AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting; Democracy Docket, January 24, 2026

 Jacob Knutson, Democracy Docket; AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting

[Kip Currier: As noted by MS NOW commentators last night, Pam Bondi's letter to Minn. Gov. Tim Walz looks like another example of Trumpian transactionalism: meet our demands for Minnesota voter rolls, end "sanctuary policies", and be willing to collaborate with ICE efforts, and we may then ease up on immigration raids in your state. 

That looks and sounds like a form of state-sanctioned extortion.]

[Excerpt]

"Just hours after federal immigration officers shot and killed a man in Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi seized upon the incident to demand access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, directly tying the Trump administration’s quest for voters’ unredacted personal data to its aggressive immigration raids across the state.

In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz (D) Saturday, Bondi blamed state and local leaders for the unrest ignited by the Trump administration’s expansive immigration enforcement operations. She claimed that Walz could “restore the rule of law” by complying with a list of demands, including giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) the state’s voter registration records.

“Allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law as authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1960,” Bondi said in the letter, which was first obtained by Fox News.

The letter adds the state’s unwillingness to share voting data to a litany of grievances the Trump administration has leveled against Minnesota, which range from the local Democratic leaders’ rejection of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) actions to a longstanding welfare fraud scandal.

Bondi’s other demands included sharing Minnesota’s data on Medicaid and supplementary food assistance with the federal government, ending “sanctuary policies” and supporting and collaborating with ICE. This would allow the government to investigate fraud and curb “crime and violence” in the state, the attorney general claimed.

In sum, Bondi’s letter represents a major assault on Minnesota’s sovereignty, demanding that it forfeit its ability to make and enforce its own laws and maintain its voter rolls without oversight from the executive branch, which does not have authority over elections."

The power of boycotts; The Ink, March 31, 2025

Anand Giridharadas, The Ink; The power of boycotts

"Elon Musk’s feelings are hurt. His companies are suffering.

Weird, coming from the guy who denounced empathy as Western civilization’s “fundamental weakness.” While a little needling by Tim Walz about Tesla’s plummeting share price may have set him off, the real pain point is the #teslatakedown movement, which this past Saturday put on a worldwide day of action.

Folks on the right like to complain about boycotts. They’ve called them illegal. They’ve tried to intimidate those who’d dare use their economic power. They’ve threatened to criminalize the very idea. They’ve commingled peaceful calls for investors and shoppers to withhold their hard-earned dollars with acts of vandalism, and have tried to paint the entire movement as terrorism. But, as you might expect, accusations are confessions: what far-right political figures mean when they denounce boycotts is that they want to decide who gets boycotted.

So what is it that scares the guy who wants to privatize everything? Members of the public, exercising their private power to decide, and doing it collectively (Musk famously hates that whole collective thing). Because when that power is clearly targeted and well organized, it gets results. Maybe it’s the sheer gumption of speaking truth to power in its native language — money — that pains Musk. But that’s the free market, isn’t it?"

Could AI Help Bust Medicaid Scammers? Minnesota May Find Out; Government Technology, January 29, 2025

 Nikki Davidson, Government Technology; Could AI Help Bust Medicaid Scammers? Minnesota May Find Out

"HOW CAN AI HELP?

The governor’s plan is to detect and flag anomalies for Medicaid providers, meaning an AI system would likely be trained to identify unusual or suspicious patterns in billing and payment data.

Suspicious patterns could include:

• Billing for an excessive number of services: Flagging providers who bill for significantly more services than their peers
• Billing for unnecessary or inappropriate services: Flagging claims for services that are not medically necessary or do not align with the patient's diagnosis
• Billing for services not rendered: Flagging claims for services that were never actually provided
• Unusual billing patterns or trends: Flagging providers whose billing practices deviate significantly from established norms or show sudden, unexplained changes

In an interview with Government Technology, Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) Tarek Tomes explained that this use case aligns with the state’s AI strategy of leaning into less controversial use cases that don’t reinvent any wheel, as many private-sector financial institutions already use similar technology.

“In our private lives, if we have suspicious credit card transactions, we generally get a text message asking, ‘Is this really you?’" said Tomes. “So using AI and machine learning to really look at patterns — both successful and unsuccessful patterns of transactions, and to be able to flag transactions for further review or further investigation is going to be a really important capability to add to those areas in government that have high transactions where financial benefits are paid out.”

At this point, it’s a waiting game until April or May to see if the AI pilot will be approved in the state’s budget. In the meantime, Tomes said MNIT is researching vendors and the capabilities they provide, especially in terms of low-fidelity prototypes.

If the pilot funding gets a green light from lawmakers, human beings will still play an essential role in the fraud detection process, investigating the flagged transactions for actual evidence of wrongdoing or fraud."

Biden Made Trump Bigger. Harris Makes Him Smaller.; The New York Times, August 11, 2024

Ezra Klein , The New York Times; Biden Made Trump Bigger. Harris Makes Him Smaller.

"Not all elections take place in new media environments. But elections that do are often won by the candidate who best understands the way attention is changing. Franklin Roosevelt understood radio in a way that Herbert Hoover didn’t. John F. Kennedy understood television in a way that Richard Nixon didn’t. Obama rode the early wave of social media. Trump mastered the algorithmic era of social media, where outrage and controversy cashed out as engagement. The platforms have changed again, chasing TikTok’s dominance, and now memes and clipped and remixed videos rule."