Questions for a police defunder

What we would ask Minnesota AG Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison is the attorney general of Minnesota. He is one of the star presenters for The Capital Times’ Idea Fest Wednesday 09-20-23 on the University of Wisconsin campus here in Madison. 

The Minnesota AG made a national name prosecuting the Minneapolis police officers who caused the “I can’t breathe” death of George Floyd in May 2020. That was the spark Antifa and its would-be’s were waiting for, setting cities like Portland and Kenosha ablaze. It also confirmed progressive enmity toward law enforcement, animating the Defund the Police movement. Which The Capital Times supported by demanding the ouster of minority race school police resource officers from Madison’s public high schools.

The Head Groundskeeper is considering performing his well rehearsed role as skunk at a progressive garden party. Depends if they allow live questions, rather than those note cards that the moderator can just ignore. That’s the other problem with the Ellison Idea Fest — John Nichols is the moderator. Comrade John is whip smart and friendly as a lost puppy but more progressive than a church full of Quakers. 

The Head Groundskeeper would ask AG Ellison:
Does he still support defunding the police?
Is law enforcement endemically racist?
Does poverty cause crime or do poor decisions cause poverty?
Do you recommend that detainees submit to police instructions?
Where you at on personal responsibility?

The man rallied to support the re-election of Squad members Ilhan Omar and of Rep. Cori Bush, D–Mo. Both are cop haters. Hellz bellz, Ellison joined Omar in endorsing a Minneapolis ballot measure to fire the police and replace them with a new “department of public safety” that “would emphasize a public health approach.” In any event, 56% of Minneapolis voters rejected the proposal in the November 2021 referendum. By that time, voters had a soot-filled taste of progressive no policing after 1,500 businesses were looted or damaged in progressive rioting. Minnesota’s Democrat(ic) governor did not put National Guard boots on the streets until days into the mayhem, much like Tony Evers in Kenosha.

With more than $500 million in damage, it is the second-costliest civil disturbance in U.S. history, trailing only the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

— Minneapolis Star Tribune

John Nichols moonlights over at The Nation magazine, which is now on record acknowledging “Progressives need to have real answers on crime.”

California shows that unless the left acknowledges the need to make communities safe while maintaining support for criminal justice reform, right-wing demagogues will latch onto the issue. 

Yer darn tootin’ we will!

Blaska’s Bottom Line: What Blaska wouldn’t give for a real contest of ideas! A debate like Wm F. Buckley used to have with John Kenneth Galbraith! Instead of a love-a-thon like the Idea Fest promises. The only conservative on the Idea Fest roster is former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger — he only because he served on the January 6 select committee and, therefore, is reliably anti-Trump. (The roster of speakers)

I mean, c’mon! Bernie Sanders, Judy Woodruff, State Rep. Francesca Hong, and sessions like “What can I do to combat climate change?”

What would YOU like to ask the cop defunder?