In the Republican response to President Obama’s weekly address today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty regurgitates the right-wing Tax Foundation’s discredited “Tax Freedom Day” calculation to claim that ”the average American has to work from January 1st until this Monday, April…
Heard beneath Friday’s hubbub over the vote count in Mountain Iron, Minn., was the advancement of a related Republican argument — that by offering reasons why a recount in the U.S. Senate election should go forward Democrats are insulting Minnesota’s election system and its election officials. What was implicit in U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s remarks Nov. 5, prominent Republican commentator Sarah Janecek made explicit Nov. 7, first by writing that when Democrats say they want to “ensure votes properly cast are properly counted,” they’re really out to “smear our elections process.” Later, she told a public television audience, “I’m pretty sickened by that.” In the meantime, Coleman’s campaign manager applied words like “dubious” and “tainted” to the current canvassing process.
Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) is making rumblings about “taking appropriate legal action” after its frustrated attempts to have state Rep. Erik Paulsen stop using video from TPT’s “Almanac” program in an ad attacking his 3rd Congressional District Democratic rival, Ashwin Madia. Paulsen’s FEC filings list ad production by Upgrade Films, the same D.C. outfit whose use of Pawlenty campaign video in a state GOP TV ad cost the governor’s 2002 campaign a $100,000 fine.
A flashpoint in the 3rd Congressional District mini-debate on TPT’s Almanac program Friday (video) was Republican candidate Erik Paulsen’s charge that DFL candidate Ashwin Madia has illegally coordinated his campaign with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an…
There was an unsigned note sitting on TPT reporter Mary Lahammer’s capitol desk Tuesday morning. Scrawled across a printed copy of Lahammer’s blog post on how gender might be a factor in Gov.…
“Bush like Hitler, says first Muslim in Congress”: Returning to blogging, Noah Kunin points out this misleading headline by the Telegraph (UK), calling it a “masterful rebranding” of Ellison’s recent comments at an Atheists for Human Rights meeting.…
Scumbags are people, too: Glenn Beck, the conservative CNN host who told Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison to prove he’s “not working with our enemies” — Ellison’s infraction, of course, was choosing to be sworn into office with his hand…
Ridder’s new digs: The annual taxes on a mansion Par Ridder allegedly has purchased could pay a full year’s salary for a Star Tribune staffer, according to Brian Lambert. On May 14, Ridder reportedly bought the Lake of the Isles…
“Two problems” with the Strib: When commenters at the Minneapolis Issues Forum, an online e-democracy project, called Strib reporter Mike Kaszuba’s recent report on woes at the Minneapolis library “shallow” and written as if “there were a whole…
In the 2006 elections, DFLers extended their majority in the Minnesota Senate, and took back the majority in the House by a decisive margin. After similar successes in 2004, there are now literally dozens of freshman or second-term DFLers in…
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