Beans to DFL: Keep Leaning Left!

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.

Soybean Socialism?

Truly progressive policies that would make material differences in the lives of voters? They tend to poll quite well—just look at the bipartisan consensus on adding a public health care option. Or, closer to home, look at the soybean poll inside the DFL's Minnesota State Fair booth. Each year, this deeply scientific measure of voter preferences is realized via fairgoers dropping beans into tubes that correspond with their beliefs. (Not to be confused with Kirk Cousins' mortality rocks tube.) As something of a post-legislative session chest thump, local Democrats asked folks to plunk beans into tubes that signaled which of the party's recent wins they view most favorably. The stories those tubes told could've been largely lost to fair passersby, but our pals at the Minnesota Reformer commissioned this story by lefty policy analyst Eric Harris Bernstein to determine what the bean tallies tell us about voter motivations. Bernstein's takeaway, after studying the bean levels around 5 p.m. on Labor Day? Minnesotans favor the protection of rights and direct public investment over neoliberal market tinkering. Here's how the beans spilled:

1. Defending abortion access.
2. 100% clean energy by 2040.
3. Historic funding for public schools.
4. Universal school meals.
5. Universal background checks (gun control).
6. Free college for low-income families.
7. Paid family and medical leave.
8. Legal cannabis.
9. Making voting easier.
10. Largest tax cut in state history.
11. Biggest child tax credit in U.S.
12. Largest jobs bill in state history.

Concludes Bernstein:

One way of interpreting the bean poll results is to say that DFL voters understand the tradeoff between taxes and public investment, and they are good with it. That was the attitude shared by 76% of DFL voters and 42% of Republicans when the issue was last polled in 2017. Another way to interpret the State Fair poll is to say that participants rejected the neoliberal philosophy that government should work primarily to improve markets and maximize economic growth. Minnesotans participating in the DFL’s informal poll would prefer the government focus on what it does best: Guaranteeing public rights and protections, and investing in a brighter collective future. 

We encourage you to read his entire "anecdotal and speculative" yet smart analysis, particularly his bits about the coded language behind "jobs bills."

Two Precincts Under One Roof

"It’s basically official now," writes MinnPost's Kyle Stokes. "For the foreseeable future, Minneapolis police officers working in the southeastern quarter of the city will have their headquarters downtown—just outside the geographic boundaries of the actual Third Police Precinct, whose police station burned during the 2020 unrest." The city was already redeveloping the Century Plaza building (330 S. 12th St.) for the First Precinct headquarters, and City Council has OK'd a plan to purchase 57,000 additional square feet across three additional floors of the building. The workaround was first proposed by Andrea Jenkins in July due to the emphatic "fuck no!" from southeast Minneapolis residents and businesses in response to proposals to rebuild closer to the old Third Precinct. If things stay on track, they'll move in to Century Plaza in January 2025.

Krawczynski Attempts to Calm Snake-Bitten Sports Fans

It was the inevitable question the moment mega-talented young Timberwolf Anthony Edwards flashed superstar potential: When is this guy gonna skip town for a major market? We saw it with KG, we saw it with Kevin Love, we see it written all over our inadequacy-ridden Midwestern souls. The lurking paranoia around Edwards, who's currently dazzling the world with Team USA at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, was amplified last week by ex-Wolf Patrick Beverly's comments on Gilbert Arenas's podcast: "[Edwards] will get out of Minnesota. I mean, that’s just what happens. And that’s no disrespect to Minnesota. It’s just with that personality, he can change the world with basketball.”

In a lovely, possibly overoptimistic bit of psychoanalytic soothing, The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski attempted to downplay those concerns to Wolves fans. Writes Jonny K:

No, Anthony Edwards does not need a bigger pond. Anthony Edwards is a shark. The size of the body of water matters little to a shark. He will wreak havoc wherever he swims, locally, nationally, and now globally. What Edwards needs from the Minnesota Timberwolves has nothing to do with how much water he has at his disposal. The Twin Cities have plenty of it, literally and figuratively. What Edwards will need over the long haul of his career is not volume, it is clarity. It is something the NBA as a league could use as well.

The longtime hoops writer goes on to criticize a current NBA culture that "fetishizes transactions and feasts on the intrigue that kind of drama can generate," while reassuring Minnesota fans that our All-Universe shooting guard did just ink a five-year, $260 million extension that doesn't technically start ticking until next fall. Over thousands of words, Krawczynski critiques the sort of sensationalized, L.A./NYC-obsessed discourse "that is so polluting to the league as a whole," using the recent Pat Bev drama as a jumping off point to call out the worst of basketball media circa 2023. It's worth reading top to bottom, though we still encourage you to keep wishing on rabbits feet that Edwards isn't watching that new Lakers doc on HBO and getting ideas...

Why'd the Tornado Sirens Sound Twice?

Veteran Twin Citians know to not be alarmed when sirens sound the first Wednesday of each month. We gotta know whether our tornado alert devices blare effectively, should they ever be needed during an actual twister. But today, about 40 minutes after the routine test, the sirens fired off yet again, setting off a resounding "HMMMM!" across local stretches of the internet. Suburban-based radio DJ Jason DeRusha sought answers from officials, and he was told:

"The 1:45 p.m. siren soundings were unintended, and no threat currently exists," Hennepin County Emergency Management added via press release. Yet, across those same expanses of local internet, some changed their tunes to "hmmm..." Could the county comms team be covering up something far more nefarious and, ergo, interesting—à la beings from beyond the moon visiting our fair flyover state? Possibly! Sound off in the comments with your theory as to why we really received a siren encore this afternoon. Bonus points for bonkers creativity.