The Greased Pig
By Mitch Berg
After six years in office, four of them plagued with massive scandals including the largest Covid-aid scandal in the US, in absolute numbers (forget about per-capita), Governor Walz is swinging into action!
For those unfamiliar with government – say, who never watched “Schoolhouse Rock” as children – the Governor is in charge of the executive branch of state government.
Which means it’s his job to enforce the laws of the state, along with the rest of the executive branch. It’s literally one of duties, defined in the state’s Constitution. He’s supposed to be aided by the Attorney General, who is the state’s lawyer, and the State Auditor, ostensibly the state’s bookkeeper. Walz, Keith Ellison and Julie Blaha already have not only the power, but the duty to be dealing with the fraud that happened on their watch.
And fraud is already illegal. There is literally a law for that, as evidence by the fact that the Department of Justice is currently prosecuting Minnesota fraud cases.
The only need for a “legislative package” is to try to deflect some responsibility for the feeding frenzy of this past four years to the newly (and temporarily) GOP-controlled House of Representatives, and evade his and the MNDFL’s culpablity for the four years the Governor spent taking selfies eating Pronto Pups and standing by liked a hog that’d been smacked on the head with a hammer as his voters looted and pillaged a billion dollars or more from the state treasury.
The media will try to help him with this evasion.
And if the “conservative media” in this state ever had a mission in life, making sure they can’t enable that evasion is it.
January 3rd, 2025 at 10:04 am
Unbelievable what Wally thinks he can get away with – and then does. Metro area voters are such chumps.
January 3rd, 2025 at 10:45 am
The makeup of the new organization must reflect the people it’s intended to protect; therefore, the staff must be Somalis from the proper clan/tribe, who will deflect and suppress investigations which might prove embarrassing to the administration while promoting and encouraging investigations of others to fulfill the fundamental mission as explained by The Knucklehead In Chief himself: “We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!”
January 4th, 2025 at 10:13 am
Congress meets to certify the election January 6. The New York judge in the out-of-court settlement case set sentencing for January 10. Any bets on whether Congress will refuse to certify the election until after sentencing, on the grounds that if Trump is sentenced as a felon, he cannot hold public office?
January 4th, 2025 at 10:13 am
Spot on. The fraud at FOF was entirely discoverable already. As you know after 20 years working in the Finance department at Hennepin County I am intimately familiar with such contracts. The state retains the right to request any documents and does regular desk reviews. By their own admission they had reservations and should have followed up on them. They had enough contractual power to find the fraud, all it took was the intellectual curiosity and personal integrity to ask some tough questions.
I’ve been through dozens of desk reviews, contract negotiations, invoicing and audits of state grants. In other words I know that of which I speak.
No additional legislative authority is needed. But that is not what will happen. Instead a whole big new set of contractual protections will be formulated which will do NOTHING but bloat state government.
January 4th, 2025 at 10:48 am
John,
The Republican majorities have been seated and Speaker Johnson has been reinstalled so the House can conduct it’s business.
I’m sure that there are Democrats that will make their performative objections known (we already had a non-voting delegate do her performance yesterday). We may even see a Democrat culturally appropriate the Haka because that Kiwi went viral recently.
Of course, the Republicans will call out the Democrats for their hypocrisy about election denial.
Also, the Democrats “reformed” the Electoral Count Act to severely limit the ability of Congresscritters to block the Certification.
Trump will be certified as the President Elect on Monday.
January 5th, 2025 at 1:54 pm
Blizzard coming. Democrats leaving Washington. Congress can’t act to confirm. Judge in New York sentences Trump as felon in abstentia. FBI and US Marshalls sent to arrest fugitive- president-elect-felon engage in massive shootout with Secret Service……..
Film at 11
January 6th, 2025 at 6:40 am
passout;
I pointed out my own experiences with the fiscal irresponsibility of our state, specifically with MINIT. We all experienced the buffoonery with the DMV project. To point out one example, which I believe I called out a couple of years ago, there was an independent “consultant” that was on some project, who commuted from Chicago every week. NOBODY knew what he was working on. He was an arrogant jerk, was billing the state $200 per hour, plus expenses. He never got into the facility before 11:00 a.m. and left on Thursday after lunch. He wore custom made suits and shirts and $200 pairs of shoes. He ultimately got released for failure to deliver progress reports, but the state never went after the guy.
Of course, we all know about the millions that the Met Clowncil wasted over the years, much of which comes through the state. There is no accounting for any of it, even though they have doubled down every year.
January 6th, 2025 at 6:41 am
Moderation?! Already?!