minne MN 2 bak

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promoted primary peNding ICE Renee GOOD // BLM

MERRI OK

SEE RENEE GOOD TERROR BS MASS DEPORT

SEE TIM WALZ ILHAN OMAR

alec?

bak 3 23

omg voter suppression swing state jok

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Conservative provocateur James O’Keefe has been criminally charged over a polling place stunt meant to expose supposed weaknesses in Minnesota’s election laws.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced charges Wednesday against O’Keefe and Cam Higby, members of the Florida-based O’Keefe Media Group, accusing them of identity theft and unlawful voting, reported KSTP-TV.

The charges stem from videos the pair posted online in August during Minnesota’s primary election. In the footage, one member of the group, which calls itself the “Justice League,” is dressed in a burqa, while another man can be heard using an accent as he tries to vouch for others.

ALSO READ:

'Do the right thing': Top Dems squirm as furious voters clamor to impeach Trump

At Pratt Elementary School in Minneapolis, someone in the group gave a poll worker the first name “William” and, when asked for a last name, replied “Pomeranz,” before asking about the state’s vouching law. William Pomeranz is an actual registered voter in Minneapolis.

O’Keefe’s group denied wrongdoing.

“The Justice League did not impersonate anyone. At no point did we claim to be William Pomerantz or any other voter,” the group said in a statement, using another spelling for the voter's name. “We stated a name and asked election workers questions about Minnesota’s vouching process.”

The group apparently left the polling place after being told the man would need to sign an oath to vouch for someone.

Under Minnesota law, residents who have recently moved or lack a document showing their current address can register on Election Day if another registered voter from the same precinct vouches for their address. The voucher must sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that they personally know the person lives in the precinct. The new voter must still provide a driver’s license or state ID number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Secretary of State Steve Simon said just 0.6 percent of Minnesota voters were vouched for in 2024, and he does not recall a single case of vouching fraud during his tenure.

The law has drawn fire from the Trump administration. In January, the Justice Department demanded Minnesota hand over all records related to its vouching system, and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon tweeted that the law “seems facially inconsistent with the Help America Vote Act of 2002.” The department has taken no further action, and a judge dismissed an earlier DOJ lawsuit against the state over voter registration.

Simon said O’Keefe’s group apparently set out “to cast doubt on one or more Minnesota election laws.”

“Instead, they revealed their ignorance of how those laws actually work — while putting themselves in legal jeopardy,” he said.

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GUK 8 26

US conducted ‘mass spying campaign’ against leftwing groups and anti-ICE protesters, records reveal

Newly disclosed records reveal the US government extensively spied on prominent leftwing organizations and on protesters as part of a vast operation into groups opposing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year.

Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York City, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning non-profit groups.

Nearly 30 internal law enforcement reports were released on Thursday as part of a criminal case the Department of Justice has filed against 15 Minneapolis protesters. The defendants are accused of a “conspiracy” to “impede” US immigration officers during the Trump administration’s surge in the region.

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Protesters marching during a Nationwide Shutdown demonstration against ICE enforcement in Minneapolis on 30 January. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

The DHS investigative reports were disclosed by the government and submitted to the court by an attorney for one of the defendants. The records show that in January, DHS launched an inquiry called “Operation Puppet Master” to identify a “network of conspirators” organizing against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The operation came as community organizing against ICE was swelling in the region in response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

A DHS report from February said the agency was looking into people who were “providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators”. The records suggest agents launched elaborate spying efforts targeting activists, protesters and mainstream progressive organizations opposing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“I was shocked at the scope and the apparent lack of investigative discipline involved, but not totally surprised,” said Kevin Riach, an attorney for one of the indicted protesters, who filed the tranche of records in federal court.

A DHS spokesperson said that Homeland Security Investigations, its branch that carried out the investigations, “does not comment on the existence or status of specific on-going investigations, nor on investigative methods”. The agency referred questions to the justice department in Minnesota, which declined to comment.

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A memorial to Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pretti was shot and killed by federal officers while recording them in January. Photograph: Bridget Bennett/The Guardian

The records indicate that the investigations followed the directive of Trump’s executive order last year that designated “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization” responsible for “riots” against ICE. The investigations led to the criminal case filed in June against 15 protesters, which focused on Direct Action Minnesota, a loose coalition of organizers that the government says was part of a “conspiracy” opposing ICE’s surge in the region.

The documents show that the government alleged major groups were connected to the criminal conspiracy, including the national labor unions AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union; the local unions Minneapolis Federation of Educators and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees; and several large left-leaning groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).

None of those organizations have been charged with any crimes.

The records have added fuel to the concerns of civil rights groups, who have argued that the federal government was criminalizing lawful protest activity under the guise of targeting leftwing “terrorism”.

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A man dressed up as a pickle shouts at counter-protesters through a megaphone during a protest against a new ICE detention center in the small town of Appleton, Minnesota, in August. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

The documents show that DHS investigators obtained financial records of unions and non-profits, as part of an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing”. One investigative record showed the DHS used administrative subpoenas to obtain “wire transfers from various financial institutions to and from” SEIU, one of the largest unions in the US. Investigators also requested that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provide financial data from the Communications Workers of America, an international union, the records showed.

The DHS further obtained financial records related to the Sunrise Movement, a national non-profit focused on the climate crisis.

View image in fullscreen

Federal agents hold a person down, two weeks after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good on 7 January during an immigration raid. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

The records also provided detailed documentation of spying operations conducted by undercover agents who posed as activists and surveilled community activities.

One DHS report documented “undercover agent activity” on 31 January at a Sunrise Movement “resistance skills training” at the Minneapolis public library. An agent described activists discussing recruitment and “de-escalation” at protests, with speakers suggesting having a “police liaison” and “safety marshal” at events. The report said: “It was clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on ‘peaceful’ protests.”

The undercover agent actively engaged participants, according to the report. At one point, the agent told someone in attendance that he “works in construction and could build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests”. That agent told the individual that “going to jail did not bother him” and gave out his phone number.

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A protester kneels in front of state troopers outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building during a protest opposing ICE operations in Minneapolis in March. Photograph: Kerem Yücel/AFP/Getty Images

The records documented the operations of another undercover agent who joined Signal groups of activists involved in protests.

The records also showed undercover agents surveilling a virtual meeting at Hunter College in New York focused on “ICE brutality” and “responding to state violence”; a meeting at a labor center in Minneapolis during which activists discussed a wide range of political issues; a meeting in a Minneapolis public park about protest tactics; and a Direct Action Minnesota meeting at a church.

The documents indicate that agents made audio recordings of the events.

One undercover agent attended a “training” event at a gymnasium in a church and participated in “boxing/sparring practice”, according to a DHS report. The report noted that the agent was surreptitiously recording audio of the event, but that at one point the recorder “erroneously fell to the floor” and the agent had to return to the gym to retrieve the device.

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Rev Edward Ford Jr, from Shiloh Christian church in Middletown, speaks at a protest demanding justice for Renee Nicole Good. Photograph: Connecticut Post/Hearst Newspapers/CT Post/Getty Images

At one anti-ICE event at a church, agents documented the license plate information of attenders, the records showed. When two agents were approached by a man who “asked if they were ICE”, the agent responded, falsely, that they were not.

Riach, the defense attorney, filed the records as part of a motion urging the court to compel the government to release additional records. In his filing, Riach accused the government of presenting “wild conspiracy allegations … born from the fantasies of political retribution that animate the Trump Administration”.

He also alleged that DHS’s investigations were part of a “mass spying campaign” and said undercover agents “participated in organizing and directing the groups they were surveilling, at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes”.

The records relate to activities that extend far beyond the allegations of the 15 defendants facing prosecution. That case alleges a vast conspiracy to organize against ICE, but across a 94-page indictment, there are no allegations of injuries to specific ICE officers caused by any defendants and no charges of serious violence.

Emilia Gonzalez Avalos is the executive director of Unidos MN, a Minneapolis social justice non-profit group, whose activities were mentioned in the files.

“I believe that this is a clear attempt to intimidate us, to punish and politically repress disagreement and difference,” she said. “And that is not the America that we have built through hundreds of years. And it’s definitely not the America that we are organizing for.”

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A detained woman sits inside a vehicle surrounded by federal agents in January, two weeks after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

During trainings, organizers asked people not to record the sessions, Gonzalez Avalos said. But organizers would also say if there were any immigration agents or officers in the room, they were welcome to stay because the group had nothing to hide, because their work was “entirely grounded in the United States constitution”.

Mike German, a former FBI agent and civil liberties advocate, said it was striking that the DHS was leading the investigations when typically the FBI would spearhead operations targeting potential “terrorist” activity. He said it was also notable that the DHS was using administrative subpoenas, which don’t require judicial authorization, to obtain records.

The government, German said, also appeared to be relying on theories of “guilt by association” to justify surveillance instead of narrower investigations focused on specific alleged criminal activity. German, who previously served as an undercover agent, further scoffed at the notion of undercover agents spying on what appeared to be accessible, community events.

View image in fullscreen

An ‘ICE out’ sign in the window of a home in Minneapolis. Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

“You’re talking about meetings that are open to the public, where they are recruiting among the public, saying: ‘Please come to this protest,’” he said. “It’s hardly a challenge to ‘infiltrate’ this kind of meeting, and that should be a clue this isn’t a criminal group. It’s very rare for criminals to [publicize] discussion of their criminal activities.”

The investigations, he added, fit patterns in US history of the government targeting leftwing activist and labor organizing. After 9/11, he said, those powers to spy on communities were greatly expanded.

“Nobody should be surprised that the government would use these authorities to target political opposition rather than target criminals, particularly so under this administration,” he said.

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AN 1 26

After pledging to deescalate tensions in Minnesota, President Donald Trump kicked off Wednesday by taking aim at the mayor of Minneapolis, asserting — incorrectly — that declining to enforce federal immigration laws is unlawful.

Legal analysts and administration critics have warned that the moves the president made this week in the wake of the second deadly shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents were simply a change in tone — not in strategy or tactics, and not an actual pivot. Trump has recalled Greg Bovino, the head of Operation Metro Surge, from Minneapolis, and sent in border czar Tom Homan.

“Surprisingly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him.”

“Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” the president declared.

The president declared Frey’s stance is unlawful but legal experts note that cities and states generally cannot be forced to carry out federal immigration enforcement.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted that “the feds can’t ‘commandeer’ state law enforcement resources to execute their policies.”

She also called the president’s statement, “More evidence Trump isn’t changing course on mass deportations.”

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney offered some additional insight.

“Trump could not have designed a better statement to convince Judge Menendez that Operation Metro Surge is meant to coerce policy changes,” Cheney wrote.

He noted that courts have “ruled repeatedly” that the federal government “cannot coerce states to enforce federal law.”

“Nor is it illegal for states to decline to do so,” Cheney added.

“And the menacing ‘playing with fire’ is exactly the kind of statement (‘retribution is coming’) that worked against the administration in court earlier this week,” he added.

Indeed, ABC News interviewed the president on Tuesday and reported that Trump was suggesting federal agents would take a “more relaxed” approach in Minnesota after the two deadly shootings.

Trump said, “we can start doing maybe a little bit more relaxed,” and, “we’d like to finish the job and finish it well, and I think we can do it in a de-escalated form.”

ABC called it “a shift in tone.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sargent wrote on Wednesday, “The media narrative that Trump is ‘pivoting’ and ‘deescalating’ on his ICE raids … is wildly overstated. As long as the military occupations and the treatment of US cities as enemy territory continue, there’s no pivot. It’s that simple.”

“Trump wants to appear eager to minimize clashes between his govt militias and protesters. But he doesn’t want them to stop doing the things that are causing the clashes in the first place,” he continued. “There’s no Trump ‘pivot’ until we see real investigations into the government’s killings and real accountability for them.”

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RWW

01/26/2026

Kyle Mantyla

David Gilbert @ Wired: The Instant Smear Campaign Against Border Patrol Shooting Victim Alex PrettI

Within minutes of the shooting, the Trump administration and right-wing influencers began disparaging the man shot by a federal immigration officer on Saturday in Minneapolis.

Zack Beauchamp @ Vox: So what if Alex Pretti had a gun?

The unbearable hypocrisy of pro-gun conservatives defending the Minneapolis killing.

Peter Baker @ The New York Times: For Trump, the Truth in Minneapolis Is What He Says It Is

The Trump team has advanced one-sided narratives to justify each of the killings, even when bystander video shows something else entirely.

Malcolm Ferguson @ The New Republic: Steve Bannon and Co. Declare War on Minnesota After Pretti Shooting

President Trump’s onetime adviser is urging him to crack down harder in Minneapolis following a federal agent’s killing of Alex Pretti.

Abby Vesoulis and Ari Berman @ Mother Jones: DOJ’s “Ransom” Letter to Minnesota Reveals How Trump Plans to Rig the Midterms

After a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Minnesota to hand over its voter roll to “bring an end to the chaos.”

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AN 1 26

Judges in Minnesota are said to be "inundated" with new immigration cases amid Donald Trump's statewide crackdown, with several excoriating the administration for arrests they say are "sometimes flagrantly" breaking the law, according to a new report from Politico.

On Friday, Politico's Kyle Cheney detailed the "hundreds of emergency lawsuits from immigrants targeted by ICE" in Minnesota's Twin Cities area during the agency's massive "Operation Metro Surge" crackdown. According to Cheney's findings, "in all but a handful of cases," these judges have ruled against the Trump administration, claiming that it "violated the law, sometimes flagrantly," with the arrests.

The report provided several examples of arrests raising alarms within the Minnesota judicial system: "A Myanmar refugee nursing a five-month-old, arrested and shipped to Texas. A Mexican man who sustained severe skull injuries during an arrest by ICE and was shackled in the hospital against doctors’ wishes. A Kenyan woman detained after picking up seizure medication. A Ukrainian refugee arrested for no apparent reason." All of this Cheney summed up as "In other words, an ordinary weekend for federal judges in Minnesota."

In the rulings against ICE and Trump's Department of Homeland Security, judges have hit back against what they perceived "as a pattern of defiance by the administration, shocking behavior by ICE and rampant targeting of people with no criminal history," clashing with Trump's claims that his mass deportation agenda would target "the worst of the worst" criminals.

“I think it kind of goes without saying that we are in shockingly unusual times,” Judge Kate Menendez said at the start of a hearing on Monday.

Judges involved in this pushback include appointees by every president since Reagan, Politico noted. The administration has attempted to counter, accusing these judges of moving through cases too quickly, but this, too, has been slapped down in court.

“Since November 2025, the courts of this District have thought of little else,” Judge Michael Davis said in a ruling from Sunday. “It is a grave error to confuse efficiency with lack of rigor.”

Davis, a Bill Clinton appointee, also ruled in the case of a Burmese woman, who was admitted as a refugee in 2024 before being taken to a Texas detention facility after being arrested on Jan. 10. Politico reported that she is a mother of three, including a five-month-old with a heart condition.

“There is simply no legal reason for keeping this mother 1800 miles away from her children,” Davis said. “While the Court recognizes that many families are suffering due to… ICE actions in the District of Minnesota, there is something particularly craven about transferring a nursing refugee mother out-of-state.”

AN 1 26

feds told walz they wd pull out if he gives welfare and voter data?! 1 26/26

Trump blames welfare fraud investigation for 'violent' protests in Minnesota

2ND MURDER PRETTI 1ST AND 2ND AMEND

AN 26

A leading Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota has withdrawn from the race, citing the Republican Party’s “stated retribution on the citizens of our state,” and saying he cannot count himself a member of a party that would do so.

Chris Madel’s announcement Monday morning, just two days after federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in under three weeks, was deemed “stunning” by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Madel recorded a nearly eleven-minute video explaining his decision to withdraw.

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” he told supporters. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

“ICE has authorized its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that need only be signed by a border patrol agent. That’s unconstitutional, it’s wrong. Weaponizing criminal investigations against political opponents is unconstitutional, regardless of who is in power,” he continued.

Madel also pointed to the “countless United States citizens who have been detained in Minnesota due to the color of their skin. I personally have spoken to several law enforcement officers, some Hispanic, and some Asian who have been pulled over by ice on pretextual stops,” he said.

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel added. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

The Star Tribune reported that Madel “launched his campaign for governor as a staunch defender of law enforcement and had **:{recently provided legal counsel to Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.”}:

“I do this because I believe the constitutional right to counsel is sacrosanct,” he said.

He also called the federal operation in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge, “an unmitigated disaster.”

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AN 1 26

Trump laying 'siege' to Minneapolis with 'military occupation': Minnesota paper

Thomas Kika

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AN 1 26

Amidst national outrage this week over the killing by Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent, members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation on Saturday were blocked from full access to a federal immigration detention center in the city—but at least one lawmaker among them warns something much more sinister is now taking place in the state.

“I was just denied access to the ICE processing center at the Whipple Building,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who represents the state’s 5th District. “Members of Congress have a legal right and constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight where people are being detained. The public deserves to know what is taking place in ICE facilities.”

Omar shared a video of herself, along with Reps. Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison, outside the facility as large numbers of masked federal agents in protective gear blocked the driveway entrance.

In a telephone interview with MSNOW, Omar later explained that she and her colleagues arrived at the facility Saturday morning in order to conduct oversight activities. While Omar said they were initially allowed to enter the building, they were shortly after told they “had to wait until higher-ups were able to come speak with us.”

It seemed to Omar, she said, that the order to halt their visit “maybe came from Washington to deny us the proper access that we needed to complete those oversight duties that we are obligated as members of Congress.”

Calling it a clear violation of their oversight authority, Omar and Craig explained to reporters what happened after they were denied further access to the facility:

Congresswoman Craig also spoke to MSNOW’s Ali Velshi:

Noting the size and scale of the presence of armed federal agents now deployed in her state, Omar suggested in her interview with MSNOW that the recent Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations being conducted serve no purpose other than to harass and terrorize local communities. That militarized presence has only grown since Trump ordered more agents to the city following Wednesday’s killing of Good and the protests that have erupted as a result.

“ Protest is as American as apple pie,” said Omar. “People come out to register their opposition to what they do not like or want to accept. It is important for people to be able to do that in a democracy.”

“What we are seeing right now, not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate people enough where they are able to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.”

“There is,” she continued, “no other justifiable way to describe what is taking place in Minneapolis at this moment. There is no justifiable reason why this number of agents is here in our state.”

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2K ICE SHOT RENEE GOOD IN Face 1 26 increase action after?

nick shorley fraud bs

AN 1 26

The cities that President Donald Trump and his allies are targeting for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids — Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and now, Minneapolis — have something in common: They are run by Democrats. And the cities that Trump is singling out have Democratic governors such as California's Gavin Newsom, Illinois' JB Pritzker and Minnesota's Tim Walz.

In an article published on January 12, Politico reporters Blake Jones, Jeremy B. White and Nick Reisman cite fraud allegations as one of the tactics that Trump is using against blue states.

"Donald Trump has found a new way to bludgeon blue states: accuse them of fraud, then move to cut off their money," the journalists explain. "The attacks ramping up across the map — from Albany and Springfield to Denver and Sacramento — follow Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ending his reelection campaign amid allegations of welfare fraud in his state — a case Trump's MAGA allies seized to cast similar aspersions at other Democratic leaders. The Trump Administration cited unproven fraud allegations last week as it put a hold on $10 billion in child care funding to five Democratic-run states."

Jones, White and Reisman add, "The Department of Justice announced it's launching a new division of fraud enforcement, pointing to Minnesota's 'fraud epidemic.' And in California, Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said he's pursuing additional charges of fraud involving state homelessness programs after railing for months against Gov. Gavin Newsom's management of state spending…. The spending-focused line of attack from Trump marks an escalation in Trump’s already red-hot war on blue states."

Democratic New York State Sen. Liz Krueger argues that Trump's attacks on blue states were easy to predict during the 2024 presidential election.

Kreuger told Politico, "I'll say one thing about our president: He told us he was going to do this. He told us he was going to punish blue states. We have to brace for impact, we have to use our legal skills, our amazing attorney general, and endless lawsuits to at least hold them back."

According to U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Illinois), Trump is using a range of methods to attack blue states.

Schneider told Politico, "He's attacking blue states out of revenge. If that's in the form of sending in ICE, he sends in ICE. If it's denying food and education to their children, which to be clear are America's children, he's gonna do that. What he is doing is seeking revenge at the cost of America's most vulnerable people, putting those communities at risk."

*Read the full Politico article at this link.

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an 1 25

won by 14 after 20 tossed?

Minnesota GOPer: ‘We should not be seating that representative’ no matter what judge rules - Alternet.org

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https://www.alternet.org/abortion-2659334710/

abortion safe minne

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ymail 6 24

These bills aim to make polluters pay

Climate superfund legislation is gaining traction in state legislatures across the country. How do the bills fit into the broader movement to hold Big Oil accountable?

EXXONKNEWS

JUN 27

Emily Sanders is senior reporter at ExxonKnews.

As communities across the United States grapple with the rising costs to protect residents and infrastructure from the worsening impacts of climate change, some state legislators are targeting a potential new source of resilience funding: fossil fuel companies.

Sometimes called “polluter pays” bills or “climate superfund” bills, a new wave of state legislation aims to make oil companies bear a portion of the expenses necessary to adapt to climate impacts and recover from climate disasters fueled by those companies’ greenhouse gas emissions. The bills are quickly gaining momentum in statehouses: Vermont passed one into law in May, another in New York awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature, and similar proposals are under consideration in California, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

Oil and gas companies have generated the majority of the world’s climate pollution, the bill sponsors argue, and therefore they should help pay for the damage that pollution is inflicting on communities. While each state’s legislation has unique features and different mechanisms to determine how much oil and gas companies would pay, they all draw inspiration from the federal Superfund program, first enacted in 1980 and administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which makes polluters pay to clean up hazardous waste they’ve dumped into the environment.

State climate superfunds established by these bills would function similarly by making fossil fuel companies pay for a portion of the damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions.

“States and municipalities are suffering enormous costs from the damage associated with climate change and the money they have to spend now to prepare for the consequences they're going to face in the future, at the same time as fossil fuel industry actors are posting record profits from creating these harms,” said Martin Lockman, climate law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and associate research scholar at Columbia Law School. While the superfund bills would not cover the full amount states will spend on climate adaptation, he said, communities “are looking for any tools that they have available to make sure that the people who are profiting from causing them harm pay for [that] harm.”

So how exactly do the bills work, how do they interact with the growing number of distinct state and local lawsuits seeking to hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception, and what challenges will they face? Here’s what you need to know.

How climate superfund bills work

All of the currently proposed climate superfund bills would assess a dollar figure that companies owe to the fund based on the amount of emissions attributed to the fossil fuels they sold over a set period of time: 2000 to 2018 in New York’s case, or 1995 to 2024 in Vermont’s for example. The costs of those emissions, or how they are proportioned among companies, are calculated using attribution science — a growing field also tapped for climate accountability lawsuits. Those calculations rely on companies’ self-reported data to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“It's looking at something they already did, and saying ‘this had a negative effect and now you have to clean up the mess you made,’” said Maggie Coulter, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that supports a climate superfund bill in California that was recently shelved by its author but could be reintroduced later in the year.

Some of the bills direct a state agency to conduct a cost assessment of the climate harms companies’ emissions caused during a set time frame. In Vermont’s case, the state’s Agency of Natural Resources will have until the start of 2027 to conduct that assessment and determine each company’s appropriate share of the costs.

Those costs could include some portion of the estimated $1 billion response and recovery costs incurred after major floods devastated Vermont last summer, or the price of fortifying roads, bridges, and floodplains to lessen the damage caused by rain storms intensified by climate change. The agency will also help determine which resiliency programs — programs that could help municipalities, businesses, and farms in Vermont adapt to climate impacts — will be covered.

The law “is a common sense manifestation of a very well-established principle of American environmental law, which is that the polluter pays,” said Christophe Courchesne, assistant professor of law and director of the Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law School, which voiced its support for the bill before it passed. “It's not new, even as the application of this policy to climate damages is new, and is an extremely important concept that we certainly hope will be a model to other states.”

Other bills have already set a total cost that would be divided up by companies — like New York’s, which would require the oil majors to pay into a $75 billion fund that could be used for projects such as air conditioning schools or upgrading roads, bridges, subways, and stormwater drainage systems to account for more extreme weather. Still, that $75 billion is nowhere near the total costs New York faces for climate adaptation; in 2021, the city estimated it would cost $100 billion just to “recalibrat[e] our sewers for storms like Ida.”

Proponents of the bills say their popularity reflects growing public demand for polluters to pay; polling last year found that 70% of likely voters supported making fossil fuel companies pay for climate disasters including wildfires, droughts, and floods. “The science is more than clear on the outsized impact these companies have had on the climate crisis,” said Cassidy DiPaola, communication director for Fossil Free Media, one of the groups behind that poll. “It's time for them to pay their fair share, and this is one step in the right direction, but still not nearly enough.”

“Very complimentary, parallel tracks”

The bills come at the same time that dozens of state and local lawsuits to hold Big Oil accountable for climate fraud and damages are steadily advancing through the courts. So how do the two mechanisms interact?

The two tracks have some fundamental differences and aim to accomplish different things. Unlike the bills, the lawsuits center on disinformation, not pollution. They accuse the companies of engaging in deceptive behavior, citing evidence that the fossil fuel industry has misled the public for decades about the harms their products cause. Through the courts, the cases aim to stop companies from lying to consumers and hold them accountable through a range of remedies, including paying for the damage their deception has caused.

Lawsuits can also help address past disinformation by forcing defendants to set the record straight. A Minnesota lawsuit brought against Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute under the state’s consumer protection laws, for example, seeks to make the companies “disclose, disseminate, and publish all research previously conducted directly or indirectly… that relates to the issue of climate change,” and “fund a corrective public education campaign in Minnesota relating to the issue of climate change, administered and controlled by an independent third party.”

Similar remedies came out of lawsuits brought against the tobacco industry by U.S. states and territories for misleading consumers about the connection between smoking and cancer. Through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, major tobacco companies were made to fund the Truth Initiative, a public education campaign that has drastically reduced youth smoking rates.

Discovery, the process of obtaining evidence for trial, can also produce internal company documents that shed further light on the industry’s deception about its products for legislators and the public — and can help inform a response. Such documents were obtained through litigation against the tobacco and opioid industries and made publicly available.

The climate superfund legislation, on the other hand, “does nothing to prevent [companies] from continuing business as usual if they want to,” said Coulter. “It's just saying that the business that you conducted has caused damage and you need to pay for that.” That’s why the bills and lawsuits, she emphasized, are “very complimentary, parallel tracks,” which together can both make the fossil fuel industry pay for a share of its pollution and bring an end to continued deceptive acts.

A similar dual strategy was applied in California, where the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1991 taxed manufacturers of products containing lead to fund evaluations and medical services for children who were exposed. In 2019, 10 California cities and counties were still able to recover a court settlement from lead paint manufacturers after they sued the companies under public nuisance claims.

“This is how our democracy works,” California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta recently told Politico when asked about the relationship between California’s proposed superfund bill and the accountability lawsuit his office brought against Big Oil companies last year. “Different leaders elected to do their jobs think about the authority that they have, the jurisdiction that they own, and the action that they can take to solve a problem that affects their constituents.”

Legal battles ahead

The bills will likely implicate many of the same major oil companies facing climate deception lawsuits in state courts, including Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP. The industry’s lead trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, has already expressed its strong opposition to the bills, calling them “a punitive new fee” that “represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides.”

Legal experts expect API and others to challenge the laws in court.

In March, API sent a letter to Vermont lawmakers claiming that the state's bill “retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal” and “violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large.”

But experts and advocates refute those claims. “This bill is premised on a well-established, reasonable approach to assigning liability for pollution harms,” said Courchesne, of Vermont Law. “These issues around due process and the retroactivity of liability have been litigated and those laws have been upheld.”

Big Oil’s public communications have sought to shift the blame for climate change to consumers for years, despite growing evidence that the companies intentionally mislead the public about the harms their fossil fuel products cause.

While the superfund bills don’t rely on that evidence of deception like the lawsuits do, there is still plenty of precedent for laws that hold producers liable for their pollution, Lockman explained. “If you buy a product, and the company that made that product was dumping toxic chemicals into a river and killing off species, is the consumer responsible for that?” he asked. “Generally, as a society and a legal system, we’ve decided that it’s OK to hold the most immediate actors responsible for the pollution they’re causing.”

Thanks for reading ExxonKnews!

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an 3 23

minnestota State Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen, in a recent interview, suggested abortion and pornography are the reasons for domestic abuse, and asserted trans children are influenced by Satan, Heartland Signal reports.

Heartland Signal shared a clip of the "The Pastor's Study" interview, tweeting, "MN State Sen. Gruenhagen (R) says gender-affirming care is "Satan going after the children." In the same interview, he blames domestic violence on pornography and abortion: "Women need to understand that [it] sends a certain message to men. It objectifies them."

The right wing lawmaker said, "Women need to understand that abortion and pornography sends a certain message to men. It objectifies them."

He continued, "So, women who care about this issue and women being abused they should look at limitations on abortion and they should also oppose the pornographic sewage which is flooding our society."

According to Heartland Signal, in addition to spreading anti-abortion and anti-trans rhetoric, "Gruenhagen is an avid climate change denier and attended a “Storm the Capitol” rally in St. Paul on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day as the U.S. Capitol riot."

The Senator also came after trans children, saying, "If I can say one thing from a Christian standpoint, we know that in reading the Bible, when society goes after and kills its innocent children, and destroys them like through gender surgery, there is a Satanic perspective on that.So I mean, it's Satan going after the children."

Gruenhagen's comments came just days before six people — including three children — were killed by guns during a mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school.

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whoohoo win!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/7/2127500/-WSJ-Mad-About-Anti-Climate-Disinfo-Efforts-As-CFACT-Pretends-Not-To-Be

WSJ Mad About Anti-Climate Disinfo Efforts, As CFACT Pretends Not To Be - Daily Kos

Daily Kos

We promise that next week it'll be back to bad news only here, but for the third day in a row we're going to do a bit of celebrating, because once again, deniers are losing!

Lesley Clark reported yesterday at E&E News that"Minnesota’s highest court has delivered a victory to Attorney General Keith Ellison in legal action surrounding the state’s climate liability lawsuit against the oil and gas industry."

More specifically, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided not to let tobacco-turned-fossil-fuel-backed lawyer and harasser of climate scientists and public servants Chris Horner's front group try and recreate Climategate, but this time with emails from Attorney General Keith Ellison's office concerning their litigation against fossil fuel companies.

Meanwhile, it was heartening to see that CFACT is so desperate for signs of its effectiveness that it's emailing people to brag about the "six hit pieces referencing [Marc] Morano since July."

Two of those are from MediaMatters, one where Morano is mentioned by name only once, in passing, and another where his appearance was noted in a larger piece on Tucker Carlson. The other four are from yours truly, who CFACT describes as seeming "to have a love-hate relationship" with Morano.

Which is true, in that we love how easy it is Morano makes it to write about how deniers are wrong on purpose for money by constantly saying dumb stuff, like that some 1930's New Deal book is proof of a 2022 plot for world domination through a Great Reset. The other example they linked also only mentioned Morano in passing, as one of many disinfo-spreaders proving YouTube is failing to enforce its demonetization policy. Not exactly evidence of effectiveness.

They unfortunately did not clear up the mystery of whether our memory that Marc Morano told Bill Nye that he uses Ambien to sleep at night is accurate, but the fact that even our petty sniping is enough to warrant an email blast to subscribers shows how little evidence they actually do have that they're making a real impact. People ridiculing you does not necessarily mean they're threatened by you. Sometimes it just means you're ridiculous.

Because this is, admittedly, not exactly a big news outlet with the largest readership in the world, and we're happy about that! This space is for people who have to deal with deniers, the general public shouldn't have to know about professional goobers!

Similarly, if some equally small-time, dedicated opposition outlet like theDaily Caller were to run something on anti-climate disinfo efforts, that wouldn't be worth writing home about either.

But if the paper that does have one of the largest subscriber lists, the Wall Street Journal, took the time to complain about something its opposition is doing, thatmight be something worth celebrating!

And what do you know, Thursday's print edition of the Wall Street Journal, going to some 2 million subscribers, featured an editorial complaining about "the climate-change censorship campaign."

Yes, one of the biggest papers in the country decided that a letter from green groups asking Big Tech companies to include climate disinformation when complying with the EU's Digital Services Act was worth its column inches and readers' attention.

Given that Bloomberg, Common Defense and The Hill were the only other coverage, landing news of the letter on the WSJ's pages was quite a score, if even in the shape of it calling on Elon Musk to use Twitter to "shut down the climate censors."

Sounds like the WSJ's the one that wants to censor its opponents!

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asked for ppe covid $?

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/27/enbridge-line-3-pipeline-police-training-intelligence/

a corp can substitute video for a live cop in tresspass law?!

intercept 921 eileen brn?

POLICE RESPONSIBLE FOR public safety surrounding the construction of an oil pipeline in Minnesota have repeatedly denied having a close relationship with Enbridge, the company behind the controversial energy project. According to records obtained by The Intercept through public information requests, however, Enbridge has provided repeated trainings for officers designed to cultivate a coordinated response to protests.

By the time construction on Line 3, a tar sands oil pipeline, began last December, a working relationship had been established between Enbridge and police officers. A public safety official even invited the company’s Line 3 security chief to regular intelligence sharing meetings. In one case, the official passed along intelligence to Enbridge’s security chief for Line 3: a list of people who attended an anti-pipeline organizing meeting.

Line 3 opponents have long raised concerns about payments made to law enforcement by Enbridge to cover pipeline-related policing. A special account set up by the state of Minnesota has distributed $2.3 million in Enbridge funds to public safety agencies so far.The records shed new light on the level of close coordination between law enforcement agencies and the Canadian oil company to police the Indigenous-led movement to stop Line 3.

:{:{}:

“Local law enforcement has become the brutal arm of a Canadian corporation.”

}:

“Local law enforcement has become the brutal arm of a Canadian corporation,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund’s Center for Protest Law and Litigation and an attorney representing opponents of the pipeline. “It’s highly inappropriate for law enforcement to target people based on First Amendment activity, collect identity information and then deliver that information to their political opponents.”

The effort to halt the Line 3 pipeline is the latest flashpoint in the movement to end development of new fossil fuel infrastructure amid a growing climate crisis. In Minnesota, members of the Indigenous-led resistance, known as water protectors, have turned to tactics that directly disrupt construction, sometimes trespassing on private property, blocking roads, or locking down to pipeline company equipment.

"Community police and sheriff deputies are responsible for public safety,” Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner told The Intercept. “Our security call the police when a disturbance occurs. Officers decide when an individual is breaking the law — or putting themselves or others in danger.”

How law enforcement responds to the protest movement is a matter of training and discretion.The documents obtained by The Intercept suggest that Enbridge has stepped in to influence officers’ choices.

Water protectors point to the close working relationship between Enbridge and law enforcement to explain escalating police tactics, with rubber bullets and other “less-lethal” weapons deployed in recent weeks.

Plans to Coordinate

Emails between Enbridge and members of the Northern Lights Task Force — a group consisting of sheriffs and public safety officials coordinating plans for expected protests against Line 3 — describe several joint training exercises and other coordination meetings set up by the energy firm. The largest of the trainings was in Bemidji, Minnesota.

In October 2020, according to emails, Enbridge organized an all-day training at the company’s Bemidji Emergency Operations Center. According to an email sent a day before the event, dozens of Enbridge employees, public safety officials, including local sheriffs along the pipeline route, and an FBI agent were invited to attend. A primary goal for the event: “Coordination between Line 3 project team and L.P.” — an acronym that typically refers to “local police.”

Indigenous Water Protectors Face Off With an Oil Company and Police Over a Minnesota Pipeline

The email sent out ahead of the training included a series of “Incident Briefing Maps” laying out scenarios where Enbridge and law enforcement might need to coordinate a response. The various scenarios had something in common: They all involved protests.

The list of scenarios — which were drawn up by the Response Group, a controversial crisis management firm that works for the energy industry — laid out four possible events: demonstrators blocking traffic, the breach of a construction site, “swarming” of a pipeline hub while streaming on social media, and project opponents locking themselves to the gate of an Enbridge office.

Training participants would be asked to come up with a plan to respond to each of the scenarios, as well as to develop an “Information and Communication Strategy” to keep government agencies, the public, and the media informed of what was happening, according to a list of exercise objectives. Enbridge planned to discuss providing local law enforcement with a project radio, according to an email describing the exercise.

IT WASN’T THE FIRST CONVERSATION OF ITS KIND. IN advance of a smaller version of the exercise, back in April, members of the Northern Lights Task Force filled out a questionnaire for Enbridge. The public safety officials noted that it was a “priority” for law enforcement to obtain access to Enbridge security camera feeds. It also referenced the possibility of placing an Enbridge liaison inside the two law enforcement emergency operations centers, as well as a law enforcement liaison in Enbridge’s emergency operations center.

The Northern Lights Task Force’s communications team did not answer a detailed list of questions. Aitkin County Sheriff Dan Guida, a member of the task force, said his office never received a project radio nor saw other agencies with one. Guida said that the scenarios served to show law enforcement how Enbridge runs its emergency operations center. “It was for Enbridge to learn. We didn’t get trained by Enbridge,” he said, adding that law enforcement might carry out a similar exercise with a bank. “We assisted them and told them this is how we do it, you do your own thing.”

It’s not clear how many officers attended the trainings offered by Enbridge. Clearwater County Sheriff Darin Halverson was copied on the invite and RSVP’d that he would attend an additional Enbridge security exercise as well as a “sensitive security information” meeting. He told The Intercept that he did not attend any of the gatherings.

Sharing Intelligence

By the time construction on Line 3 began, a comfortable working relationship appeared to have been established between Enbridge and some of the public safety agencies invited to the company’s meetings. Public officials repeatedly expressed interest in exchanging information on pipeline opposition with Enbridge.

In December 2020, a St. Louis County sheriff’s deputy distributed language to be used by officers issuing dispersal orders during protests against Line 3 and also sent a list of potential charges that could be applied to pipeline protesters. Another officer responded, noting that it would be legal to arrest water protectors even if they trespassed without a law enforcement officer present. “Hopefully Enbridge security would be videotaping when able,” the officer said. Other documents affirmed that Enbridge security would be wearing body cameras.

The Northern Lights Task Force, the group of public safety officials, occasionally suggested that Enbridge should be excluded from planning, the documents show. In November 2020, Guida, the Aitkin County sheriff, copied Enbridge public information officers on an email about the task force’s public messaging strategy. Another sheriff advised that the corporate representatives did not belong in the group: “It is not a good idea to have Enbridge employees in our group, but they would certainly be good contacts to have to know what info is being put out,” wrote Carlton County Sheriff Kelly Lake. (Guida told The Intercept he copied Enbridge on the email so that law enforcement and the company could avoid mixed or duplicate messages.)

In other cases, public safety officials actively sought out Enbridge security to assist with law enforcement officers’ efforts, inviting an Enbridge representative to share space and attend meetings. St. Louis County Emergency Management Coordinator Duane Johnson copied Enbridge’s security lead for the Line 3 project on an email inviting first responders to work out of the law enforcement emergency operations center as they monitored intelligence on a potential direct action the next day. “There is considerable intel on something brewing tomorrow. Let me know if you’d like to come over and work out of the EOC tomorrow just in case something pops,” the official wrote, referring to the emergency operations center.

In another email, Johnson requested that Enbridge’s Line 3 security lead attend regular intelligence meetings. “We have missed you on our 0900 intel meetings. Is there another time that would work better for you?” asked the emergency management coordinator in a January 2021 email. “It would be nice to have someone from your company on.”

The Enbridge security officer was kept in the loop. The next day, Johnson copied him on another email, forwarding a list of names of water protectors who had attended a “Line 3 Organizing Meeting” the night before.

“It was all I really got from last night,” Bruce Blacketter, emergency management director for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, wrote to Johnson in the forwarded email. “Well, this and a slight ‘back of the head’ headache from the musical performances and guided breathing/stretching exercises.”

St. Louis County did not respond to a request for comment, and the Fond du Lac Band declined to comment.

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std boogie man roger stone dirty trick is to run fake/3rd cand to split vote, sometimes pick someoe w/ same name

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-spolier-candidate/?rs=182

ablind veteran who ran for Congress in Minnesota last year under the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party now alleges he was tricked into running by a Republican Party operative to siphon votes from then-Democratic-Farmer-Labor Congressman Collin Peterson in Minnesota's 7th Congressional District, according to local news outlet KMSP.

Kevin Ne Se Shores, said the report, "was surprised by the unsolicited call he got in June of 2020 from a man who encouraged him to run against Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN) as a candidate for the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party. Shores, who suffers from Gulf War Illness, used cannabis to get off pain killers. He told the FOX 9 Investigators he assumed he was being recruited by a member of the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party. 'I was under the impression he was a part of that political party,' Shores said. 'That was my assumption.' He was wrong."

"Unknown to Shores, the man who called encouraging him to run was a Republican strategist, Kip Christianson, who at the time was on the payroll of the Republican National Committee, according to the Federal Election Commission," said the report. Shores also alleges that Christianson paid his $300 candidate filing fee, telling him, "Don't worry about it."

Shores only later became aware that Christianson was an RNC employee and 2016 Donald Trump delegate for Minnesota.

Ultimately, Shores lost the nomination for the third party to Rae Hart Anderson, and the combined 24,000 votes for the Grassroots Legalize Marijuana Party and the Legal Marijuana Now Party would not have been enough to secure re-election for Peterson, who lost to former GOP lieutenant governor Michelle Fischbach by 50,000 votes.

However, in races further down the ballot, GOP covert support for the Minnesota cannabis parties may have spoiled state Senate races, and may have been decisive in helping Republicans retain control of the chamber — which ironically makes cannabis legalization far less likely in the state.

Congressional candidate says he was tricked into running by RNC strategist | FOX 9 KMSP..[vid]

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https://theintercept.com/2021/02/10/police-minnesota-enbridge-pipeline-ppe/

no lnx

MINNESOTA POLICE WANT A PIPELINE COMPANY TO PAY FOR WEAPONS CLAIMED AS PPE

Police monitoring Enbridge Line 3 pipeline opponents submitted invoices for tear gas, batons, flash-bang grenades, and other riot gear.

Alleen BrownAlleen Brown

February 10 2021, 3:00 a.m.

A MINNESOTA SHERIFF’S OFFICE has requested that the tar sands pipeline company Enbridge reimburse the department for nearly $72,000 worth of riot gear and more than$10,000 in “less than lethal” weapons and ammunition, including tear gas, pepper spray, bean bag and sponge rounds, flash-bang devices, and batons. The sheriff’s office of Beltrami County, which sits at the center of an Indigenous-led fight to stop the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline replacement project, labeled the weapons as “personal protective equipment.”

The invoices, some of which were first described by the blog Healing Minnesota Stories, await review by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The agency maintains an escrow account set up so that Enbridge can reimburse public safety agencies for expenses associated with Line 3 construction, especially costs for policing protests. In its construction permit, the utilities commission clarified that the fund “may not be used to reimburse expenses for equipment, except for personal protective gear for public safety personnel.” The commissioners did not define the term “personal protective gear.”

“I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination batons could be considered PPE — or grenades,” said Tara Houska, an organizer with the anti-Line 3 Giniw Collective. “Those are obviously militarized equipment to be used to subdue and oppress the Indigenous people and allies that are resisting this project from going through our territory.”

The Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office did not answer a detailed request for comment.

For nearly a decade, Anishinaabe organizers have fought to stop Line 3, which passes through their treaty lands and traditional territory. Enbridge is replacing a deteriorating pipeline with a new, higher-capacity line that would allow the struggling tar sands industry of Alberta, Canada, to more cheaply send its oil to a transport hub in Wisconsin and then on to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Opponents point to the spill risk the project poses to more than 200 streams and 700 acres of wetlands, as well as the fact that tar sands oil is one of the world’s worst fossil fuels for the climate. One researcher found that the project’s annual carbon output would be equivalent to 50 coal-fired power plants....

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A modest, practically harmless October Surprise. But it’s typically down ballot where the average Project Veritas video tends to have its most pernicious effects. Less well known than O’Keefe’s blunders on the national stage are the numerous documented instances in which his stings have been cited to justify new and more onerous voter I.D. laws or other election integrity legislation in state legislatures across the country.

In April 2012, Chris McDaniel, then Mississippi’s Senate elections committee chairman, cited a Project Veritas voter fraud video as evidence justifying the passage of the state’s “photo identification requirement” bill⁠, which the state’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed that May. Despite legal challenges, this law is still on the books today.

Also that year, a Republican Minnesota state representative, Steve Drazkowski, praised a locally shot O’Keefe video—in which Project Veritas undercover operatives requested ballot applications for their friends “Timothy Tebow and Thomas Brady”—during a floor debate for his party’s own draconian voter I.D. bill. While Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a strict version of that voter I.D. legislation, and Minnesota voters backed his decision in a ballot initiative later that year, the state’sRepublican Party stillplans to revisit the issue again this year. (“We have had a number of studies that have been completed, there’s a lot of new data on this topic, and there are court cases that have been decided,” as Minnesota GOP State Senator Scott Newman ominously put it, “none of which we had in 2012.”)

O’Keefe’s “Primary of the Living Dead” stunts during the and primaries in 2012—in which his operatives requested but crucially did not actually attempt to use, the ballots of deceased primary voters—aided the passage of stringent voter I.D. laws in those states. After New Hampshire enacted a law in 2018 tightening the state’s voting statutes, partly in response to a new series of Project Veritas videos, Democratic legislators made repeated attempts to repeal them, only to be thwarted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu’s veto....

1019 ggl:

somali immigrant minnesota terror recruit

see node

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How Minneapolis' Somali community became the terrorist ...

https://www.foxnews.com › how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became...

Feb 16, 2019 - ... a foreign terrorist organization from the largely Somali-American Minnesota ... Somali community became the terrorist recruitment capital of the US .... Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has ...

As The Intercept outlines,

In 2017, Enbridge began construction on the tiny portion of Line 3 that cuts into Wisconsin. Local police reports describe two security firms, Raven Executive and Security Services and Securitas, keeping tabs on protesters and reporting their activities to law enforcement. It was the protests in Wisconsin that sparked the multi-state coordination led by Minnesota. The state’s fusion center developed a reputation as “the keepers of information for the Enbridge protests,” as one sheriff’s analyst put it, receiving information on Line 3 opponents from police departments in at least three states. While fusion centers were originally established to facilitate counterterrorism intelligence-sharing, they have increasingly played a role in monitoring, interpreting, and criminalizing political activity.

State officials claim the fusion center monitors protesters to prevent crime and violence, but SUNY Cortland sociology professor Brendan McQuade, who is writing a book on fusion centers, described the activities revealed in the records as part of a broader, alarming trend.

“What the police aren’t mentioning is that people will likely be living lives of terror and privation by the end of the century due to climate change, and it’s these battles right now that will decide whether that happens,” he noted. “Instead, they are casting even entirely nonviolent actions as threats to so-called critical infrastructure.”

One Line 3 opponent, Honor the Earth executive director Winona LaDuke, was reported to the fusion center because she was suspected of owning property that may be used to house protesters. “I don’t understand why I’m being looked at as a criminal when a corporation is proposing to destroy my water,” she said. “I am not a criminal, I am a water protector.”

Attorney Tara Houska, a member of the Ojibwe from the Couchiching First Nation and the national campaigns director of Honor the Earth, is another key organizer against Line 3.

“It’s clear that Enbridge is doing everything they can to have a very highly skilled force of security and law enforcement at their fingertips to do what they can to stop any resistance to Line 3,” Houska, who also took part in the struggle at Standing Rock, told The Intercept. “And if anything, it seems like what they’re doing is much more coordinated than what we saw in North Dakota.”

Houska was among the Line 3 opponents who recently met with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Washington, DC to discuss the serious threats the project poses to treaty territories.

trump will target inhan omar to flip state (note too rubio punked on CBN video)

no lnx

Trump’s answer to losing the rust belt: Minnesota

Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly July 26, 2019

Writing for the ultra-conservative Federalist, Stewart Lawrence all but admits that, when it comes to the 2020 election, Trump is in trouble in the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—the three that put him over the top in 2016. But not to worry, Lawrence has a solution.

Thanks to the success of Trump’s policies and other fortuitous developments, several other blue-trending states are certain to be in play in 2020.

Of these, none is more important than Minnesota. Its 10 electoral votes alone could offset a possible Rust Belt loss. The mainstream media has barely covered Trump’s remarkable gains in Minnesota, a state that historically is the bluest of the blue.

Apparently, the president agrees.

@realDonaldTrump

In 2016 I almost won Minnesota. In 2020, because of America hating anti-Semite Rep. Omar, & the fact that Minnesota is having its best economic year ever, I will win the State! “We are going to be a nightmare to the President,” she say. No, AOC Plus 3 are a Nightmare for America!

Lawrence goes into a little more detail about what is happening in Minnesota that has conservatives convinced that Trump could win the state. First, he mentions the booming economy, with an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent. Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story, as Pete Kotz notes.

Our little northern outpost has been doing better than most for decades, precisely because we do what Trump does not: invest in education, health, public services, and wildlands. If you need a lesson in what Trumpism can do to a state, look no further than Wisconsin, which trails Minnesota in every meaningful economic category.

The one thing Trump has done that could directly impact Minnesota’s economy was to expand a major copper and nickel mining operation in a way that could affect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Lawrence seems to think that something the president’s administration did last month is responsible for Minnesota’s booming economy, even though, as Kotz suggests, it has been one of the strongest in the country for years. He also thinks that this move to expand the mining operation will help Trump, even though polling suggests that 70 percent of the state’s residents oppose it.

Some of us remember that Trump made one trip to Minnesota in 2016 and it came just two days before the election. It was clear that the only reason for the rally was to rile up his base against Muslim immigrants to this country.

Donald Trump on Sunday warned darkly of the danger posed by Somali migrants in Minneapolis, a deeply segregated city that has the largest Somali-American community in the US.

“Here in Minnesota, you’ve seen first-hand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval,” the Republican nominee told a rally in the solidly Democratic state, two days before the presidential election.

He then claimed: “Some of them [are] joining Isis and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world.”

“Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota,” he added, before claiming, falsely: “You don’t even have the right to talk about it.”

In other words, the attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar, whose family fled Somalia when she was a child, are nothing new to the residents of Minnesota. But for both Trump and Lawrence, fanning the flames of fear and hate is a winning strategy.

What neither the president nor his fan club at the Federalist want you to know is that Trump’s approval rating is deeply underwater in Minnesota. According to Morning Consult, his net approval rating is -16 percent. Compare that to the Rust Belt states where Lawrence admits the president might be in trouble.

Wisconsin: -14 percent

Michigan: -15 percent

Pennsylvania: -9 percent

It is way too early to make any solid predictions about which presidential candidate will win Minnesota’s ten electoral votes. But in the spirit of being helpful, I’ll give Lawrence a tip: if Trump loses Wisconsin, he doesn’t have a prayer of winning Minnesota.

astroturf

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/06/06/enbridge-minnesotans-line-3-front-group-oil-pipeline

Minnesotans for Line 3, a group established last year to advocate for an Enbridge oil pipeline project, presents itself as a grassroots organization consisting of “thousands of members.”

But a DeSmog investigation has found that behind the scenes, the Calgary-based energy giant is pulling the strings. Enbridge has provided the group with funding, public relations, and a variety of advocacy tactics.

The investigation has also found that a public relations firm behind the operation recently tried to erase its ties to Enbridge.

Facebook Splurge and Secret Tactics

Minnesotans for Line 3 first appeared in the battle over Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project early last year.

Opponents, who this week employed direct action tactics to block initial work on the project and delivered a petition to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, include several Native communities — among them the White Earth and Mille Lacs Bands of Ojibwe and the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Of their main concerns, these groups cite violation of Indigenous rights, risks associated with oil spills, and climate change impacts.

Through a series of TV ads and op-eds, along with a social media campaign and a petition delivered to state authorities, Minnesotans for Line 3 called for approving Enbridge’s multi-billion dollar plan to replace and reroute its aging pipeline that transports Canadian tar sands oil through North Dakota and Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin.

The group spent considerable funds on Facebook advertising, making it the tenth largest digital ad purchaser among interest groups between November 2018 and April 2019. And it allegedly engaged in more stealthy tactics as well: Dozens of young people wearing Minnesotans for Line 3 shirts occupied spots in a line at a state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearing on the project at the expense of the project’s opponents – only to disappear shortly after receiving the tickets.

The PUC’s eventual approval of the project suffered a partial reversal this week, after the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruledthat the pipeline’s environmental impact statement did not adequately address the potential impact of an oil spill in the Lake Superior watershed. That review will likely be sent back to the PUC to determine how to proceed.

Enbridge Behind TV Ads

Formally, Minnesotans for Line 3 says it was established by Bob Schoneberger, the former founder and CEO of United Piping, an Enbridge construction contractor. Schoneberger, who died unexpectedly from a heart attack last November, worked previously for Lakehead Pipeline, Enbridge’s early incarnation.

Minnesotans for Line 3’s website makes no mention of any affiliation with Enbridge, and other than United Piping, lists two other construction companies — JR Jensen Construction and Gordon Construction — on its advisory cou

...

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06062019/tar-sands-oil-pipeline-court-ruling-spill-risk-minnesota-michigan-enbridge-canada-climate-change

2 More Tar Sands Oil Pipelines Run Into Trouble in the Midwest

A court in Minnesota and officials in Michigan are raising concerns about

the Enbridge pipelines’ safety and risk of oil spills in or near the Great Lakes.

The State Policy Network is an umbrella organization and grant maker for conservative think tanks across the country, more than a dozen of which signed the anti-CRA letter. According to a document obtained and described by the Center for Media and Democracy, as of 2010 their funders included AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable. Tax records show that they group also received annual support from NCTA for their tech policy working group from 2012 to 2015. Organizations funded by the State Policy Network that signed the letter include the Goldwater Institute, John Locke Foundation, Montana Policy Institute, Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, Alaska Policy Forum, and several more.

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...e&e

That led Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), managing the bill on the floor in the absence of Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), to object to Corker's attempt to offer the amendment and remedy the blue-slip problem yesterday.

Corker, in an impassioned floor speech, said he was disappointed that members of his own party were refusing to vote on the bill because it would "upset the president."

:{:{}:

"I can't believe it!" he said. "I would bet that 95 percent of people on this side of the aisle support, intellectually, this amendment. I would bet that. I would bet more than 95 percent."

Corker said he would allow the process to move forward without his amendment, but the bill has hit a web of other roadblocks.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky are holding up the NDAA until they get votes on a pair of amendments related to indefinite detention at military prisons. Other senators, meanwhile, have threatened to hold up the process if Lee and Paul do get their votes, Inhofe said.

Corker estimated yesterday that there are "about 15 people blocking the bill." The situation has put the Senate in a bind and could effectively mean that no amendments get a vote.

"That's a possibility," said Inhofe.

That includes two proposals on critical minerals — elements deemed vital to national security — that have sparked an outcry from environmentalists.

:{:{}:

One, from Heller, would make myriad changes to environmental permitting for mining, including designating a lead federal agency and slapping a 30-month time limit on National Environmental Policy Act reviews.

:{:{}:

The other, from Murkowski and Heller, would require the Interior Department to determine which minerals are "critical" and address permitting delays.

Also included in a bipartisan manager's package of amendments awaiting approval is a proposal by Minnesota Democratic Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar to codify a land exchange between PolyMet Mining Corp. and the Forest Service, paving the way for a major copper-nickel mine in Minnesota (E&E Daily, June 12)....

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28062018/enbridge-tar-sands-oil-pipeline-minnesota-tribes-wetlands-watershed-route-approval

In a unanimous decision, state regulators in Minnesota approved a controversial new pipeline that will increase the flow of tar sands crude oil from Canada to refineries in the United States.

The long-anticipated ruling is a victory for Canadian pipeline owner Enbridge and a significant blow to environmental and Native American advocates who opposed the pipeline through northern Minnesota in a region rich in wetlands and wild rice lakes.

The "certificate of need" granted Thursday by the state's Public Utility Commission greenlights a replacement for Enbridge's Line 3, a 1,000-mile pipeline that runs from Hardistry, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin. The new Line 3 will have an initial capacity about twice that of the current pipeline, and that volume could be increased and also allow for other increases elsewhere in Enbridge's cross-border pipeline network

he exisiting pipeline, built in the 1960s, crosses Native American land, and a state judge recommended in April that the new Line 3 use the same path. However, the commission on Thursday approved Enbridge's preferred route instead, with some modifications.

While the Enbridge route would skirt the reservations, it would still pass through areas where tribal members harvest wild rice.

"The process kowtowed to corporate interests," said Tara Houska of Indigenous environmental advocacy group Honor the Earth. "Just because a regulatory body that is supposed to protect Minnesotans didn't do its job, it doesn't mean that this is a lost case."

The Pipeline Would Increase Tar Sands Exports

In anticipation of the decision, pipeline opponents blocked one of the streets outside the Public Utility Commission's building in St. Paul on Thursday with a sign reading "Expect Resistance."

When it became clear that the commission would approve the pipeline, Tania Aubid, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, stood and shouted, "You have just declared war on the Ojibwe!" the Associated Press reported from the scene.

Enbridge spokesperson Jesse Semko declined to comment on the decision, saying the company was waiting until after the hearing.

The new pipeline would allow for a significant increase in exports of Canadian tar sands crude oil, which is difficult to extract, costly to transport and has a high carbon footprint compared to other crude oil. Currently2.5 million barrels of tar sands crude is exported from Canada each day, and the region has an oil glut exacerbated by years of opposition to building new pipeline capacity.

While the Public Utility Commission's decision was seen as the last major hurdle before pipeline construction can being in the state, the project still requires various water and soil permits from the state's Department of Natural Resources and Pollution Control agency as well as the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps' permit was the key stamp of approval required in the fiercely contested Dakota Access pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois, a pipeline that began operation in 2017. The Army Corps permit has received little focus in the current pipeline fight as pipeline opponents assume the federal government, under the Trump administration, will approve the project.

"No one is really holding their breath around federal level permits these days," said Natalie Cook, an organizer with the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Appeals and the Possibility of Protests

Pipeline opponents could also appeal the commission's decision.

"There are parties in this case that have lawyers that will continue to fight," said Brent Murcia, one of thirteen Youth Climate Intervenors, ages 17-25, who oppose the pipeline project over concerns it will further fuel climate change.

From the time it is extracted to the time it is burned, oil flowing through the pipeline would add between 35 and 193 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year, according to the project's environmental impact statement.

"The idea that we would be making a long-term investment in that kind of oil transportation capacity at this moment in our history, it's not something we can do," Murcia said.

At least two protest camps near the Line 3 route, including one organized by Honor the Earth, formed in preparation for the Public Utility Commission's decision. The camps raise the specter of mass demonstrations along the pipeline's route similar to those that drew thousands to demonstrate against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock reservation in 2016 and 2017.

"People are prepared to stand and engage in civil disobedience to protect their homelands and protect their treaty territory," Houska said. "We will do what it takes."

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Industry, enviros fight over mining add-ons in authorization bill

Nick Sobczyk and Dylan Brown, E&E News reporters

Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2018

The Senate is set to advance controversial legislation to pave the way for a major copper-nickel mine in Minnesota as part of its annual defense authorization bill.

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no lnx

How Enbridge Helped Write Minnesota Pipeline Laws, Aiding Its Line 3 Battle Today

By Logan Carroll

The Minnesota section of Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline accounts for nearly 300 miles of the longest crude oil transport system in the world, and it is failing. The multi-billion-dollar transnational corporation has applied for a permit to replace it. Opposition from tribes in the region and environmental groups is slowing the project, but the process at times appears so tilted in Enbridge's favor that, watching the court battles and utility commission meetings, it almost feels like Enbridge wrote the rules.

At one point in its application to build the new Line 3, Enbridge listed all the federal and state laws that regulate the permitting and construction of pipelines. Nearly all the Minnesota laws originated in one 1987 Senate bill: S.F. 90.

This bill was accompanied by unprecedented pipeline industry lobbying—led in spending by Enbridge—and included subtle but major handouts to pipeline companies. One such provision imposes a sweeping limit on the public's ability to oppose new pipelines, including the Line 3 replacement project.

On May 18, 2018, about 100 people gathered at the Minnesota capitol in protest of the Line 3 project.

Industry-Friendly Language

According to environmental lawyer Paul Blackburn, one of the largest barriers to pipeline regulation is actually the federal Pipeline Safety Act, which preempts most state regulations. He called the law "a beautiful example of how to appear to regulate something without actually regulating it at all."

Still, Blackburn said there are ways for states to regulate pipelines, with some of the most powerful being zoning, permitting, and routing laws. However, S.F. 90 includes industry-friendly language that undercuts these and other potential regulations.

The bill allowed pipeline operators to classify their own data after a spill, making it inaccessible to the public. It instituted stiff civil and criminal penalties for pipeline company employees who failed to alert the authorities or destroyed evidence after a spill, but the companies were subject only to relatively small fines.

Perhaps S.F. 90's largest handout was the overhaul of Minnesota's routing and permitting process. Before 1987, counties and towns could use zoning to exert some control over the routing and permitting of pipelines (how and where they were built), but S.F. 90 preempted local zoning of pipelines, a measure with implications for the Line 3 battle today. Instead, a new pipeline would require only a single routing permit, issued by the Environmental Quality Board, an authority which shifted to the Public Utilities Commission in 2005.

This is the commission that will decide the fate of Enbridge's Line 3 replacement project, a decision expected in June.

The bill's strongest provision established the call-before-you-dig system, requiring pipeline operators to register the locations of their lines. However, the system is overseen by a nonprofit run by pipeline and excavation industry representatives, and while excavators who don't comply are fined, there is no punishment for pipeline operators who don't register their lines.

Hidden Pipelines, Hidden Influence?

In 1986, in Mounds View, Minnesota, a gasoline pipeline exploded, leveling an entire city block and killing two: a woman and her daughter. After the explosion, the governor convened a commission to study how to better regulate the industry. The commission was co-chaired by state Senator Steve Novak, who was also S.F. 90's primary sponsor.

He describes the bill as a compromise between three sides: industry, government and environmentalists. Before S.F. 90, Novak said, "You'd be living in your neighborhood, going to a school, at a park—some damn pipeline was going right underneath you and you didn't know it."

The next legislative session, while S.F. 90 was being drafted in early 1987, Enbridge Energy Partners (then Lakehead Pipe Line Company) spent more than $15,000 lobbying the Minnesota Legislature. This might seem modest post-Citizens United, but it was more than the company would spend in the state in the next 18 years combined.

The petroleum and natural gas industry spent $47,101 in the first six months of that year, nearly all of it by pipeline companies, a figure that would drop to only $17,479 in the year that followed this period. Although not required to disclose how they spent this money, typical lobbying expenses include wining and dining public officials, advertising, or preparing and distributing lobbying materials.

Novak doesn't recall many specifics of how the bill was drafted, except that nothing was controversial at the time and everything was unanimous, including the preemption of local zoning. One of the problems S.F. 90 addressed was that no one—including counties and cities—was regulating pipelines at all. The routing and permitting provision wasn't meant to limit regulation, but to expand it by clearly identifying who was responsible for these decisions.

For his part, Novak doesn't recall the industry manipulating the process, though he admits the possibility. "If there were things that occurred in the seams and along the edges that, possibly, 30 years later, appear to be a manipulation, we didn't know it at the time," Novak said.

Novak's explanation echoes the conclusion of a 2014 Suffolk University study of the effectiveness of state-level lobbying: "By showing a willingness to work with a bill that an interest group opposes in its current form, the lobbyist reassures legislators who might otherwise worry about the intent of the lobbyist and the veracity of the information the lobbyist is providing." When using this approach, the study found, lobbyists were able to insert industry-friendly language into 65 percent of state legislation.

"There may be conspiracies," Novak laughed a little, "going on today that we didn't think of in those days … I would recommend you find some legislators to fix it."

Trying to Fix It

In 2013, state Rep. Frank Hornstein introduced a modest oil transport safety bill in response to the Lac-Mégantic, Canada, oil train disaster that killed 47 people and an oil train derailment in Minnesota that released 30,000 gallons.

The bill would have required pipeline and railroad companies to pay into a first responder safety fund and conform to some standards for responding to spills.

Early on, rail companies opposed the bill but quickly accepted many of the provisions. The pipeline industry was silent until the very end. "Out of nowhere, they almost literally parachuted into town," Hornstein said. They poured in from Washington, DC; Oklahoma; the Gulf Coast: "All these lobbyists descended on the capital and started lobbying against my bill."

Hornstein sat down with the lobbyists, who represented the American Petroleum Institute and pipeline companies, including Enbridge. He described a tense meeting which culminated in one lobbyist demanding to know his "philosophy of oil."

"I don't know," he said. "There's a lot of it and it causes climate change."

After that, things moved quickly. While Hornstein worked to get his bill through the House, industry lobbyists worked to get all references to pipelines removed from the Senate version. A small war erupted when reconciling the two versions, requiring the governor's intervention. In the end, the bill regulated only oil trains; pipeline operators would pay into the safety fund but all other references to them were removed.

New Line 3, Same Old Story

In the last several years, most of Enbridge's lobbying efforts in the state have been directed at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Last year, Enbridge spent more than $5 million to influence the PUC, including lawyers' fees to argue before the commission. However, the company now spends more than $200,000 a year lobbying the legislature. Perhaps not coincidentally, the legislature passed a bill last week that would have allowed Line 3 to bypass the PUC altogether. This week, the governor vetoed that bill.

Sections of pipe destined for Enbridge's Line 3 replacement project, in Hardisty, Alberta, August 10, 2016.

Most developments in the bureaucratic war over Line 3 happen at the state capital, politically and geographically removed from those the pipeline would affect most. The wording was subtle, but if S.F. 90 hadn't preempted local zoning, those opposing Line 3 could work with local officials to erect additional barriers.

For better or worse, S.F. 90 was an historic piece of legislation. Just last summer, Novak met with others who helped craft S.F.90 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its passage. He's proud of the bill and points out that call-before-you-dig has likely prevented another catastrophe. On the other hand, S.F. 90 continues to benefit oil and pipeline companies and limit public participation in decisions about pipelines.

"Maybe times have changed," Novak said of the law, "and it's time to revisit it."

Enbridge did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.alternet.org/environment/how-chilean-billionaire-could-poison-minnesota-wilderness

https://www.ecowatch.com/youth-climate-intervenors-2500282730.html

enbridge minnesota

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http://www.salon.com/2017/01/14/stopping-traffic-minnesota-lawmakers-try-increase-penalties-for-common-protest-tactic/

A Minnesota lawmaker proposed new legislation this week that would heighten the penalties for protesting on freeways in the state. The current law involving unlawful assembly on a highway amounts to a misdemeanor carrying fines up to $1,000 and 90 days in jail. The new bill, introduced by Minnesota Rep. Kathy Lohmer, would make the act a gross misdemeanor carrying fines up to $3,000 and one year in jail.

Last July, following the police shooting death of Philando Castile in the Twin Cities suburb of Falcon Heights, a protest march in St. Paul migrated onto a highway, disrupting traffic for hours. Over 100 protestors were taken into custody, as objects like rocks and even molotov cocktails were reportedly thrown at officers, resulting in 31 police injuries.

After the election, in which President-elect Donald Trump lost the state of Minnesota narrowly in a surprisingly tight race for a reliably Democratic state, students and activists gathered on the University of Minnesota campus for an anti-Trump rally. They would later march onto the same Instate 94 highway as they did for Castile — again blocking traffic for hours.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/01/12/minnesota-bill-freeway-protesting-serious-crime/

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — A Ramsey County judge on Thursday dismissed riot against more than 40 people who were at an interstate highway protest in St. Paul following the police shooting death of Philando Castile.

And Minnesota lawmakers are proposing new legislation to get tough on freeway protesters.

About 300 demonstrators walked onto Interstate 94 last July, blocking traffic for five hours. Forty six were arrested on charges of rioting, public nuisance and unlawful assembly.

But no one was charged with obstructing traffic, which carries a light penalty.

Representative Kathy Lohmer says the growing number of freeway protests are a threat to public safety, not only to police, but drivers and protesters too.

“You need to obey the laws of the freeway,” said Lohmer, a Republican from Stillwater. “They are there for a purpose. Freeways are not really public spaces, like parks and places like that. You need a license to drive on the freeway. You can’t walk on the freeway.”

Lohmer’s bill beefs up penalties for obstructing highways, including entrance and exit ramps. Right now, it’s a misdemeanor carrying fines up to $1,000 and 90 days in jail.

The bill would make it a gross misdemeanor, carrying fines up to $3,000 and a year in jail.

Jordan Kushner is a civil rights attorney who represents the freeway demonstrators.

He calls the bill “very disturbing” and an effort to intimidate legal protesters....

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/court-rules-organic-farmers-can-sue-conventional-gmo-farmers-whose-pesticides-trespass-and-contaminate-their-fields/

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iccc2

Rep. Pat Garofalo

Day Job: Member of Minnesota House of Representatives and serves as GOP Lead on the House Energy Policy Committee.

Industry Ties: He's written for Heartland. State co-chair at ALEC, which is heavily funded by fossil-fuel interests.

Fox News guest: No, but Garofalo made headlines this March when he tweeted, "Let's be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime."

Climate Expertise: None. His only degree is in law enforcement.

He said it: "Solar is dumb."

“Reshaping a map is very powerful” for donors, said Spencer Kimball, a political consultant who is executive director of Boston-based Fair Districts Mass. “It’s a big opportunity to have influence at the state level and the congressional level not one race at a time but for 10 years.”

Skillful redistricting can, of course, help create Republican or Democratic districts, but it can also grace incumbents with virtually guaranteed re-election or leave them with nearly no chance at all. In the process, it can also create seats almost certain to be held by minorities or break those same groups apart, ensuring that they have almost no voice.

But it’s not cheap, and that’s where corporations and other outside interests come in. They can provide the cash for voter data, mapping consultants and lobbyists to influence state legislators, who are in charge of redistricting in most states. Outside interests can also fund the inevitable lawsuits that contest nearly every state's redistricting plan after it is unveiled.

In Minnesota, for instance, the Republicans’ legal efforts to influence redistricting are being financed through a group called Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting.

Fair Redistricting describes itself as independent, but it has much of its leadership in common with the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group with ties to the political empire of the Koch brothers, industrialists from Kansas who’ve spent millions funding conservative causes. The head of the Freedom Foundation, Annette Meeks, told ProPublica she has “no involvement” with Fair Redistricting. But both organizations’ tax filings list the same address: Meeks’ home address.

Fair Redistricting is registered under the name of her husband, Jack Meeks, who is also on the board of the Freedom Foundation. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Who is actually paying for Fair Redistricting’s lawsuit and lawyers? And what district lines are they pushing for? The group doesn’t have to say and has so far kept its finances and plans under wraps. Annette Meeks did not respond to questions about the group’s donors or its ties to the Koch brothers, but she said the group complies with all legal filing requirements. But the group’s public tax filings contain no information on its contributors

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voter suppression:

april 7 12

Even as Texas and Wisconsin Republicans see their versions of ALEC’s voter ID model bill run into constitutional problems, Minnesota’s Republicans — who wafted into office on a magic carpet propelled in large part by cash from corporate voter ID backers — are prepared to flout that part of the state constitution that guarantees the right to vote. As Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat who vetoed last year’s GOP efforts to push the ALEC Voter ID Bill but whose hands are tied this year because ballot amendments can’t be vetoed, says:

“This is a partisan amendment based on a false premise that voter fraud is a significant problem in Minnesota. Our election system is the best in the nation. We have the highest voter turnout year after year and under intense, bipartisan scrutiny, the recent statewide recounts have highlighted how reliable the results are. Much of the strength of the system derives from over 150 years of bipartisan work and its federated nature – the 87 county auditors, hundreds of municipal clerks, and 30,000 volunteer election judges who administer Minnesota’s elections and ensure they are free and fair.

“Republicans in the legislature had two years to negotiate bipartisan reforms to election law, and it is disappointing that their failure to do so has led to an unnecessary constitutional amendment that would make it harder for law abiding citizens, including tens of thousands of seniors, service members, and students, to exercise their right to vote. I cannot support a constitutional amendment that is pushed through the legislative process by only one political party – and neither should Minnesotans if they see it on the ballot this fall.”

http://firedoglake.com/2012/04/07/come-saturday-morning-minnesotas-alec-inspired-chaos-amendment-paid-for-by-wells-fargo-u-s-bank-and-tcf/

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education: kos blog

It was reported somewhere that currently 20 states are making massive cuts in funding to higher educations. A quick search of the web showed articles on the following states cutting higher education spending.

California, Texas, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Washington, Utah, North Carolina, Missouri, Maryland, Iowa, New York, Colorado

We are not talking about nuisance cuts to higher education here – we are talking about an on-going yearly reduction in funds to public institutions of higher education that will threaten the existence of our public education system as we know it.

Statements such as this

"It's the elephant in the room," said J. Bradley Wilson, a former chairman of the UNC system's Board of Governors. "We've always said we want to keep the doors open as wide as we can. The question is, can we afford that anymore?"

puts the problem of reduced funding to public universities in perspective - in probably the most profound and horrific manner.

And it’s not just an issue of keeping the doors open to the university – it is about keeping the doors open for generations to come – to reach for and achieve the American Dream.

Broadly available education and opportunity is fundamental to opening doors to better job opportunities, higher wages, and greater job security.

Advanced educational degrees correlate to higher earnings and greater employability.

So what do state schools do when the legislatures are constantly cutting their funding – year after year. For many they see privatization of certain sections of their school as the only answer.

A writer in Kansas asks the same question.

…with state support dropping for Kansas universities, what are the chances that KU’s School of Law or School of Business might consider operating without state funding? Apparently, a growing number of deans, chancellors and presidents across the country are thinking about it.

Unfortunately for state universities the biggest benefactors for private funding are also the people who have the most extreme political views in the United States – the Koch brothers.

Although the Koch agreement with Florida State was penned in 2008, it didn’t become a public issue until this year. During the last three years – Koch has had complete control over the University’s economic department.

A foundation bankrolled by Libertarianbusinessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."

The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.

During the first round of hiring in 2009, Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty's suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates.

Yale University once returned $20 million when the donor demanded veto power over appointments, saying such control was "unheard of."

Jennifer Washburn, who has reviewed dozens of contracts between universities and donors, called the Koch agreement with FSU "truly shocking."

Alternet reported that in addition to Florida State, other Koch funded schools include

George Mason University - Mercatus Center (public institution)

West Virginia University (public institution)

Brown University - Political Theory Project (private institution)

Troy University - Center for Political Economy (public institution)

Utah State University: - mostly for the Huntsman School of Business (public institution)

So when I read something like this

Officials at the University of Minnesota, one of the nation’s largest and most respected state-aided universities, currently are giving serious study to the possibility of depending on private money rather than unreliable state funds to support several of their schools.

Due to shrinking state funding, Minnesota’s School of Law and the Carlson School of Management are looking at the possibility of operating without state funds, relying on private support.

…. The University of Minnesota’s chief financial officer noted that as state funding approaches zero, “What does it mean for a college to be out of state money?

I become very concerned about the future of Minnesota state run colleges and universities. I become very concerned about the loss of the concept of a liberal studies education. I become very concerned about future generations of students – who rely on state run colleges and universities. I’m becoming more convinced the Minnesota ALEC legislators are doing this purposefully.

ALEC is inundating and influencing decision making of their ALEC member legislators and Alumni in the US Congress with privatization “success stories” such as this:

One of the country’s top research institutions, the University of Michigan, is for all intents and purposes a privately-financed public university today. Only around 10 percent of its budget comes from state subsidies thanks to greater control over its mission and operations combined with aggressive cost-cutting and private fundraising efforts.(10 Questions State Legislators Should Ask About Higher Education, 2011)

And ALEC had previsouly convinced the following states - Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, Texas, and Tennessee – that their higher education woes will be eliminated if they hire HCM Strategists to implement a program designed by Lumina Foundation for Education to do onsite management of their higher education programs and funding. Yet, if you look at the most current list of states cutting funds to higher education shown above, many of these same states are still cutting funding - what they have implemented is not working!

First of all, there’s appears to be a conflict of interest here, as Lumina Foundation funds ALEC activities

American Legislative Exchange Council (Washington DC) $295,000to help state legislators explore policy options intended to increase student success and productivity within American higher education.

An “article” in Inside ALEC September 2010, distributed to all ALEC members, has the following statement

The HCM Strategy Labs represent an opportunity for states to lead in trying times. By taking on the challenge of creating high-performing higher education systems that are responsive to our students’ and our national economy’s needs —we will help engineer an economic recovery and greater prosperity.

This one page article / advertisement was written by Martha Snyder, Senior Consultant for HCM Strategists

In a Huffington Post 2010 editorial it is noted that

With the support of the Lumina Foundation for Education, our firm, HCM Strategists, helped deploy "Productivity Strategy Labs" to help states tune up and overhaul their higher education funding and policies

Just what we need – more interference by ALEC hacks in our public entities.

Last, but not least – based on previous research and writing of mine – this ALEC experiment is going to fail, just like the other “free-market’ experiments that ALEC pushes on our states and the taxpayers end up paying for. Its failure will be caused by the same factor that causes failure for all the other ALEC initiatives – the sole focus of everything ALEC does is the money side – the benefits provided for the private sector (corporate) members of ALEC. They choose to ignore that there other factors involved – such as people.

Minnesota ALEC members have already brought HCM Strategists into our state. Its bad enough having to deal with the chaos caused by ALEC legislative members and ALEC alumni; now everywhere you look ALEC private sector members are trying to run every aspect of our government and our schools – because we have ALEC legislative members giving the states to the corporations.

I’m sure that as part of their higher ed indoctrination and brain-washing of ALEC members, ALEC has convinced them that the HCM and the Lumina program is their “last chance”. Why not create that level of fear? If ALEC’s proposed educational system fails because of this ALEC “free-market” “experiment”, so what?, it was a last ditch attempt anyway. Then the Minnesota ALEC members don’t have to feel quite so guilty when the Koch’s walk in and buy the university’s schools of business and law. The ALEC legislators can claim that the sale to ALEC corporate private sector members saved the state schools (the ones that the Minnesota ALEC legislative members destroyed with malice.)

Minnesota ALEC legislators have bought into this ALEC “free-market” experiment and brought it into our state and because of that, it is my opinion, Minnesota’s ALEC legislators will destroy the Minnesota state funded system of higher education. The best land grant university ever to exist (as far as I’m concerned) will be destroyed because Minnesota ALEC legislators have pledged their allegiance and service to the ALEC corporate members and have chosen to no longer serve their constituents, the citizens of Minnesota.

Minnesota legislators who are ALEC members are not the majority. But they are not the minority. Minnesota ALEC Legislators are having a tremendous impact on the state of Minnesota and everyone should be concerned. We must remove every ALEC member legislator from the Minnesota legislature and our one sole ALEC alumni from the US Congress (Erik Paulsen). They must not be re-elected. They are no longer serving the citizens of the state of Minnesota - they are serving ALEC corporate members.

We are letting 33% or so of our legislators ruin our state for the benefit of the ALEC corporate members. When is it time as Minnesotans we stand up and say, “No more ALEC! We want representative government!”? Would someone please let me know when the time comes – ‘cause I think we’re running out of time.

The University of Minnesota - Koch Brothers School of Management.

So sad, So sad.

Oops, almost forgot the proverbial “straw that will break the camels back” resulting in the sale of the U of M Carlson School of Business to the Kochs.

Two members of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents are known ALEC Alum

Laura Brod – Past Minnesota State Chair of ALEC

adn Steve Sviggum

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/11/993257/-U-of-MN-Goes-to-Koch-Because-of-ALEC

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minne MN 2 bak

Trump laying 'siege' to Minneapolis with 'military occupation': Minnesota paper

Thomas Kika

Plans to Coordinate

Related

Indigenous Water Protectors Face Off With an Oil Company and Police Over a Minnesota Pipeline

Sharing Intelligence

As The Intercept outlines,

Facebook Splurge and Secret Tactics

Enbridge Behind TV Ads

The Pipeline Would Increase Tar Sands Exports

Appeals and the Possibility of Protests

Industry, enviros fight over mining add-ons in authorization bill

Rep. Pat Garofalo