Happy Sunday Folks,
There’s lots of news to discuss today:
- A right-wing militiaman in Wisconsin killed a retired judge, and they found a hit list on him that included our current Governor Evers.
- Another right-wing lunatic threatened to bomb the school district of Kiel unless they dropped a bullying investigating into few boys repeatedly harassing a student who wished to be referred to by the pro-nouns they/them.
- We’ve also got an update on our lawsuit against Johnson/Tiffany/Fitzgerald that just came in last Friday. It looks like the lawsuit was dismissed, which is bad news, but I haven’t had time to digest it and determine our next steps, like appealing to a higher court. We’re gonna confer with the lawyers next week and let you know what our plan is.
All three of these pieces of news point to a larger picture. Absent a strong government with strong institutions, our democracy is slowly starting to fall apart.
People being sent into a frenzy by right-wind news telling them that their government, and by extension their military and police, are corrupt---are organizing armed militia groups in the backwoods of Wisconsin, and starting to come out of the shadows.
This is not good. And we can’t get too caught up in our summer vacations and backyard BBQs to forget about this smoldering violence around us.
How do we stop this? Very easily. We have to restore confidence in our government and our electoral process by giving the Wisconsin Elections Commission a structure that isn’t cynically designed to fail.
How do we stop this? Very easily—we hold sheriffs who refused to enforce Evers' mask mandate in the summer of 2020 accountable by firing the worst offenders and re-instilling a respect for the chain of command, strengthening our justice department. Once yahoos with too much time on their hands realize that their police aren't corrupt, politicized, or "secretly on their side," they'll fall in line.
How to we stop this? We hold all politicians and media outlets accountable for telling the Big Lie in civil suits that will sting them financially and set a precedent that you can’t lie with impunity.
How do we stop this? We take the guns away from dangerous folks plotting to kill our politicians by labeling them domestic terrorists instead of calling them a “well-regulated militia,” because these lunatics are any-thing but well-regulated.
Once average, peaceful voters feel safe again after both parties start telling the truth and walk the walk of truth by strengthen our institutions, they'll once again find respect for the rule of law.
This is the news that scared me from Wisconsin last week , but I can’t write much about the larger picture like I usually do because we’ve been fighting some hyper-local battles of our own in the Town of Minocqua this week, where the ever-alluring stench of power has poisoned the politics of this small bucolic vacation hamlet.
Long story short,
In keeping with the upside-down world of Wisconsin politics--where anything sensible, right, just, or even fun is shot down by close-minded, mean-spirited, power-hungry, and purposefully under-informed right-wing conspiracy theorists, our Town Board Chairman just put up ANOTHER OBSTACLE to keep us from opening our TAP ROOM, which I purchased in March 2021 but has still yet to do business.
In the last incarnation of this fight, we’ve been told we can’t sell our wares unless we have a blacktop parking lot instead of a gravel one.
Sounds reasonable until you discover that almost no other businesses in our tiny town have parking lots at all, and if they do, its a few employee parking stalls on gravel lots.
So in the meantime, we opened a temporary location and put up a few cheeky signs to let people know where we are, and why we have to be there.
Come join us if you're in the neighborhood.
We’re going to a Minocqua town board meeting this Tuesday, June 7, at 5 pm to tell them to get out of our way, and we invite anyone reading this email to join us in support. We think its gonna be lively.
If you'd like to join us, please respond to this email so we can organize ourselves.
Sorry this letter doesn’t have more high level inspiration or strategy to save democracy, but I’m plum tuckered out today.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping make Wisconsin Great Again—One Beer at a Time
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder: Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC