Minnesota Independent

Like Obama’s Senate seat, Larry Craig’s bathroom stall isn’t for sale

By Chris Steller | 12.30.08 | 8:27 am

Sorry, but it turns out that, just as you can’t buy Barack Obama’s seat in the U.S. Senate, you can’t buy the bathroom stall where U.S. Sen. Larry Craig sat or stood and tapped his foot in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The agency that runs the airport refused an apparently serious offer to buy the men’s room stall made famous by Craig’s 2007 conviction for disorderly conduct in a sex-solicitation sting operation by the airport police.

Former agent Coleen Rowley seeking FBI data on RNC policing

By Chris Steller | 12.20.08 | 11:00 am

I was killing time on a back bench of an 8th floor Ramsey County courtroom Wednesday, waiting with about 50 others for something to happen (all the action in the RNC8 case that day took place behind closed doors, as it turned out), when a person with a familiar face took a seat in the next row. Could it be Coleen Rowley, famed FBI whistleblower, TIME magazine 2002 person of the year and the DFL Party’s 2006 candidate in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District? Indeed it was.

Protests planned for RNC protester trials starting today

By Chris Steller | 12.15.08 | 11:16 am

Trials beginning today for protesters at September’s Republican National Convention will themselves be protested in a variety of ways over the next few days. A new coalition called Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure — or CRASS – plans to pack courtrooms…

Blago’s oratory overtakes Obama’s as a voice for our times

By Chris Steller | 12.11.08 | 12:18 pm

Not only has Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich stolen the political moment from Barack Obama, he’s taken a crowbar to the president-elect’s mantle as wordsmith-in-chief and orator for our times. Once Blago’s cussed, illegal schemes got taken down by the FBI and disseminated by the Justice Department, the nation took notice of a new literary lion rumbling from its midsection. Blagojevich’s words have also inspired Americans to take up their pens to compose a new musical (or fragment thereof) and a flattering Daily Beast quiz that compares lines from “The Sopranos,” a show that won six Emmys for the best writing on a television, to lines from the FBI affadavit.

Court rules Sen. Larry Craig can’t drop guilty plea; ACLU says, ‘They’re wrong’

By Chris Steller | 12.09.08 | 1:34 pm

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) cannot withdraw his guilty plea in the infamous 2007 Minneapolis-St. Paul airport bathroom sex case, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled today in an unpublished opinion. That means Craig is stuck with having copped in District Court to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct for allegedly signaling an interest in engaging in sex via foot taps from one restroom stall to another in which a undercover police officer was staked out. The decision’s “unpublished” status means the court doesn’t want their ruling used as precedent in future cases — interesting, in view of charges that Craig sought special treatment or was being singled out for preferential or especially harsh treatment because of his status as a U.S. Senator.

Sell alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium? Drunken public sex at Metrodome during Gopher game sheds new light on debate

By Chris Steller | 11.27.08 | 1:52 pm

When the University of Minnesota Board of Regents meets Dec. 12 to decide whether to allow wine and beer sales at TCF Bank Stadium, they’ll have a piece of news to consider: the alcohol-enabled public sex act in a…

Trust Google Trends on flu? Then trust that pinup-hot Don Rickles just peaked

By Chris Steller | 11.12.08 | 10:50 am

The story has itself gone viral: A new Google tool tracks the spread of actual influenza by monitoring Web searches for terms like “flu.” By aggregating such virtual searches, Google can also anticipate flu outbreaks in the real world by a week to 10 days. Even if Google were to amend its motto to “First, do no evil,” can we trust national health policy to the same search engine trend-spotting tool that puts a wrinkled comedian and a airbrushed model at an equal level of “Hotness”?

ACLU files FOIA request over domestic Army deployment

By Paul Schmelzer | 10.22.08 | 9:01 am

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a freedom of information (FOIA) request to the U.S. government over “reports that an active military unit has been deployed inside the U.S. to help with ‘civil unrest’ and ‘crowd control’…

MnIndy video: McCain’s ‘health’ air quotes were pure Dr. Evil

By Chris Steller | 10.17.08 | 8:11 am

In the third 2008 presidential debate, john McCain made “air quotes” while referring to women’s “health.” This Minnesota Independent video mash-up mixes McCain’s version of the gesture with that of its self-professed inventor: Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. See all 38 surreal seconds for yourself after the jump.

RNC8 supporters urged to phone in protests to officials today

By Chris Steller | 10.13.08 | 7:35 am

With several members of the RNC8 — the people charged with felonies in conjunction with planned protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last month — heading to court today for hearings in their cases,…