Embarrassed to Be a Minnesotan, and Even More an American

Michele Tafoya says people keep telling her they're embarrassed to be from Minnesota. So I checked.

Turns out the embarrassment is real. It's just not built on rumors. It's built on the record: a state legislator's assassination, a mother shot by ICE, a nurse who cared for veterans killed by federal agents, children gunned down at a Catholic school, and a national picture that gets darker the further you zoom out.

And that rhetorical trick Tafoya runs, "people tell me," is the same one that's been running this whole country for years. I checked that too.

Sources & further reading:
• Michele Tafoya's "people tell me" quote (FOX 9): fox9.com/news/michele-tafoya-fraud-affordability-immigration-minnesotas-us-senate-race
• 2025 shootings of Minnesota legislators: Hortman, Hoffman, Boelter (Wikipedia): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_shootings_of_Minnesota_legislators
• Killing of Renée Good (CNN): cnn.com/2026/01/08/us/renee-nicole-good-minneapolis-ice-shooting-hnk
• Killing of Alex Pretti (NPR): npr.org/2026/01/25/nx-s1-5687361/minneapolis-shooting-latest-alex-pretti
• Annunciation Catholic School shooting (AP/PBS): pbs.org/newshour/nation/shooting-reported-at-minnesota-school
• National debt interest surpassing the defense budget (Washington Post): washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2026/08/31/why-americas-interest-payments-are-suddenly-spiking
• Trump's 21,000+ disclosed stock trades (ABC News): abcnews.com/Politics/trump-discloses-21000-securities-trades-year-office/story?id=134427666
• Trump's disclosed crypto income and family holdings (CBS News): cbsnews.com/news/trump-over-1-billion-on-crypto-ventures-financial-disclosures
• Regional death toll since October 2023 in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Iran: UN OCHA / UNRWA situation reports; Wikipedia, "Casualties of the Gaza war"

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Stay awake out there.
American Refugee