RacketCast, Ep. 50: 2026 Timberwolves Playoffs Explainer for Dummies Feat. Podcaster Dane Moore - Racket We're playing bas-ket-baaaaaaal / We're playing bas-ket-baaaaaal.

Respectfully: Awoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Love adding a David Brauer byline to the site 😎

collage of indiatinct performance photos

tommy stinson and paul westerberg

close up of paul's shirt from 2nd photo shows pope design

Paul Westerberg of the Replacements wearing a Pope John Paul II tee shirt

someBODY has to care about SEO-optimized URLs that contain the year of our lord "2026"!!

We're on strike! Don't visit propublica.org on April 8

We’re on strike today! Support our fight for a fair contract by NOT visiting the @propublica.org website or engaging with ProPublica stories today.

Tell ProPublica’s management you won’t cross the picket line: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...

haha true!

Grading the 2026 Minnesota Twins Walk-Up Songs - Racket We've heard of 'batter up'... but 'banger up'?!

Year... 16 of me doing this? Impossible to say. In any event, solid batch of songs this year:

RacketCast, Ep. 49: 2026 MN Twins Preview for Dummies Feat. The Athletic's Aaron Gleeman - Racket Sorry, again, for repeatedly calling our beautiful listeners 'dummies'!

I'm a Day 1 subscriber to @racketmn.com and @jayboller.bsky.social has been one of my favorite writers for years, so it was fun to talk Twins with him and even better to shoot the shit about all kinds of other topics.

racketmn.com/racketcast-e...

Means-testing also makes programs cost more than they would under a universal model, because so much money gets wasted on verification, surveillance, and compliance.

RacketCast, Ep. 49: 2026 MN Twins Preview for Dummies Feat. The Athletic's Aaron Gleeman - Racket Sorry, again, for repeatedly calling our beautiful listeners 'dummies'!

🎶 Take me out to the ball game 🎶
🎶 Take me out with the crowd 🎶
🎶 Buy me some peanuts and RacketCast (?!) 🎶

Listen to @aarongleeman.bsky.social talk Twins!

Racket now 7 SEX NEWS: Seville Club Suddenly... Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or...

gotta say, @racketmn.com has this whole subject line thing down for newsletters & emails

guys come on

AI, Journalism, and Human Thought/Expression: The Racket Editorial Take - Racket TL;DR: Racket will remain a proudly AI-free shop. Here's why.

Nobody asked, but here's our position.

My nephews make their Racket debut as chocolate smashers/critics.

Can the Twins win in 2026? Expectations plummet along with payroll, fan morale (Gift Article) It's been a decade since projection systems and odds makers were this low on the Twins, but 2015 and 2017 show the unexpected is possible.

Gleeman: Can the Twins win in 2026? Expectations have plummeted, along with payroll and fan morale

My view of the Twins going into this season, on and off the field, is unlocked and free to read: www.nytimes.com/athletic/713...

RacketCast, Ep. 48: Celebrate Fancy Ray Day Feat. Local Comedy Legend Fancy Ray - Racket Hear the 'The Best Looking Man in Comedy.'

Easily the most fun ep in RacketCast history. You get the whole Fancy Ray experience.

WE WENT FOR THE WINGS: A Visit to the Mall of America Hooters During Its Final Days - Racket Ask not for whom the owl hoots; it hoots for thee.

i sincerely love hooters and i’m sad that the moa location is closing. fellow hooters appreciator @mplsnightmayor.bsky.social and i stopped by to pay our respects earlier this week:

'It's David vs. Goliath': Inside the Fight to Kill Google's Secrecy-Shrouded Hermantown Data Center - Racket After local officials nuked public trust by signing NDAs, a grassroots movement emerged to stop the tech giant’s sprawling, $650 million hyperscale complex in suburban Duluth.

The concerns? Pollution, power and water usage, the aesthetic character of their hometown, and a lack of political transparency. The foe? The second-richest company on Earth, whose early corporate slogan—"Don’t Be Evil"—now reads like a glaring red flag.

I spent some time reporting last week in Hermantown, which could become home to a 1.8 million-square-foot hyperscale Google data center.

My buddy Ian is the funniest writer in town. (This takes place in a different town.)

This is a reference (with a hint of shade) to today's Strib top story:

Bill Underhill Left a Dinkytown Party In 1969. He Was Never Seen Again. - Racket Inside the reignited search for the missing U of M student.

From the archives:

I'll ask him about it!

RacketCast, Ep. 47: Mapping MN's Hidden City Feat. YouTuber Chris Parr - Racket Over 100,000 YouTube viewers wanted to know more about North Oaks.

Parr says he's not welcome back in North Oaks.

Yes, That Mancini’s: How a Legendary St. Paul Steakhouse Raised $35K for the Resistance - Racket ‘The Gathering for Good’ brought the West 7th neighborhood together.

One St. Paul native dubbed Mancini’s “the supper club most likely to be chosen for cop retirement parties.” But, this winter, the timeless steakhouse became an unlikely hub of anti-ICE activism.

Sack's Back: MN's Greatest Political Cartoonist Un-Retired Because He's 'So Fucking Pissed' at Trump, ICE - Racket Before launching his Substack, Sack had to re-learn to draw using his left hand.

I wanted to talk with Steve because it's amazing he came out of retirement to publish independently. I had no idea he'd been forced to RELEARN HIS ARTFORM WITH HIS LEFT HAND. Anyway, great guy and a state treasure.

Sack's Back: MN's Greatest Political Cartoonist Un-Retired Because He's 'So Fucking Pissed' at Trump, ICE - Racket Before launching his Substack, Sack had to re-learn to draw using his left hand.

Before launching his Substack, all Steve Sack had to do was re-teach himself how to draw using his left hand.

Anti-ICE Ice Fishing, Subzero Marches, and Art Sled Activism: A Winter of Protest in the Twin Cities - Racket Protesters have shown their disgust with the Trump administration and their willingness to fight side-by-side with their neighbors—often in distinctly Minnesotan ways.

This is how Minnesota fights back.

I've never blocked anybody on Bluesky..............