Trump and protestors call to “Liberate Minnesota” – hotlou happy hour

Today Hot Mike #3 and I react to the “Liberate Minnesota” protest and Trump’s latest tweets in support. We also discuss the role of policymakers, the modern citizen and the president in this time of crisis. And don’t miss our breakdown of Minnesota’s sports teams and the new hope for a championship.

You can watch this hotlou happy hour on the hotlou.com Facebook page. And tune in every weekday at 5pm EDT/4pm CDT.

Next up, remember it’s not too late to enter our GIVEAWAY! Take a screenshot of your Watch Party for this show and send it to hotlou@gmail.com for a chance to win a Circadian Optics lamp (as seen on Shark Tank).

In addition, check out yesterday’s last hotlou happy hour post.  We dove deeper into the issues of medical breakthroughs, business re-openings and “Liberate Minnesota”.

Most importantly, read Hot Mike #3’s letter to legislators and send it along to your local representatives. You don’t need leave your home to enact change where you live:

Thank you for all the work you’re doing – now more than ever.

Like many of us, I’m now an armchair epidemiologist. But as such, I can’t help but wonder whether our local governments are raising the kinds of questions to our state agencies that I’m hearing getting louder and louder. That is – with the caseloads we are seeing, isn’t it time to (a) start to relax the “shelter in place” orders and transition to policies that encourage (or even mandate) social distancing in public and avoiding large crowds, and (b) start to promote local control over opening sectors of the economy that can comply with the former?

I stress – LOCAL control as these “hotspots” tend to be in large urban areas, or as we are seeing in South Dakota, businesses that were unable to, or disregarded social distancing protocols.

It strikes me as entirely within the capacity of Scott County public health officials to be able to take a more active role in regulating businesses in places like Shakopee and Jordan, and frankly, it seems to me that more likely than not that our local elected officials would have greater capacity to deal with these businesses in a timely manner than our state agencies could possibly do with respect to the entire state’s population.

Or, maybe I’m a crackpot who’s spent too much time on the internet. That’s entirely possible.

But I don’t think I am. I think the pain wrought in my business – and that of my clients – is real and longlasting, and quite honestly I’m not sure I believe that it’s being adequately addressed by our statewide officials. Nor could it be, perhaps, if we are applying the same solutions to downtown Minneapolis as we are to downtown Jordan.

I started this process by publicly asking my friends and neighbors for grace for our elected officials who are being put in unbelievably difficult positions – literally having to weigh life and death. But I hope that the “life and death” analysis is also being extended to those of us who are small business owners, or to our healthcare sector, or to our public schools – who may be facing a “life or death” scenario unrelated direction to COVID-19, but to the public measures being imposed to combat it.

Thank you for letting me vent. I would like to share this email with my city elected officials and my state representatives as well, mostly because I don’t want to rewrite the whole thing.

My best wishes to you, your staff and colleagues, and especially to your wonderful family during this time.

–Mike