The FBI says people who receive racist text messages should continue to report them to federal investigators.
The FBI said that they are aware of the offensive messages received by people in African-American and Black communities around the country and have gotten in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities.
“The reports are not identical and vary in their specific language, but many say the recipient has been selected to pick cotton on a plantation,” the FBI said.
It was reported that the text messages have expanded to high school students, as well as Hispanic and LGBTQIA+ communities. Some recipients reported being told that they had been selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp.
“Although we have not received reports of violent acts stemming from these offensive messages, we are evaluating all reported incidents and engaging with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division,” the FBI said.
Recipients of messages consistent with those described are encouraged to report the details to the FBI by phone at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or online at tips.fbi.gov.
“As always, we encourage members of the public to remain vigilant and report threats of violence or anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement immediately, call their local FBI office, or submit a report to tips.fbi.gov,” the FBI said in a statement.
MPR reports the girlfriend of a man who fatally shot three Burnsville first responders is expected to plead guilty to federal charges of “conspiracy, making false statements during a firearms purchase and straw purchasing.”
KSTP reports a recount is underway in Scott County in the Minnesota House District 54A race.
Bring me the News reports Wisconsin authorities have been in touch with a man accused of faking his own death while kayaking and fleeing to Europe. “To confirm he was safe; he sent police a video of what looked like his apartment, though police were still unsure what country he might be in.”
Via Star Tribune: “A leader in the DFL Party in northern Minnesota is charged with last summer running over and killing a pedestrian on Hwy. 169 and driving off. The next morning, she called 911 to report that she hit an owl or a turkey, according to a criminal complaint.”
Bring me the News reports more than a dozen Minnesotans have gotten sick after eating Wolverine Packing Co. ground beef served at Minnesota restaurants. “The recall has been initiated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) after the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) linked more than a dozen E. coli sicknesses to burgers served at Red Cow locations and the downtown Minneapolis restaurant Hen House Eatery.”
From KDHL’s Pete Hanson: 10 uniquely Minnesota places I’ve embarrassingly never been
The United States presents a paradox: Though the media and public opinion suggest it is a nation deeply divided along partisan lines, surveys reveal that Americans share significant common ground on many core values and political issues.
As a political philosopher, I am deeply concerned about the perceived contrast between the public’s shared political concerns and the high level of polarization that is dividing the electorate.
Sharing common ground on key issues
Despite the prevailing narrative of polarization, Americans frequently agree on essential issues.
For instance, there is widespread support for high-quality health care that is accessible to all and for stronger gun-control regulations. Remarkably, many Americans advocate for both the right to bear arms and additional restrictions on firearms.
There is strong support for fundamental democratic principles, including equal protection under the law, voting rights, religious freedoms, freedom of assembly and speech, and a free press.
On critical issues such as climate change, a majority of citizens acknowledge the reality of human-caused climate change and endorse the development of renewable energy. Similarly, support for women’s reproductive rights, including the right to an abortion, is widespread.
Though Republicans tend to be more concerned about the economy when they vote, both Republicans and Democrats rank it highly as a top political priority. Despite a currently strong economy by many standards, however, supporters of both parties believe the economy is performing poorly.
This fact is likely the result of a combination of pandemic-related factors, from reduced spending and increased saving during the height of the pandemic to lingering inflation, partly triggered by the pandemic. Whatever the reason for this shared pessimism over the economy, it clearly helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election.
Overall, Americans have a positive view of immigration. That sentiment has declined in recent years, however, as most Americans now want to see rates of immigration reduced – Republicans more so than Democrats.
Part of the tension in the nation’s thinking about immigration is likely the result of a political culture that favors sensational stories and disinformation over more sober consideration of related issues and challenges. For instance, much of this election’s discourse over immigration was marred by fictional and bigoted accounts of immigrants eating pets and inaccurate portrayals of most immigrants as criminals. It should be evident that even shared political perceptions aren’t always based on good evidence or reasons.
Despite the existence of so much common ground, Americans see the nation as polarized. Shared values and concerns matter little if constant exposure to disinformation makes it nearly impossible for half the population to sort fact from fiction.
The effect of perception
The perception of division itself can fuel distrust where common ground might otherwise be found among citizens.
Even with substantial consensus on many issues, the perception of polarization often drives public discourse. This misalignment can be exacerbated by partisans with something to gain.
Research shows that when people are told that experts are divided on an issue, such as climate change, it can lead to increased polarization. Conversely, emphasizing the fact of scientific consensus tends to unify public concern and action.
The perception among U.S. voters that they disagree more than they agree can precede and perpetuate discord. Differing political camps begin to perceive each other as foes rather than fellow citizens.
This continued perception that Americans are more divided on issues than we actually are poses an enormous threat to democracy. The biggest threat is that people begin to see even neighbors and family members who vote differently as enemies. Stress about holiday interactions with relatives who voted differently is reportedly leading some people to cancel family gatherings rather than spend time together.
Yet, Americans are still potential allies in a larger fight to realize similar political aspirations. If people are too busy attacking each other, they will miss opportunities to unite in defense of shared goals when threats emerge. In fact, they will fail to recognize the real threats to their shared values while busily stoking divisions that make them increasingly vulnerable to disinformation.
Bridging the gap
Recognizing the public’s shared values is an important step in healing political divides. Philosopher Robert B. Talisse has argued that one way to get started might be refocusing attention on community projects that are nonpolitical but bring together people who don’t normally think of each other as political allies.
This might include, for example, participating in civic or sports clubs, or volunteering to help with local community events. These actions are not overtly politically charged. Rather, they are collaborative in a way that supports community identity rather than partisan identity. It is an exercise in rebuilding civic trust and recognizing each other as fellow citizens, and perhaps even friends, without the tension of partisan politics. Once this trust in each other’s civic identity is healed, it can open a door for meaningful political discussion and understanding of each other’s shared concerns.
If we Americans don’t find ways to recognize our shared values, and even our shared humanity, we won’t be able to defend those values when they are challenged.
Lawrence Torcello is an associate professor of philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
This article is republished from The Conversation.
Election officials in Scott County found a 15-vote difference in DFL Rep. Brad Tabke’s reelection over Republican challenger Aaron Paul after a recount, reports Dana Ferguson of MPR News.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has vetoed the City Council’s measure to create a Labor Standards Board, reports Felicity Dachel of KARE 11.
The state’s largest financial aid program for college students faces a $211 million shortfall, reports the Strib’s Erin Adler.
Via KARE: A supervisor in the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office has been disbarred. “Madsen Marcellus, Jr., who in 2022 was hired by the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office in a supervisory role, has been disbarred in a ruling this week made by the Minnesota Supreme Court.”
A former 3M scientist is speaking out about what the company knew about the harms of PFAS chemicals, reports WCCO-TV’s Erin Hassanzadeh.
The Pioneer Press has an obituary on actor Marilyn Murray, who was known as “The Grande Dame” of Twin Cities theater.
For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group.
A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months.
In case after case, United would refuse to cover care, leaving patients to pay out-of-pocket or go without it. The severity of their issues seemed not to matter.
Around 2016, government officials began to pry open United’s black box. They found that the nation’s largest health insurance conglomerate had been using algorithms to identify providers it determined were giving too much therapy and patients it believed were receiving too much; then, the company scrutinized their cases and cut off reimbursements.
By the end of 2021, United’s algorithm program had been deemed illegal in three states.
But that has not stopped the company from continuing to police mental health care with arbitrary thresholds and cost-driven targets, ProPublica found, after reviewing what is effectively the company’s internal playbook for limiting and cutting therapy expenses. The insurer’s strategies are still very much alive, putting countless patients at risk of losing mental health care.
Optum, its subsidiary that manages its mental health coverage, is taking aim at those who give or get “unwarranted” treatment, flagging patients who receive more than 30 sessions in eight months. The insurer estimates its “outlier management” strategy will contribute to savings of up to $52 million, according to company documents.
The company’s ability to continue deploying its playbook lays bare a glaring flaw in the way American health insurance companies are overseen.
While the massive insurer — one of the 10 most profitable companies in the world — offers plans to people in every state, it answers to no single regulator.
The federal government oversees the biggest pool: most of the plans that employers sponsor for their workers.
States are responsible for plans that residents buy on the marketplace; they also regulate those funded by the government through Medicaid but run through private insurers.
In essence, more than 50 different state and federal regulatory entities each oversee a slice of United’s vast network.
So when a California regulator cited United for its algorithm-driven practice in 2018, its corrective plan applied only to market plans based in California.
When Massachusetts’ attorney general forced it to restrict the system in 2020 for one of the largest health plans there, the prosecutor’s power ended at the state line.
And when New York’s attorney general teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor on one of the most expansive investigations in history of an insurer’s efforts to limit mental health care coverage — one in which they scored a landmark, multimillion-dollar victory against United — none of it made an ounce of difference to the millions whose plans fell outside their purview.
It didn’t matter that they were all scrutinizing the insurer for violating the same federal law, one that forbade companies from putting up barriers to mental health coverage that did not exist for physical health coverage.
For United’s practices to be curbed, mental health advocates told ProPublica, every single jurisdiction in which it operates would have to successfully bring a case against it.
“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole all the time for regulators,” said Lauren Finke, senior director of policy at the mental health advocacy group The Kennedy Forum. The regulatory patchwork benefits insurance companies, she said, “because they can just move their scrutinized practices to other products in different locations.”
Now internal documents show that United, through its subsidiary Optum, is targeting plans in other jurisdictions, where its practices have not been curbed. The company is focused on reducing “overutilization” of services for patients covered through its privately contracted Medicaid plans that are overseen by states, according to the internal company records reviewed by ProPublica. These plans cover some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable patients.
Internal company documents obtained by ProPublica reveal the strategy by Optum, a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, to scrutinize and reduce outpatient mental health care.
United administers Medicaid plans or benefits in about two dozen states, and for more than 6 million people, according to the most recent federal data from 2022. The division responsible for the company’s Medicaid coverage took in $75 billion in revenue last year, a quarter of the total revenue of its health benefits business, UnitedHealthcare.
UnitedHealthcare told ProPublica that the company remains compliant with the terms of its settlement with the New York attorney general and federal regulators. Christine Hauser, a spokesperson for Optum Behavioral Health, said its process for managing health care claims is “an important part of making sure patients get access to safe, effective and affordable treatment.” Its programs are compliant with federal laws and ensure “people receive the care they need,” she said. One category of reviews is voluntary, she added; it allows providers to opt out and does not result in coverage denials.
ProPublica has spent months tracking the company’s efforts to limit mental health costs, reviewing hundreds of pages of internal documents and court records, and interviewing dozens of current and former employees as well as scores of providers in the company’s insurance networks.
One therapist in Virginia said she is reeling from the costly repercussions of her review by a care advocate. Another in Oklahoma said she faces ongoing pressure from United for seeing her high-risk patients twice a week.
“There’s no real clinical rationale behind this,” said Tim Clement, the vice president of federal government affairs at the nonprofit group Mental Health America. “This is pretty much a financial decision.”
Former care advocates for the company told ProPublica the same as they described steamrolling providers to boost cost savings.
One said he felt like “a cog in the wheel of insurance greed.”
Under ALERT
The year 2008 was supposed to mark a revolution in access to mental health care.
For decades, United and other insurers had been allowed to place hard caps on treatment, like the number of therapy sessions. But after Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, insurers could no longer set higher copays for behavioral services or more strictly limit how often patients could get them; insurers needed to offer the same access to mental health care as to physical care. The law applied to most plans, regardless of whether federal or state regulators enforced it.
As access to services increased, so did insurers’ costs. Company documents show United was keenly aware of this threat to its bottom line.
But there was a loophole: Insurers could still determine what care was medically necessary and appropriate.
Doing so case by case would be expensive and time-consuming. But United already had a tool that could make it easier to spot outliers.
Called ALERT, the algorithmic system was created years earlier to identify patients at risk of suicide or substance use. The company redeployed it to identify therapy overuse.
Company and court filings reveal that ALERT comprised a suite of algorithms — totaling more than 50 at one point — that analyzed clinical and claims data to catch what it considered unusual mental health treatment patterns, flagging up to 15% of the patients receiving outpatient care.
The algorithms could be triggered when care met the company’s definition of overly frequent, such as when patients had therapy sessions twice a week for six weeks or more than 20 sessions in six months. Therapists drew scrutiny if they provided services for more than eight hours a day, used the same diagnosis code with most clients or worked on weekends or holidays — even though such work is often necessary with patients in crisis.
The system was originally designed to save lives, said Ed Jones, who co-developed the algorithm program when he worked as an executive at PacifiCare Behavioral Health, which later merged with United. Using ALERT to limit or deny care was “perverting a process that was really pretty good,” he told ProPublica.
Once patients or therapists were flagged, care advocates, who were licensed practitioners, would “alert” providers, using intervention scripts to assess whether care was medically necessary. The calls felt like interrogations, therapists told ProPublica, with the predetermined conclusion that their therapy was unnecessary or excessive.
ProPublica spoke with seven former employees from Optum who worked with the ALERT system from 2006 through 2021. They requested not to be named in order to speak freely, some citing fears of retaliation.
Even though the reviews were purportedly intended to identify cases where care was inappropriate or violated clinical standards, several former care advocates said these instances were rare. Instead, they questioned care if it passed an allotted number of sessions.
“It had to be really extreme to help the client be able to continue with the care,” said one former care advocate, who was troubled by the practice. “Not everyone with depression is going to be suicidal, but they still need therapy to support them.”
The advocates often overruled a provider’s expertise, a former team manager said. “There was always this feeling, ‘Why are we telling clinicians what to do?’” he said. “I didn’t think it was OK that we were making decisions like that for people.”
If the advocates found fault with therapists’ explanations — or couldn’t persuade them to cut back on care — they elevated the case to a peer-to-peer review, where a psychologist could decide to stop covering treatment.
According to court records, regulators alleged United doled out bonuses to care advocates based on productivity, such as the number of cases handled, and pushed workers to reduce care by modifying a therapist’s treatment or referring therapists to peer review in 20% of assigned cases.
At one point, care advocates were referring 40%, regulators alleged in court filings. Each peer review tended to last less than 12 minutes, offering providers little time to prove they had a “clear and compelling” reason to continue treatment.
Former advocates described feeling like parts of a machine that couldn’t stop churning. “Literally, we had to tell the company when we were going to the restroom,” one advocate said, “and so you would do that and come back and your manager would say, ‘Well, that was a little long.’”
The former workers told ProPublica they were pressured to keep calls brief; the rush added to the tension as therapists pushed back in anger.
“There was an expiration date on those jobs because there was such a pull on you emotionally,” one former care advocate said.
Three of them quit, they told ProPublica, citing damage to their own mental health.
New York and federal regulators started looking into the practice around 2016. A California regulator and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office soon followed.
All concluded that while United may not have set official caps on coverage, it had done so in practice by limiting mental health services more stringently than medical care. Therefore, it was breaking the federal parity law.
While California and Massachusetts got United to scale back its use of ALERT within their jurisdictions, New York was able to stretch its reach by teaming up with the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate and sue the insurer. Together, they found that from 2013 through 2020, United had denied claims for more than 34,000 therapy sessions in New York alone, amounting to $8 million in denied care.
By using ALERT to ration care, United calculated that it saved the company about $330 per member each time the program was used, the regulators said in court records. Cut off from therapy, some patients were hospitalized. The regulators did not specifically address in court filings whether the treatment denials met medical guidelines.
The company, which denied the allegations and did not have to admit liability or wrongdoing, agreed to pay more than $4 million in restitution and penalties in 2021. Notably, it also agreed to not use ALERT to limit or deny care.
The final terms of the settlement, however, only applied to plans under New York and federal regulators’ jurisdiction.
Rebranded Reviews
ProPublica has reviewed documents behind Optum’s ALERT and Outpatient Care Engagement programs. Credit:Obtained by ProPublica
In the three years since the settlement, the company has quietly rebranded ALERT.
The Outpatient Care Engagement program continues to use claims and clinical data to identify patients with “higher-than-average intensity and/or frequency of services,” according to internal company documents, to ensure “that members are receiving the right level of care at the right time.”
Up to 10% of cases are flagged for scrutiny, public company documents show. If care advocates take issue with a case, they can elevate it to a peer review, which can result in a denial.
The advocates’ script is nearly the same as the one used for ALERT.
Care advocates are even calling therapists from the same phone number.
Overseen by the former director of ALERT, the team’s more than 50 care advocates are tasked with ensuring that “outpatient care follows clinical and coverage guidelines” and “reduces overutilization and benefit expense when appropriate,” according to company documents.
The team conducts thousands of reviews each month, targeting plans that are mostly regulated by states and fall outside of the jurisdictions of previous sanctions. Patients impacted include workers with fully insured plans and people covered by Medicaid.
Nearly 1 in 3 adults in the Medicaid program has a mental health condition, and a fifth of its members have a substance use disorder. “This is probably disproportionately sweeping up those that are most distressed, most ill and most in need of care,” Clement said.
Private insurers that manage Medicaid plans, also known as managed care organizations, are often paid a fixed amount per person, regardless of the frequency or intensity of services used. If they spend less than the state’s allotted payment, plans are typically allowed to keep some or all of what remains. Experts, senators and federal investigators have long raised concerns that this model may be incentivizing insurers to limit or deny care.
“They basically manage the benefits to maximize their short-term profit,” said David Lloyd, chief policy officer with the mental health advocacy group Inseparable and an expert on state-level mental health parity laws.
State regulators are supposed to be making sure private insurers that manage Medicaid plans are following the mental health parity laws. But this year, a federal audit found that they were failing to do so. “They are not well designed to essentially be watchdogs,” Lloyd said. “There’s very little accountability. Insurers can run roughshod over them.”
The internal records reviewed by ProPublica show the plans and geographic areas now scrutinized by the rebranded program. The team conducts two types of reviews, those considered “consultation” and those that question medical necessity.
For the first kind, the team flags members with high use (more than 30 sessions in eight months) or high frequency (twice-a-week sessions for six weeks or more) to engage their providers in “collaborative” conversations about the treatment plan.
Company documents reveal striking similarities between Optum’s ALERT and Outpatient Care Engagement programs. Credit:Obtained by ProPublica
Internal records indicate that the company uses this “consultation” model for about 20 state Medicaid programs, including Washington, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia and Tennessee. The company is also deploying the program with Medicaid plans in Massachusetts and, as of the fourth quarter of this year, New York, which are outside of the jurisdiction of the earlier state agreements.
While the Department of Labor does not have jurisdiction over Medicaid, a spokesperson said it “would be concerned about ‘consultation’ reviews that are conducted in a way that violates [the mental health parity act].” The department did not comment on whether it was investigating the insurer, as a matter of agency policy.
Company records show Optum is applying its more stringent review method, questioning medical necessity, to psychological testing services and a type of therapy to treat children with autism, known as applied behavior analysis, for people with Medicaid coverage in about 20 states. It is doing the same for routine therapy for its members with dual Medicare-Medicaid plans in about 18 states and Washington, D.C. Such plans are largely overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency responsible for overseeing both Medicare and Medicaid programs. While the dual plans are not subject to federal mental health parity laws, a CMS spokesperson said the agency was taking steps to “ensure that people enrolled in these plans have timely access to care.”
The internal company records reveal that Optum has continued to use quotas with its medical necessity reviews, setting productivity targets for how many cases its employees scrutinize. According to records from this year, the target was 160 reviews per employee, which the company exceeded with 180 reviews per employee.
Several state agencies that oversee Medicaid programs, including those in New York and Massachusetts, told ProPublica that they follow federal mental health parity laws and have strong monitoring practices to ensure that the private insurers that manage benefits are in compliance.
Katie Pope, a spokesperson for Washington’s Health Care Authority, told ProPublica that ALERT was discontinued three years ago but did not directly respond to questions about the current iteration of the program. Scott Peterson, a spokesperson for Minnesota’s Human Services Department, said that while United’s policies were compliant with federal parity laws, the company’s contract would expire at the end of the year. Last May, the state blocked for-profit insurers, like United, from participating in its Medicaid program.
Amy Lawrence, a spokesperson for Tennessee’s Medicaid program, said United’s outlier review practice entailed “voluntary collaborative conversations on best practices” and did not question the medical necessity of services nor result in denials of treatment. “There are no adverse consequences for providers who elect not to participate,” she said.
Mississippi’s, Louisiana’s and Virginia’s state Medicaid agencies did not respond to ProPublica’s questions. (Read all state responses.)
In response to ProPublica’s questions about its oversight of state Medicaid programs, a spokesperson for CMS said it was “actively engaged with states and other stakeholders to improve compliance and oversight of parity requirements.” (Read the full responses of federal agencies.)
Hauser, the spokesperson for Optum, told ProPublica that the company is committed to working with state Medicaid programs to ensure access to effective and necessary care. She said its new program was separate from ALERT, which she said had been discontinued. (She did not explain why the original ALERT program appears to be still operational in Louisiana, according to a recent company manual.) When the team conducts medical necessity reviews, she said, they are compliant with mental health parity law. (Read the company’s full response.)
Ringing Phones
Therapists who underwent the reviews told ProPublica that they felt the practice was intended to discourage them from providing necessary care, interfering with their ability to treat their patients.
This year, Oklahoma therapist Jordan Bracht received multiple calls from the team related to the care of two patients, who were both on United’s dual Medicare-Medicaid plan. “If we don’t hear back from you within a week,” a care advocate said in a voice message, “then the case will be forwarded to the peer review process to make a decision based upon the information available.”
Both of Bracht’s patients had diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder and required therapy twice a week. “Many of my clients are suicidal and would be hospitalized if I had to cut down the care,” Bracht told ProPublica.
Reviewers pushed for end dates for their therapy. “They really wanted me to nail down a discharge date,” she said. “We are really trying to keep this person alive, and it felt like they were applying their one-size-fits-all model. It doesn’t feel right.”
Virginia therapist Chanelle Henderson got a voice message in 2022 from the same number about her care of a patient with state Medicaid coverage. “We’d like to complete a clinical review,” the caller said. “We’ll follow up with one more call before the case is referred to the peer review process.”
When Henderson called back, a reviewer informed her that her practice had been flagged for providing longer sessions. Henderson tried to explain they were necessary to treat trauma, her practice’s specialty. “She had no trust in me as a clinician,” Henderson said of the reviewer.
The inquiry progressed to questions about other patients, including one who was being treated by a therapist under Henderson’s supervision. The reviewer said that the company did not cover sessions of supervised therapists at practices with less than 12 therapists. At the time, Henderson’s practice had eight.
The reviewer elevated her case, triggering an aggressive audit of the entire practice going back two years that threatened to shut it down.
Citing issues with supervision and longer sessions, United demanded the practice pay back about $20,000 for services it had already provided. Henderson and her business partner pushed back, hiring a biller to help submit hundreds of pages of additional notes and documentation. They also pointed out that during the audit, the company had even changed its policy to allow smaller practices to supervise therapists. United eventually decreased the penalty by half. Neither Optum, United nor Virginia’s Medicaid program directly responded to ProPublica’s questions about the case.
Bethany Lackey, who co-founded the practice with Henderson, said that the reviews felt like a pretext for additional scrutiny. “It’s all set up in order to catch someone doing something so that they can take back payments,” she said. “We all know that behind it is this more malicious intent of getting their money back.”
WASHINGTON – Besieged by allegations of misconduct that included having sex with an underage woman, Matt Gaetz became the first Trump administration nominee to fail to survive public scrutiny.
On Thursday, Gaetz announced in a post on X that he was withdrawing his name from consideration to be the next U.S. attorney general.
“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote. “There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General.”
His resignation came as debate intensified over a House ethics investigation into Gaetz that included allegations the former Florida lawmaker had misused campaign funds, accepted improper gifts and paid for sex with a 17-year-old at a drug-fueled party while he was serving in Congress.
As a member of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Michele Fischbach of Minnesota’s 7th District voted Wednesday with the panel’s other Republicans to block the release of a report on its investigation of Gaetz.
The “no” votes effectively deadlocked the committee, which is divided evenly between Republican and Democratic members.
Fischbach declined to say why she blocked release of the findings of the investigation, which included the testimony of the formerly underaged woman and her friend who claimed she witnessed Gaetz having sex with the younger woman at a party.
CNN reported Thursday that the same underaged woman told the ethics panel that she had several encounters with Gaetz, who has made payments to this woman and other women through PayPal and Venmo accounts.
“Unfortunately, the Congresswoman is bound by the committee’s Confidentiality Rule and has no comment on matters that are or could come before the committee,” Fischbach spokeswoman Lauren Weber said in an emailed statement.
Defenders of the committee’s decision to keep the results of its investigation under wraps had said the Senate Judiciary Committee could seek the testimony of the same witnesses during its hearing on Gaetz’s nomination.
But Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not agree.
“The House Ethics Committee should send their report on Matt Gaetz to the Senate,” she said in a post on X. “Are they trying to force us to use taxpayer dollars to recreate the exact same report by interviewing dozens of witnesses and deploying federal investigators? Government efficiency??”
Gaetz’s decision to withdraw his nomination has spared him from what was shaping up to be a brutal Senate confirmation process and from House Democratic attempts to force the release of the Ethics Committee report.
But that report would still be in contention if Gaetz rescinds his resignation or wins a special election to keep his congressional seat. Gaetz remains congressman-elect for his Florida district in the next Congress and it is unclear how that issue will be resolved.
Trump lauded Gaetz’s decision in a social media post.
“I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General,” Trump wrote. “He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”
Hours after Gaetz announced he was no longer in the running, Trump announced that his new candidate for attorney general is former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of the president-elect’s attorneys during his first impeachment trial.
A damaging police report
Storm clouds also grew this week over another controversial Trump nominee, Pete Hegseth, a Minnesota native who was tapped as secretary of defense.
The Monterey, California, city attorney this week released a redacted version of a police report filed in 2017 of an incident at a Hyatt hotel in that city during a convention of the California Federation of Republican women.
According to the police report, a woman identified as Jane Doe said she ended up in Hegseth’s hotel room and was sexually assaulted under circumstances she could not fully remember.
The investigation was touched off by a nurse at a Kaiser Permanente facility who treated Jane Doe after the assault and contacted the police.
Jane Doe told police that Hegseth took her phone and blocked access to the door when she tried to leave. She also said she may have been drugged while drinking with Hegseth and others at the hotel bar.
“Jane Doe remembers saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said.
Jane Doe also said she had confronted Hegseth after witnessing him acting “inappropriately” with other women at the conference. Hegseth later paid her an undisclosed sum as part of a non-disclosure agreement.
Meanwhile, Hegseth told police the encounter with Jane Doe was consensual and that he repeatedly made sure the woman was “comfortable with what was going on between the two of them.”
In the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to meet with senators who will consider his nomination, Hegseth told reporters “the matter was fully investigated and I was fully cleared and that’s where I’m going to leave it.”
But Hegseth was not cleared by the police. The Monterey Police Department said it had forwarded its 22-page report to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office. It’s unclear why the district attorney did not choose to prosecute.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran, is also facing criticism for lacking experience running a large organization, opposing women in combat roles and promising to roll back “woke” policies in the Pentagon and purge the military of senior officers.
Lotsa competition for Ken Martin
DFL Chairman Ken Martin has lots of competition in his bid to head the Democratic National Committee, whose current chairman, Jaime Harrison, said he would not seek re-election.
When Martin announced earlier this week that he was interested in the job (he already serves as a senior DNC official) only former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was in the race.
But now James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute and longtime DNC member, has joined the race and others are mulling a run.
Those include political strategist Chuck Rocha, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and Rahm Emanuel, the current U.S. ambassador to Japan, former mayor of Chicago and former White House chief of staff.
The timeline for the election is not yet determined but may be when the DNC Rules & Bylaws committee meets Dec. 12 and probably will be held in early spring.
In case you missed it:
I profiled Rep.-elect Kelly Morrison of Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District. The physician and former state senator will be taking over the seat held by Rep. Dean Phillips, who is resigning after his current term ends.
Earlier this week, we took a look at Pete Hegseth and the scrutiny the Forest Lake Area High School graduate has come under since being nominated by Donald Trump to become secretary of defense.
Peter Callaghan wrote about ways the Minnesota House of Representatives could jointly operate now that the body is split evenly, 67-67, between Republicans and DFLers.
Your questions and comments
Quite a few comments came in from readers this week about President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for his cabinet.
One reader criticized the choice of World Wrestling Federation co-founder Linda McMahon.
“McMahon got this as a consolation prize and for her campaign contributions,” the reader said. “She was a certified teacher, but never worked as one. It is not clear whether her children attended public schools or whether she ever served as a volunteer, or just was a critic.”
Another reader defended Gov. Tim Walz in his role as a vice presidential candidate, even though he was part of a losing ticket.
“He did all he could do to boost the ticket,” the reader said of Walz. “Half of the country bought into nihilism, racism, idiotic notions of patriotism, and politics as sport. Walz was a coach, but tried to be a unifier.”
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at [email protected].
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota is urging Gov. Tim Walz to convene a special session so that DFL legislators could take one last advantage of the governor trifecta it won in 2022 but lost this month.
The organization said in a statement that the session is needed “to construct a firewall to protect Minnesotans’ freedom against actions President-elect Trump’s administration is expected to pursue” when he takes office. The term the campaign uses to describe the potential agenda that includes passing new protections for LGBTQ people and immigrants is “The Firewall for Freedom.”
So far, DFL leaders haven’t embraced the calls, but they haven’t outright rejected them either.
In a terse response to questions about the possibility of bringing lawmakers together before the 2025 regulator session, Walz communications director Claire Lancaster said: “The governor has no plans to call a special session.”
Minnesota DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman and DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy speak to press at the Capitol, Nov. 21, 2024. Credit: Peter Callaghan
House Speaker Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park, who will only be CO-speaker come Jan. 14 because of a House tie, demurred.
“Lots of people are saying lots of things about special sessions and I haven’t had a chance to see all of them or talk to those folks who are advocating for special sessions for all those different reasons,” Hortman said right after a closed-door meeting with Walz and GOP leaders that all described as cordial and a way to build a better working relationship.
As long as the legislative math remains the same, there will be calls from the left to pass bills while the DFL trifecta still lives. While the Senate is currently 33-33 due to the summertime resignation of former-Sen. Kelly Morrison to run for Congress, the DFL won the special election to replace her. Once Ann Johnson Stewart is sworn in by the end of this month, the DFL will again have majorities in the House and Senate. But due to some resignations by two DFL members and one GOP member, Hortman’s majority is currently 68-63 with 68 votes needed to pass legislation.
Another issue that could prompt special session calls is the Equal Rights Amendment that was not placed on the ballot in May despite the DFL control. A state constitutional amendment that was primarily about equal rights for women passed the Senate in 2023 with six GOP votes. It was not taken up by the House. Then last session a broadened amendment that contained reproductive rights protections passed the House but not the Senate.
ERA Minnesota has issued an “action alert” asking supporters to contact Walz and request a special session to place the amendment on the 2026 ballot. And in a Facebook post, the group noted that an amendment in New York with language similar to the House version from May received 62% of the vote.
Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life has issued a statement opposing the amendment and opposing a special session.
While it is possible the version that passed the Senate with GOP votes could pass a tied House, it is unlikely the broader version that included abortion would do so.
In the meantime, there is nothing in state law or the state constitution that would prevent Walz from calling a session and the House and Senate DFL leadership from performing a trifecta swan song in what is sometimes termed a lame duck session. Whether it is a good idea or not, and whether it would sour relations between the DFL and GOP in a way that would color the 2025 session was not resolved Thursday.
GOP Minority Leader Lisa Demuth and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson speak to press at the Capitol, Nov. 21, 2024. Credit: Peter Callaghan
As expected, perhaps, Republican legislative leaders didn’t think it was such a great idea. Having just wrestled the trifecta away from the DFL by winning three swing districts earlier this month, House Republicans would prefer to hold all legislation until the new Legislature and the tied House convene.
“I think we are looking forward to coming back January 14th,” said GOP co-speaker designate Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring. “I think Minnesotans just need us to get to work January 14th on the things that actually matter.”
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson of East Grand Forks said there are many distractions right now, not the least of which is the House trying to organize just the second tied legislative chamber in state history.
“I think we need to wait until next session when those who have been elected have a voice in the Legislature,” he said. “That’s what we’re really waiting for.”
Near the Franklin Street light rail station, a line of people waited by the back doors of the Aliveness Project’s red van, reciting their initials and year of birth to a staff member holding an iPad. Inside, Logan Huber, wearing a snowflake-patterned blue beanie, organized red paper bags filled with wound care kits, needles, smoking equipment, Narcan and fentanyl and xylazine test strips.
When Huber had finished filling each bag with requested items, he handed them to other members of the Aliveness Project team or to a volunteer, who passed them on to the recipients, some of whom arrived via the light rail. Staff also handed out water and snacks.
This van, named “Thrivey” by the Aliveness Project, is part of the organization’s efforts to prevent the spread of HIV. As HIV can be spread through contaminated needles, Thrivey provides people with clean needles, along with smoking equipment, a safer alternative to injection.
There are multiple outbreaks of HIV being tracked by the Minnesota Department of Health – two in Hennepin and Ramsey county, and one in the Duluth area. One of the two outbreaks in Hennepin and Ramsey is linked to injection drug users who “live or have spent time in a known encampment corridor in Minneapolis or St. Paul.” As of Sept. 3, this outbreak has been associated with 122 reported cases.
To see for myself how staff at the Aliveness Project use Thrivey to reach out to people, I rode along with a team on Friday, Nov 15.
Amber Muhm driving the Aliveness Project van through Minneapolis. Credit: Deanna Pistono
Outside the van, a fabric wagon held different hygiene products available for people to take, from individually wrapped tampons to travel-size deodorant. The rule for these handouts, staff member Amber Muhm later told me, is that everything in there is something staff would use and buy themselves, not just the cheapest items available.
Near the wagon were two bins. One held containers meant to dispose of sharps, while the other was to collect needles themselves, gathered by those coming to the van. For every quart of needles received, the Aliveness Project gives out a $5 Cub Foods gift card.
Ideally, these needles would be held in a sharps container – like the ones in the bin next to the needle collection bin – before they are exchanged. On Friday, though, most people who showed up with needles had them in a variety of shopping bags. By the end of the shift, the collection bin was nearly full – stacked with bags and other containers of needles.
While I was only with the team for one shift, they have a weekly schedule. On Monday, Thrivey makes a midday stop at the Dorothy Day Opportunity Center in St. Paul. On Wednesday, it’s an early afternoon stop at 2500 E. Lake Street, near Target, and on Friday afternoon Thrivey visits this spot near the Franklin Street light rail station. On Tuesday afternoon, the van takes time, Muhm said, “to float and go wherever the encampments are, wherever the people are.”
A menu of the offerings at the Aliveness Project van. Credit: Deanna Pistono
During this Friday stop, staff placed a full menu of Thrivey’s offerings near the van’s open back doors: gauge sizes of available needles and various pipe options for smoking. The menu also included this incentive: If you decide to go to medication-assisted treatment, the Aliveness Project will provide transportation to your first appointment, along with a $25 gift card.
In addition to what I saw distributed on Friday, the van also has a compartment for quick HIV testing, using INSTI testing kits. While testing wasn’t available when I was out with the team, Muhm told me that HIV testing would be available later that night at The Black Hart, a queer soccer bar in St. Paul.
Harm reduction and critics
Some critics, including members of the Legislature, said Muhm, see the van as enabling drug use, which she says is an inaccurate depiction of the team’s work.
“People say ‘They’re giving away drug paraphernalia out in public,’ and our response is kind of like, ‘Yep. And we’re also getting people into treatment. We’re also giving people Narcan. We’re also giving people wound care kits and food and a consistent schedule.’” said Muhm, a trans community specialist in the Aliveness Project’s HIV outreach and prevention program. She added that she has heard elected officials, including city council members, say that harm reduction doesn’t work, a sentiment she disagrees with and calls “frustrating.”
As HIV can be spread through contaminated needles, Thrivey provides people with clean needles, along with smoking equipment, a safer alternative to injection. Credit: Deanna Pistono
“I’ve personally seen several instances of someone coming to the van consistently over the course of eight (or) nine weeks and then finally saying, ‘Hey, I would like to go to treatment. Can you help set that up?’ This work saves lives.”
While Muhm believes in the work she and her colleagues do, she also noted that sweeps of encampments have made it difficult for service providers to find and offer harm reduction to people who are unhoused and using drugs.
“(The sweeps are) incredibly frustrating to watch both as a resident of Minneapolis and as a service provider,” Muhm said. “They happen very suddenly and even when we’re tipped off ahead of time or we respond to it, a lot of times we get there and we are not allowed to help at all. We(‘ve) witnessed firsthand how devastating it is for people.”
This destabilization has impacts on both the mental and physical health of people Muhm has seen coming to the van. When encampments are cleared, people’s belongings are dumped and they “are told to go somewhere else and then there is no somewhere else,” she said.
“They’re just in hyper-vigilance survival mode all the time. That sucks away all your energy. It leaves people in fear like, ‘When is it gonna happen next?’” said Muhm.
In terms of physical health, she added, “A lot of these camps are set up to provide community care. They’re set up in a way where people can take care of each other and where outside service providers like us can go provide supplies and get people on track to get housing, (treatment or services). If people are getting kicked out all the time and moved around, it’s really hard to build any kind of consistency and it just grinds people down over time.”
Brandon Carmany has been volunteering with the Aliveness Project for two months. Credit: Deanna Pistono
Lived experience
Huber, who was working inside the van on Friday, and Brandon Carmany, a Aliveness Project volunteer who helped hand out supplies that day, both have lived experience with the community they are assisting.
“Honestly, it feels good to give back,” said Carmany, who began volunteering two months ago with the van on Wednesdays and Fridays. “It’s nice to see people I used to interact with that are still alive. The high I get from helping others, no other drug could compare to.”
Huber, who works under the Native American Care Linkage grant at Aliveness Project, noted that many of those who come to the van for assistance are people of color or from other marginalized communities.
“As a person of color, myself, I just wanna be out here and kinda hold that space for people,” said Huber, who is from the Lower Sioux Indian community. Even while he was still using drugs himself, Huber said, he was advocating for his community, noting that due to systematic racism, harm reduction and even information about harm reduction can be inaccessible to Native Americans.
“As a result, a lot of my friends that are my age (have had) open heart surgeries (or) are dead from overdoses,” he said.
As Thrivey and its staff’s work continued, some of those approaching the van greeted or even hugged staff members, recognizing them from previous visits. One person asked about Aliveness-provided transportation to treatment. In response, Huber gave them a number to contact him with to set up transportation, whenever they were ready, wherever they were.
Where to find Thrivey
On Mondays, Thrivey is at Dorothy Day Opportunity Center from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM
On Tuesdays, Thrivey travels around to find encampments from 12:30 to 2:30 PM
On Wednesdays, Thrivey is at 2500 E Lake Street, near a Target from 1:00 to 3:00 PM
On Fridays, Thrivey is by the Franklin Street Light Rail Station from 1:00 to 3:00 PM
For several years, many Minnesota cities and counties have noticed a dwindling number of people pursuing government jobs. Now, three organizations are coming together to find out why that is and how to turn it around.
According to Julie Ring, the executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties, the shortage became very clear about 10 years ago with many openings across different county positions going unfilled.
So Ring’s organization, along with the League of Minnesota Cities and the Citizens League (which focuses on public service, civic engagement and public policy) put together the Strengthening Public Service project, which aims to understand the challenges and barriers to public employment.
The group has held several public meetings and has issued two surveys — one for current public-sector workers and another for former local government employees — that will be open until mid-December.
“We all live in communities where local government — our city, our county governments — provide all kinds of really essential services. And often, I think those are kind of overlooked or misunderstood until they’re gone,” said Jake Loesch, the executive director of Citizens League. “I think we really are, through this project, trying to take a look at what we can do to help strengthen public service and get more folks into those great career opportunities.”
Varied challenges
Ring said that in counties, the positions difficult to fill have been things like corrections officers, 911 dispatchers and social workers — especially those who work in child protection.
“They tend to be jobs that are kind of high intensity, really challenging, stressful jobs that when, in general, there’s shortages everywhere, those really challenging jobs are even harder to fill,” Ring said.
She said two things are at play: changes in the workforce as baby boomers retire and an increase in the responsibilities of local governments.
While challenges in recruitment and retaining employees vary depending on the job, pay is also a big factor, she said. That can also be a challenge for many Greater Minnesota communities, where many times salaries aren’t as high as in the Twin Cities region, Loesch said.
Very rural areas also struggle with hiring for specialized jobs that require very specific training.
“There just might not be that many people in the community that have that background, and there may not be people who want to move to rural Minnesota for those jobs,” Ring said.
As an example, she pointed to county engineer positions.
“It’s a well compensated job. There are certainly lots of people who get engineering degrees in Minnesota,” she said. “But it’s a matter of, ‘Are you interested in moving, you know, to, let’s say, Roseau County, up on the Canadian border, where they need someone to do that work just as much as they do in the metro?’”
Ring thinks counties need to do more to educate the public about available jobs, which can vary from IT roles to snow plow drivers.
“I think about this a lot for young people and friends I have who are looking for jobs,” she said. “If you’re interested in public service, you might think to go to the state of Minnesota and look, because they have an aggregate website where you can go look at state jobs. There’s not really something similar for counties.”
What’s to come?
In 2022, the Citizens League released a report on why elected officials run for office and some of the factors that influence those decisions. Loesch said the current project is similar to that, but will focus on non-elected roles.
The Citizens League, for example, had a public meeting with county commissioners with the help of the Association of Minnesota Counties, where Ring said people brought up issues they’ve faced, like struggling with remote/in-person culture and issues with pay compared with private sector jobs.
The report will take information from the listening sessions and surveys, which Loesch said have been completed by 800 participants, to create policy recommendations. He anticipates the report would come out at the end of January.
Via Sahan Journal: “Thousands of undocumented Minnesotans can now apply for a state health care program for low-income residents that opened its applications last week.”
Minnesotans set a record with $37 million donations on Give to the Max Day Thursday. It is a record number of donations in the holiday’s 16 years, according to Star Tribune’s Zoe Jackson.
Via CBC: “A Minnesota jury has found two men accused of smuggling people across the border between Manitoba and Minnesota guilty on all counts.“
Just south of Duluth, Carlton County had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1928, until Trump broke that century-long streak earlier this month, writes Ryan Faircloth at the Star Tribune.
Minneapolis-based Target sales are down this quarter while Walmart sales are up. Target’s sales growth was 0.3% while Walmart’s was 5.3%, according to reporting from Samie Solina at KARE11.
A woman is expected to survive after she was shot in the leg while riding the light rail train in St. Paul Thursday night, writes KSTP’s Ryan Pattee.
FOX 9 Staff reports a semi-tanker crash shut down a stretch of I-35W near Lino Lakes Friday morning.
MPR’s Clay Masters reports Minnesota currently is keeping its streak of having the highest voter turnout in the nation with 76.4%, but Wisconsin certifies its election results Friday and is the only challenger.
