Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Frey Spokesman Feeds Lines to Alpha News
When news broke that the Minnesota state DFL’s Constitution, Bylaws, and Rules Committee had revoked Sen. Omar Fateh’s nomination for mayor of Minneapolis, saying the July convention held by the Minneapolis DFL relied upon a “flawed electronic voting system,” everyone seemed to have something to say. There was outrage from Fateh supporters and others on the left, smug I-told-you-so-isms from Frey supporters and establishment Dems.
And maybe some of the immediate takes were a few degrees too hot. Frey campaign spokesman Darwin Forsyth tweeted that the report was "more damning than we could have possibly imagined" (settle down, Obi-Wan). His conclusion: “This wasn’t an error. This was brazen cheating.”
Forsyth has since deleted that tweet, which we will all-too-graciously call inaccurate because we can’t prove intent. In a later tweet, he said "misconduct" would have been a better word to use. We won't get into that debate.
Because before Forsyth deleted, "brazen cheating" had taken on a life of its own in the sewers of right-wing social media. Alpha News, Charlie Kirk, Dustin Grage, and many X accounts belonging to the most resentful and terminally online divorced dads of greater Minnesota have all quoted Forsyth.
In other words, despite the CBRC making no findings of fraud or any such impropriety, a Frey spokesperson stated directly that Fateh and his supporters were found to be cheating. And now that false statement is out of the bottle and flourishing online (in predictably racist ways), with neither Frey nor Forsyth seeming too bothered about that. I mean, it’s not like Forsyth said “fuck.”
And so, ahem, please read the following paragraph in the voice of the Strib Editorial Board, Steve Cramer, or some other sanctimonious local blowhard of your choice:
This sort of flagrant misrepresentation of another candidate’s actions has no place in our politics. In the interest of civility and comity and all those other good things, Racket calls upon Darwin Forsyth to publicly apologize for his allegation on X, where he initially made it. We further call upon Mayor Jacob Frey to clarify whether he agrees with the deleted tweet, and to denounce Forsyth’s statements if not. It’s the only proper and respectable course to take. After all, as Mayor Frey himself said in response to the CBRC’s report, “I am proud to be a member of a party that believes in correcting our mistakes.”
Uptown (Cub) Is Back!
I missed the news earlier this week that the Uptown Cub Foods, which closed suddenly in June, was reopening. But as Adam Uren reports for Bring Me the News, today was a day I never thought I’d live to see: the store’s not-particularly-grand reopening. According to Cub, there will be "new product categories and assortments" (does that mean new products as well? I don’t speak PR) and the store’s redesign will "improve the shopping journey," for those of you who think of yourselves as hobbits trekking into Mordor when you go to buy groceries. Personally, my own shopping journey would be improved if a robot voice in the parking lot wasn’t periodically reminding me I was being watched, but I imagine that will persist for maximum dystopian effect. Anyway, I’m happy to have a little more convenience and chaos in my life again.
The Race Goes to the Swift (County)
Every so often a City Pages nostalgic will earnestly ask me, “So, when are you guys starting a print version of Racket?” To which my answer is something along the lines of “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.” Sorry, fans of the printed word, but the costs and processes of printing and distribution that go along with a regular newspaper would surely overwhelm our hardy yet skeletal staff.
So let’s hear it for the Kerkhoven Banner, the Swift County Monitor-News, and the Appleton Press. All three family-owned print newspapers are located within the borders of Swift County, population 9,838. How do they survive at a time when most local newspapers have been snatched up and subsequently shut down by corporate chains?
“Because the Almens, Johnson/Ehrenbergs (the family behind the Appleton Press), and Anfinson families put in the hours and the time and accept the struggles rather than walking away,” Monitor-News publisher Reed Anfinson tells Brian Arola of MinnPost. So, what happens when the aging publishers in those families retire? The papers are working on succession plans, but as Anfinson says, “That’s the toughest part we face.”
Where to Wipe at the Fair
Well, maybe you’d better hold it if you can. You might have suspected that they’re not sending their best toilet paper to the Minnesota State Fair. But don’t just trust your (hopefully not too eager to empty itself) gut—the metro’s leading authority on such matters has looked into the situation herself. And lemme tell ya, the tissue connoisseur behind Twin Cities Toilet Paper Reviews, whom we recently profiled here, does not like what she has seen and felt. The best she could find? Coliseum East and the DNR/Cafe Caribe earn C grades, while five bathrooms are tagged “DO NOT USE” and graded F-. She’s promised to update her site soon with more detailed evaluations, and she also helpfully cautions her readers not to bring their own toilet paper to the fair, as that could cause plumbing issues.
On a much happier note, the anonymous critic also got a yellow ribbon for her first ever crop art entry, which you can see here. Congrats!
