In a letter from Dec. 19, every Democrat from Minnesota’s congressional delegation asked the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to prioritize aid to Somalia.
Citing recent flooding and torrential rains in Somalia, the Democrats asked USAID to “keep aid to Somalia at the forefront of your operations.”
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Representative Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) introduced a resolution to deem January 6 “Democracy Day.” The resolution is also supported by Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), saying that she is an “original cosponsor.”
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Several Minnesota Democrat legislators made statements on the one year anniversary of January 6, 2021, where several protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during the certification of the 2020 presidential election. All the remarks held a common theme, calling out the event as “insurrection” and an “attack on democracy.”
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The Minnesota Democrat Farmer Laborer Party (DFL) released a statement on Friday, criticizing all the Republican gubernatorial candidates for their stances on abortion, saying “Abortion rights are under attack at the national level.” The DFL was referencing the Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson, where the state of Mississippi is challenging Roe v. Wade.
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Minnesota’s Democrat lawmakers responded to the first Omicron COVID case detected in Minnesota. To date, the case is only the second diagnosed case of the Omicron variant in the nation. The man who tested positive for Omicron was fully vaccinated and had just gotten his booster shot in early November. He contracted the virus while attending a conference in New York City in mid-November, Alpha News reported.
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In a statement released Monday, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) called on Israel to “end its military occupation” of Palestinian lands. McCollum said she was “standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
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Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) responded to the revelation that a Biden Administration air strike killed 10 Afghan citizens. McCollum said, “The killing of Mr. Ahmadi and his family members was not an accident, it was deadly military malpractice.”
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Congressman Jeff Van Drew issued a statement, calling for President Biden, Vice-President Harris, and Speaker Pelosi to resign following the fall of Afghanistan. Van Drew is a former Democrat who switched parties in 2018. Congressman Van Drew’s official statement reads, “President Biden’s decision to simply hand Afghanistan back to the Taliban after almost twenty years to the day since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, will go down as one of the most shocking and embarrassing failures of leadership in American history.”
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Over the weekend, Democratic candidate John Thompson spoke at a Black Lives Matter protest by the home of police union leader Lt. Bob Kroll. Thompson recently won the Democratic primary for District 62A in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Multiple video coverages of Thompson’s seven-minute speech show him calling for violence against the “racists” of Hugo, Minnesota.
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Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) praised FedEx and Nike for their efforts to pressure the Washington Redskins into changing the team’s “harmful” name and mascot.
“I have been working on this for almost a decade because I believe all people, including Native Americans, should be treated with dignity and respect – and not dehumanized as mascots,” McCollum said in a statement.
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President Donald Trump expressed his support Friday for the hundreds of Minnesotans who gathered outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul to protest Gov. Tim Walz.
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Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) said this week that President Donald Trump is “willfully ignorant” regarding the threat of a coronavirus outbreak in the United States.
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Gov. Tim Walz sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week expressing his opposition to “any agreement resulting in the deportation of Hmong and Lao Minnesotans.”
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Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) a “hate group” in a Wednesday statement after the lobbying firm ran negative ads about her on Facebook.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) said she was “outraged” with President Donald Trump for his decision to “assassinate” Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, a designated terrorist organization.
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More than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that he immediately fire senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose “affinity for white nationalism” was the subject of a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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Former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) the “most important member of the U.S. Congress” in a Thursday tweet. Duke’s statement comes amid a tumultuous week for the House’s Democratic majority, which struggled to unite around a resolution condemning Omar’s anti-Semitic comments. As The Minnesota Sun reported Wednesday, House Democrats were prepared to vote on a resolution that was drafted in response to Omar’s controversial comments, but the vote ultimately fell apart after Omar’s progressive allies rallied to her defense. Now, Democratic leaders have prepared a new resolution that broadly condemns all forms of hate, which was overwhelmingly passed late Thursday afternoon. Throughout the affair, Duke, a fervid anti-Semite, praised Omar for her criticisms of the Israeli state. “Ilhan Omar is now the most important member of the U.S. Congress,” he wrote on Twitter. “I made this provocative statement cause the worst enemy of the USA, Europeans, and the Middle East and the whole world and true peace are the Zionist tyrants who rule media and politics. Sadly, this 100lb girl has more guts than any white member of Congress.” https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/1103766675223130112 Omar’s Minnesota colleagues struggled to navigate the debate, and some, such as Sen.…
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Two of Minnesota’s most prominent politicians, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), are backing the controversial Green New Deal, but Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) is conspicuously missing from the list of House sponsors. The House version of the resolution currently has 67 co-sponsors, including McCollum, who has received $52,733 in campaign contributions from environmental groups over the course of her career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Klobuchar, who is expected to declare candidacy for president Sunday, is one of 10 co-sponsors of the Senate resolution, which has the backing of other presidential hopefuls, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that Klobuchar has received $220,463 from environmental groups throughout her career. Omar is a public ally of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14), the resolution’s chief author, and was an early advocate of the Green New Deal. Omar, however, currently isn’t listed as a co-sponsor of the resolution. She addressed her support of the Green New Deal in a statement Thursday, but seemed to take issue with the fact that it is just a resolution rather than actual legislation. “We need to…
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) rejected President Donald Trump’s offer Saturday to provide temporary protections for DACA recipients in exchange for border-wall cash, and Minnesota’s congressional delegation promptly followed suit. “Democrats were hopeful that the president was finally willing to re-open government and proceed with a much-needed discussion to protect the border. Unfortunately, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total do no represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives,” Pelosi said in a statement, which was released before Trump delivered his remarks. Pelosi called Trump’s proposal a “non-starter,” taking issue with the fact that it didn’t “include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] recipients that our country needs and supports.” Minnesota’s DFLers fell in line Saturday afternoon, saying they wouldn’t negotiate on border security until the government reopens. “While I welcome many elements of the president’ proposal, negotiations cannot begin during a shutdown,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) wrote on Twitter. “I believe a bipartisan deal can be reached that satisfies our need for enhanced border security and immigration reform, but government must be reopened for that…
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Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) recently introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would make health care a right for all American citizens. The Health Care for All Amendment, H.J. Res. 17, is currently co-sponsored by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI-02) and states “health care, including care to prevent and treat illness, is the right of the people and necessary to ensure the strength of the nation.” “The Congress shall have power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation,” the amendment states. In a press release announcing the amendment, McCollum bashed “the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans” for “actively and intentionally sabotaging our health care system,” while stating that “pharmaceutical companies are gouging consumers to extract huge profits.” “Strengthening the Affordable Care Act, expanding federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, protecting women’s reproductive rights, and working to build a system of universal health coverage are some of the steps Congress must take to ensure that the American people have the assurance and stability they deserve when it comes to receiving health care,” McCollum said. She went on to lament the treatment of health care as “a commodity driven by profit” that should not have to “be restricted or rationed according…
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Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), a Catholic, has a rating of 100 percent from the pro-choice organization NARAL, and a corresponding zero percent from National Right to Life. According to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberty, McCollum has voted with pro-choice causes 100 percent of the time. Between 2015 and 2016, McCollum voted against 15 pro-life bills in Congress, as did Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who is Lutheran. NARAL touts McCollum’s perfect score on its website, providing a list of the dozens of pro-life bills she has opposed. While a U.S. congressman, Walz also earned a score of 100 percent from NARAL. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN-06) is currently the only Catholic Minnesotan member of Congress with a pro-life record, and has a National Right to Life score of 100 percent. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN-08) is also “steadfastly pro-life” and Catholic, but doesn’t have a voting history as a freshman member of Congress. “The 163 Catholics in the new Congress are split on abortion: almost all Republicans are pro life and almost all Democrats are abortion-rights advocates,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a press release. “It is obvious that religion is not a reliable predictor of the way…
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