In a Thursday night debate before the August primary, the two Minnesota Republican Senate candidates seeking their party’s nomination to challenge three-term U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar contrasted their versions of conservatism.

GOP-endorsed candidate Royce White, a former NBA basketball player turned right-wing media personality, and Joe Fraser, a political newcomer favored by members of the traditional party establishment, both said their top concerns were border security and addressing soaring national debt. Both expressed support for former President Donald Trump, though White tied himself to the populist, nationalist wing of the Republican Party.

The two candidates appeared in a debate Thursday night in St. Paul hosted by the Minnesota Federation of RepublicanWomen and streamed online on conservative Minnesota news outlet Alpha News. MNFRW President Kelly Jahner Byrne was the moderator.

White won the Minnesota Republican party’s endorsement at the state party convention in a move that surprised many political observers and dismayed many traditional establishment Republicans.

Fraser had initially said he would not run against the endorsed candidate but changed his mind after the convention. At the beginning of the debate White noted that some had urged him not to participate as it could potentially undermine the endorsement process, but he ended up accepting.

“I’m such a competitor I can’t help myself,” he said.

In explaining his decision to remain in the race, Fraser said he believes the nominating process can’t get in the way of everyone having their voices heard.

“We had a small fraction of our party show up to our convention. That doesn’t represent the totality of the Republican Party in this state, it’s a fraction,” he said.

Fraser, a Navy veteran who now works in banking, said his experience qualifies him to help fight government waste.

“I fought with these bureaucrats,” he said. “I fought with them to try to make things much more efficient.”

White questioned the very legitimacy of the post-World War II liberal world order, calling it antithetical to conservative aims.

“You can’t have a country without a border. You can’t have a country $36 trillion in debt, but you also can’t have a country when you defend everybody else’s borders more than you do your own,” said White.

Both expressed favorable views of former President Donald Trump. Fraser said he endorsed Trump in February and has voted for him before. He said he believed America was rougher on Russia and China under the former President.

White described himself as “Ultra-MAGA.”

“I’m further right than Trump, I’m proud of it and I’m going to support him every step of the way,” he said, describing himself as the nationalist and populist wing of the right.

White said a big part of tackling the national debt would come from ending “forever wars” and curbing U.S. military interventionism. Fraser said he would go after “reckless spending,” like $114 million for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Department of Defense.

White said that proposed cut didn’t go far enough for eliminating waste and floated eliminating the FBI.

Candidates were asked how they plan to defeat Klobuchar in November. White said he would focus on courting Black and Hispanic voters in the Twin Cities metro by going door-to-door. Fraser said he would focus on winning in the Twin Cities suburbs.

For the first half of the debate, the candidates largely avoided taking direct shots at one another, but when asked about their stances on transgender issues, White criticized Fraser for including he/him pronouns on his LinkedIn profile.

“We’re going to have a United States senator that serves with peace through strength, that capitulates to the social pressure and norms of queer theory on their own social media page?” said White. “They’d have to shoot me in the head before I put he/him pronouns on my LinkedIn bio.”

Fraser said the inclusion of pronouns on his LinkedIn was not a matter of support for transgender ideas.

“I recognize that gender identity dysmorphia is a mental illness, and we need to be compassionate for people who suffer from it,” said Fraser. “But that doesn’t mean that we need to force that on society and indoctrinate our children into it.”

Whoever wins the GOP primary on Aug. 13 faces a rough road ahead in the general election. Klobuchar, who was first elected to the Senate in 2006, comfortably won reelection in 2012 and 2018. She also enjoys a significant cash advantage over her potential GOP challengers.

No Republican has won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006.

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A federal lawsuit filed Thursday alleges Dakota County jail employees left a 22-year-old Farmington man in a padded cell naked and covered in his own feces, blood, urine and vomit for nearly 20 hours while his mental and physical health deteriorated to the point he was hospitalized in critical condition.

Caleb Duffy was arrested by Hastings police on suspicion of domestic assault shortly after 6:30 p.m. July 4, 2022. Duffy, who has mental illness and diabetes, was removed from the cell two days later and taken to Region’s Hospital.

Duffy was diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis and kept intubated and sedated for five days. He spent nearly two weeks in intensive care before being transferred to the hospital’s psychiatry unit. His hospital bills totaled more than $220,000.

Brian Duffy, Caleb’s father and limited legal guardian, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court that names as defendants Dakota County and 10 of its corrections staff, as well as the jail’s medical provider, Advanced Correctional Healthcare Inc., and three of its employees. It alleges two counts of negligence and violations of the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution “either maliciously or with reckless disregard.”

“This case involves a shocking lack of care by the defendant corrections and jail medical staff,” Ryan Vettleson, an attorney at Storms Dworak, which is representing Duffy’s family, said in a statement. “No person should be subjected to such willful indifference.”

The lawsuit alleges Duffy’s “obvious and severe symptoms he displayed of a medical emergency were repeatedly ignored.”

Jail video surveillance shows Duffy in a psychotic state in a padded cell, naked and rolling around in his own feces, blood, urine and vomit, the lawsuit says. Duffy injured himself severely by repeatedly hitting his head against an unpadded area of the cell.

“Mr. Duffy’s plight was so severe that it is extremely difficult to watch any of it on video, but the video goes on for hours on end — and the individuals present at the time did nothing,” Vettleson said.

Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko and a Dakota County spokeswoman both said they cannot comment on pending litigation.

“Know that the safety and care of our detainees have always been and continue to be top priorities in our jail,” Leko said in a statement, adding that the Dakota County Attorney’s Office is representing the county and employees named in the claim.

Father informed jail

Prior to the incident, Duffy was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, autism anxiety, major depressive disorder, ADHD and Type I diabetes, the lawsuit says. He previously had been hospitalized several times for diabetic ketoacidosis and mental health crisis intervention. He was civilly committed for mental illness in January 2021, a commitment that was continued six months later and remains in effect, court records show.

The lawsuit claims that Duffy’s father called the jail repeatedly starting around 9 p.m. July 4 to inform staff that his son was a vulnerable adult with mental illness and diabetes and in need of his medication and hospitalization. However, jail staff “took no action” to get Duffy his insulin until around 5:35 a.m. July 5, when a deputy saw him pacing in the holding cell and yelling that he was dying.

After Duffy told the deputy that he had diabetes and needed his blood sugar checked, it was found to be “dangerously high,” the lawsuit continues.

About a half-hour later, Duffy was seen by a nurse from Advanced Correctional Healthcare, a Tennessee-based private corporation licensed to do business in Minnesota. The nurse administered Duffy 14 units of fast-acting insulin.

Duffy’s father met with a different nurse around 8:10 a.m. July 5, giving her his son’s medical history information. He returned around 10:45 a.m. with Duffy’s prescribed medication: insulin and Gabapentin, an anticonvulsant medication that is used off-label to treat anxiety.

Gabapentin withdrawal symptoms can appear in 12 hours and can include anxiety, pain, agitation, disorientation, confusion, combativeness, hallucinations and paranoid delusions, the lawsuit says.

However, jail medical staff never administered Gabapentin to or initiated a withdrawal protocol for Duffy, “demonstrating deliberate indifference to Duffy’s serious medical needs and medical negligence,” the lawsuit alleges.

‘I’ll just hit my head’

Duffy refused the fast-acting insulin around noon on July 5. A nurse reported that Duffy acknowledged understanding the ramifications of refusing his insulin, and then he “sat down and started slamming the back of his head against the cement and said, ‘I’ll just hit my head until I die,’” the lawsuit says.

Duffy was put on suicide watch, meaning corrections staff were required to perform well-being checks on him at least every 15 minutes.

About three hours later, Duffy stripped off his gown and began vomiting and ramming his head into the walls of his padded cell. A deputy noted that Duffy was screaming that he “needs a doctor.”

Surveillance video shows that although Duffy had urinated and defecated in his cell and repeatedly vomited, a nurse who administered insulin noted no distress or other concerns with him, the lawsuit claims.

Duffy remained in his cell for the next 19½ hours as his psychosis and physical health worsened, according to the lawsuit. Between 6 a.m. and around 8:30 a.m. the next day, Duffy hit his head on the cell’s walls or floor 22 times. At one point, he hit his head against a metal grate so hard it caused a bleeding wound.

A nurse arrived at Duffy’s cell at about 8:45 a.m. and noted “some blood on walls, floor and drain,” the lawsuit says. She entered the cell with two deputies and took his blood sugar, which was so high the machine could not register it.

The nurse left the cell to call an ambulance, “but watched him on video surveillance and saw him repeatedly sit up and fall backwards, hitting his head on the ground, leaving a bloody mark each time,” the lawsuit continues.

At approximately 9 a.m., Duffy was carried out of the cell and loaded into an ambulance.

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Minnesota lost 3,200 jobs from in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, and the state’s unemployment rate ticked up one-tenth of a percentage point to 2.9%, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development said in news release Thursday. The state’s private sector lost 3,300 jobs.

It’s the second month in a row the state has seen a net job loss. In May, the state lost 8,600 jobs, but gained 3,900 jobs in April. Minnesota has added jobs eight of the last 12 months.

The state’s labor force declined by more than 3,100 people, bringing the labor force participation rate down two-tenths of a percentage point to 67.8%. This measures the number of people either working or actively seeking work, and is used to calculate the headline unemployment rate.

“We closely monitor job and labor force growth and we continue to believe that job growth, particularly in certain sectors, is constrained by a lack of available workers with necessary skills,” DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said in the news release. “That’s why DEED and our agency partners are focused on innovative initiatives to help connect Minnesotans looking for work with in-demand employment.”

The state’s data compare with a national unemployment rate of 4.1% in June, up one-tenth of a percentage point, and a labor force participation rate of 62.6%.

Over the month, areas that gained jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis included Education & Health Services, up 4,500 jobs, and Construction, up 300 jobs.

Losing jobs were Professional & Business Services, down 3,000 jobs, Leisure & Hospitality, down 2,100 jobs, and Manufacturing, down 1,600 jobs.

Wages in Minnesota again outpaced inflation, with average hourly wages for all private sector workers increasing $2.02, or 5.7%, over the year. The Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation, rose 3% over the year, meaning wages increased almost twice as fast as inflation.

Among broader measures of unemployment, the broadest, called the U-6, was at 5.7%, up from 5.4% in May, according to DEED. This takes into account those who have voluntarily dropped out of the labor force and are no longer looking for work, along with those marginally employed and those working part-time but seeking full-time work.

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If you want to produce something that appeals to young theatergoers, ask a young theater artist to create it.

That seems a key ingredient in the recipe for the success of “Six.” A hit on Broadway and in London’s West End — and currently being presented by a touring company ensconced at St. Paul’s Ordway Music Theater through July 28 — it started life as a school project for the Cambridge University duo of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. They decided to take a well-documented chapter of English history, the multiple 16th-century marriages of King Henry VIII, and retell it in 21st-century pop song styles.

The result is a kind of “American Idol”-esque sing-off that rocks and funks up the tales of trauma and tragedy endured by Henry’s six wives. But “Six” also holds some good advice about the path to unhappiness that is paved with comparing oneself to others. That could be a life-saving lesson for some teenagers. And, indeed, teen girls seem to make up a very large percentage of the show’s fan base, judging from Wednesday night’s Ordway crowd.

They likely found “Six” to be pretty darn fun, and that has a lot to do with the girl group energy that bursts the fourth wall as soon as the six wives and their four-piece, all-woman band take the stage. Each wife gets the opportunity to lay out her story in song, with Marlow and Moss adopting a different pop sub-genre for each of her majesties.

Hence, Catherine of Aragon uses a salsa-fied Caribbean jam to chronicle the divorce that led to the founding of the Church of England (after “the Pope said nope”), Anne Boleyn rocks up her road to execution, and Jane Seymour belts out a ballad of doomed love with all the passion and power that pop has gleaned from gospel.

But Seymour was only the third of the six wives, and after Kelly Denice Taylor skillfully scales the emotional peaks of the latter tune, “Heart of Stone,” Marlow and Moss’ score begins a descent onto far less imaginative terrain. Oh sure, there’s the enjoyable spoof of German electronic dance music that is “Haus of Holbein,” but the songs decline in quality in the show’s second half.

Perhaps that’s because Anna of Cleves doesn’t really have much of a story to tell — the marriage lasted months and she lived out her life in luxurious exile — and Katherine Howard’s dance-pop detailing of being an adolescent sex object suffers from Alize Cruz’s unclear diction and an overloud band, key flaws in a musical that does all of its storytelling via songs.

Yet Adriana Scalice is quite good as the most fleshed-out and natural of the wives, Catherine Parr. She’s entrusted with putting an end to the posturing and calling into question the show’s entire patriarchal premise, and her version of “I Don’t Need Your Love” would prove a nice landing place — except that Broadway requires high-energy finales and curtain calls, and this 80-minute, intermission-less show obliges.

“Six” benefits from Gabriella Slade’s Beyonce-meets-the-Tudors costuming and the energetic and, ahem, well-executed pop-concert choreography of Carrie-Anne Ingrouille. With a set made of risers and chaser lights, it’s a very simple staging. And that keeps things from becoming overstimulating and distracting from its valuable message.

‘Six’

When: Through July 28

Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

Tickets: $191.50-$41.50, available at 651-224-4222 or ordway.org

Capsule: British history gets popped up in fun fashion.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

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