The State of the State was two days ago, but thanks to The Uptake, I can still blog about as if it were happenning right now. What follows are jumbled notes and incomplete thoughts about the unnecessary speech.

DFL Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Minneapolis), introduces T Paw as “the Honorable Tim Pawlenty” and joins with the rest of the room — its left and right — in giving him a standing ovation. Gov. T Paw comes in, shining and sweet. He makes a joke about another governor dropping dead. “You …

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The damned, dirty Minnesota grouch Mike Hatch

They’ve done it again: MinnPost is raiding former Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch’s political image as a public servant for the down-trodden, or, to put it another way, reaffirming Hatch’s public reputation as a hot-tempered, hypocritical bastard.

Here are some excerpts from Eric Black’s old-fashioned investigative report that give us an idea of Hatch’s would-be DFL-minded personality:

Hatch took over an office that had been known, under his predecessors, as a national model among AG offices, for striking an …

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Part I

Part II

U.S. Senate candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer

While most Minnesotans have stuck comedian Al Franken in their minds as the next Minnesota DFL Senate candidate, St. Thomas peace studies professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is still vying for the party’s upcoming June nomination. Despite barely being mentioned in the local media, Nelson-Pallmeyer surpassed Mike Ceresi in the race and is slowly but surely winning over the most liberal sectors of the DFL. After looking into his campaign, I found out that Nelson-Pallmeyer is a more progressive, less elite …

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Att. Gen. Lori Swanson

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is eliminating whatever remains from the Farmer-Labor Party in the DFL in a classic case of Democratic hypocrisy. Namely, 50 of her 135 or so assistant attorneys general left her office in the past year due to its constant atmosphere of stress and fear.

MinnPost.com reported this:

“Assistant Attorney General Amy Lawler said she has been put in situations that made her uncomfortable where she had to weigh her own ethical standards against …

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