Photo: Stephanie Swartz, iStockphoto
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court dealt a harsh blow on Monday to victims of abuse by U.S. officials during the “war on terror.” The court announced it would not review a federal appeals court ruling that dismissed a lawsuit by [...]
Minnesota has settled into climate-appropriate winter weather, but Gov. Pawlenty, just back from summer in South America, opined Monday that the science behind global warming is “unsettled” and cap-and-trade carbon controls are “the wrong direction.” On that second point, he is in agreement with a [...]
Dick Armey, former congressman and current FreedomWorks chairman, likes him some Tim Pawlenty. In an interview with CBS News’ Declan McCullagh, he cites Minnesota’s governor as a Republican who’s “becoming emergent” as one of the “most effective voice[s]” in the party. “My own view is that [...]
The Texas firm hired by the State of Minnesota to vet new hires for legal work status says the state and Minnesota Public Radio can expect a lawsuit, after MPR reported that Lookout Services made employees’ private data accessible online.
MPR’s News Cut quotes [...]
Rep. Michele Bachmann will join members of the religious right in a “prayercast” on Wednesday to pray for defeat the “Government Takeover of Healthcare.” The prayercast is sponsored by the Family Research Council.
Joining Bachmann will be Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kans., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and [...]
The Minnesota Family Council told WCCO over the weekend that laws that include fines and jail for sex outside of marriage are a good thing and should be expanded. Minnesota has several laws on the books — laws that are unenforced and definitely sexist — [...]
Matt Entenza Photo: Wikipedia
The Stonewall DFL, the LGBT caucus within the DFL, voted this weekend to endorse Matt Entenza for governor in 2010. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: Stonewall has endorsed Entenza in every campaign he’s run since his first campaign for the [...]
By Gov. Pawlenty’s executive order, the State of Minnesota checks everyone it hires to confirm they’re legal to work. But the Texas firm to which the state farmed out its E-Verify program didn’t safeguard employees’ data, leaving Social Security numbers and other private info out [...]
“The Nobel Committee gambled and lost,” says Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, assistant professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas. President Obama’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize was “a defense of war and militarism. … With this speech the Nobel Committee’s gamble became an [...]
Image: fcc.gov
The Star Tribune started it, and now the newspaper has announced an end to the saga of the flat-screen TVs at the state facility for sex offenders at Moose Lake. The facility’s director has been reprimanded and the TVs have been punished.
No [...]
Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Just when Margaret Anderson Kelliher appeared to be pulling away from the pack running for governor with a series of endorsements, charges that she violated campaign-finance rules are setting her apart in ways she didn’t need.
Her Democratic rivals for governor [...]
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is alarmed by what it perceives as growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Minnesota. Prompted by news of racist fliers being posted in St. Cloud and the candidacy of Lynne Torgerson against Rep. Keith Ellison, the group called for religious [...]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
WASHINGTON — Rep. Michele Bachmann and the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy teamed up with other House Republicans on Thursday on the front steps of the Supreme Court to take a shot at President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for deciding to [...]
University of Minnesota wrestling coach J Robinson has had his problems with Title IX rules requiring equity for women’s athletics. Now he has trouble with titles and equity of a different sort. After the Minnesota Daily revealed a web of wrestlers buying, selling and [...]
MnIndy file photo
Hotline On Call gives a sneak preview of National Journal’s new survey of beltway insiders on “the member they’d like most to shut up, the brightest thinkers and strategists in their parties and much more.” Topping the list of GOP voices [...]
At least two fliers mocking Islam have been found near Somali-oriented businesses in St. Cloud, the St. Cloud Times reported Thursday. The images included swastikas and the Muslim prophet Mohammed in sexualized situations.
Local police are investigating whether the incidents constituted a crime and, if [...]
A Minnesota pastor says his church is incorrectly listed on the website of a conservative splinter group that’s breaking away from the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) over the church’s recent votes on homosexuality, but that group is refusing to rectify the [...]
Photo: bachmann.house.gov
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann urged her supporters to fight health care reform by calling Congress “every day, when you wake up in the morning and comb your hair and take your vitamins.”
Democrats are purposely pushing health care legislation at holiday time, Bachmann charged during a [...]
In a statement, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner played down the importance of House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher winning EMILY’s List’s backing for governor.
Gaertner apparently felt she had to say something about the endorsement, as the only other candidate with the gender and pro-choice [...]
Minneapolis residents have to look to the neighborhood-association president level to find an elected chief executive who represents them and might actually be at the office today.
President Obama is in Norway, picking up his Nobel Peace Prize. Gov. Pawlenty is in Chile, meeting [...]
What is it about riding a bike under a baseball stadium that Tom Coburn and John McCain don’t understand? The senators decried federal stimulus spending to extend the Cedar Lake Bike Trail into downtown Minneapolis, prompting a blog retort by Transportation Secretary Ray [...]
Photo: Lori Howard, iStockphoto
Six members of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, a controversial ministry that holds Christian assemblies in public schools, are ordained as ministers, tax documents show. The members’ status raises questions about their activities in public schools as [...]
Congress’ first Muslim, DFLer Keith Ellison, has drawn an independent challenger with a lot to say — particularly about Islam.
Lynne Torgerson charts her own course, telling the Minnesota Independent in an interview that she considers herself almost “apolitical.”
The Minneapolis criminal-defense attorney unsuccessfully sought election as [...]
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Senate voted 54 to 45 against the Nelson-Hatch amendment, the Senate companion to the U.S. House’s Stupak amendment, which would eliminated abortion services in the health insurance exchange included in the heath reform bill being debated on Capitol Hill. Minnesota Sens. [...]
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) thinks it can convince 17 Democrats — including Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson — to retire before next year’s election. The “Dem Retirement Assault List” targets 14 seats in districts that voted for Sen. John McCain in the 2008 election, [...]
WASHINGTON — Sen. Al Franken asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning why it is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is imprisoning people coming to the United States seeking asylum from persecution abroad.
“A 2005 congressionally authorized bipartisan commission found [...]
The eight people facing felony conspiracy charges from their pre-emptive arrests ahead of last year’s Republican National Convention will go to trial together, not separately.
The RNC Eight are greeting that news as a victory.
In a statement, co-defendant Luce Guillen-Givins said, ”This is an affirmation from Judge [...]
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected an amendment to health-care reform legislation that would have placed strict new limits on women’s access to abortion coverage. The move was cheered by abortion rights advocates, but it may have eroded [...]
… but don’t let the snow fool you: Gov. Pawlenty says he won’t continue his tradition of making unallotment budget cuts in December. Last year T-Paw gave out lumps of coal to local governments the day after Christmas, but Tuesday he vowed not to [...]
State Sen. Dick Day (R-Owatonna) announced he’ll be stepping down to become the head of Racino Now, a group lobbying legislators to get slot and video games approved at Canterbury Park and Running Aces racetracks. (The URL RacinoNow.com is owned by Canterbury Park.) But he [...]
(Lavverrue, Flickr)
A meeting of Twin Cities Quakers has decided to stop signing marriage certificates until all couples in Minnesota are allowed to marry. The decision, made in November, was a topic of Minnesota Public Radio’s All Things Considered on Monday.
Paul Landskroener, a clerk [...]
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). Photo: WDCpix
WASHINGTON — For millions of unemployed workers, the recession is poised to go from bad to worse.
More than 3.2 million laid-off Americans will prematurely exhaust their unemployment insurance in the first quarter of next year unless [...]
In an endorsement worded as if it was translated from the German, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Minnesota State Council is backing the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives for governor. Said union president Tom Koehler: “Minnesota needs a peoples-leader [...]
Sarah Palin received her subjects in a rotunda at the Mall of America yesterday, only hours after U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann presided over a rally in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda to amend the state constitution with a spending cap. There was a showering of [...]
A report released by the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center says that American Indian girls in Minnesota are impacted by sex trafficking at disproportionate rates.
The Circle News has an excellent article on the report’s (pdf) findings:
Advocates say the report’s findings cast little [...]
Hundreds of Minnesotans braved Alaskan temperatures outside the Mall of America before dawn Monday, waiting for Sarah Palin to sign copies of her book, “Going Rogue.” They warmed up when talking about Palin with the Minnesota Independent.
As at Palin’s appearance with [...]
Former Massachuetts Gov. Mitt Romney pushed back Sunday against Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s attacks on the Bay State’s health care system.Romney appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Host John King baited Romney with a clip of Pawlenty slamming Massachusetts on a past edition of [...]
Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and David Vitter (R-La.). Photos: WDCpix
WASHINGTON — Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) ruffled feathers this month when he drafted a detailed strategy for stalling the health reform bill moving through the [...]
Two facts were missing from the lamentation by Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat in Sunday’s Star Tribune over $8.5 million in maintenance costs for the Minneapolis libraries that the county got gratis. First, the value of the books, buildings, land and financing that the [...]
As he packed for a trade trip to São Paulo, Brazil, Gov. Pawlenty issued an emergency executive order Friday creating a task force to find ways to preserve police, fire and emergency coverage through local shared-services arrangements. Left unsaid is that earlier executive actions by Pawlenty [...]
Dr. Steven Miles
A University of Minnesota bioethics expert says new conflict-of-interest rules now under review won’t be enough to prevent another embarrassment of riches like the $1.2 million a med school prof earned from Medtronic. The “U” only learned of Dr. David Polly’s [...]
Photo: Army.mil via Flickr
While President Obama’s plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan has been met with mixed reactions, one local company sees an upside to troop escalation. Edina-based ATK, formerly Alliant TechSystems, expects to see demand for bulletproof vests go [...]
As Congress, and the nation, debate the role that gays and lesbians play in the military, some Congress members are trying to protect those that testify about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by making that testimony immune from military scrutiny. Reps. Keith Ellison and Tim Walz [...]
Photo: Minnesota Independent
Michele Bachmann speaks to national TV audiences an average of once every nine days, but the Minnesota congresswoman makes extra-sure that voters in her district hear from her directly: She sent more than 1 million email messages or print mailings to them last [...]
The campaign of Dr. Maureen Reed says it will not abide by the DFL endorsement should it go to her opponent, state Sen. Tarryl Clark, the St. Cloud Times reports. Reed’s campaign says she hasn’t gotten a fair shake from key DFL constituencies, mainly labor [...]
Supporters of R.T. Rybak for governor shouldn’t think they’re at the wrong place Sunday just because the sign outside says “R.T. Ryback Campaign Kickoff.”
The playbill-style posting at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis’ Dinkytown may have the mayor’s name spelled wrong, but even more unusual names [...]
“There’s nothing to” the Politico report that Norm Coleman would decide by the end of the year about running for governor. That decision is “down the road,” he says … as in “he plans to ’step back and look at the political horizon’ around [...]
Barb Davis White
Despite losing to Rep. Keith Ellison by a record margin last November, Barb Davis White is giving it another go. The evangelical minister announced her candidacy in September, but no media outlets have made mention of it. And her campaign’s filings to [...]
Flow charts can simplify any contentious issue, domestic or international. Take the gay marriage debate and Afghan war strategy … please.
These two particularly exquisite flow charts turned up over the last day or so: one from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that explains the counterinsurgency [...]
Andy Birkey, Chris Steller, Paul Schmelzer, Daphne Eviatar, Paul Demko, Anna Pratt, David Weigel, Mary Kane, Mike Lillis, admin, Martha C. White, Spencer Ackerman, David O. Williams
