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Platitudes won’t stop mass shootings

Saturday night’s mass shooting at the Seventh Street Truck Park bar in St. Paul was a hellish scene, according to police and survivors. An argument in the bar escalated, and two of the arguers pulled guns to settle it. In the crossfire, one woman was killed and 14 people were injured. Officials decried the violence, saying it was unacceptable, that it must never be allowed to happen again — the same kind of platitudes that get pulled out after each mass shooting. But it happens again, and again. It is going to keep happening, until we get serious about keeping guns out of the ...

Facebook’s in need of regulation

The American public has been made aware of some disturbing things that social media giant Facebook has been doing. Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen told, in a “60 Minutes” interview and in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, how Facebook, and its subsidiary Instagram, knew that its policies and algorithms that promote various kinds of content, are damaging to its users. Young girls on Instagram tend to develop harmful body images, for instance. It has allowed misinformation to be spread, widening the divide that already exists in our ...

Thumbs Up/Down

A nod to journalism THUMBS UP: The Nobel Committee made an unusual selection for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Instead of picking a political leader, a national statesman, or a diplomat, it selected two journalists, Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. These two practice independent journalism in two countries where reporters face repression, arrests, attacks and even murder for telling the truth about their countries’ leaders. Ressa, founder of the news website Rappler, was convicted last year of libel and sentenced to jail for reporting the truth about ...

Crisis averted, until December

Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate have come to an agreement to extend the U.S. debt limit into December, which will avoid a government default that would have occured next week, and giving time to come up with a solution by December. They are not toning down the hyperbole, however. Democrats are still accusing Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of “playing politics” with the nation’s economy, while McConnell is saying the agreement now gives Democrats the time they said they lacked to deal with the debt limit through budget reconciliation, a process that will not ...

Doing the right thing shouldn’t be so hard

Minnesota legislators have a chance to do some good things for thousands of Minnesotans. We don’t know why they are having so much trouble doing them. Legislators and Gov. Tim Walz have been negotiating for a month on measures to provide state aid for essential workers who risked going to work during the pandemic this past year. The state has about $250 million in front-line worker bonus pay to dole out, but legislators can’t agree on giving money away, apparently. Republicans want to give substantial, $1,200 payments to a limited group – nurses, first responders, corrections ...

Who is McConnell sticking it to — Dems or America?

Sen. Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are continuing to be the monkey wrench in the gears of government when it comes to raising the federal debt limit. Republicans are planning to filibuster on raising or suspending the debt limit, forcing Democrats to come up with 60 votes they don’t have to end the filibuster. Republicans want Democrats to use the process known as budget reconciliation, a more complex process that would require Democrats to legislate specified changes in spending, revenue, deficits or the debt limit. Democrats would not need any Republican votes, and ...