The below is an update of a piece I first wrote almost four years ago. It was at that moment about the time when people – smart people, anyway – were starting to realize that Covid wasn’t the new Bubonic Plague, that the sky was not falling, and that whatever “model” Governor Klink was reading that was predicting 70,000 deaths in Minnesota alone by mid-July of 2020, and 20,000 dead as a best case if they shut the state down completely, was perhaps…wrong.

I was looking at the gutting of civil and religious freedom that Minnesotans had countenanced – perhaps more or less voluntarily in March,

Over this past weekend, Big Left went through what’s become an annual orgy of celebrating what’s become their secular holiday, January 6.

Governor Klink took a break from his regimen of selfies of him being fed donuts by Co-Governor Flanagan to have his social media intern blurt this out:

The DFL, likewise:

So – a year and a half after Governor Klink reluctantly gave up his “emergency powers”, and after three years of Joe Biden serving as the doddering mouthpiece for Barack Obama’s third term as the greatest stealth authoritarian since Woodrow Wilson, let’s take stock of the state of “democracy”, in Minnesota and nationwide.

One of the obligations of a free people – and especially of a free people that wants to stay that way – is to push back when government overreaches. Not just in emergencies (although that was the initial subject of the original post), but always, on every facet of liberty. Conservatism holds that order and liberty exist in a constant state of tension; without order (or health) prosperity is impossible; without health, freedom is academic (subsistence farmers don’t have time to petition for redress of grievances); without freedom, order is onerous and, let’s be honest, prosperity is most likely concentrated among those keeping the order.

Three years ago, I said that Government power is like a handgun – sometimes, a necessary tool in extreme circumstances, under terms that are as strictly circumscribed as any rule on justifiable use of lethal force. And like any necessary tool, free people need to make sure that the newbie isn’t sweeping people at the firing range with her hand on the trigger, and that government isn’t getting drunk and profligate with its use, or abuse of power.

Of course, three years later, it’s clear that the Biden and Walz regimes great government power less like a handgun on the nightstand, and more like a Reaper drone, orbiting loudly above everything, ready to strike arbitrarily and without a whole lot of reason or respect for the niceties of constitutional law.

Just as Governor Piglet’s administration used Covid as a pretext for seizing unprecedented arbitrary power, Democrats nationwide are waving “January 6” around like a bloody shirt, to try to justify their ravaging of the spirit and letter of AMerican democracy.

So lets list the outrages. Let me know what I’ve missed; I intend for this list to live on as long as needed:

Life and Liberty

• The emergence of the crypto-Maoist “Democratic Socialists of America” as the most powerful bloc in the Democrat party nationwide, and even moreso of the DFL – as both parties arrogate more power, wealth (transferred from taxpayers)
• The multi-pronged bringing to heel of the education system, from pre-school through the post-doctoral level, is “the long game” in attacking not just liberty, but the entire underpinning of Western Civilization. Creating a generation of ignorant droogs who think “freedom” is just material satiety is both a key goal of those who’d gut the American experiment and, seemingly, a long way toward being accomplished.

The Pursuit of Prosperity

Here, the DFL’s disdain for business and private property rears its head, above and beyond any actual response to the epidemic.

• The DFL “Trifecta” burned through nearly $18 Billion worth of “surprlus”, every dime of which came from a taxpayer of some kind or another. That’s nearly $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Minnesota – nearly $12,000 for a typical family of four. In one year. And they raised taxes enough to cover that and a whole lot more. And given that the state is inevitably falling into deficit while the Democrats control the Legislature, it’s going to get much worse. That money would, in fact, be better employed by the people.
• As Governor Klink established during Covid, the right to transact business is clearly subject to arbitrary, and in some cases seemingly capricious, interference. Small businesses are shut down (as big ones, and business with more, better lobbyists remain open), in many cases without regard to the business’ actual susceptibility to the virus (lawn services? nd smoke shops aren’t. It’s best that your vices not be politically unfashionable.
• Looking a back at the concept of “Essential” and “Non-Essential” workers – designations determined almost entirely via the political expediency of the designations, and their importance to the lifestyle of the “Laptop class” workers who make up the political class – feels like staring into the soul of Orwell’s universe, even three years later.
• The government started by barring all evictions and foreclosures, and halting student loan payments. The Twin Cities governments have moved on to rent control – furthering the road to gutting the affordable rental market, and completely foreclosing the existence of the small landlords that used to provide most of the metro’s “affordable housing” – while the Biden regime tried to unilaterally wipe out personal obligations to private student loan lenders.

Government Transparency

• The DFL created a “Hate Speech Registry”. What’s in it? What’s it for? How do we see what, and who, is in it? For what purposes will it be used? The registry’s supporters couldn’t and wouldn’t answer questions. They just jammed it down.
• The Governor’s “Covid Snitch Line” showed us not only the DFL’s ability for setting up a Stasi-like network of informants, but how much they genuinely enjoy it.
• School boards around the state are gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, being turned into rubber-stamps for district administrators and the state department of Education.
• For years, people complained, legitimately, that most of the legislature’s big decisions were made by the Governor, the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House, operating behind closed doors. That was intolerable and stupid when there were opposing parties involved in those negotiations. Now that they’re all with the same party? While elections have consequences, this is pure authoritarianism.
• Covid-era restrictions on meetings have morphed, post-pandemic, into a glib disregard for state open meeting laws, which serve more as suggestions these days.

First Amendment

• The collaboration of Big Government, Big Tech, Big Media and the Big Left’s non-profit/industrial complex completely gutted free speech in time for the 2020 election. The vituperation of their response to Elon Musk buying Twitter tips the hand; the Axis of Authority really, really wants “free speech” to be more about crappy art than actually holding government accountable.
• And as Big Left endlessly drones on about the “Threat” of “endemic white supremacist terrorism” that we’ve been told for 15 years is everywhere, honest, one of these days now – the threat of being swatted, of crowds of professional protesters and rioters making your free exercise of too much inconvenient speech potentially dangerous is always there. The March 4, 2017 “Anti”-Fa attack on a Republican gathering at the MN Capitol rotunda (and the fact that Ramsey County’s “criminal justice” system did everything but take the “protesters” out for dinner to apologize for the inconvenience of being arrested) was a warning; shut up, or you just might get cut up. Democrats and the DFL are very aware of this, because that malevolent mass of wannabe thugs are their children, nephews, classmates.

Second Amendment

• While the Second Amendment community remains strong, and with the departure of Wayne LaPierre may get some of its teeth re-sharpened at the national level, the attacks on the law-abiding gun owner in Blue jurisdictions are increasing, unconscionable, and not consistent with “protecting democracy”. More below.

Fourth Amendment

• The surveillance state has gotten steadily worse.
• The presence of anonymous “snitch lines” – and especially “hate crime” lines, may not have led to any Fourth Amendment perversions of probable cause yet – but don’t bet against it.
• “Red Flag” laws have largely trashed the Fourth Amendment (more below).

Fifth Amendment

• With the courts pretty much closed your right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury is pretty much toast for the duration.
• Let’s not forget how the state gutted the justice system – including the rights of defendants to speedy drials, to face their accusers, and of their attorneys to effectively prepare cases – under the pretext of “public emergency restrictions”.

Privacy

• Among the many other depredations of Minnesota’s “red flag” law – “Mental Health” professionals are in fact now deputized to participate in the abuse of those laws. I’d say “consider the unintended consequences”, but I don’t think there’s anything “unintended” about them.
• Government used your cell data to track the effectiveness of social distancing. Think that genie’s going back in the bottle?

When Democrats refer to Republicans as “fascists”, it’s a Berg’s Seventh Law case. .

Among the many laws that went into effect on Monday, Governor Klink was proud to announce this:

For starters: 68? Sweet Jesus, what is this, “Cool Hand Luke” sweat fetish pr0n?

Beyond that?

Mandatory temperatures (outside the obvious safety habitability rules, which already exist) combined with rent control = less housing.

Or does nobody study economics anymore?

Let’s take a look back to last May.

I started this post at the end of the session, last May, amid the DFL was doing its endzone happy dance over having gotten their way on literally everything during the session,

Here’s Rep Long – who in normal times one would be tempted to call “one of Minneapolis’s more annoying legislators”, but “progressivism” has lapped him a few times on that count:

They sure loved to prattle on about “gridlock being over”, didn’t they?

The Strib cheered on the home team! Here was a rare photo from last year of Governor Walz not eating something:

And here, one of them rejoices that the trains will run on time.

Or something like that.

This tweet caught my eye last spring – someone had a clue what was going on.

Today, of course, the “surplus” (which wasn’t) is long gone. There’s going to be a deficit in the next biennium, even if the economy hangs on.

All as predicted.

A Look Ahead To The Ghost Of DFL Excuse-Making Future

Budget deficit of $2.5 Billion Plus?

As predicted by yours truly about this time a year ago, the DFL squandered a $18B “surplus” [1]

The DFL is contratulating itself that it still has a surplus of a couple billion dollars – which is a little like jumping from the top of the IDS building, opening your eyes and seeing the 20th floor, and thinking “Hey, I’m at the 20th floor, I guess I’m OK”.

The DFL has spent the state into debt.

Minnesota passed a humungous budget in the last session. To make that possible, they drew from other funds well outside of general funds, such as special revenue funds and money from the federal government.

For Health and Human Services spending, for example, lawmakers loosened eligibility and working requirements for cash assistance programs. The cost of these changes — which is about $50 million — is currently being funded by federal TANF dollars until the 2027 fiscal year.

And it’s actually much worse than that:

Once the state starts paying for these with state dollars in 2028, spending will go up. And if current events are any indication, the cost of these new changes will likely have blown past $50 million by then.

Additionally, lawmakers also allocated over $2 billion in extra funding to Medicaid. Until 2027, over half of the money will come from the Health Care Access Fund (HCAF) — a special revenue fund that has historically been used for MinnesotaCare. If at any point in the future, HCAF cannot sustain this new Medicaid spending, it will have to be shifted to the general fund.

And, go figure – the economically-illiterate DFL have killed a bunch of the golden geese (aka ripe suck citizens) that usually pay for DFL gigantism:

For one, Minnesota heavily relies on income taxation. But our income tax system is highly progressive. So, the state disproportionately relies on a small portion of the state’s high-earning individuals, which is in itself a problem.

Unfortunately, this problem was made worse last session, when lawmakers passed targeted “tax cuts” that have eliminated or reduced income tax liability for select taxpayers, such as social security income recipients and low-income parents with children. This has narrowed the individual income tax base even further.

And let’s not forget that high-income earners have already been fleeing Minnesota and going to low-tax states like Florida.

The recent changes to the tax system do not just narrow the income tax base, however. According to MCFE, these targeted tax cuts and tax redesigns have substituted less volatile sources of income tax revenue — such as salaries and social security — with the most volatile sources — such as corporate income — putting the state further in a precarious position.

I”m not in on the DFL’s planning, but I suspect it involves reliance on two things:

• Hoping the Biden Administration convincing the Fed to keep interest rates low (through the election, anyway) convinces enough gullible voters that the ecomony is just great, and
• Sending out an endless diet (as it were) of photos of Peggy Flanagan feeding Tim Walz donuts and corn dogs.

After all, that [2] is what got them through 2022.

[1] Which was a bit of a mirage, to be honest – made up of limited-time Federal stimulus money and taxation of economic activity spurred by other government-stimulated spending.

[2] Well, and that whole Roe V.Wade thing, of course.

You know those photos that amusement parks snap as you come down to the end of a log flume or roller coaster?

They catch the rider at a moment when they’ve just been waaay up high, and are in the process of falling waaaaay down, into the water (for the log flume) or back to the end of the ride.

If your only frame of reference isd the photo, you have no idea that seconds later, the riders and their “log” are plowing up a plume of water. But seeing as the tracks head inexorably downward, you know where it’s going.

I have to suspect when a DFLer gets those photos, the response is “You’re not in the water right this second…

According to last week’s budget forecast, MInnesota’s DSA-led DFL has led Minnesota from a nearly $18 Billion surplus to…

…well, the snapshot released last week caught the state’s budget at a $2.4B surplus – but, like that log flume photo, it’s that high because that’s when the snapshot was taken on the way down:

Higher estimates in health and human services and education raise total spending in FY 2024-2027, resulting in a negative structural balance in the next biennium.

That “negative structural balance” could be up over $2 Billion. And that’s provided the economy doesn’t really tank.

Who has two thumbs, predicted this, and is currently typing this post? This guy.

Compare and contrast with Iowa:

Iowa led the “tax-cutting wave” in 2022, with the most comprehensive and aggressive tax reform in the United States. This will gradually replace the nine-bracket, progressive income tax with a flat tax, bringing the top rate, which was close to 9 percent, down to a flat 3.9 percent by 2026. Not only will Iowa have eliminated the progressive income tax, it will also have reduced the top tax rate by almost 60 percent.

Iowa’s corporate tax rate, once the highest in the nation at 12 percent, is also being cut: Starting in January 2024, the corporate tax rate will be 7.1 percent, and the rate will continue to be lowered until it reaches a flat 5.5 percent.

Critics of Iowa’s fiscal reforms warn against alleged “economic recklessness.” Mike Owen, deputy director of Common Good Iowa, a progressive think tank, told the Economist that “a crash is coming” and that programs such as education and health care will suffer as a result.

This doesn’t add up. Thanks to fiscal prudence, Iowa’s budget is in strong shape. For the last few years, Iowa’s budget has been in surplus, ending fiscal year 2023 with a $1.83 billion surplus, which was $86.3 million higher than originally estimated. The fiscal year 2024 surplus is projected to be $2.12 billion, rising to $2.99 billion in the fiscal year 2025.

Common Good, like the rest of the non-profit/industrial complex, is getting less official graft out of the state.

No such problem in Minnesota.

Yet.

“Flag experts” – there are people out there who call themselves that – step in to grade the new Minnesota state flag proposals:

So what about the actual experts? In interviews, flag experts and graphic designers generally praised the six choices. Vexillologists — yes, there’s a word for people who study flags — said Minnesota’s finalists mostly follow the guidelines of flag design.

Ted Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association, said he thinks the six finalists are a “good start.” But he also suggested one or more changes to each. A common critique was that the flags are “trying to do too much” and should be simplified in order to be distinguishable from a distance.

“All of these designs have a great flag in them trying to get out,” Kaye said. “They all need work, but that’s OK.”

“They all need work”

Give up hope. You have entered the world of the “Graphic Designer”.

Don’t get me wrong – I have good friends, colleagues and family who are graphic and visual designers. It’s a talent I do not have. I’m in UX, but not one of the visual-design-y UXers (no, they are not the same thing).

And if you turn a group of average graphic designers (not the very good ones in my social circle) loose on a project, they can and will spend two years picking out the “right” color palette.

So the GOP may get to repeal this nonsense after all (provided they win some House races).

Anna Matthews joined me to talk about Cynthia Lonnquist’s race to replace Ruth Richardson in MN HD 52B.

Interested in helping out? Write “info@mngop.com”, or join them Sunday morning at 10AM at the McDonald’s at Dodd and Crosstown.

Today’s song list.

Someone claiming to be MN State Senator Grant Hauschild posted this on TWitter yesterday:

This must be a Russian hoax. Hauschild,and the rest of the DFL caucus in the legislature, to say nothing of the Flanagan/Klink Administration, spent the whole first half of summer high-fiving each other over “fully funding education” (in between selfies of grinning legislators stuffing donuts and corn dogs in each others mouths).

Now, they never, not once, explained what that meant.

For that matter, the term has vanished from the DFL’s chanting points since about Bastille Day.

Weird.

…and having given up on the “killer bees”, people in the Upper Midwest have this to worry about:

Fearless predictions:

• North Dakotans, being gloriously well-armed and with a state government run by smart people ,will have all sorts of pulled pork (and, given these pigs reportedly yield a fairly bland meat, likely come up with some great recipes).
• Minnesotans in CE7 and CD8 – the northern half of the state – will try to kill some hogs. But Metro “environmentalists”, claiming the “erasure” of “undocumented potential DFL voters”, will appeal to Keith Ellison, who will promptly file an injunction citing a battle against “MAGA White Supremacy”.
• Canadians, being largely disarmed, will remain under cover, get eaten by hogs, or prosecuted by the Trudeau (who is no way, no how Fidel Castro’s son) regime.

Prove me wrong.

These are the finalists:

To me, they all like the came from IKEA, and appear to have been designed to work as button icons on Android phones, but…

…the one on top, and the bottom right, offend me the least.

But let’s be honest – if on July 2 1863 the First Minnesota Regiment had gone into action behind any of these flags, Lee would have ended up sacking DC, NYC and Boston within a few weeks.

And the crop improved a bit from the semi-finalists:

Not sure if the committee noticed how redolent a flag with a five-pointed star would be of a Soviet, Nork or Red Chinese flag, or were anticipating the avalanche of jokes and not-so-jokes if they picked a flag that looked like, uh…

…the flag of Somalia.

Which seemed to have inspired a prett, er, impressive number of the original 2,600 submissions.

To: Governor Wilhelm Walz, Co-Governor, State of Minnesota
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Hungry For The Truth

Governor,

You tweeted this yesterday:

And yet your administration and the DFL majorities in the Legislature told us that Minnesota’s economy was doing better than ever, that “Bidenomics” was not a bitter joke whose self-induced inflation was no way no how hurting poor and working class people worse than the general population, and that the actions of this past session were going to reduce poverty by 30%.

If any of that were true, food banks wouldn’t be seeing unprecedented demand – would they?

Governor Klink apparently came to love the way he got to govern while he had “emergency powers” [1]:

Of course, none of it is “done”.

It’s mandated. It’s on paper.

Businesses have scarcely started paying for “Paid Leave”, or absorbing the impact of the unfunded mandate.

“Affordable Housing” is exquisitely unaffordable.

Public transportation? They’re throwing around plans for trains. That’s about it.

It’s the sort of performative posturing that we’d call “virtue signaling” if it were talking about social hot buttons.

Since it’s about spending and building, we’ll need a new term.

Bureauvirtue signalling?

[1] Or at least the twerp who handles his social media.

Governor Klink, and Co-Governor Flanagan have been yapping nonstop about their “free lunch and breakfast for kids“ program.

So I was amazed to see this:

If kids are getting 10 of the weeks 21 meals at school, how are they going hungry?

Or is the school feeding program financed by the feds through the back door?

Not just Senator Smith – but Senator Smith being interviewed by Samantha Bee?

I can feel the state’s cumulative cosmic GPA wilting like a peony in a surprise fall blizzard.

Note to the GOP: If Samantha Bee is the best the DFL can get, maybe there’s opportunity.

“A Gaffe is what happens when a politician accidentally tells the truth.
— Michael Kinsley

Governor Walz may have committed a gaffe the other day:

He’s being too modest.

With its proposed ban on liquid fuel, the DFL is working to ensure that no matter where you grow up or go to school, you have to stay in your community.

With the advent of taxpayer paid school lunch for literally every student in the state of Minnesota, a friend of the blog emails:

So have you figured out the menu for the first bunch of rich folk’s kids you’ll be buying lunch. I think mine will be liver and onions and lutefisk so they’ll never ask again.

Not a bad idea, at least on the surface.

But remember Dash this is going to be government food.

I have a hunch lutefisk will look pretty good by the time they choke it down for a month or two.

A friend of the blog emails:

I’m old enough to remember when they wanted to ban smoking basically everywhere.

So why should pot be any different?

Nothing about the states legalization of pot was thought through, beyond “getting GenZ votes, and shutting down the legal weed parties“.

SCENE: MNDFL Headquarters. Two staffers – a communications person and a researcher who is also a bit of a prankster, are talking, sotto voce.

COMMS STAFFER: He’ll never go for it.

RESEARCHER: Betcha $20.

COMMS STAFFER: (Pulls out a 20). You’re on.

Just then, Ken MARTIN, generalissimo of the MNDFL, walks into the room.

MARTIN: “OK, whaddya got?

RESEARCHER (barely suppressing a snork): “OK, so, research shows that people loooooove (chokes back giggle) lots and lots of selfies of politicians gluttonously stuffing their faces”. (COMMS STAFFER has to turn away).

MARTIN: “Good stuff. I’ll put out a memo”.

MARTIN leaves the room.

COMMS STAFFER forks over the $20.

RESEARCHER: Like taking candy from a baby.

COMMS STAFFER: Shoulda know. But…shouldn’t we tell Generalissimo Martin?

RESEARCHER: Nah, he’ll figure it out. Nobody is that stupid.

MERE DAYS LATER:

Note: The giant bean came in second in the “Giant Vegetable” catetory. The winner was Rep. Andy Smith (DFL Rochester)

COMMUNICATIONS GUY: “Noooooooooooooooooo!

RESEARCHER (Burying head in hands) “What hsve I done?”

And SCENE

With the upcoming retirement of Lori Gildea, Governor Klink yesterday promoted Justice Natalie Hudson to the Chief Justice slot.

Much more troublingly, he appointed Karl Procaccini to replace Hudson as associate justice.

And to my mind, Procaccini has all the makings of the very worst kind of judge (emphasis added by me):

Procaccini, 40, took a lead role in drafting the executive orders that Walz used to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Walz said Procaccini exhibited “steadiness, humility and an exceptional legal mind” during that difficult period. 

“There is no one more prepared for the rigors and challenges that come with this important position,” Walz said.

A justice who conjured up the rationale to make let Governors Klink and Flanagan play Mussolini and Evita for almost two years?

“With the departure of Justice Gildea, Governor Walz had an opportunity to select a pragmatic voice and ensure Minnesotans have a diverse set of views on the Minnesota Supreme Court,” said House Minority leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring. “Instead, he picked the chief architect of the 2020 lockdowns and mandates that destroyed businesses and kept our kids out of the classroom with zero judicial experience to serve on the state’s highest court.“

The last Republican appointee, G. Barry Anderson, will hit mandatory retirement age right in the middle of Klink/Flanagan’s current term.

Sweet dreams, all who care about limited government.

Every DFL politician’s social media feed is raving about this puff piece from HuffPo which christens Tina Smith “the Velvet Hammer”.

The Velvet Hammer?

I can think of lots of adjectives to add to Smith’s hamfistedness. Velvet ain’t one of them.

And what usually happens after you see DFLers posting “attagirls” over inexplicable media. puff pieces?

Some dirt comes out on them. .

For example – during the session, the DFL noise machine broke out into a round of praise for Rep. Finke. It went from zero to 60 in three seconds, as if the Representative had just pulled someone from a burning building Clearly something had happened.

That something was Finke had charged across the House floor at another representative over retweeting a trans-skeptic account.

So am I too cynical in asking “what dirt is coming out about Smith?”

I’m sure Senator Hauschild – or the DFL comms goon managing his account – thinks this story looks like a victory:

Minnesota: the state where you need to have a state senator in your bullpen to rebuild a business that burned down.

Not even starting a new business.

Wonder what that’d take?

As cannabis becomes legal in Minnesota today ,it’s become fairly clear that the DFL didn’t read the bill they’d copied and pasted from some advocate’s model legislation file.

Cities around the state are frantically passing legislation to treat public consumption the same as cigarettes, vaping and alcohol – things the state didn’t bother to do.

And they’ve thoughtfully left the door wide open for the black marketeers:

But even though growing, possessing and using weed will be legal for people 21 and older on Aug. 1, you still won’t be able to buy marijuana from a licensed dealer in most of the state. It will likely be more than a year before dispensaries begin opening. Democrats say they framed their bill that way so regulators would have enough time to develop rules for recreational marijuana sales.

Critics say allowing possession of so much marijuana without also allowing its sale will be a boon for unlawful and unregulated black market sellers.

Not to mention the tax rate – which, at 10%, is roughly 100% higher than the black market tax rate of absolutely nil.

So – we’ll have all the black-market crime, plus a disproportionally baked population.

It’s the DFL’s dream.

The Strib is trying to wag the state’s proverbial dog:

“Flooding in” to a Reddit thread?

Why, it sounds good, doesn’t it?

The kind of good news that an undistinguished meat puppet of a governor can’t be expected not to try to make hay of it…

That stupid 1971 headline is set to pass “…on a stick!” as the ultimate Minnesota cliche, by the way.

So what’s the truth?

Why, let’s see:

240 comments and 36 upvotes, in a month.

This blog has many posts with much more activity than that in a day.

So – why all the ado about that modest little, uh, flood?

Oh:

Minnesota has the eight-worst net outmigration among the productive class in the country. One suspects the “flood” comprises a lot of people looking for taxpayer-funded abortion and chemical castration of minors.

And while it’s hard to believe it’s not by design, one has to think the DFL doesn’t want the news to get too big, too fast… –

Borrowed with permission from a friend on social media:

When I moved to Minnesota in May 2010, I had just graduated college and taken a job offer in Edina. In the aftermath of the Great Recession jobs were scarce, especially in Milwaukee, and a young man trying to make it on his own had to be willing to uproot his life for greater opportunities.

I joined a local Christian urban mission and moved into a neighborhood filled with violence and poverty and beautiful people who God loves. I was enthralled by the vivid colors of Minneapolis, the hustle and bustle, the natural beauty of the city combined with over a century of human gardening that created a city of lakes and parks amidst neighborhoods and skyscrapers. I loved the breweries, the neighborhood pubs nestled between homes, the intimidating importance of people striding in the skyways, the spectacular events that brought everyone together like the Basilica block party, the way strangers would become neighbors when three feet of snow forced us all to work together to dig out city buses.

I told anyone who would listen that Minneapolis was my favorite city. That there was nowhere else I’d rather live. Especially compared to Milwaukee, it was difficult to make friends here – the old adage “if you want friends in Minnesota, go to kindergarten” was spot on. But I found some spectacular people who loved Jesus and wanted to see the city face its ignored injustices and thrive together. I wanted to spend the rest of my life here.

After dedicating my entire adult life to the city working in its worst neighborhoods to right its worst wrongs, 2020 came along and the air changed. When a governor illegally mandates you stay in your home, unable to even visit your parents next door while states like Florida are totally open, something about your trust in government breaks. When you realize your neighbors are going quietly along with this fundamental break from democracy, you look at them differently. They can’t be trusted either.

Somehow, the air tastes different. It smells different. It doesn’t refresh or enliven – it loses its life-giving potency.

When citizen journalists publish story after story of someone murdered by a violent criminal who prosecutors and judges had dead to rights but refused to imprison, the air changes.

When you realize that half of abortions in Minnesota are paid for by tax dollars and the state enables elective abortion until birth, the air changes.

When the legislature, with one vote majority, declares Christian parents abusive and threatens to take custody of their kids, the air feels downright poisonous. When the Star Tribune and KARE fail to even mention this in the news, it sinks on your chest like a weight that the fix is in.

After all that, things don’t feel the same. You don’t feel like you can enjoy even nature, the trees and lakes. Surely the leaves hold no responsibility for the great evil that has become Minnesota, but they become symbols, reminders of something dark.

Every breath you draw into your lungs feels tainted somehow. If you’ve ever inhaled a gas that stopped you halfway and forced you to cough instead, you know what I mean. You feel suffocated, every day. You yearn for true air, true breath, true freedom.

You shine your light in the darkness every day, but over time, you realize your batteries are fading, and the light is dimming. There is only so much darkness a human soul can take.

This morning I woke up in our new home in Tennessee. Finally, I breathed deep, and was reminded of the example of my ancestors whose strength and determination brought them across the sea to become a political bloc whose American power ultimately put so much pressure on the UK that it had to relent and, after 700 years of tyranny, restore freedom in Ireland.

—–

“But if at last our colours should be torn from Ireland’s heart

Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle would part

I’ve heard a whisper of a land that lies beyond the sea

Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom’s day

Oh Ireland, must we leave you, driven by a tyrant’s hand

And seek a mother’s blessing from a strange and distant land

Where the cruel cross of England shall never more be seen

And in that land we’ll live and die for the wearing of the green”

All reactions:

11

Oh, believe me – I understand the motivation.

I can’t imagine life without the fight – but I can imagine life elsewhere.

Attorney General Ellison compares Justice Thomas to a “house slave”:

Ellison – whose entire career is was financed by Alita Messinger and George Soros – accuses conservatives on the SCOTUS of being beholden to plutocrats.

And about 1:00 in, he says:

“Anyone who’s watched Django – Clarence Thomas is like Steven.

Ellison is being both a little more artful than Ryan Winkler’s ape-like response that Thomas is “Uncle Tom”. “Stephen” is a dog whistle reference from a Spike Lee movie – a coded reference to “someone all real black people should hold in contempt”.

Last year, with the aid of a 14:1 spending advantage, Ellison won by about a point.

He can be beaten.