Conservative activist and once-upon-a-time Civis Communications grassroots director John Rouleau is having one heck of a year in Minnesota politics.
Straight from his stint as Field Director for ProtectMyVote, the recent St. Thomas grad sees a really, really scary example of a DFL emboldened by its capture of both houses of the Minnesota legislature in the November 2012 elections.
In Green...It's the New Red?, a November 30, 2012 blog post up at conservative group home True North, Rouleau writes:
Shortly after the DFL took control of the majorities in the legislature, Governor Dayton issued Executive Order 11-32 on November 16 mandating an Environmental Congress be called and forums around the state be hosted. Now, if I was a betting man, I would wager that this is the first hint of overreach that we will see come from the DFL. [emphasis added]
That's pretty scary, especially since Governor Dayton issued Executive Order 11-32 on November 16, 2011.
Update: The wankerific Mr. Rouleau has tweeted that he "used a wrong word." As if his intent were somehow not clear in claiming that EO-11-32 and the Citizen Forum were a consequence of the November 2012 election and "the first hint of overreach," rather than something planned for months--or that the executive order had been issued nearly a year before the election.
This, dear friends, is why we save screenshots. And why we're pleased that the rhetorical brilliance that worked so well at ProtectMyVote is being brought into service in Mr. Rouleau's Holy War Against The Dirty Hippies at the EQB [end update]
Check it out, making sure to scroll to the second page:
EO-11-32Bluestem was aware that Alida Messinger's money could buy many things, but we had no idea that time travel was on the Dayton shopping list.
Think about it. On November 16, 2011, Tony Sutton had not yet renounced the throne of MNGOP and the horrific financial condition of the party was not yet public. Michael Brodkorb still worked at the Republican Senate Majority and Senator Amy Koch still led the Minnesota Senate; their affair wasn't yet widely known nor publicly.
The second session of the 2011-2012 legislature had yet to happen.
And yet Governor Dayton still knew to get the ball rolling for some world-class overreach. Some way, somehow, the Governor knew what no one else knew in November 2011: that the DFL would gain control of the legislature on November 6, 2012. Too bad John Rouleau wasn't let in on that dirty little secret as he might have found a different job when he graduated from college in the spring of 2012.
Rouleau continues:
While this seems like an innocent enough endeavor to find out what the people of Minnesota have in mind, this was far from a balanced audience. As I do more research, it appears to have been selectively promoted with groups in attendance from The Sierra Club, Environment Minnesota, citizens opposed to the Wolf Hunt and the Minnesota Environmental Partnership.
Why is this important? Given the upcoming Environmental Congress, it is very important for the environmentalists to be able to point back at this data saying “this is what Minnesotan’s want” — while pushing extreme environmental policies to the Environmental Congress and through the legislature following that.
Where have we seen this point before about selective promotion of the Citizen Forums? Why, from Representative Drazkowski, R-ALEC. Bluestem checked that out in Steve Drazkowski sends scary email about extremists hijacking EQB citizen forums and Drazmania: more evidence emerges of Dayton admin pitching citizens forums to farmers. We weren't sure when the Milk Producers, the Cattlemen, the Farmers Union and farm publications became the place to hide information from farmers.
Before we even got to it, however, Post Bulletin political reporter Heather Carlson, had examined the claim in Drazkowski warns of 'extreme environmental advocates' pushing more regulation:
Ellen Anderson, senior adviser to the governor on energy and environment, said Drazkowski's assertion that notification about the meetings has been limited is "completely false." She said the board has sent out hundreds of email invitations to various stakeholders including farm groups, chambers of commerce, mining groups, environmental groups and energy groups — just to name a few.
That was pretty much what we found, and given the membership of the Environmental Quality Board--commissioners from the departments of commerce, transportation, DEED and agricultures, as well as those divisions that might seem "environmental," along with citizen members from pro-industry groups like the Agri-Growth Council--it's hard to believe that there's selective recruitment of the audience.
On November 15, 2012, Bluestem asked Who are these dirty hippies anyway? A look at Minnesota's Environmental Quality Board. Answer: they're not dirty hippies, and yet the conservative blogosphere persists in this malarkey.
Rouleau describes the horrific experience of participating in the forum (for a dirty hippie's counterpoint, check out LeftMN's Aaron Klemz in Citizen environmental forum provides a ray of hope, which suggests, when paired with Rouleau's account, that the Messinger-Dayton alliance can also purchase and install parallel universes).
Curiously, Rouleau notes that citizen participants are quarreling with the information the EBQ is providing:
At what point will people begin to realize that businesses are being forced out of our state, that existing jobs are being eliminated and new jobs are not being created. That is the point though, when radicals (who put the environment above all else), claim that the data provided by the Governors office and the EQB is faulty and express desires to kill jobs and participate in social planning.
Jeepers, John, perhaps at other forums in exotic locales like Worthington and Moorhead.
Or maybe it's just you.
Image: Screenshot of the Rouleau post at True North.
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I wonder if his St. Thomas education was so poor that he can't even tell the year?... or if he has evolved into a creature from the fantasy world envisioned by Palin & Bachmann? Whoops! I used the term "evolved" in the same sentence as a person from the flat earth party.
Posted by: T Pa or Coffee | Nov 30, 2012 at 09:47 PM