Texas Turnover: Gonna’ Be a Monster Wave Election!

Democrat Taylor Rehmet wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in stunning special election upset

If you’ve been following the off year election results, democrats have been outperforming there 2024 results by an average of a bit over 10%. That shift on average moves all the U.S. house seats up about R+5 to the democrats and hands us a nice working majority, but isn’t quite enough to take back the U.S. Senate. But Saturday we saw a grossly outspent working class democrat win an R+10 or so Texas state Senate seat the republicans have held for decades by 14%!

Ya, I know, this could be a statistical outlier. But no doubt republicans polled this race and they spent millions on what should have been an easy win. And here in Minnesota, we suddenly have republican legislators in deep red districts retiring- Do they know something we don’t? Most likely what were seeing is independent leaning Trump voters remorse covered with a thick coat of ICE’s terrorism and lubed up with Epstein files to the point where no republican can safely stand for election without falling on their electoral ass!

This should change our whole democratic strategy for 2026- We’ll win easily in swing districts so not point in wasting campaign dollars there, contrary to the usual democratic strategy. The best return for our energy and $$$ will be in the R+5 to R+9 districts, and even the reddest districts should be seriously contested- For example, MN7 is a long shot, but with a 20% shift to democrats and a troubled republican incumbent facing challenges in her own party, this race is winnable too!

Neo-Nazi Musical Chairs at ICE… Homan bumps Bovino

Lyrics from The Who, written by Peter Townsend (1971)

“Meet the new boss….”

“Same as the old boss…”

Won’t get fooled again!

I’ll grant that when it comes to nazi cosplay Bitch Bovino wins with extensive ornamentation and the wide lapel Hitler era coat, and in his more often seen executive cosplay Homan tries hard to impersonate a grandfather. But when Nuremberg trials 2.0 comes around, Bovino will get life while Hogan like the slick nazi businessmen who profited handsomely from Jew’s slave labor and furnished their homes with their stolen art, he’ll probably slink off to Argentina or somewhere corrupt when democracy is restored to our nation.

Despite the cordiality between Homan and Minnesota democratic governor Walz and Minneapolis mayor Frey today, out on the cold streets ICE was bustin’ in, grabbin’, and kidnapping like usual. Reports from previously swarmed cities like LA and Chicago advise that ICE never left, and they’re not leaving Minnesota yet either. So keep your guard up.

ICE OUT: Minnesota Protests Reach Critical Mass!

They probably didn’t teach you this in school, but in 1934 Minneapolis Teamster coal drivers went on strike over falling wages and other workers and farmers joined them on the picket lines. The company owners responded with the usual collection of armed thugs known as the “Citizens Alliance” and Minneapolis Police. As the strike grew, on July 20th these thugs attacked the strikers in the warehouse district, killing two and wounding sixty seven. The good citizens of Minnesota were so upset that the funeral precession was at least ten kilometers long, simple math tells us that given the 10 meter or so width of Minneapolis streets, at least 50,000 came out to protest that cold blooded murder and demand justice.

Two months ago ICE invaded Minnesota in retaliation for our simply welcoming our immigrant neighbors. Piling on the stupidity, they responded to massive non violent protests by murdering mother of three Renee Good, then denied her medical care while helping the murderer escape. The protests grew, and ICE thugs only became more violent, wounding innocent bystanders and kidnapping 5 year old and even 2 year old children.

As the 1934 Teamsters strike grew and became a general strike the thugs and their business owner bosses became even more repressive, occupying strike headquarters and imprisoning strikers at the state fairgrounds. But the strike fed on repression, and the company owners finally surrendered and signed union contracts, making Minnesota a union stronghold. Today’s ICE OUT march and rally filled 20,000 seat Target Center with thousands more outside, even conservative media estimated the crowd at 50,000. That’s enough bodies to lay siege on ICE, chase them outa Minnesota, and keep our immigrants safe and fed in the meantime. ICE and Trump will retaliate, but just like 1934 we will win.

May they Rest In Power: Teamsters Henry Ness and John Belor, Philandro Castile, George Floyd, and Renee Good

Minnesota 7th Congressional District Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Outreach & Inclusion Officers Report for January 16, 2026

CD7 Outreach & Inclusion officers report for January 16, 2026

I had written a report for December and January which Trump’s invasion of Minnesota with 3000 armed and useless federal troops rendered irrelevant. That report included the O&I Plan which mostly advocated for our improving our welcoming environment, which we now need more than ever. On to discussing Trump’s federal invasion-

Background- ICE is a hastily created agency in response to the 911 attacks. ICE has a sad history of incompetence and abuses, yet Trump and the the GOP rewarded ICE with a massive increase in funding and authority in the Big Bad Bill. With that largesse Trump and his fascists have been able to “Hoover up” thousands of misfits, supply them with guns and ammo, put them on the federal payroll, and turn ‘em loose. 

The current situation- As Trump’s promised retribution, ICE has largely invaded democratic areas convenient to improvised federal and contracted county jails. They have attacked smaller and especially immigrant owned businesses as well as schools and child care facilities. ignoring the huge corporate packing plants and mega dairies. As ICE’s murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis shows, they have extended their targets far beyond immigrants to include gays, people of color, and retaliation against anyone with the moral integrity to oppose them. For example, ICE was seen stalking in a tribal housing project on the White Earth Reservation where housing is available only to tribal members who are all citizens by birth. As counter demonstrations against ICEs kidnappings in public spaces has grown they are increasingly forced to much less efficiently go “door to door” and those doors should be locked.

Strategy- Our numbers are few out here so we are unlikely to assemble crowds of protestors and witnesses to deter ICE, as they have successfully done in the cities. We also have many backward mayors and police who will even assist ICE. Our strengths are our scattered locations that make forays here by ICE unproductive and provide plentiful opportunities to “hunker down” and disappear as we did during COVID. 

These realities tell us that direct confrontations with ICE would be futile- They outnumber us, have guns, and don’t know how to use them. To win, first we must survive- By being evasive, inaudible, and downright invisible to ICE. Especially if you’re an ICE target, stay home and go online behind VPNs and don’t be afraid to turn off your online devices. And while ICE can’t find us, monitor and document their atrocities from a safe distance- on http://www.sassy.democrat I just posted an article showing how to read license plates from a hundred yards with consumer grade cameras and software. Keep your vulnerable neighbors informed and supplied so they can stay safe at home. 

ICE is struggling to capture 1000 immigrants a day, every day 10,000 new Americans are born and about half are people of color or hispanic- They have lost this battle before it even started. Our forbears defeated fascism, we won during a pandemic, and we damn well will win in 2026 and take our country back again!

A camera, long lens, and software can keep you a safe from ICE…

It’s obvious that the camera of choice for documenting ICE’s illegal excesses is a cell phone, and to a point it works- convenient with decent short range capability and easy to transmit the incriminating evidence to your favorite social media. But there’s a serious down side to the cell phone- You have to be within to easy reach of ICE thugs to document their thuggery.

Even a cheap ‘n’ cheerful $100 camera will give you at least 10x or so zoom so you can document ICE thugs atrocities from a safe distance. Move up into the $500-1000 price range and you can get an SLR or mirrorless camera that lets you capture details from a safe and stealthy hundred meters away with less glare from the bright lights of an urban environment. and when ICE melts, you got a damn good camera to enjoy.

Here’s an example, typical results with the lens at a 45mm setting and not much better than a good cell phone:

Now, we adjust the lens to it’s maximum 150mm setting:

Now we can tell that the barely visible blue spot in the back is probably a square body Ford. Now let’s magnify it by cropping it down with iPhoto:

Wow! We’ve gone from a speck to a readable license plate, the square headlights put it in the 90s, the low height tells us it’s probably an. F150, the painted bumper and black grill suggests it has the XL trim.

That pickup is at least a hundred meters back in a hoarder’s hoard and locals tell me “trespassers” might actually get shot, and he’s probably a better shot that ICE’s losers. If an ICE loser was standing by that pickup we could probably accurately ascertain his 40+ BMI, identify his weapons, and ID him when he ends up in court to pay for his crimes. All from a hundred meter distance that he can’t run and from that far out you’re just a speck in the much bigger scene.

So use the available tech to document ICE from a safer distance!

ICE Attacks: Protest or Stealth?

For decades the progressive playbook called for huge demonstrations to advocate for our cause, and if we’re trying to persuade sensible open minded people, sometimes that works. Even with terminally fascist idiots like ICE thugs, when you outnumber them by 10 to 1 or better they’ll probably back down. But carelessly getting up close and personal with ICE will give them way more than your “name, rank, and serial number”, as MPR News reports: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/13/ice-using-private-data-to-intimidate-observers-and-activists-advocates-say

That’s why an ICE thug in Minneapolis kept his cell phone going while he murdered a Minneapolis mother in cold blood- In real time ICE is scanning faces and license plates, searching databases, and building even bigger databases of anyone opposing their reign of terror. The scanning includes the radio spectrum too- ICE is logging phones around them and maybe conversations and data too. Meanwhile, federal contractors like tech firm Palantir are building giant databases about us to enable future repression. So if you’re documenting or protesting ICE within camera or microwave frequency range, don’t make their disgusting “work” an easier- park the car a ways away, dark hoodies are the uniform, face masks ready because ICE is a breeding ground for disease, and cell phones off and maybe in a Faraday cage too!

Was great seeing the crowd that organically gathered and chased ICE out of Lake & Lyndale in Minneapolis yesterday. but out here on the prairies we’re unlikely to have such numbers to overwhelm ICE and we can’t spare the few progressive activists we have should ICE capture them- so stealth is our best strategy. Even in progressive rich Minneapolis activists have been delivering food to ICE’s targets and offering school online so these vulnerable folks can stay home and safe from ICE. Stealth should be our first barrier against ICE, and protest a backup in case ICE breaches our stealth. Turn off the cell phone, get online through a VPN, stay home, or travel at night ’cause lazy ICE thugs like to sleep, etc…. If they don’t see us, they can’t even find us!

Sassy Democrat Reporting For Duty, Ma’am!

Over the last couple decades I’ve created and mostly abandoned damn near a dozen blogs, most due to lack of interest on my part or readers. The winner has long been GearheadGrrrl.com, focusing on just about anything with wheels and an engine and occasionally horses. But lately the traffic on this political blog sassy.democrat has taken off, so I’ve upgraded it and will be cranking out the content to meet the GOP’s desire to refight the Civil War.

In August 1862 my great great grandfather volunteered for the Union Army and not quite a year later he was dead. Like most of his unit, he died not in combat but from disease, having seen but a few days of combat between long periods of encampments and marching between encampments. This incompetence of Union leadership was fortunately eclipsed by the greater incompetence of Confederate leadership, starting with the stupidity of starting the Civil War in the first place. Never mind that while the Norths competent trades people could accurately bore cylinders for guns or steam engines while even the best rifle would within hours rust to uselessness in the South’s humidity, while the slave labor the South exploited would within a few decades be obsoleted by advancing farm technology. We lost about a tenth of our adult men in that war, fortunately immigrants and freed slaves took their place and continued our nations growth.

So a century and a half later the neo fascists DBA Republican Party have publicly promised to deport a hundred million or so Americans whose skin isn’t as blanco as theirs. Even dumber than the Confederates who went to war to avoid actually having to pay workers, the Republicans are formenting another Civil War to keep immigrants out who came here to work while we have a structural shortage of workers for the next couple decades at least. Compounding that mistake they’ve overfunded ICE, a part of “Homeland Security” we wouldn’t need if the Border Patrol was effective, by billions so they can overpay the nation’s blanco clinically obese incels to play “army” with live ammo between internet porn watching and other grossities. Once past probation we’re stuck with ’em, trillions of dollars of national debt on top of the Republican’s Iraq War that will be collecting pay for no useful work and pensions for pretty much the rest of this century. And like the Confederates, they’ve lost before the first innocent citizen was shot by them- ICE is struggling to deport a thousand a day, and every day over 5000 hispanic and nonwhite babies are born in America.

So again, history teaches us strategies for the current crisis- The Republicans want a useless war and let’s not give it to them. Let their guns and stuck in the snow SUVs rust and chartered planes sit empty while we hide and supply our immigrant neighbors and bankrupt any greedy vendor making a quick billion or so bucks on ICE’s wasteful spending. More on tactics coming in future posts…

Minnesota CD7 DFL Outreach & Inclusion Officers Report for August 2025

“Privileged Farmers”- That’s an actual quote heard in a DFL legislative caucus meeting! Please send that lost DFL legislator out here where we can introduce them to farmers trying to make the payments on $10,000 an acre land and $100,000+ used “economy” tractors and combines with $3 a bushel corn! Truth is, farmers are at risk of losing multi generational million dollar and more investments while earning less than minimum wage feeding and fueling us.  That’s how out of touch the metro’s “democratic socialist” leaning legislators are with the rural economy they claim as their progressive roots. Heck, the Farmer-Laborites would have laughed them right outa the party!

Rural democrats have been getting diss’d by the Environmental Caucus too, I’ve been thrown outa their meetings for sticking up for farmers by reminding them that biofuels can reduce climate change as well as their Teslas, an inconvenient truth they deny. And while we respect their support for the BWCA, we wish they’d show the same concern for the “prairie potholes’ we canoe and fish in out here. This DFL legislator and caucus wouldn’t dare so boldly malign any other group, but apparently farmers and rural folks are fair game for them.

Article 9, Section 16 of the DNC Charter states “Democratic Party Credo.”… “At the heart of our party lies a fundamental conviction, that Americans must not only be free, but they must live in a fair society.”… :We believe it is the responsibility of government to help us achieve this fair society”…  “a society where the livelihoods of our family farmers are as stable as the values they instill in the American character;” Further, our DFL Party has authorized a Rural Community Caucus, validating that our struggles as rural residents are as valid as other groups.

Memo to that lost DFL legislator and community caucus: Your bias against farmers and rural folks is not a democratic value, and you’re certainly not helping us win elections!

Sunday was rainy so I watched the challenge hearing to the Minneapolis DFL convention that the “democratic socialists” took over and used to award a sham “endorsement” to their mayoral candidate, suffice to say their (mis)behavior was so bad the their own brief was enough evidence to revoke that “endorsement”. Their argument was that they botched the convention but it didn’t matter anyway, evidenced by their inability to keep up their end of a Zoom stream during the meeting. Take them seriously, the Minneapolis convention was practice for their plan to take over our state convention next year- We rural DFLers are the institutional memory that keeps our party stable and successful, so make sure we fill every delegate seat we have at SCC meetings and next years conventions.

Survival is winning… Many of you probably saw the video of a motorcyclist being attacked by several ICE et al goons in DC. Thanks to wearing a helmet he’s probably OK,, but one of the goons who was too manly to wear a helmet slipped, fell, and gave himself a concession while piling on the poor motorcyclist. Then his fellow goons shoved him in their SUV instead of calling an ambulance. While puffing up their chests with body armor the goons were too manly to wear a helmet, thought as a consolation prize this one might get a disability pension. Their face masks sure as hell ain’t N95s, and they’re probably too cool to get vaccinated too- As happened with the also unneeded wars in Iraq, the costs of treating and compensating injured personnel will push the federal budget deeper into deficients for decades. Outlast the enemy- Stay safe, protect yourselves, and live to see democracy again!

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

the Big Bad Bill and MN CD7…

CD7 Outreach & Inclusion Officers report for July 2025

the Big Bad Bill and CD7…

It’s sure as hell ain’t beautiful!

First, the macro (nationwide) effects- $3 Trillion more added to the debt, that’s about $10 Thousand more a person as the GOP likes to quote those stats. Immigration enforcement spending explodes from $10 Billion to $100 Billion a year. That buys us over $20 Million a mile for border walls, $450,000 a bed for 100 Thousand more prison beds, and around $300 Thousand a head just to hire 13 Thousand new ICE and BP thugs and give them a vehicle to trash. And that don’t include the transfers of funds from FEMA to fund concentration camps instead of disaster recovery. Reminds me of the Vietnam war when an honest economist pointed out that it would be cheaper to put the whole Viet Cong on the federal payroll than it was to kill them.

That overpriced linear pile of scrap metal AKA “Border Wall” will of course go to the southern border and with no mile long runway to host dramatic deportation flights, Appleton’s prison mistake will stay empty. But what we do have here is more farmland that is more productive than just about any other congressional district, producing around $9 Billion a year in revenue. Heck, just one of our cities, Marshall, ships out darn near a million dollars a DAY in farm sourced finished products! This prosperity is largely the work of two small groups- farmers and immigrants. While the census tells us about 6% of CD7 residents work on farms, only about 2% list their occupation as farmer- With median farm income in Minnesota down to barely 2 thousand dollars last year no wonder most farmers have to work off farm to survive. Farming is only barely breaking even while corn and beans are feedstocks for more profitable beef, poultry, pork, and fuel production. Animal agriculture is dependent on immigrant labor which is about 4% of our population caring for those animals and processing them into foods. So we have two key groups that are only single digit percents of our population that are key to the largest sector of our economy- And Trump first attacked the farmers with his tariffs and they got no help from this bill, while the immigrant workforce is threatened with harassment and deportation. The median age of those farmers is close to retirement age, and the immigrant workforce is aging too, this bill gives them even more incentive to quit, and then the biggest chunk of CD7’s economy is gone.

And we ain’t even talked about CD7s other big export, renewable energy… The BBB cuts support for biofuels that provide a market for a third of our corn. IIRC Lyon County’ biggest taxpayer is the ADM corn processing plant and the couple truck dealers nearby help give Marshall a hundred million dollars or so in vehicle and parts sales a year. Small wind and solar subsidies die at the end of 2025, while big wind and solar get a stay of execution for a year or so because the GOP thinks billionaires can’t afford to lose their subsidies that quick. We got no coal or oil in CD7 but lotsa sun and wind- And Fischbach and her GOP are gonna kill that!

The other big thing that makes CD7 different is that we’re older, less likely to finish college, and have more than our share of veterans, especially Vietnam era vets- So no surprise that health care and social services is the largest industry here.  The Big Bad Bill doesn’t help a bit- About half of us rely on federally funded health programs and the GOP is gutting every one- Cutting ACA subsidies less than 6 months from now, adding work requirements for 55 to 64 year olds many of whom are on disability retirement, requiring federal employees prove they’re not undocumented to get the health care benefits they earned and paid for, and cutting funding by reducing provider taxes. Worse yet, health care providers and state governments will have to eat increased costs to verify eligibility! Wanna go back to college and get that degree so you can get a job with health insurance? Again, the BBB is no help- They cut Pell Grants and are taxing non profit college’s endowments that fund student financial aid. But hey, GOP gotta give tax cuts to corporations for profits made in foreign countries!

Now you’d think with all these cuts in essential benefits we Americans have earned they’d balance the budget and give us a tax break, no? As noted a couple paragraphs back they gave that money and then some to fund the war on immigrants, including $23 Billion to the Coast Guard to buy icebreakers and such so they can keep Canadians from smuggling in poutine or see how far up the Rio Grande they can run them aground… Plus the military assets getting transferred to the border.

But I suppose it’s too much for us to expect a wannabe mafia of incompetents trying to pass themselves off as a government to at least save us taxpayers $$$ while they gut our benefits. But their “Alligator Alcatraz” says it all- Florida has a perfectly usable Camp Blanding National Guard base with dorms, dining halls, security, etc. ready to go. But instead they’re wasting damn near a half billion $$$ a year to attempt a concentration camp for 3000 inmates on an abandoned airport project’s flooding asphalt taxiway in a swamp that for damn good reason is one of the last places in the country, Alaska included, to be developed. Hell, coulda put ‘em up in luxury Miami hotels for less…

But “Camp Blanding” sound kinda, well, bland. While “Alligator Alcatraz” satisfies MAGA’s taste for cruelty and punishment for everyone who looks different than them, even when it costs $150 Thousand a year to make just one likely innocent prisoner suffer. That’s the GOP’s business plan- Give them your dollars, they give you suffering!     

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter