Below, a Project VoteSmart excerpt:
Fully as expected.
MPR on voting record, here. Project VoteSmart has multiple pages on his record, as well as ratings and group affiliations, etc., starting here. Above excerpt from this page (having ratings on the "abortion" issues, linking over to Hackbarth's "100" listed rating, this page, along with 100 rated Mary Kiffmeyer, neither of whom should inspire public comfort when found armed outside an abortion facility).
CBS news, online here, carries the AP feed nationally, (which means the story has gone viral, even if it so far has failed to make CBS's "Most Popular" sidebar list).
I admit being a bit disappointed, his carrying what looks like a holstered .38 snub nose. He seems the kind, image-wise, who'd want to look able to drop a grizzly bear at four hundred paces, or have the personal firearm with him to do so, as part of his sartorial display and manhood surrogate.
One sartorially aimed comment on a Strib item, I think editorially removed by this morning, speculated whether or not he wears a rug.
Same wide-ranging 23 page comment thread, this screenshot, emphasis added:
One PiPress comment thread, I don't have the link, suggested this could be a start of a story line for a Coen brothers film. When national attention measures this against Michele Bachmann as a background indicator of who we are in Minnesota, there have to be pity, chuckles, eye-rolling, and outright loud guffaws.
More speculation, have any of the authorities thought to visit the estranged wife of 25 years, Mary, to inquire whether she's had cause to have recently been in the Highland Park neighborhood, or whether she's possibly been going out dating there? Just a thought. Arguably, it would make it an even more chilling armed-stalking incident if that were to prove to be an actual dimension.
Police should check it out.
Fact finding in all directions is a major part of their responsibility in such situations.
It's a police duty. A public safety duty.
Reporting states, "Hackbarth said he is in the process of divorcing his wife of 25 years," not saying "being divorced." This paints him as the active spouse rather than the responding spouse, that way. Apparently neither side's yet filed court papers. None show up in searching online district court judicial dockets.
Loose ends need tying.
____________UPDATE_____________
An exceptional reporting item is posted, here, at Minnesota Progressive Project. This story and all its actual or possible dimensions and implications will not go away; and the Olmon LTE draft quoted by Joe Bodell in the MPP item appears to be sensibly armed at education and enlightenment being positive outcomes the situation may yield.
No quote.
Read it all at MPP. It is excellent and necessary to say what's said there.
Again -- this is the MPP link.
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
The source the Olmon letter in the Bodell post mentions, has this particular page, appropriate because of the allegations of a grounding of the situation in internet dating site usage.
In looking briefly at parts of that site, it seems to me to define a sensible community standard of care and conduct against which Hackbarth's conduct can be measured; apart from community expectation of a higher degree of prudence on the part of a Minnesota House legislator than for men in the general public.
_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
More national coverage, Raw Story, here. Unsympathetic and skeptical reader comments, including noting he's from Bachmann's district, including this one good idea (as italicized, for emphasis):
98. Anonymous
One would think (and hope) that the police would investigate this guy further.
He shows up at a Planned Parenthood office packing a gun, lurks around enough to draw the attention of the security guard, then when confronted he claims that he was just trying to meet with some gal he met on-line.
Why didn’t the police get a search warrant, seize his computer and find out if he was telling the truth, or was he lying through his clenched conservative teeth?
It’s like all culture of corruption conservatives in America (especially the corrupt conservative politicians) have diplomatic immunity, making them all foreign agents, and being treated as such, getting get-out-of-jail-free cards, no matter how heinous and anti-American their actions.