Liberty & Prosperity Blog

Minnesota needs a major discussion on preventing Medicaid fraud. The good news is that 2 major parts of eliminating Medicaid fraud have either been eliminated (Jodi Harpstead) or have announced their retirement at the end of this term (Gov. Tim Walz). While I'm thankful that Harpstead and Gov. Walz won't look the other way on fraud, it's still disturbing to know that others will continue their work of fostering an atmosphere of unaccountability. The best way to establish an atmosphere of accountability, in my opinion, is to install Faye Bernstein as Commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Human Services. Faye Bernstein provided emotional testimony at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. At the hearing Bernstein said "The retaliation and the smear campaign is strong. I was called everything from incompetent to — a favorite is racist. People who speak about fraud at state agencies, the first thing that leadership goes to is racism. And that is very hard to ...

On Sunday, I wrote a post titled Is the DFL failing K-12 students ? In the post, I quoted from Ben Bakeberg's weekly legislative update . In Principal Bakeberg's weekly legislative update, he wrote 'Over time, we’ve moved away from clear standards and meaningful measures of academic readiness. Teachers are handling more classroom disruptions, and that takes away from students who are there to learn. In some cases, it’s becoming a safety issue. Schools are also being stretched thin and have been for some time. There are roughly 65 mandates coming out of St. Paul that districts are expected to follow, many without funding . That forces schools to shift time and resources just to stay in compliance. Meanwhile, spending continues to grow in areas that don’t reach the classroom like the Minnesota Department of Education." With class sizes already too big, St. Paul is requiring schools statewide to shift manpower away from classrooms to pay for other things. That's down...

For years, Minnesota's campaigns have been about personalities, name recognition and a shortage of political talent. It's impossible to look at Tim Walz or Mark Dayton and think that either have enough talent to be worthy of being elected to anything. On the GOP side of things, Commissioner Jeff Johnson is a good policy guy but lacks personality and fundraising abilities. Tim Pawlenty has ppersonality, was iffy on policy and lacked in fundraising ability. That's because he wasn't a solid, reliable conservative. Important Elections, Big Ideas Important elections require big debates on big ideas. In Minnesota, the biggest issues were Medicaid fraud, License tab fee hikes, property tax hikes, unfunded mandates that caused the property tax hikes and repealing the 2023 DFL Trifecta's $10,000,000,000 tax hike. Each of these listed items contributed to Minnesotans' standard of living. Minnesota's standard of living dropped compared to the Dakotas and Iowa. Red stat...

When Savanah Hernandez was attacked outside the Whipple Federal Building, Alpha News MN was the first to report on the incident. Sunday night, I taped the 10:00 news on KSTP and KARE11 to see if they'd covered the event. Both stations whiffed. Monday night, I checked the Fox9 website and found their article on the incident. They reported "The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said it was investigating the incident outside the Whipple federal building on Saturday. Deputies said four people will be charged in connection to Saturday's protest. Deputies say three will be charged in connection to the assault of a journalist and a deputy." According to the Fox9 article, "The fourth individual is set to face charges related to gross misdemeanor obstruction with force against a deputy, the sheriff's office adds." I don't know if this family was charged in Mary Moriarty's jurisdiction in Hennepin County. I'm certain, though, that Assistant AG Harm...

It's apparent that the DFL and their anti-ICE militants won't back down from their harassment of anyone associated with ICE or who is rtporting the truth about the anti-ICE militants. According to Alpha News's reporting, "Turning Point USA (TPUSA) reporter Savanah Hernandez was assaulted by multiple protesters on Saturday outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis during continued anti-ICE demonstrations at the location, video from the incident shows. Hernandez said she was on site to capture B-roll footage from Whipple and wasn’t there to interact with or interview anyone." That's verified by videotaped footage from the Whipple Federal Building . That footage includes multiple people hitting Ms. Hernandez or violently harassing her. This wasn't First Amendment-protected speech. This was violence. This tweet highlights the violence visited upon Ms. Hernandez at the Whipple Building: BREAKING - One of the men who attacked conservative journalist ...

Earlier this week, Gov. Walz published a tweet bragging how Minnesota's K-12 graduation rate had hit a new record high for the second straight year. It didn't take long to discredit Gov. Walz's bragging. I did that in this article , which cites as fact "State assessment data shows reading and math scores have largely stagnated since testing resumed in 2022 (following a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic), with little improvement through 2025." Ben Bakeberg is the principal of the middle school in Jordan, MN. He's also the GOP Co-Chair of the House K-12 Finance Committee. Each week, he sends out a legislative update telling his constituents what happened that week. This week, he wrote "This week, the Governor and legislative Democrats took a victory lap over Minnesota’s high school graduation rate, now just under 85 percent for the 2025 class. We should continue to push for more student success while ensuring the diploma students receive retains its value...