Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Melanin-Deficient Council Candidate Targets Hyper-Local Journalists
Becka Thompson, a Minneapolis Park Board commissioner who’s running for the Minneapolis City Council in Ward 12 as a challenger to Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, has had quite the quotable campaign. That’s not a good thing. She's called her critics "indoctrinated college students" and compared them to Hitler Youth. She’s claimed that it’s "racist" to say “MAGA has no place in Minneapolis.” Most notoriously, Thompson’s comment that she “might not have the right haircut, or the desired amount of melanin” for the job made the Daily Mail. (“Melanin is a natural pigment that determines the color of skin, hair, and eyes,” the U.K. tabloid helpfully explains.)
This campaign has entertained the hell out of John Edwards, the fellow behind the multi-platform hyper-local politics Wedge LIVE! account, and his associate, independent journalist Taylor Dahlin. Both have commented frequently about Thompson online; Edwards has called her “the weirdest, worst member of the Park Board.”
Now Thompson has filed a complaint with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board, alleging that Edwards and Dahlin are essentially part of "an unregistered campaign committee" working against her that has improperly "failed to file financial reports." She claims they're behind VoteforBecka.com, an unimpressively slapdash parody website that certainly hundreds more people know about because Thompson brought it up. (Edwards and Dahlin deny any involvement with the site.)
“We believe Thompson, currently an elected official serving on the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, is abusing this process to harass independent journalists for critical things we have said under our own names and on our own platforms,” Edwards has written in response. For more on Wedge LIVE!, please read this Racket story, which is cited in Thompson's complaint. (We made it!)
You can find all the court docs in this case here, including an entertaining filing from Edwards and Dahlin's pro-bono lawyer, Dan Suitor (who—full disclosure—has written for Racket), that, inter alia (as we lawyers say), mocks Thompson for Gaylorism.
Anyway, this is all kinda funny, but it's also a nasty move on Thompson's part. It’s bad to sue journalists, especially independent journalists, who don't have the time and money to defend themselves in court. Sorry, but our job is to occasionally say mean things about political candidates—especially when, like Thompson, they make it irresistible to do so.
George Floyd, Five Years Later
On Sunday, five years will have passed since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. There have been a lot of excellent pieces remembering the tragedy, its aftermath, and all of the people who were moved to action in the weeks and months that followed; here are a few of the ones you might have missed in the shuffle.
MPR's Alex V. Cipolle caught up with designer Terresa Hardaway of Blackbird Revolt studio, who set out to answer, “What do we wear to the next protest?” and designed the now instantly recognizable lettering that adorns shirts and signs reading "Black Lives Matter," "Abolish the Police," and "All the Power to All the People." (This is a must-read if you care about social justice and also fonts.) MPR's Cathy Wurzer sat down with Peyton Scott Russell, the graffiti artist who painted "Icon of a Revolution," the towering black-and-white George Floyd portrait that has become... well, an icon of a revolution.
For the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan spoke with some of Minnesota's top Black athletes—former welterweight boxing champ Jamal James and his mentor Sankara Frazier, who live blocks from Cup Foods, Lynx star Napheesa Collier, and others—about their memories and about whether Floyd's death has changed anything (gift link). The Strib also asked Black Minnesotans who are not athletes to reflect on what's changed over the last five years (gift link).
Sahan Journal's Becky Z. Dernbach wrote about Marcia Howard, the Minneapolis teacher-turned-steward of George Floyd Square; Sahan's Andrew Hazzard spoke with Floyd's aunt, Angela Harrelson, about how she "found her voice."
And that's just a fraction of the coverage, of course. You can find ours here. If there's a story you found particularly powerful over the last week, please share it in the comments below.
AIPAC Targeting Rep. Omar's Reelection Race?
“If you speak up on [Gaza] you’ll have super PACs like AIPAC going after you,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VA) said last week on The Late Show, explaining why he suspects many Democrats won’t condemn the Israeli government’s “horrific” starvation of children. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) hasn’t been afraid to address that issue, even as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying org, smears politicians who do. The congresswoman accused the Biden administration of “greenlighting the massacre of Palestinians,” and has urged the U.S. to stop arming Israel as it commits “war crimes.”
Now AIPAC appears to be ramping up a fight against Omar, The Intercept reports. Voters in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional Distract have recently been on the receiving end of online polls that ask about Omar ("extreme"... "one of the most anti-Israel members of Congress"), former DFL House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, and, specifically, how they’d feel if Winkler were supported by “a right-wing, pro-Israel group that is funded by Trump-supporting billionaires and has endorsed dozens of Republican members of Congress who support Trump and his MAGA agenda.” It’s unclear who’s sending the surveys, but political operatives who spoke to The Intercept's Akela Lacy view it as an indication that "AIPAC is laying the groundwork for challenging Omar" in next year's midterm election. (Winkler and AIPAC didn't respond to requests for comment.)
"This is absolutely their playbook," says Usamah Andrabi of progressive PAC Justice Democrats. “They come into these districts early and poll the candidates they’ve already been talking to, that they’re already interested in, which in this case is seemingly Ryan Winkler, so they can take it back to their donors and ask for millions of dollars.”
Winkler, who currently runs a THC company, ran unsuccessfully for Hennepin County attorney in 2022 before retiring from the House the following year. The Intercept notes that a group backing Omar’s 2024 primary challenger, Don Samuels, received $350,000 from AIPAC, though that cash wasn’t reported until after the race.
“Our district has never been for sale. Special interest groups, including AIPAC, have spent millions trying to unseat me," Omar tells Lacy. "Voters in my district want to see leaders who are fighting to get big money out of politics, not leaders who want to see our elections turned into auctions.
New Dispensary News, Still No Dispensaries
We have good news and bad news this week regarding dispensaries. Let’s start with some good news: Minnesota could be getting its first off-reservation dispensary very soon. Like, maybe even this weekend. The bad news? You’ll have to drive three-and-a-half hours out to Moorhead to shop there (a trip to Island Peži in Welch is way less travel).
But there could be more openings in the coming months, thanks to a tribal compact agreement signed on Tuesday between the state of Minnesota and the White Earth Band of Chippewa, which allows them to open up to eight weed shops off of tribal land, grow off property, and run offsite delivery businesses. “We’ll be the first state where not only are tribes operating cannabis businesses off tribal land, but they’re also doing so under tribal regulatory authority,” Eric Taubel, interim director of Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management, tells the Strib.
Meanwhile, multiple suburbs are prepping for dispensaries, with 13 different cities and counties applying for cannabis licenses for stores that would be government run. Approval can take up to 90 days, however. “We might be waiting around for it, but at least we'll be ready to go… and we can hit the ground running,” Kevin Morelli, Anoka’s liquor and cannabis operations manager, tells Nicole Ki for MPR.
Now for the really bad news: Before non-Tribal dispensaries even open in Minnesota, we’re looking at a big tax hike. After one of those closed session secret budget meetings lawmakers agreed to raise all THC sales from 10% to 15%—that’s on top of a state sales tax rate of 6.875%. For reference, liquor is at 2.5% plus sales tax.
