A Point in Time.

I have been following the Minnesota Legislature for about twenty years now. The House, the Senate, the Governor(s).

I have seen many of all kinds.

I remember Willard Munger before he admitted in the paper he was a socialist and told Paul Wellstone to vacate his pledge to only two terms as Senator.

House leadership under International Falls' Irv. Anderson and the rocky end of that era, leading to the Dee Long's, Phil Carruthers's and Margaret Anderson-Kelliher's.

With the spending and controlling mania of the DFL virtually unchecked, the Government costs has been doubling at an alarming rate while the individuals and businesses of Minnesota carry an ever increasing burden of rules and taxes.

Those that stay I mean, many are leaving. It is sad.

We all remember the Senate, with the firm controlling rule of the Joe Bertram years (of Paynesville in Stearns County). He, with his brother Jeff in the House, where so drunk with power they were handing out PCR chits worth fifty tax dollars to people for haircuts and stealing leather vests from stores.

I was one of his constituents and I went to his office while in session daily to call for his resignation.

He did finally, but the ways of the Minnesota Senate didn't skip a beat, marching ever forward to the glorious future of fairness.

They've had their own history of some rather ignoble behavior on behalf of the people of Minnesota.

Often it seems especially hard on the non-DFL women.

The way they treated Carol Molnau of late comes to mind, and Bob Greenburg, a local vegan eco-freak for light rail had to chose a women Senator (Flynn I think) to pie at the entry to the Senate.

The local papers said the "violence" was in the fist behind the pie. Justifying, at least to themselves, that it was not an act of violence.
I think she was violated.

But that's just the DFL (strib) rationalizing its own uncivilized behavior. They do that a lot you know.

Hubris, the DFL is loaded with Hubris by the tanker-full.

[The one balcony to the Senate is still closed due to the antics of the Sierra Club during the NSP nuclear dry cask storage "debate"]

In an attempt to appear stately the Senate has, in the past, left the more blatant smash and grab work for the more emotional House or maybe the latest "look at me" sitting in the Attorney Generals' Office.

But maintaining the growth pattern of their favorite pet; the Machine of Government here in the North Star State, has required them to sully their white shirts a bit.

And both bodies are much controlled by the agencies of bureaucracy now representing a large DFL voting block.

Just who is running the asylum?

We know if the agency doesn't like an Executive appointment to lead their bureaucracy they will mutiny.

Just as the tough guy; Jesse Ventura, about his attempted appointment of some FBI person to lead the DNR. [very powerful, the eco-govenmental complex of Minnesota]

This year, after five months of ignoring the big budget shortfall, the DFL leadership and majority in the Senate, lead by Lawrence Pogemiller and James Metzen {with a supporting role by DFL house tax committee chairman and governor hopeful of Cook Minnesota; Thomas Bakk} offered a tax increasing solution to vote on.

A big part was a 2 billion dollar item called "Property Tax Recognition Shift".
Sounds a lot like "Payment In Lieu of Taxes" or PILT money.

It seems we're running a little short of slush funds these days.

It also seems that when the Government owns more property, then local property tax revenues drop.

I think encouraging private property ownership, or at least not referring to it as a "Threat", would serve us much better.

In the process of bullying through this tax bill on the last day before the Constitutionally mandated deadline, the Senate leadership ignored the Rules of the Senate, rules of parliamentary procedure, Roberts Rules of Order, simple rules of protocol, respect, decency, and democracy.

Just like in their elections, the DFL legislatures are patronizingly gracious winners and ruthlessly vicious losers.