Category: Uncategorized

Dear Neighbors,

On Tuesday, the Minnesota House of Representatives approved the Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act, an emergency insulin program accessible to the Minnesotans who need it most. The landmark legislation is named after Alec Smith, who lost his life because he could not afford his insulin due to the soaring cost being charged by the big drug companies. The legislation ensures that Minnesotans have access to affordable insulin if they face an emergency, with insulin manufacturers participating in the solution.

The credit for this legislation goes to Nicole Smith-Holt and James Holt of Richfield, and the courageous #Insulin4All advocates who never stopped fighting to make this day a reality. It’s thanks to the many Minnesotans who shared their stories and shed light on the unnecessary and painful loss of their loved ones and economic hardship due to the high price of insulin. Continue reading “Rep. Andrew Carlson (HD50B) Update: April 15, 2020”

President Trump‘s claim that he has “total” authority to decide when and how to reopen parts of the country shuttered by the coronavirus is sparking congressional backlash, including from members of his own party.

Trump, speaking during a White House press briefing Monday, said he has the “authority” to force governors, who have been issuing the stay-at-home orders, to reopen schools, businesses and other institutions in their states.

But GOP lawmakers, as well as Democrats, fired back Tuesday, sending a warning shot to Trump that under the Constitution he does not have unlimited powers. They also warned against overreaching. Continue reading.

While Trump falsely claims mail ballots are “very dangerous” and “fraudulent,” he and those in his inner circle have a long history of using vote-by-mail. It’s clear what Trump really wants is to suppress the vote to help Republicans — he’s even said so himself.

DONALD TRUMP VOTED BY MAIL

New York Daily News: “Officials at the city’s Board of Elections said the President signed and dated an absentee ballot along with an application on Oct. 19, checking a box that said he would be absent from the city on Election Day.”

MELANIA TRUMP VOTED BY MAIL (First Lady)

South Florida Sun Sentinel: “So did First Lady Melania Trump, who presumably also voted for her husband.” Continue reading “Trump’s Vote-By-Mail Hypocrisy”

President Donald Trump was warned COVID-19 could be catastrophic, according to a bombshell new report published online by The New York Times on Monday evening.

“A top White House adviser starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death,” the newspaper reported.

“The warning, written in a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, is the highest-level alert known to have circulated inside the West Wing as the administration was taking its first substantive steps to confront a crisis that had already consumed China’s leaders and would go on to upend life in Europe and the United States,” The Times continued. Continue reading.

“I cut off China very early. And if I didn’t, we would have a chart that you wouldn’t believe. So how would I know to do that? How would I know to cut off Europe? I cut off Europe very early. I mean, you have to make a decision. People knew that some bad things were going on, and they got off to a late start. And some others got off to a late start also. But we cut off China. If we didn’t cut off China, we would have been in some big trouble. And we cut it off.”

— President Trump, remarks at a news conference, April 2, 2020

President Trump regularly pats himself on the back for announcing travel restrictions on China as the novel coronavirus emerged in January. Before the caseload in the United States exploded, Trump attributed what he considered a small number of cases to that decision. Even as deaths from covid-19 in the United States started to soar, he said he saved lives by imposing what he calls a “ban” on China.

“We’re the ones that gave the great response, and we’re the ones that kept China out of here,” Trump said on March 25. “And if I didn’t do it, you’d have thousands and thousands of people died — who would’ve died — that are now living and happy.”

World Health Organization has cautioned against such travel restrictions, saying they are ineffective against a virus and in the long run counterproductive. Trump, according to news reports, was initially skeptical and worried about provoking China after signing a major trade deal. But his national security and public health experts convinced him that the move would buy time to put in place effective prevention and testing measures. (The government then bungled the testing rollout, but that’s another story.) Continue reading.

At least four people – who had worked at Walmart, Trader Joe’s and Giant – have died from covid-19 in recent days

Major supermarket chains are beginning to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths, leading to store closures and increasing anxiety among grocery workers as the pandemic intensifies across the country.

A Trader Joe’s worker in Scarsdale, N.Y., a greeter at a Giant store in Largo, Md., and two Walmart employees from the same Chicago-area store have died of covid-19 in recent days, the companies confirmed Monday.

Though more than 40 states have ordered nonessential businesses to close and told residents to stay home to stem the spread of the virus, supermarkets are among the retailers that remain open. Thousands of grocery employees have continued to report to work as U.S. infections and death rates continue to climb, with many reporting long shifts and extra workloads to keep up with spiking demand. Many workers say they don’t have enough protective gear to deal with hundreds of customers a day. Dozens of grocery workers have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent weeks. Continue reading.

President Trump and a growing number of Republican leaders are aggressively challenging efforts to make voting easier as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts elections, accusing Democrats of opening the door to fraud — and, in some cases, admitting fears that expanded voting access could politically devastate the GOP.

Around the country, election officials trying to ensure ballot access and protect public health in upcoming contests face an increasingly coordinated backlash from the right. Much of the onslaught of litigation has been funded by the Republican National Committee, which has sought to block emergency measures related to covid-19, such as proactively mailing ballots to voters sheltering at home.

“I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” Trump, who voted absentee in New York in 2018, said at a news conference Friday, offering no examples. “I think people should vote [in person] with voter ID. I think voter ID is very important, and the reason they don’t want voter ID is because they intend to cheat.” Continue reading.

For many painful weeks, President Trump treated the coronavirus as he had so many adversaries through more than half a century in the public spotlight: He denied reality, he danced around the facts, he attacked with bluster, and above all, he tried to work his marketing magic: Everything will be okay, the virus will go away, America can get back to business, I am doing a great job. It was standard-issue Trump, a message delivered with his lifelong confidence that he would get the result he wanted by spurning the experts, breaking the rules and declaring his own success.

Trump is Trump because he is perceived by many as someone who gets things done, or at least gets what he wants, by ignoring the boundaries that hem in most everyone else — Congress’s procedures, the bureaucracy’s hierarchies, the law’s intricacies, the media’s scruples, the public’s sensitivities. He is always in search of the shortcut.

From his earliest days as a real estate developer through his first three years as president, Trump stuck with a formula: a constant patter of provocation, pride and preening, all in service of finding the quickest path to a claim of victory. “Anytime any obstacle came up, he told us to ignore it, whether it was a building department citation or politicians denying permission for something,” said Barbara Res, who spent 18 years as Trump’s top construction executive. “ ‘Just do what we need to do,’ he’d say. . . . Back then, the worst thing that could happen was a fine. Now, it’s people’s lives.” Continue reading.

Two Democratic members of Congress on Thursday accused the Department of Labor of quietly “twisting the law” to limit the scope of already inadequate paid sick leave provisions contained in a coronavirus stimulus package that President Donald Trump signed into law last month.

Over the weekend, the Labor Department—headed by former corporate lawyer Eugene Scalia—published policy guidance on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said creates several “gratuitous loopholes” allowing corporations to limit the number of employees eligible for paid leave.

“The Trump administration is twisting the law to allow employers to shirk their responsibility and is significantly narrowing which workers are eligible for paid leave,” Murray said in a statement. “This simply can’t stand. This guidance needs to be rewritten so workers get the leave they are guaranteed under the law.” Continue reading.

Dear Neighbors,

I want to start by thanking the vast majority of our community that have been taking the “Stay at Home” order seriously. This measure continues to help buy incredibly valuable time for our health care professionals to plan for and treat those with COVID-19. The more we can flatten the curve, the more lives we will save.

Today, Governor Walz gave a transparent and data-driven update of where we currently are in Minnesota. There’s plenty of good news, but he also didn’t pull any punches of what’s at stake. It’s a very honest presentation of what Minnesota needs, and you can watch it here.

Governor Walz also launched a newly created website focused solely on consolidating the information and resources available to Minnesotans. The most recent data, best practices, FAQs, and more can be found at https://mn.gov/covid19/. Continue reading “Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn (HD48B) Update: April 3, 2020”