“Well ahead … .” MPR’s Mark Zdechlik reports, “A new [Suffolk University Political Research Center] poll finds Democrats Mark Dayton and Al Franken are running well ahead of all of their Republican challengers, but neither incumbent Democrat is drawing more than 50 percent support. … According to the results, Gov. Dayton leads all of his Republican challengers by double digits, but one in four voters said they were undecided on the governor’s race. Pollsters found support for Sen. Franken in the mid-40s and that none of his Republican challengers has more than 29 percent support.”
Wisconsin’s Voter ID law has been ruled unconstitutional, the AP tweets. It’s an impermissable burden on poor and minorities to get photo identification to vote. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the law’s most prominent supporter, previously vowed a special session to get around any court objections. The decision is here.
Defense contractor Alliant Techsystems’ move from the state is continuing. The Strib’s Dee DePass reports ATK is moving more defense functions to Virginia, and spinning off sporting goods (think: bullets, etc.) to Utah. The company has not confirmed local cuts in the Eden Prairie office, but they appear logical.
To the jury … . The AP’s Amy Forliti says, “The trial of a Minnesota homeowner who killed two teens during a break-in has been given to the jury after the man’s attorney argued the teens would be alive if they hadn’t chosen to commit a burglary.” If this was Florida, I know how I’d bet.
Says Pam Louwagie for the Strib, “Prosecutor Pete Orput hammered home the idea that Smith, 65, plotted the killings of the intruders as they descended his basement steps about 10 minutes apart. After repeated break-ins to his home and his adjacent property throughout that fall, Smith set up an ambush, the prosecutor argued.”
Noting the judge’s decision to shut down on-line voter registration here, Reid Wilson of The Washington Post reminds his readers, “Eighteen states — not counting Minnesota — allow online voter registration, and four other states are in the process of implementing online systems. … The states that allow online sign-ups include both deep red states like Kansas and Georgia, and deep blue states like California, Colorado and Washington. Studies have found online registration can save states big money. Processing a paper registration can cost a state 83 cents, but it costs just 3 cents to process an online registration.”
The AP’s story on the struggle to squeeze every project into the available bonding funds says, “Those [projects] in the mix range from re-roofing college campus buildings to mid-size city civic center expansions to rehabilitation of public housing. But the competition is fierce, with giant projects like an ongoing Capitol renovation chewing up a large chunk of available funds. ‘I’ll just name three projects: the Capitol at $126 million, the state security hospital in St. Peter at $56 million, the state prison in St. Cloud at $34 million. I’ve just given you three projects and that’s $200 million,’ said House Capital Investment Committee Chairwoman Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul. ‘That’s how fast the $850 million goes.’”
Are we all cool now? From yesterday … news that “Asian” carp are no more. Says the Forum News Service, “Minnesota legislators have been trying to get rid of Asian carp for years and on Monday senators got rid of the ‘Asian’ part of the name. On a split voice vote, senators approved dropping “Asian” from the invasive carp name. … Sen. Foung Hawj, D-St. Paul, said the state needs to do a better job of being sensitive.”
Meanwhile … Tim Pugmire of MPR says, “Legislation to legalize medical marijuana has cleared another hurdle in the Minnesota Senate. Members of the State and Local Government Committee advanced the bill today on a divided voice vote.”
But colleague Tom Scheck writes, “ … as that bill gets another Senate hearing Tuesday, quieter voices are rising in opposition. People who run drug treatment programs in Minnesota worry that opening the door to any form of legal marijuana will cause many more problems and could lead to greater abuse. … Drug treatment professionals and the medical community have given little public testimony on the medical marijuana bill in the Legislature, though they have joined law enforcement groups in opposing it.”
By the look of the “fans” at the Capitol last year I assumed they already have some kind of brain-controlling “Matrix”-like link to the NFL. However, MPR’s Tim Nelson says, “The team is building an app that will leverage their new home and tie fans closer than ever to the team — to keep them buying tickets and coming to the games. It’s part of a broader mobile media strategy to keep fans tied to the team whether they’re at home or at the game. You follow the Vikings, the Vikings follow you.” If they follow you down a dark alley and you roll them — in self-defense, of course — see if they’ve got your $500 million in their pockets.
Look at what the Republican’s are offering
Then you will see why Dayton and Franken have a cash advantage. The Republicans keep offering political extremists, the unfulfilled promise of brand change, tired failure based talking points, and candidates that won’t state their positions. Their war on women, minorities, and common sense continues. Republicans have voted 50 times to repeal Obamacare so obviously we can’t trust what they say as they have even failed at achieving their own self proclaimed number one goal. They continue to be a party of pure fiction. There is absolutely nothing to vote for, only against. They are the party of NO. Now the voters feel the same way about the Republicans, Absolutely NO!
And it’s good to know
That neither the Governor nor Senator have even 50% popularity and no named opponent yet.
Right.
Hold onto your dream as long as you want. It will be another Republican dream gone awry. You can fool some of the voters some of the time, but you can’t fool enough voters to make your dream come true.
Where do you think the other 50% come from?
50% is 50% SUPPORT.
That’s a BIG thing.
Means all those other lukewarm candidates that couldn’t come to a boil in a forest fire
have only 50% to draw from, at very, very best. That is the best “perfect world” they can hope for.
The remaining 50% is NOT just people who want one of the challengers!
Byron Smith
Found guilty on all four charges.
History will tell you
that incumbents who have approval numbers in the mid 40s (Dayton-Franken) are in trouble. Even in polls like this one where democrats were over-sampled by 10 percentage points more than republicans (39-29), Dayton and Franken both had lukewarm support.
Treatment centers and law enforcement have financial incentives to prolong the prohibition on marijuana. They both directly profit from its illegality which means their opinions should be taken with a few grains of salt.
Addiction
Adolescents and adults can become addicted to just about anything: prescription and/or street opiates, alcohol, video games, shopping, collecting, marijuana, cleaning, meth, exercise, diet pills, pornography, eating, and on and on.
Far more often, adolescents and adults use these substances and engage in these behaviors responsibly and without becoming addicted.
Addiction has as much to do with the experience we have with a substance or behavior as it does with physical or chemical craving. We respond to pain relief from opiates, societal approval from being thin, enjoyment from buying new things.
Our society seems unable or unwilling to apply objective standards to marijuana–and especially to alcohol, a strong narcotic–regarding the dangers of addiction. I continually hear medical marijuana opponents conflating marijuana use/addiction with addiction to heroin and other narcotics. These are no more connected than are overeating and heroin addiction.
Carping About
Now that the name is gone,
will we build a fence to keep them out?
Silly vote.
New name: Carp formerly known as “asian?”