Bluestem Prairie

Redwood County GOP & anti-refugee activist believes Kamala Harris birther conspiracy

Roger Baumann, a Redwood County GOP and anti-refugee activist, thinks Joe Biden's choice of a running mate is a plot to make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi president.

Oh yeah. But he's not the first person to imagine Harris, a California senator, isn't eligible to be president.

Just over a year ago, CNN reported in How Kamala Harris conspiracies festered online before making it to Trump Jr.:

Attempts to undermine Sen. Kamala Harris' racial identity had been festering on conspiratorial corners of the internet for months before being elevated to the mainstream by Donald Trump Jr. during last week's debate, an expert that tracks online misinformation tells CNN.

In addition to efforts to undermine Harris' identity as a black woman, a false claim that Harris is not eligible to run for president because both of her parents are foreign-born has also been circulating. The claim has echoes of the false birther conspiracy that was spread about President Barack Obama -- and some of the same people involved in spreading that conspiracy are involved in circulating the false claims about Harris. . . .

Birther conspiracy theorists have also circulated material challenging Harris' eligibility to run for president. Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, is eligible to run for president.

"The adversarial attack on Harris' eligibility highlights how political disinformation operators recycle narratives that have had success in the past with hyper-partisan communities," Decker explained, adding that some of the main architects of the birther conspiracy against Obama are utilizing social media to spread similar falsehoods about Harris.

Republican state convention delegate and Redwood County anti-refugee activist Roger Bauman is still a true believer in that debunked conspiracy theory. On his Facebook page yesterday, Baumann shared an Alpha News post asking what readers thought about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's vice-presidential pick:

One of Baumann's Facebook friends raised conspiracy and the exchange in the screengrab at the top of this post ensued:

Ned Uhm And because she wasn't born in America, if biden really does go absentia, the pesidency goes to speaker of the house.

Roger Baumann It's been part of the plan from the beginning.

 

Ned Uhm Roger Baumann yep

 

Shirley Appel Heaven help us.

Mary Gayle Bratsch Why she got that face lift huh?

The Mary Gayle Bratsch "facelift" comment is about Pelosi. See Nancy Pelosi's Eyebrows Get More Criticism Than Her Politics for more on that. (Bratsch served as treasurer for Tammy Houle's wildly unsuccessful House 16B primary bid to defeat Hanska Republican Paul Torkelson).

Earlier this year, Bratsch joined Baumann in objecting to refugee resettlement, the Redwood Falls Gazette reported in Redwood County board hears from public about refugee resettlement opt-in vote.

As our late father would likely have said, a pair to draw to.

For more on anti-Harris conspiracies from 2019, check out Business Insider's Donald Trump Jr. shared a racist tweet about Kamala Harris and then deleted it after it went viral, fanning the flames of a new 'birther' conspiracy.

Related posts:

• Minnesota’s right wing keyboard warriors lapping up COVID-19 conspiracy theories (Minnesota Reformer)
• After tense Cloquet event, Ron Branstner bringing anti-refugee spiel to Redwood Falls 2/13

Screengrab: Conspiracy commentary in Redwood County.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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Another face on Mount Rushmore? Keep calm and consider history, engineering studies

Since the New York Times article How Kristi Noem, Mt. Rushmore and Trump Fueled Speculation About Pence’s Job was published on Saturday, we've seen a lot of trepidation about this notion:

Since the first days after she was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018, Kristi Noem had been working to ensure that President Trump would come to Mount Rushmore for a fireworks-filled July 4 extravaganza.

After all, the president had told her in the Oval Office that he aspired to have his image etched on the monument. And last year, a White House aide reached out to the governor’s office with a question, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation: What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore? . . .

In private, the efforts to charm Mr. Trump were more pointed, according to a person familiar with the episode: Ms. Noem greeted him with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included a fifth presidential likeness: his.

But we recalled a recent article in the Argus Leader that lets us sleep at night: Adding fifth face to Mount Rushmore National Memorial has been political football for decades.

Apparently, adding another face could actually achieve what some indigenous South Dakotans (including our romantic partner, a citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) have dreamed of as long as the sculptures have been on the rock in the sacred Black Hills.

Tom Lawrence reports:

Is there room for a fifth face on Mount Rushmore?

The National Park Service says no, there is no secure surface on the mountain. While a large expanse to the right of George Washington seems a likely spot for at least one more president, NPS officials point out that sculptor Gutzon Borglum intended to place Thomas Jefferson there.

But it turned out the area was not stable, so Jefferson was relocated and crunched between Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. The rock next to Washington is simply not available.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial Chief of Interpretation and Education Maureen McGee-Ballinger said it is a frequent question.

“From time to time individuals, groups or organizations make proposals to add the busts of other individuals to Mount Rushmore National Memorial,” McGee-Ballinger said. “Additions are not possible for two reasons.

Since 1989 the National Park Service has worked with RESPEC, a rock mechanics engineering firm, to study the structural stability of the sculpture and to install rock block monitoring devices that assure long-term preservation of the sculpture, she said.

“RESPEC supports our long-held belief that no other rock near the sculpted faces is suitable for additional carving,” McGee-Ballinger said. “RESPEC also believes that if additional work were undertaken it is possible that exposing new surfaces could result in creation of potential instabilities in the existing carving.

We trust the rocks to know what they're doing. For more on the origins of the notion of putting Trump's face on Rushmore, that April 2018 Argus Leader story, Mount Trumpmore? It's the president's 'dream,' Rep. Kristi Noem says, has this juicy tidbit:

"He said, 'Kristi, come on over here. Shake my hand,'" Noem said. "I shook his hand, and I said, 'Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.' And he goes, 'Do you know it's my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?' "

Noem thought he was joking.

"I started laughing," she said. "He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious." . . .

The problem is, as most South Dakotans already know, adding Trump, let alone any president, is not possible.

"There is no more carvable space up on the sculpture," McGee-Ballinger said. "When you are looking on the sculpture, it appears there might be some space on the left next to Washington or right next to Lincoln. You are either looking at the rock that is beyond the sculpture (on the right), which is an optical illusion, or on the left, that is not carvable."

A brief history lesson: Gutzon Borglum originally intended to put Thomas Jefferson first in the lineup. Washington had already been started in his current spot, but when work commenced on Jefferson, it was determined the rock wasn't usable. Washington remained, but Jefferson had to move. . .  .

We'll have more Bluestem Prairie in the morning.

Photo: From Twitter, via New York Post article Trump staffer tweets photo of ‘improved’ Mount Rushmore, July 3, 2020.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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Guest post: Should Minnesota taxpayers fund a jail expansion in Kandiyohi County?

We received this provocative short paper from Will Cooley, a native of Villard in Pope County, who is a community faculty member at Metropolitan State University and currently resides in Robbinsdale. The views expressed are his own.

We've retained the academic footnote style for the matter cited in the document, rather than linking throughout the article in the usual blog style.

Will Cooley
Guest writer

Experts agree that the “correctional free lunch” is one of the main drivers of American mass incarceration. Criminal justice decisions are made at the county level while states pick up the cost of imprisonment. This provides a perverse incentive for prosecutors and judges to be “tough on crime” without any fiscal consequences.¹

Kandiyohi County provides an example. Commissioners are planning an expansion of the county jail and claiming that local taxpayers will not have to fund the project because it will be paid for with revenue from boarding prisoners. Kandiyohi County contracts with the DOC, ICE, and surrounding smaller counties to lodge and transport offenders.²

The Judicial 8th district (which includes Kandiyohi County) has helped drive up Minnesota’s prison population. In 1994, the district convicted 181 offenders of a felony. By 2017, that number reached 492.³ Judges sent 179 people to prison in 2001 and 323 in 2014. In addition, approximately 22 percent of probationers are revoked and imprisoned yearly.⁴ As with many areas of Minnesota, the confinement rise coincided with a period of increasing racial diversity.⁵

When counties overfilled prisons, Kandiyohi County benefited with a contract with the DOC worth at least $3 million to warehouse inmates.

Kandiyohi County has long touted its jail as a revenue producer. In 2006, the county administrator boasted that boarding prisoners would mean “a lot of good jobs.” If the jail was a private business, the economic development office “would be chasing us down the street to get us to locate in Kandiyohi County.” The Democratic state senator said boarding provided a “nice cash flow” for the county^.6 The county also extracts funds from inmates through a contract with TurnKey Corrections that guarantees 27 percent of revenues from commissary and communication fees.

While the contracts provide a “nice cash flow,” the conditions for boarders do not facilitate rehabilitation and public safety. As the DOC’s own research shows, “warehousing” inmates has criminogenic effects.⁷ A typical jail has few mental health services, no full-time medical personnel, no access to jobs, and scant programming. Most jails do not have drug treatment programs. Ironically, only well-behaved and low-risk inmates are boarded, which doubly punishes low-level offenders.⁸

The Kandiyohi County jail is also one of the five Minnesota facilities that has a contract with ICE to hold people on immigration violations. These detainees are often caged on minor charges for indeterminate periods away from their families and communities^.9

The Judicial 8th District has social needs that must be addressed outside of the punishment bureaucracy. As the Kandiyohi County board chair noted, the state must act to comprehensively address mental illness. “People who are mentally ill should not be in the jail in the first place.”¹⁰ Concerned residents and rural organizations have insisted that imprisoning people, whether citizens or immigrants, will not solve problems – serious investment in community-driven solutions will. Area leaders endeavor to create economic growth through inclusion, but overuse of carceral measures undermines these efforts.¹¹

Governor Walz has pledged that Minnesotans “can expect our administration to use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in our state.”¹² The criminogenic warehousing of people in a racially disparate criminal justice system is an example of the perverse incentives fueling mass incarceration and systemic racism. Why should Minnesota taxpayers subsidize the construction of more revenue-generating cells in Kandiyohi County?

Photo: The Kandiyohi County Jail, Erica Dischino /West Central Tribune.

^1  W. David Ball, “Defunding State Prisons,” Criminal Law Bulletin 50:5 (2014), 1060-1090; John F. Pfaff, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration – and How to Achieve Real Reform (New York: Basic Books, 2017).

^2 https://www.willmarradio.com/news/kandiyohi-county-board-approves-moving-forward-on-jail-expansion-remodel-project/article_67d8576c-a0dd-11ea-8da3-275128273589.html; https://www.fox9.com/news/ice-detainees-fear-covid-19-in-minnesota-county-jails; https://cms3.revize.com/revize/kandiyohimn/docs/SHERIFF/2016%20Annual%20Report.pdf

^3 Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, “2018 Sentencing Practices,” https://mn.gov/msgc-stat/documents/reports/2018/MSGC2018AnnualSummaryStatistics.pdf

^4 Information supplied by Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission

^5 https://www.ruralmn.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/State-of-rural-2020-final.pdf

⁶ https://www.wctrib.com/news/288010-legislation-could-mean-expansion-beds-kandiyohi-county-jail

^{ 7}https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23774657.2016.1240596

^{ 8}https://www.startribune.com/state-s-prisoners-decry-aimless-limbo-in-county-jails/371865301/

^{ 9}https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/its-very-scary-ice-detainees-in-kandiyohi-county-jail-express-fear-and-anxiety-as-covid-19-spreads-in-minnesota/

^10 https://www.wctrib.com/news/government-and-politics/4621830-kandiyohi-county-jail-renovation-eyed-meet-mental-health-needs

^11 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/opinion/trump-willmar-minnesota.html

^12 https://mn.gov/governor/news/?id=1055-434501#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSilence%20is%20complicity.,do%2C%20not%20what%20we%20say.

Will Cooley is the author of Moving Up, Moving Out: The Rise of the Black Middle Class in Chicago

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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Trump 2020 flags totally raise level of diction in West Central Minnesota's political discourse

Mark Twain famously said that it wasn't the noise that fighting cats made that caused their spats to be so ugly; it was their grammar.

Personally, we think it's their diction.

Certainly, one can't in any way fault the diction of Trump supporters who've chosen the Trump 2020 campaign flags that are now flapping in the breeze of Greater Minnesota.

The flag in the screenshot at the top of this post was displayed on the Facebook page of the Kandiyohi County Republicans. It appears to be official campaign swag.

The word "Bullshit" isn't a stranger to Minnesota politics, as the famous use by now Speaker Melissa Hortman in the "white male card game" comment back in 2017 illustrates. Back then, before the world turned nasty, Republicans objected to the word, City Pages reported.

We're also reminded of the Harry Truman story related in the 1982 Washington Post story, Remembering Bess:

Bess' deeply rooted sense of what was fitting and proper set her on a not-too-successful campaign to curb her husband's salty language. It seemed to the household staff at the White House that her most commonly used expression was, "You didn't need to say that." Truman himself liked to tell the story (probably apocryphal) of speaking at a Grange meeting and repeatedly using the word "manure." A friend sitting in the audience with Bess leaned over to her and said, "I wish you could get Harry to use a more genteel word." Bess replied, "Good Lord, Helen, it's taken me years to get him to say 'manure.' "

We're not so sure about the f-bomb. The one in the picture below was on display at a private residence in Clarkfield, Minnesota, a small town of 787 (2019 estimate) in Yellow Medicine County.

The flag does not appear to be an official piece of campaign swag, as far as we can tell from a Google search.

A reader sent it in. We believe the child's bike is an especially heartwarming reminder of family.

Images: Screenshot from Kandiyohi County Republicans (above); submitted photo, below.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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Draz says the darnest things: MN Jobs Coalition political fund spent big attacking conservatives in 2018 Republican House primary races

On Friday, Alpha News published a column by Mazeppa New House Republican Caucus leader Steve Drazkowski: Minnesota GOP swamp creatures trying to pick their own legislators. The Draz asserted:

Unfortunately, the history of the “Jobs Coalition” punching at GOP-endorsed conservative legislators and candidates is too well established. In 2018, they spent significant resources against the most conservative candidates in primary races … only to see us lose the House majority months later after our side ran out of cash. This year seems to be stacking up similarly with more bad decisions with conservative donors’ limited resources.

That claim appears to be misleading. We've looked at the MN Jobs Coalition 2018 year-end report, and discovered that the political fund only attacked one Republican candidate that year: Brad Ganzer, the Republican endorsed candidate who was defeated in the 2018 Republican primary for Minnesota House District by Kristin Robbins, who won the seat in November.

Robbins was endorsed by "retiring Rep. Joyce Peppin, Maple Grove Mayor Mark Steffenson, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis and the TwinWest PAC," according to a profile of both candidates published in late July 2018 by the local paper, the Press and News.

The fund spend $7,718.00 in online advertising and mail against Ganzer, while plunking down $5,771.22 on Robbins' behalf in the primary.

Now Ganzer did enjoy Drazkowski's support in the primary, as well as the that of the Republican Party, but that$5,771.22 wasn't enough to carry the day on the primary. But it certainly didn't lose the district for the Republican Party.

Indeed, that's a drop in the bucket for a political fund that spent $1,372,963.31 for the year in 2018. For more on that spending, check out MinnPost's  Well, we finally know how much the Minnesota Jobs Coalition spent on the 2018 election:

The bulk of the money the Jobs Coalition spent in 2018 went to independent expenditures in Minnesota House races.

Independent expenditures are dollars spent to influence elections by groups not affiliated with campaigns who are not allowed to coordinate with candidates.

Most of that money was spent in high-stakes suburban House seats that saw lots of spending from other groups, too. But rather than send election communications to boost the GOP candidate, most of the money was spent attacking the DFL rival.

The Jobs Coalition spent $147,000, for example, in Blaine’s 37B to attack Democrat Amir Malik in an effort to help incumbent Republican Nolan West hold onto the seat (West was successful in that effort).

It spent nearly as much, $135,000, in Spring Lake Park’s 37A, to attack DFLer Erin Koegel in an attempt to help the Republican candidate Anthony Wilder win. Koegel retained the seat.

It spent $108,000 in Savage-area 56A to help incumbent Republican Drew Christensen win by attacking DFLer Hunter Cantrell (Cantrell won) , and $107,000 in 57A, the open Apple Valley seat, against the Democrat to help Republican Matt Lundin win. The seat stayed in DFL hands with a Robert Bierman win.

Of the 18 races where the coalition spent the most money, the Republican candidate was successful in just four.

Nope, those "significant resources" were spent attacking DFLers in what was a bad year for Republicans in Minnesota.

We've extracted the summary of that report and the list of independent expenditures within it (the full report can be found here by selecting it from the online filings). And yes, the report's IE confirm our earlier post, MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner.

MN Jobs Coalition IE spending 2018 year-end report extracted and uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd:

Related posts:

• MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner
• Is MNGOP out to get Jeremy Munson?

Photo: A lit piece for Brad Ganzer, the only 2018 Republican primary candidate against whom the MN Jobs Coalition spend money. Via Facebook.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.

Is MNGOP out to get Jeremy Munson?

On Thursday, we posted MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner.

Since we don't regularly read Alpha News, we missed the postcard at the top of this post, which accompanies Alpha News' Minnesota Republican establishment attempts to take out conservative Jeremy Munson. Anthony Gockowski reports:

The Minnesota Republican Party has allegedly refused to provide material support to one of the State Legislature’s most conservative lawmakers in his primary race.

The Minnesota GOP has endorsed Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, for reelection, but the party’s support for the legislator essentially has stopped there. Munson is one of the only GOP-endorsed incumbents in the Minnesota House with a relatively competitive Republican challenger, that being Yvonne Simon.

“I have received tons of support from my local Republican county parties. As the endorsed candidate, they have rallied behind my campaign, providing thousands of dollars in direct contributions and volunteers have been putting up signs and door-knocking for my campaign,” said Munson, stressing the fact that county parties support his campaign.

But the Minnesota GOP is “silent in my race,” he said.

Munson was one of four lawmakers who broke from House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt’s leadership in late 2018 to form the New House Republican Caucus. . . . .

We're not a fan of Representative Munson, but attacking him as hanging with the DFL seems on the order of the Dorr Brothers' Minnesota Right to Life video ambush, MCCL Endorsed Glenn Gruenhagen's Planned Parenthood Support EXPOSED!.

 

Photo: The mail piece sent as an independent expenditure against Jeremy Munson. Via Alpha News.

 

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.

MN Jobs Coalition turns on Munson; spent $82,308.24 against 2018 special election DFL opponent Melissa Wagner

How soon the tables have been turned on Jeremy Munson, the endorsed Republican candidate in Minnesota House District 23B.

The MN Jobs Coalition Legislative Fund, a political fund registered with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure board, spent $82,308.24 in television ads and mailing lists against his DFL opponent (and $650.25 on a phone bank for him) in the February special election to fill the open seat created by the resignation of Tony Cornish. (See the group's 2018 Year-End report here).

Now the group has sent out a postcard against his bid in next Tuesday's Republican primary in the south central Minnesota district. This despite the comparatively lackluster fundraising listed online in the Campaign Finance Board's Financial Summary for the fund. The once high-rolling fund ended the pre-primary with less than $10,000 cash on hand.

And now some of that coin is being spent against an endorsed Republican House candidate. As we reported in MN23B Reindeer games: Republican challenger to Jeremy Munson has quite the resume, the Lake Crystal New Republican faces Yvonne Simon for the Republican nomination. Without opposition, Munson was endorsed by local Republicans; Simon filed her challenge at the last minute.

On his personal Facebook page, Munson posted:

The post shares a longer Facebook entry (screengrab at the top of this article) from his Representative Jeremy Munson Facebook page:

The negative mailers based on bald-faced lies have started. When challenged to a primary, my family and

I knew attacks from outside groups were coming, so I asked everyone to pay attention to the “prepared and paid for” statements on negative campaign mailers and ads. Today, the Jobs Coalition Legislative Fund sent a negative mailer chock full of lies. It is illegal in MN to outright lie on campaign literature, but lobbying groups like this one do not mind paying the $5000 fine, if their lies influence elections.

These attacks are not only meant to smear me, but also send all legislators a message about staying in line and keeping quiet. I will not be intimidated. I did not run to be a career politician, so these types of threats do not work on me. Make no mistake, I will not back down. I will continue to be transparent, and call out conflicts of interest and back room deals. I will again introduce legislation making it illegal for a legislator to also work for a lobbying firm. And I absolutely will not stop fighting to lower the cost of healthcare in MN. My Right to Shop bill is a fantastic piece of legislation and I will continue to push for it. Similar legislation has already helped to lower healthcare costs in four other states.

Here is the truth:

1) Along with all my Republican collegues in the House, I voted, 'NO' on defunding police.

2) This year alone, I had FIVE HEARINGS on bills I chief authored, one passed the house, and I co-authored over 100 bills with other Republicans.

3) I earned awards from CPAC, the LEA, Action for Liberty, and the MN Taxpayers League for my fiscal conservative voting record.

4) I work with Republican legislators in both the House and the Senate. In fact, 22 House Republicans signed on as co-authors to support my 'Patient Right to Shop' bill this year.

5) I was unanimously endorsed by the Republican Party.

I am asking for your support and vote on Aug. 11th. Every vote is extremely important in a primary election.

I am running on principles, transparency and my conservative voting record. I will not run a negative campaign. If you have questions about these attacks, please call me at ...

We're hoping to get an image of the entire independent expenditure mailer.

Munson is correct about the sponsors of HF638, the Patient Right to Shop bill.

However, we were unable to find the non-profit parent group of the political fund, the MN Jobs Coalition, in the Board's database of lobbying associations.

We've contacted the MN Jobs Coalition, as well as Representative Munson, to obtain a copy of the entire IE mail piece so that readers can compare the material. The post will be updated to reflect the added material should it arrive.

Related posts:

• Base motives: Munson primary lit piece focuses on 2nd Amendment sanctuaries, Walz powers
• Random white guy with an opinion on PBS thinks Sioux & Dakota fought war against each other
• Passionate insulin "Mama Bear" follows the money on Jeremy Munson's diabetes authority
• He's on it: Jeremy Munson gets confused about when MN House HHS Finance Division last met
• MN23B Reindeer games: Republican challenger to Jeremy Munson has quite the resume
• Nazi namecalling: two Southern MN Republicans lose their wits about Warren, insulin critics

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.

Rocks & Cows Facebook group members decry Ilhan Omar's son John--er Bruno Mars

Rocks and Cows Facebook page member shared a troll post about Ilhan Omar's son "John." pic.twitter.com/wCwOBiCx7g

— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) August 5, 2020

While Neiman Labs published an article last August declaring  "[l]abeling satire as such  . . .  [as] the most effective way we know of to prevent people from taking satirical content as fact,"  many commenters on a recent post to the Rocks and Cows North Facebook group missed the difference.

Members lack of understanding of satire led to comments on a Bust A Troll article FBI Arrests Omar’s Son Attempting To Destroy Statue Of Christ, posted to the site on August 2 by member Alissa Knopps, to call for violence against Ilhan Omar and her son "John."

Here's the article:

Harry Helmet Satire for Islamaphobes

Lawless thugs have been taking down statues that mark our history all over America. They started with ones that they found to be “racially insensitive,” but have since moved on to any image that commemorates our history.

In response to this, President Trump introduced a crime bill that would severely punish anyone caught vandalizing these structures. Mandatory 10-year sentences have been brought in to discourage any more of this troublemaking behavior.

Now, in Minnesota, the first arrests have been made which would see this sentencing be applied. Several antifas were caught in the act as they attempted to destroy the statue of Jesus Christ in Kal Ren park in the small town of Alderron.

Twelve have been arrested in total and there is one very notable name among them –John Omar, son of Democrat Representative Ilhan Omar, has been taken into custody and awaits his first court appearance.

Special agent Joe Barron of the FBI gave a statement with regard to this high profile arrest:

“In a recent bust of Antifa fascists as they attempted to destroy a historic monument to Christ, it was discovered that the son of Minnesota representative Omar was amongst those arrested. John Omar appeared to be leading the charge in this destruction and has been named as the ringleader.

Omar’s family and his mother’s position will have no effect on his treatment. Mr. Omar will be given the same consideration as every other Antifa we arrested today or will in the future. These arrests are a victory for America.“

It seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Ilhan Omar‘s anti-American sentiment has been passed onto her child who is showing it through these criminal acts. It seems likely that a connection to his mother may be uncovered, ridding us of them both, but probably not, as this is a work of fiction.

Bust A Troll is a well-known satire site. From its About page:

 

BustaTroll.org is a subsidiary of the “America’s Last Line of Defense” network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News

 

Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with “comedy”:

 

Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site’s pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you’re still having an issue with that satire thing.

 

"Taters” are the conservative fans of America’s Last Line of Defense. They are fragile, frightened, mostly older caucasian Americans. They believe nearly anything. While we go out of our way to educate them that not everything they agree with is true, they are still old, typically ignorant, and again — very afraid of everything.

Our mission is to do our best to show them the light, through shame if necessary, and to have a good time doing it, because…old and afraid or not, these people are responsible for the patriarchy we’re railing so hard against. They don’t understand logic and they couldn’t care less about reason. Facts are irrelevant. BUT…they do understand shame.

 

The site is fairly well-known. Witness PolitiFact's If you're fooled by fake news, this man probably wrote it. And there's Buzzfeed's How A Liberal Troll Became Spammers’ Favorite Fake News Source.

 

Some commenters on Rocks and Cows knew this, and that the photo of "John Omar" is actually a picture of Bruno Mars, a Hawaiian-born musician of Puerto Rican, Ashkenazi Jewish, Filipino and Spanish ancestry, according to Wikipedia.

 

Others call for the admins to remove the post as fake news, but apparently these folks aren't into cancel culture.

 

Mars was born in 1985, while Congresswoman Omar was born in 1982. News reports on Omar's 2019 divorce noted that her children were "aged 16, 13, and 7"; her oldest child, daughter Isra Hirsi,  is a climate action activist.

 

We do not think Bruno Mars is her son or that there's a "John Omar."

 

Neither the labeling of the post as satire or a few seconds with Mr. Google deterred the scorn for mother and her make-believe son. Other Rocks and Cows Facebook page members called for violence:

 

Gordon Broske Hang him and lite him on fire like Muslims do

 

Lavonne Bode Hang this DISCUSTING little piece of crap

Jerry Agnes Hang him

Gene Anderson Death sentence

Kurt Lauderbaugh Jail and become bubba's bitch 

Chuck Kunkel Hang em both, burn em alive, anything goes

They seem Minnesota Nice, if challenged by literary conventions.

About the Group

The administrators of the group, created on July 23, 2020, are Jess, David and Brent. The Grand Forks Herald reported in 2014 that Jess's parents had struggled in the field tiling business when their partner James Dwire got into trouble over those Jerusalem artichokes.

The Facebook group gained attention on Twitter in July when Minnesota House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt tweeted an image of its billboard:

Hmmm. pic.twitter.com/FkuORnKAK0

— Kurt Daudt (@kdaudt) July 25, 2020

Two days later, the Fargo Forum's Matt Henson reported in Group fundraising to dot Minnesota with controversial, anti-Walz signs:

The billboard along Highway 2 on the west side of Fosston was up for just a day, but the message was loud and clear.

That's why Shelly Nicklason of Remer pulled over on her way to a camping trip with her grandkids.

"We had to stop and see the sign," she said. "I was ready to take a picture. I even charged my phone," she said with a laugh. Nicklason said she was "bummed" to learn that the sign had been taken down.

The billboard depicts a person contorted with their head up their ... posterior. The wording of the billboard takes aim at how Gov. Walz has taken a one-size-fits-all approach in his coronavirus response.

"I laughed; it reflected my opinion," said Chad Hassel of Winger.

"In all honesty it was kind of crass, but I can understand the frustration," Nicklason said.

The billboard was sponsored by the Facebook group Rocks and Cows of the North, in reference to a comment the governor made during his campaign that northern Minnesota tends to be more Republican.

The group said a local small-town sign company put it up for them July 24. However, the company decided to take it down the next day when a major buyer threatened to stop advertising. The group feels that buyer, not the sign company, is trying to silence their First Amendment rights with cash.

"Everything offends people these days. You sneeze in the wrong place and everyone looks at you like you just gave them COVID," Hassel said.

However, now a bigger billboard company with statewide advertising is taking over the campaign. Franklin Outdoor, located in the suburbs of Minneapolis, has agreed to plaster the image on billboards and signs across the state as money is raised to pay for them.

Rocks and Cows of the North declined an interview but said, "The intent of the group is to awaken the silent majority."

"We've got to speak up. Somebody has to take the reins of this and say this is enough," Hassel said.

As Nicklason gets ready to hit the road again, she'll be keeping an eye out for one of the billboards. One has just been put up Monday, July 27, in St. Cloud.

KVRR radio reported more about the removal of the Fosston billboard in Anti-Walz Billboard Controversy in Fosston, Minnesota.

The origin of the "Rocks and Cows" phrase is described in a 98.1 New Country article, Seeing #RocksAndCows Billboards? Here is What They Mean. The post reports on an earlier text-only billboard campaign to recall Walz mounted by the conservative group Action 4 Liberty .

Image: Screengrab from the Rocks and Cows. Note: Our editing software is experiencing issues uploading posts. The embedded tweet is a work around.

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Intercept: Trump’s public lands pick has 40 year “overt racism” history toward native people

Since moving to South Dakota, in a town within the historic boundaries of the Lake Traverse Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (Dakota), we've learned more about sovereign indigenous nations’ treaty rights.

Thus, it's disturbing to read Trump’s Pick to Manage Public Lands Has Four-Decade History of “Overt Racism” Toward Native People in the Intercept. Alleen Brown reports:

In the five books authored by President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley rails against “environmental extremists,” endangered species protections, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Al Gore — all of whom, in his view, would illicitly limit private development on the lands of the West. He had another target too: policies supporting Native nations’ treaty rights.

Pendley has been the acting leader of the BLM, which is responsible for managing the nation’s public lands, for more than a year. With confirmation hearings expected in the coming weeks, his long history of attacking Indigenous people is getting new scrutiny.

For years, Pendley was head of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a right-wing organization that has fought multiple high-profile cases favoring private property rights in states west of the Mississippi, including in Native territories. In court and in his voluminous writings, Pendley attempted to undo protections for sites considered sacred to tribes; fought Justice Department efforts to support Native voters’ rights; argued in favor of toppling key legal precedents that uphold treaty rights; and made statements about Native identity and religion that Indigenous scholars and attorneys call deeply offensive.

In his 2006 book “Warriors for the West,” for example, Pendley suggested that Native people may soon cease to exist. “The day may soon come when Congress and the Supreme Court will be asked to take a serious and very hard look at whether there remains a need for the federal government’s policy of paternalistic protection,” Pendley wrote, apparently referring to the U.S. government’s legal obligation to fulfill treaty commitments, known as its “trust responsibility.” The statement continued, chillingly, “The day may come sooner than many expect given that, with ever-declining blood quantum per tribal member, recognized tribes may soon be little more than associations of financial convenience.”

Pendley’s views on Indigenous people have engendered fierce opposition to his nomination to lead BLM — with his positions on “blood quantum” being only the latest to come under scrutiny.

Jill Doerfler, a first-degree descendant of the White Earth Nation and professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has written extensively about “blood quantum,” a term meant to describe the proportion of “Indian blood” a person carries, used by some tribes as a prerequisite for citizenship. Doerfler’s scholarship shows that blood quantum was imposed by European Americans attempting to diminish the number of tribal citizens able to access land. “This seems like a long, old argument going back to the reason the federal government ever tried to push blood quantum as a way to identify American Indians. That has always been done as a way to access resources,” she said. She added that the blood quantum has always been used “to diminish the number of people that have that legal and political status as American Indians.” . . .

Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University and member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, put it bluntly. “That’s just a crazy, crazy racist perception of what Indian people are and what tribes are,” he said. “Somebody who talks like that about people should not have a place in any public position in government. That is just overt racism.”

Pendley, who has lately come under fire for his views on racial justice, worked for the Interior Department in the 1980s as well, and his record there provides further evidence that he could prioritize private development over treaty rights. As acting assistant secretary for energy and minerals under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Pendley sought to delay oil and gas industry royalty payments owed to Indigenous people, according to documents shared with The Intercept by the Western Values Project, a public lands and accountability nonprofit. . . .

Read the rest at the Intercept.

Photo: Homesteaders waiting for the signal to "settle" the Sisseton- Wahpeton Lake Traverse Reservation in 1892. Minnesota Historical Society.

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MN01 data points: Does Hagedorn's internal polling conducted in March still matter?

At the conservative Washington Examiner on Friday, Naomi Lim reported in New poll signals tight rematch for Minnesota House seat Republicans flipped in 2018:

A Minnesota district that House Republicans flipped in 2018 is at risk of returning to Democratic hands, according to a new internal poll.

A Victoria Research & Consulting poll conducted for Democrats' House Majority PAC found Thursday that Democratic challenger Dan Feehan was leading GOP incumbent Rep. Jim Hagedorn by two percentage points, 48% to 46%.

Thursday's findings mirror a Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group poll fielded in June that had Feehan ahead by a single point. But a Harper Polling study released that month gave Hagedorn a 16-point advantage.

We added emphasis to call attention to a fascinating data point in the discussion: that Hagedorn's poll was conducted, as the screengrab from June 2020 - Hagedorn Polling Memo uploaded on Scribd by Blois Olson's Fluence Media during March 10-12.

That was before the world turned nasty. The very next day, the White House posted a Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak.

Back in June, Matt Stolle discussed the claims in A tale of two polls at the Rochester Post Bulletin:

The polls were taken not only at different times, but in many ways, different eras given the tumult of the last three months. And though the outcomes differ, they draw one strikingly similar conclusion: Hagedorn has far greater name recognition.

Feehan's poll was released on June 19 and shows the DFL challenger edging the first-term GOP congressman 43 percent to 42 percent with 15 percent of respondents undecided. The poll, conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, involved a survey of 601 likely voters in the 1st Congressional District with a margin of error of 4.1 percent. It was conducted June 9-13.

Hagedorn's survey, conducted by Harper Polling, shows a Hagedorn landslide, 49 percent to 33 percent with 18 percent of likely voters undecided. The poll, which involved 406 respondents, was conducted March 10-12 and has a slightly higher margin of error at 4.86 percent.

Hagedorn's campaign released its poll several days after Feehan released his.

So which poll do you believe?

Hahn Chang, Feehan's campaign manager, argues that their poll is a more accurate reflection of the state of play. It is not only more recent, but it was taken after the social upheaval caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and the killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.

Hagedorn's poll, moreover, was taken "when the NBA was still playing," he said.

"Polling in March is so far away where the incumbent is just going to have an advantage," Chang said. "In the last few months, even though Dan hasn't been able to campaign in person (because of social restrictions prompted by the pandemic), we've been doing Facebook ads, ramping up our field program. Getting Dan's name out there."

Ted Prill, a Hagedorn campaign spokesman, points to inconsistencies in the Feehan poll. It shows, he said, that Feehan has "incredibly weak name ID," yet it shows him winning the race. That means everybody who "knows of Feehan or thinks of him is voting for him."

"If anything, the difference between these two campaigns and these two candidates is this: Since COVID has become a thing, Jim Hagedorn has been out working 24/7 to keep small businesses in the 1st District open and make sure that people who are losing their jobs or losing their companies have every resource the federal government can give them," Prill said.

The polls are in agreement in one area: Hagedorn has a "sizable advantage in terms of name identification." Eighty-eight percent of 1st District voters recognized Hagedorn in his poll, while only 63 percent recognized Feehan's name -- a 25 percent difference.

The Feehan pollsters argue that the DFLer's relative low name recognition gives him room to grow as more voters are introduced to him.

"Hagedorn already is a polarizing figure, with equal positive and negative ratings; by contrast, Dan Feehan starts the campaign with a net positive image," it says.

When the two ran against each other in 2018, Hagedorn won by 1,311 votes -- a margin of 0.45 percent.

FiveThirtyEight doesn't show any new polling on Hagedorn's part. Dear readers, have you seen a recent reference to Hagedorn's giant lead? Please send us screenshots.

The Cook Political Report rates MN01 as leans Republican.

Related posts:

• Hyperbole, much? Hagedorn's revelation about November 2020 is galloping nincompoopery
• Coals of criticism heaping on Jim Hagedorn; UnitedHealth Group says no more cash for you
• Rightwing values and performance art in MN-01: Mr. Quist and "Mr. Conservative" (2009)
• Republican Party of MN reports self-employed James, Hagedorn lives in St. Louis Park
• RPM, Friends of Hagedorn confuse state & federal campaign finance reports in answering PB question about Hagedorn's residence
• MN01: Meet a Hagedorn Washington legislative assistant working on agriculture issues
• MN01: the hostile world of Hagedorn town halls, updated with videos of Mankato area meetings
• Nazi namecalling: two Southern MN Republicans lose their wits about Warren, insulin critics
• MN01: Hagedorn echoes colleague's remark about kids being free to leave detention centers
• Congressman Hagedorn's campaign emails share only the finest COVID-19 news sources

Screenngrab: June 2020 - Hagedorn Polling Memo uploaded on Scribd by Blois Olson's Fluence Media during March 10-12.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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