It’s rhetorical, because Big Media never actually responds to the plebs.
But is it possible…:
…that there could be a less scientifically literate phrase than “believe in Science?”
How about “Think Critically about the data in front of us, and make an informed decision?”
Nah, that’s just more radical conservative talk.
People who invested their lives and fortunes, who filled out forms and jumped through hoops, who passed background checks and credit checks and character checks, people who pay wages and taxes and fees and support the local schools, are dirty, rotten, low-down criminals who ought to be thrown in the hoosegow. Keith Ellison is all over it.
From the article: “Two more courts have recognized the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the firm legal foundation of the State’s legitimate interest in putting a stop to it,” Ellison said.
Somehow, I doubt that. I’d bet a brand-new nickel the court didn’t listen to one minute of testimony from anybody about the Covid virus, its infectiousness or its fatality rate to determine whether Covid was actually a severe problem or not. And I seriously doubt there was extensive briefing on the rational basis between the alleged problem and the Governor’s solution, which is the Constitutional standard for government restrictions that take away a vested property right. Governor Walz’ restrictions are so arbitrary, so whimsical, so ridiculous that even the New York Times had to admit they were unscientific and bizarre. I’d be surprised if a court found differently.
Instead, my guess is the court simply presumed the order was a valid exercise of executive power and like the Red Queen, skipped the trial to go directly to punishment. As long as Democrats refuse to return power to the elected representatives of the people, Ellison will use the infinite power of the state to crush business owners, the courts will lie back and let him, and Minnesotans will continue to suffer.
When the political process is unavailing, the judicial system is unavailing, and the result is unjust, what’s the remedy?
Joe Doakes
Whatever it is, let’s f*****g get on with it.
Someday, when I’m absolute ruler and I impose a libertarian society by force, it’ll be legal to boobytrap packages to maim and mutilate “porch pirates”. So help me.
But until then, as Covid-era buying patters beget yet another wave of porch piracy plagues yet another holiday season, I figured this we the pick-me-up we all need:
Not enough fun to assuage your rage?
Well, lhere’sthe sequel:
And then, bigger and badder than before, this year’s episode:
And what the heck – since I know some of my readers are engineers, and others are just plain diabolical (but in a good way), here’s the how-to:
I, myself, see a glorious commercial manufacturing and marketing opportunity.
…for a Senator who knows science is a system of analyzing the world involving healthy skepticism of conventional wisdom and relentless questioning…
…rather than a pseudoreligion used to browbeat people into acquiescence.
Which, if you take her at her word, is apparently what she thinks it is:
Yesterday, Joe Doakes’ piece lamented the MNGOP’s perceived indolence on Governor Klink’s one-man power.
Senator Dave Osmek responded:
Mitch: I must respond to the re-post you made earlier today from Joe.
“Acquiescence is approval.” Recently, I have seen idiot lawn signs that say “White Silence equals White Racism”. I guess Joe believes that must be true too. Let’s all get our white hooded robes on! The Senate GOP has voted 6 times to rescind those “emergency” powers of TIm Jung Walz. That’s all we have. I guess if the 34 Senate Republicans (RIP: Jerry Relph) don’t strip naked, paint ourselves purple, and dance on top of the Capitol dome to protest enough, we just are a bunch of Quislings. Right? The Senate GOP has been trying, every month, to move the narrative and gotten zero Media pick-up. If the Media isn’t reporting on every breath of Walz propaganda, willfulling not asking hard questions, and laser-focused on the color of Kim Kardashian’s panties…they aren’t happy and are too busy to do their real jobs.
“Let the Democrats try to pass laws without a single Republican vote, until Walz relinquishes power to the Legislature, where it belongs.” Well, I have a little news for Joe: Tim Jong Walz is doing this NOW! Until the “emergency” powers are removed, he can pop out Executive Orders like a Pez dispenser, and he has. And the GOP senate…votes to remove the powers. Over and over again. Walz has written laws, and penalties to go with them. King Timmy can fine you and imprison you, with no actual law passed by the Legislature to back it up. And if we DON’T pass funding to help the victims of Walz (businesses and unemployed), who will get the blame? I guarantee you the Media would leap into gear and make sure EVERY person in Minnesota knows that the GOP Senate Grinches are responsible. Walz is responsible for this mess, but we have to try to help those businesses before they collapse because of Walz’s stupidity.
“Otherwise, what do we need Republicans for? Just let Walz run everything forever and save the per diems.” Be careful what you ask for, Joe. Nobody is more frustrated than the 34 Senate GOP Republicans, infinitely more than even Joe is . The Constitution is being used as toilet paper. The Legislative branch has been relegated to the Children’s Table at the Christmas dinner. We continue to try. We tried to change the law at the end of the regular session. If Joe wants a dictatorship, disbanding the Legislative branch, good luck.
Elections have consequences.
Minnesota law grants the governor a lot of power – predicated on the antique notion that governors would be people of unshakable integrity and commitment to republican government.
Events have shown the naïveté of that conceit, and the need to guard against it.
In 2015, a bipartisan majority voted to bar the governor from confiscating firearms, closing gun stores, and other anti-gun measures under color of a “state of emergency”. It was signed into law, amazingly enough, by Gov. Dayton. Its perspicacity should be obvious.
And people who care about liberty and checks and balances are going to have to do the same in coming legislatures.
Probably not this one – the DFL in the House is addicted to their governor being able to rule like Francisco Franco.
No – in 2022, we need a GOP sweep of the legislature and the governor’s office.
Seems like a tall order. But if I didn’t believe in miracles, I wouldn’t be a conservative in Saint Paul.
Remember – it’s not what you know.
It’s who you know that has the power and media acquiescence to flout the rules any damn way they want to.
…it’s important to remember that, being leftists, they will inevitably eat their own.
To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, impudent peasant and Covid “Survivor”
Re: I’m Here To Help
My Liege,
You and your administration have been having a hard time getting ahead of the Covid virus, and your stated goal of “controlling the spread”.
I’m here to help.
More proximately, I’m here to help by showing you policies from elsewhere in your own career that can fix things, deux ex Moderna, for you.
So this is what you need to do solve Covid’s violence against Minnesotans:
Glad I could help with these commonsense Covid laws.
That is all.
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.
To: Mike Lindell, Likely Gubernatorial Candidate
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Conservative Peasant
Re: Love Your Pillows. Don’t Love Your Rhetoric.
Mike,
For someone who wants to represent the party of liberty, the rule of law as opposed to the rule of men, and rationality, this is a really terrible look:
Look @dougducey you made the list and your crooked buddy @BrianKempGA! @realDonaldTrump please impose martial law in these 7 states and get the machines/ballots! https://t.co/GXWkRtHlRW
— Mike Lindell (@realMikeLindell) December 20, 2020
Now yes, you did delete the tweet – but nobody’s fast enough to get past the DFL’s oppo researchers and media. But I repeat myself.
Berg’s 16th Law exists for a reason. While a prominent elected Democrat can beat the snot out of his girlfriend with impunity, anything rash, impudent, ill-timed, context-mangled or yes, stupid, said by any Republican, anywhere, no matter how fringe, how isolated from power or the mainstream (which doesn’t describe Lindell, obviously), will be reported to the widest audience possible, in the least flattering context that can be engineered, and held against the entire part.
Love the pillows, Mike – but think.
That is all.
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.
Details on American Commitment and the Pelosi Drug plan.
A friend of the blog emails:
I don’t really like having police departments barricaded. But, I understand it. I look at [Saint Paul city councilwoman] Nelsie Yang’s post and I really don’t see a lot of support for her demand that the barricade be torn down, especially from non-White constituents, the very people she claims to be supporting in this action-
To social justice warriors like Yang and, let’s be honest, most of the Saint Paul and the entire Minneapolis City Councils, “social justice” with all its intellectual and political trappings is an abstract, academic concept that has little to do with the lives of their constituents – or at least the ones not employed in non-profits and academic humanities and soft science departments.
Rarely do people like Yang allow themselves to come into contact with the real life concerns of those they “represent”
When they do? It’s entertaining, at least.
Governor Fredo bans the sale and most display of “hate symbols” like confederate flags and swastikas in New York.
Because he can, that’s why.
I mean, there’s that pesky First Amendment and all..
But noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams argues Cuomo may have a larger problem on his hands, extending beyond a quick “technical” fix.
“Governor Cuomo is correct that the First Amendment may require changes in the law in light of the First Amendment. A private entity can choose to sell or not sell offensive symbols but when the government bans the sale of offensive, but constitutionally protected symbols, on its property the First Amendment comes into play,” Abrams told The Post.
A Cuomo spokesman said the governor’s legal team will be reviewing the bill in consultation with the state Legislature to make a possible amendment.
If we only protected speech everyone agreed with, we wouldn’t need a First Amendment.
Also – it appears Hammers and Sicles and “Che” t-shirts were untouched. #Unexpectedly.
From the never-ending “It depends on what the meaning of the term ‘is’, is” files – after seven months of demanding the defunding of the police, and a week of acting on it, members of the Minneapolis Student Senate…er, City Council claim they’re just misunderstood:
In June, Minneapolis city council members Steve Fletcher and Phillipe Cunningham appeared with seven colleagues on a stage bearing a huge sign reading ‘Defund Police’ during a protest in Powderhorn Park.
Now, the duo seem to be mincing words, with Fletcher telling KSTP-TV on Tuesday: ”Defund’ is not the framework the council has ever chosen,’ as Cunningham audibly agreed.
‘If we’re going to look at how we fund different programs, it would be very hard to do that without taking that money from the Minneapolis Police Department,’ he continued.
Have you ever noticed that the only establishment media that ever actually reports on Minneapolis is in the UK?
A friend of the blog emails:
What will be the next “crisis” needed to keep a Democratic governor in unchecked power?
The options are endless.
Thoughts?
Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to prevent Trump’s
election with the phony dossier. Didn’t work.Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to impeach Trump based
on claims Russian Facebook ads influenced the election. Didn’t work.Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to steal the election by
falsifying the machine count (as well as by stuffing the ballot box with
truckloads of illegal ballots).Democrat Governors used the false election result to certify a slate of
Electors.Republican legislatures adopted their own Electors.
When Congress meets in joint session to count the Electors’ votes,
Republicans will challenge Democrat Electors from the fraudulent
states. Under the Counting Electors Act, the House and Senate will
separately debate the challenge, Democrats will refuse to concede they
cheated because that would blow the whole plan to win by cheating.
Instead, Congress will be deadlocked so under the Act, the Governors’
slates will be counted. A Chinese puppet will be elected President.To prevent that, President Trump declares there was foreign interference
in this election and Democrat governors conspired with the foreigners to
deprive Americans of their fundamental right to elect their government;
therefore, the Governors are engaged in an act of insurrection and
rebellion against the United States. The Governors’ slates of electors
are illegal and cannot be accepted.Liberals already have a tame federal judge lined up to sign a
nation-wide injunction declaring the President’s actions illegal and
directing Congress to accept the Governors’ slates of electors. Trump
will declare civil courts have no jurisdiction over states in
rebellion. The Supreme Court will order him to stand down. Trump will
declare it’s a separation of powers issue wherein the Judicial Branch
has no authority over the Executive Branch exercising his Constitutional
Duty to defend the nation from insurrection. The President will ignore
the Supreme Court. If they send US Marshals to arrest him, he will order
military troops to arrest the Marshals and also arrest the justices who
are conspiring with the rebels.The President will announce that his exercise of authority under the
Insurrection Act will be temporary and will last only so long as
necessary to correct the damage done by the rebellion. He will order
the military to take charge of all ballots in the disputed states and
count them by hand, in the presence of observers who can challenge any
ballot. Protestors or demonstrators attempting to interfere with the
recount or intimidate witnesses will be arrested as insurrectionists and
held indefinitely without trial. The right of habeus corpus will be
suspended in rebel territories until the rebellion ends.When the ballot contests are decided, and the hand recount of paper
ballots is completed, the President will announce the results of the
election and will end the restrictions. If he loses, he will leave
office gracefully. If he wins, he will appoint Special Prosecutors to
root out the insurgents and insurrectionists.Democrats, professors, students, the media will scream that the
President has engaged in a coup to overthrow the government, that he is
Literally Hitler, and that everyone who supports him should be fired
from their jobs before their homes are burned down and their children
shot. The names and home addresses of suspected Trump supporters will
be published on the internet. Stores will be burned and looted. A few
looters will stray into residential neighborhoods where they will be
shot dead by homeowners. Law enforcement who arrest those homeowners,
and County Attorneys who prosecute them, will find their own homes
firebombed, their own staff and officers shot by snipers at home, in
their cars and on the streets.Governors will attempt to call out the National Guard to restore order
but President Trump will have nationalized them to serve under his
command. They will be ordered to protect federal properties and let the
rest of the insurrectionist state burn.This is the Good scenario. Only a few people die. We avoid the massive
casualties of total civil war. But people will die.Unless Joe Biden concedes.
Joe Doakes
What seemed far-fetched a year ago seems “enh, not unimaginable” today.
I believe a blogger of our acquaintance predicted this was going to happen.
c”A Minnesota court recently agreed to an uncommon approach to resolve criminal charges filed after the statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled at the Minnesota Capitol on June 10, 2020.
Ramsey County Chief Judge Leonardo Castro accepted the restorative justice approach proposed by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. Under the arrangement, a suspended prosecution would end in no conviction for defendant Mike Forcia.”
So in other words, if you’re fashionably “progressive” in Ramsey County, you can commit a crime, and be “punished” by telling school kids why the crime you committed was a good thing.
I can’t have been the only one to think of this episode:
…only done with a straight face.
Cornell – the Dollar General of the Ivy League – is requiring students to get vaccinated for Covid when a vaccine is available.
Well, most students:
That is, unless those students are “Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC).” Those students aren’t subject to the same stringent vaccine requirements of their white classmates, and though they are strongly encouraged to get tested and get the flu shot, the university offers them an exemption should they choose not to. The university even describes the requirements foisted on whites as “suspect or even exploitative” to its students of color.
Cornell won’t dispatch racial scientists to check the skin tone of any of these students, or ask for a DNA test. Merely identifying as “BIPOC” is considered grounds for exemption, meaning bonafide crackers like Shaun King or Rachel Dolezal could avoid the shot, were they students at Cornell.
Because apparently one’s stated identity has physiological effects.
We have the dumbest ruling class ever.
…that if you call yourself an “ethicist” on the one hand, but on the other seek to deny people either a good or service for which they’ve paid, or perhaps to which they are entitled, directly or indirectly, because they exercised their right to free speech, you’re not actually an ethicist.
You’re a wanna-be Mussolini given a stage, at least for a while, by the misery of others.
Glad I could settle that.
Carry on.
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.
I’m particularly proud of the interview I had last weekend with Peter Wood, author of 1620 – A Criticial Review of the 1629 Project. Wood and his book take a hammer to the historical fraud that the NYTimes sicced on the nation…
…and, worse, the miseducation of an entire generation about the history of our country.
It starts at 33 minutes into the hour:
Prager U has a similar message:
Remember last spring?
When Governor Klink told us we all had to sacrifice, while the state built up his heart hospital bed capacity (a commodity regulated by the executive branch he controls)?
Either, apparently, does Governor Klink.
The supply of hospital beds has dwindled since the spring:
Whether government responded to Covid with draconian lockdowns (New York, the UK, Germany, Norway) or deferred to individual responsibility (most of the rural west), or skittered back and forth between both extremes (Italy, Sweden), Covid infection rates have seemed to exhibit the behavior of…
…well, respiratory viruses, waxing and waning along with weather conditions more than any government action, or lack of it.
But throughout, the pro-authoritarian (“Mascist”) wing of America’s response has had one consistent villain; Americans. “If they only followed the rules and wore their masks”, they whinge (when not whinging about the feds’ response), “we’d have already conquered this” – completely ignoring the fact that many of the places that “conquered” the virus with aggressive measures are still, or have started, suffering horribly of late).
Of course, it’s pure gaslighting. Even early in the summer, before the “Mask Wars” became part of the ongoing cultural bar brawl, Americans were wearing masks voluntarily at among the highest rates in the Western world.
And, studies show, they always have, and still are:
The data, released in [the CDC’s] weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report, is roughly in line with other polls showing that most Americans report wearing masks, at least when they are inside stores.
For example, Pew Research reported in August that 85 percent of 13,200 adults they surveyed said they wore masks in stores, up from 65 percent in June.
In a National Geographic poll released early this month, 92 percent of 2,200 Americans surveyed said they always or sometimes wore a mask when leaving the house.
Now, this thread isn’t about whether masks are or aren’t effective – that discussion has happened more than a few times in the comment section.
It’s about government – as it becomes ever more authoritarian – using “masks” as a vehicle to blame the average schnook for its own failings in dealing with the pandemic.
Which is only going to get worse over the winter.
It’s that time of year. I’m receiving exhortations to Give Back such as this one from TCF Bank. They annoy me.
Why this time of year, particularly? The message doesn’t explicitly link December to Christmas to Jesus Christ and thence to a duty of Christian Charity, because that would be overtly religious and might offend someone. But if my obligation to Give Back isn’t a religious obligation, from whence does it arise? And if it is a religious duty, what if my religion takes a different view and why are you imposing your religion on me?
How much am I obligated to give back? 10% More? Is it a progressive obligation – the more I make, the greater percentage I must give? Give to whom? My church or mosque or synagogue, because it’s a religious obligation; or some do-gooder group so I can purchase a bit of vicarious virtue? Does ‘shopping locally’ count as ‘giving back’ if I shop at a nearby big box retailer because the little stores were closed by decree of King Herod . . . I mean . . . Governor Walz?
I dislike the modern fetish of using Christmas to promote social causes rather than remember Christ. I prefer the old method of soliciting donations for charitable causes:
‘At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir. . . A few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
That pitch appeals to me. So do the bell ringers at the Salvation Army kettle. That’s why I never pass one without dropping a buck in the bucket. I made a special point of withdrawing $20 in ones, just to have them on hand. Because they don’t engage in silly virtue signaling, they quietly help people in need.
Joe Doakes
1000% on board re the Salvation Army. I never pass one of them without dropping in a buck or five (or at least I never pass ’em twice – I grab cash and break the bill on the way out).
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