With the local GOP Convention less than a week away, Republican Dennis Schminke spoke to more than 30 people at Piggy Blues BBQ Thursday afternoon to formally announce he will challenge Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, for her seat in District 27B this November.
What does Schminke see as the role of government? Preservation of rights? Public safety? Nope, the retired Hormel Foods Corporation accountant thinks it's helping out businesses:
The state has some very legitimate roles,” he said. “The state has to do the right things to put a legal and economic framework in place that helps people establish businesses.”
Read the whole thing at the Albert Lea Tribune. One thing that he doesn't mention, nor the Tribune bring up in recounting his five years on involvement in the Mower County Republican Party is his role in organizing Tea Party events.
In 2012, the paper reported that he believed the way to see "President Romney do well in office" was to vote for Allen Quist:
Mower GOP Chairman Dennis Schminke said a major obstacle for Minnesota GOP supporters right now is putting aside that discontent.
“One of the things I get from people is how upset they are with the Republican Party,” he said, and added Republicans will need to unite and support their candidates in order to succeed.
“If you want to see President Romney do well in office, you have to get behind Allen Quist,” Schminke said.
According to the Minnesota Secretary of State's office, "President Romney" received 37.70% of the vote in Minnesota House District 27A, while Quist carried 33.18%. Both outperformed Kurt Bills, who drew 25.01%. Poppe received 62.78% of the vote for her state house seat.
Now in her fifth term, Poppe heads the Agricultural Policy committee and she has been a strong voice for bipartisan work for rural Minnesota. She has also been ahead of the curve on pollinator issues.
Photo: As deputy Mower County Republican chair, Dennis Schminke had to kiss this calfwhen the Republicans lost the duel for most dollars donated by GOP and DFL for the Fed Feed Families program - a charitable food bank program. Via Facebook.
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As a Minnesotan on the House Transportation Committee, First District Congressman Tim Walz has taken a leadership role in examining rail safety in light of the aptly named Bakken oil boom.
[House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials] member Tim Walz, a Democrat representing Minnesota’s First District, stressed the need to prevent accidents and rail car ruptures.
The tank cars now in use “have done their time,” Walz said. “We have better technology.”
Bakken is ‘new animal’
As for classification issues, Walz called Bakken crude “a new animal” for which testing protocols need to be worked out.
“One thing the public doesn’t understand is that this is a collaboration by necessity,” he said. “The railroads want to know what’s in there, and my first responders want to know what’s in there.”
Even if they know, Walz said communities where oil trains routinely pass lack the training and resources to deal with spills and explosions like one that occurred Dec. 30 in Casselton, N.D. In that crash, a mile-long oil train derailed and exploded, forcing the evacuation of thousands of citizens.
Walz said fire chiefs in his district have told him “there are probably not three fire departments in America that could respond to a Casselton-type of incident.”
Wednesday’s hearing sparked some verbal explosions as subcommittee members pressed regulators on when they would issue new standards to improve the safety of tanker cars. . . .
Roughly 70 percent of the oil coming out of North Dakota moves by train, and Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said that trains will eventually carry 90 percent of the state’s crude to refineries.
Meanwhile, oil production in the Bakken Formation, which was less than 200,000 barrels per day in 2007, now approaches 1 million barrels per day.
While building the Keystone XL will allow 100,000 of those 1 million barrels per day to be transported by pipeline (most of the product sent through the Keystone XL wil be Canadian tar sand oil), it's no panacea for eliminating rail transport of crude oil through Minnesota.
Here's Walz's questioning from yesterday's hearings, where he relates his constituents' concerns drawn from meetings in LaCrescent and Winona:
Bluestem keeps thinking about the heating assistance hearing in opening dayof the Minnesota House, and how Representative John Persell (DFL-Bemidji), in his homespun diction, talked about reframing the energy debate. Aren't there ways--like solar power--that we can more immediately add value to natural resources like the sun, wind and water, rather than using fossil fuels, which are in the end are derived from the same source?
Photo: The Casselton ND oil train explosion.
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The guest of honor at the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance 1st Quarter Event on March 6 in Mounds Views was roasted in Arizona the other night.
Now racial and religious "jokes" told by Arizona State Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, are drawing national attention at a time when conservations hope to build bridges to America's growing diverse communities. In Minnesota, former representative Dan Severson and state senator Dan Hall are leading the Minority Liberty Caucus.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has obtained exclusive audio of Saturday night’s roast of controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The roast was the finale of last weekend’s Western Conservative Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Arizona State Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican from the Scottsdale area, had conservatives chortling with one joke after another about racial profiling, “rounding up Hispanics” and much more. For good measure, he mocked the controversy around SB 1062, the so-called religious freedom bill, taking a shot at Muslims in the process. And he mocked the federal monitor appointed to oversee Sheriff Arpaio’s operations after a judge determined that his department engaged in racial profiling and illegal detentions of Latinos.
It’s not uncommon for roasters to push boundaries. People joke about things that might otherwise be off-limits – sex, old age and a person’s personality and appearance. This was different.
Kavanagh, who made headlines last year for trying to criminalize bathroom use by transgender people, used Latinos as a punch line in one racist joke after another, and the crowd lapped it up. The jokes and laughter, caught in an unguarded moment, reveal why conservatives have such a difficult time connecting with Latinos – there is a fundamental lack of respect. . . .
Soon he was making light of the controversy around the “religious freedom” bill SB 1062, which would allow businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples. Kavanagh, who supports the bill, dismissed the criticism with a joke at the expense of Muslims and Arpaio:
Now a lot of people claim that SB 1062 is gonna cause discrimination based upon religion in Arizona.
And I scoffed at that until tonight. When a Muslim waiter serving up here walked up to Sheriff Joe, wouldn’t give him his dinner ’cause he said ‘I don’t serve swine.’
The crowd reacted with some shock, but not about the Muslim remark. Arpaio covered his face with his napkin. Kavanagh quipped that it “wasn’t quite a burka.” . . .
State Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, used jokes about Latinos, Muslims and Asians to roast Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio last weekend at a gathering of conservatives in Phoenix, according to tapes released Wednesday.
“I’m not the federal monitor. How many Hispanics did you pull over on the way over here, Arpaio?” Kavanagh joked to loud applause during a roast of Arpaio at the Western Conservative Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday.
Kavanagh was referring to the monitor appointed by a federal judge last year to oversee the Sheriff’s Office after determining that deputies engaged in discriminatory racial profiling of Latinos during the office’s immigration sweeps and traffic stops.
Several civil-rights and community leaders quickly condemned Kavanagh’s jokes, calling them inappropriate for an elected official.
“It’s disgusting,” said Danny Ortega, a Phoenix lawyer and civil-rights leader. “Any jokes about race, specifically as it relates to something as serious as racial profiling, is not a joke to the Latino community. It’s not a joke to the federal judge who specifically found that (Arpaio’s sweeps) was racial profiling.”
The material has been reported in USAToday, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere. Listen to the audio at the SPLC link.
On Feb. 20, Petersburg trekked to the Miller-Armstrong Building with a plate of brownies to speak with constituents about hot-button issues in this spring’s Legislative session. The session began Tuesday and is only expected to run about 12 weeks.
But only one person was able to attend the town hall. According to Petersburg, the constituent came prepared with questions and concerns about legalizing medicinal marijuana, Sunday liquor sales and the recycling bill. . . .
The article goes on to share Petersburg's views about the propane shortage, raising the minimum wage and the bullying bill.
Photo: John Petersburg preparing for a donkey race at the Waseca Count Fair in 2012. This was the only photo of him with an adorable animal. Via Facebook.
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Marty Seifert picked state Rep. Pam Myhra as his running mate, the Seifert campaign confirmed.
Myhra is a low profile two-term state representative from Burnsville. Solid, not flashy, she is known as a hard worker with conservative credentials....
Among those conservative credentials is membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC Exposed notes that Myrha was an ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member in 2011.
Last week, this space carried a post recapping the strange brew of education-related measures that had survived their respective legislative committees and were headed to the floors of the state Senate and House. There is much more to be said about one of the more curious measures, House File 2127, sponsored by Burnsville Republican Pam Myhra.
A short refresher: The bill would require all Minnesota students, starting four years from now, to have taken at least one online-only course in order to graduate from high school. As first introduced, it would have allowed those courses to take place in virtual classrooms to be located anywhere and be operated by employees of for-profit companies who might or might not be licensed teachers.
As it moved through various committees, HF 2127 was amended to require all courses be taught by licensed Minnesota educators, offered by approved operators and include digital coursework done in schools. It was massaged into something Minnesota’s larger districts, most of which already offer digital courses, are now OK with, although it will pose myriad challenges in Greater Minnesota.
And where did Myhra stumble across this requirement that students MUST take an online course? Hawkins prints out in the article:
Yes, ALEC has made appearances in this space, too, but we think the best primer is the one produced by the education advocacy group Parents United. Corporations, foundations and think tanks pay thousands of dollars to join ALEC, which charges lawmakers — most of them Republicans — $50 a year to join.
The model law adopted in Tennessee was created by two ALEC committees chaired by executives from two large, for-profit corporate providers of virtual education, Connections Academy and K-12, according to Phi Delta Kappan, via Education Week.
Shortly after passage, K-12 won a no-bid contract from Union County School District to open a school that is in operation this year. Tennessee lawmakers also decided to shutter the state’s successful online education program.
Some 2,000 students applied for admission to the Tennessee Virtual Academy last fall, many of them homeschoolers. Others were recruited at meetings held in Chattanooga’s poorest neighborhoods. The school receives about $5,300 per pupil; K-12’s CEO was paid more than $2.6 million last year and its CFO $1.7 million.
There’s more. According to The New York Times, K-12 was founded by a former banker from Goldman Sachs and pundit William Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of education and the author of "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories" and bankrolled by disgraced junk bond king Mike Milken. . . .
Perhaps Seifert is on to something in getting Myhra out of the legislature into the lieutenant governor's office where she'll do no harm.
Photo: Representative Pam Myhra and an adorable fluffy dog named Emma whom she met while door knocking a neighbor in 2010. Via Facebook.
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The entire committee hearing can be heard here online. Most of the video is also available here, although the feed was switched to another hearing by the Civil Law Committee.
And here's the Uptake's livestream, which does break away to the other committee:
Not that Republicans didn't try to gin up some spin before the hearing about "anti-farmer." Committee member Dan Fabian (R-Roseau) took to the airwaves on the Red River Farm Network, making a cameo on the Agri-Growth Council-sponsored Ag Take for January 24:
TUESDAY: via Red River Farm Network, VERBATIM: “The Minnesota House Environment, Natural Resources and Agricultural Finance Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday morning in St. Paul on Roundup Ready resistance. Representative Dan Fabian, from District 1A, says farmers should be concerned.” READ:http://bit.ly/1cbAKyc
That link at the end is obsolete but we tend to save these sorts of items:
MN House Committee to Review RR Resistance — The Minnesota House Environment, Natural Resources and Agricultural Finance Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday morning in St. Paul on Roundup Ready resistance. Representative Dan Fabian, from District 1A, says farmers should be concerned. "For me it is a concern because this is a way to get at the GMO issue," related Fabian, "There's a number of people that I believe think GMO's are some sort of an evil thing." Fabian contends biotechnology is positive news for the environment. Fabian told farmers at a Small Grains Update meeting in Argyle Thursday that his committee chair, Representative Jean Wagenius, Minneapolis, is “after you.”
However, as the minutes and recordings of the committee illustrate, chair Wagenius gravelled the committee to order, then handed the committee over to vice chair Andrew Falk. Falk, a crop farmer, is Bluestem's state representative. One of the things Falk shares on Facebook are "tractor shots" and "combine shots" that smart technology helps bring working farmers' activities home to millions of Americans.
Falk quickly got down to business on the 28th, turning over the committee to the weed experts, who then took questions.
Other than that, the article's mostly a fair recounting of the hearing:
A Jurassic Park reference may have best summed up the weed resistance presentation made before members of the House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance Committee.
"Nature will find a way," Rep. Rick Hansen said, drawing a reference to the 1993 movie about a theme park filled with genetically-engineered dinosaurs. . . .
Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, said the tools used by farmers to control weeds aren't being taken away by legislators, they are being taken away by biology. As farmers and others in agriculture keep working on management practices, nature continues to find ways to outwit them.
Go read what's in between that lede and closing paragraph.
Just the ghost of a failed frame: picking on farmers (not)
As the hearing itself demonstrated, Willette story reveals the ghost of the failed place-baiting frame the Republican caucus tried to bring to the committee hearing:
Some legislators took issue with the subject of the hearing.
Republican Rep. Deb Kiel, who farms by Crookston, said she felt attacked. A lot of people are working hard to be sure there isn't weed resistance, she said, and techniques are changing all the time.
Rep. Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, reflected on his days walking beans and said the good ol' days weren't all that good.
"Back in the 1970s when I was a 10-year-old kid walking beans, I would have told you that every single weed in that field was a resistant," he said, to chuckles from other members.
"I'm just thinking here as a farmer what is our purpose? ... Our purpose, I believe is to provide the consumer with a safe, wholesome, great-tasting product at an affordable price, responsibly. ... I think that we need to work collectively again, between the industry professionals, between the educators and other stakeholders to continue to search for those best management practices, those tools, and not just try to take away the tools agriculture has. Work together and bring forth solutions," Hamilton said.
One wonders why Kiel felt attacked by the science that creates the techniques farmers rely upon.
But Hamilton's folksy recollection of walking beans as a child--which Bluestem's publisher also did in junior high--may have drawn laughs, but the notion that he's a "farmer" rather than a hired hand in the human resources department at Christensen Farms should provoke the greater laughter.
All childhood memorie aside, has Hamilton seen a weed since working inside that corporate office? What tools does he (or the person who drafted the prepared remarks he read during the hearing) imagine that anyone giving a presentation in the hearing was proposing to take away?
Photo: Dan Fabian (R-Roseau) reads to a Head Start class (above, via Fabian campaign site); Jim Falk (left) and Representative Andrew Falk (right) out standing in their oat field, April 2013. Also, a tractor. (below, via Facebook).
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In this afternoon's discussion of the Minnesota House bill to provide $20 million emergency energy assistance to low income Minnesotans hit by high propane costs, several Republicans rose to urge a green-lighting of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Fortunately, American Legislative Exchange state co-chair Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington) jumped in to help.
The Uptake posted both the video and a summary:
Rep. Pat Garofalo says the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would help solve some of Minnesota's energy problems. The state has seen a long string of subzero weather and spikes in propane prices many times over the normal price. He says the pipeline make energy supplies move faster and have the added benefit of reducing oil tanker traffic through Minnesota by 60% to 70%.
Building the Keystone Pipeline could decrease rail shipments out of the Bakken by as much as 60 to 70 percent, according to Brookings Institution expert Charles Ebinger — but pipelines are not without risks, either, and the political stalemate over Keystone suggests that oil will continue to roll through Minnesota well into the future.
Following the links to the Brookings Institution, Bluestem wasn't able to find that statement by Ebinger, though perhaps it's there somewhere.
And while 100,000 BPD isa tidy amount of the Bakken shale oil that isn't refined in North Dakota at the refinery in Mandan, it's not 60-70 percent of the tanker train traffic from the Bakken going through Minnesota. MN 2020 Transportation Fellow Conrad deFiebre reported:
.. . According to the Association of American Railroads, major U.S. railroads moved an estimated 400,000 carloads of crude oil last year, up 40-fold from as recently as 2008.
About 80 percent of the total carloads pass through Minnesota, and 60 percent through the highly populated Twin Cities, before fanning out into many other states. In return, we’ve lost about one coal train passing through the state for every two oil trains gained, Christianson said.
Most of that crude oil is from the Bakken and we're talking tank car loads, not barrels. Global Research reported in December 2013:
Less than four years later, railroads have shipped as much as 600,000 barrels a day from the Bakken and are transporting crude not just from North Dakota but from oil-fracking sites in Montana, Texas, Utah, Ohio, Wyoming, Colorado, and southern Canada.
A 100,000 barrel per day reduction from that isn't 60-70 percent.
. . . But few could argue the fact that rail reigns supreme for bringing Bakken fracked oil to market.
"Last November, rail shipped 71 percent — nearly 800,000 barrels of oil a day — of the Bakken’s oil, much of it on lines across Minnesota and Wisconsin, while pipelines shipped just 22 percent, according to estimates from the North Dakota Pipeline Authority," explains the Duluth News Tribune.
So once again, building the Keystone line wouldn't liberate 60-70 percent of Minnesota's rail lines for shipping propane and other products.
It's possible that Garofalo meant future shipments of tar sands crude if the pipeline wasn't developed, but Bluestem suspects that he merely cited the figure in the Star Tribune editorial without really looking into matters.
Or considering other paths for energy policy, like the solar furnaces that Representative John Persell (DFL-Bemidji) said were being used with great success in his district.
Garofalo repeated the claim (without the 60-70 percent figure) in a statement on his official webpage later in the afternoon:
"This bill will give peace of mind to the thousands of Minnesota families who rely on this program to heat their homes during this unusually harsh winter. However, this is a short-term fix to a long-term problem of our own making. By building widely-supported pipeline projects like Keystone XL, we can alleviate much of the oil tanker traffic on our rail lines that caused key delays on emergency propane shipments during the propane shortage last month.
In the opening session of the Minnesota House today, the body got down to business and passed the bill without opposition after suspending the rules over the urgency of making sure citizens and their pipes don't freeze.Some discussion of the need for long-term infrastructure improvements were sensibly recommended by Radinovich (DFL-Crosby) to be taken up by the Minnesota House Energy Committee.
Of course, reasonableness didn't stop Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) from trying to sidetrack the discussion of emergency heating aid into grandstanding about "global cooling." Radinovich's response demonstrated why he's gaining cred as a focused cat able to keep it real:
The Minnesota Senate will move on the companion bill asap.
Details about the problem and the legislative relief from a press release from Representative Radinovich office:
On the first day of the 2014 Legislative Session, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed legislation chief authored by state Representative Joe Radinovich (DFL – Crosby) to increase funding to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The House suspended the rules to pass the bill immediately after it received an informational hearing in the House Commerce Committee on Monday. The bill passed unanimously.
The bill would appropriate $20 million from the state’s General Fund for fiscal year 2014 and any unspent funds as of June 30, 2014 would return to the General Fund. Minnesota’s propane shortage amidst high demand led to skyrocketing prices and increased applications for energy assistance.
In January, the Commerce Department took steps to increase LIHEAP Crisis payments from $500 to $1,000 for applicants currently heating their homes with propane and heating oil. Governor Dayton also declared a peacetime state of emergency in response to the propane shortage.
“Without this legislation, this critical program will run out of funding in early March,” said Rep. Radinovich. “As another round of extreme cold hits the state, we need to make sure that every Minnesotan can heat their home and can get assistance if they need it. This is another instance where Minnesotans will come together to help those in need.”
As of February 20, 108,268 Minnesota households have been approved and are receiving assistance, with another 22,918 waiting to have their eligibility determined. 23,171 households have already received crisis assistance, up from 14,033 at this time last year.
Photo: Joe Radinovich, DFL-Crosby.
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As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, Tim Walz is prudent to conduct hearings in Minnesota's First Congressional District about rail safety.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walz presided over a somber meeting Monday with city leaders, first responders and state agencies from both sides of the Mississippi River talking about growing concerns over rail safety.
. . . La Crosse Fire Chief Gregg Cleveland, with agreement from Winona Fire Chief Curt Bittle, said a perennial challenge for responders is coordinating all of the agencies that can be involved with a hazardous material incident. State regulations can be a big barrier to responding to an incident involving both Minnesota and Wisconsin, he said.
“The lines only exist on the map,” he said. “What really counts is the people.”
The systems should allow for quick agreements between the states and organizations, but doesn’t, he said.
Read the entire Nathan Hansen piece. The conclusion may be the most startling part of the article:
Questions also were brought up on what kinds of data could be used by the industry and lawmakers to make better decisions, as well as what kind of inspection resources exist.
The railroads do their own inspections, Christianson said, but MnDOT also has its own inspector — one person backed up by one or two personnel from the Federal Railroad Administration to inspect 4,000 miles of rail in the state.
Photo: The Casselton, ND oil train explosion.
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Read the current version of Carly Melin's medical marijuana bill, HF1818, and you'll realize that the system of secure and higly-regulated dispensaries and registration of patients who will be able to possess medical proposed in the language isn't exactly as accessible as a high school graduation bonfire.
But to Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen (R-Alexandria), it might as well be an open invitation to party for Minnesota's youth.
Ingebrigtsen believes his Democratic peers will want to spend some time discussing legalizing medical marijuana. With recreational marijuana legal in Colorado and Washington and medical marijuana legal in 20 other states, it has certainly become a hot-button issue.
The latest proposal would allow people suffering from several illnesses, including cancer, glaucoma and AIDS, to have 2.5 ounces or 12 marijuana plants in their possession.
Ingebrigtsen plans to fight any move toward legalization. In his view, legalizing medical marijuana is simply a step toward recreational use in the state, something he sees as setting a poor example.
“We don’t want to tell our kids we’re OK with legalizing another type of alcohol,” he said.
Why do we suspect that Ingebrigtsen played hookey from DRE school when he served as Douglas County Sheriff?
Photo: Senator Ingebrigtsen worries that young people will think medical marijuana is just another form of alcohol. This image, found via google, probably doesn't disabuse him of the notion.
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In yesterday's post, Minnesota's marriage equality opponents to offer New Jim Crow public accommodation bill, Bluestem looked at the connection between Minnesota's anti-equality advocates and the Alliance Defending Liberty, which is widely credited for writing "New Jim Crow" bills that will allow private businesses to refuse goods and services to LGBT people.
Discriminating against people in providing housing, insurance, goods and services, contracts, health benefits, hospital visitation rights, and employment on the basis of sexual and gender identity has been illegal in Minnesota since 1993. Same-sex marriage became the law in 2013.
In Watch CNN's Cuomo Call Out The Extremist Group Behind Arizona's Anti-Gay Bill, Media Matters' Luke Brinker documents how the Alliance Defending Liberty has not only promoted the "New Jim Crow" policies against same sex couples, but actively supported other forms of discrimination based on sexual and gender identity as well. Brinker reports:
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo highlighted the extreme anti-LGBT history of the legal organization that helped write an Arizona bill that would allow individuals and businesses to refuse to serve gay people on religious grounds, noting the group's record of opposing LGBT equality under the guise of protecting religious liberty.
As the Religion News Service noted on February 21, the principal drafters of the Arizona anti-gay segregation measure were the right-wing Center for Arizona Policy and the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Spokespersons from both organizations have commented publicly on the bill, but media coverage has featured scant attention to the strident anti-LGBT positions taken by ADF in particular. . . .
A look at ADF's record supports Cuomo's characterization.
In its earlier incarnation as the Alliance Defense Fund, ADF filed a brief supporting anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing gay sex. The organization has defended state bans on marriage equality and represented business owners who refused to serve gay couples. ADF has also opposed anti-bullying efforts in public schools and declared that a gay-inclusive Boy Scouts of America would be an assault on religious liberty.
Internationally, ADF has defended a Belize law that impose a 10-year sentence for gay sex, applauded India's recent Supreme Court ruling reinstating the country's ban on gay sex, and dispatched its chief counsel to meet with the legislative leader behind Russia's anti-gay crackdown.
Cuomo's decision to hold the ADF accountable for its history of anti-gay extremism is a praise-worthy but rare occurrence in mainstream media. As important as it is to debunk right-wing talking points about these anti-gay segregation laws, it's equally important to make sure that the public understand what kinds of extremist organizations are working to enact these laws across the country.
Other than that, they totally love everybody and everything everywhere.
Image: A meme from last fall's Minnesota Religious Freedom Forum, via Facebook.
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Gay marriage: Opponents of same-sex marriage plan to offer a bill that would make it clear businesses owned by people who oppose such marriages are not required to service gay weddings.
This is a minorversion of what have been dubbed "New Jim Crow" laws being introduced in state legislatures around the country.
Fresh from a political defeat, local religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage are hosting a daylong conference later this month to make sure people of faith know their rights.
Many of the groups fear Minnesotans’ religious freedoms are under attack, not just with same-sex marriage laws, but throughout society. . . .
Nelsons said the event will be more wide-ranging than just the marriage issue, and is not a first step to reignite a new marriage fight. “We are not trying to pick up the marriage fight battle in the legislative sense at all,” he said. . . .
In other states where same-sex marriage is legal, like Washington, state human rights officials have pursued stiff fines against wedding businesses that refuse to provide goods and services to gay and lesbian couples.
That has yet to happen in the two months gay marriage has been legal in Minnesota, but same-sex marriage opponents are watching closely to see if state officials start investigating businesses owners who refuse to work for same-sex couples. . . .
Officials with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights said that anti-discrimination laws prohibit businesses that provide wedding services or products from refusing to work with a same-sex couple based on sexual orientation.
To do so is discrimination no different from refusing to serve someone who is black, Jewish or Muslim, the state says.
. . . The bill was written by the Center for Arizona Policy and a Christian legal organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom. They were inspired, in part, by the case of a New Mexico wedding photographer who was taken to court after refusing to shoot a gay commitment ceremony. The bill seeks to shield Christians from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community who dare to seek equal protection under the law.
Specifically, the bill protects all individuals, businesses and religious institutions from discrimination lawsuits if they can show that their discriminatory actions were motivated by religious convictions.
Under the guise of religious freedom, however, the bill would enable businesses potentially to discriminate against virtually anyone -- not just Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics and atheists, but also unwed mothers, Rastafarians and Budweiser T-shirt wearers. This bill is arbitrary, capricious and antithetical to the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood that inform our documents of freedom.
Given the presence of the Alliance Defending Freedom in last fall's conference, Bluestem will be looking for the bill Whitaker mentions. How will it compare to bills from Arizona and elsewhere?
Kansas set off a national firestorm last week when the GOP-controlled House passed a bill that would have allowed anyone to refuse to do business with same-sex couples by citing religious beliefs. The bill, which covered both private businesses and individuals, including government employees, would have barred same-sex couples from suing anyone who denies them food service, hotel rooms, social services, adoption rights, or employment—as long as the person denying the service said he or she had a religious objection to homosexuality. As of this week, the legislation was dead in the Senate. But the Kansas bill is not a one-off effort.
Republicans lawmakers and a network of conservative religious groups has been pushing similar bills in other states, essentially forging a national campaign that, critics say, would legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Republicans in Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee recently introduced provisions that mimic the Kansas legislation. And Arizona,Hawaii, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have introduced broader "religious freedom" bills with a unique provision that would also allow people to deny services or employment to LGBT Americans, legal experts say.
"This is a concerted campaign that the religious Right has been hinting at for a couple of years now," says Evan Hurst, associate director of Truth Wins Out, a Chicago-based nonprofit that promotes gay rights. "The fact that they're doing it Jim Crow-style is remarkable, considering the fact that one would think the GOP would like to be electable among people under 50 sometime in the near future." . . .
Liebelson identifies other groups in addition to the ADF. Check it out.
Long before marriage equality became law in 2013, people living in Minnesota have enjoyed equal protection of the law in housing, insurance, goods and services, contracts, health benefits, hospital visitation rights, and employment, without regard to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Image: A meme from last fall's Minnesota Religious Freedom Forum, via Facebook.
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Bluestem is highly entertained this afternoon by the gleeful sharing by progressives on Facebook of a post by the Minnesota DFL's favorite titular Republican blogger, Michael Brodkorb.
Last year, the Republican Party of Minnesota unveiled a new logo which proclaimed the Republican Party of Minnesota was the “GROWTH & OPPORTUNITY PARTY”. After today, the Republican Party of Minnesota should shelve the logo, because “growth” and “opportunity” is no longer a credible message coming from the Republican Party of Minnesota.
The endorsing convention for House District 30B in Buffalo today will be a watershed moment for Republicans in Minnesota. . . .
It’s foolish for anyone to think what occurred at Buffalo High School this afternoon won’t tarnish the image of the entire Republican Party in Minnesota. Republicans can learn from it, or hide behind their new logo. They can speak up or remain silent, or as the Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota Keith Downey did in Wright County today, they can ignore the elephant in the room: Representative David FitzSimmons.
It's rhetoric like this that makes Bluestem's editor and proprietor happy that she spent time at the Ozarks Famous Writers School in Fayetteville, Arkansas, studying at the knees of James Whitehead, Heather Ross Miller and other cranky Southerners than warming a seat in a political science class.
There's quite a herd of elephants carrying that prose: the brokeback elephant, the symbolic elephant in the logo, and the 800 pound elephant who is David Fitzsimmons. But as the late sonnet master Whitehead used to insist in that booming voice, "Goddam it, Sally Jo, don't just free associate, use tenor and vehicle properly." Is the image of the elephant a vehicle for a broken party, a logo, or a legislator?
At times like these, the mentors at the Famous Writers School might suggest looking at the underlying logic of the comparisons in an effort to sort things out. Let us go then, you and I, into the material that yesterday's Wright County Convention provides.
One of these is not like the other: FitzSimmons, Garofalo, Daudt and Loon
Bluestem had hoped that Representative FitzSimmons was endorsed again yesterday; while we agree on very little, he's a capable leader. Eric Lucero seems to have a whiff of religious mania about him, but that's not a disqualification from office under the Constitution.
Nor was FitzSimmons' vote for the freedom to marry taken in isolation. While FitzSimmons offered an amendent that assured that the law covered "civil marriage" only, Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington); Andrea Kieffer (R-Woodbury); and Jenifer Loon (R-Eden Prairie) also voted yes.
"I would say that would have been the most compelling reason for me to run again," said Kieffer, a two-term representative from Woodbury. She was one of five legislative Republicans to support legalization earlier this year.
Deputy Minority Leader Jenifer Loon also faces no opposition for party endorsement next month. As is the case with the Kieffer district, her constituents voted down the marriage amendment. According to the Pioneer Press, Loon is one of the House Republicans lead recruiters of candidates for this election cycle.
Moreover, Fitzsimmons wasn't the only Republican challenged yesterday; Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, who voted against marriage, won endorsement on the first ballot.
The notion that Fitzsimmons' retirement represents a party-wide elephant barn cleaning over the marriage issue is dubious at a best; rather, marriage equality opponents at the Minnesota Family Council out-organized Fitzsimmons' supporters. Former Taxpayers League president and faltering congressional candidate Phil Krinkie took one parting shot at CD6 frontrunner Tom Emmer by helping to knockout his rival's close associate. Though crass, it's one way to announce his own retirement from politics.
House of Cards: The Freedom to Marry Four vs. the Override Six
Nor did Republican leadership in the House or the state party punish the Freedom to Marry Four--in sharp contrast to an earlier cohort of Republican defectors in 2008.
Even before last May's vote, James Nord reported at MinnPost that GOP leaders rule out reprisals against caucus members who vote for gay marriage. Loon and Garofalo didn't lose their leadership positions; indeed, Loon has recruited new candidates to run in swing districts across the state as the Republicans aggressively strategize to take back the Minnesota House.
Republican Party officials suggest they’ve set the issue aside.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of merit to raise that up (same-sex marriage) as an election-year issue,” Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Keith Downey recently said. “It’s more or less water under the bridge — at least for now.”
While much has been made of Downey supposedly not mentioning Fitzsimmons' name at the Wright County Republican convention yesterday, it's unlikely that specific praise would have changed the outcome.
What does a legislative purge look like in the Republican Party of Minnesota? We needn't look back beyond the fate of the "Override 6," in the Minnesota House who voted to override Governor Pawlenty's veto of the gas tax hike. In March, 2008, MinnPost's G.R.Anderson wrote in The 'override six': Chastised by GOP leaders, they're feeling confident about re-election:
.. . In fact, much has been made about the so-called "override six" — Abeler, Rod Hamilton of Mountain Lake, Ron Erhardt of Edina, Kathy Tingelstad of Andover, Neil Peterson of Bloomington and Bud Heidegerken of Freeport — all Republican House members who disregarded their caucus' wishes and the GOP governor's veto stamp. Minority leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, made a show of stripping the six of their respective party leadership positions, and many angry Republicans have warned that the wrath will come election time in November.
What were the electoral consequences of the purge?
Of the six, Abeler defeated Don Huizenga in a 2008 primary race in which neither was endorsed and was re-elected in 2008, 2010 and 2012. He's now seeking the GOP U.S. Senate endorsement, although it's uncertain if he'll run again if he's denied endorsement for the federal race, as seems likely.
Anderson notes that then state party chair Ron Carey promised to leave Override 6 endorsement battles in local hands, but helped snatch the endorsement from Kathy Tinglestad, his own representative:
According to GOP state chairman Ron Carey, the party will not actively work against the overriders in their districts, at least as far as endorsements are concerned.
"The party process is local control, a guiding Republican principle," Carey said. "We totally respect the right of the voters to make their decisions on their candidates."
Still, Carey worked against Tingelstad at her endorsing convention, successfully getting local Republicans to postpone endorsing. But he points out that Tingelstad's district is in his home Senate district.
. . . Carey made his feelings on the override clear. "Virtually all Republicans in the state believe it was a mistake to override the governor's veto," he said. "Our internal polling shows that most Minnesota Republicans are opposed to the gas tax."
Tinglestad retired at the end of the 2007-2008 session and now serves as a lobbyist for Anoka County. DFLer Jerry Newton took the seat by beating Jake Cimenski in 2008. Newton was defeated by Branden Petersen (who ran for Senate in 2012, then became the only Republican state senator to vote for marriage equality). Newton returned to office in a newly redistricted 37A in 2012
For all the online mopery of Republicans who stood with FitzSimmons, Bluestem thinks that the FitzSimmons retirement and Lucero endorsement shouldn't be a cause for complacency among DFLers and marriage equality supporters.
With two pro-equality Republicans remaining in leadership roles, and the Republican Party's message focused on MNSure glitches and the party's economic message, the unfortunate fate of Dave FitzSimmons may remain localized to a district where even a Redbone Walker could win election if handlers tie a trunk on his snout and call him a Republican. Statewide, the Republican Party will survive.
DFL control the House may depend fate of suburban swing districts--where marriage equality is a winner--and rural wing districts where courageous Democrats like Joe Radinovich, Jay McNamar, Tim Faust and Andrew Falk voted for equality in 2013 while their districts voted for restricting the right to marry in 2012. It's a contradictory calculus, in which the marriage issue poses opportunities and pitfalls for both sides of the fairly settled debate and an each party.
Bluestem suspects in the absence of any data that voters are rather fatigued with the question. We hear more from our neighbors about the paucity of bees and butterflies and the need for high paying jobs in greater Minnesota than whether cute boys marry each other.
Photo: The Scary Winter of Our Discontent. Photo by Stacey Burns.
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Last session, Minnesota state representative Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) spent a lot of time place-baiting, whining in particular about state representative Jean Wagenius (DFL-Minneapolis) chairing the House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance committee.
In Minnesota, Rep. Rod Hamilton has long argued that rural concerns get neglected in St. Paul, where the number of farmers in the House stands at six - down from 14 as recently as 1995.
Hamilton, a Republican and pork producer, said he plans to work with other rural lawmakers from both parties in both chambers this session to protect shared interests against a leadership that's mostly from the Twin Cities area.
"You don't need that many votes to make an impact," he said.
The vice chair of the committee? Bluestem's state representative, Andrew Falk (DFL-Murdock), who farms with his parents, who also own a seed company.
Frankly, Bluestem's tired of the notion of "us" versus "them" and offers of help from Hamilton. We don't need to be protection "against" the Twin Cities, but rather, we need leadership that moves the whole of the state together.
The place-baiting, divisive rhetoric doesn't help--and doesn't lead. Give it a rest.
Image: Rod Hamilton, place-baiting pseudo-pork producer.
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While much is being made nationally of an abbreviated clip of KEYC-TV coverage of an ag-related meeting featuring Senator Amy Klobuchar, CD7 Representative Collin Peterson and CD Tim Walz earlier this month in North Mankato, local venues tell a somewhat different story.
Thursday night, a national television news organization showed a clip from one of our stories that aired on KEYC News 12 Wednesday night. That story was mostly about Wednesday afternoon's Southern Minnesota Ag Symposium; but it was a question in the forum at the end that got the most attention. That question was about a purported $2,500 savings for families because of the Affordable Care Act, known by many as ObamaCare.
Anyone in attendance, or watching the news story on our air or website, knows that a certain amount of laughter came first from the audience, then the three panel members - Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Collin Peterson, and Rep. Tim Walz. That laughter became a bit more animated when Rep. Peterson quipped that he voted 'no,' so he was going to let the other two answer the question.
Thursday evening, national media outlets began running the story. However, they showed only a short clip from that exchange. The story accused all three panel members of laughing at someone else's suffering. It also accused all three panel members of ducking the question. Anyone in attendance that day, or watching the story in its entirety that evening, knows that nothing could be further from the truth.
This is not a Democrat issue. This is not a Republican issue. This is a truth and fairness issue. We believe our story has been taken out of context to unfairly characterize that day's conversation; and unfairly characterize Sen. Klobuchar, Rep. Peterson, and Rep. Walz.
- Dan Ruiter, News Director
Readers can view the entire clip and the original news story, MN Lawmakers Talk Farm Bill, ACA at Ag Symposium, to check it out for themselves. Certainly, the closing paragraphs of the text suggest that Ruiter's explanation is accurate:
The question: "I thought the Affordable Care Act would save $2500 per family. What happened?"
After Sen. Klobuchar and Rep. Walz looked at each other, laughter broke out in the room.
Rep. Peterson quickly picked up the microphone to say, "I voted 'no', so I'll let these guys handle that," to the applause of the crowd.
Both Klobuchar and Walz said they were aware of the problems, and wanted to find ways to fix it.
Walz says, "This health discussion has got to be broader, it's got to point out where there are weaknesses and failures, it's got to make sure we're not leaving people behind or distorting the system. But don't pretend there was some type of safe harbor before this where everything was just peachy keen."
Walz's answer isn't dismissive of the question, and the audience members laugh first.
It's the laugh heard around the world. During the Ag Symposium Wednesday at South Central College, Congressmen Tim Walz, Collin Peterson and Sen. Amy Klobuchar were asked a question about the implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act.
“I thought the Affordable Care Act would save $2,500 per family. What happened?” asked an audience member.
Peterson quipped: “I voted ‘no,’ so I’ll let these guys handle that.”
Peterson's comments were met with laughter from the packed crowd of area farmers and from the Democratic lawmakers. Walz and Klobuchar subsequently gave their responses to the question.
“This health discussion has got to be broader, it’s got to point out where there are weaknesses and failures, it’s got to make sure we’re not leaving people behind or distorting the system,” Walz said at the event. “But don’t pretend there was some type of safe harbor before this where everything was just peachy keen.”
There was no immediate criticism or complaint reported about the incident from the audience.
However, state Republican lawmakers and activists quickly seized on a video clip shot by television station KEYC to criticize the lawmakers. Republican activists characterized the lawmakers as laughing about the problems with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and at the question, instead of at Peterson's comments. The video quickly surged through state and national conservative websites. The criticism overlapped with the messages being pushed by national Republican organizations, such as the National Republic Congressional Committee. . . .
Moniz concludes:
The speed and scope of the video's spread has been a surprise, but it clarified something that has been brewing since last year: The debate over the Affordable Care Act appears that to be position to be the marquee issue to dominate campaigns during this year's elections, possibly even more extensively than during the law's controversial passage.
And there's this:
Walz spokesman Tony Ufkin said the characterization that Walz laughed at the problems with the law was unfair and completely inaccurate.
"The KEYC clarification speaks for itself. The Congressman always shows concern for constituents and answers their questions, as he did in this case. He also met with the individual after the event to offer his assistance. . . .
Republicans and the NRCC aren't the only ones to shorten a video clip in order to spin the excerpt as something it's not. A classic example in Minnesota state-level politics occurred in 2012, when the Minnesota DFL House caucus campaign released a clip of Representative Mary Franson speaking at a Tea Party rally, supposedly repeating the "joke" comparing feeding people on SNAP to feeding wild animals.
In reality, Franson repeated the material as part of a much longer discussion of how attacks on her spiraled out of control even after she issued an apology.
When partisan committees and organizations send Bluestem video clips and excerpts from writings, we always try to locate or request the original unedited video or document. While we lean left, we also try to lean fair, and common humanity suggests that Representative Franson, Senator Klobuchar and the Congressmen are treated equally. Bluestem strives to never post anything that we know to be untrue.
Photo: Klobuchar, Peterson and Walz at the ag forum in North Mankato, via KEYC-TV.
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Dean is the only one to make both lists, so he's totally one hep cat, although he's fallen from #1 to #6 on the latest list.
Here's Alex Henderson's Dean write up from this week:
6. You Can Run International
The far-right television evangelists who rallied Republican “values voters” back in the 1980s — James Robison, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, among others — had no kind words for rock music, which they considered music of the devil. To them, Christian rock was a contradiction in terms. But Bradlee Dean, founder of Christian rap-metal/alternative metal band Junkyard Prophet and the Minnesota-based youth outreach ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCHI), doesn’t see it that way. His website youcanruninternational.com has an in-your-face, alt-rock look you won’t find at the more staid PatRobertson.com. However, the bitterly anti-gay Dean (who has strong ties to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann) is preaching very much the same far-right fundamentalist message Falwell and Swaggart were preaching 30 years ago — although Falwell probably wouldn’t have liked Dean’s tattoos.
1) Bradlee Dean. In many ways, Bradlee Dean epitomizes the Christian right overreaction to the fact that young people are ignoring religious fundamentalism in growing numbers. Many Christian leaders have taken to suggesting that Christianity should be more manly and aggressive to woo the young, and Dean took this to heart, starting You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International and the Christian rock band Junkyard Prophet, both of which embrace an over-the-top Harley motorcycle-influenced aesthetic. Dean had a habit of sneaking Christian propaganda into public schools by offering programs he portrayed as merely anti-drug to school administrators but once he was in front of the students, turned into Bible-thumping.
Dean, who has close ties to Rep. Michele Bachmann, is rabidly homophobic, and in keeping with his tough-guy pose, has endorsed executing people for being gay. He is prone to spinning all sorts of wild and often contradictory conspiracy theories, e.g. President Obama and Rep. Keith Ellison are part of some gay plot to take over America and a plot to impose anti-gay sharia law on the country. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there is a lot of chest-thumping.
Bradlee Dean gained national attention when he questioned President Obama's faith in a prayer delivered as a guest chaplain for the Minnesota House; the prayer was redacted from the House record. He later unsuccessfully sued Rachel Maddow for defamation when she played part of his radio broadcast on her MSNBC cable show.
Photo: Bradlee Dean (front right) Christian hipster.
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Subscribers of Emo Senator Mike Parry's The Good News Magazine [Facebook here] who received their February 2014 issue in today's mail learned that Parry has sold the publication to Antonio and Sheri Wegner.
The Good News Magazine continues to grow. The first edition of 2014 hit the mailboxes last weekend and we are getting rave reviews from both the readers and our advertisers. Antonio Wegner has join my team. He brings years of experience in working with advertisers to grow their business. It's great to have Antonio on board.
The West Central Tribune reports that the jury trial of Eugene Otto Zumhofe on criminal sexual conduct charges for molesting a young woman has been set for Wednesday, following Judge David Mennis' denial of a request for a continuance.
A continuance request by a 62-year-old Cyrus facing criminal sexual conduct charges for molesting a young woman over a period of years was denied Thursday afternoon in Kandiyohi County District Court.
District Judge David Mennis denied the request by Eugene Otto Zumhofe, who is scheduled for a jury trial starting Wednesday and continuing through March 7.
Zumhofe faces 12 felony counts of first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sexual contact with the young woman approximately 1,800 times between 1999 and 2011.
Zumhofe had previously made a speedy trial request, to have the trial within 60 days.
He waived that right at the hearing and noted that the friend working as his investigator needed more time to find everyone he wished to call as witnesses.
Assistant County Attorney Nathan Midolo objected to the request, noting that the case has been continued numerous times and that the state has witnesses coming from four states, including some who are flying in and have booked tickets and made motel reservations. . . .
Check out all of Schlosser's article for more details.
Photo: Zumhofe's mug shot, 2013.
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Three prominent Washington, D.C. lobbying outfits, representing rival political factions in Ukraine, continued lobbying for their Ukrainian clients through the last quarter of 2013, the most recent reports filed recently with Congress show.
Two of the companies, the Washington-based Podesta Group Inc and the Mercury public relations firm, have been registered with Congress for the last two years as lobbyists for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels group whose financial backing is obscure.
Opposition activists and news reports in Ukraine have described the group as tied to Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich's Party of Regions. . . .
Mercury, whose team working on Ukrainian issues is led by former Republican Congressman Vin Weber, reported $70,000 in fourth-quarter 2013 income from the European Centre, bringing its 2013 yearly receipts from the Brussels-based group to a total of $280,000.
Former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber has had quite the career as a"revolving-door" D.C. lobbyist. But as one of Mitt Romney senior foreign-policy advisers, he's now under scrutiny for being a registered lobbyist for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.
The ECFMU was founded in January by a senior member of parliament for Ukraine's ruling Party of Regions, which is led by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. A 2011 special report from a D.C.-based human rights group concluded that Yanukovych "has become less democratic and, if current trends are left unchecked, may head down a path toward autocracy and kleptocracy." A followup published just a week ago found that "a year later, most of those key concerns remain, and in some cases the problems have grown considerably worse, especially in the area of selective prosecution of opposition figures and corruption."
Weber's ties to the ECFMU stand in tension with his history as an advocate for greater democracy in Ukraine--in 2010, the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization that makes grants to democratic non-governmental organizations throughout Ukraine, awarded him the endowment's Democracy Service Medal. He's also worked as chairman of the endowment. . .
McFadden has so far vastly outraised Ortman, though she hasn't reported a total for the last three months of 2013. At the end of the year, McFadden —who estimated his personal wealth at as much as $57 million on financial disclosure forms — had $1.7 million in campaign money in the bank. He's attracted support from national GOP figures like Karl Rove and Vin Weber, as well as former Sen. Norm Coleman, whom Franken unseated by the narrowest of margins in 2008.
Minnesota Historical Society bio of Vin Weber
Weber's congressional files were donated to the Minnesota State Historical Society. For those many Minnesotans who don't remember Weber's service, here's the historical biography:
Vin (John Vincent) Weber was born in Slayton, Minnesota on July 24, 1952. After graduating from Slayton High School he attended the University of Minnesota (1970-1974), where he studied political science. In 1974 he worked on Tom Hagedorn's campaign for Congress and, later, became Representative Hagedorn's press secretary. In 1976 he made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the Minnesota State Senate. Weber was co-publisher of his family's newspaper, The Murray County Herald, from 1976 to 1978. He managed Rudy Boschwitz's 1978 campaign for the U.S. Senate, and later served as Senator Boschwitz's senior Minnesota aide (1979-1980).
Weber was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 in what was then Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District. He was returned by the voters five times as the representative from the Second Congressional District, which was created in an early-1980s redistricting and included most of his old Sixth District. Weber's committee assignments included Science and Technology, Small Business, Public Works, Transportation, Budget, and Appropriations.
Weber was associated with a rising group of aggressive young House neo-conservatives (sometimes referred to as the "young turks") that included Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Calling themselves the Conservative Opportunity Society, they were anti-tax, anti-welfare state, and anti-communist and saw themselves as high-tech, futurist, populist, and conservative. They sought to win Republican control of the House of Representatives, and to reshape the post-Reagan Republican Party in their own image.
Weber retired from Congress in 1992 in the wake of the so-called House Bank Scandal. . . .
While state legislative leaders declared concerns about frac sand mining off the table for the coming session, grassroots opponents in Southeastern Minnesota's bluffs and sand hills are shifting their resistance to a different branch of government.
And taking the battle to the art centers.
Post Bulletin: Legislative leaders just not going there again
Legislative leaders made clear Wednesday they have no interest in considering a ban on silica-sand mining in southeast Minnesota during the upcoming legislative session.
"If there was going to be a moratorium (on silica-sand mining), it probably would have happened last year," Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said during a legislative preview session with reporters at the Capitol. . . .
Echoing Bakk's comments was Speaker of the House Paul Thissen, who said, "we need to let what we passed last year work." . . .
Carlson checks out the grassroots' new approach:
Opponents of silica-sand mining say they are not surprised by the lack of interest among legislative leaders to pursue a ban in the region. Instead, they are shifting their attention to DFL Gov. Mark Dayton in hopes of convincing him to use his executive authority to impose a two-year moratorium on silica-sand mining.
Bobby King, a policy organizer with the Land Stewardship Project, said his organization already has gathered more than 2,000 signatures on a petition asking the governor to impose a moratorium under powers granted in the Critical Areas Act. King said a chief concern with last year's legislation is that it will take time to get standards for silica-sand mining in place. For example, he said it likely will be a year before there are any air quality rules in place for this type of mining. . . .
Read the rest at the Post Bulletin. The Uptake has produced an out take of the exchange at the legislative preview, prompted by a question by Carlson:
How original: Art groups name performance "What the Frack
The Dreamery Rural Arts Initiative, based in Wykoff, and the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre, of Minneapolis, will present a tour of "Let's Talk About Sand," a performance designed to encourage discussion of the frac-sand mining industry.
The performances take place at cities in southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa next week.
"Let's Talk About Sand" features a 15-minute performance of "What the Frack?" using hand-painted imagery and live music. Performers are actors from the region and Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre. The program also includes a screening of the documentary film "The Price of Sand."
The performance schedule:
Monday — 4 p.m. at Zumbrota Public Library; 6:30 p.m. at Cannon Falls Public Library
Tuesday — 7 p.m. at Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro
Wednesday — 6:30 p.m. Decorah Public Library, Decorah, Iowa
Thursday — 6:30 p.m. Spring Valley Public Library
Friday — 4 p.m. Chatfield Public Library
Admission is free.
Bluestem suspects that we'll be reading objections to the Dreamery Rural Arts Initiative sponsoring the tour, since the group's "programs are supported with contributions from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council with funds from the Minnesota State Legislature."
It's unclear whether this particular tour is sponsored by local or state arts council funds.
For what it's worth, we're hoping that Representatives Steve Drazkowski and Greg Davids, who represent the area, attend the family-oriented performances, as we can't even imagine what photos of that might look like.
Photo: An unrelated puppet showed showed up at a civil disobedience action last year in Winona.
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