Bluestem Prairie

Emo Senator flounces out of budget meeting; will Parry's mood swings derail special session?

Like following a glorious hayseed telenovela, watching the political career of Senator Mike Parry is endlessly rewarding.

When Bluestem last left the Emo Senator, in When a newspaper loves a Republican, he can do no wrong (and the FDN can't factcheck Parry) he was being pleasured by the managing editor of the Faribault Daily News over his "plain spoke" (but inaccurate) tweets about a laid-off state employee.

In today's installment of "Emo Senator,"  State government budget meeting blows up over policy,  Eric Roper reports in the Hot Dish Blog that Parry flounced out of a meeting:

Sen. Mike Parry says he does not think the state government budget bill will be wrapped up by 10 p.m. tonight after a budget meeting this morning erupted over a policy dispute.

Parry, chair of the state government committee, said he and other lawmakers walked out of the meeting because MMB Jim Schowalter said "policy and reform" provisions were off the table.

“My understanding is leadership agreed that we would take the social policy out," Parry said. "But we would still have reforms.”

Those include non-social policy items like consolidating a variety of state government agencies.

Schowalter took "policy and reform" off the table, and so, after a week of being so publicly weepy about  the fate of 22,000 laid off state employees (except, of course, the gardener guy), the Emo Senator's mood swings in another direction:

"I just took my tablet, put it in my folder," Parry said. "And Commissioner Showalter looked at me and said, ‘Senator, please don’t leave.’ And I said, 'Commissioner, I’m not here to waste my time. We have a serious situation, it needs to be resolved, and you have no clue what the governor wants in this bill.'"

The administration and Parry will have to sort those details out, though Bluestem must wonder how Parry knows what Dayton wants.

Bluestem suspects now that Parry must really hate that guy who maintains the grounds at the governor's residence, or else has the worst case of lawn envy ever as we insinuated in Emo tweeting senator Mike Parry can see Governor's mansion lawn from Waseca.

Will the gardener ever get back to work? Will Parry volunteer to mow the lawn at the Summit Avenue mansion, proving once and for all he's the man when it comes to fescue?

Meanwhile, after reading a tweet by Minnpost's media critic commenting "Emo Senator strikes again." this poor country blogger has contacted her agent about putting Bluestem's telenovela, "Ugly Parry," inspired by the Waseca senator, back on the market.

Image: Parry's crocodile tears.

Related posts: When a newspaper loves a Republican, he can do no wrong (and the FDN can't factcheck Parry)

Emo senator Mike Parry pats self on back for compassion, reveals another income source

MNGOP's class warfare for dummies: Waseca voter tells Mike Parry he's wrong about Dayton

Emo tweeting senator Mike Parry can see Governor's mansion lawn from Waseca

The Emo Senator cont'd: rocking chairs, resignations, and a retreat to retweets

Thumbs down, Emo senator: "Parry commentary wasn’t helpful"; turn off phone, go count trees

Emo senator, part 3: Mike Parry collecting paycheck and per diem during shutdown

The Emo Senator, part 2: Mike Parry cries crocodile tears over laid-off state workers

The Emo Senator: Mike Parry calls for Governor Dayton's resignation, cites feelings, trust fund

Suddenly socialist Mike Parry demands pay according to his needs

105 sex-crazed Republicans close down Minnesota

Bluestem Commentary

Always a sucker for adorable animal tales, I was alarmed by the headline in a Gotham-based publication: 100 'Sex-Crazed' Turtles Close Down JFK Airport Runway.

And then the truth about Minnesota's own shutdown hit me. Glenn Gruenhagen is right about the undisciplined sex drive being the most destructive force in the world, though he's wrong to restrict his fear to that possessed by just one gender. Consider, for instance, the role of the Republican social agenda in shutting down the State of Minnesota.

Though elected on promises of jobs, jobs, jobs, and cutting government spending, the new majorities in the senate and the house simply could not control their collective obsession with sex. Rather than hammer out a budget in May, they wasted time fetishizing marriage, passing a bill to chisel inequality into the state constitution, first in the Senate, then--on the final weekend before adjournment--in the House, where four Republicans had the good sense to be rational. (For the headline, I take the number of Republicans in both chambers who voted for the marriage amendment and who supported the no-compromise stance).

The other 105 Republicans couldn't stop thinking, or at least listening to those who spend a lot of time thinking, about dudes kissing. And marrying. And-What-That -Might-Do-To-The-Children.

Meanwhile, their resolve hardened about no compromise on keeping the state running, since somewhere, a millionaire might have to pay higher taxes, a thought that terrifies many in today's Republican party even more than the notion of butt sex.

Ditto with bringing abortion restrictions to the table. Though it made many uncomfortable, Gruenhagen put his finger more or less on the money of what troubled the caucuses. Someone, somewhere, was having some perverted fun, and one could blot out those thoughts by appealing to the consequences.

And then there was the phantom terror over clones, which would have shut down promising stem cell research at the University of Minnesota.

And so in this week's sweltering heat, could the Republican caucuses focus on constructing a working budget to fund the state's government?

Of course not.

Attention turned to policy issues, with abortion and cloning on the list. The Star Tribune reports in Broken deals, bitter words and a state shuts down:

Policy as a bargaining chip

Talks may have also broken down because an earlier GOP offer asked Dayton to accept controversial policy positions the Republicans pushed for this year, including photo ID requirements at the polls and abortion restrictions. An offer sheet provided to the Star Tribune said the policy adoptions were in exchange for "new revenue in a compromise offer."

Briana Bierschbach at PIM has more in Paper Trail: GOP policy-laden offer to Gov. Dayton:

The document, dated June 29 at 8 p.m., spells out terms of a compromise from the GOP majorities. New revenue in a deal would have been contingent on a special session Thursday to pass most of the budget bills and continue health and human services payments at current levels until a final bill could be drafted and passed by July 8, the document reads.

It also calls for various policy provisions to be included in the budget bills, including collective bargaining reforms and mandate relief in the education bill, cloning language and tuition caps in the higher education bill, a ban on taxpayer funds for abortions in the health and human services bill and photo identification at the polls in the state government budget bill.  . . .

Mnindy's Andy Birkey has more in GOP pressed for abortion, stem cell research bans during budget negotiations.

So demands on policy-- including non-budget policy items rooted in an obsession with sex--trumped even keeping the lights on and the parks open this Independence Day weekend. When the end-of-session time devoted to committing the entire state engaged in a months-long battle over amending its constitution to discriminate against LGBTQ citizens is figured in, yes, sex-crazed Republicans closed down Minnesota.

Perhaps, like turtles, they simply can't help heeding the call of the reptilian brain centers nestled deep in their gray matter.

The state's reaction? The Strib reports that Let's shut down the politicians, angry citizens cry.

Get serious, get rational and get a budget passed.

Update: For a more serious and measured look at the question, check out the always thorough Andy Birkey's Did abortion politics derail budget talks, lead to shutdown? at the Minnesota Independent.

Photo: Don't let that reptile brain dictate your budget.

Broken deals, bitter words and a state shuts down

Searching for a sticky story on Legacy fund changes: it's Snooki in the library now

Watching Matt Dean and the House caucus pivot away from their original anti-arts and MPR message on Wednesday (based on a committee hearing and Dean interview on  Tuesday) to a lazer-focused tiny library cut on Friday's coverage is fascinating.

On Wednesday, the Strib reported that the bill Dean Urdahl submitted and discussed in committee on Tuesday had to do with making grant programs for the arts and public radio competitive. In GOP targets Legacy funds for MPR, arts, readers learned:

Republicans made an abrupt move with a new bill to end earmarks and require competition for money.

House Republicans are reexamining state funding for some key arts and cultural heritage groups -- a move that may take political aim at Minnesota Public Radio, the Minnesota Zoo and other entities that have gotten special appropriations.

In an unusual move on Tuesday, Rep. Dean Urdahl, who chairs the House Legacy Funding Division panel, introduced a new version of a Legacy amendment funding bill that would remove specific money recommendations for the state's influential public radio network and other cultural organizations and said they would instead compete for grants.

Urdahl, who struggled at times during a hearing to explain the sudden move, said it was partly the suggestion of Republican legislative leaders.

Legislation that Urdahl's panel adopted less than a week ago recommended that Minnesota Public Radio receive $2 million in Legacy money over the next two years, that public television get $7.8 million and that an assortment of minority groups, including the Council on Black Minnesotans, share $1 million.

In the new version, most of the groups that previously were to get specific appropriations would now have to compete for the money.

House Majority Leader Matt Dean said he reminded Urdahl of the "importance of making sure he has [Republican] caucus support" for Legacy funding for arts and cultural heritage projects, an area of spending that Dean acknowledged had rankled some Republicans. "MPR, it's safe to say, has been a concern in the past," said Dean.

Dean also singled out a $45,000 payment of Legacy money that was made last year to science fiction writer Neil Gaiman for a four-hour speaking appearance. Dean said that Gaiman, "who I hate," was a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota."

Were either Urdahl or Dean articulating one word about the fund from which Gaiman was paid? Why, no.

But by Friday, the Strib reports  the House Republican Caucus has pivoted  so that the major changes in the bill are ignored--and the "furor" over the library's payment to Gaiman led to a focused, indeed petty, cut to the total library appropriation.

In Furor keeps building over author's $45,000 speech fee, it's as if Dean's original junior high taunt never hopped out of the Majority Leader's mouth to justify changes to the way in which grants to the arts and radio are distributed. It wasn't about the libraries on Tuesday.

Update: A reader commented that since the fee wasn't $45,000, this reduction makes the Republicans look even more petty.  From an interview in the City Pages:

The entire controversy from last year consisted of a Republican blog drawing attention to this speaking gig, using the $45,000, which actually wasn't the true number, but it got picked up.

I received a grand total of $33,600, and I know because I checked this morning. That went to charity. I'd been doing a bunch of library-based events. It was at the end of a week where I'd done a huge pro bono Comic Book Legal Defense fund event, then I'd gone to Indianapolis to receive the Kurt Vonnegut award for literature, and then I was coming home.[end update]

Now the story is simply about $45,000 being cut from the regional libraries--but nothing about the larger change in Legacy appropriations that formed the heart of Wednesday's coverage.

Readers learn now:

The feud between celebrity author Neil Gaiman and House Majority Leader Matt Dean took several bizarre twists Thursday, when lawmakers threatened retaliation against local libraries, Gaiman threatened retaliation against Dean, and the cast of characters expanded to include Snooki from MTV's "Jersey Shore.''

The action started when a House Republican committee chair said he is recommending a $45,000 cut in the Twin Cites' regional library system budget to make up for the state Legacy money it paid last year to Gaiman for a speaking appearance.

Gaiman quickly defended his speaking fees, saying they are comparable to those charged by Snooki, the reality TV star.

Way to cover for the boss, Mr. Urdahl. Funny how that wasn't important enough to bring up Tuesday in the Legacy bill discussion in your committee.

And indeed, there's only a summary about the "concerns" that Republicans had that are leading to bigger changes:

Dean' comments, however, underscored the ongoing concerns of the Republican majority about Legacy money being spent on arts and cultural projects as the Legislature struggles to solve a $5.1 billion budget deficit. The Legacy amendment, passed in 2008 with considerable financial support from arts groups in Minnesota, raised the state sales tax for 25 years to fund outdoors, clean water, parks and trails and arts and cultural heritage projects.

And Urdahl says his concern are leading him to cut a sliver from the regional library funds:

Urdahl, himself an author, said, "I simply subtracted out $45,000 -- just making a point," in explaining why he cut the library system's proposed Legacy budget to $3.45 million. The Legacy funding proposal, including the reduced budget for the regional library system, is being reviewed by legislators.

That wasn't the point Urdahl and Dean made in their respective committee hearing and interview on Tuesday.

So--Bluestem returns to its original point: if Gaiman's fee is all they've got--and it came from a fund in which the basic formula isn't changed--why are grants to public broadcasting and arts board projects to be made competitive?

Why the "fix" on programs for which neither Matt Dean nor Dean Urdahl has been able to offer any evidence--however juvenilely expressed--as to the nature of their "concerns" that is at the core of the major changes offered in Urdal's bill?

What "concerns" and what evidence do the Republicans have that something is amiss in other cultural programs? Or do they simply disagree with the will of the voters who passed the Legacy amendment? Do they have more than a shout out to stereotypes about individual artists to justify changes?

Are the Legacy funds to become like local funds for the Range? Do these cats have any real (or legal) plan at all to fix the state's revenue crisis?

Photo: Majority Leader Rep.Matt Dean. Why the wrinkles?

Hastings Post Gazette: Hundreds rally to support drama club in Westboro Baptist (no show) showdown

Katrina Styx reports in Hundreds at HHS counter-protest Westboro message:

On the sidewalks along high school grounds, hundreds of people lined up Sunday afternoon with signs and voices to send a message: Hastings and Minnesota do not tolerate hate. . . .

. . .Wendy Leigh of Impact-Twin Cities was one of the organizers of the counter-protest. A national and global activist, Leigh and others sent out more than 3,500 invitations though Facebook to people, asking them to stand up against WBC. A couple hundred people confirmed their attendance, she said.

One of the counter-protesters had seen a WBC van in Hastings Saturday, Leigh said. It was described as a van with Kansas plates and phrases of WBCs message written on the sides. WBCs protest was scheduled from 1:15 p.m. to 2 p.m. By 2 p.m. there still had been no sign of the organization at the high school.

Not surprising. The facebook group notes that no one from the Kansas group showed up, and that those supporting the students had a great time.

Visit the Post Gazette to see a photo of Minnesota Nice in action.

In Wisconsin, WTAQ reports that the haters were also a no-show at a performance of the Larimie Project at an area high school. According to Controversial Church Doesn't Protest at Neenah High School:

Westboro Baptist officials were supposed to appear at 6:15 p.m. before the 7 p.m. performance. They didn't show.

So instead Neenah High got a demonstration they weren't expecting. The only protest was that of people in support of the play.

“If the Phelps family is coming here to preach that message to our community, I want to let them know that they're not welcome,” Tyler Baeten told FOX 11.

Tyler Baeten rallied some people to start a protest against the protesters.

“I have a bunch of friends in the play tonight who were concerned that these people were gonna come and ruin it,” said Glenn Anderson, a former Neenah High student.

“I'm really astounded that so many people came,” said Baeten.

It's not know why the group from Westboro didn't show up. School officials say they didn't receive any other complaints about the play.

Also not surprising.

Photo: Publicity shot from the HHS production of the Laramie Project.

Westboro Baptist Church to bother Hastings High student thespians

The notice in the Hastings Star Gazette's Education section is nothing out of the ordinary:

Hastings High School to present "The Laramie Project"

Hastings High School’s drama club is about ready to produce its winter play. “The Laramie Project” will be on stage Thursday, Friday and Sunday, Feb. 10, 11 and 13.

A school play.

Unfortunately, the high school drama club's winter production captured the attention of Kansas's best known public nuisances, the blue-nosed, crusading membership of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church.

Update 2/13: The Kansas haters were no-shows in Hastings today. Read about it in Hundreds rally to support drama club in Westboro Baptist (no show) showdown [end update].

Andy Birkey reports in  ‘God Hates Fags’ headed to Hastings, Fargo; counter-protests planned:

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church and God Hates Fags fame is headed to Hastings this weekend and Fargo next weekend to protest showings of the Laramie Project. Counter-protests are already being organized in both cities. . . .

. . .The Hastings counter-protest is planned for Sunday, Feb. 13 from 1 to 4pm.

Here’s the Westboro Baptist Church schedule and its comment about each protest:

Hastings High School in Hastings, MN February 13, 2011 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM

WBC to picket yet another showing of The Laramie Project. A fag propaganda play about Matt Shepard. He has been in hell for 12 years now. Judy Shepard raised her son to be a disobedient drug using pervert, and God cut that child off. His blood is on her hands! From that day to this Judy Shepard has spent all her resources on teaching the young people of this nation the same rebellion that caused God to cut off her own son – and makes a hefty profit off of it! Shame on her for making money off of a child who is dead at her hands! Run from the lies told in this play – your never dying soul depends upon it! You will join Matt in hell if you follow/believe in these lies. Your destruction is imminent! Obey or Perish! . . .

If only bothering high school kids were the worst thing Phelps' brood has done. But nope: these are the thimblewits who picket the funerals of American service members killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, deaths that the church members say are God's wrath on a nation that is nice to gay and lesbian people.

Gay-friendly theater isn't particularly a novel idea for Greater Minnesota. "The Boys in the Band" was staged at Mankato State (now Minnesota State University at Mankato) when this crabby old hag was still in high school.

In addition to the Facebook event in Birkey's post, other groups are rallying to support the student actors. The director of the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MNCASA) sent out the following email:

Hastings High School students are currently presenting the very powerful and moving play “The Laramie Project.” Unfortunately, the extremist group led by Fred Phelps, is planning to protest Sunday's show at 2:00.

These students have worked hard to launch this powerful show AGAINST hate so supporters of the students and of the theater project are asking for additional supporters to come out, enjoy the performance and let the protesters know that they are not effective. (These are the same people who have sent protesters to the burials of soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

If you are able, please attend the performance and show your support to these incredible High School kids who are trying to make a difference.

Donna Dunn
Executive Director
MNCASA

Please consider taking some time to let the kids know they're alright. The Patriot Guard motorcycle club shields mourners at military funerals from the pickets; perhaps the Twin Cities theater community can provide an equally creative sidewalk performance in support of the students.

Photo: The spot where Matt Shepard was mortally injured; the slight young man later died in the hospital. Via the Hastings Theater website.

 

The Range finder; or, the unbearable lightness of being Tony Sutton

You have to hand it to Minnesota Republican Party Chair Tony Sutton, whose conspiratorial rants failed the Smell Check during last year's gubernatorial recount. Now, only a few short months after drawing attention to himself in a way that made Tom Emmer look classy, he's started 2011 out with some remarkable whimpers.

First there was the brass parachute as he ejected from the coasting failure known as Baja Sol into the swamps of "public affairs" consulting. Bluestem reviewed the move in Google is not your friend; or, another winning strategy from MNGOP chair Tony Sutton.

That was followed by a moment of bluster that produced the best blog headline so far in Minnesota. Stamping political dirt with the absurd grace of a prairie chicken in full courtship dance, Sutton earned this one over at Minnesota Brown:Hibbing native who lives in Cities accuses Hibbing native who lives in Hibbing of not living in Hibbing.

The accusations were merely that, a distant political will o' the wisp lingering at the edges of the Carly Melin campaign. The Duluth New Tribune succinctly dispatches Sutton's bluster in a single paragraph today:

Last week, Republicans questioned Melin’s residency, saying she had lived in St. Paul last summer and may not have been a resident of the district for the required six months before the election. Melin, who grew up in Hibbing and went away to college and law school, said she returned to her hometown to take a job with the state judicial system last August, in ample time to meet the state rules. No official complaint has been filed on the issue.[emphasis added]

Had there been substance to Sutton's ravings, readers can bet the Republican Party would be have moved to have Melin removed from the ballot, just as Sue Ek, its own candidate, was removed from contention in another special election back in 2005.

Now the Republican Party of Minnesota--led by Sutton--has compounded the smear in a tone-deaf move.

Seeking to cement the notion that the local kid who came back home to work after going to school in the Cities is actually an alien landed from Mars, the MNGOP sent out a gun rights mail piece that's utterly lacking in common sense in the aftermath of post-Gifford calls for civility. The Duluth Tribune describes the piece in Gun ad for Republican candidate on Iron Range has DFLers up in arms:

A campaign brochure for Republican state legislative candidate Paul Jacobson depicting a hunter looking down a shotgun and urging voters to “take your best shot’’ while criticizing opponent Carly Melin has sparked outrage from some supporters of the DFL candidate.

The brochure, mailed this week to residents of Minnesota House District 5B, shows a person looking down the barrel and urges people to vote in the Feb. 15 special election to fill the open seat.

While the gun is not pointed at anything or anyone in particular, Melin’s photo is on the next page. The ad also calls Melin “a fake’’ and states that her campaign is “full of holes.’’

The brochure also inveighs against "St. Paul Politicians." The Tribune reports that the lit piece is an independent expenditure sent out by the Republican Party of Minnesota. Charming.

The piece misses the mark in a multiple ways. Former Hibbing native Sutton and his writers draw a blank on one of the most compelling narratives for Range and Greater Minnesota communities. One of our biggest exports are our most talented young people. Families love and nurture them, schools educate them--and then they head off to college if their ambitions exceed the opportunities offered by the local community college.

Carly Melin is the exception to that general rule. She finished law school, passed the bar, and got a job back home. By trashing her, the GOP indirectly bashes the hopes of many families who'd love to see their kids come home, as well as the longing of many young people to return home after college and grad school.

Second, it's plain tomfoolery--and subtly sexist--about Melin and gun rights thmselves. The Duluth paper reports:

The brochure also goes on to imply that Melin is part of a Twin Cities liberal elite bent on gun-control measures. Melin says that’s a lie, noting she’s an avid hunter.

“As someone who hunts and has a firearms certificate since I was 14, and whose dad teaches firearms (safety) classes, it is outrageous to question my stand on gun ownership. But this piece goes beyond that. It sends a chilling message to any young person who gets involved in public service and runs for office. (Neither) I, nor any candidate for public office, should be subject to such an assault,’’ Melin said in a statement to the News Tribune.

This isn't the first time in Minnesota politics where an attractive Democratic woman candidate has been accused of being anti-gun. The most high-profile case is drawn from early in the career of former state senator Becky Lourey, a crack shot who challenged her rivals to a target shooting contest. (Really, I'd think by now we'd be over this sort of thing).

In fact,  were this election being conducted on a regular calendar, rather than the hectic pace pace of a special election, Melin could offer a good-natured Lourey-esque challenge to her two rivals. Time being what it is, with only a few days for all candidates to connect with the voters, umbrage at a moronic mailer will have to do.

Unlike Melin and her supporters, I can't say I want Tony Sutton to resign. Rather, let's hope he persists with the same mad skillz he brought to the Baja Sol Cantina concept.

Images: the offending brochure (via Duluth Tribune); Carly Melin, DFL candidate.

Southwest Metro Tea Party sponsors Bradlee Dean & Jake "McMillian" MacAulay movie night

Tonight, the Southwest Metro Tea Party emerges from its social conservative closet--discretely tucked a page down on its website--by screening a movie at the Chanhassen Cinema:

This Month's Movie, January 31st:

"My War"

The Testimony of Bradlee Dean

With Special Guests: Bradlee Dean & Jake McMillian

Son's of Liberty Radio (Saturdays 3-5pm on am1280 The Patriot)

This will be a night for the entire family!
"My War" is an all-encompassing look at the country today.
This documentary will give you insight into topics such as:
* Our Founding Fathers * The Constitution *
* What kids are being taught in public schools *
* The myth of alcoholism * Drug abuse *
* Hollywood and the moral decline of our nation *
* The spiritual heritage and foundation of the United States *
* The lies in the media * & much more *

HELP SPREAD THE WORD
& Be Sure To **BRING A FRIEND**
Trust Us -- You will not want to miss this Showing!

As Andy Birkey at Minnesota Independent, Karl Bremer at Ripple in Stillwater, and Ken Avidor at Dump Bachman have reported on an ongoing basis, Bradlee Dean ( birth name, Bradley Dean Smith) and Jacob "MacMillian" MacAulay run the homophobic "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" youth ministry from rural Annandale, out here in my neck of the woods (my state senate district, at least).

The Awl previewed the film itself last fall in My War': Bradlee Dean's Popular Struggle Against Those Criminal, Child-Molesting Gays.

Politico, like the mainstream media in general, may say that in the popular mind the Tea Party "movement draws on populist sentiments and pushes an agenda focused on reducing taxes, government spending and the national debt." In 2010, for instance, the New York Times reported that the Tea Party Avoids Divisive Social Issues. Other stories have suggested a Tea Party/social conservative split.

A recent poll found that Americans want Republicans to listen to the Tea Party, and given the earlier reportage about the Tea Party and social conservative ideas, those polled might readily be forgiven for assuming those ideas aren't a socially conservative agenda.

But the pollsters didn't actually define what Tea Party ideas are, so the coast is clear for the SW Metro Tea Party to fill in the blanks.

Southwest Metro Tea Party has other ideas indeed about what its ideas or "principles" are (scroll down a bit here), in a clear contrast with the agenda Politico outlines.  Sure, there's the frontpage short version: "fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, free markets/free enterprise, [and] personal freedoms." But step deeper into the website for the self-described "longer version," and they align with the theocratic clap-trap espoused by Dean and MacAulay, as well as by the Republicans who love and support their ministry.

The group supports the principle of "personal liberty:"

No interference in private life, business, health, assembly, speech or possessions.

That "personal liberty" only goes so far, and certainly not to include a woman's right to make decisions about her own health or treating queer folk as equals. One principle is traditional marriage:

The union between a man and a woman, has been the foundation of every civilization in human history. It is incorporated into the fabric of our culture and civic life.  It is the platform on which children, families and communities are nurtured.  The institution of marriage is far too precious to surrender to the whims of a handful of unelected, activist judges.  Males and females are born with profoundly sacred and contrasting, yet complementary characteristics and responsibilities.

So much for the notion of "private life." Not to mention butch and femme. Read all of the Principles of the Southwest Metro Tea Party here in all their glorious pretzel logic.

But such paradoxes seem easily bridged by this set and their fellow travelers. Most recently, Bremer reported about YCRBYCH's commitment to the fiscal responsibility that the SW Metro Tea Party endorses.

Bremer writes in You Can Run But You Cannot Hide was evicted from Plymouth offices in 2007 :

Bradley Dean Smith, aka “Bradlee Dean,” and his Annandale-based anti-gay hate “ministry” found out that you can run, but you cannot hide—from the landlord. In 2007, Smith’s Old Paths Church Ministries, dba You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, was evicted under court order from its offices in the Bass Lake Business Centre II in Plymouth for nonpayment of rent.

The eviction was the result of a complaint filed against Old Paths Church Ministries in Hennepin County Housing Court on June 7, 2007, by its landlord, Bass Lake Realty LLC of Minneapolis. . . .

Read the rest at RIS.

Given the road conditions out here today on the wind-swept prairie, I'll have to forgo the splendors of Dean's cinematic masterpiece in Chanhassen--surely a case of weather-induced cultural deprivation second only to missing a Katherine Kersten-led tour of Yale Sex Week.

Image: A promo for Dean's war.

Offended by launch of Spanish language website, Hanska's resident hater rejects Heritage

Posting on the Confederate Americans for Secure Borders elist last week, Ruthie Hendrycks, who does business under the assumed name Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MinnSIR) has called for her followers to decide whether they wish to be removed from the mailing lists of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.

She shared her rejection email with the list:

My removal from Heritage Foundation

I sent this to a few Patriots last night and am forwarding to all now

You decide - what your thoughts are on the matter

my short email follows

RE: Concerning this action.................

Meanwhile, the GOP-leaning Heritage Foundation will soon unveil a website called Libertad.org (Spanish for "liberty").

Erin Bender

staff@... [redacted by Bluestem]

website www.heritage.org

Please remove my following email addresses from your database immediately I am proud on the English language, and believe America – [sic] s strength is in unity not in division - this decision by Heritage Foundation DOES NOT garner my support and I will have no further involvement with your organization – [sic] including the forwarding of your educational material etc.

In 2006, Hendrycks told a Star Tribune reporter that a traumatic shopping event helped spur her to founding MinnSIR:

There were little things, too, such as when she went to the store to buy her hair coloring and the writing on the box was in Spanish.

"I think our sovereignty in the U.S. is at risk,'' she charged. [Jean Hopfensperger,"Standing firm in opposition to illegals. . .," Mpls. Star Tribune, April 28, 2006, Nexis All News database, accessed January 30, 2011]

That section of Preference and Excellence by L'Oréal Paris in the local Target always causes me to have the fantods, too--mostly because the store never seems to stock enough Dark Auburn, in whatever language.

I'm equally disturbed by preposition choice errors like being "proud on the English language" on the part of people whose first language is English. One wonders what Hendrycks learned about English composition while studying at LaCrosse University. Or maybe not.

MinnSIR's castigation of the Heritage Foundation ranks right up there with its call to boycott the Marine Corps. Clayton Schoolcraft has more Ruthie goodness in a YouTube produced following MinnSIR's famous Tea Party Against Amnesty in November 2009.

Hendrycks apparently didn't get the memo from Norm Coleman's American Action Network, which calls for promoting Hispanic Leadership, after fueling independent expenditures supportive of anti-immigrant, pro-SB1070 Congressional candidates. Perhaps such slickness is beyond the frozen shores of Lake Hanska.

Photo: A little Ruthie Hendrycks cheescake, served with a generous topping of Latino loathing.

ISO time-wasting, divisive legislation? WDN says hookup w/ Draz!

Earlier in the week, Bluestem Prairie hailed the dedication of the Drazkowski clan, of Bluff Siding, Wisconsin, to job creation. The post, Drazkowski: In age of widening wealth gap, let working people choose to earn less received a fair bit of attention as Drazkowski's fame spreads.

The Winona Daily News thinks that its readers should look elsewhere for evidence of Drazkowski's legislative brilliance. In Our view: The good and the bad bills in St. Paul, publisher Rusty Cunningham writes on behalf of the editorial board:

. . .If you’re seeking Exhibit A for time-wasting, divisive legislation, look to Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa.

For the third time, Drazkowski has introduced legislation that demands that English be used as Minnesota’s official language.

He says it will promote unity and cut costs.

Instead, it will promote cultural divisiveness and tell businesses interested in pursuing a global economy that Minnesota isn’t the place to do business.

Cut costs? We’ve yet to see a dollar figure — never mind that this is the third time around for this bill. . . .

. . .Our motto does not say — and should never say — speak English or get out.

That wasn’t what our state stood for when the French and Polish and other Europeans came here. It isn’t what the state stands for now that Hmong and others have settled here.

In 2009, former Rep. Cy Thao — born in Laos —  challenged Drazkowski to a spelling contest in English on the House floor, and promised that he would vote for Drazkowski’s English-only bill if he lost.

Drazkowski’s response was to say that he would agree as long as the tie-breaker was in Polish.

There’s nothing funny about this bill. There’s nothing productive about the debate.

From the era depicted in the state seal and into the future, hatred in any language is wrong.

It’s not what Minnesota or Minnesotans stand for.

The board must not have noticed the jobs the bill would create, predicted in our post,Tongue in cheek: WSU English teacher gets cheeky about official English bill.

Will Bachmann propose retroactive repeal of 1862 Homestead Act in fight against federal hand-outs?

In English-only bill is unnecessary but assures Drazkowski's re-election, a recent column about anti-immigrant legislation sponsored by state representative Steve Drazkowski, St. Paul Press columnist Ruben Rosario observed:

Which leads me to what's really the bedrock driving this English-only push: a perception that the immigrants of today are refusing to learn English or not quickly enough when compared with those very romanticized European-centric immigrants of yesteryear.

B.S., to put it as plainly as I can in a family mainstream newspaper. Joe Salmons, who heads the German department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pretty much debunked that often-anecdotal myth.

Analyzing old census data and other historical documents, Salmons and a university colleague concluded in a 2008 study of the German immigration experience in Wisconsin that "many immigrants and their descendants remained monolingual, decades after immigration had ceased.

Elsewhere in the column, Rosario suggests that Drazkowski's introduction of an Arizona-style law might predispose the Mazeppa pol to throw other back-to-the-future style bills in the hopper like opposition to observing Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and the revived "displaying those "no dogs or Mexicans" signs that once adorned Arizona eateries and other public venues in the not-too-distant past."

Word comes to tonight from Iowa that Michele Bachmann, the competitive gentlewoman from Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, may have felt a need to upstage the Draz. Kathie Obradovich, political columnist for The Des Moines Register, reports in Bachmann impresses some top Iowa Republicans:

Bachmann’s speech included a lengthy description of her ancestors’ arrival in America from Norway, their hopes and aspirations and the challenges they faced. She didn’t segue into today’s immigration issues, but noted that the country’s original settlers “didn’t come here for a federal handout.”

This is a stunner, even by Michele Bachmann's high standards of truth telling. After all, as one timeline of immigration to America notes:

The Homestead Act provides free plots of up to 160 acres of western land to settlers who agree to develop and live on it for at least five years, thereby spurring an influx of immigrants from overpopulated countries in Europe seeking land of their own.

In fact, many European settlers came to this country to get a handout: 160 acres of land west of the Mississippi; one didn't need to be a citizen, merely have the desire to become one. Norwegians jumped on it:

The end of the Civil War brought about a great increase in Atlantic crossings. The number of Norwegian emigrants leaped from 4,000 in 1865 to 15,726 in 1866, heralding the era of mass migration. The migration occurred until 1873 when, in the course of only eight years, some 110,000 Norwegians left their homeland. The second, and also the greatest, period of emigration lasted 14 years from 1880 to 1893, when on the average 18,290 left annually—ten for every 1,000 Norwegians. During this time Norway's emigration intensity was the second greatest in Europe, surpassed only by Ireland. . .

. . .The majority of Norwegian agrarian settlements developed in the northern region of the so-called Homestead Act Triangle between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. The upper Midwest became the home for most immigrants. In 1910 almost 80 percent of the one million or more Norwegian Americans—the immigrants and their children—lived in that part of the United States.. . .

That federal hand-out--along with crushing poverty in Norway--provided an incentive to come to America. Like today's immigrants to the United States, they worked pretty hard. There is one big difference between today's and yesterday's immigrants, though, when we consider "federal handouts."

Today's documented immigrants are ineligible for most federal benefits until they have been here for five years or have become citizens; the undocumented worker can legally receive very few "federal handouts." The federal hand-out of 160 acres of land to improve that the nineteenth century immigrant  received was touted as an economic development tool. Not that there wasn't any protest about this: indigenous people weren't very happy about the federal handouts.

Since immigrants coming to the United States to bag federal hand-outs bothers her so much, perhaps Bachmann will propose a reactive repeal of the Homestead Act and a radical unsettling of America west of the Mississippi. It's not a new idea.

Next, she might demand an apology from all those Norwegian-Americans who, like Germans, clung to their traditions and language long after their ancestors got off the boat:

The cultural baggage of Norwegian immigrants included their specific local dialect and a Danish literary language. The latter played a significant role in the immigrant community, attaining a nearly sacred quality. It was the language of their institutions, secular and religious, and of sacred and profane literature. The immigrants had little appreciation for the linguistic reforms in the homeland; often such changers were viewed as a betrayal to a common cultural heritage. Changes in the official written language in Norway made the older form even more difficult to retain in America. A newspaper such as Decorah-Posten in Decorah, Iowa, persisted in using a Dano-Norwegian orthographic tradition from the 1870s well into the 1950s. The situation created confusion among teachers of Norwegian at American high schools, colleges and universities, who felt obligations to the language of the immigrant community. Only just before World War II did they in principle agree to teach the written standard—generally the Dano-Norwegian bokm'al — which at any one time was recognized as the official one in Norway.

English was another threat to the maintenance of the Norwegian language in America. Rural settlement patterns protected spoken Norwegian so it still can be heard in some Norwegian communities. According to researcher Joshua A. Fishman, about half of second generation Norwegians in the period 1940 to 1960 learned the language; and in 1960 there were as many as 40,000 of the third generation who had learned Norwegian. As of 1990, about 80,000 speakers of Norwegian remained in the United States. In Minnesota, Norwegian, with 16,000 speakers, is the second most common European language after German. Across the country there are still two bilingual newspapers, Western Viking in Seattle and Nordic Times in Brooklyn. The bygdelag promoted the use of rural vernaculars and, indeed, their annual reunions provided an environment where rural speech was honored and encouraged. It was, however, a mixed language with English words and phrases integrated.

Perhaps Bachmann could find an expert to free the children of those immigrants from the numbing cycle of living off federal hand-outs.

Mashing-up "shall issue" and "may issue": clarifying some Capitol Chatter

Reading the article, Packing in Capitol makes some feel safe, in Don Davis's Capitol Chatter, I had to pause--no, make that stop in my tracks--when I read the following passage:

To be legal, anyone carrying a concealed weapon must have a permit.

Cornish, the Lake Crystal police chief, said sheriffs are careful about who gets permits, and they may deny permit requests even if a person has no convictions on his record.

Perhaps the word "may" is just Davis's word choice (I'll leave the use of the male pronoun for the Pink Pistols to thrash over), but this statement confuses the issue--and muddies the waters over the historic struggle over permits to carry a pistol in Minnesota. The permits to carry issue is frequently called "conceal carry" but that's a misleading term. Permit holders don't have to conceal their pistol to require a permit (somewhat different rules cover rifles, shotguns and BB guns).

The entire battle was over whether sheriffs "shall issue" permits to any eligible citizen who applies and pays for a permit, without having to supply a reason for requesting the permit, or whether, under the old "may issue" language, sheriff's departments were granted far great discretion to deny any citizen who applied for a permit and stated a reason for asking.

The new law allows for greater gun rights; my civil liberty of gun ownership and enjoyment of a firearm (provided I meet the very reasonable criteria spelled out in the law) can't be denied at the whim of the local sheriff.

Few permit applications are denied under the current "shall issue" law; few permit holders commit crimes in Minnesota while carrying their firearms in public. One section of the law requires that the commissioner of public safety report to the legislature each year; the report are available online here, following the FAQ about permits.

It's interesting scrolling through the reports. Only a few hundred permits are denied each year, and while the privacy of each permit holder and denied applicant is preserved, the reasons for each rejected permit are noted. While sheriffs can  deny an applicant for "danger to self or others," since permits can be denied for more than one reason, when one gets to the details on each case, it's clear that while some denied applicants might not have a conviction to their discredit, they do fall within the other categories the legislature clearly spelled out in Minnesota Statute 624.714 (Subd 2).

So was Cornish soft-pedaling "shall issue" while being interviewed about carrying a gun during session is the wake of the Arizona shootings?

The grandstanding Cornish is certainly the last person I'd imagine doing that. While stranger things have happened in Minnesota politics and it's not impossible that Cornish came down with a sudden bout of angst and political correctness, the Davis paraphrase illustrates how quickly the discussion of this issue can become muddy as the Blue Earth River after a good thunderstorm.

That, or too much Sweetwater at Kelly Inn.

WDN: A really principled MNGOP would excommunicate Horner heretics forever

The Winona Daily News isn't the first Greater Minnesota newspaper to comment of the Republican Party of Minnesota's recent two-year ban of 18 apostates from pachyderm participation, but it does make the most modest recommendation. 

It is the first to suggest that failed taco lord Tony Sutton and his fellow ideologues didn't go far enough in defending extremism at the expense of the vice of moderation.

The former governors  and legislators had all endorsed IP gubernatorial candidate and former Republican activist Tom Horner.

In Our view: For state GOP, ideology trumps debate, WDN editor Darrell Ehrlick writes on behalf of the Winona Daily News editorial board:

. . .The two-year banishment is also a bit insincere. It’s important the period is two years. Just time enough for the party to look like it’s being tough on its rogue statesmen, but not too tough that they can’t endorse presumably GOP candidates again in the next election cycle.

If the Minnesota GOP really wants to be the party of principles and convictions, then it should be willing to really make a stand.

Kick ’em out.

Kick ’em out for good. . . .

Read the entire editorial--including those parts where Ehrlick removes his tongue from his cheek--in today's Daily News.

Photo: Tom Horner, the devil in disguise, via Politics in Minnesota.

Rochester Post Bulletin: "Is GOP chair making recount too political?"

Every week, the Rochester Post Bulletin takes a look at a news item, commentary or letter that's generated a lot of comments at the paper. Cheryl Winters' Sutton disgraces the Republican Party was chosen for the past week.  Winters wrote in part:

I cannot believe the Republican Party of Minnesota would allow the likes of Tony Sutton to even approach a microphone. . . .

He will throw everything including the kitchen sink into the election machine just to screw it up, cause a recount and litigation to make sure his candidate wins. . .

He does not reflect the attitude of my Republican friends and neighbors. The Minnesota Republican Party would do well to show Sutton the door.

In Readers Respond: Is GOP chair making recount too political?, the PB presents a sampling of the reaction to the letter. My favorites:

"Great letter from Ms. Winters. I've yet to hear denunciations of Sutton's tantrum from prominent Republicans — statewide or local — which are in order when such persons question the integrity of our entire electoral system. ... When I listened to him, I was struck by the thought that either this guy wasn't paying attention to the governor's race, or he just doesn't understand the concept of split-ticket voting."

--------------

"It's amazing how close the vote was, if Tony would have been on TV more, 9,000 votes could have easily turned into 90,000 votes. This from the same man who used the Nazi-era term 'quislings.'"

Olmsted County favored Tom Emmer in the election, and so it's fascinating to see the negative responses to failed burrito baron Sutton.  The paper also reports in Republicans inundate area counties with data requests:

As Olmsted County elections administrator Pam Fuller prepares for the gubernatorial recount, her office faces another huge challenge — a deluge of data requests related to the election that she estimates will require at least 60 hours of work.

"They are asking for almost every record we have for Election Day," she said.

The Republican Party of Minnesota and the Emmer for Governor campaign filed a slew of requests within a few days of the Nov. 2 election. . . .

. . .Mower County Auditor-Treasurer Doug Groh said he is concerned about the level of data being requested. He said the county attorney has sent a letter responding to threatened legal action against the county for not getting the information together fast enough.

"I find their requests, actually, at this point in time, very burdensome and very troublesome, and it impedes the process of the election," Groh said.

Goodhue County finance director Carolyn Holmsten said the county is struggling to meet the data requests. She said some of the easier requests have been completed but that there's still a lot of photocopying to do. She said smaller counties like Goodhue County do not have full-time election staff to handle the requests. The six employees in the auditor-treasurer's office will have to do what they can.

She said,"We can't devote 100 percent of our time. So everybody chips in as best they can, juggling it amongst the other jobs they have to do, too."

Sounds like Winters may be on to something when she wrote "everything including the kitchen sink."

For myself, I'm thinking that "The Walking Dead" might be a good metaphor for both Emmer's chances and the ravenous data requests his party are filing in Minnesota's counties.

Stupid Severson tricks: Dan, Mary Kiffmeyer and the Symbionese Liberation Army

Last week in Hutchinson's Library Square, Republican Dan Severson gave his usual stump speech about stolen elections, ACORN and felons voting in Minnesota. Nothing much to report there, and Outstate Politics's Eric Austin has tweeted that he may be posting a YouTube of a recent Severson appearance. If my footage captured any variation, I'll consider posting it after OP's YouTube appears. Update: yep, OP has posted a YouTube of the same stump speech I heard. Good quicktake analysis in the post.[end update]

Checking on a couple of Severson's claims, I stumbled across a Letter to the Editor of the St. Cloud Times from Severson in response to a widely circulated article by staff writer Mark Sommerhauser. In Times should address voting system problems, Severson writes:

Let’s start with Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who has publicly stated he has looked through 150 years of elections and has not found one case of identity fraud.

Really? A couple of years ago, Kathleen Ann Soliah was discovered to be living in Minnesota. The deadly bomber had been hiding in Minnesota for decades. Do you think she voted under her assumed name of Sarah Jane Olson? Yet when Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, former secretary of state, asked if Ritchie was looking into the issue, the response from the office was “It’s just one vote, Mary.” Fraud is wrong and unless the law is enforced lawlessness increases.

This statement caught my interest, because as I recalled events, Soliah (Sara Jane Olson) was discovered living in Minnesota more than a "couple of years ago" --indeed my aging memory placed her capture in the waning days of the 20th century.

Additionally, if my memory served right, Soliah/Olson was arrested during Mary Kiffmeyer's first term as Minnesota's Secretary of State. Thus, Severson's use of this example seemed a bit off as evidence of Mr. Ritchie's supposed malfeasance. Why didn't Kiffmeyer look into the issue? Indeed, she remained in office through another term, serving until Ritchie swept her out of office in 2006.

Severson doesn't seem to have heard of the urban dictionary slang term JFGI. If he had, he probably won't have used this example to bash Ritchie. As my memory suggested, the SLA fugitive-turned-cookie-baker was arrested in another century--on June 16, 1999, after being profiled in on America's Most Wanted in March and May of that year.

Not "a couple of years ago," as Severson writes, but eleven years ago.

Moreover, Kiffmeyer was Secretary of State at the time; her tenure in office extended from January 4, 1999 though January 2, 2007. Additionally, Kiffmeyer already knew the answer about Soliah/Olson when she asked Ritchie the question.

On March 25, 2009, PIM's Steve Perry reported in Stupid legislator tricks: Mary Kiffmeyer v. Sara Jane Olson:

Back around the start of the session in January, I was having coffee with a former Republican legislator when the subject turned to freshman legislators–and in particular to the most notorious freshman of them all, former Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer (pictured). "She’ll chafe at being in the House," said the legislator with a shake of the head. "She’s just one of 134 there. She’s used to a bigger stage. She’ll have to find ways to get attention."

That seemed like an idle observation until yesterday. With the news cameras rolling, Rep. Kiffmeyer (R-Big Lake) hopped on the Sara Jane Olson grandstand to proclaim that Ramsey County attorney Susan Gaertner should investigate the recently paroled Olson for vote fraud in connection with ballots she cast years ago while living in Minnesota as a fugitive from the law. The grounds? Olson–who was born Kathleen Soliah–had quite likely broken the law by voting under the name Sara Jane Olson. It’s a charge that Kiffmeyer first levied back in 1999, after Olson was captured. . . .

. . .Some things don’t change. Gaertner responded by calling Kiffmeyer’s characterization of the matter "irresponsible." Gaertner said her office did investigate Kiffmeyer’s claim back in 1999, and found that Sara Jane Olson was the former Ms. Soliah’s legal name when the votes in question were cast. She added that Kiffmeyer was told as much at the time, despite her claim yesterday that there was never an investigation.

Gaertner offered this tart postscript to KARE11’s Jana Shortal: "Certainly a phone call to me would have taken care of it, but then, well, there wouldn’t have been headlines."

That link to KARE 11 is still live. In Kiffmeyer seeks voter fraud charges for Sara Jane Olson, the station reports:

Anything connected with Sara Jane Olson can snag a headline.

That's at least the opinion of Ramsey County attorney Susan Gaertner.

You see back in 1999 then Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer contacted Gaertner, demanding an investigation be launched into what name Olson used when voting in Minnesota.

Kiffmeyer alleged if she voted as Sara Jane, not her birth name, she was committing voter fraud.

"We did investigate that allegation, we took it seriously as we always do when voter fraud is alleged and we learned in fact that Sara Jane Olson was her legal name in 1998 and had been her legal name since she got married in Hennepin County in 1980," Gaertner said Tuesday.

In short Olson broke no law. Her legal name, as seen on this marriage license, was Sara Jane Olson and that is the name she voted with.

Today Representative Mary Kiffmeyer cried voter fraud again, to capitol reporters. . . .

. . . Gaertner says Kiffmeyer was told about the results of this exact case in 1999 so to bring it up again in Gaertner's words is irresponsible and purely for political gain.

"Certainly a phone call to me would have taken care of it but then, well, there wouldn't not have been headlines," Gaertner said.

Clearly, Severson's representation of fact falls far from the mark. But I wouldn't put it past the nitwits who now run Severson's campaign and the Republican Party of Minnesota to imply that Gaertner was somehow coddling a leftie and a terrorist.

Good one. Perhaps Severson and Tony Sutton could ask the RNC8 about whether that's part of the county attorney's MO.  For that matter, former Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe might have some choice insights on whether or not  he got a pass from Gaertner's office in 1996. 

Photo: Someone needs to tell poor Dan Severson that big gun of Kiffmeyer's shoots blanks.

CD6 digest: It's the surreal thing

Since much of Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District is rural & small towns, Bluestem will be digesting news and opinion about the congressional race from district sources.

DFL endorsed congressional candidate Tarryl Clark is leading transportation roundtable at the Johnsville Branch Library in Blaine. From a new release sent by the Clark Campaign:

State Senator Tarryl Clark will lead a roundtable on Minnesota’s transportation future, particularly in the 6th Congressional District where rapid population growth is placing high demands on the area’s transportation infrastructure.

While Congresswoman Bachmann spends her time traveling the country and pursuing her own agenda, Tarryl Clark gets to work, charting the District’s transportation future.

Clark will be joined by key transportation leaders including Congressman Tim Walz, a member of the House Transportation Committee, Anoka County Commissioner Dan Erhart; and El Tinklenberg, former Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The Woodbury Bulletin reports that sWoodbury residents like Palin, Pawlenty. One certainly can't disagree with the premise that Woodbury residents interviewed at a Bachmann/Palin rally were there for the two Republican speakers.  How far remains to be seen:

Paul Hyland, a retired technology" worker from Woodbury, was impressed with Palin’s speech and has been intrigued with her since the 2008 race. At this point, he said that he probably would support Pawlenty if the two faced off . . .

Still another man wistfully yearns for a candidate from the Republican Party's past:

Dr. John Elverum, a retired optometrist from Woodbury, set his hopes high.

“We need Ronald Reagan or someone very similar,” Elverum said. . . .

Not everyone in Woodbury, however, is pleased with Bachmann. Viewpoints writer John Shirts suggests that Bachmann should practice what she preaches regarding entitlements:

Our congresswoman, once again votes against those she represents.

I watch the news daily to see what Rep. Michele Bachmann will next say that contradicts how she lives. Which foot will go in her mouth next. She is against any program that helps our citizens who have less than her, yet continues to reap the benefits of government handouts that make her life better.

She spouts vitriol about government involving itself in peoples lives, (requiring people to have health care insurance), yet says nothing about long established government requirements that we carry automobile insurance. What is the difference? She claims that this is an unconstitutional requirement for people. Where is her argument. One requirement is good, the other bad? Give me the rationale.

Her family has benefited from one of the largest government entitlements, farm subsidies, yet she votes against programs to help the indigent.. . .

Read the entire column at the Woodbury Bulletin, part of the Forum media chain.

To the west, St. Cloud Times reporter MArk Sommerhauser also covered the Republican/Fox News rally in Minneapolis. His article, Bachmann, Palin rock, rally the faithful reports:

Bachmann restated a recent claim: That after recent takeovers of banks, mortgage companies and automakers, the federal government now controls 51 percent of the U.S. private economy.

Bachmann questioned President Obama's decision to sign a nuclear-arms reduction deal with Russia, and asked why accused "Underwear Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was given the same rights as a U.S. citizen while being interrogated after an alleged bombing attempt last year.

Wednesday's rally was as much a cultural rallying cry as an occasion for political stumping. References to patriotism and religion were ubiquitous, and a singing trio took the stage before Palin and Bachmann in USA jerseys to sing the "10 Commandments Boogie." . . .

. . .St. Cloud State University senior Adam Ulbricht shared a view of the event with Palin and Bachmann. Ulbricht, a member of the St. Cloud State College Republicans, was one of a small group chosen to be on stage.

Ulbricht had seen Bachmann speak before — but never in a setting like this. From the stage, Ulbricht saw a sea of Palin and Bachmann supporters, waving signs and roaring in adoration.

"It's a pretty surreal moment," Ulbricht said.

I wouldn't disagree with Mr. Ulbricht. Tom Scheck did a some Fact-checking [of] yesterday's political rallies and found some claims to be unreal as well:

Chain-yanking Bachmann won't endorse before convention--but only has time for Quist

Yesterday, Bluestem posted about First District Republican hopeful Jim Hagedorn's reasoning that a candidate's close ties to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann would be a liability. The Minnesota Independent picked up the news in Hagedorn: Quist too close to Bachmann, too controversial. while Dump Bachmann posted"Is Michele Bachmann a Political Liability?".

The Political Party blog at the Post Bulletin picked it up as well, and political reporter Heather Carlson extended the story by having a chance to interview and observe Bachmann at the Rochester Republican Women's fundraiser where the Nostradamus of the North was the headline speaker:

During Bachmann's visit on Monday to Rochester, I asked her if she planned to endorse anyone before the 1st District Republican Convention on April 17. She said she is not going to endorse anyone. But while addressing members of the Rochester Area Republican Women, she mentioned Quist's name several times in reference to issues he has raised with the Democrats' health reform bill. She did not mention any other GOP congressional candidates. Quist's wife, Julie Quist, serves as Bachmann's district director.

Loyal readers probably remember that Bachmann participated in a February health care "town hall" in Rochester that was in fact nothing more than a Quist campaign event and that Quist earlier participated in her "House Call" "press conference" in Washington.  None of the events together or separately  implied an endorsement. Of course not.

 Elsewhere in the paper, editor Jay Furst takes on questions raised by a series of large ads the Minnesota Majority has taken out in the Post Bulletin, asking readers to call Walz's Washington office with their objections to the health care reform bill. In P-B doesn't censor paid political advertising — within reason, Furst argues in part:

. . .An anti-Walz, presumably pro-Republican group called Minnesota Majority has run attack ads in the P-B over the past few weeks that portray Walz as a blue-faced lapdog of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The ads are fairly crudely put together and are not exactly original in concept -- how many political cartoons and ads have you seen over the years in which one politician is attacked for being a lapdog of another?

. . .The P-B, like virtually every newspaper, TV station and Web site in the free world, runs political ads from paying customers.

. . .The ads make assertions that clearly bend the truth, such as this one: "For the first time in 30 years, federal tax dollars will be used to fund abortions." Most reasonable people would say this is crazily exaggerated and false, though in fact it's the gist of one of the final hangups that nearly derailed passage of the health care bill.

Do we hold political groups responsible for the "truthiness" of their advertising? We don't fact-check every assertion; we do make sure the ads are clearly marked, that the sponsor is listed by name, address and phone, and that they don't violate the bare minimum of good taste -- no nudity, foul language, racist words, defamatory accusations or insane charges.

The unbearable lightness of being Mike Parry; or, the MNGOP's incredible shrinking local news

UPDATE TO MINNPOST READERS

An earlier note here is now gone. Bluestem Prairie is pleased with and accepts MinnPost's correction and apology about this post.

Update 1/21: Sure enough, the MNGOP saturation retweet squad is pimping the coverage of last night's "roundtable." And from the looks of the photo tweeted by the state party's deputy director, the "great crowd" numbered around the same as Jason Engbrecht's solo meet & greet at The Kitchen in Owatonna several Saturday's ago. The press and entourage members added a few extra souls to the Pawlenty event. [ end update]

It's no wonder the Republican Party of Minnesota has had to pull Tim Pawlenty off the presidential campaign trail and divert him to the wind-swept prairies of Steele County for a "small business roundtable" with SD26 Mike Parry.

Parry is easily eclipsed by Jason Engbrecht and Roy Srp in local coverage of the candidate forums and local events. But you won't read that on the MNGOP's Facebook fan page section about the special election or on Parry's web site media page.

Nor will you read any saturation retweets about the local media coverage from the Republican operatives who relentlessly RT the MNGOP message.

Here's a collection of recent stories from the newspaper chain that owns the press in Faribault, Owatonna and Waseca:

Senate hopefuls field questions from Waseca students

Forum brings candidates out to speak on the issues

From gun laws to gay marriage: Candidates debate tough issues

Senate hopefuls field Hwy. 14 questions

Senate candidates face off in Owatonna

Former Waseca councilors reflect on candidates

Faribault board members speak out on Engbrecht

Vying for District 26

Instead of news articles like these, visitors to GOP Facebook page only see letters from supporters, endorsements and ads. The Parry media page  link to Rotary and to two stories from last year about Parry's endorsement--and nothing more.

It's not like the district newspapers are the "so-called liberal media"--indeed, the papers are fairly conservative.

There will be coverage of the governor's campaign stop, because Pawlenty is governor. Links to these stories will no doubt show up on the Republican sites.

But it's unlikely the MNGOP and Parry will want to share any forum where the public can read about how Parry fares on a level playing field where all candidates are invited, rather than a showcase campaign event like a Pawlenty Potemkin Village "roundtable."

Images: Screenshots of Parry's media page and the MNGOP Facebook fan page section on the special election. Thanks to DJ Danielson for capturing the images at Bluestem's request.

Rightwing values and performance art in MN-01: Mr. Quist and "Mr. Conservative"

Note to Minnpost readers: This post was composed on October 16. The post was not about Jim Hagedorn scrubbing material, but content that was live at "Mr. Conservative  on the date on which I posted.

If you wish to gain an accurate and timely understanding of the material posted at Bluestem, please follow us on Twitter at @bspinmn .

Note to December 3 Polinaut readers: Thank you for  visiting this post from October, but the Daily Digest has simply misinformed you.

Paul Schmelzer at the Minnesota Independent actually broke the story about GOP candidate Jim Hagedorn scrubbing his blog posts at "Mr. Conservative. This post--from October 16--is valuable only for historical reasons, as it is in part an examination of Mr. Hagedorn's old blog posts that were live on October 16.

Indeed, I only learned about the scrubbing when Mr. Schmelzer contacted me about a missing link to the "only good Indian is a dead Indian post at Mr. Conservative." 

Go read "Walz challenger scrubs jokes about Wellstone mourners, Grams’ infidelities from site Hagedorn's cuts echo Wikipedia edits by former CD1 Rep. Gutknecht" for the actual scoop.

Bluestem routinely breaks news--stories which you will not find linked in the Daily Digest orMinnpost --but the scrub story isn't one of them.

If you want to learn about stories that Bluestem  actually breaks (you could have read about the content on Hagedorn's blog  back on October 16, after all, when the links were live) I suggest you follow @bspinmn on Twitter.

Update December 2: Much of the "Mr. Conservative" posts mentioned in this article have been scrubbed or edited. As time permits, I will post screenshots of the original material. Now up: a screen shot of the original text of the Miers-O'Connor "bra" snark.

Update: On Saturday, October 31, Bluestem reported Boo! On Halloween, the Quist for Congress website lives  [end update]

The emails from concerned friends started yesterday morning, almost as soon as Rochester Post Bulletin Political Reporter Heather Carlson posted Two GOP candidates with familiar names consider run against Walz (blog post) and Two mull run against Walz (newspaper article).

Carlson followed up on Bluestem's report that former state representative and 1990s-era GOP gubernatorial hopeful Allen Quist was considering a congressional bid, while breaking the news that Jim Hagedorn, son of former  Republican congressman Tom Hagedorn, was exploring a move back to Blue Earth for run against incumbent DFLer Tim Walz.

The news comes at a time in the election cycle when the hot race and the not are being defined. For now, the Fighting First is in the not column.

The only openly declared candidate for the GOP nod is M. Frank McKinzie, a retired Army Gunnery Sergeant from Rochester who admits in a letter published in Southern Minnesota newspapers that he has gained scant support from the district's Republican establishment.  While there is some buzz surrounding a potential bid by moderate Republican State Senator Julie Rosen, the chatter appears to come more from those who hope she will enter the race than from any moves on her part. For now, she's seeking a third term in the state senate.

After looking more closely at this week's flavors, I can understand why Senator Rosen gets those calls asking her to run. Based on past performance at the polls, the ultra-conservative Quist hasn't drawn the favor of Southern Minnesota's voters. As for Hagedorn, Bluestem concludes that Republican leaders in the Beltway are punking the district.

What he does on his summer vacation: lucky stiff plays in horse barn

by Jacob Grippen

"What did you do this summer?"

This question is often asked at the beginning of September, a question that generally gets answered with “I worked at so and sos',” “I went to such and such a place,” “I sat at the beach.”

One answer whose frequency you will find only in a location in southeastern Minnesota is, “I spent hours working and acting in a horse barn.” It may not be unusual to “work” in a horse barn, or even act, because--let's face it--sometimes taking care of horses can get lonely.

However, the summer activity I refer to is the annual summer musical at the Ye Olde Gray Barn just east of Spring Grove, MN on Highway 44.

Why not start a community theater in the first Norwegian settlement in Minnesota? Why not take Dr. Jim and Karen Gray's horse barn and turn it into a theater every July?

Ye Olde Opera House Community Theater has been operating itself on volunteer blood, sweat, and tears since the decision was made to collectively come together back in 1979. People from all around the Coulee Region of southeastern Minnesota, west central Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa come to audition and perform in Ye Olde Opera House's stage productions.

If you had bumped into me on Sunday, June 28th, you might have asked why my shirt was covered in paint that would suggest a roulette may have exploded on it? You may have asked why there was sawdust in my hair, and on my legs. Why the lights at the barn were on until midnight the night before?

I would have answered that it's probably because I'm a little bit crazy, but all theater types are, aren't they?

Why exactly did my shirt look like the innards of a roulette wheel? Our 31st Season kicks off on July 15-19, 2009 with the musical “Lucky Stiff.”