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MN Companies Making Bank on War
War is big business, even in Minnesota. Especially in Minnesota, actually. Ana Radelat and Shadi Bushra took a look at local war profiteers with government contracts in this insightful piece for MinnPost, uncovering how—even before the current self-induced clusterfuck with Iran—war is a billion-dollar industry in our state.
“Minnesota’s defense industry had about $24.5 billion worth of contracts with the Pentagon in fiscal year 2025,” Radelat and Bushra write. “Just about six months into the 2026 federal fiscal year, Minnesota’s defense contractors had more than $17.4 billion worth of military contracts and were well on their way to exceeding their performance in 2025.”
It’s not just bombs, precision munitions, and gun system producers who are making big bucks, though they are too; Virginia-based defense contractor Northrop Grumman does $2.75 billion worth of business in Minnesota. We’re also talking major deals with Minnesota-based medical equipment/service suppliers like UnitedHealth ($13.15 billion) and the Mayo Clinic ($18 million). There’s also the smaller (but still lucrative!) deals; $464K has been spent in recruitment advertising via Minnesota Wild Hockey Club and north Minneapolis laundromat All Washed Up is doing $27,000 worth of... you gotta think laundry?
And now that President Trump has entered the "overthrowing governments/threats of genocide on social media" era of his presidency, those contract numbers are likely to go up. The U.S.-Israel war on Iran costs between $1-$2 billion a day and the White House is asking Congress to top off its already bloated military spending budget with another $200 billion.
“We are in an unprecedented demand cycle within defense, not just within the United States, but globally,” Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden told an audience, presumably while sitting on a throne and stroking a hairless cat, at an investment conference last month. “And it appears that this is going to be a sustaining demand signal.”
NYT’s DHS Immigration Nightmare Oral History Is Bonkers
Last winter, the Trump administration tried to live up to its promise to deport 3,000 immigrants a day. In practice, that meant chaos, human rights violations, and a massive resistance movement across the country, especially here in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge. For this oral history, published today in the New York Times, journalists Rachel Poser, Emily Bazelon, and Matthew Purdy spoke with dozens ICE agents, Department of Homeland Security officials, Border Patrol, and others on the inside, mostly under the condition of anonymity.
While the entire article is worth a read, below are a few locally angled highlights.
An ICE agent on getting sent to Minneapolis…
I didn’t want people to know I was with ICE. I even intentionally took one of my wife’s girly suitcases to make it look like I was traveling with a woman… Guys would book the hotel with their personal credit card instead of their government card because it was safer. One guy put a Harris-Walz sticker on his bags. Another guy put an anti-Trump sticker.
A senior ICE officer on making arrests in a Nissan Altima…
We were going around in rental cars arresting people. That was really wild to me. It would trip me out that anyone would pull over to a Nissan Altima with a blue light on it. It doesn’t look legit.
We have no authority to question a United States citizen. And they would do that. I saw officers block someone in, put them in a car, drive away and, once we get to a more secure location, look at the person and say, Oh, shoot, that’s not our target.
Ken Syring, former CBP deputy chief of staff on the killing of Renee Good…
Some employees are angry at D.H.S. for making prejudicial statements about Good before there was even an investigation. There are others who are really concerned that a loss of legitimacy equals a loss of functionality, and that C.B.P. won’t be able to operate as a law enforcement agency that’s in any way successful after all of this. A lot of them seem to be operational concerns. I haven’t heard many moral concerns.
A senior ICE officer on the Bovino-to-Homan switch…
I think the big difference happened when Homan replaced Bovino in Minneapolis. There were never official quotas, just pressure to produce and a questioning of our tactics if we didn’t arrest. The stress eased up tremendously under Homan.
Mpls Aquatennial Is Back, Apparently
Last October, the Minneapolis Downtown Council announced it would no longer be organizing the 85-year-old Minneapolis Aquatennial—a multi-day event celebrating the city’s lakes, rivers, creeks, and waterways—due to unpredictable funding. Now the Aquatennial Ambassador Organization has taken the reins, with plans to revive the multi-site festival thanks to a $25,000 grant… from the Minneapolis Downtown Council.
“Normally this event takes an entire year to adequately plan and execute,” a Facebook announcement states. “However, we will only have half the time this year.”
That means fundraising and recruiting volunteers, starting with an event this Sunday at Minnehaha Falls; local journalist Taylor Dahlin has more details here. The main event is scheduled for July 19-26, with the Torchlight Parade making its way along Nicollet Mall on Wednesday, July 22.
While we'd welcome the return of the Aquatennial, Racket readers would surely like us to also point out its anti-labor origins—here ya go, guys!
Wanna Name a U of M Ice Cream?
Forget confusing/bad new taglines, this is the kind of collegiate branding we can get behind. For its 175th anniversary, the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences Pilot Plant is planning to make a brand-new ice cream flavor, and you’re invited to name and pitch your dream flavor idea.
Sample ideas include Maroon & Golden Forever, a “honey-vanilla with a swirl of black cherry jam” and Honeycrisp Crisp, “vanilla ice cream swirled with baked Honeycrisp apples and cinnamon-sugar crumble.” Yum. You can submit your pitch using this online form. No, you will not be paid for your creative work.
