June 30, 2005 - Spain OKs Gay Marriage, Defying Opponents
"Parliament legalized gay marriage Thursday, defying conservatives and clergy who opposed making traditionally Roman Catholic Spain the third country to allow same-sex unions nationwide. Jubilant gay activists blew kisses to lawmakers after the vote..."
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June 30, 2005 - At the brink/Don't shut down government
"Minnesota has come to a fiscal precipice. At midnight, legal authority will expire for a sizable slice of state government. Those functions will cease -- unless the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty act today to make it otherwise..."
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June 30, 2005 - Boeing Names W. James McNerney Jr. CEO
"Boeing Co. turned to an aerospace veteran to help repair the company's strained government relations and lead its market-share battle with rival Airbus SAS, naming 3M Co. Chief Executive W. James McNerney Jr. its new CEO Thursday..."
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June 30, 2005 - Coleman, Kennedy back new trade pact
"In a move that puts them at odds with the state's $2 billion-a-year sugar beet industry, two Minnesota Republicans -- Sen. Norm Coleman and Rep. Mark Kennedy -- sided with the Bush administration Wednesday in backing the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)..."
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June 30, 2005 - Public shouldn't blame teachers for the cost of education
"Last week a White Bear Lake man called to complain bitterly. His beef was what he says is the inflated cost of public education in general, driven sky high by unionized slacker teachers who shamelessly suck up tax dollars..."
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June 30, 2005 - Make property taxes fair
"Lost in the special session and budget rancor has been Minnesota's dirtiest little tax secret: Limited Market Value. LMV is an arcane property tax law that has shifted the tax burden from home owners who have realized the greatest potential capital gain to other far less fortunate owners..."
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June 30, 2005 - Accord in sight on Lake Elmo plan
"Lake Elmo and the Metropolitan Council continue to make progress on the compromise that was reached in January over development in that small east metro community..."
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June 28, 2005 - Political meddling erodes faith in election systems
"Beth Fraser's Viewpoint (June 21) regarding voter intimidation in the last election highlights a larger problem nationwide: Voters are quickly losing faith in our election system because of political interference with the election process..."
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June 23, 2005 - Timetable: Six mor years in Iraq
"The words are almost always the same: "threat" ... "atrocities" ... "secret intelligence" ... "mission" ... "preventive" ... "fog" ... "brave" ... "terrorists" ... "Support our troops" ... "Stay the course" ... "waste"... "treason" ... "timetable" ... "withdraw" ... "tragedy." ..."
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June 26, 2005 - House ethics chairman accepted overseas trip, records show
"Rep. Doc Hastings, already under fire as chairman of the stalled House ethics committee, accepted a $7,800 trip to England in 2000 from a company he championed for a multibillion-dollar contract at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, records released by an advocacy group show..."
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June 26, 2005 - Bush hones Iraq mesage as war support wanes
"President Bush will try to presuade skeptical Americans this week that the war in Iraq is winnable while shoring up his own weak approval ratings.  Neither task will be easy..."
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June 25, 2005 - Energy bills/Gridlock still looking good
"Of the Senate energy bill that appears headed for a vote on Tuesday, the best that can be said is that it's better than the House version. But neither measure merits support as a serious attempt to chart a forward-looking national policy..."
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June 25, 2005 - Deal time/Public confidence is on the line
"With help from the courts, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is trying to make a partial government shutdown beginning July 1 as painless as possible for Minnesotans..."
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June 25, 2005 - House approves cuts to Labor programs
"Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House..."
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June 24, 2005 - Flag burning amendment erodes your rights
"If the heat of summer is upon the nation and Congress is stalling out on substantive business, it must be time to instigate a skirmish in the culture wars..."
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June 24, 2005 - Religious Democrats aim to close the god gap
"Liberals say they believe in God, too..."
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June 24, 2005 - Another year of living misery in Baghdad
"In the streets of Baghdad, people wondered Thursday what else could possibly go wrong..."
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June 24, 2005 - Rumsfeld under fire on the hill
"Worry in Congress about the course of U.S. strategy in Iraq boiled over yesterday into a scalding attack on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and some of the toughest questioning of the Pentagon leader since the war in Iraq began..."
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June 23, 2005 - Sen. Bachman wants vote to bar protection to homosexuals
"Sen. [Michelle] Bachmann wants to persuade Minnesotans that they should vote on the definition of marriage. What Sen. Bachmann really wants is for Minnesotans to vote to bar protection of the law to the homosexual minority..."
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June 23, 2005 - U.S. general's remarks contradict Cheney on strength of insurgency
"The top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf told Congress on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency is undiminished and foreign fighters continue to swell its ranks, an assessment that appeared to conflict with more optimistic comments from the Bush administration..."
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June 23, 2005 - Survey indicates anti-Americanism now entrenched around globe
"Anti-Americanism has become entrenched in much of the world, so much so that in 14 of 16 countries polled in a new survey, China now rates more favorably than the United States - even among traditional U.S. allies in Europe..."
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June 23, 2005 - GOP using flag-burning issue
"Symbols are everything in politics. They can get you elected — or defeated. That's why Democrats fear getting singed by a proposed flag-burning ban, forced into a vote that Republicans will cast as a test of patriotism..."
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June 23, 2005 - Senate rejects auto fuel rules, delays energy vote
"The U.S. Senate rejected a Democratic plan to require better mileage for cars and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles on Thursday but put off a final vote on energy legislation until next week..."
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June 23, 2005 - House restores public broadcast funds
"The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted to restore $100 million for public television and radio broadcasting next year, reversing a Republican-led plan to cut spending deeply..."
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June 23, 2005 - Pentagon creating student database
"The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches..."
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June 23, 2005 - Bush may forgo private accounts
"Vice President Dick Cheney left open the possibility Thursday that President Bush would sign a bill to overhaul Social Security without his embattled proposal for personal accounts financed from payroll taxes..."
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Downing Street Memo - Full Text
"SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY..."
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June 19, 2005 - Spy on your professor? It must be your right
"Geez, I'm almost sorry I'll be on sabbatical next year.  That means I won't be in the classroom to see if I make it onto any right-wing hit parade of lefto/tolerance-of-homosexuality-promoting teachers who need monitoring..."
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June 19, 2005 - Wal Mart's reach/Who pays for fringe benefits
"In the waning days of the 2005 Legislature, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has declared war on Sen. Becky Lourey over a bill that would require public disclosure of big companies whose employees rely on state subsidized health insurance..."
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June 19, 2005 - U.S. should get started down the geo-green path
"So I have a question: If I am rooting for General Motors to go bankrupt and be bought out by Toyota, does that make me a bad person?"
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June 17, 2005 - U.S. view prevails on global warming
"Bush administration officials have succeeded in weakening a proposal for action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change..."
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June 17, 2005 - Democrats hold form to rally against war
"In the Capitol basement Thursday, long-suffering House Democrats pretended that a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard nametags and extra flags to make the whole thing look official..."
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June 17, 2005 - Democrats urge inquiry on Bush, Iraq
"Amid new questions about President Bush's drive to topple Saddam Hussein, several House Democrats urged lawmakers on Thursday to conduct an official inquiry to determine whether the president intentionally mislead Congress..."
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June 17, 2005 - Tim Penny: "No tax" scheme has run out of gas
"Quack, quack, quack. This week in a clever advertising campaign, a national anti-tax organization is attacking Gov. Tim Pawlenty for breaking his "no tax" pledge..."
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June 16, 2005 - Finding fault at the Capitol?  Consider the record
"State governance in Minnesota used to be considered a model for the nation. Now, it’s a basket case, more likely to get attention as a laughingstock than as a model for anything..."
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June 15, 2005 - Viewpoint: The time has come to address transportation
"One of the biggest issues facing Minnesota, and especially the rapidly expanding eastern corridor where we live, is our outdated transportation infrastructure..."
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June 13, 2005 - Editorial: Political science/Soft-pedaling climate consensus
"In the end, Americans may owe a debt of gratitude to Philip Cooney for his watering down of government reports on global warming..."
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June 13, 2005 - U.S. toll in Iraq pushes past 1,700
"The military announced the killing of four more U.S. soldiers over the weekend, pushing the American death toll past 1,700 — more than double what it was a year ago..."
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June 12, 2005 -  Sturdevant: As clock ticks away, workers wonder
"Debbie Raysor thinks the preservation of MinnesotaCare is worth fighting for. She would -- she's a MinnesotaCare enrollment administrator for the Department of Human Services... "
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June 10, 2005 - Court ruling likely to cost state $117 million
A Minnesota Supreme Court ruling Thursday could put another $117 million challenge in the state's ongoing budget battle..."
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June 10, 2005 - Public broadcasting targeted by House
"A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as 'Sesame Street,' 'Reading Rainbow,' 'Arthur' and 'Postcards From Buster...'"
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June 10, 2005 - Poll: Bush Job Approval dips to new low
"When it comes to public approval, President Bush and Congress are playing 'how low can you go...'"
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June 9, 2005 - The facts of life never relied on legalese and semantics
"The president wants us to think of ourselves as "former embryos." That phrase was on the T-shirts worn by some of the babies appearing with him last month as he underscored his opposition to a bill supporting the use of embryos for stem-cell research..."
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June 7, 2005 - LeClair's projections are off
" So far under the leadership of Governor Pawlenty and state Senator Brian LeClair, Minnesota’s fiscal situation has deteriorated and real per pupil funding for Minnesota schools has declined..."
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June 7, 2005 - Vote cast for new kind of U.S. elections
"The nation's election administrators say it's time to restructure elections to reflect the way Americans live, scrapping neighborhood precincts and Election Day for large, customer-oriented "vote centers" where people could cast ballots over a period of weeks..."
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June 7, 2005 - Sen. Ellen Anderson: Legislative panel plays important role
"Minnesotans feel strongly that we need to conserve our natural resources and protect the environment. That's why they voted to pass a constitutional amendment to create an Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund..."
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June 6, 2005 - GOP Worries ethics issue may hurt party on '06
"After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races..."
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June 4, 2005 - BlackBoxVoting Finds Voting Scan Machines Hackable
"Two new and startling discoveries announced by Bev Harris and BlackBoxVoting.org indicate that Diebold Optical Scan Machines are vulnerable to, and designed for, hacking that would modify the results of an election..."
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June 4, 2005 - Pawlenty, Hatch trade letters but aren't pen pals
"The open feud between Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch continued Friday, with a frosty exchange of letters..."
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June 4, 2005 - Bruce L. Montplaisir: '65 percent solution' is problematic
"Rep. Karen Klinzing's bill to put 65 percent of every operational dollar into "regular instruction" appears to be another unfunded mandate..."
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June 2, 2005 - Wal-Mart fights benefits disclosure in Minnesota
"Wal-Mart Stores Inc. does not want Minnesotans to know how many of its workers in this state receive public health care assistance..."
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June 1, 2005 - How the governor's political aspirations are preventing a budget deal; Minnesota Held Hostage
"During his deficit-laden two-and-a-half-year tenure as governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty's boyish affability has been his most formidable political asset..."
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