Morning MN politics newsletter
Your morning politics update.
May 13, 2015 at 2:09PM
Good morning. Six days remain of the legislative session. The fate of a budget deal is unclear. Patrick Condon was at the governor's residence late last night and here is what he passed along:
Talks broke for the night at 10:45 pm. The Republican group (Daudt, Peppin, Knoblach, Loon, Golnik) marched out the front door together, looking stone-faced, and declined to stop to talk to the handful of reporters still left. Bakk and co. left through the side door, inaccessible to reporters, and Dayton did not come out either.
Here's a summary story from Condon and Abby Simons. Republicans said Tuesday the DFL was stalling and acting in bad faith, with DFLers knowing they have the upper hand in a shutdown scenario, even touting polling that says so.
Talks resume at 11:30 a.m. today. Here's today's schedule, with the House in session at 10 and the Senate at 11.
Apparently Gov. Mark Dayton will interrupt the negotiations at 2 to meet with Minnesota State University Mankato students who have walked 147 kilometers to advocate for $147 million in funding for MnSCU (State Capitol Steps.)
Since when are we using kilometers?
Lt. Gov. Tina Smith will deliver the Alexandria Technical and Community College commencement address (Runestone Community Center, 802 3rd Avenue West, Alexandria) at 6 p.m.
Ricardo Lopez with a deep dive on teacher salaries, finding Minnesota teachers afflicted with the same problem all American workers face: Health care inflation eating into raises. Take a look. Useful charts too.
An important debate in the ISIL prosecutions: Were the men entrapped? Some of the terrorism prosecutions around the country since 9/11 have amounted to the feds setting up hapless fools who were never a threat to anyone.
Washington and beyond
Hagedorn taking on Rep. Walz again. (Rep. Tony Cornish will make his own announcement after session today, around 10:30.)
Jeb Bush with the first major flub of 2016, on the Republican side, not having a crisp answer to the question that was always most obvious: Iraq. This business of not understanding the question likely isn't helping.
WJC says on Letterman he'll move back into the White House if HRC wins, but only if HRC asks him to. I wanna see him mowing the White House lawn and drinking a cheap beer shirtless afterward.
Interesting argument: Poor people aren't poor because they make bad decisions; they make bad decisions because they're poor. The science of scarcity.
Re: the Amtrak derailment, here's a piece from National Journal that ran last month, Why can't America have great trains?
Now go forth and hurry up and wait!
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