Good morning and happy Wednesday. Fall arrives today, so that's great. Here's some political news.
Twenty years after United States forces attacked Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and weeks after the war finally ended, just 31 percent of Minnesota voters think the war was worth it, 46 percent say it wasn’t worth it and 23 percent aren’t sure. Those numbers come from the latest MPR News/Star Tribune/KARE-11/FRONTLINE Minnesota Poll of 800 registered voters. And of those polled, 45 percent said they supported the withdrawal but disapproved of the way the Biden administration handled it, 27 percent said they backed the withdrawal and approved of the way it was handled, and 15 percent opposed the withdrawal. Thirteen percent said they weren’t sure. Republicans were more than three times as likely to oppose leaving Afghanistan than Democrats. Most Democrats -- 53 percent -- said they approved of the decision to leave and the way the Biden administration handled the pull out. On another question, 53 percent of those polled said they would approve of the relocation of refugees from Afghanistan to their communities compared to 32 percent who would oppose it and 15 percent who said they were undecided. Read more here.
More than 8,000 Minnesotans have died from COVID-19. Nearly 800 are in the hospital because of it now. And some health care workers who were optimistic earlier in the year when the vaccines rolled out are now discouraged and burned out. Catharine Richert from MPR News has the story.
Minnesota owes the federal government $1.13 billion to cover shortfalls in the state’s unemployment trust fund.Peter Callaghan at MinnPost reports : While Minnesota’s total is small compared to some bigger states — California owes $19.5 billion — it is large enough to threaten state employers with increases in unemployment insurance taxes once a plan to pay the money back is formulated. And absent a change in state law or a move to pay the debt using something other than rate hikes, state employers could see hikes as high as 14 percent.
From Brian Bakst: Minnesota Democrats plan to make abortion rights central to their 2022 campaign message. New restrictions in Texas and other states have top DFLers concerned the same kind of measures will pass here if the political makeup at the Capitol shifts. No major abortion limitations have become law in Minnesota in almost two decades. Some bills to impose restrictions were vetoed by former DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and none has reached DFL Gov. Tim Walz. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said Tuesday Walz would block any bills that limit current access to abortion. "While Gov. Walz and I are in office, I can promise you, no attacks on reproductive freedom will ever become law in Minnesota," Flanagan said. Lawmakers who oppose legalized abortion have a majority in the Legislature right now, though Democratic House leaders have kept restrictions at bay. All 201 legislative seats and the governor’s office are up for grabs next year.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith is pushing a clean energy proposal that gives utilities financial incentives to move to cleaner sources of power and penalizes those that don’t. Hunter Woodall of the Star Tribune has the story. "This kind of a policy is going to push people," Smith said. "If this was what they were going to do anyway, then they wouldn't be worried about how fast they're going to go. We want them to go faster than they were going to go." It’s part of the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending plan. One Democratic senator voting against it would bring the plan down, and one is already raising concerns. "The transition is happening," said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who leads the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, during a CNN appearance earlier this month. "Now they're wanting to pay companies to do what they're already doing. Makes no sense to me at all for us to take billions of dollars and pay utilities for what they're going to do as the market transitions."
Al Franken is doing a standup tour making fun of his former colleagues in the U.S. Senate. More. | 
