Star Tribune
Minn. Democrats defend Biden after report questions his memory, while Emmer says he’s unfit to serve
Some Democratic congressmembers from Minnesota defended President Joe Biden on Friday after a special counsel who investigated his handling of classified materials raised concerns about his memory.
Minnesota Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, on the other hand, said he thinks the report demonstrated Biden is “unfit for the Oval Office.” And Democratic U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who’s challenging Biden for the presidential nomination, said the president “cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term.”
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report released Thursday determined that Biden willfully kept and shared classified information while he was a private citizen but concluded he shouldn’t be criminally charged. Hur’s report also included an unflattering assessment of the 81-year-old Biden’s memory that alarmed Republicans and drew condemnation from Democrats who accused the special counsel of pushing a political agenda.
Hur described Biden’s memory as “significantly limited” and wrote that the president “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur noted that Biden couldn’t immediately remember the years he served as vice president, nor could he remember exactly when his son, Beau, died.
In a Thursday evening press conference at the White House, Biden angrily pushed back at Hur’s assertions and insisted his memory is fine.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters Thursday night, rejecting Hur’s notion that he forgot when his son died. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, was it any of their damn business?”
Minnesota Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith defended Biden in a statement Friday, calling special counsel Hur “a Trump appointee with a political axe to grind.”
Hur was a U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, but was appointed special counsel to this case by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee.
“Being so blatantly disrespectful as to suggest the President misremembered the death of his son is despicable beyond imagination,” Smith said. “I have 100 percent faith in the President. I spent a full day with Joe Biden less than a month ago – got on the plane with him early in the morning, had a grueling travel day, three different events, and I watched him perform at the very top of his game all the way through it, both in private and in public. Among those who actually see him in action, President Biden’s ability to connect with people and stay on top of policy issues has never been in doubt for a moment.”
Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents St. Paul and east-metro suburbs, also accused Hur of “taking vile political shots” at Biden in an attempt to “score points for Trump.”
“I was with President Biden yesterday at the Democratic issues conference, where he engaged with us on a wide range of issues and was sharp as a tack. The bottom line: President Biden respects the rule of law and leads our nation well,” McCollum said in a statement Friday.
“MAGA supporters will stop at nothing to distract and divide Americans, and the media must stop taking the bait,” McCollum added.
Minnesota Democratic U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar declined to comment. Sen. Amy Klobuchar hadn’t yet responded to a request for comment as of Friday afternoon.
Other Republicans in Minnesota’s congressional delegation — Reps. Pete Stauber, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democratic Rep. Phillips, who represents suburbs west of Minneapolis and is challenging Biden for the party’s nomination, was more critical of the president. Phillips said the report marks “another sad day for America and particularly for President Biden and his family.”
“The Report simply affirms what most Americans already know, that the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term ending January 20, 2025,” Phillips wrote in a text message to the Star Tribune. “Already facing the lowest approval numbers in modern history and losing in each of the key battleground states, this Report has all but handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump if Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee – and I invite fellow Democrats to face the truth.”
Minnesota’s Emmer, the third highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House, issued a joint statement Thursday with other GOP leaders. They wrote that “Among the most disturbing parts of this report is the Special Counsel’s justification for not recommending charges: namely that the President’s memory had such ‘significant limitations’ that he could not convince a jury that the President held a ‘mental state of willfulness’ that a serious felony requires.”
“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” read the statement from Emmer and other top House Republicans.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
