MN Ground Campaign Hits the Mailboxes
October 8th, 2008 by Ted Fiskevold
NRA is hunting for fools
The National Rifle Association finally went so far over the top that even the most ignorant member of that organization must be shaking the gunpowder out of his or her hair while experiencing what it is like to have one’s intelligence insulted to the max.
The NRA’s most recent piece to hit Minnesota mailboxes came out of Fairfax, Virginia, but their original Minnesota mail list came right from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. According to the Minnesota Bookstore, up until May of 2006 anybody who could afford 60 bucks for every thousand addresses could buy lists of licensed hunters, snowmobilers, ATV drivers, boaters and fisherman.
“In 2006 the information on those licenses became private because it all tied in with driver’s license numbers and information,” Bonnie of the state bookstore informed me. She added that all other list state licensees in Minnesota from cosmetologists to nurses to restaurant and bar owners to doctors, lawyers and insurance chiefs are still being hocked by the state. For example: a one-year subscription to a list of all the hairstylists in Minnesota would cost a grand “which is much cheaper than paying by the thousand,” Bonnie explained.
It’s kind of a mind boggler as to why the legislature decided that public safety and natural resources licenses were to become sacred cows of privacy while still pimping anybody else in the state that buys a license of any kind? It has something to do with the color green, but still…
Okay, so even though my wife has not bought a hunting license for a couple of years, my wife and I both received a political PAC piece from the NRA’s Political Victory Fund.
The NRA says that Barack Obama will: increase taxes by 500 per cent, raise the cost of a box of bullets (that’d be 20 bullets which now cost between four and 50 bucks and averaging about 15 bucks) to $500.00, and escalate the cost of a new hunting rifle to (now ranging from $160 to $1500 and averaging $400) an astronomical $5,000. If anybody out there knows a hunter who is dumb enough to believe that, please confiscate that hunter’s guns, hunting knives, jackknife and even the steak knives.
This time, the NRA has stretched the truth so far that even their most loyal members are laughing so hard they can’t hold their guns steady long enough to hit a target over at the Height of Land Township shooter’s club.
Franken learning his ABC’s
I found it equally as humorous that the Associated Builders and Contractors have put out a piece that suggests that they care about hard-working Minnesota Families.
The ABC Free Enterprise Alliance PAC piece hit the mailboxes the other day and I suspect they somehow wrangled a union list since I’m a member of the National Writer’s Union, which is AFL-CIO and UAW affiliated. Anyway, this ABC piece is basically banging on U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken for having the audacity to say that Minnesota should race its state gas tax a nickel or a dime.
Keep in mind folks that the Minnesota state gas tax was last raised from 17 cents to 20 cents back in 1988 and it took a major bridge (on Interstate 35) to collapse in our largest city (Minneapolis) with 13 dead and 145 injured and 20 years before Governor No-New-Taxes Pawlenty finally signed a bill with an 8 1/2 cent increase in the gas tax which will be spread over the next five years.
Also keep in mind that the building trade unions in Minnesota support gas tax increases for the obvious reason that maintaining infrastructure or building new infrastructure means good-paying jobs for workers which means a better standard of living for working families.
That is, good paying jobs unless the old ABC has its way. You see, the Associated Builders and Contractors oppose any legislation that has to do with a minimum wage increase, better compensation for injured workers, unemployment insurance or safety laws. They also do their level best to try to overthrow any city, state or federal laws that assure that workers get paid the prevailing (union) wage on public contracts. (On the federal level, this is the Davis-Bacon Act; cities, counties and states refer to similar laws or ordinances as “little Davis-Bacon).
My ex-brother-in-law is in the roofing business and proudly points to his ABC sticker on his pick-up truck while saying: “This is to those union commies what garlic is to vampires–keeps ‘em away.”
The good old ABC is right now embroiled in the Right to Work (for less) battle in Colorado and they are pouring so much of their resources into busting unions in that state that I’m surprised they had any money left to hammer on Franken. But I suppose the ABC had to help out their pal, Senator Norm Coleman.
According to the AFL-CIO COPE Blog, when not too busy carrying Bush’s water “Coleman is one of the minority of senators who prevented a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act. Hes voted against workers overtime rights, against strengthening Social Security and against extending unemployment benefits.” It appears as though the ABC is certainly getting their money’s ($5,000 donation) worth out of Senator Coleman.
Despite the crocodile tears and flapdoodle about concerns for hardworking families, the Associated Builders and Contractors record clearly shows a trail of heedless disregard for any issues important to workers.
Prior to the actual state gas tax increase legislation getting passed by the legislature or signed into law in Minnesota, Franken thought it would be a good idea not only for the safety of Minnesota drivers, but for the economy in general. Then along comes the ABC to try to pull his words completely out of context.
The final irony in the ABC Franken-bashing piece is that the price of gas had actually gone down 50 cents a gallon by the time the piece hit the mailbox. The four-buck a gallon gas that is used as a scare-tactic is already as antiquated as the piece is dishonest.
Ted Fiskevold is a member of the National Writer’s Union, UAW Local 1981, Twin Cities Local 13, AFL-CIO. Some of his past political jobs included working on the Mondale and Mondale-Ferraro campaigns in 1984, the Humphrey-Moe gubernatorial campaign in 1998, the Moe-Sabo gubernatorial campaign in 2002 and the Minnesota DFL Senate Majority campaigns in 1996, 2000 and 2006. He has written and photographed for the United Steelworkers, the UAW and the Montana AFL-CIO and a half a dozen mainstream Minnesota newspapers.
