Evers says, "Balls to ya, Bob Burns"

There is a price to pay for the various lockdowns. Back in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, Bob Burns is paying it:

Bob Burns enters his golf shop on a mobility scooter, his dog Hogan padding ahead of him. The door locks behind him. The lights are off. The parking lot is empty. There’s not a soul on the driving range. The police, in fact, have swung by a few times to make sure Burns is complying with Gov. Tony Evers’ order closing non-essential businesses, extended now to May 26.

Normally, April and May are busy months at Bob Burns Golf. People are itching to hit balls on the range, to get their clubs re-gripped, to purchase the newest equipment, to sign up for lessons.

This year, as we all know, is not normal. Burns owns a stand-alone driving range, one of thousands of businesses statewide shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic. Golf courses opened Friday and motorized carts are allowed starting Wednesday, but driving ranges must remain closed.

His competitors are also open:

Scheels, a huge sporting goods store in Appleton, is open. So are Menards and Walmart and Costco, all of which sell golf equipment.

But the police are checking the doors at Bob Burns Golf, just in case a golfer or two has sneaked onto the range to hit a few balls, not only socially distanced but practically isolated.

“Why pick on me?” Burns says, with more incredulity than anger in his voice. “Who does more for this community and golf? Why pick on me?”

There's more, lots more, at the link, including what Bob Burns has done for golf, in Appleton and beyond. Tony Evers doesn't care about any of that.

Tim Walz could decide to take a different path than Tony Evers. He will announce his decision shortly. There are businesses in Minnesota like the one Bob Burns runs in Wisconsin that will be out of business soon.

Good news, bad news

The good news? After 14 days my daughter, recently returned from Spain, is out of quarantine with no sign of coronavirus.

The bad news? The state is shut down.

For the record, here is a county-by-county map of cases in Minnesota:

Metro? Yes. Western Minnesota? Not so much

Here's Wisconsin, which is operating under similar, if slightly more strict clampdown rules:

Stay on Highway 8 and you're good

Only 3 counties have a real problem at the moment -- Milwaukee, Dane, and to a much lesser extent Waukesha.

How about our neighbors in Iowa? They aren't currently doing a clampdown.

Not so good in Iowa City and Des Moines, but otherwise?

Then consider our friends in Illinois, now under a far more draconian clampdown thanks to their governor:

Lotta clear spaces here, especially in the southeast

So my question is this -- why are governors imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on their states? I'm assuming we can still ask the question for now in this forum -- not too many blue-check thought police read this feature. When this is all over, I will be curious to see if some of these counties are still free of the virus. If you believe the narrative, a plague is spreading across the land and it's everywhere. And perhaps it is. But I wonder, just a little bit.

Wisconsin politics, yet again

The Wisconsin legislature and outgoing governor Scott Walker are busy at the moment and his successor doesn't like it one bit:

The new legislation tries to protect some of the GOP's achievements in recent years, including a work requirement for some people receiving state health care and the state's role in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act. The bill could also make it harder for Gov.-elect Tony Evers to renegotiate a $3 billion subsidy for a Foxconn electronics manufacturing facility, a deal spearheaded by Walker.

"Wisconsin has never seen anything like this," Evers said in a statement. "Power-hungry politicians rushed through sweeping changes to our laws to expand their own power and override the will of the people of Wisconsin who asked for change on November 6th."

 In other words, the moment the election results were posted, Evers should immediately have power. That's not how it works. Evers knows that, of course.

Evers also knows he's going to be governor because he ran up incredibly lopsided vote totals in Milwaukee and Madison, while in other parts of the state he and his party have significantly less popular support. There's a reason why the Republicans will still control the legislature in 2019 and, contrary to the bleatings of the left, it's not because of gerrymandering. You can't simply import the votes of Milwaukeeans and apply them to a Fond du Lac district.

We don't have a pure democracy and it's a good thing. Walker did not demand that his predecessor, Jim Doyle, immediately cease and desist when he was elected in 2010. Walker had to wait until he was actually in the office before he set out to change things. We all remember how that went. I don't know how it's going to go for Evers once he's in office, although I suspect he's going to be a very weak governor regardless of what Walker and the current legislature do. Voters in Wisconsin might have been tired of Walker, but there's little evidence the voters want public employee union hegemony to return, either, to say nothing of untrammeled bureaucracy. And when Evers attempts to raise taxes next year, he'll find that out.

Still thinking

What It All Means? You know, the Grand Sweeping Conclusions?

Don't have any. But a few more thoughts are in order:

• Is the job of an Attorney General to be the president's wingman? Eric Holder thought so, as did Loretta Lynch and Janet Reno, and they all acted accordingly. That was okay then. Apparently things have changed.
• Eric Holder, you might remember, routinely ignored Congressional subpoenas. And apparently, that was okay, too. I'll be curious to see how that tactic goes over if the new Attorney General follows the same game plan next year.
• The single biggest thing the next AG should do is make sure that the Janus decision is actually implemented. Someone I know exceptionally well is in AFSCME and, as a result, I see a fair amount of AFSCME materials. At least in Minnesota, AFSCME wiped its butt with the Janus decision. That has to change.
• Generally speaking, Republicans in Minnesota have volunteers. The DFL has mercenaries. It's never going to be a fair fight under the current conditions.
• If self-regard were hard currency, Jim Acosta would be wealthiest man in the world. If the White House were to freeze out CNN entirely from asking questions, that would be an issue. But I don't have a problem if they put Acosta in time-out. Sam Donaldson used to be obnoxious, but he never got physical with White House staffers.
• Tony Evers is going to be a thoroughgoing train wreck. The key for Wisconsin Republicans will be to let him.