Conspiracy-Loving Immigration Judge Lasts 4 Months on Job

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories. 

Conservative Nutjob Quits Immigration Gig After Learning He Was Expected to Work

In a just world, a dude who spends his time posting on socials about Pizzagate, Obama-era birtherism, and the need for “more ICE” wouldn’t be able to parlay his shit-talking into a full-time job, but that's exactly what happened with Nathan Hansen.

Back in April, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Hansen as a Fort Snelling immigration judge—in his own words, “in the wake of the Biden open-borders catastrophe.” But just four months later, after discovering that “more ICE” and a faster-moving justice system leads to an “11 to 12 hour a day commitment,” he quit.

“My colleagues and I routinely worked long days with abbreviated breaks and lunches processing the chaos that flooded our system: millions of illegal entrants, strained courts, public-safety risks, and the deliberate erosion of sovereignty,” Hansen whines. Hey, that's a lot harder than posting!

According to Christopher Magan at the Star Tribune (gift link), “Hansen heard 180 asylum claims in the few months he was on the bench and granted asylum just twice.” Over at the Department of Justice’s hiring portal, where the chance to “make decisions with generational consequences” is touted as a job perk, you can see that they’re currently hiring at 70 locations nationwide; Fort Snelling is on the hunt for judges to fill four open slots. 

Damn! Rapidan Dam No Longer Needed.

Built in 1910, the historic Rapidan Dam provided electricity to the Blue Earth County region of Minnesota until 2019, when flood damage put an end to its usefulness. By 2024 the aging structure was primed to fail—and it did, spectacularly! Breaching occurred that summer, with flooding-stoked rapids carving out a path around it while damaging the dam.

Though Blue Earth County had previously voted to remove it entirely, the question of whether the dam would be rebuilt has remained up in the air. But a recent environmental impact report, which suggests that the river and embankments would actually thrive in its destruction, may have sealed its fate.

"Project removal and restoration of the area would have an overall permanent beneficial effect on aquatic resources, by returning the project reach to a free-flowing river which would allow unrestricted movement of aquatic resources through the project area," writes Hannah Yang at MPR News, quoting from the report.

Full removal would require coordination with federal agencies like FEMA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as well as the MN DNR. 

“It’s taken us quite a bit of time just to understand what the roles of all these different agencies were and how they were involved in this, and how does the process flow and work because of all the crossover,” Blue Earth County’s Public Works Director Ryan Thilges tells Yang. “Now we’re to the point where we can start developing those permits, finalizing the project plans. It’s a good feeling.”

Online Conservatives Giddy Over Klobuchar's Recycled Vikings Post

We've still got a couple months to go, but we may already have the dumbest scandal of this campaign season. Yesterday, friend of Racket Mike Norton noticed that U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN), who’s currently running for governor, has been posting the same picture of her rocking an “optimistic” Vikings shirt each year since 2023. That's at least four times—that we know of. 

That’s pretty cringe but also pretty harmless, yet right-wing pundits and politicians were quick to officially make it A Thing. About an hour after Norton's post, Dustin Grage of conservative website Townhall had recreated the post and pinned it to the top of his Twitter account, sarcastically calling Klobuchar “so authentic.” This morning, Fox News claimed the senator is getting “torched” by conservatives over her post recycling, tweeting that “Dustin Grage, Riley Gaines, and former Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh all piled on.” Can three people make a pile? (Meanwhile, failed immigration judge Nathan Hansen, back in the social media saddle, thinks spotting deodorant marks on a shirt is a big “gotcha.”)

In totally unrelated news, here’s a pic that GOP candidate Michele Tafoya clumsily doctored of herself at the corn stand at the fair.

Wanna Buy This Historic Folk Art Home?

The house was built in 1902, but it really became something special during the 1930s, when former owner E.C. Johnson began plastering the rocks he gathered on his travels to the outside walls as well as the fireplace inside. Now, the Hendricks, Minnesota, home can be yours for a sweet $150K.

“The home has been thoughtfully updated over the years while preserving the craftsmanship and history that make it so special,” Edina Realty posts via Facebook. “And then there’s Hendricks itself. ❤️ A beautiful small town on Lake Hendricks with a charming downtown, strong community, and history around every corner.”

You can read more about the history of this property, also known as the E.C. Johnson Stone House, here.