Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Dastardly Danes Batter Our Beloved Combat Ship
The USS Minneapolis-St. Paul Littoral Combat Ship was sitting (or whatever ships do) in the Baltimore Inner Harbor on Sunday when! Out of nowhere! The Danish! Yes, the Danish sailing vessel the Danmark “collided” (read: attacked) the ship that means so much to Minnesotans, and in cold blood, Bring Me the News reports (a bit more soberly). We lost guardrails! Good Minnesota guardrails! (Made in Wisconsin, actually, but still.) The Minneapolis-St. Paul was launched in Duluth this May, and had barely had a chance to further our nation’s imperialist aims before being forced into battle with the Danes. No one was hurt, and the damage was minimal. This time, anyway! When will Our Northern Enemy strike again? Is this payback for some ancient Scandinavian feud we know not of? Almost certainly! Here’s a video, complete with swears.
NYT Stock-Conflict Analysis Exposes 3 MN Dems
Should sitting members of Congress be allowed to trade stocks? The prospect probably appears ludicrous to most of us; of course those with their greedy little mitts on the levers of power shouldn’t let personal enrichment dictate which ones they pull. To Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the answer is more complicated. “We’re a free market economy,” Pelosi said in 2021 of proposed bans on congressional stock trading. “[Lawmakers] should be able to participate in that.” (Her stance very reluctantly softened earlier this year.)
On Tuesday, a New York Times analysis exposed compelling evidence that, perhaps, lawmakers do let their portfolios influence their actions. Three Minnesota Democrats were named among the 183 U.S. congress members who reported “a trade of a stock or another financial asset by themselves or an immediate family member” between 2019 and 2021—Rep. Dean Phillips, Rep. Angie Craig, and Sen. Tina Smith. All three were flagged for potential conflicts of interest, including 34 such instances for Phillips who, it should be noted, has already inherited a vast family fortune. According to Craig, her son was day trading without her knowledge. As for Phillips, he "has voluntarily held himself to the highest ethical standards, acting against his own financial interests in doing so,” a spokesperson told the Times. Welp, that clears that up!
Recruiting Kids as Cops
D.A. Bullock spied an interesting detail in the mayor’s proposed budget: a $740,000 pilot program for high school interns to “explore their interest in learning about a career in law enforcement.” This, according to the budget proposal, would improve community relations and create a more diverse police department. Of course, it would also do what the United States’ current military recruitment programs do, which is put kids with fewer financial options on the front lines. Most of the results the proposal predicts are speculative (which, fair enough, it’s a pilot program) but that doesn’t take away from the unintentional comedy of lines like “This recommendation will reduce racial disparities (anecdotal/no data).”
Frey Would Like to Be Excluded from the Hiawatha Golf Narrative
The Hiawatha Golf Course saga is a never-ending soap opera, with a cast of angry neighbors, environmentalists, historians, Black orgs, and even a public sex group vying to control its fate. Last week, things looked to be on track for a settlement in the years-long dispute, as the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board signed off on a plan that would bring the course down to nine holes, add recreational areas, and encourage more natural foliage. But when the time comes for Mayor Jacob Frey to sign off on the plan, he says he will do nothing—out of respect for the Black golfer community.
Though this doesn’t kill the plan—Frey’s not vetoing it—it's given opponents a sliver of hope. “[Mayor Frey] gets it, he understands [and] we thank him for that,” Jim Erickson, with the pro-preservation Solomon Strategies Group, tells KSTP. Even without Frey’s John Hancock, it could still pass by default. Erickson, however, is hoping to get it on the national registry, which would definitely complicate things. HGC was the first course in Minneapolis to desegregate; the clubhouse is named after Black golfer and activist Solomon Hughes. Meanwhile, proponents of the deal argue that the course frequently floods, partly because it’s at a lower elevation than Lake Hiawatha, costing the city millions of dollars.
