Free Republic

David Clohessy was out in front of the Chancery of the Archdiocese on Thursday October 10th. The Executive Director of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) according to his own testimony has done this thousands of times. SNAP has been busy in the Twin Cities of late. They have been drawn here by the media frenzy surrounding the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. There is currently at least one lawsuit pending against the Archdiocese, filed by local lawyer Jeff Anderson. Having worked together before, Clohessy and Anderson’s routine is well known. During the course of the allegations,...

Idaho GOP Rep. Raul Labrador was back in front of the TV cameras this morning, this time appearing on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. "We're four days away from reaching the debt ceiling. We gave the president an offer where we would extend the debt ceiling without any requirements ... and I don't see why the president is not accepting that or working with us," said Labrador. "I think it's been very difficult to work with [Obama]. He wouldn't even come to the table to negotiate." And Labrador wasted no time to bring the debate surrounding the federal government...

Black mob violence and denial have a new victim: Ray Widstrand of St. Paul, Minn. Earlier this year, Widstrand, who is white, moved into a black neighborhood. Soon after, he took an evening stroll and met some of his new neighbors. He then found himself in the hospital – the victim of a vicious beating at the hands of a large black mob. Widstrand suffered broken bones, a fractured skull and permanent brain injuries. Widstrand said he forgives them, though not one of his alleged assailants is asking for forgiveness. His attackers were just some kids lashing out, Widstrand said....

Adrian Peterson's 2-year-old son—not Adrian Peterson Jr., but a formerly "secret" child—is "not expected to survive his injuries," and could be taken off life support tonight, City Pages reports. On Wednesday, the Sioux Falls boy was allegedly beaten by his mother's boyfriend, Joseph Robert Patterson, 27, who has been charged with aggravated assault and aggravated assault on an infant. According to a reporter covering the story, the initial confusion surrounding the boy's identity was due to the fact that not even Adrian Peterson is sure the child is his, though Peterson's father later would later describe the boy as a...

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety confirms it is investigating a potentially threatening call made to a Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) employee. The call came Wednesday night shortly after a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS story about questionable spending of taxpayers' money by a top DHS official. The whistleblower told investigators Assistant DHS Commissioner Scott Leitz approved a deal that gave Fairview's Amplatz Children's Hospital extra Medicaid money it might not be entitled to receive. After we aired a follow up story Wednesday night, the whistleblower told investigators he received a threatening phone call at home. The call, he says,...

A Minnesota legislator wants a provision stripped from the Vikings new stadium lease that would prevent the building from being used by businesses that sell guns and other weapons. Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo of Farmington said in a letter Thursday that the restriction could discourage hunting and outdoors groups from holding offseason events at the planned $975 million stadium, which is being built with a partial public subsidy. The Associated Press reported on the clause this week that is contained in a 30-year stadium lease.

31-year-old woman was robbed of her cellphone and urinated on during a Sunday night incident involving four men dressed in wigs, according to charges. A silver car driven by Miklos Terrell Dates Jr. of St. Paul approached the woman about 11 p.m., police and prosecutors said. She was talking on her iPhone in the 500 block of Farrington Street in St. Paul, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court. One of the men in the car yelled, "How do we get back to University Avenue?" the complaint said. The victim mistakenly thought the men were...

ST. PAUL, Minn. Former U.S. senator Rod Grams, a popular TV anchorman who went on to become the most conservative politician ever elected to statewide office in Minnesota, has died. He was 65. Grams died late Tuesday night at his home in the east-central Minnesota town of Crown, said Kent Kaiser, a longtime GOP activist and spokesman for the Grams family. Grams had been diagnosed with cancer in April 2012. After nearly a decade as lead news anchor at KMSP-TV in the Twin Cities, Grams launched his political career in 1992 by running for Congress and ousting the Democratic incumbent....

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison was arrested Tuesday by U.S. Capitol Police during an immigration rally on the National Mall. As protestors marched toward the U.S. Capitol, Ellison and several other House Democrats sat in the middle of Independence Avenue, blocking rush hour traffic. Police led Ellison away in cuffs shortly after 4 p.m. Ellison’s office said the move was an act of “civil disobedience” designed to urge Congress to pass legislation that would allow the nation’s undocumented immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship. The march was held on the National Mall even though the open-area park is closed due to...

The unidentified 9-year-old was able to get past airport security and screening agents before touching down in Nevada. His presence aroused flight attendants' suspicions and they alerted authorities, who took him into custody upon landing.A 9-year-old boy snuck past airport security and boarded a flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas without appearing to have ever held or shown a boarding pass according to an airport official. Despite several layers of security and fear of global threats to the nation's airports, the unaccompanied child "went through the entire security screening process" Thursday without a hitch, according to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport...

A 9-year-old boy believed to have stowed away on a flight to Las Vegas last week was the same kid that stole a cube truck in downtown Minneapolis and led police on a chase through the city just days before, according to one of the victims of the escapade.

Minnesota taxpayers no longer have direct control over more than $200 million worth of school levies they approved because of a shift in tax authority designed to give school districts more-reliable revenue sources. Changes in the latest education funding bill approved by the 2013 Legislature gave school districts the power to convert up to $724 per pupil of existing tax levies from voters' approval to school board members' control. In districts with no voter-approved property tax, school board members can levy up to $300 per pupil without a vote by residents. That means more than a quarter of the $831...

Oct 6 (Reuters) - A 9-year-old boy passed through security at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport and flew on a Delta Air Lines plane to Las Vegas without a boarding pass, authorities said on Sunday. It was not immediately clear why the child sneaked onto the flight on Thursday, but his action raised questions about airport and airline security.

The Obama administration says it's planning fixes to the glitch-prone federal website that uninsured people can use to sign for coverage under the new health care law. Officials said late Friday that the application functions of healthcare.gov will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend for repairs. The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users. But many consumers were unable to get on.

An employee of Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange, MNsure, sent an unencrypted file to the wrong person and left 2,400 people’s private information at the mercy of a nearby insurance agent. One exchange staffer’s simple mistake gave insurance broker Jim Koester access to an Excel document of Social Security numbers, names, addresses and other personal data for whole a list of insurance agents. Luckily for the 2,400, Koester was cooperative — and unnerved. “The more I thought about it, the more troubled I was,” Koester told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “What if this had fallen into the wrong hands? It’s scary. If...

Minnesota insurance broker Jim Koester was looking for information about assisting with Obamacare implementation; instead, what landed in his inbox last month was a document filled with the names, Social Security numbers and other pieces of personal information belonging to his fellow Minnesotans. In one of the first breaches of the new Obamacare online marketplaces, an employee of the Minnesota marketplace, called MNsure, accidentally emailed Koester a document containing personally identifying information for more than 2,400 insurance agents, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. MNsure was able to quickly undo the damage because Koester cooperated with them, but the incident left...

Washington, DC – Today, on the first day of the Republican shutdown of the federal government, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) issued the following statement: “Today’s shutdown of the federal government is a manufactured political crisis. It has been inspired and executed by a Tea Party Republican faction that controls House leadership and refuses to fulfill the most basic function of Congress – to appropriate funds to ensure government operations continue.” “All along Democrats have worked for an honest and responsible solution to prevent a shutdown, including compromising to meet Republican sequestration funding levels in the continuing resolution. But that wasn’t...

Rep. Ellison appeared on MSNBC'S The Last Word last night as House Republicans forced a government shutdown. "These people have mortgages, they've got bills to pay, they've got rent to pay, they've got tuition to pay, they've got groceries to buy--this is unconscionable,” Rep Ellison said referring to the 800,000 Americans who may be furloughed because of the shutdown.

<p>After House Republican leaders announced Thursday that they will demand concessions in spending in exchange for raising America's borrowing cap, Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison accused the GOP of plotting to use the debt ceiling as a weapon in the shutdown standoff.</p>

With the horrendous terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Somali al Qaeda affiliate al Shabab is back in the news. We still don’t know the identity of the perpetrators, or whether any of them had made their way to al Shabab from Minnesota or points elsewhere in the United States. I trust that time will. For now we have the New York Times visit to Minneapolis to pass on the fears of Somali residents that they will be stigmatized and (good grief!) and scrutinized. And the Star Tribune is on the case to transmit the avowals of local...

Are premiums on Minnesota's new health insurance exchange the lowest of any rates that will be offered across the country? Yes, according to a new federal study. Maybe, according to health care experts. Absolutely! DFLers say. That's the wrong question! Republicans counter. The mix of reactions follows Wednesday's report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that the average monthly benchmark premium for Minnesota's health insurance exchange is substantially lower than the average in any other state. In Minnesota, the average monthly premium across all age groups will be $192. The next lowest average is in Tennessee at...

Though there is still a long way to go for the Delta Queen to return to the rivers as a cruise ship, passing of bill H.R. 1961 in the House of Representatives is a major step in this direction. On Wednesday, September 25th 2013, the House has approved the bill that would grant the historic Delta Queen a 15 years exemption from a fire-retardant materials construction requirement. The House voted 280 to 89 in favor of the Delta Queen with almost all Republicans voting with “yea”, while Democrats voted 82 to 84 against the bill. The bill still has to...

The terrorist attack at a shopping mall in Kenya is prompting increased security at the Mall of America. The facility sent out a statement stating..."Mall of America continues to monitor the tragic events unfolding in Kenya with the help of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. We are deeply saddened by the events and our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected. Mall of America has implemented extra security precautions, some may be noticeable to guests, and others won't be. We will continue to follow the situation, along with law enforcement, and will remain vigilant as we always...

Yet more indication of which side Hamas-linked CAIR is really on: "Somali-American leader: ‘I tried to warn America’ about homegrown radicalization,'" by Charles C. Johnson in the Daily Caller, September 23 (thanks to all who sent this in): The Council on American Islamic Relations repeatedly tried to stop a Minnesota community leader from warning about the dangers al-Qaida-linked group posed to the Somali-American community prior to the Kenyan mall massacre.“I tried to warn America,” Abdirizak Bihi, a Minnesota-based Somali community leader, explained to The Daily Caller.Minnesota residents were reportedly among the attackers in the grisly assault by al-Shabaab terrorists on...

Members of the largest ethnic Somali community in the United States expressed frustration on Tuesday, fearing a backlash after the attack on a Kenya shopping mall by a Somalia-based Islamic group that has recruited fighters in Minnesota. It was unclear whether any of the attackers were connected to Minnesota's Somali community. But Somali-American leaders in Minneapolis were quick to condemn the assault after early unconfirmed reports identified one or more of the attacking al Shabaab rebels as recruits from the United States. At least 20 young ethnic Somali men have left Minnesota since 2007 to join al Shabaab in Somalia,...

The Department of Homeland Security is urging shopping malls in the United States to increase security in the aftermath of the carnage wrought by al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate over the weekend in Nairobi. Malachy Kavanagh, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, told The Daily Beast on Monday that the department contacted shopping malls Sunday to check on the precautions they were taking against mass shooters. U.S. intelligence officials say there is no specific threat information suggesting that al Qaeda is planning a similar kind of mass shooting in American shopping malls. Nonetheless, security experts worry about copycats....

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Terror Group That Claimed Kenya Attack Has Recruited Americans Before Sept. 22, 2013 By BRIAN ROSS, JAMES GORDON MEEK and MEGAN CHUCHMACH Brian Ross More from Brian » ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Home> Investigative Unit Terror Group That Claimed Kenya Attack Has Recruited Americans Before Sept. 22, 2013 By BRIAN ROSS, JAMES GORDON MEEK and MEGAN CHUCHMACH Brian Ross More from Brian » ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent The same group that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kenyan mall this weekend that has claimed at least 62 lives has previously recruited dozens of Americans to join their...

Al-Shabaab is claiming that there are American gunmen among those still holed up in the Westgate mall in a standoff with Kenyan and Israeli special forces. The Somali al-Qaeda affiliate tweeted a series of names on its latest account before Twitter against suspended the group. Al-Shabaab has been creating new accounts each time they get shut down but a movement of pro-Kenyan tweeters has been tracking down the new accounts and complaining to Twitter. “We received permission to disclose the names of our mujahideen inside #Westgate,” their latest account tweeted. They proceeded to tweet the names one by one, including...

CNN: Three of the gunmen in the Kenyan mall attack that killed at least 68 are from the United States. Two are from Minnesota, one from Missouri. This is a developing story stay tuned to CNN for more information.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage said Wednesday it will cut 332 more jobs at its offices in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow a decline in mortgage refinancing activity throughout 2012 and in early 2013, Peggy Gunn, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday. The cuts will take place over the next 60 days. The layoffs at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage follow an announcement of 350 job cuts in the same division July 18.

Sixteen-year-old Noah Graham of Solway is lucky to be alive after being attacked without warning by a wolf while sitting at a campfire with friends last month on Lake Winnibigoshish near the town of Bemidji in far northern Minnesota. ... the willingness of the Clinton administration to accede to the demands of DOW and other environmental groups, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1994 and quickly spread over a 500-mile radius to all corners of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Earlier this month, a pack of wolves stampeded 176 sheep — two were bitten and killed; one was half...

The son of a motorist arrested for allegedly hitting two Army recruiters and dragging one for nearly a mile Tuesday in Roseville said his father is legally blind and likely didn't see the two men. He also was likely in the area panhandling for drug money, the son said.

ROSEVILLE, Minn. - Sometimes, what happens in broad daylight is the most shocking. Right in front of the Armed Forces recruiting station just after lunch on Tuesday, two Army war veterans, who are also recruiters, were walking toward the door in the crosswalk when the driver of a Jeep SUV hit them. One of them, Travis Torgerson, was pinned under the SUV. But the driver didn't stop, even though police say they are fairly certain he knew Torgerson was trapped underneath. The driver literally dragged Torgerson, who was in full army uniform, more than a half a mile. What's worse...

Police are investigating after two men, who serve in the military, were hit by a vehicle in Roseville Tuesday afternoon. According to Roseville Police, a driver hit the men at Snelling Avenue and County Road B2. One of the men flew over the top of the vehicle, while the other was stuck under the vehicle. Police say the driver kept going and dragged the man for about 3/4 of a mile. At one point the driver stopped to try to kick the man out from underneath the vehicle, but the man was stuck. The driver got back in his car...

In what one organization is hailing as a "victory" for religious liberty, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Brian Johnson can distribute Bibles at the Twin Cities Pride Fest in Minneapolis, Minn. "It's a true victory" for religious liberty, Nate Kellum, chief counsel for the Center for Religious Expression (CRE), a nonprofit organization in Memphis, Tenn., dedicated entirely to the protection of religious speech, told The Christian Post on Monday. Lead counsel for the case, Kellum explained that Johnson "felt the need to preach the Gospel through handing out Bibles at his own cost." From 1998 to...

In a 2-1 decision, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Minnesota Park Board’s restrictions on a local man’s distribution of Bibles during an annual gay pride festival. Brian Johnson, who sought to distribute the Bibles at the festival, said he “would ‘gladly hire a homosexual at my business if he/she could do the job,’ but expressed his belief that the Bible specifies homosexual conduct as a sin,” according to the decision. Johnson “elaborated that he tries to avoid the subject of homosexuality when passing out Bibles at the Festival, and he does not believe that homosexual...

...Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota joined fellow tea partying Reps. Louie Gohmert, sadly of Texas, and Steve King of Iowa on a trip to Egypt, where they praised the restoration of military dictatorship and the overthrow of a democratically elected government... Bachmann didn’t just stop with that misportrayal of American values. She somehow managed to confuse Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks (Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda for those who don’t remember), and congratulated Egypt’s military leader for holding them at bay. “We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against...

An employee of Minnesota's new ObamaCare exchange reportedly leaked sensitive data by accident in an email. The error occurred Thursday when an MNsure staffer sent an email file containing the Social Security numbers and contact information for more than 2,400 insurance agents to one broker's office. The mistake, which appeared tied to human error, highlights worries from ObamaCare's critics that the law's new exchanges will not sufficiently protect enrollees' private data.

An employee for Minnesota's new online health insurance exchange accidentally released confidential information on hundreds of insurance agents. MNsure officials say the employee sent an email to an Apple Valley insurance broker's office Thursday that contained Social Security numbers, addresses and other private information of more than 2,400 insurance agents. An MNsure security manager called the insurance broker, Jim Koester, and had him delete the file from his computer hard drive. Koester tells the Star Tribune the incident raises questions about the security of MNsure client information. Users of the exchange will need to provide confidential information to a federal...

Republican representatives Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), and Steve King (R-Iowa) held a press conference last week in Egypt, praising and thanking the Egyptian military for a July 3 ouster of what Bachmann called the "common enemy" Muslim Brotherhood. Via the Washington Post's Max Fisher comes video of the press conference, which is bizarre, to say the least. Bachmann thanked the Egyptian military for the coup and the military-led government's crackdowns on protests, implying that the Muslim Brotherhood — of which former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was a member — was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks....

The announcement comes Monday in response to requests from three pairs of men in treatment at the state facility in Moose Lake who are seeking marriage licenses following the change in state law Aug. 1 that allows same sex couples to marry. “We don’t intend to interfere with their right to marry one another,” said Deputy Commissioner Anne Barry, whose duties include overseeing the sex offender program. The law change that has allowed same sex marriages in Minnesota has forced DHS to review its policies surrounding the sex offender program, which houses more than 600 offenders considered too risky and...

The Catholic Church in Minnesota and, indeed, around the United States, is deeply concerned about our nation’s immigration policy. It is inconsistent and ineffective, and it does not promote the common good. For more than two decades, this country has simultaneously had both a “keep out” and a “help wanted” sign at our borders. Our national policy has been to encourage (and permit) illegal immigration in order to create a new and inexpensive labor source. We have sent mixed messages to migrant workers and their families. Businesses, farmers, homeowners and communities rely on immigrants for labor, yet we simultaneously attack...

The White House today deployed Samantha Power, the former human rights activist turned UN ambassador, to try to convince President Barack Obama's liberal base to support strikes against Syria. Speaking at the Centre for American Progress, a prominent liberal think tank, Ms Power acknowledged "how ambivalent Americans are" at the prospect of another Middle Eastern conflict but argued there is "something different" about chemical warfare which demanded action. Ms Power worked her way through a list of progressive objections to Mr Obama's plan for intervention, saying: "Those of us who are arguing for the limited use of force must justify...

Minnesota just increased the incentive to move to Florida, the Wall Street Journal opined in an editorial last week. Not only does our state impose an estate tax at a nation's-highest rate of 16 percent, this year the Minnesota Legislature enacted a new 10 percent gift tax, a levy on money given away while still alive. Tax-happy Minnesota got tax-happier during the DFL-led 2013 legislative session. In response, North Dakota officials put up billboards reminding Minnesotans they were still "open for business" on their side of the border. And now the Wall Street Journal put Minnesota smack dab at the...

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak plans to travel to Chicago Thursday to unveil a print and digital ad campaign inviting gay couples to marry in his city in the wake of a new Minnesota law that opens the doors to such unions. His announcement will be made at the Center on Halsted, a community center in Lakeview, the city's most high-profile gay neighborhood. It comes just three months after an attempt to bring gay marriage to Illinois died in the legislature.

Black mob violence is back in Minneapolis. Some say it never stopped, and if you depend on the local newspaper for information, you might think it never started. But Minneapolis police recently issued a “crime alert” for the downtown area following a rash of mob robberies and assaults. According to City Paper: “What we’re seeing in this pattern is victims walking downtown by themselves on a sidewalk outside, and they’re approached by a group of three to five African American males,” MPD spokeswoman Cyndi Barrington told City Pages. “The average age range of the [suspects] is late teens to early...

"I can't believe that 50 years after the March on Washington, we're still fighting for equity in our schools," Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, tells MyFoxTwinCities.com. "We know that in more affluent districts, parents aren't tolerating this. In Minneapolis, where a majority of students are children of color, our kids don't get climate controlled classrooms. It's outrageous."

States running their own insurance programs as part of the Affordable Care Act have marketing and enrollment strategies that are sidestepping references to the words “ObamaCare,” a term that has largely come to be associated with the unpopularity of the plan. In Minnesota, state employees are promoting their health insurance marketplace as MNsure -- even going to the annual state fair to hand out fans imprinted with pictures of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, according to The Wall Street Journal. The grassroots effort is part of a larger, $9 million marketing effort that includes billboards and TV ads.

A 23-year-old woman admitted Thursday that she lied to a grand jury investigating the long-running case of young men who left Minnesota to join a terrorist group in Somalia. Saynab Hussein pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minnesota to one count of perjury. She admitted that in June 2009 she lied when she told a grand jury she did not know anyone who raised money for the travelers, when she actually helped raise money herself.