Perspective Needed

Former representative Ryan Winkler has led us down a twisty, turny path with some surprises over his legislative and extra-legislative careers.

He’s swerved from the ridiculous to the, well, occasionally admirable, and back, and forth and back and forth, and backandforth…

And, well…:

Denying the industralized murder of 11 million people,

versus

Legitimate questions and doubts about everything government told us about Covid from the very beginning – remembering that many of the “conspiracy theories” of 2020/2021 turned out to be true: natural immunity works, and for longer than the vaccines; fomite spread didn’t happen; lockdowns were useless at best; the Great Barrington Declaration was right (the vaccines should have been targeted at the elderly and vulnerable), researchers lied even about the intended effects of vaccines or that “Zero Covid” was ever possible, masks made little to no difference, and there’s a pretty significant chance the virus did start as a result of Frankenvirus research in China.

Holocaust denial is a social pathology. Pandemic “denial”, at four years remove, is neither pathological nor especially denying any fact.

Someone needs to take a deep breath.

Urban Progressive Privilege Means Never Needing A Moral Compass

Erin Maye Quade – who, you may recall, came within an epic suck up to the progressive movement of being Minnesota’s lieutenant governor – had this to say about Tim Scott’s rebuttal to the presidents… whatever that was Wednesday night:

This, on top of Ryan WInkler’s “Uncle Tom” jape at one of the most accomplished jurists of any race in US history, and of course the “Uncle Tim” slur earlier this week, is enough to make any moral creature ask…

…what is the Democratic Party going to do about its racism problem?

UPDATE: I’ve “cloned” this post from yesterday. You’ll see why in a moment.

Hand To Hand Combat

What would this blog do without Representative Ryan Winkler?

Not spend nearly as much time mocking and taunting, that’s for sure:

Of course I’m selling Winkler short. He knows that after a year of squatting on small businesses, levying the worth of families by “essential”, non-essential or just plain above it all, and putting kids’ interests and science behind those of the Teachers Union, his claim is baked wind.

But Winkler knows the most important fact of all: the DFL base is complacent, ignorant and just as sodden with self-satisfied hubris and Winkler himself. If any of them could think critically about anything, they wouldn’t be DFLers.

Hope I’ve settled that.

And Just Like Magic

After a year of hysteria, of gaslighting, of “Karen” nagging you from behind four masks, of plush-bottom public union employees telling unemployed waitresses “we’re all in this together” via Zoom from their ranch houses in Apple Valley, suddenly, after one barely coherent speech in the wake of the signing of an immense power grab disguised as a pork barrel bill…

…everything is OK?

So let’s get this straight – after a year of dictatorial control, now Minnesota is “ready?

And “we” are “ready” after a near majority have re-opened, without their governors publicly rolling around in the glory and majesty of their own omnipotence like Scrooge McDuck cavorting about in a vault full of quarters?

Yes. Yes, they are. Suddenly, “hope” is acceptable. Quadruple-masking? Scary new variants?

Pish-tush! The only thing to fear is fear itself! Happy Days Are Here Again!

The House majority leader, as if on cue:

And finally, Ryan Winkler tells (the second cousin of) the truth. While the pandemic was and remains real, the Minnesota government’s response has been entirely contrived to sway the election, and to give the political class a “big win” (they’ll let the media handle that for them) to use to evangelize transforming society into Big Left’s vision.

To Recap

We had a thorough discussion about Ryan Winkler’s tweet and established
that Democrats have a strong personal belief, perhaps even a moral
conviction, that public safety is a government responsibility.

We had a thorough discussion about a lawsuit against the City and
established that when citizens suffer because government abandoned its
responsibility, the citizens have no recourse against the government
under existing law.

So the obvious question is: 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

There may be no more superficial person in Minnesota politics than Ryan Winkler.

Other than Erin Maye Quade. And Ilhan Omar.

OK, and probably a few others.

But you get the point.

The Walk

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.

Virtue-Signal To Virtue-Noise Level = 0

Ryan Winkler takes a strong moral stand:

About time Ryan Winkler took a strong, courageous stand against corporate prisons…

…of which there are zero in Minnesota.

Remember when I said DFLers can count on the fact that DFL voters are overwhelmingly badly-informed and lousy at critical thought?

Any questions?

.

It’s Reform Time

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:

  1. Your life is in immediate danger
  2. They, not you, are the aggressors
  3. You being a middle-aged man or woman, and they being spry rural teens, you don’t reasonably have the means or opportunity to run away.

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.

Riddle

Who’s got two thumbs, and is the only person in the world who can’t call Donald Trump’s Twitter feed “an ill-advised mass of ready/fire/aim malaprops?”

Why, that’d be Representative Ryan Winkler, if he were pointing two thumbs at himself:

50-90% of Covid patients are asymptomatic. For many others – myself included – it felt like the chest cold I get nearly every spring; if it weren’t for a strange rash on my hand, I wouldn’t have even gotten an antibody test, much less a serology test.

So – now Ryan Winkler is Covid-shaming. Seems he knows as much about epidemiology as he does black history.

This is today’s DFL.

If He Didn’t Exist…

I’m pretty sure the Minnesota GOP would have to invent Ryan Winkler.

This was him over the weekend on social media:

So in other words, our House Majority Leader stands for the abolition of Federalism – one of the things our country got completely right.

Oh, he’s not done yet:

He went to Harvard, you know – but apparently never read the Federalist Papers.

The Constitution is precisely about denying unlimited power to the majority!

Not sure if Winkler, and the people he’s aping, want a civil war

But if they do, it’s hard for me to figure what they’d do differently.

The Worst Thing Ever

Ryan Winkler, the House Majority Leader, isn’t thrilled with President Trump stealing Joe Biden’s thunder:

Then the Majority Leader has had a pretty sheltered life.

Know what’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard?

Other than the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Gulag, the Holodomor, the Rape of Nanking, the subjugation of Tibet, the history of Haitian slavery, or pretty much an garden-variety genocide?

Well, not this…

But it was pretty bad anyway. And if Bogdan Vechirko – who owned no “white supremacist” paraphernalia at all, and heroically avoided hitting anyone (who wasn’t trying to get hit) wants to sue for slander, I’ll host a fundraiser.

Have you people call my people.

He’s Baaaaack

Ryan Winkler, Minnesota’s House Majority Leader – let that thought rattle around in your head a bit – replies to Senate Majority Leader Gazelka yesterday:

“Trump’s America is deadly!”

But the Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan’s Minnesota is the part that is rioting, burning, looting, shedding businesses and jobs, boarding up, moving to the burbs or Wisconsin or the Greater or Lesser Dakota, buggering off, hitting the dusty trail for freer and safer horizons.

Alondra Cano’s Minnesota is the part that can’t run itself even in good times without massive transfers of wealth from the parts of the state that work (for now), the Republican parts.

Lisa Bender’s Minnesota is the part that considers “law and order” a form of unsustainable “privilege” for all you plebs, but pays a lot of your money so that it has that privilege for itself.

Ryan Winkler’s Minnesota is the part where a Harvard graduate and machine politician from a lilywhite “progressive” suburb full of NIMBYs can call one of the most distinguished jurists of our time an “Uncle Tom”, and then turn around and yap about “white supremacy” when his opponent compliments the men and women who are taking time off from their real lives to clean up yet another DFL mess.

If Ryan Winkler didn’t exist, the GOP would have to invent him.

Open Letter To House Majority Leader Winkler

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.

This Is Today’s DFL

This is DFL-endorsed candidate for the MN House, Bob Thompson, this past Saturday in Hugo, outside the home of Lt. Bob Kroll.

It certainly didn’t end there:

Additional footage of Thompson’s speech showed him wondering why protesters “were so peaceful.” He then told a man holding a blue lives matter sign to “take that sign” and “stick it in [his] ass.”

We coming for everything that you motherf–ers took from us,” he added. “This whole [vulgarity] state burned down for 20 [vulgarity] dollars. You think we give a f– about burning Hugo down?”

Huh.

The story has evaded the Mainstream Media, of course – they want the DFL to hold those suburban seats. You’ve got to go to the honest, conservative media to get the story.

By the way – when former state rep Matt Dean asked one of the area’s freshman DFL reps to comment, this was what Amy “Profile in Courage” Wazlawik had to say

https://twitter.com/amiwazlawik/status/1294985107879714817

Pretty sure Rep. Runbeck’s position on the demonstration is clear.

Unlike Wazlawik’s.

Or those of Ken Martin, Melissa Hortman or Ryan Winkler, for that matter.

Quick question for our DFL readers – do you disavow this?

Yes or no.

Oh, yeah – we know where Governor Klink stands:

https://twitter.com/Jaz_Patriot/status/1294766373256732676?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1294766373256732676%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2020%2F08%2Ftodays-democratic-party.php

This is the party that wants to rule Minnesota. Not govern – rule.

This Is Today’s DFL

The GOP-controlled Senate passed an Insulin bill yesterday…

…but apparently they didn’t give House Majority Leader Ryan “Uncle Tom” Winkler the adulation he so craves:

And what is he, er, “apologizing” for?

This little outburst:

He’s flipping off Senator, and Doctor, Scott Jenson – on of the most moderate Republicans there is, BTW.

This is what half your neighbors voted for.

These Are The Barricades

The similarities in demographics in population between Virginia and Minnesota are inescapable. Both states are large, solid red expanses of land and people, surrounding small, densely populated democrat dominated Metropolitan areas.

And of course, both states have Democratic parties prone to going wild on orgies of spending and power grabbing whenever they get unfettered power. As the Democrats did in Virginia over the past year, driving a wave of “progressive” legislation pretty much across-the-board, but especially focusing on gun control.

And watching Virginia’s Democrats, it’s not hard to think that they might actually be a little bit calm and restrained compared to the ones we have in Minnesota, the party of Ryan Winkler and Alondra Cano and Melissa Melissa and Ilhan Omar.

It’s hard to imagine what that crew would stop at if they got unrestrained power Dash say, by flipping the Senate this fall, giving them raw, unfettered access to all the money and all the power.

This isn’t problem just for Second Amendment advocates, of course.

But Second amendment advocates are among the best organized to do something about it; I’ve been telling conservative groups for a decade that they need to learn something from the Second Amendment movement nationwide.

Four Minnesota counties – Clearwater, Marshall, Roseau and Wadena – have declared themselves “sanctuaries” for the Second amendment (some choose the term “dedicated” to avoid confusion with immigration issue – the effect is entirely the same). It’s not just a symbolic statement; the resolutions include language about litigation against intrusive legislation, as well as well as demurrals from enforcing unconstitutional laws.. Resolutions have been introduced in three more counties – and probably a few dozen more have some degree of activity on the subject.

Yours could be one of them, if you live in Minnesota; in fact, you could be the one to get things going in your county. The Gun Owners Caucus has a list of resources right here, as well as a list of sanctuary/dedicated county groups around the state.

Because what better way to show the DFL; This Is What Power-Drunk Overreach gets you.



Now, Let’s Watch The Saint Cloud Times And Star/Tribune Hyperventilate

A proposal to make Sherburne County a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” has been floated.

If you live in SherbCo, your mission is clear.

The proposal, from State Rep. Shane Mekeland, from the “New House Republican Caucus”, would commit SherbCo and its law enforcement to defying any future oppressive gun restrictions:

The Saint Cloud Times has Mekeland elaborating:

In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Mekeland said the resolution is basically the county board saying it will not support perceived threats to Second Amendment rights should they come from the state level.

Will SherbCo go through with it? I think it’s doubtful. And I don’t think it matters.

I think the real payoff was what we saw in Richmond yesterday – the movement gives the silent majority a coherent focus for their political power.

There may not be any Second Amendment sanctuaries in MInnesota this time next year – but a lot of Real Americans will come to the polls because of the movement.

Expect much tut-tutting from the Saint Cloud Times, the Strib, MPR and Ryan WInkler.

Other Than Bring One Of The World’s Great Countries Back From The Brink Of Suicide, I Mean…

The Smartest Woman Ever and her daughter, Chelsea “The Ryan Winkler Of New York” Clinton, wrote a book about great women.  

And of course – you could see this coming – they left out “arguably” the greatest woman of the 20th Century. 

Just going to take a moment to remind you that Berg’s Eighth Law is not called “Berg’s Eighth Tactful Hint”:

American liberalism’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

Come for the Berg’s Eighth Law.  Stay for the thrashing around seeking relevance.  Margaret Thatcher made a positive difference.   Hillary Clinton made only a negative one – being an awful and tone-deaf enough candidate to get even Donald Trump elected president.  

Paragraph 10

Maybe it’s just me – but I think I sense some backing away going on.

I’m referring to the faint air of “we got dragged into this” in Melissa Hortman’s op-ed about the just-ended legislative session in the Strib.

Remember – in 2018, the DFL wrapped itself around gun control, claiming that the issue flipped the metro, and that “90% of Minnesotans” supported their agenda of Universal Registration and Red Flag Confiscation.

Fast forward to April and May, when Ryan “Uncle Tom” Winkler’s DFL majority didn’t have the votes to bring either to the floor as stand-alone measures – which, if Minnesota were behind the measures by a ratio of 9:1, would be kind of unthinkable.

Fast forward still more, to paragraph 10 of her op-ed – the very last graf about policies discussed during the session, the one before the closing, the graf about the measures that supposedly swept the DFL into power last year.

Smell the distancing:

Beyond our core values of education, health care and economic security, Minnesotans have called on legislators to make communities safer by addressing the epidemic of gun violence. Republicans have said “no” to common-sense gun violence prevention measures that have become law in Republican-led states — criminal background checks for all gun sales and red-flag laws to prevent people who have indicated an intent to cause harm from possessing firearms until the danger has passed. These measures would save lives. DFLers will continue efforts to enact these provisions into law.

Catch that? “Minnesotans called…”. “Republicans said no”.

As if Hortman is saying “don’t look at us! MInnesotans asked for it, and the GOP said no! We are just simple vessels of others’ will!”. Of course, they get so much money from Michael Bloomberg that they have to keep making with the hopey-changey.

But – and it could be just me – it doesn’t sound like her heart is in it.

One could almost say you can detect the faint aroma of that albatross around their neck starting to go bad.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

In the wake of the session, the Pioneer Press ran a letter to the editor – “Democrats offered plenty of compromises on gun bills” – from one Jo Haugen.   I wrote a response.  It never got printed.

Shocking, right?

Well, that’s one of the reasons I started this blog, now, isn’t it?

My response to the PiPress:

——————–

In her May 22 letter to the editor (“Democrats offered plenty of compromise on gun bills”), Jo Haugen criticized Senate Majority Leader Gazelka for kililing the DFL’s gun control bills, because “a vast majority of Minnesotans as well as law enforcement support these bills”

If “mandate” were real, then Speaker Hortmann and Majority Leader Winkler should have had no trouble passing the measures – “Red Flag” confiscation and “Universal” registration bills – as standalone measures, confident that that massive support would be greeted with hosannas at election time.

Curiously, they could not.  Winkler didn’t have the votes to do that, and snuck them into the omnibus Public Safety bills against bipartisan opposition.

Either the House DFL leadership are cowards for ignoring Ms. Haugen’s supposed mandate, or the “vast majority” of Minnesotans support nothing of the sort, and the polling to which Ms. Haugen refers was a bogus piece of propaganda.

Minnesota’s gun control movement:  The few, trying to control the many with the acquiescence of the gullible.

Mitch Berg
Saint Paul

Pile On

For all of their bluster between the election and the beginning of session, it seems the DFL doesn’t have enough votes to pass their Registration and Red flag Confiscation bills on their own. Not even close.

Which is weird. You would think a bill with “90% public support“ would be a cakewalk. Apparently not his; if you rely on the star Tribune for a fact on this issue, that’s pretty much the norm. The DFL are trying to bury the bills in the Public Safety omnibus spending bill

It’s the weasel‘s way out. But hey, Ryan Winkler. Say no more.

Anyway – if you are a supporter of Minnesotans’ Second Amendment human rights, now is the time to pylon. Call your legislator. Tell them you are not amused.

A whole lot of suburban DFL‘s seem to have gotten cold feet. Let’s make them colder.

I, Problem Solver

There is a proposal making the rounds to change the name of Saint Croix State Park to honor former Minnesota Senator and Vice President, Walter Mondale.

Of course, there’s some pushback. The park already has a perfectly good name with history that matters to the area and the state:

People who live near the park, which opened in 1943 and featured dozens of New Deal-era buildings, say history would be lost as a result of renaming. They are circulating petitions seeking to keep the current St. Croix name.

“Yes, (Mondale) did some wonderful things for our waterways,” said Maria Nichols, who lives one mile from the park. “But I have been to the point where I’ve almost thought of calling him and saying, ‘Help us!’”

It should surprise nobody that Ryan Winkler wants to jam the name down anyway.

Since my role in this world seems to be “solve other peoples’ problems”, I”ll step in here.

Let’s rename Lilydale State Park after the former Vice President.

Since it suffers from landslides.

How I Spent My Saturday

About 1,000 of my closest friends turned out for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus’ “2019 Rally To Protect The 2nd Amendment” on Saturday.

Photo by Sarah Cade, Cade Imaging
Photo by Sarah Cade, Cade Imaging

Bear in mind – the weather on Saturday was inclement at best. I think the good guys expected half this number for turnout.

Compare this to “Protect” Minnesota’s turnout on a beautiful day a few weeks back:

Photo – Rob Doar

The comparison is inescapable – Second Amendment Civil Rights activists are real people, motivated by their real passion for securing civil liberty for all Americans; gun control activists are uninformed dupes of plutocrats who seek to enslave Real Americans.

Go ahead, Ryan Winkler. Bring those bills to the floor. I dare you.

Comforting The Comfortable, Afflicting The Afflicted

I don’t know about you – but these days, when a accusation of a “hate crime” gets massive, immediate coverage, I’ve started to assume it’s a hoax until proven otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong – hate crimes exist. But the more publicity the unproven allegations get, and the more lurid the charges against someone in a MAGA cap, the more likely it seems the whole story turns out to have all the substance and integrity or a Ryan Winkler presentation on Black History Month.

Jussie Who?:Three weeks ago, I had not heard of Jussie Smollett. I’ve never had occasion to watch Empire, and I doubt I ever will.

But when I heard the story of the “Hate Crime” that reached out and, per his story, caught him a few weeks ago, nothing, even to my rather cursory listening, seemed to add up.

Kyle Smith – not a cop, but rather a writer at National Reviewnoticed the same things, and has 27 questions for the “journalists” who presumed Smollett’s story – of “MAGA”-screaming rednecks who attacked him without really attacking him – was unassailably true.

8 . How likely do you think it is that attackers would shout, “This is MAGA country” in Chicago, a place that no one thinks is MAGA country?

There are 26 more – the sort of thing “journalists”, ostensibly being the curious sort, should have asked.

13. Don’t you think it strange that his attackers fled without much harming Smollett or robbing him?

14. Related to (13), did it not occur to you that the whole alleged attack looked a bit like the criminal equivalent of a press release, meant to send a message rather than accomplish anything?

15. If you were beaten up, would you somehow remember to pick up your Subway purchase afterward?

Goalposts Moved: Over the weekend, as Smollett’s story began to collapse, the narrative changed; Smollett’s actions weren’t themselves a publicity “hate crime” against deplorables; they were “starting a conversation”:

I don’t know about you, but I think Jussie Smollett, and especially all the #Resitance media sycophants who parroted the story because, if you hate the MAGAs, it’s just too good to fact-check, just made life a lot harder for people who actually do wind up on the wrong side of bigotry.

Other than deplorables, obviously.