MN House: Kelly Morrison in 33B

From Dr. Morrison's website:

I am running for the Minnesota House because I am concerned about the current state of political discourse. Minnesota is a unique state that has a history of innovative leadership that often provides an example for the rest of the country. We need to continue that leadership tradition.

The incumbent is Rep. Cindy Pugh (R-Chanhassen). She's right smack dab in the middle of this image:

Pugh is a right-wing extremist, pure and simple. A good example is how earlier this year she was involved in disseminating a repugnant piece of fear- and hate-mongering vs. Muslims. Her district should certainly know better. All districts should.

MN House: Ami Wazlawik in 38B

For some cycles past, Matt Dean held this seat. He left to go for a barely-a-blip-on-the-radar campaign for governor. From Wazlawik's website:

Since high school I have worked in public schools in some capacity. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting numerous teachers, staff, and volunteers over the years and have been inspired by their passion and dedication to educating and supporting our children.

I’ve also seen firsthand the struggles and difficulties facing our students, families, and school staff. Students who aren’t reading at grade level struggle to keep up with their classmates; parents struggle to balance the demands of work and family life; staff grow frustrated with the amount of time spent on testing and insufficient support services for students who need them most. Minnesota continues to have a large and stubborn achievement gap which must be addressed in order to ensure that all Minnesotans have access to the opportunities that education can provide.

As your state representative I will work to address these problems by supporting efforts to expand access to early education opportunities, increase funding for school support services and literacy programs, and encourage schools to provide wraparound services to students and families. In higher education, I will push for policies that make college more accessible and affordable for all Minnesota families.

The Republican here is Patti Anderson. She was State Auditor from 2003-7. If you didn't remember that, well, neither did I. And of course conservatives don't think the Auditor's office should even exist.

Her website doesn't have any kind of comprehensive issues section. Just very generic 1-2 sentence remarks on some matters. I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing a lot of that on Republican websites, as they try to disguise their deeply unpopular positions on issues (especially women's issues), and the closeness of their views with those of "President" Trump.

The Trump tax cuts and bonuses. And Russia.

As I will be mostly blogging about pending elections in Minnesota for a while, I’m reverting to an occasional one of these round-up posts for other matters.

Newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data allow us to examine nonproduction bonuses in the first two quarters of 2018 to assess the trends in bonuses in absolute dollars and as a share of compensation. The bottom line is that there has been very little increase in private sector compensation or W-2 wages since the end of 2017. The $0.03 per hour (inflation-adjusted) bump in bonuses between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2018 is very small and not necessarily attributable to the tax cuts rather than employer efforts to recruit workers in a continued low unemployment environment. - Economic Policy Institute 

Regarding the following, I was a “Russia skeptic” until enough evidence came along to change my views. That’s how rational, scientific thinking (anathema to contemporary conservatives) works, and rational, scientific thinking is, for example, the reason we’re not all still living in thatched mud huts, until the next epidemic of plague comes along and we’re not living at all.

I still don’t consider Russian interference the #1 reason that Traitor Trump is in the White House. To my mind, that perverse “honor” goes to the grotesque, appalling dereliction collectively displayed by corporate “news” media.

Jamieson said that, as an academic, she hoped that the public would challenge her arguments. Yet she expressed confidence that unbiased readers would accept her conclusion that it is not just plausible that Russia changed the outcome of the 2016 election—it is “likely that it did.” 

...Her case is based on a growing body of knowledge about the electronic warfare waged by Russian trolls and hackers—whom she terms “discourse saboteurs”—and on five decades’ worth of academic studies about what kinds of persuasion can influence voters, and under what circumstances. Democracies around the world, she told me, have begun to realize that subverting an election doesn’t require tampering with voting machines. Extensive studies of past campaigns, Jamieson said, have demonstrated that “you can affect people, who then change their decision, and that alters the outcome.” She continued, “I’m not arguing that Russians pulled the voting levers. I’m arguing that they persuaded enough people to either vote a certain way or not vote at all.” - The New Yorker 

MN House: Emy Minzel in 15A

This race is begging to be won by a DFLer. I know that because Gail Kulick did in fact win in 2008, and Joe Walsh very nearly did in 2012. From Minzel's website:

Taxpayer dollars should support people, not corporate subsidies and tax breaks. Slashing taxes simply to appease special interest groups and political partisans is irresponsible. Taxpayer dollars must be used with clear oversight and in the best interest of the State as a whole and our District in particular.

I live in 15A. Except for the blissful two years referenced above, “my” representative has been Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton). Given my personal interest in this matter I used to blog about her now and then, but I’ve stopped because, what’s the point? Nothing ever changes with her vintage 1980 right-wing views, and there is no indication that anything ever will, even if she lives to be 150.

Though they may mean well in their way, conservatives simply cannot govern well, or even competently, in a complex, changing world. They just don’t have what it takes, “upstairs,” if you know what I mean. They’re too cognitively rigid and unwilling to even try to reason from fact. And Rep. Erickson is a perfect example. It’s long past time for a change.

Public school funding will probably decline in Minnesota

Unless, in the short term, DFLers take back the state trifecta in November. In addition to winning governor and the state House (right now, more likely than not, but far, far from a sure thing), we need to win the special election for SD 13. You can help our candidate, Joe Perske, here.

Despite increases in recent years, real per pupil state operating aid to Minnesota school districts has declined overall since fiscal year (FY) 2003. This decline in state aid translated into significant property tax hikes and—in many instances—reduced funding for public education. To compound matters, projections based on current state law indicate a significant decline in real per pupil school aid in FY 2020 and 2021. - North Star Policy Institute 

Among other things, proper funding for public education means proper funding for teacher and staff pay. And the public knows it.

According to the 50th annual PDK Poll of attitudes about public schools, Americans trust and support teachers, but don’t want their own children to join a profession they see as underpaid and undervalued.

In almost every other way, they support public schools and the educators who work there.

When it comes to increasing school funding, increasing teacher salary, allowing teachers to strike, and an abundance of other issues, the poll found a majority of people unequivocally in favor of endeavors meant to bolster learning.

In fact, support for education and educators has never been so high in half a century. - gadflyonthewallblog 

(If I'm going to be blogging on this platform for a while, at some point my lazy behind will take the trouble to learn to deal with formatting, fonts, etc., in a more consistent and professional manner. But not yet.)

VA secretary said no privatization, but...

I don’t doubt that Secretary Wilkie was personally sincere, as far as that goes.

 The new secretary of veterans affairs pledged to the American Legion on (August 29) that he won't privatize his agency's health care services even as it increases options for veterans to seek care in the private sector. - MPR

There are many forces at work here, some of them far, far from righteous. I was unable to find anything very recent about Mar-a-Lago crowd. Presumably they are still having input, and privatization is still their ultimate goal - and Traitor Trump’s.

Here's an article about women vets having problems with VA care. Nothing that can’t be fixed, with proper funding and commitment. We’ll see if that’s forthcoming.

Still no farm bill, on top of Trump's deranged tariffs

There's quite a good chance that there won't be one by the "deadline," and we'll see how much of a struggle it is to get the current one extended for a while.

When House and Senate versions of a farm bill were sent to a conference committee earlier this year, it appeared the major sticking point would be work requirements for food stamp recipients that were included in the House version. A deteriorating financial landscape for farmers and ranchers, however, has blown open the farm bill talks to go back to the basics of funding levels for various parts of the farm safety net, according to Pro Farmer Washington policy analyst Jim Wiesemeyer.

“(House Ag Committee Chairman Mike) Conaway wants to talk policy first and then see what funding is needed to get that policy,” Wiesemeyer says. “The Senate, however, wants to come up with specific maximum levels by title as far as funding and that’ll lock in certain areas where it doesn’t give you as much wiggle room. There’s also battles internally going on to which title gets how much funding because apparently the Senate wants to make rather significant changes in the farmer safety net.” - AgWeb

Meanwhile, who's going to get bailouts is clearly politically motivated.. And farmers are hurting regardless.

What the deal is here

MN Progressive Project Annex is being used while our usual site, MN Progressive Project, is down.

You're welcome to comment. Right-wing trolls, though, and other purveyors of idiocy will be blocked.

Update (December 2019): As a matter of fact it's been apparent for a while that MN Progressive Project is gone for good. I'm continuing to do this anyway. I also contribute longer items at LEFTMN.

MN Gov: RGA bails on GOP candidate Jeff Johnson

This (from Daily Kos) comes with all of the usual caveats, no complacency, etc. And, yeah, I've seen the polls, too.

Minnesota Public Radio's Brian Bakst reports that the Republican Governor's Association has canceled its TV reservations for Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, though it still has ad time on the books for the final weeks of the election. The RGA's move is a big vote of no confidence for GOP nominee Jeff Johnson, but it's not a complete surprise. The RGA reserved $2.3 million in fall TV time months ago, but an unnamed GOP operative told Buzzfeed back in June that it was "likely" they'd cancel it if their preferred candidate, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, lost the primary to Johnson.​