OK, it wasn’t really that close: Scott Jensen was defeated 52% to 44% by Tim Walz in the recent Minnesota gubernatorial race. It looks worse in the maps, but that’s because rural Minnesota is relatively thinly populated, with most people living in the dark blue lake of Democrats on the eastern side of the state. You mean to tell me that real estate doesn’t vote?

Scott Jensen would not be making the news now except that he’s under investigation by the state medical licensing board.

Dr. Scott Jensen, the family medicine doctor who lost his run at Minnesota governor in the midterm elections last year, announced on social media that he was under investigation by his state’s medical board, adding “If it can happen to me, it can happen to you!”.

It can only happen to me if I were a medical doctor, and if I spent an election campaign making grossly dishonest claims about the pandemic.

This “humble midwestern family doctor” has some pretty serious ties to international Bannon politics which would explain his shocking brashness. Jensen’s attempts to convey his overdue accountability as an attack not just on him but on anyone who speaks out as he so “courageously” does (in line with his political affiliations) is Trumpian. It’s also how fascists gaslight for undeserved support. He is the problem. His actions have had consequences on others and it is high time they have consequences for him. Thanks to his November loss, he’s just a regular citizen without the power to carry out his revenge fantasies on the medical board.

Fortunately, he got beat, badly. The news isn’t so great for Wisconsin.

In any case, accountability has come far too late for these politically-aligned disinformation doctors thanks in large part to politically-aligned lobbying efforts. One state over in Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson – who had hosted Jensen’s Pandata colleague McCullough on his conspiracy panels – won his re-election. He has joined the fight against medical license accountability for his allies, despite that falling completely outside his jurisdiction as a senator.

Doctors like Jensen and politicians like Johnson claim to want to take politics out of healthcare while politicizing medicine during a global crisis. There is no sympathy to be felt for power-hungry men like these who lie so brazenly and so destructively. Covid was not a political game; it has cost real people their real lives. Disinformation has been central to the global failure that has been the Covid response.

I hope disinformation will have a political cost. It’s a thin hope, though.

A few people in the state of Idaho really want to arrest doctors and nurses.

Two Idaho lawmakers have introduced a bill to charge those who administer mRNA vaccines with a misdemeanor.

Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, and Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, sponsored HB 154. It was introduced in the House Health & Welfare Committee on Feb. 15 by Nichols. According to the bill text, “A person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state.”

Nichols has an associates degree in business administration; Boyle has attended college, no mention of a degree, and lists her occupation as “rancher.” Neither knows a lick about biology, obviously, but they’re trying to pass a law to criminalize a useful medical tool.

It goes without saying that they’re Republican. Also batshit nuts and ignorant.

I do appreciate that they added that “or any other mammal” clause to their law. At least they’re admitting that people belong to the mammalian taxonomic class! I suspect they just threw that in to make their wacky law sound sciencey.

Fox News is being sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion voting systems for their lies about voter fraud. Mano has the story of how Fox News memos reveal that they knowingly lied. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham were presenting absolute lunatic Sydney Powell as a credible source on air, while saying behind the scenes that she was “lying,” “unguided missile,” “dangerous as hell,” “mind-blowingly nuts,” “totally off the rails,” “completely BS,” and “a complete nut.” Then they’d publicly treat her as a respectable source. They knew. They lied.

Also disgraceful: Maria Bartiromo, unhinged Trump fanatic, knew a few things about her sources.

“Powell’s source … explained that she gets her information from experiencing something ‘like time-travel in a semi-conscious state,’ allowing her to ‘see what others don’t see, and hear what others don’t hear,’ and she received messages from ‘the wind,'” stated the lawsuit.

Real journalists, on hearing that their witness got their information from someone who claimed to have traveled in time while snoozing, would just close their notebooks, hang up or walk out, and refuse to use anything from that source ever. Not Bartiromo! She went live with it, not bothering to acknowledge that she got it all from a trippin’ loon.

Remember, nothing out of Fox News is journalism, it’s all dishonest propaganda. I hope they lose their lawsuit. Losing $1.6 billion would sting, but realistically, their wealthy billionaire backers will cover the loss and they’ll keep on poisoning the country with lies. We’re never going to pop that bubble as long as inequity allows the rich to trample the truth.

Or as long as one of our political parties is corrupt and willing to cover up the facts. Here’s an ugly local story about a Minnesota state representative.

According to the police reports, Grossell, 53, appeared intoxicated when he walked into the hotel bar at the Best Western Plus Capitol Ridge, known as the Kelly Inn, on St. Anthony Avenue near the state Capitol shortly after midnight on May 4. Like many lawmakers from Greater Minnesota, Grossell rented a room there while the Legislature was in session. [Hey, I’ve stayed at that hotel several times — I had no idea it was infested with politicians! –pzm]

After three more drinks, the bartender told police, Grossell slumped over a table. A hotel security guard was called over, and, according to a video footage reviewed by police, Grossell shoved the security guard five times, the fifth time being a two-handed shove that caused the guard to lose his balance. A “grapple” ensued, police reports state. The guard later said Grossell slapped him at one point but he was uninjured. The guard allowed Grossell to go to his hotel room.

The hotel called police. The guard said he wanted to press assault charges, and officers said hotel staff wanted Grossell evicted.

Officers found Grossell kneeling on the floor of his room. He was “unable to fully communicate.” Unsure if Grossell was having a medical episode, and believing he was unable “to care for himself,” a St. Paul police sergeant decided to have Grossell taken to Regions.

After investigators viewed security footage and interviewed witnesses, they cited Grossell for disorderly conduct.

According to the police reports, Grossell became “belligerent” at the hospital on several occasions, leading to an escalating situation that resulted in police arresting him for trespassing.

A nurse reported that Grossell was being “so disruptive in the pod that visitors and patients were being disturbed from their care, coming out of their rooms to see what had been going on,” one officer wrote. A doctor had concluded there was no medical reason to keep him there, and they needed him to leave so that other patients in the waiting room could be seen. Grossell was offered cab fare to take him home, but he refused.

The nurse told the officer that “Grossell referred to her as a ‘sick b—-‘ and told her to ‘get your head out of your ass.’”

This unsavory and unpleasant person has been elected to state office twice. He serves on the House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform committee. He is, of course, a Republican. Notice how the state party responds to this news.

Grossell, who sits on the House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform committee, among others, has faced no formal repercussions within the state Legislature. On Wednesday, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, declined to comment. As head of the Republican caucus, Daudt could effectively “discipline” Grossell by getting him removed from committees. House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, has the ultimate power over such things. She declined to comment Wednesday.

The Republicans have no integrity or honor. Hortman, a Democrat, is also letting him escape with no consequences. And this is how we run the country?

One podcast I listen to fairly regularly is “The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal,” and the latest episode was weirdly reassuring. It was a reminiscence about the state of blogging in Ye Olde Days, you know, the early 2000s-2010s. It reminded me of how horribly awful the political landscape was then, and of all the faux liberals who dominated the networks and newspapers. It’s still the same old problem — the NY Times is not a progressive newspaper at all, in case you hadn’t noticed — but it was so much worse back then. Chris Matthews was considered left wing! The Dixie Chicks got canceled! David Brooks was given a sinecure at the NY Times! Ann Coulter was featured on MSNBC!

Political media is still generally abominable, but this podcast made me aware that maybe there has been some slight progress. I’ll excuse it for making me feel old.

The Temple University Graduate Student Association has been on strike for about a month. They’ve been protesting the fact that the university demands full-time work for $19,500 a year, and expects them to live on that in a major city on the East Coast. I lived in Philadelphia 23 years ago, and I can tell you that even then $19,500 would have been starvation wages. I don’t know how they’ve been coping in 2023.

I guess the answer is that they haven’t, and that’s why they’re striking.

Now Temple University, which has always played up their role in serving the working class and poorer communities in the region, has decided to send out a little surprise message to the striking workers.

As a result of your participation in the TUGSA strike, your tuition remission has been removed for the spring semester. You now owe the full balance listed in TUpay, which is due by Thursday, March 9.
If your balance is not paid-in-full by the due date, you we be assessed a $100 late payment fee and a financial hold will be placed on your student account. This hold will prevent future registration,

Who is running that place nowadays? Some cartoon villain?

I was 13 when I got my first job. It was hard labor for the City of Kent Parks Department. I’d go out with the crew and we’d rake and shovel to remove rocks from new parks under development.

I lasted two weeks. I was shoveling rocks from piles up into a dump truck, hoisting heavy shovel loads above my head to clear the sides of the truck bed, when my left knee buckled and my kneecap was dislocated. There went that summer! I spent the entire season in a hip-to-ankle cast, and got $170 dollars in disability pay. My knee was permanently wrecked, unfortunately — it would dislocate in a grisly fashion in 10th grade, as well, and is permanently weakened. I can feel it even now, especially when I go up and down stairs.

$170 is a lot of money when you’re 13. It got spent on clothes for school in the Fall — I was outgrowing everything — and I don’t think it was worth it.

Well looky here. Businesses are feeling a labor shortage, so they’re looking around for muscled meat to do repetitive and dangerous labor, and who do they spy? Kids. Let’s put the kids to work!

Legislators in Iowa and Minnesota introduced bills in January to loosen child labor law regulations around age and workplace safety protections in some of the country’s most dangerous workplaces. Minnesota’s bill would permit 16- and 17-year-olds to work construction jobs. The Iowa measure would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants.

The Iowa bill, introduced by state Sen. Jason Schultz (R), would permit children as young as 14 to work in industrial freezers and meat coolers, provided they are separate from where meat is prepared, and work in industrial laundry.

At 15, they would be able to work as lifeguards and swimming instructors, perform light assembly-line work after obtaining a waiver from state officials, and load and unload up to 50 pounds of products from vehicles and store shelves with a waiver “depending on the strength and ability of the fifteen-year-old.”

The Iowa proposal would also expand hours teenagers can work during the school year, and would shield businesses from civil liability if a youth worker is sickened, injured or killed on the job.

Even in the benighted 1970s we weren’t allowed to work construction or in meatpacking plants (although the bit about moving around 50 pound loads did trigger a twinge — repetitive heavy lifting can do a surprising amount of damage to growing bodies). Just think, I could have had my horizons broadened with hard labor pushing around dead pigs on meathooks! I was going to comment on the riches I might have received if I’d accidentally sawed off a limb, but the politicians are thinking ahead and protecting businesses from liability already.

Jesus fuck, but capitalism is evil.

Never trust a politician who wears a big-ass cowboy hat indoors. That means I’m not a fan of the Wyoming Republican party.

More sensible Wyoming politicians are proposing a bill that disallows marriage to 15 year old and younger children. The Republicans are agin’ it. Their reasoning is that, welp, kids can get pregnant.

The key issue, the analysis states, is that children ages 15 and younger still can get pregnant but could no longer get married legally if the law passes.

This denies the right of the teen’s baby to be raised in a stable home by his or her mother and father, the document says, citing the state Constitution’s promise of equal protection as a basis.

“Parents, by virtue of their right to conceive children, have the pre-political, i.e. God-given, responsibility to raise their own children,” the document continues. “This right and responsibility includes guiding their own maturing children into the estate of Holy Matrimony.”

So “god-given” biology means that they have a right to lock children into a legal and political relationship and commit them to life as a parent. If a 13 year old gets pregnant, do they have the maturity to guide their own maturing children?

Proponents of the law have a clear response.

“You don’t want a 30-year-old who impregnates a 12-year-old to be able to marry them and get around all of our other child protection laws,” he said. “I find that argument disingenuous.”

It apparently isn’t enough for the Republicans that the law still allows them to impregnate and marry 16 year olds.

Every once in a while, good things happen here in Minnesota.

The Minnesota House voted 70-58 along party lines Thursday to spend around $200 million a year making school breakfasts and lunches available to all students at no cost.

That’s right, every school, even the rich suburban ones, will have all school lunches subsidized. I know what some people are thinking — the rich kids can afford it, why pay for their lunch? That’s what the Republicans are saying right now.

“Why are we feeding kids in Edina or rich areas that do not need this extra funding? We are pushing tax dollars where they are not needed,” said Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Red Wing.

Republican lawmakers tried but failed to amend the bill Thursday by somewhat expanding eligibility for free school meals – to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, up from 185 percent – without making them free for all students.

I can be sympathetic to this argument. The problem is that it’s coming out of the mouths of Republicans who are scrabbling for ways to cause some pain to the citizenry — they don’t want to pay for any lunches at all, but if they can’t do that, they want some control. They want to exercise power, even in petty ways. They’ve always wanted to tighten education’s budget in any way possible.

We need to change our mindset on that. Education is a critical function for the state: we should be providing what students need to be prepared to learn (nutrition, books, supplies), and we should be investing in infrastructure, we should be hiring enough teachers and paying them adequately, and we should be doing that equitably for every school and every student. We already prop up inequities by basing school funding on local property taxes, and I see offering an essential service to every school without regard for the artificial partitioning of schools by class and race that are otherwise endemic everywhere in this country as a virtue.

Lunch is a start. Do books and teacher pay next. Or are you going to be upset at helping upper middle class children?

President Biden managed to rile up a contingent of Republicans by pointing out that they wanted to get rid of social security, and also medicare and medicaid. They were indignant. Not so, they screeched.

Sen. Mike Lee reacts with disbelief and shock that President Biden said some Republicans propose sunsetting Social Security and Medicare. Pure disbelief. Where could Biden get this obviously false crazy idea? Note that he did this while sitting next to Sen. Rick Scott, the guy who actually formally wrote the proposal as the Senate GOP platform position.

Huh. Funny how Lee used the promise of destroying social security while campaigning for the senate, and Rick Scott published a brochure explaining that he would do it. They’re on the record and are now lying about it.

After Lee was shown on TV expressing outrage over Biden saying that some Republicans wanted to cut those entitlements, critics online shared a video of an event from Lee’s Senate campaign. In the video originally posted to YouTube, Lee told a group of voters in Cache Valley, Utah, on Feb. 23, 2010, that he was about to “tell you one thing you probably have never heard from a politician.”

“It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up from the roots and get rid of it,” Lee said at the time. “People who advise me politically always tell me it’s dangerous and I tell them, ‘In that case it’s not worth my running.’ That’s why I’m doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort. They need to be pulled up.”

Ron Desantis and Nikki Hailey have also endorsed cutting social security and raising the retirement age. I’m rather horrified at that, being 65 years old, and considering a delayed retirement already, at 67 or 68. Also, I registered for social security when I was 13 years old, and noticed then that a significant chunk of my $1.65/hour pay was snatched away by the gubmint. I figured it was OK, since it would contribute to my unimaginably distant retirement (now pretty easily imagined), but it means I’ve been paying in for 52 years. You don’t get to cut MY money, guys.

I hope the Democrats can get fired up and campaign hard on this issue.

Also, could everyone shut up about the stupid balloon? Yeah, China spies on us, we spy on them, everyone is spying on everyone.