2008 Republican National Convention

The Politics in Minnesota website is steadily picking up steam, a day at a time. We are adding several new blogs across the spectrum to our blogroll today, and in the next few days we will join the nationwide Hotline Political Network, a loosely affiliated set of independent political reporting operations from California to New Hampshire. Hotline, published by the National Journal, is a well-regarded hub for national political news, drawing upon thousands of media sources.

Our new political blogs for the Minnesota political blog directory:

• Under journalist blogs: HometownSource.com/blogs, the ECM Hometown Source blog, which brings together four blogs written by the staff at HometownSource.com: The Upsider Blog by Patrick Tepoorten, Infinite Learning - Endless Possibilities by Elyse Kaner, The Howzer Connection by Howard Lestrud and Places I Remember by H Burke.
• Under conservative blogs: ChisagoGOP.blogspot.com is holding it down for the GOP in Chisago County, with four regular contributors.
• Under liberal blogs: Minnesota Farmer-Labor Caucus is keeping an eye on State House races and holding DFL pols accountable to progressive values.
• Under liberal blogs: LiberalMediaElite.com, which described itself in a pretty awesome way: "...a foul-mouthed political blog from America’s Heartland. Since we’re from the Midwest—the Heartland, that is—we have considerable moral weight. Because Midwesterners are the simple, yet trustworthy and moral, idiots savant of the American imagination. It’s true. Look it up."
• Under conservative blogs: GopConventionReport.com by Nicole Russell tackles the staffing and bits and pieces of early news about the 2008 Republican National Convention on its way to St. Paul.
• Under liberal blogs: MnImmigrantRights.net is covering immigrants' rights events in Minnesota, mostly event notifications. Runs on the Drupal engine, just like PIM!
• Under conservative blogs: M4GW.com, Minnesotans for Global Warming, an alternative conservative take on climate change, with funny images and material available, by Elmer Beauregard.
• Under conservative blogs: NorthStatesman.ning.com, "Save the USA while it still exists," looking out for globalization trends like the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the NAFTA Superhighway, the U.S. Rep. Ron Paul presidential campaign, offbeat conservative and tech news. [Also Ning.com is a nifty base service to build a social networking site like NorthStatesman from.]

Those are all the blogs to add that we've got right now. If you have already sent a blog notification into staff@politicsinminnesota.com and it's not here, it must have gotten lost in the shuffle, so send us another note!

If you have a blog we already listed, we'd really appreciate it if you returned the favor and add PoliticsInMinnesota.com to your own blogroll, and perhaps even a handy link to the well-rounded daily material of the PIM Morning Report, a helpful link for readers of any political orientation!

Update 10/19: We just posted two more back issues of the PIM Weekly Report:

• Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 3, Issue 13 - 8/10/07: In This Issue: The Race to Replace Ramstad; The Rammer is Rich; More Big Changes At The Star Tribune; A Modest Edina Media Spectacle; Larry Craig: Whose Waterloo?; Bits & Pieces; Lobbyist Watch.
• Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 3, Issue 12 - 9/21/07: In this issue: The 3rd: Ramstad Retires; The 1990 Ramstad GOP Endorsement Victory Redux; The 2008 GOP & DFL Endorsing Contests; Who Wins?; MnDOT's Travelin' Gal; Media Machinations; Back in Black: Blogger With PR Machine; Tunheim Acquires New School; Bits & Pieces; More Web Media Is Good Web Media; Stillwater Levy Blog Wars Get Way Too Personal; Lobbyist Watch.

We still have to dig up and post Vol. 3, Issue 11, a task for next week!

PIM Publisher Sarah Janecek is on an extended tour of the Middle East right now. We have heard very little from her lately, though she told us to let everyone know that "I had my first camel ride, the camel's name was 'Easy Does It,' which was not true of the camel." The full moon rose over the Great Pyramids near her hotel, and few of the political wrinkles of Minnesota will trouble her in the near future.

Due to the holiday weekend, no Weekly Report will be published this week.

PIM now has a regular gig posting a few daily political headlines from the Morning Report on MnSpeak.com. MnSpeak is a pretty nifty site focusing on stuff going on around the metro area, and it has lots of vocal regular posters; in all, a good place to check out what's getting big buzz.

It's been quite a while since we made any front page posts. However, five days a week we post PIM Morning Report batches here. We've been focusing on I-35W bridge and flooding news. Also we've got a new regular section, Big Brain Blogs & Think Tank Thoughts. Our Morning Report editor, Tracey Howell, doesn't have an infinite amount of time to go looking for blog material, since our focus is hard news. So drop her a line if you think something should go in the Morning Report.

We have just added three new political blogs to our massive Minnesota political blog directory. Drum roll please...

• Under institutional/think tank blogs, check out BehindTheMortgage.com by local mortgage guru Alex Stenback.
• Under conservative blogs, check out Carol Cooper's new SteamValveBlog.com.
• Under independent blogs, check out South Lake Minnetonka. We called it an 'indie' because it doesn't have a discernible partisan agenda.

If you've got a blog, consider adding PoliticsInMinnesota.com to your blogroll or sidebar: your readers will appreciate our blend of fresh news and links across the political spectrum! (And we like incoming links too!)

We have also just added a new Congressional Contact Information reference page. Here, you can get the office addresses, senior staff members, websites (both official government sites and campaign sites). It's nothing too complicated, but it should be helpful if you're looking to get ahold of your congressional delegates, or locate regional offices. The senior staff names may be slightly out of date; Members of Congress don't always share this information, and sometimes they don't even like to share their email addresses!

Here are a couple recent issues of the PIM Weekly Report: August 3rd's special bridge edition, and August 10. Our standard policy is to post them three weeks after our subscribers receive them, but we fell a bit behind.

More below the fold...

URL: http://lists.justcomm.org/pipermail/mn-prog-events/msg00592.html
Anti-War Committee Report from the US Social Forum
Tuesday 7/10 @ 7pm @ Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Ave S, Mpls.

At the end of June, AWC member, Jess Sundin, will attend the US Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. While there, she will join with other TC activists, as well as organizers from NYC (which protested the RNC in 2004), to lead a workshop where folks from around the country can talk about what to expect at the RNC and how to get involved. The report will focus on RNC preparations, but also be a chance to hear about the growing anti-war movement around the U.S.

Something about RNC news. Information about vendors, security, activists, planning, fundraising, sponsors, media & more...

The 2008 RNC arrives in St. Paul, Minnesota. We're going to feature more on the RNC - this article is just a temporary stub