War

3rd CD: Debate tonight, new party ads, and a gender gap on parade

While the country turned its fickle eyes to Minnesota’s suddenly compelling 6th Congressional District contest, the race for the state’s 3rd District didn’t stop being hot. Over the last two days, both major parties’ congressional committees unveiled new TV ads. Big male guns vouched for the Republican candidate, state Rep. Erik Paulsen, and big female guns tried to widen a gender gap for DFLer Ashwin Madia — while heaping derision on another female office-holder, state Rep. Michele Bachmann. All this and more, with video and details about tonight’s candidate debate in Edina, after the jump.

ACLU files FOIA request over domestic Army deployment

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a freedom of information (FOIA) request to the U.S. government over “reports that an active military unit has been deployed inside the U.S. to help with ‘civil unrest’ and ‘crowd control’ – matters traditionally handled by civilian authorities.” As MnIndy has reported, the Army’s Consequence Management Response [...]

RNC8 supporters urged to phone in protests to officials today

With several members of the RNC8 — the people charged with felonies in conjunction with planned protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last month — heading to court today for hearings in their cases, the Friends of the RNC8 are asking supporters to phone three local officials today to urge that charges [...]

Clips from the U.S. Senate debate

The redoubtable folks at the Uptake have posted the entire U.S. Senate debate between Norm Coleman, Al Franken and Dean Barkley. You can watch the whole thing in one dreary sitting if you’re a glutton for energy policy discussions and political bickering. But they’ve also made it available in a more palatable question-by-question format. I thought the most interesting part of the evening was the two questions focusing on foreign policy, with Barkley and Franken taking turns teeing off on the pinata presented by the incumbent’s unflagging support of the Iraq war. Watch the clips after the jump:

Five things Michele Bachmann and the “surge” evangelists aren’t telling you

This week at the 6th District congressional debate in Stillwater, Michele Bachmann hailed last year’s “surge” of troops to Iraq as an unmitigated success, saying it has done “what no one thought was possible.”

Not so fast. Here are five things Michele Bachmann and the “surge” evangelists aren’t telling you.

Righty pundits express growing reservations about prisoner-of-words Palin

George Will (pictured), David Brooks, David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, Ross Douthat, National Review’s Kathleen Parker: The LA Times runs down the growing roster of pro-GOP pundits making discouraging sounds about Sarah Palin following her tongue-tied performance in last week’s round of interviews with Katie Couric of CBS.

Video: Obama’s (annotated) debate criticisms of McCain on Iraq

HuffPost has assembled a short video of the passage from Friday night’s debate when Barack Obama ran down a laundry list of John McCain’s errors in judgments about the Iraq War, inserting clips of McCain’s own contemporaneous words on the subject. And all in less than two minutes. Recommended.

Army Combat Brigade to take on first-of-its-kind homeland security detail

“Sea-smurf”: The pronunciation for the acronym couldn’t be any cuter, but the duties of the U.S. Army’s CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force (CCMRF) could potentially be quite ugly — using military tactics, including some tested in Iraq, amid civilian populations here in the U.S.

‘We are numb to war’: Brother of young woman arrested in preemptive raids speaks out

Police would like to to paint 23-year-old Monica Bicking, whose home was raided on Saturday, August 30, as part of a preemptive strike against RNC protesters, as a “terrorist.” But her brother, Ian Bicking, has come out to speak in support of his sister, whom he says was arrested in an attempt to preemptively suppress the protests at the Republican National Convention.

Army of One: ‘Soldier’ billboard that CBS nixed finds new home

A lone billboard portrait of an American soldier, part of a series that CBS Outdoor backed out of last week, will go up today on University and Cleveland avenues in St. Paul. Clear Channel agreed to mount one of the images from artist Suzanne Opton’s “Soldier” project for one month at a cost of about [...]