MORNING EDITION

Well, the Supremes made quick work of that one. Minnesota’s top court waved away that suit from four GOP senators hoping to prohibit Gov. Mark Dayton or anyone other than the Legislature from funding anything during a shutdown. Says Tom Scheck of MPR: “The Minnesota Supreme Court has dismissed a suit by four Minnesota Senators that said a lower court judge doesn't have the authority to authorize spending if a state shutdown occurs. Republican Senators Warren Limmer, Scott Newman, Sean Nienow and Roger Chamberlain filed the petition in the Minnesota Supreme Court last Friday. The court ruled today it didn't hold jurisdiction over the matter but didn't dismiss the challenge on its merits ... The four senators still have an avenue to win their case. Attorneys representing the group have also filed a challenge in Ramsey County District Court. Ramsey County Judge Kathleen Gearin is scheduled to hold a hearing on what services should continue if state government shuts down.”

I strongly suspect the judgment by MPR’s Catharine Richert that Gov. Dayton’s tax plan really is, as he says, restricted to the top 2% won’t matter at all to the GOP base. But she says: “Dayton's proposal would create a new 4th income tax bracket that would impose a 10.95 percent rate on single Minnesotans making more than $150,000, heads of household making more than $200,000, and joint filers making more than $250,000 annually — all after deductions. According to the state revenue department, about 2 percent — or 45,440 of the state's roughly 2.4 million filers — would pay Dayton's new higher income tax rate. Everyone else would see no change in their income taxes. And at this point, Dayton's plan doesn't alter state property taxes, nor does it cut city and county aid, which can lead to local property tax increases, so he can claim that his proposal won't increase property taxes, either. ... Dayton's plan doesn't weigh much on most Minnesotans. And while he doesn't mention that everyone will see a slight uptick in sales and corporate taxes under his plan, he is right that most Minnesotans would not see a property tax increase or an income tax increase as a result of his budget plan. Dayton's claim gets an ‘accurate.' "

Next up … Bison 3. John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune reports: “Minnesota Power will add a third phase to its wind energy generation in North Dakota under a proposal submitted this week to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The Duluth-based utility plans on building a 105-megawatt, $157 million wind farm in Oliver and Morton counties in central North Dakota, one of the most wind-rich locations in the region. The wind farm, to be called Bison 3, will include 35 giant turbines and will be located near Minnesota Power’s already operating Bison 1 and already planned Bison 2 projects.”

“Marathon discussions,” you say? MPR’s Tim Pugmire’s story on Wednesday’s events in Shutdown Land has Gov. Dayton and the GOP agreeing to meet ...all day long Friday and Saturday: “There's still no sign of a budget breakthrough, but DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders met briefly Wednesday and agreed to hold marathon discussions Friday and Saturday to try and reach a deal. ... House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, said they will lock themselves in a room and won't leave until they have at least some consensus or a framework that they can then take back to their legislative members and the governor can be comfortable with. ‘But the point being that without the three of us in a room talking about these bills in great detail and coming to agreement between the three of us, it's going to be awfully difficult for all of us to come to agreement,’ Zellers said. Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, said she thinks it's important for both sides to get a few budget wins under their belts before turning to the remaining areas of disagreement. But Koch wasn't willing to move at all on taxes or spending.” Oh, but other than that, things are looking pretty agreeable.

In Patrick Condon’s AP story, he says: “Republican leaders insisted they've shown flexibility under their $34 billion cap in shifting money toward specific priorities of Dayton. ‘It cannot be said enough that the compromise is coming from Republicans,’ Koch said. Koch's deputy majority leader, Sen. Geoff Michel, R-Edina, acknowledged that the two sides seemed to be talking past each other. ‘It sounds like people are talking two different languages,’ he said.” One of them does sound an awful lot like evangelical Aramaic.

Since insanity is their only plausible strategy, the Michael Swanson defense team must feel they are on the right track. The AP story says: “A Minnesota man charged with killing a convenience store clerk in northern Iowa during a robbery admitted shooting the woman in the face during a videotaped police interview that was shown to the jury on Wednesday. In the video, an apparently tired and hungry Michael Swanson, 18, of St. Louis Park, Minn., is seen smoking cigarettes and smirking when asked to re-enact what he described as a surprised half-scream, half-gasp from Sheila Myers, 61, when he pulled the trigger. ‘I felt powerful. I just didn't care. My adrenaline was going good,’ he said, when asked what it felt like to shoot someone.”

Jens Krogstad of the Des Moines Register writes: “When in the middle of a manic episode, Swanson said he sees things out of the corners of his eyes that don’t exist. When he’s driving, he said he imagines a car is heading straight at him. When he turns to look, it’s not there. ‘It’s like I have insomnia,’ he said, adding he has suffered extended periods of depression. During a manic episode in April, Swanson said he stole a car and drove down to Missouri, where he was arrested. He said he didn’t rob or shoot anyone there.”

“Depraved indifference” is a legal term, I believe. Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes: “More than 10,000 out-of-work Wisconsin residents are no longer receiving an estimated $89 million in federally funded jobless benefits because state officials have not acted to renew them. The change to state law would not touch the state's struggling unemployment insurance trust fund and would provide 13 more weeks of benefits to workers who have been without employment for roughly a year and a half. The change in state law, which has tepid support from Gov. Scott Walker, could come before a state advisory panel Thursday. However, the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has done nothing, despite knowing about the issue for months. The Legislature could have gone ahead on its own. It did pass in the state budget a cost-saving proposal to stop paying workers the first week of unemployment insurance benefits — a difference to both the state and the workers of tens of millions of dollars a year. But with some Republicans and business leaders wary that benefits are actually a disincentive to work, there's been no action.”

It's pretty anti-climactic, but Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports is reporting: “Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn has decided to fire coach Kurt Rambis, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. Kahn isn’t expected to announce the decision until after Thursday’s NBA draft, but he’s already begun collecting information on prospective replacements for Rambis, including University of Washington coach Lorenzo Romar, sources said. The Timberwolves have gathered background on Romar for several weeks, and are expected to make him a candidate to replace Rambis. Kahn met with Rambis last week and believes he has reached an impasse with the coach. The relationship between Kahn and Rambis deteriorated over the course of the past season, to the point where there’s been little communication between them.”