Minnesota unemployment: The numbers and beyond One in four Minnesotans say they or a family member in their household has lost a job in the last year, according to a new survey released by the Northwest Area Foundation yesterday. The survey release came one day after the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) commissioner said he was “encouraged” by a slight drop in Minnesota’s unemployment. Yet, even with the decline in unemployment, fewer Minnesotans had jobs at the end of August than at the beginning. Here’s a closer look at the numbers, and what they really mean. Continue reading
Tag Archives: economic crisis
NEWS DAY | Understanding unemployment numbers / MNSCU bonuses, ethics / Fong Lee shooter fired
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NEWS DAY | Two faces of T-Paw / Shouting back at U of M stadium / Marking six small graves / Heading for a new crash?
Two faces of T-Paw On September 10, MPR reported Governor Tim Pawlenty’s assertion of states’ rights doctrine in opposition to health care reform, and his prediction that governors might sue to stop a health care program:
Depending on what the federal government comes out with here, asserting the Tenth Amendment may be the viable option. … We’ll have to see. I would say that’s a possibility. You’re starting to see more governors including me and specifically Governor Perry from Texas and most Republican governors express concern around the issue and get more aggressive about asserting and bringing up the Tenth Amendment [inaudible] hopefully a resurgence in kinds of claims and maybe even lawsuits if need be.
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NEWS DAY | Joe Wilson and Tim Pawlenty / MN swine flu update / Uninsured in MN
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What happens when you call the president a liar? You get a bully platform, and equal time with the president. That, at any rate, is what happened to Joe Wilson, an otherwise little-noticed representative from South Carolina. Since he shouted out “You lie!” during President Obama’s health care speech, he has been interviewed over and over and his anti-health care reform and anti-immigrant views splashed across the front pages and radio waves, getting the kind of serious attention and debate that they otherwise would not have had and do not deserve. Continue reading
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NEWS DAY | Food prices: Falling or spinning? / Domestic violence kills / T-Paw’s money
Food prices and news spins Are food prices down? Sort of, according to AP, which reports that the Labor Department index for the price of food to be eaten at home has fallen by nine-tenths of one percent over the past year. Of course, that comes after food sellers raised their prices by 6.7 percent in the previous year. And despite the fact that “ingredient costs for major food makers, including Heinz, Kraft and Hormel, are down about 28 percent on average as of Sept. 1, from Sept. 1, 2008.”
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Bi-partisan summit challenges gubernatorial candidates
A bi-partisan summit with former Governors Arnie Carlson, Al Quie and Wendell Anderson and several former legislative majority and minority leaders talked about different proposals to tackle next year’s largest-ever budget deficit — but Governor Pawlenty boycotted the meeting. MPR reports:
“All of the governors here, and I think just about all of the leadership here, have gone through processes where you’ve had to deal with budget deficits,” Carlson said. “But nothing that we dealt with will be as large as the one that is coming. That’s the point.”
Carlson is proposing the current governor, as well as the majority and minority caucuses of the Minnesota House and Senate, come up with individual plans for solving the pending deficit. He said those plans, which would certainly include spending cuts and possibly some tax increases, could then be presented to the public next year as part of the gubernatorial campaign.
<!–more–>Pawlenty isn’t running for governor next year, so he doesn’t have to worry about the deficit, right? Pawlenty and a few Republican lawmakers skipped the summit in favor of a meeting with business leaders in Eden Prairie, with T-Paw saying it makes more sense to talk about jobs than about the budget deficit. Not so, according to the St. Paul Legal Ledger analysis, which points to Minnesota’s first-ever revenue decline from one two-year budget period to the next and to a lagging economy that won’t see state revenues beginning to recover for at least 18 months. While the official state estimate is for a $4.4 billion deficit in the next biennium, the actual figure is likely to be more than $7 billion, cut costs for delivery of public services
:
In February 2009, as the Democratic-controlled Minnesota Legislature was wrangling with Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty over the budget crisis, five of Minnesota’s largest foundations contracted with the St. Paul-based Public Strategies Group to develop ideas for transforming Minnesota’s “financing and delivery of public services.”
The result was a report issued in March that suggested nine ideas…. The suggestions include focusing state spending on health outcomes rather than services, developing a regional approach to county human service delivery, and providing choice and competition in local governments to improve quality and costs.
The two-page executive summary of the PSG report and the 70-page Collection of Ideas offer a lot of food for thought. The 2010 gubernatorial election campaign is already underway, with many legislative leaders actively engaged. Pawlenty seems set on maintaining his slogan-based non-leadership on budget and deficit issues. The 2010 legislative session seems doomed before it begins. But the political summit and the foundation brain trust offer some hope for 2011. If the bi-partisan political leadership group can force an actual debate on the issues, the 2010 election could produce a much more rational, solution-oriented legislative session in 2011.
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NEWS DAY | Barnum & Bailey and health care reform / MN-Somali war death / New Flyer takes a dive
Barnum & Bailey and healthcare reform Bill Moyers, as usual, gets it really right:
Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we’re the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today’s talk radio….
[Media scholar Henry Giroux] describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a “culture of cruelty” increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive…
[Josh Marshall has] offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan — one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you’re 65?
As Congress returns, the prospects for real health care reform seem ever dimmer. And neither Congress nor the White House is seriously talking about legislation to address the other, on-going crisis of a “jobless recovery.” Bob Herbert warns in the op/ed pages of the New York Times:
Politicians talk about it, but aggressive job-creation efforts are not part of the policy mix.
Nearly 15 million Americans are unemployed, according to official statistics. The real numbers are far worse. The unemployment rate for black Americans is a back-breaking 15.1 percent.
Five million people have been unemployed for more than six months, and the consensus is that even when the recession ends, the employment landscape will remain dismal.
MN budget cuts hit courts, schools, counties Without money to cover state judicial system needs, five Minnesota counties will begin sharing judges this week. Freeborn, Steele and Winona counties will share judges with Mower and Olmsted counties for a year, reports the Star Tribune. Winona County also has a waiting list for public defenders to represent defendants in criminal cases.
Charter schools are also feeling the pinch, because of delays in funding implemented by Governor Tim Pawlenty. The Star Tribune reports that many charter schools will have to borrow and pay interest on loans. So will public district schools, but they at least have an option of asking for increased tax levies.
Delayed payments are an annual part of the school funding landscape; 10 percent was deferred last year, for example. But as part of the state’s budget-balancing act this spring, 27 percent of what’s allocated for schools this year won’t be paid until next year, a scenario that will repeat itself again in 2010.
And in Stearns County, some workers required to take an unpaid furlough day were gone from their jobs on Friday and others will be gone on Tuesday. The Strib reports that county workers were given the options of taking their furlough days around the July 4 or Labor Day weekends. MPR reports that rural Minnesota is seeing another looming shortfall, with already-scarce public transportation being cut:
No shortage of demand but a definite shortage of money. Already Mn/DOT has cut $400,000 to rural transit providers. Another cut of a million and half dollars is on the horizon….
If people resist paying more taxes to supply rural transit and if enough volunteers can’t be found, there are still other options.The most obvious is people moving to areas with more transit options.
Another MN-Somali youth dies Laura Yuen at MPR reports that a fifth MN-Somali youth has died in fighting in Somalia. Mohammed Hassan, age 23, had been a student at the U of M and spent much of his time caring for his aged grandmother. Hassan was working on an engineering degree at the U of M, and had been voted “most friendly” of his Roosevelt High graduating class in 2006. He was the fifth of 20 young Minnesota-Somalis to die in the civil war in Somalia after leaving Minnesota and going to Somalia over the past two years.
MN Job Watch New Flyer bus company, headquartered in Winnipeg but with a large operation in St. Cloud, was supposed to be recession-proof. New Flyer makes the energy-efficient hybrid buses sought by mass transit companies across the country. But now it is laying off 320 workers. The reason, according to the New York Times:
The layoffs at New Flyer are a vivid illustration of the way that some of the economic impact of the $787 billion federal stimulus law is being diluted by the actions that state and local governments are taking to weather the recession. …The stimulus will spend $27.5 billion in federal money on highway projects, but at least 19 states are planning to cut their highway spending this year, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, a trade group. And as the stimulus devotes $8.4 billion to mass transit, transit systems across the nation have been forced to cut service, raise fares and delay capital spending.
According to the St. Cloud Times, about 70 of the layoffs (13% of the work force) will come in St. Cloud by December. Prairie Business reports that the Crookston plant will lose about 60 jobs. Most of the 320 jobs will be cut from the Winnipeg headquarters.
War Report | Afghanistan The U.N. Commission overseeing the Afghan election has ordered a partial recount, AP reports, beginning with polling places “showing 100 percent turnout or with a presidential candidate receiving more than 95 percent of the vote.” With widespread and credible allegations of massive fraud, President Hamid Karzai’s lead is approaching the 50 percent plus one needed to avoid a run-off election. The Afghan election commission has thrown out about 200,000 ballots from 447 stations because of fraud. An additional 224,000 ballots were disqualified for other reasons, bringing the total number of ballots eliminated to almost ten percent of the 4.3 million ballots cast.
In a statement as insulting as it was inaccurate, U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke compared the Afghan election fraud to Minnesota’s senatorial recount:
We recently had a senatorial election in Minnesota which took seven months to determine the outcome, there were so many charges of irregularities. It certainly won’t take that long in Afghanistan, but that happens in democracies, even when they are not in the middle of a war.
Meanwhile, reports AP, NATO acknowledged that its air strike last Friday that killed more than 60 people in a crowd around two hijacked and disabled fuel tankers did, in fact, kill civilians.
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News Day: Fighting foreclosures / Central Corridor money / Unemployment claims rise / Lies, damn lies and health care
Photo by Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet
A second foreclosed homeowner, Linda Rorenberg of Robbinsdale, said she was inspired by Williams’s example and would resist eviction, reports MPR:
“We’re both 60 years old. We’re both in family-owned houses,” Norenberg said Wednesday. “I want to stay here. I love it here. I love the neighborhood.” …
Norenberg’s house has been in her family for 65 years. She said her father built the home in 1944, and she bought in 1977 after he died.
Foreclosures dropped slightly in Minnesota in the first half of the year, according to a report by the Minnesota Homeownership Council, reports MPR. At the same time, however, the number of homeowners more than 60 days in default increased. In 2008, Minnesota had a record high 26,000+ foreclosures. Nationally, foreclosures rose by 7 percent in July. One of the explanations for the decline during the first six months of the year was a partial, voluntary moratorium during the first quarter.
Central Corridor: New money An inflation adjustment will send about $16 million more in federal funds to the Central Corridorreports MPR, but Met Council head Peter Bell says the money will not be used to add stations on University Avenue. Met Council officials had previously said that if they got additional money, it would go to meet community demands for adding stations at Hamline, Victoria or Western avenues as they cross the University avenue route in St. Paul.
From somewhere, in spite of a budget shortfall, St. Paul has found a million dollars for parking alleviation along the Central Corridor, according to MPR. The city council was slated to approve a plan that would allow small businesses to apply for up to $25,000 in forgivable loans to improve their off-street parking, or even more if they are sharing offstreet parking with neighbors.
“We have so many small businesses on University Avenue who rely not on big parking lots, but sort of need one spot right in front for that customer who comes out at 1 o’clock on a Tuesday to park and walk into their store,” [Council member Melvin] Carter said.
The Met Council has consistently said it has no money for parking alleviation on University Avenue, where the Central Corridor will eliminate 85 percent of all on-street parking. Some of the new city money could also be used for alley repaving.
World/National News
Unemployment claims up The Department of Labor reported a slight increase in unemployment claims today. NPR’s Planet Money explains what that’s a problem:
New claims for unemployment insurance rose last week to 558,000, from 554,000 the week before, the Department of Labor reports. Heading into Thursday morning’s report, analysts expected new claims to drop to 545,000. They had fallen for six straight weeks.
Other economic news was also bad. AP reported an overall 0.1 percent decline in retail sales. Not much, but retail sales had been expected to rise by 0.7 percent. Instead, even the major bump given by the billion-dollar Cash for Clunkers program couldn’t pull retail sales out of the red.
Worried? I am, but I’m not an economist. NPR reports that the Federal Reserve says the economy is stabilizing, and other experts agree:
A growing number of economists now say they think the recession is finally over — by that they mean the economy is starting to grow again.
Until growth translates into jobs, it’s not a recovery in my books.
Lies, damn lies and the health care “debate” The rabid anti-health care reform forces don’t really give a damn about truth. Case in point: the Investor’s Business Daily charge that Stephen Hawking would have died under a British-style national health care system, because national health care devalues the handicapped and the elderly. Hawking, of course, is British, a point that escaped the notice of IBD. The Guardian debunks:
The danger, says the Investor’s Business Daily, is that [Obama] borrows too much from the UK. “The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”
We say his life is far from worthless, as they do at Addenbrooke’s hospital, Cambridge, where Professor Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, was treated for chest problems in April. As indeed does he. “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS,” he told us. “I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.” Something here is worthless. And it’s not him.
Robert Reich prescribes more information and more rationality in the debate. He says that the administration “needs to be very specific about two things in particular: (1) Who will pay? and (2) Why the public option is so important — and why it’s not a Trojan Horse to a government takeover.”
I’d like to believe that more information would make a difference, but it’s transparently obvious that the rabid right opinion leaders don’t really give a damn about facts. When confronted with the facts on Stephen Hawking, IBD excised that reference, but continued to insist that national health care will terrorize grandma. The objective of Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Investor’s Business Daily, et al is not informing the public, but stirring up fear and hatred. Unfortunately for the country, they succeed all too well.
War Reports
Pakistan At least 70 people are dead and scores of homes destroyed in Wednesday’s intense battle between Taliban fighters and a local warlord’s forces in the mountainous south Waziristan village of Sura Ghar, reports AP. The government sent in war planes in support of the local warlord, Turkistan Bitani, when an estimated 300 Taliban forces attacked his village. This is the region where U.S. and Pakistani forces believe that a missile strike an a residential compound killed Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on August 5, while Taliban commanders say he is still alive and that the missile strike killed civilians, including one of his wives and children.
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News Day: Guns and budgets / Swine flu preparations / Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced
MSNBC broadcast interview with gun-toting protester
Unlike the WSJ, Gawker.com headlines a cause for concern”:
The man is carrying a sign that says, “It Is Time to Water the Tree of Liberty.” That’s a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It was a favorite slogan of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was wearing a T-shirt when he was arrested with a picture of Lincoln on the front and a tree dripping with blood on the back.
Now, this guy is carrying a legal weapon, says NBC News’ Ron Allen. The local chief of police has no objections. …
But let’s be clear: anyone watching the mounting rage over, of all things, health care — perhaps one of the most boring and complex policy subjects — has to worry that these people are going to try to kill Barack Obama.
Another man carrying a gun inside the Portsmouth high school (Richard Terry Young, 62) was arrested at 9:40 a.m., hours before the town hall event, according to UPI. These incidents follow the arrests of a man with a gun outside Obama’s Chicago home in July, and a man with a gun looking for Obama at the U.S. Capitol in February, and other gun-related incidents and/or arrests at various rallies during last year’s presidential campaign and this year’s town hall rallies.
MSNBC’s Hardball program aired a seven-minute interview with William Kostric – the man with the gun, giving him ample time to explain his strange position that carrying a gun some how serves the cause of more politeness in society.
A more hard-nosed look at Salon.com profiles Kostric’s internet presence:
[In MSNBC’s Hardball interview,] Kostric insisted his intentions were peaceful, and that he’s not affiliated with Birther groups.
But at least one of those statements doesn’t seem to be true. A right-wing activist named “William Kostric,” who’s left a lot of footprints around the Web, is listed as a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People, the far-right group best known for joining a lawsuit challenging Obama’s right to be president based on his not being a U.S. citizen. Kostric told MSNBC he recently moved from Arizona to New Hampshire. (Kostric did not reply to Salon’s e-mail request for an interview.
Kostric’s MySpace profile also lists among his heroes Randy Weaver, the white supremacist and right-wing activist who survived the Ruby Ridge confrontation with federal agents, along with Ayn Rand’s John Galt, Thomas Jefferson, libertarian/GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and William Wallace, the Scottish resistance leader portrayed in Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart.”
Last week, Democracy Now reported on the extremely high level of threats against President Obama:
A new book on the history of the Secret Service reports the rate of threats against the President has increased 400 percent since President Obama took office in January as the nation’s first African American president. According to author Ronald Kessler, Obama is the target of more than thirty potential death threats a day. Most of the threats have been kept under wraps, because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts.
One budget down, one to come As both Minneapolis and St. Paul mayors continue as undeclared but much discussed possible candidates for next year’s gubernatorial race, their 2010 budget statements take on added significance.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman presented his 2010 budget proposal on Tuesday, and reports in the Pioneer Press and MPR note that his proposal combines a decrease in city spending — from $540 million in 2009 to $538 next year — with a six percent increase in property taxes to cope with an $11.6 million reduction in state funding next year.
Among the specifics of the plan:
• The city will cut 121 positions, which will mean leaving vacant positions unfilled and laying off about 45 current employees.
• Federal ARRA funds will allow hiring of 34 additional police officers and 18 additional firefighters. (MPR notes that St. Paul received $7.5 million in federal funding for police hires, but that Minneapolis received only about half that amount.)
• Hamline Midway library, which saw an outpouring of community support when it was threatened with closure this year, will remain open.
• Front, Sylvan and Prosperity rec centers will be torn down, but their athletic fields will be improved. Baker, Griggs, Margaret, South St. Anthony and Wilder rec centers will be turned over to “community partners” for management in some form. Bonding funds will be used to replace the current Arlington Hills library and recreation center with a new Payne-Maryland combined community center and library.
Next up: Minneapolis. Mayor R.T. Rybak will deliver his budget address on Thursday. MPR notes that Minneapolis is facing a $21 million cut in state aid, and also “an increase in pension obligations for two closed employee funds, which will cost the city an additional $18 million a year.”
Swine flu preparations The flu season is coming and a double whammy of regular, seasonal flu and swine flu is expected to strain health resources across the country and in Minnesota. MPR’s report of a briefing by state epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield noted that, “No one knows what will happen with H1N1 this fall. The virus could mutate and become more severe. It could fizzle out. Or it could follow the path it has charted so far.”
What is known:
• In a normal year, seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people in the United States, most of them elderly.
• Young people and children seem to be hardest-hit by swine flu.
• “The Health Department estimates that 30 percent of Minnesotans — about 1.5 million people — may become infected by H1N1 as multiple waves of the pandemic move through the state over the next year or two. Of those, the agency says anywhere from 3,600 to nearly 33,000 could die.”
• Priority for the new swine flu vaccine will go to health care workers, pregnant women, young children and people who care for infants under 6 months of age. No one will be required to be vaccinated. (That should go without saying, but in today’s political climate, it’s an issue.)
For more information and for updates on the situation, check out the Minnesota Health Department’s “H1N1 Novel Influenza (formerly known as swine flu)” page
World/Nation
Burma Nobel Peace Prize winner jailed again As expected, reports BBC, opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted and sentenced to another 18 months of house arrest.
Ms Suu Kyi was on trial for allowing a US national, John Yettaw, into her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited. Mr Yettaw was jailed for seven years, including four years of hard labour.
Critics of Burma’s military regime say the verdict is designed to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking part in elections scheduled for 2010.
4,000 arrests in Iran The Iranian government said that 4,000 protesters were arrested in protests over June’s elections, reports BBC. Opposition leaders say that at least 69 people were killed. The government is now trying 100 of the protesters. Allegations of torture and rape in jail continue to be made.
Activists killed in Chechnya Two human rights activists were kidnapped on Monday and killed in Chechnya, reports BBC:
The case follows July’s abduction and killing of activist Natalia Estemirova.
Ms Sadulayeva and her husband Alek Djabrailov were in their mid-20s and had just got married, reports say.
Law and Order plot? “A man accused of hiring a U.S. Army soldier and another man to kill a Mexican drug cartel lieutenant who was cooperating with U.S. authorities was himself a government informant, police said Tuesday.”
No – it’s not a TV crime drama, but a real-life report from AP. The convoluted Texas scheme resulted n a May 15 murder in El Paso, Texas.
War Reports
Iraq Two car bombs in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad killed at least eight people and injured at least 40, reports BBC.
Afghanistan Taliban fighters attacked a government base in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, killing a district police chief and at least one other person in a prolonged gun battle, reports BBC. The attack comes just one week before the Afghanistan elections
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News Day: NCLB failing schools / RT vs. Park Board / Obama on immigration / One in nine Americans
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Despite the late hour of the release, the Star Tribune was prepared with an impressive set of charts and graphs showing the performance of every school district in the state, and every school within each district. For the record, statewide proficiency stands at 64% in math and 72% in reading. In Minneapolis, the figures are 48% in math and 51% in reading. In St. Paul, the figures are 46% in math and 52% in reading.
The figures can be sliced and diced in myriad ways, and the Department of Education spins the story as well as it can be spun:
There has been a 7.6 percent increase in the number of schools making AYP, compared to 2008, due to an increase in the number of schools measured for AYP. The increase in the number of schools not making AYP is the result of more schools being measured and proficiency improvements that have not yet matched the increases necessary to meet the AYP targets under NCLB.
The Department of Education helpfully provides a PDF file detailing the five stages of AYP for school and three stages for districts, with a guide to penalties at each stage.
Minnesota 2020 has a cogent critique of the entire NCLB/AYP problem:
The number of schools not meeting AYP grows each year because the NCLB is meant not to highlight student achievement but to brand schools as failing. AYP is a false measurement of achievement. Even the most ardent of public education’s detractors will find it contrary to common sense that more than half the schools in the state can’t educate their students. These “results” are ludicrous. …
Here’s how NCLB works: States develop a standardized test and give it to all students once each year. Students are divided into subgroups depending on their race or special conditions, i.e. special education or English language learner. If one subgroup fails to meet AYP, the entire school and district fails. Not only must students show proficiency, the school must make sure enough students take the test. If too many students miss the test, the school and district fail to meet AYP.
The bottom line is that AYP doesn’t measure the work of teachers and principals and schools or the achievement of students over time. To measure that work, a test would need to ask how much individual students have learned during the course of a school year or two or three. That would require knowing where students were when they entered a school and how much each of them progressed.
That’s not what the tests are structured to do. The test does not measure how much progress Johnny and Maria and Moua and Jamal, who have now moved on to different schools, made during the years they spent at PS 135. Instead, it measures how well the current population of students performs — regardless of whether they have been in the school for six weeks or six years, regardless of what reading or math level they had when they entered the school, regardless of whether the teachers and school have had time and opportunity to make a difference. If a student enters the school in fifth grade, with a first grade reading level, and moves up two grade levels in one year — that’s still not proficiency and that’s not Adequate Yearly Progress.
Our schools need support and improvement. The NCLB/AYP mess provides neither. NCLB comes before Congress for renewal — or not — later this year.
Mayor vs. Park Board Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak denounced the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board’s attempt to get taxing authority. The MPRB has turned in thousands of signature sheets to put a referendum on this fall’s ballot, a move the mayor called “half-baked.” According to the Minnesota Independent:
The proposed referendum would grant the city’s quasi-independent (and chronically broke) park board the ability to impose its own levies, without oversight of the city council.
Today is the last day to turn in petitions, and then the city clerk will have 10 days to count and verify signatures. To put the measure on the ballot, signatures must total five percent of the votes cast in the last general election.
Some of the day’s best headlines
• With God as his co-pilot, Jungbauer announces bid for governor
• Barnes & Noble to buy Barnes & Noble College Booksellers
• Do not drive drunk to jail to bail out boyfriend on DWI
• Wisconsin woman accused in Krazy Glue assault
World/National News
No immigration bill until 2010 That’s the Obama message, delivered after a tri-national meeting with Mexican and Canadian heads of state, according to the New York Times:
“Now, am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No,” the president said. “But ultimately, I think the American people want fairness. And we can create a system in which you have strong border security and an orderly process for people to come in. But we’re also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so they don’t have to live in the shadows.”
One in nine That’s the number of Americans using food stamps to help meet basic needs. Another number: $4.50 per day. That’s the average amount of food stamp benefits. Think about it. What do you get for $4.50 a day? Rice and beans, yes. Maybe milk and cheese. Fresh vegetables or fruits? Rarely. And, as NPR reports, you wait for that. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) explained:
Let me point out one other kind of problem we’re finding here and that is because more and more people are eligible and are, you know, trying to enroll and state budgets are being cut back, and the states kind of processed the whole program even though the federal government provides most of the money. But because they’re being short staffed that is taking them, in some parts of the country, up to 57 days between the time somebody applies and between the time that they’re told they’re either qualified or that they’re denied. … And, you know, 57 days is a long time to go without a benefit to be able to put food on the table.
War Reports
Congo The government troops sent to drive out rebels in eastern Congo and protect the people in fact have become persecutors, escalating the rape epidemic as they take women as spoils of war.
Although all sides in Congo’s messy 15-year conflict have used rape as a weapon of war — particularly the Rwandan rebels — the spike since January is being widely blamed mostly on the army. The number of soldiers roaming these eastern hills has almost tripled to 60,000, and rapes have doubled or tripled in the areas they are deployed. Aid groups said the number of rapes so far this year is probably in the thousands.
Pakistan A rocket attack on Peshawar killed at least two people and wounded more as a dozen rockets sent panicked residents fleeing into the streets. In northwest Pakistan, a U.S. drone attack killed at least ten people. Officials said the attack targeted an insurgent training camp.
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News Day: Talking trash in St. Paul / Twine and turkeys / Unemployment update / GLBTQ-friendly school
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In unemployment news The MN unemployment compensation fund, forecast to go into the red early 2010, dipped into red ink in July, necessitating borrowing from the feds for a week, reports the Star Tribune. After that, unemployment tax collections put the fund back in the black – at least temporarily, with the next red ink forecast for October, before the end-of-quarter tax payments. Then the fund will go into the red again in December, with no prospect of pulling out of deficit until at least 2012. A big part of the problem: no jobs.
On average, laid-off Minnesotans collected unemployment checks for 14 weeks in 2007 and 18 weeks last year. In June, the timeframe rose to between 21 and 22 weeks.
The U.S. Department of Labor figures on initial unemployment benefit claims showed a slight decrease nationally, with seasonally adjusted initial applications for unemployment insurance at 550,000 for the week ending August 1, a decrease of 38,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 588,000.
Twine and turkeys Meeker County is in the news, which is rare enough, and it’s in the news for two separate stories on the same day, which is almost unheard of.
First, there’s the avian flu, discovered in one of the gigantic turkey factory farms. Not to worry, says the state Board of Animal Health, according to MPR. This is a mild form of avian flu, and besides that, theyve quarantined the farm, and besides that, none of the workers shows any signs of infection. In fact, it sounds like none of the birds are really sick — they just have the virus, which shows up multiple times each year, somewhere among the cages of the turkey-growing factories that make MN the top turkey-producing state in the country.
The Darwin Twine Ball is the second Meeker County newsmaker, with Martha Stewart naming it one of the “good things” in the country. Among more than a thousand Google references to Martha and the Twine Ball, here’s the local take from the Litchfield Independent Review:
Anyway, can anyone make a connection between Martha Stewart — the diva of home design and all that is proper — and the Largest Ball of Twine Collected By One Man?
Apparently, Martha and her team of TV producers are going to give it a try. Roger Werner, curator of the Darwin Twine Ball Museum, informed me yesterday that he got a call from one of the producers of the Martha Stewart TV show….
Werner admits he has no idea why Stewart would be interested in Darwin’s twine ball, but he figures that any kind of publicity is good publicity for the city’s humungous claim to fame.
Just in time for this Saturday’s Twine Ball Day celebration in Darwin.
For more than you ever wanted to know about the Twine Ball, click here to watch and listen to Weird Al Yankovic’s seven-minute ode.
Bankruptcies rise Both nationally and in Minnesota, bankruptcy filings are rising, reports the Star Tribune. Nationally, consumer bankruptcies were up 34 percent in July, compared to July 2008. In Minnesota, bankruptcies were up 30 percent in July, compared to July 2008, and “consumer bankruptcies for the first seven months of 2009 are running 35 percent ahead of the same period in 2008.” Bankruptcy attorneys said that more filers are people earning more than $60,000, both because filing became more expensive in 2005, and because people with higher incomes are more likely to have homes in foreclosure and second mortgages outstanding.
Nationally and in Minnesota, bankruptcy filings are expected to continue at high levels.
American Bankruptcy Institute executive director Sam Gerdano is expecting 1.4 million bankruptcies by the end of the year, the busiest year since 2005, when more than 2 million consumers flocked to file to beat the less-consumer-friendly reforms put in place that fall.
GLBTQ-friendly school A new on-line high school based in Maplewood says it is the first on-line GLBTQ high school in the country, reports the Pioneer Press. GLBTQ stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning. David Glick, the first online learning coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Education, founded the school and says it is getting national and international interest. So far, however, only 24 students have registered, and 50 are needed to start the school in the fall. Tuition for the private, on-line school is $5900 per year. While some fear that an on-line school could further isolate students from their peers, Glick is confident that will not happen.
Curt Johnson reaffirmed Glick’s assertion, saying his findings “overturned the conventional suspicions” of the online classroom. He is a managing partner at Education Evolving, a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University that promotes technological progress in schools.
“The individual transactions of e-mailing and telephoning regularly creates a relationship between students and teachers,” said Johnson, who believes online schools will outnumber their physical counterparts by the year 2017.
Minnesota to the world Two Minnesotans have been confirmed as ambassadors, reports MPR. Miguel Diaz, a theology professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in Collegeville, will become the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Sam Kaplan, an attorney and DFL fundraiser, will become the U.S. ambassador to Morocco.
National/World News
“One of these things is not like the other” Paul Krugman points out that the news reports equating Republican health-care opponents with Democratic opponents of Bush social security privatization schemes are just wrong:
Indeed, activists made trouble in 2005 by asking Congressmen tough questions about policy. Activists are making trouble now by shouting Congressmen down so they can’t be heard.
Talking Points Memo reports that Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) will not hold any town hall meetings because of “threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life.”
Dealing away health care reform The New York Times reported that the White House says it “stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion,” despite House proposals to “allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.”
Closer to home, the Minnesota Independent reports that Blue Dog Democrat Colin Peterson said he won’t vote for the health care reform proposals now before Congress.
Scam alert The New York Times describes employment scams, which seem more widespread as more people feel more desperate in their search for work.
Like job seekers, criminals are after moneymaking opportunities online. And they’re setting increasingly sophisticated traps to prey on the desperation of the jobless, whose guards are down amid eroding savings, swelling debts and calamities like foreclosure and bankruptcy. Victims can ill afford another financial setback.
Among the most common scams: help for a fee, fishing for identity data, work from home, “money mule” and reshipper schemes.
War Reports
Afghanistan A roadside bomb killed 21 civilians, mostly women and children, who were headed for a wedding in the southern province of Helmand, reports the New York Times. A roadside bomb in another part of Helmand province killed five police officers and wounded three more. In Kandahar province, local officials said an attack by a U.S. Apache helicopter killed five farmers who were taking cucumbers to a bazaar. U.S. officials said the men were loading small arms, not cucumbers.
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Mary Turck