Marty Seifert was one of the 38 House Republicans to vote for the GAMC bill last week, but he has since vowed to uphold the Governor’s veto. Rep. Seifert is clearly showing that partisanship is more important than proving the 8,000 veterans who rely on GAMC with the care they need.

The Star Tribune reported that David Skulborstad, a military veteran who lost his job in 2004, relies on GAMC for more than his prescription drugs or doctors appointments.

"Having GAMC means I'm alive," he said. "I protected this country. In my moment of need, Gov. Pawlenty chose not to protect me."

Voting to upholding Gov. Pawlenty’s veto means that Rep. Seifert also chose not to protect veterans like Skulborstad. That’s why Alliance for a Better Minnesota will be running online ads to pressure him to stand by his original vote. We’re running 30,000 impressions on the Marshall Independent website alone, as well as on all the top websites visited in Rep. Seifert’s district throughout the weekend.

Clicking on these ads will allow Minnesotans to demand that Rep. Seifert honor his commitment to caring for the most vulnerable and veterans instead of putting partisanship ahead of Minnesota’s priorities.

We only need three Republicans to stand by their vote for the GAMC bill in order to override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto, so make sure you send Rep. Seifert a letter demanding he put veterans and the state’s most vulnerable ahead of partisan politics. Below are some of the ads you’ll be seeing if you live in Rep. Seifert’s district.

The big business lobbying liars are on the air here in Minnesota with ANOTHER campaign of lies and information -- this time it's about the "cap and trade" program in the climate bill, which just started to be heard in a Senate committee this week. A familiar coalition of conservative lobbying groups are running an ad which repeats the claim that cap and trade would cost families over $1,700 a year -- a claim that has been called "flat-out wrong."

At a press conference on Monday, WCCO's Pat Kessler pressed the coalition to explain why the ad uses an analysis which excludes tax credits and the revenue raised from emission permits that will be returned to consumers. Check out the video below:

After being corrected about whether it was a Treasury Department or Congressional Budget Office analysis that's cited in the ad, Minnesota Majority's Jeff Davis makes reference to a "study" commissioned by the Heritage Foundation. Except the Heritage Foundation "study" is really just a blog post which repeats Competitive Enterprise Institute's Declan McCullagh's analysis of the Treasury Department report. What Davis fails to mention is that McCullagh's analysis had been called “flat out wrong” and using “misrepresentations of the facts.”

The reporting on the Treasury analysis is flat out wrong. Treasury’s analysis is consistent with public analyses by the EIA, EPA, and CBO, and the reporting and blogging on this issue ignores the fact that the revenue raised from emission permits would be returned to consumers under both administration and legislative proposals. It is time for an honest debate about how to solve a long-term challenge and deliver comprehensive energy reform – not for misrepresentations of the facts.

Kudos to Kessler for pressing Davis on what the CBO and Treasury reports actually say. The reality is this: the EPA, the Energy Information Administration, and the CBO have each separately analyzed the American Clean Energy and Security (AES) Act, finding that this clean energy legislation would cut electricity bills, reduce global warming pollution, and cut oil dependence at a cost of about a postage stamp a day.

The truth certainly hasn't stopped conservatives and polluters like the Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the American Petroleum Institute from promoting this lie about cap and trade, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop clean energy opponents here in Minnesota.

Just like with health insurance reform, the most powerful way to fight back against their lies is to expose them by getting the truth out before they can frame the debate.

The problem is this: the lies work. Only 24% of people know what "cap and trade" is when you say it to them. But if you explain that cap-and-trade will finally make polluters pay for their harmful emissions, support jumps to 60%.

Rising energy costs has strained the budgets of working families. A strong climate bill can lower costs, end our dependence on foreign oil, and create millions of new jobs -- that's why it's so important that we fight these lies by spreading the truth.

Check out this short video from the Center for American Progress explaining the basics of cap and trade -- and how it'll help make our economy stronger. When you're done, take a minute to spread the truth.

Click here to watch the video right now and help make sure these lies don't pollute the debate.

From the HCAN Blog:

Health Care for America Now launched a new ad campaign today. The message? If the insurance companies win, you lose.

We’ll be doing national and DC television, plus print and online advertising targeted at Washington. Why so much beltway focus? To make sure lawmakers on Capitol Hill understand that there will be winners and losers in the health care debate and they have a choice to make between us and the insurance companies.

Here’s the TV ad:

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"[It's] under the guise of quote, volunteerism, but it's not volunteers at all. It's paying people to do work on behalf of government. There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums.

"As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this."

Well, the last application deadline was in February and successful candidates were notified within two months. So when Rep. Bachmann went on the air with her negative comments, she certainly would have known that Harrison had applied for Teach for America, if not that he had been accepted. It seems Bachmann has no choice but to see her child do this, as he obviously does not share her concerns.

This is just another example of Michele Bachmann’s nonsense. For more on that, watch the ABM ad below:

Ironically, this will mark the first year that Teach for America will be in Minnesota. According to WCCO, Minnesota has one of the highest achievement gaps in the country, which is why TFA will be expanding into the Twin Cities. Teach for America operates in 34 communities across the country. Although TFA would not disclose where Harrison Bachmann would be teaching, how delicious would it be if he were teaching right here in Minnesota? To learn more about Teach for America head over to their website.

Not only has Bachmann’s son joined the government’s brainwashing program, but TPMDC wonders whether she has an even greater disaster on her hands: the possibility that one of her children will now completely fill out the family’s Census form.

John Croman over at KARE 11 News writes:

Governor Tim Pawlenty's weekly radio show gives him a chance to tell a statewide audience why he'll never back an income tax hike for the wealthiest Minnesotans.

Friday's show was no different, except that his listeners heard the opposing message as well. Labor groups decided to target the very same listeners with the counter punch Friday, by buying air time on Pawlenty's "Good Morning Minnesota" show.

"We need the wealthy to pay their fair share," the announcer in the ad opined, "It's the only way we can invest in a better future."

That spot was sponsored by the Coalition of Working Families, a consortium of government employees unions and the AFL-CIO, which also launched TV ads and a www.maketaxesfair.org website at the same time.

"Cutting services hurts Minnesotans, hurts the fabric of our life in our communities," Diane O'Brien of Minnesota AFL-CIO told KARE, "And there is another way to address our budget crisis."

The coalition plans to call attention to threatened government services, as well as to how the state's tax load is distributed. The group cites the Minnesota Department of Revenue's most recent Tax Incidence Study, which shows when all tax bills are combined those in Minnesota's upper two income tiers pay lower effective tax rates than those in the middle.

http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/legal_policy/research_reports/content/incidence.shtml

"People who make a quarter of a million dollars a year pay a smaller percentage of their income for taxes than people who make $50,000 per year," O'Brien explained.

During the same radio show the Alliance for Better Minnesota, made up of other labor groups, ran a different ad also pushing for tax fairness.

"I don't don't have a radio show like he does," Tim Koester or Eagan says in the ad, "But I do have a question for him, why do I pay more than the richest Minnesotans in taxes?"

 Listen to the ads here and here.