Rep. Keith Ellison said the debt ceiling plan offered by House Speaker John Boehner made it seem like Boehner was on “some other world.”

Ellison, who is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said President Barack Obama’s plan met his basic requirements, but that members would still have to dig into the details.

“Our position was that we won’t vote for anything that does undermine Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but we didn’t say we’d automatically vote for anything that didn’t,” Ellison said.

Ellison said House Speaker John Boehner’s plan was “ridiculous,” and that he was disappointed neither plan contained tax revenue.

“The Progressive Caucus has always believed that the way we get out of this crisis is we get more people back to work,” Ellison said. “We get Americans building bridges, roads, light rail—all those things that need to be done all across America.”

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Leaders on Capitol Hill have given indications that they are close to reaching a compromise that would prevent a shutdown of the federal government. The speculative compromise would include $33 billion in cuts, well below the $61 billion the Republicans in the House have proposed. Rep. Michele Bachmann criticized the deal saying that the Democrats want the government to shut down and that they would not compromise. Bachmann said she and the tea party would not compromise either.

The Blue Dog Democrats have been a target of negotiations with Republicans seeking to woo them to their side as a compromise takes shape.

Rep. Collin Peterson of the Blue Dogs said the talks of compromise weren’t “all that effective” in an interview with Talking Points Memo. He cited House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who Peterson said “talked down to” conservative and moderate Democrats.

And on the other side of the aisle, talks looked ready to break down on Thursday as House Speaker John Boehner balked at the $33 billion figure after pressure from tea party members. To make matters worse, Bachmann made several media appearances on behalf of the Tea Party Caucus to demand that any compromise include the defunding of health care reform, a provision that President Obama and the Democratic Senate are likely to reject.

In an interview with conservative website NewsMax, Bachmann said that Democrats want a government shutdown and would not compromise.

“That is that the Democrats’ political plan is to shut down government because they think they will benefit from doing that,” said Bachmann. “Now we know that if the government shuts down it’s not the tea party’s fault, it’s the Democrats’ fault, because they’ve made a decision they’re not interested in compromise. They just want to see the government shut down.”

“They aren’t interested in a practical solution, and I think people all across the United States are tired of political games.”

But while she criticized Democrats for allegedly being unwilling to compromise, she stated she wouldn’t budge either.

“What I’m going along with is to be able to have defunding of ‘Obamacare.’ I cannot vote for a budget bill unless it has the defunding of ‘Obamacare.’ We’re talking about well over $1 trillion over a number of years and this will break the bank in the United States.”

Bachmann repeated that at a tea party rally in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Here’s Bachmann speaking with CNS News:

On Wednesday, the Twin Cities Tea Party Patriots sent out an action alert demanding that House Speaker John Boehner ask for $100 billion in cuts.

Stand Up To Insure We Get Cuts. Call your Congressmen and Senators. 33 Billion is not enough. As of this writing the Drudge Report is reporting a deal between the House and Senate for 33 Billion in Cuts. What happened to the 100 Billion in cuts!!!!!!! We need to burn the phone lines in Washington. Please Call on 3/31 and Melt The Phone Lines… Call!!! Call!!! Call!!! Call!!! Melt the Lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips took Boehner to task for even suggesting a $33 billion cut.

Charlie Sheen is now making more sense than John Boehner. Early on, the GOP promised to cut $100 billion from the budget. The Republicans in the House quickly went squishy on that and had to be cajoled into cutting only $61 billion. Now, John Boehner is saying when the Senate comes back and they start negotiating…the $61 billion figure is not safe.

Rick Unger of Forbes quipped, “Charlie Sheen may be making more sense than Speaker Boehner, but unlike Sheen, the Speaker is clearly not winning.”

Bachmann has already started her push for adding a provision to defund health care reform to the mix. On Wednesday, she introduced a bill to defund the $105 billion she insists was “hidden” in the Affordable Care Act.

On Tuesday, Bachmann said that a $20 billion victims escrow amounted to “wealth redistribution,” urged BP executives not to be “chumps,” and said the Obama administration was “fleecing” BP. But on Wednesday, she told CNN, “I’m not here to shill for BP. That’s not the goal. BP clearly is at fault here. They need to pay every last dime of damage and that’s what needs to be done. But at the same time, we don’t want these payouts to become political.”

Sen. Clark seized on Bachmann’s earlier statements.

“Let me be clear: I stand with the victims of this tragedy and the American taxpayers. They are the ones who deserve to be defended,” Clark said in a statement. “But instead, Congresswoman Bachmann has risen to the defense of BP. Holding BP accountable for this disaster is not ‘fleecing’ it. It’s making sure they do what’s right by the citizens of the Gulf whose livelihoods are threatened and by all Americans who want the Gulf cleaned up.”

She added, “Michele Bachmann refuses to hold BP accountable — but I will. Make no mistake, I stand with taxpayers, not BP.”

Bachmann isn’t the only Republican seeming to defend BP.

On Thursday afternoon, Texas Rep. Barton,  the ranking Republican on the Energy Committee, apologized to BP for the White House’s creation of the victims’ escrow, calling it a “shakedown” and a “slush fund.”

Barton’s comments prompted fellow Republican Rep. Jeff Miller to call for Barton’s resignation from the committee.

I condemn Mr. Barton’s statement. Mr. Barton’s remarks are out of touch with this tragedy and I feel his comments call into question his judgment and ability to serve in a leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He should step down as Ranking Member of the Committee.

And Minority Leader John Boehner said on Thursday that Barton was wrong.

“I have said since the beginning that BP ought to be responsible for all of this cleanup,” Boehner told Fox News. “The fact is that they’ve agreed to put this $20 billion in escrow. I don’t know what context Mr. Barton was making that remark, but I’m glad that BP has accepted responsibility for their actions.”

Photo: Graham Moomaw, Washington Independent

In headlining Thursday’s “House call” protest against health-care reform, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann was going rogue on her own party’s leaders, who had hoped to focus the day’s attention on their own 12-hour, online health-care “town hall.”

David Weigel, of the Washington Independent (a Minnesota Independent sister site) writes:

This isn’t a surprising turn of events. In the run-up to the Sept. 12 march on Washington, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) were surprise guests at a Sept. 10 rally outside the Capitol. That event was actually identical to this one–protesters fanned out after the rally to talk to their members of Congress. But the crowd at that rally was smaller and more controlled, with most protesters holding FreedomWorks signs that had been passed out. The crowd at this rally was far less on-message. By the end of the day, the images that made it out of the rally were of protesters waving signs comparing health care reform to the Holocaust, and the video that made it out of the protest was heavy on Bachmann — one of the people Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) seemed to be referring to in a cryptic October comment about how to deal with a “problem member” who keeps making news.

Boehner and Cantor were writing to disgruntled Republican blogger Andy Aplikowski, a resident of Bachmann’s district, who had taken the two to task for the Politico article.

“Sources say,” Politico wrote, “they have been especially wary of the possible damage inflicted on the party’s reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who last fall called for an investigation into whether members of Congress are ‘pro-America or anti-America.’”

Boehner and Cantor strongly disagreed with Politico’s characterization. “We wanted to respond to your letter to us last week and to assure you that regardless of what inside-the-beltway media writes or what unnamed “sources” it quotes, we are proud to serve with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,” they wrote.

But shortly after posting it to the House Minority Leader website…

…the letter disappeared:

But Aplikowski has the whole exchange on his blog.

Here’s the full text of Boehner’s and Cantor’s letter:

Dear Andy,

We wanted to respond to your letter to us last week and to assure you that regardless of what inside-the-beltway media writes or what unnamed “sources” it quotes, we are proud to serve with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

She has been a consistent and strong voice for the American taxpayer in Washington from the day she took office. And, despite the taunts and insults that the media elites and liberals hurl at her, she never wavers in her commitment to fiscal responsibility.

Republicans in Congress – buoyed by the American people who have risen up against the Democrat tide in Washington – are fighting against bad policies. Their health care prescription is bad policy. Their cap and trade national energy tax is bad policy. Their tax-and-spend agenda is bad policy. We’re strong in our opposition and vibrant in the alternatives we offer.

Republicans have real solutions. And, that includes Congresswoman Bachmann, who has introduced positive solutions for health care reform, budget reform, energy independence, and more. We’re the Party of real hope and change.

When the other side can’t come up with arguments to defend their policies, they turn to personal attacks against their detractors. Congresswoman Bachmann stands shoulder to shoulder with her constituents and that really seems to irk some on the left. We fully expect that despite the best attempts of the media and the liberals, Michelle will continue to be a strong voice for freedom, smaller government, and better solutions.

Sincerely,
John Boehner
Republican Leader

Eric Cantor
Republican Whip

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning…

ST. PAUL: Show-off wedding party gets shown the door. The St. Paul couple whose dance to the wedding altar charmed the nation via YouTube got the bum’s rush at a New York hotel after they appeared on NBC-TV despite ABC paying their lodging.  [Pioneer Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: Somalis tricked into returning? The missing men who fought for insurgents in their homeland might not have known much of what they were getting into. [Associated Press]

ST. CLOUD: Emerald ash borers avoid traps, trees. The invasive buggers haven’t spread out of St. Paul yet, leaving the state’s sticky traps empty, except for hundreds of other insects. [St. Cloud Times]

MINNEAPOLIS: Dozen seek mayor’s job. They include Joey Lombard of the “Is Awesome” party.  [MinnPost]

WILLMAR: Chief justice calls court’s budget-crunch solution “least bad.” The state’s high-court head honcho is touring courthouses to see where bad judicial cuts are hurting. [West Central Tribune]

ST. PAUL: State’s courts only getting busier. Those cuts are coming as a new report shows Minnesota’s district courts took care of 1.9 million actions in 2008, a record. [Associated Press]

Kline unveils anti-EFCA bill in February. Photo: house.gov

U.S. Rep. John Kline will take over the ranking Republican seat on the House Education and Labor Committee, the GOP Steering Committee decided today.

Kline was one of two or three Republicans vying for the top post, according to The Hill, which called his close ties to House Minority Leader John Boehner a key advantage.

The opening at the 50-member panel’s GOP helm was due to President Obama’s appointment of Rep. John McHugh to be secretary of the Army. McHugh’s slot as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee fell to Rep. Buck McKeon, who then vacated his post as ranking member on the Education and Labor committee.

The GOP Steering Committee passed over two more senior but less conservative Republicans on the committee to make Kline top dog.

Well, that didn’t stop Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) from hopping on board the Boehner train. This morning, she wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune that kept Boehner’s distortions alive, and then some. She argued:

Any way you look at it, it’s low- and middle-income Americans who will pay dearly for this. According to an analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the average American household could expect its yearly energy bill to increase by $3,128 per year. Using an analysis by Peter Orszag, President Obama’s budget director, that number would be closer to $4,000.

I can’t speak for Peter Orszag, but I have a feeling he would take issue with these numbers, too. A report issued by the Congressional Budget Office, of which Orszag was director until he was tapped for his new post, estimated that low-income families would see their bills increase by $680 annually. But since Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme, as outlined in his budget proposal, would give these families an $800 rebate, they’d actually come out ahead.

Take a look at the first figure in this CBO chart:

Aaron Weiner is a reporter at the Washington Independent.