
In In Sioux Falls, Klobuchar says Trump is a 'whiner,' will hit 'beautiful blue wall' in Midwest, Jonathan Ellis reports in the Argus Leader:
Amy Klobuchar brought the zingers.
The Minnesota Senator and Democratic presidential candidate stopped in Sioux Falls Monday ahead of a holiday trip home. Democrats crammed into the home of Brendan Johnson, the former U.S. attorney and son of former Sen. Tim Johnson, to hear Klobuchar, and to write checks to her campaign.
Johnson introduced Klobuchar and recalled that when his father had a brain hemorrhage in 2006, the newly elected Klobuchar had “South Dakota’s back” while his father recovered for much of 2007. Johnson marveled at the turnout, which was between 100 and 200 people, saying he’d expected only 30.
“The reality is, this is a campaign we know speaks to so many of us,” he said.
Klobuchar, one of the survivors in what was a jam-packed Democratic field, has enjoyed a good week following a debate in Los Angeles. During the debate, she got attention for criticizing Pete Buttigieg’s comment about a wine cave fundraiser, saying she only knew about Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
Klobuchar talked about her ties to the state, saying that as a child growing up, her family frequently went to the Black Hills for vacations. “This was our big vacation place. We went here all the time.” . . .
Read the rest at the Argus Leader, and learn how Klobuchar slathered on the moderate sauce.
A page from Upper Midwest protest history
For ourselves, Bluestem appreciates some of Johnson's connections to Minnesota. He's the managing partner of the Sioux Falls office of Robins Kaplan, the prominent Minneapolis law firm that began as in the 1930s as Robins and Davis.
He's served as counsel in some high profile cases taken on by the firm. Back in October, the South Dakota ACLU noted in South Dakota Governor Drops Anti-Protest Laws in Settlement Agreement With ACLU:
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg today backed down from their unconstitutional attempts to silence protesters. Under a settlement agreement, which was submitted for court approval today, the state agreed to never enforce current state laws that prohibit protected speech and are aimed at suppressing protests against the Keystone XL pipeline. The settlement will make permanent an earlier federal court ruling that temporarily blocked enforcement of unconstitutional provisions of the anti-protest laws.
The agreement today comes in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of South Dakota and the Robins Kaplan law firm on behalf of four organizations: the Sierra Club, NDN Collective, Dakota Rural Action, and the Indigenous Environmental Network; and two individuals: Nick Tilsen with NDN Collective and Dallas Goldtooth with Indigenous Environmental Network. All are currently protesting or planning to protest the Keystone XL pipeline and/or encouraging others to do so.
The lawsuit challenged unconstitutional provisions of several South Dakota laws, including the “Riot Boosting” Act, that threatened activists who encourage or organize protests, particularly protests of the Keystone XL pipeline, with fines, civil liabilities, and/or criminal penalties of up to 25 years in prison.
In September, U.S. District Judge Lawrence L. Piersol found the anti-protest provisions of the laws unconstitutional and temporarily blocked state officials from enforcing them. Under the terms of the settlement, Noem and Ravnsborg will send a letter to the state’s attorneys in each county, telling them to direct law enforcement in their jurisdictions not to enforce the unconstitutional provisions of the laws. They will also compensate plaintiffs for attorneys’ fees.
South Dakota’s “Riot Boosting” Act joins a recently growing number of government efforts to stifle protests, particularly those led by Indigenous and environmental activists, often in opposition to pipelines. . . .
Brendan Johnson, partner with the Robins Kaplan law firm: “By equating peaceful organization and support of protest with ‘riot boosting’ and incitement to riot, the government stifled our clients’ abilities to speak out against the Keystone XL Pipeline. We’re happy that the state recognized that these vague and overbroad laws threatened the First Amendment rights of South Dakotans on every side of the issue and that, as a result of this settlement, no one’s voices will be silenced.” . . .
Nick Tilsen, president and CEO, NDN Collective: “The ‘riot boosting’ act was an insult to the Constitution and an attempt to muzzle the voices of the people and our movement to defend Mother Earth. This settlement accomplishes everything that we set out do with the lawsuit and makes the temporary injunction a permanent one. Onward, we will continue to fight for air, land, water and our rights.”
At the time we read those last two statements, Bluestem stopped dead on the page, seeing the names Robins and Tilsen so close together. A little googling turned up some radical upper history with which we'd been vaguely familiar. In the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest's entry for Ken Tilsen, there's this:
Born 1927 in New Leipzig, North Dakota. Mr. Tilsen graduated from Marshall High School in St. Paul in 1945, and went on to enroll at the University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Law School, graduating in 1950. He joined the Robins Kaplan firm [editor's note: then Robins Lyons and Davis], where he managed the St. Paul office until starting an independent practice in 1966. Mr. Tilsen was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1964, where he refused to testify. A year later, he defended leaders of the St. Paul Urban League who disrupted a St Paul construction project in a predominantly black neighborhood because the crew employed only white workers. Mr. Tilsen later defended students involved in the Morrill Hall takeover at the University of Minnesota, Minnesota farmers seeking to stop the expansion of electric power lines, and coordinated the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Committee.
That was Nick Tilsen's grandfather, but he's not the earliest activist in Nick's ancestry. Writing in Tribal College: the Journal of American Indian Higher Education, White Earth's Winona LaDuke reported in 2005 in Nick Tilsen: A new generation of activists protects the people, the land:
Tilsen comes from an amazing family. His . . . great-grandmother was Meridel LeSueur, the renowned writer, poet, Wobbly, and political activist from Minnesota. His paternal grandfather is Ken Tilsen, a civil and political rights lawyer who defended activists ranging from the Wounded Knee cases to farmers. His mother is Joanne Tall, a long-time Lakota activist who won national attention for her work opposing a toxic waste dump on the reservation. His father is Mark Tilsen, a 30-year political activist. [links added].
While South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem may have babbled on about "out-of-staters who come in to disrupt" her sacred pipeline pals, throwing in a little Sorosphobia to stir the pot, the tradition of protest and free speech in the upper midwest is homegrown in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
As Nick Tilsen put it, 'We Aren’t Outside Agitators. We are Right Here on Main Street.'
Klobuchar's position on the Keystone XL? The Star Tribune reported in 2015 in Keystone XL pipeline poses a political dilemma:
Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken voted against a Keystone XL bill last year when their party controlled the Senate, saying it did not allow the administrative review process to properly play out. The pipeline approval bill lost. But it is expected to come to a vote next week with Republicans in command.
Neither Klobuchar nor Franken was available for interviews on Keystone XL last week. Both issued statements to the Star Tribune and through communications directors said they will continue to vote against any Keystone XL bill that they believe circumvents the regular review process. Neither specifically addressed potential increases in Canadian tar sands crude oil shipments through Minnesota.
"I have consistently supported allowing the State Department permitting process to move forward so that all issues can be aired," Klobuchar said. "But this decision can't be delayed indefinitely, and I believe the administration needs to make a decision. … We have rail service and rail safety issues that need to be addressed now, even before the pipeline issues are resolved."
MinnPost's Walker Orenstein and Gabe Schneider reported in July 2019:
Klobuchar has also co-sponsored the Green New Deal and called for the U.S. to re-enter the Paris climate agreement, but environmental advocates have characterized her global warming plans as less audacious. GreenPeace USA gave Klobuchar a C- for her climate change proposals, while Inslee got an A and Sanders received a B+.
Klobuchar opposed the Keystone XL pipeline and did not fully support or oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. ...
Clearly Dennis Johnson repped a few local rads in their insistence on their first amendment rights as Americans, whatever the host's position might be on the project itself.
Photo: From South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Protests And Lawsuits Work Hand-In-Hand, "Nick Tilsen, head of NDN Collective, speaks with reporters after the Greta Thunberg environmental rally in Rapid City on Monday, Oct. 7." Photo by Victoria Wicks. Part of the rally's focus was stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, according to SDPB.
Check out NDN Collective's work here.
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