Liberty & Prosperity Blog

It's decision time on Iran's cease-fire. What started out as a 2-week cease-fire is now approaching a 2-month cease-fire. It's time for Donald Trump to decide if the IRGC dies this week or if they get yet another undeserved reprieve. Mark Levin's op-ed lays things out properly, saying "When we suddenly hit the brakes and called off the planned military operation against the Iranian regime, it was clear that something was going on. We gave the regime 2-3 days to come to some arrangement that presumably includes no nukes. What does no nukes mean? Are their scientists going to forget what they developed? How long can we keep that in a box? What happens to the enriched uranium? We are told: 1. they have enough to make 10 bombs in 11 days, and 2. that it takes a matter of weeks to further enrich uranium from 60% to 90% nuclear grade. What about the plutonium, which no one is talking about?" The Trump administration's standard defense of their strategy has cons...

[It isn't a stretch to think that Minnesota desperately needs a campaign that drags it, kicking and screaming if needed, into the 21st century. A perfect example of this disgusting crisis-of-choice known as school shootings. I used to think that preventing school shootings was a bipartisan goal. I don't think that anymore, especially after watching Rep. Hudson's latest Closing Argument podcast . During a floor session, Rep. Hudson asked Rep. Engen about Rep. Engen's school safety initiative based on Lakeville's system. Rep. Engen said that the system in Lakeville had installed brought the NRA and Moms Demand Action together. That's the rarest of rarities. Then Moms Demand Action withdrew their letter of support when political pressure increased. Rep. Engen then said that he was told that someone didn't want him to gain a political victory. That's disgusting! I've been writing about the need to push MNSCU into the 21st century since 2012. Back then, ...

According to this Strib article , "Aaron Brutger pleaded to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. He is running in the open Senate District 13 seat in central Minnesota." Further, the Strib reported "A GOP-endorsed state Senate candidate from central Minnesota was arrested in 2009 after his former fiancee told police he had slammed a car door on her legs and strangled her until she lost consciousness during an argument. Prosecutors charged Aaron Brutger, who was 26 at the time, with one felony count of domestic assault by strangulation and one misdemeanor count of domestic assault. As part of a plea agreement three months later, Brutger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct." I've been told by a loyal reader of this blog who lives in SD-13 that the judge fined Brutger $50 in addition to Brutger pleading guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Further, Kelly Martini had announced her candidacy for Jeff Howe's seat. That means that...

Sunday night at midnight was the adjournment of Minnesota's legislative sessions in the Minnesota House and Minnesota Senate before this year's midterm elections. Because the DFL's gun control bill went down to defeat, it marked Gov. Tim Walz's final signature defeat . Gov. Walz pushed hard for the assault weapons ban legislation. He fell far short. Alpha News reported "Walz pushed for the package of gun-control laws, which included a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms and a prohibition on so-called 'ghost guns' after the shooter opened fire during a back-to-school mass held at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on the morning of Aug. 27, killing two children and wounding many more before committing suicide." This touched off the DFL's biggest meltdowns. Aisha Gomez, the House DFL Taxes Comittee Co-Chair, charged at Rep. Elliott Engen, making several inappropriate comments. The comments were inappropriate, though not surprising. The DFL...

It's apparent that DFL senators either don't have a clue about foundational constitutional principles or they don't care about the Constitution. I'm betting that some DFL senators never learned about the Constitutions that they've sworn to protect and uphold. Likewise, I'm certain that other DFL senators don't care about foundational constitutional principles like Separation of Powers. This Minnesota Reformer article reports that "The Minnesota Senate on Monday approved a package of bills aimed at reining in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after more than 3,000 federal agents descended on Minnesota for what the Department of Homeland Security called its largest immigration enforcement operation ever." The bill means nothing. The Minnesota state government doesn't control federal ICE or Border Patrol agents any more than cities have the right to tell state troopers what to do. Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, jumped into the...

It isn't that surprising that the House DFL staged a lengthy sit-in with the hope of forcing a vote on an assault weapons ban. Fox9's article reports "The sit-in began Thursday night after the House ended its session without voting on the Senate’s gun safety bill. About two dozen DFL lawmakers immediately started the protest, which was supposed to wrap up Friday morning, but was extended to Saturday at noon." Further, Fox9 reports that "The protest is a response to Republican leadership not acknowledging the bill, which passed the Senate eleven days ago. The bill aims to ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, ghost guns, and binary triggers. It also includes funding for school safety and mental health support." The dirty little secret is that the bill would pass unanimously or close to it if the DFL left out the assault weapons ban and the high-capacity magazines provisions from their annual assault weapons ban legislation. That would make the bill c...

Reading this Executive Summary eliminates any doubt whether the DFL was interested in fraud within the Walz administration. The Executive Summary's 7 bullet-points accused "senior officials in Governor Walz’s office, DHS and Attorney General Ellison’s office knew that large-scale fraud was likely occurring in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP)." Further, it said that "The Walz Administration ignored and consciously downplayed shocking levels of fraud across more than a dozen Medicaid waiver programs, including EIDBI/Autism, Emergency Medical Transportation (EMT), Integrated Community Supports (ICS), sober homes, Adult Day Care, Assisting Living Services, and many others." The Executive Summary continued, saying "Governor Walz created a culture that enabled fraud by failing to hold anyone in his administration accountable, despite years of credible whistleblower and OLA reports and actual federal criminal indictments and convictions. Instead of addres...

The DFL's hostility towards people of faith hasn't been stronger than with various prison ministry organizations. That's why this Alpha News article quickly caught my attention. Accordidng to the article, "In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 ruling that allowed Schmitt to resume teaching the course until the matter is fully adjudicated. Now, the law firms representing Schmitt have announced that a settlement has been reached in the case. Those law firms are the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC) and True North Legal, which is the legal arm of the Minnesota Family Council." Predictably, Minnesota's DOC isn't thrilled with the settlement. Instead, they said "According to the lawsuit, a DOC leader told Schmitt that his program 'conflicts with the diversity, equity, and inclusivity values' of DOC and 'teaches participants about manhood through a lens of discrimination, exclusivity, gender biases, and stereotypes.'" Who car...

DFL Rep. Dave Pinto apparently thinks that hearing DFL whistleblowers from Minnesota's Department of Human Services testify before the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee isn't the definition of bipartisanship. According to this Alpha News article , "DFL Reps. Dave Pinto and Emma Greenman disagreed with Robbins’ comments, with Pinto saying the committee 'achieved nothing' and was a forum for 'partisan presentation after partisan presentation' while other committees worked on anti-fraud legislation." Rep. Pinto either isn't that bright or isn't that honest. That testimony alone makes the Committee's work bipartisan. If Rep. Pinto didn't like the content of these DFL whistleblowers' testimony, he should've objected to Gov. Walz's turning a blind eye towards the massive Medicaid fraud that's been prosecuted. Better yet, Rep. Pinto should've criticized Gov. Walz allegedly retaliating against these...

This afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from someone that I hadn't talked to in ages. Before long, just as with the past, we were talking politics, this time focused on St. Amy of Hennepin County, more formally known as Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Since Sen. Klobuchar is running from Washington, DC for governor here in Minnesota, I mentioned that Sen. Klobuchar wasn't that skilled in economic policy. At the state level, you're dealing with the nuts-and-bolts of economic issues, whereas you're dealing with macro economic issues. What does Sen. Klobuchar know about property taxes, license tab fee renewals, school district debt and tax policies? It took Sen. Klobuchar 3 months to talk about tackling Medicaid fraud. When she talked about fraud, she sought mostly to distance herself from Tim Walz , which is a tacit admission that Gov. Walz got fraud badly wrong! The MN Reformer reported "Anticipating the Walz third-term attack, Klobuchar distanced herself f...

It's often true that satisfied or complacent voters often get their a$$es handed to them. According to Jonathan Turley's NY Post op-ed , the Democrats' redistricting failure had exposed "the ambitions of Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic establishment, which tossed aside any pretense of principle in a raw political gambit." Let's not forget Hakeem Jeffries battle-cry of "Eff around and find out" didn't age well. Truthfully, it died because Virginia's Supreme Court, aka SCOVA, tossed the vote aside like a rag doll. Apparently, Democrats effed around and got humiliated by SCOVA. It isn't difficult to understand why Virginia's Supreme Court, aka SCOVA, ruled against Virginia's Democrats while utterly humiliating Hakeem Jeffries and Abigail Spanberger. Democrats spent north of $70,000,000 to win this referendum. They brought in all the big stars to amp up turnout, too. After the dust settled, SCOVA ruled that Virginia Democra...

Minnesota WAS a civilized state to live. It isn't anymore because Minnesota established itself as a welcoming state more than a generation ago. Minnesota became known as a soft-on-crime state in the late 1980s. That's when Willie Horton was given a weekend out of prison. That weekend, Horton murdered a woman while he wasn't locked up in prison like he was supposed to be. That incident led to Gov. Michael Dukakis losing his opportunity to be POTUS. Shortly thereafter, Minnesota gained the reputation of being a soft-on-crime state, with Minneapolis becoming known as Murderapolis. That's why I'm not surprised by this article . According to the article, "In 2012, Jennifer Nibbe pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of her husband, James 'Jim' Nibbe, inside their Blue Earth County home near Lake Crystal, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Leslie Johnson, Jim’s sister, told Alpha News the family was recently contacted by the Minnesota Department of Correct...

I'll give KARE11 credit for being truthful about a bill passed by Minnesota Senate Democrats. According to the KARE11 article , "The Minnesota Senate approved a sweeping legislative package on Monday to place limits on federal immigration authorities in the wake of Operation Metro Surge, although the bill has little chance of becoming law this session due to Republican opposition in the tied House." The string of irrelevant or unconstitutional DFL bills is lengthy. It's time that the DFL show more respect for the U.S. Constitution. States don't tell the federal government what they must or can't do. All state laws MUST conform with federal laws, especially when the laws pertain to immigration and naturalization. This bill is considered a messaging bill. It isn't a serious bill. It's meant to send a message to Minneapolis voters. The message that this bill sends to the people of Minneapolis is that DFL politicians don't care about the safety of the...

Saying that the DFL's Medicaid fraud scandal is this year's biggest political story of 2025-26 isn't overstatement. This KSTP article explores a new aspect to this fiasco. KSTP's Kirsten Swanson reports that "The praise rolled in for the team working on Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program. Launched in 2020, it was designed to help people with disabilities, seniors and individuals struggling with mental illness and substance abuse find and keep housing. But in just five years, demand for the Medicaid-reimbursed service had created a backlog within the state’s Department of Human Services (DHS). Employees working on the program were lauded for working overtime to clear it." Ms. Swanson then reported that "To reward their efforts, DHS paid bonuses to nine program staff and eligibility specialists, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000, according to data obtained by 5 INVESTIGATES. Three months later, the program collapsed." This was 1 of 14 prog...

With this 4th of July being the 250th anniversary of this great nation's birth, it isn't surprising that a bunch of Independence Day-themed books have popped up. Thus far, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's book is the best children's book on our nation's birth while Bret Baier's book is the best book for adults on Independence Day. Today, though, I'm focused on Justice Gorsuch's WSJ op-ed on what makes our nation great. Justice Gorsuch opened the op-ed by saying "The Declaration of Independence is a short document, not much longer than this essay. Even so, it contains three ideas that shocked the world in 1776: Each of us is born equal; God grants us all inviolable rights, including the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and 'We the People' have the right to govern ourselves. " Hubert Humphrey once said that the U.S. is the only nation that set happiness as a national goal. That's why he's known as the Hap...

Guaranteed Winning Option...Do It for the Kids! by Ramblin’ Rose Win-Win...(at least it should be)...for students, parents, and taxpayers. A new permanent federal program will launch on January 1, 2027. The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) is funded entirely by private donations. IF the governor of the state opts-in, it allows taxpayers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to $1700 per taxpayer for donations to approved non-profit scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) in their state. Gov. Walz stands vehemently opposed to this program, falsely calling it a "voucher" program. In his supplemental budget proposal, he threatens to end all nonpublic support and transportation aid if Minnesota opts to participate in the federal scholarship program. If the governor does not agree to participate in the program, taxpayers may make the donation for the tax credit, funding scholarships for students in other participating states. Minnesota’s students would be ineligible. Th...

Let's hope that Tim Walz is as terrible at predicting election outcomes as he is at preventing Medicaid fraud. Then, too, let's hope that Tim Walz is as terrible at predicting election outcomes as he is prolific at lying. According to this Alpha News article , " Walz commented on a Washington Post op-ed which argued that Republicans could lose the nationwide redistricting fight. In his social media post , Walz said 'Minnesota is going to have a trifecta next year… just saying.'" In response "to Walz’s post, GOP state Rep. Harry Niska said, 'If Minnesota Democrats win another trifecta, their extremism in the name of ‘fighting Trump’ will be boundless. Believe them.'" If the DFL/DSA win another trifecta, Minnesota will be finished as a state. We'll have more rounds of income tax hikes, property tax hikes, more Medicaid fraud stolen from OUR WALLETS and spending on programs that don't work like Paid Family Medical Leave. Parents, think ...

Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court, aka SCOVA, handed Democrats a stinging defeat in their attempt to change their congressional district maps. According to the report, "Democrats were dealt a blow in their efforts to minimize Republican redistricting gains around the US when the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday blocked a voter-approved map that would have flipped as many as four GOP-held US House seats in November’s midterm elections. In a 4-3 decision, the state’s highest court ruled on Friday that the legislature’s process for pursuing the new map violated Virginia’s Constitution and ordered that an earlier version be used in the upcoming midterm elections." It isn't likely that Virginia will appeal today's ruling since it was based on state law. The U.S. Supreme Court, aka SCOTUS, only rules on federal issues like civil rights or the US Constitution’s equal protection clause. That would give SCOTUS an opening, though the Roberts Court prefers staying out of parti...

It isn't exactly a well-kept secret that Salena Zito is my favorite political beat reporter. When she reports on a story, she reports from the location of the election. In Salena's latest report , she reported "Going into Tuesday night, both the local and national press professed doom for Trump’s fortunes and influence, with headlines from Politico reading 'Trump’s redistricting revenge tour in Indiana isn’t going so well.' The reporter openly mocked the attendance at a Turning Point USA rally with conservative activist Scott Pressler, showing shots of a handful of people attending as proof that the effort was flailing." The so-called experts miss their predictions because they didn't spend a week in, for instance, Indiana talking to people. Without that, you've got nothing substantive. At that point, to use a longtime friend's phrase, are SWAG, aka Statistical Wild Ass Guesses. You don't have data. Salena's report continues, reporting ...

Apparently, the DSA, formerly known as the DFL until it turned full-blown socialist, has a blueprint for fixing Minnesota's affordability crisis. Based on repeated events in recent past history, the DFL intends on raising your property taxes and your license tab fees. Affordability will be a significant issue but it isn't the biggest issue. The biggest issue by far is fraud. According to this Alpha News article , the DFL will have to lie to win elections this November. It reports that a "new poll from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce shows that 67% of Minnesotans feel that state taxes are too high. Additionally, almost half of those surveyed (47%) said their personal finances have gotten worse in the past year." Gov. Walz, aka Gov. the buck stops with me, has already blamed the Trump administration for bad policies. Never mind the fact that the DFL Trifecta foolishly spent away the entire $18,000,000,000 projected surplus, then passed a tax bill that hiked taxes an...

After reading this Alpha News article , it's painfully apparent that Tim Walz will do anything to prevent the DFL Commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Human Services from testifying before the House Fraud and Oversight Committee. Shireen Ghandi was scheduled to testify tomorrow. It was expected that Acting Commissioner Ghandi tough questioning from Republicans throughout the hearing. This isn't the first time Gov. Walz reshuffled DHS upper management the day before a hearing of the Committee. Like I said, Gov. Walz will do anything to avoid his employees from testifying. Alpha News quoted House Speaker Lisa Demuth as saying "Recycling the same failed staff will not root out fraud — only wholesale change will. Fraud will continue until the Walz administration takes the problem seriously." Let's get serious for a minute. For Tim Walz, this is purely performative. The DFL is getting their butts kicked on the fraud issue. This isn't the battlefield the DF...

I'm certain that Ed Morrissey speaks for me when Ed said "Perhaps we can call this A Tale of Two Trumps. One Donald Trump appeared to grasp the necessity of staring down an Iranian regime that has never honored an agreement. The other Donald Trump announced late yesterday that he had ordered the suspension of Project Freedom, a purely defensive effort to reopen an international waterway, on the off chance that Ahmad Vahidi might agree to negotiate on Pakistan's terms..." The difference between me and Ed is that I won't be as diplomatic as Ed was. NOTE: Ed didn't exactly pull his punches. Ed said "To call this puzzling is to engage in vast understatement. Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth had just rolled out Project Freedom yesterday morning. Hegseth and Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Dan Caine had emphasized repeatedly that the US Navy was limited to just reopening an international waterway that shouldn't have been shut in the first place. Additionally,...

According to this Fox9.com article , "The Minneapolis City Council’s Committee of the Whole voted unanimously to send a proposed gun control ordinance to the full council for a vote on Thursday. The ordinance would ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and ghost guns in the city." Later in the article, it said "During a public hearing, almost everyone who spoke supported the ordinance. Many were parents of Annunciation School students, who are still struggling to cope after the August 2025 mass shooting. One man, who survived being shot four times at a birthday party, also spoke about being haunted by the experience. The hearing highlighted the emotional toll gun violence has taken on families and survivors in the community." When a newspaper or news station refers to gun violence, it's said with the intent of portraying the gun, an inanimate object, as the villain in a crime. This isn't accidental. It's done to establish a bad guy for the situati...

Jamie Long isn't a talented legislator. The fact is that his biggest value is his ability to weave word salads. I initially wrote this article to talk about the Minnesota Senate passing a gun control bill. The article wound up highlighting Rep. Jamie Long's word-salad-weaving abilities. In this article, which you might consider a 'Part II' of the series, I'll highlight Rep. Long's word-salad-weaving abilities. HINT: He's exceptionally talented at that. In Part I, Rep. Long gave usa word salad saying "Mr. Chairman, we have 1 month left of session and, instead of focusing on the things Minnesotans are asking us to do, like deal with cost-of-living, like deal with gun violence prevention, the Republicans are proposing that we use that remaining time in partisan attacks." In Part II, Long blustered "You all want to use the next month that we have available in committee, even on the floor, basically platforming Republican campaign speeches when we...

If I said that I was surprised that the Senate DFL passed an assault weapons ban , I'd be lying. The truth is that this is their annual assault weapons ban push or, as I put it, the DFL's annual show that they're unwilling to care about U.S. Supreme Court, aka SCOTUS, rulings. In this instance, the most-relevant SCOTUS ruling is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Brouen. Acccording to Brouen, "It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the people” whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. And no party disputes that handguns are weapons "in common use" today for self-defense. Assault weapons are designed for self-defense. With the onslaught of soft-on-crime Democrat presidents, Soros-funded DAs and defund-the-cops Democrats, sales of handguns, AK-47s and AR-15s exploded. According to the Alpha News article, "The Minnesota Senate passed sweeping gun control...

It took Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (DFL-MN), 3 months for her first press availability . That reminded me that Joe Biden waited a year to hold his first presidential press conference. What's most astonishing is that Sen. Klobuchar took 3 months to offer a rehash of the GOP's plan to combat Medicaid fraud. That's frightening in that the top executive needs to make quick decisions on the biggest issues of the day. They don't have 3 months to figure out what to do. It's possible that she didn't have time to hold a press availability while voting almost 20 times to keep the federal government shut down. Further, she voted twice to shut the government down. The first time she voted to shut the government down and keep it shut was over health insurance subsidies to insurance companies. After 43 days of keeping the government shutdown, she joined other Democrats to re-open the federal government. They re-opened the government without getting the health insurance subsidies for...

It's indisputable that every state has a homeless problem to one extent or another. Blue states apparently haven't figured out how to fix this problem because they keep proposing different solutions to fix the problem. As with most things Democrat, the solution appears to be to create another pot into which society pours money. The problem doesn't disappear; it just metastacizes. According to this article , "Minnesota Democrats introduced legislation to prohibit cities from penalizing homeless people who are camping in public areas. The bill would allow homeless individuals to reside at public plazas, sidewalks, parking lots and more." The subtitle is the best part of the article. It says "HF 5004 does not appear to be moving this legislative session." Hooray for that. The bad news is that this will be one of the first bills introduced by a DFL Trifecta legislature in 2027. If you don't want this becoming law, you need to vote and bring 10 other peop...

Not that long ago, there were 2 distinct groups of politicians. The first group were known as patriots. That group was filled with men like JFK, Sam Nunn, Bob Dole, Dwight David Eisenhower, Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The other group were known as happy warriors. This group is smaller. It consists of Paul Wellstone, Jack Kemp, Hubert Humphrey and greatest among them, Ronald Reagan. Today's Democrats aren't anything like those giants. Today's Democrats think only about gaining power, growing that power and shoving things down people's throats. Doing the right thing isn't anywhere near the top of their list. Picture Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid doing the right thing with Obamacare. Picture Tim Walz or Amy Klobuchar banning boys from teenage girls' bathrooms. That isn't happening. Period. Picturing Tim Walz campaigning with a U.S. Senate candidate who unashamedly wears a Nazi tattoo. Better yet, picture Tim Walz calling law enforcement officers ...

Friday night, Almanac/TPT visited St. Cloud to do their show from the SCSU, aka St. Cloud State, campus. Rep. Bernie Perryman was part of the Almanac Roundtable at the end of the show, appearing with Stearns County Commissioner Tarryl Clark, Rep. Dan Wolgamott and former St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis. Early in the Roundtable, Commissioner Clark said that the legislature had better pass the property tax relief bill. There's no disputing the fact that property taxes are rising quickly. The dispute is what's driving the property tax hikes. Rep. Perryman replied, saying that unfunded mandates were a major cause of property tax hikes. DFL politicians often will pass a bill that orders counties, school districts or municipalities to spend money on things that lobbyists have talked the legislators into. It's time for legislators to put families, not lobbyists, first. For the past 2 years, the MNGOP has worked hard on slowing spending. Bernie Perryman has been a vital part of that ef...

DFL politicians won't admit this, but they advocate for socialism. Tim Walz is one of the exceptions. He said "One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness." Actually, socialism is theft. It takes from the earners and gives to the nonproductive. Families with common sense understand that each family has obligations and responsibilities. If you want your kids to be better off than you are, that requires capital formation. Period. Without capital formation, widespread prosperity doesn't exist. In fact, where socialism exists, the middle class doesn't exist. A wise economist once told me that only 2 classes of people exist in socialist nations: oligarchs and serfs. The late, great economist Milton Friedman pointed out to Phil Donahue that the only places where people escape grinding poverty are where they have "largely free trade" and capitalism. Further, he was thoroughly convinced that capitalism was the only system that'd consistently ...