Free Republic

First-time caucus-goers meeting at Neighborhoods Organizing for Change headquarters before introducing the reparations resolution at their precincts. Some Minnesota voters hope to make reparations -- the idea of compensating African Americans for the legacy of slavery -- a main agenda item for the DFL. It didn't get much attention at the time, but voters throughout the state voted at the state's March 2 DFL caucuses to pass a reparations resolution, a proposal brought forth by members of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC). Passed resolutions don't necessarily make it into official party platforms, but NOC organizers said they're hoping to start...

Hillary Clinton was visibly perturbed during a tense exchange with a young Somali-American voter in Minneapolis on Tuesday when asked about past references to young black men as "super predators" while supporting a federal crime bill that resulted in disparate, harsher sentences for minority communities. Clinton has been under fire for the comments since they were highlighted by Black Lives Matter protesters who crashed a private fundraiser to confront the candidate about them last week. "Well first of all, that comment was made one time," Clinton told the unidentified voter. "I've always been in favor of young people [getting more]...

New York businessman Donald Trump won Republican primaries Tuesday from the Deep South to New England, but Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took his home state and Oklahoma, ensuring that the race for the GOP nomination will stretch into the spring...

The Star Tribune Minnesota Poll surveyed 800 Minnesota registered voters Jan. 18-20, 2016. Respondents were reached on both landlines (70 percent) and cell phones (30 percent). The poll has a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus....

The Ted Cruz campaign for president took a chance booking a venue as large as the Harriet Island Pavilion in St. Paul for a rally. Not to worry. Thursday night, 500-plus Cruz supporters packed the place, a testament to the Texas senator's increasing strength in the Republican field of presidential candidates. They cheered, hooted, and hollered at the candidate who spits out bites of his conservative philosophy with a Texas drawl and John Wayne simplicity. When he is president, he said, “We will have a president willing to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’” When he is president, he said,...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has easily won a straw poll of Minnesota Republican activists. Cruz finished first among 14 Republican candidates in the poll at the Minnesota GOP State Central Committee meeting Saturday in Monticello. Cruz claimed 90 votes. That was almost twice the votes for the second-place finisher, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who had 46 votes. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina came in third. GOP front-runner Donald Trump finished fourth in Saturday's straw poll, followed closely by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Minnesota is one of a dozen states that will hold a primary or caucus on Super Tuesday March...

The leader of Black Lives Matter St. Paul kicked off his campaign for a seat in the state Legislature, challenging the only black member of the Minnesota House for her seat. The Pioneer Press reports that Rashad Turner, 30, a lifelong St. Paul resident, will challenge Rep. Rena Moran next year. The DFL incumbent is in her third term representing Frogtown, Midway, Summit-University, and portions of the North End and Cathedral Hill in St Paul. The Star Tribune’s story said that Turner indicated that he thought not enough progress has been made in St. Paul’s communities of color during Rep....

Minnesota businessman Stewart Mills announced his second challenge to 8th District Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan Tuesday morning. “In 2014, I decided it was time to stop talking about the problems facing our country and start doing something to solve them,” Mills said in a statement. “I intend to finish what I started, and look forward to working for the people of the 8th District.” Mills lost to Nolan by less than 2 points in 2014. He has been mulling a rematch for months and formed an exploratory committee last month. Nolan has been expecting the Republican to challenge him again,...

Sen. Bernie Sanders will get a pre-debate boost from Rep. Keith Ellison, the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who will become the second member of Congress to endorse Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign Monday, he told MSNBC. “I’m endorsing Bernie because he is talking about the issues that are important to American families,” Ellison told MSNBC in an email via his spokesperson. “His candidacy is important for many reasons, but I believe the most important part of his candidacy is that it has the ability to create a renaissance in voter participation, which was at its lowest in decades this...

It's been a long-standing tradition at the Iowa State Fair, but now you can cast your kernels for presidential candidates at the Minnesota State Fair. The early front runners in the unscientific poll at the Minnesota Republican Party booth are Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. "Anybody can stop by our booth and and cast a vote for whoever their favorite candidate is," GOP Party Chair Keith Downey said. If you make a donation or sign up to support the GOP, voters get a small cup full of corn kernels they can distribute among as many of the candidates...

By far the biggest story of the summer is Donald Trump's surging candidacy for the U.S. presidency. It's obvious why. Hate him or love him, Donald Trump knows how to captivate the public's attention. He seems immune from being hurt; I want to examine why. What is it about Donald Trump that allows him to survive any occurrence that no conventional political candidate could? And, not only that, but to use these instances to further galvanize his base of supporters, while growing it? This summer, we have seen example after example of this. People were horrified when he questioned Sen....

* Trump said Sunday that 'black people 'are worse now than just about ever' * Claims Obama has done nothing for low employment rates * Weekend poll showed Trump has his greatest support yet nationally He has a 24.9 percent vote among Republicans, according to poll Days after assuring that he has the support of Hispanic voters, Donald Trump has now claimed that African-American people are also on his side - and that Obama has let them down. In yet another round of bashing the President, the billionaire said Obama has done 'absolutely nothing' for the black community. He gave...

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura says he’s backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in his bid for president. In a blog post on his independent media site, Ventura praised Sanders for challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. “I think what Bernie Sanders is doing is extremely healthy,” Ventura wrote. “I love the idea of somebody throwing a fly in the ointment.” This isn’t the first time Ventura backed a presidential candidate looking to shake up the system. In 2008 and 2012, Ventura backed Republican Ron Paul for president. In 2004, Ventura backed Democrat John Kerry against Republican President George W. Bush....

From the first day of 2011, Mitt Romney was the favorite to win the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign. No one else was even close. The 2016 outlook could not be more different. Offered the choice to bet on one single candidate to win the nomination versus the rest of the field, the choice would have to be "the field." For the first time in years, there is no one next in line. And without a former vice president or powerhouse former candidate looking likely to run, Republicans are shaping up to spend the next year and a half fighting...

Liberals powerless to stop the Clinton-Wall Street gravy train.Despite her best efforts and most passionate gesticulations, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) failed to shut down the government on Thursday, thus proving her political clout is vastly inferior to that of GOP colleague Ted Cruz. Warren had urged House Democrats to block a controversial spending package, which included a provision to roll back a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill known as the “swaps pushout” rule. Warren, for the record, does not like Wall Street. “It is time for all of us to stand up and fight,” she said on...

A Minnesota Republican Party official issued a “call to arms” against Muslims Thursday, calling them “terrorists” and “parasites” and suggesting that someone should “frag ‘em.” Jack Whitley, chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party, has no apology for a series of inflammatory posts on his personal Facebook page -- remarks state GOP officials have condemned as "outrageous." “Muslims are terrorists. They don’t belong in this country,” Whitley told the Star Tribune Thursday.

1:30AM -- I think it was contemplating the fact that both Sam Brownback and Paul LePage both may have survived as governors that was the last straw for me tonight. Brownback has wrecked his state. Even Kansas Republicans believe that. LePage is a local embarrassment who became a national embarrassment in the final days before the election. Even Maine Republicans believe that. But Brownback will go back to wrecking his state, and LePage will go back to embarrassing his because of an attitude that Republicans, and the conservative movement that has powered the party, have cultivated carefully over the last...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

Tuesday on “The Alan Colmes Show,” former Gov. Jesse Ventura talked to Alan about a variety of topics including what he think about race relations in Ferguson, MO, the militarization of police forces, and some of the tactics used to deal with the protestors in Ferguson. He also spoke at length about the criticisms he received from former Gov. Sarah Palin after his defamation lawsuit involving the family of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, and how he felt he was perceived as a “villain” as a result: VENTURA: I see the bottom line of this is racism…We still have a racism...