Central Minnesota Political

The following is from Minnesota COACTS's Spring newsletter. COACT http://coact.org  has been working on and organizing for single payer medical insurance for years. They deserve lots of credit for their vision and persistence. -- Tim COACT members demonstrating for single payer in January 2018 Single-payer ’ s popularity being used to promote health care proposals, some of which may need a closer look. Beware of proposals that funnel tax dollars through insurance companies in disguise. Capitalizing on single-payer s popularity, some gubernatorial and legislative candidates are proposing a one-government payer to pay for universal health care with tax dollars. This may sound like single-payer, but voters should be wary of who gets those dollars. If our tax dollars directly pay doctors and hospitals of our choice, this may be single-payer. Otherwise, if tax dollars are first funneled through organizations not called insurance companies, but...

Thanks to CREDO

By Tim King Trump was at it again last week. At a rally he based the press and journalists. Attacks on the press have been a trademark of Trump and is allies from Washington D.C. to Long Prairie the cowards, bullies, and would be dictators have attacked truth telling. To do battle with them and to banish their distortions and lies we must arm ourselves with the truth. I wrote the essay below last  summer as I reflected on the state of journalism in America. We all have a lot of work to doc to avoid falling into the abyss that Turkey, Mexico, and Russia find themselves in. -- Tim, 3/31/18 Last May 15th Javier Valdez was driving his car in his home state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Nobody knows what happened exactly but somehow another driver forced him to come to a stop. Then somebody got out of that vehicle, pulled Mr. Valdez from his car, and shot him dead. There’s no question who the killer was. It was one or the other of the drug gangs that Mr. Valdez wrote about regula...

Wouldn't it be great to see solar panels on school buildings across Minnesota!? Please take the actions described below and maybe solar panels on schools will be part of our future. This a recommended action from MN350.org. - Tim What Is It? HF 3675/SF 3129 was introduced by Jean Wagenuis. It gives $4 million for public schools to add solar to their buildings. Half of this money is set to go to the Twin Cities area and the other half to greater Minnesota. Schools may apply for up to 95% of the solar project to be funded by this bill! Minnesota State Capitol from Wikipedia The Bonding Bill The process of this bill is a little different as it would be included in the bonding bill if approved . Every two years, the Minnesota legislature constructs a bonding bill, which is used to fund state projects. Basically, people apply for state funding and if their application is approved, the project is funded by the bonding bill. ( https://tinyurl.com/jbjv7hd for more...

This is from Brian Nowak at MN350.org  http://www.mn350.org Book Clubbers, The next selection is: BRAIDING SWEETGRASS: INDIGENOUS WISDOM, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, AND THE TEACHINGS OF PLANTS.     Robin Wall Kimmerer    Robin is Potawatomi and a botanist, and she brings these lenses of knowledge together in a book that "captures the true reverence between Native Americans and the earth, the relationship that we need in order to survive"    Sweet grass from Wikipedia This book and one other had the most "votes"  but there are other reasons as or more important for selecting this book Earth Day is April 22nd The ECO team recommended that we do books that look at the larger picture as well as focusing on solely climate change This book is a Milkweed published book which is part of our local economy We are doing important work with the native american communities in MN and honoring native traditions if important to s...

Alex Hering wins DFL Representative District 9A endorsement. On Sunday, March 25, 2018, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Representative District 9A unanimously endorsed Alex Hering for the Minnesota State House. Alex Hering Photo by  Trina Raymond, Luminous Prints Delegates of Wadena, Todd, Cass and Morrison Counties met in Browerville for the biannual Senate District 9 Convention.  House District 9A includes most of Wadena County, southwest Cass County and two-thirds of Todd County.   All 30 delegates from 9A voted, without dissent, to nominate Hering, a general contractor from Pillager, to run for the seat currently occupied by Republican John Poston of Lake Shore. At the same convention, delegates from Representative District 9B endorsed Little Falls teacher Stephen Browning. Previously, on Saturday, March 17th, in Mahnomen, delegates from Wadena County in Representative District 2B participated in the process of endorsing Karen Branden of ru...

By Tim King It seems like Senator Rand Paul is the last standing member of the Tea Party. Maybe there are one or two others but neither one of them is as courageous, principled, and just plain delightful as the junior Senator from Kentucky. Paul has been an advocate for our Constitutionally protected right to privacy for decades. So it wasn’t surprising when, in May of 2015, he stood in the Senate to begin a ten hour filibuster against National Security Agency spying on Americans by saying: “There comes a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer,“ he said as he began his filibuster. “That time is now. And I will not let the PATRIOT Act - the most unpatriotic of acts - go unchallenged.” Rand Paul - Thanks to Wikipedia Senator Paul did not have the support of more than two or three Republicans, or the Tea Party, when he stood up to protect our privacy rights. Not much had changed when S...