The anti-Muslim resolutions written by Republican activist Jeff Baumann were embraced by some MNGOP precinct caucuses last night, and state representative Cindy Pugh, R-Chanhassen, is overjoyed.
As the screenshot above illustrates the west metro suburban lawmaker shared her glee on the personal Facebook page of Minnesota Act! for America organizer Debra Anderson. Read about the group's anti-Muslim fear-mongering in ACT for America | Southern Poverty Law Center.
Pugh comments:
Cindy Pugh Debbie - GOOD NEWS! All four, rock-solid resolutions introduced in my precinct caucus passed ‘with flying colors’! ... almost unanimous. Caucus attendees were SO supportive & appreciative of these well-written resolutions. GREAT JOB! {thank you!}
🇺🇸
Baumann asks:
Jeff Baumann Was one of those mine?
Cindy Pugh I believe it was, Jeff! ** just checked & it was** Every word of the resolution was read aloud and almost everyone was nodding their head in support throughout the process.
Other Republican activists note on Anderson's page that "Ep [Eden Prairie] 48B P16! All passed" and yet another:
Sheriff Stanek had a Muslim handing out his brochures in CD3. There wasn't a very good reception to him... or maybe it was to Stanek! We passed the no Sharia teaching in schools in my precinct and the letter from Phil Parish [sic] convince my other other three precinct attenders to vote for Parish. THANK YOU for sending that out.
Another individual, Josephc Grimme, comments about how Muslims "breed like ratz."*
Lovely. That collection of individuals--Pugh, Baumann and Anderson--pretty much aggregates metro anti-Muslim leadership in one post.
Bluestem first wrote about the resolutions early Tuesday morning in Resolution: Coon Rapids Republican activist wants to "eliminate the influence of Islam within the Minnesota Republican Party or its subunits". That morning, we also noticed that a Republican state senate candidate and wife of controversial CD4 GOP chair Dave Sina was touting an anti-Muslim resolution, in our post Candy Sina, wife of CD4 chair Dave Sina, urges MNGOP caucus goers to forbid oaths on Koran
How might the state chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota respond to these resolutions?
The Star Tribune's J.Patrick Coolican reported in Republicans mull resolutions that critics call anti-Muslim:
Other resolutions were also floating among Republican activists, including one that would prohibit an Islamic leader from giving an invocation at any Republican convention or event. Another called for an end to what it called “Islamic indoctrination” in public schools. . . .
Jennifer Carnahan, chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said anyone can offer up anything as a resolution at their precinct caucus, so she said did not want to prematurely judge the situation.
She added: “The Republican Party of Minnesota is open and welcoming to anyone and everyone who shares our values and wants to be involved, and we would never shut our doors to anyone who wants to be involved.”
She must not have been to the caucus where a Muslim handed out material for Hennepin County Sheriff Stanek.
On Wednesday, the City Pages' David Clarey reported in Suburban Republican activist sought to 'eliminate the influence of Islam':
On Tuesday night, Republican activist Jeff Baumann introduced an explicitly anti-Islamic resolution at a caucus meeting in the suburban Coon Rapids-Brooklyn Park area.
Baumann's resolution, first noticed on the Bluestem Prairie blog, declared that “no Islamic leader, religious or otherwise, shall ever be allowed to deliver the invocation at any Republican convention or event."
The resolution continued:
“That affirmative and ongoing actions be taken to minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam within the Minnesota Republican Party or its subunits," and called for "legislation, policies, and educational programs be implemented to increase awareness of these facts so as to evermore minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam within Minnesota, including Minnesota schools.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Jennifer Carnahan, chairwoman of the Minnesota Republican Party, declined to call Baumann's resolution problematic, or even anti-Muslim. Carnahan said her primary concerns were on getting the caucuses running smoothly, and administering the governor's straw poll. . . .
Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said called Baumann the “worst of the Republican party” and described the resolution as expressing a “hoodless [Ku Klux Klan]” mentality.
“This is the hoodless KKK of this time,” he said. “Anyone that agrees with this type of anti-constitutional, KKK-style hate, should really be lumped in with that same group.”
Hussein said, state-wide, the party has generally been welcoming to the Muslim community, and that Republican membership is increasing in the community. Recently, however, the party has come under fire for a wave of anti-Islamic rhetoric. . . .
Carnahan, meanwhile, told the Star Tribune that Muslims were welcome to caucus and that there was no religious test for participation.
Carnahan disagreed with Hussein’s harsh assessment of Baumann's resolution, and said it was unfair to extrapolate the views of an individual with the whole party. She said the party welcomes anyone that supports and shares their values.
Certainly Pugh and her pals aren't making Carnahan's job easy.
*Grimme, who contributed the "breed like ratz" crack to Facebook conversation, uses this picture as his Facebook cover image:
We're not saying that image is one of the faces of the Republican Party of Minnesota. Only that Debra Anderson, Jeff Baumann and Cindy Pugh are in a conversation with some folks who might be called a bit extreme.
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Sally! This is a great piece of social media detective work. The dreadful Cindy Pugh is my rep-- I'm in 33B (so have the even worse David Osmek as my state senator). A lot of folks have awoken from their decades-long coma out here in the golden west, and are determined to dump those two, along with "Where's Erik?" Paulsen. I'll be passing this along...and watching for what you've dug up next.
Posted by: Maria Jette | Feb 09, 2018 at 01:55 AM