The flotsam and jetsam of the left’s social media legion of the invincibly depraved has legs so tingly this morning at the news the POTUS and FLOTUS have Covid, they had to drag themselves hand over hand to the kitchen to make their avocado toast.

Of course, they were in Duluth before the news broke, so the Twin Cities media has jumped into high gear to investigate, not ballot harvesting (oh, good heavens, no) but just how close Minnesota’s GOP congresspeople and candidates actually were to the President.

Strib columnist Jennifer Brooks:

Don’t worry, Jen. John Thompson is on it.

If the FCOTUS recover without complications – fingers crossed, prayers being prayed – I’m almost tempted to send all these “journalists” sympathy cards.

A whole bunch of general counsels for a whoooole bunch of media outlets are changing their drawers right about now:

I’m smelling panicky settlements in the air.

One of them thinks the other is wrong, and a little crazy – in both the “annoying” and, increasingly, “dangerous” senses of the term.

The other hates the other America. Also America itself.

The longer this goes on, the less I think there’s any point in trying to preserve a union, barring some unforeseeable commitment to radical federalism.

The first requirement of an orderly society is order which must be imposed by an impartial judiciary.  That cannot happen when the judicial system is afraid of violence.

***

Old:

From: Chief Judge
To: All Employees

You may have read or heard that the Court House was locked down today for about 15 min. After a sentencing hearing on a homicide, the families of the defendant and victim engaged in a dispute that was broken up by deputies. Soon after, gun shots occurred on Wabasha and 6th St.  Deputies locked down the courthouse as a result of the gunfire. It is not clear to me if the events were related. 

Based on information I have received, no one was injured and bullet casings were collected. The matter is under investigation. It appears that at no time was our courthouse security compromised. The deputies took swift and appropriate action throughout this disturbing incident.

New:

From: Chief Judge Joe Doakes
To: All Employees

In the past, when the judicial system was subject to violence, we hid and hoped to be killed last.  From now on, when a violent situation arises, all employees shall report to the nearest Arms Locker where the Master at Arms will distribute restraints, gas masks, and weapons, at which time use of deadly force to protect both judicial property and employee lives is authorized.  Employees may stand their ground to do so; the requirement to retreat is suspended.

***

That ought to help. Now, let’s talk about the George Floyd trial, and about Supreme Court nominees.

Joe Doakes

The policies that’d go into effect if Mitch Berg were in charge – suffice to say it’d be more than judicial branch employees.

Once the governor declared “state of emergency” related to the breakdown of public order, the order to retreat would go the way of the Hibbing chopstick factory, and the sign of a weapon in the hands of a violent mob would serve as reasonable threat of death or great bodily harm, and one’s property would be every bit as defensible as lives.

Make me Governor, and this, I promise.

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.

My wife as a 40-year history of low back pain.  It’s been good lately,
but she stumbled and fell the other day.  Now, she’s in intense pain,
can barely move.  We’ve been icing and heating, ibuprofen and Tylenol,
not helping.

Because of the opioid crisis, she cannot get stronger pain medicine
without a diagnosis.  She can’t get a diagnosis without imaging (MRI). 
She can’t get imaging without a doctor’s order. She can’t see her doctor
because she’s out of town.  So today we’re going in at 6:00 p.m. to see
some new doctor hoping for an imaging order and some temporary pain
relief, a couple of Vicodin, just to get through the night.

It’s insulting, it’s shameful, it’s infuriating that a senior citizen
must lie in pain because some bureaucrat is worried about junkies
getting high.  If I knew where to get black-market Vicodin, I’d buy it
in a heartbeat.  And don’t even get me thinking about sticking up – I
mean, peacefully protesting – my local drugstore.  I’ve already got the
mask.

Joe Doakes

I had some exposure to this issue during the session – I was involved with some friends, drumming up phone calls to help reform the “Reforms” that led to the situation Joe describes, “reforms” that made it possible for the authorities to destroy the careers of doctors who prescribed painkillers out of line with untrained bureaucrats’ recommendations.

Talking with Representatives on the subject – including my own “representative”, Rena Moran – was a truly horrifying experience. One got the impression that the original “Reforms” had been pure ass-covering for the legislators (and neither party was blameless, not that I’m going to give Moran any slack), and with asses covered, they were done discussing the issue.

I used to joke that for Ron Paul to achieve the goals for which he campaigned in 2008 or 2012, he’s have had to have staged a libertarian coup d’etat, and imposed liberty by force via an absolute libertarian dictatorship.

That’s becoming less and less facetious over time.