If there are two bright spots in this current legislative session, it is the emergence of Harry Niska and Walter Hudson, as two of the best state legislators in the United States.
Here, Walter finishes the job Harry started, giving the single best explanation of why the DFL, and the StarTribune, are lying about the removal of language, regarding pedophilia from state statute.
Pass this around, like it’s hot.
Members of the House of Representatives routinely vote for each other.
The Minnesota House’s hours-long floor sessions are often mundane and monotonous, the chamber regularly half full at best. But when members get to voting on an amendment or a bill, the chamber suddenly looks as bustling as a bee hive.
Members press the green and red voting buttons at their desks to cast a “yes” or “no” vote. But some of them aren’t just recording their own vote. Many stretch, lean over and press the voting buttons for their seatmates, who are gone.
Then, a handful get out of their seats to make sure all the empty seats around them have a vote cast.
Where are the missing members? And why are they surrendering their vote to their seatmates?
Which is technically a violation of the rules, but hey, rules are for peasants.
The reps involved have their, er, reasons:
House members say voting for one another is a longstanding practice and no cause for alarm — though it’s technically against the rules.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, doesn’t believe the practice compromises the legitimacy of the vote.
Walter Hudson goes into the reason behind the reason:
This – the serious work being argued out behind closed doors by the Governor, Speaker and Senate Majority leader, has been a problem since at least the early years of the Dayton regime, if not longer.
The Pandemic made it worse; the state was in effect run by a junta, and the Legislature was of no more use than the Supreme Soviet.
That’s something for a future, good government to fix, if we ever get one.
The new head of Planned Parenthood Twin Cities is Ruth Richardson.
Who also happens to be a Minnesota state representative:
Wonder if she plans on recusing herself from votes on Planned Parenthood funding if the media would say anything about it even if she didif the media would say anything about it even if she did or BWAHAHAHAHAHhHhaaaaa sometimes I say the dumbest things.
I wouldn’t say there was much in the way of “surprises“ in the primaries last night. Mostly confirmation of existing hunches, and a brief stab of hope followed by waves and waves of confirmation that Minneapolis is not only screwed, but seems hell-bent on participating in its own screwing.
The marquee race, Don Samuels tackling Ilhan Omar, ended up a lot closer than I, or anyone, I suspect, figured it might.
That is painfully close. A few hundred people who kvetch about crime turning out? A few hundred Republicans crossing over? An errand thunderstorm? All could’ve affected the results enough to retire Omar.
I have to expect the results surprised congresswoman Omar as well; she ran almost no television, and a fairly languid campaign up until the frenzied (and occasionally tone deaf) tour with The Squad this past week. Primaries usually draw the party’s loyalists to the polls – the hard-core who also go to caucuses and the next layer outward. In Minneapolis. that generally means white, upper-middle-class progressives, and public union employees. I haven’t looked at the precinct results yet, but I have to suspect Samuels started getting people to the polls who normally wait ’til November, if at all, to vote.
Omar pulled it off by two points. If she doesn’t focus on crime, and Minneapolis continues to deteriorate, someone else – Samuels, or some new law and order DFLer – might have a shot.
Which is probably the closest thing we can find to a silver lining on the next two races.
In Hennepin County races, the top two finishers in the primary go onto the general election. and if the choices of the county voters gave themselves last night are any indication, there is going to be a big opportunity for a “law and order“ candidate in two years.
It’s hard to come up with an adjective phrase even softer than “soft on crime” to describe the choices that will move to the November ballot. Mary Moriarty and Martha Holton Dimick will be the “options“ this fall for Hennepin county attorney. Mori
And for sheriff, committed progressive Dawanna Witt will square off against Joseph “Who?” Banks. When Witt wins, she will make Dave Hutchinson look like Ted Nugent.
Last night – at least as re the CD5 DFL primary – was a little spasm of common sense and protest voting in the highest profile race in the city, the results are fairly clear; the people who come out of the primaries are fine with Minneapolis’s status quo.
On the other hand, the DFL finally cut itself loose from its biggest public relations boondoggle of 2020; John Thompson got pummeled, with a level of voting that suggests orders went out from party HQ:
And in house district 52 a – the area around my radio station – the reliably moderate, center left Sandy Mason got pummeled…
by…
Liz Reyer.
Liz who?
I don’t know who she is, but she pulled off the exceptionally difficult combination of “ELCA hair“ and pink. Not just literally, but figuratively and morally:
So Eagan has moved from center left to “Alandra Cano“ territory.
On the GOP side: Jim Schultz beat back a challenge from Doug Wardlow, to advance to run against Keith Ellison for Attorney General this fall.
Every time I see these, I have to ask – who are the 12 freaking percent of people who vote for Sharon Anderson?
I’ve got nothing against Wardlow; I’ve emceed or spoken at five of his fundraisers over the years. but I’m having a bigger and bigger problem with people defying the party endorsement. Especially after saying they would honor it.
Speaking of honoring endorsements: in the new 33B, endorsed candidate Mark Bischofsky prevailed over Tina Riehle, a candidate supported by most of the GOP brass (including Kurt Daudt and Karin Housley, who took a break from opining for the sanctity of the endorsement to float Riehle against the endorsed candidate, for reasons I am just not advanced enough an intelligence to figure out)
Here’s hoping the GOP can pull it together enough to get behind the primary winner, and flip that very winnable seat.
Whenever your Democrat friends condescendingly coo “nobody is coming for your guns”, just remember – they’re coming for your guns:
Gun owners in Minnesota had a pretty easy session last year. This year, the Dems have to try to turn out their base. Grabbing guns certainly gets the Karens and Mascists and ninnies of the left lathered up.
More this weekend.
Senator Melisa Lopez Franzen took what some called a “brave” stance in going after the perps in a sexual harassment scandal at the MN STate Capitol earlier this year.
A Senate staffer, Cynthia Callais, reported being harassed by a Legislative staff manager who happened to be related to Senator Jason Isaacson, a prominent DFLer.
The fracas led to the resignation of Susan Kent from her Senate Minority Leader role, and her announcement she wasn’t going to run again – potentially opening a seat for a GOP challenger, but that’s another story.
So Lopez Franzen just got elected to Kent’s old position.
And look who’s BFFs:
It’s not about justice, for women or anyone else. It’s about power – personal, and partisan.
Tim Walz joins Melissa Hortman, Ryan “Uncle Tom” Winkler, and Ken “Alita Messinger’s Shih-Tzu” Martin in calling or John Thompson’s resignation.
The reasoning?
“…he can no longer be effective”.
He was “effective” enough after his “Burn Hugo Down” antics for the same three people to endorse him for election.
So – what are they thinking?
My guess:
Threatening children: Effective.
“Burn down Hugo”: Effective.
Be a human virtue-signal to the most over the top “progressive” wing of the DFL: Effective.
Be a potential polling drag on the rest of the DFL heading into what could be a tough mid-term?: Aaaaaaah.
Bonus Question: Does anyone out there seriously believe the DFL knew none of Thompsons domestic violence or, er, domesticity allegations before he got elected?
Our thorough discussion of Ryan Winkler’s tweet established that
Democrats have a strong personal belief, perhaps even a moral
conviction, that public safety is a government responsibility.Our thorough discussion of the lawsuit against Minneapolis established
that when citizens suffer because government abandons its
responsibility, the citizens have no recourse under existing law.You must rely on us; but you can’t rely on us. That’s Catch-22 and it’s
not a joke, it’s official policy.So the obvious question is: When will Ryan Winkler introduce legislation
creating a right for citizens to sue the government for failing its
responsibility to protect them? And will the new law be retroactive to
cover the riots?Ryan Winkler talked the talk, but will he walk the walk?
Joe Doakes
No point of Rep. Winkler’s career has been about “walking” any “walk”.
It’s been about pointing at others shortcomings, real or manufactured, and jumping up and down and pointing and flinging poo.
That should clarify things.
Imagine this: you are walking through downtown…er, Brainerd. It’s dark out, with a tinge of fog in the air. A car full of rural youth with mischief on their minds rolls up and jumps out. One has a gun, another a baseball bat. They are making loud, rural-youth-y noises. In a split second, you discern:
In a split second, you decide that your concealed handgun is the best way to resolve the situation – whether you shoot or not.
And after the episode, you call the police, lawyer up, and get ready for the process of proving to the court that your decision was correct…
…during which time a county attorney, sitting in a warm, safe office with a Keurig and stacks of law books and protected by metal detectors and deputies, will pick over the life-or-death decision you were forced, against your will, to make on a cold, dark, foggy night in Brainerd, with a grisly death potentially seconds away, to see if your attempt to flee was satisfactory enough under not only statue, but according to at least a dozen items of Minnesota case law.
Seem reasonable?
If so – in what world? Seriously?
Turnabout
After a couple of sessions of playing on the defensive on gun rights, the good guys are going over to the attack.
A Self Defense Reform bill has been introduced at the MIinnesota State Legislature.
ACTION ALERT – STAND YOUR GROUND
BILLS INTRODUCED IN HOUSE & SENATE
Our Stand your Ground bill has been introduced in the Minnesota Senate by Senator Carrie Ruud (R – SD 10) as Senate File 13 (SF13) and in the Minnesota House by Representative Lisa Demuth (R – 13A) and Representative Matt Bliss (R – 5A) as House File 131.This bill, known as Self-Defense Law Reform, or “Stand your Ground”, legislation simplifies Minnesota’s self-defense law by codifying the 10-12 court cases that interpret our existing statutory law while removing the ridiculous “duty to retreat” concept that requires Minnesotans to retreat from an attacker before defending themselves with force.
This is our Stand your Ground legislation with bill content honed by use of force and legal experts and backed by our years of advocacy experience.
Why propose the change to law? See the example above.
But why try to pass the bills now?
Future Math
You may ask yourself “Why? What’s the point? There’s a DFL governor, and the House is controlled by Melissa Hortman and Uncle Ryan Winkler?”
Think about it for a moment: the DFL lead in the House is pretty thin, and several of those DFLers are in distant suburbs that went for Trump, or are net-Red districts in normal times. And there’s history – in 2002, the gun rights movement pretty much extincted all the anti-gun DFLers, leading in short order to passage of Carry Permit reform in 2003. And that was at a time when the state wasn’t nearly as polarized on gun issues as it is today. And if Hortman causes the bills to be tabled in the House while it passes the Senate? That’ll be remembered in 2022.
And Governor Walz? If he vetoes such a bill, it’s going to be used as an electoral sledgehammer against every DFLer outside 494 and 694. And it’ll draw blood.
Turn Out
The MN Gun Owners Caucus runs an “Action Center” with info on contacting your legislators, as well as all the other things we can do to move the needle on this. Remember – Senate File 13, and House File 131.
Eventually the Legislature is going to get tired of replacing melted switchboards.
ME (talking with a political operative who shall remain nameless): “So I see The DFL houses committee assignments are out, and representative Rena Moran is the chair of the house ways and means committee“.
OPERATIVE: “Ha ha. That’s pretty funny. “
ME: “No – I’m serious. Rena Moran. Chair of Ways and Means.”
OPERATIVE: “…”
ME: “ I know, right?“
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.
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.
After a session of being neutered and stripped of their leadership positions by the increasingly metro-dominated DFL, there’ve been rumors bouncing around CD8 circles that Senators Bakk and Tomassoni were going to bolt the DFL.
And according to Tom Hauser, that may be in the near offing…:
…although not quite to the point of joining the GOP.
Rumors are bouncing about as to which party the “Independent Caucus” will work most closely with – but either way, Bakk and Tomassoni are going to be the most popular guys on Capitol Hill when the session starts.
It doesn’t seem a stretch that on issues of mining and gun rights – and, likely, a few more – the Senate has gone from 34-33 GOP to 34-31-2, and the DFL agenda just got even farther out of reach.
What’ll it mean for Governor Klink’s emergency powers?
My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that the House DFL will dig in harder and get more extreme.
Thoughts?
I’d like a list of the 25 former GOP members who crossed the aisle to keep Governor Walz’ one-man-regime in power, in exchange for endorsements from trade unions who will benefit from the spending bill.
Please include home addresses, so I can send fruit baskets to thank them for selling out the people of Minnesota.
Joe Doakes
Not gonna lie – and if you are a MNGOP staffer, by all means feel free to pass this on to Jennifer Carnahan, Paul Gazelka and Kurt Daudt – but the whole “acting like DFLers” thing wasn’t amusing even before the state got swallowed up in a DFL coup.
It’s not been an easy few weeks to be a Minnesota Repubican.
Once upon a time, I got some great life advice.
“Find what you’re good at, and run with it”.
John Thompson, would-be DFL rep from District 67A, the East Side, apparently got and practices the same advice.
He does seem to like burning down suburbs. Or at least talking about it.
Sure, that’ll solve police overreach against blacks. Run with it.
Hey, DFLers – this is the mainstream of your party.
To: Rep. Ryan WInkler, House Majority Leader
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Timing
Rep. Winkler,
Yesterday you tweeted in re the shooting in Kenosha:
Rep Winkler, I say the following with all due respect.
I’m just spitballing, here, but maybe a white, suburban Harvard grad who called one of the leading jurists in the nation an “Uncle Thomas” because he departed the Democrat Party’s plantation, might want to sit out the whole “white supremacy” thing.
That is all.
And now for some real gun rights news.
The DFL’s two big gun grab bills – HF8 (Universal Gun Registration) and HF9 (Red Flag Confiscation Orders) are back for their second round in the biennium.
And they’re already out on the House floor.
The MN Gun Owners’ Caucus is asking people to turn out tomorrow afternoon:
We expect the session to gavel in at 3:30 PM, but this may change.
IF YOU CAN MAKE IT, WE NEED YOU THERE.
WHERE: State Capitol – House Chamber (look for House Gallery entrance, 3rd floor)
WHEN: Arrive by 2:45PM to obtain a good seat. There is seating for around 80 people. There is a lot of standing room only space.
The bills will die in the Senate, of course. But it’s good that the House knows who’s really going to turn out this fall. There are a lot of mid-term DFLers from Trump districts who especially need to get the message.
Governor Walz’s Very Special Session is a work of crass political manipulation.
I’m not going to try to explain it – Representative Zerwas already did it better than I could:
Every session, especially since 2011, our entire government devolves down to three people in a locked room.
That’s not what we voted for…
…well, OK. It is exactly what a slim majority voted for.
The gun control measures that “have 90% support” failed in conference committee yesterday, after having to be buried in the House Public Safety omnibus finance bill because the DFL didn’t have the votes to pass them as standalone bills, even in the Metrocrat-dominated House.
And I hope, hope, hope that the DFL keeps running with that “90% support line” in the Senate elections next year.
I’ve said it in the past – the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence, the director of “Protect Minnesota“, has never, not once made a statement about guns, gun laws, gun owners, the Second Amendment, the history of the Second Amendment, or gun crime that is simultaneously substantial, original and true.
Not once.
Yes, I can back that up, if you want to sit down and go through her record point by point. It’s not even close.
She may have sunk to a new low today; she sent this out in her email blast to her organization.
Of course, she is (let’s give her the benefit of the doubt) mistaken; the relentlessly civil and polite to a fault Rob Doar said no such thing. She is referring to Benjamin Dorr , leader of the fraud/huckster Fundraising scam “Minnesota Gun Rights”, Who is (in my relentlessly accurate opinion) a fraud and a loathsome person to boot.
Nord Bence has been informed of her “error” and told to retract. She still has not.
This is the voice of gun control in Minnesota.
UPDATE: As of Monday night, the statement had been removed from Facebook. However, as yet no retraction has gone to the dozens who get “P”M’s emails.
During the House hearings on victim disarmament measures last week, this happened.
The reason it’s impossible to have a “conversation about ‘gun violence'” is that so many of the other side are just not equipped to have it.
When you’re a Republican, especially in a bluish-purple place like Minnesota, you hope you can vote for Republicans who’ll hold the line on taxes – even to the minimal level of not proposing new ones.
Sadly, we’re disappointed – as I discussed with Liz Mair on the show over the weekend. Senator Howe is proposing a tax on electric vehicles.
Here’s the interview:
I get the logic, sort of – it’s to replace some of the gas tax revenue lost by the increasing efficiency of cars the greater number of people driving electrics, and the people dropping out of the commuting force as telecommuting picks up speed.
But a Republican should be proposing fewer, not more, taxes.
And if we could see to some of that unsustainable spending, that’d be a cherry on the sundae.
Gun grabbers had a cute little rally the other day at the capitol.
It drew about a third what the Second Amendment rally two weeks ago managed – not that the media coverage of either would convey the difference. Not honestly.
But I digress.
They – the metrocrats who took power last fall – think guns are the wedge that’ll pick up the Senate for them:
One of the loudest voices leading the charge at Wednesday’s rally inside the State Capitol rotunda came from First Lady Gwen Walz, who vowed electoral consequences if measures to expand background checks and adopt a red flag law don’t receive hearings and a vote this session.
“If they do not put it up for a vote, there are seven senators sitting in seats where Tim Walz won — and we are coming,” Gwen Walz said.
By all means do, Mrs. Walz. You may have forgotten 2002, the last time the DFL made opposing the law-abiding citizen a beach worth dying on. I sure do, though.
The GOP majority in the Senate has apparently been listening to the overwhelming majority of phone calls and emails:
But Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, has promised to stand in the way of any new gun restrictions in his chamber. Gazelka, in an interview this week, said the issue would instead be taken up next year.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, who chairs the Judiciary and Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee, echoed Gazelka’s wishes.
“With divided government that we have now, I think any gun bill will have to have a wide consensus in order to be seriously considered and passed in the Minnesota Legislature,” Limmer said.
If you haven’t been beating your legislators’ doors down, what are you waiting for?
Reading about MNLARS – the state’s drivers license, registration and titling system – is making me nostalgic.
Back in 1996-97, I worked for a company that was engaged to do the engineering for a big, extremely well-funded startup in Palo Alto, run by a former salesman from IBM. The company’s business model: pay people to read spam. The theory was, people would set up accounts, and then get a little bit of the ad buy money for clicking on ads, and links in spam emails.
Catering to greed, of course, is never a bad business model. But by the time I left the company, we were figuring that someone clicking on six ads a minute, 8 hours a day, might make $6-8.
I wound up leaving – and was delighted to read in PC Magazine that the project had made their “Ten Dumbest Ideas of 2007” poll. By this time, I the company had folded, taking $30 million in investor funding with it (along with, I was less delighted to learn, the company that I’d worked for).
Remember when $30 million on a bad idea seemed like a lot of money?
If that’d been a government project…
Oh, wait.
The Minnesota taxpayer has spent close to $100 million on the MNLARS system – half up front, leading to a spectacular failure, and half for a “fix” that failed even worse.
And now Governor Walz wants to double down on the failure:
Walz released a budget this week that includes $94 million through 2021 to finish the system known as MNLARS, operate it for two years, hire staff, and reimburse deputy registrars who took a financial hit from the botched 2017 rollout. That’s on top of $15.7 million in stopgap funding that Walz was already seeking to get the system through June 30.
Via Fox9
To pay for some of the costs, Walz has proposed a $2 fee every time a driver makes a vehicle license, tab or title transaction.
Fearless prediction; we’ll end up spending $400 million, and end up doing the whole thing in Google Drive spreadsheets.
To: Sen. Scott Jensen
From: Mitch Berg, Impudent Peasant
Re: Know Your Friends
Sen. Jensen,
Last year, as he got set up to run for re-election as a Republican in decaying purple district, Representative Dario Anselmo made a very visible point of cuddling up to Minnesota’s various gun control groups.
He spoke at their rallies.
He offered his own testimony (his stepmother was murdered).
He sought the grabbers’ endorsement, he could practically taste it.
And after all that, the DFL and the gun grab groups up to which he’d been sucking, endorsed the DFL opponent, who won the race surfing atop of curl of Progressive Plutocrat money. And it’s not just Anselmo. Republicans who cuddle up to Big Gun Control tend to get treated like the kid in junior high who, when the bullies and mean girls ask them to eat a bug to be accepted by the “cool kids”, eat the bug – and have the photos of them eating the bug pasted up around the school.
Don’t eat the bug, Senator Jensen.
That is all.