Leigh Pomeroy's blog

It is a rare occurrence when I recommend a Frank Rich op/ed in the New York Times on Minnesota Monitor. Yet I am doing so today because it is Mother's Day. "Oh, so Frank Rich is writing about Mother's Day," you say. Not at all. As a matter of fact, he doesn't list the name of one mother in his article. What Rich does detail, however, is a rundown of all the "corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals" that have occurred in the brief six years of the George W. Bush administration. He mentions a number of names — Bush (of course), Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Joe Allbaugh, Michael "Brownie" Brown, Alberto Gonzales — and numerous federal agencies. MORE »

Look on the web for a story about Veterans Affairs administrators getting bonuses of up to $33,000 while the Veterans Affairs Administration faces budget shortfalls and lengthy service backlogs, and you may not easily find it in Minnesota's mainstream media. But you will find it in some of Minnesota's blogs, like A Bluestem Prairie, I Don’t Hate America! and Blue Man in a Red District. While these and other blogs don't have the resources to do hard-line investigative journalism, they are at least keeping the public informed of possible breaking stories and, in this case, the questionable use of taxpayer dollars. A Bluestem Prairie, from the 1st congressional district, notes two mainstream media articles on the VA bonuses — in the St. Petersburg Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The story also been covered nationally by CBS, CNN, USA Today and elsewhere. MORE »

Not all vets want exemptions for VFWs and American Legions Now that the Minnesota House and Senate have passed their respective bills toward ensuring all Minnesotans the right to a smoke-free workplace, it's time to craft one bill that's amenable to both houses of the legislature. Of the two bills, the Senate's is the tougher. Exemptions in the House version that don't exist in the Senate's are allowances for bars to have ventilated smoking rooms and allowing smoking in tobacco shops and private clubs with no employees. The House version also puts off the start date till 2009. Both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Mankato Free Press have editorialized in favor of the stricter Senate version. MORE »

There was a song 42 years ago, released in 1965, called "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Anybody heard of it? It was one of the defining tunes of a generation — the generation, in fact, that barfed forth one George W. Bush, the current president of the United States. We assume that young Mr. Bush heard the song, partied to it, and even celebrated some of its anti-establishment message, at least until he discovered God and Laura. MORE »

It's Easter weekend, and in Minnesota Easter 2007 will be colder than Christmas 2006. Today it's 21 degrees F. but feels Like 7° degrees F. at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, according to weather.com. On December 24 of last year it was 32 degrees F. Climate change naysayers love this cold weather. "Aha!" they say, "Your global warming theories are all bunk." I dunno. I kind of like to believe the majority of scientists on this issue. It's sort of like believing in Pascal's wager, which a lot of global warming deniers like to quote on theological matters. Here would be the climate change equivalent: MORE »