Lately it’s been harder and harder to participate in the social media sphere (and in particular Facebook). Because of the pandemic, and everyone having a lot more time on their hands, the amount of political discourse has gone up, while the quality of that discourse has often gone down. Too often I see deeper entrenchment […]
Read moreRecently, in the whole Roy Moore debate, there was a clip of another elected official in Alabama who was trying to defend Roy Moore’s stance against Islam. The issue that was brought up was being a public official and swearing on a Bible, which this official said that a Muslim could not do. The news […]
Read moreOctober 25th is the anniversary of the death of Paul Wellstone. Paul was a tremendous treasure to the state of Minnesota. He captured what was great about Minnesota liberalism and carried it all the way to Washington D.C. He was often energetic and brash, but he did it with a Minnesota charm that always endeared […]
Read moreMy friend Wes recently posted a nice piece on the issues with movements like antifi which sometimes feel need to express themselves through violence. Often times this ends up creating a vicious cycle where violence begets even more violence from the other side. Each side considering themselves more and more justified in their escalating war […]
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One of the blogs that I follow, linked to the new Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Map. This map shows the distribution of various hate groups across the country. Even in my home state of Minnesota we suffer with groups like this, spreading their message of hate towards other human beings. It’s sad to see […]
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I feel like I should say something about the tragedy that happened in Charlottesville this weekend, but frankly I’m not sure what to really say. I shouldn’t have to say that white supremacy is wrong. I shouldn’t have to explain that fascism is bad for humanity. I shouldn’t need to state that violence isn’t the […]
Read moreI feel that I need to make a brief statement here on this blog about the events of Wednesday. A gunman with a grudge against Trump and the Republicans, attacked a gathering of politicians while they were practicing for a charity softball tournament. Very quickly after the gunman was identified, the media went sifting through […]
Read moreOne of the more interesting debates that I read about in the news recently, was the state of Trump’s Twitter account. In the past, things that our presidents have written have become part of the official presidential record. As we moved into the digital age, it was easy to transfer this notion to things like […]
Read moreMy friend Wes recently posted a blog about being “in the middle” in regards to the political spectrum, and how it was getting harder and harder to have a moderate voice in politics lately. Our system has become so ideologically charged, that any thought of moderatism seems to have evaporated. I say this as someone […]
Read moreThis week’s headlines were dominated by the vote on the new Republican backed health care bill. This bill seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a new State-centric set of laws. I happened to be lucky enough to see the vote actually take place over a livestream, and it fell pretty […]
Read moreThis past week our federal congress decided to roll back protections on privacy on the Internet, and open the floodgates to our personal habits being bought and sold. They did this through a repeal of an FCC privacy rule that required ISP’s to get your permission before selling your internet usage data. You may be […]
Read moreI’ve been in the public sector for almost 17 years. One of the more unique aspects of public servant life is the notion of a different standard of ethics that in other domains. Specifically, there are rules around the dollar amount of gifts that you can receive from vendors (something like $25). I can certainly […]
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Second Runnings 