Early this morning, we woke to find Oscar de la Hoya (the Golden Boy in the front) and The Big Boo Boo caucusing in their favorite chair. We have it on good authority that they're members of this party, which somehow escaped the attention of staffers at the Secretary of State's office when that nifty precinct caucus finder was put together.
Both Oscar and Boo are shelter cats adopted as adults. Look closely, and you'll notice that Oscar's missing most of his tail and a bit of one ear; he was found half-frozen by a kind soul in December 2005 and brought in for rescue. Proof positive that you really can freeze your tail off in the sort of weather we've had this week if you don't have any luck or sense.
Once frostbitten, twice shy, one would think.
Sadly, that experience doesn't keep the little fighter from sitting on window sills and meowing piteously to go outside. Fortunately, people are smarter than cats, or should be.
The anecdote and lesson are offered to explain why we weren't at a GOP MN-01 candidate forum at Mankato State University-Mankato last night, though we did receive a couple of e-mails from Republicans asking us to cover it (though they weren't from the organizers themselves).
As loyal readers may know, we had tried covering a forum in Jackson for the Uptake in early December, only to get tossed into the snow. We learned from a friend who attended the GOP candidate forum at Rochester Mayo last week that she was ordered (and rather rudely, she thought) not to tape it by two of the students there. We'd hoped to use her material, but she was so shaken by the experience that she left at mid-point without good notes.
And so, we simply decided against attending and covering the event. From the looks of the audience shots in KEYC-TV's video, at Walz Challengers Debate in Mankato, not many other folks decided to turn out in the cold, either. We weren't going to risk freezing our tail off, either.
Elsewhere, the Albert Lea Tribune runs the Walz column U.S. medical crews in Mideast deserve better as does the Winona Daily News.
The Austin Herald editorializes Border security can have better funding stream:
Speaking to reporters on Saturday after spending a day with U.S. Border Patrol on the U.S.-Mexico border, Rep. Tim Walz said he was told by that region’s border patrol supervisor that the agency would need $7 billion to put the necessary technology in place — cameras along the entire border, fences through urban areas, among other things.
That $7 billion would be needed over the next few years to put in place the checks and surveillance already in place in the El Paso, Texas, area along the remaining nearly 2,000 miles of border.
Seven billion dollars may sound like an incredible amount of money, but compare that to the Government Accountability Office’s report released Wednesday on the cost of the global war on terror. The GAO stated that in fiscal year 2007, the federal government spent $139.8 billion on the war on terror, and will likely spend $189.3 billion in 2008. In other words, the dollar figure Border Patrol management says they need to secure the southern border against drug smuggling, human trafficking and threats to national security is the equivalent of two weeks of spending on the war on terror.
If we can agree that national defense is a spending priority — whether that includes the war on terror or not — then we certainly should be able to agree that the borders with Canada and Mexico should be adequately secured, and the funding should be there.
The Herald reports that the Minnesota Environmental Partnership has a field organizer on the ground in Stiles champions environment for southeast Minnesota.
The Pioneer Press mentions MN-01 fundraising figures:
In the 1st District in southern Minnesota, first-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Tim Walz has another big financial edge, with an estimated $850,000 in cash. Walz unseated veteran Republican Gil Gutknecht in 2006.
Three Republicans, state Sen. Dick Day of Owatonna, state Rep. Randy Demmer of Hayfield, and Mayo Clinic physician Brian Davis, of Rochester, are vying to put the seat back in the Republican column. All three raised about the same amount.
There's another fact we'd overlooked:
In the 4th, 7th and 8th districts, three Democrats, Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar, are unopposed.
Should be an interesting year.
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