Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Times Columnist Discovers... "Neighboring"?
Every so often, Thomas Friedman, a Bethesda, Maryland, resident who grew up in St. Louis Park, returns home to check in with his buddies Don and Sondra Samuels and see how Minneapolis is doing. Then he puts what they say in the New York Times.
In 2021, the Samuelses regretfully confirmed Friedman’s belief that Minneapolis had become “a dangerous and dystopian ghost city” because people had said mean things about the police.
But things are looking up! In the bizarrely headlined “Why Minnesota Matters More Than Iran for America’s Future,” Friedman celebrates how Minnesota fought back against ICE. It’s a mostly innocuous piece that belatedly repeats information that more deeply reported stories have already conveyed. But, heck, maybe some recalcitrant centrists will have a higher opinion of our resistance now that it has received an imprimatur from a real-life New York Times columnist. Also, he uses the word “dildos.”
That said, there are some parachute-journalism howlers here. Friedman says Minneapolitans resisting ICE were "propelled by a verb I’d never heard before: 'neighboring.'" None of us have heard that word before either, Tom. Or used it.
Friedman also fails to challenge Mayor Jacob Frey’s assertion that “my most vocal critics were embracing police and thanking police and grateful for their presence” during the occupation. (Name three, Jacob.)
But what’s most noteworthy about Friedman’s piece, from a journalist’s perspective, isn’t what he says as who he talked to. Here (setting aside a few quotes he heard on the radio) are Friedman’s sources:
- “Bill George, a longtime Twin Cities business executive”
- “my Somali American friend Hamse Warfa, head of a very creative education nonprofit, World Savvy”
- “Don Samuels, a Black former city councilman”
- “Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota”
- “Adriana Alejandro Osorio, a board member at World Savvy, the education nonprofit led by my friend Hamse”
- “the World Savvy board chairwoman, Linda Ireland”
- “Abdirashid Abdi… the principal of AIM Academy of Science and Technology, a charter school”
- “Bill Graves, who runs a family foundation focused on education and youth development”
- “two childhood friends in the restaurant business”
- Mayor Jacob Frey, “whose security team includes a Somali immigrant”
- “Justin Buoen, a leading Democratic political strategist”
- “Sondra Samuels, president of the Northside Achievement Zone”
- “Flannery Clark, a parent-activist at a Minneapolis elementary school”
- “Ian Bassin, a founder and the executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that works to ensure election integrity”
That’s a few personal friends, a whole lot of nonprofit leaders, and the mayor— not exactly a cross-section of the city. But that’s Friedman’s typical m.o., because he’s not here to find out what happened, he’s here to get the official story from approved “experts.”
In this situation, that’s an even less worthwhile endeavor than usual. Those nonprofits may indeed do valuable work. But one thing we learned during the occupation, as Friedman would possibly have discovered if he spoke to more actual organizers, is that nonprofits couldn't mobilize volunteers or get out fast enough to people. This was the story of a powerfully decentralized movement, and no one is less equipped to tell it than a columnist who overvalues institutions and credentials.
“For anyone outside of Minnesota who wants to help, the best thing you can do is vacation in the Twin Cities or hold your next convention here,” Friedman concludes.
Well, that's nice. But really the best thing you could do is send lots of money to mutual-aid groups trying to keep our neighbors housed and our businesses open.
Detention Camps Are Death Camps
In the Minnesota Reformer today, Max Nesterak reports on a Minnesota woman who was detained by ICE on February 5 and shipped to Texas. She’s awaiting a hearing on whether her detention is even legal.
That’s a bad enough scenario (though also a horrifically common one these days). But Andrea Pedro-Francisco’s situation is even worse than most detainees. “A cyst on her ovary has swelled to nearly the size of a tennis ball and is now at risk of rupturing or cutting off blood supply,” Nesterak writes. “The pain is so severe that her doctor prescribed her an opioid.”
At her El Paso detention center, however, Pedro-Francisco has been given only Tylenol and ibuprofen. Her condition is serious enough that she was scheduled for surgery before her abduction. Still, despite the work of a team of attorneys and the intervention of U.S. Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), no progress has been made on Pedro-Francisco’s case.
In 2025, 32 ICE detainees died in custody. The lack of treatment Pedro-Francisco is now receiving goes a long way toward explaining why that happened.
Stauber Uses Belabored Racist Acronym to Name Bill
U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), a miserable stooge for the Trump administration, is stoking racism with his latest bill, the “Stop Fraud by SOMALIA Act.” “SOMALIA,” in this instance, stands for “Strengthening Oversight and More Accountability for Lying and Illegal Activity,” in case you were wondering how far they had to stretch here. Finally, a law to stop “illegal activity.”
As Mohamed Ibrahim reports for Sahan Journal, the bill singles out child care providers who commit fraud for increased penalties. And if the offenders are immigrants, the bill opens up the possibility of deportation and other immigration-related penalties.
Let’s close this blurb with two little reminders. First, the Trump administration’s choice to overload the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota with immigration cases has interfered with the government’s ability to prosecute fraud cases. Second, convicted fraudster Aimee Bock, called the “Feeding Our Future Mastermind” by the feds, is most certainly not a Somali.
What’s Coming to Hamline-Midway?
St. Paul residents woke up to disappointment two Mondays in a row as they learned that the CVS on Snelling & University would once more not be demolished today. Stupid blizzard!
But the blighted CVS, the bane of many in the neighborhood for years, will eventually go. And that’s just one change that’s coming to the area. Today in the Pioneer Press, Frederick Melo has a look at all the new construction activity in Hamline-Midway.
On the horizon: Former industrial land will be open for development, the new Hamline-Midway library will open before end of the year, construction has begun on four new buildings near Allianz Field, the YMCA will open an early learning center. And increased affordable housing will be built.
