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Our Governor Has Done a Horrendous Job of Responding to the Epidemic

By May 19, 2021Commentary

It is been a while since I have issued this parental warning, but THIS POST CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT RANTING.  DON’T READ FURTHER IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED.

In case you think the IB has just done a great job handling the epidemic with no adverse effects, look at what his school closures and terror campaign have done to Minnesota’s children.  (Strib Story)   That is what triggered me to write this post.  We literally drove children insane and then we don’t have a plan for caring for them, when the need was totally predictable based on the closures and terror campaign.  Criminal and someone needs to investigate.  Can we get Keith Ellison to spend the same amount of money and time he spends prosecuting cops to look into this criminal abuse of children?  We have almost five times the number of children in 2020 compared to the prior year who needed inpatient care because of suicidal issues or severe mental health breakdowns.  This is on you, little Timmy Walz, you absolutely despicable, cowardly weasel, who sold your soul and children’s lives to the teachers’ unions for a few million dollars.

In about 18 months this clown is going to be asking us to re-up him for his job.  I am going to spend a lot of money making sure that doesn’t happen.  He will be trying to claim that he did a magnificent job of keeping Minnesotans safe and balancing interests and needs.  We have all heard him spread that malarkey repeatedly.  So let me remind you of the truth.

And be aware that he will be talking about his handling of the epidemic because he is an absolute disaster on everything else.  Crime is up dramatically, especially in minority areas.  Educational achievement is way down.  Spending is high and would be even higher if the Republicans in the Senate weren’t  there to put some limits on it.  A lot of that spending is wasted and goes to fraud in social programs and unemployment.  Hard to know how much is wasted because his administration, and his attorney general, the aforementioned completely incompetent Keith Ellison, don’t even try to find it.  What is another billion of your money pissed away here or there.

His first and worst mistake was to take upon his own weak shoulders the sole responsibility for deciding how to respond, by invoking and not yet giving up, after more than a year, emergency powers that were never intended for this purpose.  And then, having taken up those unilateral powers, what did the IB do?  He just looked around and followed the herd–oh, everybody else is locking down, we should too.  No thoughtfulness about alternatives, no examination of past practices in epidemics, just a knee-jerk shut everything down, partly because China did it. China!?!  Seriously, that is your exemplar?  The alternative would have been to form a group to work with the legislature and a wide spectrum of voices from outside the government to develop a variety of alternatives and ensure good decision-making processes.  And then this irresponsible jackass, when he starts to get pushback, doesn’t accept responsibility for decisions that he is making, he blames the “virus”.  The virus ate my homework became one of his standard lines.

Let us examine some of the IB’s greatest hits.   We are going to follow the data and science, like hiring the Z team from the University of Minnesota to build a model to help us understand the likely course of the epidemic and the potential effect of mitigation measures.  The Z team was only off by a factor of ten, but its apocalyptic predictions were used to support closing schools and businesses and closing off health care and a terror campaign that continues to this day.  The terrorization of the public about the danger they were exposed to is the single worst aspect of the IB’s epidemic response.  It is not based on data at all and it has led to a large segment of the population developing a phobia about everyday living activities.  And the modeling is what fed that “Oh my God, we are all going to die” mentality.

Then we close the schools and don’t let children engage in any social, athletic or other activities or even see their friends.  The impact on minority children in particular has been devastating.  Large numbers have essentially given up on schools and for some older children this has led to participation in gang and criminal activities.  The article that leads this post reflects the natural consequences of these actions, which were taken despite ample evidence at the time and continuing today that children have extremely low, vanishingly low risk, of serious disease and don’t play a major role in transmission.

Along the way we waste millions of dollars pursuing unneeded ventilators, which actually assist in killing people, and millions more on a building to store all the bodies the multi-million dollar model predicted would be stacking up around the state.  God knows how much we have spent on an absurd testing strategy.  Test everyone every day, using tests that are incapable of telling you if a person is actually infectious and generate lots of false positives that waste contact tracers time.

And then we get to the mass(k) delusion.  At this point anyone with a brain can see that masks have made zero difference.  We are still awaiting the week when we have fewer cases than we did before the mask mandate was enacted.  They clearly made a huge difference during the fall/winter wave.  Interesting how they are supposedly as good as vaccines, but vaccines had an immediately noticeable impact on the epidemic course and masks don’t appear to have made a dent in cases.  Think we will see a surge in cases now that mask wearing is plummeting and contacts rising?

Did I mention that it was apparent from the start of the epidemic that CV-19 caused serious illness primarily among the elderly and especially residents of long-term care facilities?  Not a mystery to anyone, so of course the IB had a plan to limit the impact on these residents, right?  Not really, Minnesota consistently had one of the highest proportions of deaths among its long-term care residents.  The battle plan to limit the damage was rolled out with great fanfare and made no difference.  In the meantime, however, we did keep these poor people near the end of their lives from being able to visit with family and friends, so even more died from isolation and “failure to thrive”.

We heard a lot about balancing various needs, but that never happened.  Businesses were shut down willy-nilly, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, thousands of businesses gone for good–someone’s dream that ended, patients missed needed health care, more drug and alcohol related deaths, child and domestic abuse increases, and on and on.  No balance at all, just futile and unsuccessful attempts to prevent one more case or death.

So what did the IB do well?  Messaging.  He and his team, aided by a compliant media, spent a lot of time figuring out what words would best mislead and mis-inform the public.  Lockdowns became the “pause”.  We routinely were guilted about how our actions were causing others to die.  We were constantly told how dangerous and unsafe it was, to justify these extreme actions of the IB.  We constantly heard about the science and data that were guiding all his actions, but glimpses behind the scene, as with youth sport restrictions, reveal it to all be about messaging.

So let us collectively commit ourselves to constant revelation of the truth about how poorly the IB has handled the epidemic response and what the economic, social, health and educational consequences have been.  And God help us if we have to endure four more years of this anti-leadership.

 

Join the discussion 15 Comments

  • Dan Riser says:

    Thank you

  • Christopher B says:

    I could write much the same rant about the Democrat twit we have for a governor down here in Kentucky.

    He ran much the same smiley-face fascism campaign as your IB starting last spring with daily briefings that got dubbed ‘Beers with Beshear’. For a while the soccer moms and Karens thought his public callouts of people who lost loved ones because they hosted ‘superspreader’ events were just dreamy, to the point that people claimed Trump changed the time of his Presidential COVID briefings to interfere with Sheriff Andy’s. He even claimed the Republican dominated Legislature was holding an ‘unauthorized gathering’ under his rule when they were conducting a constitutionally authorized special session! Another of his greatest hits was an absolute debacle of an unemployment insurance program, run by one of his cronies, that he blamed on people registering for benefits under bogus names before he was informed that, yes, there actually was an unemployed citizen of Kentucky with the first name of Tupac. We then had to live through a summer of virtually uncontrolled riots in Louisville courtesy of our ditz of a mayor and his buddy Andy. Thankfully in 2019 we had elected a full slate of Republicans to the other state level offices such as AG and Secretary of State so there was at least some push back on his dictatorial powers. After the rioting only the most blinded supporters were still backing him, and he was forced to roll back much of the lockdown though we’ve still had widespread public school closings in areas dominated by the teacher’s unions and broad mask mandates. I’m on an HOA board, and even the soccer moms eventually got fed up with the school closings and ridiculously detailed but thoroughly incomprehensible COVID restrictions he propagated. From what I could tell Kentuckians just decided to tune him out around September and go about their business, and there were few if any changes until he announced that virtually all restrictions will be lifted in early June, just about the same time that every other Democrat decided the pandemic is going to magically end at the date of their choosing. Andy did such a great job that Kentucky voted 62% for Trump, re-elected Mitch McConnel, added another Republican House Rep, and gave more state legislative seats to Republicans in 2020. Hopefully in 2021 he’s ejected from the governor’s mansion.

  • David Krieg says:

    Your “rant” here should be made into a commercial and played to the public. The Guv-nah “not yet giving up, after more than a year, emergency powers”, is assisted by the feckless people we’ve sent to our state legislature – both parties. The damage to our state should be tallied, for all to see, before another election.

  • Plus, he let the city of Minneapolis burn to satiate is anti-cop rhetoric. He is the absolute worst leader. This State has gone steadily downhill under his leadership.

  • Tony Allison says:

    And a very strong letter to IB to follow! 😉

  • Matt md says:

    Truer words were never spoken. I have experienced the effects of the lockdown on children in my family. I will also be devoting my time and treasure to make sure these buffoons lose come the next election. As always Kevin, thank you.

  • Jersey JoePa says:

    I look forward to reading your posts for it is really the only place that truly looks at the science/data in forming conclusions. Your comments about the MN Governor could just as easily apply to our Governor in New Jersey. The last hold-out in the continental US to retain the mask mandate for no good reason. Our gov is up for re-election this year and the media spin will be in overdrive to “protect” him by hiding the facts.

  • J. Thomas says:

    Well said … and ditto for roughly 37 more state IB’s and #1 PA Ave. Current PA state voting results to whack a governor’s solo emergency control from our constitution sands at 53% Yes, 47% No. I can’t believe that 47% of PA voters would want to go through this again the same way. Just goes to show that every day I have a nearly 50/50 chance of running into a moron around here !

  • LeeS says:

    unfortunately, he’ll probably be re-elected. The people have been put into “scared” mode and depend on the government for way too much! Guess people get what they voted for 🙁

  • Bryon says:

    Your article applies the same (even more so) here in New Mexico. The one thing they were good at here is messaging. The propaganda is all over the place, and I have to admit that it’s pretty well done.

  • DuluthGuy says:

    How bad must the polling have been for Democrats for Walz to suddenly decide to repeal the mask mandate after just a few days earlier claim that we would unmask by July 1 or 70% of the state being vaccinated? I have a feeling that there was some really bad polling out there for them and that’s what ultimately caused the CDC to recommend unmasking. And yes, I believe the CDC leadership is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. I’m sure that there are plenty of good people who work for the CDC, but it doesn’t matter when leadership is corrupt. An analogy I heard recently that I liked was whether you’d go to a restaurant that had many good employees who worked there, but the manager in charge believed that every burger and drink needed to be spit on before being served to a customer. Of course you wouldn’t. I feel the same way about the CDC, WHO, and several other government agencies.

    I will do whatever I can to see that the IB is not reelected as well. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re off to a great start. Jensen is an interesting candidate, but I still think that Pete Stauber and Matt Birk are by far the two best candidates that we have and both are not running. Let’s just say that whatever tiny chance Gazelca had at the nomination went away with the recent budget deal. While I like Mike LIndell and respect what he’s done, we’re likely looking at a 20 point loss if he’s the nominee. I’m not sure who else could jump in at this point (maybe Daudt or Emmer), but I don’t think there’s anyone that could both get the base excited while not turning off the suburban Twin Cities and Rochester voters where we can’t get killed (like in 2018 and 2020) if we want a chance. Right now, all the momentum seems be be with Jensen.

  • Harley says:

    Good stuff, Kevin, keep firing. The Walz administration is a “target-rich” landscape, no doubt.

    On the virus modeling, we all remember the model prepared by some U of M grad students back in spring of 2020. Was the often mentioned second model the IB promised ever finished or presented? Or did he successfully kick that down the road for so long that most people forgot about it?

    In keeping with his history of short-tenure at various places, I wonder if he has the strength of personality to run for re-election. I could easily see him leaving for a highly paid teachng position somewhere, you know, “Crisis Management: My Minnesota Story”.

  • Kathleen M Carroll says:

    Genius. If we had a REAL media, these governors would be tarred, feathered and run out of town. Accolades would be laid at the feet of Kristi Noem (in spite of her stumble over the trans stuff.), who treated her citizens like adults and free people. But no – thanks to the US equivalent of Pravda, even the execrable Andrew Cuomo will probably be elected principly by the deluded and brainwashed citizens (or should I say voters) of NY.

  • Shannon Iacovino says:

    That was a gteat summary.

  • Rebecca May Hope says:

    Excellent summary of the disaster that is Walz. We can’t let people forget (although there are many who still refuse to see).

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