The chatter I keep hearing from folks who attend lots of under-reported public meetings is that the $67 million bonding request to fund infrastructure for the Minnesota Steel plant near Nashwauk is vital to the project’s viability. In quiet rail authority and city meetings, company representatives and city officials communicating with them say that the…

This post is shared with my friends at www.mnblue.com, a progressive Minnesota political blog. I’ve heard that some Range leaders are nervous that Sen. Barack Obama’s underperformance in central Range precincts like Hibbing and Chisholm despite his massive statewide win in the caucuses. (Sen. Hillary Clinton carried those core Range towns about 60/40; Obama carried…

State Rep. Carolyn Laine, an Iron Range native, will be in Hibbing today with other legislators to tout a bill for universal health care that she and others will be proposing this session. Those interested in the health care debate should check it out. I would go if it weren’t cross-scheduled with the dinnertime insanity…

Nothing knocks over a mountain in one night. But when you combine wind and water and the correct amount of time, the mountain is destined to fall. That’s how I feel about the status of my Democratic party this morning. Barack Obama was down by a million a few months ago and now he’s running…

It’s not often I get to write a headline like that. An update and clarification about U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s (D-Hawaii) visit to the Iron Range to stump for Barack Obama. He will be at Tom and Jerry’s bar in Chisholm at 3 p.m., not at the college as was originally planned. I think this…