The authors of “Let the sunshine in” win a Spotty ™

August 14, 2019

Tom Berkelman, Arne Carlson and Janet Entzel win a Spotty ™ for their Commentary

To my fellow tail-end Charlies:

August 10, 2019

If you had any question where you, the St. Louis River watershed, Ojibwe tribe members and landowners, City of Duluth, and environmentalists stood in the eyes of Glencore plc, well now, there is no doubt. If you had any before. Glencore met with Governor Walz and I guess he was bold enough to suggest that […]

Minnesota’s investment follies

August 2, 2019

Word comes via the Star Tribune that Minnesota’s investment board has invested in Glencore, Antofagasta, and Enbridge. Swell. In addition to the teensy conflict of interest it presents (all are supplicants to Minnesota agencies), this makes some members of the environmental community, well, gag, on a general level. Some people are asking for divestiture. As […]

Stauber and Emmer to save the day for Twin Metals

July 16, 2019

Take this, sulfides opponents! Members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Western Caucus, including Eighth District Representative Pete Stauber are seeking an investigation of what they’ve termed an “Obama Administration scandal-plagued land grab in northern Minnesota.” Stauber, caucus chairman Paul Gosar of Arzona, and Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, are seeking a U.S. House investigation into Obama […]

Natural law is in the eye of the beholder: his name is Mike Ebnet

July 2, 2019

Fellow Edinan Mike Ebnet got some ink in the letters section of the Strib: Here’s how I interpret that book excerpt and natural law A couple of things surprised me about a June 23 letter about the June 16 excerpt from “The Conservative Sensibility,” a new book by Washington Post columnist George F. Will. One, […]

sulfides

The Twin Metals/Trump family relationship is all over the news

June 27, 2019

But why now?

Former DNR Commish Tom Landwehr:

May 27, 2019

The fate of the headwaters of the St. Louis River is in Minnesota’s hands

Considering Amy

November 23, 2018

Professor Mark Osler tagged me in a Facebook post linking to his opinion piece in The Hill advancing the idea that Sen. Amy Klobuchar should run for president in 2020. Perhaps the tag was to invite comments from me; I hope so, because I have some. They aren’t the same as the professor’s, though. Summarizing […]

The longest, saddest, most defensive endorsement ever

August 10, 2018

The long and whiney road . . .

Banking on the gullibility of voters

July 26, 2018

Senator Tina Smith has been busy backing and filling on her first legislative initiative, the odious “Smith Amendment” attached to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have lept over the courts and the pesky litigants suing PolyMet and the Forest Service over a proposed land swap. I suspect that Sen. Smith knew the deal […]

The Annals of Muffing It

June 13, 2018

Last Friday, June 8th, Tina Smith pulled the most odious stunt of her admittedly short senatorial career. I am reluctant to call Tina Smith a senator because she never won the job in an election. She is an incumbent in only the most jocular sense. When she was appointed to the job by Governor Dayton, I […]

Trust us; we’re good for it

May 14, 2017

Minnesota’s mining regulators at the Land and Minerals Division of the Department of Natural Resources face a stiff test of fidelity to the citizens of Minnesota as described in an article by Josephine Marcotty in the Strib’s paper edition on May 14th. The issue is: what are the financial reserves that must be set aside […]