Sharing Thoughts and Ideas - 2019 and newer

  Hi, I am Rick Olson, DFL candidate for MN State Senate, running against incumbent Republican Eric Pratt. We have significant financial challenges facing our state. Last February’s revenue projections are about two billion dollars less than the projected spending for each of the two two-year bienniums.  These earlier projections are now made worse by the federal One Big Beautiful Bill which cuts funds being sent to the state - estimated to be $23.5 billion less in federal Medicaid funding  over ten years. Ouch! Now, we can hope that the state’s economy is better and we collect more tax revenue than currently projected, but hope is not a strategy. Ultimately, we will have three choices in closing the 2-billion-dollar plus gap: ·     Increase taxes ·     Cut some programs or ·     Close tax loopholes The problem is that each takes money out of somebody’s pockets. Our legislators will need a keen understanding of the ...

  I applaud the decision made by Federal District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong on July 11 in a southern California case. She ruled that ICE officers cannot rely solely on: ·         a person's apparent race or ethnicity; ·         the fact that they're speaking Spanish or English with an accent; ·         their presence at a particular location like a bus stop or a day laborer pickup site; or ·         the type of work one does to base a “reasonable suspicion” which would otherwise permit an immigration officer to be stop someone. Normally, for criminal apprehensions, law enforcement needs probable cause – a reasonable belief, supported by facts and circumstances, that a crime has been committed and the person to be apprehended committed it. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protecti...