Category Archives: Uncategorized

Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, God and Tim Pawlenty Pulling out the rhetorical stops, T-Paw invoked the big guys and Minnesota icons from lutefisk to loons and from pond hockey to Purple Rain. He jovially called on us to recognize all that we have in common as we gather around our kitchen tables, “trading real-life stories of how almost every one of us has hit a deer with our car.” (Not so much those of us in metro MN, Guv.)

And then he got down to business. Bottom line: No new taxes (surprise!), cut business taxes by half, cut state spending on health and human services. Oh – and for you bleeding heart liberals out there, has he got a deal: increase spending on schools, but only where students are demonstrating achievement.

But wait — that’s not all. T-Paw proposes a wage freeze for all public employees and tuition caps for colleges. The Twin Cities Daily Planet has full text, video and a place for you to put in your two cents worth.

Burn, baby, burn The MN Public Utility Commission approved Big Stone II’s transmission lines, clearing the road for more coal burning and sparking an angry response from MN Senator Ellen Anderson that, “This new polluting coal plant will send us back to the 20th century with 50 years of additional global warming emissions (4.6 millions more tons per year).” At MPR, Stephanie Hemphill reports that the PUC “brushed aside” the consultant review that it had ordered, contenting itself with protecting consumers pocketbooks by conditioning Otter Tail Power rate increases. Construction won’t begin for at least a year, and environmentalists are considering appeals.

Vitamins go better with Coke? The Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest sued Coca-Cola Company to stop its “deceptive claims” that the sugar water it markets as VitaminWater is actually good for you. The Strib publishes an AP story that details Coke’s acquisition of VitaminWater in 2007 and the ensuing boost to corporate sales, even as cola sales slid lower. Maybe they should just go back to the slightly-cocaine-based, feel-good formula that gave the company its name back in 1885.

MN Job Watch Nationally, reports AP:

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment insurance jumped to a seasonally adjusted 524,000 last week, above analysts’ expectations of 500,000 new claims. The increase is partly due to a flood of requests from newly laid-off people who delayed filing claims over the holidays, a Labor Department analyst said.

Minnesota is slower in reporting jobless figures. December’s numbers are scheduled for release next week, on Thursday.

Wal-Mart will pay the MN Department of Labor and Industry about $14 million, according to the Strib, as part of the $54.3 million settlement it reached after “Dakota County District Judge Robert King Jr. ruled July 1, following a nonjury trial, that Wal-Mart broke labor laws more than 2 million times and ordered the retailer to give employees $6.5 million in back pay.”

“National treasure” ailing BBC reports that some call Steve Jobs a “national treasure” and “a visionary of the first order,” as the Apple co-founder announced that he’s stepping down as CEO for six months because of continuing health problems, due to unknown health problems . He stepped down for six months in 2004 to battle pancreatic cancer, but came back strong. NYT blogs say that, in the worst case, “Steve Jobs can be replaced, even if he can’t be duplicated. There are lots of ways to run successful and innovative companies. And Apple couldn’t be in better shape, financially or in its public image, to withstand a change.”

Reminding us of why and how much we love our Macs, BBC reports today that “a virulent Windows worm” has hit three million computers, and counting.

Hell freezing over In St. Paul, reports the PiPress, two men died because of subzero temperatures. You may already have heard that a man sleepwalking in his underwear froze to death in Wisconsin, but the Strib has more on the story: he was evidently taking the popular sleep aid, Ambien, which “has also has been linked to hundreds of cases of sleepwalking, sleep-driving and even sleep-shoplifting.”

Cold and ice (including black ice on city streets and freeways, caused by refreeze of exhaust fumes on the pavement) contributed to hundreds of crashes statewide Thursday, reports the PiPress. And hundreds of others throughout the week. I’ve been lucky (so far, knock on wood) — only a bumper damaged and not even an air bag deployed on Wednesday.

Strib bankruptcy As the Strib slides into bankruptcy, I’m thinking more gloomy thoughts about the future of journalism. Like democracy, journalism does not happen in a vacuum. It is nurtured by the participation of all of us. Its future rests in all of our hands. For another take from The Uptake, see Mike McIntee’s interview with MinnPost’s David Brauer.

The Sunday Leader founder, editor and editorial director Lasantha Wickrematunge was gunned down January 8. In a poignant editorial published in his newspaper after his death, assassinated journalist Wickrematunge firmly asserts that “When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.” His lengthy farewell editorial says, in part:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last. …

I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. …

In closing, he quotes Pastor Martin Niemoller:

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. [Imprisoned for his opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany, Niemoller wrote:]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

R.T. runs again Mayor R.T. Rybak announced yesterday that he will run for a third term. He did not rule out a run for governor in 2010. The DFL endorsing convention is scheduled for May 16, after March 3 precinct caucuses. Rybak has run, and won, twice without DFL endorsement. Bob Miller, director of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, announced his candidacy earlier in the year. Numerous candidates for city council have also announced, so the March 3 caucuses should be lively.

Lenders beware St. Paul and Baltimore will head up a new initiative to share information, coordinate legal strategies, and pressure lenders to be “part of the solution” to foreclosed and vacant housing, says St. Paul City Attorney John Choi. The Strib reports:

St. Paul has seen the number of foreclosures increase from 503 in 2005 to 1,819 in 2007 to 2,289 in 2009. The number of vacant buildings rose above a record 2,000 last year, as well.

Big Stone or no Big Stone? The fate of the Big Stone II coal plant in South Dakota comes before the Minnesota Public Utility Commission (PUC) tomorrow (January 15), notes the Minnesota Independent. More than a year ago, MN Senator Ellen Anderson denounced the Big Stone II proposal in the Twin Cities Daily Planet:

Big Stone II would operate alongside the old Big Stone coal plant, and greatly expand its capacity. More burning coal will mean more carbon dioxide emissions.

Minnesota’s 2007 energy bill sets clear goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a level 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2015, to a level at least 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, and to a level at least 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

You don’t meet goals like that by building expensive new 50-year coal plants.

United to save? Minnesota and Wisconsin governors signed an agreement to share unidentified services in order to help with budget deficits, reports the PiPress. They said that joining in bulk purchases of items such as road salt, bulldozers and food for prisons could save millions. No specific commitments were made, but both governors directed agency heads to look for savings. Minnesota’s budget deficit for the biennium is estimated at $4.8 billion and Wisconsin’s at $5.4 billion.

Politicizing Justice The Department of Justice was so politicized under King George II that Bradley Schlozman, a senior official and acting head of the Civil Rights Division, lauded new hires who were members of the rightwing Federalist Society as “the team” and “ideological comrades,” and sought to hire RTAs — “right-thinking Americans.” He also said he liked his coffee “Mary Frances Berry style – black and bitter.” Berry, an African American, chaired the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1993-2004.

All this and more in the Department of Justice report TPM Muckraker, which has followed the case closely, reports that Schlozman will not be prosecuted for either his violations of law in politicizing DOJ hiring or for his perjury when testifying about his practices.

Attention deficit? “How does a guy on the fast track to be Treasury secretary fail to pay $34,000 worth of federal taxes ($43,200, including interest), or forget to check on the immigration status of a house cleaner — the same sort of upstairs-downstairs slip-up that has tripped up other top-drawer prospects on their way to top jobs here?” asks Maureen Dowd. And how did the Obama vetting process miss these red flags?

The Washington Post explains that “Geithner told the committee that he had failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes because he mistakenly believed that his employer at the time, the International Monetary Fund, was deducting those taxes from his paycheck” and that the housekeeper was a legal resident of the United States, even though Geithner did not have proper documentation of that fact.

MN Job WatchAs St. Paul faces budget cuts, the city will ask workers to take voluntary retirements, leaves of absence and reduced hours, hoping to avoid at least some layoffs, reports the Strib. The city already has a hiring freeze in place, as well as a salary freeze for its 70 non-union workers.

ING, the Dutch financial services firm, will lay off 100 Minnesota workers by the end of the quarter, reports the PiPress, part of a 750-person U.S. cutback. ING will have about 1200 Minnesota employees after the cuts. Marshall-based Schwan Food has cut 52 more jobs, for a total of 130 in the last four months, reports AP. Almost 190,000 Minnesotans are currently unemployed, reports MPR, and that is an increased burden for the state’s Dislocated Worker Program, which expects to enroll nearly 19,000 people during this fiscal year, a 20 percent increase over last year. New applications for unemployment benefits exceeded 33,000 in December, and the state’s unemployment comp fund is running dry.

Health insurance fraud by … health insurer? UnitedHealth Group has run a scam on doctors and patients by setting “usual and customary” payment rates to out-of-network providers too low by “anywhere from 10 percent to 28 percent for certain claims in New York state,” according to an AP report on the settlement that will have UnitedHealth paying $50 million to set up an independent “usual and customary payment” database run by a yet-to-be-identified nonprofit organization.

[New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo] said the databases were riddled with conflicts of interest. He noted that many health plans across the country use Ingenix data to determine usual and customary rates.

Ingenix, in turn, received its data from those insurers. He called that system a “closed loop” that left out consumers.

UnitedHealth regrets that conflicts of interest “were inherent” in the databases, said Mitch Zamoff, general counsel for its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare. …

The new database will include a Web site that allows consumers to learn in advance how much they may be reimbursed for common out-of-network services in their area.

A court case last summer resulted in agreement by California-based Health Net Inc. to pay $215 million to patients who received low reimbursement for out-of-network care. Health Net also used UnitedHealth’s Ingenix database.

Local hero Matthew Little With Martin Luther King Day approaching, the Twin Cities Daily Planet talks with Matthew Little, Minnesota civil rights veteran and columnist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. At 87, Little saw the entire sweep of the civil rights movement and led a Minnesota delegation to the March on Washington in 1963.

Liberian adoptions suspended The Strib reports that a Minnesota Liberian adoption agency has been suspended by the Liberian government. The West African Children Support Network (WACSN), founded by Liberian-born Maria Luyken of Eden Prairie, has handled more than a hundred adoptions. Canada halted all Liberian adoptions last year because of concerns about fraud, and

According to the Strib, WACSN does not have a Minnesota adoption agency license, and has not filed required charitable agency reports or tax returns.

WACSN charges $8,000 for a Liberian adoption and works exclusively with “devout Born Again Christian Families,” according to its website, http://www.wacsn.org. It says Luyken immigrated to Minnesota in 1979, and began charitable work in Liberia in 1995, and adoptions in 2003.

This morning, the WACSN website displayed only an “under construction” message. A November BBC report focused on fraudulent Liberian adoptions and children being taken by agencies and given for adoption abroad without the consent of their parents or other relatives, including one baby girl adopted through WACSN.

Gaza thread In Common Dreams, Uri Avnery writes:

Nearly seventy years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.

BBC reports that fighting in Gaza intensified with more than 60 Israeli airstrikes overnight, and that the total number of deaths is 13 Israelis and nearly 1000 Palestinians. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon joined Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in seeking a way to negotiate for peace.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher concealed his pre-RNC operations from other law enforcement officials, including the St. Paul city attorney’s office, according to reports published January 13 in a PiPress blog. He now has asked the Ramsey County Board for $300,000 in convention costs, including money spent on agents and informants criss-crossing the country during the year before the convention. The expenditures could not be billed to the $50 million in federal convention financing, since they were secret.

As the RNC Commission presents its report to the St. Paul City Council on January 14, Fletcher’s strange secrecy is not the only unanswered question about law enforcement operations during the RNC. (The RNC Commission, headed by former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, was appointed by the city of St. Paul to review police planning and tactics, but not accusations of police misconduct.)

Politics In Minnesota (PIM) notes the PR manipulation surrounding police actions and RNC prosecutions:

[N]o one has ever proven the buckets Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher presented as ‘urine’ were actually urine, even though it has become a strongly held perception, underpinning most claims in favor of law enforcements’ conduct during the RNC. (Authorities like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley have regularly accused demonstrators of flinging bodily waste since the 1968 Chicago DNC… it’s something of a classic messaging frame, and it’s worked well so far.) Everyone’s kind of forgotten that Fletcher also claimed bike tires would be used to fling rocks…

(Positioned squarely in the middle of the Minnesota political road, PIM is published by Republican Sarah Janecek, though the about page says a “lefty” balance is provided by Dan Feidt, Peter Bartz-Gallagher, and Andy French.)

PIM also noted that FBI informant Brandon Darby, “who bragged about his actions in an unusual public letter, has sparked nationwide criticism of what’s seen as a law enforcement pattern of synthesizing terrorism-style cases by sending in informants to stir people up, in the classic COINTELPRO style.”

That “classic COINTELPRO style” can also be gleaned from documents posted on Wikileaks.org. Wikileaks publishes secret documents:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we are of assistance to people of nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. Our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by all types of people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

Wikileaks posted a Powerpoint presentation titled Special Event Planning 2008 Republican National Convention. According to PIM, the document “was evidently presented somewhere by Terri Smith, Branch Director for Response, Recovery and Mitigation at the Minnesota Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.” PIM goes on to observe:

The most illuminating slide shows the layout of the ‘Multi-Agency Communications Center’ (MACC). In particular, it reveals that the Pentagon’s new Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, had more seats than anyone else; fans of government intrigue will love the idea that this new, increasingly domestic-oriented military command had the most chairs. (According to the Army Times, no tinfoil rag, they are training troops for quelling “civil unrest and crowd control,” Posse Comitatus notwithstanding.)

While prosecutors focus on protesters, the danger posed by militarization of law enforcement slides right under the radar. Media attention to the military and law enforcement issues is easily distracted. As we have noted before, “At a minimum, raising the questions lets people know that the full story has not been told. But the mainstream media has an opportunity to do much more. They have the opportunity — and the resources — to reclaim journalism’s role of finding and speaking truth, rather than acting as stenographers for power.”

Transit hit the front page of the Star Tribune again today, as East Metro’s complains that it is not being served. (East Metro means Washington County and Scott County, with Ramsey County and St. Paul counted as served by the Central Corridor.) The Strib notes that:

In addition to the Hiawatha light-rail line from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America, the west metro area is getting the Northstar commuter rail line from Minneapolis to Big Lake and bus rapid transit along Interstate 35W and Cedar Avenue south of the city. Plans for a Southwest Corridor light-rail line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie appear to be high on the list of what’s next.

Meanwhile, MPR, two churches, people who depend on the #50 and #16 buses for daily transportation, and businesses up and down University Avenue in St. Paul continue to protest that LRT plans will leave them without sufficient bus service, without parking spaces for customers, without access for handicapped churchgoers and hearses, and with an excess of noise and vibration.

In November, the Strib interviewed the pastor of Central Presbyterian:

Colby is worried that vibrations will affect his building’s foundation and the domed ceiling over its 1,100-seat sanctuary. The fact that the rail tracks will seal off his church’s access to Cedar Street is another major concern. No hearses will be allowed to park out front for funerals, and the driveway that allows handicapped members to park or be dropped off next to a wheelchair-accessible entrance will be closed.”

and the pastor of the Church of St. Louis:

Next door to Colby’s church is the Church of St. Louis, King of France, which was designed by the architect of both the Cathedral of St. Paul and the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. The building, which will celebrate its centennial next year, has been meticulously restored in the past couple of decades, and a new, million-dollar organ was installed in 1998.
Had the Central Corridor route been definite at that time, “the organ would have been designed quite differently,” said the Rev. Paul Morrissey, who has been at the church since 1985 and pastor since 1988. As things are now, he said, “the constant vibrations from the train would cause the organ to be permanently out of tune.” A retrofit is possible, at a cost of $100,000, he said. It’s not clear who would pay.

Morrissey also notes that the loss of parking in front of the church during daily masses “would be a blow to the church’s predominantly elderly membership.”

Since MPR and the University of Minnesota, both with concerns about vibration and noise, are big players, the Central Corridor Project produced a new study in January. The Strib reported that, predictably, the Central Corridor Project-produced “216-page report shows vibration concerns can be resolved in every case.” Also predictably, the report failed to convince the U of M laboratories that will be impacted by the trains or MPR and the churches.

Responses to small businesses faced with years of construction and complete loss of on-street parking, and to people whose bus transportation will be slashed, replaced only by LRT stations spaced a mile apart in poor neighborhoods, has been less than satisfactory to both constituencies. Central Corridor Project promises to put in some kind of infrastructure to make it possible — at some undetermined future date when there is enough money — to add three more stations to serve lower-income communities better. The response to businesses along University Avenue has been more along the lines of “we hear your concerns.”

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder summarized concerns of University Avenue area residents:

The train will stop 15 times as it journeys between St. Paul and Minneapolis. But, in an area where more than 40 percent of the population doesn’t own cars and depends on bikes and physical ability to get to bus stations, a light-rail stop every mile or so isn’t enough, according to neighbors.

In response to this issue, the Met Council has proposed including the infrastructure of three additional stops during construction. If enough funding is allocated, the extra stops will be added.
Minority business owners are especially concerned that their businesses will not be able to withstand the loss of customers during and after the construction process. Parking spaces will be lost to make room for the rail line on University Avenue. Snow removal will be challenging; there will be less room for the snow at the curbside, since lanes for traffic and a lane for the train will have to be accommodated.

The Twn Cities Daily Planet noted that older residents draw parallels between the destruction of the African American Rondo community in the 1960s and today’s light rail plan:

Dennis Presley Sr., 58, recalled the last major transportation project in this area. In the 1960s, Presley watched Interstate 94 slice through the heart of the Rondo neighborhood. The construction decimated Saint Paul’s vibrant, tight-knit, African American community. He saw many of the businesses shut down and families, including his own, displaced. Presley believes approving the current light-rail proposal will result in the same devastation and lead to the disenfranchisement of people of color again. “Will the light rail do that again to our neighborhood? I think so, no matter what our government says. I’m not happy with this at all.”

To all of its critics, the Central Corridor Project (and Met Council) have two standard responses, roughly summarized as:

Response #1: “We hear you and we will take your concerns seriously, (but not seriously enough to make any changes in the master plan.)”

Response #2: “The plan is too far advanced for changes at this stage, and we have been working on it for years and listening to all concerned parties, and everything will be fine.” (See Response #1.)

As the Central Corridor train rolls inexorably toward construction, University Avenue businesses continue to seek strategies for survival. The University Avenue Business Association is sponsoring a survey and meetings to “learn more and give your input about seeking financial assistance for small businesses to manage Light Rail construction” (January 15) and to “Explore your ideas and others for retaining more street parking and calling for action to keep small businesses in business. Your time will result in recommendations to change the current plans of eliminating 85% of the street parking that serves our businesses and residents on University Avenue today.” (January 29).

Franken and Coleman: Together at last As reported in the Strib this morning, backers of Israel’s war on Gaza and opponents both staged events at the Minneapolis JCC yesterday. The Strib reported about 750 inside (supporting the war) and about 250 outside (opposing the war). Supporters included both Norm Coleman and Al Franken, finally finding something they could agree on, and a line-up of other MN politicos, beginning with T-Paw. As the Minnesota Independent reported last week, only Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum resisted the Congressional tidal wave of support for the war.

Opponents include Jewish, Palestinian, and other voices.

Hybrids ahead! Toyota plans to start selling its new hybrid plug-in car later this year, according to the NYT. The car will be made in Japan, powered by lithium-ion batteries, and sold to fleets, rather than to the general public, which will give them a year to monitor performance and usage and make changes before Chevy starts selling its Volt late in 2010. I want one — but price point and repair records are major considerations, so it will be a while.

How to stimulate an economy The Progressive offers this chart showing the most effective ways to spend economic stimulus money. Top three: food stamps, extending Unemployment Insurance benefits, and infrastructure spending. Bottom three: corporate tax cuts, extending Bush tax cuts, and accelerated depreciation.

That pretty much follows the economic analysis I’ve been reading, which all points to spending on jobs as the most effective use of economic stimulus funds, NOT tax cuts. (See Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, for example.) The Progressive‘s chart comes from Mark Zandi, a McCain economic adviser — hardly a radical. Bob Herbert advises:

And the way to create jobs is through infrastructure investments (building and repairing roads, bridges, tunnels and water and sewer systems); and by investing in 21st-century clean energy initiatives, in public transportation systems, and in school construction; and by providing access to health care for the millions who don’t have it.
In other words, by investing in the people and the enormous productive capacity of the United States.

In Minnesota, reports MPR, DFL legislators are talking about a state economic stimulus package. At this point, MPR says, Senate File 1 has only ” vague references to promoting a green economy, augmenting federal funds with state spending and bonding for public works projects, including roads, sewers, parks and trails. But no projects are listed, and the sections that appropriate money and authorizes bonding remain blank.” Republicans, predictably, point to the state’s $4.8 billion budget deficit and say the state can’t afford any economic stimulus spending. The difference is that capital projects are funded by borrowing through issuing state bonds. That means the spending is not part of the regular budget, which must be balanced each year, but instead is premised on future economic growth to pay off the bonds.

Press reports that gas prices are heading back up across the country. I can confirm the trend in the Twin Cities, as I paid $1.59/gallon to fill up less than a week ago, and today the same stations posted $1.85/gallon. Does anybody really believe that supply and demand control gas prices? Or that some combination of Russian-Ukrainian conflict and OPEC production cuts explain the increase? I know that a lot of experts pooh-pooh talk of manipulation of gas prices, but the roller-coaster of the past eight months has convinced me. I don’t understand why, and I don’t know who, but somebody is making money on this craziness.

MN Job Watch: The Strib reports that CostPlus is closing six Minnesota stores. And target=”_blank”>David Brauer reports that the Strib itself is about two weeks away from bankruptcy filing, though it’s not clear that will result in job losses on top of the already-large number that have been cut in the past year and a half. Finance and Commerce quotes the Associated General Contractors of America predicting a 30% cut in construction jobs ahead, but hoping that the economic stimulus package will change this grim prospect. According to Finance and Commerce:

Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, wants the plan to include $85 billion for transportation and public works construction.

The breakdown includes $32.5 billion for highways and bridges, $12 billion for mass transit, $14.275 billion for wastewater treatment facilities and other “environmental” projects, $5 billion for airports and $4.9 billion for passenger rail, among other projects, noted Oberstar spokesman John Schadl.

Oberstar wants the spending to be for projects that are ready to go within 120 days, all the better to quickly stimulate the economy.

Two Minnesota Republicans in Congress–John Kline and Michelle Bachmann–are warning that the economic stimulus plan must not include any earmarks, and “Bachmann referred to Obama’s stimulus plan as ‘a pork barrel’ package.”

Looks like jobseekers should head for McDonald’s, where profits are still rising, according to the NYT.

If you’re looking for a way to take your mind off the economy for a few hours, the Twin Cities Daily Planet recommends First Avenue’s best new bands of 2008, the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio for Henry V, and the West Bank’s Tam Tam African Restaurant. MPR recommends the month-long, first-ever International Chamber Orchestra Festival in St. Paul.

“Shockingly awful” and “spectacularly grim” employment figures materialize, right on schedule. Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows unemployment in December running at 7.2%, and notes that, “Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.3 percentage points.” BBC notes that total job loss numbers for October and November have also been revised upward.

This week’s MN Job Watch: Some 500 employees in corporate HQ have taken Best Buy’s buyout offer. On the other side of the metro, Anderson Windows is cutting 50 jobs, and laying off another 400 employees. Alliant Tech/Federal Cartridge is eliminating 70-80 jobs, after cutting 40-50 in November. Macy’s will close its Brooklyn Center store, as well as cutting hours at the downtown St. Paul store.

The Strib reports that nursing homes are closing, and waiting lists growing, as reimbursement rates continue low. The state’s 393 nursing homes say they are losing $23 per day per resident at the current rates of state reimbursement. The state/federal Medicaid program pays for two-thirds of nursing home residents’ care.

John Judis in The New Republic and Paul Krugman in the New York Times both question whether the Obama economic agenda goes far enough in dealing with the nation’s crisis. Krugman:

This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump.
But Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat.

For the full text of the Obama address on the economy, click here.

Meanwhile, in other news of the day:

Gran Torino has opened in the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities Daily Planet has a line-up of stories about the Minnesota and Hmong connections, written by both Daily Planet reporters and Hmong Today.

One RNC protester has pleaded guilty to the molotov cocktail charges. The other still awaits trial.

Minnesota salmonella cases make us one of the lucky states hit by the latest outbreak, with causes as yet undetermined.

“Your vote didn’t count.” That’s the message for about 400 voters, now receiving letters from the Secretary of State to tell them that either the Coleman or the Franken campaign challenged their absentee ballots and that the ballots consequently were not opened and counted.

Bad as it was to hear about the coal ash sludge bursting out of its dam and destroying homes and rivers in Tennessee, at least the news seemed far away. Tennessee — they have coal mines there, don’t they? Or weak environmental laws? It’s a dreadful thing that happened, and we are sorry for those poor people and glad that we don’t have to worry about it up here.

Except that we do. I never heard of a coal ash dump until the disaster in Tennessee. Now I know that there are 1300 coal ash dumps spread all across the United States. Three of them are in Minnesota, with 18 to 50 foot high dikes holding in the coal ash in Becker, Cohasset and Hoyt Lakes. Like the other 1300 coal ash dumps, these three hold tons of coal ash sludge containing lead and mercury and other chemicals.

According to the New York Times,

Numerous studies have shown that the ash can leach toxic substances that can cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems in humans, and can decimate fish, bird and frog populations in and around ash dumps, causing developmental problems like tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with severe spinal deformities.

A 2007 Scientific American article notes that coal ash contains concentrated amounts of uranium and thorium, and says that “fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.”

The Environmental Integrity Project on January 7 released a report saying that “the Stanton Energy Facility in Orlando, FL., has reported dumping roughly 10 times more of the carcinogen in its site between 2000-2006 than the TVA did over the same period in its now ruptured Harriman, TN storage pond site.” The EIP report listed other sites that are more contaminated than the Tennessee site.

Eric Schaeffer, director, Environmental Integrity Project, said: “The Tennessee eco-disaster has cast a spotlight on what is a very serious national problem – the existence of under-regulated toxic pollution coal dump sites near coal-fired power plants that pose a serious threat to drinking water supplies, rivers and streams. Our analysis confirms that this problem is truly national in scope and that Tennessee may end up only being a warning sign of much more trouble to come. In addition to so-called ‘surface impoundments’ in ponds, we need to be concerned about inadequate oversight and monitoring of land-based disposal and other ‘storage’ of these toxic wastes. We can no longer afford to ignore this problem and we certainly can’t be content to just sit around and wait for the next Tennessee-style disaster to happen.”

Minnesota regulatory agencies told the Star Tribune that these dams are safe, not like the one on the North Shore, which “crashed” down a hillside in July 1993 after a heavy rain. That dam, like the one in Tennessee, was made up in part of ash, while the three dams at Becker, Cohasset and Hoyt Lakes are entirely earthen.

Minnesota’s stringent rules call for inspection of coal ash dumps every eight years, though State Dam Engineer Jason Boyle told the Strib he couldn’t find inspection records for two of the three dams.