Be afraid, be very afraid....
I went to a central Minnesota weekend town fair a few weeks ago, and while my amazing Significant Other was shopping in a clothes booth, I decided to sidle over and watch and listen to the goings-on in the next booth, sponsored and staffed by the Minnesota GOP. They had small roulette wheel that an unsuspecting victim could spin to determine their prize if they answered a question correctly. Prizes were things like American flags and R-branded can coolers, keychains, bumper stickers and the like.
I heard them bring on a new booth volunteer and give him instructions on how to engage passersby (“smile and ask if they want to talk about “the state of Minnesota” - I had to laugh at the double entendre, so I wasn’t sure whether to capitalize “state” there). The new volunteer was shown how to operate the roulette wheel (!) and then given the list of questions, and instructed “ask the person to pick a number between 1 and 43, read the paragraph at the top of the sheet, then ask them the question they choose. And all the answers to all the questions are “yes”.”
Without further prefatory doo-doo, here is the introduction and the list of questions the MN GOP wants to use to presumably enrage central Minnesotans:
“The 2023 Minnesota legislative session is over. Democrats returned to St. Paul in January with a $17.5 billion surplus and total control of state government, which hinges on a one-seat majority in the Senate (decided by a few hundred votes). One dissenting voice would have been enough to derail their entire agenda. Instead, swing-district senators were reliable green votes on every major piece of legislation.
In just four months, the DFL majority:
- Established a fundamental right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy
- Declared Minnesota a ”refuge” for children seeking sex changes
- Passed the “Take Pride Act”, which will prohibit nonprofits that serve minors from discriminating based on “gender identity” in hiring practices
- Passed protections for women who travel to Minnesota for abortions
- Repealed protections for babies who survive abortions
- Stripped pregnancy resource centers of state funding
- Gutted reporting requirements for abortion facilities
- Expanded medical assistance to include abortion (taxpayer-funded abortion)
- Repealed an informed consent law for abortion
- Legalized recreational marijuana use
- Increased government spending by 40 percent
- Raised the gas tax by indexing it to inflation
- Created a new delivery fee on all retail orders over $100
- Increased sales taxes and fees for vehicle purchases and registration
- Passed a metro-wide sales tax increase
- Enacted automatic voter registration
- Passed pre-registration for 16- and 17- year olds
- Joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
- Funded a study on ranked-choice voting
- Passed a bill to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants
- Passed a bill to provide health care to illegal immigrants
- Restored the right to vote to violent felons who are on probation
- Created a commission to design a new state flag
- Replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day
- Declared Juneteenth a state holiday
- Raised the threshold for a political party to attain “major party” status from five percent to eight percent beginning in the 2024 general election
- Passed a bill to require Minnesota’s energy grid to be 100% carbon-free by 2040
- Banned so-called “conversion therapy”
- Passed two gun control (SORRY, I DIDN’T CAPTURE A FEW WORDS IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER)..law and universal background checks
- Provided free college at all state institutions for students in families with incomes under $80,000
- Passed a bill to provide free lunch and breakfast to all Minnesota students regardless of family income
- Increased spending on K-12 education BY 10.2%
- Banned native American mascots
- Raised fees for fishing, boating, visiting state parks
- Created a hate speech database
- Banned no-knock warrants
- Created a program that will allow inmates who complete certain programming to serve jus half of their prison sentences
- Created a stat-run paid leave program that will raise taxes on employers and employees
- Established a new legal avenue for prosecutors to seek lower sentences.
- Funder an Office of Restorative Practices that will propose alternatives to incarceration for juveniles who commit serious crimes
- Commissioned a study on abolishing cash bail
- Created a new public database that will assign climate scores to large businesses
- Capped rebate checks at $260 per filer, with income limits, and down from the $1,000 initially proposed by Gov. Tim Walz”
Looks like a pretty good list to me!!!! (please excuse any transcription errors...) Kind of reminds me of MTG reciting her complaint list where Dark Brandon used her own words to make a commercial ending in “and I approve this message”. Thank you Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota DFL!!!! (Minnesota’s Dems merged with the “Farmer-Labor” party in 1944, interesting history there…)
So, they were flagging down anyone who would talk, including teens and pre-teens. Ages that likely are more interested in free stuff than adults. I didn’t hear any of the really good questions asked, and I didn’t have the list handy yet to cross reference the number picked with the question asked, but I would have loved to hear them ask a kid:
“Don’t you see the problem with passing a bill to provide free lunch and breakfast to all Minnesota students regardless of family income”? OR ask a kid
“Did you know your state government repealed protections for babies who survive abortions?” OR ask a kid
“Did you know your state government legalized marijuana?” (I’d like to see that reaction… “Yesssss!”)
I was only able to spend a few minutes there, but it was highly entertaining. The well-meaning new volunteer didn’t engage too many people and the questions he asked were not the craziest of the ones above. A few took the small flag as a prize, likely made in China, to wave at that the parade that evening.
On the drive home, I read off the list to my SO (a long-time educator) and she pretty much answered “hell yes” to each of the accomplishments above.
She’s as progressive as I am, but I did note that there were a few things that she wasn’t aware of that many of us in this highly active political community are, like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and ranked-choice voting. Point being that we need to talk about all the positive things that the Dems are doing, point by point to those we can influence, and educate when we get the chance.
Well, that’s the report from Lake Wobegon (the fictional location of Lake Wobegon is just one county over from this town).
Take care and be kind, all-
And thanks for all the recs… I feel like John Candy in Splash (as Freddie) “They published my letter!”
