Posts by Andy Birkey

The American Legion Post 550 in Bloomington says it will withhold up to $30,000 in scholarships because the public school district won’t allow the group to lead the student body in prayer, the Star Tribune reported Wednesday.

As noted here Monday, social conservatives — distracted by concerns over abortion and the House health care reform bill — missed key provisions in the bill that benefit LGBT Americans. One group that apparently overlooked the measures, the Minnesota Family Council, confirms that assessment.

So much for states’ rights: Iowa-based American Future Fund wants the Federal Elections Commission to rule against Minnesota’s long-standing ban on robocalls in order to include Minnesota in its national robocall campaigns, the Star Tribune reports. The group, which bills itself as a “conservative and free market” operation, filed a complaint with the FEC arguing [...]

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.

Sen. Al Franken spoke at a Senate hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on Thursday. ENDA, which is vociferously opposed by the religious right, would make it illegal to fire somebody because of their sexual orientation. Franken sits on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee which held the first hearing the bill has [...]

At least 10 individuals attending Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” event to protest health care reform have been arrested outside an office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The protesters were among the several thousand Tea Party activists that Bachmann invited to storm the Capitol on Thursday.
“They were inside an office and didn’t leave,” Sgt. Kimberly [...]

Democrats blasted Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” rally against health care reform at the nation’s Capitol on Thursday. Dr. Maureen Reed’s campaign attacked Bachmann for sticking up for the health insurance lobby while the Democratic National Committee tried to paint Bachmann as the voice of the Republican Party.

The two leaders of evangelical ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (YCR) have chastised President Obama twice in the past two weeks for appearing at public school assemblies in Chicago while he was a U.S. senator. Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian complain that Obama used high schools to campaign. But they praise their [...]

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is urging the Internal Revenue Service to fix problems with its enforcement of laws against churches endorsing political candidates. In January, a Minnesota District Court judge ruled that the IRS did not have the proper procedures in place to investigate Living Word Christian Center, an investigation [...]

An aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann quit her communications position, Politico reported on Wednesday. Michelle Marston had been responsible for helping Bachmann get a copious amount of air time on cable news shows.
While Marston didn’t have much to say on the topic, an unnamed conservative Republican House member told Politico, “When your captain’s crazy, it’s [...]