On Tuesday, two groups called on Sen. Amy Klobuchar to sign on as a cosponsor of a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) noting that she is the only Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee who has not taken that step. Klobuchar has indicated her support for the bill in the past, after some pressure, but OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy group, and Freedom to Marry, a national group working toward marriage equality, urged her to sign her name to the bill.

“[O]ur US Senator Amy Klobuchar is the only Democrat on the committee who has not signed on as a co-sponsor. The majority of Minnesotans support the freedom to marry. And now it’s time for Senator Klobuchar to take our voices to Washington and call for an end to marriage discrimination,” OutFront Minnesota wrote in a message to members on Tuesday. “She needs to hear from you now. Will you urge Senator Klobuchar to co-sponsor this crucial legislation?”

Minnesota’s Sen. Al Franken was an early sponsor of the bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, which will be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. Backed by President Barack Obama, it would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

The House version of the bill is sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum.

Klobuchar faced pressure in March to state whether or not she would vote for the bill. Her office indicated she would after earlier stating she would not take a position on the bill.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former President Bill Clinton said that Rep. Michele Bachmann’s assertion that the United States has the best health care system in the world is not true and that the new crop of Republicans in Congress are living “in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts.” Clinton was responding to comments Bachmann made during her Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union address.

“I don’t like the people who have given up on us because people have been betting against our country for 200 years,” he told the attendees at the World Economic Forum, a yearly gathering of top international business, political and humanitarian leaders. “So far everyone who has bet against us has lost money because we had a remarkable ability to keep coming back.”

“On the other hand,” said Clinton, “I don’t like what I see being set up as one of the main themes that the new Republicans are trying to set up in the 2012 elections which is they know America is a truly exceptional country and all these wussy Democrats don’t.”

He gave the representative from Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District  as a prime example. “Michele Bachmann said in her Tea Party response to President Obama, ‘Everybody knows we have the greatest health care system in the world,’” he said. “That is factually untrue. And so… that’s not true.”

Clinton continued, “You can get the best health care in the world in America if you are Bill Clinton, or David Gergen or Turki Faisal, but that’s not the same thing as having the best system that works for everybody.”

He added, “I think what America needs as much as anything else is to stop conducting its politics in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts.”

It’s not the first time the former president has dinged Bachmann. Last September, at a fundraiser for Bachmann’s opponent Tarryl Clark, Clinton said that Bachmann often puts “ideology over evidence.”

Photo by Simon Stromberg

Rep. Michele Bachmann lashed out at Bill Clinton on conservative radio this weekend after the former president criticized Bachmann at a fundraiser for her DFL opponent Tarryl Clark last week. Both Clinton and Bachmann have been prolific with fundraising emails at the expense of each other over the last week as well. Clinton said it’s “stupid” for Bachmann to put ideology over evidence, while Bachmann called Clinton’s statements “bizarre.”

“That’s how I see Rep. Bachmann. She’s very attractive in saying all these things she says, but it’s pretty stupid,” Clinton said at a Clark fundraiser last week.

“Your opponent,” Clinton told Clark according to Salon, “is the ultimate example of putting ideology over evidence.”

“I respect people with a conservative philosophy,” he continued. “This country has been well-served by having two broad traditions within which people can operate. If you have a philosophy, it means you’re generally inclined one way or the other but you’re open to evidence. If you have an ideology, it means everything is determined by dogma and you’re impervious to evidence. Evidence is irrelevant.”

Bachmann didn’t appreciate the characterization — or Clinton’s visit to Minnesota. “Bill Clinton was in campaigning against me this week,” she told conservative radio host Mark Levin. “This is a major effort. I’ve always been about the number one target for Nancy Pelosi to defeat.”

“Emily’s List has made me their number one target, the League of Conservation Voters has made me their number one target,” she said. “But this is almost bizarre what the former President of the United States has said.”

“He is saying that I am the epitome of a trend that that is profoundly dangerous to the nation’s future and he said that my comments are pretty stupid.”

She then defended herself and the tea party movement. “He said our party has moved closer to Michele Bachmann. He’s calling us segregationists. He’s saying that the things that they tea party is saying, that I’m saying in particular, are stupid, that we don’t stand for evidence, we stand for ideology.”

Then she took him on directly.

“So, I would just ask the President of the United States, is it ideology or is it evidence that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have spent us 3.6 trillion of failed stimulus and bailouts that didn’t get us anywhere? Is it ideology or evidence that we have persistent unemployment at 9.6 percent? is it ideology or evidence that we have lost 3 million jobs?”

She added, “Who is he charging bases our assertion on ideology over evidence?”

In a fundraising pitch, Bachmann said, “This is yet another example of how the liberal Democrat [sic] establishment has put a target on my back for defeat. They’ll say and do anything. The comments from Bill Clinton have hit a new low and I must have the resources to defend myself and fight back.”

She continued, “I am proud of my record and I refuse to be bullied into silence by Bill Clinton. Liberals across the country believe if they defeat me in November, the Tea Party movement will be eliminated.”

In a followup, Bachmann wrote, “Bill Clinton is the latest liberal to get involved in this race and has attacked me and other Tea Party activists. In 24 hours, thanks to the generosity of activists Bill Clinton attacked, we’ve raised more than $42,000 to fight back against these attacks.”

And Clinton is still pulling for Clark. In an email pitch yesterday, the former president wrote, “The people of the 6th district deserve a leader who will deliver results instead of divisive partisan rhetoric; who will roll up her sleeves and get to work on the critical issues instead of just getting people wound up about them.”

Here are Bachmann’s remarks on the Mark Levin show:

Bachmann dismissed claims by former President Bill Clinton, Rep. Betty McCollum and others that Republican and Tea Party rhetoric could incite violence. She said that when Democrats feel attacked, they cry “violence.”

“Well, one word that we’ve heard a lot just in this last week is the word “violence.” And that when people on the right are disagreeing with the Obama administration that we’re fomenting violence. Well, I think violence is when the Democrat-controlled base, whether it’s President Obama, Harry Reid or Speaker Pelosi — when they feel like their political position of power is being attacked, that’s what they equate violence with.”

And as CityPages pointed out, Bachmann seems to misunderstand the concept of net neutrality, calling it “censorship.”

“So whether they’re attacking conservative talk radio, or conservative TV or whether it’s Internet sites, I mean, let’s face it, what’s the Obama administration doing? They’re advocating net neutrality which is essentially censorship of the Internet. This is the Obama administration advocating censorship of the Internet. Why? They want to silence the voices that are opposing them. Despite the fact that they continue to have much of the mainstream media still providing cover for all of these dramatic efforts that the Obama administration is taking. So they’re very specifically and pointedly going after voices that they see are effectively telling the truth about what the Obama administration is trying to do.”

The altweekly notes that Obama has been pretty clear on net neutrality: “We’ve got to keep the Internet open,” he said on the issue in February.

Here’s video of Bachmann’s appearance on Hannity on Monday:

Photo: Simon Stromberg

Rep. Michele Bachmann laughed off criticism leveled at her by former President Bill Clinton at an event hosted by the Chicago Tea Party Patriots and the Chicago Republican Party on Saturday. Clinton said Bachmann’s statements about President Obama and Democrats as a “gangster government” might incite violence and “demonized” those who disagree with her. Bachmann says she’s a “nothing,” while repeating her claim and saying, “This is going to be fun.”

“[Clinton] was making an analogy that Michele Bachmann had made a statement the day before during the Tea Party rally that what President Obama was doing was gangster government,” Bachmann told the attendees. “And because I’m using a statement like ‘gangster,’ I’m responsible for creating the climate of hate that could lead to another Timothy McVeigh and another Oklahoma City bombing.”

She added, “How do you like them apples?”

She said she doesn’t have that kind of influence in politics.

“So I decided, well, this is going to be fun. This is going to be fun! I am nothing. I am on the bottom of the food chain. I’m in the minority party. I’m in my second term as a Congress woman and the former president of the United States decides I’m important enough to take me out!”

She said to Clinton, “Thank you very much! Thank you!”

Watch the video of Bachmann’s speech at the Chicago event:

Rep. Michele Bachmann. Photo: Douglas Burns

Rep. Michele Bachmann is taking heat over statements she made at a Tea Party gathering in Washington, D.C., last week when she called the Obama administration and Democratic Congress a “gangster government.” Those remarks have prompted a strong rebuke from Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton and Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, and found at least one conservative Republican, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, distancing herself from Bachmann.

In an interview with the New York Times, Clinton said Bachmann’s statements were meant to “demonize” Obama and Democrats.

Mr. Clinton pointed to remarks like those made Thursday by Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican, who when speaking at a Tea Party rally in Washington characterized the Obama administration and Democratic Congress as “the gangster government.”

“They are not gangsters,” Mr. Clinton said. “They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do.”

“There can be real consequences when what you say animates people who do things you would never do,” Mr. Clinton said in an interview, saying that Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing, and those who assisted him, “were profoundly alienated, disconnected people who bought into this militant antigovernment line.”

“Have at it,” he said. “You can attack the politics. Criticize their policies. Don’t demonize them, and don’t say things that will encourage violent opposition.”

And on Friday, Rep. Betty McCollum called Bachmann’s statements “dangerous name-calling.” In a statement, she said:

“With hate groups and violent anti-government militias on the rise in this country elected leaders must be mindful of the potential of their words to inspire violence. Constructive, passionate political debate is expected in our democracy, but harsh, dangerous name-calling that vilifies the President or Members of Congress is irresponsible. We must not ignore that the Oklahoma City bombing was an act of political violence perpetrated by deranged, anti-government extremists. It’s much too late after a bomb goes off to start condemning hate-inspired, violent rhetoric.”

On Meet the Press Sunday morning, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee distanced herself from Bachmann’s statements and that type of rhetoric. “It would not have been a choice in words that I made,” she said. “And what we have to realize is that any time you have large public gatherings, whether it is a group from the left, or a group from the right, you’re going to have lots of individuals with different opinions who show up.”

Here are Blackburn’s full remarks:

Photo: Paul Demko, MnIndy

TPM’s Josh Marshall, sparked by a photo of Sen. Al Franken at Obama’s health care speech this week, digs up an anecdote from early in his career when he was covering President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. The year was 1999 and Marshall found himself, somehow, sitting beside Franken in a Senate press room in the Capitol. Franken attended the hearing as a guest of an unnamed senator, but when he found himself at a press briefing with Sen. Phil Gramm, he piped up as if he was there as a journalist — and was ultimately kicked out.

Marshall recalls what he calls “maybe the funniest impeachment moment”:

Sen. Phil Gramm had just bounded into the room to do a little damage control about Sen. Robert Byrd’s proposed motion to dismiss … Franken raised his hand and asked Gramm whether he would have voted for the articles of impeachment if he were in the House, knowing what he now knew. Gramm seemed to have no clue who Franken was and proceeded to ignore the question and pipe on about justice being a process, not a verdict.

Franken and I chuckled about Gramm’s refusal to answer the question, and suddenly two spindly arms reached across me and grabbed Franken and started to pull him out of his chair. It was a woman from the Senate press office, barking, “You have to leave. You’re not press.” Franken pointed to me and said, “But I’m with someone from the press” as he was being rushed out of the room. But he stayed in character through the whole thing, laughing as he got tossed out. That really drove the woman crazy. She mustered up her schoolmarm best and scolded him: “It’s not funny!”

I rushed out of the press room after Franken got the boot. But by the time I got out into the hall, he’d already slipped back into the Senate gallery — where celebrities, but not the press, are allowed to roam free.

As a Fargo artist renders one local symbol of press freedom in stencils — journalist Roxana Saberi, who was accused of spying and jailed in Iran — another pair of American reporters remain imprisoned in North Korea. But there’s a new development in their case.

Artist Matt Mastrud — aka Punchgut — turned his focus from rock bands to images of Fargo-born journalist Saberi in a pair of recent works, but he says he has little political intent behind them: He just likes Saberi’s smile. Saberi, accused of spying by Iranian officials, was freed after spending four months in a Tehran jail. Said Mastrud, “It was pretty much just a nod to a fellow northside Fargoan, you know?”

Saberi’s fellow reporters — Euna Lee and Laura Ling of Al Gore’s news project Current TV — haven’t been as lucky: In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp for “hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”

But today there’s a new development: Former President Bill Clinton has made a surprise trip to Pyongyang to plead for their release.

“This is a very potentially rewarding trip. Not only is it likely to resolve the case of the two American journalists detained in North Korea for many months, but it could be a very significant opening and breaking this downward cycle of tension and recrimination between the U.S. and North Korea,” Mike Chinoy, author of “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” told the AP.

This morning White House press secretary Robert Gibbs released a statement on the trip: “While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.”

Mastrud’s art in on display at Fargo’s Upfront Gallery through August 15.

OpenSecrets.org found that Sotomayor hasn’t made a political donation since joining the federal bench in 1992, while others on Obama’s shortlist — especially those who aren’t judges — made lots of them.

Elena Kagan, for example, gave Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign the maximum allowed: $4,600. She was dean of Harvard Law School before Obama appointed her U.S. Solicitor General this year.

Diane Wood made $1,250 in political donations during the 1992 election cycle, the lion’s share going to Bill Clinton, who appointed her to the federal Court of Appeals in 1995. Wood’s current husband has given $5,000 in the past six years, almost half of that to Obama.

Records of political giving haunt several of Minnesota’s sitting high-court justices. Three of the five Minnesota Supreme Court justices who will hear oral arguments in Coleman v. Franken on Monday have made donations to current or past candidates for the seat that’s in dispute. All gave before they were named to the high court.

Two are from past election cycles: Justice Helen Meyer gave to the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s 2002 re-election campaign, and Justice Lori Gildea donated to Coleman’s unsuccessful 1998 run for governor as a Republican.

Justice Christopher Dietzen gave $250 to the “Coleman for Senator 08” campaign committee in 2004,  11 months before Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed him to the state Supreme Court.

None of the three has recused himself or herself from judging Coleman’s appeal of the election contest court ruling that showed Franken won the U.S. Senate race by 312 votes.

Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson have not participated in any of the high court’s proceedings or deliberations related to the Senate election. They served on the State Canvassing Board late last year, which found that Franken had won the statewide hand recount of 2.9 million ballots cast.

I cast the first ballot of my life for the Republican congressman, a native of my hometown, Peoria, Ill., 10 years ago; he was then and still is a very popular Republican. The reaction of some of his former constituents — residents of Central Illinois — was positive as news spreads of his new job. Progressive and conservative political junkies agreed: LaHood is pragmatic and generally well liked.

LaHood has had a close working relationship with Obama, and especially with Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. “Rahm Emanuel and I are very good friends,” he told the Galesburg Register Mail last week. “He and I had six or seven bipartisan dinners this year that I invited some Republicans and he invited some Democrats… Sen. Obama and I worked very closely together when we were putting the transportation bill together a couple of years ago… I think I have a great relationship with both of them.”

One relationship that might be strained around the cabinet table is with Secretary of State-to-be Hillary Clinton. LaHood was selected by the U.S. House to preside over the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton, mainly because of the trust he engendered in both parties. But he voted for all four articles of impeachment. Perhaps ten years is enough time to let bygones be bygones, but the figures that loomed large in one of America’s tawdriest times will likely be sharing a table in Obama’s administration.

While much more conservative than his Obama-cabinet contemporaries, he has been a staunch supporter of federal funding for Amtrak and is generally friendly to public transit.

“I think if we’re going to have a pot of money where we subsidize airlines and we subsidize the funding of highways, that we certainly ought to continue to subsidize Amtrak,” LaHood told a local paper in 2004.

LaHood voted with the Democrats to expand Amtrak over the objections of Bush and House Republicans in 2007. And it wasn’t the first time LaHood has bucked his party.

Notably, he rebuffed Sarah Palin’s racially charged campaign rallies saying that they didn’t “befit the office that she’s running for.” (LaHood’s parents were Lebanese and Jordanian, and as few outside Peoria know, a large number of Lebanese Christians settled in the Illinois River valley in the 1890s to avoid religious persecution).

Although he was first elected during Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution of 1994, he refused to sign the “Contract with America.” He did not agree that cutting taxes during a time of high deficits was a sound idea.

What little is known about about his transportation policies is fairly moderate in nature.

In 2005, he told the Peoria Journal-Star he opposed turning public transit over to private entities. “We’ve got a good Amtrak system in Illinois and I don’t think we want to destroy it by talking about privatization.”

He voted for the bipartisan Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act of 2008 that promotes public transit and earlier this year he sponsored the Commuter Act which offers tax breaks to public transit commuters similar to the breaks already afforded to automobile commuters. He bucked Republicans and voted for the Big Three automakers bailout last week as well.

But transit supporters have expressed concern over his statements on high-speed rail: “I think it’s a bad idea, mainly because we don’t have the money to fund the routes that currently serve Illinois,” he said in 2004. Illinois at the time faced a $3.6 billion budget deficit. “I don’t think we can afford at this point, with the kind of deficits we’re running.”

As the old saying goes, “Will it play in Peoria?” Residents there, both Democrats and Republicans, find Obama’s pick a pragmatic one.

For a liberal take on LaHood, DailyKos is probably the best place to gauge opinion… and most commenters there are irate that Obama picked a Republican. But those who know LaHood and live in his district share little of that outrage.

“Though I haven’t ever voted for him because of his party affiliation, I think he’s generally been a fairly effective representative and about as good a Congressman as I could get in this strongly Republican Central Illinois district,” wrote contributor modemocrat. “In the times I’ve met him I’ve found him to be a fairly good guy, especially as Illinois politicians go.”

Modemocrats continued, “And I have to admit as an Illinoisan, as a Downstate Illinoisan, I’m delighted by this pick. Not just for regional pride but because I feel like my interests as an Illinoisan will be well-served while at the same time I don’t have to worry so much about political fallout for Obama that would come from him appointing some Chicago Democrat with shady connections or questionable dealings.”

For a take from a local conservative, I gave my mother a call. After years of sparring with her over politics, I know of no one more thoughtful — or more conservative — than Kathy Birkey.

“I’m very conservative. I’m a ‘dittohead’ and you can quote me on that,” she says joking about her taste for conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

She says Obama made a good pick. “I think he is hard working, he’s honest, and I think he’s very fair,” she says of LaHood. “He’s a little more moderate than I prefer and he has disagreed with me many times.” But he is bipartisan, she says.

“He’d rather build bridges than die for ideology.”

Obama’s done okay with his cabinet selections so far, she adds.

“LaHood’s a little more middle of the road like the others Obama has selected. I’m impressed with it and I’m going to wait and see what happens.”