MNGOP's Carnahan faces confidence vote as attacks mount
Good morning,
Minnesota Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan faces a vote of confidence tonight from the party's executive committee, amid a torrent of criticism unleashed by the arrest of top fundraiser Anton Lazarro on sex trafficking charges. While Carnahan has maintained her innocence and said her critics are just out to get her, an escalating number of Republican activists and officials have called for Carnahan to step down. The most prominent: a joint statement by four former executive directors of the party, who said Carnahan "created an extremely toxic work environment" amid other accusations. [Read more from Dave Orrick of the Pioneer Press and Matt Sepic from MPR News]
The state's most prominent elected Republicans have so far held their fire. Neither Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, or any of the state's four Republican members of Congress have called for Carnahan's resignation. (Carnahan is, of course, married to U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn.)
Outside Minnesota, the biggest story remains the Taliban's reconquest of Afghanistan. This is huge news both for Afghanistan itself, as the 38-million-person country falls under back the rule of the Islamist movement 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion drove them from power. No one knows exactly what will happen next, with the Taliban promising fewer draconian restrictions than before but meeting widespread skepticism and attempts to flee. [Read more from The Associated Press]
It's also causing domestic upheaval, as President Joe Biden comes under bipartisan criticism for how he handled the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Even Democrats who support the decision to withdraw have said the withdrawal was sloppily done and left too many people frantically trying to escape. [Read more from NPR's Domenico Montanaro]
The Taliban doesn't have access to the foreign aid flows that funded the country's government over the past decade, but it does have one vital asset: the ability to tax people trying to move goods across the centrally located country's highways. [Read more from Graeme Smith and David Mansfield in the New York Times]
Many conservatives, meanwhile, are asking why ex-President Donald Trump is banned from Twitter but the Taliban isn't. The apparent answer? The Taliban's social media accounts have very carefully stayed within Twitter's guidelines. [Read more from the Washington Post's Craig Timberg and Cristiano Lima]
Senate GOP Leader Paul Gazelka told attendees at a Republican fundraiser that Sen. " Tom Bakk, who was not going to seek reelection, is having so much fun he's going to run as a Republican on the Range." [Read more from Axios Twin Cities]
Biden is requiring nursing home workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, the latest such mandate issued by governments and businesses in an attempt to expand immunity to the deadly virus. [Read more from The Associated Press]
The Minnesota Legislature this year restricted no-knock warrants. Here's what that change could mean. [ Read more from MinnPost's Walker Orenstein]
An appeals court will hear a lawsuit from Republican state lawmakers Marion O'Neill and Mark Koran, arguing that Minnesota illegally implemented a cost-of-living bonus for state workers despite not receiving approval from the Legislature. A district judge had dismissed the lawsuit. [Read background from Kevin Featherly in Session/Law]
There's a battle between progressives over the value they should place on issue polling, with one faction urging Democrats to focus their effort on popular issues, and another suspicious this is just an excuse from "survey liberals" or "popularists" to drop issues they don't like anyway. [Read more from G. Elliott Morris]
Something completely different: It's a comedy staple: amid some struggle or caper, something goes awry and smashes a valuable Ming vase. But why Ming vases? A group of experts from Reddit's AskHistorians forum tackle this question with astonishing thoroughness, covering everything from porcelain manufacturing techniques to the surprisingly sophisticated early modern Europe-China trade to the history of the Ming vase in fiction. [Read more]
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