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Poston and Kresha successfully demonstrate cloned thinking

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 State be on the verge of bankruptcy,” the MPR Tom asked. “We have a large surplus.” (He mentioned the number but I don’t recall it.) 

The male Senator, at this point, cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, harrumphed, and sputtered. I recognized these sounds because they are similar to those made by my 1986 Ford Ranger when it is starting.

Of course Minnesota isn’t on the verge of bankruptcy. What I figure is that the unnamed male Senator got sent the talking points from a previous legislative session. He quickly scanned them, believed them, opened his mouth, and recited the Party Line to the MPR Tom. He just got his year wrong.Thank goodness for the occasional bout of critical thinking at MPR.

Since then then the talking points machine at GOP headquarters has been getting its Senators and Representatives to echo the party line.

For example, I am privileged to receive the newsletter of Rep. John Poston in my email in-box. On May 25th Rep. Poston sent a newsletter out. It condemned Gov. Dayton for his thoughtless and partisan veto. Rep. Poston thundered that Dayton’s veto would damage and harm many innocent Minnesotan. Then he included a bullet point list of the various groups of Minnesotans who would harmed by Dayton’s ill conceived veto. Here are the first ten groups in Poston’s list. Out of curiosity I decided to look at the newsletter from State Representative State Representative Cal Bahr.

• Victims of elder abuse
• Victims of opioid addiction, and medical professionals
• Victims of distracted driving
• Special education and Head Start students
• People dealing with MNLARS hassles
• Deputy registrars whose businesses are floundering after MNLARS
• People who need mental health support, particularly farmers and students
• Farmers and agribusinesses that need Section 179 conformity for equipment depreciation
• People who live in rural areas without high-speed internet
• Students who need help to afford college

Out of curiosity I decided to look a the newsletter from State Representative State Representative Cal Bahr. Rep. Bahr and Rep. Poston are both Republicans and both have beards. They also think alike. Look at the first ten groups of Minnesotans in Bahr’s list of Minnesotans to be harmed by Dayton’s veto:

· Victims of elder abuse
· Victims of opioid addiction, and medical professionals
· Victims of distracted driving
· Special education and Head Start students
· People dealing with MNLARS hassles
· Deputy registrars whose businesses are floundering after MNLARS
· People who need mental health support, particularly farmers and students
· Farmers and agribusinesses that need Section 179 conformity for equipment depreciation
· People who live in rural areas without high-speed internet
· Students who need help to afford college

Do you notice any similarities? Perhaps I should ask if you notice any differences? Do you notice even a tiny difference? Nope. There is cloned thinking going between these two.

I also receive Rep. Ron Kresha’s email newsletter. Rep. Kresha used the same list of bullet points that Reps. Bahr and Poston did but he edited the slightly. Here are his top five groups:

• Victims of elder abuse & opioid addiction – vetoed fixes for these problems areas
• Victims of distracted driving – vetoed strengthening penalties
• People with disabilities, and their caretakers – vetoed fix to federal 7% cut to the Disability Waiver Rate System
• Citizens & deputy vehicle registrars – vetoed help with dealing with MNLARS hassles
• K-12 students – vetoed school safety funding, support for Head Start and Special Education programs
Although Rep. Kresha has demonstrated the capacity to edit he has not demonstrated the capacity to veer one inch from from the Party Line. Neither of these men has shown the slightest capacity of independent and critical thinking.

Now, hopefully, I will think critically.

What if Mark Dayton is wrong. What if Kresha, Bahr, and Poston are right? What if Dayton is a hopeless and partisan nitwit. After all, it’s his word against theirs. I mean, did you read the nearly 1,000 page omnibus bill? I didn’t!

Maybe that’s the problem. Legislators, and in this case, Republican Legislators, created a 1,000 page bill that no one, especially an ordinary but concerned citizen, can understand. Then they wait until the very last few minutes to pass this unintelligible document. Then they laugh, as Sen. Gazelka did, and declare success. 


If they want us to believe that they were successful, and the Governor was a failure, they need to create a legislative system that citizens can comprehend. At this point, I don’t believe them. They failed to think critically and they failed Minnesota.

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