Mark Dayton rebounds

June 19, 2013

With the legislative session over, things get back to normal

Teach for America extends the franchise!

June 18, 2013

In a bold and entirely unpredicted move, Teach for America officials have decided to extend the franchise across the board. According to a TFA spokester: With racial gaps everywhere you look: education, income, housing, health care, we thought to ourselves, “Heck, why limit our horizon to just K-12 education?” The Teach for America model will […]

by Steve Timmer

We can expect a Prop 8 decision any day

June 17, 2013

And St. Thomas law professor Teresa Collett is on pins and needles. The Supreme Court may — probably will — find a way to overturn Prop 8 without the nationwide consequences that Collett is so worried about. N.B. This is a repost of a video done earlier this year. Update: And the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal […]

by Steve Timmer

Flowered shirt competition at Drinking Liberally

June 17, 2013

Playing for that lost shaker of salt

by Steve Timmer

Standing against the wolfpack

June 16, 2013

Defending his father

by Steve Timmer

The Weekly Wrap 6-15

June 15, 2013

More Republicans, and even some Democrats, pile into MN-6

by Tony Petrangelo

Roger Goodell defends legacy of racist

June 13, 2013

There are four teams in Major League Baseball and the National Football League that still use Native American themed names and imagery for their team identities; the Kansas City Chiefs, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins. While they all have their own specific problems (Chief Wahoo immediately comes to mind), one of them stands […]

by Tony Petrangelo

Is the Fourth Estate actually a Kangaroo Court?

June 11, 2013

What these three names, Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden, have in common is that they were, are, or will be tried in the press well before they were, are, or will be tried in a court of law. In each case it is about secrets. Reflecting back across the years the trial that never occurred, but […]

by Jeff Wilfahrt

We are not amused

June 9, 2013

Say Michael Brodkorb and Greg Walsh

by Steve Timmer

The Weekly Wrap 6-8

June 8, 2013

Candidates get into the Sixth district race, and a statewide seat opens up

by Tony Petrangelo

A Brief History of Ideology in the Minnesota Legislature

June 6, 2013

Last week I took a look at a new metric that attempts to measure the relative Ideology of state Legislatures and Legislators. Called “np_score” and developed by Boris Shor and Nolan McCarty (their website is at Measuring American Legislatures) the metric ranges from roughly -2 (very liberal) to +2 (very conservative). This metric is derived […]

by Tony Petrangelo

Under the spreading chestnut tree

June 5, 2013

For all too long now the false allegory of government expense as a family budget has held sway. It crops up all the time, the couching of government balancing its budget like a family at the kitchen table. There is a better metaphor for government. It is much more like a black smith’s shop. A […]

by Jeff Wilfahrt