MN health care votes Minnesota Democratic Reps. Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison and Jim Oberstar voted in favor of the health care bill, while Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson and Republican Republican Reps. John Kline, Erik Paulsen and Michele Bachmann voted against it. Oberstar joined Peterson and the Republicans in voting to bar all abortion coverage from the bill. The abortion amendment, which passed, provides that people who receive federal insurance subsidies cannot budy insurance plans that include abortion coverage. Continue reading
Category Archives: news
NEWS DAY | MN health care votes and Michele Bachmann’s lei / MN Job Watch / Deer hunting, baiting, eating / Afghan cops, Taliban
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NEWS DAY | Unemployment: 10.2% in October / Finding Fort Hood news / MN college funds gone / Don’t ask, don’t tell on MN tax refunds / Pawlenty’s bad idea / Bachmann Tea Party
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Unemployment: 10.2% in October U.S. unemployment numbers for October rose more than expected, from 9.8% in September to 10.2% in October. Some 35.6% of the unemployed had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. The total number of officially unemployed, plus discouraged workers, people working part time because they cannot find full time jobs, and those “marginally attached” to the work force – 17.5% in October.
President Obama is expected to sign an extension of unemployment benefits today. Yesterday’s report of the number of new unemployment compensation claims filed showed 512,000 new claims, down slightly from the previous week.
Minnesota’s unemployment rate fell to 7.3% in September, but is expected to rise in October. October figures will be released on November 19.
Finding Fort Hood news Yesterday’s shooting at Fort Hood, which left at least 13 dead, is all over the news today. Over at the Poynter Institute, Al Tompkins has a round-up of news sources, from the U.S. Army Twitter page to the New York Times Twitter list, and a comprehensive summary of what is known about the shooter. As hate groups lined up to denounce this as a Muslim crime, joined by Fox News, the Council on American Islamic Relations condemned the shooting, saying in part, “No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.”
MN college funds gone Minnesota college scholarship funds for the year ran out, and officials dipped into next year’s budgeted funds to keep their promises to this year’s students, reports the Star Tribune. The main reason is greatly increased college enrollment, as displaced workers return to school to upgrade their skills and more high school grads head to college because there are no jobs available. In one dramatic example, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities projected a 1.6% enrollment increase last year, but enrollment actually grew by 8%.
The Minnesota Office of Higher Education has $145.5 million allotted for MN scholarship grants, but will actually spend $158.4 million. Taking the money from next year’s allotment means meeting this year’s commitment, but falling even farther behind next year. Governor Pawlenty’s spokesperson said the governor will not recommend increasing next year’s funding.
Don’t ask, don’t tell on MN tax refunds Minnesota businesses that are owed corporate income tax and sales tax refunds by the state will have to wait a little longer, reports the Star Tribune. The reason: lower-than-predicted tax revenues, due to the recession. The state’s approach: don’t ask, don’t tell:
The state is currently delaying $128 million in corporate tax refunds to 461 companies and $11.9 million in sales tax refunds to about 350 to 400 businesses until late December. However, the Revenue Department is not notifying the firms unless companies specifically request a status update on their tax refunds. (emphasis added)
T-Paw’s not-so-new, not-so-good idea Governor Tim Pawlenty proposed a constitutional amendment Thursday, but critics immediately pointed out major flaws. The Minnesota Independent has a succinct read on it:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty unveiled a proposal on Tuesday to amend the state’s constitution in order to keep a lid on government spending. His plan would cap the size of the state’s general fund budget at the amount of revenue received in the previous two year cycle. But according to figures compiled by the Senate Majority Research office, Pawlenty has never submitted a budget proposal that would have met the fiscal strictures of his proposed amendment.
Not only is the amendment a bad idea in MN, and completely unlikely to pass in the legislature or in a voter referendum, but it is a bad idea that has recently been rejected in other states, according to Minnesota Budget Bites:
Tax and spending limit ballot initiatives were just rejected on Tuesday in both Maine (60 percent opposed it) and Washington (55 percent opposed it). So far, serious efforts to pass similar initiatives have failed in 20 states. …
And it’s unlikely to be popular with Minnesotans. In fact, Minnesota voters have recently demonstrated that they support tax increases when they are needed – note the recent successes just this week of school referenda.
The Minnesota Budget Bites post gives a detailed analysis of what the governor has proposed, what’s wrong with that proposal, and why it doesn’t matter all that much, because the governor “actually plays no role in amending the state’s constitution.”
Bachmann Tea Party vs MN true stories As MN’s Michele Bachmann rallied about 10,000 health care reform opponents in Washington, the AARP announced its support for the House health care bill.
Josh Marshall noted that the mainstream GOP leaders showed up and spoke at the Bachmann-orchestrated event, even though obviously uncomfortable with her tone:
Early this morning The Politico got hold of a Republican Study Committee email asking staffers to send their members to the event but also to avoid words like “rally” and “protest” in favor of “press conference” or “press event”. Clearly, there was an effort to sanitize the event and get away from Bachmann’s high-strung rhetoric about a “last stand” against health care reform. So on the one hand the House Republicans wanted to take over the event. But they also felt the need to get out in front of it, to be in front of the crowd. It was a perfect, real-time illustration of the current struggle within the GOP, with the party establishment trying to harness but also control and not be overrun by the grassroots mobilization on the right.
Among the more outrageous statements: a sign carried by protesters with an enlarged photo of dead bodies at Dachau, comparing health care reform to “National Socialist Health Care.”
For Minnesota stories of the actual impact of lack of health care coverage as the House begins debate on health care reform, see stories of GAMC recipients on the TC Daily Planet and twenty-four stories of people who suffered from lack of coverage collected by Take Action Minnesota.
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NEWS DAY | H1N1 update: cats, vaccine, peak? / Laptop pilots want to fly again / Extending unemployment comp / more
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H1N1 update: Cats, vaccine, peak? “Viruses are not transmitted between species,” was the common vet school and medical school wisdom not too long ago, according to our veterinarian, but common wisdom cracked again this week with a Washington Post report that a cat now has been diagnosed with H1N1. The 13-year-old kitty caught H1N1 from her human family, and humans and feline all have recovered. The Post notes that the virus has also been found in birds and ferrets, as well as humans and pigs. Continue reading
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News Day | Election results / Pop-up shops / Dinosaurs doing battle / Farmland conservation / Pawlenty shooting from the lip
Election results Easy wins for most incumbents in the Twin Cities. The exceptions: St. Paul school board challenger Jean O’Connell, endorsed by the teachers’ union, was the second-highest vote-getter in the regular school board election, and incumbent Tom Goldstein loses his place on the board. Other winners – Elona Street-Stewart, John Brodrick, Vallay Varro.
In Minneapolis, Ward 4 council member Barb Johnson and Ward 5 council member Don Samuels won the highest number of votes, but not a majority. (Full listing of council races here.) The city’s new Ranked Choice Voting will decide who wins those races, but results won’t be known for a while. Because no federally-approved voting machines were available for the RCV voting, a hand count of ballots will be necessary.
RCV is coming to St. Paul next, as voters there approved the ballot measure adopting Ranked Choice Voting for municipal elections. Minneapolis had one ballot measure, proposing abolition of the Board of Estimate and Taxation – voters said no.
St. Paul results began coming in by 8:30 p.m. and were all in before 11 p.m. Minneapolis results didn’t start coming in until abter 9:30, as ballots were driven to the warehouse, but were all in by 11:30 p.m. Minneapolis voter turnout was 19.5 percent and St. Paul turnout was 21.6 percent.
Official results will take a while, because of necessity for hand-counting under Ranked Choice Voting — TC Daily Planet explains here. Hand counting will begin November 4 at 11 a.m. at the Minneapolis Elections Warehouse, 732A Harding St. NE.
Outside Minnesota
In two closely-watched gubernatorial races, both Virginia and New Jersey elected Republicans, despite strong support for the Democratic candidates by President Barack Obama.
In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, formerly a solid Republican district, Democratic underdog Bill Owens won — with some help from Minnesota Republicans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty. Bachmann and Pawlenty were among the Republicans who endorsed Conservative candidate Douglas Hoffman over Republican moderate Dede Scozzafava. This weekend, Scozzafava withdrew and endorsed Owens.
In Maine, opponents overturned a law allowing same-sex marriage in a referendum. Across the continent, Washington voters approved Referendum 71, upholding legislation that gives same sex couples legal rights as domestic partners.
Pop-up shops With retail vacancies high, reports the Star Tribune, malls are looking more favorably on “pop-up shops:” short-term leases, often with a focus on the holidays (think Spirit Halloween Superstores) or smaller, local businesses trying to see whether they can make it in the big time.
This year, Toys R’Us has opened 80 temporary stores across the country for the holiday shopping season. Some mall managers, aware of how vacant storefronts look to customers, are aggressively seeking more tenants:
“When you come to Burnsville Center, it looks like we’re 100 percent occupied because when a space goes dark, myself and my associates work hard to find temporary stores,” said Robbin Hahn, the mall’s general manager. Burnsville Center is about 95 percent full, she said.
Dinosaurs doing battle That’s the way Susie Fruncillo, one of the owners of Lake Country Booksellers in White Bear Lake, described the current best-seller price war to MinnPost. Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com are offering current best-sellers on-line for about $9, well below the cost of the books. Use of loss leaders may attract more book-buyers to the Big Three dinosaurs,” but it’s also riled up authors, indie booksellers and lots of other people who care about books, reading and writing.
“It doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s best interest to be heading toward a future where it may be impossible for writers to earn a living and where it’s difficult for publishers to exist,” said Martin Schmutterer, an assistant manager at Common Good Books in St. Paul.
Farmland conservation: not so much Millions of acres of fragile farmland, taken out of production and put into the Conservation Reserve Program, is now being returned to production, reports AP. The reason: a cap on farmland in the Conservation Reserve Program, imposed by the 2008 Farm Bill. That means no renewals when farmland’s CRP status runs out, removing 3.4 million acres from the program this fall.
The program pays landowners not to farm easily eroded land and helps cover the cost of establishing ground cover to reduce soil erosion and establish wildlife habitat.
Most of the land losing CRP protection this fall is in Texas, Kansas and Colorado, but AP reports that Minnesota has a total of 1.67 million acres protected under CRP, with 166,519 losing that protection in 2009, 80,259 in 2010, and 128,018 in 2011.
Shooting from the lip Republicans managed to lose New York’s Congressional District 23 race, by giving vocal support to the Conservative candidate over a moderate Republican – and ending up with a Democratic winner. Two of the Republicans involved were Minnesota’s own Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty. Now T-Paw is shooting down another Republican, reports Minnesota Independent, calling for a litmus test to determine who the true Republicans are.
Senator Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican voting for the Senate health care plan in committee, came right back at him, with a defense of moderation.
But even if Pawlenty’s in trouble with Snowe, he can’t come near Michele Bachmann’s latest record-setting gaffe. David Brauer reports in MinnPost that she just got another “Liar, liar, pants on fire” rating from the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact:
For those of us keeping score, this is the seventh time Politifact has checked out a Bachmann claim, and the seventh time it’s been found false. Four of those seven have been rated “pants on fire” for high level of distortion.
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NEWS DAY | Coal loses, from Big Stone to Ashland / MN tops nation in civic participation / Two more reasons to go veggie / Visiting Burma
Elections today! Today is the day! For information on where to find your polling place in Minnesota, click here. For information on Ranked Choice Voting in Minneapolis, click here. For articles about specific races, click here.
Coal loses, from Big Stone to Ashland The Star Tribune reports that developers of the $1.6 billion, coal-powered, Big Stone II power plant in South Dakota have abandoned the project. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | Elections tomorrow / FBI in MN / Psychologist crosses the line / Afghan presidency / more
Election day tomorrow For Minneapolis voters, it will be a first experience with the new Ranked Choice Voting system, which is part of the reason for a plethora of candidates from across the political spectrum — and beyond. (That’s especially true in the mayor’s race, which includes the Edgertonite (“Laura Ingalls Wilder is God”) and “Is Awesome” candidates.) Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | Recession over! So is your job! / Police, property and punishment / Challenging Pawlenty’s cuts / Astroturfing in DC / Agreement in Honduras
Recession is over! So is your job! I was wrong yesterday in questioning the accuracy of conflicting journalistic verdicts on the economy. Today everyone is on the same page. The GDP is growing! The recession is over! And even though Target announced that it will cut 85 jobs from its 1100-person marketing department in Bloomington, its spokesperson told MPR, ” “This is not a reflection on the current or anticipated economy.” I bet that makes the 85 people feel a whole lot better. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | MPCA: Oops / H1N1 update / Atrazine on Halloween / Reporting on the economy
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MPCA: Oops The MPCA has apologized for issuing a gag order telling a Carver County Commissioner that he couldn’t talk about the problematic septic system at the Waconia Events Center. The Star Tribune reports that the apology came about a week after the gag order, and said, in part, “The letter of warning was not intended to limit your rights to vocalize concerns or comments, either publicly or privately.”
The MPCA, of course, has absolutely no legal authority to order anyone to stop talking about anything. As for “warning” someone about talking – same deal. As one comment in the Star Tribune suggests, “This should really raise a red flag. Does the MPCA need a shakeup in management to get back to it’s roots of pollution control?”
H1N1 update: Two schools closed, 266 hospitalized, 12 deaths New information released by the Minnesota Department of Health shows 266 people hospitalized last week and two more deaths, bringing the H1N1 deaths in MN to 12, according to the Pioneer Press. Some 288 schools reported flu outbreaks.
WCCO reported that St. Paul Academy and Summit High School are closed today because of flu, and students already have tomorrow off because of teacher conferences. Some 30 percent of their students are at home with the flu. Salem Lutheran in Stillwater also closed for the rest of the week because of flu.
The Star Tribune reports that 915 Minnesotans have been hospitalized with H1N1 complications since spring, including 655 since September 1, and that most of the hardest-hit patients between the ages of five and 18.
Atrazine on Halloween A Minnesota review of atrazine safety by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, the state’s Department of Health, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is due out around Halloween, according to MinnPost. That’s a few weeks after the feds announced the beginning of a major review of the controversial pesticide.
In MinnPost, Will Souder explains:
Atrazine was first licensed in the United States in 1958, and for many years was the most heavily used pesticide in the world. It has also been one of the most frequently detected contaminants of water. Atrazine and its breakdown compounds have been found in lakes, streams, reservoirs, clouds, rain, snow, fog, and in water ready for human consumption from drinking-water systems in agricultural areas. …
The new EPA review follows media accounts of inadequate monitoring and regulation of community water systems and a damning report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) last August that accused the agency of ignoring atrazine contamination in drinking water and in natural watersheds across the Midwest.
The European Union banned use of atrazine in 2003. Critics point to its persistence in drinking water and to spikes in atrazine presence in drinking water that are not measured well. They also argue that, whether or not atrazine is carcinogenic, it is linked ot various other problems, has been shown to cause deformities in frogs, and is an endocrine disruptor.
Economy up, economy down, and joblessness continues The economy “grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years,” signaling an end to the reccession, according to an AP report published in the Pioneer Press today. That’s good news, says the AP, despite the fact that joblessness is growing and wages are declining. But wait – another AP report published in the Star Tribune described “signs of a weaker housing market and a gloomier outlook on the economy” causing the stock market to slide.
Somehow economists and the media accept the end of a recession is measured in terms of “economic growth,” despite the fact that unemployment is still increasing. But even stranger is the seesaw reporting that has “a gloomy outlook” in one report and “the best showing in two years” in another.
Meanwhile, this morning’s figures from the Department of Labor show 530,000 new unemployment claims last week.
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NEWS DAY | Twin Cities are tops in housing, safety / Police lie, Minneapolis pays / More U.S., U.N. deaths in AfPak war
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We’re number one! Forbes magazine has just named the Twin Cities the safest place to live, and Twin Cities home price increases lead the nation, with 3.2 percent in August, on top of 4.6 percent from June to July. Of course, when you look at the numbers a little more closely, you find that foreclosure rates are also higher than the rest of the nation, and that home prices are still one-third below 2006 levels, but why let the numbers get in the way of a good headline?
The Star Tribune reports that rising home prices in the Twin Cities lead the nation, though prices remain 13.7 percent below August 2008 levels. One of the factors bolstering the housing market is the federal first-time-home-buyer tax credit, which has pushed homes sales throughout the summer, but is set to expire at the end of November. The Strib reports: “The median price [for Twin Cities homes] peaked in September 2006 at $229,000 and bottomed in April at $153,000.” August’s median home price was $175,000.
Foreclosure rates are rising right along with home prices:
Data released today by Realty Trac, an online marketplace for foreclosed properties, show foreclosures rising faster locally than nationally. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area had 9,767 foreclosure filings in the third quarter, a 13.5 percent increase from the second quarter and nearly double the third-quarter total last year, Realty Trac said.
But at least Forbes loves us, gushing:
Minneapolis tops our list of America’s safest cities, and not just for its crime rate. In ranking the cities on our list, we looked at workplace fatalities, traffic-related deaths and natural disaster risk; the City of Lakes ranked in the top 10 of all four categories. It’s also one of America’s best places to live cheaply and offers easy access to some of the most scenic drives in the country.
And what about St. Paul? We’re just lumped in as part of the “Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI” metropolitan area.
Minneapolis pays again This time the city is paying $100,000 for bad policing, a settlement for police misconduct caught on a Hennepin County Safe Zone video camera, reports the Star Tribune. The lawsuit alleged false arrest and discrimination, and the video showed that police officers’ descriptions of what happened were just about 180 degrees from the truth. See the video on the Strib website. One of the officers is already under investigation for his actions as part of the Metro Gang Strike Force, but police spokesperson Jesse Garcia said he wasn’t aware of any internal investigation or discipline based on the north Minneapolis traffice stop resulting in the settlement.
Judge Robert Blaeser had earlier dismissed criminal charges filed against the couple in the case, after viewing the tape and reviewing the police reports:
“One officer says the car was silver; one says it was gold,” Blaeser said. “One says it ran a red light; one doesn’t say anything about that. One says he saw somebody throw something out the driver’s door; the other one did not. One says the passenger was jumping on the back of an officer, pulling the officer, and that he maced her; and the other one does not. I’m going to find that there’s not enough credible evidence for a stop in this case.”
Bostrom vs. Fletcher Assistant St. Paul police chief Matt Bostrom formed a Bostrom for Sheriff committee, which means he probably will run against incumbent Sheriff Bob Fletcher in next year’s election, according to the Star Tribune.
Bostrom starts his race with a lot of firepower backing him with campaign co-chairs including U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn.; state Sen. Mee Moua; Police Chief John Harrington and Ramsey County Commissioners Victoria Reinhardt and Tony Bennett.
Bostrom helped oversee RNC security plannning, and drew criticism from Fletcher during that time, recalls the Minnesota Independent, with Fletcher “repeatedly warning that the St. Paul department had failed to recruit enough police officers to ensure that it went off without serious problems.” Fletcher’s RNC conduct is certain to be an issue in the campaign, but it’s not the only one:
The four-term incumbent’s also been at the center of an investigation into the activities of the beleaguered — and now disbanded — Metro Gang Strike Force. Two damning reports released earlier this year alleged that the law enforcement agency routinely seized money from citizens without justification, failed to adequately keep track of its assets and displayed a general disregard for the civil rights of citizens, particularly minorities. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department was the fiscal agent for the gang strike force.
War Reports
Pakistan Nearly 100 people are already reported killed in a market bombing in Peshawar, reports NPR, as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton arrived in Islamabad for a three-day visit. According to the Washington Post:
The bombing early Wednesday in a crowded market in Peshawar — about three hour’s drive from the capital — was the deadliest attack in Pakistan this year, and the latest in a wave of suicide bombings, assassinations and attacks staged in response to a major Pakistani offensive against insurgent sanctuaries near the Afghanistan border.
Afghanistan Eight more U.S. troop deaths in two attacks Tuesday brought the total U.S. troop toll to 55 for October, the highest number in any month since the war began, according to AP. All the deaths were in Kandahar province, and other troops were wounded in the fighting.
The military issued a statement saying the deaths occurred during “multiple, complex” bomb strikes. It said several troops were wounded and evacuated to a nearby medical facility, but gave no other details.
In addition to military deaths, three U.S. DEA agents were killed, along with soldiers, in a helicopter crash on Monday, and the bodies of three civilian crew members were recovered from the wreckage of a U.S. army plane that crashed in western Afghanistan two weeks ago. According to BBC, the three were also U.S. nationals.
Also on Wednesday, reports AP, the Taliban attacked both a U.N. guesthouse and a luxury hotel in the capital city of Kabul:
Gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 12 people – including six U.N. staff – officials said. The U.S. Embassy said one of the U.N. dead was American. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election.
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NEWS DAY | Pilots blame laptop / One more hole in the safety net / Flu anxiety epidemic / Waking up hungry / more
Blame it on the laptop Maybe the air traffic controllers trying to reach the two pilots on Northwest Flight 188 should just have emailed them. According to MPR:
First officer Richard Cole told the National Transportation Safety Board that he was explaining the scheduling procedures to the plane’s captain, Timothy Cheney, while the plane cruised past the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport at 37,000 feet. The new scheduling system was initiated following the merger between Delta and Northwest Airlines.
For an hour. As they heard and ignored radio calls from air traffic controllers. And failed to notice messages from company dispatchers.
The pilots acknowledged that while they were engaged in working on their laptops they weren’t paying attention to radio traffic, messages from their airline or their cockpit instruments, the board said.
Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall called the pilots’ behavior “inexcusable,” and no one is arguing with that. MPR’s News Cut has the NTSB memo and LOTS of discussion. The comments and the responses from Bob Collins make for interesting reading and are a great example of what a comment section looks like when it works – intelligent, informed discussion and dialogue.
Meanwhile, systemic problems still need to be addressed. MinnPost reports that everyone agrees on the need for better rules about airline safety, including revisions of sleep standards to prevent pilot fatigue, which was implicated in several recent incidents, summarized in the Christian Science Monitor.
One more hole in safety net Two emergency aid programs will end this week, reports the Star Tribune, probably putting more people on the street. Governor Tim Pawlenty cut funding for Emergency General Assistance and the state’s Emergency Minnesota Supplemental Aid (EMSA), both last-chance lifelines for impoverished, childless adults. Emergency funds are frequently used to get people into housing, by paying the upfront security deposit costs that would otherwise be an insurmountable barrier, even for individuals or families that can pay the monthly rent.
State officials say that the counties should use stimulus funds to meet their needs:
But that’s not an ideal solution, said Tom Pingatore, program manager with Hennepin County’s Economic Assistance department. Part of the problem, he said, is that TANF money goes to families with children, not single adults or childless couples.
Advocates point out that emergency money to keep or place people in housing actually saves money in the long-term. St. Stephens compared costs to the county for six people during the year before they were placed in housing and the year after:
The year they were homeless, the six cost the county and city about $95,000 for time spent in jail and at the workhouse, detox center, shelter and emergency room. The year they had housing, the cost came to about $16,000 — an average savings per person of $13,000.
Flu anxiety epidemic Park Nicollet opened and closed a flu shot hotline Monday, after the hotline was swamped with 120,000 calls in four hours, reports the Star Tribune:
The clinic, which had announced that it had 17,000 doses, was so unprepared for the outpouring that its entire phone system temporarily crashed under the weight of the calls.
Minnesota needs 718,000 doses for high risk patients, and expects to receive a total of 300,000 by the end of this week. As for Park Nicollet – they are asking high-risk patients to email flushot@parknicollet.com.
The Washington Post reports that federal officials blame vaccine makers for overly-optimistic delivery schedules:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in television interviews Monday that officials had been “relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy.”
World/National News
Let them eat cake Although the House passed a bill extending unemployment benefits last month by a huge 331 to 83 vote, the Senate is still haggling over Republican objections and amendments, according to Minnesota Independent — and 125,000 workers have run out of benefits while they bicker.
Waking up hungry AP reportsthat hunger is rising around the world, and that food prices are rising for the poor, even as global commodity prices and prices to farmers drop precipitously.One out of six people in the world “will wake up not sure they can even fill a cup of food,” according to Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program.
“The food crisis is not over. We have an anomaly happening where on global, big markets, the prices are down, but for 80 percent of commodities in the developing world, prices are higher today than they were a year ago, and the prices a year ago were double what they were the year before that,” she said.
Sheeran cited climate change, escalating fuel costs and falling incomes as causes for the increase in hunger, saying that 1.02 billion people are now “urgently hungry,” an increase of 200 million in the past two years.
Ex-Marine Foreign Service officer resigns in protest Matthew Hoh, who served in the Marine Corps in Iraq and then as a civilian Foreign Service officer in Afghanistan, resigned in protest last month, reports the Washington Post. Hoh said he had “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” and that his resignation was “based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.” He said that U.S. military presence in Afghanistan was strengthening the insurgency in what is essentially a civil war.
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” he told the Washington Post.
“There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed,” he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys.” …
As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because “I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right.’ “
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Mary Turck
