Here is a recent, disturbing, but typical example. Christians in Boundary County, Idaho, mobbed the local public library board, demanding the removal of a large number of books, including Gender Queer: A Memoir* by Maria Kobabe**, a book the library did not actually have.

These thugs intimidated the administrator of the libaries, Kimber Glidden, into resignation, in which she noted:

“My experience and skill set made me a good fit to help the district move toward a more current and relevant business model and to implement updated policy and best practices. However nothing in my background could have prepared me for the political atmosphere of extremism, militant Christian fundamentalism, intimidation tactics, and threatening behavior currently being employed in the community.”

Gidden told reporters at Route Fifty that “If [this] was really about banning books, we’d have to have the books.” Food for thought. They don’t care about the books, they only care about being bullies, and intimidating people who love books, and the kids the books are there for.

In another case, MAGA-Republicans and Fundy-Christians took over the Lafayette, Louisiana library last year and this happened:

• The library board rejected a grant to fund a program about voting rights, saying it was too left wing.
• A display about Pride Month was cancelled, and today library displays are forbidden about any distinctive group — even French Cajun culture, of which Lafayette is the unofficial capital.
• And this summer, when a popular librarian, Cara Chance, ignored that order and put up a display that included queer teen romance books, the board tried to fire her.

The actual police showed up at the Granbury High library in Granbury Texas to investigate a complaint made by book-burning-fundies last May. Five books were subsequently removed from the library shelves. The removal of these books was targeted harassmement of Trans students and other non-heteronormative-binary people by the school admins. This sort of thing has caused loss of life among school children. Even in relatively liberal Minnesota suburbs, a school board member went out of his way to indicate his discomfort with non-heteronormative school children, as noted in this LTE written by Yours Truly:

Locally, where the Jay Hesby problem recently emerged, we have an open seat on the Wayzata School District board. Hesby is one of a few candidates running. Sheila Prior, an active member of the school community especially interested in reading education, is also running, and she is by a gazillion miles my choice for the upcoming special election. (Feel free to visit her web site and donate ten bucks or more to this great cause. I just did!)

I gets scarier. Recently in the Reno Nevada area, suited up members of the “Proud Boys” (I call them Cucked Children) actually entered a library to disrupt a children story time because they did not like the book that was being read. They did the same thing near San Francisco, South Bend, Indiana, and Woodland California. There was violence. Over books. At events involving children. Derek Chauvin got extra time on his murder sentence because he carried out violence in the presence of children. For christakes.

Yesterday, South Bend, IN:

Seven Proud Boys disrupted Rainbow Story Hour event at Tutt library.

They harassed the presenter, event organizer, staff, and library patrons until police were called.

Any assistance IDing them would be appreciated by SB comrades. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/VCjvJ3Z41a

— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022

Alleged Proud Boys members attempt to get into The Mojo in Woodland, CA and are met with pepper spray. The bar had planned an all ages Drag Show tonight, which was postponed due to security concerns pic.twitter.com/7Boln64uJ6

— Luke Cleary (@LukeCleary) July 1, 2022

Notes:
-* Links to books on Amazon help support this blog, see note below
-** From the publisher:

2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book

This special deluxe hardcover edition of Gender Queer features a brand-new cover, exclusive art and sketches, a foreword from ND Stevenson, Lumberjanes writer and creator of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and an afterword from Maia Kobabe.

While this overview is based on memory, I did spend a couple of hours this morning looking at old articles, checking Wikipedia pages, etc. There is fodder for a well researched and closely documented essay. This is not that essay. But, feel free to throw your thoughts, experiences, and information into the comments just in case there is such an essay!

Today we are concerned with militarization of the police. This is a little odd in long term historical perspective, because at one time in the past, militarization of the police would have involved reducing their firearms and training capacity considerably.

From around the beginning of the 20th century both the British and American armies used either an Enfield rifle or similar (“Enfield” refers to a range of similar designs made by Lee-Enfield or copied by American manufacturers). You would pull the trigger, then use a bolt to move a new bullet into the chamber, then pull the trigger. The military had other weapons, of course, but the average soldier had this rifle. Meanwhile, in the 1920s and 1930s, when gangsters literally ruled large parts of the United States, both police and the gangsters commonly used a submachine gun. “Militarizing” the police in 1925 would have involved taking away their powerful weapons and downgrading. Over recent decades, militarizing means replacing a handgun with the modern equivalent of a submachine gun.

This perspective on militarization is not very relevant to modern activism, but telling the story here serves the purpose of reminding us that the “old days” were not a few years ago, and history is complex. The relevance of militarization will be more apparent below.

There was a time, back when I first got involved in police reform activism, when it was common practice for the police to shoot people in the back if they fled. It was considered normal, and was part of police training. My own early activism arose from the shooting of a young African American kid named Keith by a New York State Trooper. The kid was caught driving a motor scooter on the New York State Thruway. The trooper told him to stand there, the kid decided to drive away on his scooter. The New York State Troopers had just gotten their much coveted giant .357 magnum side arms, after a long fight in the legislature, where liberals thought the police might use them to kill people and the police wanted them to shoot at cars. My memory is that Keith was shot in the back, and nearly cut in half as the giant high powered bullet tore through his spine and exploded his internal organs, only weeks after that new pistol was issued. Within a few months, 15 year old me was on a bus going to Chicago to participate (and cover for a local anarchist newspaper) the Fight Back conference and protest, sparked by a spate of similar killings.

Our activism, and the legal process, worked. Now there are laws in all but a few states that prohibit shooting a fleeing suspect except in special circumstances. A 1986 (IIRC) supreme court decision said something similar. During that period of time, say from the very late 1960s through the end of the 1980s, our activism led to changes in law, and court outcomes, that cut the number of police killings of citizens to less than half, and made shooting people in the back mostly illegal. You are welcome.

That wasn’t enough of course, more had to be done. And circumstances conspired to make things worse rather than better in the 1980s. During the 1960s (and before) and through the 1970s, drug use was an urban phenomenon, and people would go “downtown” to buy their pot, heroin, etc. Remember the “war on drugs”? Well, that happened when the rise of suburbs shifted the drug marketplace to the suburbs. During the 1980s, you would go to the suburbs to get your pot, as likely as anywhere else. Under Reagan, the War on Drugs turned to the suburbs. I remember a friend of mine who was a cop at that time (the first woman cop in the state, IIRC) told me that if I, ahem, happened to know anyone looking for pot tell them to stay away from the ‘burbs. She could see the writing on the walls. there was going to be some serious federally funded action in the suburbs.

She was right. There were major busts in one suburb or another across the US every single day for a few years. Reagan drove drugs back into the “inner city” where they belonged, at least according to the nice people in the suburbs.

There was not a lot of shooting and killing connected with that operation, but I believe the results were deadly. By pushing drug dealing back into the urban zone, it also pushed it more into the hands of people of color. Tough drug laws, a product of the 1970s, were expanded and increased. Police were given more powers, like the ability to take property used in drug transport. They were also given more weapons and other forms of support, though nothing like the later militarization. The ultimate result: crime fighting was equated with the war on drugs, and both were equated with police repression of people living in ethnically diverse, but mainly Black or Hispanic, urban zones. It wasn’t just the drugs, it was everything in life. The systematic, daily, attacks on people in certain neighborhoods increased. Meanwhile, the police procedurals and shows like Cops taught people in the suburbs that sometimes the police just had to get tough on on the bad boys. What ya gonna do when they come for you? Don’t run, don’t hide, keep your hands in sight or you die. Police repression of the people of the “Inner City” or “Downtown” became a feature of American society and was normalized in the minds of the middle class, whose very parents or grandparents used to live in those neighborhoods.

I don’t know much first hand about political activism regarding police reform in the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s. I was mostly out of the country or buried in the library or lab in graduate school, or teaching. My weekly political act when in the US focused on pro choice clinic defense, then later I added defending science in the classroom. I was as much looking the other way as the rest of us white people of priv, speeding through higher education, or working corporate, or whatever. (Still a citizen of the urban zone, though … the ‘burbs still feel new to me.) And fruitlessly fighting the Republican takeover of everything.

Then 9/11 happened. Everyone seemed to freak out. The nation and anything that looked like defense or protection, policing or investigation, became the child who would not stop crying to which you acquiesce and give whatever candy they want. The right wing introduced a bill called “S1” which made many crimes punishable by death, gave police and investigative agencies broad powers, etc. etc. They introduced that, IIRC, in the 1970s, and kept introducing it again and again and again, and it would always be defeated, or simply ignored, because it was so extreme and draconian. It would change our society into a police state. It was unacceptable.

Within months after 9/11, that bill was strengthened and passed. You know of it as the Patriot Act. And, it made militarization of the police not only acceptable, but required, and funded.

I don’t think is is safe to say that the police were less bad in the late 1970s or early 1980s, after the right to shoot a fleeing suspect was removed, but before the War on Drugs Reagan style. It might have been, though. The police were less armed, less numerous, and had had their wings clipped, at least to some extent. But if they were less dangerous, it was only for a while.

I would like to know if it is true that there is a combat vet to cop pipeline, and if that has made our police forces more dangerous by concentrating, exacerbating, and arming PTSD. I would like to know if it is still true (or really ever was) that police forces avoid hiring people who show some degree of intelligence, on purpose. I would like to know how badly we’ve messed up by increasingly linking corporate costs of doing business to police funding. What percentage of a police officer’s lifetime salary is ultimately paid for by large corporations rather than taxpayers, right now, and how has that changed? It is imperative to get a handle on the relationship between government lawyers and police agencies, if we expect to police the police. What needs to happen there?

Finally, I think we need to assess our victories. The Chauvin murder conviction is only barely a victory. It is a great thing for those immediately involved, and it is a demonstration that accountably is possible. But saying that the Chauvin conviction is a step in the right direction is ingenuous. He held the man down for 6 minutes while he died, and another 3 minutes for good measure, guarded by his fellow cops, whom he was teaching how to be a cop, while surrounded by citizens making the moral, legal, and logical case against what he was doing, filming the whole time. This is like saying to your dog, “you pooped, good boy.” This was not an accomplishment of the system.

One of the more recent changes in police behavior and associated law, the one we are dealing with now, is the right of a cop to kill a person if doing so conforms to expectations of what a cop would do, with special consideration to the cop being afraid. This is why the police who carried out most of the recent killings in Minnesota got off. There is recent case law supporting the concept. It is like the shoot the fleeing suspect rule. At one time shooting the fleeing suspect was considered normal by much of society, was codified in law, supported by the courts, and taught in police training. Now, none of those things are true (mostly). Today, killing a suspect because you are afraid of black people is codified in law and court doctrine, built into training, and accepted as normal and expected behavior by much of society.

Stop that.

Stephen Adamczak, William Harren, and Sean McNellis, a technician, dance instructor, and actor working at the theater were all accused of inappropriate sexual contact of one kind or another with students at the school in the 1980s. The first two were acquitted, and I’m not sure what happened to the third. The acquittals were attended by the allegedly abused (mostly teen age girls) not being believed by the jury, or in some cases, changing their testimony. In some cases the accusations involved what appears to have been, if true, organized abused at the home of one of the accused.

Jason McClean was a key figure in the theater’s latter years, an actor and instructor. He had been accused in civil cases of sexual abuse and/or rape of female students.

This is where it gets interesting to me. I had a student at the time whom I got to know a little outside the context of school. He had glommed on to some of the political stuff going on having to do with creation/evolution and homeschooling, and in that context we interacted a fair amount on line, and a little off line. I found out that he was a close associate of some guy who owned a couple of restaurants, and my friend/student was actually the designer and builder of the interior of his restaurants (well known local establishments). He himself was a stealth owner of an Indian restaurant in South Minneapolis which is highly recommended (he is no longer involved in it).

Over time, he and I had a major falling out, which consisted of him writing some really nasty emails to me and my responding by ignoring his existence since then. The falling out was over this: I had written quite a bit in a short time in opposition to … wait for it … rape. He was not so against rape, and in fact, he was/is a major Mens’ Rights Activists. At just about that time, I think, the actions against McClean were coming up in the news, and it was only after my student/friend/enemy had gone his own way that I put two and two together: the restaurant owner my student had been hanging with and working for was the one and only Jason McClean. Had I known the whole story then, we might have had different conversations.

Anyway, McLean, after losing something close to 6 million dollars in civil suits over his sexual abuse of kids in the theater company, and probably exposed to some criminal liability, fled first to California then to Mexico. WE all assumed that we would never see him again.

But no. McLean has returned, to California. He had owned a restaurant there the whole time. He has returned, fired all the employees, and apparently intends to reopen the restaurant and run it himself. It is unlikely to be listed as “kid friendly” on Yelp.

Interesting things are expected over the next few days and weeks. The lawyer for the main accuser who has led the crusade to set things straight was seen dancing a jig in Saint Paul.

Decades of sexual abuse occurred with very little being done about it at a major institution set up to attract and involve large numbers of children. For decades. There were accusations and investigations but that did not stop the abuse. Probably for something like 40 years.

The institution continues today, and few speak of the rapes and abuse. It is said that the Children’s Theater Company has cleaned up its act. But the history of the institution is deeply marred. Photographs and other records of the many productions depict abusers and the abused in the act of acting in various plays. Trigger warnings sometimes accompany these old bits of documentation of what should be fun and fancy, but is in fact, a dark phase in the history of so many people.

The Children’s Theater has been sued majorly, and has been found negligent, but not liable, for the abuse.

I think there are a few key lessons here, probably three (you will add your own below).

1) Things — like institutions or regular events — that cluster children are targets. Expect sexual abuse or similar, in the absence of constant vigilance. It is not like it might or might not happen. Predators will arrive at that spot just as surely as lions will arrive at a herd of Impala on the Serengeti.

2) Everyone in Minnesota believes, and will easily convince most outsiders, that we are a nice state where everything is fine and there is nothing really wrong, like dens of abuse, or human trafficking, or financial crime. This is bullshit. Scratch the surface of a Minnesota institution and you’ll often find nefarious behavior somewhere. I have lived in the districts of two different Minneapolis City Council members, and both of them served time for corruption, and one was known to be a human trafficker (according to testimony of one of his slaves, though he was never actual charged for that). National reviews of integrity and corruption often find Minnesota lacking. A few years ago an entire city was found to have been staffed by totally corrupt people who were simply pocketing a regular percentage of the money that passed through the government. (I suspect that was the inspiration for the Sanford novel “Deadline.”)

3) It was not long ago that our society excused rape and abuse, a bit less time since we made these things a slap on the hand affair unless committed by certain people against certain other people (in which case proving that it happened was not a prerequisite to lynching). It isn’t just Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. It is a certain number of the (mostly) men with whom you leave your children for the afternoon. I mean, seriously, the men running the children’s theater, for decades.

4) You tell me what else below.

Like I said, I don’t know that much about this specific event, but Osseo is the neighboring school district to mine, and I can add a certain amount of context.

In this area, the western suburbs of Minneapolis, there are a couple of gradients. One is the gradient across population density, going from dense city-like suburbs right next to Minneapolis, to the west, to less and less densely populated suburbs, to farmland. I live near the outer boundary of that gradient.

Then there is the south to north gradient running from the big lake that the rich people live on (in the south), running northward to where the landscape becomes less interesting, the wealth drops considerably, and the population becomes mostly working class. Far enough north-ish, and you are in Anoka. A major source of humor around here is comparing the hicks from Coon Rapids (where I lived for several years) with the hicks from Anoka.

Osseo School District, which overlaps with the town of Osseo (school districts in Minnesota are named after towns, but are only vaguely geographically connected to those towns, outside the big cities), is in Hennepin County. Up north of Hennepin County, out on the edge of that second gradient, is Anoka County. Hennepin County includes the most progressive urban zone in the United States outside of Cambridge, Mass, and overlaps with Minnesota’s fifth Congressional District. If you know your congressional districts, that will be meaningful to you. Anoka, on the other hand, is mainly in the sixth Congressional District. Remember Michele Bachmann? Yeah, that district.

So, Imagine Hennepin County and Anoka County combined, and subract all the wealthy high end school districts like Wayzata (top school in the state, go Trojans!), remove Minneapolis, and so on, what you’ve got left is something that does not quite meet Lake Woebegon standards of Minnesota Nice. What you’ve got lefy is a high proportion of working class people, mostly conservative, sexist, anti-gay, Trump-loving Michele Bachmann supporting, crackhead yahoos and their families.

OK, maybe I’m characterizing the region a bit too harshly. But it is mostly Michele Bachmann land, where people on average really hate Transgender folk.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District is one of the largest districts in the state, geographically. It is the district that served the population I just described. Hennepin and Anoka Counties minus the civilized city and the la-la-chi-chi upper end suburbs, and minus some other districts, like Osseo.

Anoka-Hennepin was nearly shut down a few years ago by the US Center for Disease Control. Why did the CDC want to shut down Anoka-Hennepin? Because too many students were dying there. Looking at the statistics for a certain cause of death across America’s school districts, Anoka-Hennepin had one of the highest rates of death. That alarmed the CDC, so they went in and said, this gets fixed or we shut you down.

And what was the cause of death that had become alarmingly common in the Anoka-Hennepin School District?

Suicide, disproportionally by LGBT kids who were being bullied by both student and staff. And, the staff policy for addressing this bullying was to ignore it. That was the actual policy. Let it go all Darwinian.

The Osseo School District is geographically within the overall range of Anoka-Hennepin, similar to the rest of it, and is culturally roughly the same. This is also where Trump-loving deplorables were displaying Nazi symbols right after the 2016 election. It is also a place that includes a large mostly white neighborhood and a large mostly non-white neighborhood, but has gerrymandered the school district positions to make sure the latter is never represented on the school board.

Here’s the video of the Osseo staff busting into the bathroom stall to harass this young transgender student:

A transgender female student @ Osseo Senior High was ostracized by administration, violated, and put out of school for using the Girl's bathroom. ?

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/Pkh46MAjJP

— Kenidra4Humanity (@KenidraRWoods_) November 29, 2018

Shame on Osseo.

See:

One Town’s War on Gay Teens (this is a Rolling Stone article that blew the lid off the Anoka-Hennepin problem)

Eight Suicides in Two Years at Anoka-Hennepin School District

String of teenage suicides in Michele Bachmann’s Minnesota backyard linked to anti-gay bullying

This bill has a strange and unusual set of detractors and supporters. It is supported by some Republicans and some Democrats. It is opposed by the usually conservative Chamber of Commerce (of Minnesota). The usual indicators of whether this is a good bill or a bad bill are ambiguous. Cats and dogs are lying down together on this one. This will require … wait for it … thinking! So let’s give that a try.

I’m going to give you a giant pile of information and maybe you can help figure this bill out. But since this isn’t a mystery novel, I’ll tell you up front what I think. This is a proposed law that will fix a problem that doesn’t seem to exist. It appears that there is nothing stopping Minnesota’s Xcel Energy, the maintainer of the nuclear plants in this state, from maintaining its plants. At the same time, Minnesota has a strong and effective, if often annoying to some in the energy business, Public Utility Commission (PUC). This bill seems to weaken the role of the PUC in future decisions about the nuclear plants. The Public Utility Commission is probably overly bureaucratic and at times inefficient, because it is a government agency. But the nuclear power industry is historically untrustworthy and, of course, profit driven. Given the lack of visible problem, and the lack of the bill’s supporters to articulate a problem that needs to be solved, and the exceeding obscure language used in the bill, and the fact that similar bills are being introduced in legislatures across the country, I’m giving this bill the evil eye.

Criticism of the bill suggests that it guarantees that energy company Xcel’s customers (as opposed to the company and its shareholders) will cover the cost for nuclear plant upkeep. The bill would allow Xcel Energy to file for additional funding any time there is a change in costs with reduced or minimal Public Utility Commission (PUC) input (though this changes with different iterations of the bill as it is amended, possibly). Xcel would be able to add “riders” onto its rate structure to guarantee return on investment into the nuclear plants. (It might be helpful to know that Minnesota has three nuclear reactors located in two plants, which currently provide about 20% of the energy used in the state.)

Critics are concerned that there is no cap on spending, which is why this is sometimes called a “Blank Check Bill.” And, the bill seems to diminish the ultimate power of the main regulatory agency overseeing the nuclear plants in Minnesota, the Public Utility Commission.

An opposition group FAQ notes:

Q: Xcel’s CEO has claimed this is a “good deal” for customers; why do you think differently?

A: This bill is the equivalent of giving a credit card to a teenager that’s already proven they can’t
be trusted.

Xcel has a terrible track record of managing costs on nuclear plants. Xcel claimed that
Monticello nuclear plant upkeep would cost Minnesotans $320 million; their mismanagement
ballooned costs to $748 million. Then Xcel turned around and asked the PUC to ensure
shareholders profited off of their $400 million mistake. The PUC said, “no”.
Xcel’s bill eliminates the PUC’s power to protect customers and removes any barrier between
their shareholders and profit. If Xcel makes another $400 million screw up, Minnesotans will
pay for it.

Here is the bill.

A bill for an act relating to energy; establishing a carbon reduction facility designation for certain large electric generating facilities; proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 216B.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

Section 1. [216B.1697] CARBON REDUCTION FACILITIES; NUCLEAR ENERGY.

Subdivision 1. Qualifying facility. A carbon reduction facility is an existing large electric generating power plant that employs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

Subd. 2. Proposal submission. (a) A public utility may submit to the Public Utilities Commission a proposal to designate a carbon reduction facility under this section. The proposal must:

(1) demonstrate that the facility meets the requirements of subdivision 1; and

(2) include a proposed statement of the total expected costs, including but not limited to capital investments and operation and maintenance costs associated with the facility’s operation.

(b) If the information submitted in the original proposal changes, a utility may at its sole discretion and at any time file additional proposals for the same facility.

Subd. 3. Proposal approval. (a) The commission must approve or reject the proposed facility designation and the total expected costs submitted by the public utility. The commission must make a final determination on the petition within ten months of the filing date.

(b) With respect to any carbon reduction facility, approval by the Public Utilities Commission constitutes a finding of prudency for the proposal’s total costs. The utility is entitled to recover any documented costs that do not exceed the costs provided in the carbon reduction facility designation proposal using the carbon reduction rider under subdivision 4 or a subsequent rate case.

(c) If additional proposals are filed for a single facility, the commission must treat each proposal the same as an original proposal under this section.

Subd. 4. Carbon reduction rider. A public utility may annually petition the commission to approve a carbon reduction rider to recover a qualifying facility’s total costs outside of a general rate case proceeding under section 216B.16. In the filing, the public utility must describe the costs the public utility seeks for rider recovery.

Subd. 5. Rider approval.

(a) The commission may approve, modify and approve, or reject the proposed carbon reduction rider.

(b) The commission may approve a rider that:

(1) allows the utility to recover the facility’s total costs;

(2) allows an appropriate return on investment associated with the facility;

(3) allocates appropriately between wholesale and retail customers; and

(4) recovers costs from retail customer classes in proportion to class energy consumption.

The Chamber of Commerce says the bill will move financial risks to ratepayers and from the company and reduce the relevance of the Public Utility Commission (PUC). Governor Dayton opposes any bill that weakens the role of the PUC, and is quoted in the Star Tribune as saying, “These end runs to the Legislature to try to give special interests what they want violates the whole purpose of the Public Utilities Commission.”

One of the Senators on the energy committee, Democrat John Marty, noted that Xcel “didn’t like the results they got from the commission [previously, and are now] tying the hands of the commission.”

The position of the Republican sponsors is echoed in a statement by Democratic Senator John Hoffman, who is ranking member of the state Senate’s energy committee (and a guy I have a lot of respect for), in his newsletter:

The Energy and Utilities Finance and Policy committee discussed SF 3504 this week, also known as the “Nuclear Rider” bill. This bill creates an efficient channel for public utility proposals involving nuclear power plant maintenance projects. It also allows for electric companies to petition to add a “carbon reduction rider” onto customer electric bills in order to finance those projects. Nuclear plants are an important source of energy in the Upper Midwest, with Xcel Energy’s two Minnesota plants alone generating 30% of the region’s electricity. These plants are both reliable, have strong safety records, and operate nearly carbon emission free. To continue this service, the nuclear power plants must undergo costly maintenance projects. This bill is intended to aid in the funding and completion of those projects in a timely fashion.

Opponents have called SF 3504 a “blank check” to Xcel Energy because it does not specify limits to the cost of projects or to the amount of the rider. There is a concern over how much this will end up costing ratepayers. As a ratepayer I have the same concerns, however, this is not a “Blank Check.” These rider proposals will not go unchecked; each will still be reviewed and potentially modified by the Public Utilities Commission. Additionally, Xcel will be expected to adhere to the budgets originally proposed and all overruns will have to be re-approved by the commission. That is accountability. I only wish our HMO’s had the same transparency and accountability built in to their existence. Matter of fact, I wish our Health Care HMO’s operated like our Utility providers. That my friends is another argument.

This bill ensures that nuclear energy will remain a safe and reliable way of meeting Minnesota’s energy needs while reducing our carbon footprint. It passed through the Energy and Utilities committee on Tuesday and will make its way to the Senate floor shortly.

It may be the case that the initial version of the bill went over a line of some sort, and it has been revised. From the Star Tribune:

The bill originally did not allow the PUC to modify Xcel’s nuclear cost recovery requests, giving it only an up-or-down vote. The amended bill allows the PUC to modify Xcel’s requests.

The bill was amended again during Tuesday’s hearing to address concerns about a new “rider” — i.e., a separate line item — that would have been added to customers’ bills for nuclear improvement costs. The amendment, brought forward by Osmek, axed the rider in favor of nuclear cost recovery through a rate case, the traditional path.

Opponents, including the Chamber of Commerce, said after the hearing that rate case recovery was better than a rider, but they remained opposed to the legislation.

Of concern is the fact that several similar bills are working their way through legislatures across the country. This is often a signal of dark money at work. Also, note that the language used in the bill is a good example of green washing.

Fresh Energy is a state-wide think tank that addresses clean energy development in Minnesota, and I find them to be the go to place for policy in this area. According to Matt Privratsky, their Director of Public Affairs (from written testimony):

While Fresh Energy wholeheartedly supports Xcel’s business plan to become 85 percent emissions free by 2030, we cannot support abandonment of consumer protections as Xcel proposes in this bill. This bill would place an unnecessary risk on Minnesota rate payers, the energy system they rely on, and the workers and communities who keep that energy system going. In short, though it aims to address a very critical issue – aging nuclear plants – it very clearly falls short.

Even with changes made in the amendment, the risk to rate payers in this bill is significant. There is no cap on the amount of money Xcel may spend to repair and operate its nuclear plants, and, even though the amendment seems to allow the PUC to modify the amount needed for repairs and operation, Xcel Energy alone is still able to decide whether to proceed under those parameters. Later this spring, an independent engineering report will be released that details the repairs necessary at each plant and estimates how much they will cost. Rushing a bill through the process without numbers in front of you seems irresponsible, especially considering it will be Minnesota residential, commercial, and industrial rate payers on the hook to pay.

The bill would also put our energy system at risk by short changing the comprehensive process used to review investments of this size. Last year, Xcel sidestepped the PUC in favor of direct legislative approval for a large power plant, leading Governor Mark Dayton to unequivocally state that, going forward, he would “not accept any bill that limits or weakens the Commission’s authority to protect the interests of Minnesota’s energy consumers.” Though the amendment makes it appear as though proposals will be reviewed as part of a comprehensive resource plan, this bill short changes that process. Unless there is a significant change of position by the Governor, this bill will have little chance to become law.

Lastly, this bill does very little to address the issues facing these power plant communities and others across the state. Several other states have sought to address ways to ensure continued operation of aging power plants and to better prepare for their eventual closure. But those were comprehensive packages that address transition aid for local tax payers, support for worker retraining programs, commitments for worker pensions, programs to expand clean energy options to people of low incomes, expand renewable energy commitments, and more. This bill doesn’t actually even include a commitment to keeping the plant open, so it really only represents the narrowest of concerns – protecting Xcel’s shareholders.

The point about there being a report as to how much this all may eventually cost, coming out after this bill would be passed, is potentially important. Why not wait until after that report? If this bill is passed, will we have regrets?

There is a good chance that if this bill is passed by the House and Senate, it will be vetoed by Governor Dayton. This bill may, however, be an interesting historical note once the instances of similar legislation across the country are examined and contextualized. Who is behind the bill? Is this an ALEC project? Koch Brothers? Nobody?

Stay tuned.

I was living, as it happens, in the city of Falcon Heights. You know about Falcon Heights, very likely, even if you don’t know you do. Ever heard of the Great Minnesota Get Together, a.k.a., the Minnesota State Fair? It is held in Falcon Heights. Ever hear of the University of Minnesota? The smaller of the two Twin Cities campuses, the one with the ecology and organismic biology, and agriculture and forestry and stuff, is in Falcon Heights. Ever hear of the police killing of Philandro Castile, the one where the cop was ascared of the scary black man so he pumped him full of bullets in front of his girlfriend and a small child? That was in Falcon Heights too.

But Falcon Heights is obscured and obscure.

Even though the Saint Paul Campus and the Minnesota State Fair held in Saint Paul are actually physically within the boundaries of the independent city of Falcon Heights, nobody seems to notice. When Castile was killed, he was killed by the Saint Anthony-Lauderdale-Falcon Heights Police Department. A.k.a., the Saint Anthony Police Department for short. At every turn, Falcon Heights is obscured by something.

That year that the Vikings and the Falcons met, in Minneapolis, during the playoffs, Falcon Heights was obscured again when hubris-filled Vikings fans, knowing they would win the game, went to Falcon Heights (nowhere near the stadium, by the way) and changed the signs at the entrances to the city from “Falcon Heights” to “Vikings Heights.”

The next day the game was played. I understand that at the time the Vikings were considered a pretty good team. People still remmebered the famous Purple People Eaters. Even though the Vikings had not been anywhere near a Super Bowl in a while, they did get into the playoffs now and then, and people took them pretty seriously. Now, this particular year, the team was ready to go all the way. They should have had no problem beating the Falcons and moving ahead. There was really no way they could lose that game.

The Vikings had the coach they need to win, the players they needed to win, and importantly, they were psyched. They had the psychology of victory going in their favor.

Then this happened:

Ever since then here his how every Vikings game I’ve ever seen has gone, until recently.

1) The vikings play very well and score early.

2) Something bad happens to the Vikings. They get a bad call on pass interference. A turnover. A minor injury that takes a key player out for part of the game. A baby goat bleats in the distance. Something. The kind of thing that normally happens, that every team faces a few times a game and then just moves on.

3) No matter how far ahead the Vikings are, and no matter how well they’ve been playing, they take a step backwards on nearly every play until the end of the game.

4) Vikings lose.

That is the psychology of defeat. No matter how good a team is, if this is the way the mind turns at those small and insignificant moments, the team can never get into the playoffs.

This year, the defeat thing started to happen before the season started, when a baby goat bleated somewhere in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the star quarter back, Teddy Bridgewater, took a sudden turn on his knee while standing there during practice, and almost lost his leg. Seriously, the surgeons almost had to cut off his freakin’ leg. But they had a backup, a quarterback who could hold the fort while Bridgewater was out. Then, soon after he started to play, he got an injury, right at the start of the season, and was out. A similar thing happened to the Vikings’ star catcher-guy, so both the thrower-guy and the catcher-guy were out. The season was over, the Vikings were done, so early in the season that it wasn’t even disappointing. It was just, like, we don’t really even have a football team in this town. Just a really nice and new stadium. No team, though, really.

So the team was stuck with a thrower-guy and a catcher-guy who had not even been picked up in the draft. I don’t know what that means, but apparently these two guys just showed up, like for a pickup game or something, and now they are the main players on the team.

And ever since then, the Vikings have been mopping up the floor of with each of the teams they’ve played, one after the other, and are now something like tied for the second best in terms of winning vs. losing, in the whole world of Football.

This weekend, the Vikings play the Falcons. The Falcons are not doing too well, and the Vikings are. The Vikings are expected to beat the Falcons. They can’t lose, really.

I’ll just leave you with this, from a Vikings-Bears game in 2013:

Tourists visiting Bemidji this summer may pick up a few words of a “foreign” language.

That’s because the first city on the Mississippi River way north in Minnesota may be the only town off a reservation trying to incorporate the area’s indigenous Ojibwe language into daily life.

All over town Ojibwe language signs are posted right alongside English language labels, and for a just cause. The signage is part of a broader effort to preserve the language spoken by an estimated 60,000 persons across areas of the northern United States and into Canada as well as to bridge cultural divides between whites and American Indians.

Words such as “boozhoo,’’ an Ojibwe word for “welcome” and many other Native American terms crop up around town, in an appliance store, the local hospital, the convention center, a local coffee shop, and this spring in the public schools. …