Once again, the Dispatch reports that Brainerd has the highest unemployment rate in the state for cities with over 10,000 people, 17.1 percent. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. For years Brainerd's unemployment rate has been well above the state average. Every city in the state is in the same recession, Brainerd is apparently the worst at managing it. For years we have suffered from stagnant leadership while other cities have moved ahead. Businesses and families have left Brainerd for better managed places. Some of our council members have been in office for decades. Brainerd has declined under their leadership, we need to replace them with people who can fix our problems instead of just talking about them.

There is no end in sight to the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal said as much in a few phrases that promised nothing more definitive than continued monitoring of the two mortgage giants, which have been operating since mid-2008 in the legal and organizational limbo known as government conservatorship. The administration had said its plans for definitive reform could be expected at the time of the budget, not in the budget itself, so technically this doesn't count as a broken promise or a blown deadline. Still, as the two agencies' chief regulator, Edward DeMarco, gently reminded congressional leaders on Tuesday, conservatorship was intended as a timeout during which policymakers could reinvent the entities. With an election year upon us, that timeout is looking more and more like a cop-out.

WASHINGTON - Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" may be the right thing to do, but there's only one reason to do it: military effectiveness.