Liberty & Prosperity Blog

If there's anything that gets former St. Cloud City Councilman Jeff Johnson motivated, it's when he hears a politician spew a litany of things that are wrong with Minnesota. As Jeff's campaign manager, I can state with total specificity that we have a nickname for such rants. We call them litanies. Litanies as in 'when do we get to the solutions?' In Jeff's op-ed , which Alpha News published today, Jeff wrote "Thanks to the DFL trifecta led by Gov. Walz, we have seen foolish spending and massive proposed tax increases for 2026. The exodus of the rich, middle class, and businesses is expected to continue. Our educational system is a failure as evidenced by poor test scores and school violence." We know the problems because we're living them. We don't need a CPI report to tell us that we're paying too much for groceries or gas. Lived experiences tell us that when we pull into a grooocery store or gas station. To be fair, though, to President ...

Apparently, Education Minnesota has gone full Marxist. According to this article , "The 'racial equity trainings' can be brought 'to your building' when requested by Education Minnesota members, the union website explains, and offer instruction on topics like 'Culturally Responsive Teaching With a Racial Justice Lens' and 'Cultural Competency.' Educators in the state are required to fulfill a 'cultural competency' training in order to renew their teaching licenses, which can include topics such as 'Systemic Racism,' 'Gender Identity, Including Transgender Students,' 'Language Diversity,' and more, according to the state government page." Why do teachers have to learn how to be racists to get their teaching license renewed? According to the Oxford Languages dictionary , the definition of systemic racism is "discrimination or unequal treatment on the basis of membership in a particular ethnic group (typically ...

Is it just speculation that Gov. Tim Walz told House DFL legislators to kill the Senate OIG bill? Is it speculation that Speaker Demuth didn't work with DFL legislators in getting the bill into the final budget package? Both things have gotten rumored at the Capitol. I don't find the Demuth speculation credible. With a gubernatorial bid hanging on the horizon, she had too much to lose. Gov. Tim Walz, though, has incentive to look the opposite direction, starting with the people purportedly involved in the fraud. While it wasn't known that Somalis were behind the Medicaid fraud, it was known that some of the first people indicted in the Feeding Our Future Fraud were Somalis. This year, a weakened Tim Walz will need a big turnout of Somalis to get re-elected. John Phelan's article digs into this question a little further. The title for his article is "Did Gov. Walz tell House DFLers to squash the bill creating a fraud investigator?" The part that causes me to q...

Tim Walz frequently highlights 'the investments' Minnesota has made in K-12 Education or in Minnesota Department of Human Sacrifices Services. How much of the K-12 Education spending was spent on Feeding Our Future fraud. How much of the DFL's 'investment' in the Department of Human Services was spent on billions of dollars of fraud? In 2023, when the DFL had a trifecta (DFL governor and DFL majorities in the House and Senate), the DFL passed controversial bills like the Trans Refuge Bill, the Blackout Bill in addition to raising taxes and license tab fees by a total of $10,000,000,000 ($10 billion), not to mention raising biennial spending by 38%. Apparently, unlike productive people, Gov. Walz doesn't think using the word no is productive. It's apparent that bureaucrats at DHS think saying no isn't productive. The thing that's got to be weighed against raising spending and taxes is limiting spending so individuals can save for their retirements, t...

I'm getting tired keeping up with all of the DFL's non-crisis crises. The latest DFL non-crisis is the Whiteness Pandemic . According to the report, "The 'Whiteness Pandemic' page, featured on the website of the Culture and Family Life Lab at the U of M’s Institute of Child Development, leans heavily on a 2021 academic paper analyzing how white Minneapolis mothers talked to their children after George Floyd’s death, a report from Defending Education first revealed." The report continues, saying "Naming the Whiteness Pandemic shifts our gaze from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system. At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism ,' the website says." During the time of slavery, black families were common. These familie...

The further we dig into the Minnesota/Medicaid fraud fiasco, the more questions I get. The biggest question I have is simple. Is the DFL benefiting financially from the Medicaid fraud? I've heard, as we've all heard, that some of the money stolen from Minnesota's taxpayers, is potentially going to al-Shabaab, a part of al-Qa'ida. The more I dig, though, the more I question whether part of that money is going to the DFL. Why did it take Tim Walz and Keith Ellison 5+ years to figure out this fraud fiasco? After reading this article , I'm wondering where the rest of the money went. The article reports "The actual number of Somali TPS beneficiaries in Minnesota is reportedly small, roughly 430 as of the most recent count, meaning the vast majority of the state’s Somalis will be unaffected by the move." Let me reiterate; where did the rest of the money go? Let's remember that a member of the committee was briefed a week ago by Acting Assistant U.S. Attorne...

It's difficult to say that the Feeding Our Future is incompetence, not outright corruption after it was reported in the opening paragraph that "A man named Abdirashid Bixi Dool has been charged for his alleged role in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. The 36-year-old faces a seven-count federal indictment that includes charges of wire fraud and money laundering. Dool is the 78th person to be charged in connection with the COVID-era scheme that saw fraudsters steal hundreds of millions of dollars from a federal child nutrition program which reimbursed participants for feeding hungry children." It isn't that Dool was the second or third indictment. It was the 78th indictment in the Feeding Our Future scandal. Further, that's just Feeding the Future indictments. There are more indictments that've been handed down as a result of the Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) Scandal and this autism scandal: That picture is part of this article written b...

The first domino has fallen in the case of the 6 Democrats who called for members of the military to " refuse illegal orders ", insinuating that President Trump had given the military illegal orders. Predictably, none of the Democrats in the video could identify a single order from President Trump that crossed the line into illegality. According to CBS News's reporting, "The Pentagon indicated that it's investigating Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former U.S. Navy Captain, after he was among a group of lawmakers to release a video calling on service members and members of the intelligence community to "refuse illegal orders." Though I'm not a former member of the military, I know with total certainty that one of the first things you're taught in boot camp is that you can ignore unlawful orders. This isn't breaking news. It's dog-bites-man type news. This is sun rises in east type news. In other words, it isn't news. It'...

Those of us of a certain vintage remember the Hamm's beer commercial. It spoke of "the land of sky blue waters," though Minnesota supposedly means "the land of sky-tinted waters." These days, thanks to reporting like this , Minnesota is more known as the land of '10,000 fraud schemes.' This sounds a little hyperbolic but it's truer than you'd think, especially if you're a Democrat. To hear a DFL politician talk about it, you'd think that everything that's wrong with Minnesota is because President Trump ruined it. Last night, I checked with multiple friends who confirmed that President Trump has nothing to do with Minnesota's difficulties. If you pay attention to X/Twitter, the DFL, especially Gov. Walz, is planning on running against President Trump. This doesn't make a bit of sense substantively but that's the DFL's game plan. According to the reporting, "Federal prosecutors have uncovered multiple fraud schemes ...

A frequent reader of this blog sent me a picture showing gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson surrounded by Somalis following a November 2017 St. Cloud City Council meeting. This is that picture: Recently, a different frequent reader of this blog sent me a letter highlighting Jaylani Hussein's paranoia of white people: We are asking every member of our community to stay vigilant. If you see threats, harassment, or hateful content online, especially targeting Somali or Muslim communities in Minnesota, please report them immediately to CAIR-Minnesota and local authorities. We are tracking these developments closely. What’s happening: Our community is under coordinated attack In the last 48 hours, former President Donald Trump announced that he will immediately end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali immigrants in Minnesota, a move that could tear families apart and send people back to a country they haven’t seen in decades. He justified this dangerous decision using false, I...

This morning, Minnesota's fraud fiasco just got more interesting. I wrote what essentially is Part I to this series. There's more to this than meets the eye in the initial reading. Further, President Trump just put more white gas on this fire last night by revoking Minnesota Somalis' Temporary Protected Status effective immediately. Trump wrote "Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER! President DJT" That's harsh. Then again, what some Minneapolis Somalis have done is pretty nasty. What should be noted is that 3 figures are consistently interlinked throughout this fiasco: Tim Walz, Jodi Harpstead and Jeff Johnson. At t...

The Walz administration is getting nationwide attention, though it isn't the type of attention political administrations typically seek. Sohrab Ahmari didn't bury the lede when he wrote "There is no whitewashing this scandal: segments of the Somali community in Minneapolis have been engaged in systematic welfare fraud, and used some of the proceeds to fund the Al-Shabaab terror group in their homeland." Imagine the Outrage If... Imagine the outrage if "Hassan and her alleged co-conspirators recruited Somali parents’ children into autism therapy services — even if a child did not have an autism diagnosis — facilitating fraudulent claims. Parents reportedly received monthly kickbacks ranging from $300 to $1,500 per child, with some allegedly threatening to go to other fraud networks unless their rates were increased." It doesn't end there: Sure enough, both the number of autism providers and the rate of diagnosis have ballooned, with Somali activists insi...

I don't think that Gov. Tim Walz is all there mentally. How can someone think that it doesn't matter who's using the urinal next to you still have the mental wherewithal to make the decisions that keep Minnesota functioning properly? According to the article, "Gov. Tim Walz defended his state’s designation as a 'trans refuge' during a Nov. 13 appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival , saying Minnesota’s state policy allows people to 'live the life they want to'— including in shared restrooms." At the Festival, Gov. Walz said "We're a trans refuge state, which basically means people get to live the life they want to. And you don’t have to worry about it because you never had to worry about it before and it doesn’t matter who’s using the urinal next to you. They’re living their life accordingly." Oh Really? Check this out: The Loudoun County student convicted of two sexual assaults appeared in court on Wednesday, now that he is 18. Th...

Saying that Leigh Finke isn't normal is understatement. He's now started making character assessment, saying that an ICE raid used "Gestapo tactics" . Further, he's issued a statement about the legal arrests, saying "As your representative, I will always stand with our community. I’ll never stop fighting to protect all of our neighbors, no matter where they come from or why they are here. Today’s federal action is a reminder of why we must not give no quarter to ICE and must loudly oppose the Gestapo tactics they employ to abduct our neighbors and friends." Saying that he'll "never stop fighting to protect all of our neighbors, no matter where they come from or why they are here" is quite the statement. They aren't neighbors. They're illegal aliens by legal definition. They allegedly came into the U.S. illegally or they came in legally on some sort of visa, then overstayed their visa. Either way, they're here illegally. Sue Him...

After reading this Alpha News article . it's evident that Gov. Walz doesn't know the definition of capitalism. Alpha News quoted Doug Loon, the CEO of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, as saying "Our state has fallen behind on nearly every measure of growth. From 2019 to 2024, Minnesota ranked 33rd in GDP growth, 39th in job growth, 40th in labor force growth and 46th in growth of (real median) household income ." States don't get those ratings by following the teachings of capitalism or Milton Friedman. Those are the results of a socialist economic model. I'm stunned to read "Minnesota's long-heralded economy is losing steam according to a new report released Wednesday by the Minnesota Chamber Foundation which showed Minnesota’s GDP per capita has grown by just 1.0% annually since 2019, ranking 38th among states – well below the national average of 1.8%." Remember that most of those years were during the Biden administration. This will catch y...

When I read Kendall Qualls' op-ed , the first thing I thought was whether Alpha News have offered the same opportunity to each of the other GOP gubernatorial candidates. As Jeff Johnson's campaign manager, I have more than a passing interest in Alpha News's decision. I'm intensely interested in everyone getting treated evenly. Though I'm not a legal expert, I can't help but wonder if that's an in-kind campaign contribution. While I don't totally disagree with Kendall Qualls, I vehemently disagree with him when he wrote "Republicans’ most promising candidates didn’t lose because of ideology; they lost because they ignored the issue hitting every household: affordability. Meanwhile, Democrats like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey dominated by making the cost of living their north star. While Republicans skirted around groceries, utility bills, and the housing crunch, Democrats addressed them head-on—and voters noticed....

The message sent to Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the DFL couldn't have been clearer. Protesters gathered outside MCF-Shakopee made it clear when they said "men are not, and never can be, women." That quote is attributed to Kerri Bruss , one of the co-organizers of the event. Bruss also is quoted as saying "There are areas of life where the physical and biological differences between the two sexes must be recognized and respected to assure the safety, privacy, and dignity of women and girls, with sex-segregated prisons topping that list." Men who identify as women shouldn't be allowed in women spaces. End of sentence. Full stop. I don't care if biological males identify as the cow that jumped over the moon. XY = Male. Full stop. Every DFL legislator voted to make Minnesota a trans refuge state. Tim Walz signed that bill into law. It's time the party that told us to "follow the science" during the pandemic is allergic to...

After reading Kevin Warsh's WSJ op-ed , I'm left wondering if the Federal Reserve Bank is ineffective because their theories are antiquated or just wrong-headed? The reason I ask is because Warsh wrote "When I was a college student, I spent hours wandering the stacks at the library to find answers to homework. For the next few decades, my counterparts and I looked for answers to our questions by rummaging the internet. Today, immediate access to documented and synthesized information is limited only by one’s imagination." Warsh also wrote "What’s to be done? Four things. First, the Fed should discard its forecast of stagflation in the next couple of years, as if subpar growth and inflation 40% above target is the best that can be done. AI will be a significant disinflationary force, increasing productivity and bolstering American competitiveness. Productivity improvements should drive significant increases in real take-home wages. A 1-percentage-point increase in...

Sophia Tesfaye's Salon article is difficult to take seriously, especially after reading "Conservative criticism of the president is becoming widespread following a Democratic sweep of off-year elections across the country. From Capitol Hill to MAGA media, the pushback signals a major rupture in the ideological pact between Trump and his base, suggesting he may finally be losing credibility where it counts." Apparently, Tesfaye hasn't noticed that President Trump is a controversial figure. If I got a dollar for each time President Trump has been written off, I'd be wealthy. Tesfaye wrote "Tucker Carlson, for example, once a staunch Trump ally, released his latest video on Friday that challenged FBI Director Kash Patel over the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt. The former Fox News host alleged that Patel’s FBI is covering up critical details of the attempted assassination, a charge that immediately drew a direct response from the agency’s head....

A strong case can be made that Democrats hate President Trump far more than they love the U.S. of A. They didn't think twice when the military went without pay if not for the contribution of a Trump billionaire. Democrats didn't think twice when they let SNAP benefits expire. In fact, there's reason to think that they'll shut the government again on Jan. 30, 2026. The economy will be the biggest issue for Congress in 2026. If Democrats don't disrupt the Trump economy, the Trump Boom will happen. It's already happening. Once the middle class tax cuts kick in, once the immediate expensing kicks in for small businesses and once oil production jumps from 14,000,000 barrels per day today now to 16,000,000 barrels per day by Independence Day, 2026, affordability won't be the high priority it is right now. Further, wages will keep going up. On top of that, we'll get a real Fed chair installed and perhaps a pair of new Fed governors who don't think that gro...

Apparently, the St. Paul City Council isn't interested in law and order. The foundation for U.S. law is the U.S. Constitution. According to this Alpha News article , "The St. Paul City Council unanimously approved a sweeping gun control ordinance that will ban 'assault weapons, large-capacity magazines, and binary triggers within city limits.' The ordinance is expected to be signed by Mayor Melvin Carter." While St. Paul is definitely safer than Minneapolis, that isn't exactly a high bar to clear. That's akin to saying you're the most moral man on death row. Besides the constitutionality question, there's another hurdle for St. Paul to climb. "Since the August shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, elected officials in Minnesota cities have expressed a desire to enact firearm regulations at the local level. However, Minnesota state law explicitly preempts local jurisdictions from passing their own firearm regulations. In fact...

Thank God in Heaven. The Schumer Shutdown has officially ended. President Trump signed the clean CR late this evening . Fox is reporting that "President Donald Trump signed legislation to fund the government again, putting an end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Trump signaled Monday the government would open soon, as consequences of a lapse in funding continued to snowball, including missed paychecks for federal workers and airline delays stemming from air traffic controller staffing shortages." Also according to the article, "The bill keeps funding the government at the same levels during fiscal year 2025 through Jan. 30 to provide additional time to hash out a longer appropriations measure for fiscal year 2026." Rest assured that Democrats will be tempted to pull the same stunt in January as they pulled this time. I don't think they'll pull the same stunt because shutting down government twice in the same fiscal year would be political...

Thank God for Bill Glahn's research. For instance, Glahn's article, titled Land of 10,000 frauds , quotes Bloomberg columnist Patricia Lopez as saying "In a state that once prided itself on clean government, fraud allegations have been turning up in an array of nonprofits the state depends on to carry out programs related to housing, nutrition assistance, childcare and more. The total cost to taxpayers could exceed $1 billion, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota." Bill noted that "There isn’t a single word in the above paragraph that couldn’t have been written three years ago." Further, the $1,000,000,000 figure is lightyears too low. While attending the Center for the American Experiment's 2025 Patriot Party in St. Cloud, I heard Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, say that Joseph Thompson, the acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, told him that the figure would hit $8,000,000,000 . Hitting $1,000,000,000 in fraud is something worthy of bein...

It's now official. The House Democrats' so-called solution to the UNAffordable Care Act subsidies is to extend it . According to the Hill, "House Democratic leaders on Tuesday will propose a three-year extension of the soon-to-expire Obamacare subsidies at the center of the shutdown fight." Hakeem Jeffries, the embattled House Minority Leader, is pushing for the extension as an amendment during the House Rules Committee meeting. Prior to the hearing, Jeffries said "House Republicans: Welcome back from your taxpayer-funded, seven-week vacation. You now have an opportunity to actually take some action in an area of this health care crisis by working with Democrats, before the Rules Committee this evening, to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits." It shouldn't be lost on voters that Jeffries is acting like the Speaker, not the Minority Leader. Soon, he won't be either, though who would replace him as Minority Leader is still a question. This is pr...

Last night, I had the good fortune of attending the Center for the American Experiment's 2025 Patriot Party . As expected, I ran into some good friends: It was fantastic seeing my original blogging teacher, too: As enjoyable as those conversations were, and they were enjoyable, the biggest bit of information of the night came from Keynote Speaker Walter Hudson. Any well-informed Minnesotan has heard about the Medicaid fraud here in audience that he'd been briefed by Joseph Thompson, the Acting US Attorney for Minnesota, that Thompson expected the total amount of Medicaid fraud in Minnesota to exceed $8,000,000,000. That's a staggering amount! That's almost half the size of the projected surplus for FY2023. That year's projected surplus was over $17,500,000,000. I'd hate to call that a highlight but it was in the sense that it's important information that we didn't have before. It isn't good news but it's certainly important news. Gov. Walz has d...

Year-after-year, Amy Klobuchar proclaims herself as a moderate and bipartisan senator. Tina Smith doesn't pretend to be a bipartisan legislator, though she's willing to accept the title of moderate. Last night, Klobuchar and Smith voted against reopening the federal government . With that vote, they both voted against funding the SNAP program, aka the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Further, they voted to not fund law enforcement (think ICE and Border Patrol), the military and agencies like the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Isn't it nice to know that Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Smith care so much about starving children and our military? The article reports "U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both Democrats, voted against a bipartisan measure to reopen the federal government. Advanced by the U.S. Senate in a 60-40 vote last night, the proposal is expected to end the longest government shutdown in history." The artic...

Saturday afternoon,former St. Cloud City Councilman Jeff Johnson sat down with Mitch Berg on Mitch's radio program on the NARN, aka the Northern Alliance Radio Alliance radio network. Mitch is fond of saying that NARN is "the wind beneath the right wing, a shiny spot of red in a sea of dismal blue." While it technically was an interview, it felt more like a conversation between neighbors in their back yards. While they had a substantive conversation on a variety of topics, the thing that stood out to me was the feel of the conversation. The podcast of the interview is found here . Click on the link titled "Jeff Johnson lays out his plan for Minnesota if elected governor." As Jeff's campaign manager, I was pleased to hear Jeff talk about Jeff's solutions to Minnesota's pile of probnlems. While Tim Walz has settled on a plan of telling Minnesotans whoppers about how good they have it, the truth is quite the opposite. If life is so good here in Minnesot...

If anyone needed proof that they were married to the UNAffordable Care Act, this vote should prove that Democrats don't care about American government workers. The article opens by saying "Senate Democrats again blocked a plan by Republicans to ensure that federal workers and the military would receive a paycheck as the shutdown back and forth revs into high gear. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., again tried to advance a modified version of his 'Shutdown Fairness Act' bill that would see federal workers and the military paid now and during subsequent government shutdowns. However, the bill failed 53-43 with 3 Democrats defecting to support the bill. Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico voted for the bill." The Democrats made a counterproprosal that includes a 1-year extension of the UNAffordable Care Act subsidies. It's been highlighted that the vast majority of the subsidies go to insurance companies, not people. Real peopl...

Is Tim Walz incompetent? Is Tim Walz corrupt? Is Tim Walz a little of both? I'm voting C -- a little of both. As Jeff Johnson's campaign manager, I'll admit that I'm a little biased. That said, Tim Walz called himself a knucklehead during the Vice Presidential debate. Further, it's difficult to say that a DFL governor who's had more than $1,000,000,000 paid out in fraudulent Medicaid claims isn't corrupt. It's important to remember that he hired Pam Wheelock as his Commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Human Services only a couple months into his administration. Walz did that shortly after Tony Lourey resigned as commissioner of Human Services . It's difficult to prove that someone who let fraud happen for 5+ years isn't corrupt and/or incompetent. Tim Walz's administration is famous for virtually no fraud prevention controls. That's how more than $1,000,000,000 in fraudulent Medicaid payments were paid. I wrote here about a repo...

It's indisputable that Nancy Pelosi is an historic figure. It's equally indisputable that her 'accomplishments' will be treated harshly by historians. At the top of her list is the passing of the UNAffordable Act and the 2 impeachments of President Trump. The UNAffordable Care Act is still getting subsidized 15 years after it passed. Count the ACA a spectacular failure for the American people. Of course, ABC wrote a puff piece article without a single dissenting opinion. The article quotes President Obama as saying "No one was more skilled at bringing people together and getting legislation passed -- and I will always be grateful for her support of the Affordable Care Act. She made us proud to be Democrats, and will go down in history as one of the best speakers the House of Representatives has ever had." Pelosi will be remembered as an impactful speaker. History won't be kind, though, in measuring whether her legislative victories improved people's l...

Thank God that Minnesota conservative taxpayers finally have a fulltime watchdog that's watching where their tax dollars are going. The name of this taxpayer watchdog is Alpha News. Thank God for Alpha News's vigilance. According to Alpha News's reporting , "Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Red Wing, recently took to social media to highlight how Minnesota saw a 174% increase in SNAP issuance between fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the largest one-year jump of any state in the nation, according to federal data. 'Granted, this happened during the year of Covid, however no other state has seen anything close to an increase like this,' Altendorf said in a press release." Later in the article, Rep. Altendorf said "No one wants people to go hungry who truly need assistanced. But we also cannot turn a blind eye to potentially massive fraud happening through the SNAP program." That isn’t the only aggravating part about the SNAP program. This is: The USDA found one gu...

Jacob Frey did something that people thought was impossible. Frey won a third straight term as Minneapolis's mayor. Actually, Frey did 2 things that people didn't think were possible. He won a third stright term as Minneapolis's mayor and he defeated Omar Fateh, the so-called Midwest Mamdani. According to Alpha News's reporting , a third amazing thing happened Tuesday night. Alpha reported that "On election night, results from the first round of Minneapolis’ ranked-choice voting system showed Frey with 41.7% of the vote to Fateh’s 31.6%. After the other mayoral contenders were eliminated from the ballot in the second round, ballots were recounted and showed Frey had won with 50.03% of the vote." I didn't see that coming. First off, I didn't know who'd win. Next, I thought that Sen. Fateh would be the one to win early if anyone won early. The chief takeaway is that the Midwest's Mamdani met with a harsh outcome, as did St. Paul's Melvin Car...