{"id":89533,"date":"2025-04-18T05:46:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T10:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89533"},"modified":"2025-04-18T06:21:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T11:21:51","slug":"headline-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89533","title":{"rendered":"Headline: 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Minnesota Star Tribune, April 17, 2027:<\/p>\n

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FEDS INDICT 20 IN WATER FRAUD SCANDAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US Attorney for Minnesota has announced indictments of 22 executives and board members ‘”Watering Our Future”, a Methodist-affiliated non-profit ostensibly dedicated to providing water at public events. <\/p>\n

“WOF spent $230 million in state money”, said Assistant US Attorney Ashley Bouffant, “but we’ve found no evidence they ever provided any water to a single person at a public event”.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The headline in 2025?\u00a0\u00a0 “Minnesota lawmakers push for free water access at public events<\/a>“.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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The bill, introduced in February by Rep. Leigh Finke, (DFL-66A) has been added to a larger House commerce package. If passed, it would mandate that all qualifying events provide at least one of the following:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Free bottled water<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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    Permission to bring in sealed water bottles<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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    Access to refill stations for those who bring empty bottles<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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    Exemptions: art galleries, museums and presentation spaces where beverages aren’t allowed<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u201cThis bill just kind of came to me last summer when I was having conversations with people about the heat,\u201d Finke said. \u201cThere are numerous ways for this to be successful at very low stakes and with high rewards.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Any government program opportunity, at best, for creating a new transfer of wealth from the real world to the political class; at worst, another opportunity for fraud and graft. <\/p>\n

    And under this version of the DFL, let’s just leave out the “at best” part. <\/p>\n

    I’m just waiting to see what special interest group can carve \/ has carved out a piece of the public water action. <\/p>\n

    Because you know there’s gotta be one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Minnesota Star Tribune, April 17, 2027: FEDS INDICT 20 IN WATER FRAUD SCANDAL The US Attorney for Minnesota has announced indictments of 22 executives and board members ‘”Watering Our Future”, a Methodist-affiliated non-profit ostensibly dedicated to providing water at public events. “WOF spent $230 million in state money”, said Assistant US Attorney Ashley Bouffant, “but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mndfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89534,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89533\/revisions\/89534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}