Minneapolis midterm election study guide

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Tomorrow is Election Day — have you done your homework?Midterm elections are never as popular as presidential elections, but that doesn’t make them any less important. We want to make your decision process as easy as possible, so we’ve lined up every election this midterm year that will affect Minneapolis residents.Following are candidates for U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Minnesota State Representative, Minneapolis School Board, and Minnesota 4th Judicial District (which essentially covers Hennepin County) candidates, as they will appear on Minneapolis ballots for the Nov. 4 General Election.Also on the ballot will appear two measures for voters to consider for inclusion in the Minneapolis City Charter. The first question pertains to increasing the filing fees candidates pay to run for city offices — mayor, city council, and other city of Minneapolis offices. The current $20 fee was set in 1967 and has remained unchanged. Continue Reading

Not enough time: Following up on school board candidate forums

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The November election is less than two weeks away, and for the four at-large candidates for the Minneapolis school board, it’s candidate forum time.This past week, on Oct. 20 and Oct. 24, candidates Iris Altimarno, Rebecca Gagnon, Ira Jourdain, and Don Samuels appeared at forums where all of the questions asked came directly from the audience, on the spot, and were not pre-determined.The Oct. 20 forum was sponsored by a handful of southwest Minneapolis neighborhood associations, such as Fulton, Kingfield, and Lyndale, and held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. Minneapolis City Council member Elizabeth Glidden hosted the Oct. Continue Reading

Minnesota House candidate Yolandita Colón hopes to bridge party divide

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Yolandita Colón is a bit of an anomaly. On the one hand, she seems to stand for progressive causes like educational equality, meaningful immigration reform, improved housing for all, and human rights and social justice. On the other, she favors lowering taxes for businesses and business owners, and has very conservative stances on social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage.An evangelical minister, Colón isn’t following the typical trajectory for Latina candidates by seeking DFL endorsement. Instead, the 62A State Representative hopeful is running against incumbent Karen Clark as a candidate of the Independence Party. She said her platform will unify her constituents and find common ground between both major parties.“I want to bring unity,” Colón said. Continue Reading

VIDEO: Perske attacks Emmer for “Threatening” divisive record, Emmer has no response

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During Monday’s 6th Congressional District debate in St. Cloud, Minnesota DFL candidate Joe Perske chose to spend his final remarks calling GOP runner Tom Emmer bullying, divisive and uncooperative. When Emmer was asked to rebuttal, he declined to answer. The candidate elected will take over Michele Bachmann’s seat.Related article: 6th Congressional District candidates debate – Emmer, Perske and Denney“This is difficult for me to say because I’ve always been taught to be a nice polite person,” Perske starts off. “Tom has been very dividing. Continue Reading

Rep. Rick Nolan uses “turds” to describe past Minnesota water quality

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Yesterday’s 8th Congressional District candidates debate in Duluth between Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL) and challengers Stewart Mills (GOP) and Ray Skip Sandman (Green) touched on several topics, including social security reformation, gun regulation and oil pipeline expansion. But the highlight of the debate was easily when Rep. Nolan used the word “turds” to help prove a point as he described just how bad Minnesota’s water quality used to be.Rick Nolan: “I grew up in a time when the lakes and rivers were so polluted that they were catching on fire. The Mississippi River where we lived, why, you’d go down there in the spring and there’d be toilet paper, condoms and turds hanging on every branch. And that was the good stuff, that wasn’t the toxic stuff. And you had to haul drinking water into Duluth. Continue Reading

Nathan Wold: How much did Jeff Johnson know about Cargill’s use of child slave labor?

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Current Republican candidate for Minnesota Governor, Jeff Johnson, was employed as a corporate attorney for Cargill from 1997-2001. According to the “About Jeff” bio on Johnson’s website, he worked at Cargill, Inc. “to handle employment and labor law matters.” It just so happens that some of the employees at Cargill around this time were child slave laborers, forced to work in Cargill’s supply chain.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.Cargill is a large multinational corporation based in Minnetonka, MN. It is primarily in the business of buying, trading, and distributing agricultural commodities around the world. Some of these agricultural commodities include fruits such as oranges, cocoa (for the production of chocolate) and palm oil; all of which have been found to have used child slave labor to produce said crops. Continue Reading

Mehr Jay Shahidi: Is this Cold War 2?

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The editors of Time magazine needed almost 6 years to pay attention to my article published in Twin Cities Daily Planet on September 8, 2008, in which I stated that Cold War Two had started (see Time of July 23, 2014). And the US government officials still do not really get it.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.Then, Vladimir Putin had just confronted the US by invading Georgia. Now, he has spread the new proxy war to Syria and Ukraine with more places to come. And the US foreign policy apparatus is as much to blame as Putin. Continue Reading