Torture – again I am sick of reading about torture. I am not going to stop reading about it, because this is what my country did in my name. It makes me sick, but that is not a sufficient reason to “walk away” as Peggy Noonan recommends. The United States tortured prisoners and that was official government policy. Someone must be held accountable. MORE
Crime and taxes The legislature is hard at work on the budget, which means fiddling with tax and crime laws.
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Too much testing MN students face high-stakes GRAD tests and MCA II tests this week. For the first time, high school graduation hinges on the 11th grade math GRAD test, and that means failure to graduate for many, unless the law is changed. Legislators are talking about changing the math GRAD law, but not eliminating the burden of test after mandated test that eats up teaching time without delivering benefits to schools or students.
Critics around the world question the value and frequency of testing. MN 2020 describes our school testing requirements as “labyrinthian and byzantine.” Teachers in Britain threaten a boycott of mandated tests, according to BBC.
The Brits claim it’s child abuse to subject students to batteries of “educationally barren” tests. Teachers say the tests disrupt the education process by making them teach to the test, pit school against school, and actually do harm to children. The Department of Children, Schools and Families says standardized tests are required in order to raise achievement levels, and that the threatened boycott would be illegal.
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Budget as moral document “We’re in this together,” Rev. Peter Rogness, bishop of the St. Paul Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
reminds us, writing about Minnesota’s budget in MinnPost. Bishop Rogness talks about the budget as decisions made by all of us — “a family gathered around the table to talk things over or a small village where everyone meets in the town hall to discuss common concerns. There’s no them, only us.” Continue reading
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Somali teens and NPR fear-mongering In more of the irresponsible fear-mongering that has characterized National Public Radio’s reporting on missing Somali youth, this morning’s Morning Edition story by Dina Temple Raston repeated unsubstantiated and discredited allegations that the youth will return to the U.S. to commit acts of terrorism here — and said that at least four have returned to Minneapolis and that “Now it looks like they’ve gone underground.” The damage done by such sensationalist characterizations is not balanced by the report’s admissions that “The FBI doesn’t think they are dangerous,” and that “going underground” may mean that parents are keeping the young men home and safe. Just to add the emphasis that NPR lacks, let me repeat: “The FBI doesn’t think they are dangerous.”
The report goes on to discuss secret grand jury investigations, and doesn’t let the secrecy of grand jury proceedings deter speculation about what they might be focusing on. NOTE: In contrast to National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio has covered the on-going story without sensationalism.
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Bachmann earmarks: Yes, you did! “I have not taken earmarks in the last three years that I’ve been in Congress, because the system is so corrupt.”
But, reports MnIndy, “government watchdog groups say she has requested them—seven, to be precise, totaling $3,767,600, since she was elected to the U.S. House.
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Un-real estate tax values So you paid $155,000 for your house just two months ago — and now the tax man says it is worth $189,000? That’s the story for one south Minneapolis homeowner, reports the Strib, and homeowners throughout the metro area are girding to do battle over assessed valuations this spring. Though home values have fallen swiftly, the taxable values set by metro-area tax authorities have not. All seven metro counties predict declines in assessed valuation of two to ten percent, although the average home sales price has fallen by one-third since September 2007. Tax assessors say the problem is the lag time in estimating values. They expect an avalanche of appeals from assessed valuations this year.
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Carstarphen going to Texas The Austin school trustees >voted unanimously to hire Meria Carstarphen as superintendent on Thursday morning, ending the suspense over her future plans.
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“What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.” With that declaration, President Barack Obama delivered another ringing call to action, devoting nearly all of his February 24 address to a joint session of Congress to what the country needs to do to rebuild and recover. The 52-minute speech was interrupted 50 times by applause.
The full text of the 52-minute speech includes international policy, tax cuts and promises to cut the deficit. En Español
Declaring that the country’s agenda “begins with jobs,” Obama thanked Congress for passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which he said will save or create 3.5 million jobs, more than 90 percent in the private sector, and will give tax cuts to 95 percent of working households. He insisted on the importance of re-starting lending and promised more stringent oversight of bailouts to banks.
Turning from plans for recovery to a vision for the future, Obama said the nation has three priorities:
Energy: “[T]o truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.” that means transformation of the auto industry, as well as doubling the nation’s supply of renewable energy, and increasing energy efficiency.
Health Care: “[T]he cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.”
Education: Obama called the mismatch between fast-growing occupation sectors that require education and “the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation,” a “prescription for economic decline, because we know that countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” He called for both increased funding and reform, gave a ringing endorsement to the charter school movement, and warned that “dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”
President Obama held up a banker, a student, and a town as examples of hope:
• “Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. ”
• “Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community.”
• Ty’Sheoma Bethea, a student from a South Carolina school “where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom.” She sent a letter to Congress asking for help, writing: “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters.”
Echoing her words, Obama said that Americans are not quitters, that “even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.”
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Police, fire, libraries, rec centers going down in St. Paul Needing to make up $30-40 million due to state LGA cuts, St. Paul city department heads presented memos outlining possible cuts: laying off 56 firefighters, 67 police officers, and 23 civilian police department employees, closing the Hamline library and cutting other library hours, closing eight rec center buildings (down to 25 from 42 in 2006), turning off half the city’s streetlights, and reducing street sweeping and snow plowing. 54 city employees have applied for early retirement, and 10 have offered to reduce hours or take leaves of absence. The city has about 3,300 employees. Both the Strib and the PiPress have articles detailing the budget cut scenarios. St. Paul officials have scheduled two community conversations to solicit citizen input.
MN Job Watch In a no-win, no-loss scenario that may be a harbinger for public employee contracts during the year, MNSCU’s Inter Faculty Organization agreed to a new contract that freezes all salaries, but keeps benefits intact, reports Brady Gervais on MPR. The contract covers more than 3,000 faculty at the seven state universities.
Twin Cities law firms began cutting staff and attorneys this week, reports David Phelps in the Strib, with Faegre & Benson cutting 27 attorneys and an undisclosed number of other staff. Other firms cutting attorney and non-attorney staff include Merchant & Gould (33), Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand (5), Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson (6).
One more reason not to read the Strib And no, I haven’t cancelled my subscription yet. But yesterday’s announcement that Paul Douglas is out, , as David Brauer notes on MinnPost, means the Strib will get weather news for free from WCCO. And it signals a shift from Douglas’s “strong and oft-stated belief in global warming” to Mike Fairbourne’s global warming skepticism and what ‘CCO calls “lifestyle weather.” Those who still want to find Douglas can find him online at his own WeatherNation.
Home or nursing home? “About 25,000 Minnesotans with disabilities get help with dressing, bathing and other tasks,” writes Warren Wolfe in the Strib, with services mostly paid by Medicaid under a program originally conceived as a way to improve care and save money by allowing them to stay in their homes. More than 600 agencies bill the state for personal care attendant (PCA) services delivered by more than 40,000 PCAs. The MN Legislative Auditor reported that state spending on personal care assistance for elderly and disabled Minnesotans grew from $153 milion in 2002 to just over $400 million in 2007, according to an AP story published in the Strib. The auditor called the amount of spending unsustainable, but also said that the Department of Human Services has left the program too open to fraud and abuse. Most services are paid through Medicaid. The report found that some caregivers billed for more than 24 hours per day, and claimed consecutive 24-hour work days. Now DHS proposes to fix the program by eliminating 2,100 people from eligibility and increasing oversight. DHS would also require that people whose care is directed by a “responsible party,” such as people with mental disabilities, must live in the same household as the “responsible party.”
Loren Colman, human services assistant commissioner, characterized the changes as ensuring that resources “are being directed to people who require services, not just to those who like them.” Advocates and disabled persons testifying at a legislative hearing disagreed with her characterization. Anne Henry, a lawyer and advocate with the Minnesota Disability Law Center in Minneapolis, said “If we get too restrictive, we’ll end up paying far more when [former clients] end up in nursing homes, emergency rooms and even jails.”
Day care blues Jean Hopfensperger writes in the Strib that TC day care providers are losing out as parents lose jobs or see pay and hours cut. Some parents are looking for cheaper babysitters on Craigslist, or shifting to non-traditional work shifts, or putting together a patchwork of family members and babysitters. The average cost of full-time daycare for a four-year-old is $9,300 at a child care center and $7,000 in family child care. The waiting list for state child care subsidies has grown from 5,400 in July to 7,500 in December, and Pawlenty’s budget would cut subsidies by $10 million. Day care providers “are hoping they don’t end up in the same unemployment line as their departing clients.”
Luz Maria Frias for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman announced that his head lobbyist, Luz Maria Frias, will move to head the city’s new Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Department, succinctly called HREEO, reports MinnPost.
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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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ICE is only one of the federal agencies surveilling people. Federal surveillance reaches far beyond immigrants. Federal agents use massive databases, facial recognition, cell phone photos, and license plate records. Beyond surveillance, they target and threaten people involved in protests, bringing the full weight of federal power to bear on individuals. Their actions often remain […]
Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.
The New York Times today has plenty of coverage of who, how, when, and where the United States illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president and first lady. But that’s far from the whole story. A few easily overlooked but essential facts: For informed insights on the consequences of Trump’s attack on Venezuela, see:
50 USC Ch. 33: WAR POWERS RESOLUTION §1541. Purpose and policy (a) Congressional declaration It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United […]
Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a great column on the four key lessons we can and must take from 2025. The first: pushing back is essential — and it works. I won’t try to summarize his column, but encourage you to go and read it and, if you can, support the good work […]
Mary Turck