Flu update Want a free flu shot? If you’re unemployed and uninsured, CVS pharmacies may have a free seasonal flu vaccination for you, according to the Pioneer Press. After a slow start, the Minnesota Department of Health has updated its listing of flu shot clinics. The nifty search function lets you enter your zip code and find the nearest clinics, with dates and hours listed. Continue reading
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ACORN, prostitutes and tax advice If you’re a lady of the night, how do you list your occupation on the 1040 tax form? ACORN workers advised one pretend prostitute in a hidden-camera investigation that her business was “performing artist.” And that was just the beginning of the Fox News exposé and Jon Stewart’s hilarious riff on it. But seriously — the ACORN tax advice sounded downright criminal on the videotape, and the reactions have been swift. The Minnesota Independent reports that the Census Bureau said ACORN is no longer a community partner and the Senate, by an 83-7 vote, to block federal grants to ACORN.<!–more–>
A spokesman for ACORN, Scott Levenson, when asked to comment on the videotape, said: “The portrayal is false and defamatory and an attempt at gotcha journalism. This film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed. ACORN wants to see the full video before commenting further.”
ACORN says it has fired the employees involved, and that the videos show a few bad apples at the organization.
However, Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s chief organizer, says that the videos were doctored. She also said O’Keefe made similar attempts to solicit information on illegal activities at several other ACORN offices around the country, but was turned away. After O’Keefe visited ACORN’s Philadelphia office, workers there called police.
Ho, hum primary in St. Paul Unsurprisingly, Mayor Chris Coleman was the leading votegetter in the St. Paul mayoral primary, trailed by sort-of-Republican Eva Ng, who will face off with him in November. The school board races came in two groups – first, for three four-year school board seats up for election in the regular cycle, and second, for the two-year seat vacated by the mid-term resignation of Tom Conlon, who moved out of state. The results for the school board races, according to the Pioneer Press:
Vallay Moua Varro and Pat Igo finished at the front of a foursome vying for a two-year seat on the school board. …
In the school board battle for the three four-year seats, the top six vote-getters advance to the general election. Street-Stewart had about 21 percent, Brodrick about 19 percent, Goldstein about 17 percent, O’Connell about 16 percent, Conner about 11 percent and Krenik about 10 percent.
Practice (DFL) voting in Minneapolis Margaret Anderson Kelliher was the big winner in a DFL Party-sponsored practice vote in Minneapolis Tuesday evening. The practice vote, held in three locations, encouraged DFLers to use ranked-choice voting to select a gubernatorial candidate. Kelliher got 55% of the votes, with R.T. Rybak garnering 45% and John Marty coming in third, according to an email from organizers. The event, which was publicized through the media, Facebook, DFL e-mails, handbills at DFL/candidate events, and word of mouth, drew about 300 voters.
Because Minneapolis will begin using Ranked Choice or Instant Runoff voting in November, the city had no primary this time around.
Want some sulphuric acid with that? Copper and nickel mining, aka sulfide metals mining, is a potential economic savior in northern Minnnesota or an environmental disaster waiting to happen, depending on whether you listen to the mining companies or the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and other defenders of clean water. How much protection do the Boundary Waters, Lake Superior and the tourist and fishing industries deserve? How much risk of discharge of sulfuric acid, mercury and heavy metals is acceptable? What is an acceptable price in acres of wetland destruction to make room for mining operations?
According to MPR, a meeting yesterday focused – again – on the dispute, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will soon release its draft Environmental Impact Statement on copper and nickel mining in northern Minnesota.
In an earlier report, MPR quoted environmentalists on specific concerns:
Daub cites a 2006 study, co-written by Butte, Montana-based mining consultant Jim Kuipers. Kuipers studied two dozen projects, comparing what they said would happen with pollutants with what actually happened.
“In nearly every case where we had mines in close proximity to surface water and ground water, we saw that there was almost a 90 percent, if not greater, probability that the predicted water quality wasn’t actually what we saw,” Kuipers said.
Of 25 mines studied, he found 76 percent violated water quality standards. [Valley]
Last year, MinnPost weighed in with an in-depth analysis of the issues and players. At that time (December, 2008), the DNR release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement was also expected “soon.” MinnPost also raised the economic issue, which remains key: “Will the plummeting metals market stop short of the level needed to financially support costly mining of low-grade ore?”
Politifact's Pants-on-Fire is the highest (lowest?) rating for political lies
Lies, damn lies and the right wing Media Matters dissects the lies about the right-wing rally in DC, beginning with Michelle Malkin and continuing forever. Malkin lied about ABC News estimating the crowd at 2 million — ABC never did, and the crowd never exceeded 70,000, at the most generous estimate. Not only did Malkin lie, and not only were her lies picked up and rebroadcast widely, but some rightwing nutcase posted a photo purporting to show the huge crowd. That photo, however, was at least a decade old, according to Politifact.
Lies have legs. The photo and the tweets and the reports about a massive crowd turning out to protest will keep circulating.
Just like the birther nonsense. Repeat a lie often enough, and it creeps into the public discourse. That’s the charitable explanation for a Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz referring to Kenya as “Obama’s native country.” Called on his misstatement in an on-line chat, Kurtz said he meant that Kenya was Obama’s father’s country. That’s not what he wrote, and his actual, published words — still uncorrected by either Kurtz or the Post — give support to the birthers.
And then there’s Joe Wilson’s latest lie, tracked by TPM.
Where is the mainstream media? They should be out in front, reporting the lie-of-the-day loudly and prominently. “Balanced” reporting does not mean repeating lies and truths as if they were equal.
Guns for the President As someone old enough to remember exactly where I was when I heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy — and Martin Luther King, Jr. — and Bobby Kennedy, I cringe at the continuing reports of people taking guns to presidential appearances.
The latest case is right here, with the Star Tribune reporting on a Minnesotan toting a gun to the Saturday rally in Minneapolis. Like the rest of them, he claimed he was exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms, and stayed just inside the confines of the law.
That’s not really the point, is it? When more people take guns to see the president, the Secret Service has more people to watch, stretching their resources and making it that much easier for a real assassin to slip through surveillance.
I grew up in a family where hunting was a way of life, and no one thought twice about owning or using guns. No one in my family ever brought a gun to church or school or a birthday party or a political rally, or even thought of doing so. We knew that guns were for shooting, and the message of carrying a gun is that you are planning to shoot it. If you carry a gun into the woods, you are planning to shoot deer or squirrels or rabbits. If you carry a gun into war, you are planning to shoot people. If you take a gun to a political rally, you are making a threat. That threat might be protected by the Second Amendment, but that doesn’t make it any less a threat.
Feminizing fish The U.S. Geological Survey studied fish in rivers across the country, and found the highest rate of feminized fish (male fish with female sex organs) right here in Minnesota. MPR reports:
In the Mississippi River, near Lake City Minnesota, 73 percent of the smallmouth bass had characteristics of both sexes.The feminization is thought to be caused by hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment. They can include pesticides, PCBs, heavy metals, household compounds such as laundry detergent and shampoo, and many pharmaceuticals.
Cause for concern? Maybe — especially if you think that hormone-disrupting chemicals building up the environment could cause problems to more than fish.
Doctors support public option NPR has the latest word on where doctors stand on health care, from a poll of more than 2,000 doctors published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Most doctors — 63 percent — say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance. That’s the position of President Obama and of many congressional Democrats. In addition, another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they’d like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent. …
“Whether they lived in southern regions of the United States or traditionally liberal parts of the country,” says Keyhani, “we found that physicians, regardless — whether they were salaried or they were practice owners, regardless of whether they were specialists or primary care providers, regardless of where they lived — the support for the public option was broad and widespread.”
War reports | Somalia U.S. commandos entered Somalia and killed a top Al Qaeda operative there, according to the New York Times. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was a Kenyan Al Qaeda leader, who had been working with Shabab militants in Somalia and training other foreign operatives. He is believed to be linked to the bombing of an Israeli hotel in Kenya in 1998 and to attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
“This is very significant because it takes away a person who’s been a main conduit between the East Africa extremists and big Al Qaeda,” said the adviser, who like several United States officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the mission.
The helicopters, with commandos firing .50-caliber machine guns and other automatic weapons, quickly disabled the trucks, according to villagers in the area, and several of the Shabab fighters tried to fire back. Shabab leaders said that six foreign fighters, including Mr. Nabhan, were quickly killed, along with three Somali Shabab. The helicopters landed, and the commandos inspected the wreckage and carried away the bodies of Mr. Nabhan and the other fighters for identification, a senior American military official said.
BBC reports that al Shabab says it will retaliate for the killing.
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The crush of applicants has doubled the time required to process applications, to eight weeks, and phone lines are often jammed because the agency that manages the program now answers the phone only between 12:30 and 4 p.m. so workers can spend more time on the paperwork backlog.
MinnesotaCare is available only to people who are MN residents, are uninsured and cannot get health insurance through their employer with at least half the premium paid by the employer. In addition, the appicant must meet income and asset restrictions.
A Minnesota 2020 commentator tells the story of her return from Australia to Minnesota and the obstacles she and her husband faced in trying to get health insurance — any health insurance. “We wanted to sign up for a basic plan we could extend on a monthly basis until we could find employment with health insurance benefits,” she explains. “When all twelve providers responded with a resounding ‘No!’ I realized we would need to find a more permanent health care plan.”
Subverting reform Health insurance companies will get a big pay-off under health care “reform” proposals that offer subsidies to help people “afford” insurance. The Los Angeles Times reports on the sweet deal that Big Insurance struck (hat tip to Eric Black at MinnPost). According to the LA Times, insurance companies are “poised to reap a financial windfall” under the leading plans, all of which “would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers — many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies’ premiums.”
Health insurance companies both financed and urged employees to participate in this summer’s vitriolic attacks on the “public option,” which would establish a lower-cost alternative to their high-profit plans. (See previous posts for references to high and rising profit margins for health insurance companies (UnitedHealth profits up 155%), and the 30% administrative cost of private health insurance versus 4% administrative cost for Medicare.)
But wait — there’s more, reports the L.A. Times:
In May, the Senate Finance Committee discussed requiring that insurers reimburse at least 76% of policyholders’ medical costs under their most affordable plans. Now the committee is considering setting that rate as low as 65%, meaning insurers would be required to cover just about two-thirds of patients’ healthcare bills. … Most group health plans cover 80% to 90% or more of a policyholder’s medical bills, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. …
“They have beaten us six ways to Sunday,” said Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO. “Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost relief, they find a way to make it more profitable.”
Atrazine warning A new National Resources Defense Council report finds that federal and state monitoring and reporting of atrazine levels in surface water and ground water are inadequate, and that atrazine levels frequently exceed federal safety standards. According to NRDC, short-term, high-level exposure to excess atrazine levels is dangerous, but federal standards are based on a yearly average rather than the high levels that occur in early summer after atrazine is applied to fields. Moreover:
Because the monitoring program was not designed to account for the timing of runoff in response to weather events or application, the EPA’s watershed monitoring program probably underestimates peak exposures.
Paul Wotzka is a hydrologist who has studied water quality in southeastern Minnesota for years. He says animal tests show atrazine in small amounts can cause birth defects.
“If you were pregnant mother, drinking water in June and you had these high spikes of atrazine in your water, you would want to know about them,” he said.
Wotzka says private wells are rarely tested, and public drinking water supplies are only tested once a year.
The NRDC recommends banning atrazine, and says other methods for weed control are already available. Atrazine has already been banned in European Union countries.
Only one Minnesota watershed, the North Fork Whitewater River watershed near Rochester, was monitored. EPA monitoring in 2005-2006 showed an average atrazine concentration of 0.47 ppb and a maximum concentration of 15 ppb in this watershed. The maximum allowable concentration under EPA guidelines is 3 ppb as a yearly average, although NRDC warns that:
The adverse reproductive effects of atrazine have been seen in amphibians, mammals, and humans-even at low levels of exposure. Concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb have been shown to alter the development of sex characteristics in male frogs. When exposure coincides with the development of the brain and reproductive organs, that timing may be even more critical than the dose.
War Reports
Afghanistan As the war drags on, more voices question whether the U.S. should be in Afghanistan at all. Bob Herbert criticized the war in his column, noting the reluctance of Afghan troops to fight, and the war dragging on year after year after nine bloody years.
If we had a draft — or merely the threat of a draft — we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan. But we don’t have a draft so it’s safe for most of the nation to be mindless about waging war. Other people’s children are going to the slaughter. …
Well, if this war, now approaching its ninth year, is so fundamental, we should all be pitching in. We shouldn’t be leaving the entire monumental burden to a tiny portion of the population, sending them into combat again, and again, and again, and again …
The deaths of four more U.S. service members yesterday raised the death toll for foreign soldiers to 295 since January, according to the New York Times, making this the deadliest year to date. Twelve foreign soldiers died in the first year of the war (2001) with the numbers rising steadily to 294 in 2008, a number now surpassed. The number of U.S. deaths already stands at 172 this year, up from last year’s high of 155.
Early results of Afghan elections were released today, with 10% of the votes counted, showing President Hamid Karzai with about 40% of the vote and challenger Abdullah Abdullah with about 40%, with the remaining 20% split among the other 29 candidates. On Monday, a cabinet minister said that President Hamid Karzai had won 68 percent of the vote, a figure so large as to cast doubt on the entire election, according to the Washington Post. The Post said Karzai was expected to win a bare majority, and that Abdullah had been expected to win 25%. Election monitors report widespread fraud.
“In Baraki Barak District, only about 500 people were able to vote out of 43,000 registered voters. In Harwar District, nobody at all was able to vote out of 15,000 registered voters. Yet the ballot boxes from these places came to Kabul full,” alleged Faizullah Mojadedi, a legislator from Taliban-plagued Logar province. “The fact that people were afraid to vote became a big excuse for those who wanted to take advantage of it.”
The final results will not be in until all the votes are counted, some time in September.
Iraq At least 11 people were killed and more wounded in two bus bombings yesterday near the usually quiet southern town of Kut, reports Reuters.
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Unemployment claims up-again For a second week, the U.S. Department of Labor reported, “unexpected” increases in unemployment claims, with seasonally adjusted initial claims rising to 576,000 from last week’s 561,000. These are new claims: the total number of workers receiving unemployment benefits and emergency extended benefits is 9.18 million, according to the Star Tribune. Millions more do not qualify for unemployment benefits, or remain out of work even after exhausting the extended benefit period.
Where all the children are above average Or at least our Minnesota children are above average on the ACT tests. Or at least above average (best performance in the nation!) on the ACT tests taken by students in states where more than half the students take ACT tests. Our kids score 1.3 percent higher than second-place Iowa students and 1.8 percent higher than third-place Wisconsin students and a whopping 2.7 percent higher than the national average.
So what does it all mean? Perhaps that the ACT PR folks know how to time news releases for maximum ink and column inches in a slow news month. They got a nice headline in the PiPress, Minnesota retains top spot in ACT scores; Wisconsin ranks third, a more skeptical and nuanced read from Bob Collins at MPR, and a lengthier analysis at the Star Tribune, which pointed out that overall numbers of ACT test-takers are up this year because Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Kentucky and Wyoming require 100% of their grads to take the test.
The ACT has pages and pages of data that can be sliced and diced six ways from Sunday. (So does the SAT, though it does not have 2009 information posted yet.)
Two items stand out as real news:
• According to ACT, more students–by a slight margin–seem prepared to succeed in college in the crucial areas of English, math, reading and science than in previous years, but more than 75% nationally and 68% in Minnesota are unprepared in at least one of these areas. (Of course, a skeptic might ask whether ACT can really judge, for example, college preparedness in science with a 35-minute, 40-question test.) The report that scores continue to rise even as more students take the test indicates that educational outcomes are improving.
• The ACT and SAT tests are locked in a neck-and-neck battle for the lucrative testing market. According to the Strib, “The number of ACT test-takers is on par with the number reported by the rival SAT exam last year, and the exam appears on track to surpass the SAT in popularity.”
SAT scores come out next week, and it’s a safe bet that they also will show Minnesota’s children above average. But above average overall is not good enough when a serious achievement gap leaves students of color struggling below the average. We know how to fix that. Geoffrey Canada described the practices and investments needed for success to a Minneapolis Foundation’s Minnesota Meeting earlier this year — practices and investments that have proven effective in the Harlem Children’s Zone that he founded. As Wilder Foundation Executive Director of Research Paul Mattesich observed in his blog:
Through our Twin Cities Compass initiative, we have documented the poor mathematics proficiency of our region’s high school students and the gap in skills that begins early in elementary school for our fastest growing group of students – students of color. If we want to preserve jobs and preserve our quality of life, we need to make some changes.
Harlem Children’s Zone demonstrates that low achievement, even for children from the poorest economic and community circumstances, does not have to occur; also, it can be reversed with sustained effort.
Whole Foods, meet Jess Durant and Will Allen Jess Durant tells her personal story in MinnPost to show why and how Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s rejection of health care reform is just plain wrong. Her thoughtful, persuasive analysis of why we need health care reform should be broadcast far and wide, and it’s going in my files, so I can send it to the naysayers among my family and email friends.
Will Allen also brought a message about health to the Twin Cities this week, advocating urban farms and vermiculture. Allen came to town to kick off the Urban Farm Project at Little Earth, reports the Daily Planet, with a message that combines work for healthy food and against racism. MPR also has a report on Allen’s visit and message.
World/National News
UnitedHealth organizes Astroturf The Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo that UnitedHealth sent a letter to employees urging them to get active in opposing health care reform:
[A] source who’s insured by UHG–and who also obtained the letter–called the hotline on Tuesday and says the company directed him to an events list hosted by the right wing America’s Independent Party, and suggested he attend an anti-health care reform tea party sponsored by religious fundamentalist Dave Daubenmire, scheduled for today outside the office of Blue Dog Rep. Zack Space (D-OH).
Daily Kos says, “A representative of UnitedHealth Group’s Corporate Communications office said they would call back with a reaction to the story. They didn’t.”
MinnPost reports that UnitedHealth officials are denying that they told people to get involved in tea parties.
War Reports
Iraq A wave of bombings and explosions in Baghdad killed at least 95 people and wounded more than 400 others. NPR reported:
It was the deadliest day in the capital since U.S. troops largely withdrew from cities on June 30 and a major challenge to Iraqi control of Baghdad. A steady escalation of attacks this month has sparked fears of a resurgence of violence ahead of next year’s national elections.
The deadliest of the attacks hit near the Foreign Ministry, killing at least 59 people and wounding 250. Officials said the toll may climb as rescue workers dig through rubble and debris.
Hiring mercenary assassins? The New York Times reports on connections between the CIA and Blackwater (which has now changed its name to Xe Services):
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
Current CIA director Leon Panetta insisted on briefing Congress on the program, which has since been canceled – or so we are told.
Afghanistan Today is the day for Afghan elections. The Taliban threatens violence, the Afghan government tells the media not to report violence … and President Hamid Kharzai is expected to win an easy victory over the 41 opposition candidates.
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Soja Andrzej - Fotolia.com
Waterfall dries up Minnehaha Falls has fallen victim to the drought (precipitation is 16 inches below normal for the past 14 months), and now is only a trickle of its former self, reports the Pioneer Press. Minnehaha Falls dries up when the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District closes the Grays Bay Dam. That happened on June 2 this year, though the dam usually stays open until September. Other recent years when Minnehaha Falls was dried up: 2000, 1988 and 1964. The average precipitation by this time in the year is 17.36 inches, but the Twin Cities has received only 9.49 inches this year.
Second chance for MN refugees Three Salvadoran teens who fled their home country because of threats from the MS-13 gang may get a second chance at asylum in Minnesota, reports the TC Daily Planet:
They were recently jailed for about 17 days and faced imminent deportation. Then they scored a major victory. Not only were they released from jail, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also has joined with their attorneys to ask the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen their case. Ben Casper, one of their attorneys, called DHS’s decision very unusual. “I have never heard of it before,” he said.
Conflict of interest for U of M doc? U of M Dr. David Polly received more than a million dollars from Medtronic, and U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) thinks that may be a conflict of interest. Grassley is asking for an investigation, because “Polly went before Congress in 2006 and testified about a program that had ties to Medtronic, but Polly didn’t disclose his own ties to Medtronic,” reports MPR. U of M officials are reviewing the matter, and Polly remains on the Medtronic payroll.
Credit unions follow banks into deep water The Thumper Pond development is emblematic of new risks taken by some credit unions, reports the Star Tribune. When credit unions strayed from their traditional customers and loans to members, they courted the same trouble that banks have seen in the current economic crisis.
Losses on risky loans, from Twin Cities housing projects to out-of-state ethanol plants, are one reason why nearly half of the state’s 156 credit unions lost money in the most recent quarter, compared to 35 percent of credit unions nationwide. Seven of Minnesota’s credit unions are near or below capital levels the government deems adequate. And two were in such bad shape they had to be sold.
Want to check your credit union’s asset rating? The Strib has a list.
World/National news
Twitter danger BBC reports that a Chicago real estate company is suing a former tenant who tweeted about mold in her apartment. Horizon Group Management says her tweet was defamatory, and sued. Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for decades, told the Chicago Sun-Times they didn’t talk to her about the tweet and didn’t ask her to take it down, saying, “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organisation.” Tenant Amanda Bonnen had 20 Twitter followers at the time that she posted the tweet, and has since closed her Twitter account.
iPhones in peril? Forbes.com reports on an iPhone hack that could “give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions,” and then propagate itself to take over every iPhone in the world. Two cyber-security experts say that they notified Apple about the problem more than a month ago, but that it hasn’t released a patch.
If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.
The researchers have also found bugs in Windows Mobile and Google Android phones.
Beer today! BBC reports: “Cambridge police sergeant Jim Crowley and Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard scholar he arrested after responding to a report of a possible break-in at Mr Gates’s home, will sit down with Mr Obama on Thursday for a conciliatory beer.”
Is this the way to better race relations in America? If not, it is at least the way to a summer’s worth of late-night TV fodder. From across the pond, BBC thinks it is tempting to view the whole episode as the “ultimate conflation of the age of Obama and the age of Oprah,” adding that, “Aside from the choice of beverage, there is something very daytime television, something very soft focus, something very soft sofa, about this attempt to defuse the controversy.”
For a truly hysterical look at the entire flap, tune in to Colbert Nation on race and farts.
Refugees drown Some 200 people fleeing the poverty and starvation of Haiti crammed a homemade sailboat, enduring hunger and thirst for two days — and then the boat sank. NPR interviewed survivors, who said:
The boat was jam-packed with people. Men filled the deck, exposed to the hot sun, while women and men alike filled the dark, nearly airless hold below, survivors later told rescuers. Pierre said the hold was packed so tight that nobody could lie down.
118 people were rescued, after 17 hours in the water.
Pierre was among those returned to Haiti:
Pierre, who was reunited with his mother, said for all the horrors of the voyage he was still desperate to get out of Haiti, where 80 percent of the people survive on less than $2 a day.
Health care fact-of-the-day Courtesy of Paul Krugman: “Since 1970 Medicare costs per beneficiary have risen at an annual rate of 8.8% — but insurance premiums have risen at an annual rate of 9.9%. … if insurance premiums had risen “only” as much as Medicare spending, they’d be 1/3 lower than they are.”
Blue Dog deal Minnesota Budget Bites has an analysis of the deal struck by Blue Dog Democrats to allow the health care reform bill to move to the House floor. The deal allows a public option to remain, but limits tax increases and employer mandates. According to the New York Times:
The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberal lawmakers, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.
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Green leaving MPS Schools superintendent William Green announced that he will leave the Minneapolis Public School system at the end of his four-year term in 2010, continuing what many see as a trend to one-term superintendents in major metroplitan school districts. According to the Star Tribune, “Green will have spent 4 1/2 years with the district when he leaves — 50 percent longer than the national average for urban districts.”
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Health care reform President Obama used the “bully pulpit” of last night’s press conference ( transcript here) to push harder on health care reform. He denounced insurance companies, saying “”Right now, at the time when everybody’s getting hammered, they’re making record profits and premiums are going up,” and said that much of the cost of the health care reform package will be paid by saving “over one hundred billion dollars in unwarranted subsidies that go to insurance companies as part of Medicare.”
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Omodt escapes from Gang Strike Force Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek has called a news conference for this morning to explain why Hennepin County Captain Chris Omodt is leaving his post at the head of the Gang Strike Force. Omodt, who was brought in to clean up a bad situation, could just be giving it up as an impossible job. The latest revelations and accusations from the Strib:
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Burn more garbage in Mpls? Hennepin County is going to the Minneapolis City Council for permission to burn more garbage at the downtown HERC incinerator, reports the Star Tribune. On June 22, the Minneapolis Planning Commission denied Hennepin County’s request to raise the allowable daily tonnage from by 21 percent. The Planning Commission said it could not be sure that there would be no adverse public health effects. The burner won City Council approval by a 7-6 vote back in 1987, and today’s council is not expected to be much friendlier.
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Mary Turck