Gov. Mark Dayton admitted on Friday to being sadly out of touch on the issue of the MNsure project. In a press conference he said he was unaware for at least six months of contract changes with its lead contractor, Maximus Inc. in which the state took over responsibility for constructing ...
Next session, it's expected that the Democrats will take up the "Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act," better known as the bullying bill. The bill passed the House last session, but was never passed by the Senate.Statistically, cases of bullying in our schools have dropped precipitously ...
Teaching respectTHUMBS UP: It's probably a lesson that can't be taught often enough - have respect for others and treat people as you would want to be treated.This lesson was the focus of a day-long retreat at the National Guard Armory for 10th graders at New Ulm High School on Wednesday.The ...
The office of the Legislative Auditor has begun looking into the problems surrounding MNsure, the state's health exchange created under the Affordable Care Act.Highly touted before its roll-out as providing the lowest insurance rates of any similar exchange in the nation, the program has been ...
Fifty years ago this week U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark report on smoking, stating emphatically that tobacco use carried serious health risks - heart and lung disease and cancer - and that smoking was hazardous to one's health. It was a report that in the past 50 years has ...
Dear God,How are you? I am fine. Well, I have this balky knee. Guess I'm getting older, you know what I mean. Wait, you're God. You don't know what I mean. I mean, you know what I mean, because you know everything. But you don't have balky knees. You're eternal.Eternal. Sweet! I suppose being ...
Rod Searle died this week at the age of 93. But the obituary for his kind was written long ago.Searle was a moderate Republican, you see. As state representative from?Waseca in the 1970s, he believed in "balance, cooperation and mutual respect" in his legislative dealings, rather than "gotcha" ...
As 2014 begins, many Americans will be confronted by one of President Barack Obama's bigger lies - they will learn they cannot, in fact, stay with trusted health care professionals of their choice."We will keep this promise," Obama said. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your ...
For five years, President Barack Obama has delayed making a decision whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to the United States. In the process he has, in effect, vetoed the project temporarily.Some critics claim the pipeline would be an environmental disaster, ...
President Barack Obama has made it clear over and over again, frequently in wholesale changes and complete reversals of health care law provisions, that he considers the law of the land something he can ignore at will.During his Christmas vacation in Hawaii, the president did it again, this ...
Safety firstTHUMBS UP: It's supposed to get really cold this weekend, so cold that just thinking about it can give you an ice-cream headache. With the coldest weather in at least a decade predicted for Sunday night through Wednesday, we're glad Gov. Mark Dayton made the call to cancel all K-12 ...
Just before the old year ended, a federal appeals court judge handed champions of the liberties Americans cherish a stinging defeat.Federal District Court Judge William H. Pauley, in Washington, D.C., ruled the National Security Agency's mass collection of telephone data on tens of millions of ...
Nobody really likes to make New Year's resolutions for themselves. But it is tremendous fun to make them for others. After all, people are so often oblivious to their own faults. They need someone to set them straight.It is even more fun to make resolutions for politicians. Here are a few that ...
Prosecuting attorneys in Connecticut have concluded that 20-year-old Adam Lanza "displayed no aggressive or threatening tendencies" before he massacred 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown about a year ago.Thousands of pages of documents involved in an ...
2014 is a couple of days away. We know that the traditional celebrations of New?Year's Eve involves a lot of partying, and a lot of hangovers on New Year's Day.We hope people will have fun on New Year's Eve, but that they will celebrate responsibly. If you are planning on drinking, you should ...
Spending for schoolsTHUMBS UP: It is gratifying to see the report on the District 88 budget this week that indicates that 80 percent of District 88 funds are going toward instruction this year.In the past, there have been noises coming from state government that accountability is needed in ...
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has released his annual "Wastebook," giving us all a window into the positively absurd ways in which the federal government spends the hard-earned tax dollars we give it.Like former Sen. William Proxmire's "Golden Fleece award, which he presented between 1977 and 1985, ...
News flash: President Barack Obama believes in Santa Claus. We can think of no better explanation for his press conference, the last of the year, on Friday.In talking with reporters, Obama proclaimed 2014 "can be a breakthrough year for America." He was speaking of his optimism about the ...
We don't know how the news would be announced in this day of 24-hour news channels, social media and internet bloggers, but 2,000 years ago, word of mouth was as good as it got.A band of shepherds watching over their flocks near a little Middle Eastern town saw a great light, and a band of ...
When I was young, Midnight Mass at St. Mary's in Sleepy Eye was a spectacle. Incense, candles, lights bedazzled. Trumpets, organ, and choir filled the church with rich sound.We dropped Midnight Mass in the early '80s. A few years later it was back, only without the pageantry. In its place was a ...