Evaluate the community

By Joe Spear
Free Press Editor

There's a handy new Web site that details lots of trends by county in Minnesota, and it's one of the better sites I've seen that can provide up-to-date information on everything from the income in your county to the growing minority population.

Some surprises: The people of color population in Blue Earth County has grown by 40 percent from 2000 to 2008, while the white population has grown by 6 percent. Numbers are similar for Nicollet County.

Clearly, we are becoming a more diverse population. In fact, they are helping drive overall population growth that can provide benefits to the entire community. Our challenge will be making them feel part of the community decisionmaking process.

If they don't they will move on, and have a tendency, from cultural experience, to move to where they feel most comfortable.

Housing has become an issue of late, with housing costs consuming more and more of a family's total income. In 2000, only 25 percent of the households were spending more than a third of their income on housing.

By 2008, the number had skyrocketed to 32.3 percent.

It suggests a couple of things. People are buying bigger houses related to their incomes, or the rents and housing costs are not keeping up with incomes.

Another interesting note. The Crime Rate for Blue Earth County, in serious crimes per 100,000 people, declined to 3672 in 2008 from 3,864 in 2000.

Stubborn facts: bipartisanship

By Joe Spear
Free Press Editor

More and more, I'm seeing the major broadcast media playing up controversies at the risk of the facts. I guess good TV is just good theater sometimes. TV isn't the only culprit either. Talk radio. Wild-haired bloggers. Take your pick.

But the newspaper and its bloggers are supposed to be "of record" and more concerned with facts.

So, I wondered, are Democrats and Republicans really as far apart as the big media say? Looking at the handy Free Press roll call vote Web site, we can discern the following facts.

Sometimes Democrats vote "no" with Republicans as in the following case.

The House on Feb. 4 voted, 217 for and 212 against, (37 Dems voted no) to raise the national debt limit by $1.9 trillion to $14.29 trillion and thus extend Treasury borrowing authority until early 2011. So close, there were member of both parties, including lots of Republicans, voting for this one.

Sometimes everyone's one big happy family to spend more money:

Voting 422 for (197 Republicans voted with Democrats) and five against, the House on Feb. 4 sent the Senate a bill (HR 4061) to fund National Science Foundation programs for upgrading cybersecurity instruction and research on U.S. campuses. The bill authorizes $396 million over five years in NSF grants for research to help governments and the private-sector better secure their computer systems. The bill also authorizes $94 million over five years in scholarships for students who study cybersecurity and commit to public-service employment in the field after graduation.

Sometimes Democrats vote "no" with Republicans on issues they fear would raise taxes.

Voting 233 for and 187 against (5 were Democrats), the House on Feb. 4 added pay-as-you-go budget discipline to HJ Res 45 (above). Under "pay-go," proposed tax cuts or entitlement-spending increases must be offset by tax increases or entitlement cuts elsewhere in the budget. If not offset, they need 60 votes in the Senate and a majority vote in the House for approval. Pay-go was a staple of congressional budgeting throughout the 1990s but dropped in 2002 mainly to clear the way for President Bush's tax cuts. Republicans usually oppose pay-go as a deterrent to tax cuts.

It's not just Democrats who support Trial lawyers, nor is just it just Republicans against them

Voting 187 (13 Republicans) for and 247 (3 Republicans) against, the House on Nov. 7, 2009, defeated a Republican motion to add limits on medical-malpractice suits to HR 3962 (above). The underlying bill would fund state efforts to reduce the cost of the "defensive medicine" practiced by doctors to fend off lawsuits. Republicans sought to cap non-economic damage awards at $250,000; limit plaintiffs' lawyers' contingency fees and narrow the window for filing malpractice suits, among other provisions. The GOP motion sought to generate $54 billion to be spent for the benefit of Medicare participants in rural areas.

And here's one that was really bipartisan in the Senate.

Voting 51 (27 Dems, 23 Repubs) for and 48 (30 Dems, 17 Repubs, and one nonvote) against, the Senate on Dec. 15, 2009, failed to reach 60 votes needed to pass an amendment under which individuals and businesses could import U.S.-made, federally approved pharmaceuticals from Canada and other countries at retail costs much lower than in U.S. stores. This amendment was offered to a pending health-care bill (HR 3590).

Facts are stubborn things.

Do Mankato residents agree with Mark Dayton?

An interesting supposition: Mark Dayton says if the wealthy in Minnesota paid the same percentage tax as the middle class, Minnesota would have about $3 billion to $4 billion more every two years, enough to pretty much wipe out the current deficit.

But who wants to raise taxes? Nobody. Who wants to raise taxes on the wealthy? A bunch of people, apparently.

In fact, a Free Press poll published Jan. 25, 97 percent of respondents said the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of taxes or the same rate, with 50 percent saying the same rate as middle class and 47 percent saying a higher rate.

The Free Press polls are not scientific but they also don't allow double voting.

With Mankato region's mix of Democrats and Republicans, it seems surprising that 97 percent would side with Dayton, who tends to be left of center in political terms.

Dayton is running for governor.

GAMC vote turns intriguing

By Joe Spear
Free Press editor

Minnesota House and Senate passed the stopgap bill to continue the health care program for the poor in Minnesota with overwhelming veto proof majorities.

The governor vetoed the bill from Washington, setting up an intriguing possible override vote.

Quick details here.

This bill had real outstate implications.

Costs were likely to hit hospitals in outstate Minnesota hard if they had to start giving away charity care to all the people without insurance. Emergency rooms would be filling. Also, lots of rural districts mostly represented by outstate Republicans have a significant amount of people on these plans.

In the Mankato region, here are the numbers for GAMC enrollment and medical costs associated with these people for 2008.

County----------------GAMC -----Cost------Cost/person
----------------------- enrollment

Blue Earth County-----209----------$2,200,000---$10,526
Brown County---------41------------$502,986-----$12,267
Faribault County------21------------$455,189------$21,675
Le Sueur County------51------------$823,417------$16,145
Nicollet County--------62------------$890,298-----$14,360
Sibley County---------23------------$314,008------$13,652
Waseca County--------56------------$559,675------$9,994
Watonwan County-----19----------$232,269----$12,224

Totals----------482----------$6,885,294----$14,284

A switch to MinnesotaCare as the governor had proposed leaves an average cost overrun of $4,000 per person because MinnesotaCare only covers up to $10,000. If nothing is done, hospitals in the state estimate this would cost them $90 million.

Diversity efforts expand portrait

By Joe Spear
Free Press editor

Last fall The Free Press began an effort to listen to Mankato's diverse community about how we were covering them; we convened a meeting and heard a lot. We covered crime, but not the positive contributions they were making to the community.

Since that time, we have made efforts to cover the diverse community not necessarily more than we cover the white community but in a way that creates the same balanced picture we often give of the white community.

We realized that the stories we write on any given topic or any given community do not exist in a vacuum. Readers develop ideas of issues, communities, or events by how they are covered over time.

The picture readers gets may or may not be fair. The fairness of the picture is, however, usually in direct proportion to the "fairness" or "completeness" of the coverage.

So while there were not objections from the diverse community for covering crime that individuals in the community may commit, they did agree that we were rarely in their neighborhoods taking pictures or doing stories on things they do that related to them being part of the community.

One of our Free Press diversity group participants noted it would be tough for us to portray Somalis doing typical snow shoveling because we had not made an effort to find out where they live.

We took this advice to heart. To date, we have made extra efforts to show members of the diverse community doing typical community building things. We profiled a Hispanic man who rings the Salvation Army Bell. We profiled local Somali leaders in a story on their recent visit with the president of Somalia. We took pictures of children of color learning music along with white children.

We were hoping to paint a more balanced picture of these communities. Before our efforts, members of the diverse community showed up in a lot of crime stories. That somewhat "unbalanced picture" translated to the school children being ridiculed and created a lot of tension.

But recent stories have generated a somewhat different reaction. One profiled immigrant told us their children went to school and were able to talk about a positive feature involving some members of the diverse community: They were able to tell their classmates and teacher with a smile on their face: "Look, my mom is in the newspaper."

Politics, religion, sex

The three topics we're advised never to discuss at the barber shop, appear regularly in our newspaper, your newspaper.

On religion, the latest controversy arises with Brian Ojanpa's column where he comments on the absurdity or at least the oddity of the news that Pope John Paul whipped himself and slept naked on the floor as a way to endure a kind of spiritual experience, punishment, and suffering/

Dr. David Pence, a high school teacher at a religious school, took great exception and we published a 500 word response where Ojanpa was called juvenile, and out of touch with understanding certain depth of thought behind religious practices.

Pence made a few interesting points: the pope does this kind of stuff to welcome the suffering of those who really do have to suffer, to take their suffering on as a kind of spiritual gift....An interesting thought, something I wouldn't have consider had Pence not brought it up.

It was a somewhat scathing review, one we wouldn't normally accept, except for the fact that Ojanpa is a columnist, puts himself up for criticism and more or less fair is fair.

Can't say I agree with personal attacks by either our columnists or our readers, but I believe the airing of such views shed light on them and allow us all to judge whether we think they are appropriate or not.

The old saying goes, if you don't want to rattle cages, avoid talking about sex, politics or religion. We seem to be able to handle all three and stay in business.

Go figure.

Congress votes on fiscal restraint.

Finally, both House and Senate have approved the "pay as you go" budget discipline legislation.

The Senate passed the bill on Jan. 28 that requires offsets in spending elsewhere when Congress approves additional spending. The House passed it on Feb. 4. The House has abided by the budget discipline as part of its rules in the past, Senate has not had votes for approval in the past.

Republicans oppose it generally because if they cut taxes, they don't want to raise taxes, generally. Other criticism is that it doesn't cover 40 percent of budget that deals with discretionary spending, rather it only deals with expansion of entitlement/mandatory spending like Social Security, Medicare, welfare, and interest on the debt.

And although it doesn't cover everything in the budget, it does make Congress make tough choices if it decides to increase entitlement spending anywhere.

Here's where you can find a summary and House vote record. And the Senate vote is on the same page, just go to the vote listed on the left.

Although this may be a bit weaken than the law that was on throughout the 90s, it still remains a good first step to creating some kind of control on a Congress that doesn't seem to have any.

Governor deal: other cities: $80 million, Mankato $0

By Joe Spear
Free Press Editor

Gov. Tim Pawlenty issued a letter Tuesday to House and Senate leaders saying their bonding proposal of $1 billion is too steep, and includes projects that do not have "statewide impact."

"The bills are also filled with local projects that fail to fulfill core statewide functions."

"Examples include: Chatfield Arts and Community Center; Arrowhead Amateur Sports Complex; Various civic centers; Theodore Wirth Winter Recreation Area."

Sounds to me like he is saying he doesn't think much of Mankato's $14 million request to upgrade the civic center and All Seasons Arena.

This should be particularly galling to Mankato supporters considering the bonding he did approve in 2008 that included:

$20 million for a Bemidji regional event center
$10 million for a Crookston ice arena.
$38 million for the Duluth Events and Entertainment Center upgrade, the so called "DECC"
$2 million for the St. Cloud Convention Center.
$6.5 million for the St. Cloud National Hockey Center.
$3.5 milion for the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester.

Mankato had requested around $975,000 for planning money for a women's hockey center at the time, but it was rejected. Pawlenty used his line item veto to kill the funding.

If you're keeping score, this would be $80 million for Bemidji, Crookston, Duluth, Rochester and St. Cloud and $0.00 for Mankato.

I'd say we got "DECC-ed" that year. This year doesn't look much better with yesterday's announcement. Would that mean we got "double-DECCed"?

Local economy mixed

Of the 19 local economic indicators we track through our Minnesota Valley Business magazine, 11 moved in to negative territory and 8 moved in a positive direction comparing late last year with 2008.

Some surprises: The number of people employed in the nine counties of the Mankato region was actually up some 1,600, about about 1.3 percent. The number of people without jobs also grew, by about 600, or 9.3 percent.

A complete story will appear in Sunday's Free Press, and details to 27 overall indicators we track can be found in our Minnesota Valley Business magazine. You can subscribe by contacting our reader service department at readerservice@mankatofreepress.com

Other positive indicators included Mankato residential building permits, Mankato/North Mankato housing starts, vehicle and retail sales, and soybean, corn and hog prices. Indicators that were negative included commercial construction, home sales (by just 1 percent), dairy prices, the hotel business, unemployment claims, foreclosures and the unemployment rate.

Still, there seems to be a little psychological undercurrent of worry among retailers we talk to. Home improvement material buying seems to be slow.

When the complete figures come in for December, it will be interesting to compare it to last year. The retail economy, bar and restaurant business downtown is getting more competitive all the time with new eating and drinking places opening up this year.

So some of the pressure retailers may be feeling might not be economy pressure, but pressure from more businesses competing for the same size pie.

Holder, terror, latest politics (update)

By Joe Spear
Free Press Editor

Ok, you say, if you journalists know so much, sort out these confusing two stories and spin from Democrats and Republicans on the whole Attorney General Eric Holder letter to Republicans on the Christmas Day bombing attempt case.

Republicans say Holder, and by extension Obama, are weak on terrorists, and should've treated the Nigerian kid as enemy combatant, no miranda rights, no lawyers. Holder, in a five page letter issued Wednesday, says he was doing exactly the same thing as Bush did in over 300 cases, including Richard Reid the shoe bomber, who, according to Holder's letter, was read his rights within five minutes, and advised of them four times in the next 48 hours. (Facts you really can't make up even if you wanted to. There are records that document this kind of stuff)

National Review, a right leaning magazine, argues there were two exceptions in Bush actions and Obama could've made the case for an exception.

The Review's facts were referenced by Powerline, a right leaning blog. Here's Powerline's take.

I've read the Holder letter, I've read the Powerline blog on this, pointing to the two exceptions, which are actually from the National Review. Check out what they said here.

Holder actually explains the exceptions, and notes they still had lawyers.

Here's the explanation on the two cases from Holder's letter:

"In fact, two (and only two) persons apprehended in this country in recent times
have been held under the law of war.

Jose Padilla was arrested on a federal material witness warrant in 2002, and was transferred to law of war custody approximately one month later, after his court-appointed counsel moved to vacate the warrant.

Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri was also initially arrested on a material witness warrant in 2001, was indicted on federal criminal charges (unrelated to terrorism) in 2002, and then transferred to law of war custody approximately eighteen months later.

In both of these cases, the transfer to law of war custody raised serious statutory and constitutional questions in the courts concerning the lawfulness of the government’s actions and spawned lengthy litigation. In Mr. Padilla’s case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the President did not have the authority to detain him under the law of war.

In Mr. Al-Marri’s case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a prior panel decision and found in a fractured en banc opinion that the President did have authority to detain Mr. Al Marri, but that he had not been afforded sufficient process to challenge his designation as an enemy combatant. Ultimately, both Al-Marri (in 2009) and Padilla (in 2006) were returned to law enforcement custody, convicted of terrorism charges and sentenced to prison."

The Powerline and National Review blogs show these exceptions, but they make no case other than to say there were two exceptions. Their main argument seems to be there were exceptions. Two out of 300. They don't note the result of those cases, as Holder does above.

In my humble opinion, the arguments on the two exceptions don't hold water in trying to say Holder could have held the Christmas Day bomber as an enemy combatant. And the critics raise questions of their own. Why not shoe bomber Reid under Bush? Why wasn't he treated as enemy combatant?

Leaders of both parties, clearly used federal criminal law, not wartime enemy combatant law in very, very similar terrorism cases, and in the overwhelming majority of all terrorism cases.

Apparently, the Christmas Day bomber also has been talking, because the FBI got his parents to get him to talk. They apparently were doubtful torture would've worked here. The FBI and every intelligence agency was consulted on weather to hold him as enemy combatant. None, according to Holder, thought this would be effective in getting him to talk.

Intelligence briefing with reporters Tuesday night confirmed he was supplying "actionable" information.

Anyone out there see an argument that refutes the case I've made, I'm open to investigating it. That's what trained and professional journalists do. And we have a bunch of them.

UPDATE FEB. 5 : National Review columnist Andrew C. McCarthy takes issue with Holders assertions in a rather long piece, that is mostly opinion.

He gets close to a real challenge saying some in other "relevant" security agencies were not consulted, in direct contradiction to Holder. He says these folks testified before Congress to that affect, but doesn't name them or provide a link.

He contends, like others, that Holder's statement that Bush administration did same thing as he did in these cases 300 times "without exception." McCarthy challenges that, noting "exceptions" in the Holder letter.

A careful reading of McCarthy and the letter, however, show Holder was talking initial "arrest and detain" while McCarthy speaks of the cases in the ultimate way they were treated.

He gets into a lot of legal case recitation after that. Good luck sorting that out for truth.

"What Have You Been Smokin!"

By Joe Spear
Free Press Editor

An anonymous response to my recent post on how The Free Press has no intention of favoring any one school, East, West, Loyola over the other.

Astute reader sends us clips of most of January. Four times, West on front, East in back. That also ignores East story or two that they apparently didn't count. We clearly favor West, says astute reader.

This apparent East fan finally writes on the last page: "If all this is fair coverage, I'd like to know what you've been smoking."

Well, whatever it is, it's apparently not leaning East enough.

I take no offense, and enjoy this reader's spirited debate, and interesting analysis, but I stand by my original treatise. We don't favor. We cover what's most interesting, who's winning, who's at home, etc... and we spread the coverage around to the region as well.

It's possible some team had a stretch of two weeks where they had no big games, no home games and it looks like we didn't cover them. That happens by chance, if it happens. There is no way we could plan it based on who won, lost. But it all evens out. More important, we don't intend to slight anyone.

Our intentions are pure. We respect all the kids who play sports. Some coaches and fans can be less than hospitable now and then, but we know that comes with the territory.

Full disclosure. If I were favoring West, I'd be real traitor to my kids who go to guess what? EAST!

Go Cougars!! ;)