In the Star Tribune, Ryan Faircloth reports, “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and several other state attorneys general are calling on President Joe Biden to cancel all federal student loan debt owed by U.S. borrowers. Ellison and attorneys general from New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Washington and Puerto Rico sent a joint letter to Biden on Monday urging him to erase all federal student loan debt via an executive order. … Their request comes just a week after Biden announced he is ‘taking a hard look’ at canceling some federal student loan debt.”
Mara H. Gottfried reports for the Pioneer Press: “A long-time member of the St. Paul Police Department will serve as interim chief as a search for a permanent leader is underway, Mayor Melvin Carter announced Wednesday. Deputy Chief Jeremy Ellison will take the department’s helm when Todd Axtell steps down on June 1. Carter said he plans to name the next police chief in late summer or early fall. Axtell announced on Oct. 27 that he would not seek a second six-year term as chief. Some St. Paul City Council members expressed frustration in February with the timeline to hire a new police chief, saying they didn’t want to have an interim leader.”
MPR’s Matt Sepic reports, “Demonstrations in support of abortion rights continued for a second day Wednesday following a leak from the U.S. Supreme Court indicating that at least five justices appear ready to overturn Roe v. Wade. Rebecca Pirko was among the hundreds of people who attended a rally at the University of Minnesota.”
For KMSP-TV, Bisi Onile-Ere reports, “A north Minneapolis park is set to undergo a $21 million dollar redevelopment. In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Jacob Frey announced the city’s proposal to invest $3 million into the North Commons Park renovation project. That funding, if approved by the city council, will come from the remaining American Rescue Act Funds. It’s a sprawling green space right in the heart of north Minneapolis. A fixture in the community for decades, North Commons Park is in for an overhaul.”
A KSTP-TV story by Josh Skluzacek says, “The Minneapolis Police Department will be getting help from two state agencies to bolster crime prevention and law enforcement. Under two new joint powers agreements (JPAs) signed last week, the Minnesota State Patrol and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will help city police as they deal with rising crime and diminished staffing.”
Also in the Star Tribune, Joy Summers says, “Like turning the page to the last chapter of a good book, Sandcastle announced its first day of the season will be May 12 — and that 2022 will be the final summer for the Lake Nokomis stand. … For its final season, the stand is staffed up and ready to serve its full menu for the first time since the pandemic. The park board will soon put out a call for potential tenants to take over the building with its liquor license, with the hope of having someone in place for the 2023 season.”
KQDS-TV in Duluth says, “On Wednesday, the Duluth Police Department released a statement summarizing what it says a third-party researcher found after looking into its policing practices in regard to interactions with people of color in the Duluth community. … The DPD says that the third-party company ‘found no evidence to suggest systemic practices of biased policing or racial profiling occurring within the Duluth Police Department’ after the Police Strategies CEO, Bob Scales, delivered a presentation with the results. Meanwhile, the organization known as the Duluth Law Enforcement Accountability Network, or LEAN, responded to the findings, saying in a statement that it ‘uncovered significant concerns about the ethics and credibility of Police Strategies’ data methodologies’ after the group said it contacted experts in law enforcement data review.”
The AP says: “The scoreless streak for the Minnesota Wild was pushing 70 minutes when they finally caught a break with a broken St. Louis stick. Joel Eriksson Ek got the game’s first goal a few seconds later, and the entire Wild bench jumped up in elation — with a bit of relief. Kirill Kaprizov had a hat trick and Eriksson Ek scored twice for the Wild, who snapped back at the St. Louis Blues with a 6-2 victory to even their first-round playoff series at one game apiece Wednesday night.”
“We call upon your administration to immediately exercise its authority to cancel federal student loan debt for every borrower. ”
The average amount of student debt for a person with a bachelor’s degree is $28,950. But it is $66,300 for an MBA, $71,000 for a master’s degree, $145,500 for a law degree and $201,490 for a medical degree. Is tone-deaf Ellison really demanding that the blue collar workers of this country and others with no college debt be required to pay those bills? Seriously?
And here’s the really funny part: “Such action would … be one of the most impactful racial and economic justice initiatives in recent memory.” What percentage of racial minorities have student loan debt compared to the percentage of working class, non-degreed racial minorities who will be asked to pay for it all through the federal income taxes on their minimum-wage jobs?
Besides, the arguments they give for forgiving all this debt and the impact it would have on the individuals and the economy could be used for a rationale of why the government should forgive all mortgage debt, or credit card debt, for that matter. Same arguments, different group of voters being bought off. More proof that the democrat party is the party of the elite, for the elite, at the expense of the working class.
“Is tone-deaf Ellison really demanding that the blue collar workers of this country and others with no college debt be required to pay those bills? Seriously?”
If Ellison has not said it, I’m sure he thinks that the rich in this country should bear most of that load by starting to pay their fair share of taxes. And, I’m sure he believes, even if he hasn’t said it, that costs of higher education need to be brought under control to make higher education, including post high school vocational training, affordable for all.
Ellison impresses me as someone who is looking at this problem as how will the greater good be promoted. We are all better off if we can get the best education we can and are not hindered by our family’s inability to afford educational opportunities to achieve our life’s goals. When I attended college in the 1960’s, tuition and college costs were affordable because of public support and subsidies to universities under national defense spending. That ended in the 1980’s with right-wing cost cutting and shifting the load of spending to build up the military and engage in unnecessary wars and support right wing regimes that pandered to American business. (Thanks, Ronnie!). It’s time to reorient our priorities.
Dennis…..Those amounts are a pittance compared to Trump’s cancellation of the oligarch’s tax debt with his $1.5 trillion tax write off. Seriously ?
The Dems need to pull out the stops on everything knowing November will be ugly. Cancelation of student debt really locks in a middle and higher class demographic of people they need to vote for them. With crime, Covid, and inflation not going there way, they cant rely just on abortion.
I can’t help but think that the owners of Sandcastle would have opted to stay in business if they had been making a good profit at it. The place never seemed poised for success in that location.
The focus of MPRB on turning the public parks into upscale dining destinations has always mystified me.
Don’t they realize, you can’t just cancel debt, somebody (us) has to pay for it? How fair is this? I was responsible, went to college, worked and came out with little debt, which I paid off early. Now I am working and have to pay off somebody else’s debt?
Likely only apply to Federal Student Loan debt which can easily be taken off the books.
Sadly, fair has nothing to do with this.
You mean like you’ve been paying corporate welfare debt, military spending debt, oil company subsidy debt, farmer subsidy debt? It’s not real, the money is owed to ourselves and is in reality nothing more than the representation of the full faith and credit of the richest, most powerful nation in the history of history. You’ll pay nothing. What you desire in truth is the ability to force others to “suffer” as you did, because you feel you have some moral mandate to force others to make the same life choices as you did, and feel entitled to some imagined reward that you feel you deserve for your sacrifice. Tough luck (as you conservatives are so fond of pointing out) life’s not fair.