David Brauer

@dbrauer.net

12317 Followers 1256 Following

Former journalist, long-time Minneapolitan, curator of Uptown’s borders and chief rememberer, Halloween Blizzard of 1991. Amplifier & participant in the Minnesota Resistance.

Sidewalk panels on a boulevard with white arrows indicating four full panels and two to the boulevard need replacing.
After his own interaction with ICE agents earlier this year, Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, introduced legislation to strengthen protections for license plate reader data. His bill, which died in committee, would have required a court order or warrant before police departments could share data with federal agencies or those in other states.
Spanish fans celebrating in a fountain
Grassland and prairie wildflowers against a blue sky with a mowed path down the middle. Shadow over the path from the grass as the sun is low at dusk.
Tom McDermott All donations go to LEGAL RIGHTS CENTER CONCERT JULY 20 - AT 7PM New Orleans piano legend Tom McDermott comes to Judson Church for a bespoke evening - live film accompaniment, concert, and conversation Judson Church 4101 Harriet Ave S Minneapolis, MN FREE ENTRY donations accepted
Group of bison at Blue Mounds State Park. They’re in a wallow, getting their coats dusty to ward off bugs.
Compassflower, yellow, a bit like a daisy, in a prairie field against a blue sky. So named because the blooms point east or west.
Native prairie with purple wildflowers on a grassy field and a clear blue sky.
Sign at the Little House on Plum Creek site near Walnut Grove, Minnesota: LAURA'S DUGOUT HOME ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK THE CHARLES INGALLS FAMILY'S DUGOUT HOME WAS LOCATED HERE IN THE 1870s. THIS DEPRESSION IS ALL THAT REMAINS SINCE THE ROOF CAVED IN YEARS AGO, THE PRAIRIE GRASSES AND FLOWERS HERE GROW MUCH AS THEY DID IN LAURA'S TIME, AND THE SPRING STILL FLOWS NEARBY.
A lovely glass of oatmeal milk stout
Blue bar chart showing solar production today, with a line above the bars showing increased production yesterday.
The Spinal Tap band watches a tiny Stonehenge descend from the ceiling
Map of French losses in the Great Patriotic War of 1812 in Russia. Thick line of troops going out and very skinny line coming back.
A person who spoke with Graham shortly afterward said the senator complained that he was feeling unwell," the report states. "When the person urged him to seek medical attention immediately, Graham said he would do so Sunday morning after his scheduled appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press’.”
Nate with his arms raised at the Lynx game
Poster of Spinal Tap: England’s loudest band
Jim Walsh & Billy Bragg wearing We Keep Us Safe Mpls t-shirts
Billy Bragg in a We Keep Us Safe Mpls shirt, introducing himself to the crowd and explaining the shirt.
Billy Bragg singing “Great Leap Forward” in a We Keep Us Safe Mpls shirt designed by me.
A jug of lemonade that reads “Please help us raise money for my sisters because they were arrested by ICE.”
From the Star Tribune story, which centered businesses not all the other voices: At the end of Thursday's public comment period, four of the five city council members who serve on the committee voted in favor of the reconstruction project despite businesses' outcry against it. (I cut out the last part and added “because residents were for it.”)
From the Star Tribune: “ Corbin's flower shop at 27th and Lyndale is still in business but it lost dozens of customers during the Hennepin Avenue construction, she said during an interview. Customers told her flatly they refuse to come to Uptown anymore because of the severe traffic congestion headaches that went on for two years and found other florists.”
Map of Minneapolis south of 26th and west of 35W showing Uptown and Lyn-Lake as separate named areas between 27th and 33rd with Nicollet labeled “Why the Fuck Did They Build that Kmart there?”
Twins Bullpen Alert with ‘50s school kids hiding under desks in a nuclear bomb drill.
A bunch of footie fans on an outdoor patio in folding chairs
E-bike with a propane tank in the front basket held on by bungee cords.
Donor list from FEC.gov: MANDEL, STEPHEN NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY CT 03/27/2026 $300,000.00 WILDFANG, K CRAIG NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 05/11/2026 $50,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY NY 04/03/2026 $25,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/31/2026 $25,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 05/19/2026 $15,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/31/2026 $10,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/24/2026 $2,500.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/23/2026 $ 1,500.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/31/2026 $ 1,000.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/31/2026 $500.00 NORTH STAR DAWN PAC PRIMARY MN 03/23/2026 $250.00
St. Paul Public Works rejected lane reduction but according to the Pioneer Press, “ Public Works made some minor striping changes to the section of Hamline Avenue, which was completed Friday. They replaced the dashed center line with a double yellow line and upgraded crosswalk markings, the letter says.”
From the New York Times: “Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, described the Supreme Court ruling as ‘a tremendous betrayal of the republic,' which he argued lessened the value of American citizenship. He also previewed the next possible move for Republican opponents: He called for a constitutional amendment to correct it.”
Map showing Hennepin and Ramsey counties losing millennials and outer suburban & exurban counties gaining
Line graph showing household power use with the solar portion in yellow. Solar has met home’s needs since about 8 a.m.
From the MPR story: [Minneapolis Federal Reserve Governor] Kashkari echoed a statement he made at a St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce event last month. The ongoing data center boom, which has been financed by companies borrowing heavily, raises the demand for capital. That raises interest rates and pulls capital away from less profitable projects, like, for instance, building housing. That's why, Kashkari said, bringing down mortgage rates isn't as simple as the Fed cutting its benchmark interest rate. There are other factors at play, such as data centers. "There's a higher return for the economy for that capital to build data centers than to build an apartment building," he said. "So data centers (are) a big deal. It's having a near-term inflationary impact. It's probably pushing up interest rates across the economy now and for the next several years"
Twins bullpen alert
Photo of a sickly green and blue-chunk cocktail in an up glass. Caption reads: The reflecting pool. You line the bottom of a martini glass with a blue fruit rollup, combine 2 oz rum with 4 oz pineapple juice, and 1 oz blue curacao...shake and strain, then watch it melt
Jon Krawczynski• @jonkrawczynski.bsky.social • Say whatever you want about LaMelo Ball to Minnesota. To me, the biggest take-away is this: This organization is always going for it. No matter what. The Funniest Dad Ever (/s) @mjmoller.bsky.social I give the same credit to Thelma and Louise.
“Sure Grandma let’s get you to bed” meme except it says “Sure Grandpa let’s get you to Angine de Poitrine”
Showing LaMelo Ball’s contract: 2026-27 $40,770,520 2027-28 $43,582,280 2028-29 $46,394,040 2029-30 Unrestricted free agent (unless he’s extended)
Authorized visitors GET YOUR HEJ/AHEJ Only authorized people can be in or near the polling place. Your HEJ/AHEJ is responsible for questions about who is allowed in the room. See also discussion of the buffer zone on page 132. • Someone assisting a voter • Children accompanying their parents • Someone vouching for a voter • Observers with written authorization from the state, county, or municipal election office. Common visitors in this category may include trained volunteers checking the accessibility of polling places, U.S. Department of Justice observers, and international election officials here to learn how we run elections. • Challengers Must be appointed in writing by a party or nonpartisan candidate. See page 129 more. Media Can observe the voting process. See page 128 for more. Exit pollsters Exit pollsters can be in the buffer zone or the building, but not in the voting room. See page 129 for more of the rules. Someone making a written complaint See page 114. • Police officers (if requested by election judges to keep order)
From CNN: Jeffries was asked by reporters if Mamdani had made enemies on Capitol Hill. "Listen, the mayor and I agreed to strongly disagree about some of his endorsements, and he's got work to do in terms of the conversations that he's going to have with members of Congress moving forward," Jeffries, who backed Espaillat and Goldman, told reporters. Asked if Democratic voters want their members in Congress to be more progressive, Jeffries responded: "I think we've got to look at the totality of all 215 members of the House Democratic caucus, and that answer speaks for itself." The Brooklyn representative told reporters his relationship with Madmani is "a very good one" and that the pair speak regularly.
Great, more empty bike lanes Thank you for yet another biker's perspective on Lyndale Avenue's redesign ("Lyndale Avenue bike lane fight misses the real problem," StarTribune.com, June 22). Given that Ward 10 traffic is, for the vast majority, cars - not bikes - one wonders if bikers play an outsized role in redesigns. Likewise, Minneapolis may be ranked the second-most bikeable city in America. But is that because other cities realize how these bike-friendly redesigns can devastate retail, and vote against them? Meanwhile, study Hennepin Avenue between Lake and 31st Streets where parking was eliminated. Retail in a once thriving block is now nearly gone. Retail devastation is not just during construction - it's long term. Note the vacant buildings along Hennepin well after construction's completion. One mark of a livable city is its retail presence. People like to live near thriving retail areas. Sadly, that's now largely lost along Hennepin. The column mentions fewer eliminated parking spaces than Hennepin but never precisely quantified that. If you own a retail business where parking is eliminated, that threatens your survival. So much for shopping and eating locally. Sadly, the Democratic Socialist wing of the council ignores the problem. But, you've got your bike lanes. So we'll shop and dine in St. Louis Park where parking is free and retail is plentiful. Then, council members and the mayor can argue about how to manage a $30 million deficit next year. A thriving business community would help cut that deficit, but bikers eliminated that. So, bikers, what's your solution? A biker tax? Marjorie Simon, Minneapolis
Even if these two examples were relevant, the connection between them and any possible criminal conduct is so remote as to be spurious. The Department suggests that requiring city officials to report known ICE activity to the City Council could result in the dissemination of that information -and that dissemination of that information could,inturn,resultinotherindividualsevadingorinterferingwithfutureICEactivity. This reasoning piles speculation upon speculation, while also taking aim at perfectly legal-indeed, constitutionally protected-behavior. As a general matter, any citizen who happens across law-enforcement activity has a constitutional right to observe it, to record it, and to mention it to anyone they'd like-including members of the Minneapolis City Council. Cf. Chestnut o. Wallace, 947 F.3d 1085, 1090 (8th Cir. 2020) (finding that the First Amendment right to observe and record police activity in public is clearly established).
Raygun, an Iowa shirt company, has an ad calling Green Mountain Dew “American flag blue” to mock the Reflecting Pool coating that turned the water algae green.
Import engine asking for CSV files for various types of EnergyApp data
Application hero card showing solar power production, power consumed, monthly production/use, bills.
NG CONDEMNS ONGOING FEDERAL RAIDS IN MINNEAPOLIS FOR ALLEGED ANTI ICE ACTIVITY ANTI-REPRESSION PRESS CONFERENCE BY NLG 11am Federal Courthouse, Minneapolis (outside federal press conference) FIRST APPEARANCES FOR THOSE ARRESTED 1:30pm US Federal Courthouse St. Paul
Minnesota US Attorney’s Office news release: MINNEAPOLIS - The U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota and the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations will announce charges against multiple defendants for conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and related charges pertaining to the efforts of a group comprised of members from two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups, to violently oppose immigration law enforcement. OPEN PRESS WHEN: Tuesday, June 16, 2026, at 11 a.m. CT. Media should arrive 30 minutes earlier to pass through security and check in. There is limited seating and we ask for no more than two representatives from each outlet. All media must be prepared to present government-issued photo I.D. (such as a driver's license) and valid media credentials. WHERE: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota. 300 South 4th Street, Suite 600, Minneapolis, MN 55415. WHO: U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen for the District of Minnesota and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Michael McCarthy Credentialed members of the media, please RSVP to usamn.pressoffice@usdoj.gov. ###
From Axios newsletter: “He and other dog park users told me they're worried that shutting the dog park down will lead to illegal camping and parties, since there will be fewer people there to watch over it.”
H Mart, the largest Asian supermarket chain in the United States, could be headed to St. Paul. Minneapolis-based Kraus-Anderson sold the 324,000-square-foot Midway Marketplace in St. Paul last week for $6 million, according to a recently published certificate of real estate value. The buyer is GSC RE Saint Paul LLC, which is based in Paramus, New Jersey, and lists a phone number connected to Illyeon Kwon - CEO of Lyndhurst, New Jersey-based H Mart - and IYK Texas Corp., which has developed other H Mart locations, like one in Dallas. The $6 million sale marks a roughly 80% drop in value since March 2019, when Kraus-Anderson bought the retail center for $31 million when it was fully leased. Since then, the center has had some big-name departures: Walmart closed in 2019 and was replaced by At Home, which left a roughly 114,600- square-foot vacancy when it closed in 2024. TJ Maxx closed in 2023, leaving a 23,000-square-foot opening. The 75,000-square-foot Cub grocery store closed last August. The center's remaining anchor is an 85,000-square- foot LA Fitness. An 8,500-square-foot Dollar Tree is also a tenant
Mississippi River at right; to its left, a bike path along West River Road ending in a cul-de-sac, construction north of the cul-de-sac and railroad tracks to the left & top.
Robert Grossman (?) caricatures of the 1973 New York Knicks, including Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reed
XKCD Lucky 10,000 cartoon
From the Star Tribune: As the ceremony began, volunteers dressed as pencils ran onto the lawn and bowed, worshipping the pencil. The University of Minnesota Pep Band blasted beats, and DJ Jake Rudh spun tunes.
From the NY Times interview with Scott Pelley: You've now accused Weiss of injecting "falsehoods and bias" into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did she specifically ask for? What story? That's February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown there. We've interviewed Senator Rand Paul, Republican, because he's going to hold hearings into this, and the fact that a Republican was going to do that was quite newsworthy. So, we interviewed Senator Paul and then built out a story about what had happened — the killing of Renee Good, the killing of Alex Pretti, the protests. I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively. We found a picture of a protester chest-bumping an officer. We found a picture of an officer being hit in the head with a snowball. We culled together a lot of video of protesters screaming in the faces of officers because we were going to talk about the killing of Pretti and the killing of Good, and it seemed to me important to tell the audience about the entire context. I thought we'd done a really good job with this. We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did.
MONARCA DEMOCRACY DEFENSE Richfield-Bloomington Monarca democracy defense training Tuesday, June 9, 2026 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CT Neighborhood-based training located in Richfield, MN The exact location will be shared in the confirmation email after you register. We have lived through the largest federal immigration operation in US history. We have been tried, tested, and we have shown the world that we, the people, still have the power we need to defend and expand our American democracy. Our elections on November 3rd are an essential part of that defense. Election integrity is under unprecedented attack. People in the highest levels of government have called to nationalize elections, tried to seize voter rolls from our state officials, and threatened federal agents at polling places. Join Monarca and your neighbors for our new Democracy Defense training. Together, we will build a broad network to defend our democracy, using every lever we can to ensure we have safe, free, and fair elections, and that our votes are counted. In this training, you will learn more about: • The threats we are facing • The actions we can take, now, up to the election, and beyond • How to organize locally to build democracy defense networks, building on what we already have • Next steps to stay engaged with the work The training focuses on local organizing, including an intentional planning period to work alongside your neighbors. If you are coming from outside the area, we are excited to see you, and we think you'll get the most from the event if you can attend with 2-3 people from your neighborhood, as well as connect with us afterwards to plan a training for your area.
Sundial showing major league park orientation. SSE is at Atlanta & Detroit; N is Cleveland, Colorado, Phillies & Padres.
Story text with giant green and red up and down hand icons asking to click through to a poll.
Photo of a web page with lots of ads including one blocking text. This is from an iPad Pro using Safari.