Member of Biden’s “Covid Task force”, Ezekiel Emanuel, has a cutoff on quality of life:

Wondering if “Dr.” Emanuel has checked the “birth date” section of his boss’s bio…

Remember President Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program?  Trade in an old
car for a more fuel-efficient one, get up to $4,500 in federal rebate
money.  Your clunker was crushed.  The effect of the program was to
distort the used car market, driving up prices of starter vehicles for
the young and poor, making it harder for them to get to work.  The
distortion took months to settle out.

Remember the Obama administration pushing mortgages for minority
borrowers?  It was actually possible to get into a house with less
out-of-pocket investment than getting into an apartment; I saw lots of
examples in the land records.  The effect of that program was to distort
the lending market and when sub-prime mortgages crashed, it took a
decade for the foreclosures and bankruptcies to settle out.

Governor Walz issued his Stay Home order closing businesses and throwing
more than a million Minnesotans out of work (we know this because a
million people filed for unemployment, which is not available to youth,
part-time, casual, contract or small business owners; therefore, the
total who lost their incomes is much, much higher).  The mortgage
delinquency rate is the highest in 20 years but Congress put
foreclosures of federally insured mortgages are on hold and Governor
Walz imposed a moratorium on evictions. The effect is to distort the
housing market again.  There’s a flood of foreclosures and evictions
coming down the pike as soon as the pandemic restrictions are lifted. 
That flood will cause a slump in home values as lenders dump foreclosed
homes, which will drive home prices down, which will be reflected in
worse economic numbers for whomever is President at the time.  It may
take years to settle out, again.

None of this was unforeseen.  The foreseeable consequences of the lock
down were ignored in order to gin up support for mail in voting to make
the election easier to steal.  The cost of that decision is going up
every day.

Joe Doakes

This is what happens when there’s no real check on power.

The 2024 campaign has started…

…and the Associated Press is doing its job: trying to undercut Republican challengers.

In this case, South Dakota’s Kristy Noem, widely seen as a solid dark-horse contender (I’ve added emphasis):

It’s unlikely that much, if any, of the money will end up going to Trump, said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a campaign finance watchdog. Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer, pointed out that the governor can give a maximum of $2,800 to Trump’s campaign under federal law. If she wanted more to flow to Trump, she could have directed donors to the president’s own donation site.

“In all likelihood, she is keeping this money that she is raising,” Ryan said. “If she were actually interested in raising money for Donald Trump’s own legal efforts, she would use a joint-fundraising committee.”

Note the source – Common Cause, a “campaign finance watchdog”…

…that is part of the progressive non-profit industrial complex, outside of media quotations.

They must worry about her.

Alex Trebek, passed away at 80 of pancreatic cancer.

And there goes one of my bucket list dreams.

It’s been my thesis for some time that Democrats know they can say anything they want, because they know their audience are, shall we say, not critical thinkers, and that the media and education systems will do nothing to fix that.

To wit: Democrats who called for defunding the police now say that they never called for defunding the Police, Winston.

Emphasis added by me:

“Not a single member of Congress that I’m aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said on CNN’s State of the Union. “These were largely slogans or they were demands from activist groups.” The congresswoman, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, added that “Republicans levied very effective rhetorical attacks against our party” by linking Democrats to the movements.

Next, to continue the narrative that “democrats didn’t call for defunding the police”, is Ilhan Omar, who called for defunding the police:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who called to “completely dismantle” her city’s police department this year, went further and said it was a Republican “narrative” that radical movements doomed Democrats in swing districts.

I’m fairly convinced that if Red America seceded from Blue America, within a decade the good guys would have to intervene tell the Blues not to water their crops with Brawndo.

Kool 108 has already gone to the all Christmas music format.

No. Just no.

Joe Doakes 

Enjoy it while you can. A Biden FCC will require equal time for lesbian coffee shop folk music.

Apparently, the Menards in the Midway was worried about rioting Trump supporters.

They stacked up huge pallets of lumber in front of the doors – just like they did during the George Floyd riots / May.

Apparently, those Trump supporters I’m going to riot.

Any day now.

Just like those waves of “white supremacist terror“ we’ve been assured are imminent for the past 12 years or so.

If there’s anyone in the world not entitled to call Jonathan Chait “wound emotionally too tight and intellectually too loose”, it’s David Corn.

Words to live by: Don’t go Full-Bore Sylvia Plath.

Corn:

He went Plath.

I’m convinced most of the American Left stopped growing emotionally at around 14.

Whenever we discuss election fraud, Liberals are quick to point out the lack of convictions.  No convictions = no fraud.  They are using the wrong measurement and therefore reach an incorrect conclusion.

To obtain a conviction for voter fraud, the County Attorney must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a specific individual cast a specific ballot with full knowledge that it was against the law to do so.  That’s a high burden and in cases of massive fraud, would take years to clear up all the trials plus it would cost a fortune. No prosecutor wants to spend time and money on paper crimes over violent crimes.
In contrast, to find election fraud, we look for evidence that not all of the ballots were legitimate. A ballot cast by a person who’s been dead for years, cannot be legitimate, and there were lots of them cast.  A normal voter marks most of the races.  A ballot that only marks one race, a highly contested race, is not normal.  Is it possible that it’s a valid vote?  Sure, but when you get tens of thousands of them, all voting for a single race, all voting for the same candidate, the candidate who was losing until those ballots showed up . . . you begin to wonder.

Further evidence that not all ballots were legitimate comes when we see the supposedly neutral election officials violating established procedural safeguards. Election judges count ballots while poll watchers observe. Both sides having poll watchers is a quality control measure to ensure fairness.  But when the election officials kick out poll watchers but only one side’s watchers are expelled, that increases the likelihood of fraud.   

Ballots delivered to the polling place in an unusual manner, at unusual times, raises doubt about the legitimacy of those ballots.  Backdated ballots cannot be legitimate.  When the voting software incorrectly assigns votes to one candidate, always to the losing candidate, across several states, that’s an indication of fraud. 

Ridiculously high voter turnout (in some cases 200%) but only in select counties, is a red flag. 

Finally, the distribution of tallied votes can be mathematically analyzed using established formulas which have been used to detect election fraud in other elections.  The science shows likely fraud in key places.

Does this prove there was serious and widespread election fraud?  It does for me.  There’s just too much evidence to ignore.  If I had a Facebook account, I’d be changing my background.

Joe Doakes

The hard part, of course, is proving it in court, in blue states where the election laws were written to protect ballot-stuffing.

The real answer, of course, will be to take the Presidency in 2024, and clean out the leadership at the DOJ, and then go after Blue city election authorities the same way they went after Klan-run boards in the sixties and seventies.

“Anti”-Fa is an “idea”.

So are ISIS, Al Quaeda and every other toxic ideology in the history of the world.

Here’s the new documentary, “Antifa – Rise of the Black Flag”. It traces “Anti”-Fa’s roots back to the Communist Party of Weimar Germany…

…and straight through to the present day, right here and now.

Watch it:

This is not just an idea. It’s also not just a bunch of crazy kids. It’s not even just a domestic terror group. It is an insurgency.

Watch it.

Pass it along.

Make sure the Democrats, especially the MN DFL, owns it.

…Donald Trump apparently isn’t very good at getting the word out there.

Macalester students, forced to “study” remotely, get not a dime’s worth of break on their tuition.

Their institutions’ president has other priorities:

Now might be a fine time for conservative entrepreneurs to start getting into the higher ed business.

A friend of the blog emails:

MPR hires a white heterosexual male for a management position?

I’m sure he had to prove his bona fides.

There is no Third Wave of Covid cases.  There was no Second Wave.  This is still the First Wave. 

When Covid was detected, the Governor issued a Stay Home order to “flatten the curve” so that we wouldn’t overwhelm our limited number of ICU rooms with Covid patients.  That would have meant leaving people to die in hallways and parking lots, untreated, for lack of ICU space. Instead, the plan was to slow the spread of the virus which would delay some Covid hospitalizations.  Rather than a massive surge, we’d see a continuous caseload that was within our ICU capacity.  And it worked . . . no hospital ICU were overwhelmed.

The Stay Home order was never intended to permanently halt Covid deaths.  We knew all along people were going to die, we just didn’t want them to die for lack of treatment in a Surge.  Instead, we wanted them to die more slowly, with treatment if possible.  That’s working, too.

Covid kills old sick people in nursing homes, which created nursing home bed vacancies. But nursing home beds don’t stay vacant – there’s always a waiting list.  New residents move in, they catch the virus from the existing patients or the staff, they die of Covid.  It’s not a wave issue, it’s a location issue.  Nursing homes are slaughterhouses. 

And it’s not going to end.  As the virus kills today’s old sick people, other sick people are aging.  Tomorrow’s old sick people are going to die of Covid, too.  And the day after that, and the month after that, and the year after that.  Because that’s what old sick people do in the nursing home: they die, of influenza, emphysema, cancer, diabetes and yes, of Covid.

Nothing President Trump could have done would have prevented the virus from acting according to its nature. It’s here to stay, just like other illnesses that kill old sick people.  Get used to it.

Joe Doakes

Lose that extra weight (if I did it, anyone can). Get your blood sugar and blood pressure under control (it ain’t easy, but your life may depend on it). Wear a mask and don’t be lingering around older people and people you know are vulnerable.

Start trying to rebuild the economy the Democrats have utterly f****d.

That’s the way forward.

We hope.

So the pre-election polling saying the electorate was going toward Biden in landslide lots was wrong?

Who could have possibly figured that out?

Oh, yeah – anyone that’s been reading this blog for the past ten years.

There are three possible explanations:

1. Evolution! – The pollster’s craft hasn’t caught up with the “new normal”, in a society where people legitimately fear being “canceled”, losing jobs, social standing and being targeted for violence because of their beliefs.

That is simultaneously possible, and not mutually eclusive

2. Incompetence! – The pollsters absorbed the lessons of 2016, where they actually did a little better than they did this year…

…and learned nothing.

3. Never Ascribe to Incompetence What Can Be Chalked Up To Malice – I’m going to present three facts and a conjecture:

Fact 1 – On December 1, 2016, representatives of the New York Times and Washington Post newsrooms went on WNYC radio’s “On the Media“ program (syndicated on NPR) and said, In as many words, that was time to change the rules of journalism. It was time to move past “passing the facts on to people and letting them make up their own minds” to “Denormalizing Donald Trump“.

Fact 2 – in 1986, a UCLA psychology professor, Dr. Mehrabian, showed the existence of a “bandwagon effect“; when polls showed that a candidate had no chance of winning, “swing“ voters tended to stay home or vote for someone else.

Fact 3 – for the past 30 years, the Star Tribune “Minnesota Poll” has had a fairly clear pattern; the closer a race ended up being, the more wildly distorted pre-election polling numbers were. For example, they showed Tim Pawlenty, Norm Coleman and Tom Emmer getting blown out just before the election. All three races ended up being famously close. On the other hand, they tend to report blowouts pretty accurately; they had Amy Klobuchar and Kurt Bills pretty much dead on.

Conjecture: It’s not an “accident”, or a learning error, that polling predicting a landslide up until election day was completely wrong.

Thoughts?

Governor Walz, I have some questions.

In your press conference announcing the Stay Home order, you said the
Covid virus would kill 75,000 Minnesotans if we did nothing but only
50,000 if we implemented the strictest lock-down.  We needed to do that
to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICU rooms wouldn’t be overwhelmed.  Two weeks
later, you announced we had ramped up ICU rooms from 235 to 3,000 but we
still needed ventilators, which were on back-order.

Since then, we’ve been in continuous lock-down and now have the mask
mandate but ICU rooms are not overwhelmed with Covid cases; indeed,
hospitals are closing their doors for lack of patients.

Your administration gives daily briefings on the spread of Covid cases
and daily reported deaths as if these were bad things.  But weren’t they
part of the plan all along?  We locked down to Slow the spread, not to
Eliminate the spread.  We knew people would die, we just wanted them to
die more slowly.  Your plan is working perfectly.  Why aren’t you happy?

Which brings up the next point: when do you anticipate the lock-down
will end?  Right now, closings and quarantines seem to be based on case
rates, not ICU rates.  I understand that in theory, more cases could
lead to more ICU admissions which could overwhelm the system; but so
far, the statistics show that’s not happening.  We have plenty of excess
ICU bed capacity.

If all goes according to plan, eventually, everybody in the state will
have Covid but most of them will neither display symptoms nor require
hospitalization.  Is that what you’re waiting for?  If so, shouldn’t we
speed up the process by lifting all restrictions now?

Joe Doakes

It’s neither about science nor logic.

But Joe knows this.

Liberals are all excited about the number of Covid cases.  Not me. 
Cases don’t matter in a public policy discussion, only effects on the
public, i.e. hospitalizations and deaths.

Think of it this way: Covid is a virus, as is the rhinovirus, which
causes the common cold; influenza, which causes the flu; and herpes
simplex, which causes cold sores.  Those viruses are everywhere and
everybody has them lurking in their bodies all the time, but most of the
time they cause no symptoms so nobody cares that they have the viruses.

We don’t count cases of cold sore outbreaks because nobody dies of a
cold sore.  We don’t count cases of the common cold because nobody gets
hospitalized for it.

We do count cases of the flu because that does kill people – very young
and very old, mostly.  But not inactive cases.  We don’t go around
randomly testing people to see if they have influenza virus in their
bodies.  We only count cases that are bad enough for hospitalization or
result in death, because those are the cases that have a public impact. 
People walking around with virus in the body but no symptoms are ignored.

That’s how we should be handling Covid.  Count hospitalizations and
deaths, only.  By that measure, the epidemic is over.    125 people die
every day in Minnesota, from all sources.  The number of people being
hospitalized or dying from Covid is in the single digits.  If we weren’t
specifically searching for it, Covid would be indistinguishable from
statistical background noise.

The epidemic is over.  We won.  Open everything.

Joe Doakes

We have an entire generation – and on the left, probably more like two entire generations – who think “hardship” was “losing the 2016 election”. They hear people talking about the Spanish Flu, the breakdown of Europe, the Depression, World War 2, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Stagflation and the National Malaise, the Cold War and the Nuclear Arms race, and seem to feel left out of the Existential Dread sweepstakes.

And so Covid will serve as an existential crisis for a generation that doesn’t really know what existential crisis is.

I was 24th in line at Saint Paul Ward 4 Precinct 14 when the polls opened at 7AM this morning.

It was brisk, but a beautiful morning.

How did I vote? A straight second amendment ticket. The right to keep and bear arms is the canary in the human rights coal mine. A politician who holds your *God-given right* to defend yourself, your family, your property, your community and your freedom with contempt, will eventually show their spots on all the other liberties.

I voted for Jason Lewis, naturally.

And even though I’m still sore for him somehow beating Sia Lo in the primary, and thought for a while about using CD4 as my write-in vote for a third party (there was a pot party candidate as well), I voted for Gene Rechtziegel for Congress, because while I have no idea where he got the money, he must have spent well into five figures in ads at the Pioneer Press in this past week That’s commitment. Here’s hoping Sia Lo comes back in 2022.

Finally – for MN Supreme Court, given a choice between a DFLer who makes Bernie Sanders look like Jim Nash, and a woman who I believe aided in someone kidnapping a father’s children (something I neither forgive nor *ever* forget, and hate with the heat of a thousand suns) and has been beclowning the GOP for years, I wrote in my cat, Pickle Berg.

I made the right call on that one.

Brad Carlson, Lee Michaels and me will be on the air from the Doubletree from 8PM until it makes no sense to go any later, on AM1280 The Patriot tonight. Hope you can join us.

It’s easy to wonder, if you’re a conservatve in Minnesota, whether voting matters. I’ve even heard that from some Third-Party and Never-Trumpers that “your GOP vote won’t matter in Minnesota, so why not vote third-party?

But while I, like all Minnesota conservatives, have had the Lucy Pulling the Football Away moment far too often, and I don’t really trust polls on either side of today’s questions, there are at least some indications that today’s vote does matter, a whole lot.

And if (as my pessimism tells me is unlikely) Trump is ahead tonight, look for them – the Democrats and media – to try to undercut it. They already are.

So if you’re a Conservative / Republican, get out and vote as if they’re going to be trying to lock us up if we lose. Which, it seems, they are.

See you at the polls.

Anyone remember “Julia”?

The Obama campaign’s infantiolization of the American voter?

This video from Kamala Harris makes “Julia” look like John Galt:

This is what Joe Biden is a delivery system for.

President Trump is so strong, so virile, so . . . hyper-masculine, just like a Vladimir Putin or  some Confederate general. 

MPR really misses Pajama Boy.

Joe Doakes

I’ve got friends…well, semi-professional acquaintances that haven’t gone completely mad with partisan rage, anyway – at MPR, so I’ll not comment on the locals.

But it seems to have been decreed from on high that male voices that aren’t audibly African-American must sound like most of America thinks Pajama Boy sounded.

I’ve been doing these since 2004. It’s a different list every time. More different than most, this year.

So without further ado – 101 Reasons I’m Voting GOP.

1. Because most of politics is local…
2. …and locally, the DFL has made a hash of both cities at every level.
3. And although I can’t vote in CD5, replacing Ilhan Omar with Lacy Johnson would shake Minneapolis’s smug, sclerotic establishment to its core.
4. Ditto, replacing Foung Hawj with Alexander Buster Deputie.
5. Double-ditto Diane Napper vs. Patricia Torres Rey in SD63. Torres Rey has benefitted from the sandbagging of her district for long enough.
6. Because Amy Wazlawik thinks she can just say “it’s not my job, man” when her party’s hateful inner id comes roiling out. Elliot Engen will actually represent District 37B.
7. Speaking of the DFL’s inner id – a good chunk of my neighborhood got burned, looted and covered in graffiti…
8. …and the drug store I’ve been doing to for decades, which has done business in my neighborhood for over 100 years, got burned to the ground…
9. …and because one of the shops I take my guitars to got burned and looted…
10. …and the powers that be in this city seem to be trying to benefit from it.
11. Because the two businesses in my neighborhood that actually decided to put on a show of force to try to deter the Democrat mob – one run by immigratns, the other by a black family, by the way – were more likely to get punished within an inch of their lives than anyone doing the actual burning and looting.
12. Because of March 4, 2017, when a bunch of “Anti”-Fa attacked a Republican rally.
13. And one of them turned out to be the son of Hillary’s VP nominee.
14. And they didn’t even whisper “slap” at his precious widdle wrist. There are two justice systems in Minnesota.
15. Because the Minneapolis City Council believes that “law and order” is racist, and “expecting the police to provide the public order that is local government’s one unambiguously valid reason to exist” is “privilege”.
16. And they’re right. It’s a “privilege” every single taxpayer and voter deserves to get, because they trade not only their tax dollars but a little bit of their inalienable freedom to get it. Government had %$#@ best deliver.
17. Becasue it is a fact that until the President started talking and tweeting about sending in the 82nd Airborne or the 10th Mountain Division, Governor Klink was playing passive-aggressive games with Mayor McDreamy with the Minnesota Guard. Suddenly, once the President started flexing, the Guard showed up.
18. Because Governor Klink plays passive aggressive games with every f****ng aspect of government…
19. …while Trump plays aggressive-aggressive games with government. I’ll take aggressive aggression every single time.
20. Because instead of peace and order, our tax dollars are getting us social engineering and city goverment as tinker toy set for the political class.
21. And I’m not a ^%$#@ tinker toy.
22. Because the DFL has had sixty years of unfettered control in both Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There is nobody to blame but them.
23. And because the only thing they do besides yap about “privilege” is call for bike lanes and trains.
24. Because you – whoever you are, whatever your ethnicity or gender or orientation or whatever – are being gaslit.
25. If you’re white, you’re being gaslit to try to get you to think you’re not only a racist, but that your “whiteness” is a pathology of which racism is only one of an endlessly growing litany of symptoms.
26. If you’re black, you’re being gaslit to believe the only way you can succeed is by exhibiting “unity” with your race…
27. …but only the parts of that race that vote Democrat. Because your contribution to Democrat power as part of your identity group is the only thing that matters about you.
28. Same for Latinos – provided, again, that you vote Democrat.
29. Same for Asians. Except the work ethic that makes up a big part of the cultural stereotype about you will be turned against you when it becomes inconvenient – say, when assessing who benefits from affirmative action.
30. Gays? Ditto.
31. And that gaslighting is being weaonized to not only minimize and dehumanize people, but to manipulate and control them.
32. Because my old neighborhood, South Minneapolis, looks like Beirut in 1982, but is probably not quite as safe for civilians…
33. …and people in Beirut in 1982 could at least defend themselves.
34. Because businesses in Minneaolis and Saint Paul are boarding up again, even as I write this…
35. …and it ain’t because they’re worried about Trump supporters rioting.
36. Because the DFL wants to take your guns.
37. Because I’d like to stop worrying about whether my mom is OK in a long term care center in Minnesota…
38. …and Governor Klink is worthless in that regard. Utterly worthless.
39. What Governor Klink is, is an arrogant little man who runs an executive branch that thinks peasants should know their place and not get all uppity about “checking the “experts” work” and all that smart-people stuff.
40. Because Governor Klink’s “health economist” thought the “Model” – which predicted 70 times as many deaths as happened by July – was too complicated for mere peasants to look at.
41. Because the Iron Range deserves to go back to work, in actual mines, making real money. Not stocking shelves and cashiering at casinos, to make metro environmentalists feel better.
42. Because Governor Klink (and, let’s be honest, the state’s real co-governors, Peggy Flanagan and Melissa Hortman) play relentless identity politics.
43. Seirously – it’s literally the only message any of them have. Competence? Value for tax dollar? Check your privilege, peasant!
44. Because Ilhan Omar is so corrupt, Chicago called and said “dial it back, toots”.
45. Because if my stance helps deliver Lacy Johnson to Congress, it’ll be time well spent.
46. And if that helps Kendall Qualls beat Rotgut Dean, that’ll be almost as awesome.
47. And if Tyler Kistner sends Angie Craig back to Human Resources, where she blongs, so much the better.
48. Because there is no way CD 7 should be represented by a Pelosi-upsucking turncoat like Collin Peterson. The Dakotas chucked their Democrats; it’s time for CD7 to do it too.
49. And because I want to make Pete Stauber the first of what I hope to help turn into a safe GOP district for a few generations.
50. Because sending Jim Hagedorn back to Congress is not just right for southern Minnesota…
51. ..but would be q wonderous slap in the face for Kim Norton, mayoro of Rochester and a woman who would be more in place in some central American banana Republic.
52. Because the DFL has its crosshairs on gun rights in Minnesota.
53. And they work for the same people that’ve promised to use “red flag” laws to harass gun owners.
54. Because all of Joe Biden‘s “plans“ – curing the epidemic, create 5 million jobs – reek of unicorn farts.
55. And in normal times, government making vapid promises it can’t possibly deliver on isn’t a bad thing…
56. …but getting the Democrats into complete control of the wheels and levers of government at any level is going to be a disaster…
57. Because the Demorat party at all levels is talking about “Unity” – the dumbest, most facile cliche in an industry built on facile cliches…
58. …but it’s more toxic than just a cliche. The unspoken codecil to “Unity” is “behind our beliefs, only, peasant”.
59. Because the Democrats had a chance to exploit whatever anti-Trump sentiment is out there by meeting disaffected Republicans halfway…
60. …and stuck with tax hikes
61. …and gun control…
62. …and the destruction of healthcare…
63. …and abortion on demand up until birth…
64. …and even after…
65. …and the further dilution of whatever’s left o education…
66. …and “the Green New Deal” – aka “an untrammeled transfer of wealth and power”
67. …Because their “Unity” means your subjugation.
68. Because Joe Biden is a delivery system for Kamala Harris
69. And Kamala Harris is a delivery system for The Squad
70. And The Squad is a delivery system for Bernie Sanders and his pack of apparatchiks.
71. And Bernie is a delivery system for socialism.
72. Because of the Venezuelan restaurant owner that tossed Kamala Harris from his establishment.
73. And the reasons he did it.
74. Because I’m a Second Amendment activist – and whatever “progressives” are condescending cooing these days, they are coming for the second amendment.
75. Because while I’ve been a Trump skeptic, at best, for a generation – literally – the alternative is worse.
76. Because the “never Trump” movement, given a chance to provide a genuine conservatisve third way between Trumpism and (let’s be honest) Communism, chose to enable Communism.
77. Because the Lincoln Project is to “conservative principles” what Vox.com is to “Journalism”.
78. Indeed, because many of Trump’s enemies are people and organizations I respect far, far less even than Trump.
79. Because while I was juuuust this side of “Never Trump”-ism four years ago, and he’s got immense flaws as a conservative and as a President, he’s accomplished far more than I had hoped in the past four years.
80. And I’m a principles voter – and my principle is “screw up the country less than the opponent”. It’s a low bar. Biden doesn’t surmount it.
81. Because of Justice Gorsuch.
82. And Justice Kavanaugh.
83. And Justice Coney Barrett
84. And the possibility – admittedly slim – that yet another seat might come up for grabs in the next four years.
85. Because the Democrats have said plainly (or been quite plain in their selective silence) that they plan to pack the Supreme Court…
86. …and otherwise gut checks and balances on executive power.
87. Because our “elite” media, starting in December of 2016, dropped all pretense and went full in-the-bag for the Democrats…
88. …and they deserve to lose.
89. Because blue half of our country sees the red half of our country as a little less human, and that must not be rewarded…
90. …much less put in a position where they can give that attitude teeth.
91. Because Democrats are calling for a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” – in other words, they want to settle scores for the impudence of defeating Hillary.
92. Because of every smug little progressive prick who yaps about red voters “voting against their interests”…
93. …without how the policies and politics that gave us Newark, Detroit, Baltimore, NOLA, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Stockton, Camden and North Minneapolis are “in our best interests”.
94. And because every time I ask progs to answer that for me, they skip away in a cloud of deflection and ad homina.
95. Because of the Vietnamese, Cambodian, H’mong, Polish, Russian, Cuban and other immigrants who came her to escape communism, socialism, warlordism and all manner of other high-and-low-brow authoritarianism…
96. …and keeping it from happening here.

97. Because I believe in the best of western civilization.

98. And while Donald Trump may not be the finest example of the western intellect at work, he at least respects Western Civilization, with all its imperfections and (this is important) incredible successes on behalf of humanity.

99. And modern progressivism repudiates it.
100. And western civilization is worth fighting for. Preferably peacefully – and voting against the death of western civilization is better than literally going to war.
101. And so I’m voting GOP.

Last week, Dictator-for-Life Walz assured us rising numbers of Covid cases was due to 18-35 year olds not following appropriate mask and social distance procedures. He issued Executive Order 20-96 which limited gatherings to 10 people for two weeks, then 50 people for two more weeks, then 25 people thereafter. That Order was based on SCIENCE.

This week, he changed it to zero. No gatherings for four weeks. This Order also was based on SCIENCE.

What changed about the SCIENCE? The Governor says:

“I recently issued Executive Order 20-96, which placed limits on the social gatherings and establishments that posed the most serious concern according to MDH data. In the week since, MDH has confirmed over 30 additional outbreaks connected to the gatherings, bars, and restaurants that were encompassed by Executive Order 20-96. Unfortunately, these numbers, our statewide cases, hospitalization rates, and our levels of community spread demonstrate that a temporary dial back on in-person social activity and restrictions on certain businesses are necessary.”

Okay, so we’ve identified the problem and it’s 18-35 year olds going to social gatherings in bars and restaurants. But then what does this mean:

“Minnesota’s rate of “community spread”—meaning those cases that MDH cannot link to another case or a source of exposure—is particularly concerning. At least one third of all new COVID-19 infections in Minnesota have no known source.”

and also:

“Minnesota is currently averaging over 100 cases per 100,000 residents each day. These numbers tell a troubling story. The virus is everywhere, meaning that every interaction we have with people outside of our households poses a risk of transmission. When we cannot effectively trace infections due to community spread, we cannot keep COVID-19 out of our businesses, our schools, or the congregate care facilities that house our most vulnerable residents.”

So . . . last week, we knew enough to leave everything open with some limits. Today we don’t know anything so we must lock down everything even though the virus is everywhere and nothing we’ve tried to stop it, has done anything.

The evidence does not support the conclusion.

I’m starting to get the impression Kevin Roche at Healthy Skeptic is right. The Dictator-for-Life is not a bold leader protecting us from certain disaster; he is an Incompetent Blowhard.

Joe Doakes

He’s a gym teacher, using the tools of his trade – yelling and putting people in corners.

December, 2016: “Perhaps “blue” America, especially its “celebrity” class, has learned its lesson – that gratuitously insulting half of the population, treating them like a bunch of cartoonish caricatures, wasn’t the best approach to winning an election”.

November 2020: Narrator: “They did not learn their lesson”.

However the election comes out, I need to print up a few hundred of these.

And, in my neighborhood, rub them down with poison ivy.