18 May 2024

In St. Paul speech, Trump claims he can win Minnesota if GOP leaders ‘guard’ vote in Minnesota

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Former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Minnesota Congressman Pete Stauber, R-8th district, front left, and Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach, R-7th district, front right, stand for the National Anthem during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Clarence Richard from Minnetonka expresses his opinion to people on their way to the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. “As a U.S. Army veteran I fear for this country if Trump is elected.” said Richard. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump points to a supporter during his speech at the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Minnesota State Senator John R. Jasinski, R-Faribault, takes a picture during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, R-6th district, talks to fellow Republicans during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach, R-7th district, sits down for a meal during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump bids his supporters farewell after his speech at the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, R-6th district, claps at the completion of the national anthem during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Supporters cheer as former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is welcomed by the crowd during the Minnesota Republican Party annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner at the the RiverCentre in St. Paul on Friday, May 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

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In a speech to Minnesota Republican donors Friday night in St. Paul, former President Donald Trump spent much of his time blaming President Joe Biden’s economic policies for inflation and expressed confidence he could win the state in November — despite Minnesota remaining a Democratic stronghold where no Republican has won a statewide election since 2006.

In the hour and 20-minute speech, the former president even went as far as to claim he won Minnesota in 2020, despite losing by 7 percentage points and there being no evidence of electoral fraud in the state. He urged GOP officials to “guard the vote” in Minnesota.

Trump also said he would reverse Biden Administration policies restricting mining in northern Minnesota and reinstitute tariffs on foreign steel to protect domestic production, claiming “the Iron Range came roaring back to life” when he was president.

“On day one we’ll throw out Bidennomics and we will reinstate MAGAnomics,” Trump said. “We will stop the Biden stupid spending spree, we will end his inflation death spiral.”

The ex-president came to St. Paul as his trial for hush money payments to a porn actress continues in New York. He last appeared in court Thursday in a case that’s just one of more than 90 felony charges he faces across several state and federal jurisdictions.

Trump called the charges “bulls—” and “lawfare” waged against him by Democrats.

“I’m being indicted for you. And never forget, our enemies want to take me away because I will never let them take away your freedom,” he said, to cheers and applause.

Trump delivered his remarks to the Minnesota Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner, a fundraiser with ticket prices topping out at $100,000 for 10 seats and photo opportunities with the former president.

More than a thousand Trump backers packed a ballroom at the RiverCentre for the speech. They included House Majority Whip and Trump Minnesota campaign chair Tom Emmer, GOP state lawmakers who had stepped away from lengthy end-of-session floor debates, and Mike Lindell, the CEO of Chaska-based MyPillow, who has promoted Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him by Biden.

Ahead of the speech, state GOP Chairman David Hann thanked Trump for visiting, saying the former president views Minnesota as a battleground state. Trump said he views Minnesota as winnable in November and called on Minnesota Republicans to make sure that happens.

“We have all the votes we need, and I’m counting on the chairman and Tom and everybody to make sure that just, just give us an honest count,” said Trump, alluding to supposed electoral fraud. “We’re going to turn this state.”

At a 2020 rally in Duluth, Trump said he wouldn’t return to Minnesota if he lost the state to Biden, but he downplayed his statements in an interview with KSTP-TV this week, saying he believed he had actually won the state.

Trump lost Minnesota to Biden by 7 percentage points and to Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points in 2016. And no Republican has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972.

Still, that hasn’t stopped the Trump campaign from keeping its sights on the state, claiming it has a chance of winning in 2024. Recent polling shows Trump and Biden close to tied— with a KSTP poll putting the current president at 44% and the former president at 42%.

In a statement ahead of Trump’s visit, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin said the state Republican Party is “tying its fate” to the ex-president in the November election.

“Minnesota voters have repeatedly rejected Donald Trump and his efforts to ban abortion, take away their health insurance, and attack our democracy,” Martin said. Republicans up and down the ballot will have to answer for why they are abandoning Minnesota values and kissing Donald Trump’s ring.”

Trump’s visit is the kickoff for the Minnesota Republican Party’s 2024 convention Friday and Saturday, where state delegates will endorse their pick to challenge U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and work on changes to the party’s platform.

The Minnesota GOP has faced financial hardship over the last decade, and the amount of cash it has on hand is dwarfed by that of the DFL. The dinner is major fundraising opportunity for Republicans to gather cash for the election season.

Plates at the dinner started at $500, growing to $2,500 for individual VIP seats. Tickets topped out at $100,000 for 10 seats and three photo opportunities with Trump.

It’s not clear how much of the money will go to Trump and the Minnesota GOP, though Emmer said his own campaign is donating $100,000 to state Republicans to aid in their 2024 presidential election efforts.

Emmer noted the Minnesota Republican Party is out of debt for the first time in a decade, but it’s still at a severe advantage compared with the Democrats. The state GOP had a little over $57,000 in its coffers at the end of March, compared with the DFL’s $1.4 million.

Emmer is the chair of Trump’s Minnesota campaign after the former president sank the now-House Majority Whip’s bid to become Speaker of the House in 2023. At the time, the president called him a “globalist RINO” — or Republican in name only.

Despite that, Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, praised the former president during his Friday visit.

“President Trump’s visit to our great state is a true testament to his grit, determination and fighting spirit,” he said. “No sham trial is going to keep President Trump off the campaign trail.”

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18 May 2024

Minnesota completes comeback in PWHL playoffs with 4-1 win against Toronto to advance to finals

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The last team in the Professional Women’s Hockey League playoffs, Minnesota had to wait until the season’s final day to see if it would make the postseason.

Minnesota then had to wait to see its opponent, as top-seed Toronto got to pick its first-round opponent.

The late-season struggles continued in the first round as Minnesota lost the first two games of the best-of-five series in Toronto.

It all made for an amazing comeback for Minnesota in the first year of the league.

PWHL Minnesota went on the road to Toronto on Friday and knocked off the top-seed 4-1 to advance to the finals against Boston, which swept Montreal in its series.

Maddie Rooney, who took over in goal mid-series for Minnesota, stopped 27 of the 28 shots she faced on Friday. Denisa Krizova opened the scoring in the second period for Minnesota, which put the game away with three goals in the third period.

Taylor Heise scored twice and Sophia Kunin added another goal for Minnesota, which will open the finals on the road in Boston on Sunday with a 4 p.m. game.

Both semifinals ended with the lower seed winning the series. Montreal entered as the second seed, while Boston was third.

Toronto had cruised through the regular season, finishing in first by six points over Montreal (47-41). Meanwhile, Minnesota had limped to the finish with five straight losses, having to wait and see if another opponent lost on the season’s final day.

Toronto continued that dominance in winning the first two games of the playoffs by a combined 6-0 score before Minnesota’s rally.

Returning home, Minnesota outscored Toronto 3-0, including a double-overtime affair in Game 4 to force the deciding fifth game on Friday.

After Krizova scored in the second with assists to Kelly Pannek and Sophie Jaques, Toronto tied the game 38 seconds later. Rebecca Leslie scored for Toronto, which was playing without Natalie Spooner, the league’s regular-season leading scorer. Spooner was injured in a collision with Minnesota’s Grace Zumwinkle during Game 3.

But as they’ve shown the ability to do, Minnesota’s players bounced back again.

Heise scored 8:30 into the third period with assists to Lee Stecklein and Kendall Coyne Schofield.

With Toronto pulling goaltender Kristen Campbell, one of the league’s stars this season, Kunin scored an empty-net goal just over 10 minutes with assists to Abby Boreen and Stecklein.

Heise finished the game with another empty-net tally with 15 seconds remaining to clinch the victory and a berth in the first-ever finals. Coyne Schofield and Jaques assisted on the final goal.

Campbell maded 27 saves on the 29 shots she faced.

Jaques and Coyne Schofield each had a pair of assists. Pannek won 11 of 18 faceoffs while Heise won 11 of 16 draws. Minnesota finished 2 of 3 on the power play with Krizova and Heise’s first goal both coming with the advantage.

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18 May 2024

José Ramírez’s late heroics sends Twins to loss

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CLEVELAND — It’s the type of matchup that baseball fans live for — power versus power, an electric arm versus one of the best players of nearly the last full decade.

José Ramírez knew it when he connected with Jhoan Duran’s curveball. He dropped his bat and started pounding the “CLE,” written on his chest.

That solo home run in the eighth inning, which came right after Ryan Jeffers and Carlos Correa had caught a runner trying to steal, was the difference in the Twins’ 3-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night at Progressive Field.

It was another slow day for the Twins offense on Friday, though they did, finally, mercifully, snap their streak of 28 scoreless innings in the third with Alex Kirilloff’s solo home run.

For much of the game, Kirilloff’s hit was the only one starter Triston McKenzie yielded. He would give up one more — a Max Kepler double — in his outing, which lasted 6 2/3 innings.

Kirilloff’s third home run of the season had given the Twins a lead that they held until the sixth, a strange inning which featured a shift violation by Correa and a popup that Jeffers couldn’t locate.

That was the final inning of Simeon Woods Richardson’s start — he threw 5 1/3 frames in a bounceback performance but was tagged with a run when David Fry got ahold of an 0-2 Steven Okert pitch and took it out for a two-run homer.

The Guardians held that lead until the Twins’ offense finally showed some life in the eighth. Jose Miranda’s soft single began a rally and pinch runner Austin Martin eventually came around to score the game-tying run when pinch-hitter Kyle Farmer delivered a clutch double.

But after Duran allowed Ramírez’s 10th home run of the season, the Twins’ offense went quietly in the ninth inning.

17 May 2024

Man pleads guilty to St. Paul sober house killings

by admin | posted in: Society | 0

A man pleaded guilty Friday to a double-murder at a St. Paul sober-living home that he just moved into after being provisionally discharged under a civil commitment for being mentally ill and chemically dependent.

Joseph Francis Sandoval II, 34, entered a Norgaard plea to two counts of second-degree intentional murder in the October 2022 stabbing deaths of Jason Timothy Murphy, a 40-year-old handyman, and 56-year-old Jon Ross Wentz, a resident of the sober home in the city’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood.

Joseph Francis Sandoval II (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Under a Norgaard plea, a defendant says they are unable to remember what happened due to drug use or mental health impairment at the time, but acknowledges there is enough evidence for a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

At the time of the killings, Sandoval had five felony charges pending in Hennepin County in connection with three violent Minneapolis cases, all filed in March 2021, according to court documents. He was conditionally released from jail on the charges and found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial in June 2021.

About a month later, he was civilly committed to the state Commissioner of Human Services as mentally ill and chemically dependent. He was sent to the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center, then five months later provisionally discharged to an Evergreen Treatment Recovery Center sober home in St. Paul.

Nearly a year later, on the afternoon of Oct. 20, 2022, Evergreen transferred Sandoval to its East Side sober home in the 1100 block of Lawson Avenue. Evergreen’s housing specialist drove him there, helped bring his belongings to the living room and handed him a TV remote, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Daniel Rait said Friday in court.

Sandoval sat down on the couch and began hearing voices from the TV telling him to kill or be killed, he told police after his arrest.

“This tragic case is a heartbreaking reminder of the limits our mental health system faces when addressing the needs of those with profound mental illness in the justice system who are found incompetent to stand trial but do not receive adequate treatment or supervision,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a Friday statement.

Choi added, “Continuing to improve the connection between these two systems demands further legislative effort and funding. Our hearts go out to the Wentz and Murphy families who have suffered so profoundly due to these shortcomings.”

‘They’re going to kill me’

Officers responded to the house around 4:30 p.m. on a report of a man screaming that a person killed someone inside the home.

Officers saw a man, later identified as Sandoval, leaving the house and walking toward an alley. He had blood on his clothes, cuts to his face and hands and appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance. He told officers he had ingested fentanyl.

Sandoval said he had just moved into the house and did not know anybody living there. He said “two big guys” caused his injuries, but could not describe them. He then said somebody tried to kill him and that the person “got those other guys, too,” according to the charges.

Sandoval said when he got to the sober house, he sat down on the couch. He said, “I was hearing noises. The TV kept saying ‘take your opportunity,’ so I took my opportunity,” the charges say. When an investigator asked Sandoval what he meant, he said, “The TV said they’re going to kill me. When I was watching ‘Dragon Ball Z’ (a Japanese anime television series).”

Officers saw drops of blood in the kitchen and on stairs leading to the basement, where Murphy was found dead. Wentz was dead in an upstairs bedroom, a bloody knife and bloody hammer next to him. Both men had multiple cuts and stab wounds, many to the neck and head. Autopsies would later find they died of blood loss.

Officers spoke to a “distressed” witness who was screaming outside the sober home, where he lives. He said he tried to enter through the front door, but a man he didn’t know, later identified as Sandoval, blocked his entry, saying it was “too messy.”

The witness walked to a side door, entered the home and saw drops of blood in the kitchen and down the stairs. He found the handyman in the basement. When he tried to leave, Sandoval said he could not and would need his help “disposing of some things,” the charges say.

He told police Sandoval then put him in a chokehold and they fought. He said he was able to break free, run to a neighboring house and tell the residents to call 911.

After hospital staff released Sandoval, police transported him to the Ramsey County jail. There, Sandoval told an officer, “When you can’t protect someone you care about most in the world, it eats at you, it eats at you, it eats at you until it boils over,” the charges say. He added, “I just wanted a quiet room.”

Found competent in June

Sandoval has been jailed since his arrest in lieu of $2 million bail. His public defender, Baylea Kannmacher, said in court Friday that he’s been meeting with the jail’s mental health workers and taking his prescribed medications.

Last June, a Ramsey County judge found him competent to stand trial on the charges.

During Friday’s plea hearing, Sandoval, who was wearing a blue jail uniform with his hair in a topknot, replied to questions from Kannmacher in the affirmative.

“You do not recall the circumstances of this offense … is that accurate?” Kannmacher asked.

“That is accurate,” said Sandoval, as his mother looked on from the courtroom gallery.

Sandoval made a straight plea to the charges, meaning no agreement is in place, although his attorney can argue for concurrent prison sentences on each count, which carry up to 40 years. Judge Joy Bartscher set sentencing for July 19.

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