At MPR, Martin Moylan sayscar insurance scams are on the rise in honest, God-fearing Minnesota:“Auto insurance companies say there has been a surge in false and exaggerated personal injury claims in the state in recent years. The trend is on the agenda of a hearing Monday at the state Capitol. The National Insurance Crime Bureau says there has been a tripling of suspicious injury claims since 2008. In 2011, Minnesota ranked 10th in the nation, with 53 such claims. Crackdowns in other states are driving insurance fraudsters to Minnesota, said Mark Kulda of the Insurance Federation of Minnesota.”
Good piece in Salonon our always-entertaining (and favorite) congresswoman. Says Alex Seitz-Wald: “[T]he fact that Bachmann would use her perch on the Intelligence Committee to do something stupid was entirely predictable. This is Michele Bachmann, after all, who sees conspiracy theories everywhere and for whom the word intelligence is rarely used in the same sentence without the addition of a negative qualifier. And yet, Bachmann has now officially been re-appointed to her seat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. … Either [John] Boehner is scared of taking on Bachmann and her vast grassroots network of admirers, or he’d rather appease her and tap into that political power. Either way, he’s choosing to keep her in a position of power over national security, despite calling her views ‘dangerous’ only a few months ago.” But if I understand things correctly,”dangerous” and “highly qualified” are synonymous in Boehner’s caucus.
There’s a pretty good ROI in these things …The AP says: “Legislation due to be introduced Monday would give the Minnesota Film and TV Board more flexibility in extending grants to producers that film movies, music videos, commercials and other productions. It’s part of a jobs program meant to encourage reliance on Minnesota talent, locales and production services. The bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Terri Bonoff of Minnetonka would set aside $10 million next year for possible grants.”
It was a middling snow event here in the cities, but it was the real deal in the Dakotas. Mike Nowatzki of the Forum papers says: “The blizzard in the eastern Dakotas broke some longstanding weather records. In North Dakota, Fargo set a record with 9.3 inches of snow, breaking the city's 60-year-old record of 3.1 inches. Grand Forks had 4.8 inches, breaking its record for Feb. 10 of 3.1 inches, set 18 years ago. The National Weather Service says in South Dakota, Aberdeen had 8.4 inches of snow Sunday, breaking the city's record for the date of 3.4 inches set 65 years ago. Huron had 9 inches, breaking that city's 54-year-old record of 4.9 inches. As of 7 a.m., the National Weather Service official observer measured 9.7 inches of snow that fell in Fargo.”
A Minnesota woman will be in D.C. Tuesday night as Michelle Obama’s guest at the State of the Union address. Corey Mitchell of the Strib says: “Abby Schanfield of Minneapolis will sit in First Lady Michelle Obama's box during Tuesday's State of the Union address. Schanfield was among the Minnesotans the Star Tribune profiled in June after the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama. Schanfield was born with toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease. She has had lifelong medical problems. She had her first brain operation before her first birthday and lost sight in her left eye at 17. Schanfield said that she'd have little chance of buying medical insurance on her own without the law.”
A former Army sergeant from Minot has received the Medal of Honor today. Nedra Pickler of the AP writes: “Clinton Romesha is being recognized Monday at the White House for his actions during the 2009 attack on Combat Outpost Keating in the mountains near the Pakistan border. About 50 U.S. troops were at the outpost when it came under fire by hundreds of Taliban fighters, and Romesha led a fight against the enemy to protect the camp. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed in the fighting and ... 22 wounded, including Romesha, who was peppered with shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade but fought through his wounds. He dismisses his injuries as ‘nothing’ compared to those suffered by some of his fellow soldiers.”
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Three Dayton appointees have made it through the state Senate. The AP says:“The Senate voted Monday to back Edwin Van Petten to lead the Minnesota State Lottery, Susan Haigh as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Council, and Carolyn Parnell as the state's chief information officer. Haigh's was the only nomination to stir opposition from Republicans. The Metropolitan Council operates transit programs and delivers other services in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, and some lawmakers believe the appointed body is too powerful.” Yeah, is it so hard to come up with people who are impotent and feckless?
I love a good graph. Paul Tosto at MPR has one … on where our economic elite are living today: “We took county by county data from the governor's proposal and mapped it. These are the returns of people with taxable income above $250,000 for those married and filing jointly, $200,000 for head of household and $150,000 for a single taxpayer. Six counties — Cook, Kanabec, Lake of the Woods, Lincoln, Mahnomen and Red Lake — counted 20 or fewer potential fourth bracketeers. The Revenue Department would not provide an exact count for those counties, so they don't show up on the map. The data aren't perfect. They show 2010 figures with 41,612 returns from full-year taxpaying residents. Current estimates put the total number of prospective fourth bracket returns at 53,600, thanks mainly to growth in incomes between 2010 and 2013.” This of course is before they all move to Milbank and Pierre.
I seem to remember Tom Emmer blundering into this. In an MPR commentary, Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute writes: “It's a new year and a new Legislature in Minnesota, and the ruling DFL Party has arrived in St. Paul with no shortage of well-intentioned proposals. Chief among them is a plan to raise the state's minimum wage 30 percent to $9.38 from its current $7.25. While it's similar to a number of other wage bills introduced this year, the impact in Minnesota would be unique. Minnesota is one of seven states that does not permit employers to count the tips earned by restaurant employees as income. As a consequence, the base wage for tipped employees is already 240 percent above the federal level. The DFL proposal would widen this gap, and link it to inflation, causing it to grow most years thereafter. This proposal might appeal to the DFL's base, but it would be devastating for the state's restaurants.” … “Devastating.”