Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Legal Weed? Itโs Gonna Be May, Says Guv.
In an interview with the annoyingly formatted, designed, and spelled Semafor, Gov. Tim Walz laid out some of his agenda for the upcoming legislative session. Among his priorities: โto codify access to abortion services and reproductive rights,โ โto show that government can functionโ (meaning no more down-to-the-wire special sessions), increased school funding, and, oh yes, to send out those checks to individual Minnesotans heโs been so keen on for so long. But the big takeaway is that Walz seems more bullish on legal weed than some DFL legislators. โIโd say that by May, Minnesota will have gotten this done,โ Walz said confidently. Also notably, he brought up the question of expunging the records of those previously convicted of marijuana-related crimesโa moral necessity if businesses and government are about to make bank on a product that got so many (especially people of color) locked up not so long ago.
3M to Stop Poisoning Us In Two Years
With a notable nudge from regulators in the U.S. and abroad, our good neighbors at 3M have stated they will stop producing their nasty-ass โforever chemicals,โ aka PFAS, which never break down and contaminate the environment in perpetuity. Not tomorrow, of courseโwhat kind of fantasyland do you live in where corporations have to stop doing bad things immediately? But by 2025, and, by the end of the year, 3M will stop using PFAS as well. Beginning with an unsupported assertion and ending with gibberish, 3M CEO Mike Roman said โWhile PFAS can be safely made and used, we also see an opportunity to lead in a rapidly evolving external regulatory and business landscape to make the greatest impact for those we serve.โ Donโt credit this decision to a change of heart on the part of the corporationโproposed changes to EPA rules and a settlement with Belgian regulators made it practically a necessity. โNo one should trust 3Mโs commitment to the do the right thing,โ said Scott Faber, of the Environmental Working Group, which has campaigned against PFAS. โThey never have before.โ
Wells Fargo Ordered to Shell Out $3.7 Billion, Thinks This Rehabs Its Image
Wells Fargo sucks so hard that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is openly trash talking them. Yesterday, the bureau told the behemoth bank to pay $2 billion to consumers, tacking on an additional $1.7 billion penalty fee for all their fuckery, which includes improperly applying overdraft fees on checking accounts, illegal fees and interest on loans, and wrongly denying refinance applications. โWells Fargo is a corporate recidivist that puts one out of three Americans at risk for potential harm,โ CFPB Director Rohit Chopra told reporters. Thatโs a lot of people! Meanwhile, Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf views this payout as good PR that will โtransform operating practices at Wells Fargo and to put these issues behind us.โ Forgive us for not taking that very seriously; several cited violations are from as recent as 2022. Wells Fargoโwhich is headquartered in San Francisco but owns the naming rights to the third-tallest skyscraper in Minnesotaโwas sanctioned multiple times for consumer violations in 2018, eventually paying out over $1 billion.
Minneapolis Councilman Jamal Osman Said Some Really Bad Stuff
Itโs so easy to never say โWhereโs Hitler when you need him?โย Or โJews will never be pleased unless you follow their ways.โย Or โYES YES YES MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN!!!!!โ Or, really, any of the weird, terrible things Minneapolis City Councilmember Jamal Osman once posted to Facebook. Minnesota Reformerโs Deena Winter brought the since-deleted posts to the surface today, and quoted Osman as saying โthe heat of social mediaโ is to blame. (He also says he doesnโt remember writing the decade-old posts.) Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is Jewish, tells the Reformer that Osman โapologized unequivocally and expressed deep remorseโ for language that was โdivisive and dangerous for Jewish and LGBTQ people.โ The mayor forgives Osman, who swears heโs a friend to all the earthโs people these days. The Ward 6 councilmember could face an uphill reelection effort next year, especially considering the Reformer exposed fishy numbers around a nonprofit run by his wife, Ilo Amba.