Come on Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.  It’s time to join the fray!

Come on Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. It’s time to join the fray!

Happy Sunday folks,

Here’s the “too long; didn’t read (tl;dr) version of this week’s missive…

From Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court snub, to Trump’s election, to Garland’s incredulous delay in prosecuting insurrectionists--we’re living in a time when our Democratic leaders can’t or won’t protect America’s institutions and/or hold those wishing to harm democracy accountable. So… it’s time for ordinary progressives to take matters into their own hands and show our feckless leaders the way. This starts with grass roots groups taking their insurrectionist politicians to court so they can never run for office again under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So come on you guys in the remaining states who submitted fraudulent electors-- Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania--it's time to join the fray.

Wow, that was a mouthful! Here’s the longer version that you can consume a little more slowly to avoid indigestion:)

So I’m 45 years old and was solely focused on singing opera until 2013 (it’s true, I haven’t always been a brewer), thus my knowledge of political history is pretty weak. The day I “woke up” to the fact that something was deeply wrong in American politics was the day that Mitch McConnell simply refused to confirm Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, 294 days before the next presidential election, saying that the election was too close to confirm a new judge…

…and every other Republican senator just nodded his or her head in approval, like this was all par for the course.

…and our Democratic senators and President Obama didn’t stop him.

Others probably wiser than me think the start of the unhinging of American politics was when the deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, voted to stop the Florida “hanging chad” recount that essentially handed George Bush the Presidential Election in 2000.

Even wiser folks like evolutionary anthropologist Peter Turchin and sociologist Jack Goldstone, whose work has predicted civil wars around the world with 80% accuracy since 1994, think America’s politics started getting really sick in the ’80s. They suggest that the failed theory of “trickle-down economics” that took root during Reagan’s presidency and led to widespread economic inequality accelerated the corrosion of our democracy. And those two factors, among a few others, have historically led to civil war, both in America and even earlier in England, France, China, and the Ottoman Empire.

Regardless of when this all started, there’s no denying that America's democracy is sick, and there’s a disturbing trend that high level Democrats--knowing how sick our country has become and having the power to do something about it--are sitting on their hands.

Let’s take Merrick Garland for instance.

This dude lost his chance to sit on the Supreme Court because of McConnell’s history-changing “cheat code,” and as the Attorney General who must have DEEP KNOWLEDGE of how many Republican Senators and U.S. Representatives were involved in the attempted presidential coup, he hasn’t yet taken any of them to court. And the window to disqualify them from holding federal office using the 14th Amendment is rapidly shrinking because our judicial system simply won’t take cases that affect elections too close to those elections.

You’d think he, of all people, after being the victim of such a grandiose miscarriage of justice, would want to use his power to shore up our institutions and bring our democracy back into balance.

And for all the good that Biden is doing to unify NATO against Putin, he must realize that the makeup of our Supreme Court isn’t legitimate after McConnell snubbed Garland and rammed through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination in 13 days . Even if he ultimately fails, he should at least TRY to add justices to the court to make up for this historic malfeasance. He has the power to do this, and Democrats have the majority in both houses, although that hasn’t helped us get much accomplished because two of them, Manchin and Sinema, refuse to abolish the filibuster.

This brings me to the grand finale...so hopefully you’re still with me…

If we can’t depend on our Democratic leaders to lead, it’s time for ordinary progressives to take matters into our own hands and sue to remove politicians who conspired to destroy our democracy through insurrection.

Read that last sentence again, because not only is it revolutionary and righteous, it’s actually starting to happen across the country. Here’s the proof:

These suits are starting to pile up, but where are the rest of them?

There were seven states that submitted fraudulent electors—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but only lawsuits in three of them.

Come on Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. It’s time to join the fray!

And there were 8 Republican Senators and 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives that were part of the “Sedition Caucus” who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s victory AFTER RIOTERS STORMED THE CAPITOL BUILDING. There are cases to be made that every one of them was complicit in aiding the insurrection. They too must be held accountable!

So there you have it folks, I’m hoping that you all read this blog and send it to fellow progressive activists that are willing to band together and use our judicial system, or what’s left of it before Trump started appointing sycophantic judges, to root out the rot in the Republican party that threatens our democracy.

Our case in Wisconsin is righteous, but it’s only one case. We need to push the justice system in every possible corner of America to find those dignified judges willing to hold insurrectionist politicians accountable and keep them from holding positions of federal power ever again.

And finally, here’s the update for all of you who donated to help fund our lawsuit. We were able to pay our first legal bill, $70K, which will definitely be the largest by far, with your contributions. Since March 10th when we announced the lawsuit, 1,341 of you donated an average of $54.20, which amounted to a whopping $72,685!

This news hopefully makes all of you as emotional as it made me, because it shows what can happen when a bunch of ordinary people organize to fight for accountability and to protect democracy--the beating heart of our country.

Thanks to everyone who donated, and thanks for sticking with us.

We just showed the country how we can make Wisconsin a democracy again, which, in turn, will help make America a democracy again--one beer at a time. Now hopefully others to follow suit.

Kirk Bangstad,
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC

P.S. Here's the link to Donate to the Super PAC

Here's the Link to find where to buy beer

Here's the link to buy our cool Merchandise

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