Fixing the health care system THUMBS DOWN: The health care landscape is changing at a rapid pace throughout the nation and right here in southwest Minnesota. This week the Independent reported on the closing of DaVita Dialysis Center in Marshall by the end of the month. Patients needing ...
Sen. Tina Smith on Thursday announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is making up to $16 million available to eligible groups and organizations to fund efforts to get veterans and non-traditional farmers in Minnesota and across the country to get into agriculture. In the release, ...
Fifty years ago, millions of people around the world watched as the Apollo 11 mission blasted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida, carrying the first men who would walk on the moon. The marvel of that accomplishment, carried out only eight years since President John F. Kennedy had proposed a ...
President Donald Trump has exhibited racists tendencies since he first announced his candidacy for president by denouncing the “rapists and murderers” who were crossing the southern border from Mexico. If there was any doubt about his feelings towards other races and cultures, he made it ...
When President Trump tore up trade agreements and slapped tariffs on farm products, America’s farm economy suffered. To mollify farmers, a big part of his base, the president announced billions of dollars in aid to farmers. There were supposed to be caps on how much each farm could collect ...
Scholarships ‘a game changer’ THUMBS UP: Facing some backlash last month from the announced 3 percent tuition increase approved by Minnesota State system trustees Chancellor Devinder Malhotra personally delivered some good news for potential students in the Marshall area and throughout ...
Even before President Donald Trump threatened to use tariffs on Mexican goods imported into the United States, that country’s leaders seemed to be doing more than their predecessors to keep potential illegal immigrants from crossing our southern border. Now, however, the campaign has ...
Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided it is too hard for it to get involved in settling gerrymandering questions, we guess it is up to the states to settle the question when one political party tries to redraw legislative or congressional boundaries to perpetuate its own advantage. Minnesota ...
It’s a tale of two coffee events with different results. Last Thursday, six police officers were standing together enjoying their drinks inside a Starbucks coffee shop in Tempe, Ariz. Apparently, the presence of those officers left one customer feeling unsafe and he complained to a ...
After next year’s census the majority parties in most states will redraw legislative district boundaries that will be in place for a decade. That work often leads to political gerrymandering — incumbents in charge drawing districts that all but ensure their party will garner enough votes ...
Keeping computers old out of landfill THUMBS UP: Lyon County Public Works Administrator Roger Schroeder gave commissioners an update this week on recycling programs. One such program is giving new life to old computers. The program is called ResQzone and takes unwanted, but usable computers ...
What comes after the phrase, “and the pursuit of happiness ...”? Today, we Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence. Our focus is what the document meant — creation of a new nation. But what the document itself says about the Founders and about what they intended for us ...
"Build it and they will come.” That’s the famous line from the Kevin Costner movie “Field of Dreams.” And it’s a line often used when talking about building facilities to draw people or businesses. In the case of the Red Baron Arena and Expo — it was built and people have been ...
Trump health care disclosure order a good start to transparency A Trump administration executive order to require hospitals to disclose prices of procedures and tests is a good start to creating an environment of transparency with the consumer in command. Consumer choice in medicine is a ...
About reparations, a skeptical President Barack Obama in 2016 told reparations proponent Ta-Nehisi Coates that it would divide the country. Obama said: “It is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs, we ...
Fun fact: I’ve been crocheting since I was 10, when my Tita Lisa taught me the magic of granny squares. Fellow yarn nerds will understand the heavenly bliss of spending hours at Hobby Lobby or Walmart immersed in a sea of alpaca, mohair, angora, super bulky and super saver skeins for ...
Sixty-six percent of Americans believe that the Fourth of July is one of our nation’s most important holidays. To celebrate, 62% of Americans will watch fireworks, 54% will enjoy a cookout with family and friends, 19% will attend a parade, 13% will go to the beach, and 11% will sing patriotic ...
Diocese can maybe move on THUMBS SIDEWAYS: With an apology and a $34 million settlement with clergy sexual abuse victims, hopefully the Diocese of New Ulm can move on now and start a new chapter. Hopefully lessons were learned and changes made not only in the New Ulm Diocese, but the ...
In a case of selective law enforcement, an Orlando, Florida woman has been arrested for theft after turning over her abusive husband’s guns to police. Courtney Irby’s husband Joseph Irby had been charged with domestic violence-aggravated battery. He was in jail for a day for ramming her ...
Sen. Bernie Sanders upped the ante on his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday, calling for the government to eliminate all college student loan debt. Just wipe it out, all $1.6 trillion of it. How to pay for it? Sanders would raise the money through a tax on Wall ...