Free Republic

Colleges and universities are forever feeling shortchanged by taxpayers. They needn't worry. For one thing, they are far richer than those of us who actually pay federal levies. For another, academia has succeeded in securing millions for what look like panel discussions at the Modern Language Association. "The National Institutes of Health has spent more on exercise programs for refugees, anti-tobacco video games, weight-loss programs for truckers, and studies on gay hook up apps than it has to fight the Zika virus," Elizabeth Harrington reported in the Washington Free Beacon on August 8, 2016. And a good chunk of that...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Two days have passed since the private fundraiser held for Donald Trump at the Minneapolis Convention Center and stories are still trickling in about the events of the night. As Alpha News reported, Donald Trump never made a public appearance in Minneapolis but showed up to a quiet and private event at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Friday night. However, that did not stop protesters from showing up by the dozens to show their displeasure with the Republican-endorsed candidate. Trump supporters and donors were met with verbal and physical violence as they tried to enter and exit...

Tea Party firebrand Michele Bachmann says she is advising Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on foreign policy. The former Minnesota House representative attended a fundraiser in the state for Trump on Saturday, where she revealed to the press that she has his ear on foreign policy. “He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam,” she said, according to MPR. “I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.” “He’s a common-sense guy, not into political correctness,” Bachmann added, according to the Star Tribune....

Leftist agitators viciously attacked attendees at a Donald Trump presidential campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis on Friday night. Video shows dozens of anti-Trump activists shouting obscenities and throwing debris as they surround Donald Trump supporters attempting to exit the Minneapolis Convention Center. Trump fundraiser attendees attempting to exit the building were forced through a gauntlet of punches, with one protester seen violently attacking an elderly man as another man and a woman caught the brunt of the brutal beating. Some attendees attempting to leave the event were also spit on as they left the ­convention center, the Star Tribune reports.

Protesters at a Donald Trump fundraiser at the Minneapolis Convention Center got between vehicles and jumped on the hood of a Secret Service SUV in Trump’s motorcade as the candidate was leaving the building. WILL THE MEDIA IGNORE THIS TOO?

Leftist agitators employed fascist tactics at a Donald Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis on Friday night. Video shows protesters banging on the doors of the Minneapolis Convention Center where Trump was speaking to attendees. When the event concluded, Trump supporters were forced to run a “gauntlet,” with many, including elderly women, being punched and pelted with garbage.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is making his first visit to Minnesota this campaign, but not for any public appearance. Trump is meeting with wealthy Republican donors to raise money, and doesn't plan a public rally. However, a spokesman for the Minnesota Trump campaign says the lack of a public rally doesn't mean Trump won't compete here. "We feel very good about Minnesota and we're going to be trying hard in Minnesota," Brian LeClair told Tom Hauser in an interview for "At Issue" that will be broadcast Sunday morning at 10 a.m. "Not only is he making a visit this...

How does a Somali get elected to Minnesota’s state legislature? Because she’s from “Little Somalia,” Minneapolis, home to the largest Somali community in America. So it should come as not surprise that a Somali activist unseated one of the longest-serving members of the state legislature earlier this year in Minneapolis. Ilhan Omar defeated Rep. Phyllis Kahn who was in the legislature for 22 terms (44 years). Omar could be the first Somali in America to be elected to any state legislature if she wins in November. Minneapolis is recruiting ground for young terrorists. At least 36 Somali men from Minnesota...

Target Corp. said it will spend $20 million to add a private bathroom to each of its stores by next year, following customer protests over its policy allowing transgender individuals to use whichever restroom corresponds with their gender identity. Target’s finance chief Cathy Smith said the move is a response to feedback from customers voicing displeasure over the company’s bathroom policy. She added the customer discontent hadn’t had a “material impact” on sales. CEO Brian Cornell had promised to roll out family restrooms earlier this year and defended the company’s stance on diversity. Protests started at Target stores after the...

Chaunte Lee Ford, 27, is charged with third-degree DWI, collision with an unattended vehicle, careless driving, and interfering with a peace office for the Aug. 5 incident outside of the NE Palace Bar. Ford was allegedly “hostile to the officers” and made “obscene gestures and comments toward them.” When asked if she needed an ambulance, Ford yelled, "F--- you. I don't need an ambulance. F--- that and f--- you." She also made general anti-police statements such as, "F--- the police! I f---ing hate cops and I hate that I'm a cop! All you guys do is harass black people!" At...

Minnesota's crop, livestock and dairy farmers are suffering with continuing rock bottom prices for their commodities, driving some into bankruptcy. John Quaal, 71, operates a dairy farm near Fergus Falls and tells Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/2b5RcoD ) that it's nearly impossible to break even producing milk. "For almost two years now we've been going backwards," said Quaal. "You've got to learn to deal with it I guess. It's just the way it is." Quaal said his farm has lost as much as $40,000 in a single month and figures the family operation lost a total of $300,000 last year....

Smoke-free policies have the potential to provide healthier environments at multifamily, public housing while also motivating residents to quit or smoke less, according to a new study by the Minnesota Department of Health’s Office of Statewide Health Improvement Initiatives. The eight public housing properties in this study implemented smoke-free policy changes after working with local public health agencies through the Statewide Health Improvement Program (SHIP). After the smoke-free policies were implemented, the study found a 46 percent drop in frequent indoor secondhand smoke exposure among non-smokers. In addition, 77 percent of smokers reported reducing the amount they smoke and 5...

Ilhan Omar spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp as a young girl, fleeing with her family from civil war in Somalia. Two decades later, after forging a new life in Minnesota, she appears on the brink of becoming the nation’s first Somali-American state legislator. Omar, a 33-year-old community activist, cried as she delivered victory speeches in English and Somali after defeating a 44-year incumbent in the latest sign of the Somali community’s growing influence in the city and state. Her victory in a heavily Democratic Minneapolis district makes her a strong favorite in the general election — where...

The Minneapolis Police Department has announced four policy changes aimed at defusing conflicts between officers and the public that can turn deadly. Chief Janee Harteau (lesbian) said Monday the "sanctity of life" is the cornerstone of her department's use-of-force policy. She says officers should use de-escalation tactics whenever reasonably possible, while slowing down situations to reduce the risk of injury to officers and the public. The changes also give officers a duty to intervene to prevent others from using force improperly and a duty to report misconduct.

[Subtitle:] Trump called state a terror recruitment hotbed.[PHOTO caption:] Mohamoud Ibrahim, right, a specialist in the Army Reserve, said goodbye to his friends after the Friday prayer at the Islamic Institute of Minnesota's mosque in Burnsville, MN, Friday, August 5, 2016. Ibrahim will leave for Wisconsin on Saturday for three weeks for Army training.Mahamoud Ibrahim stewed about Donald Trump as he packed for a three-week U.S. Army Reserve training. In a Thursday speech, the Republican presidential candidate suggested that Somali refugees have turned Minnesota into a hotbed for terror recruitment and frayed its social safety net. . .

The Obama administration gave Somali Muslims behind-the-scenes tours at a major U.S. airport after the group complained to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about feeling harassed and profiled, government records obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. The special security tours not offered to any other group occurred at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) roundtable meetings with local Somali leaders to obtain feedback for “modifications to practices that would allow for operations to be more culturally sensitive.” On at least two occasions—December 18, 2014 and February 18, 2015—federal authorities granted the unprecedented excursions of the facility’s...

Minnesota lawmakers, and a former gubernatorial candidate and Gold Star Mom picked up the phone today to call on Donald Trump to apologize to the family of Captain Humayun Khan. DFL Representative John Lesch, DFL Representative Rob Ecklund, and former state representative and senator Becky Lourey were on the call organized by the Clinton campaign. Trump has been widely criticized for his reaction to the DNC speech by Khizr Khan, the father of the fallen soldier who questioned what sacrifices Trump had made for his country and accused him of not reading the Constitution.

A radical mosque known for breeding terrorists has been granted special privileges by the city of Bloomington, Minnesota, which allows its members to take over a public park and treat it as their own, to the exclusion of other residents, according to complaints filed by a citizens group. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/u-s-city-rolls-over-for-radical-mosque/#7UHWQlF7O7Ccp8fO.99

At exactly 5 p.m. on March 13, 2007, just as I was preparing to leave my cubicle in Washington for the day, I got a phone call from the journalist Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers. To this day, I remember his exact words. 'One of your congressman’s constituents is being held in an Ethiopian intelligence service prison, and I think your former employer is neck-deep in this.' The congressman was Rush Holt, then a Democratic representative from New Jersey, for whom I worked for 10 years starting in 2004. The constituent was Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., who...

St. Paul police arrested at least 46 people Tuesday near the Governor’s Residence on Summit Avenue in a day marked by tense standoffs and groups of protesters being driven to jail in buses. The location has been the focal point of protests for 20 days, beginning just after a St. Anthony police officer fatally shot Philando Castile in Falcon Heights the night of July 6. Police shut down Summit Avenue in front of the residence for about a week and a half and then reopened it, but protesters closed it down again Sunday night. On Tuesday morning police made an...