Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Leonard Peltier is Coming Home
Former President Joe Biden set presidential records for pardons and commutations during his time in office, a number he boosted by 2,500 people last week. Among those receiving last-second clemency: Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who has been imprisoned since 1977 for the murder of two FBI agents at South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation two years earlier.
However, as Amnesty International wrote in 2023...
We have examined Leonard Peltier’s case extensively over many years, sent observers to his trial in 1977, and remain seriously concerned about the fairness of the proceedings leading to his conviction, and believe that political factors may have influenced the way in which the case was prosecuted.
Among those who've advocated for Peltier's release over the years: former prosecutors in his case, members of U.S. Congress, Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, and dozens of Native-rights groups. Peltier's claims of innocence have never wavered.
“President Biden took an enormous step toward healing and reconciliation with the Native American people in this country,” Kevin Sharp, a former federal judge who filed Peltier's clemency petition, says in a statement. “It took nearly 50 years to acknowledge the injustice of Leonard Peltier’s conviction and continued incarceration, but with the President’s act of mercy, Leonard can finally return to his reservation and live out his remaining days.”
Peltier, now 80 and reportedly in poor health, was a member of the Minneapolis-launched American Indian Movement (AIM). Members of AIM marched from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., as recently as 2022 to advocate for his clemency. “It’s finally over—I’m going home,” Peltier says in a press release Monday. He'll live out his life under house arrest on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Reservation, the Fargo Forum reports.
“I just can’t quit crying. I just feel so happy, so relieved, after all these years, I just can’t quite believe it yet,” Sheila Peltier, Leonard's Fargo-based sister, tells the Forum earlier today. “Am I dreaming? Is it real? I can only imagine what he is thinking.”
Revival Closes All Locations, Catching Workers and Gift Card Holders by Surprise
File this one under: hmm!
Earlier today via Instagram, Nick Rancone and Thomas Boemer announced the abrupt closure of all four locations—two in Minneapolis, plus one in St. Paul and another in St. Louis Park—of Revival, their fancy fried chicken chain. "We are heartbroken, please remember to cherish and support your local restaurants, as they thrive on your love and encouragement," the co-owners write. They also thrive on money, and Rancone and Boemer tell MN Monthly's Jason DeRusha that "a lot of economic factors" ended Revival, which, we learn, actually closed for good on Sunday.
Adding to our hmm: DeRusha reports that around 100 Revival workers learned of the closure by email just this morning, and that Revival had continued selling (now worthless) gift cards in the weeks leading up to the closure. Hmm. And, a bit over a month ago, Rancone and Boehmer were hyping the Italian beefy rebrand of Revival St. Paul all over town. Hmm! The top-voted comment on a local Reddit thread about the closure? "I'm the line cook at the smoked meats location in Minneapolis who [fries] the chicken. My mom read it on Instagram and then called me to tell me about it. That's how I found out I'm unemployed today."
Ah, what the hell, one more for the road: hmm...
Dylan Mentioned at Hellworld Inauguration
Rather than offer my take on today's Nazi oligarch-packed presidential inauguration, I'll default to the well-aged prediction offered by political commentator Matt Christman during Trump's first swearing in: "This is the stupidest day in American history, a record that will be broken by every subsequent day in American history."
Moving on to matters more provincial! Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who once broke under Racket's pressure, spoke at this morning's Capitol ceremony due to her role as a chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. (Kinda on-the-nose distillation of her D.C. priorities, right? Rep. Ilhan Omar, meanwhile, blasted fellow Dems for taking part in today's bipartisan backslapping.) The boring speech did yield an exciting trinket for us Dylan-heads when Klobes mentioned "an incredible songwriter who just happened to be born in my state" while referencing the title of "Shelter From the Storm."
Here, I'll default to a Redditor posting to the r/BobDylan page: "I'm pretty high right now, but the lady on the soap box just said something something a songwriter from my state and we are sheltered from the storm. Again, I'm high at the moment." Hell yeah, brother.
"Shelter From the Storm" appears on Blood On the Tracks, Dylan's divorced-guy classic that arrived exactly 50 years ago today. Why don't ya read more about it?
Happy MLK Day
Enjoy your free parking at city meters, sure, but also do a little (fun!) homework on the great man we're honoring today. This hourlong TPT documentary from 2019 dives deep into two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s visits to Minnesota. In the spring of 1967, we learn MLK delivered a "lost" speech to around 4,000 folks at the U of M's St. Paul campus, and it concluded with the same words that ended his "I Have a Dream" speech almost four years earlier at the March on Washington: "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last." You can watch the now-found speech toward the beginning of that doc.
