Cross-posted from MN Progressive Project
When the family of Molie TIbbetts asked that her murder not be used for political propaganda, you of course knew Trump and the modern Republican Party was just going to laugh at the whole notion that the murder of a young white girl by a brown immigrant wouldn't be good for a few hate sessions in conservative media and trumper rallies. Minnesota Nice means, of course, that no Minnesota politician was going to join in the hatemongering.
Oops:
Minnesota state Sen. Karin Housley on Wednesday seized on the killing of a young Iowa college student — and the reported confession of an immigrant with disputed legal status — to take the fight on the immigration issue to her Democratic opponent, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith.
Housley, a Republican from the Stillwater area, released a statement calling the murder a “preventable tragedy.” She charged that Smith and “liberal Democrats … are more concerned about protecting criminal aliens than protecting innocent lives like Mollie Tibbetts.”
Surely by now, even conservatives know that immigrants, documented or not, are highly likely to have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, and to the degree there's doubt, there's doubt whether the lower crime rate is definitely proven, not that there are indications of an immigrant-fueled crime wave that trumpers claim. First, "trumpers" and "conservatives" are the same things now, so at long last get the idea that there's some sort of principled conservatives to stand against Trump out of your head. The two types of conservatives are "trumper" and "former".
Second, if they do know, if Karin Housely knows, they're conveniently pretending they don't in order to feed the nativist bigotries of their base. Whether Housely is pretending or really doesn't know, it's same effect.
Polls suggest you may be asking, "Who is Karin Housely?" She's pretty obscure, which begs the question of how she got nominated, to which I can only answer, "Have you seen how thin the MNGOP bench is?" You then chastise me for answering a question with a question, and I call you pedantic, and then onlookers call both of us immature. Happy now?
Obviously I have trouble avoiding tangents but getting back on track, it's not just you. I found one post about her in this site, one I wrote about her back in 2014 when she was Scott Honour's running mate, and she innocently committed voter fraud. She thought it was a dumb law that she couldn't post a photo of her ballot. She posted a photo of her ballot, which other people also do, but other people don't call for taking away other people's voting rights in the name of fighting voter fraud:
Note that this fits the habit Republicans have when it comes to election law. When they encounter something with elections they don’t immediately understand, they don’t bother asking for the reasoning before making groundless claims. There are dead people voting!!! They died after casting their own ballot and before the registration rolls were audited. They’re registered in multiple precincts!!! They were registered voters who moved and re-registered at their new address, like the law requires, so they’re on the registration rolls in multiple precincts until the rolls are caught up. Outgoing Secretary of State Mark Ritchie tried to change the law to have registrations follow voters as they move, but the Republicans in the legislature blocked it.
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As for Housley herself, she supported photo ID in her 2012 campaign with specious arguments.
The City Pages, often a good place to look for who-the-hell-is-that articles, had just this one piece on Housely (that I found), 8 lessons from Karin Housley’s really bad book. A flavor:
Among her many real-life examples to help “Chickies” understand basic market principles: Imagine you’re trying to pick the right plastic surgeon; imagine you’re Karin Housley’s cleaning lady; people buy Coca-Cola every day, but they probably only buy a new car... what, every couple years? One Chicks group member asks for help naming a golf course. Housley suggests investment groups take outings to “a hotel, a resort, a spa, Las Vegas, Aspen,” to keep things fresh.
Well, be fair, maybe by now she's learned not to go big on tech stocks while a tech bubble is bursting, that voter fraud isn't real, that one crime doesn't change that imigrants have a lower rate... never mind.