Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily noontime(ish) digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
The Trump-Tied Law Firm Gaining a Foothold in Minneapolis
"Jones Day." It sounds like a tech-focused advertising agency, or a follow up to Bridget Jones's Baby. What it actually is is an international law firm (hm) with some strong Republican ties (uh oh) that's increasingly worming its way into Minneapolis's efforts to reform MPD (nooooo). The Minnesota Reformer has the whole rundown on the Ohio-based firm, which started doing pro-bono work for the city in negotiations with the police union and is now getting paid up to $1,000 per hour to do stuff like write up reform legislation and advise Minneapolis on public safety alternatives. That doesn't feel right to folks like Abigail Cerra, chair of Minneapolis’s Police Conduct Oversight Commission, who told the Reformer: “This creates very significant conflicts of interest.”
More Like General Bills
You may have heard that literally everything is getting more expensive; inflation, the Wall Street Journal reports, is at its highest rate in 31 years. I'm sure it's fine. Anyway, not even your boxed vegan mac 'n' cheese is safe. Starting in early 2022, Golden Valley-based General Mills has announced it's bumping up prices on hundreds of items from a bunch of brands: Annie's, Progresso, Yoplait, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, etc. Cereal isn't safe either, with Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charm's, Wheaties, and Reese's Puffs among the now-pricier GM products. The new prices go into effect in mid-January. We're looking forward to catchy new taglines like "Trix are for adults with salaried positions and comprehensive benefits packages."
TPT Made a Sour Beer
Twin Cities Public Television is doing some fundraising this week, but that doesn’t mean they’re taking over the station with a benefit or membership drive. Instead, they’re asking you to drink a beer they made. That sounds win-win to us. The brew, aptly titled Viewers Like You, is brought to you by St. Paul’s BlackStack Brewing. The 6.7% ABV beer is a Berliner Weisse apple pie shrub sour, made with spices, mixed cultures, and Sweet Tango, Honey Crisp, and Haralson apples from Afton Orchards. Sounds like an alternative to apple pie to us. A portion of the proceeds from sales will benefit Minnesota Experience, a TPT mini-documentary show that will be exploring things like activism, death and dying practices, and food co-ops this season. The beer can be found in over 80 locations, including Total Wine, Top Ten Liquors, Hy-Vee, and MGM.
MN’s Big Ag Villain Back on Top
Cargill embodies all the negatives associated with Big Ag—deforestation, pollution, the innumerable horrors of factory farming. You don’t get labeled “The Worst Company in the World” via virtuousness. But the Minnetonka-based agribiz giant is back on top, baby! Cargill reclaimed its title as the largest private company in the U.S., according to Forbes’s annual size survey, a list Cargill has dominated all but three times since 1985. Last year Cargill ceded the top spot to Kansas-based Koch Industries, whose own evilness is well-documented, though the Minnesota company surged back with $134.4 billion revenue and 17% growth, the Star Tribune reports. Publix Super Markets, candymaker Mars, and another grocer, H-E-B, round out the Forbes top five. Minneapolis-based media startup Racket, on the other hand, remains a paragon of virtue; get yourself a free T-shirt/koozie combo.
