Guess who got up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to try and warn all the people heading out on White Bear Lake at Minnesota's grand "Fishing Opener" to be on the look-out for this Pirate PawLENTY who's known to have sworn in pirate blood not to raise taxes on the wealthy, even if it means holding Minnesotans hostage these last six years. We told all the poor Minnesota fishermen who'd listen to be on the lookout for a real hypocritical character in red driving a slick speedboat and who likes to be called "Governor" but who's doing just the opposite of what pirates used to do when they sailed the high seas: PawLENTY's been stealing from the poor to give to the wealthy! He must still think his "no new taxes" piracy is the surefire, cutthroat way to the GOP Presidency.
Somebody must have heard our call because, lo and behold, after a while a colorful pontoon boat bearing peace flags and flying "Tax the Rich" rainbow colored kites came into view on the water. The colorful pontoon appeared to be trying to catch up with the Governor's speed boat all over the lake which, by now, had become nothing but a large free speech zone, without private property walls or barbed wire fences to stop the messages sent over the bow. The Pirate Governor's speed boat, to be sure, was much faster then the little Minnesotan pontoon trying to bring him to account. But even though the Red Pirate was able to continually zip away, he couldn't avoid the commoners' messages: "Pirate PawLENTY -- holding MN hostage!" and "What's FISHY? PawLENTY!"
In the end, Governor PawLENTY did catch his little fish and something he prized even more: a number of staged photo-ops, which was no doubt what he was really fishing for.
Although the hypocrite Pirate is simultaneously poised to veto Minnesota legislators' new tax plan to fund public school education, nursing homes, long-term care facilities and hospitals and despite facing a $4.6 billion deficit in Minnesota's state budget, PawLENTY thought nothing of using poor Minnesotans' tax money to pay for the several law enforcement boats that served as his personal escort service zipping about the lake.
PawLENTY's slick maneuvers have also kept his old Pirate Pal Norm Coleman's senate seat empty and from providing Minnesotans with their right to representation on the national level. Talk about holding a state hostage!
And can anyone venture a guess as to what it may have cost taxpayers yesterday to bring this "Ramsey County Emergency Management Homeland Security Mobile Incident Command Center" shining like a million dollars and full of officers and intelligence analysts to the Minnesota Fishing Opener?!
We hadn't heard that the annual Fishing Opener, special as it is for Minnesota, had been classified in the upper tiers of National Special Security Events, so we wondered what so many of the Governor's homeland security mates could be doing inside the big patriotically decorated Command Center. Were they tasked, for example, with providing the Governor their best intelligence about where on the lake the fish were biting? Or were they just busy trying to manage the data coming in from their links to National Geo-Spatial Center satellites (links hooked up during the RNC) focused on Minnesota's other 10,000 lakes? They might have been thumbing through their recently issued "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" to find out what kind of special threat was posed by the two of us holding signs across the street, but we didn't see anyone even peep outside the windows of the "Ramsey County Emergency Management Homeland Security Mobile Incident Command Center". So heaven knows what they were up to inside. But, shiver our timbers! -- it didn't look as if the Pirate Governor's big smiling photos and fishing opener came cheap for the poor Minnesota taxpayers.
Quick, let's all ask Jon Stewart's "Daily News" program to expose the piracy that went on yesterday at the Minnesota Governor's Fishing Opener!
To what level would the Democrats finally admit that the spending and taxes are too high?
The answer: never.
Since they don't pay the taxes, they don't care how high it goes.
Pawlenty is doing a good job holding the line. Keep up the good work.
You would think that the #$%^$^$ bridge falling in the #$%%$#^# river
would have been a wake up call.
Rowley writes: "And can anyone venture a guess as to what it may have cost taxpayers yesterday to bring this "Ramsey County Emergency Management Homeland Security Mobile Incident Command Center" shining like a million dollars and full of officers and intelligence analysts to the Minnesota Fishing Opener?!"
First, thanks for the compliment about the command center. We bought it used some time back from another local agency. Second, I don't have to venture a guess what it cost to bring the command center to White Bear Lake for the opener. I can tell you pretty easily -- I just picked up the phone and asked our director of emergency management. The command center is staffed entirely by volunteers at such events (Sorry, no intelligence analysts were enlisted to watch the governor fish last weekend. Perhaps you've been watching too many spy movies). The only cost to county taxpayers for its use during the fishing opener was about 3 gallons of diesel fuel to drive it to the lake and back. At the average cost of diesel fuel of $2.13 a gallon, the total tab was $6.39.
Art Coulson
Public Communications Director
I will also compliment ALL the law enforcement folks at White Bear Lake that we came into contact with who were totally professional. The White Bear Police Chief was hospitable, knowledgeable and courteous. One of the Ramsey Co. "Lake and Trails" volunteers who walked by even remarked that he agreed with our banner about health care.
Of course we did see lots and lots of uniformed officers and vehicles who were not "volunteers" on the shore and the lake, to include the boats escorting the governor. So if you could pick up the phone again and try to come up with the total number of officers, boat fuel and the estimated tab, (which is probably not something the mainstream media even asked you, did they?), that would really be helpful and probably informative to Minnesota budget decision-makers.
Thanks again for your helpfulness.
In Florida we have the same situation. Charlie Crist has high approval ratings, but that's because he keeps his head down and hasn't directly done anything controversial. It's all being put into the hands of our (republican) legislature, knocking down our light rail bill, closing multiple schools and laying off thousands of teachers and on and on. But yet our state cannot seem to realize that the people they elect for tallahassee and washington do not have their best interests in mind, and they still vote republican. Talk to your neighbors, talk to strangers in the supermarket, at the gas station, at school events. This is the only way to inform those who don't do it for themselves.
which leaves them, and all of us, very vulnerable to people like Paw-lenty. I've lived in
Minnesota all my life and I can tell you Minnesotans don't like talking about politics anymore than they like talking about sex and religion in "polite" company. But the stakes are high if we
don't start engaging in more public dialogue.
"Thanks again for including me on the fishing trip. In the beginning, I had to really think about whether I wanted to be out there, because it seems almost a sacred right for all people (not just our friends) to be able to once and a while get away from it all to fish or commune with nature or whatever, without being hassled. But, the stakes are so high in the current standoff between the governor and the legislature, and the involvement of the citizenry so low, I thought that being a bit of a nuisance was appropriate. As I see it, the only way out of the economic mess that we are in is to insist that those who have the most help out the most. Just borrowing billions from our descendants doesn't seem fair, either. We can't let the burden of the bad economy continue to be born by the poorest of the poor. After years of regressive taxes and bail outs for the rich, we finally have a progressive tax bill before the state legislature. But, unless the people rise up to insist on the fairness of progressive taxation, it will just be more suffering by the people who have suffered the most, while the rich and powerful fish and do their thing, insulated from the troubles of the rest. Anyway, this is how I see it."
On a very serious note, the daughter of one of the other people on the boat had a 20 year old friend who just died of an asthma attack due to not being able to afford health care.
Very cool...You are an American heroine. Obama should send for you.
This "No New Taxes" governor from Minnesota has deceived many. Yes, he is a very crafty pirate. By refusing to support needed government services like fire departments, police, roads construction, bridges, schools or nursing homes he has allowed total state collections of property taxes to now exceed total state income taxes. This has forced local governments and state agencies to also charge higher fees to be able to maintain essential services or in other words a HUGE hidden tax increase.
America, don't be fooled by this crafty pirate come 2012.
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