ROCKS AND COWS – NOW MORE THAN EVER!

 Since Mark Dayton was Governor and Barack Obama was President the environmental extremism of the left started creeping into the Minnesota DFL leadership. Everybody knows about the war on the petroleum industry and the talk of making a greener energy grid for your electricity; the result has been doubled electricity rates for you to pay for the windmill and solar panel subsidies. That social/environmental justice extremist wing of the DFL in the metro has been growing for years. The Green New Deal plan was born from the Bernie-AOC movement and it was already here in Minnesota at Wellstone Action; the legacy organization founded to honor Paul Wellstone. Wellstone Action coordinated the activities and training for activists to go into politics under the Green New Deal’s social and environmental justice banners. Wellstone Action went so far left so fast, powered by George Soros and Ford Foundation money, that Paul Wellstone’s own kids thought they strayed too far from their Dad’s lunch bucket issues. When the Wellstone sons raised the issue, they were kicked out of Wellstone Action. Wellstone Action, now called Repower, the sons of Paul Wellstone insisted that the name was changed to protect their fathers legacy, trained the next generation of DFL leaders and they are here right now! The Wellstone Action head trainer became our new Lt. Governor when her first successful Federal office candidate Tim Walz became our governor. The last remnants of the old DFL on the legislature, that protected and promoted Greater MN, Farmers and Laborers, finally died in total when Senator Tom Bakk, from the North Shore, was canned as DFL Senate leader and the social/environmental justice lefties in the metro assumed every single leadership and power position in the DFL.

 Rocks and Cows was formed because the DFL finally left the rest of the state for metro politics and became the Minneapolis DFL “Green New Deal” party headed by extremist Governor who told his rich donors and liberal strategists he thinks everybody outside 494 is “mostly Rocks and Cows” and not to be worried about. Walz has decided his political path forward is a war on Greater Minnesota ag, industry, business, and way of life. We felt the need to step up and point this out and help those political candidates (seated and challenging) that believed that somebody needed to defend Greater Minnesota. Rocks and Cows felt obligated to step up because the MNGOP legislative leaders were refusing to do the job and were actually complicit or willingly ignorant of the war on Greater Minnesota.

 MNGOP legislative leaders Paul Gazelka and Kurt Daudt refused to run a tough 2020 legislative session in a Presidential election year to force Greater MN and fringe-suburban metro DFL members to take the tough votes, and force them to publicly side with their constituents instead of the Minneapolis DFL “Green New Deal” social/environmental justice lefties. The MNGOP, instead, ran a DFL-lite “better, nicer, cheaper” campaign and legislative strategy they have become famous for; they would make the Connecticut or California GOP proud. The MNGOP legislative team ran an entire legislative and election strategy plan to win SUBURBAN SEATS to get a majority.  The leadership pandered to Education Minnesota, the environmental groups, refused to participate in a single effort other than a monthly show vote to curb Walz’s dictator powers thru the entire COVID “emergency”, refused to hold one vote to move gun rights forward, or push a single vote on rolling back or blocking the tidal wave of MPCA mandates and regulations punishing Greater Minnesota.

 The MNGOP Senate and House leadership focused the 2020 legislative session on trying to one up the DFL with solar panel and windmill grants while completely ignoring the regulatory wave of environmental crazy just being written and implemented by Walz and the MPCA without a single vote or hearing. Not a single lawsuit by our fearless MN Senate leaders to stop Walz from trying to implement an electric car mandate. The MPCA head appointed by Walz, Linda Bishop, is just making up regulations as if the Green New Deal environmental groups are running the place and even told the Senators on a video conference she was going to implement some type of “Environmental Justice” team or committee in her dept. Instead of firing somebody exceeding her legal scope of duties the MNGOP Senate just surrendered and have let her run her agency as a bastion of Green New Deal regulators waging war on Greater Minnesota. I guess the Republican Senate is just fine with the MPCA deciding without any legal basis to pressure business across Minnesota to make investments not required by law towards being “carbon neutral” in order to please the Dept and obtain legally necessary permits.

With Tim Walz in the Governor’s office, and the MNGOP holding the majority in the MN Senate, the Minneapolis DFL or their partner environmental organizations have during 2020 alone:

1. Declared an electric car mandate deadline without taking a single vote (wonder how many hours of heat an electric car provides when you are in the ditch in Lake of The Woods County in January? Or what percentage of ethanol is blended into electricity?)
2. Proposed a 20 cent/gallon gas tax for rural commuters and trucking
3. Sued to stop Line 3 pipeline replacement even after it passed every regulatory hurdle
4. Sued Polymet’s environmental and mining plan even after it passed every regulatory test
5. Sued Twin Metals mining plan
6. Authored bills in Washington DC that would stop US Forest Service land swaps with ANY MINES on the Iron Range, and effectively kill mining of all kinds on The Range.
7. Sued to Boswell coal power plant complex that powers the Iron Range
8. Sued to stop the natural gas power plant for Superior Wisconsin that will replace the Boswell plant in Cohassett if the enviro-extremists get it shut down. (not sure how you have mining without power, but maybe the Democrat USW union leadership has a solar panel on the union hall roof that will fix everything)
9. Sued sand pit miners in Winona County and the local DFL puppets changed local law to stop sand digging because the wanted TO SELL SAND (yes, sand, and no we are making that up) to oil drillers in other states.
10. Backed a strategy to stop all pipeline replacements in the state of Minnesota (anybody told the oil refinery union workers or school district tax appraisers in Rosemount or St Paul Park?)
11. SUED THE MPCA AND A DAIRY FARM TO FORCE THEM TO MEASURE AND PLAN FOR MITIGATION FOR COW FARTS – NOT MAKING IT UP.
12. Had the MPCA and Keith Ellison sue the US govt EPA to institute new mercury regulations on
13. Proposed new MPCA feedlot permitting and water discharge/usage permitting processes and regulation standards

  What did the MNGOP leadership do to counter, oppose, or push back against any of these frontal assaults by Walz, the Mpls DFL, the MPCA, and their non-profit buddies at MCEA (Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy)? They finished the regular session with a unanimous vote for using your tax dollars to fund additional solar panel subsidies. Very fitting since they started the legislative year with a remote Senate hearing in Rochester signaling their love of the Green New Deal with a remote committee hearing on green energy justifying throwing your money down the green energy rathole of never ending subsidies, tax incentives, and rebates. Only once during the political campaign AFTER the entire party and all of Greater MN saw the blatant power grab by Walz to shut down the Line 3 replacement did the Senate finally act, and fired the Commerce Commissioner, and the cowards of the MNGOP still couldn’t do it by themselves and had to have two DFL senators from the Range vote to complete the task. The assault on Greater MN is so obvious even 2 DFL senators had to act because the MNGOP Leadership could not get their entire caucus united to do the right thing.

Rocks and Cows helped candidates in the 2020 campaign that matched our fight for Greater MN. We went to the Greater MN candidates that were willing to fight for the agriculture, ag processing, natural resources industries, and traditional values of their districts by pushing back against the Green New Deal crazy of the Mpls DFL.  We helped, free of charge, to define the narratives, develop content and context, event planning and coordination, political and constituent introductions, as well as getting the message out to candidate constituents and all others living in Greater Minnesota.

We helped state representative candidates because successful efforts there flows uphill to the Senate, and an 8 seat gain there would have given the MNGOP control of the House to oppose Governor Walz and the Mpls DFL. We targeted 9 and found a write-in candidate for the 10^th just to raise awareness. Of those we directly helped with social media, event coordination, or direct personal volunteer help, 4 of them won. The MNGOP Leaderships plan produced, only 1 candidate near the metro that won on the DFL- lite strategy and he only won because he has an oil refinery in his district and the unions backed him to stop attacks by the Mpls DFL. Every suburban metro district was lost by double the loss of the 2018 cycle.  The tired tactics of the MNGOP Leadership also lead to a loss of multiple incumbents completing the total and utter catastrophic failure of this election which will have a 10 year impact, as the DFL will now be allowed to redraw the districts to their favor.

The last decade and now this cycle campaign cycle, the Leadership of the MNGOP has a proven to be a 100% failure!  A fact that is simply in evidence by where we stand now; they are not even looking into the blatant and rampant voter fraud that has just taken place, in an election that decides redistricting of the state. But instead of seeing their failures, and enacting change, they just elected, basically, the exact same failing leadership!  No rational person can expect anything but the same catastrophic results that they have produced cycle after cycle.  They simply seem to be determined to repeat the surrender cycle of the past years that has gotten us to where we are now.  The DFL is against Greater Minnesota in word and deed, and the MNGOP leadership is not fighting against them in any significant, or successful fashion.

Rocks and Cows of Minnesota are not willing to let this insanity continue!  We will be putting forth a platform of policies and bills we want advanced, that will defend Greater Minnesota. We will be notifying the public of those politicians that refuse to defend Greater Minnesota.  We will meticulously comb thru every bill that the DFL puts up as well as any “rule” or regulation change from St Paul that affects Greater MN.  When the important votes or hearings will be coming up we will notify you what the choices are and how they help or hurt your family and friends in Greater Minnesota and what you can do to about it.  When it is necessary we will find political candidates to run in those districts that have representatives that think they work for the Mpls DFL, that government and “green” special interest take priority over their constituents, or they simply do not have the spine to stand up for their constituents in Greater Minnesota.  Please join us in this fight for all that is good and right in Greater Minnesota.