I am one of the organizers of a nonpartisan Democracy Fair at Hibbing Community College today. (Yes, I’m partisan, but the event isn’t). From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., students (and anyone) can pre-register to vote in Minnesota in the HCC Commons. Candidates for House District 5B, including Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) and his GOP…

The following post was inspired by true events (“Coleman says he’s going 100 percent positive” ~The Hill). As most of you know, for the past 28 years I have been terrible at many things, most notably dancing and singing. My inability to dance and sing is well established. It continues to feed into the media…

My favorite nonpartisan aggregate of political news and views, Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, is keeping track of the reaction to tonight’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. His initial take was to declare an Obama victory. My take was the McCain did better than in the previous debate, clearly comfortable with the format…

We all expected the presidential campaign to get ugly in the last month. No surprise there, and both sides share responsibility. But here’s what really worries me about Sarah Palin’s recent attacks against Barack Obama in John McCain’s campaign. It’s not her inexperience and sneering contempt for anyone who isn’t a Joe Sixpack or (name…

Partisan, yes. Apt? Maybe. But as a parent of three young boys I’m a sucker for Thomas the Tank Engine references. Courtesy KDoug at Daily Kos. As comments there show, Thomas is actually “Really Useful” on his show, so Sarah Palin fans have that going for them even if Thomas would be considered “A Danger…

Political Wire has a nice roundup of reactions to last night’s VP debate. DailyKos has some interesting reactions, too, but mostly for the partisans. For instance, Plutonium Page analyzes the debate transcript with a “word cloud” computer program. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin used the word “going” a lot, as one would expect from…

Here’s another brief story about the Office of the Legislative Auditor’s report on the Iron Range Resources loans to Excelsior Energy, this one from Business North. Again, the story mentions the fact that loan funds were used to lobby, but sports no exploration of that topic. That potentially vast amount of money spent on lobbying…

Though this blog is not normally a clearing house for press releases, this release came from U.S. Rep Jim Oberstar’s office this afternoon. I think the U.S. should, where feasible, invest in rail service for commuters. It’s more sustainable from an energy use perspective and much of the “work” of the 21st century economy could…