Breaking News

Local Editorials

Action needed over rising fertilizer costs

On Tuesday, Rep. Michelle Fischbach joined 96 of her U.S. House colleagues on signing a letter to President Joe Biden demanding action on fertilizer prices. Fertilizer prices have soared 300% since last year. Some of that increase is due to supply chain issues. But now the Russia-Ukraine is boosting that increase. Of course, this is all bad news for farmers everywhere, including southwest Minnesota. “Last month, fertilizer reached the highest price ever recorded, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, these prices are only going to get worse. I hear from farmers across my ...

Biden needs new advisers, help from Congress

More or less the whole world—including his own advisers on background—has criticized President Biden for his latest gaffe in saying in his Warsaw speech on Saturday that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” There’s no need to pile on. And someone should say that Mr. Biden’s unscripted remark did have the virtue of telling the truth that the problem in Russia won’t end even if Mr. Putin orders his troops out of Ukraine. Mr. Biden’s remark, even after its repudiation on Sunday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, may well make it harder to negotiate with Mr. Putin over ...

Baseless election claims threaten integrity

Republican officials and other bad actors across the country continue to threaten the integrity of elections with Orwellian rhetoric fueling hostile takeover attempts of nonpartisan fair elections. Dozens of bills have been introduced in 11 states this year calling for reviews of election results by partisan groups, following the lead of Arizona and Wisconsin last year. In Arizona, a company whose leader was a GOP election conspiracy theorist was allowed to review all the ballots in the 2020 presidential election without having any experience in election audits. In Wisconsin, a former ...

Et. Cetera

Square dancing a mix of history and modern Fairmont’s square dancing club, the Lake Promenaders, has been around for almost 50 years and is the only square dancing club left within a two hour radius. The club may have less members than it did back then, but it still meets on a monthly basis. The club welcomes anyone who wants to learn about square dancing to reach out. We see the important history in this group and are glad it’s still active. Council talks yard waste site This week the Fairmont City Council discussed the yard waste recycling site and opted to spend some of its ...

Inflation solution won’t come easy

President Joe Biden announced Thursday he is going to start releasing a million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum preserve for the next six months to control spiking energy costs. The addition to the nation’s fuel supply should impact the price at the pump, which is contributing mightily to the nation’s inflation problem. This is a good first step on the way to taming inflation, but it isn’t a fix-it. Inflation is a complex problem with a multitude of factors and it is not going to be solved easily. Republicans have their own ideas about gas prices, ...

‘Yes men’ won’t tell you what you need to know

According to an Associated Press report Wednesday, U.S. intelligence officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting bad information from his advisors about how things are going for his troops in Ukraine, and how economic sanctions are hurting the country. According to the intelligence, Putin’s advisors are afraid to tell him the truth. Who wants a trip to Siberia, or a poke with a poison-tipped umbrella? If the report is true, it makes one wonder about the intelligence Putin received before the invasion of Ukraine. Did his advisors truly underestimate the ability and ...