Free Republic

The first African-American elected to serve as a commissioner for Hennepin County, Minnesota, was sworn in using a copy of the “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” by Michelle Alexander, a best-selling book that examines how mass incarceration has devastated the black community. According to The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Angela Conley is the first African-American to serve as commissioner in the county’s 166-year history. In representing the county’s fourth district, Conley will be representing parts of Minneapolis, it added. The first African-American elected to serve as a commissioner for Hennepin County, Minnesota, was sworn in...

The Senate late Tuesday will hold a procedural vote on a bill that supports Israel by allowing state and local governments to divest from entities that boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank. The provision is part of legislation numbered “S.1” that was to be the very first bill senators debate in the 116th Congress. In addition to the BDS language, it includes several Middle East security provisions such as new authorities for sanctioning Bashar Assad's regime in Syria and reauthorization of security assistance to Israel. But Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ben Cardin,...

Violent crimes increased by more than 50 percent in 2018 in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, nicknamed “little Mogadishu,” which authorities attribute to Somali gang activity in the area. Buried in a recent Star Tribune article was the fact that violent crimes jumped from 54 in 2010 to 84 in 2018, an increase in roughly 56 percent. Authorities attribute the violence to rivalries between Somali gangs, such as the Somali Mafia, the Somali Outlaws, the Hot Boyz, and Madhibaan with Attitude ... the Outlaws and Madhibaan with Attitude have a rivalry that stretches back years ... A 2013 CBS article detailed the...

I admit that I already despise Rep. Ilhan Omar for multiple reasons. Her apparent marriage to her brother, evidently to accomplish visa fraud, her friendships with anti-Semites, and her views on Israel, for example.

Far-left Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) embraced anti-Semite and alleged Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer Linda Sarsour this week on their first day in Congress. The photos came from Sarsour’s verified Facebook account where she praised both freshman Democrats. “These past two years have been difficult,” Sarsour wrote in a post that featured herself and Omar. “So much heartache, exhaustion, pain, losses, drama, bad policy after bad policy YET today was all worth it. Today was JOY. Today was PRIDE. Today was full of laughter and tears. For every lil girl, especially lil girls of color – this is...

The U.S. military plans to scale back its role in Somalia and curtail airstrikes against al-Shabab insurgents after having taken out many of the group's senior operatives, two senior U.S. officials told NBC News, the latest signal the Trump administration is looking to cut the number of troops deployed around the world. The move reflects an assessment by the administration that while the Shabab insurgency remains a threat to the Somali government and neighboring countries, it does not pose a direct danger to the U.S., current and former officials said. And it follows President Donald Trump's abrupt announcement last month...

Sometimes public silence can be deafening or, for that matter, misleading. For nearly two years now, the intelligence community has kept secret evidence in the Russia collusion case that directly undercuts the portrayal of retired Army general and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn as a Russian stooge. That silence was maintained even when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates publicly claimed Flynn was possibly “compromised” by Moscow. And when a Democratic senator, Al Franken of Minnesota, suggested the former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief posed a “danger to this republic.” And even when some media outlets opined about...

Full title: Address Records Show Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) Still Lived With Her First Husband Throughout Marriage To Her Apparent Brother In recent days, Minnesota state Representative Ilhan Omar (D-60B) has campaigned with Minnesota Attorney General candidate Keith Ellison (D-MN). Omar is the Democratic nominee for the federal House seat, MN CD-5, that Ellison is vacating. She is the assumed favorite to win the seat. Win or lose, however, a Department of Justice investigation into her past appears inevitable. A remarkable -- and growing -- amount of evidence implicates her in multiple federal and state felonies. The allegations stem from...

the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board opened a formal investigation of her after reviewing evidence of several violations. Omar has also made, and defended, anti-Semitic comments as direct and vicious as any spoken by a U.S. politician in a generation. In 2016, an anonymous writer on SomaliSpot.com published verified photos and Minnesota state records suggesting that Rep. Omar is a serial felon and fraudster. Since then, the additional evidence discovered to back these claims -- and the absence of contradictory evidence -- are almost as remarkable as Minnesota media's refusal to lift a finger investigating her for two years. Allegations against...

Democrats are worried that they have a problem: The three people leading polls in the very early stages of their presidential race are all white men. The party traditionally battles over identity politics and wants to be seen as promoting diversity. Its last three nominees have been Barack Obama, who became the nation’s first African-American president, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman to win the popular vote. Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) are this year’s top-tier candidates, according to a recent and very early Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll. It showed that 32...

An award-winning German journalist who was recently found to have fabricated parts of stories may be facing more trouble. Claas Relotius, 33, is facing new accusations that he solicited donations for orphans of the war in Syria, donations that he ultimately pocketed, reported CBS. As part of the scandal over the former CNN International's Journalist of the Year, residents of Fergus Falls, Minn., dispelled a variety of falsehoods in his piece “ In a small town” that took aim at "the people who pray for Trump on Sundays." Relotius is accused of making up quotes, interview subjects, and facts in...

Seattle is on the verge of making some controversial land-use changes that advocates say will make this increasingly expensive city more livable for people who aren’t wealthy. The city may soon allow taller buildings in the cores of many neighborhoods and ease restrictions on mother-in-law apartments and backyard cottages. But change is hard: Those moves have encountered legal challenges. Minneapolis this month took a much more dramatic step on density meant to ease its real-estate crunch and address its history of racial segregation: The City Council there voted to end single-family zoning altogether. Moving ahead, the Midwest city will allow...

Knowing that Relotius' purpose was likely to focus on a few of our many conservative voters, I still had an ounce of faith in journalism. Maybe, just maybe, since he was a professional, award winning, international journalist and was spending not one day here but several weeks, he would craft an interesting, nuanced story about how we all somehow manage to coexist with each other in Trump's America without burning each other's houses down. But I also had a distinct gut feeling that his portrayal of this town could go very, very wrong. What happened is beyond what I could...

A shift in the balance of power at the state Capitol has boosted the odds of lawmakers passing bills to reduce gun violence during the upcoming legislative session. The Democratic takeover of the Minnesota House includes so many freshmen who support tougher gun laws that staunch gun control opponents now consider the chamber to be hostile territory. The Senate, where the GOP maintains a one-vote majority, remains a question mark, though the chamber's top Republican, Majority Leader Paul Gazelka of Nisswa, has signaled "some openness" to discussing gun proposals that got blocked in previous sessions . Sen. Ron Latz, a...

Amazon has banned Jihad Watch from Amazon Smile and Amazon Associates, but its aid to jihadis has not led to its being accorded any breaks by its Muslim workers. “Amazon says it has offered accommodations such as providing prayer mats for workers, converting a conference room into prayer space during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and approving shift transfers for fasting workers.” But it isn’t enough. “The workers, many of whom are practicing Muslims, say the required productivity rate is too high, the company is unconcerned about worker injuries and that the conditions don’t allow practicing Muslims to pray...

A team of journalists and a retired Woodbury police officer have followed the Jodi Huisentruit case and held a dedication ceremony in June 2018 for new billboards placed in Mason City, Iowa on what would have been her 50th birthday. The TV show “48 Hours” promises to reveal “new information” Saturday in the unsolved case of Iowa anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit, who disappeared 23 years ago. The 27-year-old Minnesota native vanished while heading to work one morning in June 1995, leaving behind evidence of a struggle in her apartment parking lot but few clues as to who assaulted her. In the...

Donee Odegard knew what happened the minute two sheriffs showed up at her door. She'd been through it before. The authorities asked her a few questions about her daughter, Sarah Papenheim, before delivering the news: Her daughter had been stabbed to death while studying abroad in the Netherlands. "He was sad to inform me that my beautiful daughter had passed. I kind of knew it was coming when you have done this before," said Odegard, whose son had committed suicide at 21 three years ago, in an interview with "Good Morning America." Papenheim, a Minnesotan native, died Wednesday afternoon after...

Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, a Muslim refugee from Somalia and a newly elected U.S. representative, is facing backlash for her inconsistent stance on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.In a statement to the Muslim Girl blog days after the midterm election, her campaign made it clear that the congresswoman-elect supports the movement.“Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized,” a statement explained. Advertisement - story continues belowHowever, as Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review noted, “The statement marked a stark reversal from Omar’s previous position on BDS. Prior to the election,...

Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar now says she ‘believes in and supports’ boycott movement, after calling it ‘counterproductive’ during election campaign Democrat Ilhan Omar on November 7, 2018, in Minneapolis after winning Minnesota's 5th Congressional District race in the 2018 US midterm elections. (AP Photo/Jim Mone) WASHINGTON — A newly elected congressperson from Minnesotta who spoke out against boycotts of Israel during her campaign now says she supports the BDS movement. Ilhan Omar, one of two Muslim women who became the first elected to Congress last week, had said during her campaign that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was “counteractive”...

The ranking officer of a Minneapolis police precinct was removed from his post Monday after an image of what appears to be a Christmas tree decorated with racist ornaments circulated on social media, authorities said. The removal came three days after two officers who were allegedly involved in decorating the tree were placed on paid leave. Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder confirmed that Inspector Aaron Biard was removed from the top position at the north side precinct station where the tree was apparently photographed. "After very thoughtful review and consideration I have made the decision that effective immediately Assistant...