It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was the opinion section of the Albert Lea Tribune.
In the last seven days, two items have appeared in the paper that suggest that even in the pastoral splendor of Freeborn County--so far south, it's almost Iowa--the notion of "One Minnesota" has its limits.
There's the paid political letter: What kind of country should we have?, by Mavis Jacobs Hanson, who apparently doesn't want a country where fact checks matter. Hanson writes:
In an underhanded attempt to turn the USA into a third-world socialist country, Democrats tried to sneak into the coronavirus relief bill:
• Mandating a $15 minimum wage, permanent paid leave and pay by race at companies receiving assistance.
• Requiring early voting and same-day voter registration.
• Paying off all current debt of the U.S. Postal Service.
• Bailing out the D.C. Kennedy Art Center, the IRS and the House of Representatives.
• Requiring full carbon offset of airline emissions by 2025 and greenhouse gas statistics for individual flights.
It’s an outrageous power grab.
President Trump is attempting to make things right for taxpayers.
When times get hard, we step up. It’s the American way! Together, our country made it through the Civil War, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, two world wars, the Korean War, Vietnam and Sept. 11 attacks, as well as the 2008 financial crisis, to name a few.
We didn’t hear from Obama [link added] about 60 million Americans who were affected with the swine flue [sic], resulting in 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths. There was no media panic, no trashing of President Barack Obama and no travel ban. You don’t even remember it — according to Rush Limbaugh. [fact checks here, here, and here]
We could have learned from the swine flu and been prepared with masks and all equipment needed; however, none of the orders to restock happened, leaving to this administration to gather the necessary means to fight the coronavirus.
Jason Lewis, running for the Minnesota U.S. Senate seat, disagrees with liberal incumbent Sen. Tina Smith, who is for removing President Trump and condoning lies, leaks, rigged rules, character assassination, secret hearings and secondhand testimony. She is for taxpayer-financed abortions on demand, and if a precious baby miraculously survives a botched abortion, she is for putting that innocent child of God to death. Also, she is for perpetuating the Obama policies that caused the immigration crisis. She is against the Second Amendment, and with her “F” rating from the NRA, she is an ever-present threat of grabbing the guns you use to hunt and/or protect your family. She is against America’s small business owners siding with the environmental extremists, whose radical agenda will snuff out our growing American economy. She is against President Trump’s strict constitutionalist judges, having fought President Trump’s appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Vote for Jason Lewis, who is a conservative Trump-supporting Republican who will defeat her.
Incumbent Tina Smith is an accidental senator. She was handpicked by her mentor, Gov. Mark Dayton, to fill the Senate seat of the disgraced Al Franken. Radical, bitter and angry, she is in lockstep with Rep. Ilhan Omar spouting the same far-left screed.
As we continue to battle the COVID-19 epidemic, we encourage all to remain strong and pray for our Constitution and nation with God.
We're baffled more baffled by the description of Smith as a protege of former governor Mark Dayton than by the empty "radical, bitter and angry" tag or that "radical agenda" those who seek clean air and water, which is totally rad.
We first met Senator Smith when she served as chief-of-staff for former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak; she was also running his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. While she later went to work for Dayton's campaign and administration, her career was well established by this time--she was in her early 50s and no late bloomer. Radical, bitter and angry? She struck us as corporate professional with an understated sense of humor.
Mavis' letter seems to include the entire playbook for the MNGOP and Lewis. Read it once and your work is done.
On Tuesday, the paper posted local DFLer Jennifer Vogt-Erickson's column, My Point of View: State representative has not challenged the status quo,a stroll through the perceived short-comings of State Representative Peggy Bennett. Vogt-Erickson writes:
We need fresh representation in the state house. Our current representative is short-sighted on investments, anti-science on life-threatening issues and silent on the racially-biased status quo.
Our state representative voted against a bonding bill that would have provided $1.75 million to extend the Blazing Star Trail over Albert Lea Lake (good for both Albert Lea and Hayward), $7.5 million for ongoing Fountain Lake dredging, $3.5 million for flood mitigation on water-prone East Main, plus $250,000 for the Albert Lea Economic Development Agency.
That is $13 million she rejected for our district. Do the population math — a nearly equitable portion of the overall $2.4 billion bonding bill would go to our district, and she thought it was too much.
Interest rates are very low, so now is a smart time to invest in projects that will provide long-term benefit to our economy. It’s fortunate Shannon Savick was representing us to get the dredging project initially funded, but our current representative is content to leave us stuck in the mud.
We’re also stuck with COVID-19. If there’s anything a retired first-grade teacher should have downpat, it’s the importance of following simple routines, being considerate of other people and setting a good example. Wearing a face mask checks all three of these boxes.
Our state representative is still, as of last Friday, not always wearing a mask in public places like the local grocery store, which is something that Mayor Rasmussen, Dr. Ciota and Sue Yost have asked people to practice to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in our community.
If people see our current state representative not wearing a mask, the message she is sending as a leader is that it’s not important to wear a mask, whether that is her intention or not.
Mask usage is simple and effective, it does not restrict oxygen intake (even though it may feel stuffy), and it is not “unmanly” nor any other nonsense excuse Fox News is spreading.
American public health officials figured out the effectiveness of wearing masks during the 1918 influenza pandemic, and it’s astonishing how hard it is to convince people of this simple fact after more than 100 years of medical progress since then.
Maybe our representative knows the importance of wearing masks or maybe she doesn’t. I’ve argued before that she’s anti-science and out of touch. She also rarely steps outside the messaging of her party, and Republicans have been dangerously obtuse about wearing masks, loathe to depart a hair from President Trump’s meandering and irrational rhetoric.
Finally, our state representative is timid about challenging the racial status quo. She did not provide a statement for the local Justice for George Floyd rally in early June, which she was not able to attend. It was a peaceful rally, in which over 100 people gathered. Despite the barricaded streets and SWAT team presence, the energy was welcoming and positive, and we listened to voices of community members who are often muted.
It felt like we could be a vibrant community with broad shoulders if we have the courage to do better, together.
Back in January 2018, though, our state representative did attend a Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction meeting in which Ron Branstner, an Islamophobic, anti-immigrant guest speaker, spread misinformation about Somali immigrants. She declined to speak when invited, but she apparently felt it was a politically safe space — a white supremacist, Christian dominionist space — to be present.
That day it felt like we were in a community that was closed, brittle and scared of dying.
I think about the stark contrast of those two events a lot.
The status quo is comfortable for those who benefit from it. Like it or not, white supremacy is the status quo in Minnesota, a state with some of the most entrenched racial gaps in education, home ownership and criminal sentencing in the entire country. Our representative has not challenged this status quo. If anything, she has defended it.
If you want our part of Minnesota to do better and move into a future that invests in all rather than some, and follows science rather than dead-end misinformation, it’s time to step out of our familiar comfort zone and get uncomfortable.
It’s not enough to be nice. We have a better option in November, and his name is Thomas Martinez. It’s time for new representation.
Harsh? Here's Bennett official Facebook book page. There's a food drive for Minneapolis, for example, but no discussion of addressing "some of the most entrenched racial gaps in education, home ownership and criminal sentencing in the entire country."
Photo: Albert Lea, Minnesota, yesterday. Still from the KAAL-TV Albert Lea live cam.
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