Minnesota State Sen. Susan Kent (D-Woodbury) was not happy with KSTP chief political reporter Tom Hauser’s claim that “all polls” show opposition to a gas-tax increase, even though that’s not what the veteran reporter said. “On At Issue, [Hauser] wrongly stated that all polls show opposition to a gas tax…
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) returned to Iowa over the weekend to address members of the Iowa Farmers Union while she considers a possible run for the presidency in 2020. During her address, Klobuchar touted her experience on the Senate Agriculture Committee and its work to negotiate a new farm bill,…
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Local celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern is fond of criticizing President Donald Trump for his “hate fueled” and “anti-immigrant” rhetoric, but the “Bizarre Foods” host has spent the week apologizing for culturally insensitive comments of his own. In an interview with Fast Company published early last week, Zimmern discussed the opening…
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Rep.-elect Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) called for “new leadership” in the Democratic Party while on the campaign trail, but has gone silent after his party elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) as their nominee for House Speaker. Pelosi squelched any opposition from freshmen Democrats, who didn’t do much more than send a…
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Lt. Gov-elect Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) told the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Wednesday that the incoming administration plans to push for a MinnesotaCare buy-in option. The public health insurance option was widely criticized by Republicans on the campaign trail, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson, who criticized Gov.-elect Tim Walz (D-MN)…
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Gov.-elect Tim Walz (D-MN) plans to include a gas-tax hike in his first budget proposal due February. His latest reason for doing so is because he received more votes than any other gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota history, so the people must want it. “Yes, you can expect to see that,”…
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A group of self-identified “Muslim constituents” are demanding a meeting with Rep.-elect Jim Hagedorn (R-MN-01) to discuss the alleged “anti-Muslim statements” he made on the campaign trail. A new petition, which has close to 400 signatures, accuses Hagedorn of making “many statements” on his campaign website that “use fear-mongering tactics…
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The St. Paul City Council is expected to commission several new murals to temporarily replace the current artwork hanging in its chambers that some believe is “very white and very male.” The Star Tribune reported Wednesday that the City Council will likely hold a vote in the coming weeks to…
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An ex-Muslim turned Christian pastor was arrested at the Mall of America in August for holding a private conversation about his faith with two consenting passersby, and now faces a formal trial if the charges against him aren’t dropped. Ramin Parsa, a Muslim from Iran who fled his home country…
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was one of the first Democrats to publicly call for Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) resignation after he was accused of sexual misconduct by at least eight different women. But now the New York senator, who was once considered presidential material, is being blackballed by the Democratic…
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Keith Ellison concluded his election night victory speech by vowing to hire anyone of any political affiliation so long as they “serve the public’s interest,” but 15 of his transition committee members are Democratic donors. Another three members of the 35-person board are sitting Democratic state representatives or senators, including…
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A proposal to offer illegal immigrants municipal IDs cleared committee Monday in a unanimous vote, and will now head to the full Minneapolis City Council for consideration. According to Fox 9, more than 50 people in support of the program attended Monday’s meeting, but nobody in attendance testified against the…
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Michigan Republican John James recently visited the White House to meet with top players in the Trump administration as some insiders claim he’s being considered as a replacement for UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. James rose to national prominence after his unsuccessful challenge of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), but came closer…
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Minnesota’s newly-elected Democrats almost instantly promulgated the mainstream media’s wall-to-wall coverage of Monday’s border fiasco, but said nothing of the fact that tear-gas agents are frequently used at the border, and have been for years. Tweeting at 6:30 Monday morning, Rep.-elect Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) said he was waking up to…
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Minnesota regulators unanimously approved Enbridge Energy’s proposal to begin construction on a replacement pipeline stretching across northern Minnesota, prompting public outcry across the state. As The Minnesota Sun reported Friday, opponents of the project shut down a performance at Minneapolis’s Theater of Public Policy last week in response to the…
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) finally addressed rumors that she may seek the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential election after garnering national attention during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination process. Analysts have been eyeing Klobuchar as a potential candidate ever since her October grilling of Kavanaugh, whom she asked in…
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Disgraced Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) released a lengthy statement over the holiday weekend in which he claims that he’s spent “this past year thinking about the broader conversation we’ve been having about the experience of women in this country.” This time last year Franken was facing pressure to resign after…
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St. Cloud elected two new conservative members to its city council who support efforts to slow down the influx of refugees settling in the community. The issue became a hot topic in Minnesota after Council Member Jeff Johnson (not related to the Republican gubernatorial candidate) introduced a measure to temporarily…
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After his four-point victory in a contentious race for the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, Keith Ellison has been making the rounds on local media outlets to rebuild trust with voters. Just days after his win, The Star Tribune ran a “thank-you” letter written by Ellison to the voters in which…
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Minnesota businessman and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is trying his hand at Hollywood after investing $1 million in a new movie that offers a critical look at Planned Parenthood. The movie, titled Unplanned, had to be filmed in secret due to the sensitive nature of its subject, The Hollywood Reporter…
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Gov.-elect Tim Walz (D-MN) has frequently boasted of historical victory in the Minnesota gubernatorial race, but the numbers were unprecedented on both sides of the ticket as the state saw record-setting voter turnout. “Peggy [Flanagan] and I are humbled by the support for One Minnesota. We received more votes than…
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A College Republicans mural on the University of Minnesota campus was repeatedly vandalized during the fall semester, most recently with calls to “alert Antifa” of the conservative presence on campus. Vandalism of the mural, located on the campus’ Washington Avenue Bridge, seemed to begin in 2017 in response to the…
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Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN-07), soon to be chair of the House Agriculture Committee, had some choice words for his fellow Democrats whom he believes are siding with “extreme environmentalists” over Minnesota’s farmers. “In a district like mine, the biggest problem we have is with the environmentalists,” said Peterson, who represents…
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Minneapolis’ Theater of Public Policy had to end a performance early for the first time in its seven-year run after a group of protesters repeatedly disrupted the show. The hecklers were angered by a Monday morning decision to clear the way for construction of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, which…
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The federal government estimates that a project aimed at keeping an invasive species out of the Great Lakes would cost $778 million, but wouldn’t be complete until 2025 or 2027. The project, which would include upgrades at a Joliet, Illinois lock and dam to prevent Asian carp from entering the…
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Democratic 2020 hopefuls are already launching their ground-games in the nation’s first caucus state as at least ten different prospective candidates have made a visit to Iowa in recent months. Rep. John Delaney (D-MD-06) was the focus of a recent Politico article, which noted that the Maryland congressman has already…
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Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) is backing Democratic colleague Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY-14) “Green New Deal” proposal that would force “100 percent of national power generation” on to “renewable sources.” “The science is clear—we need urgent action on climate change now. Actually, we needed it 15 years ago. Now we’re running…
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A federal judge in Detroit has tossed out female genital mutilation charges against members of a Muslim sect, arguing that Congress “overstepped its bounds” in prohibiting the practice. The 22-year-old federal ban on female genital mutilation went untested until April 2017, when Dr. Jumana Nagarwala (pictured above) of Northville, Michigan…
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Keith Ellison accuser Karen Monahan claims to have evidence that the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party tried “to cover up facts” during its investigation into the former congressman. Monahan first accused Ellison of domestic abuse just days before his August primary, but after Ellison defeated Republican Doug Wardlow in a tight race…
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Gov. Mark Dayton (D-MN) underwent back surgery at Mayo Clinic in October in what was the latest in a series of health scares, but his staff took a month to inform the public that he was still hospitalized. “Governor Dayton’s doctor is pleased with how Friday’s surgery went and believes…
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A Saint Paul Chipotle manager was fired after a now-viral video with more than seven million views on Twitter appeared to show her asking a group of black men for payment before making their food. But information about the men in the video, particularly Masud Ali, immediately began to surface…
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A group of Democratic House members issued a letter to their colleagues Monday vowing to vote against Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-11) in her bid for the speakership. The letter calls for “new leadership” in Congress, but some of Minnesota’s newly-elected members who made similar claims on the campaign trail…
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Lt. Gov.-elect Peggy Flanagan plans to “cover” a number of controversial paintings located in the Minnesota Capitol’s transition offices, which allegedly contain “insensitive” and “historically inaccurate” depictions of Native Americans. Flanagan, who will become the first indigenous woman in the nation to hold executive office, said during a recent interview…
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Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson joined several of her colleagues across the country in urging Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Whitaker was tapped to fill in after the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but his temporary appointment to…
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Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman (D-Brooklyn Park) was facing pressure to resign in 2017 after criticizing her “white male” colleagues for sitting in the “retiring room” during a debate, but now she has been selected to serve as the next Minnesota House speaker. “I hate to break up the 100 percent…
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The Saint Paul City Council unanimously approved a $15 minimum-wage ordinance Thursday, which was quickly signed into law by Mayor Melvin Carter. “Today’s vote is the culmination of years of incredible leadership from Council Members, workers, business leaders and advocates, all working together to provide a much-needed raise to over…
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A Michigan “civil rights” organization has spent the past few years removing any hint of religion from public spaces, most recently forcing a group of public-school football players to stop praying before games. In October, the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists (MACRA) sent a complaint to Muskegon Community College…
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Democrat Dan Feehan conceded in the race for Minnesota’s First Congressional District on Friday, nearly 10 days after his loss to Republican Jim Hagedorn. For the second time in a row, Minnesota’s First District was the closest race in the state, and one of the closest in the country, but…
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The Twin Cities Met Council announced Wednesday that it has received approval from the federal government to begin construction on its controversial $2 billion Light Rail extension. In a Wednesday press release, the Met Council announced that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has granted it a Letter of No Prejudice,…
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A Detroit school named after current Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson could soon see a name change because of the Republican’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. Before his political career, Carson was a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University where he was among the first doctors to successfully separate…
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Congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) now claims that she “believes in and supports” the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel despite making claims to the contrary on the campaign trail. During an Aug. 6 primary debate, Omar called the BDS movement “counteractive” because it wouldn’t be “helpful in getting…
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Campaign finance reports indicate that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) was the third-leading beneficiary of Planned Parenthood donations during the 2018 election cycle. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Klobuchar raked in $17,650 in donations from the country’s foremost abortion provider. She trailed in donations to Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-MO),…
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Minnesota’s newly elected members of Congress are in Washington for their new-member orientation, but some reports indicate that the freshmen members are already violating House rules. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported Wednesday that a group of New Jersey’s new members tweeted a picture of themselves from the House floor,…
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Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura met with Gov.-elect Tim Walz Tuesday to discuss managing the transition into the governor’s mansion and pitched Minnesota’s new leader on legalizing marijuana in the state. While Minnesota currently has a medical marijuana program, Ventura told reporters after his meeting that “we’re just plain missing…
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The Star Tribune Editorial Board is attacking President Donald Trump for undermining “yet another democratic institution” in response to the election scandal in Florida, but makes no mention of the serious concerns raised by politicians such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jeb Bush. “President Donald Trump’s fact-free attacks on…
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minneapolis), who easily won her election for Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District Tuesday, now faces a second investigation into her purported misuse of campaign dollars for personal benefit. As The Minnesota Sun previously reported, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (CFB) found “probable cause” against Omar and…
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Republican Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN-02), who lost his bid for reelection Tuesday, attributes the Republican Party’s loss of the House to Sen. John McCain’s opposition to repealing ObamaCare. In a Monday op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Lewis writes that McCain’s vote against a repeal prompted a “green wave” of…
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Two political parties pushing for the legalization of marijuana across Minnesota are likely to be granted major-party status after a successful midterm election. Both the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis (GLC) Party and the Legal Marijuana Now (LMN) Party earned more than five percent of the vote in at least one statewide race,…
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The Minnesota Republican Party continued its 10-year statewide losing streak Tuesday, but party leaders are hesitant to accept any blame for the disastrous performance. State Republicans lost up and down the ballot in both local and federal elections, losing races for the governorship, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor,…
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A Minnesota man was recently charged with assaulting a Republican candidate for state office while the two engaged in a political conversation at a bar in October. As The Minnesota Sun previously reported, Republican Shane Mekeland, campaigning for office in Minnesota District 15B, reported to the police that he had…
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