MORNING EDITION

The so-called “global stadium plan,” wherein every possible stadium and sports gewgaw you can imagine would be rolled together and controlled by one agency? Well, there isn’t much enthusiasm out there. Mike Kaszuba of the Strib writes: “Although a Timberwolves official reportedly acknowledged that there was resistance to the plan, the team suggested that funding for the proposal could come from a one-fifth cent metrowide sales tax, state tobacco settlement funds, a new casino in downtown Minneapolis and a Vikings lottery game. ‘That's not something I'm involved with,’ said Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, who is working on a proposal for a new Vikings stadium. ... Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, a likely Senate author for a new Vikings stadium plan, said she too had talked to Taylor. She agreed that other teams were looking at Vikings stadium legislation as "perhaps a good vehicle" for their stadium needs. ‘[But] it gets pretty heavy, doesn't it?' she added.” ... And expensive.

Tim Nelson of MPR adds:  “Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel, R-Edina, said today there wasn't much progress on the stadium to slow down at this point. ‘I think there will be members who have questions about what is going on short term with the NFL. But we have had zero caucus discussion on the NFL, on a lockout, on the Vikings, on the Metrodome,’ he said.”

 An AP story points out the lack of interest among cities beyond the metro perimeter: “The team wants taxpayers to pay more than half the cost for a new stadium. But few Minnesota lawmakers can sell their own communities on helping to foot the bill for a stadium, which has been estimated to cost at least $700 million. What’s much more likely is that some subset of Twin Cities taxpayers will bear the biggest tax burden. And the votes to impose it are likely to come mostly from the same outstate Minnesota lawmakers who don’t want to see their rural and small-town constituents taxed. ... [GOP Sen. Julie] Rosen said this week a stadium plan is coming ‘very soon’ and would include funding sources that include sales taxes on things like team merchandise, concessions and stadium purchases plus a tax contribution from what Lanning called a local partner — namely, taxpayers.”  Like there is any other potential “partner.”

Consider the GOP tax plan officially denounced. The Strib team of Rachel Stassen-Berger and Baird Helgeson report: “House Republicans released their proposal to lower income taxes with no fanfare on Saturday night, and it included an array of modest tax breaks for companies and investors. The proposal stands in stark contrast to Dayton's plan, which leaves middle-class Minnesotans mostly unscathed but raises taxes steeply on the state's highest earners. With two months to go in the legislative session, the two sides appear to be moving in opposite directions. ‘I don't know whether the legislators just don't understand what it is they're doing or that they understand and are not being entirely candid with the people of Minnesota,’ Dayton said. ‘I don't know which is worse.’ ”

The Michele Bachmann gaffe du jour comes from Slate’s David Weigel, who — like those who listen to his  video interview (included) — might wonder if Bachmann understands that New Hampshire is NOT a caucus state, like Minnesota: “Bachmann says she hasn't heard anything about the debate in Minnesota, which has been going on for a couple of weeks, about moving its caucus up to February 7, which would make it leapfrog New Hampshire. ‘This is something that is news to me,’ she says, ‘that there would be a changing on caucuses.’ Second, Bachmann expands on this thought by musing about the similarities between her state and the Granite State. ‘What I love about New Hampshire is, very similar to Minnesota — we're a caucus state, also — and in our state, we win votes by going from living room to living room and making a case living room to living room.’ ”

An AP story says that contrary to rumors, Tubby Smith will stay in Minnesota: “Several reports on Monday said Smith was close to replacing John Pelphrey at Arkansas. Smith appeared on his weekly radio show on WCCO-AM Monday night and was asked if he expected to return. Smith said, ‘Yes I do.’ The coach said he is continuing to work on a two-year extension with athletic director Joel Maturi.”

So what’s left, an ATM machine? Applebee’s has closed its Block E restaurant. Jennifer Bjorhus of the Strib says: “The family eatery shut down Sunday night, said Diann Banaszek, a marketing partner at Apple American Group LLC in Cleveland, an Applebee's franchisee that owned the Block E restaurant. ‘We closed because the center is taking the whole complex into a different direction and Applebee's didn't work into that plan,’ Banaszek said. "By mutual consent we closed.’ Banaszek said she didn't know what direction Block E was taking. Her group has 62 restaurants in the Twin Cities area.”

For all you alleged adults who routinely bungle the spelling of “foreign” and “receive,” feel shame at the name of Anja Beth Swoap. A PiPress story says: “An Edina girl won the seven-county metro-area regional spelling bee Saturday for the third year in a row. ... Swoap, an eight-grader at Valley View Middle School, once again will represent Minnesota at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May. Last year, she tied for 20th place in the national competition. This year's winning word was the Latin-derived ‘triforium,’ an upper gallery or open space in a church. Anja Beth, who won in Round 15 of the nearly six-hour competition, is fluent in French, plays the flute and loves to read.” You’re surprised she doesn’t hone her spelling skills playing “Call of Duty: Spartan Warfare”?

John Hugh Gilmore doesn’t blog at Minnesota Conservatives nearly enough. The planet hungers for a righty who not only writes well but seems to have done his own thinking. In his latest, he rips into the Strib editorial crowd (everyone’s favorite target) for its piece titled “Terror Hearings Fuel Anti-Muslim Fears”, which slagged New York Rep. Peter King for his “McCarthyesque” hearings on home-grown Islamic radicals: “The editorial slouches toward its predetermined end by quoting the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center and other organs of the far left, which appease anything Islamofacist, and concludes Muslim auto-da-fes are but an evening entertainment for the hateful Christians of this country. This is, apparently, as sophisticated in her reasoning as Susan Hogan can get. And we thought Obama was out of his depths! What is most objectionable to this agitprop is the ST's refusal to phone Rep. Peter King, the chair of the Congressional committee which is holding the hearings the aging '60's types see as ‘McCarthyism’. What? The ST is losing so much money, deservedly so, that it can't afford a phone? Even a rotary one, which bespeaks the mindset of the board?” That's good stuff.