Summary: Despite a recent upsurge in threats and violence by far-right groups and loners, the Homeland Security Department appears gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials say that even though, in light of recent events, a controversial report issued a year ago by Homeland Security about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department has done nothing to re-issue the report or update it. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 17, 2009, Aubrey Immelman featured abstracts of research projects on the personality characteristics and leadership style of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under his direction.

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Summary: Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public and tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 16, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a Homeland Security Department intelligence estimate warned that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members and incite violence. He also reported on a pro-life public lecture by Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.

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Summary: Sen. John McCain says the United States has been backing away from a brewing fight with Iran, while that country moves ever closer to having nuclear weapons. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 15, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that drug cartel gun battles that leave dead bodies yards from American soil have turned Mexico’s bloodstained northern border into a major foreign policy challenge for President Barack Obama.

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Summary: GOP activist Luke Hellier, in an apparent attempt to taint the reputation of Michele Bachmann’s Republican challenger, Aubrey Immelman, posted a misleading report on the “Minnesota Democrats Exposed” website. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 14, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the three-judge panel in the Coleman v. Franken U.S. Senate recount trial issued its final judgment, ruling that Democrat Al Franken won the most votes in his 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman and is therefore entitled to an election certificate.

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Summary: Aubrey Immelman announces a second challenge to incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann for her U.S. House of Representatives seat in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, on a platform of national security, law and order, fiscal responsibility, and opposition to political extremism. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 7, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President Barack Obama had flown unannounced into Iraq and, cheered by U.S. troops, declared it’s time for Iraqis to “take responsibility for their country” after America’s commitment of six years and thousands of lives.

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Summary: The Associated Press reviewed tea party operations in almost every state, interviewing dozens of local organizers as well as Democratic and Republican strategists to produce a portrait of the movement to date — and its prospects for tilting the November 2010 midterm election. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that North Korea had fired a multistage rocket over Japan, defying Washington, Tokyo, and other world leaders who suspect the purpose of the launch was to test its long-range missile technology.

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Summary: “Welcome Home” event for the Minnesota National Guard 34th Infantry Division Red Bulls and other Central Minnesota military veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), organized by the St. Cloud Times and St. Cloud-area civic organizations and businesses. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 28, 2009, Aubrey Immelman featured a compilation of reports regarding U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s conspiracy theory that the United States would soon be moving to “give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency,” which would mean the U.S. as a country would be “no more.” (Bachmann grabbed the mythical ball and ran with it after China’s central bank governor suggested replacing the weakening dollar as the world’s reserve currency.)

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Summary: Nancy Carver of Rice, Minn., has led by example by restoring her shoreline on Little Rock Lake to native flowers and grasses during the past two years. She is helping educate her neighbors on how to develop restoration plans for their shorelines. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 21, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that two of his student research associates in the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, Sarah Moore and Angela Rodgers, presented their research on “The Personality Profile of President Barack Obama: Leadership Implications” at the 6th annual Minnesota Private Colleges Scholars at the Capitol event, Feb. 19, 2009 in the State Capitol rotunda, St. Paul, Minn.

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Summary: The incendiary rhetoric of demagogues like Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann is powerful because it slips through the cracks in our acculturated human rationality, with its biological substrates in the fontal cortex, to hit a lower nerve in the subcortical brain regions of the limbic system, the seat of emotion. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 15, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq had significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program.

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Summary: Vice President Joe Biden belittled Dick Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s commitment to fighting terrorism as either “misinformed” or “misinforming,” saying the Iraq war wasn’t worth it because of “the horrible price” paid. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 14, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a female suicide bomber struck a tent filled with women and children resting during a pilgrimage south of Baghdad, killing 40 people and wounding about 80 in the deadliest of three straight days of attacks against Shiite worshippers.

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