News & Articles

Part One

Well, the Fuddy-duddies of America-Minnesota Chapter are back. Not only has the Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate sponsored another of their “magical” budget bills that creates new revenue out of thin air, Republican members of the Minnesota House have also gone on record to deny that we humans have any influence on climate.

What a political party we have on our right! 
On the climate vote I will give credit to the four Republicans who did say, yes, “greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities are a key cause of climate change.” Five Republican House members didn’t vote to avoid taking a stand on the issue or to protest the vote in the first place.
From a story written by Dave Orrick in the Pioneer Press, “Several Republicans spoke against the vote—and the notion of human-caused climate change.”
Rep. Eric Lucero who represents District 30B north and west of the Twin Cities said “Human activities are not the cause of climate change.”
Orrick wrote, “He repeated the sentence at least twice and continued, implying that because the Earth has been colder and hotter in the past, climate science is flawed.”
To emphasize his denial in a speech on the House floor Lucero went on to say, “We were at one point in an ice age. This is fake.”
Well, I’ll give Lucero credit for earning an MBA at the University of Minnesota and working as a cyber security specialist, being a small business owner, a real estate agent and a former college instructor. 
You see, that’s the part of this whole Republican thing that I just can’t figure out. Quite a few are well educated and seemingly capable of understanding complex thoughts and ideas. But then something happens. A wall of ideological denial is built and that’s that. No more discussion of complex thoughts and ideas that challenge the ideology will be accepted or tolerated. A rigid set of rules set forth by the ideological masters of the right wing will be adhered to, even in the face of scientific or economic fact.

Fake science. Fake news. Fake is the new mantra for those who represent us.
In terms of the Republican Senate budget plan, the one that “magically” cuts taxes and raises revenue at the same time, the belief in magic economic thinking is the foundation and mantra for the party and its adherents. If some of those magic economic thinkers had their way society would need no taxes at all, seeing anything resembling a way to pay for what we all share as “burdensome.” The big magic in this bill is that the state will “raise $800 million in new revenue by updating the Minnesota tax code to be more in line with the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.”

So you see, the magic thinking is that by cutting tax rates you actually raise new revenue! It’s magic! New money out of thin air! And you can do this forever—like a perpetual motion machine! Yes, it’s so simple this magical economic thinking. You lower tax rates and create new money.
Never mind that the lowering of federal tax rates during a booming economy will mean over a trillion dollar federal deficit in the first year of the tax cuts alone. Don’t worry about deficits you party of deficit hawks. It’s magic!

Part Two

The headline read “Trump to send ‘armed soldiers’ to Mexico border”
Here we go again.
Rumpt made up a false narrative when he read about a brief exchange between six Mexican soldiers and two US soldiers providing border support in an unmarked vehicle near Clint, Texas. All the soldiers were south of the border fence but still north of the actual border. After a brief discussion the Mexicans said oops and headed back south of the unmarked border. 

What Rumpt saw was a wild west confrontation and he vociferously tweeted that there won’t be any more gunfights in his OK Corral.
“Mexico’s soldiers recently pulled guns on our National Guard soldiers, probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers on the border. Better not happen again! We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border. Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!”
In Rumpt’s slapstick mind, the Mexicans pointed their guns and said, “Look at that, it’s a herd of turtles” and while the Americans were looking for the turtles a steady stream of bad hombres with drugs on their backs were tiptoeing past and over the border.
He later tweeted that another big caravan of 20,000 immigrants was on the way but he said it has been reduced in size by Mexico but was still coming. 
“Mexico must apprehend the remainder or we will be forced to close that section of the Border & call up the Military,” Rumpt tweeted.
There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Rumpt and he wears a 10-gallon hat. Look out bad hombres he’s one tough hombre!