Tag: Minnesota

In a jaw-dropping moment caught on video, an 18-year-old high school senior rushes to escape from the hospital that saved her life and then, she says, held her captive.

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) — In a coffee shop at the edge of a working-class Minneapolis suburb, not far from the high school Ilhan Omar attended in the years after she immigrated to the U.S., some two dozen people crowded around a table to hear her make the case for sending her to Congress. "There is a clear and dangerous crossroads to where our country finds itself," Omar told the group. "You can see the politics of fear and scarcity that's led us to the current administration we have." Though the Minnesota race has no incumbent, Omar is hoping to harness the energy that Ocasio-Cortez tapped to defeat five other candidates in the Aug. 14 primary, including the state's first Latina lawmaker, state Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, and Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a former state House speaker who spent a decade as a powerbroker in Minnesota politics. Omar broke into elected office by unseating a 22-term Democratic incumbent in 2016 while en route to becoming the nation's first Somali-American state lawmaker. Torres Ray, who emigrated from Colombia more than 30 years ago, says she's also well-suited to stand up to the president's policies, pointing to her tenure in state Senate and experience on immigration issues. The Minneapolis area has been trending more liberal since long before Trump, said Brian Melendez, a former chairman of the state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Like many other Democratic primaries around the country, the race for Ellison's House seat is testing what kind of political experience matters most for Democratic voters who hope to rein in the Trump administration, which has emerged as the central focus in the race. Devan Steward, 25, said he supports Omar but worries about her limited experience. She discounted any parallel between her congressional race and Ocasio-Cortez's victory in New York over longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in an interview afterward.

First Up: This week, the U.S. agriculture department announced a $12 billion plan to help farmers hurt by President Donald Trump's trade disputes. MPR's Mark Zdechlik checked in with several people about the tariffs and their impact on Minnesota: MPR Reporter Mark Steil, Agri-Pulse senior editor Philip Brasher, and U.S. Senator Tina Smith. Then: We turned to Minnesota's 1st Congressional District, where there's an open seat after Tim Walz decided to run for governor. On the Republican side, Jim Hagedorn and state Sen. Carla Nelson will square off in the Aug. 14 primary. The winner will take on DFL-endorsed Dan Feehan in November. Later: The Aug. 14 primary elections are just over two weeks away. We checked in with two county elections officials about early and absentee voting. Finally: MPR Reporter Brian Bakst joined the program for a look back at the rest of the week's political news. Click the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

The Story: A statement by President Trump last week at a campaign rally sent fact checkers to their search engines. The President was flat wrong...

"Trump reversed course today and signed an order to stop separating immigrant kids from their families — and start detaining them together. Yeah!' " "The king and queen of Spain visited Washington. Today's top news by email The local news you need to start your day Recaptcha requires verification. " "Even (Kirstjen) Nielsen’s close ally, White House chief of staff John Kelly, advised Nielsen against doing the news conference (defending the family separation policy). Man, does anybody in the White House listen to John Kelly? John Kelly’s like that sticker on your meds that says, ‘Do not take with alcohol.’ " Seth Meyers "A federal judge in Virginia revoked former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s bail and sent him to jail while he awaits trial. Apparently, people are still going to the marijuana stores, but they can't remember why they went in." "President Trump tweeted, 'If you don't have borders, you don't have a country.' And if you don't have a country, you can't have a president.

President fires up crowd at Minnesota rally. FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most…

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Minnesota’s ban on wearing “political” apparel to polling places, saying that the state’s intentions may be good but that its law was too broad and open to differing interpretations. But Minnesota’s prohibition on the wearing of a “political badge, political button or other political insignia” raised more questions than it answered, Roberts wrote, and gave too much discretion to volunteer election judges trying to figure out what counted as “political” and what did not. “Here, the unmoored use of the term ‘political’ in the Minnesota law, combined with haphazard interpretations the state has provided in official guidance and representations to this court, cause Minnesota’s restriction to fail even this forgiving test.” The Supreme Court decided 25 years ago that states could ban electioneering and distributing campaign materials within 100 feet of polling places, and all states have restrictions. But Minnesota and nine other states go further. Cilek was told that he could not vote without covering up or losing the T-shirt. That said, a shirt displaying a rainbow flag could be worn ‘unless there was an issue on the ballot’ that ‘related somehow . But a shirt with the text of the First Amendment? Sotomayor wrote that the Supreme Court should have first given the Minnesota Supreme Court a chance to interpret the law. All justices agreed that states may impose restrictions on speech at polling places. The state may reasonably decide that the interior of the polling place should reflect that distinction.” The case is Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky.

A Minnesota voter had sued after being told to remove a "Please I.D. "While that choice is generally worthy of our respect, Minnesota has not supported its good intentions with a law capable of reasoned application." The Supreme Court in 1992 upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting campaign materials within 100 feet of a polling place. Voting monitors and judges would ostensibly enforce the policy and settle any disputes. Andrew Cilek, a local political activist in Minneapolis who brought the suit, was told twice in 2010 to remove his Tea Party-related apparel. When he returned a third time with his lawyer, Cilek was given a ballot but his name was recorded for possible prosecution, which can include a $300 fine. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the high court acted too hastily in tossing out Minnesota’s statute, and should have first given state courts a chance to offer a "definitive interpretation" of the law. "Especially where there are undisputedly many constitutional applications of a state law that further weighty state interests," she said, "the Court should be wary of invalidating a law without giving the state's highest court an opportunity to pass upon it." During the February oral arguments, the justices mentioned a range of possible political apparel that could be regulated, including that related to the #MeToo movement; rainbow-colored shirts supporting gay rights; union apparel; and pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" gear. But "reasonable" restrictions on speech on government property might be allowed if they were viewpoint-neutral.

The Story:  Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota from 2003 to 2011, left that post in the latter year to run for President. His Presidential...

The first Muslim elected to Congress is poised to leave it, after filing to run for attorney general in Minnesota. The Democratic party is in a murky mess | Ross Barkan Read more Keith Ellison is also vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a post he will probably have to leave. Ellison filed the papers to run in Minnesota on Tuesday, hours ahead of a deadline. He is in his sixth term representing a reliably Democratic Minneapolis-area seat. But he was lured into the attorney general race after the incumbent, Lori Swanson, jumped into the governor’s race on Monday. Ellison said attorneys general led the fight against Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from mostly Muslim countries. He wanted to be part of that fight, he said. In a leadership election in February 2017 Ellison, from the progressive wing of the party and a sometime Guardian contributor, lost to Tom Perez, the first Latino to lead the Democrats.