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The discovery phase of the Minnesota 15 federal trial keeps revealing new, creepy details on just how thorough and prolific U.S. "domestic terrorism" investigations have been since the start of Operation Metro Surge. Via programs like Project Whipple Shield and Operation Puppet Master, the feds are investigating ICE protestors using funds and technology typically reserved for sex-trafficking rings, drug cartels, and international terrorist groups.
“One attorney in the case directly compares the DHS-run campaign to the FBI’s infamous Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, which unconstitutionally surveilled, infiltrated, and blackmailed racial justice, civil rights, and anti-war movements from the 1950s through the early 1970s,” Ali Winston writes at Wired (paywalled).
That surveillance includes infiltrating neighborhood chat groups, running the license plates of cars parked outside left-leaning community meetups, and employing data brokers to collect info on people's PayPal transactions, browser histories, and Signal chats. This also includes “the deployment of Reaper drones and Patriot Act tools usually restricted to money laundering and terrorism investigations,” Winston writes. “Undercover operatives also infiltrated churches in apparent violation of a court order.”
In August, Minnesota Reformer’s Madison McVan detailed how the Department of Homeland Security used AI and other tech to track local organizations like Monarca, labor unions, and the Grease Pit Bike shop, as well as individual organizers.
WaPo Breezes Past Cruel Tafoya Anecdote
Michele Tafoya, the Sunday Night Football sideline reporter turned conservative podcaster turned senatorial hopeful, has a profile in today’s Washington Post (paywalled). At best it’s an unremarkable piece on the camera-ready GOPer who hopes to secure U.S. Sen. Tina Smith’s (DFL-MN) seat. At worst it softens any potential MAGA associations, as author Rick Maese’s sources assert she “has not followed a paint-by-number Republican path,” despite being a Trump-endorsed candidate with no previous political experience whose stances have shifted over time to align with Trump—is that not the MAGA playbook?
The story also pauses to explore this 2023 episode from Tafoya's podcast, and it's really something. In it, she criticizes former Monday Night Football reporter Lisa Guerrero, whose memoir, Maese writes, details the “sexism and mistreatment she experienced in sports television, suicidal thoughts, and suffering a miscarriage while working a game.” Read a recounting of the tidbit below:
Tafoya, who has spoken publicly about suffering multiple miscarriages herself, questioned why Guerrero had kept hers from close friends for years. “I have my hesitation about was this truly a devastating miscarriage,” Tafoya said. She also called Guerrero an “attention seeking drama queen” who “was not tough enough.”
In an interview, Guerrero said Tafoya, whom she had never met, did not contact her before or after making the remarks. Guerrero said she had kept the miscarriage private because she felt traumatized and humiliated, and hearing Tafoya question her experience years later reopened some of that pain.
Sisyphus Loses Lease
For the past 12 years, Sisyphus Brewing has been slinging beer, hosting comedy shows, and maintaining a humble collection of pinball machines in the underutilized dead zone just north of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Now the area is about to get a little dimmer, as co-owner Sam Harriman posted on Facebook that his brewery's landlord, Dunwoody College, opted not to extend their lease for 2027.
“Dunwoody is effectively killing a successful small business—probably one of the few profitable breweries in the state and maybe one of the only venues that pays all of the ticket revenue to comics—almost $160,000 last year directly to artists and performers,” Harriman writes in a (now-deleted) post. “Please do not ask me about the plans or next steps.”
While this isn’t a case of the beer bubble bursting, it is another example of a thriving comedy club getting booted from its space. In 2025 basement venue Comedy Corner Underground was booted from Seven Corners after humanitarian nonprofit Human Development Fund purchased its building, which was owned by the the Corner Bar upstairs. (CCU eventually relocated, fittingly, in the basement of Whitey’s Old Town Saloon).
Sisyphus has grown to be a critical part of the comedy scene over the years, hosting annual shows for Pride and New Year’s Eve, as well as standups not ready for (or even necessarily interested in) hitting up Acme Comedy Co. (SNL star Michael Che recently stopped by for a surprise gig.) Their open-mic nights have been popular for budding comedians as well as magicians.
Surprise! CTC’s Now an Ice Rink.
And it’s on purpose! On Tuesday, Minneapolis's Children’s Theater Company announced that in November it will be turning its fourth-floor rehearsal hall into an ice rink that will be free for all (but, hopefully, not a free-for-all). The rink will be open from November 6–22, concurrent with winter productions Twelve Kinds of Ice and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. For more info and to reserve a time, check out the event website here.
