Why would I call Sen. Smith about “government rate-setting?”

September 13, 2019

You may well have seen at least one of the mildly apocalyptic commercials about “government rate-setting.” The one I embedded here from YouTube is presumably being run in Georgia. But here it’s the same, except for suggesting at the end that you help ring Sen. Tina Smith’s (D-MN) phones off the hook. This is from […]

by Dan Burns

Another Minnesota GOP savior

September 11, 2019

Though I don’t blame you if you’ve put it out of your mind, Tim Pawlenty was governor of Minnesota for eight years, beginning in January 2003. He was the worst governor in modern Minnesota history. But, oh, did Minnesota’s corporate “news” media love him, among other things because he supposedly had everything it took for […]

by Dan Burns

hPVI 2019, Senate edition

September 9, 2019

Partisan scores for Minnesota Senate districts

by Tony Petrangelo

Minnesota corporate media’s infuriating Omar/Trump double standard

August 28, 2019

Let’s review. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was born in Somalia and spent years with her family in a refugee camp. Since coming to the U.S. she has, by dint of intelligence, hard work, and just fundamental excellence as a human being made her way to the U.S. Congress, where she has immediately begun to make […]

by Dan Burns

Push Poll!

August 26, 2019

While pursuing the website twitter dot com over the weekend I was presented with the following tweet: I just got called by a pretty nasty push poll about the 5th Congressional district by someone identifying themselves as VRI Research. — Steve Fletcher (@FletcherMpls) August 24, 2019 Apparently Minneapolis Ward 3 Council member Steve Fletcher was […]

by Tony Petrangelo

Fourteen years of bullshit

August 25, 2019

In an opinion piece in the Strib, Nancy McReady, president of Conservationists with Common Sense (a “charity” whose last 990 reported on Guidestar is from 1998, even though it participates in the GiveMN program) says that there have been fourteen years of transparency in the permitting of the PolyMet pit mine. Governor Walz hummed a […]

by Steve Timmer

Environmentalist Bob Tammen wins a Spotty ™

August 24, 2019

For this letter in the Star Tribune on Thursday, August 22nd, Bob Tammen wins the coveted Spotty™. As a miner, I know this won’t work The Star Tribune’s Aug. 19 opinion page had an interesting juxtaposition: a counterpoint by Nancy McCready promoting PolyMet (“Transparency, PolyMet foes demand. If only they’d noticed 14 years of it”) […]

by Steve Timmer

The new Business Roundtable Declaration: Serious soul-searching or preposterous PR stunt?

August 23, 2019

I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I’d say, a lot more of the latter. This week, the Business Roundtable put out a statement signed by 181 corporate CEOs purporting to redefine the purpose of the corporation. The statement, which has garnered widespread praise among commentators, basically proposes to junk the idea, fashionable since the […]

by Dan Burns