third time, yelling “Cases! Cases! We’re all gonna die.” But the people had read the headlines.  They knew there were many new Covid cases but hospitalizations had fallen and nobody died.  The people did not panic. 

Timmy was furious.  This was no fun.  He argued with the people.  “We’re on the edge of a cliff.  As cases spread, hospitalizations will rise and people will die, in a surge!  A massive surge!  I warned you all Spring that it was coming in May, could be June, or possibly July.  We got lucky in August but now it’s September and look out!  The Surge!  The Surge!  We’re all gonna die in The Surge!”

But the people turned away.  They threw their silly masks in the rubbish bins.  They went to weddings for young people starting a new life.  They went to funerals for old people ending a long life.  They went to backyard bar-b-ques with friends to celebrate the good life.  The did not listen to Little Timmy at all.

And Little Timmy cried and cried.

The End

In much of the Metro today, it pretty much is a children’s story. More later.

I know, I know – there is no voter fraud.

All those phony registrations that election integrity groups uncovered between 2009 today? Just random demographic fuzz.

Nine people registred in a single small-town laundromat? What are you – paranoid?

Secretary of State Simon defying three court orders to turn over dox related to irregularities? Nah, nothing to see here.

It’s downright unpatriotic to question the election system.

Perish the thought:

A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he’s been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades.

Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020 elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.

But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.

I know – anonymous source, NYPost, yadda yadda.

But at some point, even the undecided have to decide there’s “smoke”, here…

To: Rep. Ryan WInkler, House Majority Leader
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Timing

Rep. Winkler,

Yesterday you tweeted in re the shooting in Kenosha:

Rep Winkler, I say the following with all due respect.

I’m just spitballing, here, but maybe a white, suburban Harvard grad who called one of the leading jurists in the nation an “Uncle Thomas” because he departed the Democrat Party’s plantation, might want to sit out the whole “white supremacy” thing.

That is all.

Charges have been filed and the destruction of the state owned Christopher Columbus statue on the Capitol Mall last June.

The episode – which occurred as cameras from all for local TV news stations and every newspaper that can still afford photographers churned out footage, and as state patrol officers looked on – has been “under investigation” for two months since, as the full resources of the state “criminal justice“ system were able to swarm on several bars and a rodeo in Outstate Minnesota practically while the seats were still warm.

The discrepancy between the events was enough to get some sex to say it looks as if there might be a two-tiered justice system in Minnesota; one for progressives who are tightly connected with the metro political system, and everyone else.

Oh, yeah – as usual, the cynics were right:

According to the attorney’s office, [the accused, Michael] Forcia, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, acknowledged at the time that he wanted to be held accountable for the statue being pulled down, with the investigation finding he was the “organizer, leader, and executor of the incident.”

He will get the same brand of “justice“ that Woody Kane got, of course; it is good to be part of the ruling class.

Dozens of businesses are expecting to leave downtown Minneapolis.

A new survey by the Downtown Council shows 45 business owners say they are considering leaving downtown – citing the lack of people working or socializing downtown – and the idea that the police department could be dismantled.

Though they won’t say which businesses are considering pulling out of downtown, the council says one of the businesses employs 600 people.

That could mean a lot of empty spaces.

On the up side, I suppose “moving” implies some intent to survive.

Wonder how many downtown businesses have closed for good without making it onto any surveys?

It’s been percolating about “prog” social media lately – the notion that Trump, should he lose the election, wouldn’t relinquish office.

Never mind how, or whether it’s remotely plausible. All that is necessary for the left-wing noise machine is to get the chatters chattering.

But as to “why would they be spreading such palpable poppycock?”

If you’re a regular reader, you know Berg’s Seventh Law.

And if you know Berg’s Seventh Law, you already have your answer.

Mayor Frey is going public with his complaints that Governor Walz stonewalled him on sending the National Guard.

Walz’s response shows Frey was right…

…and that Walz – aka “Governor Klink” – still has a little bit of that high school gym teacher in him, passive-aggressively torturing the wimpy kid.

Or perhaps, in this case, Dwight Schrute:

Either way, the former NCO seems to have a pretty terrible opinion of the Guard:

So…note to future mayors: When you go to Governor Klink to ask for the guard:

1. Watch “Patton” so you have some idea how to “plan” riot control
2. Specially request “no 19 year old cooks”.

Got that?

Now, let’s not for a moment pretend this public “squabble” between Mayor McDreamy and Governor Klink is anything but a public charade designed to give both the Mayor and the Governor political cover.

All I can say is, you’re in great hands, Minnesota.

Went to dinner at friend’s house, no masks or distancing, and got to admire his M1 from the CMP program. Solid people.

His wife is afraid Democrats will never let us take off our muzzles but I explained the marks silliness will only last through the recount.

Last January, impeachment was a ploy to get Trump out of office. It failed.
Covid is a ploy to prevent Trump from getting re-elected. When it fails, they will drop it and move to a different play to get him removed from office. I suspect it will be another attempt at impeachment, this time based on tax returns.

Masks are temporary. Does not make them less annoying, but the end is in sight.

Joe Doakes

Even if mask mandates are as effective at disease prevention as they are at logrolling compliance, this whole episode points out that when the people get terrible information, the rumor mill – and its high-tech analog, “fake news” – fill in the gaps.

And yes, it is all Governor Klink’s fault.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emailed…er, mid-last week:

Governor Walz is set to announce a state-wide mask order.  It’s
necessary, to prevent the spread of Covid-19 virus.  He hasn’t said so
yet, but he’ll be cancelling the elections soon.

Why?  Isn’t it obvious?  If the Covid-19 virus is so deadly that we must
wear masks at all times, even standing in line outside a store with the
breeze blowing, then surely it’s so deadly that we cannot stand in line
outside a polling place with the breeze blowing.

Unless . . . maybe voting is like rioting?  Maybe the virus doesn’t
spread during voting the way it spreads during singing, for example in
church, and more like the way it doesn’t spread during shouting, for
example at protests.

Anyway, it’s too late now to switch to on-line voting or mail-in
ballots.  And despite the endless tinkering with the dials to perpetuate
the terror, the DNC’s internal polling numbers show Trump doing
surprisingly well in Minnesota.  Voters simply aren’t blaming Trump for
Walz’ actions.

No, there’s just too much risk.  We can’t take the chance of something
going disastrously wrong.

The elections are canceled.

Joe Doakes

Who needs elections when we have hundreds of thousands of fraudulent registrations to do our voting for us?

Republicans agreed to police reform bills in the second special session.  This is a mistake.

There should be NO legislative action, on ANY proposal, until Dictator Walz relinquishes his totalitarian control over the entire state back to the peoples’ elected representatives in the legislature.

Otherwise, it never ends.  Ever.  And in that case, why do we need the Legislature at all?

Joe Doakes

One hopes the MNGOP gets this message.

To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: State Of Non-Emergency

Your Highness,

Your ongoing, and apparently endless, emergency declaration is, put mildly, draconian – especially if you’re in the private sector, especially an entrepreneur. You’ll notice that a sizable majority of people supporting the your most extreme quarantining provisions are public, non-profit or academic employees, students, or the retired. There’s a reason for that.

Now, we’re Americans. Most of our anscestors came here to escape tyranny – some petty, some very much not.

But for most of us in the private sector, “resisting” the worst excesses of your emergency measures is beyond our control or ability. Our businesses are shut down; trying to re-open leaves many of us open to getting ratted out to state licensing and permitting authorities on the government-sponsored snitch lines, which the “Karens” among our neighbors are all too happy to keep busy, thus making earning a living a risky venture.

Our jobs, our livelihoods, our social lives – especially those of us for whom “zoom calls” are no substitute for business or pleasure – are all on hold until events meet criteria that our Governor, in a display of abusiveness that would get him tossed in jail if he did it to his wife or kids, won’t tell us.

So what do we do?

History is dotted with ways in which people, deprived of all other means of hitting back at their oppressor, hit ’em anyway.

When Norway was occupied during the Second World War, Norwegians – the ones who couldn’t escape to the UK or into the mountains to carry on the battle – would draw a number “7”, or flash seven fingers at fellow citizens. It referred to Norway’s king, Håkon the 7th. It was a small, almost meaningless gesture – but it gave the people the feeling that they were doing…something, at least, that the occupier couldn’t control.

And so, I suspect, with masks. Minnesotans, their jobs reducing hours or cutting pay or just plain gone, their businesses gasping for air, their social lives and recreation limited to whatever’s in their houses, only as safe from retaliation as their least stable, least passive-aggressive “Karen” or “Chad” of a neighbor, are resisting with the only tool they have.

Their faces.

Work With Me, Here – And you know what? It didn’t have to be this way.

Been to stores that require masks? Many people gripe about it – but most people put ’em on.

I mean, I don’t personally care – I’ve already had Covid, and can neither catch nor spread the disease; I may as well wear a red rubber clown nose. But there IS a reason surgical staff wear them, too [1]

I have a hunch if Minnesota would have done it, given the right information and a choice, if the state had…:

a) Asked people, nicely, to wash their hands, stay home when sick, and put on a mask when around crowds, and

b) Foregone the whole “act like your scolding mother” and gone a lot lighter on the whole “emergency powers” thing

c) Focused the state’s efforts on protecting the vulnerable…

…things might have worked out a lot better.

Y’know – like they did in South Dakota.

Of course, that is all predicated on the notion that the state’s response was about mitigating the effects of Covid.

That is all.

[1] And no, people who get health problems from the minuscule amount of CO2 that gets trapped in their masks are about as common as people with actual Celiac disease (I’ll let our millennial readers shuffle uncomfortably and clear their throats).

Every year, I scan the news for stories of blind, fingerless, homeless Wisconsinites crossing the border into Minnesota.  Still haven’t found any. 

Fireworks that fly or explode are illegal in Minnesota.  Governor Walz vetoed a bill to legalize them.  But they’re legal to buy in Wisconsin and the Dakotas, so in a massive act of civil disobedience, Minnesotans cross the border to bring fun home.  The Twin Cities really did transform into Mogadishu for a couple of hours on Saturday night; sounded like it, at least.

DFL Karens insist fun fireworks are too dangerous for Minnesotans.  Firecrackers could blow your fingers off.  Bottle rockets could shoot someone’s eye out.  Your aerial display mortar could set the roof on fire.  You’re simply too stupid to follow the instructions printed on every package of Black Cats since I was a kid: “Lay on ground. Light fuse.  Get away.” 

If that were true, you’d think the news media would show the hordes of maimed and homeless refugees from neighboring states coming here for medical treatment, food, shelter, generous welfare benefits, solicitous churches . . . but no, there are no refugee stories.  I see only two possibilities: the news media is hiding the story, or there are no refugees which means Karen is lying.

And yet fireworks are banned.  There were 59 injuries from fireworks in Minnesota last year, half of them kids burned by sparklers which are completely legal.  For this, we ban fireworks in the entire state?  

The risk is negligible but the ban is permanent.  I see only one possibility:  DFLers believe Cheeseheads are so much smarter than Minnesotans, they can be trusted with freedom.  We cannot.  So they won’t give us any.

Actually, that explains a lot. 

Joe Doakes

And not just about fireworks.

The state is going after Senator, and Doctor, Scott Jensen, for…

…well, counterrevolutionary activity, apparently:

Minnesota senator and medical physician Dr. Scott Jensen says he is under investigation by the Minnesota State Board of Medical Practice for allegedly spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

Jensen revealed the investigation in a Facebook video on Sunday, saying the medical board is focusing on “reckless advice” he had given by comparing COVID-19 with the flu, as well as comments he made regarding CDC guidelines for the completion of death certificates in an interview with Fargo news broadcaster Chris Berg in April – which went viral.

“When I got this news, I was ticked,” Jensen, who is rumored to be considering a run for Minnesota governor as a Republican, said in the video, which has now been viewed one million times.

“If this could happen to me because of my views, it could happen to b ‘=, anybody,” he added.

Let’s sure we’ve got this straight;  the state’s bureaucracy is actively moving to squelch a prominent dissenter to Governor Walz’s incompetent, logrolling response to the pandemic.  

Minneapolis voted last week to change its police force into…

…well, something.

And if that makes you nervous, don’t worry – accountability for the results of this sweeping change is going to be split 14 ways. Because we all know the stories of successful enterprises in the worlds of politics, business and ideas that’ve had 14 co-equal chief executives.

What it does mean, so far, is a transfer of power from the mayor to the City Council, a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the myriad “community” groups and non-profits that will be part of the system – a system that feeds money, influence and people to the DFL…

…and a transfer of accountability for public safety from a police chief and a mayor (both of whom flunked the test terribly this past month) to…well, leave a message and someone will get back to you.

But hey – if you’re really worried about your safety, there are other options…

…provided you’re part of the class that actually matters

We were PROMISED 1,440 dead from Covid by the end of May and a huge surge in cases this Summer.  We’re not even close on deaths and there’s no evidence of a surge, here or anywhere else in the nation.  And hospitalizations are declining.

 

So is the Health Department admitting it was wrong, wrong, and wrong?   Of course not.  The linked article has several charts but notice the one that’s missing – the chart we saw in every press conference – the “flatten the curve” chart.  That’s because there never was a curve to flatten.  We never got close to overwhelming the system.  The epidemic was basically over before we noticed it. 

 

A million Minnesotans lost their jobs and we still can’t get back to normal.  For what? 

 

Joe Doakes

 

 

For the government’s power to exert…well power. That’s what.

Back in the 1800’s, after the United States bought the Louisiana Purchase which extended its territory from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains,  our young nation encountered Indian nations living on the lands we bought.  Conflicts ensued, which were settled by a series of treaties. 

The land on which the statute of Christopher Columbus sat on the grounds of the State Capitol was not “stolen” from the Indians.   The Indians sold it to us. 

Now, the Indians want it back.  That’s the behavior that gave rise to the term “Indian giver.”  The fact the Governor and Lt. Governor don’t understand the history of the state they govern, is shameful.

Joe Doakes

True enough.

But to Big Left, it’s never about history, math, or any other factual basis of analysis.

It’s inevitably about because shut up.

Children of Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar made their sympathies known bright and early last week.

Isra Hirsi, daughter of Rep. Omar, tweeted out calls for ‘supplies’ for rioters. Called on it by Andy Ngo, she reverted to virtue-signaling:

Now, I can possibly cut Hope Walz a little slack. Make no mistake, she annoyed the crap out of me during the election; she spent a lot of time on Twitter dunking on her father’s opponents; when called out, she responded to the effect of “what, you’re attacking a high school kid for supporting her father?” So she’s definitely angling for a career as a professional feminist, and maybe Amy Klobuchar’s PR flak.

But she’s gotten some flak for this tweet:

And she’s not wrong. She was, in fact, relating facts; the National Guard doesn’t come sliding down a fire poll and jump into their Hummers and race to the scene when the governor gets on the radio – as some thought they did.

I’ll cut Walz – the younger, anyway – a little slack.

In which Mike Freeman drops a banana peel in front of Keith Ellison while saying “Hey, join the team,” and chuckles as Ellison eagerly rushes in.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/05/31/keith-ellison-prosecutions-george-floyd

Freeman is a jerk but he’s also an experienced prosecutor.  Remember the Somali cop who shot the little White woman in the alley?  He got convicted of 3rd degree and got 12 years, nothing close to what the mob wanted. Freeman survived that fiasco and he intends to survive this one.  
He’s read the autopsy report.  He knows Floyd didn’t die from lack of air (obviously not, or he couldn’t have been talking).  Freeman knows the victim was stoned and had other medical issues that may have been exacerbated by the arrest, which might possibly make the officer careless or negligent, but Freeman knows there’s no way to make Murder 1 stick and that’s the only thing that will satisfy the mob.
So how’s he get the mob off his back?  He asks Keith Ellison for help.  Ellison – who has no prosecution experience – will now “take the lead.”  Which means whatever goes wrong with the case from here on out, Freeman points at Ellison and says “Don’t ask me, he’s in charge.”
Early in my career, I spent a few years as a prosecutor.  A criminal case isn’t won by clever speeches or Twitter comments, it’s a s***load of hard work.  Ellison has no idea.  He’s being set up to take the fall when the cop walks.  Freeman will shrug and carry on.  Walz will remind us what a great job he’s done on Covid.  Charlie Foxtrot all around.
Joe Doakes

More on this later today.