Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Michele Tafoya: From NFL Broadcasts to the U.S. Senate?
When Sen. Tina Smith announced last week that she would not be seeking reelection in 2026, pretty much everyone in town, from House Reps. like Angie Craig to perennial kook candidates like Royce White, said they were considering running for her seat. And now it looks like another hat is getting tossed into the ring: current podcaster/former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.
“When Tina Smith made her announcement, my phone practically exploded,” she tells radio host Steve Hallstrom. She also says she tried to get Alpha News reporter Liz Collin to vie for the seat, since Tafoya doesn’t know how long she “will be a Minnesotan.” (We’re guessing Collin is busy with her defamation lawsuit.)
“I think Minnesota is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn’t tell them that they’re going to ban abortion who is the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime,” says Tafoya, who once challenged Racket's Jay Boller to a debate after he mocked her for throwing away a dream gig to be a online culture warrior. Some of her “moderate” politics include an anti-CRT crusade, questioning the severity of COVID-19, and being transphobic on Twitter.
Understanding the Realties of Harm Reduction
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), nearly 75,000 people overdosed on opioids in 2024. While that number disproportionately impacts people living in poverty, if you’re unhoused it’s even worse, as you’re six times more likely to die from an overdose.
Tim Evans explores the connection between homelessness and addiction, as well as the work of harm-reduction organizations in Minneapolis in this excellent piece from The Nation. “When you’re not giving someone the chance to be safer, how do you expect them to not be at risk?” says Marissa Bonnie, harm reduction health educator at Native American Community Clinic (NACC) in south Minneapolis. As Evans points out, harm reduction is more than providing Narcan in a vending machine (though that’s important, too); it’s about taking concerned calls in the middle of the night, dropping off fentanyl test kits to regular users, and checking in with people in homeless encampments.
The article also touches on encampment sweeping, a questionable tactic OK’d by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024. “After a camp has been evicted, that’s the most dangerous part,” says Zach Johnson at Southside Harm Reduction Services. “People are scattered; they lost their stuff; they lost their community; they lost their Narcan. A lot of people use and overdose in the hours after a sweep.”
Survive a Plane Wreck? Score $30K!
When a Delta flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International made a fiery, wingless, upside-down landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week, it looked bad. Thankfully, there were no casualties, and of the two-dozen or so passengers brought to the hospital for injuries, only one has yet to be unreleased. Will there be lawsuits? Maybe! But, in the meantime, Delta would like to give riders $30,000 as a “goodwill gesture.” The money comes with “no strings attached and does not impact rights,” spokesperson Morgan Durrant tells Bill Lukitsch at the Star Tribune. Ominous! In other locally angled plane-crash news: Local band Yam Haus were supposed to board that ill-fated Delta plane next, KARE 11 reports, though they never did on account of it crashing. Not exactly as high-stakes as Seth MacFarlane's 9/11 story...
Chris Kluwe Update: Chris Kluwe Still Awesome
What’s ex-Vikings punter Chris Kluwe up to these days? Getting arrested at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting, apparently. Kluwe was protesting a “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing,” and “Adventurous” (MAGA) plaque displayed at a public library. A clip of his speech, moments before his arrest, can be found on Twitter.
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy, and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement,” Kluwe told the council. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat. That is what it is. I will now engage in the time honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.”
According to the Orange County Register, he was out and back on the streets after four hours in custody.
In the ‘10s, Kluwe became a fan fave in Minnesota thanks to his passionate advocacy for gay rights; Racket also spoke to Kluwe back in 2022 after he was banned from Twitter for impersonating Elon Musk. Keep fighting the good fight, bud.
@nbcnews Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe spoke out at a city council meeting in Huntington Beach, California, over a plan to display a library plaque with a MAGA acronym and criticized the MAGA movement. He was arrested after engaging in what he called “peaceful civil disobedience” and approaching the front of the meeting.
♬ original sound - nbcnews
