By J. Patrick Coolicain | Editor-in-chief
Good morning, Reformer,
Happy Indigenous People’s Day. Here’s historian Jill Lepore, writing in “These Truths” about Christopher Columbus, who “reported to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 that it would be the work of a moment to enslave the people of Haiti, since ‘with 50 men all of them could be held in subjection and can be made to do whatever one might wish.’ In sugar mines and gold mines, the Spanish worked their native slaves to death while many more died of disease. Soon, they turned to another source of forced labor, Africans traded by the Portuguese.”
Following Fox News, which somehow managed to be on the scene in D.C., the AP is reporting this morning that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. rental was searched by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a criminal investigation.
Here’s Fox: “Two sources close to the investigation say the search stems from a criminal fraud investigation into the Somali-born congresswoman's immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child.”
So is the goal to de-naturalize and then deport a member of Congress based on something that happened when she arrived here at the age of 8?
As we’ve seen repeatedly with President Donald Trump’s various enemies, be they former FBI director James Comey or the sandwich thrower, the process is the pain. You force people to pay lawyers and effectively silence them.
This is obviously giving October surprise energy, especially because they’ve been teasing this for months. I predict she’ll increase her vote share this year.
Speaking of the disgraced Department of Homeland Security: Here’s Secretary Markwayne Mullin sloughing off more of his credibility on a Sunday show as he defends the decision to livestream an execution:
Margaret Brennan: Nidal Hasan is in a wheelchair. Doesn't the administration risk livestreaming this and making him a martyr? Couldn't this be a risk to the homeland?
Mullin: No one has to watch it.
Brennan: Well then why are you livestreaming it?
Mullin: The president is restoring American values.
OK.
To the Reformer, and yet more Homeland Security news:
(Photos and illustration by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
By Madison McVan
Agent 9843, an undercover known as “peanutbutterjelly,” was just one arm of the broad surveillance campaign launched by the federal government during Operation Metro Surge, according to a synopsis of the case in internal Department of Homeland Security documents, which are now part of court records in the case of 15 Minnesotans charged with conspiracy to harm or impede federal agents.
The documents highlight the vast surveillance dragnet the federal government created alongside the immigration crackdown. Which means even as immigrants were being rounded up and deported and people of color routinely racially profiled, the thousands of Minnesotans who sought to help them face consequences of their own — they’ve been swept into a burgeoning surveillance state.
Whether any of the surveillance was illegal could determine the outcomes for dozens of Minnesotans facing criminal charges for their anti-ICE protests — the Minnesota 15 and the Cities Church protesters, all of whom have pleaded not guilty.
Never miss a Madi banger!
By Megan Bull Bear
The author started her Mankato-based store Lakota Made in 2018 at her kitchen table with six salves, made from plant medicines she learned from Lakota elders. Today they have a storefront on Riverfront Drive, a small production team, more than 100,000 online orders and customers in 213 countries and territories around the world.
“Over the past two years, we spent more than $105,000 with Uline — a packaging and shipping company — on jars, droppers, tins and boxes. In that time our prices on the same items, the same quantities, went up 10 to 22%. An 8-oz jar went from 96 cents to $1.07. The best prices go to whoever can buy the most at once, so a business our size pays more per jar and ties up cash in inventory we don't have room to store….
This is just what it looks like when a small business depends on companies many times its size. We don't have the volume to negotiate better terms, and often there's no real alternative. That's why I want our representatives, including U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, to keep small businesses in mind when they make decisions about trade, supply chains and small business support.”
IN OTHER NEWS
What it’s like to be a Somali Minnesotan right now | Star Tribune
America’s elected officials are living in fear | New York Times gift link, with Minnesota mentions obv.
OH BY THE WAY
Last week I talked about the flood of cash during this campaign season and argued that ad spending has rapidly diminishing returns.
DFL consultant Jeff Blodgett weighed in:
“I think you are right when you start getting a wall of sound — back-to-back ads that seem to blur together and are easy to ignore. An additional factor is the quality of the ads. The cheap, studio-produced ads are the easiest to tune out. These mostly come from national, independent spending. They look and sound like a political attack ad from the start, and people are conditioned to tune them out. Tone, style and messenger matter. Ads that are direct-to-camera, with a credible person speaking, with a message that is emotional but not overheated, do break through when other ads don't. And creative digital advertising that use the same principles, that can also play around with format and length, also can break through. I think you are right that a lot of money is going to be wasted.”
A lot of GOP operatives are getting seriously rich off it. Elon Musk is spending $276 million to save the GOP Senate majority. Just unheard of levels of political spending.
Have a great day! JPC
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