{"id":32877,"date":"2020-05-03T07:44:59","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T12:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/?p=32877"},"modified":"2020-05-03T07:46:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T12:46:11","slug":"minnesota-republicans-reject-science-call-for-increasing-death-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/03\/minnesota-republicans-reject-science-call-for-increasing-death-toll\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Republicans Reject Science, Call For Increasing Death Toll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Minnesota, we have a <a href=\"https:\/\/walzflanagan.org\/\">Democratic Governor<\/a>, a Democratic House, and a Republican Senate. We have what is recognized nationwide as one of the best responses to COVID-19 by any US State. Within Minnesota, we find the highest level <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/the-last-word\/watch\/michael-osterholm-no-question-there-will-be-more-coronavirus-infections-82846790000\">epidemiology<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/med.umn.edu\/news-events\/marc-jenkins-elected-national-academy-sciences\">immunology<\/a> talent, with one of the top in a small handful of leading scientists in each of those field in the world, and they are directly advising <a href=\"https:\/\/mn.gov\/governor\/news\/\">Governor Tim Walz<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But, the Republicans are now holding us hostage. They will not proceed, until the shutdown ends, with what we call the &#8220;bonding bill&#8221; (the bill that comes out every two years that deals with funding but not policy, and covers a lot of the work done in infrastructure, including roads and bridges (which fall down when properly maintained), educational facilities, all of that. Their reasoning?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Waaa waaa! We&#8217;ve done that for weeks now. Waaa waaa! It should be done by now. Mommy I don&#8217;t wanna any more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Typical Republican BS.<\/p>\n<p>If you are in my neighborhood, vote for, or donate money to, <a href=\"https:\/\/annjohnsonstewart.com\/\">Ann Johnson Stewart?<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jenningsforsenate.com\/\">Adam Jennings<\/a>? for State Senate, and, actually, ThrowTheBumsOut! The Democrats will take the Senate if both of these candidates win, and with enough support, then can win.<\/p>\n<p>(Please forgive the question marks in the above links. That is an as yet unexplained bug in the latest version of WordPress, one that I find very troubling. With luck they have gone away by the time you see this!)<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t easily give a link to this story, but it is the Star Tribune (front page) May 3rd. In brief:<\/p>\n<p><strong>GOP says no bond deal amid stay-home<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_32879\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32879\" style=\"width: 174px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"32879\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/03\/minnesota-republicans-reject-science-call-for-increasing-death-toll\/kurtdoubt\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt.png?fit=296%2C510&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"296,510\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"KurtDoubt\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Kurt &#8220;Science Doubter&#8221; Daudt, Minnesota House Speaker. Photo from a 2016 story on how he can&#8217;t balance his checkbook. &lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt.png?fit=174%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt.png?fit=296%2C510&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt-174x300.png?resize=174%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32879\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt.png?resize=174%2C300&amp;ssl=1 174w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/KurtDoubt.png?w=296&amp;ssl=1 296w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 174px) 100vw, 174px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32879\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kurt &#8220;Science Doubter&#8221; Daudt, Minnesota House Speaker. Photo from a 2016 story on how he can&#8217;t balance his checkbook.<\/figcaption><\/figure><em>By CHRISTOPHER SNOWBECK and TOREY VAN OOT Star Tribune staff<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After a brutal April that saw more than 300 deaths and hundreds of COVID-19 hospitalizations, Minnesota health officials say the new month promises more sickness and loss but also a health care system better equipped to handle the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said his caucus will block passage of a public infrastructure borrowing package until the peacetime state of emergency Walz has used to enact the stay-at-home order and other coronavirus response measures comes to an end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe feel that this has gone on for basically two months now where we\u2019ve had unilateral decisionmaking by the executive,\u201d Daudt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Minnesota, we have a Democratic Governor, a Democratic House, and a Republican Senate. We have what is recognized nationwide as one of the best responses to COVID-19 by any US State. Within Minnesota, we find the highest level epidemiology and immunology talent, with one of the top in a small handful of leading scientists &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/03\/minnesota-republicans-reject-science-call-for-increasing-death-toll\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Minnesota Republicans Reject Science, Call For Increasing Death Toll<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/WalzCovid.jpeg?fit=1024%2C659&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-8yh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32877"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32889,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877\/revisions\/32889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}