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Downsizing the news, again and again and again. David Brauer has the full list of buyouts at the Strib, including columnist Kathy Kersten and online managing editor Will Tacy. Brauer reported earlier that the Strib has proposed paycuts of up to 42 percent for some Teamsters union workers. Cuts hit both WCCO and City Pages last week, and the Strib has followed the PiPress in combining both A and B sections in the Monday paper, with Business and Classifieds in a single section Monday-Thursday. (The PiPress combines both sections on Monday and Tuesday, and the Strib says its move is only a “test” during January. Right.) And the Minnesota Daily is cutting costs by going down to four issues each week when it resumes publication with the new term in January, and paying reporters per-story rather than per-hour, according to the Strib.

Journalism, with feeling. For old-style reporting in the teeth of danger, Palestinian journalists in Gaza are offering a couple of inspiring examples. JTA, the Jewish Telegraph calls AP writer Ibrahim Barzak, “the best reporter in Gaza,” describing his work in better days:

He is an assiduous, just the facts reporter. He never raises his voice and always asks the tough questions. He has risked his life more than once for his job, and more than once for pissing off the Palestinian powers that be.

Barzak begins his own account of reporting in Gaza this week:

I live alone in my office. My wife and two young children moved in with her father after our apartment was shattered. The neighborhood mosque, where I have prayed since I was a child, had its roof blown off. All the government buildings on my beat have been obliterated.
After days of Israeli shelling, the city and life I have known no longer exist.

I heard another moving interview with a Palestinian journalist Rami Al Meghari on KFAI radio Tuesday, from Pacifica’s Free Speech Radio News program. The podcast explores ” between his pull to ‘get the story’ as a journalist and his constant fear for his family and children.”

RNC? Which RNC? As Twitter follows the RNC (Republican National Commitee) chair candidates (Schmelzer: “Listening to RNC chair candidates speak. One guy: “It’s tough being a Young Republican.” Then glee answering how many guns each owns.”), the aftermath of St. Paul’s RNC drags on. Yesterday, the Strib reported that St. Paul and the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War agreed to dismiss any claims against each other in federal court. Not sure what complaints the city had against the group, which staged the biggest march of the convention, staying within the lines on September 1, but the Coalition gave up its challenge to the city rules that kept them out of sight and hearing of all convention delegates. No legal protests were allowed to approach the RNC, except on the closed back side of the Xcel Center, and safely separated by a well-patrolled dead zone and tall double fences, leaving protesters free to shout slogans to one another.

The PiPress reported that police videos of St. Paul streets during the RNC are now available for public viewing–at least if “public” means filing legal demands under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, waiting for police permission, and then waiting your turn at the single video terminal available at the Western District police station.

Best/Worst Bush Moments Both local blogger Jeff Fecke and the august BBC offer lists of the “best” Bush moments. While Fecke’s Blog of the Moderate left includes some serious moments (Worst Bush Moments: #14, The Alito Appointment), the BBC article sticks to the silly side, noting that the “word ‘Bushism’ has been coined to label his occasional verbal lapses.” BBC offers video of some of the greatest moments, as well as several categories of quotations. Perhaps we should all be glad that, in the words of GWII, “I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.” (5/12/08)

From the east and west side of the river St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman announced January 7 that he is running for re-election. As the incumbent Democratic mayor of a Democratic city with a 100% Democratic City Council, his chances for re-election look good.

UPDATED JANUARY 9
“This is a terrible time to be a parent of young adult children,” my friend told me at lunch a few weeks ago. “You tell them to study hard and work hard to get ahead — and then when they graduate, there’s nothing.” A reader writing to the New York Times echoed her feelings: “We have GOT to get the twenty somethings jobs. The kids around here are getting really desperate, and they can’t even get into the classes they need at colleges right now with the budget cuts to universities.”

Friday morning update: 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.

All of the latest jobs figures confirm their concerns, with the bleakest jobs picture seen by anyone now under retirement age — more than 2.4 million jobs lost last year, unemployment continuing at 8-9 percent through 2010, and no prospect for even the beginning of a recovery for more than a year.

The Labor Department released the December national unemployment figures on January 9, and they are not pretty. (Minnesota’s December numbers will be out on January 22.) NPR’s Planet Money blog quotes one expert who calls the prospects “shockingly awful,” and points to the ADP employment report dated January 7, which estimates that the nation lost 693,000 jobs in December. That’s the biggest drop in 59 years. ADP bases its reports on its experience as the payroll service provider for 400,000 employers with about 24 million employees.

Minnesota’s unemployment rate was 6.4 percent (seasonally adjusted) in November, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. “This was the result of an increase of 14,400 unemployed people,” said the DEED website “which raised the total to 188,925, the highest number since early 1983.” Every sector except government lost jobs, and the increase in government jobs was “almost entirely due to election judges.” Statewide, initial unemployment claims in November “increased by 12,800 or 43.0 percent from one year ago to 42,600.”

Another one of the economic markers that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks is the number of mass lay-offs, defined as more than 50 unemployment claimants in a single month from a single company. November and December are typically high months for mass lay-offs, but the 60 reported in Minnesota in November 2008 were a significant increase from 41 reported in 2007. November’s 60 mass lay-offs yielded 5,442 new unemployment claimants in November (compared to 4,315 in November 2007), in addition to all those unfortunate workers laid off in smaller increments.

Nationwide, the BLS reported 2,574 mass lay-offs in November 2008, compared to 1,799 in November 2007. The Congressional Budget Office just issued its annual report,, which paints a grim picture that includes 2009 unemployment averaging 8.3 percent, increasing to 9 percent in 2010:

The sharp downturn in housing markets across the country, which undermined the solvency of major financial institutions and severely disrupted the functioning of financial markets, has led the United States into a recession that will probably be the longest and the deepest since World War II. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates that the recession—which began about a year ago—will last well into 2009.

Under an assumption that current laws and policies regarding federal spending and taxation remain the same, CBO forecasts the following:

• A marked contraction in the U.S. economy in calendar year 2009, with real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) falling by 2.2 percent.

• A slow recovery in 2010, with real GDP growing by only 1.5 percent.

• An unemployment rate that will exceed 9 percent early in 2010.

Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warns that the CBO estimates may be over-optimistic. He calls the jobs picture “spectacularly grim,” and says that the Obama plan is not enough, especially with “a significant share going to ineffective tax cuts.”

According to MSNBC:

Obama plans to propose $310 billion in tax cuts for the middle class and businesses as part of the $775 billion stimulus plan. Some U.S. governors and economists are pushing for a larger package—around $1 trillion. Many Republicans want a more modest bill, possibly in the range of $500 billion.

Legal experts say Coleman faces an uphill battle, according to MPR. Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak says they intend to put local officials under oath and question them about what happened in local polling places in a process that he predicts will take at least two months. Coleman loyalists Joe Soucheray and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, also republished in the PiPress continue beating the drums with attacks on the recount and on Minnesota elections.

As MnIndy reports/repeats, the January 5 WSJ editorial is one “that nearly everyone but Rush Limbaugh has laughed off for its woolly inaccuracies and hidebound misrepresentations.”

Sooch faults SoS Ritchie and anyone else who was “encouraging more voting and making it sound virtuous and noble to do so.” He wants voting left to “the legitimate lot of us who vote correctly and responsibly” — and Republican-ly?

Sooch charges that Ritchie’s “eagle-eyed glare” intimidated two Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices into committing recount fraud as they joined in the unanimous rulings of the State Canvassing Board. Joe’s fans may include a girl named Alice, who proudly proclaimed “I can believe in three impossible things before breakfast.”

Norm Coleman will sue to overturn the election results, despite calls from distinguished Minnesotans, including Democratic former V.P. Walter Mondale and Republican former governor Arne Carlson.

Twittering? Watch out for phishers, who have been trying to get e-mail contacts from Twitter users. Someone also hacked 33 Twitter accounts over the weekend, including Barack Obama and Britney Spears. According to BBC, the hackers promised free petrol from Mr. Obama and ” some very personal statistics from Ms Spears.”

Snow, ice, sledding and broken backs – that’s winter in Minnesota, according to the Hennepin County Medical Center. Docs say they’ve seen twice as many back injuries this year as last year. Icy hills made sledding more dangerous.

And the beat goes on — Alcoa cutting 115,200 employees, Toyota shutting down its Japanese plants for 11 days.

Here in MN, the PiPress reports that social services are seeing more need. In Sherburne County, “14 people called the county every day in 2008 for information about financial assistance. That’s up from an average of three calls a day in 2006.” December 1 saw an all-time one-day record of 625 calls for help.

NPR’s Planet Money asks “Where would we be if FDR had done nothing?” And over at NYT, Paul Krugman warns that Congress and the incoming Obama administration have to act quickly. “The fact is,” writes Krugman, “that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.”

“The deficit is so overwhelming that it’s hard to even think about what the other issues would be,” said Senator Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul), expressing what might be the only easy consensus about the legislative session that begins January 6. From higher education to green jobs to child care to roads and bridges, the deficit looms over all other issues.

Pappas said that an emergency bonding bill for infrastructure will be on the agenda, either to provide a match for federal economic stimulus dollars, if that is requried, or to do infrastructure repair and replacement. As chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Pappas noted that both the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU) and the University of Minnesota have “a huge backlog” for infrastructure projects such as energy-efficient HVAC systems and new roofs. Other bonding may provide for highways, transit and schools. “If we do our own economic stimulus package,” Pappas said, “it would include bonding for capital investment.”

“Investments in infrastructure and renewable energy that stimulate the economy, provide living wage jobs, and protect the environment,” should be a priority, according to Russ Adams, director of the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability. “We have a battle to prioritize the spending of federal dollars.”

Adams explained that the emphasis on the federal level seems to be on funding “shovel-ready” projects, such as roads and bridges. That de-emphasizes projects such as mass transit, which may need more planning, studies and fiscal analysis before start-up. He says the Obama administration “is doing a balancing act between ready-to-go work and work to shift to a new, greener economy.”

Top priority, according to Adams, should go to green jobs for low income people and people of color, such as building retrofitting for energy efficiency.

“There’s a shortage of workers to do it,” he said. “We know how to create job training programs to teach people how to do the retrofitting. It pays for itself in about three years. This could be a green pathway out of poverty.”

Job training for unemployed workers is a key concern for higher education, too, according to Pappas, who expressed concern that cuts in funding would mean higher tuition. “In an economic downturn,” she said, “a lot of people go back to school to upgrade skills, learn a new profession, or go to graduate school. If tuition rises, people could be squeezed out.”

Jeff Bauer, director of public policy for Family and Children’s Services, said he is hearing legislators and advocates express concern about identifying areas where people in need are most vulnerable to budget cuts, and trying to make sure that cuts are made in a fair and equitable fashion.

“The other message we are hearing loud and clear,” said Bauer, “is that just saying ‘please don’t make cuts’ isn’t going to cut it this year. The two numbers — $4.8 billion and $5.2 billion — are just a massive amount of money to find somewhere.”

Bauer said that advocates have to wait and see what is in the governor’s budget, when it comes out later in January or in early February.

(Published in