Bob CollinsFact: Wisconsin’s congressional elections are way more interesting than Minnesota’s. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
If you’re a big fan of consistency, happy Constitution Day, the day every year when we find out Americans are no smarter than they were a year ago when they proved — again — they haven’t got a clue about the document they’re quick to cite when asserting their presumed rights. Read more →
The limits on free speech will soon be seen — or not seen, as the case may be — on Red Wing’s Barn Bluff, the western face of which has served for decades as a giant billboard for people who had something to say even though there’s a graffiti ordinance in the city. Read more →
What we have here is the face of communism, a Northwestern PhD candidate insists. Read more →
The anonymous op-ed, paints a truly horrifying picture of a dysfunctional, barely existent executive branch. Read more →
If there are two non-southern states that are mirrors of each other, it’s Massachusetts and Minnesota. So yesterday’s primary election results in the Bay State carry a couple of important messages: the next generation of politicians isn’t waiting their turn, and voters are coming for members of Congress, no matter what party they’re in. Read more →
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jamie, died in the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, wanted to make a point when the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh took a break.
Mission accomplished. Read more →
NBC has something going for it in defending an attack on its station licenses, however. The FCC historically couldn’t care less about ‘serving the public interest’, the mission under which the licenses are issued. Read more →
Brianna Wu, best known for calling attention to misogyny in the gaming industry — and being crucified for it — has a new campaign. She’s running for Congress and today she’s calling out the misogyny of the media, specifically the Boston Globe. Read more →
John McCain left behind a message. Read more →
There’s nothing particularly surprising about President Donald Trump’s rejection of a White House statement praising the late Sen. John McCain on Saturday. What’s surprising is people expected something different. Read more →
A nagging disappointment for me at the death of Sen. John McCain is I barely remember the only encounter I had with him. It was 1980 or so; I was a 24-year old reporter for a great little radio station in a competitive small market who scored some time with him at a Republican fundraiser in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Read more →
Those of us in the news business tend to think the audience is preoccupied with the big stories we deem worth covering. Here’s the reality: most people aren’t. Read more →
Jeff Swenson, of St. Paul Park, is a different sort of Minnesota politician. He won an election in which he wasn’t running.
Read more →
Americans didn’t like health care much until they were set to lose it last year in the initial wave of attempts to rollback the Affordable Care Act.
That should’ve told the Democrats something. It did. Read more →