Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney: Neither of these people is Jewish.

​From the "You're joking, right?" files comes a strange report in the New York Post that one of the most strident Evangelical Christians in America is being mistaken by some New Yorkers as a fellow Jew.

Oy vey.

According to the story, Michele Bachmann's name and her fierce support of Israel are confusing some Jewish folks, who have drifted away from supporting Mitt Romney -- what with all the Mormonism -- in favor of a nice Jewish girl like Michele.

Bachmann's spokespeople said they were unaware of the phenomenon. Then again, Bachmann has made repeated statements about her religion that, taken on their face, could really confuse someone who didn't know any better.
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Keith Ellison wants Khaled Mashal to set Galid Shalit free.

​Keith Ellison and a group of prominent American Muslims have sent a letter to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, asking that he release an Israeli soldier from prison.

In the letter, Ellison and others plead that Galid Shalit be set free on religious grounds. The letter asks that Hamas reconsider Shalit's case in light of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holiday that ended yesterday. Ellison has been on the case since he met with Shalit's parents in Washington, D.C. several years ago.

Reached by phone, Ellison, who's in town for an event earlier today with Tim Walz and Nancy Pelosi, told City Pages that Hamas letting Shalit out is the kind of gesture that could lead to substantive talks in the world's most intractable foreign policy struggle.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems so stuck," Ellison said. "It just feels like if [Shalit] would be released, that might open some space for real dialogue and progress."
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Sheriff Matt Bostrom is being accused of his old nemesis's alleged cronyism.

​The drama in the Ramsey County Sheriff's department plays on.

Two former sheriff's deputies just filed suit in federal court, alleging that they were axed in retaliation for supporting current sheriff Matt Bostrom's opponent in the last election.

"Based on information and belief, Bostrom . . . stated to Chief Deputy Metusalem 'If I don't like them, I'll just find a reason in their backgrounds to fire them,'" the lawsuit alleges.

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The Arden Hills stadium would look something like this.

​With all the crashing and burning that went on this session at the Capitol, one might presume that a plan to build a new Vikings stadium died the day Minnesota's government shut down.

Not so.

Gov. Mark Dayton says he still wants to build a new stadium, and he'd consider a special session this fall to make it happen.

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Ronald Blair, balloon assailant.

​The Wisconsin state employee who stabbed a protester's balloon with a knife is facing jail time for his actions.

Ronald Blair, 56, was stationed at the Wisconsin Capitol last month when Leslie Peterson came into the building to unleash balloons in protest against Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union regime. Protesters have been holding "Solidarity Singalongs" in the statehouse and capping them by releasing heart-shaped balloons into the air.

But on July 25, Blair, assistant director of the Division of State Facilities, "snapped" at the protesters.

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Tony Hauser, announcing his cancer diagnosis last year

​Anthony Hauser, whose son Daniel made national headlines when he fled the state in order to refuse chemotherapy treatment for his Hodgkin's lymphona, has died.

The death certificate has not yet been released, but a family spokesman says cardiac arrest--not cancer--killed Anthony Hauser last week. On Thursday Hauser had a series of six heart attacks, and the last one evidently did him in.

"We can't say for sure, but it seems possible that he was exposed to something from his farm or a neighboring area," says Dan Zwakman, a family friend. "All of a sudden he woke up one morning and had a hard time breathing."

Hauser, a dairy farmer from Sleepy Eye, leaves behind a wife and nine children under the age of 18.

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William Earles told cops he thought of the girl as a prostitute.

​That William Earles allegedly raped a 16-year-girl is bad enough. But the mental torture she claims she went through before and afterward makes it so, so much worse.

Earles, of Moorhead, already has one conviction of criminal sexual conduct in his past, and is facing a slew of new charges for his role in a pretty scummy scheme: His terrible plot was to force the 16-year-old to come to his house repeatedly and dress up in skimpy costumes for his amusement.

As a coercive weapon, Earles had obtained a nude photo of the girl and a sex tape she'd made with her teenage boyfriend. He threatened to release that material if she didn't keep visiting him and doing what he asked.

Once there, the girl says she was made to clean the house in outfits Earles picked out, and submit to "massages" she didn't want.

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George Soros, Gregg Steinhafel: Together at last.

​George Soros, the favorite bogeyman of the wing-nut right for his support of liberal groups and politicians, just pinched a bit more stock from Target Corporation -- a favorite bogeyman of liberals for its opposition to unions and gay marriage.

Imagine Soros, the Hungarian billionaire who throws piles of cash at groups that support unions and higher taxes for people like him, hanging out with Gregg Steinhafel, the Target CEO who paid $10,000 just for him and his wife to get close to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann last year.

Sounds like a sitcom.

No, wait! It's another of Soros's gambits, an attempt to turn Target into a business that pays more in taxes than the government asks, and is staffed entirely by baby trees.

No, wait! Steinhafel's flipped Soros, who will now spend his Target stock profits building golf courses on private yachts.

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In his attempt to escape, the suspect slammed his car into police.

​Six Minneapolis police officers were working undercover in south Minneapolis last night when a suspect drove his car into a police vehicle.

The wild scene took place around 6:30 p.m. last night on the 2000 block of Nicollet Avenue South.

After the suspect crashed his car into the cop car, which police took as a deliberate act to escape, at least one officer fired into the vehicle and hit the driver. One neighbor counted as many as 18 shots fired, according to WCCO.

The suspect drove off, continuing down an alley, but cops stopped him again after about two blocks. A passenger in the car jumped out and ran off, but police apprehended the driver.

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Malachi Raymond: Little renaissance man.

​Malachi Raymond, a student at the elite Blake School, attended his first day of fourth grade yesterday.

 

Malachi's teachers like him. According to his progress reports, Malachi is a little renaissance man. Teachers describe him as "independent" and "exuberant." They write that he's a "curious learner" and a "scientific thinker." One teacher also notes that he's "starting to view himself as a writer, which he certainly is." Another describes him as "a lovely person who takes pride in himself and drinks deeply from the cup of life."

The school cares so much about Malachi that it's invested about a hundred thousand dollars in financial aid for him since he first enrolled. This year, the school is picking up the tab on $21,000 of his tuition. Blake spokeswoman Cathy McLane says Malachi is "an awesome kid. He's doing really great here at Blake. We love him."

Which is why his mother, Quendy, was frustrated when school administrators told her this spring that she needed to pay an $800 balance on unpaid tuition for the previous year or else her son would be "met at the door and turned away" on the first day of school.

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