Minnesota
June 2, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Occasional contributor Joel Mowbray (jdmowbra@erols.com) has filed a report on the Democratic primary contest this coming Tuesday in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. The contest pits two incumbent Democrats against each other. Based on support in the contest for the 2008 presidential nomination, President Obama supports Steve Rothman. Rothman opponent Bill Pascrell supported Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton is in turn supporting Pascrell. Giving the story a local angle, Minnesota Fifth
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April 24, 2012 — Scott Johnson
National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger, you may recall, is the author of Peace, They Say, a history of the Nobel Peace Prize. He stayed with us last week when he was in town to make a couple of presentations to audiences assembled by the Center of the American Experiment. We greatly enjoyed our time with Jay. Jay devotes the second half of his NRO Impromptus column today to his
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April 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Marc Fink reports at the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch that Best Buy contributed as a Platinum sponsor to the annual banquet of CAIR’s Minnesota chapter this past February. Best Buy maintains its corporate headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, so this story hits close to home. The company is dealing with a few other public relations issues deriving from the its executive leadership and business struggles, so this story has flown
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March 10, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Well, not exactly. In the case depicted in the video below, however, Judge Judy decides a Ramsey County (St. Paul) case deriving from the government benefits collected by an able bodied and good humored adult male by the name of Duane Brooks, Jr. The case comes to a surprising conclusion, but not before Judge Judy draws attention to its national implications. The summary accompanying the YouTube video states: “Judge Judy
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February 17, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Minneapolis’s City Pages is a free weekly tabloid with a strongly left-wing bent. You know the type. But This week’s featured story by Gregory Pratt — “The truth behind TiZA” — is a first-rate piece of journalism on Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, the (public) suburban St. Paul charter school that was brought down by our friend Katherine Kersten and the lawsuit she inspired. I have frequently commented here that you
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January 14, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Pete Hegseth, founder of Vets For Freedom, is now posted to Afghanistan, where he has been training Afghans as well as American and coalition troops. His reports on the situation there are as knowledgeable as any you can find. Here is his final dispatch — long but worth reading through to the end — before he heads home next month: We brought in the New Year around a
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December 31, 2011 — Scott Johnson
This past Monday night there was a riot at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. It was the rare Twin Cities story that drew national attention. John was able to contribute an eyewitness report from one of his daughters in our post “Riot at the Mall of America.” What happened? We still don’t know the origin of the riot. I’ve been looking over the past week for the Star
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December 16, 2011 — John Hinderaker
All politics is local, some sage said. That isn’t quite true, of course, but the local element often predominates. Today, Minnesota’s Republican Party had a brutal day. In order of significance: First, the GOP took control of the Senate in 2010 for the first time since partisan elections were inaugurated. It was an extraordinary breakthrough, and Amy Koch was named Majority Leader. She did a terrific job in that position.
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November 23, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Our friends at Minnesota Public Radio have previously sought to recruit Power Line readers into their network of conservative sources. They know that there is a bit of hostility and resistance to their efforts among our readers. Nevertheless, they persist; they are even willing to endure the occasional expressions of animus that their efforts elicit. Melody Ng of MPR has contacted us to renew the request and invite readers to
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November 6, 2011 — Scott Johnson
I’ve written here several times about the two Minnesota Somali American women convicted of multiple terrorism-related charges. Amina Farah Ali is the younger of the two (she’s 35), and clearly the ringleader. Her partner in crime is Hawo Mohamed Hassan (she’s 65). I took a look back at issues related to the case, for example, in “The scene outside the terror trial.” Ali is a hard case. At the outset
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November 3, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Reader J.R. Frey has written a response to the message from Star Tribune reporter Matt McKinney defending his story — “Armed robber knew the right path, but was unable to follow it” — on one-man crime wave Darren Evanovich, late of Minneapolis. Frey writes: Mr. McKinney, I read with interest your response to the criticism levied at your reporting on the incident involving Mr. Evanovich. In your response, you state,
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November 2, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Matt McKininey is the Star Tribune reporter who has covered the case of one-man crime wave Darren Evanovich, the armed robber who was killed when he pulled his gun on a good citizen who went after him after he pistol whipped a woman whom he had relieved of her purse. The incident occurred in south Minneapolis on October 21. A week later the Star Tribune published McKinney’s story “Armed robber
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November 1, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States, numbering at least 32,000. If it takes a village, we have a couple. Yet we know amazingly little about the Somali community, probably because we are afraid to ask the relevant questions. We know they are mostly Muslim — we can see the hijabs, we are familiar with the many local controversies to which their faith has given
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October 31, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota liberalized the law allowing citizens to arm themselves in the early days of the administration of Governor Pawlenty. The law vastly expanded the right of Minnesota citizens to acquire licenses to carry guns, a right formerly subject to the unfettered discretion of local police chiefs or sheriffs. Liberalization of the law carried out a long-standing Republican commitment and was of course the subject of daily hysteria in the local
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October 23, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States, numbering at least 25,000. If it takes a village, we have a couple. Yet we know amazingly little about the Somali community, probably because we are afraid to ask the relevant questions. We know they are mostly Muslim — we can see the hijabs, we are familiar with the many local controversies to which their faith has given
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October 20, 2011 — Scott Johnson
The jury in the terror trial of the two Somali women who raised funds for al Shabab in Rochester, Minnesota, returned with a raft of guilty verdicts this morning. The women were convicted of charges including conspiracy to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, of providing support, and of lying to the FBI. The jury deliberated for about 20 hours. The ringleader was not exactly remorseful after the
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October 18, 2011 — Scott Johnson
We have been following the terror trial involving the two Minnesota Somali women who were raising money for Al-Shabab in Rochester, Minnesota. The case against them was submitted to the jury late yesterday in federal district court in Minneapolis. Reporter Allie Shah provides the customary Star Tribune perspective: if the Somali women are not acquitted, Somalis in Minnesota and elsewhere will think ill of us. They apparently aren’t too concerned
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