We May Have Already Lost Our Democracy.

If you believe we dodged a bullet on January 6, 2020, you are most certainly correct. But the outcome of the insurrection is still very much in doubt. Forget Trump 2024. He will likely already be in prison by that time. At very least, he will be banned from holding office.

The real threat is the five-vote radical majority in the Supreme Court.

Flexing their newfound muscle, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas have already agreed to hear a case that could give state legislatures the power to choose the winners of elections. All they need is to convince the Trump-appointed Coney-Barrett to help them further gut our Constitution.

In the most extreme Republikkkan-controlled states, that would mean legislatures could overturn the will of the people if they don’t like the election outcome. Given such power in 2020, states like Arizona would have almost certainly handed the presidency to Trump. And, given that a majority of the states are currently GOP-controlled, that could ensure a never-ending chain of Republikkkan presidents, regardless of the popular vote.

Unfortunately, we have precious few ways of preventing such an outcome. We can call for the four justices who perjured themselves during their Senate confirmation hearings to be impeached, so that a new court majority can overturn the most egregious of this court’s decisions. But impeachment convictions are unlikely to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

That leaves us with only the ballot box at our disposal. In the coming mid-term election, everyone who wants to preserve our democracy must repudiate the radical right by voting for solid Democrat majorities in both the US House of Representatives and in the US Senate. Congress can then go about the process to codify reproductive rights, privacy rights, and same-sex marriage rights, as well as strengthening voting rights for all Americans.

This is the only means certain to prevent our nation from becoming a failed democracy further controlled by theocrats, autocrats, and plutocrats. (If you don’t know the definition of these terms, I suggest you look them up. Because no matter your political or theological beliefs, if they gain even more control, you will wind up holding the short end of the stick.)

What Happens When Those Unwanted Fetuses Become Unwanted Children?

As the theocrats and pro-birthers are celebrating the court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, I can’t help but focus on the consequences of that decision. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are approximately 630,000 abortions in the United States each year. Many are for medical reasons to save the life of the woman. Many are because the fetus was not viable and could not live if brought to term. Presumably, the rest could have become living, breathing children. Children who, for a variety of reasons, were unwanted by the women who conceived them.

What if all of those fetuses were born? Certainly, though an economic and emotional burden to their mothers, some would be cared for and loved. Some would be given up for adoption to loving families. But more than you can imagine will live in poverty or worse – many victimized, abused, or abandoned. And tens of thousands would be placed in foster care, a system that is already overwhelmed and underfunded. (The foster system currently contributes, on average, less than 50 percent of what it costs a family to raise a foster child.)

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were 407,000 children in the foster care system at the end of 2020. These kids face a daunting future. Many blame themselves for having been removed from their birth parents. Many want to return to their birth parents, even if those parents have abused them. Some are similarly abused by their foster parents.

Many foster kids feel lost and helpless. Those who are waiting for adoption feel unwanted. Many are shuttled from one foster family to another. Most feel insecure and uncertain about their futures, as well they should. That’s because, each year, 23,000 of foster kids age out of the system without finding permanent families. Approximately 45 percent of those kids will become homeless within a year. A significant percentage will end up jobless and on public assistance. And at least a quarter of them face a disproportionate risk of becoming incarcerated within two years of leaving foster care. In fact, nearly 20 percent of our prison population spent time in the foster care system.

Not surprisingly, the children of color who will be born as a result of the “Supreme” Court’s forced birth decision will face more challenges than whites. According to the Juvenile Law Center, “Black children are around twice as likely to be placed in foster care as white kids. Because black kids are already subject to disproportionate rates of school discipline and criminalization, being a foster youth compounds this risk. Foster youth, particularly girls, are targeted by sex traffickers, and the criminalization of sex work can funnel these victims of modern-day slavery into the criminal justice system.”

So, when all of you pro-birthers are done celebrating, get ready to open your homes and your bank accounts. Thanks to your efforts to overturn Roe v Wade, there are going to be a hell of a lot of kids who will be counting on you.

An Open Letter To The Once Supreme Court Of The United States

I know that I speak for many Americans when I say that I no longer respect the court that I once believed supreme in regard to the wisdom of its legal rulings and interpretation of the Constitution.

In recent years, the conservative majority has ruled that money equals free speech, that corporations have the rights of people (giving executives and boards of directors both individual and corporate rights), that free speech does not include the right to boycott, that the separation of church and state does not extend to taxpayer funding of religious schools and, as the leaked document indicates, that a woman no longer has the right to privacy concerning her medical treatment and conversations with a physician.

The court’s most recent ruling seems to be based on an originalist reading of the 2nd Amendment, noting that its wording gives citizens the right to “keep and bear arms.” But what about the rest of the Amendment’s wording: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”?

If the majority so strongly believes in the Framers’ original intent, why not rule that all males of a certain age must provide their own arms and order them to muster at designated times for training as my colonial ancestors were required to do?

I can only assume that it is because that reading does not fit the political ideology of the conservative majority.

Therein lies the problem. Many of us can no longer hold the court supreme because it has become utterly and hopelessly political. Unlike every other court in the land, this once supreme court has no code of ethics. A number of the justices have taken speaking engagements with highly partisan groups. Some have refused to recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a conflict of interest. And the wife of one justice has deeply engaged in a seditious attempt to overturn the results of an election.

In virtually every nation that has become a failed democracy, it has done so with the complicity of its judicial system. I now fear, with this court’s aid, that will be the future of the United States.

The Inevitable Outcome Of The Deep State Conspiracy Theory.

As Donald J. Trump began his campaign for the presidency, we began to hear about something called the Deep State. He and his followers claimed that a clandestine network of unelected officials was in control of the US government. The Deep State, as the theory goes, is a shadow government acting on behalf of Democrats and the coastal elites against the interests of ordinary Americans.

The obvious irony is that Trump and his closest friends are, themselves, coastal elites.

Once elected, Trump used the theory to explain away his corruption and his failures. The problems weren’t his fault. His agenda was being undermined by the Deep State!

Yet even though Trump and his henchmen are no longer in office, the theory persists. Whenever a government agency debunks a GOP lie, whenever a federal court rules against Trump and the GOP, whenever a talking point of Fox News and the rest of the GOP propagandists is proven false, their most ardent followers simply refuse to accept the outcome.

They cry cover-up. They argue that the system is irreversibly rigged. They are convinced that every competing fact, every datapoint, every adverse ruling is the result of lies perpetuated by the Deep State. They can’t grasp the reality that, aside from elected officials, our government is still run by hard-working, well-intentioned, and often underpaid civil servants. It’s more enticing to believe in conspiracy theories.

Instead of believing that most Democrats are honest, caring people who have genuine differences in policy matters – whose solutions to issues are worth consideration and debate – it’s more exciting for conspiracy theorists to believe they are cunning and evil. That they are pedophiles, cannibals and satanists who, working in concert with A-list celebrities, operate child sex-trafficking rings.

Instead of accepting that our elections results are reliable. They would rather believe that their candidates lost only as a result of fraudulent and illegal votes. Their excuses are many. And all of them are equally preposterous: Thousands of undocumented immigrants voted. Dead people voted. Democrats hauled fraudulent ballots into the polling places by the boxload. China replaced legal ballots with fraudulent ones. Iran and Venezuela hacked the electronic voting machines.

Instead of believing that scientists created safe, effective vaccines to combat Covid, the conspiracy theorists believe social media posts that claim the vaccines are part of a Deep State plot. That they are a form of mind control. That they will make you sterile. That they will turn you into a magnet. That they will give your children autism and make your testicles swell to the size of basketballs.

In previous decades, all of this would have been rejected as absurd and somewhat hilarious theater. But the Deep State conspiracy theory is a very real and ongoing threat.

When a substantial percentage of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, no longer believe in our government of the people, by the people and for the people. When they no longer believe in science, in evidence, in expertise, in truth. When they no longer believe in fair and free elections. When they are no longer willing to compromise, the only winners will be autocrats, theocrats, and our nation’s foreign enemies.

The Undeniable Racism Of US Immigration Policy.

We currently have the lowest unemployment numbers in more than 50 years. At the same time, we may have more unfilled job openings than ever before. Employers big and small are struggling to find workers. As a result, many salaries are rising, especially those for unskilled and entry level jobs. All of that would seem to be good news, right?

Not according to the GOP and its rightwing propaganda media.

They are howling about inflation – inflation created by their hero’s failed response to the pandemic and his ill-conceived tariffs. Inflation that almost certainly would have occurred no matter who won the 2020 election. Inflation that has been caused by interrupted supply chains, by a lack of truck drivers and other essential workers willing to risk dying from Covid, by increased oil prices and food shortages stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, most of all, by the extreme profiteering of oil companies, food processing companies and others.

At the same time, these hyper-partisan propagandists are decrying Biden’s “open border” policies – policies that, except for the unconscionable cruelty of child separation, are largely unchanged from those of the Trump administration.

Now, it’s hardly news that the GOP and its propagandists are making up lies and fomenting hate in the lead-up to an election. But these lies have exposed the undeniable truth about their views on immigration: They are inherently racist. Nothing has made that fact more obvious than the right wing’s demands that the administration deny formula to brown migrant babies in order to stock the shelves for white Americans. In other words, they are more than willing to starve the innocent babies of those leaving unimaginable horrors in their home countries to seek refuge in the US.

Yet most of these same people proudly call themselves “pro-life.”

If a few of these “pro-life patriots” would take off their dunce caps, combine their IQs, and set aside their desire to bully others, they might realize that the US has always been built on the backs of immigrants. And we need immigrants now as never before.

In addition to the worker shortage created by the booming Biden economy, we are at the beginning of the greatest wave of retirees in our nation’s history. If we continue to build walls, refuse immigrants (even refugees), and deport undocumented workers, where are the workers going to come from? The children created by the GOP’s abortion ban and forced birth policies won’t be ready for employment for another 18 years or so. (Unless, of course, the GOP wants to reinstitute child labor policies.)

“But you don’t want ‘those’ people to replace us,” you say? Then what’s your plan? Who’s going to take the low-end jobs that are traditionally filled by new immigrants? Do you expect them to all be filled by white Ukrainians refugees? NEWSFLASH: Many of them are probably more highly educated and skilled than you are. And they probably don’t want to do traditional migrant jobs like hand-picking fruits and vegetables in blazing hot fields any more than you do.

Here’s a thought: Set aside those disgusting racist views that were brought out in the open by the former president and today’s GOP. There are thousands of people waiting at our southern border, many of whom have risked their lives to enter our country. Good people who want nothing more than the opportunity to work and take care of their families.

It’s time to set aside your hateful and racist views of migrants – your belief that America is only for white Christians. It’s time to ignore the divisive tactics of the GOP. It’s time to get over it!

The Frightening Descent Of The Court We Once Held Supreme.

Many of us grew up with great respect for the highest court in the land. We did not always agree with its rulings. But we always respected them because we knew they were considered judgments based on the law.

The current version of the Court is different. Very different.

Contrary to the protestations of Alito, Roberts, and Thomas, the Court has been made highly partisan. Certainly, there have been periods of partisanship in the past. But none quite like this. It began when Republicans were enraged that Robert Bork was not confirmed by a Democrat-led Senate due to his role in firing the Special Prosecutor assigned to the Watergate investigation. Never mind that the Senate’s refusal to confirm Bork was justified, Republicans threw an absolute hissy fit that continues to this day.

Republicans became further incensed when Democrats contested the nomination of Clarence Thomas based on Anita Hill’s credible allegations of sexual impropriety. The fact that the ethically challenged Thomas was married to and influenced by a far-right extremist and activist was lost in the controversy. And we’ve been paying for that oversight ever since.

As it became clear that the Court’s rulings dramatically lurched to the right, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito all portrayed themselves as “originalists.” They seem to view the Constitution as a static document that should be viewed from the perspective of 1788 when it was ratified by the original 13 states.

Yet these “justices” always seem willing to reinterpret the Constitution to benefit Republicans.

In recent years, Republicans have accelerated the Court’s descent into blatant partisanship. The GOP-controlled Senate blocked hearings on Garland’s nomination to replace Scalia for purely partisan reasons claiming that, since it was eleven months before a presidential election, the decision to fill the Court’s vacancy should be left to the next president. Then, when Trump won, the GOP began searching for judicial nominees who would be willing to bend the rule of law to benefit the Party and to overturn Roe v Wade. They rammed through three Supreme Court nominees, the last just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.

Such choices were a payback to evangelicals – people who can’t tell a zygote from an embryo from a fetus – for supporting the GOP’s ever-present culture wars against school integration, against interracial marriage, against contraception, against gay rights, against gay marriage, against sex education, against racial equity and, of course, against abortion.

Despite angrily denying their obvious partisanship, conservatives on the Court have made their partisan views public as featured speakers at numerous Republican and conservative “Christian” gatherings. And the leaked opinion by the Court’s five conservatives as expressed by Alito is the most obvious display of partisanship yet. They have gone out of their way to impose the beliefs of evangelicals and the GOP on all American women. Further, Alito’s draft opinion sets the stage for taking away other rights, including all of those at the heart of the GOP culture wars.

His opinion, if adopted as is, would enable his cult (aka the Republican Party) to transform the nation in ways unlike any previously experienced in American history.

For example, prior to Roe v Wade, women were seldom prosecuted for having an abortion. Those women who could afford it, would ask their doctors for a procedure called a D&C to terminate their pregnancies. Those who couldn’t afford such niceties would either seek a dangerous abortion in some back alley or take things into their own hands by employing coat hangers or acid. Or they might simply throw themselves down a flight of stairs. Apparently, that was seen as punishment enough by the Puritan crowd, since only the abortionists themselves were charged with crimes.

But, in this era of theological and ideological vengeance, it seems that no punishment for women is draconian enough. According to the current GOP anti-abortion bills, women will be arrested and jailed for terminating a pregnancy. So, too, will anyone who advised or enabled them. And every woman who has a miscarriage will be under suspicion.

What’s next on the GOP agenda? Burning women at the stake?

Why You Should Take Tyrants At Their Word.

In the 1970s and 80s, after looking at the nation’s changing demographics, Republicans embraced southern racists still angry at having lost the Civil War and furious with forced integration of schools. Around the same time, they also crafted a deal with far-right evangelicals – people like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, Jim Baker, John Hagee, and Pat Richardson. The deal was that this so-called “Moral Majority” would deliver votes in exchange for the GOP embracing their cruel and hateful ideas, including a ban on abortion.

This unholy alliance resulted in the daily picketing of clinics, harassment of women seeking abortions, distribution of home addresses and license plates of clinic personnel, the bombing of clinics, and the murder of abortion providers.

Through it all, the GOP platform and most GOP candidates called for an end to abortion. They began stacking the courts with anti-abortion judges and they prayed for the deaths of liberal and moderate Supreme Court justices. They passed draconian laws in GOP-led states like Texass that would imprison women for having an abortion, even if they traveled to another state where abortion is legal or if they ordered abortion pills online.

Most of the GOP’s current or pending laws make no exception for victims of rape and incest. They have made it clear that they will not help feed the children of forced births. They will not provide them with healthcare. They will not even agree to pay for improvements to our already over-stretched and disastrous foster care system.

In reality, the GOP is pro-birth. Not pro-life.

And given the fact that a significant majority of Americans, including Republicans, favor reproductive freedom, this is truly tyranny by a minority. Yet many of you, much like the cancer stricken notorious RBG who refused to resign when a Democratic president could appoint her successor, failed to act. You simply assumed they couldn’t take away a woman’s reproductive freedom.

It took them 50 years but, through a combination of legislative tricks to steal a SCOTUS seat and to hypocritically fill another one, they have apparently succeeded. You didn’t need a crystal ball to see it coming. They told you what they would do if they gained control of the Court.

And if you take these same people at their word, they won’t stop there.

They have openly talked about banning contraception, gay marriage, inter-racial marriage, LBGTQ rights, and affirmative action. They have tried to take away public school funding, Social Security, and Medicare. Even the freedom to practice religions other than Christianity, the right to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rights of certain minorities to vote are on the line.

It doesn’t matter that most Americans disagree with Republicans and evangelicals on these issues. They have a plan to seize permanent control of our government. They may have failed on January 6, 2021, but, if you listen to them, they haven’t given up. The only way to stop them is to vote while you still can – in the midterms and beyond. To end this pending nightmare and the collapse of our democracy, they must be convincingly and overwhelmingly repudiated.

Why It’s Entirely Appropriate To Call Republicans Fascists.

The ideology of today’s Republican Party not only meets the original definition of fascism (government by the corporate right), but Republicans have also embraced many of the bullying actions of some of history’s most notorious fascists.

Cloaked in nationalism and a veneer of religion, they are well on their way to diminishing many of our constitutional rights. For example, they are focused on making it more difficult for blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Democrats to vote. They have labeled Black Lives Matter protests as terrorism. They are determined to take away the right of women to control their own bodies. In their attempts to block immigration, they have demanded unlawful arrests and unlawful searches and seizure of property. They have passed laws to undermine protections for minority groups. And they seem fixated on taking away freedom of religion and freedom from religion by naming the US a Christian nation.

More worryingly, despite all evidence to the contrary, a super majority of Republicans actually believe that Joe Biden, our 46th president who was duly elected by a large margin of popular and electoral votes, is illegitimately in office. And a significant number of Republicans believe that violence is an acceptable way to deal with losing an election. Indeed, many Republicans – including those in Congress – have condoned, justified and excused the violent insurrection of January 6.

Moreover, a recent study published by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden (an independent research institute that measures the stability of the world’s democracies) shows that the Republican Party in the US is flouting democratic norms and is becoming more akin to authoritarian parties in Turkey and Hungary. As proof, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many Republican leaders and pundits, including the former Republican president of the United States and MotherTucker Carlson, embraced the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin, calling him a “genius” and “a better leader than Joe Biden.” In fact, it’s no secret that the twice-impeached former president openly admired Putin, bragged about accepting Russian funds for his companies, tried to delay sanctions against Russia, and held military shipments to Ukraine hostage for political purposes. In addition, many in Trump’s 2016 campaign had multiple contacts with Russian operatives. And the NRA has admitted to taking money from 23 Russian sources and it’s suspected of illegally funneling much of that money to Republican political campaigns.

Having thus enabled and encouraged Putin, Republicans are now crying crocodile tears over Russia’s war crimes while, at the same time, blaming President Biden for being “weak” and not doing enough to defend Ukraine.

None of this should come as a surprise to any casual political observer given that the Party has elected and supported such notables as Sarah Palin, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, and Lauren Boebert – people who are more suited to occupy a mental ward than a congressional seat. Much of the rest of the party, people like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Kevin McCarthy, and Ron Johnson, are cynical opportunists who are far more concerned about winning office and staying in office than they are about maintaining our democracy.

If you want more evidence of the Republican Party’s decline into fascism, think back to the summer of 2020 when the Republicans most hated bogeymen was a loosely-knit group of counter-protesters calling themselves Antifa, which – wait for it – stands for anti-fascists.

America First? Hardly! More Like Me First.

Trump followers would have you believe that their movement is determined to Make America Great Again. To rewind the clock and return America to the mythical, utopian state of their ancestors. A state in which everyone looked like them, worshiped like them, and thought like them. A state that welcomed immigrants to the Great Melting Pot but only if they were white and their origins were in Europe. A state in which Americans were free to say and do whatever they wanted without regard to the feelings of others.

But it should be obvious that the movement is less about what the nation’s Framers envisioned and more about selfishness, authoritarianism, celebrity, racism, and fraudulent religious beliefs.

As evidenced by those who attacked our Capitol on January 6, 2021, at the heart of the movement are bullies and aspiring bullies of the Millennial and Gen X generations. These are people who spent their formative years surrounded by the material excesses of capitalism and being told that they were special. Many never learned to genuinely compete for anything. Instead, they were given participation trophies for just showing up.

They are the first generations to grow up playing computer games, surfing the Internet, and posting as trolls on social media. Indeed, that’s where they get most, if not all, of their information. Rather than trust journalists, scientists, experts, and government officials, they place their trust in YouTube videos, Instagram, anonymous Facebook groups, Internet influencers, and rightwing media hosts – evidence and facts be damned.

They grew up watching “reality” TV where they learned admire power, cunning, and vanity. As a consequence, they are inordinately impressed by wealth and celebrity, expecting that one day they, too, will live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. They populate mega-churches where they worship the almighty dollar being told that, if they only pray enough, all of their dreams will be fulfilled.

Unfortunately, for many, their expectations tend to be far greater than their work ethic.

Having failed to achieve their grandiose goals, they have immersed themselves in a sea of grievances directed at those they believe have denied them their due. They are certain their lives would be better if not for immigrants and people of color cutting in front of them to claim the degrees, jobs, positions, and stature they have long considered their birthright.

Asked to participate in three ill-conceived and unwinnable wars, some volunteered and came home even more damaged than before – angry, belligerent, and racist. So, when a narcissistic, lying “reality” TV star and conman came along telling them that he would Make America Great Again by ridding the nation of immigrants and returning their birthright, they happily embraced him. Not just as a celebrity and politician, but as a god – a reincarnation of Jesus himself.

And it’s not only the quest for material things that drives these MAGAts. They are utterly obsessed with personal freedom.

They spend thousands on weaponry, ammunition, and body armor to prepare for the coming “storm” as foretold by the mysterious and fictitious Q. They walk around with a Bible in one hand and a copy of the Constitution in the other having read neither. They falsely believe that the Constitution guarantees them the right to do as they please without regard for the rights or the safety of others. They are contemptuous of education, science, and expertise. They support law enforcement as a means of controlling others. But when police try to hold them accountable for their own lawlessness, they consider it an unconstitutional intrusion by big government and the “Deep State.”

Many hate Boomers, the generation of their parents, who they feel reaped the rewards of the American Dream while leaving them to struggle on their own. And they have a particular dislike of their political enemies as evidenced by their chants of “lock them up” and their threats to exercise their Second Amendment rights. On social media, they circulate falsehoods and preposterous stories that portray their “oppressors” – Democrats and “the libs” – as the embodiment of evil. They convince themselves that their opponents are cannibals and child sex traffickers who drink the blood of their innocent victims, that the 2020 election was stolen, and their hero is still the legitimate president of the United States.

Given their autocratic and anti-American beliefs, there can be no giving in to their view of America. There can be no compromise. We cannot permit these people to destroy our democracy and everything our ancestors fought and died for. Indeed, in the coming months, we may be forced to fight for democracy again. When Trump and his crime family are inevitably found guilty of their many felonious and treasonous acts, their supporters may once again turn violent as they did on January 6, 2021. We must be prepared for that likelihood.

But overcoming their violence will not alone end the threat. The only way for that to happen is for those of us who believe in democracy to vote. To soundly, and repeatedly, defeat Trump and his entire slate of Republican fascists at the ballot box.

No One Should Be Surprised By Actions Of The Minneapolis Police Department.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are known as the Twin Cities. One (St. Paul) has enjoyed a competent, public service-focused police department for all of my nearly 40 years of living in the area. The other (Minneapolis) has long been plagued by a police department that is often overly aggressive and racist in its actions.

As I’ve previously written, I personally encountered MPD cops who were corrupt, lazy, incompetent, racist and brutal. Without going into great detail, I’ve seen MPD cops shake down a bar owner. I’ve witnessed a group of six officers acting as a violent gang that needlessly beat, kicked, stomped, and maced a black man who was handcuffed face down in the snow, slush and ice. And I served on a jury for a case in which the police failed to interview even a single witness to a so-called assault.

The list of such incidents is long.

So, when George Floyd was murdered by a MPD Field Training Officer, I was not surprised. But I am surprised that, after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder, the MPD would be so quickly back in the headlines for killing an innocent black man, especially after it narrowly dodged an attempt to replace the department with a new department of public safety.

Sure, some things have changed. The previous head of the much too powerful police federation resigned. But I suspect the Federation still has more control over the department than the mayor, city council and police chief combined. And though the previous chief has retired, the interim police chief, Amelia Huffman, was promoted from within. She has been with the MPD for 27 years. That’s 27 years of being influenced by the status quo.

Despite the MPD’s long history of problematic behavior by some of its officers, in the first interview after her appointment, Huffman proudly stated that she “loves” the MPD. She went on to state, “As a department, we must collectively recognize that rebuilding trust and enhancing public safety will require excellence in the line of duty as well as a willingness to embrace bold community safety and reform strategies.”

How has she demonstrated that commitment to excellence and reform?

When asked to cooperate with the St. Paul Police Department in executing a warrant for the arrest of a suspect in a St. Paul murder case, the MPD demanded a “No-Knock” warrant (a practice that the St. Paul police abandoned in 2016). And when a Minneapolis officer shot an innocent young man as a result, the MPD initially issued a press release in which it referred to the victim as a suspect. Only later did it acknowledge that Amir Locke was not named in the warrant and had no criminal history. And, when questioned by reporters, Huffman walked out of a press conference even after promising full transparency. (The MPD still claims the shooting was necessary because the victim pointed a gun at officers.)

If it wasn’t obvious to everyone before the Locke murder, it should now be abundantly clear that the MPD needs drastic change. There are, no doubt, many good officers within the department. But it needs a large influx of new public service-focused officers that are representative of the various neighborhoods within the city. It needs a complete new set of operating standards. It needs better training. It needs to be restructured. And it desperately needs new leadership from outside the department.

It needs its own Chief William K. Finney – the man who made the St. Paul Police Department seem like the polar opposite of the MPD.