Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Oh, No: Hegseth Tapped to Lead Department of Defense
Just a great, confidence-boosting, fear-assuaging lede from the AP here: "President-elect Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world’s largest and most powerful military."
Yes, yes, and more embarrassing still: He's our largely inexperienced and untested Fox News host.
Hegseth, 44, whose nomination has been "met with bewilderment and worry among many in Washington," is a Minnesota native from Forest Lake. Beyond being a warmongering, racist ghoul who wants a more lethal military, his greatest hits include:
- Saying germs are "not a real thing": "I don't think I've washed my hands for 10 years." (This was in 2018; you do the math.)
- Lobbying for presidential pardons for war criminals.
- Calling on Trump to bomb Iran's hospitals/mosques/schools following the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
- Having affairs during two of his three marriages. (He's a devout Christian, naturally.)
- Ripping Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges for daring to give a speech at a mosque.
- Claiming it's "hard" to find English-speaking people in Cedar-Riverside.
- Hitting a drummer with an axe during a live TV stunt.
- Stating, just days ago, that we should not have women serving in combat roles.
- Fanatically justifying Israel's current military assault on Gaza via Fox News.
Anyway, President-elect Donald Trump just announced Rep. Matt Gaetz, who's currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee due to sex-trafficking allegations, as his pick for Attorney General. So this is all going very well so far.
Say Goodbye to $40 Mil in Medical Debt
On Tuesday, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter announced that the city has abolished nearly $40 million in medical debt for 32,000 residents. It's just the first round of Carter’s Medical Debt Reset Initiative, which will see the city use $1.1 million in American Rescue Plan funds to wipe out about $110 million in medical debt—goddamn! (Ahem, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, if you're reading this...)
The average debt forgiven in this initial package was $268, according to the city; the largest debt forgiven was $104,972. “Medical debt is a major barrier holding our neighbors back from prioritizing their health,” the mayor said in a statement. “By removing the burden of debt, we invest in the long-term health of our entire community.”
Now, how about a national health care system that doesn't crush people under mountains of debt in the first place? Baby steps!
Nudieland Victims Speak in Court
I cried reading yesterday's MPR News story about the victims from last year's Nudieland shooting, some of whom appeared in court Tuesday to talk about how the shooting had impacted them. (Apparently MPR was the only outlet that showed up to cover the hearing.) Feven Gerezgiher and Nicole Ki report that 18-year-old Cyrell Boyd of Onamia, Minnesota, took a plea deal that would let him avoid prison for his role in the mass shooting that killed 35-year-old August Golden during a show at the south Minneapolis house venue last year.
I'd encourage you to click on over to MPR and read what the survivors—including Tonio Alarcon-Borges, who was shot in the lower back and had a kidney removed—have to say in full. If you don't, at least read this part:
Golden’s partner Caitlin Angelica was the first to take the stand, recalling “the sheer terror of bullets falling” upon everyone gathered for the backyard gathering last summer. She shared her love story with Golden and said she doesn’t believe in punitive justice. She instead blamed a larger system of gun violence.
“It’s woven into the fabric of our culture,” she said.
The courtroom was silent besides the occasional cooing from Boyd’s small baby, held by family along a back wall, and the deep breaths of others in the gallery. Judge Bruce Manning called for a moment after the weight of Angelica’s statements.
“There probably isn’t a pause long enough to absorb the teaching that was just offered to us,” he said.
Huh! J.J. McCarthy Buys Joe Mauer's House
Joe Nelson at Bring Me the News/Sports Illustrated reports that Vikings rookie QB J.J. McCarthy has purchased the former home of Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame catcher Joe Mauer. Well, isn't that neat!
The house is located in Sunfish Lake, a teeny suburb south of St. Paul that had a population of just 521 at the 2010 census. (It's conveniently located near the Vikings HQ at TCO Performance Center in Eagan.) Mauer bought the four-bedroom, five-bathroom, 7,252 square-foot home in 2012 for $1.75 million; McCarthy purchased it for $2.44 million in June, two months after he was drafted by the Vikings and two months before he shredded his knee.
Elsewhere in "Minnesota sports connections that make you go hmmm," Lynx General Manager Clare Duwelius has left the team to join the new Unrivaled League, according to SI's Grant Young. The budding women's 3 vs. 3 basketball league is co-founded by current Lynx star forward Napheesa Collier, but coach Cheryl Reeve appears un-peeved by the apparent poaching: “We are excited for Clare’s new opportunity with Unrivaled and thank her for 11 great years inside the Lynx organization,” she said in a social media post shared by the team.
Congrats to Will Stancil, Bluesky's Most-Hated User
Bluesky, as you may have heard, is the new Twitter. That's not just according to Racket and the 6,000+ followers we've gained there since last Tuesday; Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick writes as much in the latest edition of his online culture newsletter, which also features this fun local angle:
Bluesky’s big week has also brought with it some fresh drama and discourse. The platform’s big villain at the moment seems to be Democratic pundit and Twitter addict Will Stancil, who, at one point, was the most blocked user on the site.
Way to go, big guy! Revisit our February conversation with the extremely online Minneapolis-based pundit/onetime Minnesota House hopeful below.
