What could possibly go wrong?

There?s a pivotal election in April that you may not have heard about: A conservative judge on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is retiring, and four people are running in a race that could tip the body from its 4-3 conservative majority. It?s not hyperbole to say that whoever wins the race will determine whether the state?s abortion ban gets overturned and could rule on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. (The two candidates in the race who support abortion rights are Judges Janet Protasi

Reimagining public safety

A much better (and less misleading) slogan than “defunding the police.” Programs like this are a good example of what progressives have in mind when they use that terrible slogan. And it works.

After dispatching mental health pros, instead of police, to 911 emergency calls, Denver boosts successful pilot program with more funding.

Whoever coined the motto “defund the police” should be shot

but only after being drawn and quartered, and dipped in boiling oil. This article details some of the alternatives to the traditional public safety approaches that are being tried.

Though the politics of police reform have shifted since a year ago, the movement to find new ways to ensure public safety is winning a number of fights in cities across the country.

Treasonable noticing of seditious facts

Nicholas Kristoff in the NYT: “The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. And the declines in Brazil and Hungary were smaller than America’s. …

“The United States, despite its immense wealth, military power and cultural influence, ranks 28th — having slipped from 19th in 2011. The index now puts the United States behind significantly poorer countries, including Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Greece.”

A measure of social progress finds that the quality of life has dropped in America over the last decade, even as it has risen almost everywhere else.

But Big Brother won’t know who he’s watching

The city of Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday banned the use of facial-recognition technology by city departments — including local police — as well as public-facing businesses such as stores, restaurants and hotels.

You mean it doesn’t mean crime running rampant?


“To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue. …

“For most proponents, ‘defunding the police’ does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever. Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs.

“Police abolition means reducing, with the vision of eventually eliminating, our reliance on policing to secure our public safety. It means recognizing that criminalizing addiction and poverty, making 10 million arrests per year and mass incarceration have not provided the public safety we want and never will.”