Minneapolis was a beautiful city with a promising future and unlimited potential. Gateway to the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Home of the Mall of America and a top tourist destination for sports fans, families, and college students.
Notice I say was. Because over the past two weeks Minneapolis has pretty much hung out the “Going Out Of Business” sign on the outskirts of town…and allowed myopic officials and civic “leaders” to pave the way for the city to become Minnesota’s version of Chicago.
Having served as President/General manager of WLS Radio for 6 ½ years from 1989 to 1996, I have a pretty good command of Chicago history. And am saddened to have watched it plummet from a shining urban success to the linear equivalent of the filmEscape From New York over the past decade. Rampaging bands of hooligans—unchecked by spineless city officials who handcuffed the city’s police force—have helped turn Chicago into the unchallenged murder capital of the USA.
A friend in California shared a Tweet that observed, “Pretty inspiring to watch the people of Chicago take a brief break from murdering each other to come out and protest police brutality.”
That would normally seem in bad taste, if not for the fact that on May 31st Chicago logged the city’s most violent day in over 60 years as 18—18!—men, women and children were gunned down in street violence. Max Kapustin—senior research director at the University of Chicago crime lab—told the Chicago Sun-Times: “We’ve never seen anything like it, at all... I don’t even know how to put it into context.”
Of course, what is laughingly referred to as “mayoral leadership” in Chicago has devolved in recent years from the monosyllabic, tongue-tied Richard M. Daley to Rahm (“Never let a good crisis go to waste”) Emanuel and now the current mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose eloquence was on full display after President Trump criticized violent riots and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. Mayor Lightfoot declared, “My message to President Trump begins with F and ends with You.” Classy.
Which whiplashes us back to Minneapolis, where a veto-proof majority of the City Council has voted to “defund” and—hold onto your girdle, Myrtle—“disband” the Minneapolis Police Department. In a town which was rightfully outraged over the tragic and needless murder of George Floyd, they’ll be cleaning up the aftermath of the riots for months.
Mayor Jacob Frey—seen goofily posing in Internet screenshots wearing socks emblazoned with Hillary Clinton’s face—now cannot stop the idiotic decision by his City Council to dismantle the police force who will be more essential than ever in keeping the peace in his city…whether or not he will admit it. Time to put on your Big Boy socks, mayor. Or the only thriving business in your town will be the U-Haul franchises as people move their families and businesses elsewhere.
Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender—appearing on CNN—was asked about her movement to dismantle the Minneapolis police.
Alisyn Camerota: "What if in the middle of the night my home is broken into. Who do I call?"
Lisa Bender: "Yes, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know…I know that that comes from a place of privilege."
If not wanting to be burglarized, raped or murdered constitutes “a place of privilege” in the mind of Minneapolis’ City Council, I probably won’t be the only person scratching the city off my family’s travel itinerary.
It is sad and pathetic that America—the land of the free and the home of the brave, a nation where opportunity abounds and people cling to the bottom of pickup trucks just to get across our borders for a chance at a better life—has been portrayed around the world by our slanted, mentally sick and agenda-driven media as home to little more than violent rioters and looters and rogue cops. While ignoring the very clear and present danger of public officials with a view of our nation similar to that of an ant.
Minneapolis has—literally and figuratively—hung out the 'GOING OUT OF BUSINESS' shingle. Hopefully, the rest of America will learn from their mistakes.
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