One of my sisters told me she doesn’t want to hear any more about the election. She says it’s too hard to figure out who is telling the truth. She thinks this year’s election and these politicians are no different than in any other year.
A lot of people feel that way. They are wrong. This election really is different.
Please listen. This is important. Our cousins include people who are Black, people who are immigrants, people who are Asian. I have friends who are gay and trans. My husband and children are Jewish. All of them are targets of the right-wing haters led by Donald Trump. If he wins, all of them are in danger. If he wins, our entire country is in danger.
Crime is falling in big cities. Crime is falling in blue states. Crime is falling across the country.
Republicans, following Trump’s lead, continue to lie about crime in the United States. Americans continue to believe those lies.
One example: Trump claimed that “murders & violent crime hit unimaginable records” in New York City. That’s a lie, reports NBC:
“However, major crimes in New York City are down this year by 2.3%, according to police department data comparing year-to-date figures to the same period in 2023.
“Those figures for last year were also far below the highs from recent decades. In 1990, more than 527,000 major crimes were reported, compared to more than 126,000 last year, according to New Yorkpolice data — a drop of more than 75%.”
“Drawing on data from 38 cities across the country, the Council on Criminal Justice reported that homicide declined by 10 percent in 2023. It also noted declines in assaults, gun assaults, burglary, and larceny, but a sharp spike in motor vehicle thefts.
“Similarly, Jeff Asher, a researcher and expert in data on crime and public safety, studied murder data from 175 cities and found a 7 percent decline in murders through December 7, 2023, compared to 2022. These cities are from across the country and include jurisdictions led by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“A murder decline of this magnitude would be historic; the sharpest one-year drop on record occurred in 1996 when the number of murders nationwide fell by a little more than 9 percent compared to 1995.”
“In the past few months, politicians and certain media outlets have latched on to a narrative that recent immigrants, especially undocumented ones, are causing spikes in crime. Instead of gathering data and examining the issue empirically, they are making this broad assertion based on highly publicized individual incidents of crime by undocumented immigrants. …
“Substantial research has assessed the relationship between immigration and crime. Numerous studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite. Studies have also examined the impact of the concentration of immigrants in a community on crime patterns, finding that immigration is associated with lower crime rates and an increase in structural factors — such as social connection and economic opportunity — that are linked to neighborhood safety.”
Republican lies continue to convince Americans. Polls show almost two-thirds of Americans extremely worried about crime, with 77 percent believing the lie that crime is increasing.
Instead of just reporting Republican lies, it’s time for the media to call them out as lies—every single time these lies are told.
Want more on this subject? Check out Judd Legum’s excellent analysis in “Why so many Americans have misconceptions about crime trends.” He documents specific, recent lies about Chicago and Detroit by Trump and Republican Senator Tim Scott–and media failure to adequately rebut these easily disproven lies.
The Wizard of Oz came to Duluth last Wednesday and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Hiding behind a curtain of presidential power, he pulled all the usual levers and set his supporters roaring “Build that wall!” and “USA!”
Like the Wizard of Oz, Donald Trump is a small man with a big voice and loud lies. Lots of lies. Continue reading →
“They’re not people, these are animals,” Trump says. He says they are pouring into the country, committing vicious, brutal crimes, terrorizing Long Island.
“Carla Provost, the acting chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, noted during Senate testimony last summer how seldom gang members are caught among the unaccompanied minors crossing the border from Mexico.
“Of the 250,000 children apprehended between 2011 and summer 2017, 159 had or were suspected of having gang affiliations.
“Of those, only 56 were suspected of affiliation or confirmed to be members of MS-13, Provost said.”
On Monday, President Trump and his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered more than 200,000 Salvadorans to return to the most violent country in the world. The administration canceled Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for all Salvadorans and gave them until September 2019 to return to El Salvador or be deported. Continue reading →
Complying with one of Trump’s executive orders, DHS opened the Victims Of Immigrant Crimes Engagement Office or VOICE on April 26. The new office’s hotline was promptly swamped with calls about UFOs, Sasquatch, “an immigrant living in NYC on my tax dollars” (Melania Trump), “an orange colored, toupee wearing alien in a bathrobe has been spotted at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave,” and kidnapping by flying saucer. The callers took advantage of another coincidence that ICE probably didn’t know about: April 26 was the annual observance of #AlienDay – a promotion by the Alien movie franchise. Continue reading →
[UPDATE — GOOD NEWS! The judge in San Francisco v. Trump just issued a temporary preliminary injunction blocking the DOJ action described in this article – at least for now. – details at end of this post.]
From the campaign onward, Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric also targeted sanctuary cities. Since his inauguration, his administration has made three moves against sanctuary cities: an executive order, a failed series of ICE reports, and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ attack on nine sanctuary cities. With battle lines drawn, sanctuary cities are fighting back. Continue reading →
Rose Santos, LEAP principal, with self-portraits created by LEAP students.
“A cow will drink calf’s milk.” What does this proverb mean? On a sunny winter afternoon, eleven students from six different countries share proverbs from their own countries. They say the proverb first in the original language, then translate, and finally explain the meaning. The cow drinking calf’s milk? “When they get older, parents must depend on their children.”
The students discussing proverbs are among 272 students from 20 different countries enrolled at LEAP High School, a St. Paul public school that welcomes new immigrants who are 15-20 years old. They study a regular high school curriculum, in all-English-language classes, trying hard to cram 12 years of education into four or five or six. Continue reading →
American citizens have an absolute right to religious freedom – to choose and practice any religion or none at all. Today, U.S. officials target Muslim Americans in airports and haters target them in our streets and cities. This is not normal. This is un-American. We need to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans and stop the bigotry and hatred.
Muhammed ibn Ali is the son of the late Mohammed Ali, heavyweight world boxing champion (three times), famous as well for his political stands, including opposition to the Vietnam War. Muhammed ibn Ali is a U.S. citizen, born and raised here. As a U.S. citizen, he has an absolute right to travel freely in and out of the country. Yet, when he returned to the United States with his mother after attending a Black History Month event in Jamaica, U.S. immigration officials stopped him and questioned him for more than two hours. Continue reading →
Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. permanent legal resident and a columnist for the Washington Post in 2018 when Saudi operatives lured him to the Saudi consulate in Turkey, and then abducted, tortured, and murdered him. Then they cut up his body with a bone saw. U.S. intelligence agencies investigated and determined that his assassination was ordered by […]
You remember the Hans Christian Anderson story: the vain emperor orders the most beautiful suit of clothes from swindlers who dress him in exactly nothing. The sycophants around him exclaim over the beautify of his new clothes. And everyone agrees, afraid to say that they cannot see anything, because that would mean they are stupid or […]
U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, issued a scathing 161 page opinion telling the Trump administration that free speech is for everyone, and that their arrest, imprisonment, and attempted deportation of international students for pro-Palestinian statements violates the U.S. Constitution. Because we have so little good news from courts or Congress, and none at all […]
The Trump regime’s paramilitary troops pose a greater threat to U.S. democracy than its threats to deploy National Guard or regular military in U.S. cities. Merriam Webster says that “paramilitary” means “of, relating to, being, or characteristic of a force formed on a military pattern especially as a potential auxiliary military force.” That’s exactly how […]
A common thread connects the August school shooting in Minneapolis with the 2011 terror attacks by neo-Nazi in Norway and the 2019 mosque massacres in New Zealand. The guns carried by the Minneapolis shooter carried the names of the perpetrators of the other massacres. Their social media posts idolized the shooters, expressed hatred of almost everyone—black people, brown people, […]
Mary Turck is a writer, editor, and blogger. She is also the former editor of theTC Daily Planet and of the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG and a recovering attorney.
Hennepin County was 
Mary Turck