Minnesota
The Debt Limit Fight: Republicans Blink
You knew President Obama would cave on the Bush tax cuts when he first started saying that a deal was going to be made. In a brinkmanship fight, the most important weapon is the willingness to allow failure, or at least credibly threaten to do so. So these comments from Paul Ryan on raising the debt ceiling are a red -- or rather, white -- flag: Some conservative Republicans have urged their GOP colleagues to resist raising the ceiling -- which currently clocks in at $14.3 trillion -- under any circumstances. Rep.
Burying the (State Budget) Hatchet
States are cutting their budgets like mad in an effort to close deficits that often pass the billion dollar mark. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal provides a grim catalog of state spending cuts: Most states have either hiked fees or chopped services for the disabled and the elderly.
Eeyore for Governor
Mark Dayton’s place in Washington’s collective memory can be distilled to exactly one moment, on one day: October 12, 2004. That morning, Dayton, a freshman Democratic senator from Minnesota, appeared in front of a line of TV cameras and announced that in the coming weeks the Capitol would likely be the target of a terrorist attack.
Understanding a Mad, Mad Primary Season
Christine O’Donnell is not someone you’d expect to be a Republican nominee for a competitive U.S. Senate contest, particularly in the staid state of Delaware, and particularly as the choice of primary voters over Congressman Mike Castle, who up until yesterday had won twelve consecutive statewide races. O’Donnell is a recent newcomer to Delaware and, since arriving, has managed to get into trouble with her student loans, her taxes, her mortgage, and her job. She also unsuccessfully sued a conservative organization for gender discrimination.
Year of the Nutjob
How does the class of 2010 stack up against its lunatic predecessor, of 1994? There are the well-known data points—Rand Paul’s alleged kidnapping of a college classmate; Sharron Angle’s assertion that there are “domestic enemies” in Congress—that suggest we’ve reached a new zenith of crazy, making Newt Gingrich’s bunch look like sensible establishmentarians by comparison. But Paul and Angle only begin to capture the strangeness of candidates out there who may soon be occupying your Capitol and governor’s mansion.
Year of the Nutjob
How does the class of 2010 stack up against its lunatic predecessor, of 1994? There are the well-known data points—Rand Paul’s alleged kidnapping of a college classmate; Sharron Angle’s assertion that there are “domestic enemies” in Congress—that suggest we’ve reached a new zenith of crazy, making Newt Gingrich’s bunch look like sensible establishmentarians by comparison. But Paul and Angle only begin to capture the strangeness of candidates out there who may soon be occupying your Capitol and governor’s mansion.
Pawlenty Hearts Health Insurers
Tim Pawlenty, outgoing governor of Minnesota, is gearing up to run for president. When he does, I hope somebody asks him why he wanted to go easy on the insurance industry, potentially forcing his state's residents to pay more for their health insurance. On Tuesday, Pawlenty signed an executive order prohibiting Minnesota state officials from applying for, or accepting, special discretionary grants that the Affordable Care Act makes available to states.
Beyond Auto Exports in the Great Lakes
What the Great Lakes region exports to the world now is, mostly, cars. But its rich network of universities and medical complexes may be one of the best bets for its export future. A recently released University Research Center report documents how Michigan’s leading universities are helping to move its manufacturing base to more diverse and higher end advanced products in energy components, pharmaceuticals, sensors, circuits and robotics.
Tea Bags, Wind Bags, and Moneybags
So let’s say you’re a Republican politician who’s been working the far right side of the political highway for years, getting little national attention other than the occasional shout-out in Human Events. Or let’s say you’re a sketchy business buccaneer with a few million smackers burning a hole in your pocket, and you’ve decided that you’d like to live in the governor’s mansion for a while, but you can’t get the local GOP to see you as anything more than a walking checkbook who funds other people's dreams. What do you do?
The Virtue of Warmed-Up Rehash
Anyone who’s worked for a news organization will recognize the phrase “we did that.” A demonstration at an abortion clinic? We did that. Decay of the New York subway system? Rotting bridges in Minnesota? Shoddy levees in New Orleans? Melting glaciers? Fished-out oceans? Ditto, ditto, and ditto. Other attendant verbs are “rehash,” “warmed-over” and “-up.” Speaking for myself—maybe this is a personal quirk—when I was a kid, I preferred my hash on the second day, warmed up. “We did that” isn’t a sinister response: It’s occupationally necessary.
