Bob CollinsNot that we needed more evidence of the polarized politics of America, but Pew Research reveals today that Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on whether it should be easy to vote. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
Nothing can disrupt a political debate like a human face put on the issue.
Alison Chandra did that this week. This face. Her son. Read more →
Theoretically, the supporters of taking health care away from 22 million Americans — as the Congressional Budget Office predicts the U.S. Senate health insurance bill will — shouldn’t be too bothered by today’s full-page ads in the Star Tribune that warn a dispute between an insurer and Children’s Hospital threatens health care for kids.
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Every time there is a major event in the Twin Cities — the Republican National Convention, for example — we are told that it will also be accompanied by a large increase in prostitution. It’s that way in other cities, too, particularly when the Super Bowl comes to town, as it will in Minneapolis next winter. Read more →
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and Fox News host Jesse Watters are essentially in the same business: show business. Read more →
Researchers at the University of Washington studied Seattle’s phased-in increases — first from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and to $13 per hour in 2016 — and found the second wage increased reduced work hours in low-wage jobs by 9 percent while wages increased only 3 percent.
They concluded that the reduction in hours cost the average employee $179 per month, while the wage increase added only $54. Read more →
Only Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor sided with a state law
— similarly to one in 39 states — that explicitly bars state funds from going directly or indirectly to any religious sect or denomination. Read more →
The Mark Zuckerberg ‘I’m not running for president (although I am)’ tour rolled into Minneapolis last night, according to the Facebook founder’s Facebook page. Read more →
Where does one person’s right to free speech end and another’s begin? Read more →
County boards are faced with a choice: Provide the leadership on transportation issues that state leaders are unable or unwilling to provide, or wait for someone to somehow change the reality that Minnesota state government does not work. Read more →
A Colorado man is trying to do what anti-smoking activists did years ago; he’s trying to get restrictions on cellphone sales to kids.
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When Philando Castile was shot to death last July, many people expected the National Rifle Association to leap to the defense of Castile, who had a permit to carry the gun he was carrying. It’s what the NRA does, of course.
But not this time. Why not? Read more →
In the event you thought politicians are able to view the world through anything but the lens of political strategy, we give you Brad Carver, chairman of a political party in a Georgia congressional district, near where a special election will be held this week to replace Tom Price. Read more →
Here’s an idea that probably won’t catch on at the Minnesota Legislature: If you’re going to use taxpayer funds to bail out a single resort on Lake Mille Lacs, how about naming it? Read more →
Is there a language that’s too strong to use when condemning white supremacy?
The Southern Baptists thought so this week until yesterday when they formally condemned ‘”every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy and every form of racial and ethnic hatred as of the devil.’ Read more →