Legalectric

Is that sort of like the “working hard” v. “hardly working” conundrum?

Last week was almost a pre-COVID “back to normal” with a trip to Freeborn County to meet with two clients, new pipeline and long-time wind. I so miss being on the road, miss trucking, and miss travel out and about to meet with folks. Timing worked so well, it was a good opportunity to take out the trailer and continue to debate about whether it’s time for the trailer to go on to new owners (oh, that mpg hurts!), to debate whether a tent is really workable. And the debate is over. Now to clean it out and sell… sigh…

The Freeborn Wind project is up at the PUC next Thursday, July 7, to address the noise studies, not that they’ll do anything — seems the primary goal is to duck and cover, not deal with noisy turbines.

And the pipeline is going to be a recurring issue. There’s the “little” line going in under Northern Natural Gas’ FERC blanket authority (seems cost/size of project determines whether NNG applies to FERC); there’s the Ventura North E-Line, part of NNG’s Northern Lights 2023 Expansion applied for at FERC earlier this year; and supposedly this month, the “Albert Lea” project. We’ll see how this goes. I know there’s natural gas storage under the Prehn home along Hwy 13, below Hwy. 60, north of Waseca, and DOH, that gas has to get there somehow. And there’s the east/west gas transmission line along Hwy. 14, through my client’s yard in Kasson (and TOO MANY others). But check the map — I didn’t know that there are this many lines.

More to follow…

This list is from money.com:

Where to give money for abortion access

National Network of Abortion Funds

The National Network of Abortion Funds can help you identify a fund that’s supporting abortion access on the ground in a specific location, from the New Orleans Abortion Fund to the Lilith Fund in Texas to the Mountain Access Brigade in Tennessee.

The group also allows you to donate to a national fundraiser that will split your donation between more than 90 different funds across the country.

The National Abortion Federation

The National Abortion Federation is a professional organization of abortion providers. It offers training and security support for member facilities, and it also publishes clinical standards for providers to help ensure every patient has access to high-quality care.

Indigenous Women Rising

This organization is dedicated to ensuring the right to equitable and safe healthcare for Native and Indigenous people. It offers an abortion fund for those seeking abortions in the United States and Canada.

Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP)

This is the largest independent non-profit abortion fund. It works with more than 700 clinics across the country to provide funds for those who are unable to afford abortion services or emergency contraceptives.

The Brigid Alliance

The Brigid Alliance is a service that refers those seeking abortions to partner organizations that can help with transportation, lodging, food costs, child care and other types of logistical support. It focuses on those who need to travel for abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Today the AI world had the good sense to recommend this Grist piece:

Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s theory of everything

Color me odd, but I found this to be so uplifting, statements, theories, that make such good sense, that explain so much.

Ages ago, 1989 to be precise, I was utterly freaking out because I’d been accepted to law school, and was frantically driving thousands of miles to raise money, and I couldn’t come up with it. I so starkly remember the day when I had to check in and let WMCL know I couldn’t register, I’d caught up on house payments but didn’t have the about $1,000 cash to grab my place. That day, at an Albany truckstop, was one of the worst. When accepted, that acceptance is “good” for 3 years, and I missed 1989, which sure blasted my 15 year plan to finish my B.A. and law school in 15 years. OK, regroup, get that next load, Curious George tapes from NY to Jefferson City, MO (was this the time of that state occupation and shutdown of Mohawk casino I had to drive around, no, that was a year later, unreal seeing state police blocking road and having to drive through the dirt roads to get through – another story for another day.). Keep driving and trying to raise money.

While focusing on raising money, I also was looking at a “Plan B” if money wasn’t going to happen, and as a truckdriver, that was always a more than likely result. Plan B was to go for a PhD in Philosophy. I’d really enjoyed my philosophy classes at Metro, and at U of M a decade before even more, the ethics class, very small group, professor plus TWO TAs — a deep dive into ethics — that was when I first started seriously thinking about going on after BA. When this hurdle for law school stopped me cold, grasping at “what now,” I called up the head of the department at U of M to see if getting in was a possibility, and it was the law school acceptance that triggered a “YES!” with a lot of catching up prerequisites, and Plan B was a possibility. Ethics is what really grabbed me, blew my dress up for sure! The thing about philosophy is that so much is “ancient” history, and ethics, though a lot of history, has such work and relevance in the present. Anyway, law school did work, it took two more years to start, so another 200,000 miles, and more PTSD-inducing trauma than I care to remember, 3 years of utter hell just trying to survive, pretty much losing everything, including my Mark VI alto, oh, those days were awful…

But back to philosophy… read this, the perfect antidote for “today” and where we’re at, his view of justice and the need to act thoughtfully in big picture scope:

Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s theory of everything

An essay:

Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference

And here are his two books thus far (not on my go-to abebooks yet):

Reconsidering Reparations – at Harvard Bookstore

Elite Capture – at Haymarket

And now I’m wondering about diving into school again before I drop dead! Or an intense round of independent study. Banking on another 20 years, and my interests in things “City of Red Wing” focus on revising the City’s Code of Conduct, and the Red Wing Citizens Assembly showed interest in ethics of government officials (we’d not long before booted out the Mayor for his ethical lapses). Plan C?

I’m seeing a lot of handringing. Do read Heather Cox Richardson’s explanation of where we’re at, it’s linked below, and focus on the big picture, and the need to ACT! Stand up, NOW, and OFTEN. We have to get to work, and keep working.

READ THE DECISION.

Now, as if this isn’t bad enough, this is the door opening to other decisions allowing states to take away rights.

Each of the newer Supreme Court justices lied under oath and demonstrated that stare decisis is NOT a legal principle they are at all concerned about.

Heather Cox Richardson’s take on this is important to understand. This is one step in a planned, plotted, effort to take away our rights.

Heather Cox Richardson, June 24, 2002

For the first time in our history, rather than conveying rights, the court has explicitly taken a constitutional right away from the American people...

The Dobbs decision marks the end of an era: the period in American history stretching from 1933 to 1981, the era in which the U.S. government worked to promote democracy. It tried to level the economic playing field between the rich and the poor by regulating business and working conditions. It provided a basic social safety net through programs like Social Security and Medicare and, later, through food and housing security programs. It promoted infrastructure like electricity and highways, and clean air and water, to try to maintain a basic standard of living for Americans. And it protected civil rights by using the Fourteenth Amendment, added to the U.S. Constitution in 1868, to stop states from denying their citizens the equal protection of the laws.

Now is the time to ACT. Do something every day. Donate to viable candidates near and far, and work on campaigns. Donate to non-profits working on abortion rights, and also those organizations working on the big picture preservation of Constitutional rights v. the states rights bandwagon to eliminate rights. Contact OFTEN your state’s U.S. Representatives and Senators to push for codification. Sign up to help transport and house and support women coming to our state and others (there are many maps floating around, believe this to be accurate, but ?):

Other suggestions for ACTIONS?!?! Do add a comment, please!!

No hearing today, 6/15, and 6/23 added. Also, note the time changes.