Governor Tim Pawlenty, in an attempt to go even further right, targeted education services in Minnesota. As one of the republican's favorite punching bags, sexuality education is abysmal in Minnesota. We are being out-strapped by North Carolina! Democrats have attempted to pass comprehensive sexuality education for years, but Governor Pawlenty simply turned the veto stamp over to the Minnesota Family Council (a conservative religious organization).
The newest assault on sex ed came in the form of refusing to accept a $850,000 federal grant for Minnesota comprehensive sex education - no strings attached. Instead he chose the abstinence only grant which Minnesota (with all our excess money) has to match 75%, coming to almost 400K. So Minnesota will be spending money it doesn't have on a program that doesn't work...so much for eliminating wasteful spending in the state.
Robin Marty has an excellent post on RH Reality Check discussing how Pawlenty's drive for the White House has screwed Minnesota again.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has thrown Minnesota's sick and in need of health care reform under the bus, again. The Minnesota Independent reported that this afternoon Minnesota's lousy Governor signed an Executive Order to "Keep ObamaCare Out of Minnesota."
Gov. Tim Pawleny signed an executive order Tuesday afternoon directing state agencies to refuse "all discretionary participation" in the federal healthcare reform law. The order calls the legislation, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Obama, "a dramatic attempt to assert federal command and control over this country's health care system." According to a Pawlenty press release, the move orders all executive branch departments and agencies "not to submit applications to the federal government in connection with requests for grant funding for programs and demonstration projects deriving from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unless otherwise required by law or approved by the Governor's office."
Interrupting Governor Pawlenty's live radio broadcast from the Minnesota State Fair on Friday morning, a crowd stood in front of the WCCO-AM booth on Carnes Avenue demanding to know why the governor had failed to apply for one million in federal funds that would strengthen public oversight of premium and other rate increases by health insurers.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama in March made significant changes to the purchase and regulation of health insurance, including the allocation of funds for states to improve accountability and oversight over insurance industry premium increases -- a rate review process open to the public.
On August 16, the Department of Health and Human Services announced grant awards of $1 million apiece to forty-five states and the District of Columbia. Although staff at the Minnesota Commerce Department had completed the HHS grant application in full, Governor Pawlenty refused to sign and submit the application. Minnesota was one of only five states that did not apply for the rate review funds (the other four being Alaska, Wyoming, Iowa, and Georgia).
Denny Schneider, a resident of Woodbury, said that he was angry Pawlenty turned down the money. "Individuals and small business employers have been at the mercy of health insurers for far too long. Insurance companies send you a notice that your premium has gone up twenty percent and they never have to explain why. You just have to pay up. It's not right and it's undermining access to health care for too many people."
Since statehood (1858), Minnesota has been led by 26 republican governors; since the formation of the DFL the current 20-year streak is the longest period without a DFL governor. The field seems more polarized than ever, with dialogue seemingly more fit for an episode of Maury than within the 'Minnesota Nice' mantra. Following in Pawlenty's footsteps, Tom Emmer also doesn't appear to believe that leadership is about compromise, but about taking credit for wins and loses.
Which other former republican governors will Emmer look to for inspiration?
(Once again, I'd like to thank Sen. Dibble for his commentary. - promoted by The Big E)
In his bid for the presidency it will be interesting to see if my Governor, Tim Pawlenty, will try to perpetuate the air of a hip, young-ish, Bruce Springsteen fan, and infer that he is in step with the growing acceptance of LGBT people and families. To do so would be profoundly misleading, having achieved political success by emphasizing his hostility to LGBT people and many others.
His latest salvo is the veto of a common sense measure that would have allowed us explicit legal rights to carry out our partners' final wishes, make funeral arrangements and to be able to recover from those liable for our partners' wrongful death.
These are perhaps the most sensitive decisions someone will ever make regarding the one they love. But LGBT Minnesotans, our friends and allies have long been accustomed to disappointment in Tim Pawlenty.
The way the legislative session turned out was the only way it could have turned out. I'm sure I came across as a bit a of Gloomy Gus when commenting during the session, but there just wasn't a different scenario than what we ended up with. Like everyone else who hangs out here, I would have liked a better outcome. I would have been as happy as anyone else, but also surprised, and questioning whether I know as much about politics as I think I do.
When looking at the players, what they wanted, and their leverage, a few things were clear. The DFL wanted several things, like more funding for health care for the poor, lower costs for higher education, ... I'm sure you can all fill in the ellipses. Pawlenty, with whom Republicans were determined to go over the cliff, wanted basically (more on the "basically" later) one thing: to be able to come out with no tax increases.
It sounds like I'm stating the obvious, but follow me for a moment. The DFL had a lot of places where they could compromise. Yes, they wanted to fix all the bad roads and they're getting only a few fixed, but that's still better than none. Some shallower cuts for K-12 is different from deeper cuts for K-12, and so on. Moreover, DFLers had been setting expectations by telling their base the cuts would be brutal even if there were tax increases. Republicans however couldn't give on taxes one bit not merely because that was their attitude, but because all they wanted was no tax increases. That means if they had compromised on any one tax increase, even a small one, even if it was popular, they would have lost everything. They would have been portrayed by the media as caving in, and their base would turn on anyone who voted to raise taxes since the one expectation they had was absolute opposition to taxes.
No, they don't like compromise anyway, but the point is they put themselves in a political box where they had zero room for compromise; the DFL did have room. That's the first thing that pretty much guaranteed the DFL would do the vast majority of the compromising.
(Mr. Cox writes: "Republicans certainly did no harm to those at the top. Everyone else pretty much got creamed." -- yep. - promoted by TwoPuttTommy)
By Wayne Cox
Governor Tim Pawlenty and Republican leader Rep. Kurt Zellers gave one of their "black is white" press briefings after Pawlenty agreed to a budget deal Sunday night. They claimed the principle they followed in the budget deal was "do no harm."
That must mean no harm to Governor Pawlenty's hope of gaining the Republican nomination for President. Most Minnesotans, however, will find tough times just got tougher--for vulnerable people, for businesses, for hospitals, for cities, for school children, for jobs and for taxpayers.
By rejecting the Medicaid option, Governor Pawlenty blocked efforts to do right by the tens of thousands of Minnesotans he had placed in health care limbo. He rejected a plan that would have returned financial stability to health care and hospital services. He rejected the 20,000 private sector jobs that the plan the DFL sought would have provided. He turned his back on $1.4 billion of desperately needed federal dollars. He seems to think federal aid is tainted money. He's right. It's money that taint coming here.
Here is what I think is a great strategy and great framing, proposed by John Marty, from a great interview by my friend Craig Stellmacher at the Uptake!
John Marty: "Democrats right now at the Capital --are losing the debate.... If the legislature would say : "No we're not going to take this anymore, Governor it's your problem, you broke the law, we offered a solution and you broke the law rather than respond to that. Now it's your turn to fix it. We're here to help you, but if you go up north we're just going to go home because we are just waiting for you. It's his problem, and we can help him with it, but we're not going to enable him."
According to Professor Harry G. Frankfurt, liars lie deliberately; BSers simply don't care. Professor Frankfurt wrote a book on this; it's called "On Bullsh*t." There's a great discussion of this going in a post entitled "On (CowPuckey)" over at Barataria; Erik Hare starts out by asking:
Is it really a lie when the person making an outrageous statement doesn't actually care if it's the truth or not?
Simply not caring explains Michele Bachmann, a Finalist for Politifact.com's 2009 Lie Of The Year. In fact, Politifact.com has examined 9 - NINE - statements from Bacnmann, and found all - ALL - of them "False" (four of those claims were actually rated "Pants On Fire" - as in "Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire").
Bachmann still doesn't care; just last month, as noted here, Bachmann went on a Sunday TV show and said some (stuff) that prompted a Pat Kessler "Reality Check".
As noted:
And in Kessler's "Reality Check" - on Bachmann's outrageous fabrications concerning the economy - Kessler found Bachmann's claims, and I quote: "That's factually WRONG" and "This is FALSE" and "This starts with a kernel of truth, but is OUT OF CONTEXT" and "This is NOT TRUE." (emphasis NOT added) (MnProgressiveProject.com)
So, what did Bachmann do, after getting Reality Checked by Pat Kessler? Went on stage at a GOPer rally with Sarah Palin, and repeated that same (stuff) Pat Kessler had found to be: "WRONG", "FALSE", "OUT OF CONTEXT", and "NOT TRUE".
That's what BSers do, because they simply don't care if something is true or not - they only care that the listener (in Bachmann's case, "voter") thinks it's true.
Erik Hare will be joing The Big E and yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter, this Saturday (May 15th) as I Guest Host "Radio Cafe with Cathy Hauser" from 2:00 to 3:00 pm on AM950 - KTNF. We'll be talking about Professor Frankfurt's book ("On Bullsh*t"), Erik's post over at Barataria, this post (and any subsequent comments!), the media's role in propagating/covering BS, and how BS seems to be the modus operandi of today's Republican Party.
There's a video interview of Professor Frankfurt discussing his book below the fold, plus an added bonus - a link to Jon Stewart interviewing Professor Frankfurt on "The Daily Show"!
Professor Frankfurt's Book, "On Bullsh*t", is available locally through Common Good Books in St. Paul; if you can't make it in to the shop, you can order on line and they'll ship.
Our Democracy was based on certain ideals like a constitution that protected rights of people and like separation of powers into three branches of government. Constitutionally making corporations into people has broken the rights of people. The budget and policy rights of the legislature have been taken by presidents and governors. Our Governor Tim Pawlenty's deliberate planned use of unallotment to essentially remove legislature power is part of a court filing, quoted in one of today's recommended diaries on DailyKOS:
It would dramatically change the structure of government created by the Minnesota Constitution if this Court were to sanction a process in which this or any other Governor could sign appropriations into law, then veto revenue bills, and then use unallotment to ignore legislative appropriations and to rewrite the budget according to the Governor's own legislative priorities. This in fact is what has occurred. This use of unallotment was unauthorized by any law and was unconstitutional.
The Uptake will be streaming live coverage of the oral arguments today before Minnesota's Supreme Court.
The executive power has also been abused through how the law is enforced. Republican governors have particularly not enforced selected laws. Now judges and sheriffs are now getting into the process of overruling legislatures through how and which laws are enforced. This totally violates the principles of separation of powers, democracy and values of fairness.
In perhaps the most bizarre twist of all, my local Ramsey county Sheriff's race now has a group of ***DFL*** supporters and perhaps the campaign arguing for voting for the Sheriff based on legislative policy issue stances! My endorsed candidate, Matt Bostrom, from the beginning of the campaign declared that legislative issues are off limits unless they are very directly related to the Sheriff's office. For there is no perception of fairness when officiating civil rights issues when then personal stances of law enforcement officials is known. For example, Sheriff Fletcher is widely known to be a pro-war advocate. Especially law enforcement and judges ought to be selected by character, integrity and fairness (as well as ability to do the job).
So the real questions are: Do we stand up for principles of democracy and separation of powers always? Or is the DFL as bad as Republicans in erosion of Democratic principles when it is in our policy favor? Will we be suddenly for unallotment and expanded gubernatorial powers when we have a Democratic governor?
What has happened to the Democratic Party of Paul Wellstone? Where have all of the truly bold and visionary progressives gone? Are they hiding under a rock or does the Party Machine not let their voices be heard via the corporate media lest they piss off the corporate sponsors of the Democratic Party? Yes, that is correct, I said Corporate Sponsors of the Democratic Party. After reading the following article, http://www.salon.com/news/opin... I must say it only reinforces the beliefs I have had for the last 12 months.
The Democrats don't care about their base unless it is 9 months before the next election. Then, on cue, they start up with the populist and "working families" rhetoric. After the election is over and they have won, it is right back to "business as usual". They slide up to the lobbyists and continue to do the work of Big Business all the while giving us patronizing quips, gentle pats on the head, and nice, warm fuzzies.
Take, for example, the recent Al Franken rally in Minneapolis. The room was packed and people were cheering for a bill that FORCES PEOPLE TO BUY A PRODUCT THAT IS SO BAD, THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO FORCE PEOPLE TO BUY IT. Unfortunately, it is sadly ironic and masochistic. I am sure there were quite a few people who were questioning the bill, as am I, but you could tell the MoveOn.org, SEIU, HealthCareForAmericaNOW, TakeActionMN, and OFA people were all boldly and vigorously cheering for not only Al Franken but also the bill that the President and Congress will eventually pass.
How is that possible? Why have we, the people of the Democratic Party, become so gullible and misinformed that we are willing to become slaves to the medical insurance industry. If you question that statement, I ask you; what other option is there in the president's plan? How else do I obtain medical insurance except through a private medical insurance company?
I truly believe that if President Bush was offering this very plan the Democratic faithful would be up in arms and frothing at the mouth. However, since someone from our party is in power and is offering the plan, we sit back quietly and say while nodding our head, they must know better.
Bullshit! They don't know better because the facts show that they have sold us out for the campaign contributions by the medical insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical device industry, and almost every other sector of health care. I can't believe I just said that. The Democratic Party has sold out the working people for Big Business. Disgusting and pathetic!
Therefore, I forewarn you with great respect and remorse before this legislation becomes law. KILL THE HEALTHCARE REFORM BILL!! KILL THE BILL!! Otherwise, the Democratic Party will no longer be the party of the People. Instead, they will join with the Republicans and be the party for the Power.
As we struggle to balance our state government budget, as we struggle to keep our constitutional civil rights and as we struggle to even provide basic health care and basic food to all US citizens, then we ought to remember how were got here.
How we got here?
War
More than any external threat, the United States is being hurt by the desire for war and insatiable greed. John Marty (not endorsed by me) says it best:
Cost of War is budgetary "Elephant in the Room"
by Senator John Marty
February 26, 2010.
The cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars is the budgetary "elephant in the room." It's enormous and it's right in front of us, yet we don't talk about it as we face our economic woes. We don't need to get into arguments about the wars to consider the burden war places on our economy.
President Dwight Eisenhower, one of our nation's greatest military leaders, late in life, expressed deep concern about what he called "the military industrial complex." Eisenhower stated, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Just in case, any one tries to tell you that don't worry about GAMC, that everyone will just switch to MNcare, here are facts from my esteemed Minnesota House Representative Erin Murphy:
According to DHS testimony in December, auto enrollment of GAMC enrollees into MNCare will yield a high rate of uninsurance and uncompensted care. Here is the math.
Roughly 30,000 Minnesotans are enrolled in GAMC.
20,000 Minnesotans will be auto enrolled in MNCare.
Only 5,000 Minnesotans will retain MNCare post auto enrollment.
Only 3,300 Minnesotans will retain MNCare past the first renewal.
Only 1,300 of the original 30,000 will retain coverage past the second renewal.
Auto enrollment leads to more uninsured Minnesotans and more uncompensated care.
Add this to Alec's post on Pawlenty advocating that healthcare can be refused for lack of insurance. Then the message of Republicans really is: "If you are poor, just die already!"
Let's break down the analogy literally: Pawlenty/conservatives = wronged white wife; Obama/liberals = unfaithful, multiracial public figure; politics = golf, both realms traditionally reserved for whites; violence = appropriate solution to budgetary challenges.
The governor has used the nine iron line before, so be assured that the race-based comparison is intentional and playing well with teabaggers. A point of information to the governor--you need more than a nine iron to make it all the way around a PGA course.
The GAMC bill passed overwhelmingly and quickly through both chambers (Joe Bodell's earlier story). A reliable source just told me that the veto was issued by the Governor's Washington Office. It's clear where TPaw's strings are being pulled.
Our puppet governor wins big-time on this. His ordered veto keeps his "Punish the Poor" hero medal untarnished. Meanwhile the legislative Republicans have their conscience cleansed by voting for the bill. If they vote against over riding the veto they all get new Iron Crosses. If they vote for over ride the Presidential heir apparent can claim that his crown is clear, it was the nasty legislature.
It seems the legislature has tried for some time to eliminate the governor's Washington throne, but he keeps finding a way to keep the power securely behind the beltway billions.
Just in case, any one tries to tell you that don't worry about GAMC, that everyone will just switch to MNcare, here are facts from my esteemed Minnesota House Representative Erin Murphy:
