Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Axios: Ilhan Omar Is Cooking Up an Impeachment
Axios has the scoop that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is “privately proposing” articles of impeachment against bumbling, blustering, and (perhaps) blotto Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, along with his similarly inept colleagues National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Criticism has been heated—even from Republicans!—since Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, revealed that high-level White House officials had added him to a Signal thread that discussed an ongoing bombing attack in Yemen. Many, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have called for Hegseth to be fired, but since the default Trumpworld response to any accusation is, “No we didn’t, and if we did it doesn't matter,” such a dismissal is hardly likely. (Side note: It would be nice if deliberately bombing civilians was itself an impeachable offense, but if we started booting federal officials from office for mere war crimes, who would we have left?)
The Republican congressional majority could block an impeachment, and Axios quotes a second Dem source as saying it’s “an ‘unlikely scenario’ that impeachment will be used as a Democratic tool as long as Republicans control the House.” Still, good on Omar for trying to make something happen. Seems to me like it’s just smart politics to force your opponents to justify their least justifiable actions. But since when have national Democrats practiced smart politics?
Who’s Afraid of Facial Recognition Technology?
Not the Twins employees that the Star Tribune spoke to for this story about how the new tech will make life easier for fans attending games at Target Field, that’s for sure. FRT is being used this year for what Major League Baseball is calling “Go-Ahead Entry.” Rather than going through the onerous process of presenting a ticket on your phone, you can opt to have your face scanned electronically.
Might some fans have privacy concerns? “The Twins say the facial recognition entry program will in no way be used for security,” according to the story. To quote Bob Dylan at the conclusion of the Cuban Missle Crisis: Well, that’s that. We all know that there have never been unforeseen consequences to using new, intrusive technology.
The more technophobic among us might turn to that great guardian of our civil liberties, USA Today, which had some real questions about the process. Not that the fans they spoke to were ready to push back. One utters these famous last words: “I’m not a criminal and I don’t do criminal things. I’m good!” Another shrugs with resignation, “They’ve already got your face.”
The ACLU believes otherwise. “There are many, many ways we have privacy that we would still be very angry if it were invaded,” a spokesperson told USA Today, calling face recognition “the nuclear bomb of privacy.”
You know, I had a roommate in the ’90s who refused to use her rewards card at Rainbow Foods (RIP) because she didn’t want them tracking her purchases. Seemed nuts at the time. She seems smarter every day.
St. Paul Has a Trash Collection Problem (Again)
I will admit that I do not understand the curious ways of St. Paul and, in fact, I feel like a genius if I can get from one spot in our capital city to another without hopping back on I-94. But I do know that trash collection has traditionally been a sticky political issue, so I turned to this explainer from MinnPost’s Winter Keefer to help me understand why St. Paul residents may be without trash collection as soon as next Tuesday.
April 1 is the day St. Paul is set to launch its first-ever single-carrier municipal waste pickup program. But last week, at the urging of a neighborhood group, City Council blocked a proposal to construct a dispatch center and maintenance facility at 540 Randolph Ave. Mayor Melvin Carter said this decision “plunged the city into crisis.”
Yet St. Paul City Council President Rebecca Noecker denies the council is to blame, saying there’s clearly no way the facilities could have been operative by next week anyway. In any case, no one seems clear on what happens on Tuesday, especially not me.
While we’re in the neighborhood, let’s check in on some other St. Paul City Council business. Yesterday the council voted 3-2 to recommend clean energy advocate Matt Privratsky for the Ward 4 seat left vacant by Mitra Jalali’s resignation, the Pioneer Press reports. But Noecker was not present, and as a result some council members said the vote was out of order, with Vice President Council Member Nelsie Yang calling council’s actions “very inappropriate.”
City Council will make its final decision on Friday, and the interim appointment will be held until after the results of an August special election. So, yes, Minneapolitans, things are a mess on that side of the river too.
And Now Let Us Never Speak of Love Is Blind Season 8 Ever Again
Everyone seems to agree that the recent Minneapolis-set season of Netflix's Love Is Blind was dull. But before we leave this streaming pile behind us, maybe you want to obsess over our city being featured on a reality show one last time.
If so, we have just the resource for you. This wedding photography website has a complete rundown on all the local spots featured on Love Is Blind—and even a few places that almost made the show. Among the scrapped footage are scenes shot at Cuzzy’s, a joint long-beloved by City Pages staffers, and one of the few places in North Loop that actually feels like a part of Minneapolis. For future LIB seasons, may we suggest: more dive bars.
But enough of that. Now it is time to look to the future of reality-show local angles, with the news that professionally unmarried local person Leslie Fhima is going to appear on Bachelor in Paradise. Do I have anything to say about that? Do I (in yet more local reality show news) understand what's going on with this woman's hair? No! And no!
