In The Tank (Ep208) – Dem Debate, Mandatory Firearm Buyback, and Trump’s Flavor Ban

Hello! In this week’s episode of the In The Tank Podcast, the gang talks about the latest Democratic primary debate, discusses mandatory firearm buybacks, and Trump’s proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes. This episode features work from The Heartland Institute, the Reason Foundation, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Minnesota’s economic news, w/e 9/13/19

A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.

Pushing back against teachers’ union is not an attack on teachers

During the month of September, Minnesota teachers have the opportunity to evaluate their relationship with the teachers’ union. It’s a sensitive subject—the teachers’ union has been imbedded in K-12 education for many years. But pushing back against the union’s agenda when it doesn’t promote educational excellence is not an attack on teachers or the teaching profession. Rather, it’s an attempt to start a conversation about the union flexing its political muscle and missing the mark on what teachers want the union to prioritize. Photo source: Getty Images

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT BOOK SHELF

Did St. Cloud City Council Violate State Law?

You’ve got to give the St. Cloud City Council bonus points. The council’s justification for getting around and almost certainly flat-out violating the Minnesota Open Meeting Law was out of the box. Council members cited Robert’s Rules of Order as their validation for a secret vote Monday in taking the unusual action of censuring one of their colleagues, Councilman George Hontos. City officials said they carefully consulted Robert’s Rules before deciding the handbook empowered them to circumvent state law in voting by paper ballot that allowed them not to disclose how they voted individually to the public, according to the...

A liberal on law and order in the Twin Cities

“The gangsters of Chicago are out to take over the city and are on their way to doing so unless they are stopped. We are starting to see business move out of the city – and people are going, too, to the suburbs. This must be halted if Minneapolis is to go on as a city” - Hubert Humphrey, 1945

New Educated Teachers Video: ‘My School Year as a Non-Union Member’

Minnesota high school science teacher Linda Hoekman decided not to join the teachers' union during the 2018-2019 school year. "I found that decision to be best for me and my family," Hoekman says.

Clear Energy Alliance: Battery Fantasy

Batteries are often touted as a magical technology that will suddenly make unreliable wind and solar, reliable. The idea is just the latest round of wishful thinking on behalf of renewable energy boosters, and someday in the future we’ll look back at the “but batteries” argument and chuckle. I’ve already documented how just 24 hours of battery storage in Minnesota would cost $133 billion dollars, roughly one-third of Minnesota’s annual gross state product, and it we would potentially need weeks of storage to tide the state over during the summer, when electricity demand is high but wind generation is low. Clear Energy...