Free Republic

The Mount Vernon Assembly – Indianapolis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Skip Brown skip.brown@iga.in.gov 317-232-9521 The Mount Vernon Assembly to Meet at Indiana Statehouse June 12 and 13 INDIANAPOLIS (June 9, 2014) – More than 100 state legislators representing 33 states will meet at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on June 12 and 13 to continue establishing the rules and procedures needed for a future state-led convention for proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as authorized by Article V of the Constitution. The meeting is a continuation of efforts that began in December 2013 at George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon estate...

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek and County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Wednesday that the sheriff’s office will no longer honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests. In the past, “ICE holds” — requests to hold detainees an additional 48 hours beyond their scheduled release from jail — were considered mandatory. However, recent directives by ICE and federal court rulings have said the detainers are now discretionary. About 1.5 percent of the 36,000 inmates at the jail have a detainer placed on them, Stanek said. Since 2012, the cost to taxpayers of detaining them an extra two days has been...

In order to deliver a Super Bowl, the NFL wants free luxury hotel rooms, police escorts and tax exemption from the host city. A leaked report reveals the league's 153 pages of requests for the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis. Two years ago, the Minnesota State Legislature and the city of Minneapolis were ready to walk away from a plan to provide approximately $500 million to Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to pay more than half the costs a new stadium. It took a veiled threat to move the team to Los Angeles and a dramatic last-minute lobbying campaign from NFL...

Or.. Democratrina. Far more destructive than any bomb or hurricane, Democrat locusts destroy lay waste to Detroit. This is the 'progress' they want for the rest of America.

If you've ever wondered what it takes for a city to win a Super Bowl—outside of a relatively new stadium—the NFL's demands have been leaked for your perusal. To sum it up, the Shield wants a ridiculous amount of no-cost shit. Last month, Minneapolis won Super Bowl LII, which will take place three years after the new Vikings Stadium is scheduled to be completed. The Star Tribune acquired the NFL's 153-page checklist for potential Super Bowl host cities and man, will they be footing the bill for a hell of a lot. --- SNIP --- The league also wants full...

Officials at all levels of government are banking that Metro Transit's $957 million investment will do more than simply shuttle existing bus riders in fancier vehicles between the downtowns of St. Paul and Minneapolis when it debuts June 14. They are counting on light rail to be a catalyst -- an economic game-changer for downtown St. Paul and much of University Avenue. Both areas have lost industry since the 1970s. The city as a whole lost 13.4 percent of its employment from 2000 to 2011, a period during which the U.S. shed 2.2 percent of its jobs, according to Wilder...

The Ramsey County attorney's office won't press charges against a St. Paul man who shot and wounded another man in a grocery store parking lot last month, saying the shooting was in self-defense. On the evening of May 21, Bee Thao, 21, shot Keyonte Thompson, 19, also of St. Paul, outside Rainbow Foods at 892 Arcade St. Thompson, shot in the torso, survived after being taken to Regions Hospital. Thao, who remained at the scene, was detained but not arrested. A witness sitting in a car in the parking lot told police she saw Bee Thao come out of the...

A national gun safety organization has set its sights on Minneapolis-based Target to stop gun-rights demonstrations in their stores. The group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense launched a petition on Wednesday. They’re asking Target’s interim CEO John Mulligan to establish a policy to prohibit people from openly carrying guns in its stores. “Already we’ve had several different restaurants say that they will no longer allow some open carry…some guns all together in their establishments,” said Shannon Watts with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. Last March, several people from the group Open Carry Texas were photographed walking down the...

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken says he opposes President Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. ambassador to Norway. Franken says he agrees with the Norwegian-American community's doubts over whether George Tsunis would be an effective ambassador. Franken made his comments in a letter Monday to Secretary of State John Kerry. The Minnesota Democrat, who is running for re-election, says he will vote against confirming Tsunis if it comes up for a vote in the Senate.

The FBI says more Somali travelers have left Minnesota, possibly to fight for al-Shabaab in Syria. Investigators believe Somalis who left to fight against the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria were motivated by radical ideology, not nationalism. The FBI asking the Somali community in the Twin Cities for more information on anyone who may have left to fight overseas. If you know anyone who is planning to and/or has traveled to a foreign country for armed combat or who is being recruited for such activities, please contact www.fbi.gov/fttips or call (763) 569-8020. All information will be kept completely...

emissions by nearly 41 percent over the next 15 years as part of a sweeping plan President Barack Obama announced Monday to reduce pollution from power plants. Obama's plan calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions nationwide by 2030, when compared with 2005 levels. It sets different goals for each state, and some that rely heavily on coal won't have to make as many reductions. Minnesota is one of nine states told to reduce their 2012 levels by more than 40 percent, to help meet the nation's overall reduction goal. Officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, utilities...

Here in Minnesota, where we managed to elect Jesse Ventura as Governor and Al Franken to the US Senate within a decade of each other, the state Republican Party held its convention this past weekend. Minnesota has a caucus-plus-primary system, in which the two parties attempt to settle its nominations with convention endorsements for state-wide offices. Often, the fight continues through to a late-season primary, drawing resources away from the general-election campaign. Democrats hold all of the state-wide offices, including Franken as the incumbent Senator and Mark Dayton as Governor, so their nominations have long been settled.Republicans batted .500 on...

A Minneapolis middle school teacher has been charged with electronic solicitation of a child after prosecutors say he drove to meet someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl for sex. Joel Daniel Fowler called in sick Tuesday at his job as a social studies teacher at Olson Middle School and drove to the Cherokee Park area of St. Paul with plans to meet the girl, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in Ramsey County District Court. The girl turned out to be a St. Paul police sergeant. Fowler was arrested. The school's principal told families in a letter...

Prior to Hall's runoff loss, 256 straight incumbent Republican U.S. House members from the Lone Star State had launched successful renomination campaigns since 1870 Ending a Texas Republican Party streak that began over 140 years ago, 17-term U.S. Representative Ralph Hall lost his renomination bid in a primary runoff election Tuesday. Hall was defeated in the runoff by John Ratcliffe, who won with approximately 53 percent of the vote. Only one other sitting Texas Republican U.S. Representative in history has ever lost his party's nomination - although technically it was not a renomination bid.

The politics of faux victimization are spiraling out of control at a community college in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where several white students, their black professor and irritated administrators have one-upped each other with complaints, reprimands and now a lawsuit. The trouble began in English professor Shannon Gibney’s Introduction to Mass Communications class at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Though the class ostensibly has little to do with race, Gibney considers herself an activist on racial issues, and frequently invokes white privilege and oppression during class time, according to her students. (She has previously taught classes on race and gender.) Recently, several...

<p>The sexual abuse of children is profoundly evil. Over the years, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has mismanaged clergy sexual abuse in a way that has led to grievous suffering.</p> <p>News reports and commentary about the problem may lead some Minnesotans to conclude not just that we’ve seen a grave and reprehensible failure of leadership by a handful of church officials, but that there is an unprecedented epidemic of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (“How could this happen? A window into the culture that protected pedophile priests,” April 23).</p>

I told Vivian that some cultures believe the eagle is a symbol, not only of patriotism and dignity, but a messenger between heaven and earth. She nodded solemnly. "I'd say the eagle had a very good eye when he landed on Maurie, and he was respected," she said. "I miss him," said Vivian as she picked up the photo. "He was a good man and a good provider." "The eagle couldn't have picked a better person," said Kiefner. He paused. "This has been kind of fun hasn't it?" Tears welled in Vivian's eyes.

It’s only a small matter of time until the Obama administration finally, rapturously releases what its hopes will be the crown jewel of its rise-of-the-oceans-slowing climate-change agenda: Regulations capping the emissions from existing power plants, a.k.a., stamping out coal plants across the country. This set of regs is going to be even more complicated and controversial than the regulations for only new power plants the administration released last year, and as the AP obliquely explains, we’re likely to start seeing those “necessarily skyrocketing” energy prices Obama once mentioned pretty quickly here: Electricity prices are probably on their way up...

<p>MINNEAPOLIS — Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett has been charged with a misdemeanour following his arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for allegedly refusing to co-operate with police.</p> <p>Authorities say the 59-year-old network anchor was arrested about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Northern Lights Grill in the main terminal. Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan says officers reported Jarrett seemed intoxicated, acted belligerently and refused to follow orders.</p>

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota says it has 10,000 lakes. The state also has, according to Anthony Sanders, "10,000 campaign finance laws." He exaggerates, but understandably. As an attorney for Minnesota's chapter of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, Sanders represents several Minnesotans whose First Amendment rights of free speech and association are burdened by an obviously arbitrary, notably complex and certainly unconstitutional restriction. Linda Runbeck is a Republican state legislator who is allowed to spend in her campaign -- most spending finances dissemination of speech -- only $62,600. She is not challenging this speech limit, although it is...