Something unusual happened on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives late this morning.
Democrats and Republicans stood in a show of unity in the aftermath of what increasingly appears to be a politically motivated attack on members of Congress this morning. Read more →
There is only one state in the Union that doesn’t recognize Veterans Day as an official state holiday. It’s you, Wisconsin.
Maybe that’ll change.
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The shooting occurred one day before the annual Congressional Baseball Game, the event, which started in 1909, that always gives us hope that perhaps warring factions can put political differences aside for a greater good. In the past, these sorts of things might make the country step back and perhaps even draw closer.
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If you’ve watched sports stadium debates over the years, you might recognize the technique. Nothing’s ever dead except for people’s interest in opposing it. Read more →
Minnesota has the fifth-largest highway system in the country, and its citizens have historically hated the idea of tolls, even though every few years someone wants to study the idea Read more →
NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep had to defend his network’s choice to interview Iowa Rep. Steve King today. King, who has regularly made racist comments that play well in his blood-red district — where his challenger dropped out of the race last week, citing death threats — is possibly the most extreme of the Read more →
Cloquet Police Chief Steve Stracek must have done something wrong or he’d probably still have a job. What did he do? Nobody will ever know because state law shields the City Council from revealing the rift between the police chief and his officers.
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The United States secretary of defense said all the usual things after the latest terrorism in London, tough talk to show the world that we’re tough against the onslaught of occasional evil. Read more →
Republicans are pretty good at winning elections, so the strategy they reportedly have settled on for the 2018 congressional elections requires this assumption: You hate reporters more than politicians. Read more →
After taking a stand for forgiveness, Sen. Al Franken couldn’t withstand the pressure to cancel an appearance with Kathy Griffin, the comedian who was stupid enough to be photographed holding a bloodied head that obviously was meant to portray President Donald Trump. Read more →
It’s a sign of the times when even a jumbled bunch of letters in a tweet split the country in half. Read more →
It will come as no surprise to you, perhaps, that it’s not working well at the moment, either nationally or locally.
In Minnesota, for example, legislators are shocked — shocked — that Gov. Dayton responded to a sneaky poison pill in budget bills that forced him to sign them, by going low in his own way: stripping funding for the Legislature. See you in court.
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That seems like a fairly simple question, which is why it was a little odd on NPR’s Weekend Edition this weekend when Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska didn’t answer it.
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The Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has had its squabbles with KSTP TV over the years, but the group is standing foursquare with KSTP in the face of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents search for the anonymous leaker of information to the TV station. Read more →
Compromise is a word that sounds great in a philosophical discussion. But in real life, politics is often the art of hurting someone else to get what you want. Read more →
Bob Collins