People can’t afford to eat, so Congress is set to vote Tuesday to balance the budget by cutting food stamps. They plan to cut an average of $15 from the average $124 per person food stamp benefit that 40.8 million Americans use to buy bread and milk. (Food stamps are now called SNAP – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.) Continue reading
NEWS DAY | Let them eat cake – cutting food stamps / Minnesota Somalis in the news
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NEWS DAY | Work and home at risk
The latest federal unemployment statistics, released August 5, show a 9.5 percent July unemployment rate, unchanged since June. The total number of unemployed people, both those officially counted because they have actively sought work within the past four weeks, plus those who are marginally attached to the labor force, or work part time for economic reasons, also remained the same, at 16.5 percent. Continue reading
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WEEKEND HEADLINES: Somali arrests / Koua Lee Fong freed
Watch for updates throughout the weekend –
Two Minnesota Somali women were charged with aiding al-Shabaab in a new federal indictment released Thursday. Both women were released after a court hearing, and will return to court for further proceedings, according to MPR. The indictment charges Amina Farah Ali, 33, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 63, both of Rochester, with sending money to al-Shabaab. Ali talked to MPR about the FBI investigation in July 2009, and said they told her to stop shipping old clothes to refugees: Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | Big Brother Bob Fletcher / Zinging SJU and the Freedom Foundation / When colleges lie – and profit
Big Brother Bob Fletcher is watching you and he wants you to watch your neighbors, too. He has just rolled out a spy site on the web, where would-be watchers can choose one of ten cameras to watch. They’re pretty boring, but some criminal someday may be stupid enough to do something unlawful while you are watching. This is all part of the continuing RNC security saga, which funded more than a hundred spy cams for the Twin Cities. If you remember, the St. Paul police had lots of cameras, but no one watching – Lights, cameras — but no action for St. Paul police. Fletcher has been planning his web cop project since at least January. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | “Rampaging Toyotas” / Plugging the biggest leak / Ordinary people in Minneapolis
“Rampaging Toyotas” were the focus of a Strib story and headline on Koua Fong Lee’s bid for a new trial. Lee, jailed after conviction of criminal vehicular homicide. Witness after witness took the stand to tell of their own Toyota Camry mishaps, and loss of control when brakes failed without warning. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | WikiLeaks, Afghan alfalfa / Islam, Tea Party and freedom / 19 Minnesota schools
Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks – Frank Rich was writing for the Harvard Crimson and “knew the whistle-blower had to be Daniel Ellsberg” when the New York Times published the first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Today Rich is a columnist for the New York Times, with the historical perspective to remind us that Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | AZ law, MN protests / Violence in American Indian communities
Arizona law, Minnesota protests – July 29 is the effective date for Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB1070 law to take effect, but much of the impact will be blunted by the July 28 court decision enjoining enforcement. In Minnesota, protesters will gather at 6 p.m. at the state capitol to protest SB1070, joining other protests across the country. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | Hot enough? / English only in Lino Lakes / More WikiLeaks
Hot enough for you? For the first time in three years, Xcel Energy switched on its hot-weather energy-saver program, reports the Pioneer Press. Today’s 90-degree temps meant “cycling on and off the central air conditioners for hundreds of thousands of Minnesota customers in order to ease the peak demand on its electricity load” between 2 and 6 p.m. Continue reading
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War secrets, WikiLeaks and journalism
A eccentric, secretive hacker-turned-journalist, with a super-encrypted computer network based on secret servers in several countries does battle with the FBI, the Pentagon, international bankers, and the Chinese government – it sounds like this fall’s best new TV series, but it’s playing this summer, in the real world just outside the box. WikiLeaks has released more than 90,000 secret U.S. documents to the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. In exchange for the information, the three newspapers have now published their stories, simultaneously, at the same time that WikiLeaks made its archive public. Continue reading
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Shirley Sherrod – We need you
The right-wing attack on Shirley Sherrod succeeded in introducing a heroic figure to the mainstream media, after they – and the Obama administration and the NAACP – recovered from their initial knee-jerk defensive response. Time Magazine published an article introducing the real Shirley Sherrod and her long-time struggle for justice within the USDA: Continue reading
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Mary Turck