Central Minnesota Political

Robert Kutter and I had an interesting email conversation this week. He told me that protesting was all fine and good but that we should focus our energies on getting out the vote this fall.  I said getting out the vote was all fine and good but what is the DFL going to say to uncommitted  voters who are discouraged by the swampyness of politics and politicians. Here’s what Robert said: “The most difficult thing to change is what people value. I wouldn't put much time into trying to change people who hold the value that the country is made of winners and losers. I would, however, explain what DFL candidates value and how that may be different from the opposition. The DFL platform gives one a fairly good idea about what is important to people who see the world from a progressive viewpoint. Perhaps that is easier to accomplish if one reads the Republican platform. The differences are stark.”   “That said, I believe that whenever the conversation turn to...

The Republican tax cut is now six months old. And, more and more, it’s being recognized as the scam that it is. You may recall that shortly after its passage there we reports that workers were getting paid bonuses because their companies were profiting from the tax cuts. Trickle down economics were working, we were told. Well, it turns out that only four-percent of workers got a bonus or pay increase due to the tax cut, according to an analysis of data  by Americans for Tax Fairness. At the same time that most of us weren’t getting a break from Donald Trump’s really big, really beautiful, tax cut America’s stock owners and senior corporate executive were reaping the benefits. According to CNN Money S&P 500 companies poured $178 billion into Wall Street in the first three months after the tax break scam. That money was used not to create jobs but to buy back company shares. “Total S&P 500 shareholder payouts -- buybacks plus dividends -- for the past 12 ...

MinnPost published Marshall Helmberger's excellent editorial regarding Senator Smith's move to support the Polymet mine. You can read the complete editorial at: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2018/06/congress-shouldnt-short-circuit-environmentalists-legal-challenge-polymet-l America’s federal courts are supposed to be the great equalizer. While the costs of litigation can certainly limit the ability of some to have their day in court, the federal judiciary is, for many, the one guarantor of equal protection under the law — the one place where average Americans can stand equal with powerful corporations or an arbitrary or abusive government agency. But what if only one side of a dispute had access to the courts? It’s not an academic question. It’s a reality that is playing out right now in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Tina Smith has introduced a rider to an unrelated, must-pass defense bill that is intended to deny environmental groups the right to challenge the...

Earlier this week Tim Pawlenty (We call him Tpaw) said to Minnesota Public Radio that he thought Donald Trump sometimes used bad language but that he’s done great things for America. This is the same Tpaw that called Trump unhinged, unfit, and uninformed when Trump was running for election to the Presidency. Here’s what Tpaw told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer: “And those comments that I made were after the TMZ Hollywood tapes. I was concerned on my own behalf and on behalf of my daughters and my wife and many others that shared that concern about some of the language that he used relative to women. And so I spoke strongly about that.” “Since then, I of course admire and appreciate and respect a lot of what he's done on policy, in terms of his role as president and his time as president. But like a lot of Republicans, and I think many other Minnesotans, I'm concerned sometimes about his behavior and his language. But in terms of his policy priorities and areas of focus, I ...

Thursday night Rep. Collin Peterson voted with Republicans to give Donald Trump $65 million more for  nuclear  bombs. Although most Democrats voted for an ammendment by California Representative Barbara Lee to not fund the new nuclear weapons program, Peterson voted against the Lee  amendment . The Lee ammendment was an attempt to stop the United State from building an arsenal of so called “usable” nuclear bombs which are often called mini-nukes. These so-called mini-nukes are a number of times more powerful than the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima Japan on August 6, 1945. That bomb, which was not only small but considered inefficient, killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people immediately. It wounded another 70,000, many of whom were terribly burned and died later. Hiroshima Japan after a "small" and "usable" nuclear bomb was dropped on the city in 1945 Thanks to Wikipedia The bombs Congressman Peterson and his Republican colleagues voted for are not...

Dear Mr. King,  Republican leaders have broken their promise to restore  Regular Order  – the process by which every bill and amendment is heard and given an up or down vote in Congress. And they’ve done it in record setting fashion. When the GOP–dominated Rules Committee sent their  84th bill to the floor of the House under a “closed” rule  last month – meaning no amendments or changes allowed – they officially established the 115th Congress as the  most undemocratic, authoritarian Congress  in our Nation’s history.  MOC Rick Nolan Every new Member of Congress, Democrat and Republican, comes to Washington with good ideas and a desire to make government work better for people.  Closed rules smother good ideas , cut off debate, prevent us from finding areas of agreement, and substitute political posturing for problem solving.  In other words,  process matters . When Regular Order breaks down and amendments that would likely ...

Last week I published Gov. Dayton’s veto letter for the omnibus and tax bills passed by the Republican legislature. A lot of readers were happy to read Dayton’s perspective on those two bills. A day or so before Dayton vetoed those bills I was in the pick-up headed to the field. My radio is broken so I can’t turn it off. So, I heard  part of an interview between a male Republican State Senator and a Minnesota Public Radio commentator. The Senator wasn’t Paul Gazelka and I didn’t hear his name. The commentator was one of the MPR Toms. The MPR Tom asked the Senator why the Governor shouldn’t veto the tax bill. The male Senator started off by saying that the Governor was a thoughtless partisan and if the Governor didn’t sign the tax bill the State of Minnesota, which was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, would go broke. The only line of defense between Minnesota’s fiscal ruin and utter moral collapse was the Republican Party, the Senator asserted. “But how could the S...