Central Minnesota Political

The Minnesota Republicans introduced Minnesotans to their Vision 2020 plan earlier this month.  It’s a rough outline of their legislative agenda. The leader of the vision is Majority leader Sen. Paul Gazelka. “Senate Republicans unveiled their legislative priorities in their ‘Vision 2020’,” wrote DFL Senator Melissa Franzen in an email this week. “The priorities they’re pushing? School vouchers, handouts to insurance companies, and voter suppression legislation, to name a few.” Sen. Franzen’s claims were red meat thrown to her base for the purposes of fund raising. However, you can be certain that she’s not far off since Gazelka and Co. already have a strong track record in those three areas. If you take a peak at the actual Vision 2020 on-line document you’ll see that they want to clear the way for the two mines to start up in northern Minnesota. They also want to see construction on the new Line 3 pipeline get under way. They want these controversial and environm...

“A lot of my job frankly is stopping the onslaught of the left from continually moving us in a way that we know is contrary to the Bible,” Gazelka told the extremist Christian evangelical leader Andrew Wommack during an interview in November on Truth & Liberty, a weekly extreme right Christian on-line broadcast. Gazelka told Wommack that he is engaged in a spiritual battle as leader of the Minnesota Senate. Wommack in turn told Gazelka that opponents of conservative Christians are with “the spirit of Antichrist. What they call political correctness is nothing but demonic inspired and so … I can get by with stuff maybe you can’t.”  Gazelka didn’t disagree with the extremist opinion that opponents of conservative Christians are with the spirit of the Antichrist. He merely dissembled and claimed he was like Jesus who went among the sinners to convert them. Gazelka has always seen himself as a minister who intends to convert Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Bahai, ...

Eight U.S. states have Healthy Soils laws. Minnesota is not among those select eight, although so called conservative states such as Oklahoma and Utah are. The Utah law, passed in 2015, Calls on all agencies “with authority to manage lands to increase soil carbon sequestration”. The Oklahoma law, passed in 2001, Creates advisory committee to identify and support practices through research and development as well as education. The 2017 Hawaiian law is somewhat more ambitious. It requires the state to identify, measure, and encourage soil health practices and promotes carbon  sequestration, compost, and agroforestry. Hawaii provides a small amount of money for this work. California, which passed its law in 2016 and strengthened it in 2018, provides technical assistance and seven and a half million for soil health programs and demonstrations. In 2019 there were nine states that introduced Healthy Soil legislation. Minnesota was not among that select nine. The Washington state b...