Free Republic

The Star Tribune reported yesterday that the Minnesota Department of Commerce “asked” PreferredOne to lower insurance rates in the MNsure exchange last year. The July 2013 letter referenced in the story reveals the company lowered rates twice in response to Commerce “objections.” PreferredOne ultimately agreed to lower rates by 37 percent from its initial proposal, which resulted in the company offering the lowest rates in the nation. Governor Dayton’s administration celebrated these low rates throughout the year, all of which helped dial down the political heat from MNsure’s botched rollout. “Now,” according to the Star Tribune, “those subscribers face an...

Sex offenders at a treatment center in northern Minnesota, fed up with political gridlock over their controversial program, are taking matters into their own hands: They are running for elected office. For the last three months, a group of sex offenders has quietly run a voter-registration drive up and down the hallways of the prisonlike treatment center in Moose Lake, where about 460 convicted rapists, pedophiles and other offenders are locked away indefinitely behind razor wire. Some 155 are now registered to vote — amounting to nearly 20 percent of all voters registered in Moose Lake. Their goal is to...

Premiums on the state's MNsure health insurance exchange will rise in 2015, but they will still likely be the lowest in the nation. The Minnesota Department of Commerce said Wednesday that the rates offered by the four insurers still participating in the exchange will increase an average of 4.5 percent over their 2014 levels. "Not only is the average rate increase low for companies returning to the exchange, but Minnesotans living in each area of the state will have more product choices available this year to fit their individual health insurance needs," Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said in a statement....

We’ve got a problem in the Twin Cities that is based in our large and still growing population of Somali immigrants. Somalis have been immigrating to Minnesota for more than twenty years now. They have taken advantage of all the services that our state and local institutions offer. They have been welcomed with open arms, in Minnesota’s characteristic style. Yet Minnesota’s Somali community — a/k/a “Minnesotans” — is the most fertile ground in the United States for the recruitment of terrorists by foreign terrorist organizations in Africa and the Middle East. We are concerned that they may choose to return...

Family members said a hunter is undergoing a second surgery after a bear attack in Pine County. Brandon Johnson is from North Branch and was attacked by a wounded bear early Saturday morning. The 9-1-1 call came in after 3:30 a.m. in a remote part of the county called Duxbury. Pine County deputies said Johnson was alone at the time of the attack, but was with a group scattered in the woods. Johnson told deputies he was tracking the wounded bear after bowhunting. Johnson told deputies the animal knocked him to the ground clawing and biting him. Officials with the...

Earl Malone, Suspected Armed Robber One adult attempts to rob another, using the threat of deadly force.  The victim is an armed adult with a concealed carry permit.  He defends himself, and the attempted robber dies.   Cause for muted thanks, correct?  The good guy won, and there is one less hardened criminal on the street to make the city a slightly less dangerous place. The CBSMinnesota headline: Man Released After Claiming Self Defense In Fatal Mpls. ShootingThis from cbslocal.com: Authorities believe he was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot 18-year-old Earl Malone Saturday night at the intersection of...

Amazon.com Inc. will begin collecting sales taxes from Minnesota customers next week, ending a cost advantage it’s enjoyed over brick-and-mortar retailers in the state. The news also triggered a mystery. Online-only retailers don’t need to charge sales tax in Minnesota unless they have physical presence or affiliated business here. Monday’s revelation led to speculation that Amazon may open a warehouse, data center or some other operation in the state or buy an existing firm. The company was vague about what prompted the change, though it said it “will be required” to do so starting Oct. 1. “We’re considering various opportunities...

Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner and former state legislator, also is trailing in the polls. In four statewide surveys taken since the Aug. 12 primary, Dayton led Johnson by an average of 9 points -- 48 percent to 39 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com. A recent poll in the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune newspaper showed about one third of registered voters didn't recognize Johnson's name and 40 percent had not formed an opinion about him. The polls do not alarm the GOP candidate. Four years ago, he said, Republican Tom Emmer trailed Dayton by 18 points in early September and lost the...

The insurance company that grabbed the most customers on Minnesota’s health care exchange by offering the lowest rates told state officials Tuesday that it’s pulling out of MNsure, a major blow to the exchange as the next open enrollment period approaches. The decision by Golden Valley-based PreferredOne may mean higher rates and again puts the troubled exchange front-and-center in Minnesota’s governor and House elections. PreferredOne had 59 percent of the private-plan market for MNsure enrollees as of early August. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota had 23 percent, HealthPartners 12, Medica 5 percent and UCare 1.

Minnesota Obamacare is calling it quits. PreferredOne, the insurer that sold nearly 60 percent of all private health plans on Minnesota's Obamacare exchange, on Tuesday said it would leave that marketplace. PreferredOne's plans were the lowest-cost options on that exchange, known as MNSure. PreferredOne cited the costs of doing business on MNSure as the reason for its surprising decision, saying that selling plans is "not administratively and financially sustainable going forward," according to KSTP.com, the website of that Minnesota TV News network.

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Rep. Michele Bachmann says she was told by the FBI that Americans who joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the Middle East would be allowed to return to the U.S. Speaking to Newsmax, the Minnesota Republican detailed a private meeting she had with the federal agency earlier this summer when she asked them if any Minnesotans had joined ISIS. “The FBI told me … that there were two Minnesotans that had joined up with the Islamic State. I asked the FBI, ‘If they choose to return to Minnesota, will they be allowed to?’ The...

At least three young Minnesota women are now believed to have traveled to Syria to give aid to the ISIS terror group responsible for the brutal beheadings of American journalists, MailOnline has learned. The trio left some three weeks ago, Omar Jamal, a leader of the Somali community in the state capital, St. Paul, tells MailOnline. They said they intended to become nurses tending to fighters injured in ISIS' violent surge in Syria and Iraq. The news comes as 19-year-old suburban Denver woman Shannon Conley who federal authorities say intended to wage jihad has pleaded guilty to trying to help...

St. Paul police responded Thursday to criticism over officers' interaction with a man, including police use of a Taser, saying a video doesn't tell the whole story. Chris Lollie, 28, said he was sitting on a chair in a downtown skyway Jan. 31 when a security guard told him it was a private area and he couldn't be there. No signs were posted saying it was private, Lollie said. The guard called police. Lollie, of St. Paul, told an officer he was heading to pick up his children and didn't have to identify himself because he had done nothing wrong....

The St. Paul Police Department is investigating an officer-involved shooting Thursday morning. Police confirm that the officer was not injured and the suspect is dead. The shooting reportedly happened around 7 a.m. outside of a Holiday gas station near Wabasha Street and Plato Boulevard. A witness tells KSTP he saw the suspect and police involved in an altercation. He says the suspect was throwing rocks and at one point punched one of the officers. He allegedly continued to “physically and aggressively” interact with the officers before the shooting. No other information has been released at this time.

On St. Paul's East Side, homeowners in the 1900 block of Hawthorne Avenue are in line for property tax increases of 40 percent or more -- an additional $430 on their tax bills. Property owners along the 700 block of Summit Avenue will see just as much in savings. The city's middle-class property owners will feel the biggest bite in their wallet come tax time, and nowhere more so than on the city's East Side. After years of mild tax breaks, the owners of median-value homes in St. Paul likely will do a double-take when "Truth in Taxation" statements arrive...

The old "Spamboni" ice resurfacer has sold for the $2,000 asking price -- and it's going to a family with deep Minnesota hockey roots. Dave Langevin, whose dad grew up in St. Paul and won four Stanley Cups as a defenseman with the New York Islanders in the early 1980s, is now the owner of the Hormel-sponsored Zamboni that once wheeled around the St. Paul Civic Center while promoting the Austin, Minn.-based company's canned meat. The 1972 HDB Zamboni (Serial No. 1566) was the Civic Center's original machine.

<p>MINNEAPOLIS - A court has struck down an NFL policy preventing off-duty Minnesota police officers from bringing their guns to Vikings games.</p>

A Boston Scientific executive who was fatally shot Monday at an Arden Hills gas station once had his life intertwined with the shooting suspect -- they had been life partners and started a popular Minneapolis nightclub together. But Kelly L. Phillips, 48, had moved on. He was to marry another man this month and had ended his business relationship with Lyle "Ty" Marvin Hoffman, 44. The Ramsey County sheriff's office said Tuesday that it was seeking Hoffman as a suspect in Phillips' homicide. Five police agencies searched for Hoffman in two hangars at the Anoka County Blaine airport Tuesday afternoon,...

A St. Paul police officer drove through a red light, struck another vehicle with his squad car and left the scene of the accident last spring, according to two misdemeanor charges filed against the officer Monday. Officer Vosinick "Nick" Kellum, 39, was on duty at the time, according to the police department, though the criminal complaint said he hadn't been assigned to respond to any police calls that day and there were no police calls for service in the immediate area of the incident. Kellum, a St. Paul officer since 1999, "admitted to driving the vehicle and being involved in...

The University of Minnesota is working with the Minnesota Vikings in an effort to keep the Washington Redskins’ name from being used in “promotional and game date materials” during the NFL teams’ Nov. 2 game at the school’s stadium in Minneapolis, according to an Aug. 1 letter from university President Eric W. Kaler to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).