In the past, I’ve “joked” that anyone with an Ivy League degree should be disqualified from “public service”. 

It’s a “joke” – I keep using the scare quotes, because it’s only barely a joke – because over-educated fools have First Amendment rights, too. 

But to paraphrase Dennis Prager, it takes years of the “finest” education this country offers to make someone as ill-informed as Representative Ryan Winkler, who represents west-metro Saint Louis Park.

Winkler – known to many on and off Capitol Hill as “The Eddie Haskell Of The Legislature” – rocketed to national fame last year by calling Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom”, after which the Harvard-educated legislator pled ignorance that it was considered a racist insult. 

This week?  Big strong Harvard lawyer Ryan Winkler needs to tell those dumb widdle wimmins who watch babies and change bedpans all day how to run their businesses.  This from Twitter on Monday, in re the SCOTUS decision on childcare provider unionization:

@RepRyanWinkler: Union organizing is our best hope for equal pay for women and creating living wage jobs. Five activists on the Supreme Court can’t stop it.

Bear in mind, Winkler is speaking about unionizing daycare and home care providers – people (largely but not entirely women) who have created their own living wage jobs,with pay that varies but is enough to keep a lot of people doing the work for years and years; nobody gets drafted into the daycare business, right? 

Our friend Nancy LaRoche – chair of the 5th CD GOP – took at whack at Winkler’s reasoning.  

In response, Winkler puts on his best Roger Stirling impression in showing those dumb broads their place (emphasis added):

@RepRyanWinkler: @nwlaroche Unions raise wages. Dues are a small fraction of the financial benefit unions provide. Childcare activists are foolish.

I’ll just let that quote rattle around on its own for a bit.  “Childcare activists are foolish”, says the Harvard-trained lawyer. 

Of course, I sat through those hearings, and talked with those providers; the unions provide no “benefit” to providers whatsoever. 

They don’t “negotiate for better salaries” for the workers, because the workers are contractors working directly for families and patients.  There will be no union rep sitting in on the meetings between parents and the daycare providers!

They don’t “provide” any “training” for the providers that they’re not required by state law to provide themselves already to keep their licenses.

They don’t deal with work conditions, because those are already part of their state licensing conditions. 

In short, Winkler is either utterly ignorant, or lying. 

He also replied to a shot from MNGOP chair Keith Downey:

@RepRyanWinkler: @KeithSDowney Nobody is forcing anybody to unionize. Why do you oppose letting child care providers vote on whether to collectively bargain?

Because it won’t just be “child care providers?”  Because the unions have been organizing ringers, people who aren’t licensed providers but who will vote to unionize.   All the DFL’s talk about “letting providers vote” is a sham.  Again – either Winkler is ignorant, or he’s lying.

And again to LaRoche: 

@RepRyanWinkler: @nwlaroche Nothing stops them from running their business, they get to decide on and run a union, and negotiate higher rates. Good deal.

 They already negotiate their rates (and they’re already high; Minnesota has some of the highest daycare costs in the country).  They don’t get to “run” any union; Javier Morillo (of AFSCME) and Elliot Seid (of the SEIU) do.  And while they will have nothing to do with “negotiating” the “rates” that the providers charge, they will be right there collecting those dues, and kicking $2 million a year of them back to the DFL, with Ryan Winkler being a recipient. 

Winkler and the DFL expect you, the voter, especially the female voter who is most likely to be working in home daycare or personal care, are too stupid to know any better. 

On the one hand?  It’s just Eddie Haskell Ryan Winkler.  Nobody who’s political brain isn’t on autopilot – like, apparently, the DFL voters in his district – takes him all that seriously. 

But of the autopilot set?  Winkler is clearly being groomed by the DFL for bigger and better things (or was, until the “Uncle Tom” flap – and the media has buried that story effectively enough for the DFL to start easing Winkler back into the spotlight).

But does the DFL want to identify with this sort of paternalistic sexism? 

I gave myself a chuckle, there.  All sins are forgiven the DFL True Believer. 

Unionization will create not one single daycare job; it will raise no personal care attendant’s pay; it will improve not a single working care provider’s working conditions. Not one.

Walter Hudson smacks Winkler down good.

Over this past nine months, conservative groups have railed against the Lightworker’s Administration’s abuse of the IRS to suppress conservative political activity.

Of course, if you live in Minnesota, you’re used to this.  The “Campaign Finance Board” has been a cudgel used against (mostly conservative) grassroots groups since its inception.

But the Dayton Administration is doing its best to make things worse:

As we’ve learned, the IRS under the Obama Administration has been weaponized against conservative non-profits in an effort to stifle opposition speech, but that’s not the only avenue of attack. A partisan bill was introduced in the Minnesota Legislature, but ultimately defeated last year that would impose onerous new regulations on grassroots organizations like Minnesota Majority, Tea Party groups and numerous other non-profits

It’s back this year and it contains all manner of vague, subjective language (like “clearly;” “reasonable;” and “biased,” that will allow a small 6-member board, appointed by the governor to determine who has violated the proposed new campaign finance laws and who has not. “Bias” is often in the eye of the beholder. In this case, it’s up to the governor to determine who the “beholders” are.

The bills involved appear to revive some of the worst, dumbest, most turn-free-speech-into-crime-ifying aspects of the late, unlamented McCain-Feingold law:

HF1944/SF1915 proposes to create “free speech zones” on the calendar, allowing the state to determine when grassroots groups can engage in unfettered speech and when such speech would be regulated.

In other words, putting bureaucrats in charge of when and, inevitably, how you may “speak freely”.