Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Trump-Lovin' MN GOP-ers Suddenly Doubt the U.S. Judicial System
In an instance of horrific injustice, a jury in New York City yesterday convicted a rich white guy of multiple felonies. Today members of the GOP contingent of Minnesota’s congressional delegation joined other Republicans in expressing their outrage.
Former President Donald Trump is the victim of a “corrupt, two-tiered system of justice,” said crypto-pilled dumbass and math-challenged House Whip Tom Emmer. This was “a performance trial that did not do fair justice,” tweeted delusional election-denier Rep. Michelle Fischbach. Per clean water foe and 1988 NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship cheater Rep. Pete Stauber, “The trial was rigged from the start.”
And state party chair David Hann, who just last month called upon state Sen. Nicole Mitchell (DFL-Woodbury) to resign because of a felony charge that has not yet been settled in court, clearly did not believe that Trump’s 34 felony fraud convictions disqualified him from seeking a return to the presidency. After all, Hann said, the trial “raises serious concerns about the fairness and impartiality of our judicial system.”
What exactly are those concerns? Well, no one really got very specific about that part, but, you know, there are just so many. Too many to even go into. Very serious concerns. Couldn’t be seriouser. Trump supporters do seem to agree that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg should not have brought charges against Trump in the first place, a drastic reversal of the MN GOP’s previous stance, which is that prosecutors must charge pretty much every crime ever.
Anyway, this is clearly the worst travesty of justice since Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, the only other time in U.S. history that a jury sent someone to jail incorrectly. Every other conviction ever? Oh those people all deserved what they got. They were criminals, after all.
So What Did the MN Legislature Do This Year?
Much of the coverage of the 2024 Minnesota legislative session has focused on the drama around setting a minimum rate for rideshare drivers, along with the failure to pass a bonding bill or place a state equal rights amendment on the 2026 ballot. But while this session was hardly as momentous as last year’s, plenty of laws passed of the sort that don’t make headlines, as Madison McVan points out at the Minnesota Reformer. Most of these provisions were tucked away in the 1,430-page omnibus package OK’d at the last minute.
And while some of what passed was dumb ($22.5 million for a new state patrol HQ) or questionable (how necessary is it to extend professional licensure to new occupations?), a lot of it is the sort of “little” stuff that could make a huge difference in certain people’s lives. For instance, universities can no longer withhold transcripts from students with outstanding debt or require students to sign NDAs as part of sexual misconduct proceedings. McVan's exhaustive look at the bill is well worth a careful read.
St. Paul Schools Go Geothermal
Johnson High School on St. Paul’s East Side “is wrapping up its first full school year with air conditioning, but despite adding a new layer of comfort, its energy use is down,” reports Andrew Hazzard at Sahan Journal. That’s because Johnson uses a geothermal system, drawing energy from the ground to keep the school at a comfortable temperature. This is a process that the Saint Paul Public Schools is relying on as part of the district’s goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next six years. Encouraging this development is a 30% tax credit for schools on energy savings projects, part of the federal Inflation Reduction Act. If you’ll excuse the pun (and we’ve punned way worse), that’s pretty cool.
People Love Partying Amphibians
That’s as true today as it was in 2005, when we were all groovin’ to the beat of superstar DJ Crazy Frog. Case in point: We got an email from the folks at WFNU Frogtown Community Radio two weeks ago that they were throwing an old-fashioned rent party this weekend, hoping to raise $10K to pay for their building for their entire year. A newsworthy event, for sure, but why did I remember it when it came time to write today’s Flyover? Check out this graphic:
Need I say more? Anyway, tune in Sunday, beginning at midnight, for a “24-hour extravaganza of live broadcasting, music, interviews, special guests, and giveaways.” And let’s close this out with some tunes to get your own weekend started right.
