Trying to score compassion and competency points by monitoring encampments sweeps from a fancy city hall command center like she's in the White House situation room is pretty gross!
Kate Baxter-Kauf
@kbaxterk.bsky.social
Class action & privacy lawyer at Lockridge Grindal Nauen. Abortion, debate access, & Central HS / St. Paul neighborhood volunteer. Lover of books, the West Wing & Feminist T-Shirt Friday. she/hers
Choosing to go forward with this violence against the wishes and best practice understanding of every other portion of local government and every field expert is shameful and the Mayor should be ashamed.
MPR News@mprnews.org · 8h agoKat Donnelly, a nurse with Healthcare for the Homeless, spent Tuesday scrambling to refill medications and make sure patients knew where to find her ahead of the Pig's Eye Park encampment closure Wednesday morning.
Based on the overwhelming consensus that I’ve heard in both public feedback and private conversations from government officials, service providers, encampment residents, and public health experts, I do not believe we are prepared to responsibly close the encampments beginning tomorrow.
St. Paul prepares to clear homeless encampment amid questions
On July 8, citing a growing number of fires, fatal overdoses and reported sexual assaults, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her announced plans to close the city’s three largest homeless encampments on a rolling...
twincities.com
So the thing about working through a plane flight back from Dublin is that it's 1PM CT and I've been working for 7 hours.
With the caveat that there's a minefield of gender-dynamic issues at play here (both in the specific allegations against Her, and her response thereof)...I don't see how, on a functional level, this lasts a full term. Just omnidirectional alienating vibes emanating from the mayor's office. Bad stuff
Kyle Stokes@kystokes.bsky.social · yesterdayScoop: In a private call with top officials, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her lashed at requests to delay a homeless encampment sweep. She attributed her anger to “fuckery” being said about her in public, 3 officials told @axios.com . One state rep logged off in frustration. www.axios.com/local/twin-c...
Oooof.
Kyle Stokes@kystokes.bsky.social · yesterdayScoop: In a private call with top officials, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her lashed at requests to delay a homeless encampment sweep. She attributed her anger to “fuckery” being said about her in public, 3 officials told @axios.com . One state rep logged off in frustration. www.axios.com/local/twin-c...
My question tangentially related to the Mayor Her stuff: the announcement about closing encampments came after the April investigation started. Is there a relationship between them and what is it? No one I know is pro the closure but my understanding is the SPPD may be.
If anybody's sitting on a stash of these, they could make a killing in St. Paul.
SNELLING AVE PALS, there is another public meeting tomorrow (Weds) at 6PM over Zoom. Register here and learn more about MNDOT’s plans for this corridor: talk.dot.state.mn.us/snelling-mon...
Meetings and events
Public meetings and eventsUpcomingInformation on upcoming meetings will be posted as details become available. Sign up for email updates to receive information on upcoming meetings and opportunities t...
talk.dot.state.mn.us
Ryan Ricard@firewally.bsky.social · 2w agoI was pleasantly surprised by the @mndot.mn.gov public meeting on Snelling Ave last night - staff consistently re-iterated their intent to make meaningful safety improvements here for walking/biking/transit. Learn more and Respond here! talk.dot.state.mn.us/snelling-mon...
It is an exceptionally fun place to visit.
Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · last mo.One of the most successful pedestrian streets in the world, the Strøget in Copenhagen, was filled with cars until a 2 year pedestrianization pilot project in 1962. The opposition argued “no cars means no business,” but the street has been a massive retail success, the city’s busiest shopping street.
JUST IN: A federal judge in Minnesota — Trump appointed chief judge Eric Tostrud — has rejected the administation's effort to force Minnesota to cooperate in enforcing federal immigration law. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
It’s the first day of the full Matthew Ornstein summer debate camp. Nearly 300 public school kids for the free camp, fifth grade through high school, nearly all. Title I schools. Www. Mornstein.org
"if wealth and political access can indefinitely relitigate a finished public decision, every safety project in every Minnesota city inherits the playbook — and every taxpayer inherits the legal bills and the cost of delay." Erik Noonan of @bikemn.bsky.social understands the stakes of Summit Ave.
Counterpoint: The math against the Summit Avenue trail doesn’t work; democracy, however, does
“A small, affluent, politically connected group has spent over three years using endless lawsuits, public records fights and opinion pages to relitigate a public decision that has already been made — ...
twincities.com
Please pause a minute and consider how much money municipalities spend on displacing and hurting people, destroying what few possessions they have (including ID documents and in-process paperwork for help), disconnecting them from community and aids to climb out of their situation... 1/3
Sanctuary Supply Depot@supplydepotmpls.bsky.social · 4w agoThis is NOT how we treat our neighbors. No one involved has been able to answer what "alternative housing" will be available for the people they are intentionally displacing in preparation for a Minnesota winter. Shelters are full, and not every shelter is suited for every person... Please help 💕💸
I am still so furious and also so heartbroken. This feels like the least I can do, and maybe you can too.
Sanctuary Supply Depot@supplydepotmpls.bsky.social · 3w ago$9300!!! Getting closer!!
My first organizing principle in this area is that policy towards unhoused folks should never be actively mean. This is mean.
Iruka@iruka-abolition.bsky.social · 4w ago@mayorher.bsky.social @mollycoleman.bsky.social it is unacceptable to fail to provide people the resources they need on their terms and then trash their stuff. How many of these people were affected by ICE? This is cruel.
Yes, SCOTUS is pretty devotedly wrecking things for consumers and patients and working people in litigation, too. And it's going to be REALLY hard to fix long term.
Elizabeth N. Saunders@profsaunders.bsky.social · last mo.Obviously the human toll is what matters. But here's a question I keep thinking about. The bulk of the SCOTUS docket is business stuff. If they are now openly reinterpreting the law on days that end in Y, how can anyone have confidence in the rule of law in America, including corporate interests?
No matter what the Supreme Court says, No matter how hard the fascists cling to power, we will fight for all our trans community. Sports are integral to youth community and development and cannot be denied to our trans kids.
This is the nut of it. If trans women don't have access to equal protection under the law, then they essentially are a second-class citizen who cannot depend on the protection or rights afforded cisgender counterparts. Trans men likewise just don't exist under the law.
ElieNYC@elienyc.bsky.social · last mo.See, people always want to make this just about "sports," but the real upshot here is that, 6-3, trans women can't make a claim under the Equal Protection Clause. And if they can't do that, it's hard to see how they have constitutional rights.
anyway i think the proper takeaway here is that a bare majority of the court thinks the plain words of the 14th amendment mean what they say, that four members believe there is a secret hidden meaning only recently discovered by hack lawyers
Alito’s standard for racial discrimination in the TPS ruling, that racism has to be the *sole* motivation to count as discriminatory, is so deranged that it could arguably cover neither Jim Crow nor slavery. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
IMHO, the Supreme Court is a *bigger* problem than Trump, and it should be the primary target for reform. Trump and Congress would both be very different under a law-abiding SCOTUS, which would have stopped government action clearly animated by racism and racially gerrymandered districts.
Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · last mo.The new racist double standard set up by Alito in the TPS ruling: if there’s any other motive in addition to the racism, the racism doesn’t count, but if the state wants to *prevent* discrimination against black people, that is racist and unconstitutional www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Hot take: I think the Minneapolis St. Paul dessert scene could be better.
One weird thing about getting older is how much other people enjoy coming to visit - and how much I enjoy showing them! - our new fence.
Someone actually did a study a while back that showed the most effective way to get women out of TERF groups wasn’t people trying to change their minds, it was them getting literally any benign hobby, like learning other languages or taking up needlework
Patrick Wyman@patrickwyman.bsky.social · 2mo agoYou know who isn't getting radicalized? Guys who do ships in a bottle. Embrace model-building and avoid the pitfalls of right-wing extremism
I always come back to Lincoln on Memorial Day
while it's relatively rare for public defenders to become state supreme court justices, Minnesota's newly-named chief justice, Theodora Gaïtas, and newest associate justice, Reynaldo Aligada Jr., are both former public defenders and the children of immigrants
Walz names Theodora Gaïtas as chief justice of Minnesota Supreme Court
She will replace Natalie Hudson when Hudson retires this fall. Walz also named Reynaldo Aligada Jr. as the court’s newest associate justice.
startribune.com
After Plessy v Ferguson it was 58 years before we got a court willing to overturn it. I don’t think Black people who want to vote and women who want to have rights to their bodies and trans people who want to EXIST should have to wait that long because it offends your sense of propriety.