Tag Archives: Minneapolis

Post-Election Blues: Eye of the Storm?

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Look what came true and what didn’t. The five points below were written the day after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in a bitter and bizarre election campaign in the eleventh month of 2024, set aside, and rediscovered sitting unfinished in a file not quite two years later:

  1. Most of what and who we voted for in local and state elections passed/won, and that’ll have a greater daily impact on us anyway. More than the overarching rule of Donald J. Trump in his second term.
  2. Trump’s win in both the popular and EC or Electoral College votes, while not at all anything close to a landslide, is nevertheless clear & decisive in a free, fair, and secure election. That means our system, however in need of reform, still works. It worked well enough the once imminent threat of mass violence and civil war among us Americans has quickly receded. The Right sees the system work so a rebellion isn’t necessary, and the Left is too stunned at its loss of power to do anything violent. These are good things.
  3. Any attempt to actually go beyond rhetoric to set up a real dictatorship takes time, and will be vigorously contested in the courts, by both the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community, and state, territorial, and local governments as well as by Congress.
  4. Trump is an isolationist. He won’t go to war with Russia and China,  but he will allow them and others to do whatever they want. Which means a nuclear world war is ironically less likely now, but the US will likely be forced to intervene once again down the road somewhere.
  5. We are still a very divided nation; tho not necessarily in the way we all thought we were.

As a reminder, those words were written on Wednesday 6 November 2024, the day after the Election. And nearly a year later on Tuesday 30 Sept 2025: OMG! How WRONG I was, LOL! How WRONG! Continue reading →

Minnesota’s Violence has reached an Inflection Point

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Donald Trump, his nasty White House sycophants, and their stormtrooper thugs lie and lie and lie to the world while pouring gasoline on the fires they set in our cities. Trump and his gang of thugs must be impeached, removed from power, tried for murder and treason, and if found guilty imprisoned.

The United States has been in the throes of yet another round of violence and civil unrest. There have been frequent tho intermittent mass peaceful protests, assassinations and attempted assassinations, mass shooting in schools and houses of worship, nationwide No Kings Day demonstrations, political corruption and corporate intrusion into government especially at the Federal level, numerous violent abuses and war-like raids on first immigrants and then anyone else by ICE and CBP, the calling out of National Guard forces by President Trump over the objections of Democratic state governors and city mayors, the firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro’s Residence, waves of White racism, transphobia, homophobia, and anti-Semitism, the rollback of LBTQI+ rights, the rollback of woke and DEI, the increased sexism and misogyny from the White House, and the erasure of much of history including downplaying slavery and genocide. That is one long sentence, and, even so, a very incomplete list. This nation is once again highly polarized, and the temperature keeps getting cranked back up.

Lately much of the turmoil has been centered in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Twin Cities in the heart of the American State of Minnesota. On Saturday the 14th of June 2025, an ultraconservative Fundamentalist Christian part-time pastor went on a rampage of assassination along the edges of the Twin Cities. He shot two Democrat state lawmakers and their spouses. All four were riddled with bullets. One couple died and the other two survived. Continue reading →

The Verdict: Justice Achieved

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George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, and the United States of America

Encounter with Cops and Protesters in a strange demonstration

To many a surprise and with great relief, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a White man, was found guilty on all three counts in the murder of George Floyd, a Black man from Texas, originally North Carolina, who had recently moved to Minnesota. There was not any hung jury nor partial rendering of justice. The jury, itself composed of people from different ethnic groups including Blacks and Whites, deliberated quickly and returned their verdict to the court. The verdict took mere minutes to read out loud, and the world changed. Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, guilty of murder in the third degree, and second-degree manslaughter. Sentencing is set for two weeks, why so damn far out I don’t know, but the killer will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Although Minnesota abolished the death penalty back in 1911, the murderer of George Floyd is more likely to be killed in prison by fellow convicts than to die of old age.

Faithlyn, my fiancé, first notified me by text while I happened to be on a break at work. We are both hard of hearing so we text to stay connected. She’s excited, riveted, and texted me “…The verdict is about to be read!” Moments later, she wrote one text: “Guilty.” Then, “On ALL counts.” Later on, she texted me it felt “so surreal.” Sent me an image of her avatar crying, “TEARS of JOY.” Full disclosure here: my Beloved is Black, Deaf, and an Immigrant naturalized as a US citizen while I am White, Hard of Hearing, and a native-born US citizen. Aye, tears of joy! Continue reading →