February 11, 2009 · 8:26 am

News Day 2/11/09: MN to Somali / Salting the lakes / Schools slash spending / more …

Minneapolis to Somalia Leaders in the Somali and Muslim community denied that a Minneapolis mosque had anything to do with recent disappearances of young Somali men from the Twin Cities, blaming unnamed people within the local Somali community for stirring up rumors, reports Nelima Kerré in the Twin Cities Daily Planet. While the press statement, and leaders at the press conference, did not name individuals, a commenter on MPR’s website pointed the finger at Omar Jamal. Differences within the MN Somali community reflect political and clan differences in Somalia. Jamal is related to the recently-resigned Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, while the young men have allegedly gone to fight with Al-Shabab, the youth and military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, which opposed the Ethiopian-backed government of Abdullahi Yusuf. A former leader of the UIC, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was elected president in January.

Around the world in 60 seconds Taking a quick look at BBC this morning:
Drug war battles in the farming town of Villa Ahumada and in a prison in Torreon (all in northern Mexico) killed 21 people on Monday, including at least six police officers executed in Villa Ahumada before the army arrived on the scene. Yesterday Mexican army troops arrested the police chief and 36 officers in Cancun, on suspicion that they were connected to the torture and execution last week of an ex-army general who had just taken charge of a crime-fighting squad targeting drug traffickers in Cancun.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to serve as Zimbabwe’s prime minister, eleven months after the presidential elections were stolen by discredited, corrupt, but still-President Robert Mugabe. Millions of Zimbabweans remain in desperate need of food and health care, and the country has been swept by a cholera epidemic.
The commander of Azerbaijan’s air force was assassinated yesterday, shot to death outside his home. Lt-Gen Rail Rzayev had headed the country’s air force since about the time of independence in the 1990s, and was deeply involved in large-scale military acquisitions in recent years. BBC: “In October 2008, the International Crisis Group described Azerbaijan’s armed forces as “fragmented, divided, accountable-to-no-one-but-the-president, un-transparent, corrupt and internally feuding”.
Tamils in diaspora are uniting in protest over government indifference to the suffering of civilians, as Sri Lanka troops continue a major offensive aimed at wiping out the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Face of People’s Bailout Joli Stokes could lose their Richfield home this year, victims of predatorylending practices. The People’s Bailout legislation proposed by MN DFL legislators is targeted at helping Minnesotans who, like Joli, face foreclosure, as well as others facing unemployment and welfare cuts, reports Madeleine Baran in the TC Daily Planet.

The legislation proposes a two-year suspension of the current five-year limit on welfare benefits for low-income families. Currently, families are cut off welfare benefits after five years. This plan would allow families an additional two years of financial support. Low-income housing advocates say that although the welfare grants are already low, an extension would prevent homelessness for many Minnesotan families. An unemployed adult with two children receives $532 in cash assistance and $413 in food support each month.

The legislation also includes a thirteen-week extension of unemployment benefits, a moratorium on foreclosures, initiatives to secure federal funds for job-creation programs, and recommendations against state worker layoffs.

Housing starts down January building permits hit a new low, reports Jim Buchta in the Strib:

The decline in construction spending has been accelerating over the past several months, evidence of just how much money is evaporating from the local economy. It affects everyone from the crews who dig foundations to the corner-store retailer that sells grass seed.

MN Job Watch MTS Systems Corp (Eden Prairie) will cut 150 jobs, writes Liz Fedor in the Strib. The cuts represent about six percent of the MTS work force. In New Hope, 70 workers at HD Bath and Remodeling will be out of work on April 1, writes Jackie Crosby in the Strib in a ripple effect from Home Depot’s decision to shut down smaller home improvement brands.

On the national front, General Motors announced Monday that it will cut 10,000 salaried workers. The NYT reports that the cuts come a month after buyout offers to the hourly workforce and three months after 5,100 jobs were cut. GM sales fell 11 percent in 2008. And, while Wal-Mart has generally profited during the recession, the Strib publishes an AP report that the retail giant is cutting 700-800 jobs at its Arkansas HQ.

Just what we need A huge high-voltage power line is marching toward MN, reports the Strib, at least if ITC Holdings Corp gets its way. The company wants to build a 3,000-mile, 765,000-volt, $12 billion “Green Power Express” line to take wind-generated electricity from the west to population centers like Chicago.

The bailout plan Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced a bailout that most commentators found confusing, and that investors found depressing, judging by the dive in the Dow Jones and Nasdaq, reported in the Washington Post and similar downturns in European markets, attributed to the bailout announcement by BBC. In a nutshell, the $1.5 trillion plan would “would more closely scrutinize the risks banks are facing and offer public and private capital to those that need it; create a fund, with a starting value of $500 billion, to buy up toxic real estate loans; and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto and commercial loans,” according to WaPo.

Paul Krugman quips that he was going to call the plan TANF 2 —” temporary assistance to needy financial institutions, without, you know, any of the means-testing or work requirements involved when poor people get help.” He says it’s hard to tell what the plan means at this point.

Salting 10,000 lakes A U of M study finds that hundreds of thousands of tons of road salt goes into area wetlands, ground water and lakes, reports the Strib. Well, where did you think it was going?

Schools slash spending St. Paul schools will cut 265 positions for 2009-2010, but board member John Brodrick warned that “this is not the end,” reports Doug Belden in the PiPress. The budget will be finalized in June, and school board members will meet the public at a “listening session” at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Hubbs Center at 1030 W. University Ave.

The Anoka-Hennepin school board decided to “lay off scores of teachers, reduce its textbook purchases, cut one day off the school calendar and scale back bus services to climb out of a $15.8 million budget hole,” reports Norman Draper in the Strib.

Recount – maybe some movement? The court told the Coleman and Franken lawyers to “streamline proceedings,” reports Chris Steller in MnIndy.

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February 10, 2009 · 9:23 am

News Day 2/10/08: Professor President and the press / God wants Norm? / MN “People’s Bailout” / more …

Maybe smart is the new black? The first presidential press conference got good reviews, despite, or perhaps because of, President Obama’s detailed, professorial answers to questions. Maybe the country, and the news media, are ready for beyond-the-sound-bite answers. You can watch the whole hour, courtesy of the Washington Post. Among the highlights:

This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession.

The single most important part of this economic recovery and reinvestment plan is the fact that it will save or create up to four million jobs, because that’s what American needs most right now. … At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by the recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.

Tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans.

We stand to lose about one trillion dollars of demand this year, and another trillion next year. That’s why you have this gaping hole in the economy.

The president said he still has hopes for bi-partisanship, but his “bottom line” is “send me a bill that creates or saves four million jobs.” He said he is willing to discuss “this tax cut versus that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project,” but not willing to listen to claims about pork in the stimulus package.

It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks, about this recovery package, after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

Tell it to the city In meetings on budget cuts and priorities, Minneapolis resident and city employee suggestions ranged from cutting public works and housing inspection to unpaid days off and less-frequent trash collection, reports Steve Brandt in the Strib. Another citizen meeting is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday night at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 NE. 2nd St. and another employee meeting for Wednesday in Room 319 of City Hall at 12:30 p.m.

God wants Norm “God wants me to serve,” Norm Coleman told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher, reports MnIndy. But he’s still waiting for the final word on whether MN voters want him to serve.

MN People’s Bailout DFLers introduced the Minnesota People’s Bailout at a press conference yesterday, proposing expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits, a new public works/jobs program, a moratorium on the five-year lifetime limit for public assistance, a moratorium on housing foreclosures and additional protections for renters and public sector workers. More to come …

Let’s make voting harder Even as the RNC’s MN voter fraud web page acknowledged that “there are no recent documented reports of vote fraud in this state,” GOP lawmakers introduced legislation to make voting more difficult, justifying it as an anti-vote-fraud measure. Minnesota Independent reports on the Emmer-Kiffmeyer proposal to require voters to produce photo IDs. David Schultz’s op/ed in MinnPost further debunks voter fraud hysteria.

Milk prices: falling off a cliff The brief good times are over for dairy farmers, reports Matt McKiinney in the Strib. Milk futures fell to $9.30 per hundredweight on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange yesterday, from a high of more than $20 last summer. And in the grocery store? “Government reports show that the price of a gallon of whole milk fell about 7 percent from July’s high of $3.96 a gallon to $3.68 in December.” the price of production for MN dairy farmers is “between $12.77 and $15.74 per hundredweight, according to FINBIN, a University of Minnesota agriculture economics database.”

Home prices low and getting lower Nationally, housing prices will bottom out in the fourth quarter, according to Moody’s Economy.com, reports Christopher Snowbeck in the PiPress, but MN housing prices probably won’t hit bottom until the first quarter of 2010. Moody’s predicts that Twin Cities housing prices will drop 24 percent from the 2006 peak.

Step forward, stumble back on stimulus plan That’s the analysis from the Center for American American Progress, which warns that the Senate compromise on the economic stimulus package, due to be passed today, would create between 430,000 and 538,000 fewer jobs than the House bill. Overall, “the Senate compromise would provide a great boost to the economy—but legislation closer to the House-passed version (or the version originally introduced in the Senate) would do more.”

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February 9, 2009 · 8:35 am

News Day – February 9: Stimulus and sabotage; Fletcher’s cops go to jail; St. Paul pays protester; Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer; Holocaust-denying bishop in MN; and more

Stimulus and sabotage If you want to understand the depths of the country’s economic trouble, and what to begin doing about it, Nobel Prize-winning economist Pau Krugman is must reading. He has a regular column and a blog at the New York Times. You can subscribe to either or both through a variety of RSS feeds. A sample from last Friday’s really scary column:

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. …

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

As you think about Republicans’ attempts to sabotage the economic stimulus package, remember how well they did with with the bank bailout, per the AP report published in the Strib

The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year’s overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms.

There’s much more, if you can bear to read it. (Or you can read the official report.)

More wrong answers in MN T-Paw’s broadband committee decided that MN should not use stimulus money for ready-to-go broadband projects in MN. Steve Alexander writes in the Strib that the Pawlenty’s Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force’s rejection of the funds came after Comcast and other private providers objected.

The list of ready-to-go broadband projects in Minnesota included a $27.5 million municipal broadband system in Monticello, a $5.4 million Minnesota Department of Health plan to expand rural health care, and a $2,500 project to extend high-speed Internet service to a library in Worthington. Other projects included a $19.6 million plan to provide high-speed Internet to 11 Minnesota communities, including Cannon Falls, Zumbrota and Lake City, and an $18.5 million Internet-TV-telephone system in North St. Paul.

And in another area, Met Council chief Peter Bell says he wants to use stimulus money to pay off the operating deficit, rather than to expand metro transit. MPR reports:

Bell’s suggestion for how the money could be used for something it isn’t intended for, illustrates a dilemma facing stimulus supporters — that money will be moved from account to account to keep everything legal, but in the end nothing gets done that wasn’t going to get done anyway.

Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer MPR forwards a brief report from the West Central Tribune about plunging milk prices, which fell from about $20 a hundredweight last fall to half that now. Farmers are losing money — nothing new there — and consumers haven’t even noticed. I’ve been working on an article on the food industry recently, so I can offer a little more detail.

The farmer sees very little of the consumer food dollar — about 17 cents for the wheat in a loaf of bread or ten cents for the corn in a box of corn flakes. All the rest goes to processing, marketing, advertising, and everyone else’s profits.

Milk provides the most dramatic example. There are approximately 12 gallons in a hundredweight of milk. (Farmers get paid by the hundredweight, consumers pay by the gallon.) At the tip top of the farm price cycle, the farmer got $1.71 per gallon of milk. That same gallon of milk cost $3.80 in the supermarket. The farmer’s price for milk at the beginning of 2009 had dropped to about 92 cents per gallon. The price in the supermarket? Still over $3.80.

Quote of the day Remember that Holocaust-denying Catholic bishop, who also thinks that “Judeo-Masonry brought about the first two world wars”? Turns out he headed up a seminary in Winona, and lived there from 1988-2003, according to a long and interesting article in the Winona Daily News. But the quote of the day, from a September 2001 letter written by Bishop Richard Williamson, came to me last week, courtesy of my web-surfing partner:

…[A]lmost no girl should go to any university! The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women’s trousers: the unwomaning of woman… [S]ince she is not respected and loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modem man does not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do..…[O]nly in modern times have women dreamt of going to university, but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics… may have difficulty in seeing the problem. […A]ny Catholic…recognizes that women should not be priests – can he deny that if few women went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature [of] our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and…girls.

(You read it here, and you might have trouble finding it elsewhere – the bishop or his Society of St. Pius X have removed his papers from the web.)

MN Job Watch As PiPress union employees reluctantly voted to accept management’s proposal for a one-week unpaid furlough between now and April 30, Strib employees got minimal good news, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. A bankruptcy judge reversed the Strib’s earlier position, and said that the newspaper must pay 43 workers who accepted buyouts between April and September 2008 the full amount of their buyout contracts. The Strib had asked the court for permission to make the payouts. On the other hand, Strib publisher Chris Harte warned that revenue continues to slide, and axed many benefits for non-union employees while asking union employees to accept a double-digit pay cut.

In Owatonna, SPX is laying off 100 workers, about 14% of its workforce. The cuts are part of 400 layoffs nationwide for the NC-based company, which makes tools, shop equipment and automotive components.

The Recount grinds on On MinnPost, Jay Weiner captures the mind-numbing tedium of the recount trial, without losing sight of the weight of the decisions being made. Is an end in sight? No.

We, the People “The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?” That’s just one of the questions on the new on-line citizenship study guide being piloted by the Minnesota Literacy Council. Katherine Glover writes in MinnPost that the new citizenship self-study materials are part of a larger project called Learner Web, which is developing programs includeing GED prep, computer skills and family literacy for eventual release to the public in the form of open source software. The MLC decided to go with citizenship prep software because of “Teacher Ron,” Ron Mazurowski, who has been teaching citizenship for more than 10 years and helped to put together the material. Check out the materials on-line.

St. Paul pays protester The city will pay $5,000 to anti-war activist Mick Kelly, who sued the city after he was arrested while passing out leaflets outside a Barack Obama rally at the Xcel Energy Center in June. The leaflets promoted RNC protests, and Kelly was later shot by police with a non-lethal weapon during the RNC. Kelly plans a second lawsuit over that incident. City Attorney John Choi emphasized that the settlement did not include any admission of wrongdoing by the city, reported Laura Yuen on MPR.

Ramsey County Sheriff’s employees sent to jail Two employees caught taking money in an FBI corruption sting were sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Friday, reports David Hanners in the PiPress. The two were close friends and confidants of Sheriff Bob Fletcher. Their attorney continued to insist that the two had only taken the $6,000 as a joke, writes James Walsh in the Strib, but U.S. District Judge Patrtick Schiltz “told the men that their actions were no laughing matter, but a violation of the public trust.” Fletcher declined to comment.

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February 6, 2009 · 10:42 am

News Day – February 6: Real unemployment numbers, Ford and PiPress jobs, early grad proposal

Unemployment — 7.6% or 15.4%? Federal figures released today show 7.6% unemployment in January, up 0.4% over December. Jobs lost during January numbered 598,000, according to the official count, for a total of 3.6 million jobs lost since the recession officially began in December 2007. Of course, those figures are not final, since job losses are revised monthly. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised December job loss figures upward, from 524,000 to 577,000.

The numbers are mind-boggling, but what do they mean? Official unemployment counts only those people actively looking for work. So-called discouraged workers (who have given up), and people who are underemployed or, in the parlance of BLS, “marginally attached,” don’t count. The official unemployment rate of 7.6% is called U-3 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A far bigger number, called U-6, measures

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers

That number is 15.4 percent in January, up from 13.5 percent in December.

The Washington Post reported new jobless claims of 626,000 in January, a 25-year high and much larger than the previously-predicted 591,000. About 4.8 million people are currently collecting unemployment compensatoin.

MN Job Watch In St. Paul, Pioneer Press Newspaper Guild workers will vote today on a management request that they take five unpaid days off between February 9 and April 30, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. Without the furlough, workers may face more layoffs, in addition to the eight workers laid off in January. (Of course, the furlough proposal offers no guarantee against future layoffs.) According to MPR, the furloughs would affect 307 union employees and a little more than 400 workers in all.

Also in St. Paul, Ford Ranger plant workers will have another two weeks of lay-off (next week and a week in March), reports Liz Fedor in the Strib. The new lay-off announcement came shortly after workers returned from a six-week lay-off in December and January. For Ranger sales dropped by 49.3 percent in January, and the plant is scheduled for closure in 2011.

Ametech Inc., a New Ulm plant that makes electrical servo motors, will leave MN for locations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina by September. The company has 80 employees in New Ulm, and about 11,000 employees worldwide, according to AP.

Get out of high school early GOP Rep. Pat Garofalo (Farmington) wants to pay high school students to graduate early, reports the Strib via AP. He proposes to give a scholarship of $2500 per semester for students who graduate up to three semesters early, thereby saving the state money because per pupil funding is greater than that amount. DFL Rep. Mindy Greiling says this might be a bad deal for students, who could earn credits for even less money by taking PSEO or College in the Schools courses. Questions about whether the scholarship would have to be used in MN or within the U of M/MNSCU systems or all in the first year or prorated over four years remain unanswered, as the bill has not been formally introduced yet.

Farming by the numbers As a former farm girl and a long-time wonk, I find the new federal ag census fascinating. Here are some of the numbers for MN and the nation.

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February 6, 2009 · 9:58 am

Farming by the numbers

Like numbers? The 2007 U.S. Agricultural Census has lots of fascinating numbers for anyone who farms or cares about the food system. You can go on-line to download or read everything– national numbers or a state-by-state breakdown. (Minnesota here.) Among the more interesting findings:

• Minnesota farm figures track national trends in most areas. Farm numbers increased nationally, but growth came mainly in the biggest and smallest operations. While Minnesota gained a few more farms, overall farm acreage in the state decreased by a little more than half a million acres.

• Big farms keep on growing. In MN, the number of farms with sales of more than half a million dollars went up by 2,801 farms. (The number of farms with less than $2500 in sales went up by 1,654).

• Nationally, the number of farms with sales greater than $500,000 increased by 46,000 from 2002 to 2007, while the total number of farms grew four percent to 2,204,792. That number is somewhat deceptive, as the greatest growth came in farms with sales of less than $1,000 — clearly hobby farms. (Remember that the sales figures are gross sales — a farm with $100,000 in sales has a profit margin that is far lower.) The number of farms in the $100,000 to $249,000 category shrank slightly, while all higher levels showed growth. Less than half of all farm operators said farming was their primary occupation.

• Family farm numbers declined in Minnesota. MN farms larger than 2,000 acres and those smaller than 180 acres increased in number, while the state lost about two thousand middle-sized farms. The number of MN farm operators identifying farming as their principal occupation dropped by about 20 percent, going from 50,808 to 39,628.

• Organic farms are a big growth sector. Even as the number of family farms in Minnesota continued to decline from 2002 to 2007, family-operated organic farms increased. MPR reports:

For the first time, the census of agriculture includes information on organic farms. According to the census, in 2007 there were 718 Minnesota farms producing organic crops. That’s a 66 percent gain from the best previous estimate, a 2005 state report. Jim Riddle runs an organic farm outreach program for the University of Minnesota and he said organic food should be a growth area for years to come.

“It’s still a supply and demand driven market and there’s just a very strong demand for organic products,” said Riddle.

Nationally, organic food sales have been growing at 15-20 percent per year until the recession hit, and even now continue to increase by about five percent per year.

• Nationally, farms with more than one million dollars in sales accounted for 59 percent of all agricultural production nationwide. In 2002, the million dollar farms accounted for only 47 percent of all ag sales.

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February 5, 2009 · 11:18 am

News Day – February 5: DHS and MN Somalis, Snyder closing stores, World/National notes

Maybe more news later … working to finish a freelance article today, in addition to the usual TC Daily Planet editing, so I’m in even more of a time crunch than usual.

Homeland Security “engages” with MN Somalis The Department of Homeland Security has an Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. (Who knew?) That office is coming to MN to “engage” with the Somali community, reports Laura Yuen on MPR. The feds will talk to key local government officials this week, and plan a community roundtable for some time in March.

The FBI has recently suggested that about a dozen young MN Somali men may have gone to Somalia to fight with the Islamist Al Shabab militia. According to BBC Al Shabab “are the youth and military wing of a group of Sharia courts known as the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) – who controlled Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia in 2006.”

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, but the UIC stopped much of the violence, crime and banditry in the areas they controlled. They were driven out by an Ethiopian invasion, supporting a Somali transitional federal government with the political backing of the United States.

Abdullahi Yusuf served as president of that transitional federal government for four years, but resigned in December as Ethiopian troops pulled out of Somalia. Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has attempted to reach a peace agreement with Islamist militants, and a former leader of the UIC, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was elected president in January. During its six months as the effective government of most of Somalia, the UIC was seen as comprised of moderates and hardliners, and Ahmed was identified with the moderates.

MN Job Watch Minnetonka-based Snyder Drug Stores will close 19 of its 47 corporate stores in Minnesota in March, reports MPR. Thirty independently-owned Snyder store will not be affected. The closings will leave “hundreds” of Snyder employees jobless.

GOP legislators are pushing legislation mandating a wage freeze for all public employees, according to Mark Brunswick in the Strib. The two-year freeze would apply to lump sum and cost-of-living adjustments as well as salaries for state, local, MNSCU, and school district employees — which sounds like no collective bargaining for two years and nullification of contracts already in place.

WORLD/NATIONAL NOTES – Gaza, DTV, Children’s Health Care, Half a Million?

Gaza aid intercepted by Israel Israeli military forces stopped a Lebanese ship bearing medical supplies, food, clothing and toys for Gaza, along with ” eight activists and journalists, as well as the former Greek-Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who had served time in an Israeli jail in the 1970s for his membership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO),” reports BBC. Yesterday, in Gaza, UN officials said that Hamas seized “thousands of blankets and food parcels that were meant to be distributed to Palestinian civilians in Gaza” that the UN was preparing to distribute to civilians.

DTV on hold until June–mostly The House agreed to delay DTV implementation until June 12, removing the last barrier to delay. Despite the delay, some broadcasters may still turn off their analog signals on the original February 17 date, as they are not required to continue broadcasting on analog, reports Julio Ojeda-Zapata in the PiPress. In other media-tech news, the Minnesota Daily reports that Minneapolis wi-fi should be completed by the end of March. The Daily report recalls earlier promises that the system would be complete by April 2008.

“Only” half a million dollars The Obama administration plans to cap exec salaries at half a mil for those companies receiving new federal bailout money. That’s more than the presidenet of the U.S. makes, but not enough, according to a business salary experts quoted in the NYT:

“That is pretty draconian, $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. … Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.

The Daily Kos puts the case for salary caps succinctly:

Remember, it was the guys making $20 million and more per year who created this mess.

So, what’s required to get competent managers in these positions? Remember that McCaskill pegged her maximum CEO salary to the salary of the President of the United States. Are we to believe that a CEO making $20 million per year is 50 times more impressive and talented than the President of the United States? (OK, granted, the answer to that question is different today than it was three weeks ago.) And are we to believe that the only reason anyone does a job, in particular these high profile, very powerful jobs, is for the money?

Score one for the children President Obama signed the children’s health bill yesterday, expanding coverage for uninsured children, reports the NYT:

The Congressional Budget Office says the bill will enable states to cover more than four million uninsured children by 2013, while continuing coverage for seven million youngsters. The bill will increase tobacco taxes to offset the increase in spending, estimated at more than $32 billion over four and a half years.

In a major change, the bill allows states to cover certain legal immigrants — namely, children under 21 and pregnant women — as well as citizens.

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February 4, 2009 · 12:39 pm

News Day – February 4: Q Comp, Walk on the wild side, Coleman-Franken recount, MN Job Watch and more

Q Comp: A little comp, not so much Q The Governor’s educational flagship, Quality Compensation, came under scrutiny by the non-partisan legislative auditor’s office, which reported that, after three years, there’s really no measurement of whether the program has improved student achievement. Some 72 public and charter school districts participate in the program, which rewards teachers based on “performance” rather than on education and experience, and encourages teacher mentoring programs. The Guv wants to increase funding for the program by $41 million this year, but legislators are not so enthusiastic, Tom Weber reports on MPR The MN DOE spent $181,000 on its own independent study of Q Comp, released a day ahead of the legislative auditor’s study.

Emily Johns and Bob Von Sternberg wrote in the Strib that the Guv’s plans to mandate Q Comp statewide would not be fully funded by the $41 million increase he proposes. Participants give the program mixed reviews, according to MN 2020 education writer John Fitzgerald: “Over 80 percent of administrators in Q Comp settings agreed or strongly agreed that Q Comp had improved classroom teaching and will lead to increases in students’ performance on standardized tests at their school. Less than half of teachers in Q Comp settings who responded to our [legislative auditor] questionnaire felt similarly.”

Hey, be careful out there! According to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, seven motorists were killed on MN roads in January, and six of them were not wearing seatbelts. That’s even higher than the norm, according to the AP report in the PiPress, which is about 55% of all annual traffic deaths in MN.

And this differs from blogging … how? The PiPress reports on-line:

A fire overnight has destroyed a house in St. Paul, a local television station is reporting.

Just below 11 p.m., firefighters were called to a home on the 800 block of Marion Street, WCCO-TV said. No one was home at the time and the house may have been vacant, the station said.

Walk on the wild side Coyotes are invading the Twin Cities, writes John Brewer in the PiPress. The “small, skulking cousin of the wolf” has been spotted near the Roseville library, fighting with a dog in Reservoir Woods, and standing on the frozen ice of Lake Calhoun a few years ago. (And, I might add, in alleys near the Town and Country golf course in St. Paul.) The PiPress says that the February-March coyote mating season will probably lead to more encounters. That doesn’t mean the Twin Cities are rural — Chicago boasts lots of coyotes and the Urban Coyote website with info on the wily critters and how to tell a coyote from a German Shepherd.

And one more wild animal story: the criminal charges against the man in Willmar who sprayed teens with fox urine to keep his yard from being toilet-papered.

The never-ending Coleman-Franken recount Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, but no one is predicting when the end to the endless recount will arrive. Yesterday, the judges said they would look at no more than 4,800 of the 11,000 rejected absentee ballots that Coleman wants reviewed. According to Rachel Stassen-Berger in the PiPress , the court also said the law on absentee ballots is “clear, objective and unambiguous.” That probably means Coleman voters like Janet Czeck of Brooklyn Park, who testified that she just forgot to sign the ballot envelope, will not get their ballots counted. Coleman and Franken legal teams also agreed to withdraw any challenges to the 933 previously-rejected absentee ballots that were accepted and included in the recount. MinnPost sums it up nicely:

If you, Mr. or Ms. Voter, are among the 4,797, and you cast your vote by absentee ballot but you royally screwed up — like, say, didn’t sign it, or you voted in person, too, or you weren’t registered — your vote still won’t count.

No ifs, ands or buts, the court order seems to say.

But if an election judge happened to discard your vote by mistake or the lady at the counter who took your absentee ballot forgot to tell you to sign in … your vote just might count, the same court order seems to say.

Indeed, no more “The dog ate my ballot” stories from Coleman or Franken voters.

The votes in this new universe will only be counted if they were previously rejected through no fault of the voter.

Housing’s mixed bag Tim Nelson at MPR warns that as bad as the housing crisis looks now, it may be about to get worse again, as “high-risk loans … with obscure names like Cash-Flow ARMs, Pay Option ARMs, and Pick a Payment Loans” come due. Many of these loans, in what is called the “Alt-A” category, were made to more credit-worthy customers who were entrepreneurs or self-employed.

In Minnesota, for instance, there are only about half as many adjustable rate Alt-A loans as there are similar subprime loans.

But Minnesota’s Alt-A loans are about a third larger on average, and nearly twice as many are the most volatile interest-only loans. Many more are also secondary loans. That’s according to end-of-year data for 2008 from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

And while Alt-A loans are generally better quality, and the borrowers better off financially than with subprime mortgages, no one knows how they’ll fare as unemployment grows and real estate values continue to plummet.

On the other hand, Jim Buchta writes in the Strib that “pending sales in the 13-county metro area during January rose a robust 17.7 percent, marking the seventh consecutive year-over-year monthly increase, according to an analysis of data from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.” That’s about the only bright spot, as home sales prices continue to fall and getting a mortgage remains difficult for many buyers. And the pending sales included many distress sales, which were 32 percent of all active listings in the metro area in January.

Aiding and abetting in North Minneapolis The latest chapter in the Jordan Area Community Council contest, reports Sheila Regan in the TC Daily Planet, came in court yesterday as the “old” board officers sued to stop just about everybody they could think of from recognizing, aiding or abetting the newly-elected officers. Attorney Jim Moore represents some of the defendants, including the city of Minneapolis, Don Samuels, Barbara Johnson, and Mike Martin. As far as the city council members, he asked: “What is it that my clients are supposed to be restrained from, not taking sides, or voicing opinions about neighborhood issues?” The judge deferred a ruling, guaranteeing another day in court.

Borrowing new money to pay interest on old debts: A T-Paw idea Patricia Lopez reported in the Strib that the legislature is cool to the Guv’s proposal to borrow $973 million this year and repay it at a cost of as much as $1.6 billion over the next 20 years, all in order to pay the interest on current state debts, a plan the Strib likens to refinancing credit card debt by taking out a mortgage on your house. Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) has another name for it: “really a stupid idea.”

MN Job Watch Looked at the City of St. Paul website yesterday, and saw a big “no jobs available” message. But, on a more positive note, the PiPress reports that Vascular Solutions, a TC med-tech firm, plans to hire about 25 people across the state as it increases production. Bad news: AP reports that Phoenix Industries in Crookston, which employed about 100 people a few months ago, then cut to 20 employees, will not close its doors.

On the national/international scene, the jobs hemorrhage continues, with mass layoff notices from PNC Financial, Liz Claiborne, Beechcraft (airplanes), King Pharmaceuticals, amd Rockwell Collins (military). GM is offering buyouts to all hourly workers. UPS is freezing pay and stopping matching contributions to employee 401(k) plans.

New federal unemployment figures for January will be released this week.

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February 3, 2009 · 10:56 am

News Day – February 3: Let them eat arts, RNC mistrial, undercounting the homeless, and more

Let them eat arts T-Paw’s plan to turn the Perpich Center for Arts Education into a charter school may have bipartisan support, writes Norman Draper in the Strib. Make that bipartisan support for killing the Perpich Center, which has been a proud national model of a statewide arts school and a center for arts education that sends staff to assist in arts education across the state and provides training sessions and resources for arts teachers from across the state. This is not a slam on charter schools – the fact is that the Guv’s move means cutting all the funding that enables Perpich to provide arts education for students and teachers, leaving it with state funding that pays only a per-pupil allotment equal to the funding formula for every other public school student. “Converting to a charter” in this case means taking away state resources, with no way to replace them. The Strib quotes Rudy Perpich, Jr.: “As my parents said, ‘Arts are always the first thing to be cut.”

Free–at last, sort of, at least for a while The jury deadlocked in the federal trial of RNC protester David McKay, accused of Molotov cocktail making and possession. While a March 16 retrial date has been set, the judge let McKay go free on bail. Writing in the PiPress, David Hanners reported that jurors apparently deadlocked over McKay’s claim that he would never have had anything to do with Molotov cocktails, but for the goaoding of federal informant Brandon Darby. McKay’s attorney said he was “a kid who came here to throw trash in the street,” not a bomber.

First-hand history recovered Almost a century after Lakota Chief Martin White Horse dictated stories about his community to Florence May Thwing, the typewritten document detailing 100 years of Lakota (Sioux) history has been re-discovered in a trunk by Thwing’s great-granddaughter. The winter count includes an entry for each year from 1790 to 1910, reports MPR:
(1835) In the year of stars moving in the sky.

(1845) In this year the Sioux Indians were starving and dying for lack of food because there had been no buffalos in their country for a long time. So they took the head of an old buffalo and painted it red, and placed it in a tepee and worshipped it with much singing and other things, and asked this buffalo head to send them buffalos to where they are located inside the boundary line. Their prayers were successful and many buffalos came to the place where they were camped, so the Sioux had again plenty of food.

MN Job Watch Macy’s announced Monday that it will cut 7,000 jobs, about four percent of its workforce, AP reports in the Strib. According to the Strib/AP report, Macy’s is centralizing, and its central buying, merchandise planning, stores senior management and marketing functions will be located primarily in New York. No word yet on any job cuts in MN, but Macy’s already closed its regional HQ in Minneapolis last year, cutting about 950 jobs, and announced the closing of its Brookdale store last month.

In Eden Prairie, ADC Telecommunications announced a general hiring freeze and plans for unspecified layoffs, reports Leslie Suzukamo in the PiPress. ADC announced layoffs of 160-190 MN workers in October as part of a global reduction in force. The Eden Prairie-based company has about 10,500 workers worldwide, and announced a quarterly loss of 17-23 cents per share.

TPM says RNC Chair Michael Steele is coming “straight outta Hooverville,” with his bogus claim that: “Not in the history of mankind has the goverment ever created a job,” saying “This is such transparent nonsense it’s hard to know where to start … Has Steele every heard of government road building? Defense spending? … ” Ann Markusen writes in MinnPost that “Few elements of the forthcoming stimulus program would pump money into the economy faster and more efficiently than the funds to states to refresh depleted unemployment insurance, social safety nets, and college aid programs.”

(Under)counting the homeless January is the wrong time to count homeless people, reports Madeleine Baran in the TC Daily Planet, but that’s the time mandated by the federal government. In a related article, Session Weekly reports that one in eight Minnesota households spends more than half its income on housing, and that the average cost for rentals is now higher than $900/month. All that, as Twin Cities home values fell 10 percent last year, according to Jim Buchta in the Strib.

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February 2, 2009 · 9:13 am

News Day – February 2: Health at risk, MN not-so-nice for minorities, Punxsatawney Phil and more

Health at risk No, not salmonella this time — the bigger health risk comes from lack of money. Kathlyn Stone, writing in the TC Daily Planet, tells the story of Jean Bender, who “is worried about the next round of Health and Human Services cuts that will make it harder to afford the care needed by her developmentally and physically disabled child.” Chen May Lee reports in the Star Tribune that more than a thousand local health care employees have been laid off since last year, and big construction projects have been postponed as the recession means people just can’t pay for health care.

“In the past, people were delaying vacations or new automobile [purchases],” said Steve Hine, director of labor market information at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. “This time around, they’re even cutting back on their health care.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Planet reports on the debate in the legislature over single-payer health care reform.

Minnesota not-so-nice “Economically, Minnesotans are blessed with a Lake Wobegon, above-average life. As long as they’re white,” writes Richard Chin in the PiPress. In appalling and statistically-backed detail, he goes on to describe a state where whites are better off than the rest of the nation as measured by income, unemployment and poverty levels, and black Minnesotans are worse off, and where the gaps between white and black Minnesotans continue to grow. Read the whole article for an alarming wake-up call.

Punxsutawney Phil: ONLY six more weeks of winter! I’ve never understood why the groundhog seeing his shadow was so bad. Here in the northland, ending winter on St. Patrick’s Day, instead of suffering through another round of March blizzards, sounds pretty good.

DTV or no TV? If the scheduled switchover to all-DTV goes ahead as planned on February 17, more than six million U.S. households will see nothing but snow on their screens, according to the latest Nielsen figures. After Senate voted unanimously to delay DTV until June, the House voted down the delay, but now is scheduled to take a second look later this week. Funds for the $40 coupon to apply toward the cost of a digital converter box ran out weeks ago. (And then there’s the whole problem of antennas and of which wall in which room of your home a converter box/antenna set-up must be situated in order to work.) Martin Moylan reports on MPR that MN broadcasters are split on whether the delay is needed, and that some think it will cost them up to a thousand dollars a day to delay the switch.

Nullifying the amendment Conservation and arts advocates succeeded in getting the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment passed to guarantee additional funding, because, they told voters, the legislature and governor couldn’t be counted on to maintain commitments to the outdoors, clean water, parks and arts projects. Now, reports Dennis Lien at MPR, they charge that Gov.Tim Pawlenty is about to slash arts adn conservation funding so that the amendment, instead of bringing new funding, will substitute for traditional funding sources. They point to a 50 percent cut for the State Arts Board and regional arts councils, a $1.9 million cut from MPCA clean water funds and $1.3 million from the DNR division of waters, along with a $5.5 million cut from the DNR’s fish and wildlife division. In the Strib, Doug Smith writes that DNR Fish and Wildlife funds will be cut, losing all of the $2.8 million general fund dollars previously allocated. That leaves the division funded “almost entirely” by hunting and fishing license fees, reducing funds for research on fish and wildlife populations and habitat, land and water habitat management, environmental review, shoreline restoration funds, and conservation officers.

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January 30, 2009 · 7:47 am

News Day – January 30: Billions for the rich, baseball’s big stink, save money by eliminating elections

Let them eat bonuses! Eighteen billion dollars in bonuses buys a lot of cake, and that’s what Wall Street’s fat cats pulled down last year, the NYT reported yesterday. Yeah, we know — it’s important to reward the hard work of the best and the brightest. BBC reports that President Obama denounced the bonuses as “shameful” and “the height of irresponsibility.”

Baseball and the big stink The Minneapolis garbage burner is supposed to be clean and odor-free, or at least that’s the official line when nearby residents or environmentalists raise questions about it. I almost believed it, when the Twins stadium was sited near the burner, since the temple of baseball would never be located anywhere even slightly smelly. But now, Mary Jane Smetanka writes in the Strib, county officials are thinking about spending “an estimated $2.3 million to remodel the building and grounds, about $500,000 of that to deal with odor control.” The 20-year-old burner, far from state of the art at this point, doesn’t smell, insists Commissioner Mike Opat — the smells just come from garbage trucks entering and exiting the burner. And that can be fixed by fancy double exit and entry doors and a “plan is to spray the equivalent of truck “perfume” on departing vehicles to kill the stench that often lingers in garbage haulers.”

Feeding on foreclosures Private “foreclosure consultants” promise to help struggling homeowners, but MN AG Lori Swanson says two of the firms are breaking the law by charging big upfront fees and failing to deliver. MPR reports that Swanson is suing two Florida firms: IMC Financial and American Financial Corp., which does business as National Foreclosure Counseling Services. This brings the number of foreclosure consulting companies sued by MN to twelve.
<b<MN Job Watch Even workers who still have jobs are seeing pay and benefit cuts in the current crisis, reports Nikki Tundel on MPR. While many companies have frozen salaries and hiring, others–including FedEx, Caterpillar, IBM and Gymboree–have cut pay and benefits. Overall, about five percent of U.S. companies have cut pay over the past year and another 11 percent are considering wage cuts this year.

The Strib reports that the governor has signed a bill extending jobless benefits for 3,000 people — about 10 percent of the Minnesotans who have used up state unemployment comp and don’t qualfy for a federal extension. What happens to the other 90 percent? The news comes as national unemployment compensation rolls reach 26 year high, according to AP. U.S. Labor Department figures show the highest number of claimants since record-keeping started in 1967, with 4.78 million claimants in the week ending January 17, up 159,000 from the previous week. That number doesn’t include 1.7 million receiving benefits under the extended unemployment comp — which brings the total number near 6.5 million. And, of course, it doesn’t include the people whose unemployment comp has run out, or who never qualified for it to begin with.

In better news, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar said MN could get 12,000 highway construction jobs by the end of June under the economic stimulus package, writes Bill Salisbury in the PiPress.

The jury is out Literally. The only federal RNC felony case that went to trial wound up on Thursday, and David McKay’s fate is now with the jury. They will decide whether to find him guilty of charges that he made and possessed Molotov cocktails, and that the devices violated federal firearms laws because they lacked serial numbers. The dry-sounding legal charges are almost lost in the rhetorical battle over the relative responsibility of McKay and the government informant, Brandon Darby. David Hanners in the PiPress reports on the closing statement by McKay’s attorney:

He said that while the FBI had asked Darby to be the bureau’s “eyes and ears” to monitor the small, loose-knit activist group in Austin that McKay belonged to, the informant went over the line and incited the group to break the law.

“He wasn’t the eyes and ears. He was the mouth — a violent, firebomb-obsessed mouth,” declared DeGree.

Want a really bad job? The Army Times reports that four suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion have led to an order for a one-day stand-down of all Army and Army Reserve recruiters nationwide on February 13, to provide “training on leadership, a review of the expectations of Recruiting Command’s leaders, suicide prevention and resiliency training, coping skills and recruiter wellness.” Among the stressors for recruiters:

[The] Houston battalion’s policy called for a maximum work day of 13 hours, and recruiters had to seek approval from their chain of command if they worked beyond that, Turner said. However, the 13-hour maximum was interpreted as the expected norm, and the policy could have been written more clearly, Turner said.

BBC reports that overall army suicides have set a record for the second year in a row.

Somalia in the news Somalian MPs are set to choose a new president from a field of at least 14 candidates, reports BBC. If you haven’t been keeping current on news from Somalia, this vote follows the resignation of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in December, the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops that had occupied parts of Somalia, and a continuing insurgency. Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991, and more than a million people have fled their homes because of continuing fighting. More than 40% of the population needs food aid.

Save money – eliminate elections In Minneapolis, city council member Paul Ostrow wants to eliminate two elected boards and centralize city government under a city manager in order to save money, reports Brandt Williams on MPR. (He’s joined in this proposal by Don Samuels and Ralph Remington.) Their three proposals:

1) replace the elected Park Board, which has actual decision-making authority, with an advisory board.
2) Eliminate the elected Board of Estimate and Taxation
3) Create a city administrator and change the supervision and reporting structure of city government so that departments all report to the new city manager rather than to city council committees.

MinnPost comes out pretty clearly in favor of the proposal, headlining it as an initiative to streamline Minneapolis operations and asking in the lead paragraph, “Can Minneapolis afford the antiquated bureaucracy that seems often to hang as an anvil around its neck?” (Steve Berg, who wrote the article, notes that he has long been an advocate of these changes.)

Ostrow argues that the mayor and council should set policy and then leave oversight and implementation to professionals. Samuels cited last year’s city/county library merger as a success story showing the need to centralize responsibility.

In the Minneapolis E-Democracy Forum, debate is already heated.

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