Does Hagedorn still stand with Trump?

January 12, 2021

Hours after the U.S. Capitol was cleared of the Donald Trump-supporting insurrectionists last Wednesday, Congress took up the job the mob had tried to thwart, the verification of the electoral college vote and the declaration of Joe Biden as the president-elect. Sadly, even after the destruction, the gunfire and the violence, some Republicans clung to their allegiance to Donald Trump and voted to object to the verified election results from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Rep. Jim Hagedorn of Minnesota’s First District was among them. Hagedorn has long been a Trump true believer. In ...

Veterans deserve the best, they should get it

January 11, 2021

President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs has a LOT of work to do to restore trust in the agency — and to do right by the men and women it serves. President Donald Trump has referred to the federal bureaucracy as “the swamp.” The VA may well qualify as the poster child for that. For decades, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, promises have been made that the VA would be cleaned up. It never seems to happen. Let us be clear: Overwhelmingly, the men and women who work at the VA do their very best to serve veterans of military ...

Et Cetera

January 9, 2021

Schmeeckle Foundation Thank you to the Schmeeckle Foundation for their donation of $250,000 toward increasing the availability of child care in Martin County. They have partnered with the Prosper Project and other groups to help existing daycare with additional training and support and to recruit and add new providers to the mix to help chip away at the 170 additional child care slots needed in Martin County. Thank you Schmeeckle Foundation for your continued and generous support of Martin County. Martin County publication Once again the Martin County commissioners have not ...

An attack on democracy

January 7, 2021

President Donald Trump's frustrated and frantic efforts to nullify the results of the 2020 election resulted in a mob scene at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. Hordes of protestors waving Trump banners along with American flags pushed up to, and into, the Capitol, disrupting Congress as it was trying to do its constitutional duty and verify the votes of the electoral college. Many Republicans in Congress were planning to contest the election results that give Joe Biden the win, but the protestors didn't give them the chance. This was an insurrection, an assault on our democracy, on our ...

Law enforcement, first responders are heroes

January 6, 2021

Once again, we have been reminded of how courageously many law enforcement personnel react to their protect-and-serve mandate. On Christmas morning, a bomb exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It had been placed in a recreational vehicle. The perpetrator had placed a loudspeaker in it, from which a few people nearby may have heard a recording warning them of the bomb. Many did not hear that warning. What they did hear was six Nashville police officers who had been alerted to the bomb, rushing from door to door, often in close proximity to the recreational vehicle, telling ...

Cardona must be ready to help students

January 5, 2021

Miguel Cardona, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to become secretary of education, would have a full plate even without COVID-19. But the epidemic has been an education catastrophe, and dealing with the fallout from it simply must be Cardona’s top priority, assuming he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Cardona, whose current job is leading public education in Connecticut, no doubt is painfully aware of the challenge. It centers on the fact that millions of children have been out of their classrooms, sometimes for months at a time, because of the epidemic. There is no substitute ...