What does "media losing its Trump bump" really mean?

I saw this this morning, though what it’s about has apparently been noticeable for a while.

Top news executives tell Axios that a real "Trump slump" is hitting digital, cable and more.

Why it matters: The shock factor around President Trump's unplanned announcements, staff departures, taunting tweets and erratic behavior is wearing off, and media companies are scrambling to find their next big moneymaker.

Driving the news: Executives tell Axios that Trump fatigue is very real: Interest in political coverage overall is down, which is spurring investments in other beats, like technology and the global economy. - Axios

The following is just a few thoughts, not the result of any effort at deep profundity. Several possibilities come quickly to mind:

1. People who have been pretty solid Trump fans are becoming disinterested, even disillusioned. (He will always have his real diehards.)

2. A lot of people across the political board are experiencing Trump fatigue, for now. That is, they’re just no longer into following his daily displays of demented buffoonery. But many will start paying attention again in the coming election year.

3. People are deciding that the utterly corrupt, degraded, and at times actually quite frightening spectacle of this deranged lunatic in the White House is really no big deal after all.

Obviously, #1 is best, and #3 is worst. It’s probably some combination of the above, along with other things I haven’t thought of.

The extent to which media losing its Trump mojo may or may not equal Trump losing his electoral mojo remains to be seen.

Seriously, Line 3 might really not happen

Which would be so great.

Enbridge's proposed Line 3 oil pipeline replacement likely could see more delays, after two state agencies involved in the project said (June 18) that the permitting schedule for the pipeline needs to be revised.

Just how long those delays could last remains unclear. But in a joint statement from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, officials said that a recent state Court of Appeals ruling that the pipeline's environmental review was inadequate will have implications for their permitting process. - MPR

Enbridge makes a great deal of money pumping filthy fossil fuels around, and they will very likely keep pushing to the desperate end if it comes to that. There’s also sunk-cost bias involved.

To be clear, when in this context people reference Enbridge Line 3 we’re generally talking about the proposed replacement for the existing Line 3. And when I and many others talk about stopping Line 3, what we really mean is keeping the replacement from being built and shutting down the existing line for good. Because we don't need tar sands oil.

PolyMet/Glencore permitting scandal erupts

From last week.

After months of stonewalling, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has released staff comments that the agency had prepared for the state-issued water quality permit for PolyMet Mining. The release came on the same day that the agency was required to respond to a lawsuit over access to the comments, filed by Water Legacy and other environmental organizations.

The comments are potentially devastating to efforts by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to defend the water quality permit they issued to PolyMet late last year. That permit has been the subject of ongoing litigation by tribal governments and environmental groups. - MinnPost

Clearly, after you've clicked and read the article, something very iffy has gone down. At this point, “corrupt” certainly seems apt. As for words like “criminal” and “felonies,” I don’t know, yet.

How much are farmers supposed to put up with, from this pitiful idiot?

The latest.

President Trump is bragging about a new deal with Mexico that provides for "large" sales of U.S. farm goods, but it doesn't appear to exist.

In weekend tweets, he announced in all capital letters that he had won the agreement to benefit America's "great patriot farmers," and that U.S. sales would begin "immediately." There isn't any sign of that happening, however. Mexican officials denied that anything on agriculture was included in the deal on border security reached Friday to avert Trump's threatened tariffs. - MPR/Associated Press

Incidentally, Trump is in conniptions over media coverage of his latest “triumph.” Yet corporate media for the most part keeps coddling him. We’ll see if that keeps up into next year, when most people will actually start paying some attention to the 2020 election.

One more related item:  “As foreign investment in U.S. farmland grows, efforts to ban and limit the increase mount” - The New Food Economy

MN lege: Some bad things in 2019

This sums it up, with incisive brevity:

Unfortunately, the Senate’s agenda for Minnesota was not aligned with the vision that we created together.  The Senate majority did not allow hearings on Paid Leave, Driver’s Licenses, Restoring the Vote or 100% Clean Energy. They did not hold a single hearing on any of our policy proposals or many of the policy proposals of others in our movement, such as common sense background checks for gun owners. Instead, they worked for months to roll back the progress we have made towards a caring economy: they opposed protecting the Healthcare Access Fund, which helps fund more than a million Minnesotan’s healthcare, they tried to roll back paid sick days and minimum wage for more than 150,000 workers, and they attempted to fully defund the child care assistance program. - ISAIAH

If I had to pick one thing that especially pisses me off, it would be this:

At the start of this year’s legislative session, the debate over child care policy was focused primarily on making it cheaper and easier to find amid high prices and a lack of options across Minnesota.

But by the time lawmakers adjourned this month, attention had shifted almost entirely to something else: fraud.

A state audit in March found that fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), a prominent subsidy for low-income families, was tough to root out and likely more pervasive than what prosecutors have been able to prove. The politically explosive report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor could not substantiate some allegations made in an attention-grabbing Fox 9 story from 2018 — namely a link between fraudulent CCAP money and terrorists in Somalia — but it nevertheless mobilized Republicans and some DFLers to call for sweeping reform.

Now, Republicans are cheering the two-year state budget approved last weekend, which has a long list of anti-fraud measures and a freeze on most new CCAP spending. A CCAP expansion was a top child care priority for some advocacy groups and DFLers headed into the 2019 session. - MinnPost

The obvious solution will be available on Election Day 2020, or for some weeks before that if you vote early.

MN lege: Some good things in 2019

I’m noting a few things that I considered to be particular priorities/concerns.

First of all, on the whole the session ended better than I feared it might. Gov. Tim Walz did the “moderate” thing as a U.S. Representative for southern Minnesota, and I was concerned that as governor he’d be willing to give too much to the Party of Trump to make deals. That didn’t happen.

Some positives happened for workers. Especially a strong wage theft bill.

The Legislature’s work isn’t over, however, with Minnesota AFL-CIO priorities such as new revenue to fix our roads and bridges, paid family & medical leave, OneCare public health insurance, and the 40-hour work week waiting for the 2020 session. Additional Labor priorities including teacher licensure reform, drivers licenses for all, a two-person train crew requirement, restoring voting rights, protecting Minnesota’s call center workers from outsourcing, and a state Equal Rights Amendment were all met with obstruction in the Republican-controlled Senate. - Minnesota AFL-CIO

I thought the GOP would really demand a king's ransom for extending the medical provider tax, although it did take a cut from 2 to 1.8%. I’m not entirely sure why there actually wasn’t all that much drama. All of those polls showing health care as the public's top issue, or very close to it, for 2020 presumably had something to do with it.

One more:

...the Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives passed the Omnibus Agriculture Policy Bill which includes dedicated funding and support for Farm to School and Early Care initiatives across the state. The bill will now head to Governor Walz to be signed. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and a coalition of other farming, nutrition and anti-hunger stakeholders worked to support this policy that will expand access to fresh, local and healthy foods for Minnesota students and new, stable markets for Minnesota farmers. - IATP