Minnesota will join in. The AP reports, “Attorney General Lori Swanson vows Minnesota will be involved in a multi-state lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his decision to end a program protecting young immigrants. Trump’s administration announced Tuesday it would rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects children whose parents brought them into the United States illegally. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit challenging that move. Asked Wednesday whether Minnesota would join that lawsuit, Swanson said she is still examining the facts and the law surrounding former President Barack Obama’s executive order. But Swanson says Minnesota will get involved.”
A movie script-worthy escape story. Al Edenloff of The Forum News Service says: “A 15-year-old Alexandria girl who disappeared a month ago was abducted before managing to escape her captors this week, according to authorities, who arrested three men suspected of kidnapping and sexually assaulting her. The girl, who went missing on Aug. 8, was found Tuesday, fled across a field in Grant County, in western Minnesota, and swam across part of a lake before finding someone to help her, according to Alexandria police. … she got away, after the men went to town for food, leaving her alone for the first time, police said. The girl ran for help, knocking on the doors of several homes and then swimming across part of Thompson Lake to find someone to help her, police said.”
They’re doing this because they don’t want to ban Confederate flags? The AP says, “A central Minnesota school has reversed its ban on flags and banners on vehicles in the school parking lot after students staged a protest. Rocori High School in Cold Spring announced on its Facebook page Wednesday that administrators and student leaders have resolved the issue. As a result, the school will withdraw the new student guidelines that banned flags. WJON-AM reports nearly a dozen pickups displayed the American flag at Rocori to protest the ban. Superintendent Scott Staska says the change came after last spring when Confederate flags began showing up on vehicles in the parking lot.”
MPR’s Paul Huttner doesn’t like what he’s seeing in the track for Hurricane Irma. “Today’s updated forecast tracks for Hurricane Irma give me a sick feeling in my stomach. Florida and/or the southeast U.S. are now increasingly likely to suffer a direct hit from this major, already historic hurricane. … There’s just no way to sugar coat Irma’s projected path. Yes, there is still uncertainty. But both the official track from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and the often trusty European Model (ECMWF) take Irma’s center right over Key Largo, Miami and West Palm Beach Sunday. And the Georgia/South Carolina coasts are also in the official path.”
OMG. Also from MPR: “Mark Mosby went looking for flathead catfish last month on the St. Croix River near Stillwater. He caught one roughly the size of a 9-year-old boy. He and the fish are now in Minnesota’s record books. Mosby of St. Anthony caught, measured and released the new record flathead catfish Aug. 2. It measured 52.5 inches long with a girth of 32 inches the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reported. The fish’s length broke the record for flathead catfish in the DNR’s catch-and-release category. … the fish was estimated to weigh about 70 to 80 pounds … .” Thing’s hideous.
Garrison lets it rip. In an opinion piece picked up by the PiPress, Keillor writes: “The Republic of Texas believes in self-reliance and is suspicious of Washington sticking its big nose in your business. ‘Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.’ So said Sen. Ted Cruz, though not last week. Sunday, on Fox News, Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas would need upward of $150 billion in federal aid for damages inflicted by Harvey. … Conservatives blanch at spending additional billions to subsidize health care for the needy, but a truckload of cash for Texas? No problem. It makes me think that we Minnesotans should get a few billion in federal aid for recovery from the upcoming winter. It is going to be cold. This will cause damage to homes. Drive-in movie theaters and golf courses and marinas will suffer loss of revenue.”
Excuse me?
“Asked Wednesday whether Minnesota would join that lawsuit, Swanson said she is still examining the facts and the law surrounding former President Barack Obama’s executive order. But Swanson says Minnesota will get involved.”
We don’t need no stinking facts and law, eh, Ms. Swanson?
Pandering
Swanson is pandering to the left-wing base of the DFL, whose guiding philosophy is “whatever it takes, by any means necessary.” DACA is an executive order signed by President Obama – it is NOT legislation passed by Congress. Every President has the constitutional authority to rescind the executive orders of his predecessors.
I support the goals of DACA because those kids were long ago granted de facto amnesty by previous Presidents refusing to meaningfully enforce immigration laws. I also support the Constitutional order we have – or should have – in place. What possible legal grounds does Swanson have to challenge this rescission of an executive order? Her only hope is for a left-wing political activist masquerading as a federal judge to impose his legislative agenda by judicial decree.
P.S to Minnpost readers: President Obama said many times that he didn’t have the authority to impose a DACA type order on the country; I saw a video of him just last night saying this at least six times before and after he became President.