For the past few hours, it’s painful watching what’s become of Tom Brokaw, the once esteemed NBC News anchor who got into an online mess when he suggested Hispanics have an assimilation problem. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
If history is any guide, these school students mocking a Native American elder on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial will be identified and claim they were just joking and, hey, what’s the matter with you that you can’t take a joke in America anymore? Read more →
The obituaries editor of the Louisville Courier Journal was just looking out for the danger posed to the nation by a dead 87-year-old woman who didn’t much care for the person who is president of the United States.
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Is there some Minnesota passive aggressiveness at work in the displaying of a Trump campaign sign at a basketball game between a predominantly white team and a predominantly black one? Or is it just a love a politics? Read more →
Her insulin supply has been restored. Her faith in people, too, perhaps. Read more →
A political party has been so effective at demonizing government that it’s asking a lot anymore to expect sympathy for the innocent victims of the collapse of a functioning government — government workers. But that doesn’t mean Mallory Lorge Bischoff’s story isn’t an appropriate reminder that beneath most headlines, there is a human story to consider. Read more →
There was a time, whippersnappers, when we couldn’t go shopping on Sunday in these parts. The churches ruled retail, at least on that day. Basically, we were then what North Dakota is now. Read more →
TSA agents, deemed essential, are still not being paid during the government shutdown.
According to reports, many are simply not showing up for work. Read more →
It was opening day of Congress today and while the attention is on the new members, our favorite part about opening days — as we’ll see in a week in the Minnesota Legislature — are the kids of congresspeople who get to sit with their parents and see them one last time over the next two years.
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Every new year should start off with the type of letter to the editor that Seng Vang got published in today’s Star Tribune. Read more →
Mitt Romney still wants to be president some day and if it comes to pass, he will be the first windsock ever elected to the office. Read more →
We haven’t heard much about Mollie Tibbetts since she provided a weapon for some people in the immigration debate this year by being murdered and left in an Iowa cornfield.
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Eighty-four percent of Native American women experience violence in their lifetime. They are killed at 10 times the rate of other women in the U.S. Who wouldn’t want to do something about that? This guy. Read more →
It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Getting trashed by a reporter for Der Spiegel in a now-discredited profile of a city that — accurately — went big for Donald Trump in 2016, might be the best thing that ever happened to Fergus Falls.
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