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).

Berg’s Eighth Law of Diversity states: “American Progressivism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder.”

And given the news that Trump had the highest share of the African-American vote since Richard Nixon in 1960, I’m going to suspeect that an awful lot of progs are going to be working extra-hard at gaslighting people back into compliance. Heck, it happened during the campaign, from Biden himself (“You don’t vote for me, you ain’t black, maaaaaan”), and becoming incredibly vicious when directed at actual “out” black conservatives on the retail level.

Gaslighting, by the way, is pretty much all you get from this piece on the subject in Medium (Motto: “Like Tumblr for pretenious and often narcissistic fops”).

It was hard to find a single pullquote that simultaneously encapsulated both the piece’s awfulness and its barometric nature for Big Left’s assigned role for black progressives. They all pretty much suffice.

So I cut to the conclusion (since I don’t want you all to have to try to stomach it):

And yet, the Black Republican bridge in 2020 is a bridge too far. There is too much “I” in their statements, too much “mine.” Too many personal anecdotes, too much misrepresented history presented as evidence. If you only want to go for yours, just say so. Or better, don’t say anything; people can read between the lines. Just stop citing Black survival as a reason for siding with a party that is wiping Black people off the map.

And is there a better statement to sum up all progressivism – “there is no “I” in “Unity”?

A friend of the blog emails:

Wow! Think the media will report Covid19 at our military academies in the coming weeks. No distancing, many with masks not covering their faces. 
Nothing to see here, right?

Another friend of the blog pointed out that the cadets and midshipmen were all parts of training cohorts that were pretty much together all the time anyway. Which to me introduced the question – if we take the information civilians in GenPop are given, doesn’t that still mean that the service academies are “superspreaders?”

That being said, I wasn’t too concerned, given that everyone involved is young, healthy, selected in part for a lack of pre-existing conditions, largely sequestered away from those that aren’t, and part of a demographic cohort with roughly a 100% survival rate.

And as neither was the NDSU Bison, it didn’t rise to the level of a priority for me anyway.

Never heard of this guy and his Baltimore restaurant – but I like the cut of his jib.

Crab cakes are sounding mighty good for Christmas dinner at the moment.

Just finished my annual physical, which I must take to get my prescription renewed for diabetes medicine. The doctor mentioned I am due for a colonoscopy this year but I said I was thinking about putting it off so I didn’t catch the Covid since medical facilities are one of the most contagious places. He said oh no, it’s bars and restaurants, that’s where all the cases are coming from.

Later, he asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving, I told him my mother had canceled Thanksgiving because Covid, they live near Rochester and there’s a huge staff shortage at the Mayo Clinic. Yes, he agreed, 900 staff people are out because of Covid and everyone should stay home for Thanksgiving.

So those Mayo Clinic doctors are a bunch of drunks? They’ve been hanging out in the bars where everybody catches it?

Ridiculous.  If health care professionals aren’t catching the virus at work, it’d be the first epidemic in history where that’s true.  Here’s the chart from the Minnesota Department of Health website on November 23, 2020.

TravelCongregate LivingCorrectionsHomeless/ShelterHealth CareCommunity: outbreakCommunity: knownCommunity: no knownUnknown050,000100,000150,00

Bars and restaurants aren’t even listed separately, they’re lumped in with all other “community outbreak” which includes weddings, funerals, political rallies, riots, and workplaces that are not residences such as meat packing plants.  Bars and restaurants are nowhere near as contagious as health care facilities and that makes perfect sense – hospitals are full of sick people, of course the virus spreads there.

I’m disappointed in my doctor.  He’s just reciting the party line, no independent thought, no analysis of contradictory statements made moments apart, but I should trust him because he’s a medical professional: he has a white lab coat and everything. 

I’ve met religious fanatics before, and also Liberals, so there’s no point in arguing about it. Just nod my head and make plans to buy medicine from Mexico online. No prescription required. 

Joe Doakes

I’ll cut clinic staff a little slack – between the pandemic and the state’s bizarre gyrations in “managing” the healthcare system, it might be more fun to work in one of those meat packing plants these days.

But I said a little slack. Let’s not get carried away. The doctor that skip “critical thought” on this will do the same when it comes to that “do you have guns in the house” question, when doctors start caring about that again.

The worst part of this pandemic may be how “science” has been turned from a system for analyzing what we don’t know, into a weapon to logroll people into line behind a conclusion.

It’s not just Karens karen-ing, or @NPRNews claiming there’s a “Team Science”, a consistant, constant body of knowledge and its high priests standing united against the uninformed peasants attacking the metaphorical observatory with pitchforks and torches. That’s bad – but it’s been a problem for a while, now.

Scientists are now adopting social media tactics, and “influencing” “followers” to “cancel” scientists they disagree with.

People are turning science into Scientism – a pseudo-religious, faith-based mass of dogmas combining the worst aspects of revival religion and social media herd mentality.

It’s been nine months since Minnesota landlords have been able to evict people for non-payment.

Charity? Well, sure – and an easy one for the State to pay for, since it’s all coming out of the pockets of landlords.

In Democrat parlance, landlords are an easy, cheap villain to demonize in order to rally support among renters. They’ve been the kick toy of both cities’ administrations for decades. The small, private landlord – a working stiff renting out his parents’ old houses or his own investment property – has been treated as a convenient Man in Black for a generation; there are urban non-profiteers who literally cannot refer to these people as anything but “slumlords”.

And the campaign has largely succeeded – both Minneapolis and Saint Paul have done a fine job of zoning, coding and harassing the small landlord out of existence in the Cities (replaced largely with public housing authorities who are, frequently, slumlords, by the way).

So – is the “eviction moratorium” an act of charity, or just another way for the DFL-addled state to help the cities finish extincting the small landlord?

The state’s defense to this lawsuit may help provide some answers to that.

So after leaving the Hunter Biden corruption story sitting out there untouched during the run-up to the election, the media is suddenly “discovering it”.

Why, it’s almost as if they were worried about hurting the Democrats’ chances before November, and realize the downside is “President Harris” now.

“Almost”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Does this look like $125? On the other hand, they were delivered right to my doorstep when I know there’s none to be had within a hundred miles, so I’m not complaining.

Not for me, of course, since I lost all my firearms in that tragic canoe accident a while back. Stocking stuffers for the boys and son-in-law. Should be a pretty good Christmas this year.

Joe Doakes

$1.25 a round? I’ve seen 5.56 higher than that. That’s some good shopping.

We may have to talk.

Hypothetically, I mean.