Coloradans face wait before commission rules on Xcel execs’ excesses

As the foreclosure crisis worsens, renters increasingly have become caught as innocent bystanders, evicted often without notice when their landlord faces foreclosure.

The religious right’s annual “War on Christmas” is ramping up early this year, and at least one Minnesota-based company is on its hit list. Targeting retail stores that use the word “holiday” instead of “Christmas,” a trend it says the Nazis began, the American Family Association includes SUPERVALU, Eden Prairie–based owner of Cub Foods, among its targets for using the h-word in its ads.

It happens in every recession: Medicaid enrollment leaps at precisely the same time that states are least able to afford the additional costs. The structural flaw has left state lawmakers threatening program cuts, Congress scrambling to find emergency funds to prevent a coverage crisis, and children’s health advocates urging an overhaul in the way Medicaid is funded. Trouble is, the Democrats’ health reform proposals do nothing to address the problem.

Anoka-Hennepin School District teacher Diane Cleveland filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in Ramsey County District Court Monday, alleging that earlier this summer it wrongly disclosed that she had been accused of harassing a student over his perceived sexual orientation.

Starting in 1947, thousands of young families have lived on four Southeast Minneapolis city blocks, in housing provided by the University of Minnesota. But it wasn’t until last year that anyone raised the alarm that the land many of those families have called home appears to be a toxic waste dump.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann broke House rules by using her taxpayer-funded website to urge people to attend her Nov. 5 “Super Bowl of Freedom” rally, according to a complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Bradlee Dean, the founder of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International told the attendees of the group’s “Appeal to Heaven” fundraiser that the media “demonizes” him for bringing his fiery brand of Christianity into public schools. Then he pointed out one of the reporters he feels is behind such attacks, the Minnesota Independent’s Andy Birkey.

A controversial ministry that says it preaches in public schools held a fundraiser in Bloomington Thursday night, drawing a crowd of about 400 attendees. You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International offered attendees a preview of their new documentary, an appearance by Rep. Michele Bachmann and a fiery sermon by front man Bradlee Dean that called liberals “criminals” and urged attendees to fight a “war” for the faith against liberals.

By any reasonable standard the Minnesota Sex Offender Program has been an unmitigated failure. In its nearly two decades, it has failed to rehabilitate a single patient. The only people who have graduated from the program have done so in body bags. Yet, since 2003, the program’s budget has ballooned by nearly 400 percent, from $18.5 million annually to $71.6 million.

On Saturday, 64 Democrats backed Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) amendment to prevent abortions from being funded with taxpayer money in the comprehensive House health care bill. On Wednesday morning, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) attempted to soothe the jangled nerves of pro-abortion rights activists who were lighting up switchboards and issuing not-another-dime fund-raising threats against the party for letting it happen.

Ousted Maplewood mayor Diana Longrie attributes her loss a week ago to union opposition and the write-in candidacy of Ken Smart, but she hasn’t ruled out a run at the council seat made vacant by Will Rossbach’s win.

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

Administrative Law Judge Kathleen Sheehy ruled on Friday that sufficient evidence exists that the St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign violated state statutes to merit a full hearing on the matter.

The Republican Party isn’t big enough to “throw people overboard,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty told GOP activists in Des Moines on Saturday. Jason Hancock of the Minnesota Independent’s sister site, the Iowa Independent, was there.