It’s not quite a Fox News gig. The Strib’s Rachel Stassen-Berger reports, “Bringing her term in Congress to an end, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann creates a buzz-worthy list of things she will miss. Her list of 16 miss-able things, posted on BuzzFeed, ranges from the serious -- ‘Daily reminders of our nation’s founding’ -- to the snarky -- ‘MSNBC’s even-handed reporting’ -- to the slightly bizarre -- she sings a snippet of ‘Thrift Shop,’ Mackelmore's modern paean to discount shopping. Bachmann, who stirred up more controversy, attention, adoration and dismay than most House members in her four terms, decided not to run for a fifth term early this year. She has not said what she will do next. Here's a selection from her BuzzFeed post, cruise on over here to see the rest … .”
Can you say “bigfootin’?” The PiPress story, by Katie Kather, on the state’s choice of marijuana producers says, “The Minnesota Department of Health announced Monday that LeafLine Labs and Minnesota Medical Solutions will be the state's two medical marijuana producers. The manufacturers will be responsible for growing, processing and distributing medical cannabis products as part of the state's new medical cannabis program. … LeafLine Labs is a Minnesota-based company founded by two emergency medicine physicians, members of the Bachman family, which owns Minnesota garden stores, and executives from Theraplant, a Connecticut-based medical cannabis manufacturer.”
At MPR, Jon Collins and Tim Nelson say, “Lawmakers passed the strictest medical marijuana law in the country earlier this year. It prohibits smoking of the drug and requires instead that it be manufactured in pill or oil form. Medical marijuana will only be available to patients suffering from about 10 conditions including ALS and cancer. LeafLine Labs plans to produce the drug at a facility in Cottage Grove and will open a distribution center in Eagan on July 1, with other locations planned in Hibbing, St. Cloud and St. Paul before or by July 2016. The company includes 10 members of the Bachman family floral and gardening business, although LeafLine co-founder Dr. Andrew Bachman said it will be completely separate from the garden store chain.” My bet? Eighteen months to two years and this’ll seem absurdly quaint and heavy-handed.
A Politico story on the children of the billionaires funding politics post-Citizens United includes mention of our local Hubbard family. Kenneth Vogel writes, “Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota billionaire and GOP mega-donor, said his children, who run parts of the family’s media empire, ‘are more conservative than I am by a big margin, because they’re probably smarter than I am.’ And while he once invited one of his children to a Koch seminar, he acknowledged: ‘I can’t dictate to my children or grandchildren what to do. It just so happens we all happen to be pretty much in agreement.’ ” Yeah, it’s tough to imagine a liberal firebrand around the Hubbard table.
From KSTP-TV’s Megan Stewart: “State officials are using World AIDS Day on Monday as a reminder for residents in Minnesota to get checked. There are 7,723 people reportedly living with AIDS in Minnesota, with about 300 new cases diagnosed in the state each year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. This averages to a new person being diagnosed every 29 hours. The number of cases in Minnesota has not declined through the past 10 years, as it has in other places, despite the fact that there are treatment options more readily available, officials say.”
Austin is so proud. Mike Bunge of KIMT-TV reports, “Federal court proceedings against Anthony and Deborah Edge were to have begun Monday. They are charged with possession and production of child pornography. Both prosecutors and the Edges' defense teams had requested the trial be delayed until February 17. That motion has been granted. The request for a continuance referred to ‘voluminous and complex’ computer forensics for which the attorneys would need more time to prepare. According to court documents, the investigation began on March 13, 2014 when administrators from the chat website Omegle passed along evidence of suspected child pornography being distributed on their site.”
We have a deal. In the Strib, Kevin Giles says, “Homeowners along White Bear Lake said Monday that they’ve reached a settlement with a state agency in their two-year-old lawsuit over the lake’s dramatically receding water level. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has agreed to support legislation to connect six cities and townships to surface water, decreasing their dependence on wells, said the White Bear Lake Restoration Association and White Bear Lake Homeowner’s Association.”
Here’s how the conservative Federalist website describes Minnesota’s “plan to eliminate gender discrimination.” Says Stella Morabito, “In this scheme, there would be no accounting for sex differences in high school sports on the field or in locker rooms, bathrooms, and hotel rooms. It forbids any camaraderie rooted in the biological reality of one’s sex, or any consideration of the reality of the opposite sex. In fact, to affirm that reality would basically be a crime. So the policy would ultimately abolish girls’ and boys’ sports alike.” Selling hysteria is a good gig.
If you want some slack in shoveling your sidewalk, live in Minneapolis, not St. Paul. MPR’s Jon Collins (again) and William Lager say, “Both cities will send work crews to clear sidewalks at property owners' expense if they aren't shoveled. But last winter, the smaller city of St. Paul cleared more sidewalks, assessed higher fees against scofflaws and focused more on repeat offenders, according to data received by MPR News. The city of St. Paul had 1,079 incidents where city crews cleared snow on private sidewalks compared to 741 in Minneapolis. The way the cities assess fees against property owners who don't shovel also differs. St. Paul charged property owners fees of almost $300,000 for the work last winter, which included both code enforcement and snow abatement fees, as opposed to a little more than $130,000 charged to Minneapolis property owners.” Come on, Minneapolis! We’re talking easy ching here!