Fellow farmers, with Trump’s trade wars hurting farmers and Trump’s tariff taxes soon raising prices on numerous goods, I urge caution with increasing your debts. I believe two issues are especially driving trade wars. Aluminum and steel tariffs applied because of “national security,” while seemingly silly, allows the Trump Administration to selectively give waivers to … [Read more...]

A couple of years ago we went through a rebranding exercise at Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF) and settled on the tagline, “collaborating for regional vitality,” as a simple way to represent our work. This phrase gets to the heart of everything that we do, whether in early childhood, economic development or community vitality, and it really comes alive for me … [Read more...]

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”  — Benjamin Franklin In case you hadn’t noticed, the 2018 election season is well underway and as Election Day draws near, so does its impact on the community and this newspaper. This is also the time … [Read more...]

Eric Luoma Fountain, MN I’m endorsing you. Oh, and me too: Us — a pick-up team! Yay! The never-ending task is to save us from a dystopian future. As election day nears, we will witness our National dialog devolve into evermore divisive and hateful rhetoric, because in the perfect zero-sum game everyone loses, and that’s what we are playing today. Most will blame the media, … [Read more...]

I feel like I’ve been writing this column long enough for us to be close enough, dear reader, for me to start sharing deep, personal secrets with you. I imagine the FCJ readers putting up their feet in front of a roaring fire and eagerly turning to my columns with eagerness shining in their eyes, ready to welcome me into their homes as a kooky uncle, or perhaps as the ranting … [Read more...]