Bob CollinsHere’s a pro tip for a happier life: Stop talking politics in social settings. Nothing good can come of it. Let’s just go back to talking about the weather. Or fishing. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras, a Tim Pawlenty appointee, is heading for the federal bench now that President Donald Trump has nominated him for for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Read more →
Nora McInerny, who now hosts the American Public Media podcast, “Terrible, Thanks For Asking” brings us back to an earlier time in the health care debate — when it was more disconnected from the political calculus than it is now. When people didn’t toast the misfortune of the sick. Her Twitter thread today is a good dose of the reality that exists outside the Beltway. Read more →
Apparently, the House will have to vote on its revamped health care bill before we can find out what’s in it. Read more →
Particularly in a rural part of the state, finding people to volunteer for party leadership at the county or district level can be difficult. But the answer isn’t to take whomever is willing to do the job.
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ay what you will about Obamacare — and you will — but it was a fine declaration in it that put members of Congress and the federal government under its provisions. If we had to live with it, they had to live with it.
Vox reports today that a new plan to repeal and replace Obamacare will protect members of Congress, their families, and their staffs from being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. The rest of America? You’re on your own. Read more →
Faribault has a big cat problem. The city has too many feral cats. That’s setting up a debate over whether the problem goes away by killing them or capturing them. Read more →
Surely there’s a way to characterize Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons without suggesting that Hitler set a certain standard for depravity. Read more →
Minnesota’s 2014 teacher of the year isn’t interested in being the poster boy for people who oppose the last-in-first-out system of teacher layoffs, even though he’s gotten his layoff notice. Read more →
The Supreme Court has held that asking someone for a urine sample is a search and, therefore, needs a warrant from a judge.
What happens if a person can’t or won’t provide a sample even with a warrant?
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There’s a fair chance the state government will shut down this spring and when/if it does, trust me, the bathrooms are the first to go. They’re always the first to go. Read more →
PBS has found an unlikely ally in its fight to save its funding from a plan to send it to the military: a military general.
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The 2016 decision to close Marine, Withrow, and Oak Park elementary schools came just a year after voters in the district approved a levy and bond to build a new school. But a new school superintendent said the demographics of ISD 834 dictated the closings, which have split the communities the district serves. Read more →
What happened in St. Paul on Sunday is a metaphor for the state of government in Minnesota. Because it can’t get out of its own way, it doesn’t work.
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It was like old times on the television on Sunday morning. There was Ted Koppel, patiently listening to the person he was talking to — Sean Hannity — shortly before destroying him on the question of the death of journalism. Read more →