Secrets of the City

The AP tells the story: The lawsuit filed Thursday in Ramsey County District Court names the Republican governor and three of his cabinet members. It seeks class-action status for everyone who will lose state aid for medically prescribed diets or get smaller property tax refunds for renters.

MinnPost interviews one of the people affected: Deanna Brayton, 49, is disabled by multiple health problems: autoimmune disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative disc disease, osteoporosis, underactive thyroid, irritable bowel syndrome, traumatic brain injury. She has undergone 47 surgeries since being involved in a severe car accident — not her fault, she says — more than a decade ago. She also suffers from migraine headaches, anxiety and a host of other problems.

MPR’s Bob Collins tackles the subject of providing 50-inch, flat-screen plasma televisions for sex offenders, which Palwenty has come out against, even though faculty argue there is a clinical benefit to such televisions:

“Patients” in Minnesota’s sex offender “treatment” program have already served their jail time. They’re housed under the guise of being in treatment, even though experts say there is no evidence that there’s a treatment for sex offenders, and nobody who was committed under state law has ever come out of the program.

Casey Selix at MinnPost takes a look at the cuts Pawlenty made to healthcare for the poor, and how organizations that provide those services are scrambling to get people taken care of: “It was one of the most stark and heart-wrenching debates I’d ever seen,” Ness recalls of the floor debate over the veto override. “Veteran lawmakers were breaking down in tears about what this says about Minnesota.”

Pawlenty offered up his suggestion for health care reform Tuesday. From the Strib: Tim Pawlenty Tuesday proposed changes that would allow Minnesotans to purchase out-of-state health policies and let for-profit insurers into the Minnesota market.

The plan would also use co-pays and higher deductibles to steer lower-income people on Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare toward state-approved clinics — a move Pawlenty said could trim state costs by $100 million a year.

His plan is not without critics. One example, from MPR: “If Governor Pawlenty had been paying attention to the health care debate, he’d know that Democratic plans already include major improvements in health care technology to lower costs and improve care, as well as insurance portability.”

As the Political Animal blog points out, Politifact has given Tim Pawlenty a rating of “Full Flop” on the Cap and Trade issue: Back in 2007, Pawlenty was positioning himself as an environmental leader, pushing for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gases and a regional cap-and-trade plan.
 
Fast-forward to 2009, and he’s writing letters to Washington calling a Democratic plan to curb climate change, “overly bureaucratic, misguided” and “very burdensome on our economy.”

Speaking before an organization called Growth and Justice, former two-term Republican governor had some pointed things to say about Tim Pawlenty: “do the job you were elected to do”; “If you don’t like negotiating with the legislature you really ought not be governor, because they are part of the solution”; “is a time as never before in my lifetime when the governor has to be at the helm of the ship fulltime.”

The response from Pawlenty’s people: “Some people apparently don’t know when it’s time to leave the stage.”

From T-Paw’s Twitter page: Today, I took action to stop Minnesota taxpayer dollars from funding ACORN. http://is.gd/3mq5t

From the Star Tribune: But Kevin Whelan, a spokesman for ACORN’s Twin Cities affiliate, said the organization has never gotten money from the state of Minnesota “and there’s certainly not a dime to cut off right now.”

Obama is coming to Minneapolis to talk about health care, and Pawlenty ain’t having it. He says he might invoke state’s rights to prevent Minnesota from participating in a plan passed by Congress.

Blogger Squashed responds to Tim Pawlenty’s response to Obama’s speech to the students: You will never be President. I know this may be difficult news, but I thought it could save you a lot of wasting effort …

Your Presidential ambitions are doomed. The wingnuts won’t back you. They know you’re not one of them. They can smell sanity a mile away. And the rest of the country thinks poorly of trying (and failing) to pander to the fringe.

Everybody is wondering what happened to inspire Sarah Palin to resign as Alaska Governor. Minnesota Independent gives on possible answer – Pawlenty happened: “Palin’s decision, I think, was forced, in part, by Pawlenty’s decision not to run for governor again,” said David Schultz, a professor of law at Hamline University in St. Paul.