Emmer seems to have forgotten basic civics
I would like to remind U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minnesota, of some basic civics lessons that he seems to have forgotten recently.
The First Amendment of the Bills of Rights guarantees all Americans the right to protest and publicly assemble in peace. I feel it is my civic duty to speak up and stand up when the constitution of the U.S. is being violated daily. We are seeing consolidation of power under a president who overtly admires other authoritarian regimes. We object!
The founding fathers specifically created a mechanism of government that included checks and balances of power. Protesting the systematic destruction of those long-established checks and balances is to me an expression of my deep loyalty to the Constitution, not to one very partisan president who increasingly governs only for the benefit of his supporters.
I am an American who deeply loves my country and plans to join the No Kings Rally as a profound expression of that love. Rep. Emmer’s ill-founded statements on 10/10 put me and my neighbors in harm’s way based on lies.
Katherine F Guthrie, Eagan
New laws won’t matter if we don’t put the bad guys away
On page two of the Oct. 15 issue it is reported that Jaleel Jackson Bey was sentenced to six years for shooting three people. In Minnesota this means that he will serve only four years behind bars, if that, and then be on probation for two years. On the next page there is an article advising that Mayors Carter and Frey are wanting to implement some local city laws regarding guns. The laws that they would like to put on the books are good. But come on, when people can go on a shooting rampage and get such a laughable sentence new laws will not help. Yes, enact the laws but put the bad guys in jail when they break them.
Tom Bates, St. Paul
How convenient
So, with two exceptions, the Republicans in the Senate have condoned President Trump’s administration murdering innocent people (innocent until proven guilty right?). When boats are destroyed at sea the alleged evidence is also destroyed, how convenient.
James Ashworth, St. Paul
More love and mercy, more unity
It is sad to see the polarization that continues to divide us as Americans.
A top place I see this is with my fellow Christians. For Christians, the main commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus even defines who our neighbor is: the one who needs help, who is in a bad situation, is suffering, who is an alien in the land. People who need compassion, mercy and love shown to them.
There are many people who were suffering greatly in their home counties and have immigrated to the U.S. and are now being deported, many Christians are in support of this. From my discussions with people and from news sources, it is clear that many Christians believe that only bad criminals are being deported. They are not aware that many of the people being deported are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters who strive every day to be good “citizens” and contribute to their neighborhood. They have jobs and pay their taxes. However, they may have had a traffic violation or missed some paperwork, sometimes 20 or 30 years ago. Homeland Security uses this to deport them.
As Christians, we are called to not only help immigrants who are scared, suffering and struggling, but also to walk with them and above all to love them. In some of the letters I see in this paper, as well as from some members of Congress and other conservatives, I do not see any compassion for the immigrant. I see a lot about the law and protecting our own money and jobs. That attitude is not a Christian attitude.
It saddens me to see how many Christians have embraced very non-Christian attitudes and stands. I understand why as I once had many of the same stands on these issues. God had mercy on me and opened my eyes to see how love is so much greater than the law and His mercy surpasses my form of justice. I encourage all Christians to consider what is happening in their lives and around them and measure it using love and mercy, not law and justice. Understand people and the full situation, not just a few talking points. If you know the people, you can have mercy, if you treat them as objects or “the other,” then mercy goes away, and our own justice replaces mercy.
With love and mercy, we can bring more unity to the United States.
Jim Rice, Roseville
‘Smart’ meters
Can anyone tell me why I have to pay $15 per month for my privacy rights to be respected by Xcel Energy?
For months Xcel contractors have been trying to install a “smart” meter at my home because I would not call and say the exact words “I accept additional charges for the non-communicating meter.” Even when I told them “I understand there will be additional charges on my bill” it was not enough.
This betrays the fact that Xcel knows they have no legal right to the more particular data the “smart” meters track without my consent — which they force by threatening to disconnect my power.
Here’s a more important question: Why do we stand for this state sponsored monopoly?
Why do we stand for this state-sanctioned bullying?
Chiara Dowell, Scandia
The point of administration citations for St. Paul
I believe people have the right to have a good job that pays a living wage and to safe, stable housing. I’ve lived in many parts of St. Paul over the last 18 years. I’ve been a renter most of my adult life, and lived in places in St. Paul I loved, and others I couldn’t wait to leave. At those apartments, there was trash in the hallways, residents having parties at all hours of the night, and water coming through leaking windows, which led to a mold infestation. I always wondered why no one at the city did anything to make these corporate-owned dwellings more liveable. I now know that the city couldn’t easily make these landlords do anything, because the Saint Paul City Charter did not authorize the City to charge financial penalties to landlords violating city rules: in other words, to use Administrative Citations.
Voters deserve context about Administrative Citations when they go to the ballot box this fall. Until this January, St. Paul was the only one of Minnesota’s 25 largest cities without the ability to use Administrative Citations to enforce city ordinances. Last December, the city’s Charter Commission approved an amendment to the city’s Charter to enable Administrative Citations; and in January, it was unanimously approved by the City Council and supported by the mayor. In spite of this, a small group of opponents collected enough signatures to force voters to weigh in on Administrative Citations through a ballot referendum, in a last-ditch effort to deny the city a common-sense tool for enforcing its own rules.
Currently, there are too many examples where St. Paul is left with two options to address an ordinance violation: inaction, or charging someone with a misdemeanor. Almost half of the residents in St. Paul are renters, and the majority of renters in our city are renters of color. To uplift our commitment to racial equity, we must enforce our local ordinances to protect all in our city across race, class and ward. By giving the ordinances we pass together real teeth, we can create faster resolution to the health, safety, and wellbeing concerns of every worker, renter, and family. Let’s come together to hold corporate landlords and employers accountable so we all can live in safe housing and be paid on time.
Melissa Wenzel, St. Paul. The writer is co-chair of the civic group Sustain Saint Paul.
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