Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Sheehy? More Like Yee(sh)-y.
Montana U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy is viewed as a rising GOP star, though cracks are beginning to form in his straight-talkin' tough-guy facade. Earlier this month the Washington Post unearthed the bizarre story of Sheehy lying to a National Park Service ranger about accidentally shooting himself at Glacier National Park. “I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did,” Sheehy told WaPo, inventing a real roundabout euphemism for "lie" in the process. And, over the weekend, Daily Beast poked holes in Sheehy's claims that he "grew up in rural Minnesota" and "although we were not farmers, I grew up in an old farmstead and we were surrounded by farmland.”
Turns out Sheehy, 38, actually grew up living in a "multi-million-dollar lake house" in Shoreview while attending elite private prep school St. Paul Academy, DB reports. You'd think a Navy Seal would be more conscious about stolen (rural) valor! Should Mr. Sheehy debunk these findings about his blue-blood suburban youth, he can add it to "GET THE FACTS (About Dem Lies)," an actual section on the website of the Trump-endorsed "conservative outsider." In the meantime, here are THE FACTS about Shoreview and St. Paul Academy, respectively: population of 26,632 and 15 minutes from either Twin Cities downtown; $35,000+ annual tuition and graduated F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Want More Kathy Cargill/Park Point Content?
Of course you do, and the Star Tribune knows this. That's why the paper issued its own version of Wisconsin Public Radio's baffling bio on Minnesota's billionaire bozo de jour, sneering Duluth land hoarder Kathy Cargill. The most eye-grabbing part of Jana Hollingsworth's excellent profile: "When called to talk for this story, [Cargill] directed an expletive at the reporter before hanging up." Damn! We'd publish 500 words on that exchange alone.
But the story is sprinkled with plenty of more forthright Cargill tidbits, including: revealing quotes from her estranged siblings, two of whom she's suing ("If she had good intentions with Park Point, why didn't she come right out and tell people?"); a window into her passions (the Green Bay Packers, McLaren sports cars, "mentor[ing] kids in their quests to hunt bears"); and a sobering housing crisis stat from Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert (the city has added just 39 houses in the past decade, and Cargill's demolition spree will amount to a third of that).
We encourage you to read the whole thing while speculating about which expletives Cargill hurled at Hollingsworth. It ends on a heartbreakingly Midwestern quote from Cargill's estranged brother, Mark Pospychalla. "I was kind of hoping one day maybe we could sit down and talk over a pop, and learn of the past," he says. "No matter how ugly it gets, she's still my sister." Elsewhere in the Park Point saga: MPR's Dan Kraker reports that about a quarter of the 500-ish properties along the seven-mile sandbar belong to non-Duluthians.
MN Celebrity Destroys Historic Home
Say what you will about Chris Pratt's bible-thumping and "30 or 40 gun arsenal." Like Christ before us, we're not here to judge anyone... about those two specific flags in the culture war. We are, however, eager to judge the pride of Virginia, Minnesota, for taking a wrecking ball to the historic Zimmerman House in L.A.'s posh Brentwood neighborhood. Progressive Architecture magazine once highlighted the 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2,770-square-foot mid-century modern property that was built in 1950 by famed modernist architect Craig Ellwood and celebrated landscape designer Garrett Eckbo.
It sat at 400 North Carmelina Ave.—with its gorgeous floor-to-ceiling windows, hulking fireplace, and parquet wood floors—for decades until Pratt and his wife, self-help nepo baby Katherine Schwarzenegger, purchased the place for $12.5 million last year and promptly razed it, per Robb Report. Architectural Digest reports the Hollywood couple is in the process of building a 15,000-square-foot mansion at the address, which happens to be located just across the street from Schwarzenegger's mother, Kennedy scion Maria Shriver. This is not how a respectable Iron Ranger should behave, Christopher! But we'll give the last word to this random person on Twitter:
DFL Sorry for Endorsing Machete-Wielding Nutjob
Credit to GOP strategist/podcaster/Racket's hardcore pornography correspondent Michael Brodkorb: Over the weekend he scooped news that Judd Hoff, the DFL-endorsed Minnesota House candidate for District 12B, is a convicted criminal who has a history of harassing the incumbent candidate, Rep. Mary Franson (R-Alexandria). In a statement, Rep. Josh Heintzeman (R-Nisswa) accused Hoff of "digging through [Franson's] trash, publishing her address and contact information, filming her at her private residence, and relentlessly sending rude and threatening messages online."
Oh yeah, and there's Hoff's lengthy criminal history, which includes a 2nd-degree assault conviction stemming from his waving a 23-inch machete at someone who was offended by his upside-down American flag. (Apparently not his only past machete incident!) In his own statement, DFL Chairman Ken Martin said the party "strongly disavows this endorsement" and urges its local unit to withdraw it "immediately." Thus concludes a Flyover bookended by two imperfect political candidates, one from each party—what a system!
