Opinions

Rampant Voter Fraud - A Myth That Persists

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

One of the most common popular myths we hear at this time of year is that if the first frost hasn’t come yet in late September or early October, it will come with the approaching full moon. It hasn’t in the 65 years that local records have been kept. It comes when cold Arctic air settles over Minnesota on a clear night.

Still the myth persists because it has been repeated so often that it has become a truth in many people’s minds. It is reinforced because we remember cold, clear nights with full moons and a frost in the morning. Proximity is enough to create truth.

Manipulating Facebook To Manipulate Voters

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.     

Luc De Clapiers

We all hate being duped. Conned into believing one thing only to find out later it was false. That we had built arguments and made decisions based upon false information we had every reason to believe is aggravating and embarrassing.

It is our own fault to some degree that we get suckered. We are geared to believe that which strokes our egos, our prejudices, and reinforces what we are already inclined to hold to be the truth. There is a word for those tendencies – motivated cognition.

Make Minnesota A Dreamer Destination

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

The clock is ticking on the six-month deadline President Donald Trump set last week for Congress to pass an immigration law to protect the status of the nearly 800,000 children and young adults known as Dreamers.

Dreamers are the children of illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents. Many have known no other home. They attend our elementary schools, high schools and colleges. They serve in the military. They are engineers, designers, electricians, medical personnel, teachers, welders and fill many other jobs in our economy. They are neighbors and friends.

Dreamers Are Essential To America’s Future

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

With Congress unable to pass immigration legislation that ensured children who have been brought here as infants or very young children would not be deported after growing up in America, President Obama acted on his own in 2012. He issued the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, executive order that protects them from deportation.

Conservative Republicans called Obama’s DACA executive order extreme presidential overreach and unconstitutional.

Antifa Tactics Hurt More Than Help                                                                                                                                                                                             

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

                                                                                                                                                                                                   Strength does not come from
                                                                                                                                                                                    physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

Confederate Monuments Need To Come Down

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

The best description we’ve heard of what drives President Trump’s presidency and personality is that he is a tribal leader. His tribe is made up of the core of those who elected him to office. It is made up of the people fiercely loyal to him despite the outrageous things he says and does. He is loyal to his tribe because it worships him.

Most candidates for public office are tribal. They play to the base that will help them get elected, but they recognize once in office they represent every citizen of their district, state, or nation. Presidents in the past have always spoken inclusively of all Americans in facing divisive challenges. But Trump doubles down on division, relishing in the turmoil it creates, and the tighter bond it fashions with this core supporters.

Newspapers Essential To Community
 

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

We are one of more than 200 newspapers in Minnesota to print a blank front page this week to illustrate to our communities what they face should their local newspaper disappear.

This is the only blank front page we have printed in 131 years.

Today, it is estimated there are 600 fewer newspapers in America than there were in 2004. In 1990, there were nearly 57,000 people working in daily newspaper newsrooms. Now that number is closer to 32,000. No one seems to know exactly how many community weekly newspapers have closed their doors or how many rural journalists have been laid off, but communities throughout rural America are gradually becoming news deserts.

Faked Videos The Next Challenge To Democracy

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

"Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.”

Benjamin Franklin

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin’s words are too forgiving in this digital age. It is getting to the point where we can’t trust much of what we read, what hear, or what we see. And it is going to get worse.

Trouble is we have to have faith in someone to bring us the truth so that we can make informed decisions about the quality of those who would lead us.

We need trustworthy information to make decisions about important policy decisions: Is climate change real? Should we go to war with North Korea? Do immigrants reduce wages for citizens? Will millions lose health coverage if the Affordable Care Act is repealed?

Trump Budget Would Deeply Damage Rural America

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

As it works to shape the next five-year farm bill that Congress is supposed to approve in 2018, the Minnesota Farmers Union has been doing an extensive, ongoing survey of what the state’s farming community thinks needs to be addressed in that bill.

It conducted 14 Rural Issues Discussions around the state this past spring and into the summer. It has also been conducting what it calls Rural Voices Discussions that will continue into 2018.

From those discussions it is developing a comprehensive list of needs of farmers and rural communities that will become a part of their lobbying agenda in both St. Paul and Washington, D.C. Every state legislator will be made aware of the needs of farmers and told how the state can help. Members of Congress will get the same message, but geared at federal assistance.

Benson Needs Leaders To Step Up
 

by Reed Anfinson
Publisher, Swift County Monitor-News

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
Sixth U.S. President

When voters go to the polls in Benson this coming November they will be electing a new mayor and at least one new council member.

Mayor Gary Landmark and Council Member Stephanie Heinzig have announced they will not seek reelection in November. Council Member Jack Evenson is also up for re-election and has said he will seek a second term.

If Evenson were to lose, the council could see three of its five members new to city politics, but having a deciding vote in directing the city’s future for the next two years.