News Day: Michelle Bachmann’s call to arms / Lake Wobegon county / Somali college student and FBI / more

Is it just because I’m on vacation, or are today’s news stories odder than usual? More vacation tomorrow – and no News Day post.

Today’s Michelle Minute She’s at it again. This time, MN Representative Michelle Bachmann called herself “a foreign correspondent on enemy lines” and called on Minnesotans to get “armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax,” citing Thomas Jeffersons’ calls for revolution. Taxing carbon emissions, says Michelle, “has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.” The Smart Politics blog has links to more Michelle moments. And MinnPost reports that Bachman and John Kline are teaming up to push legislation that would bar the Obama administration from sending Guantanamo Bay detainees to MN. Nice move that — maybe they would accept a friendly amendment to bar the gummint from sending us any Martian space invaders or rabid alligators.

On to Lake Wobegon County Meanwhile, Rep. Tarryl Clark is proposing to combine Stearns and Benton Counties and a piece of Sherburne County into a single central MN county, which she is tentatively calling Lake Wobegon County. That’s just a working name for the legislation. More here from MN Independent.

Taxes, taxes DFL legislators are trying to get a tax plan together, but can’t seem to agree with one another, according to a good Doug Grow analysis in MinnPost. Grow asks:

Given they have control of both houses, wouldn’t it have made sense for the DFL to have a unifed plan to counter Pawlenty’s? Given the fact that they’ve already got a tough enough product to sell to Minnesotans – both the House and Senate agree that taxes need to be raised – shouldn’t they now be trying to spend their time marketing the idea to the public that paying more taxes is a good thing for us?

When the FBI comes calling Laura Yuen interviews a college student, a “proud American of Somali descent,” who was “interviewed” by the FBI, providing a fascinating account of what he experienced as heavy-handed FBI “interrogation.”

“We know something is going on. You believe you’re not telling us the truth, so you might want to tell us the truth. Is there something you’re hiding from us?’ I was like, no there isn’t anything I’m hiding from you. I’m telling you all I know, and that’s it,'” said the young man.

He was subsequently subpenaed to testify before a much less intimidating grand jury. Grand jury proceedings are secret, and so are witness lists and testimony. Grand juries have been used as investigative tools in political cases over the decades, and no one in the FBI or U.S. attorney’s office will say what this one is investigating or why.

300 foreclosed homes up for auction More than 300 foreclosed homes will be auctioned off Saturday, reports Steve Alexander in the Strib.

It’s the fourth Minnesota auction for Real Estate Disposition Corp. (REDC) of California, which sells homes repossessed by banks within the last year in what it calls “as-is” condition. Most homes have starting bids of a few thousand dollars, although a few start at more than $100,000. Winning bidders have to put down cash deposits equal to 5 percent of the purchase price.