A few years ago, on a brutally-cold winter night, I was standing at a bus stop on University Avenue at Oxford with a bag of groceries. An older - or older-looking - guy, wobbling from a day of drinking, wobbled around on the sidewalk behind me (It was 7PM, although dark as midnight in mid-January).  The guy wasn't feeling the cold.  He was muttering something under his breath.  He seemed agitated.  I kept my guard up.

I heard a car engine accelerate behind me - fast.  I turned, and saw a Saint Paul police cruiser, pouring on the steam and pulling across two lanes of traffic and heading straight toward the bus stop.

I noticed the drunk guy had started to amble north up Oxford Steet.

You remember how all the momentum was for the Metrodome site for the Vikings? And how it was Minneapolis, and not Ramsey County, that had the funding mechanism in place that could provide the chimerical "local contribution" that would fund a new stadium?

Good times, good times:

City Council insistence that public funding for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium must go before Minneapolis voters put the brakes on Mayor R.T. Rybak's plan for the Metrodome site Thursday. Sandra Colvin Roy, whose stance on the mayor's stadium plan was previously unknown, became the seventh member of the 13-member council standing against the proposal absent a citywide referendum. That vote is required under the city's charter if the city spends more than $10 million on a stadium, but the mayor and council President Barb Johnson would like the Legislature to override it.

A right-to-work law would bring economic benefits to Minnesota by creating a more dynamic economy and more responsive unions. This morning the Center of the American Experiment has released a report on the subject. You can read the whole report or my brief description of it. Right-to-work laws, which forbids contracts that make union membership mandatory, can be argued for on liberty grounds. This report, by contrast, looks at the economic benefits of right-to-work.

Last night, we started with a phone call with Andrew Campanella with the Alliance for School Choice. Then Nascar Kelly joins us to third-wheel the news of Bachmann's reelection campaign and Dayton's stadium meeting with Zygi Wilf. Also, Ben tells the story of how his car died in the morning before it was murdered in the afternoon.

You can hear the Late Debate every Sunday to Thursday from 10pm to Midnight on 95.9FM in the North Metro. You can also subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.

I don't really want to know how much money Debra Bosanek makes. But you have to wonder.

Bosanek has become something of the anti-Joe the Plumber in recent days because she is supposed to symbolize the downtrodden middle class worker who is getting jobbed on her taxes, especially in comparison to her boss. Bosanek is Warren Buffett's secretary and she and ol' Warren have been making the rounds in recent days, complaining about how unfair it all is.

As usual, there's more to the story. First of all, most executive secretaries make pretty good coin and I would imagine that Bosanek is no exception. A columnist for Forbes estimates that for Bosanek to pay the tax rate she claims to pay, she must earn well north of $200,000 a year. If this guy is correct, she might make closer to $400,000 a year:

If anything is certain, it’s that President Obama is a devout believer…in uberradical Saul Alinsky. This video shows Alan Colmes sitting like a potted plant and Monica Crowley explaining to Bill O’Reilly President Obama’s affinity for Alinsky:

Here's a nice little piece (amazingly appearing n the Strib) about Michele Bachmann's status on the national stage following her departure from the Republican Presidential contest. Its an interesting take in comparison to Goldwater in 1964, as in she's not leaving battered and bruised, but even stronger.

Michele Bachmann's national stature remains strong

• Article by: KIRSTEN DELEGARD

On Sunday, the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann made her first public appearance since pulling out of the presidential race on Jan. 4. At a protest against abortion at the Minnesota State Capitol, the conservative congresswoman was in her element as she rallied the faithful.  

Chip Cravaack has done alot to get mining going again. Chip’s op-ed outlines all he’s done to get things going again:

There is consensus among the PolyMet advisory panel I assembled: Mining without harm is the only way to build a sustainable, responsible minerals-exploration industry in northern Minnesota.

The PolyMet construction project will engage about 300 skilled construction workers and create 360 full-time jobs.

In last year’s State of the Union speech, Barack Obama hailed the great investment he made with taxpayer dollars in the manufacturer of advanced solar panels, only to have Solyndra go down the tubes — taking more than a half-billion dollars in taxpayer money with it.  In this year’s SOTU speech, Obama bragged about having sunk money into “partnership” with the private sector to become a world leader in car-battery sector.  Right on time, that “partner” filed for bankruptcy, too:

We heard a lot on Tuesday night from President Obama about the wealthy paying their “fair share” in his State of the Union speech.  (Well, you heard it a lot; I read the speech and then commenced to have a life on Tuesday night.)  Obama made half a dozen references to fairness in relation to taxes in the address, including taking a shot at Congress:

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes.

Just like with charity, perhaps fairness should start at home:

"In Minnesota, the state pays $4 billion to the HMOs to adminisiter health care programs and no one knows how the money is spent"...

The other day, Sally Jo Sorenson at snarkblog Blue Stem Prairie wrote:

Just this morning Bluestem observed that we simply can’t make this stuff up about the Republican Party of Minnesota when it comes to scandal and mayhem.

And if she could make stuff up, she’d be writing for Cucking Stool.

But I digress:

Former Senator Norm Coleman joined the Mitt Romney campaign in September, but hasn’t made an impact until now — and Romney may have wished he hadn’t. In an interview Sunday for BioCentury, a health-industry roundtable forum, Coleman said that ObamaCare won’t ever be repealed “in its entirety,” and that “you can’t whole cloth throw it out.” Truth telling, bad messaging, or both? > Watch

The Hill reported on this yesterday:

In the end, Michele Bachmann provided no surprises in her post-presidential bid path:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann announced Wednesday she will seek a fourth term in the U.S. House following her failed presidential bid.

Bachmann declared her plans in an interview with The Associated Press. The Republican congresswoman had been mum on her plans since folding her presidential campaign after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month.