Politics & Policy

Real Talk: Budget Cuts Don’t Kickstart the Economy

By Alex Christensen, Minnesota 2020

Apparently, spending cuts solve everything – unemployment, recessions, America’s future. You’ve heard it from Rep. Paul Ryan.

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Minnesota 2020

Senate Income Tax Increase Doesn’t Hit the Middle-Class

By Jeff Van Wychen, Minnesota 2020

Like Governor Dayton’s proposal and the House tax bill, the Senate's a tax bill—

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M4M's legislator of the day, Joe Radinovich announces yes vote on freedom to marry

By Sally Jo Sorensen, Bluestem Prairie

Another Greater Minnesota Democrat in the House has announced his decision to vote "Yes" on Karen Clark's bill to legalize the freedom to marry.

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Bluestem Prairie

Can you "permit to carry" at St Paul Union Depot without note to Sheriff?

By Rich Neumeister, Open Secrets Minnesota

I went to the St Paul Union Depot this past week.  Hung off Door 1 entrance was a big sign with 17 rules plastered on it.

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Open Secrets Minnesota

Conference committees have sometimes unpopular task of compromise

By Susan Hegarty, Session Daily

Members of the Health and Human Services Conference Committee make introductions May 1 before beginning a walk-through of side-by-side proposals. (Photo by Andrew VonBank)

House and Senate conference committees began meeting this week to consider appropriations and language in various omnibus finance bills.

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Minneapolis City Council eases urban beekeeping restrictions

By Brian Arola, The Minnesota Daily

Rooftops across Minneapolis could soon be buzzing with a recently approved Minneapolis City Council ordinance to make beekeeping easier in the city.

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COMMUNITY VOICES | Something good from the gun bill defeat

By Myles Spicer, Community Voices

Without a doubt, one of the great movies of all time was The Wizard of Oz. 

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Health and human services omnibus bills make good investments using wrong resources

By Christina Wessel, Minnesota Budget Bites

When the House and Senate released their committee targets in March, we were surprised that the health and human services budget division was required to cut $150 million in the House and $153 million in the Senate. After years of reductions to critical services for Minnesota’s most vulnerable, including $1 billion in cuts in the 2011 Legislative Session, we believed this year would offer an opportunity to start making up lost ground investing in our state’s health and well-being.

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Minnesota Budget Bites

Trying not to stick my head in the sand

By Steve Clemens, Mennonista

After walking two miles behind a “Stop Frac Sand” banner, we arrived at the Port of Winona where 18-wheel trucks were unloading their cargoes of silica frac sand on to barges in the Mississippi River to be shipped to natural gas fracking operations in Texas or other locations. A second group of friends walked over three miles to another Winona, MN site where already-mined frac sand was being washed before loaded on to the trucks that were arrive at the port. With the support of dozens of other friends, 35 of us were arrested on trespass charges as we nonviolently blocked the trucks this morning in what may have been the largest protest to date against fracking.

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Mennonista

Race, money, and all of our politics

By Joe Bodell, Minnesota Progressive Project

This is the kind of thing I was starting to talk about in my previous post: we get caught up in a story that, really, is pretty much over other than the human-interest and prosecution phases, and miss a story that represents a larger tragedy both in lives lost and in its sad connection to our own lives.

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Minnesota Progressive Project
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