Free Republic

Where’s the beef? Well, it made way for the pork. On Sunday afternoon in downtown Minneapolis, Twin Cities foodies celebrated the pig in all of its glory at Cochon555. An event dedicated to all things pork, Cochon555 celebrates heritage pigs and sustainable farming of the animal. The competition featured five chefs, who compete head-to-head creating dishes using a whole heritage breed pig. The focus is on fine dining. Proceeds from the 14-city event go to Piggy Bank, a charity focusing on sanctuaries for heritage breed pigs and Open Access Agriculture.

A feminist organization at a Minnesota college recently invited students to batter a Donald Trump effigy during a school-wide recruitment fair. The Gustavus Adolphus College “Womyn’s Awareness Center” (the misspelling is intentional) erected an effigy of President Trump alongside its recruitment table Wednesday, encouraging passers-by to unleash their political anger on a replica of the new president.

Ruling re Appeal of Visa Suspension TRO

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused Jewish people of oppressing “minorities all over the world,” Ellison’s former college classmate revealed in an interview. Mother Jones interviewed former classmate Michael Olenick who worked as the opinions editor at the University of Minnesota’s student newspaper, The Minnesota Daily. Olenick said that Ellison, who went by Keith Hakim at the time, argued that “white Jews” were routinely oppressing minority groups. “European white Jews are trying to oppress minorities all over the world,” Olenick remembers Ellison arguing. “Keith would go on all the time about ‘Jewish slave traders,'” according to the Mother Jones...

The men pay hundreds of dollars for middle-of-the-night cab rides north to the Canadian border. They wade into the Red River to dodge border agents in summer and trudge through waist-deep snow in winter. On Christmas Eve, two wandered in the wind-swept flatness and lost their fingers to frostbite. Minnesota has become a key stop for a soaring number of migrants from Somalia and other African countries who sneak into Canada to seek asylum. More than 430 arrived in Winnipeg since April, up from 70 three years ago. Most come by way of Minneapolis, sometimes after grueling treks across Latin...

An internationally-recognized Somali-American nonprofit has declined to accept a federal grant in protest of President Donald Trump’s restrictions on refugees and travel. Ka Joog, which counsels and mentors young people in Minnesota, has turned down a $500,000 federal grant to show opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies that the nonprofit says targets Somalia and six other predominately Muslim countries. Ka Joog Executive Director Mohamed Farah told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that as much as the organization does not want to turn down such a significant grant, the board has decided it cannot ethically accept the money in light of Trump’s...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale is endorsing Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to become the next Democratic National Committee chair. The move gives the two top contenders to helm the party -- Ellison and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez -- one vice presidential endorsement each, after Joe Biden backed Perez earlier this week. It comes as Democrats head to Detroit for their third of four "future forums" Saturday, where candidates for party leadership lay out their visions, before the DNC's 447 voting members select their new chair in a late-February meeting in Atlanta. "Keith was a Minnesota star in the state...

Gwendolyn Gillen, a Wisconsin artist whose bronze sculpture of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat became a downtown Minneapolis landmark, has died. She was 76. Gillen's daughter, Alessandra Gillen, says her mother died Friday in hospice care at Madison Heights Senior Community in Madison, where she had lived since 2013. Gwendolyn Gillen died two days after Moore died at the age of 80.

HOUSTON — Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who in 2007 became the first Muslim member of Congress, said in an interview Saturday that opponents of President Trump’s executive orders on immigration and refugees should oppose them in the streets. “It’s time for people to get active, to get involved, to vote and to organize,” said Ellison, who was in Houston to campaign for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Trump must be stopped, and people power is what we have at our disposal to make him stop. We need mass rallies. We need them all over the country. We need them...

Voter fraud is in the news again, with President Trump vowing an investigation and the liberal media assuring us that voter fraud does not exist. My question is always: why are they so confident that there is little or no fraud, when so few efforts are made to look for it? Here in Minnesota, there is no possible way for anyone to know how much voter fraud occurred last November. Minnesota is a same-day registration state, and more than 500,000 voters register on the day of a presidential election. The Minnesota Voters Alliance explains why that is a problem: Two...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Angry protesters forced a Minnesota House committee to briefly recess Tuesday morning after it passed a bill that would let local governments sue protesters to recover law enforcement costs. The measure passed 9-to-6 along party lines in the House Civil Law and Data Practices Policy Committee. Immediately after, an angry crowd erupted in protest over the bill, known as House File 322. Among the protesters shouting at lawmakers was John Thompson, a friend of Philando Castile, who was shot and killed last summer by a St. Anthony police officer. “Shame on you,” Thompson yelled at lawmakers. “You...

The St. Paul, Minnesota headquarters of Pro-Life Action Ministries was vandalized overnight with anti-child, anti-Trump and anti-Christian messages. The messages included “Another f- mouth to feed,” “F- Trump,” and an upside-down cross. As a non-profit, Pro-Life Action Ministries never endorsed Donald Trump. The leader of the organization, Brian Gibson, also received a harassing phone call the afternoon of January 22. That date is the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Pro-Life Action Ministries conducted a prayer service, attended by 180 Christians, outside the Planned Parenthood abortion center in St. Paul Sunday afternoon to...

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has collapsed while delivering the annual State of the State address in the House Chambers. The governor is receiving medical attention but his current condition is unknown. (more)

The makeshift crosses in Belle Plaine. (Fox 9) A veterans memorial in Minnesota lost one cross but gained more than a dozen others -- and a security detail -- over the weekend after supporters argued that the city caved to the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The memorial at Belle Plaine Veterans Memorial Park showed a silhouette of a soldier kneeling in front of a cross that served as a headstone for a fellow soldier's grave, Fox 9 reported. Workers installed it last summer, but opponents were quick to argue that it violated the separation of church and state because it...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 27-year-old White Bear Lake man faces charges after he allegedly drunkenly drove into a ditch, had sex there with a female passenger, and spit on a deputy attempting to arrest him, according to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. Alan Krueger is charged with one felony count of fourth-degree assault and one gross misdemeanor count of DWI with a refusal to submit to chemical test in connection to the Jan. 16 incident. ~SNIP~ After failing standard field sobriety tests, Krueger was asked to provide a preliminary breath test sample. Before that, deputies told him to form a...

Donald Trump didn't win Minnesota. And he never visited Mower County. But his message resonated with voters in LeRoy and Lyle. Now they wonder: What's next? ~SNIP~ With Fox News on a nearby TV, the coffee crowd, which included a former deputy sheriff and retired and semiretired farmers and truckers, was decidedly optimistic about President-elect Donald Trump. “We’re the kind of people who believe in country, family and faith — not necessarily in that order,” said Dave Johnson, a semiretired cattle and hog farmer, Trump man and the table’s informal alpha dog. “We’re concerned about the future, and a lot...

The superintendent of St. Louis Park High School reported a case of tuberculosis. The school district says it was notified by the Hennepin County Department of Health that one individual at the high school had been diagnosed with active TB in late November. The individual was receiving medical care by the time the school district was notified. But the school district says the person was contagious in September, October and November before the diagnosis was determined. The superintendent says the Hennepin County Department of Health asked the district to wait to communicate the information until they could determine who else...

A police officer stopped a vehicle for a driving violation just after midnight Tuesday in the city of Ramsey. During the stop, the officer found out the vehicle had been stolen and discovered a woman in labor and seven juveniles with packing tape over their mouths. There were three adults in the vehicle. The woman who was in labor was transported to a hospital, according to the Ramsey Police Department. Seven juveniles who were also in the vehicle were initially found unresponsive with the tape over their mouths. Police say there was no immediate threat to their safety and released...

The Supreme Court has turned away former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura's bid for reinstatement of a $1.8 million verdict in his defamation case against the estate of slain Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle. The justices did not comment Monday in leaving intact a decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to upend the verdict.

A northwest Minnesota man now holds the state record for largest eelpout. The DNR says Brent Getzler of Roosevelt caught a 19 pound, 9 ounce eelpout in the Minnesota waters of Lake of the Woods. The fish was 33 inches long with a belly full of girth at 23 and 7/8 inches. Getzler caught it while fishing for walleye with an orange jigging spoon tipped with a minnow on Dec. 19. "Brent along with his buddies thought he was battling with a monster walleye and they were recording the three-minute fight. But after realizing it was just a pout they quit filming, "DNR coordinator Mike Kurre said...