The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to halt federal funding of National Public Radio by a largely partisan vote of 228-192. Minnesota’s delegation split along party lines with Democrats voting against the defunding measure.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), does not cut money from the federal government’s budget, but rather “prohibits local affiliates from using public money for anything other than administrative costs,” as described by The Wall Street Journal.

Through a statement (PDF) from the Office of Management and Budget, the Obama administration strongly opposed the measure to defund:

“The vast majority of [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s] funding for public radio goes to more than 700 stations across the country, many of them local stations serving communities that rely on them for access to news and public safety information,” the statement reads. “Undercutting funding for these radio stations, notably ones in rural areas where such outlets are already scarce, would result in communities losing valuable programming, and some stations could be forced to shut down altogether. “

NPR received $430 million in federal funding this year. NPR stations receive 10 percent of funding from tax dollars, the rest coming from donations.

The measure, which Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kline cosponsored, is expected to fail in the U.S. Senate.

Rep. John Kline is the only member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation to cosponsor Colorado Republican Doug Lamborn’s bill to ban federal funding for National Public Radio programming. Lamborn’s bill has gained traction among Republican House leaders just as a conservative media campaign waged against the public broadcaster has made news. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, looking to strike while the iron is hot, fast-tracked the bill, lining up a vote for today. The bill cuts no money from the federal budget.

“Taxpayers should not be on the hook for something that is widely available in the private market,” Lamborn said in a statement. “I wish only the best for NPR. Like many Americans, I enjoy much of their programming.”

Last year, Lamborn was less guarded about his motivations in writing the bill. He seized on the controversy over NPR’s firing of Juan Williams to rally conservatives who believe public broadcasting is liberal and biased. Lamborn appeared on the FOX network several times to make his case.

“You may have heard about the recent firing of NPR News Analyst Juan Williams and the $1.8 million donation by liberal activist George Soros to hire 100 NPR reporters,” Lamborn wrote to supporters at the time. “These two actions make it clear that public broadcasting is a friend and protector of liberal issues and political correctness, at the expense of free speech and balanced news reporting.”

Last week, top NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller resigned after conservative politics dirty trickster James O’Keefe released a hidden-camera video of Schiller making disparaging remarks about the Republican Party and the Tea Party. Like past O’Keefe product, the video was dubiously edited for effect. FOX News host Glenn Beck and others compared the video against raw footage and found it fundamentally altered and misleading.

The irony in the fact that conservative lawmakers like Lamborn are leaning on discredited overtly political media work produced by O’Keefe has thinned their case in all but the most conservative news outlets and in the right blogosphere. O’Keefe has been warned repeatedly by judges that his wiretapping activities have been illegal. He plead guilty to breaking into Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office last year to produce one of his hit-videos. His videos on ACORN, which conservative lawmakers seized upon to defund the low-income housing and voter registration organization, have been discredited. Judges ruled in cases across the states that ACORN did nothing illegal.

NPR fans and most Democrats in Congress support NPR tax-payer funding, calling the organization a valuable resource in the increasingly polarized and corporate media news environment.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lamborn’s legislation “prohibits NPR and its local affiliates from using federal dollars to produce programming or purchase content from other member stations. Affiliate stations could only use taxpayer money for administrative costs, under the bill.” None of that cuts into federal spending.

NPR received $430 million in federal funding this year. Its stations receive roughly 10 percent of funding from tax dollars. Donations fund the rest of the NPR budget and those are hard to come by in large rural parts of the country.

Kline, who represents Minnesota’s Second Congressional District, is one of 21 cosponsors of Lamborn’s bill. Here in his home state, Minnesota Public Radio is part of 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting, a campaign by public TV and radio stations cross-country, which receives no public, mobilizing against the Republican defunding effort.

Tarryl Clark, Michele Bachmann. Photos: Clark for Congress, Bachmann for Congress (Flickr)

Conventional wisdom has it that Democrats will have a tough time holding onto congressional seats come November, and a new poll commissioned by NPR backs that up: in 70 districts where incumbents are considered most likely to be ousted, respondents back Republicans over Democrats at a rate of 49 to 41 percent. But is there anything to be gleaned from the fact that the poll — released just as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Minnesota state Sen. Tarryl Clark to its Red-to-Blue list — lists Bachmann as among the 10 most competitive races for Republicans in 2010?

Pollsters Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger point to an energized GOP base, President Obama’s low approval rating, and anti-incumbent sentiment as challenging for Democrats this fall.

“In a year where voters want change and in which Democrats are seen to be in power, this is a tough poll — about as tough as you get,” Greenberg said.

But the NPR poll would appear to show at least some vulnerability for Rep. Michele Bachmann. While the study looked at 60 seats held by Democrats that could switch parties, it only listed 10 Republican seats that could turn blue, and Bachmann’s is among them. Still, CQ Politics continues listing the district as “Likely Republican,” and Rothenberg Political Report lists the seat as “safe.”

Democrats must see an opportunity in the district: they added DFLer Clark to its Red-to-Blue list yesterday, which comes with fundraising and organizing help from the national party. Discussing that move on MSNBC’s The Ed Show yesterday were GOP strategist Karen Hanretty and Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein.

“The DCCC list cracks me up,” Hanretty said, predicting, “Michele Bachmann is going to win.” She cited Bachmann’s fundraising bump after being “demonized” last election over comments that she felt the president and congressional Democrats should be investigated for “anti-American views.”

“She raised a lot of money in that primary last time,” Stein concurred, “but so did her opponent…. Now they have a very good candidate in Tarryl Clark, and I think there is a likelihood this could be one of those seats they could pick up.”

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is the first opportunity to name a new member to the nation’s high court for Obama, a Harvard University-trained lawyer himself who has taught constitutional law.

Given the schedules of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Minnesota Supreme Court — which is hearing oral arguments in the Norm Coleman-Al Franken Senate-election dispute on June 1 — Minnesota may finally have two U.S. Senators again by the time Obama’s nominee to replace Souter comes before the full Senate.

The state’s one sitting Senator, Amy Klobuchar, serves on the Judiciary Committee, which reviews nominees to the high court.

Obama is likely to pick a woman, many court-watchers believe. According to Daphne Eviatar at the Washington Independent (the Minnesota Independent’s sister site), a short list of potential nominees includes:

Elana Kagan, Obama’s Solicitor General

Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge in New York who (like Souter) was nominated by the first President Bush

Diane Wood, a federal appeals court judge in Chicago nominated by President Clinton

Photo: Tony Webster

Listeners waiting to hear the reasoned arguments of “angry gay-rights activists” during an extended National Public Radio (NPR) report this morning on California’s new ban on same-sex marriage … are … still … waiting. After an interview with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (whose position against Proposition 8 could be discounted for being entwined with his clearly expressed political ambitions), Morning Edition reporter Karen Grigsby Bates gave over national airtime exclusively to Proposition 8 backers who she presented in only the most glowing terms. (Gay-rights voices were limited to a couple sound-bite chants and quick-take gripes.) The Stranger’s Dan Savage details NPR’s lapse, including contact info for complaints.

Videos and audio link after the jump, with Pawlenty missing a chance to promote Duluth and Klobuchar missing a chance to make a gratuitous Prince reference (we help her with that). 

Pawlenty, on NPR, had some discouraging words about the stimulus package’s prospects but volunteered that Minnesota has a list of transportation projects ready to go in the next 90 days, including Hwy. 610 in the northern suburbs.

By now, Pawlenty is eschewing his formerly wholesale rejection of the stimulus package for piecemeal pooh-poohing. On NPR you could hear him spit out mild contempt for decadent projects proposed for the state’s recreation and related tourist industries:

We had cities requesting snowmaking equipment, and that was Duluth, for something called Spirit Mountain outside of Duluth.

(Ahem, Governor? This is where you make a brief aside for the national listening audience about how great it is to visit Spirit Mountain and Duluth.) Anyway, back to the bad fun:

We had another community requesting funds to rehabilitate a country club at a golf course. We had another city that wanted to build some tennis courts. So those aren’t the kinds of things in this time of crisis that would be priority measures.

Pawlenty recently joined the chorus warning that the stimulus could result in a revival of that dread 1970s trend, stagflation:

You could see the whiplash effect of this being inflation, or stagflation even, in the intermediate term, so if people are going to rewrite the history, I would suggest they look at it not just one year out but three and five years out as well.

Tuesday was Pawlenty’s second appearance on Maddow’s show. The first time, Nov. 3, he opened with the announcement “I’m available, I’m available” (to go on the show, he meant, although the context of the ensuing interview was also his availability for higher office in the future). This time he greeted Maddow with the Goldie Hawn-ish endearment, “You’re funny.”

Here is the video clip of Pawlenty’s appearance on Maddow’s show Tuesday night:

Maddow’s online video archive indicates three previous appearances by Klobuchar (Sept. 17 and Oct. 8 and 31). A highlight of this one was the DFL senator’s prediction about how long it will take for Minnesota’s Senate delegation to be complete.  Here’s a brief transcription and Monday’s video clip:

KLOBUCHAR: My prediction, Rachel, is that we will have a new senator by the time the ice melts on Lake Minnetonka, which that is predicted to be April 11.

MADDOW: Is that the sort of thing where you guys throw a cinder block into it to really help things along?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, oftentimes people dive into it to show how tough they are in the cold. But anyway, hopefully we will get this done in a month or so because the trial’s been going on. It could be even sooner.

That may be the first time in 25 years that jumping into Lake Minnetonka has penetrated the nation’s consciousness. The last time, of course, was Prince’s “initiation” of Apollonia Vanity (that’s a character’s name, not a character flaw) in the movie “Purple Rain.” Here’s a transcript of that scene (a variation on the dog-bite routine from “The Pink Panther”):

PRINCE: You have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.

APOLLONIA: What?!

PRINCE: You have to purify yourself in Lake Minnetonka.

[APOLLONIA disrobes and gets ready to jump in.]

PRINCE: Hey, wait a minute that’s– [splash!] Uh, hold it.

APOLLONIA: What?!

PRINCE: That ain’t Lake Minnetonka.

YouTube has a video clip of the scene but it is not safe for work and not – repeat: not – safe for re-enactment by Norm Coleman or Al Franken, nor indeed by any of their attorneys, notably Joe Friedberg, Ben Ginsberg, David Lillehaug and Marc Elias.

But if they do, The UpTake will carry it live.

Rex’s “corporate blogs” T-shirt: That interview I did with Rex Sorgatz, MNspeak’s creator, generated quite the comment thread at his old digital homestead, including a note from the man himself explaining the T-shirt he wore in the illustration to Minnesota Monitor’s piece — a reference, lost on me, to an infamous Nirvana cover shot for Rolling Stone.

What gives — or rather, who? The MSNBC.com story listing 144 broadcast, web and print journalists who gave to political candidates — all but 17 to Democrats or left-leaning organizations — includes two locals, Fox 9 morning anchor Alix Kendall and Star Tribune copy editor Barbara Haugen. The donations were relatively small: Kendall gave $250 to the Midwest Values PAC; Haugen gave the same amount to Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s campaign last October. Haugen wasn’t quoted by MSNBC.com, but Strib managing editor Scott Gillespie says there is no ban on political activity by journalists, but said “we dissuade the entire staff” from active participation in partisan politics. Kendall, quoted by MSNBC.com, said, “I don’t think that working for a news organization I give up my rights… I think it’s my civic duty to be involved in what matters to me. I think it’s ridiculous that anyone who’s sitting in front of a camera doesn’t have an opinion — come on, we all do.”

It’s news, but is it new news? Later today, 30-year Star Tribune reporter and new Minnesota Monitor contributor Eric Black will offer his perspective, recalling a 1996 analysis he wrote for the Minneapolis paper on a then-stunning finding: 89 percent of Washington reporters had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 while 7 percent voted for George Bush.

more insideLess outrage over rightwing radio: The report has the blogosphere, particularly the rightmost end of it, buzzing, yet another study released this week, by the Center for American Progress and Free Press, has gotten far less play. Despite independent polls showing that a majority of Americans support progressive ideals, 91 percent of all weekday radio programming is conservative, according to the organizations’ analysis of content at 257 news and talk radio stations across the country. Titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” [pdf], the report concluded that “the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management. “

Minnesota Monthly editor dies: Carol Ratelle Leach, the 43-year-old Minnesota Monthly senior editor, passed away at her home Thursday. Our deepest condolences go out to her husband,  Dan, and three children.

Actually, part of the answer is explained in the documentary. For example, all those congressional junkets to posh resorts in Scotland, the south of France, Florida and elsewhere? Yes, the congressmen had to fill out forms about their travel, but they were all sequestered