Posts by Leigh Pomeroy

The passage of the statewide smoking ban has brought a collective sigh of relief to both sides of the Minnesota River where it bends to the northeast in southern Minnesota. On the north side of the river is North Mankato, which has steadfastly resisted instituting a citywide smoking ban in restaurants and bars despite pressure [...]

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 [...]

Mothers Day and politics seem strangely at odds.

Politics is down and dirty. Mothers are hardly that. Or rather shouldn’t be.

Yet mothers are having a greater presence in political life. There are three mothers in Congress representing Minnesotans: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Betty McCollum and Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

And another mother is the speaker of the Minnesota [...]

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has named a 51-member Climate Change Advisory Group to look at “the profound implications that global warming and climate variation could have on the economy, environment and quality of life in Minnesota.” Its members hail from a broad range of interests, including business, industry, energy, environment, religious, transportation, agriculture, labor, government, [...]

The United States is on the wrong track in its attempts to deal with immigration, says Dr. Jorge Castañeda, and proposed solutions could make the problem worse. Casteñeda served as Mexico’s foreign minister in the Vicente Fox administration.
Speaking at Minnesota State University, Mankato on April 26, Castañeda said U.S. immigration problems with Mexico are [...]

In another example of choosing industry insiders to head federal agencies that are supposed to oversee those industries, the Bush administration has put forward Michael Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Baroody is currently chief lobbyist and vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has put a “hold” on [...]

It’s Time for ‘Governor Veto’ to Put Away His Supertogs
On these pages Joe Bodell suggested recently that “Progressive Organizations Need Some Work.” He laments that “movement building [is taking] a back seat to single-issue advocacy.”
I’m afraid that no matter how much “movement building” these organizations could have done, there is little hope when [...]

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 [...]

“Southwestern Minnesota politics is based on populism,” said the dinner guest at the 11th annual Dan and Ronnie Burton dinner held in the ballroom of the student union at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Saturday night. The folks in St. Paul think of the area as solidly conservative, he continued, but that’s not true. Some of [...]

The famous author and social justice observer Barbara Ehrenreich came to Gustavus Adolphus College on April 24 to delight and challenge a mostly middle-class crowd of 300 optimistic undergrads and well-educated, aging liberals.

Though I took copious notes, originally I was not going to write on this event, as Ehrenreich more or less covered the same [...]