University of Minnesota Lobbying

Costs Skyrocket

For more on this please see: Hey Big Spender!

Governor to Legislature:


"Go ahead, make my day..."


From the Strib:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he will use line-item vetoes and his authority to pull back spending to balance the state budget.

He said there will be no special session or government shutdown.

The Republican governor said he would prefer to work out a budget deal with Democrats who control the Legislature, but he says they are spending more than the state has.

He said the session will end no later than Monday at midnight.

Minnesota faces a projected shortfall of $4.6 billion over the next two years.

Pawlenty said his cuts could hit public health and welfare programs, public schools, higher education and aid to cities and counties.

He vetoed a $1 billion tax increase.

THES rankings for 2008 are out.

This is a test of the downloadability of a pdf file.

More Evidence of Caribou Barbie's Inexperience

Some McCain/Palin supporters are laughably in your face about how Caribou Barbie, aka Sarah Palin, is more experienced than Obama because she has been an executive. Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion might lead one to think that the manager of our local McDonalds has more experience than Obama.

Further information about Caribou Barbie's excellent adventure as Governor of Alaska (a state with a population less than most large cities) continues to surface, e.g. this piece from ABC news:

Exclusive: New Doubts Over

Palin's Troopergate Claims

Internal Government Document

Contradicts Sarah Palin, Campaign

An internal government document obtained by ABC News appears to contradict Sarah Palin's most recent explanation for why she fired her public safety chief, the move which prompted the now-contested state probe into "Troopergate."

Fighting back against allegations she may have fired her then-Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, for refusing to go along with a personal vendetta, Palin on Monday argued in a legal filing that she fired Monegan because he had a "rogue mentality" and was bucking her administration's directives.

"The last straw," her lawyer argued, came when he planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.

The McCain-Palin campaign echoed the charge in a press release it distributed Monday, concurrent with Palin's legal filing. "Mr. Monegan persisted in planning to make the unauthorized lobbying trip to D.C.," the release stated.

But the governor's staff authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety, released Friday in response to an open records request.

The document, a state travel authorization form, shows that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan's trip to Washington, D.C., "to attend meeting with Senator Murkowski." The date next to Nizich's signature reads June 18.

In Palin's court filing Monday to stop an investigation by her state Personnel Board she earlier had requested her lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, included numerous emails from her staff expressing confusion and incredulity over Monegan's planned D.C. trip. None of those emails were sent by or to Nizich, although he was cc'd on several.

Contacted Friday, Monegan confirmed the travel authorization was to pursue funding for the anti-sexual-violence program.

Monegan said he didn't know why Palin's chief of staff approved a trip that confounded her other aides. "It sounds like it's a breakdown of communication internal to the governor's staff," he said.

Palin can't keep on the same page with her own chief of staff? Maybe this is the kind of experience we could do without? Hmm... I wonder how she would do with the economy or foreign relations. If McCain/Palin were to win this election, and (God forbid!) McCain died in office, then we would have this experienced executive at the helm.

I hope we don't make the same mistake we did in the last two presidential elections.