Results of Survey USA News Poll regarding Minnesota Government are here.

Hospitals react sharply to Pawlenty health veto

Saint Paul, MN — Governor Tim Pawlenty followed through on his pledge to rein in state spending with or without the legislature. He used a line-item veto to surgically remove $381 million from a health plan for low income adults without children.

The cuts to General Assistance Medical Care, or G.A.M.C., will take effect in July of 2010, according to Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman, and strip eligibility from 30,000 persons. He told lawmakers Friday those persons must earn less than $7,800 per year to qualify for the program.
KARE 11

Coleman files final brief in State Supreme Court case

Norm Coleman wants all voters who “substantially complied” with state rules governing absentee ballots to have their votes counted. In a brief filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court today, the former senator argues that the case should be sent back to the trial court under orders to consider 4,400 rejected absentee ballots for possible inclusion in the vote tally.

Following a seven-week trial, a three-judge panel determined that Al Franken won the U.S. Senate contest by 312 votes — a decision that Coleman has appealed to the state’s top court.
Minnesota Independent

Officials issue ash borer quarantine in 2 counties

St. Paul, Minn. (AP) — A state quarantine has been issued on firewood, ash trees and ash tree products in two Minnesota counties after this week’s discovery of emerald ash borer.

The quarantine took effect Friday in Hennepin and Ramsey County. An infestation of the tree pest was discovered the day before in a line of trees outside a row of St. Paul town homes.
MPR

Art historians claim Van Gogh’s ear ‘cut off by Gauguin’

Vincent van Gogh’s fame may owe as much to a legendary act of self-harm, as it does to his self-portraits. But, 119 years after his death, the tortured post-Impressionist’s bloody ear is at the centre of a new controversy, after two historians suggested that the painter did not hack off his own lobe but was attacked by his friend, the French artist Paul Gauguin.

According to official versions, the disturbed Dutch painter cut off his ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Bleeding heavily, Van Gogh then walked to a brothel and presented the severed ear to an astonished prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep in a blood-drenched bed.

The Guardian

Astrologer: Stars say Franken will win June 14

The stars indicate that on or about June 14, a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court will make Al Franken a U.S. Senator. That’s the view of astrology blogger Terry Lamb, who cautions that “[i]f the senate seat remains in limbo past this time, the eclipses will come into play.”

Minnesota Independent

Buy one, get two free at Fox Nation

This was screencapped today from Fox Nation, Fox News’ month old conservative opinion site, which is already being pegged for something racial today. Notice anything?

The Raw Story

Protesters Disrupt Health Care Hearing

A series of protesters demanding single-payer health care coverage disrupted a Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health care reform Tuesday. At the beginning of the hearing Tuesday morning, a man stood and yelled, “So let me get this straight — you have 15 seats at the table and not one for single payer? Why is that?”

Huffington Post

Torture memo authors unlikely to be prosecuted

Bush administration attorneys who wrote memos authorizing torture should not be prosecuted, a Justice Department report will recommend according to sources close to an investigation.

“The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said,” reported the New York Times.

The Raw Story

The Significance of Ali Al-Marri’s Guilty Plea

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ statements yesterday that he expects the United States will have to transfer up to 100 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the United States, where they’d be held indefinitely without trial, was an odd juxtaposition with yesterday’s guilty plea of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri.

Washington Independent

Senate recount appeal: Update of previous breathless look at the Coleman brief

The Coleman Supreme Court brief (PDF) … contains few if any surprises. It is a methodical review of arguments Team Coleman has been making in public for weeks, mostly that the Election Contest Court made one big error and two smaller ones, and that the MN Supremes must fix them.

MinnPost

16 Cattle Drop Dead Near Mysterious Fluid at Gas Drilling Site

ProPublica has been reporting for months [2] about how natural gas drilling is affecting the environment, but of all the causes for concern we’ve reported, here’s a doozy. … Sixteen cattle dropped dead in a northwestern Louisiana field this week after apparently drinking from a mysterious fluid adjacent to a natural gas drilling rig, according to Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality and a report in the Shreveport Times …. At least one worker told the newspaper that the fluids, which witnesses described as green and spewing into the air near the drilling derrick, were used for a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing …

Pro Publica

GOP Party Identification Slips Nationwide and in Pennsylvania

Over the first four months of 2009, the Republican Party has continued to lose adherents. Interviews with over 7,000 respondents nationwide so far this year found fewer than a quarter (23%) of the combined total identifying themselves as Republicans. This is down from 25% in 2008, and from 30% in 2004. In total, the GOP has lost roughly a quarter of its base over the past five years.

Pew

Digital media and the coming gap in the historical record

During the early days of the Internet, web proponents were quick to make expansive claims about the benefits that the online age would usher in. The web would revolutionize the work environment, they said. It would engender a new era of political activism. It would preserve all human knowledge online, forever….Some of these claims have turned out to be prescient. Others are still open to debate. And some linger in the murky twilight of being true, but only partly so. The promise of the web as the ultimate archival medium falls into this last category.

MinnPost

Where Are the Women? Where Are the Men?

Except…someone’s missing. Two of the G20 countries (Germany and Argentina) have heterosexual, married female leaders, and their husbands aren’t in the photo. I don’t know why–were they not invited to the event? Did they choose not to come? SocProf asks, “Would the husbands have looked out of place here? Would this have been embarrassing to them?”

Sociological Images

Peru’s Fujimori gets 25 years prison for massacres

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of human rights crimes and sentenced to 25 years in prison on Tuesday, the first time a democratically elected Latin American president has been found guilty in his own country of such offenses.

Reuters

Watch Green Porno Season 2 Now!

The critically acclaimed series from Isabella Rossellini is back with a new batch of very short films about the reproductive habits of marine animals. GREEN PORNO is scientifically accurate yet extremely entertaining. Produced by Isabella Rossellini, Jody Shapiro and Rick Gilbert.

Sundance Channel

Bird Can Read Human Gaze

We all know that people sometimes change their behavior when someone is looking their way. Now, a new study reported online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows that jackdaws–birds related to crows and ravens with eyes that appear similar to human eyes–can do the same.

Terra Daily

Colombia drugs battle claims 29

At least 29 people have been killed in Colombia as drug traffickers fight for control of an organisation set up by Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel. The mafia group was set up by Escobar as an assassination service. After his death in 1993, it expanded into drugs trafficking and extortion, becoming one of the most feared gangs in the country. It is like a return to Escobar’s bad old days, with bodies turning up across the city as the mafia fights it out.

BBC News

Suit: Shell complicit in execution of Nigerian rights activist

A landmark human rights lawsuit, accusing Royal Dutch Shell of complicity in the execution of author and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa some 14 years ago, will proceed to trial in a New York courtroom….The Center for Constitutional Rights and Earth Rights International, along with Mr. Wiwa’s son, allege the International oil company “financed, armed, and otherwise colluded with the Nigerian military forces that used deadly force and conducted massive, brutal raids against the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta.”

The Raw Story

The interview the VA didn’t want you to hear.

Last week, WAMU reporter David Schultz attempted to interview Tommie Canady about the poor treatment he said veterans were receiving from the VA. In the middle of the interview, however, VA communications specialist named Gloria Hairston “stopped Schultz and wouldn’t let him leave until he handed over his [recording] equipment.” After significant public outcry, the VA returned Schultz’s equipment. Today, WAMU aired Schultz’s interview with Canady that the VA didn’t want the public to hear:

Think Progress

5 Years After: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Scientific American

UK police stage ‘pre-emptive raids’ on climate activists

If you thought former President George W. Bush’s doctrine of “pre-emptive war” was freaky, try this one on for size.

The Raw Story

Blind to be cured with stem cells

BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

Times Online

4 Track Films: Movie Production, MN-style

OF THE 150+ FILMS AT THE FAIRLY VENERABLE (27 YEARS!) Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Fest (MSPIFF), a dozen or so have Minnesota connections. But only a very few of these are Minnesota products, through and through.

4 Track Films (with White Man’s World) is a Minnesota film production company based in Duluth. Its principals, Jason Page and Carrie Boberg, both 35, have been making drama together for over a decade. They attended University of Minnesota Duluth, where they studied theater, and then moved to L.A. in the winter of 1996. There they made Piling Up Vera, a 22-minute film that depicted a woman’s life flashing before her eyes. Page says that that was their film school; Vera’s $30,000 budget was about what tuition would have cost, and the experience taught them much of what they needed to know.

mnartists.org

Hope or Cynicism? You Have to Choose, Because They Don’t Go Together.

Back in February, I wrote a post about President Obama’s dismissive attitude towards those who compare his previous promises/declarations with his current actions. At the time, he tried to add levity to the fact that he was appointing Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State despite the fact that the major point of policy contention between Obama and Clinton are their views on foreign policy.

Open Left

Catching Up … A slew of important stories on the enviornment:

Building the American Clean Energy Economy

On April 22, people across the country and around the world will celebrate Earth Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of our natural resources and taking real action to make a difference. For decades, while Americans in towns and cities across the country have worked to make a difference in their communities, politicians in both parties in Washington have ignored the energy crisis, imperiling our economy, our security and our planet. Now, we have a unique and critical opportunity to attack the energy crisis head on and create a comprehensive energy policy that will bolster our economy, end our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the threat of deadly pollution that is devastating our planet.

truthout

Obama’s Earth Day Speech

President Obama stresses the importance of clean and renewable energies on Earth Day.

Current

13 Breathtaking Effects of Cutting Back on Meat

My first post on the effect of eating meat on the environment provoked quite a bit of discussion, so in honor of Earth Day, I thought I should follow up with more information about how our natural resources (e.g., air, water, and soil) are depleted and devastated by animal agriculture.

AlterNet

Venezuela’s CITGO donates island to US state for preserve

Petty Island, which is 214 hectares (528 acres) in the Delaware River not far from Philadelphia, was bought by Venezuela’s state oil giant PDVSA in 1990.

CITGO Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of PDVSA “has officially transferred control of Petty’s Island to the state of New Jersey for the creation of an ecological, cultural and historical preserve,” Caracas’ embassy here said in a statement.

Energy Daily

Award winning environmentalist beat up while trying to block work on pipeline

Anti-Shell protester Willie Corduff is recovering in hospital after being badly beaten by at least six men in balaclavas and dark clothing at the site where Shell is attempting to lay an onshore, high-pressure pipeline

Corduff, one of the Rossport Five and winner of the 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize, was dragged from under a truck at around 3.45am on Thursday morning by at least six men who then beat him viciously about the head and knees.

Current

Spectacular Recovery From Coral Bleaching At Great Barrier Reef Marine Park In Australia

Marine scientists say they are astonished at the spectacular recovery of certain coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park from a devastating coral bleaching event in 2006.

That year high sea temperatures caused massive and severe coral bleaching in the Keppel Islands, in the southern part of the GBR. The damaged reefs were quickly smothered by a single species of seaweed – an event that can spell the total loss of the corals.

Science Daily

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

NY Times

Rising seas threaten renowned French coast

France’s Aquitaine coast stretches north from the Spanish border to the Gironde river estuary, encompassing rocky bluffs, giant lagoons, deltas, beaches and Europe’s largest dune. Now climate change has laid siege to this natural oasis, dramatically speeding up the erosion of the 270 kilometre-long (168 miles) Atlantic coastline and threatening local communities.

Terra Daily

When Does ‘Close’ Become Too-Close-to-Call?

The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, whose previous coverage of the Minnesota recount has tended to reflect a lack of command of the facts and circumstances of the case, is now back for another round, this time pressing for a re-vote:

FiveThirtyEight

Coleman lawyer in ‘06: GOP not into ‘whole notion of equal protection’

Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg is helping usher Norm Coleman’s equal-protection claims to a high court (Minnesota’s), just as he did with another client, George W. Bush, and another high court (the United States’) eight years ago. Indeed, Coleman’s yet-to-be submitted brief is expected to cite Bush vs. Gore, as have his earlier briefs presented (unsuccessfully) to the state Supreme Court and the election-contest court. Maybe there’s a reason for that.

The Minnesota Independent

Democrats file campaign finance complaint against Coleman

Norm Coleman may be violating federal campaign finance laws by paying his personal legal bills with campaign funds, according to charges in a complaint filed today by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party with the Federal Elections Commission. The controversy stems from a pair of lawsuits alleging that longtime Coleman associate Nasser Kazeminy attempted to funnel $75,000 to the Republican politician while he was serving in the U.S. Senate.

The Minnesota Independent

Coleman seeks slower court schedule

Norm Coleman wants more time to prepare his appeal of the U.S. Senate contest. In a brief filed this morning with the Minnesota Supreme Court, the former senator contends that he needs until April 30 to present his arguments to the court. Under Coleman’s proposed time-line, oral arguments would not be heard until after May 15. The brief states that the Republican “must be given enough time to fully develop and consider the issues on appeal.”

The Minnesota Independent

Minnesota Supremes Set Schedule For Coleman’s Appeal — Giving Him More Time

The Minnesota Supreme Court has just issued its order establishing a schedule for Norm Coleman’s appeal of the Senate election result — and even though this schedule has been expedited by the standards of normal civil litigation, it’s going to be a while by political standards.

Talking Points Memo

Report Details Origins of Bush-Era Interrogation Policies

A wealth of new details emerged Tuesday about how techniques designed to help captured U.S. troops resist torture formed the basis for the post-9/11 interrogation policies of the Bush-era Pentagon.

Instructors of those techniques proved to be eager in 2002 and 2003 to disseminate them to an emerging crop of inexperienced military interrogators facing the prospect of wresting information out of new captives. “I believe our niche lies in the fact that we can provide the ability to exploit personnel based on how our enemies have done this type of thing over the last five decades,” said Joseph Witsch, an instructor for the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), a component of U.S. Joint Forces Command that oversees the so-called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Evasion (SERE) program for U.S. special forces, during a 2002 training session for U.S. military interrogators, according to a newly released report.

The Washington Independent

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

McClatchy

MoJo Video: Inside the Secret Cellblocks of Abu Ghraib

A soldier-narrated tour of the detainee camp during its final days.

Mother Jones

Torturing detainee may have produced false terror alerts

As the nation struggles to make sense of a wave of new revelations regarding the “harsh interrogation techniques” brought to bear on detainees by the CIA, two very different narratives are shaping up to describe the treatment of captured al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah in April and May of 2002.

The Raw Story

‘Torture Works’ is Not a Defense

Dick Cheney’s continued insistence that the torture techniques used by the CIA and DOD on terror suspects, or associates of terror suspects, or anyone they picked up that they thought might know some information, based at times on the “confessions” extracted from torture victims, has shifted much of the debate to the question, “Does Torture Work?”

The Washington Independent

Obama: Bush Official Prosecutions Over Torture Memos Possible

The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods “is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that,” Obama said. The president discussed the continuing issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Huffington Post

The Story Has Legs

That’s what Bob Woodward said yesterday on Face The Nation about the unfolding story of torture and the rule of law. Torture memos prepared within George W. Bush’s Administration were released on April 16th; for the last 10 days the story has been getting bigger and Bigger and BIGGER. Which is amazing, in today’s media cycle – and indeed demonstrates, as Woodward says, that the story has legs.

MN Progressive

Appeals court rules Gitmo detainees are not ‘persons’

The ruling sprang from an appeal of Rasul v. Rumsfeld, which was thrown out in Jan. 2008. “The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the constitutional and international law claims, and reversed the district court’s decision that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied to Guantanamo detainees, dismissing those claims as well,” the Center for Constitutional Rights said.

The Raw Story

Dozens of Prisoners Held by CIA Still Missing, Fates Unknown

Last week, we pointed out that one of the newly released Bush-era memos inadvertently confirmed that the CIA held an al-Qaeda suspect [1] named Hassan Ghul in a secret prison and subjected him to what Bush administration lawyers called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA has never acknowledged holding Ghul, and his whereabouts today are secret.

But Ghul is not the only such prisoner who remains missing. At least three dozen others who were held in the CIA’s secret prisons overseas appear to be missing as well. Efforts by human rights organizations to track their whereabouts have been unsuccessful, and no foreign governments have acknowledged holding them.

ProPublica

A 16-minute retrospective: Minnesota’s Coleman-Franken election battle just keeps going and going

From the campaign name calling through the current lawsuit, the race and recount have combined to create the longest election process in the state’s history. The UpTake’s Mike McIntee walks us through how we got to this point.

MinnPost

Interviewing Coleman, Fox & Friends repeatedly misinforms on Coleman-Franken race

On the April 3 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade teased an interview with former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) by claiming that Coleman is “not close to giving up, even though some Democrats are vowing to make it impossible for him to win.” During the segment with Coleman, co-host Gretchen Carlson claimed, “[T]he last time I checked, Norm Coleman won the election after election night.” However, while Coleman was ahead in the vote count after election night, he was not certified the winner; his opponent, Al Franken (D), now leads by 225 votes after the results of a recount mandated by state law because of the closeness of the results.

Media Matters

Order for Delivery of Ballots

The Uptake (pdf)

Coleman: ‘We’re gonna push to the Minnesota Supreme Court’

On Fox News Radio today, Norm Coleman vowed, “We’re going to push to the Minnesota Supreme Court.” He clarified his timetable after next week’s expected election-contest trial court ruling: “We’ll file [a petition to the state's high court] quicker than 10 days.”

Minnesota Independent

Why Norm Coleman continues to fight

Though it looks like Norm Coleman will not prevail before the three-judge panel hearing the Senate election case, the battle is far from over. Coleman’s side took a hit Tuesday when the panel said it would consider counting only up to 400 more votes. Coleman quickly announced plans to appeal. But is Coleman risking looking like a sore loser?

MPR

O’Reilly Announces Plan To Boycott Minnesota (Not An April Fool’s Joke*)

So it is tonight I am announcing that until Franken leaves or is asked to leave the US Senate, I will be boycotting Minnesota. The entire state and anything that has the least bit of connection to Minnesota. This means I will not be visiting Minnesota, nor shopping at stores nor using products of any businesses headquartered in Minnesota (including Target, UnitedHealth Group, 3M, General Mills, Best Buy). In addition, I will not be watching any TV shows emanating from or about Minnesota, including Minnesota Timberwolves, Vikings or Twin games. That means, much to my chagrin, I will no longer watch the film Fargo or my beloved Mary Tyler Moore show reruns and from now on be referring to Minnesota Fats as just plain Fats.

Steve Young on Politics

A River Prone to Flooding, and Misunderstanding

The flood surge rose much faster than expected in Fargo, the state’s largest city, then peaked sooner and at a lower level than forecast — to the city’s great relief and gratitude. In the last two days — surprise again — it has gone down more rapidly than foreseen.

But the uncertainty has taken a toll.

NY Times

RNC Eight case wades into murky legal waters of conspiracy theory

In the eyes of law enforcement officials, they were the core of a vast criminal conspiracy that for two years plotted to violently disrupt the Republican National Convention (RNC).

But in the view of their allies in social-justice circles, they were dedicated activists seeking to shine a bright light on war, poverty and other injustices.

Minnesota Independent

New snow, winds complicate fight against surging Red River

A hard, sloppy and urgent fight to restrain the surging Red River of the North became harder, sloppier, colder and more urgent today, as a slow-moving winter storm threw as much as 8 inches of new snow and winds above 30 mph at weary sandbaggers in Fargo-Moorhead and other threatened cities along the North Dakota-Minnesota border.

MinnPost

Fargo Red River Flooding: Level Tops Historic Marker, Undermines Dike

The agonizing decision to stay or go came as the final hours ticked down before an expected crest Sunday, when the ice-laden river could climb as high as 43 feet, nearly 3 feet higher than the record set 112 years ago. The city got a one-day reprieve Friday night when the National Weather Service pushed its crest projection back from Saturday to Sunday afternoon, saying frigid temperatures had slowed the river’s rise. While the weather service targeted the crest near 42 feet, it said feet 43 is still a possibility.

Huffington Post

Dike break fixed, but Oak Grove school flooded

The Red River breached a dike today and sent water flowing into buildings at a school campus in Fargo in an episode the mayor called a “wakeup call” for a city that needs to be vigilant for weaknesses in levees that could give way at any time.

“The campus is basically devastated. They fought the good fight. They lost and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Mayor Dennis Walaker said. “Those things will continue to happen. I guarantee it.”

Bismarck Tribune

Coleman-Franken recount trial: The wait continues … What’s it mean? Why is it taking so long?

Two weeks and counting.

That’s where we stand as Judges Elizabeth Hayden, Kurt Marben and Denise Reilly have kept lawyers for Al Franken and Norm Coleman — and all the others who still care — waiting for rulings in the election contest trial that lasted seven weeks but ended on March 13.

Both sides expected some decisions this week, but none came.

MinnPost

Coleman won’t rule out federal appeal

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol before a weekly Republican lunch meeting, Coleman said Tuesday he’s not anticipating the case going to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he signaled that the recount trial may be far from over. A three-judge state court could rule any day on the Coleman-Franken case, but the panel has been deliberating for more than a week.

“I’m not anticipating, you know, at this point being across the street,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court. “For certain, I want to make sure that equal justice under law is applied. We’ll see how that plays out in Minnesota.”

Politico

Exec says Coleman donor ordered $100K payments

Thomas’ deposition, taken under oath on March 19 and obtained by the Star Tribune, is the first corroboration from an official at Deep Marine of allegations made by company founder Paul McKim in a lawsuit filed last year against the company.

In the two weeks before the November U.S. Senate election, two lawsuits were filed against Deep Marine — one by McKim and one by a group of minority shareholders. In them, Kazeminy was accused of funneling payments to Hays to benefit the Colemans, as well as other alleged financial wrongdoing.

Star Tribune

Thousands of immigrants held in violation of international law

A comprehensive report issued by Amnesty International USA Wednesday finds that tens of thousands of immigrants — and, in one case, a Minnesota-born citizen — have been held in detention in the United States, many in violation of international law.

Minnesota Independent

RNC Eight FBI informant found guilty on three criminal charges

Andrew Clark Darst, a key informant in the conspiracy case pending against the RNC Eight, has been found guilty of three criminal counts stemming from a January altercation in Minnetrista.

Hennepin County District Court Judge Daniel Mabley ruled today that Darst is guilty of a gross misdemeanor charge of damage to property, as well as two counts of misdemeanor assault. The 30-year-old Minnetrista resident was acquitted on two burglary counts.

Minnesota Independent

Turbines will soon churn in 11 Minnesota cities

Recycled turbines that turn renewable wind energy into electricity are expected to begin appearing this summer in Anoka, Buffalo, North St. Paul and eight other Minnesota cities that are part of a power agency.

Star Tribune

House energy panel votes to continue nuclear power moratorium

A state law prevents new nuclear power plants from being built in Minnesota, and some say that means nuclear can’t even be part of a discussion about the state’s future energy needs.

An effort to change that suffered a setback Thursday, when members of a House energy committee voted down a bill that would lift the ban.

MPR

Xcel Energy Eagle Cam
Two of the three eggs have hatched!

Alas, it was not to be. Bachmann continues to run her mouth (now, there’s an alternative energy source) at every opportunity, regardless of the presence of cameras and microphones, regardless of her whether she had anything to say, regardless of who she’s speaking to. It’s behavior that has a certain effect on those who have to listen to her. Eric Kleefeld of TPMDC has named this, of course, the Bachmann Effect.

Gawker explains what that facial expression really means in English. Greg puts this phenomenon in its proper context. Oh, if only she were trying to be that funny. But no, she means it, and there are enough people taking her seriously that we must too. The Replace Michele Bachmann Blog Carnival is back.

We should have known. It only took her three days after the election to be named Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World for snuggling up to Obama after suggesting he be investigated as anti-American.

It wasn’t much later that Bachmann denied ever calling for his investigation, telling Alan Colmes that the direct quote he was reading was an “urban legend.” Colmes didn’t display the Bachmann Effect, unfortunately. I guess that’s a side effect of having reality denied to his face that often. However, a number of bloggers, fairly new to the train wreck that is the Sixth District’s congressional representative, couldn’t keep the literary equivalent of the effect out of their posts, calling her “crazy” and “out there.”

The local paper reported on the urban legend affair and noted that she also used the opportunity to accuse Al Franken of trying to “stuff the ballot box with rejected ballots.” Emily Kaiser at City Pages has the transcript of the interview and points out that Bachmann was repeating allegations that even Tim Pawlenty, our governor who dreams of a national stage for his hair and smile, had declared false by that point.

What else was Bachmann up to in November? Dump Michele Bachmann has the information on how she used the I-35W bridge collapse as an occasion to flirt with Bush and later tried to turn it into a political lever in her reelection campaign. OneNewsNow covers her defense of Sarah Palin. Bachmann herself used her blog (at Townhall.com) to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable for capital to control political speech in this country and to talk about how she’s finally against executive power now that a Democratic executive was taking office. No kisses for Obama, I guess.

December was a quieter month, starting with speculation that Bachmann might run for governor if she loses her congressional seat to redistricting. She was discovered to have endorsed a ministry that fraudulently wormed its way into public schools under the cover of anti-drug education to deliver their real messages, like:

In the girls’ session a female staffer from the band told the girls that they “would get black spots” on their wedding dresses if they held hands with a boy and would be serving “leftovers” to their husbands if they lost their virginity before marrying a “God-fearing man.”

She made the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s list of 2008 Most Embarrassing Re-Elected Members of Congress. She also made the NY Times list of top 2008 television moments for her appearance on Hardball and won Comedy Central’s contest for the Indecision 2008 Best Campaign Villain. Bachmann herself ended her year by eulogizing Paul Weyrich, dominionist and separatist founder of the Heritage Foundation.

Bachmann started the new year with more awards: third place in Crooks and Liars 2008 Golden Crookie Wingnut of the Year contest, fifth place in Comment Is Free’s American Hall of Shame, and two runner-up spots in City Pages list of Best Minnesota Scandals of 2008. Bachmann, perhaps less than pleased at not coming in first, bitched about Democrats in Congress wielding the power they were elected to use. Twice. She also joined Twitter, so now you can keep up with her every thought and public appearance.

January stayed fairly quiet for Bachmann. She said much of what one would expect from a Republican: No multi-million dollar estate tax for small family businesses. (How small is small, there, Representative?) Cut taxes to stimulate the economy. (Which has such a great track record.) The Hill ran a profile suggesting that she had become cautious.

Still, she managed to sneak in a couple of classic Bachmann moments. She opined again on the Coleman/Franken recount in an interview with Glenn Beck, suggesting that a fair judge would be one who found in favor of Coleman. She also made an appearance on Sean Hannity with Al Sharpton and Meatloaf (yes, really) in which she said, among other things, that African Americans would start voting Republican because of the issue of gay marriage.

January was just a hint of things to come. In February, Bachmann was back to drawing media attention with her appearances. She really does have a knack for making statements that tell in a few quick words how wrong both her priorities and her facts are. “We’re running out of rich people in this country,” is just one of those perfect gems. Bachmann made the comment to protest the stimulus package. The emphasis on the rich instead of those suffering from our current economy shouldn’t need any comment. Not that that stopped people. Dump Michele Bachmann collected many of the links to the outrage.

Bluestem Prairie has the audio clip and was inspired to evaluate Bachmann’s claim that the stimulus package was a conspiracy to direct funds away from Republican districts. Is anyone surprised to discover that Bachmann’s district would be the district best served by the package? Actually, the people who voted for her probably would be. Unsurprisingly, there was even more silliness to the interview, including unfounded allegations about ACORN, fact-checked by CNN. The Huffington Post was moved to collect reader suggestions for things Bachmann would believe if they were printed on the internet (a game also played later by Gawker).

February also brought Bachmann’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and her question, “I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation WITH taxation?” Not to mention her applauding RNC chair Michael Steele with the words, “You be da man!” Seriously.

TPM felt the need to end their post on her words with, “And no, this is not from The Onion.” The City Pages offered her some tips to keep her slang up to date. Greg used her words about taxation as an opportunity to talk about levels of understanding, or in this case, levels of misunderstanding.

Whew. That’s a long way to go to catch up with Bachmann, but we’ve finally reached March. Submitted to a Candid World has a nice summary of March in Bachmannland that brings us up to the ides, but most of the fun has really been in the past week or so. So what’s the representative with the crazy eyes been up to lately? Whoo, boy.

There is, of course, the “armed and dangerous” comment. If you’re not already familiar with her exact remarks, Dump Michele Bachmann has the full audio. Some people are calling this sedition and suggesting that, by her own standards, Bachmann should be censured. Bachmann’s representatives are calling her words merely metaphor, although Jefferson was certainly not speaking metaphorically. Prendergast at Dump Michele Bachmann makes a good case that Bachmann meant every word. Crooks and Liars also sees her statements as part of a pattern–paranoia in this case. Athenae at First Draft explains why claiming that Bachmann’s language is metaphorical doesn’t make her statements a whole lot better.

Then there were the questions to Geithner and Bernanke on the constitutional basis for the bailout. There’s a bit of disagreement about which is the worst part of her questions: the fact that she didn’t know without asking that the Constitution states that Congress authorizes spending or the fact that she didn’t understand that her question was being answered. I’m going for the first one, not just because she really should know, but because I believe her questions are merely the echo of a broader, conspiracy-mongering movement.

Truly, the scandal here is that she doesn’t know this, any more than she understands the basis for U.S. currency or the currency used in international trade. After all, as a commenter pointed out at Dump Michele Bachmann, not only is she on the House Financial Services Committee, “in fact it’s been your ONLY committee assignment for your entire tenure in Congress.” Not a quick learner, that Bachmann. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t “show up to your own committee hearings.”

Whatever the case, Bachmann first pressed both Geithner and Bernanke to pledge to keep the U.S. dollar as our country’s currency. Both were perplexed, but neither thought it was anything but a good idea. Of course, the issue under discussion isn’t the U.S. currency, but the reserve currency used for trading between nations. The difference isn’t rocket science, and if Bachmann needed someone (besides her fellow committee members) to explain it to her, she could have turned to one of our local alternative news weeklies. Or a local liberal blog. Or any of a number of blogs elsewhere. Or the Treasury Department’s release on the state of the U.S. reserves. Or the largest local daily paper. Or a national news outlet. Or anything or anyone connected to reality.

But no, instead Bachmann has proposed a constitutional amendment to keep America safe for the dollar. And last night, she did an interview with Glenn Beck to explain why it was necessary. Think Progress has this excerpt.

BACHMANN: As you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many nations have lined up now and have called for an international global currency, a One World currency and they want to get off of the dollar as the reserve currency.

BECK: Most people don’t understand, Michele, what that means.

BACHMANN: What that means is all of the countries in the world would have a single currency. We would give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency. … If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom. And then we are no more, as an exceptional nation, as we always have been. So this is imperative.

Forget what the rest of the world is actually saying, Bachmann is pushing this as a conspiracy theory. That’s My Congress puts this in the context of existing currency conspiracies, and Dump Michele Bachmann ties this to her apocalyptic religious beliefs. It’s Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly who really ties everything together, though, and it’s to him that I give the final words of this carnival.

Now, Bachmann simply isn’t well. Were she not an elected member of the U.S. Congress, she’d probably be shouting conspiracy theories and holding cardboard signs on some sidewalk somewhere. But what I find especially interesting is that her paranoid delusions are so detached from obvious truths. If Bachmann wanted to complain that a 39.6% top rate was the epitome of Marxism, she’d be just another conservative. But she’s convinced herself that the Obama administration will “move us to an international currency,” due entirely to her breathtaking stupidity.

My fear, at this point, is that lunacy from deranged politicians and their media allies is going to end up getting someone hurt. Republican officials believe they should emulate the insurgency tactics of the Taliban. They see themselves as “freedom fighters” taking on the “slide toward socialism.” They want a “revolution” because Americans “can’t let” Democrats succeed in taking away “our very freedom.”

This is obviously madness, not from some right-wing blog, but from elected federal officials. But I worry it’s more than that. Incendiary rhetoric like this leads strange people to do strange things.

Franken Lawyers To Court: Throwing Out The Election Is Not A Legal Option

The Franken legal team has written a letter to the judges in the election case, sharply rebutting the Coleman camp’s new idea to nullify the whole election.

The letter mainly rebuts the Coleman camp’s call to retroactively un-count a number of absentee ballots on a geographically-targeted basis. Team Franken argue that the binding case law says this is not a viable option, and that the court is not allowed to calculate that any illegal ballots favored one candidate over another — that would be relieving Coleman of his responsibilities under the burden of proof.

Talking Points Memo

Court rejects Franken petition for election certificate

Minnesota’s Supreme Court on Friday blocked Democrat Al Franken’s petition for an election certificate that would put him in the U.S. Senate without waiting for a lawsuit to run its course.

The decision means Minnesota’s second Senate seat will remain empty until the lawsuit and possible appeals in state court are complete. Republican Norm Coleman’s lawsuit challenging Franken’s recount lead is at the end of its sixth week, and both sides expect it to last at least a few more weeks.

MPR

Coleman-Franken trial: Week Six ends in an avalanche of numbers to ponder

Norm Coleman’s chief legal spokesman Ben Ginsberg likes to joke with journalists who are covering the election contest trial. A repeated quip is that when he was hired for this gig, he was told he “wouldn’t have to do any math.”

But Mr. Ginsberg and the others of the math-challenged among us learned six long weeks ago that any hoped-for abdication of numerical knowledge was impossible.

MinnPost

Panic in Detroit, as CEO kleptocrats loot pensions for another few billions

Yay!

Gee, are you getting the feeling that everybody at the top of the food chain is either a thief, a tool, or a fool? [To be fair, unless proven otherwise] First, we find that GM was looting its pension fund while it was gearing up for a bailout:

Corrente

10 Reasons Why Conservatives’ Fiscal Ideas Are Dangerous

It would almost be funny if their ideas about spending didn’t lead us into the deepest financial catastrophe in nearly a century.

AlterNet

Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy

Yet prominent economics professors say their academic discipline isn’t shifting nearly as much as some people might think. Free market theory, mathematical models and hostility to government regulation still reign in most economics departments at colleges and universities around the country. True, some new approaches have been explored in recent years, particularly by behavioral economists who argue that human psychology is a crucial element in economic decision making. But the belief that people make rational economic decisions and the market automatically adjusts to respond to them still prevails.

New York Times

Norm Coleman: Maybe We Need A Do-Over Election

The talk from the Coleman campaign about how the Minnesota election results are unreliable, and that a do-over election could be an option, has now gone beyond just Norm Coleman’s lawyers — it’s now coming from the mouth of Norm himself.

Talking Points Memo

In break for Coleman, panel reverses order on poll worker testimony

The panel hearing Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount reversed its order from Wednesday that struck out testimony of Pamela Howell, a Minneapolis poll worker who claimed to witness errors that could have caused double-counting of votes.

MPR

Secret Coleman-Lawyer E-Mails Reveal Intentional Hiding Of Witness — Franken Camp Wants Double-Count Claim Thrown Out Completely

All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom, with Al Franken’s lawyers catching Team Coleman in the act of yet more concealing of evidence — and they’ve now made a motion to totally strike the Coleman camp’s claims about double-counting of ballots, which the Coleman camp has hoped to use to subtract over 100 votes from Franken’s lead.

Talking Points Memo

Jindal Admits Katrina Story Was False

Looks like the game is up.

Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn’t actually, you know, true.

TPMMuckraker

Bobby Jindal’s Secret Past

Did you know about the exorcism? The name that came from The Brady Bunch? Those and other surprising facts about one of America’s fastest rising young politicians.

The Daily Beast

Minnesota mourns the loss of author Bill Holm

Minnesota poet, humorist and essayist Bill Holm recently confided to his editor that he thought he had arrived at perhaps the “best place” in his writing life.

MinnPost