Which Frigid Local Group is the Most Ridiculous?

[XLFD]

This reporter was walking downtown on Saturday (January 31, 2026) just after noon and came upon a reasonable sized group in the middle of town at "Legacy Park" celebrating a distinctly Ludington celebration called Brrrewfest, where a score of breweries get together and allow folks to taste their wares for free, if you don't consider the $30 or $40 cover charge to get through the gate.

The day itself was sunny, but cool-- under twenty degrees, appropriately putting the Brrr in Brrrewfest.  The turnout was modest and those who were crazy enough to come out in the cold to plunk down some cash to taste some strange brews Saturday morning probably drank their share in order to keep themselves warm.  

This wasn't the silliest gathering I saw downtown, noting there is a certain marketing genius by offering cool beer to those about to suffer frostbite.  A somewhat noisier streetside group of about 50 people were gathered in front of the courthouse in force doing pretty much what they have been doing for the last year on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, protesting the Trump administration.  I noticed that they have updated many of their signs to reflect the latest public policy decisions made by that administration and added some to reflect recent events in Minnesota, which could have been easily avoided if those folks had learned how to protest from their Ludington counterparts.

To our discerning readers who recognize that the above picture was not taken yesterday, this is one of our file photos and there is a reason for this.  When I first passed the 'protest' yesterday at 12:52 PM (according to the courthouse clock), it was going strong.  But when I came back a mere 15 minutes later at 1:07 PM after the brief sojourn to Legacy Park, everyone was gone from the street.  If it wasn't for the trampled relatively fresh snow on the side of Ludington Avenue this reporter couldn't prove that there was a vibrant gathering looking for validating honks mere minutes before that.  

I had gone back in order to take a current picture of this fanatical group risking their own version of frostbite in order to make whatever point du jour they were trying to make in order to validate the beliefs their television told them to have.  That picture and the Brrrewfest picture would be put in an article with a simple question about which one had the craziest membership in assembling outside on public grounds on a Saturday afternoon when the temperature was in the teens.  

Maybe these sign-waving guys were wiser than they're often given credit for, organizing a supposedly-organic one-hour protest before they go home to have some hot cocoa and relate their latest virtue signaling act on social media while scrolling down and seeing those of others to confirm their righteousness.  The concessionaires down at the Brrrewfest event would be out for another five hours pouring frozen plastic cups of grog for those who asked.  

Last fall, we put out a feature showing how the local protesters were not the same as the reasonable people in our area as witnessed by what they were putting out shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  This was not to say that all of those with TDS or professing progressive beliefs were bad, but those who were displaying their lack of basic humanity by the signs they were holding or the letters they were writing to the sympathetic local newspaper exhibited unwanted traits often associated with evilness or insanity.  The signs at Brrrewfest were for marketing breweries, the only thing they would post in the newspaper were for advertising for the event.

This reporter went to the nearby library and researched the newspaper's recent editions to figure this all out.  What I saw additionally was the Wednesday opinion page which had two lengthy editorials and one letter berating the current administration for a litany of issues, often going into mischaracterizations and hyperbole:  "Alex [Pretti] was then murdered, executed... demand and achieve an end to these Gestapo ICE tactics."

Four people from various parts of our area shared their thoughts in another recent reader's forum, they all had a similar theme of inflammatory or careless rhetoric and referencing what they see and hear in the media as the ultimate gauge of truth:

Maude Bigford of Branch:  "Our democracy is crumbling around us... I fear that Congress will continue to allow the toddler to smash things to bits... we have to take to the streets, we have to speak up, we have to protest.  We cannot sin by silence and allow this madness to continue."

Eric Lampinen of Manistee:  "The administration invades and occupies cities as retribution for dissenting votes... lawless multibillion dollar rogue private militias dehumanize, brutalize, maim and murder American citizens... Intimidation, terror, masked, heavily-armed goons hiding their identities, abducting American citizens without warrants, without regard for the Constitution, laws, or the courts... This is state terror."

Jerry Skar of Hamlin Township:  "Donald Trump... is unhinged, incompetent, and deranged.  Trump has to go!  He is not working in the best interests of the American people."

Vicki Dorrell of Ludington was less volatile on the rhetoric, but loose on facts as she says:  "ICE has been breaking into people's homes in Minneapolis without a warrant... a direct assault on the 14th Amendment which says people have a right to be secure in their own homes... This could be any one of us!" 

We don't recall Vicki going to city council meetings at any time over the last decade voicing her concerns about the lack of warrants that the city has when they intrude upon the homes of tenants under the rental inspection program, potentially depriving them of a place to live, but now she overlooks the fact that ICE uses administrative warrants to arrest criminal illegal aliens and have done so for the last eight months, rather than the judicial warrants she thinks is warranted.  If they had no warrants, it would be against the Fourth Amendment, which lays out the right to be secure in one's home, not the 14th Amendment.

No, Vicki, this could not be any one of us if we are not a criminal illegal alien or there is no probable cause that we have been housing one or more under our roof.  The problem with these energized local activists is that they never come out when it is "one of us" that is victimized either by local policies that allow government agents to forcibly enter our homes in violation of the Fourth Amendment , or by unvetted foreign criminals who would have never been here in the first place if the previous administration hadn't invited them in by throwing the doors wide open. 

Would you hold a vigil or at least hold a sign for those who were raped and killed by criminal illegal aliens (nine shown above), true victims of an irrational national foreign policy we can only hope is forever in our rear-view mirror?  No, you would only protest for two violent agitators who put themselves into harm's way to interfere with operations to lawfully mitigate that disaster, not for the thousands of victims that are "one of us".  

So even though one group only had to endure a mere hour of NPC protesting, this reporter's vote for which group was the craziest to brave the cold weather wasn't for the ones filling cups with craft beers in fifteen degrees below-freezing temps for five hours; they at least had a reasonable purpose and goal for their actions-- even if it was almost as detrimental to society by promoting unchecked consumption of alcohol.