I don’t need to tell you that it’s the Friday before a three-day weekend. I’m here in my pajamas in my living room chanting, “U.S.A.” like Sen. Eric Lucero, R-St. Michael, in a sparkly jacket on Sunday night.

Let’s take it back to last Friday night when I returned home from former President Trump’s speech at the RiverCentre. The hour was late and I was still confounded by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s walk-out music: AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.” Sample lyric (I’m a rolling thunder, pouring rain. I’m coming on like a hurricane. White lightning’s flashing across the sky. You’re only young, but you’re gonna die.) Despite the tough-guy music, I tried to talk to Emmer, introducing myself along with AP reporter Steve Karnowski. Emmer mumbled and his handler promptly pushed him forward (after he’d done his requisite TV interviews slamming President Joe Biden). No time, the handler said. Second time I’ve met Emmer. Second time he refused questions.

Those Republicans love AC/DC as Sen. John Jasinski of Faribault walked out to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” and noted the choice in his remarks in advance of Trump’s speech. (Rode down the highway. Broke the limit, we hit the town) Jasinski was one of two legislators I saw at the event. Rep. Joe McDonald, R-Delano, was there as well, but he said he was on duty, working a paid gig as a photographer. In introducing Trump, Jasinski said he was bringing a **warm welcome on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, who couldn’t attend.

The Senate GOP, of course, has seized many opporitunities in the past month to deride the DFL and Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of Woodbury, because she faces one felony burglary charge. (Her next court date is in early June.) And yet Trump faces so many felony charges in so many jurisdictions that Politico offers an extensive tracker.

Ok, but that’s all a digression. Let’s get back to the beavers. I flipped on the Senate floor session après Trump and they were talking about a ban on eating beavers in the Department of Natural Resources conference committee report.

Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul, whose first language is not English, told fellow senators that he had learned a new expression, “eager beaver” during discussion of the bill. (Idiomatic expressions do not come easily to him in foreign languages, he said.)

Sen. Nathan Wesenberg, R-Little Falls, and a hunting and wildlife aficionado, provided what became a viral moment as I immediately tweeted his words, “We’re talking about the legalities of eating beaver. That’s just ridiculous. I eat beaver. It’s fine, nobody’s going to get in trouble for it.”

The bill banned the consumption of beaver, which is a long way from where it started with Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights. Gustafson said she was trying to help a constituent who has beavers on his property in White Bear Lake and sought to manage them by non-lethal (to the beavers) means. The initial plan was to allow for the trapping and moving of beavers.

Wesenberg successfully amended the bill to limit the no-kill beaver provisions to the 7-county Twin Cities metro. Then Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, amended make it legal to kill, trap and keep the beavers. Alas, by the time the bill returned from the conference committee to the Senate last Friday, the lone remaining beaver provision banned their consumption. Beavers, it turns out, have a constituency. BeaverCon 2024 is set for October in Boulder, Colo.

The end result didn’t do much for Gustafson’s constituent who just wanted to keep them off his property. In summation on a phone call Thursday, Hawj said the 2024 beaver battle was but a beginning. “The bottom line is that the legislative beaver war is to be continued,” he said.

The debate also yielded talks of a Squirrel Stew Summit with Hawj and Wesenberg. Hawj has not eaten beaver, but he has eaten squirrel and said it’s a “little gamey.” For the summit, Hawj suggested he and Wesenberg each prepare the dish per their own traditions. This would not be Hawj’s first squirrel summit.

HOUSING ACTION: Colleague Josie Albertson-Grove looks at the scorecard for housing measures in the recent session. The Legislature passed smaller measures but failed to adopt a new statewide zoning law or ban Section 8 discrimination. Sen. Lucero said he wanted to see less stringent energy efficiency standards approved to cut costs for builders. “We need to take some serious steps to decrease the cost and increase the supply,” Lucero said.

FANS FIRST: Sen. Amy Klobuchar has been fighting on this longer than most and I spoke to her twice on Thursday about the Justice Department’s anti-trust lawsuit against Live Nation. She says the feds went big on this one to bust up a monopoly. Lawsuits take time, but Klobuchar said change could come sooner rather than later for sports and music fans. Read her comments here. Lest you forget she published a book about monopoly busting in 2022 and continues to vow to make antitrust law cool again.

MITCHELL TWEETS: The aforementioned Sen. Mitchell hasn’t spoken but a few administrative words since she returned after her burglary arrest. But she tweeted on Thursday about legislation that grew out of talks with community members and in another thread talked child care and anaerobic digesters. Those were her first Tweets since before her arrest on April 22.

I had a session wrap chat with Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, who is staying with the plan to allow for the due process through the GOP’s Senate ethics complaint and the Becker County criminal case. Mitchell was dismissed from the caucus after he arrest.

“I will add that when we have seen other members of the Legislature find themselves at odds with the law, that we have made space for those members to go through due process and reconciliation,” Murphy said.

Murphy said Mitchell faces a serious set of issues and faces hard conversations with her constituents.

SIX YEARS: Our Ag reporter Christopher Vondracek checked in early to report that the U.S. House Ag committee endorsed a $1.5 trillion Farm Bill (six years after the last one and roughly six months since a 1-year extension). Swing-district DFL Rep. Angie Craig voted no, citing what she called the deprioritization of “midwestern crops” and cuts to nutrition programs. Republican Rep. Brad Finstad voted for it, saying the bill was written for farmers, “not a bunch of D.C. bureacrats.” (My Q: How did bureacrats become the go-to bogeyman?) Vondracek says it’s mostly a food/nutrition bill. The bill is probably D.O.A. in the Senate where Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.,, which advanced out of committee with only 4 Democrats in support, is probably dead-on-arrival in the Senate, where Sen. Stabenow, D-Mich., chairs the Senate Ag committee. Stabenow has said the House bill crosses red lines, including a cap on anti-hunger (SNAP) dollars.

TWEET OF THE DAY: Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, was not amused by Republican filibustering that contributed to the pile-up and ear-piercing shouting by the GOP at the end of the session. He tweeted Thursday night a link to a DFL Party compilation on the junk fees debate that focused on hamburgers ad infinitum. “Disagree if you want, vote against an idea if you will. But respect the great minds who created our Republic enough to not do this, while you are holding an election certificate,” Klein wrote.

WHERE’S WALZ:

NOON: Set your radio dials because he’s on MPR’s Politics Friday with my favorite former Associated Press colleague and legend-in-the-making Brian Bakst.

12:30 PM: Interviewing candidates for a vacancy in the First Judicial District.

On Thursday, Walz called on the National Guard to aid in the search for two missing Boundary Waters canoeists. The governor said his family was intimately familiar with the pain of their families. The governor lost his younger brother Craig Walz in a freak accident on a Father’s Day trip in June 2016.

Walz also went to Hoyt Lakes Thursday to sign a bill with Hauschild that directs $30 million to rural emergency medical services. “When Minnesotans are faced with a medical emergency, they should expect that help will come – whether they live in Minneapolis or on the Iron Range,” Walz said.

Of the $30 million, $6 million will go to establish a new EMS pilot program and $24 million goes out as short-term aid.

READING LIST

The U.S. Supreme Court found no bias in South Carolina congressional district redrawn to remove Black voters. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to try to push the federal courts further, saying it’s time to get out of the business of refereeing racial gerrymandering disputes and leave them to the states. I wonder which flags the Alitos are flying at their homes this holiday weekend
Minneapolis wonders whether the extended drama of the Uber/Lyft deal was worth it in the end, Dave Orrick reports.
Administrative law judge says Xcel’s negligence led to a costly accident at the Sherco 3 plan in Becker in 2011 and merits refunds to customers, Mike Hughlett reports.
Much ado about in Charles Barkley’s movements in Minneapolis as aggregated and tracked by Louis Krauss. If you don’t understand his appeal, watch this clip to the end. It’s worth it, I promise. Don’t forget that we have our own version of Barkley with state Public Safety spokesguy Howie Padilla. Same energy.
Read Jon Bream’s reverential review of Willie Nelson’s show in Duluth last night and know that Willie is a pal of former President Jimmy Carter who is, say it with me now, STILL ALIVE.
**Does anybody else remember the time Tina Fey and Amy Poehler turned “warm welcome” into one of the sickest burns of Leonardo DiCaprio ever? DM me if you do or don’t and want to know: rochelle.olson@startribune.com
Enjoy your three-day weekend. As for me: I will be out with lanterns looking for myself. (Emily Dickinson.)