A sharp-eyed political activist brought http://bruceforsenate.com/, the Candidate Website URL on Bruce Anderson's filing information online at the Secretary of State's website to Bluestem's attention.

The link leads to the campaign website for Bruce Poliquin, "A Fiscally Conservative, Courageous Voice For Maine."

The mis-direction doesn't seem to be a typo on the part of the Secretary of State's office, since the same URL is used at the campaign committee's registration at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

The committee was registered with the Board on February 28, 2012.

Now serving in the Minnesota House, Bruce Anderson is seeking election in the redistricted Senate seat more-or-less left open by the retirement of former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, who stepped down from her leadership position after being confronted about her affair with senior Majority Caucus staff member Michael Brodkorb.

Snuggled in conservative Wright County, Minnesota, the seat is reliably Republican. Bluestem doubts that Anderson will have to order new campaign literature with the correct URL, although we do advise that the committee alert the Board and the SOS office about the problem.

Screenshots: Bruce Anderson's filing at the MN SOS's site (above); The Other Bruce's homepage, below.

As we return to another episode of Emo Senator, Southern Minnesota's most watched telenovela, loyal fans find Mike Parry, the Belle of Waseca County, reigning over the parade circuit, while Allen Quist attacks Congressman Walz for just about everything.

Mike Parry's Facebook page features new photos from Morristown's Dam Days and Luverne's Buffalo Days parades. Fans will be thrilled to see the new friend our diva acquired in the Rock County capitol. Since the CEO of the chicken's corporate sponsor gives to Republicans, the photo might be a desperate appeal for campaign contributions.

The Emo Senator could use the help, since few people are seeing these photos on Facebook. Today's Morning Take notes:

SOCIAL:  In the CD1 GOP primary race, Allen Quist has 700 “likes” on Facebook and Sen. Mike Parry has 216.

If you have followed Emo Senator on the page of Bluestem Prairie, do the right thing and "Like" the Emo Senator's congressional campaign Facebook page.

Meanwhile at his Facebook page, Allen Quist scolds Congressman Walz for wanting to invest in infrastructure and science. Don't believe those maps that have Highway 14 heading to Wisconsin; fixing roads and bridges would cost money and those roads lead only to Greece.

Parry fan-zine Faribault Daily News also noted that Quist stopped by their office in Allen Quist and the FDN and they found him to be a bird of a different feather:

If Allen Quist's name were found in the thesaurus, the entry would read: "Deficit hawk."

After officially filing his papers for his 1st Congressional District candidacy in St. Paul Wednesday afternoon, Quist stopped by the FDN newsroom to talk on his platform and plans for the future -- which revolve primarily around yearly federal spending limits, aggressive reductions in private sector financial support (Read: Bailouts) and discretionary spending. . . .

Image: Mike Parry and the Gold N Plump Chickenmobile at Luverne's Buffalo Days. This must be how we get Buffalo Wings or something.

Yesterday, MPR picked up an Associated Press article, Colleges' bank deals saddle students with big fees which reviewed the finding of The Campus Debit Card Trap, a report issued Wednesday by the US PIRG Education Fund. From the AP article:

As many as 900 colleges are pushing students into using payment cards that carry hefty costs, sometimes even to get to their financial aid money, according to a report to be released Wednesday by a public interest group.

Colleges and banks rake in millions from the fees, often through secretive deals and sometimes in apparent violation of federal law, according to the report, an early copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

More than two out of five U.S. higher-education students -- more than 9 million people -- attend schools that have deals with financial companies, says the report, written by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Higher Education Fund.

The fees add to the mountain of debt many students already take on to get a diploma. U.S. student debt tops $1 trillion, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Student loans have surpassed credit cards as the biggest source of unsecured debt in America, according to the CFPB, which regulates cards and private student lenders.

While the debit cards are optional, students must opt out, in most of the deals inked by colleges and financial institutions.

The AP article cites a TCF arrangement with the University of Minnesota that's related to naming rights to the Gophers' stadium, and the cutline on the photo accompanying the piece reads:

Students walk across the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus in an October 2011 file photo. As many as 900 colleges -- including the University of Minnesota -- are pushing students into using payment cards that carry hefty costs.

But the flagship school and local bank TCF aren't the only ones with a partnership.

A review by Bluestem Prairie revealed that MCTC, Central Lakes College, Century College, Dakota County Technical College, Hennepin Technical College, Inver Hills Community College, Lake Superior College, North Hennepin Community College, St. Paul College and Metropolitan State all have deals with the debit card company at the center of the report: Higher One.

A list of MNSCU campus Higher One ATM machines is located here, and the menu of individual Higher One campuses is found here.

So what's the problem with the arrangement? 

Programs like Higher One's shift the cost of handing out financial aid money from universities, which no longer have to print and mail checks, to fee-paying students, said Rich Williams, the report's lead author.

"For decades, student aid was distributed without fees," Williams said. "Now bank middlemen are making out like bandits using campus cards to siphon off millions of student aid dollars."

Students can opt out of the programs and choose direct deposit or paper checks to receive their college aid, but relatively few do. The cards and accounts are marketed aggressively using college letterhead and websites carrying the endorsement of colleges. Higher One also warns students that it will take extra days if they choose direct deposit or a paper check.

This seems to be accurate. Century College, for example, has posted a FAQ pdf for the Century Choice Card. The headnote reads:

Century College has partnered with Higher One, a financial services company focused solely on higher education, to offer faster delivery of refunds to students. Higher One will help bring this method for receiving refunds via the Century Choice Card Debit MasterCard®. The Century Choice Card will be your key to faster refunds and increased choice for receiving your Financial Aid or school refunds, including the preferred Easy Refunds method. Easy Refund is by far the fastest and easiest way to gain access to your refund money—literally the same day Century College releases it. With this service on the way to
campus, it’s natural that you may have some questions. Below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the all-new Century Choice Card and this new refund process.

It's pretty hard to find much about the cost of the card in the Century Choice Card FAQ or at any of the community and technical colleges' websites. The AP notes a few listed in the USPIRG report:

Among the fees charged to students who open Higher One accounts: $50 if an account is overdrawn for more than 45 days, $10 per month if the student stops using his account for six months, $29 to $38 for overdrawing an account with a recurring bill payment and 50 cents to use a PIN instead of a signature system at a retail store.

Read the entire USPRIG report for details.

What are the details of the arrangements that some MNSCU schools have with HigherOne, and what consumer information about the potential costs are shared with students at participating campuses?

Higher One's founder told the AP that everything is hunky-dory, citing the financial corporation's own report to back up his claim:

Higher One founder and Chief Operating Officer Miles Lasater said in an email that the company takes compliance with the government's rules "very seriously," and officially swears that to the government each year.

"We are committed to providing good value accounts that are designed for college students," he said, and students must review the company's fee list when they sign up for an account. He cited a study commissioned by Higher One that declared Higher One "a low-cost provider for this market." The same study found that the median fees charged to the 2 million students with Higher One accounts totaled $49 annually.

The Century College FAQ stresses "free," rather than $49. 

US PIRG's report makes a number of recommendations that the authors believe will strengthen the position of students. They also observe that scrutiny in other areas where government has partly privatized financial services has brought better deals:

Inquiries into the privatization of government benefits through the use of prepaid cards in other sectors, suchas state unemployment benefirts, have suggested that transparency of terms and fees, as well as contracts, leads to governments making better deals, with fewer fees, for their clients.

Hat-tip: Facebook friend Kevin Chavis for posting the AP article and suggesting that MCTC has a deal with Higher One.

Image: The Century Choice Card.

One indication of the shifting sands of the Republican Party of Minnesota?

Glen Menze, who received 27.67% of the vote when he ran as the 2008 endorsed Republican party congressional candidate in CD7, has filed for the United States Senate under the the Independence Party banner.

Menze has already snagged one political party's endorsement. On May 22, the Post Bulletin printed Whig party provides a political alternative, a letter to the editor announcing that a different third part had endorsed Menze:

The Minnesota Whig party convention was held May 20. The Whig party has a proud history in national and state politics. Four U.S. presidents were Whigs: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. Also, the first territorial governor of Minnesota was a Whig.

The big news is that we endorsed Glen Menze as our candidate for the U.S. Senate. Glen is an experienced campaigner who is both fiscally conservative and socially moderate. His main issues are fiscal responsibility, campaign reform, health care, and banking reform.

On health care, he supports universal access to basic medical care with payment on a sliding scale. The Whig party also supports energy independence, tax code simplification, and a strong national defense.

Kurt Bills must be quaking in his boots from this challenge by a former Republican.

Image: Bluestem has chosen a painting of a memorable Whig leader to illustrate this post. William Henry Harrison. According to his Wikipedia entry:

Harrison died on his 32nd day in office^[a] of complications from pneumonia, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history.

Browsing through the Faribault Daily News article, Former Medford mayor, home schooling mom file for state, Faribault offices, Bluestem is struck by the remarks of the latter.

FDN staff writer Joseph Lindberg reports:

Peggy Ployhar, a former Quality Assurance Analyst in the medical device industry and recent Special Needs Coordinator for the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators, officially added her name to the Faribault School Board race Tuesday afternoon.

“In order for our schools to keep up with those changes and still provide quality education to our increasingly diverse student population, adjustments need to be made,” she said in a release.

“Putting more revenue into a school structure which no longer works for the majority of our children in District 656 is something we can no longer afford, fiscally or socially,” she said.

Bluestem wondered how that statement might have been edited, and so found Ployhar's release at her campaign blog:

Peggy states: “The dynamics of who we are as a community have changed over the years. In order for our schools to keep up with those changes and still provide quality education to our increasingly diverse student population, adjustments need to be made. Putting more revenue into a school structure which no longer works for the majority of our children in District 656 is something we can no longer afford, fiscally or socially. I am willing to work hard to see those changes made so the quality of our public education in Faribault is consistent and relevant to the needs we are encountering now and in the future.”

Under Why I Am Running For School Board, Ployhar notes:

I guess for me to answer the question, “Why are you running for school board?” is all the more poignant since I am the mother of three school-aged children whom I choose to home school over enroll in the Faribault public school system. Well, my answer is this: I am running for a position on the Faribault school board because I am grieved over an educational system that is not meeting the needs of the children in our community (our test scores do not lie on that fact).

So what are those test scores? And what is the school system like? In the Great Schools profile of the district, Bluestem learned that the district's Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment-II scores are fairly low, but there's more. While the data is old, it reveals a student population where 43 percent of the students receive free or reduced lunches. The student body is also significantly more brown than the rest of Minnesota.

Moreover, in early May, the paper reported that the board earlier had worked to cut the district's budget:

The suggestion of a new levy came up in board meetings during the budget cuts in March. In their final decision, the school board took $350,000 from the district’s general fund and $549,000 from the district’s Separation/Severance Costs fund in order to reach their goal of $1.3 million in budget cuts.

Elsewhere on the site, Ployhar calls the school system "an ugly festering cancerous growth" that "any amount of money" couldn't rectify without "changing the core of our educational system," while proposing a "complete quality assurance audit" and  staffing cuts.

Why cuts can solve the local schools' problems while no increased revenues can't isn't really explained.

She does propose a system where classrooms are open for intense scrutiny:

Classrooms need to be visited, monitored and reviewed frequently, not only by school administration but also by school board members, parents, and concerned citizens. Through this process, problems in the schools will no longer just be heard about or by word of mouth be told they were resolved, but instead they will be seen, realized, documented, followed up on, and eliminated.

Is she proposing LEFs like those supported by the Public Education Network--or what, exactly? If anything, she seems to be following the trend that privileges evaluating and punishing schools over actually devoting resources to educating.

While one can understand the need to cut budgets in the wake of revenue shortfalls, why does Ployhar connect changes in the community and diversity to the need for budget cuts? What's that thing Faribault can't afford "socially"?

Ployhar, who lives at "a 5 acre hobby farm a few miles out of Faribault" with "her husband Doug, their three children, and an ever increasing menagerie of farm animals"  also blogs at Shedding Light on the Pathway Leading to True Life and Whole Foods Whole Family.

Perhaps she can use her campaign blog to shed some light on just what she means about the Faribault Schools. Her most recent experience with a household member attending a public school comes not from Faribault, but from that nearby bastion of indoctrination, the Kenyon-Wanamingo system.

In one "Shedding Light" blog post from the beginning of May, Questioning All Things For Truth,  Ployhar brings it up, without naming the particular school:

The other morning as our exchange student was leaving for school our oldest son said to her, “Have fun learning everything they tell you.”  She of course smiled and happily skipped out the door with every intention to do just that – believe everything she was being taught in school as completely accurate and legitimate.  Naturally she did not understand the underlying reality my son was referring to, which is reiterated in the Proverb above, because she has never been taught to question but rather just believe and integrate into that belief system what she has been told.  In contrast my children have been taught to question everything.  That is, my children question new ideas until they come to a point where they can prove the idea they have been taught with certain evidence – solid truth.

For Ployhar, that solid truth is the Bible and she advises that any path with doesn't reconcile with the Bible should be abandoned.

Certainly, as a resident of the United States, she has the right to believe that. However, she doesn't have the right to speak for the exchange student, who is herself a blogger.

The cheerful Indonesian teenager dwelling in the Ployhar domicile isn't attending the Faribault schools, but rather catches a bus for the Kenyon-Wanamingo schools.  In Joyful is always there when I try :D, she writes about learning from the local school, the family and from the Ployhar's church community.

And while English is her second language and some of her reflections are a bit difficult to parse, the intensely happy young woman seems to be more of a critical thinker than her host mother gives her credit for, however little the student employs Ployhar's single standard of  "Biblical truth" for assessing everything.

The student writes in Joyful is always there when I try :D:

. . .Challenge is always there whenever you decide to leave your comfort zone. I enjoyed facing the challenge during my stay. Because I believe challenge gives me the joy when I had passed it.

During my stay, I go to Kenyon-Wanamingo High School. It is interesting because my host family do homeschool. It means they do not go to the same public school that I go to. I learned the system of the homeschool that my host family does, basically they do more exploration about their school materials and they have more flexible time. . . .

One thing I like about living in the diversity is when there is nobody even bothers with what you decide on. I enjoyed being in the church community that my host family goes to. I found such a good friendship in the youth group. I do not mind to learn what they believe in and I felt excited to share about what I believe. From that I know we all have the commonality. It was also such a joyful for me to join the church retreat for three days in the middle of fall, in which we all found the fellowship among the youth in that church. It was such an interesting thing when my friends in that retreat saw me doing my worship praying. They thought it was something strange, but I told them I was doing my pray. It just the way thing happened when people do not really familiar with a thing. So, it is important to share what people have not understood about.

Photo: Peggy Ployhar and her family, including the Indonesian exchange student. From the Ployhar campaign website.

As we return to another episode of Emo Senator, Southern Minnesota's most watched telenovela, now in its extended summer primary season, we find our hero, Mike Parry, the Belle of Waseca County, being savagely attacked by Christian conservative Republican Allen Quist for an alleged indifference over Medicaid fraud.

The Post Bulletin's Heather Carlson reports in Quist blasts Parry for failing to investigate Medicaid fraud claim:

First District Congressional candidate Allen Quist is attacking Republican rival Mike Parry for not conducting a hearing to investigate claims of Medicaid fraud in Minnesota.

In an email sent to supporters, Quist claims Parry told members of the First District Republican's Central Committee earlier this month, "There is no fraud." He said that Parry failed in his duties as chairman of the Senate Government Innovation and Veterans Committee by not calling a hearing after federal investigations into potential Medicaid fraud in the state were launched. . . .

Parry's principle paladin points a finger back at Quist:

Parry campaign spokesman Ben Golnik said Quist is misrepresenting what Parry said and it "is outrageous" to suggest the senator from Waseca does not believe there is fraud in the state's Medicaid system.

While low-information voters in the GOP base may think that the two are arguing over which contender has the potential to be meanest to poor people who so don't deserve heath care because they are poor and obviously scamming someone, the "fraud" has to do with overpayments by the state to HMOs. Carlson explains:

Minnesota's program came to Grassley's attention after the state announced UCare was donating $30 million to the state. The federal government argued it was a reimbursement for Medicaid overpayments and that it should get half of the money. The state ended up agreeing to send half of the money to the federal government.

Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson has said the problems with the state's Medicaid program stem from contracts with HMOs that were signed during Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration.

Golnik tells Carlson that the overpayments aren't an indication of fraud, but Parry so too believes there is fraud in the system. There's more over at the PB; go read the whole story.

Earlier this year, the DFL tracker taped Allen Quist's press conferences about the allegations, posting the eight Youtube episode online. Mike Parry claims that the DFL only tracks him, and that this is an indication that the Democrats fear the Emo Senator. Fiddle-dee-dee!

Stay tuned for future episodes.

Image: Mike Parry, the Emo Senator, photoshopped by Tild.

Related post: The new black eye: Star Tribune repeats Mike Parry's empty boast about DFL tracker

The Faribault County Register reports that Representative Bob Gunther told Blue Earth residents gathered at a Town Hall that "very possible scenario has been studied" about solving the logistical problems posed by an amendment to the Minnesota state constitution requiring voters to have a state-issued photo ID with their current address on it.

The claim contradicts statements made by the amendment's Senate sponsor and other supporters that the details of implementing the amendment would be worked out in the next legislative session.

In Legislators explain session at BE forum, FCR editor Chuck Hunt reports:

Several persons voiced concern over the new proposal to require photo ID cards to vote. The legislators said the decision will be made in November by the voters themselves, and would be a constitutional amendment. . . .

Local citizens had plenty of questions about how persons without driver's licenses will be able to get a photo ID card.

Gunther and Rosen say the voting cards would be available at courthouses across the state.

"Every possible scenario has been studied," Gunther says. "We will make this work."

Representative Gunther must have been burning the midnight oil in a fortress of solititude somewhat, since that assertion will be news to the rest of the Minnesota legislature, including those members who voted to put the amendment on this fall's ballot.

Let's review.

Minnpost's James Nord reported in Voter ID plan raises many practical questions:

Because constitutional amendments are broadly worded, GOP Sen. Scott Newman’s bill leaves the details of implementing Voter ID for later. He reiterated that both the fiscal impact and the policy provisions of a Voter ID bill would have to be decided by next year’s Legislature.

If voters approve the measure in November, lawmakers next session would have to figure out how such a system would work and pass a separate law. . . .

Newman pushed off discussion of cost until 2013 because of provisions in his bill that require lawmakers to later iron out the specifics of the proposal.

“We don’t really have any solid fiscal note, and it is speculation,” Senate Finance Chairwoman Claire Robling said before the amendment passed onto the Senate Rules and Administration Committee last week.

Last week Nord wrote in Could Photo ID be scuttled even if Minnesota voters approve constitutional amendment?:

The amendment, which polls show highly favored by the public, would require voters to show a photo ID in order to cast a ballot. Despite highly publicized campaigns against Voter ID, many opponents seem resigned to the likelihood that it will pass.

But even if it does, it would be up to the next Legislature to fill in the statutory blanks of how the system would work, since the wording of the bite-size amendment speaks only in generalities.

. . .[Mary] Kiffmeyer, a former secretary of state, called the amendment “very self-executing,” meaning that much of it would operate even without enacting language. So voters would still be required to present “valid government-issued photographic identification” at the polls.

But there’s no clarity on how that system would work or what the future holds.

Kiffmeyer is the chief author of the bill in the House.

What was Gunther trying to say when he answered legitimate questions from his constituents? And is he trying for the ACLU's $1000 reward for evidence of voter impersonation when he talks about voter fraud in Fairmont in the 2010 election?

Photo: Bob Gunther, via Capitol Chatter by Don Davis.

In Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Is an ALEC Member, PR Watch's Rebekah Wilce reports that News Corps' Senior Vice President, Bill Guidera,  "attended ALEC's April 2010 Spring Task Force Summit in St. Louis, Missouri, as a member of what was then called the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force."

The presence of Guidera at the 2010 meeting creates a "discrepancy" between ALEC statements that News Corp., which owns Fox News Network, joined the corporate front group in 2012, Wilce reports.

As long time ALEC watchers, Bluestem can walk the Guidera-ALEC association back to 2007. In ALEC’s Regional Field Teams: Connecting with Members Face-to-Face, on page 2 of the December 2007 "Inside ALEC" newsletter, there's this:

“At times a bill is seen as the easy solution to a tough problem, yet that bill may create even more problems. Todd (Kruse) and his team cut through the puffery to reach the core issues with clear, conservative policy solutions,” said Bill Guidera of News Corp, an ALEC member based in Minnesota.

ALEC is currently developing a Southeast Regional Field Team with the experienced leadership of ALEC board member, Rep. Earl Ehrhart of Georgia, and there will eventually be a total of seven regions building upon the success of the Central Region.

ALEC members are encouraged to share their ideas as ALEC develops an expansion plan that is synchronized with our members’ legislative priorities.

Todd A. Kruse is ALEC’s Senior Director of Regional Field Teams. He is based in Minnesota and can be reached at 612-423-5621 or tkruse@alec.org.

Guidera, once mentioned as a possible candidate against Senator Amy Klobuchar, serves as Finance Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota.

According to the Inside ALEC article:

By working with ALEC State Chairs, the Regional Field Team helps to advance Jeffersonian principles and raise awareness of ALEC model legislation at the grassroots level in legislators’ own backyards. “The Field Team is ALEC’s personal lifeline of information, contacts, experience and assistance provided to us right where we need it – at our door,” said Missouri Rep. Jane Cunningham.

The Regional Field Teams appear to have been abandoned by ALEC after a change in its national office. Kruse does not appear to work for ALEC now (the connection is omitted from his online biography), although he remains active in Minnesota's conservative community.

Photo: Bill Guidera, from the RPM's website.

In Bluestem's last post, Missing in Minnpost: Are Quistian soldiers training at Tea Party Agenda 21 bootcamps yet?, we looked at long history of anti-Agenda 21 activism on the part of EdWatch, Michele Bachmann and Allen Quist.

On a friend's Facebook post of the MinnPost article, retiring state senator and champion of sanity Linda Higgins reminded readers of SF 2117, which passed out of Mike Parry's State Government Innovation and Veterans committee.

Not to be left behind in this rapture or the struggle for endorsement over Quist, Mike Parry is also a co-sponsor of the legislation that establishes a "Legislative Commission on United Nations Agenda 21."

Oh good.

David Thompson and Al DeKruif are the other sponsors, while my dear friend Mary Franson is the chief author in the Minnesota House, with Sondra Erickson getting her back on HF2558.

A pamphlet at the state convention the first shot? Not likely.

Image: Mike Parry, by Tild.

Update: On Facebook, Senator Linda Higgins (DFL-Minneapolis) has noted SF2117, which passed out on Quist congressional rival Mike Parry's committee. SF2117, authored by David Brown, established the Legislative Commission on United Nations Agenda 21 Establishment. Now we're really not sure why Harris thinks the pamphlet was the first shot, since the convention took place after the session closed. See Missing in Minnpost Part II: Parry is co-sponsor of SF2117, establishing the Legislative Commission on United Nations Agenda 21 for more. end update.

Southern Minnesotans collectively are baffled as to how intelligent Twin Citians miss so much of the richness of Allen Quist's intellectual endeavors. Next to frac sand, hogs or field corn, it's one of our richest raw commodities, but it takes national attention to one of his periodic bids for office for the rest of the state to appreciate this. Again.

Were they devoted Quisters (sort of like birders, except we keep life lists for Allen and his Quistian followers), things like the menace of Agenda 21 would come as no surprise. Opening up the worldview of the Quistians is as rewarding as getting permitted for a frac sand mine, though hardly as lucrative.

Take poor Marlys Harris at MinnPost, who believes that a pamphlet handed to her as she headed to the "powder room" by a "man in a dark blue sports jacket" marks the beginning of something new. She writes in Agenda 21 and looming battles over urban development:

First shot

The pamphlet may be the first shot across the bow in Minnesota on behalf of a movement sweeping the country. Anti-Agenda 21 and anti- sustainability, it has its roots in the Tea Party and other libertarian groups who oppose any kind of smart growth, urban planning, density, mass transit and environmental regulation.

Well, if it's the first time she saw it, it must be the first shot, given that Harris has a lot of credentials valued by Minnpost, including experience as an investigative reporter, a masters degree and institutional underwriting for her column at Minnpost by not only the McKnight Foundation but the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative as well.

Sadly no. This isn't the first shot by nearly a decade.

Allen Quist, who led the balloting at the end of the epic 23-round Thrilla in Vanilla at the Republican CD1 convention at the historic Kato Ballroom, lately has been touring Minnesota's Tea Party circuit for months, warning about the terrors of Agenda 21, as well as lecturing about it from the bully pulpit of his congressional campaign website, after being one of the founding fathers of the Blue Helmet Fear Club, Agenda 21 Chapter.

Warnings about Agenda 21 have been standard fare among Minnesota's Tea Party gatherings, have been for months.

For instance: somehow Harris's keen investigative research skills missed this presentation to the North Metro Tea Party's October2011 monthly meeting:

And this wasn't Quist's first Agenda 21 talk to a Minnesota Tea Party gathering. Back on July 11, 2011, the SW Metro Tea Party hosted Quist's presentation (Facebook notice here and SW Metro Tea Party page here).

And in a January post, January thaw: Minnesota Tea Party events boldly explore classic paranoid style political bugaboos, Bluestem wrote about Behind The Green Curtain, a meeting sponsored by the primary statewide tea party organization in Minnesota, the North Star Tea Party Patriots. The discussion centered on property rights.

But despite this recent froth of anti-Agenda 21 meetings by major Tea Party chapters in Minnesota, Bluestem supposes that the Smart People in the Twin Cities will follow Harris's leading and take her narrative of wondering who is behind the obscure New World Order conspiracists at KeepMNFree.

This site appears to have begun posting about Agenda 21 in Srring 2012., but the Great Morrow forbid that information that doesn't support an writer's angle in presenting a new shiny object be considered--and so better for a writer to take up an obscure group than to ask North Star Tea Party Patriot spokester Walter Hudson, who probably wouldn't be shy about answering Harris's questions.

And the Tea Party meetings reflect a long-term concern about Agenda 21 on the North Star State's rightwing. Quist's been campaigning on Agenda 21 for months--and talking about it for years with his Minnesota friends.

In December, Quist wrote in UN Gun Control:

President Obama is supporting a UN arms treaty that could bring international gun control to the United States and slap America’s gun owners with severe restrictions. This treaty is part of the Agenda 21 master plan which requires that international gun control be applied to all countries. . . .

Oh noes! In his bio, Quist claims authority about Agenda 21:

Quist is a nationally recognized author and speaker on numerous topics including the federal No Child Left Behind law, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the myth of global warming, Agenda 21, integrated math, and the controversial International Baccalaureate curriculum.

Indeed, a Nexis search revealed that the discussion of Agenda 21 by Quist and his mentee, Michele Bachmann, predates the creation of the Tea Party itself. Veteran Bachmann watcher Bill Prendergast, then writing at Dump Bachmann cited a 2008 Canada Free Press column in Bachmann, Ron Paul, Phyllis Schlafly, EdWatch--They'll All Be There...>

Tom Deweese wrote in Agenda 21 or Freedom 21:Connecting the Dots to Tyranny:

If you choose freedom, then there is a counter to Agenda 21 and its Sustainable Development program. It’s called Freedom 21, and it’s quickly growing into a “freedom movement.” Freedom 21 is not an organization. It is a loose coalition of groups and individuals who believe that our nation’s Founding Fathers had it right when they established this nation as one with tightly controlled reins on government. The Founding Fathers believed that all individuals were born with their rights of individual liberty, and that government’s job is to protect those rights as individuals pursue their own dreams and goals. That’s the basis for the Freedom 21 agenda.

Freedom 21 was organized nine years ago by Henry Lamb (Environmental Conservation Organization), Tom DeWeese (American Policy Center), Craig Rucker and David Rothbard (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow), and representatives of Eagle Forum. Today, this group is joined by The Chicago-based Heartland Institute, Edwatch of Minnesota, Freedom Advocates from Santa Cruz, California, Sovereignty International, Stewards of the Range, OKSAFE of Oklahoma, and the American land Foundation, based in Texas.

But the record goes even farther back before Quist is explicitly named--but Edwatch, the group Julie and Allen Quist helped found, is there from the get-go on nationwide anti-Agenda 21 activism. The Quists and EdWatch were there at the beginning on uberconservative organizing against Agenda 21, as was Bachmann.

MoJo's Tim Murphy took a look in 2011 at the connection between Freedom 21, EdWatch and Michele Bachmann's anti-sustainability agenda. Murphy wrote:

Bachmann's penchant for asking conspiratorial questions didn't go unnoticed by her colleagues. Her Democratic opponents in the state senate came up with a nickname for Bachmann and her followers: "Black Helicopter Republicans"—a nod to fringe types who believe the United Nations is running covert missions in their backyards.

In the state Senate, Bachmann took up another favorite issue of Agenda 21 opponents—mass transit, which they believe will prompt the displacement of citizens into confined areas and the elimination of privately owned automobiles.

As the Minnesota Independent reported, Bachmann bashed "impractical and expensive" public transit in her campaign literature and called light rail a "black hole" for funding. She voted to cut off funding to a commuter rail project connecting St. Cloud to the Twin Cities—a line that cut through the heart of her future congressional district—and cosponsored a bill to abolish the regional rail authority.

Perhaps Harris and her sources--and MinnPost's editors--haven't noticed, but the Bachmann-Quist wing of Minnesota have been fighting their fears of an Agenda 21 planet for nearly a decade in Minnesota.  Maybe Harris needs to get out to more Republican and Tea Party events--or Nexis--or state senate video archives--more often if she wants to refrain from shooting blanks about the first shot in Minnesota's Agenda 21 skirmishes.

Update: At least one GOP-endorsed candidate for the Minnesota House has connected Agenda 21 with the Met Council.  Given the voter index, it's unlikely he'll win, but it doesn't support that notion that there's no anti-Agenda21 chatter out there. 

Images: Allen Quist, by Ken Avidor (above); the North Star Tea Party Patriots' January Agenda21 program.