Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Are State Workers Gonna Strike?
The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees union, which represents thousands of state workers, was threatening legal action and even a strike all the way back in March after Gov. Tim Walz suddenly and unilaterally announced that government employees had to return to office.
Now, with the order in effect as of this week, we're getting the first inklings that a strike over the office policy could be on the table. In this week's Break Room labor roundup for the Minnesota Reformer, Max Nesterak reports that picketing state employees are "absolutely willing" to strike over it.
“One-hundred percent I would. We can’t just roll over here,” Erin Malone, an auditor for the Department of Revenue, told Nesterak during a Wednesday demonstration.
Contracts expire on June 30, which means the earliest a strike is possible is late this summer, following 45 days of mediation and 10 days notice. It would be a big deal—state employees haven't gone on strike since 2001—but MAPE president Megan Dayton says employees are really fired up over this.
Strib Opinion Columnist Celebrates Alpha News, Blasts "Unfair" Strib Reporters
Should Alpha News, the noxious swamp of culture-war frothing, crime hysteria, copaganda, and GOP water carrying, be taken seriously? No, that local news site (term used bird-bone lightly) should be taken about as seriously as a Sen. Norm Coleman PR shill turned Twitter troll.
Yet, as part of the Star Tribune's doomed effort to make MAGA residents of Morrison County hate it slightly less, Andy Brehm has a regular soapbox at the Strib, which the St. Paul lawyer used Thursday to vouch loudly for Alpha News. Brehm's premise—for "the media to ditch the too-common condescension they sometimes direct toward new alternative sources of news"—isn't wrong. But decade-old Alpha News ain't new, and its mysteriously funded hard-right output doesn't "deserve respect." It's not the type of publication that trades in lofty, William F. Buckley Jr.-indebted ideas or afflicts the comfortable—it's the type that gives Crime Watch MN a byline.
Brehm presents a threefold case for Alpha News’s recent journalistic merit: go-nowhere obsessing over Gov. Tim Walz’s military record and travels to China; noticing that a "cold" and "pretty full" White Claw was at the scene of a 2021 SUV rollover involving Minnesota State Auditor Julie Blaha and Senate Minority Leader Melisa López Franzen; and anchor Liz Collin’s “brave” 2022 ridealong with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office—her husband is a cop, she rides with cops all the time!
And Brehm blasts the Star Tribune's "unhelpful and unfair" "condescension" around Alpha News, pointing to Andy Mannix and Liz Sawyer’s deeply reported feature on the shifting right-wing narratives related to George Floyd’s murder. Specifically, that Strib story pokes holes galore in The Fall of Minneapolis, Collin’s pro-cop George Floyd documentary that has already been subjected to surplus hole-poking. (Collin refused to defend her work to Mannix and Sawyer, instead opting to mock their request for comment online.)
Frankly, it sucks to see the Strib Opinion editors let a partisan hack lob bombs at their own paper’s reporting, all in service of celebrating a low-rent Fox News that’s not even in the same journalistic stratosphere.
Even U.K. Newspapers Are Worried About the Boundary Waters
Twin Metals Minnesota, a Chilean-owned mining company, has been trying to mine near Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for years. And if Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” makes it through the U.S. Senate it might finally be able to—in perpetuity. (Guess that $1.6 million spent lobbying is finally paying off!)
The bill would reverse Biden’s 20-year mining ban in the area, instead granting Twin Metals a 20-year lease (with no limits on renewal) to mine copper-nickel on about 6,000 acres of public land on the outer edges of the protected areas in Minnesota. It’s a deal so one-sided that even the Guardian, a U.K.-based publication, is pointing out that it grants an alarming amount of control to the company.
“[The bill] prohibits judicial review of the leases, meaning that citizens cannot sue to challenge them,” author Jimmy Tobia notes. “Only one party retains rights to judicial review per the legislation: Twin Metals. If the federal government fails to comply with the reconciliation bill, Twin Metals can sue to enforce it.”
Opponents of Twin Metals’ plans note that copper-nickel mining is one of the most toxic processes in the industry; one report found that hazardous waste spills at two Twin Town mines in Alaska were very common—8,150 times in the past 25 years—and could have a detrimental impact on the Boundary Waters pristine, er, waters.
Faribault Co. Strikeout Queen’s Stats Are Unreal
You don’t have to know a damn thing about high school softball to look at Mariah Anderson’s stats and know the junior at United South Central High School in Wells, Minnesota, is something special.
Over on Bring Me the News, Joe Nelson reports that Anderson is 24-1 this season with 388 strikeouts in 170 innings—in fact, 76% of the outs recorded when she's on the mound have been via strikeout. She’s pitched 20 shutouts and seven no-hitters, including three perfect games. In short, she dominates.
Anderson, who stands 5-foot-3 and is also a gymnast, has been playing varsity since 7th grade. With nearly 1,400 career strikeouts, she’s about 270 shy of the state record, which she’s on track to break in 2026.
So, if you’re an online weirdo who’s suddenly pretending to care about girls’ sports for creepy culture war reasons, just letting you know there’s plenty else to get excited about in Minnesota softball. Anderson will take the mound tonight when United South Central High School goes up against Badger/Greenbush-Middle River in the MSHSL Class A State Softball Tournament.
