Shot in the Dark

Tag: Winkler

  • Minnesota Political Haikus

    “No guns in capitol!”, Michael Paymar says amid Capitol Police. Mulligan Session! The only real question is which “Fail” to start with. The NARN is Fair-bound! Again, the constant battle against the cheese curd. Chaos in Egypt. How often must I explain it’s not that “Morsi”. 35 choices as Minneapolis votes. “Instant” runoff? Hah! The…

  • Open Letter To Ryan Winkler

    To: Representative Ryan “Beavis” Winkler” From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant Re:  Your Minimum Wage Thing Rep. Winkler, Here’s what technology has to say about your minimum wage hike.  Read it and think.  That is all. PS:  No, it’s not.  I know you’re not paid to think about these things; yours is not to reason why. …

  • Tech Vendors: “Thanks, Representative Winkler!”

    The inevitable result of across-the-board minimum wage hikes?  Fewer minimum wage jobs. Case in point; as minimum wages around the country rose during the 2000s, McDonalds started pre-cooking its hamburger patties, so they’d only need to be reheated in the stores.  This got rid of most of the traditional “burger-flipper” jobs, the ones that liberals…

  • The Media Mind

    I’m not a person who nurses a lot of peeves. I’m pretty much live and let live; I have my foibles, you can have your peccadillos.  But if there’s a trait among journalists that annoys the piddle out of me, it’s their tendency to imbue journalism with the attributes of a holy calling, and its…

  • Berg’s Eighth Law Is Also Iron-Clad And Universal

    The American Left is obliging enough to give me a world of confirmation that Berg’s Seventh Law (“When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds”) and its various…

  • Strib: Aiding And Abetting Racism?

    Two weeks ago, when Representative Ryan Winkler shocked the parts of the world that can still be shocked by referring to SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas as an “Uncle Tom” – something even junior-high kids in North Dakota thirty-something years ago knew was a racist slap – the Twin Cities media did what it always does.…

  • Open Letter To Representative Winkler

    To: Rep. Ryan “Beavis” Winkler From: Mitch Berg, uppity non-Harvard prole Re: Uncle Evasive action, stat! That is all.

  • Agents Of Decay

    I’m of several minds about MNGOP Chair Keith Downey’s broadside at the MNDFL and the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” in the Pioneer Press last Thursday.  On the one hand, acknowledging it is a sign that the Minnesota Left’s campaign – relying as it does on relentless name-calling and smearing – works.  On the other…

  • Uncommon Valor

    It was 150 years ago today, as the Battle of Gettysburg wound into its second day, that General Winfield Scott Hancock, commander of the Union II Corps, saw that the neighboring III Corps under flamboyant General Daniel Sickles had moved forward without communicating Sickles’ intentions to Hancock, leaving a yawning gap in the lines between II and III…

  • One Day At DFL Headquarters

    SCENE:  At the DFL headquarters, on Plato Boulevard in Saint Paul.  Chairman Ken MARTIN is sitting in his office. (Carrie LUCKING of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota walks in.  MARTIN springs to attention, salutes). LUCKING:  As you were.    (MARTIN sits as LUCKING settles into an overstuffed leather recliner) LUCKING:  So what’s going on?…

  • Can You Imagine…

    …what would happen if a Republican tweeted this: It’s Ryan Winkler, the Eddie Haskell of the Minnesota House of Representatives. And if he were a Republican, you can be sure that the Strib, the City Pages and the rest of the Twin Cities media would be giving him a rhetorical proctological exam. UPDATE:  Mirabile Dictu,…

  • The Left Hand Doesn’t Know What The Further-Left Hand Is Doing

    Depending on who you believe, the DFL apparently traded away a minimum wage bill for money to restore the building they see as their clubhouse the State Capitol. I stress the “depending on who you believe” bit, since I’m not entirely sure they even know themselves. Or maybe it’s just me.  Anyway – I read…

  • One Day At The Twin Cities Leftyblog Collective

    SCENE: at the Twin Cities Liberal Blogger Collective, located in a secret chamber below the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis. Liberal bloggers Cat SCAT, Derek ROSTON, Betty Rae TORSTENGAARDSEN, GUTTERBALL Gary, and Senior Blogger Randy POSTAL are plotting out their next days coverage, along with cartoonist Kevin LIVERWURST. POSTAL:  All right.  Let’s start working on…

  • The Knights Who Say “Living Wage!”

    SCENE:  Adriana and Michael GONZALES, age 30 and 32, owners of a small family commercial cleaning business and parents of three children, are walking through the woods near Minnehaha Park.  It’s foggy and foreboding. ADRIANA: Mike, did you see something in the woods? MICHAEL:  Yeah.  Looks like – guys in helmets? ADRIANA:  This is weird.…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Ryan Winkler, Brezhnev-Style Economist

    Conservatives joke that liberals just. Don’t.  Get. Economics. We joke, at times, that at some point a liberal is going to push for a “living wage” statute calling for a $100/hour minimum wage as a means to end poverty, followed by a bill barring any layoffs and banning bankruptcy. It’s a joke.  Some liberals shake…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Only The Master Gets To Write Gun Control Laws

    Over the years on this blog, I’ve made certain observations about human behavior as manifested through online media, like blogs and Twitter. I’ve captured and codifed some of these observations as “Berg’s Law“, a series of common observations that I’m pretty sure are universal. One of the most commonly-invoked Laws is “Berg’s Seventh Law”, which…

  • There’s Jobs, And Then There’s DFL Jobs: The Pool!

    After a couple of terms of “serving” as the Eddie Haskell of the MInnesota House, Rep. Ryan Winkler finally has to start earning what passes, in DFL legislative circles, for “his keep”. His first assignment in the majority?  Get Minnesotans working! House Speaker-Designate Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said in a news release today that Rep. Ryan…

  • Paging Major Renault

    Over at MPR, Tom Scheck brings us the latest DFL chanting point; the “links” between two GOP legislators (Rep. Gottwalt and Sen. Hann) who pushed a healthcare privatization bill in the last session, and the insurance industry.  State Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, led the GOP effort to cut spending in the state’s Health and…

  • Handicapping The House

    While the “Left MN” blog seems to be a re-boot of the late, demented but unlamented “Cucking Stool”, the site’s associate blogger Tony Petrangelo is one of those rare Minnesota leftybloggers who ought not be under police surveillance – a compliment I give rarely (becaiuse it’s rarely deserved).  Over the years, he’s written some excellent…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Slouching From Fargo

    How do you measure success in a politician? If you’re a liberal, it’s likely in terms of sheer volume of legislation created and money moved about.  Because to a liberal, government is about creating reams of paper, rules, laws, stuff for government to do. If you’re a conservative, it’s probably more a matter of princple;…

  • Shot In The Dark: The Strib’s News, Six Weeks Faster

    Via Power Line, I see that the Strib has noted the fact that 100,000 (currently 103,000) Minnesotans have carry permits… …which was first reported in this space on May 31; well over 1z00,000 Minnesotans currently have active carry permits. The Strib is finally on the story – and there’s good news, and there’s bad news.…

  • Conservative Voters: Step Off The Ledge (Part III)

    Over the past couple of days, I’ve analyzed the votes of the Legislative GOP caucuses on the stadium votes over the past few weeks, and found that if you’re a conservative voter, you have some reason to take consolation; the legislators we sent to the Legislature in 2010 on a conservative platform largely – not…

  • In A Just World…

    …a letter like this’d be popping up any moment now. ———- To: Minnesota GOP Legislative Caucus From: Governor Dayton / the DFL Legislative Caucus Re: Thanks Our GOP Colleagues, I know, I know – we call you all sorts of names, we lie about you and your proposals in the press, and we make you…

  • Ryan Winkler’s First Step

    Gary from Highland Park directed me to a quote in this piece about a bill that would make concert and sporting event tickets the personal property of the purchaser: “I don’t see your bill as a free-market bill,” said Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley. “[It’s] the Legislature weighing in and picking winners and losers among…

  • A Stadium Built By Unicorns

    In every engineering company in America, stuck on a bulletin board or taped to someone’s cube, is this cartoon: Everyone who’s worked in engineering or any kind of analysis has seen this sort of reasoning on projects; you start with parameters, end with a conclusion – and the details will get filled in later, once…