Wednesday morning news digest: Veterans health and campaigns edition

The Washington Post looks at the study of mental health issues for returning Iraq War veterans in Iraq Veterans Face Delayed Distress:

Soldiers who have served in Iraq are suffering substantially greater mental distress several months after leaving the combat zone than when they first return home -- with one out of five active-duty Army soldiers and more than 40 percent of Army reservists needing treatment, according to a study by Army researchers published yesterday.

One returning Iraq War vets is running for Congress against John Kline, the Rochester Post Bulletin reports in Sarvi sees Walz' footprints in race against Kline. Edward Felker writes:

. . .Sarvi, 42, hopes his own military background and local connections, combined with another strong Democratic election wave, will be his trump card against the seemingly entrenched Kline. Like Walz, Sarvi is married and has young children. Both he and Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard and worked in the public sector.

Likewise, neither Walz nor Sarvi had much political experience before declaring their bids. Sarvi wasn't active in partisan politics previously, holding the nonpartisan posts of mayor in Watertown; city administrator and clerk in Lanesboro; and his current full-time job as city administrator of Victoria.

He acknowledged in an interview that he attended Republican caucuses around 2000, but said he was "always more of a moderate" to Republicans, and said he is now "probably a little left of center, because of some social issues." . . .

Walz is quoted at the close of the article:

Walz, who has yet to meet Sarvi personally but has met with his father, said last week that the challenge for Sarvi will be to overcome Kline's strengths as a forthright politician.

"Steve's advantages are that he's in an environment in which people are looking for change; he's someone who's bringing that change," Walz said.

DJ Danielson at IDHA looked at the article earlier, and adds a list of Sarvi listening sessions across the Second.

Workday Minnesota looks at how the Fight against Peru trade pact shifts to Senate. Walz is mentioned:

Three Democrats in Minnesota's Congressional delegation – Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz – voted against the pact while Democrat Betty McColllum and Republicans Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Jim Ramstad voted for it. James Oberstar also opposed the pact but did not vote.

The Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition thanked Ellison, Oberstar, Peterson and Walz for their opposition and said, "We are very disappointed in the remaining Minnesota House delegation -- Democrat and Republicans alike -- who voted in favor of the NAFTA expansion to Peru, even though no labor or environmental organization supported the agreement."

In Juicy debate: What is fresh meat's true color?, the Strib looks at the use of carbon monoxide in case-ready meat. The process keeps meat looking red long after exposure to regular air would cause it to discolor. The battle appears to be less of a consumer  issue than a political one:

But in political terms, this is a battle between industry rivals that have each recruited their state's congressional delegation to help advance their cause.

On one side are Hormel and Cargill, who have turned to Minnesota Democrats Collin Peterson, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and Tim Walz, whose district includes Hormel's Austin, Minn., headquarters.

On the other side are Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak, both Democrats from Michigan, the home base of Kalsec Foods, a rival company that is marketing a patented rosemary extract that keeps red meat from turning brown on the grocery store shelf.

The Strib looks at the practice's defenders:

The Minnesota companies' system has won the endorsement of scientists across the nation, including Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

In a letter last week to the director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Osterholm dismissed Kalsec's complaint as "a waste of our time... [and] a scare campaign."

A Washington lobbyist for Kalsec said Tuesday that the company had no comment on the matter. The company also declined to appear last week in a hearing held by Peterson.

But Peterson and Walz, who have vowed to bring Stupak's labeling legislation before their committee again, expressed skepticism because the complaints about the carbon monoxide process were championed first by Kalsec, rather than any consumer groups.

The Washington Post looks at the controversy in Meat Treatment Got Approval Despite Safety Concerns. The Rochester Post Bulletin editorialized against the practice early in November.

For ourselves, we already tend to shun case-ready meat, packaged at the processor, since it is often plumped with a fluid solution. Though safe, it's usually between 10-20 percent of the package weight, according to the fine print on labels; we prefer not to spend our dollars on water. Give us an honest cut from a local butcher any day.

Update: DJ Danielson, who has worked in retail meat departments, weighs in on this issue.

Comments

[MinnesotaCentral]

It will be interesting how the Iraq conflict is “politicketed” in Minnesota. Considering the high profile of Coleman, there should be trickledown (and trickleup) support for(from) Republican candidates. Yet, yesterday, Freedom Watch ran advertisements (in The Arizona Republic, The Sacramento Bee, The Palm Beach Post, Evansville Courier & Press, Topeka Capital-Journal, The Columbus Dispatch, The [Scranton] Times-Tribune) targeting a group of seven freshman Congresspersons - Reps. Nancy Boyda (KS), Chris Carney (PA), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Tim Mahoney (FL), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Jerry McNerney (CA), and Zach Space (OH). "Stop the politics," the ads charge, and "fund the troops." Does that mean that the Kline-v-Sarvi race is not one that they want to confront?
And interestingly, they did not target Walz.