GOP’s Anderson brings ‘birther’ message, anti-Islam beliefs to state Senate race

To the delight of attendees, the National Tea Party Convention became a coming-out party for a movement that’s always had an oppositional relationship to the press.

In a fiery fundraising pitch for the American Conservative Union Strikeforce, Rep. Michele Bachmann asks supporters, “Will you let Barack Obama KILL conservatism?” Calling the president a “political street fighter,” she says his “agenda is a dagger pointed right at the heart of conservatism.”

Moderate Democrats have grown wary of big spending bills, fearing that support for such measures could haunt them on the campaign trail this year.

A straw poll results from Tuesday night’s political caucuses continue to trickle in, gubernatorial candidates RT Rybak and Margaret Anderson Kelliher are taking the top spot in the DFL, while Marty Seifert is garnering a large number of votes on the Republican side. Early results for the Independence Party show Tom Horner taking the lead, but voting for that straw poll will continue online until Feb. 28.

Activists like James O’Keefe and Minnesota’s Joseph Basel — who were recently arrested for trying to tamper with phones at Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office — don’t represent the best of the conservative movement’s recent investment in college journalism. “For every James O’Keefe,” said the head of one network for conservative college media, “there are 50 serious journalists coming out of these programs.”

The Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership made an unequivocal and at times emotional appeal Tuesday to end the decades-long ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and spelled out a year-long process for securing uniformed and congressional support to change the policy.

Instead of shutting down, payday lenders in some of the same states that passed reforms are making loans at higher rates than before the laws were enacted.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich doesn’t buy Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s claim last week that federal officials negotiating the taxpayer bailout of American Insurance Group had no choice but to provide full payment to the company’s trading partners, including Goldman Sachs. He’s charging that Geithner — who headed the New York Federal Reserve when it funneled billions of dollars through AIG to other firms — simply put Goldman’s interests above those of taxpayers.

On Monday night the White House leaked the news that President Obama would propose a three-year freeze on discretionary spending. In his State of the Union speech, the president confirmed it. Now, Republicans — who’ve been pushing for such a move — are taking credit for changing the president’s mind.

Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Winona, has been the chief backer of a bill to allow medical marijuana for seriously ill patients, but he’s not sure whether there will be a push for it this session. To make matters worse for medical marijuana backers, Murphy is retiring at the end of the session.

In Minnesota’s notoriously conservative Sixth Congressional District, abortion politics are sure to play a big role in the November election. But as Rep. Michele Bachmann and state Sen. Tarryl Clark rack up endorsements in the race for their stances, Dr. Maureen Reed has been relatively shy about addressing the issue — until now.

At a mid-day press conference on Capitol Hill, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) launched a “Declaration of Health Care Independence” — a statement of principles that they hoped Democrats and voters would sign onto, but not one that would be backed by legislation or one that could be posted at their websites.

It’s unlikely same-sex marriage will become law in Minnesota this year — Gov. Tim Pawlenty will undoubtedly veto it and skittish DFLers may vote against it in an election year — but the bill’s chief author in the Senate says it could get a hearing and possibly make it out of committee.

Mike Parry kept Minnesota’s Senate District 26 in the Republican column Tuesday, winning a plurality of the vote in a special election that pitted him against DFLer Jason Engbrecht and Roy Srp of the Independence Party.