Uh oh. Congressman Keith Ellison is going to be feeling it for a while. The Strib's Kevin Diaz has a hefty piece this morning expanding on the interaction with a local Muslim group that picked up the tab for Ellison's trip to Mecca last fall. Ellison didn't want to say much about the religious visit at the time, but now he's got the House Ethics Committee sniffing around the organization that paid for it, etc. Oh, and the organization that paid for it is ... the Muslim American Society, which gets a chunk of its income from ... wait for it .. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), the Inver Grove Heights charter school of Katherine Kersten fame. (For months the former Strib columnist feasted on TiZA like a lone wolf on a moose carcass.)

Reports Diaz, "TiZA has been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union and probed by state officials for allegedly promoting Islam, which would violate the church and state separation required of public schools -- including charter schools. The school received state funding to pay rent to the Muslim American Society Property Holding Corp., a nonprofit spinoff of the Muslim American Society that owned the building. The corporation then turned over $879,000 to the Muslim society as a grant." I don't know what falls from heaven in Mecca, but this is manna to every right-wing talk radio host in town.

It will be fascinating to see who draws what conclusions from the report that Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth, the gold standard of HMOs, posted a 155 percent increase in profit -- quarterly net earnings of $859 million -- over the same quarter a year ago. The Strib's Chen May Yee files her piece with info from an analyst call. With both Congress and the general public swimming in deep pools of information and wild misinformation, UnitedHealth's stunning, ongoing success ... in the middle of the worst economic downturn since The Great Depression ... should, um, lube up the debate over who really benefits from the system as it currently is.

Deep in her piece, Yee writes, "Insurers such as UnitedHealth oppose the so-called public option, a government-run alternative to private insurance, which President Obama has said is needed to keep private insurance companies "honest." Insurers say such a public plan would have an unfair advantage in setting payments to doctors and hospitals." In a fight as heavily lobbied as health care reform, you can buy a lot of "advantage" with that kind of profit.

Andy Birkey of the left-of-center Minnesota Independent grabs a great quote from Michele Bachmann, speaking against health care reform and the "public option" on the House floor. Says Bachmann, "Approximately 114 million Americans are expected to leave private health insurance. Why? Their employers will drop the insurance because the taxpayer-subsidized plan will be 30 to 40 percent cheaper. This action will collapse the private health insurance market, and then the Federal Government will own the health provider game." He also pulls out one that Bachmann's Republican colleague, John Kline, gave MPR's Tom Crann last month. Said Kline, " ...our fear is that if you actually get in there looking at the legislation that it’s set up in a way that employers would increasingly opt to letting their employees move over to the public, to the public option. And because it is cheaper, it’s designed to save money, the government-run program has some very clear advantages." Both Bachmann and Kline currently have very good, affordable coverage.

Former Sen. Dave Durenberger, who has been thinking seriously about health care reform for some time, has a commentary in this morning's Strib. The nut of the piece is an interesting argument that President Obama's insistence on getting a bill through Congress this summer has major stakeholders in health care culling compromises from him that he might not have to give if he slow-tracked legislation until, say, 2011.

Writes Durenberger, "The quick support of the Democratic legislation by large national medical industries means only one thing to a reformer like me: They believe Obama needs health reform at any price, and they can trade endorsement for the right to negotiate industry-favorable changes later in the conference committee process. The response to the Congressional Budget Office's wise warning about adding to costs will simply mean pushing costly coverage expansion and some cost-saving measures out toward the 10th budget year. Then, as the time approaches, the industries will demand 'give backs' in policies that cost them money." The obvious first question for the senator is why he thinks this situation would be any better as Obama enters a re-election cycle two years from now?

The shooting of an unarmed man -- wearing only a swim suit -- by an undercover cop in Kasota is heavily covered by everyone, and it is going to need some serious explaining by the officer involved. Chao Xiong files the story for the Strib. He quotes a woman who arrived minutes after the incident, "[The cop] just had that look on his face, 'What have I done? What have I done?' Why would you shoot someone that's unarmed? All he had on was a swimsuit, you know?"

Can't let a Denny Hecker item slip by without notice. Nicole Garrison-Sprenger, who was camped out with Hecker in bankruptcy court, files a piece for the PiPress, reporting that he apparently bought not one, not two, but six Harley-Davidson motorcycles, possibly for the girlfriend who was involved in the now notorious locked-out-while-he-got-chicken-from-the-garage incident revealed in court last week. Oh yeah, there's also this, "In the 12 to 13 months prior to Hecker's bankruptcy filing, he charged more than $800,000 on his American Express account, $130,000 on his Neiman Marcus account and more than $119,000 on his U.S. Bank Visa, according to [bankruptcy trustee] Robert Seaver's motion, filed Tuesday. Seaver wants to know what Hecker bought with the credit cards." And so do we. Over a million on personal credit cards. I think that qualifies as living large.

If Tom Petters is Frick to Denny Hecker's Frack, we must include the ruling from a U.S. district judge Tuesday to keep Petters' buddy, Gregory Bell, locked up until his trial on fraud and money laundering charges. David Phelps has the story for the Strib. Mr. Bell, it seems, is a bit of a motivated flight risk. After Petters' Ponzi scheme started breaking down and the two began kiting $1.4 billion around to various mostly-bogus businesses -- according to charges -- Phelps writes that, "Bell started to protect himself financially by paying off a $930,000 mortgage on his Chicago-area home and placing $15 million in a Swiss bank account that is under the control of a trustee based on Cook Island in the Pacific Ocean and is only for the use of Bell, his wife and his two children." $15 million ... super-large ... on Cook Island ... now that is going off-shore.

Curtis Gilbert has a story for MPR on the 22,000 Twin Cities residents still trying to adapt to the switch-over to digital TV. That's already happened, you know. "The Federal Communications Commission receives about 10,000 calls a day to its help line, though that is a fraction of last month's call volume." We note the part of the story that mentions a couple that watch very little tube but yet "splurged" on a flat-screen TV in preparation for going digital. Next times folks, think "book," or "Kindle."

Gilbert's colleague, Tim Nelson, reports on the Postal Service closing seven post offices around the state, with another 17 on the chopping block. About 3,100 could be closed across the country. Nelson's piece says, "After historic highs just a few years ago, mail volume has been plummeting, from 212 billion pieces in 2007 to an expected 180 billion this year. That's a 15 percent decline. 'The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away,' said Pete Nowacki, a spokesman for the Postal Service in Minneapolis." What if I can't get the Coldwater Creek catalogue that comes because I bought my wife a purse five years ago?

One more from MPR. Chris Roberts assembles an interesting collection of opinions on the evolution of arts criticism in the Twin Cities in the age of deteriorating newspapers and burgeoning blogger populations. "Glean" colleague/playwright/blogger Max Sparber is featured prominently. "Sparber said several newspaper critics have been writing for decades and know the history of the disciplines they cover better than anyone. Sparber also said a number of arts blogs feature artists writing about each other, so they're less likely to be painfully honest. 'We are losing the voice that says maybe this was ill-conceived, maybe this actor isn't very good at their job, maybe that was a bad accent'," Roberts reports. We like Strib theater critic Graydon Royce's defense of still-employed newspaper critics. What makes him better than the matted yob with a keyboard and a couple of buddies doing improv on the corner?  "A high level of expertise and credibility." Very good, sir.

After blowing a 10-run lead Monday night, the Twins pulled out a 3-2 win last night against Oakland. Michael Cuddyer, the team's quote-meister, hit a 10th inning triple that scored Joe Mauer, and rookie Anthony Swarzak pitched well again. Interviewed as he is after every game (it's a mixed blessing being a jock with a knack for both humor and coherent syntax), Cuddyer was asked if it was true manager Ron Gardenhire told him to "be safe" this time, referring to being caught at home in a blown call in Monday's disaster. " 'He told you that?' Cuddyer said ... 'he told me to be safe at home. I wasn't. Somebody else was, though.' " The team has another game with the A's today before heading down to L.A.