Posts by Paul Schmelzer

Asked at Saturday’s Netroots Minnesota conference what blogs he follows, Rep. Tim Walz pulled out his iPhone and rattled off a few sites: Talking Points Memo, Bluestem Prairie, MN Publius and others. Then he showed off his favorite iPhone app — a new one that features his likeness and that of every other member [...]

Asked what the biggest threat facing Minnesota now is, gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, is quick with an answer: Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotments. In a video by Craig Stellmacher, Rukavina says the legislature “should’ve come out swinging” immediately after Pawlenty decided unilaterally to cut $2.7 billion from the state budget. He believes [...]

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Nov. 5 rally in opposition to Democrat-led health care reform sure has generated press for the Sixth District Republican, but increasingly in ways she might not have anticipated. She ended up apologizing, sort of, for rally attendees who used imagery of Holocaust victims to express their dislike for reforms. Government watchdog group [...]

As expected, Dr. Maureen Hackett has officially entered the race to challenge Rep. Erik Paulsen in the Third Congressional District. A psychiatrist who served in the Air Force for seven years, Hackett announced her candidacy on her website and in an email to supporters.

When “Robert Erickson” took to the podium at a small anti-immigration rally at the Capitol in St. Paul, his message was well received by the crowd of 50 or 60 people. He drew cheers when he proposed sealing up the borders and advocated for “tougher immigration laws to send these people back where they came [...]

Internationally renowned Twin Cities–based cryptographer, author and security consultant Bruce Schneier reports that he’s being rendered in plastic as an action figure. But priced at $99 (with a $10 online discount), he thinks it’s too pricey for anyone to buy.

Last July, the Freedom from Religion Foundation filed suit to prevent the words “In God We Trust” and “one nation under God” from being engraved on a wall in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center. Today, 41 U.S. House members — including Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann — and three senators filed an amicus brief asking a federal [...]

Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group is again dipping its toes in political waters by involving its employees in the health care debate. It emailed its 75,000 workers Tuesday urging them to contact their senators with concerns about health care reform. Form letters provided to employees, obtained by California-based Consumer Watchdog, claim that “Government-run health care will result [...]

On a tour for her new Regnery title “Still Standing,” dethroned Miss California Carrie Prejean is taking a page from another book — Michele Bachmann’s. On CNN yesterday, Larry King asked Prejean about her recent comment that she’s being “Palinized” — the same term Bachmann used about herself in an August fundraising appeal — by [...]

Gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher picked up an endorsement from Minnesota’s largest union of state professional employees today. MAPE — the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees — announced its support for Anderson Kelliher, who is speaker of the state House of Representatives.
MAPE, which has nearly 13,000 members, interviewed each gubernatorial candidate in Roseville on Monday [...]