Gangs in the ‘burbs? Right on cue, as criticism of the Gang Strike Force mounts and grumbles about withdrawing from the multi-jurisdictional mess are reported, comes a Strib article about the gang threat in the suburbs. Continue reading
Category Archives: news
News Day: Gangs in the ‘burbs? / Bedbugs to Borers / Peeling back The Onion / Raiding health care fund / more
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News Day: Michelle Bachmann, Norm Coleman / Health care in jeopardy / Swine flu updates / more
Mad Michelle Minute Minnesota Independent chronicles the latest Bachmania, reporting that Bachmann offered an amendment to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act to ban groups facing federal indictment for voter fraud from receiving federal foreclosure relief funds. She proudly explained that “I want to ensure that organizations, such as ACORN, are prohibited from receiving funds while simultaneously facing charges of voter fraud and tax violations.” Only problem with that: ACORN says “The truth is, no criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN, its leadership, or partner organizations.”
Norm Coleman files Yesterday, Norm Coleman filed his brief before the MN Supreme Court, with “few, if any” surprises, reports Eric Black in MinnPost. Read the brief, which goes on for 62 pages ad nauseam (a legal term, of course), or the Eric Black summary — or just skip the whole lthing because there’s nothing there that you haven’t already heard over the past six months.
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News Day: Mad Michelle Minutes / Sun setting for local media chain? / The virus formerly known as swine / more
Mad Michelle Minute Today’s Michelle Bachmann updates: Making hate crimes illegal means protecting pedophiles and not protecting 85-year-old grandmothers and FDR’s “Hoot-Smawley” tariffs turned a recession into the Great Depression. Of course, that’s actually the tariff authored by Republican Senators Smoot and Hawley, and signed by Republican President Herbert Hoover. Thanks to Minnesota Independent and TPM for today’s Michelle Minute.
More bad news in local media David Brauer at Braublog continues to keep us up-to-date on media news, and that’s usually bad news.
• Now the American Community Newspaper newspaper chain, which includes more than 40 local suburban Sun newspapers, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. “No impact on day-to-day operations” is the usual mantra, but nobody believes that.
• Over at the University of St. Thomas, the student newspaper is being killed to make way for TommieMedia.com, “a future one-stop shop for student-produced radio, broadcast and ‘print’ media.”
• Not that they have every been great local news sources, but now the local Clear Channel stations ((KFAN, K102, KOOL 108, KDWB, Cities 97) will get their news feeds from Colorado.
The virus formerly known as swine Now that the first MN case has been confirmed, the MN health commissioner has asked that we all learn to say “H1N1 novel influenza” instead of “swine flu.” Anybody think that’s going to catch on? There’s a good reason – too many people here and around the world are afraid you can get The Disease by eating pork, and that’s killing pork prices. (In Egypt, the government has ordered the slaughter of all pigs – an estimated 300,000 in the country.) For better answers, take a look at Pandemic and panic: Swine flu Q&A.
Medical marijuana The MN Senate passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana – on to the House – and then to T-Paw’s veto.
Schools going down for the count The Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD) has counted the damages from legislative education funding proposals, and the numbers are bad, report the PiPress, the Strib. and . Bottom line: Metro area school districts would have to cut $135.7 million to $222.5 million next year under the House and Senate budgets. That translates to job cuts for 1,200 employees at more than 30 metro districts, with 512 to 854 layoffs targeting teachers.
Scott Croonquist, executive director of AMSD, says “The governor has the best proposal on the table right now, absolutely,” since T-Paw’s plan gives a slight increase in funding in year two of the biennium, albeit targeting that funding to specific schools under Q-Comp.
Minnesota 2020 has surveyed rural schools, and reports grim prospects for cuts there as well.
The districts reported that on average they plan to lay off 4 percent of their faculty, 5 percent of administration and 6.5 percent of non-licensed staff to make ends meet.
MN Job Watch From the U.S. Department of Labor: New unemployment claims for the week ending April 25 stood at 631,000, down from the previous week’s revised figure of 645,000. According to AP, the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits increased to 6.3 million, the highest number since 1967.
National/World headlines
• BBC: Watch out, Google! Here comes Wolfram Alpha, which”is like plugging into a vast electronic brain,” according to one expert. “It computes answers – it doesn’t merely look them up in a big database.”
• BBC: Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish targets in northern Iraq, hours after the deaths of 10 Turkish soldiers in two separate attacks that were blamed on the rebels.
• Daily Kos: Fox refused to carry the president’s press conference – and President Obama didn’t call on Fox for a question, though he did call on all the major networks. The Daily Kos says “Amen — there’s no reason to pretend that Fox is anything but a GOP propaganda tool.
• Congress passed a non-binding budget resolution — with no GOP votes.
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News Day: Big stink at the MPCA / Lies, mistakes and spreadsheets in St. Paul / “New wave” foreclosures / more
NOT in News Day today News about swine flu, Arlen Specter, the neverending Franken/Coleman saga, or the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s presidency. (Except to note that the ever-in-the-press Michelle Bachmann archly observed that swine flu seems to occur only under Democratic presidents. Only one problem, Eric Black points out: the other recent swine flu scare started under the decidely non-Democratic Gerald Ford in 1976.
Big stink at the MPCA Neighbors repeatedly driven from their homes by the stench from the 1,500-cow Excel Dairy near Thief River Falls are seeking to close it down. State and federal health officials have declared the dairy a public health hazard. Neighbors want the dairy shut down, citing past bad behavior. (This is not a small bunch of tree-huggers — the Marshall County Board also is also on their side.)
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News Day: Ellison arrested / Fong Lee inside story / Mpls: From suspended principal to school closings / MN health cuts / more
In good company Rep. Keith Ellison was arrested Monday, along with civil rights icon and Georgia Rep. John Lewis, and others, as they protested at Sudan’s embassy in DC. After indictment of President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur, Bashir ordered foreign aid workers to leave the country. That cuts a lifeline for embattled Darfur, where the U.N estimates that 300,000 people have been died in the war since 2003, and 2.7 million people are receiving aid after being forced out of their homes. Ellison said:
Today, I join with my Congressional colleagues and advocates from Save Darfur and ENOUGH to demand the Government of Sudan immediately take humanitarian action on the situation in Darfur. …
We implore all countries to demand that the Government of Sudan respect and protect human rights and put an end to the acts of atrocities and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
BBC has an informative Q & A that traces the roots of the conflict and describes the International Criminal Court proceedings. More background is available at Sudan: A nation divided
Fong Lee: The inside story Hmong Today has just published a major story on the Fong Lee case, including the family’s point of view as well as a detailed analysis of the evidence released to date. The story describes the police failure to interview eyewitnesses to the chase and shooting, and the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department’s failure to investigate a complaint filed with the agency. Editor Wameng Moua notes that, “Despite Chief Dolan’s many references to an article that ran in Hmong Today, our request for an interview in regards to the Fong Lee case has been denied, “’At the request of the City Attorney.’”
The TC Daily Planet reported earlier this month that the chief gave an exclusive interview to the Strib about the legal case arising from the 2006 police shooting of Fong Lee, but did not respond to requests for interviews from the PiPress, which has reported on the family’s side of the ongoing lawsuit. Subsequently, Chief Dolan also gave exclusive interviews to MPR and KSTP.
Rallying support for Cadotte Last night, supporters gathering to protest the suspension of Burroughs principal Tim Cadotte heard that several legislators were demanding action as well:
Sen. Scott Dibble, Patricia Torres Ray, and Ken Kelash — as well as Rep. Frank Hornstein, Jeff Hayden, Paul Thissen and Speaker [Margaret Anderson] Kelliher, calls the quick move to place Cadotte on leave “alarming.” The letter added that Cadotte “must be reinstated to his position as soon as possible.”
MPR also reported receiving an email from Cadotte that read:
“I am overwhelmed at the support I have received. Sometimes you forget that there was a day you helped a first grader zip up their coat, called home for a student that forgot their lunch or double over when a student tells you a joke you have heard a hundred times but somehow it is funny all over again. I have been reminded 10 fold. I want my families to know I say ‘Thank you.'”
Meanwhile, Minneapolis Public Schools continue to move forward with a reorganization plan for 2010-2011 that would include redrawing attendance lines, reducing busing, and closing four schools: Pratt Elementary, Northrop, Longfellow and Folwell. The recommendation will be presented to the school board tonight, with a month of public hearings to follow before school board action. News stories about the plans cite the need to fix a $28 million deficit in the 2009-2010 school year, but it’s not clear how changes for 2010-2011 could do that.
As the district, school board, and community contend with the painful decisions on cuts and equally painful charges and countercharges of racism, currently focused on the Burroughs dispute, School Superintendent Bill Green sent out an op/ed article calling for reconciliation.
MN Job Watch GM cuts in dealerships and staff across the country will hit Minnesota hard:
Scott Lambert is vice president of the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association. He estimates that that as many as 50 of Minnesota’s 138 GM dealerships could be closed. And he says some 2,000 jobs in the state could disappear under GM’s plan to close 42 percent of its 6,200 U.S. dealerships by the end of next year.
• The Minnesota Historical Society Press is cutting four of 11 positions and decreasing the number of books it will publish by 30%, due to state budget cuts.
House, Senate slash health funding Both the House and Senate passed omnibus health and human services funding bills, and both slashed funding for health and human services. Session Daily reports:
After more than eight hours of debate, the House passed 85-49 the omnibus health and human services finance bill. HF1362 does not change eligibility requirements for Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare, but hospitals, long-term care facilities and those using public dental assistance would all receive reductions.
Sponsored by Rep. Thomas Huntley (DFL-Duluth), the bill includes delayed rebasing for nursing homes; a 3 percent cut to long-term care facilities; a 3 percent reduction to hospitals, including reducing reimbursement rates for those on Medical Assistance and General Assistance Medical Care; and limiting personal care attendant hours to 310 per month per individual.
Senate cuts go even deeper, though not as deep as the cuts demanded by the governor.
MinnPost headline:
Now that’s reassuring!
Bachmann: The energizer bunny Not only does she get around to dozens of talk shows – now Michelle Bachmann, who said she wanted citizens “armed and dangerous” over Barack Obama’s proposed energy tax has been appointed to the House GOP American Energy Solutions Group. And, just in time, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Commiteee has launched “Bachmann Watch,” a website for fact-checking Michelle Bachmann. MnIndy reports that she’s already using the existence of the site as a basis for a new fundraising appeal.
Less help for immigrants Centro Legal closed its doors after 28 years, leaving one less place for MN immigrants to find legal aid. The burden on the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota will increase, and it has committed to taking on many of the people whose cases are still open and who were previously represented by Centro Legal. Federal restrictions severely restrict the ability of most legal aid programs to serve immigrants. Some of Centro Legal’s funders will transfer grants to the Immigrant Law Center of MN, including a United Way grant for work on domestic violence issues.
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News Day: Swine flu / MN taxes / Naked hikers / more
Swine flu: Emergency? Epidemic? Pandemic? A new kind of flu — H1N1 –has fearmongers topping the headlines everywhere else, so we may as well follow suit. For actual information, check the CDC, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the University of Minnesota Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy. As the story progresses, these will be good links to keep on hand. And now for the facts: A new strain of flu, caused by a virus with genetic components from pigs, birds and humans, emerged in Mexico. This virus is different from previous swine flu because it can spread from human to human.
No one knows how many people in Mexico have the virus, but Mexico has reported more than a hundred deaths from this flu and hundreds of other people who are sick. The government has closed schools and daycare centers in Mexico City to try to stop the spread of the flu. Far smaller numbers of cases have been reported in at least five U.S. states (CA, TX, KS, NY, OH) and in Canada and Spain. (No cases in MN yet.)
Most people who get swine flu get better. That’s one reason that the extent of the outbreak is hard to track. Tracking the begins with a throat culture, and most people who have flu do not visit a doctor.
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News Day: Lightening up in the legislature / Burroughs brouhaha / Union battles / Entenza announces / more
A little legislative levity In a day that ran long past midnight, Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) injected a little humor, offering an amendment that would require:
“A legislator that lives within 50 miles of the State Capitol must provide housing, food, laundry and entertainment for legislators that reside greater than 50 miles from the State Capitol during a special session.”
Rep. Joe Mullery (D-Minneapolis) wanted an assurance that metro legislators could choose which colleagues they wanted to entertain, but after a bit of back-and-forth that included inserting the word “wholesome” before “entertainment,” the proposal was scuttled and what City Hall Scoop called the “world’s best amendment” was withdrawn.
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News Day: Contract or furlough? / Crippling health care / Taking away the children / Comic relief, more
Contract or furloughs or both? State workers who are members of AFSCME and MAPE “won’t be required to take unpaid furloughs under a tentative two-year contract reached Wednesday with the state, according to the unions,” reports the Strib. That was the first read on the contract agreement, and seemed to be good news, since T-Paw had been threatening/demanding 48 unpaid furlough days over the next two years, which works out to a little more than five weeks per year.
But wait — T-Paw’s spokesperson, Brian McClung, jumped in to say the contract makes no guarantees and state government retains its “existing ability to furlough employees if necessary.”
Crippling health care in MN The PiPress details testimony by health care leaders that describes the crippling impact of T-Paw’s plan to remove as many as 93,000 Minnesotans from state-subsidized health programs. Twin Cities health care providers have cut more than 1,500 jobs since last fall, as uncompensated care in the sate rose to an estimated $601 million in 2008. Hospitals said the influx of uninsured patients would mean massive losses and would require cuts in services:
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News Day: Torture – again / Crime and taxes / Principal suspended for talking in school / more
Torture – again I am sick of reading about torture. I am not going to stop reading about it, because this is what my country did in my name. It makes me sick, but that is not a sufficient reason to “walk away” as Peggy Noonan recommends. The United States tortured prisoners and that was official government policy. Someone must be held accountable. MORE
Crime and taxes The legislature is hard at work on the budget, which means fiddling with tax and crime laws.
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News Day: Subsidizing corn for a sacred cow / The professor is a man / MN Job Watch / Around the world in 90 seconds, more
Subsidizing corn for a sacred cow A 107-page report (PDF) from the state legislative auditor’s office says the state should stop subsidizing ethanol and questions the potential for increased environmental benefit from increasing production of corn-based ethanol.
The recommendation to end public subsidies for ethanol producers is based on strictly economic analysis that shows increased profitability for ethanol producers has eliminated the justification for subsidies. The state program, begun in 1987, is a producer payment program. The Job Opportunity Building Zones (JOBZ) program has also provided subsidies for recently-built ethanol and biodiesel facilities. According to the report, “the producer payment program has paid $93 million over the last five years to companies that have earned profits of $619 million” during the past five years, and “about $44 million is scheduled to be spent on the producer payment program from fiscal year 2010 through 2012.” The report recommends ending the subsidy and “redirecting the funds to programs designed to further reduce fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” That, of course, is not going to happen because the ethanol industry has a lock on legislative support, as well as the support of the governor.
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Mary Turck