Legalectric

Following on the equally damning: Senate COVID Report: “Historically Unprepared”

For years, I’ve wanted to put together a test project here in Red Wing, a solar heating panel on the south facing wall of many of the homes in town. Given the major impact of a heating panel on ONE house, imagine the heat, cost savings, and energy consumption decrease in a fleet of them! Oh well… I’ve not done the work, but if I have some time, dream on, but parking some pages here and starting a file.

There are so many good sites with info. The most important take away is that it’s very CHEAP to build these, and doesn’t take much skill.

And some related inks:

Low Profile, Aluminum Downspout, Solar Hot Air Construction Project

Downspout Test Collector Construction

OK, parked…

Documentation of Trump Administration’s abject failure in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in over 1,090,000 deaths in the U.S., over 14,500 deaths in Minnesota (that’s nearly the population of Red Wing).

Yet this, after publication of the Senate committee report:

Campaigning as “America First” in 2022 — do people understand what this means? I hope it’s “just” voter ignorance, but it’s how Altendorf proudly, intentionally, labeled herself. That alone should be reason to eject them from office. Check out the high mileage look of these two:

Both are 2020 election deniers, and together they are sponsoring their (ALEC) Education Freedom Act, identical to one passed on Arizona. Thankfully it won’t go far in Minnesota’s DFL controlled legislature.

What Drazkowski had to say about Altendorf in his endorsement of her for state House 20A:

“LEADING” conservatives with Recall City Hall effort, squawking at school board meetings about “critical race theory” and mask mandates.

And bragging about being an “America First” candidate… good grief… And she was elected.

Back to America First, there’s this, Conservative U.S. House Republicans to form ‘America First’ caucus and the platform:

And a look at what “America First” means:

From 2019, ‘America First’ is only making the world worse. Here’s a better approach. that then before the 2020 election noted the increase of nationalists, demagogues and autocratic powers:

Yet that president is going to face an increasingly dangerous world that looks more like the 1930s than the end of history—with populists, nationalists and demagogues on the rise; autocratic powers growing in strength and increasingly aggressive; Europe mired in division and self-doubt; and democracy under siege and vulnerable to foreign manipulation. Then there are the new challenges of our own century—from cyberwarfare to mass migration to a warming planet—that no one nation can meet alone and no wall can contain.

Doubling down on “America First,” with its mix of nationalism, unilateralism and xenophobia, would only exacerbate these problems. But so would embracing the alternative offered by thinkers across the ideological spectrum who, concerned that our reach exceeds our means, advise us to pull back without considering the likely consequences, as we did in the 1930s.

Yes, time to trot out my “RENOUNCE NATIONALISM sign again.

Oh we got trouble… right here in Goodhue County… And that starts with G and that rhymes with P and that stands for… or is it G and that rhymes with D… it’s BOTH!

p.s. If you want to learn more about “America First” in Minnesota get up to Little Falls, and do some reading in the library at the Charles Lindbergh House and Museum.

Ask and you shall receive? Here is the Red Wing budget info in reasonable form, line items so we can see what’s really at issue here:

RED WING 2023 PRELIMINARY BUDGET INFO

When you go to the link, click on the “Fund Summaries” for the various funds, take your pick, and you’ll get charts and graphs and spreadsheets to keep you busy for a long while: