Minneapolis - St. Paul Metro

Hi everyone! Our family is moving back to MN in a few months, and we are starting the process of looking into schools. Our son will be 5 next year and will be starting kindergarten in 2026. He's our oldest, so this is our first rodeo. We're looking into Nova Classical Academy (Highland Park) and Math & Science Academy (Woodbury).

Our questions:

1. How hard is it to get into these schools for kindergarten? (We are not school staff members, and our child doesn't have a sibling already enrolled in the school.) We realize that MSA's elementary school is just now being built, and 2026-2027 is the first year they're enrolling for kindergarten.
2. Is there anything we can do to be more competitive for acceptance to either school? Or is it literally just a random lottery? Does it matter when we apply for the lottery, as long as it's within the enrollment window? (Our children don't appear to be "protected class students" as defined by MDE.)
3. Any experience with either of these schools? We welcome all feedback as we know nothing! Especially if you have a child with mild ASD, we'd love your input.

Thank you so much!

Preview:

On one of the first warm days in Minneapolis this year, the doors were propped open in most businesses near the intersection of Lake Street and Lyndale Avenue. That’s why employees at the store Smitten Kitten were able to notice a woman slumped over in her parked car outside the shop.

State Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids, was arrested in Bloomington on suspicion of soliciting a minor for sex.

Bloomington Police led Eichorn, 40, to believe he was talking to a 16-year old girl and then met the senator and arrested him Monday near the 8300 block of Normandale Avenue, according to a Bloomington Police Department press release.

Senate Republicans have called for Eichorn’s resignation.

“We are shocked by these reports and this alleged conduct demands an immediate resignation. Justin has a difficult road ahead and he needs to focus on his family,” Senate Republicans said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Police say they saw Eichorn arriving in the area by pick-up truck and arrested him without incident outside his vehicle.

Eichorn was booked into the Bloomington Police Department jail and will be transported to the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center, the release said. Felony charges of soliciting a minor to practice prostitution are pending, Bloomington police said.

“As a 40-year-old man, if you come … looking to have sex with someone’s child, you can expect that we are going to lock you up,” Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said in the release. “I have always advocated stiffer penalties for these types of offenses … We need our state Legislature to take this case and this type of conduct more seriously.”

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, in a statement, said the allegation against Eichorn is “deeply disturbing.”

“The felony allegation against Sen. Eichorn is deeply disturbing, and raises serious questions that will need to be answered by the court, as well as his caucus and constituents.”

Eichorn’s arrest complicates efforts by Senate Republicans to expel DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell from the upper chamber, following her arrest last year after she was alleged to have burglarized her stepmother’s home.

Although some Democrats — including Gov. Tim Walz and some of Mitchell’s colleagues — have called on Mitchell to resign, the ethics case against her has been blocked by Democrats, who say expulsion should only come after she’s received due process in the courts. Her trial is scheduled for after the session.

Republicans have said she’s brought dishonor to the institution and should be immediately expelled, even before a criminal trial.

During debate about a motion to expel Mitchell, Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, said doing so would restore integrity to the Senate.

“We don’t need the results of a criminal trial to know Sen. Mitchell’s conduct fails to meet the standards of ethical behavior that we expect from senators,” Rasmusson said in January.

That argument presumably now applies to Eichorn, as well.

In February, Eichorn reposted an article on Facebook about attempts to expel Mitchell, saying that the “growing scandal keeps pulling focus from the Legislature’s important work. We need to end the disruption and let voters choose a new senator.”

In 2021 he objected to a bill requiring Minnesota schools to teach about sexual orientations and gender identities, saying “before you know it, they’ll be reading kids ‘50 Shades of Grey.’ This discussion is better had at a more mature age.”

Eichorn was first elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2016 and works at his family’s outdoor store in Grand Rapids.

Eichorn also co-authored a bill to classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness.

Sociopaths Misappropriate Hit Song From MN

Setting aside its singular devotion to the financial interests of the 1%, fetish for deregulation that threatens our workers and planet, and obsession with stripping rights from trans people, the MAGA movement, tonally, is really fucking mean. Case in point: This official White House video posted Monday to Instagram, in which we see footage of handcuffed young men being rounded up like dogs by Border Patrol as—Jesus Christ how is this real...—"Closing Time" by Semisonic plays, mockingly.

As you'd expect, the Minneapolis band behind the 1998 pop-rock hit isn't cool with being used for sadistic far-right propaganda. Through their publicist, Semisonic wasted no time issuing the following statement earlier today...

We did not authorize or condone the White House’s use of our song in any way. And no, they didn’t ask. The song is about joy and possibilities and hope, and they have missed the point entirely.

What is "Closing Time" about, specifically? Frontman Dan Wilson told Billboard in 2018 that it's inspired by the birth of his daughter, Coco.

The guys wanted a new song to close our sets with. I thought "Closing Time" would be a good title. We had spent seven years of our lives at that point, four nights a week entertaining people. That was our life. Some bouncers yelling things, closing time coming, all that imagery, literally, that’s how the song started and then when I was halfway done, I started realizing the whole thing was a pun about being born, so I just made sure that the rest of the thing could ride with that double meaning, but nobody got the joke and I didn’t bother to explain. I thought everyone would get it.

Or, to quote the top-voted comment from 24 years ago on mostly defunct lyrics website SongMeanings: "It means its closing time so get the hell out."

Semisonic join a long list of artists who've unwillingly soundtracked Trump shit, including Céline Dion ("My Heart Will Go On"???), Rihanna, Adele, Steven Tyler, and Neil Young.

Let's Hear From 3 Locally Based Ex-Federal Workers

Shoutout to Max Nesterak at the Minnesota Reformer for banging the actually, federal workers matter drum. In this great piece, he speaks to three ex-employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), all of whom had their lives upended by an unelected, deeply unlikable, ketamine-zooted freak who invented DOGE to gut the federal government. These unemployed Minnesotans are among the 60,000 government workers who've recently been cleaved from 17 different agencies, according to one estimate.

“I know it’s not personal, but it just feels personal,” says Iceley Andaya, an Air Force vet, who lost her job at the VBA.

“They’re talking about building smarter, better software and government (but) my skill set wasn’t even taken in consideration when it was time to fire people,” says Nina Sawyer, who lost her job at GSA. “They’re just going in with a hammer and breaking things.”

“The grant money that is made available to a city or a county is not going to go as far because now they’re going to have to hire me as a private consultant who can charge more for the work compared to someone who is a federal employee,” says Katie Haun Schuring, who lost her job with FRA.

Food Hall Trend Finally Reaching Richfield?

Hey, how about some non-depressing news? (Don't worry: We'll return to the pulling-out-your-hair beat in a sec.) The food hall craze of the past decade has yielded mixed results locally, and now one suburban holdout might give the concept a whirl. Last week Tim Naumann, co-owner of Plymouth's Luce Line Brewing, presented Richfieldians with his plans for a 7,500-square-foot food hall at 64th & Lyndale—aka vacant land just north of Lakewinds Food Co-op.

The proposed site is currently owned by Richfield-based Cornerstone Group, whose 10-acre Lyndale Garden Center development spree has reimagined much of that area; the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority is offering Luce Line $750,000 to boost the project, which is estimated to cost $4.9 million. The food hall would feature three vendor stalls and Luce Line brews, J.D. Duggan at the MSP Biz Journal reports.

“It’s percolating. It’s moving along nicely,” Naumann tells Duggan, while stressing that plans are preliminary at the moment. “Generally, there’s a lot of support for this,” adds Melissa Poehlman, Richfield Director of Community Development.

Punishingly Stupid "Trump Derangement Syndrome" Bill Introduced

We'll keep this mercifully brief. On Monday at the Minnesota Capitol, five Republican senators—Eric Lucero of St. Michael, Steve Drazkowski of Mazeppa, Nathan Wesenberg of Little Falls, Justin Eichorn of Grand Rapids, and Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe, all of them hopeless and charmless dumbasses—introduced a bill that would classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness.

Ha, ha, ha! Way to seize on that MAGA mandate to help the lives of your constituents, you grievance-pilled, sore-winning dullards. “This is possibly the worst bill in Minnesota history,” DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy says in a statement. She goes on to talk about how the trolling bill trivializes actual mental illnesses, but honestly could have full-stopped with the quote above. “Members are free to do as they wish” counters Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson.

No House version of the bill exists at press time, and Sen. Melissa Wiklund (DFL-Bloomington) has vowed to let the Senate one die without a committee hearing.

Buy for a dollar and sell for two.

It’s the middleman’s credo, and lucrative — but not for the taxpayers getting fleeced.

America’s byzantine health system is beset with parasitic middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers and third party administrators, a key reason why it costs so much more per person than anywhere else in the world despite delivering mediocre results. Even in a supposedly public program like Medicaid — the federal/state partnership that provides care to low income and disabled Minnesotans — state government contracts with managed care organizations to actually administer it.

The Minnesota Legislature is staring at a gloomy, stormy fiscal horizon that includes structural budget deficits and the risk of a massive cut in federal Medicaid funding.

But there’s also a safe harbor in sight, if lawmakers can muster up the courage to cut out the middlemen.

Minnesota just has to follow Connecticut’s lead. In 2012, Connecticut was able to save on their Medicaid program by cutting out the unproductive managed care organization middlemen they had contracted with since the 1990s to run it. They were simultaneously able to ensure the cuts didn’t harm quality of care — in fact, they were able to improve quality — by prioritizing care coordination and accessibility in their new and more efficient MCO-free system.

In Minnesota, by contrast, MCOs to this day have the authority to set provider networks, limit patients to those networks, regulate how services can be delivered, require prior authorizations and other bureaucratic hurdles to receiving certain services, and set their own payment rates. In other words, they can do almost anything they want, especially when patients don’t feel confident enough to appeal denials.

The federal government claims MCO administration should “manage cost, utilization, and quality” in order to “reduce Medicaid program costs and better manage utilization of health services” as well as improve “health plan performance, health care quality, and outcomes.” Whether that’s actually true is both doubtful and unproven. For example, Medicaid MCOs nationwide deny over twice as many claims as privately-administered Medicare Advantage plans, which are themselves known for imposing incredibly onerous and expensive burdens on patients compared to publicly-administered traditional Medicare.

When Connecticut removed its Medicaid MCOs, the result was incredible. By 2023, Connecticut’s Department of Social Services reported that the state had reduced Medicaid administrative expenses to 2.75% of spending. Unfortunately, Minnesota still throws away money contracting out Medicaid. According to consulting firm Milliman, Minnesota’s administrative expenses were at 12.5% in 2023.

The benefits extend well beyond just a mere reduction in administrative costs.

When Connecticut cut out the Medicaid MCO middlemen, it was also able to do more to coordinate care for those on Medicaid. For example, by developing a special type of primary care clinic called the Patient Centered Medical Home, Connecticut Medicaid can better connect beneficiaries who frequently show up in the emergency room with the services they need to prevent expensive future emergencies. Efforts like these can generate even more savings, but are difficult to implement without first getting rid of the Medicaid middlemen because those middlemen tend to view necessary data about their enrollees as a trade secret.

Regardless, collecting and combining the differently formatted data from each one in order to gain useful insights for care coordination would be a statistician’s nightmare even if we make the big assumption that MCOs are willing to share their data and that combining it all is technically possible.

Estimating the precise savings from improved care coordination and reduced administrative costs is complicated, but we can make broad judgments by comparing Medicaid spending per beneficiary in Minnesota and Connecticut. To be sure, this is a simplification because the two states’ Medicaid programs differ in what they cover and the precise payment rates they use for specific services, but these differences are likely minor in the aggregate. Both Connecticut and Minnesota have been historically run by Democratic-leaning governments that tend to provide comprehensive benefits packages without creating onerous eligibility rules.

Doing that calculation, if Minnesota spent what Connecticut did on Medicaid per beneficiary, the state would have saved about $1.5 billion in 2024. The federal government would have saved about $2.6 billion, too. If MCOs save significant money, as is often claimed, such an extreme result shouldn’t be possible.

At the very least, $1.5 billion in savings would substantially reduce the state budget shock that would occur should Republicans in Congress follow through with their ongoing proposals to pass massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding. Former Rep. Jennifer Schultz, a health economist, recently estimated those cuts would cost Minnesota $2 billion.

It’s important to remember that federal Medicaid cuts don’t necessarily eliminate spending. They just pass the shirked expenses onto the states. State legislatures that must then decide whether to fill the gap with state tax dollars or actually cut health care for low income and disabled people. Our state Constitution requires that the state have a balanced budget, and meeting that requirement without cutting program benefits and eligibility — If Congress follows through on cuts to Medicaid funding — will be a fiscal nightmare if we do nothing about wasteful Medicaid MCO administrative costs.

This legislative session, Minnesota has divided control of government, requiring bipartisan cooperation.

Republicans might be willing to cut Medicaid spending to balance the state budget, but Democrats will definitely be hesitant to do so unless program benefits and eligibility can be protected.

The Connecticut model is a win-win for both. Cutting out the Medicaid middlemen is a great opportunity for both parties. They can fulfill their promises of bipartisan cooperation, reduce future budget deficits, and improve the quality of our Medicaid program, which funds crucial health care services for some of our state’s most vulnerable residents.

The legislation (SF1059/HF255) is ready to roll, but the clock is quickly ticking toward May 19.

It could be a bad legislative session for bad drivers.

Traffic safety is one place where lawmakers appear inclined to reach bipartisan consensus this year. Proposals range from more requirements for people looking to get behind the wheel after impaired driving offenses to stiffer penalties for those with a lead foot.

“Running stop lights, speeding — all the highways are insane. I mean, you go down any highway somebody blows your doors off at 100 miles an hour,” said Rep. Terry Stier, R-Belle Plaine. “Hopefully the public is fed up with it, and they get behind us.”

Stier has been in law enforcement for 23 years, the past four as the chief of the Belle Plaine Police Department.

Stier, a first-term lawmaker, wasted little time pushing to boost the penalty for drivers who flee from police from three to up to five years in prison.

“They’re putting the entire general public at risk,” Stier said. “They're crashing into squad cars and they're hurting officers in the process. So we have to find a way to stop this."

Along with Stier’s legislation, there are bills to toughen punishments for speeding, repeat DWIs and driving without a license.

The driving bills are some of the few that have bipartisan support so far this session. In a session where the parties are split pretty much down the middle — 101 DFLers and 100 Republicans — that bodes well for the drive to change the rules of the road.

Gov. Tim Walz also has speeding in his sights. He’s recommended that drivers caught going more than 35 miles an hour above the speed limit get their licenses revoked for six months. Currently, that sanction applies to drivers zooming at more than 100 miles per hour.

“The expected goal of this new law is to provide an additional tool for law enforcement to address the most excessive types [of] speeding violations,” the budget proposal says.

While pointing to the possibility of more court activity and licensing sanctions, “the further goal is to see a decrease over time regarding this unsafe driving that affects the safety of all Minnesotans.”

Col. Christina Bogojevic, the chief of the Minnesota State Patrol, said it’s a common-sense change.

“We’re looking at all speed limits because it’s just as dangerous going 70 miles per hour and a 30 mile per hour zone, as it is over 100 on a freeway,” she said.

State data shows speed citations ticked up during a three-year period that transportation officials analyzed; there were nearly 90,000 in 2022.

Bogojevic says that tracks with what her troopers are seeing.

Last year was the deadliest year on Minnesota roads since 2021. Speed was a factor in nearly 30 percent of those 2024 crashes.

“When you look at last year’s fatal numbers of 478 deaths on Minnesota roadways, it’s brought a lot of attention to what’s being seen out there,” Bogojevic said. “So people are looking for any effort they can to bring those numbers down. When you’re talking 72 more families that are notified that a loved one has been killed on the road, it's just too many.”

Repeat drunk drivers are another key concern.

Last fall, a man with multiple DWIs drove his vehicle into the patio at the Park Tavern in St. Louis Park, killing two people and injuring several more.

Sen. Ron Latz and Rep. Larry Kraft, both Democrats representing St. Louis Park, are seeking stricter penalties and requiring longer use of breathalyzer car starters for those with multiple DWIs.

It comes after a deadly crash last summer at Park Tavern, a well-known community gathering spot. Two people died and nine others were injured when a man accused of driving drunk plowed into the patio area where they were seated.

The man, Stephen Bailey, has pleaded not guilty to third-degree murder and several vehicular criminal operations charges. His trial is scheduled for May. Bailey had five prior DWIs on his record but was no longer required to use an interlock device.

Latz and Kraft planned to promote the legislation alongside the tragedy’s victims, their families, advocates and other community members at an event Friday at Park Tavern.

Their bill also expands the lookback window from 10 to 20 years for when a past DWI conviction can be considered in harsher punishments for subsequent offenses.

“Those things can really help eliminate those repeat offenders through these ignition interlock requirements,” said Lauren Johnson with Mothers Against Drunk Driving Minnesota. “This is at least a step in the right direction, and I hope that this can give some sort of peace to those that were directly impacted by that crash.”

Regents Preemptively Surrender

Add the University of Minnesota to the long list of institutions that have happily capitulated in the face of threats from the Trump administration. Despite intense pushback from both faculty and alumni, the Board of Regents passed a resolution Friday, by a vote of 9-3, that will drastically limit academic freedom.

As a result, no university “unit,” such as a department or a center, may now address "matters of public concern or public interest” (well, that narrows it down) without the approval of the university president, Rebecca Cunningham. This limitation on academic speech is rooted in the days following October 7, 2023, when academic units such as the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies spoke out about the Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli military response in Gaza. In response 26 state legislators demanded that the U remove such statements.

“We cannot ignore the reality that the public, whether it is the federal government, our state legislature or donors, is holding the university accountable for the statements and positions by units within the university and is then taking actions against the university that jeopardize its mission and operations,” says Board of Regents Chair Janie Mayeron, an absolute fucking coward without a clue why universities exist.

The Regents certainly got more nervous with the election of Donald Trump, especially as his goons have threatened to illegally withhold grants to universities unless their demands are complied with. In February, the administration launched an investigation into “antisemitism” at the U, a matter that a guy who derisively called Chuck Schumer “a Palestinian” can certainly diagnose accurate and fairly.

Maybe some regents even think this will appease their critics. But for a taste of the future, look to Columbia University, where compliance with Trump's wishes has only led to more demands. Trump doesn't want to stamp out antisemitism; he wants to stamp out universities.

Quite simply, no one who thinks this resolution will silence bad-faith critics has the judgment and intelligence to be making decisions on the U’s behalf. Respect to dissenting regents Robyn Gulley, Bo Thao-Urabe, and Mary Turner, the only three members of the board with any respect for academic freedom.

Who Built the Timberwolves?

Almost three years ago, at the urging of then-minority owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, the Minnesota Timberwolves landed a big-fish president of basketball operations in Tim Connelly, who'd built the Denver Nuggets into a powerhouse team that'd win the Finals the following year. Your currently surging 38-29 Wolves have flourished under Connelly, but how well do we know—really know—the 48-year-old hoops executive?

Well the state's best basketball writer, Britt Robson, is on the case for Mpls-St. Paul Magazine. Robson authored this loooooooong, illuminating profile of Connelly, and it's chock-full of goodies for T-Wolves fans. Voted "shyest" senior at his Baltimore high school, the future basketball boss slugged it out for a decade in the scouting department of the Washington Wizards. He'd eventually come out of his shell in a major way. Robson writes that, today, "great relationships" are Connelly's super power.

“Tim connects with people better than anyone I’ve ever met,” says Adam Simon, assistant GM for the Miami Heat. “You know how, when you meet someone for a second time, you work to remember how you know them in the first place? Tim remembers everything that was talked about, what you like personally, what you do for a living, the whole initial conversation."

The story is loaded with neat anecdotes about Connelly globetrotting as a scout, paying cash for VHS tapes of players in Italy and struggling to escape Latvia without a credit card. For the family man who oversees the Wolves roster, that sorta thing remains his favorite part of the increasingly global game: “To meet really cool people all over the world."

Ruling: MN Can Still Prosecute Weed Crimes on Reservations

Recreational marijuana has been legalized by both the state and on tribal land, but anyone with an egregious amount of green can still be prosecuted and serve jail time. That’s the ruling a Minnesota district court judge recently made regarding a case against Todd Thompson, a White Earth man who is facing felony charges that could net him up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The man, who owns a smoke shop, was raided the day after the state legalized marijuana, with police seizing 7.5 pounds of cannabis and $1,958 in cash from his store (his home was also searched but nothing was found there). While his lawyers are appealing the decision, Thompson will likely have to go to trial (and, potentially, prison) as his case proceeds.

“The potential conviction of a Native American man for selling marijuana without a license would seem to cut against one of the central arguments Minnesota Democrats made in favor of legalization, which was to undo racial disparities in marijuana charges,” Minnesota Reformer's Max Nesterak writes of one of Thompson’s arguments in this really good primer on the case.

In this specific case, that angle might not be strong enough. “[Thompson] possessed a large quantity of marijuana well over the limit for public places,” the judge states in the ruling. “Moreover, these facts along with the tip received by law enforcement in July 2023 show that Thompson’s conduct predated August 1, 2023.” Regardless, the ruling and pending case would set a precedent for similar prosecutions.

Consequences for Bad Drivers

Racket staffers are collectively of the mindset the way people drive these days is out of fucking control. It's not normal to run red lights; it's not normal to drive 20 mph over the speed limit on residential streets; it's not normal to use bike lanes—especially separated bike lanes—as lanes of traffic; it's certainly not normal to smash into parked cars or flip over into front yards and then flee the scene.

Apparently, our legislators have also had enough. As Peter Cox reports for MPR News, there are a bunch of bills with bipartisan legislative support that would toughen punishments for speeding, repeat DWIs, and driving without a license. Gov. Tim Walz actually wants drivers caught going more than 35 mph over the speed limit get their licenses revoked for six months. Good! Everyone needs to get a grip!

“Running stop lights, speeding—all the highways are insane. I mean, you go down any highway somebody blows your doors off at 100 miles an hour,” Rep. Terry Stier (R-Belle Plaine) says. “Hopefully the public is fed up with it, and they get behind us.”

https://archive.is/fqRt5

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF2589&version=0&session=ls94&session_year=2025&session_number=0

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18952049

Monica Duque never knows how many hours she is going to get in a given week. She works at the Jerry’s Cub Foods on East Lake Street at the front of the store, helping customers, overseeing cashiering, and running online shopping. She finds out her hours, she explains, “when the schedule is posted on Friday, for the week after next.”

“There is no consistency,” says the 24 year old, which makes it hard to save money, or plan much for the future. She makes a little over $20 an hour, and even being cut 10 hours in a week can have a big impact on her finances. “I can do morning one day then night shift the next day. I go from eight-hour days to barely getting seven-hour days. I can never really rely on how much money I’m going to make.”

“People just want to be able to afford to live. One job should be enough to do that.”

Duque is one of around 9,000 Minnesota grocery workers whose union contracts with 14 different companies expired in early March. Of these workers, approximately 7,000 are engaged in coordinated bargaining with seven employers: Haug’s Cub Foods, Jerry’s Cub Foods/Jerry’s Foods, Kowalski’s Markets, Radermacher’s Cub Foods, Lunds & Byerlys, Knowlan’s Festival Foods, and UNFI Cub Foods.

At least the bargaining is coordinated on the part of their union, United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 663. The union sits down at the table with the employers together, and gives them joint proposals, but the employers are insisting on bargaining seven different agreements.

DFL lawmakers in the House and Senate (SF1905/HF1657) ) have introduced legislation that would remove an unusual loophole in state law allowing prosecutors to treat the water in a bong as a controlled substance, no different than the uncut version of whatever illicit drug the bong was used to smoke.

Under current law, prosecutors can treat bong water quantities of greater than four ounces as a “drug mixture” and add it to the weight of any actual drugs found on a suspect, which can turn a misdemeanor possession offense into a first-degree felony with the potential for decades in prison.

The issue received widespread attention last year when the Reformer reported on the case of Jessica Beske, a Fargo woman facing up to 30 years in prison over 8 ounces of water allegedly found in a bong in her car during a traffic stop in Polk County.

The proposed legislation removes the language allowing authorities to consider certain quantities of bong water a “drug mixture,” and explicitly states that the legal definition of mixture “does not include the fluid used in a water pipe,” nor does it include any quantity of drugs that may be dissolved in a pipe’s fluid.

“Counting dirty bong water as pure drugs is like counting a beer bottle full of backwash and cigarette butts as 80-proof whiskey,” said Bruce Ringstrom Jr., one of Beske’s attorneys. “Sending helpless addicts to prison for having dirty bong water takes up prison space that should be used for actually dangerous offenders.”

Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth, who charged Beske with the bong water offense, is well known among defense lawyers and drug law reform advocates for seeking severe penalties for nonviolent drug offenders.

Kurtis Hanna, a drug reform lobbyist with Blunt Strategies, said that the main problem with the current law “is that it ends up treating end users of drugs as if they are drug wholesale dealers, which goes against the original legislative intent” of the state’s drug laws.

Hanna pointed out the law’s absurd implications: “If someone dropped $20 worth of cocaine into a swimming pool, should law enforcement be able to weigh all the water in the pool and prosecutors charge the person with possessing that many pounds of cocaine?”

Bong water has an unusually rich history in Minnesota. A 2009 state Supreme Court decision explicitly gave prosecutors the ability to treat bong water as a controlled substance. After the decision drew national headlines and widespread ridicule, the Legislature passed a bill to exempt bong water quantities of less than four ounces, but then-governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed the bill and went on “The Daily Show” to defend his decision.

Lawmakers passed the four-ounce exception again the following year, and newly sworn-in DFL governor Mark Dayton signed it. In 2023 the Legislature passed a bill decriminalizing drug paraphernalia, even items containing trace amounts of drug residue. But the bong water provision was overlooked.

The new bill awaits consideration by the public safety committees in the House and Senate.

The Trump administration has locked Minnesota out of $200 million in federal grants awarded to the state last year for community-based climate projects, leaving projects in limbo and underscoring the uncertainty and disruption unleashed by Trump’s early budget cutting.

Last July the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the money for initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including climate-friendly farm practices, peatland restoration, energy efficiency, vehicle electrification and more.

“This funding will have a transformational impact on Minnesota, from farms to food shelves across the state,” Katrina Kessler, commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said at the time. “This investment will reduce greenhouse gasses while improving air quality, advancing new technologies, building food security and sovereignty, and directing benefits to low-income residents and communities of color.”

Now, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says the Trump administration has locked them out of those funds, and projects that had been planning on using the funding to get off the ground are scrambling to find alternatives.

“Unfortunately, the already-approved funding has not been reliably available to us to access since early February,” an MPCA spokesperson said. “This is deeply concerning and could have long-term impacts on our mission of protecting the environment and human health.”

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

One project that had been banking on those funds is a food waste processing plant in Scott County, operated by Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy, or R&E.

The project has been in the works for seven years, according to Melissa Finnegan, the agency’s director of strategic partnerships. Construction, by Shakopee-based Dem-Con, is slated to begin this spring.

It would process 75,000 tons per year of organic and food waste, converting it to enough natural gas to serve thousands of homes and reducing total carbon emissions by an amount equivalent to taking 6,000 cars off the road.

“The loss of a dedicated $10 million in funding for this $100 million project puts the entire endeavor at risk,” Finnegan said. “If this $10 million is suddenly unavailable, the responsibility for the costs would be shifted to R&E, and ultimately the residents of both counties.”

Until recently, the MPCA had been planning on using the funds for expanding water quality and soil health programs, helping businesses transition to cleaner refrigerants, scaling up food waste programs, restoring 10,000 acres of peatland, and helping economically disadvantaged communities improve food security.

“Since the climate-smart food systems initiative was announced in July 2024, we’ve heard from farmers, food processors, local governments and community-based food organizations who are excited to get this work started,” MPCA Climate Director Kate Knuth said recently.

Shortly after taking office, however, President Trump attempted to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding and payments that had already been authorized by Congress. Federal judges have issued temporary restraining orders to keep federal funds flowing while challenges work their way through the courts, but the administration has frequently ignored those orders.

The Scott County waste processing plant is just one of thousands of projects across the country that are now in jeopardy as a result of the administration’s actions.

“The uncertainty and overall lack of communication from the federal government regarding these funds has been particularly frustrating as we look to getting this project started,” Finnegan said.

She added that MPCA has told her that they do not anticipate the funds being made available again.

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Mass firings create chaos across federal agencies; HealthPartners office workers announce three-day strike; confirmation uncertain for Trump’s secretary of labor pick; and Rep. Michelle Fischbach looks to repeal Biden’s nursing home staffing levels.

Mass firings create chaos across federal agencies

The federal civilian workforce of 2.3 million people is in chaos as the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by world’s richest man Elon Musk, rips through agencies with indiscriminate firings of upwards of 200,000 employees.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture laid off workers responding to the bird flu but is now trying to “swiftly” rehire them. The Department of Energy laid off about 325 workers who maintain the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal and then rescinded most of the notices. The Department of Health and Human Services laid off 950 Indian Health Services employees before rescinding those notices.

A Minnesota worker for the Small Business Administration was fired, then rehired, then fired again in a matter of days, the Star Tribune reported in a story featuring terminated workers at the Voyageurs National Park, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the General Service Administration.

The Trump administration has also said “You’re fired” to firefighters, aviation safety workers, disaster response workers and cybersecurity personnel, among thousands of others. Some workers who accepted DOGE’s suspiciously generous buy-out offer were fired instead with no severance.

It’s unclear how many of the roughly 18,000 federal employees in Minnesota have been laid off. The Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for data on layoffs affecting Minnesota workers.

Unions have tried to intervene, but their lawsuit aiming to block the firings was unsuccessful.

The purge of federal workers — which has included many Trump supporters — is worrying some Republican lawmakers, though not enough to do anything more than pleading.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said “indiscriminate workforce cuts aren’t efficient and won’t fix the federal budget,” while Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said he supports downsizing the government but not by firing new FBI agents.

The cuts have disproportionately hurt veterans because the federal government is the nation’s leading employer of veterans: About 30% of the federal workforce are veterans compared to less than 6% in the private sector.

State Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, sent a letter to President Trump asking him to reverse the cuts to the U.S. Forest Service in the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

“The decision to cut these positions does not merely affect numbers on a budget sheet — it affects real people, real families, and entire communities that rely on these jobs. It undermines the efforts of those who have committed their lives to public service, often at the cost of personal sacrifice, and diminishes the well-being of the very communities they serve,” Hauschild wrote.

1,000 HealthPartners office workers announce strike

The union representing some 1,000 HealthPartners office support workers announced a three-day strike beginning March 3 at approximately 30 facilities unless they reach a deal on a new contract.

Front desk workers and other office support employees with OPEIU Local 12 voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike earlier this month, citing “drastic” increases to workers’ health care costs.

Other unions have said their members could refuse to cross picket lines, potentially disrupting deliveries and other operations at the health system.

The union is seeking to protect workers’ health care benefits and seniority protections, along with pay raises and adding Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth as holidays.

OPEIU Local 12 President Devin Hogan said workers have struggled with low wages: “It is unacceptable for one of the largest companies in Minnesota to pay such low wages to frontline workers that they have to rely on food banks to feed their families.”

A spokesman for HealthPartners said they are “committed to staying at the bargaining table to reach a fair and financially responsible agreement with the union” and noted they will meet again next week.

Trump’s DOL pick grilled by Republicans and Democrats

Trump’s pick for secretary of labor Lori Chavez DeRemer faces an uncertain path to confirmation in the Senate after appearing not quite anti-union enough to lock in unified Republican support, but not pro-labor enough to win enough Democratic votes to make up the difference.

Chavez DeRemer, a Republican and daughter of a longtime Teamster, hopes to be a bridge connecting the Republican Party’s traditional pro-business coalition to its growing base of working-class supporters.

Her nomination brought together strange bedfellows: Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin. Mullin once challenged O’Brien to a fight in a Senate committee hearing, but the pair united behind Chavez DeRemer. The three appeared in a video together on Wednesday, with Mullin saying they have a good relationship — adding that if he and O’Brien were in a relationship, he would be “the man.”

During her single term representing Oregon in the House, Chavez DeRemer was a rare Republican co-author on the labor-backed Protecting the Right to Organize Act — PRO Act — which would weaken red states’ “right-to-work” laws, which bar unions from charging fees to non-members who are covered by their collective bargaining agreements. The bill would also add penalties for employers who violate labor law and make it easier for workers to unionize.

But during her Wednesday Senate confirmation hearing, Chavez DeRemer walked back her support for the bill while not fully disavowing it, which did not seem to satisfy ardent supporters or opponents of the bill. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, previously said he’ll vote against her and predicted more than a dozen other Republicans will join him, though he later said he may reconsider given her disavowal of eliminating right-to-work laws.

Chavez DeRemer also defended Trump’s unprecedented firing of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, whose term was supposed to run through 2028. She is challenging the ousting in a case that tests Trump’s executive authority. Her termination has paralyzed the NLRB, which has been a target of his billionaire supporters including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Trump has appointed more traditional business-side leaders elsewhere in the labor department. He named David Keeling, a former safety executive at UPS and Amazon, to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Amazon, notably, has a sordid safety record and faces citations in Minnesota for allegedly violating the state’s new warehouse worker safety law. Keeling did receive support from the Teamsters, which represents UPS drivers and are trying to unionize Amazon employees.

Rep. Fischbach looks to roll back nursing home staffing ratios

U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach introduced a bill to halt a Biden-era rule, which has not yet taken effect, that would set minimum staffing levels at nursing homes.

The bill is symbolic since President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services is unlikely to finalize the rule that the Biden administration argued would improve worker recruitment and retention as well as resident care.

Opponents of the rule said it set unrealistic standards that would have forced nursing homes to shutter, while pointing to a report commissioned by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that said there’s “no single staffing level that would guarantee quality care.”

Fischbach’s proposal won praise from the Minnesota nursing home lobby.

“In a time when we face ongoing workforce shortages, tying the hands of providers to meet an unattainable standard will not have the intended impact of increasing quality. Rather, it will only jeopardize already-limited access to care for seniors,” said Kari Thurlow, President and CEO of LeadingAge Minnesota, in a statement.

Meanwhile, nurses at North Ridge Health in New Hope and Episcopal Church Homes in St. Paul announced their intention to unionize with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa by interrupting manager meetings and calling for better staffing, higher wages and safer working conditions.

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Cross-posted from "The best coffee shop in Minneapolis" by @m_f@discuss.online in !loops@midwest.social

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