Liberty & Prosperity Blog

Thursday afternoon, while I was watching America Reports when an attack ad against Sue Ek. The ad said "Sue Ek is running on a platform that calls for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations which could drive up local taxes and costs for working families. Her party platform also calls for creating massive new sales taxes on everything we buy, including groceries, clothing, and prescription drugs. Their new sales taxes would be used to cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, shifting the burden to the rest of us." I'm calling BS on the Minnesota Values Project. They're the dirtbags that paid for this ad. I'm not just calling BS on the Minnesota Values Project. I'm highlighting the difference between what they said and what Sue Ek is running on for issues. Economy, Business Climate & Affordability for Minnesotans "A strong economy starts with local businesses and hardworking people. I support creating an environment where small bu...

I'm skeptical of media polls but this KSTP/SurveyUSA poll seems more believable than last month's poll. Last month's poll didn't sample likely voters and it had a Margin of Error of 5.6%. This poll sampled 654 Likely voters, which led to a 4.4% MoE. The other noteworthy news from the poll shows Minnesota GOP Attorney General candidate Ron Schutz taking the lead against DFL State Attorney General Keith Ellison. Carleton College Professor Emeritus Steven Schier offers this perspective: Of all the statewide races, the MN AG race seems most impacted by the fraud issue, followed by the MN Auditor's race. Townhall.com journalist Dustin Grage offers this perspective on the MN AG race: 🚨 BREAKING: Ron Schutz (R) is now LEADING Keith Ellison (D) in the Minnesota Attorney Generals race. 🟥 Ron Schutz: 45% 🟦 Keith Ellison: 43% Undecided: 12% Keith Ellison has nearly 100% name ID and is completely underwater. I’m told additional ad buys are coming to this race… pic.twitter....

I'm thrilled to see Michele Tafoya and Lisa Demuth running such smart, aggressive campaigns against Peggy Fraudigan Flanagan and Amy Klobuchar, respectively. Just to show you how aggressive of races they're running, check out Lisa Demuth's tweet showing how aggressive she's getting. In the tweet, she said "One year ago today, Tim Walz announced his (soon to be failed) run for a third term. That day, Amy Klobuchar praised Walz as an 'incredible leader' who 'delivered' for Minnesota. Apparently, Klobuchar thinks record breaking fraud, high taxes, and falling school rankings makes Walz’s policies 'incredible.'" Apparently, Sen. Klobuchar believes in grade inflation. She'd better hope that Minnesotans are generous graders. Personally, I hope they're like the nuns I had as teachers in grade and high school. If she 'gets' the grades she's EARNED , she won't become governor. Minnesotans, DON'T give her a promotio...

Ed Morrissey's article for HotAir opens by saying " I want to believe. I don't ... but I truly want to believe." Ed then continues by saying "A Republican hasn't won a statewide election since Tim Pawlenty's reelection as governor in 2006. No Republican has come very close to winning statewide in Minnesota since then, either. Republicans dodged a credibility bullet in Mike Lindell's overwhelming defeat in their gubernatorial primary, which produced one of their strongest overall tickets in years. Michele Tafoya's nomination for the Senate put the state elections on the national map, and the DFL's nomination of the more radical Peggy Flanagan as her opponent at least gave an opportunity to make things ... interesting." I'd like to politely correct Ed on the Mike Lindell defeat. The GOP didn't dodge "a credibility bullet in Mike Lindell's overwhelming defeat in their gubernatorial primary." After Lindell proposed an ...

While it's difficult to tell how close of a race the Lisa Demuth vs. Amy Klobuchar gubernatorial race is in Minnesota is, we know some things are already true. For instance, we know that Lisa Demuth is a top-tier candidate with the financial support to give Sen. Klobuchar a legitimate fight. Next, we know that Speaker Demuth's education plan is superior to Sen. Klobuchar's excuse for a plan to improve education outcomes. Third, Lisa Demuth isn't taking any grief from Sen. Klobuchar. When Klobuchar puts out an ad that's filled with platitudes and cliches, Speaker Demuth has hit back with subsatantive proposals and ads that question Sen. Klobuchar's abilities to lead. I think it's starting to hit home: New - Minnesota Governor poll 🔵 Klobuchar 47% 🔴 Demuth 45% co/efficient - LV - 9/15 pic.twitter.com/BSZp2i3fAD — Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) September 15, 2026 This poll isn't from a well-known pollster but I trust it far more than, for instance,...

Border Czar Tom Homan confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security is investigating allegations that Rep. Ilhan Omar committed immigration fraud by marrying her brother. Homan is quoted as saying "I’m confirming that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is, yeah, look, I said months ago that it’s something that has been reported and needs to be looked at. I’m not going to comment on ongoing criminal investigations. I know things are going on, but I can’t give specifics of what’s happening. But we’ll see. No one is above the law. We will let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation." Homan appeared Sunday morning on Fox News Channel's ASunday Briefing. He was interviewed by Jacqui Heinrich, one of FNC's senior White House correspondents. Here's the tweet Heinrich posted about the potential investigation: Border Czar Tom Homan says Dem Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is under criminal investigation by HSI for possible immigration/naturaliza...

The DFL is pretending to care about families' budgets. That's a heaping pile of BS. In 2009-10, DFL senators and congressmen voted for higher health insurance premiums by voting for the ACA. Since then, they've voted in lockstep for subsidies for health insurance companies. In March of 2021, when the economy grew at a rate of 6.5% rate, Democrats voted in lockstep for the American Rescue Plan. That gave the U.S. a 9.1% inflation rate in July, 2022. That was the highest inflation rate in 41 years. According to Rep. Tom Murphy's op-ed , "When they passed Minnesota’s 100% carbon-free electricity mandate in 2023, the New DFL promised our state cheaper power. Xcel Energy’s ratepayers are now finding out otherwise. Xcel, the state’s largest utility, has asked regulators for $490.7 million in rate increases over 2025 and 2026, a 13.2 percent jump, and named investments in cleaner electricity generation as a driver. Regulators trimmed the interim increase to 5.2 percent, b...

The verdict is in. Minnesota's public schools are failing Minnesota's students on one of this great nation's worst nightmares. c Tom Emmer's tweet highlighted the problem. He referenced this Lindsey Brown tweet about the fact that "9/11 is no longer mentioned in Minnesota’s social studies standards." Reporter Pilar Pedraza reported that parents are worried about Minnesota's Social Studies Standards, reporting "When state edudcators and parents got together to rewrite the state's social studies standards, they made a couple of major changes. They moved from referencing specific events like 9/11, the Civil War, the Cuban Missile Crisis to focusing on broad strokes, eras and themes. Educators say that the goal is to push teachers to provide more context and to get students to ask more of their own questions. I'm questioning whether that's the goal. It sounds more like an attempt to create storylines rather than teaching facts. That's ve...

Education Minnesota just got a new reason to worry about their monopoly on education in Minnesota. Lisa Demuth just unveiled her plan for returning Minnesota to delivering education excellence. It's titled "Lisa Demuth’s Education Comeback Plan for Minnesota." This isn't the slop that Sen. Klobuchar is offering. Instead, it's a plan that she didn't ask Education Minnesota's permission to propose. It's a plan that shouts 'Eliminate EdMinn's failed status quo. Let's install something new that works.' This isn't built on Sen. Klobuchar's tired mantra of 'We just need a little more of the taxpayers' money.' Let's examine what's in the Demuth-Wilson plan for educational excellence. The first priority is to return Minnesota to the Top 10 in the nation: Return Minnesota to the Top 10 Nationally More than half of students across Minnesota’s public schools are still not meeting grade-level standards in math and readi...

When I wrote this article , I included Sen. Klobuchar's first ad in her run for governor. In the ad, she said that she'd "launch a top-to-bottom-audit of state government." It's indisputable that it's a great-sounding line. I'm questioning, though, how committed Sen. Klobuchar is to stopping fraud. Bill Glahn, Minnesota's best fraud investigator, raises some important questions about Sen. Klobuchar's commitment to preventing fraud. In his article, Glahn reported "The ad was put out by the MN Restore Sanity Political Action Committee (PAC). The facts in the ad are easily verifiable. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) put in a request for a direct Congressional appropriation (earmark) for nearly $400,000 for a nonprofit linked to the free-food fraud scandal. It does not appear that the organization received this federal money." Then he dropped the hammer on Sen. Klobuchar: The first two years of Covid (corresponding to Fiscal Years 2021 and...

Either Ryan Winkler is a GOP plant on Friday night's Almanac or he isn't that bright strategically. Ryan Winkler stepped on a rake on Almanac's Roundtable when he said "We need a governor who's ready to show up and start addressing a lot of the issues that have not been -- I mean fraud is one but student achievement hasn't been going well, housing affordbility has not been going well, economic growth has not been going all that well and Gov. Klobuchar, when she's sworn in, her administration will be focused on delivering results." Fritz Knaak replied "Ryan, I agree with you completely that there's all there's all those needs that haven't been met but we've had 8 years of a Democrat governor and that's when all that's happened. So the real question that voters will answer is whether Amy Klobuchar will somehow be different. I would argue 'not at all' and whether they need a change like Lisa. I would think that Lisa ...

In some ways, 9/11/2001 seems like an eternity ago. On days like today, though, the >terrorist attacks seem like moments ago. Let's go through this chronologically. Andy Card notifying President George W. Bush: President Bush was determined to return to the White House. There, he delivered this speech: members of Congress burst into song on 9/11: Iconic picture of President Bush and FDNY firefighter Bob Beckwith: President Bush's speech on 9/20/2001: Years later, Ilhan Omar lied about CAIR: She dishonestly said "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." According to the Holy Land Foundation trial , in which CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator, "A federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all 108 counts against the HLF and its five former officers on November 24, 2008. The federal government proved to the jury that the defendants funneled over $1...

A week+ ago, Larry Kudlow told Michele Tafoya that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't recognize today's DFL because of its hard-left turn away from patriotism and supporting Israel. Speaking at last night's the GOP's first Midterm Convention, RFK JR. said "I am 72 years old, and for 70 years of my life I would have bet any amount of money that I would not be addressing a Republican convention. Ours was a party of strong principles, of clear policies and inspiring idealistic vision for America." Then RFK JR. dropped a nuclear bomb on today's Democrats, saying "During COVID, I watched the Democratic party turn against every one of its essential values, its principles and all the policies that define my party. The Democrats, which were once the champions of the American constitution, systematically obliterated the Bill of Rights. Neither my father nor my uncle would recognize the Democratic party today." Coming from the Kennedy dynasty, saying that JFK and R...

There was a falling-out period between President Trump and Elon Musk, reportedly the world's first trillionaire. Based on this Ed Morrissey article for HotAir.com , that feud appears to be short-lived. Ed notes that "This also makes sense, though, because Democrats in all four states are trying to pretend moderation with radical/progressive candidates. That includes Ohio, where the ad from Musk's super PAC is already running against Sherrod Brown's comeback bid." This is the ad that Musk's super PAC is running against Sherrod Brown: New — Elon Musk's super PAC America PAC is going up with its first connected TV ad of the cycle. It's against Sherrod Brown in #OHSen . pic.twitter.com/vEbIc88J9w — Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) September 8, 2026 The first set of ads are in GOP-held Senate seats. The first rule is to lock down your most vulnerable seats, then try to flip the other side's seats to your side. The bad news for the Democrats is that th...

It's sickening each year to hear that the DFL supports the men and women who organized labor unions. Each year, we're forced to listen to them talk about things they did decades ago. This is an instance of what've you done for me lately? This year, Peggy Flanagan posted this tweet , which says "Happy Labor Day, Minnesota! Today, we reflect on the ordinary people who organized to fight for their families and fellow workers. We will keep fighting alongside our brothers and sisters in labor unions to make Minnesota the best place to live, work, and raise a family." That's what a robotweet that doesn't mean a thing says. Who cares if the DFL fights with you for the right to organize if the DFL governor then signs an executive order prohibiting new mining? The message is clear. You're allowed to organize as long as you don't complain when we shut down union jobs on the Iron Range. Who cares about organizing if there aren't any jobs. This is classic ...

Michele Tafoya, fresh off 2 important endorsements (the Minnesota Farm Bureau and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association), is well-positioned in terms of Cash on Hand and important endorsements. Meanwhile, Miranda Devine opines that "Democrats are assisting greatly by shooting themselves in the feet with weird policies and even weirder candidates. Whether it’s rejecting voter ID, abolishing prisons, defunding police or allowing men to play in women’s sports, they seem to be on the wrong side of popular opinion on just about everything. All they have on their side is Trump derangement and the increasingly implausible ruse that they represent a 'return to normalcy.'" Democrats aren't just shooting themselves in the foot. They're having weirdos like Abdul el-Seyed and Peggy Fraudigan Flanagan tell the masses that they're normal. Flanagan insists that Tim Walz was solely responsible for the rampant Medicaid fraud. When Tim Walz was specializin...

Minneapolis violence is getting worse week-by-week. Now, this KSTP article reports that Megan Stuart is living in fear because a bullet ripped through her condo's window just feet from her head while she slept early Saturday morning. She explained what happened to KSTP reporter Ben Henry in this interview: As part of the report, Stuart told Henry "If the bullet was a couple feet that way, I was sleeping, and like … I hate to even think about that." Later, she said "Whether that be extra cameras, lights over here, more patrols, like, and it has to be not just moving the crowd for an hour. It has to be like moving them permanently." I feelsad for Ms. Stuart. There was a time when people were civilized, when people felt safe, even after dark. That's gone. After George Floyd's death, which was emblematic of Minneapolis's bigger problem, calls for reimagining the police came frequently. In Minneapolis, that really meant returning to doing policing right....

During Mark Ritchie's time in office at Minnesota's Secretary of State, I coined the phrase "It's impossible to find what you refuse to look for." According to this Daily Signal article , that saying is apparently as true of the Merrick Garland-Joe Biden DOJ. According to the article, "In less than two years, federal prosecutors in the Trump administration charged about four times as many noncitizens with election fraud crimes as the Biden Justice Department in the entirety of the four-year term." To put this in perspective, "During the four years of the Biden administration under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department brought charges against 13 noncitizens for illegal voting-related offenses. Of those, nine defendants were found guilty, including two whose voter fraud charges were dismissed as part of plea agreements." In other words, the Biden-Garland DOJ didn't vigorously prosecute this type of fraud. That fits with the...

When Donald Trump endorsed Mike Lindell to be Minnesota's next GOP governor, the reaction was swift and unambiguous. Minnesota rejected Lindell, especially after Lindell proposed amnest for illegal aliens. That especially ripped it with lots of MAGA people who might've otherwise supported Lindell. This was especially true on social media, where people vehemently rejected amnesty. Trump's ability to control the GOP is diminishing. Here's a perfect example of that willingness to say "NO!" STOP GIVING AWAY WORKING PEOPLE’S MONEY This is not conservative. This is not sound money policy. This is not MAGA. This is the Democrat playbook of giving some people a bunch of free stuff paid for by a bunch of other people who work for it. https://t.co/tA600YT4Ko — EJ 😊 (@EJUnderTheRadar) September 5, 2026 This isn't 'Let's make a deal' or 'Anything goes.' J.D. Vance is a smooth talker but he's worthless on policy. If he runs when Trump's t...

Dustin Grage reports "Again, Ken Paxton was never in any real danger of losing in November. Now, MAGA Inc. has come in with a $10 million ad reservation to ensure this seat stays in Republican hands. The NRSC should be throwing money at this seat as well. But if they don’t have to, I hope they use those resources to expand the map. Michigan and Minnesota are in play." Michigan and Minnesota are in play, almost to the point where I'd move them from leans Democrat to toss-up. I won't go farther than that YET but Democrats have lost their momentum in both states. Again, Ken Paxton was never in any real danger of losing in November. Now, MAGA Inc. has come in with a $10 million ad reservation to ensure this seat stays in Republican hands. The NRSC should be throwing money at this seat as well. But if they don’t have to, I hope they use… — Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) September 5, 2026 This is why I'm optimistic about Minnesota: There is just something happening in...