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    Joe Biden and Kamala Harris attend funeral of slain Minnesota lawmaker

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    Democratic former Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.Hortman was shot to death during a pair of attacks two weeks earlier by a man posing as a police officer. Minnesota’s chief federal prosecutor has called the killing an assassination. The shootings also left her husband, Mark, dead and a state senator and his wife seriously wounded.“Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history. I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor and the most talented legislator I have ever known,” Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said in his eulogy.Walz, who was Harris’s running mate in the 2024 White House election won by Donald Trump, added: “For seven years, I have had the privilege of signing her agenda into law. I know millions of Minnesotans get to live their lives better because she and Mark chose public service and politics.”Neither Biden nor Harris spoke, but they sat in the front row with Walz. Biden was also one of more than 7,500 people who paid their respects on Friday as Hortman, her husband and their golden retriever, Gilbert, lay in state in the Minnesota capitol rotunda in St Paul. Gilbert was seriously wounded in the attack and had to be euthanized. Biden also visited the wounded senator in a hospital.Dozens of current and former state legislators from both parties and other elected officials who worked with Hortman also attended.As House speaker, Hortman helped pass an expansive agenda of liberal initiatives such as free lunches for public school students along with strengthened protections for abortion and trans rights during a momentous 2023 legislative session. With the House split 67-67 between Democrats and Republicans this year, she yielded the gavel to a Republican under a power-sharing deal, took the title speaker emerita and helped break a budget impasse that threatened to shut down state government.Walz said Hortman – who was first elected in 2004 – saw her mission as “to get as much good done for as many people as possible”. And he said her focus on people was what made her so effective.“She certainly knew how to get her way – no doubt about that,” Walz said. “But she never made anyone feel that they’d gotten rolled at a negotiating table. That wasn’t part of it for her, or a part of who she was. She didn’t need somebody else to lose to win for her.”The governor said the best way to honor the Hortmans would be by following their example.“Maybe it is this moment where each of us can examine the way we work together, the way we talk about each other, the way we fight for things we care about,” Walz said. “A moment when each of us can recommit to engaging in politics and life the way Mark and Melissa did – fiercely, enthusiastically, heartily, but without ever losing sight of our common humanity.”A private burial for the Hortmans will be held at a later date.The Hortmans were proud of their adult children, Sophie and Colin Hortman, and the lawmaker often spoke of them.In a voice choked with emotion, Colin said his parents embodied the “Golden Rule”, and he read the prayer of St Francis, which his mother always kept in her wallet. He said it captures her essence. It starts: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”After the service, Walz presented the children with US and Minnesota flags that flew over the state capitol on the day their parents were killed.The man accused of killing the Hortmans at their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park on 14 June, and wounding Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in nearby Champlin, surrendered near his home the night of 15 June.Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, remains jailed and has not entered a plea to charges that could carry the federal death penalty. More

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      Suspect in Minnesota killings accused of being ‘prepper’ preparing ‘for war’

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      The man charged in connection with the recent shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses was a doomsday “prepper” who instructed his family to “prepare for war” as he tried to evade capture, according to new court filings.Vance Boelter, 57, faces multiple federal and state murder charges after allegedly shooting dead the Democratic Minnesota state house speaker emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in the early hours of 14 June. Boelter is also accused of shooting and seriously wounding the Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, about 90 minutes earlier.In a newly unsealed affidavit first reported by the local news station WCCO and seen by the Guardian, law enforcement pulled over Boelter’s wife and four children hours after the shootings near Lake Mille Lacs, about 75 miles (120km) north of the Twin Cities, apparently en route to Wisconsin.Boelter’s wife consented to a search of her vehicle, where law enforcement located a revolver in the glove box and a semi-automatic pistol in a cooler. Police also found a safe, Boelter’s and the children’s passports, and at least $10,000 in cash, according to the affidavit by FBI agent Terry Getsch.Boelter’s wife told investigators that her husband had recently sent a message to a group text thread with their children, which “stated something to the effect of they should prepare for war, they needed to get out of the house and people with guns may be showing up to the house”, wrote Getsch.According to the affidavit dated 14 June, Boelter and his wife were preppers – a term which refers to people who stockpile materials such as weapons, food and gasoline. Preppers’ purpose for doing that is to survive a future major disaster or catastrophe such as war or economic or political collapse.At some point earlier, Boelter had given his wife a “bailout plan” – instructions of what to do and where to go in case of “exigent circumstances”. The plan specified that the family go to her mother’s residence in Spring Brook, Wisconsin.She also told investigators that her husband “has a business partner from Worthington” who lives in the state of Washington. The two were “partners … in Red Lion, a security company and fishing outfit in Congo, Africa”, the affidavit states.The deadly shootings took place as millions of people prepared to take to the streets to protest against the Trump administration and its assault on free speech, peaceful assembly and due process rights embedded in the US constitution.Getsch wrote the affidavit during what became the largest ever manhunt in Minnesota state history, when he believed the gunman may have fled state lines. Boelter was eventually captured two days later while trying to evade arrest by fleeing into a wooded area close to his home.The affidavit does not imply that Boelter’s wife knew about her husband’s alleged plans to attack the lawmakers. She has not been charged with any crime.Boelter was disguised as a police officer and drove a black SUV with a license plate that said “police”. He allegedly ambushed the lawmakers at home in the middle of the night, banging on their front doors armed with a 9mm handgun, and wearing a black tactical vest and silicone mask.He exchanged fire with police at about 3.30am on Saturday outside the Hortmans’ home but managed to flee the scene, according to a federal criminal complaint.According to separate court documents obtained by WCCO on Friday, law enforcement found a storage locker rented by Boelter in Minneapolis on 10 June. He had last “used his access code” for the locker the day before the shootings.Investigators later found empty rifle cases, gun-cleaning supplies and a bike inside the locker.Law enforcement found a “hit list” of individuals inside what they believe was Boelter’s vehicle. It included Hortman, Hoffman and several other Democratic lawmakers, as well as reproductive rights advocates.In a statement released on Thursday, the Hoffman family recounted the terrifying attack. The statement said: “We are grappling with the reality that we live in a world where public service carries such risks as being targeted because someone disagrees with you or doesn’t like what you stand for.” More

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      The Minnesota shootings illuminate the character of the Trump era | Sidney Blumenthal

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      In the early morning of 14 June, according to authorities, Vance Luther Boelter, disguised as a police officer and wearing body armor and a face mask, drove his black Ford Explorer SUV, equipped with flashing lights, to the home of the Minnesota state senator John Hoffman. There, he shot Hoffman nine times, critically wounding him, and shot his wife eight times as, relatives say, she threw her body over her daughter to shield her. He next drove to the home of the former house speaker Melissa Hortman, forced his way in, and killed her and her husband, officials say.The police arrived and Boelter fled, abandoning his car. In it they allegedly discovered a “kill list” of dozens of federal and state Democratic officials, mostly from Minnesota but also prominent Democrats in other midwestern states, and the sites of women’s healthcare centers and Planned Parenthood donors. He left behind notebooks with detailed descriptions of his target locations. On the lam, Boelter sent a text message to his family: “Dad went to war last night.”As soon as the earliest reports of the murders were published, with the sketchy information that Boelter had been appointed by Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, to one of many state boards, on which there are currently more than 342 vacancies, the rightwing swarm began spreading the falsehood that he was Walz’s hitman. Mike Cernovich, a notorious conspiracy-monger with a large following on X, tweeted: “Did Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?”Elon Musk jumped in, writing on X: “The far left is murderously violent.” The far-right activist Laura Loomer, who occasionally surfaces as an intimate of Donald Trump, tweeted that Boelter and Walz were “friends” and that Walz should be “detained” by the FBI.Within hours, Mike Lee, a Republican senator for Utah, used the platform of his office to push the disinformation. Over eerie night-time photos of Boelter in his mask and police outfit standing at Hortman’s door seconds before he opened fire, Lee tweeted, first at 9.50am on 15 June: “This is what happens. When Marxists don’t get their way.” At 10.15am, he tweeted, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” misspelling Walz’s name.Lee expressed no sympathy or shock over the assassinations. He assumed the distance of the online tormentor gave him license. Like the mask-wearer, both were disinhibited by their contrived personas. Anything goes. Lee was doing more than blaming Walz for carrying out a bloody vendetta that conspiracy theorists had conjured. Lee created a cartoon. The killer was enlisted by the evil liberal governor to rub out someone who was in reality one of his closest allies. Like Boelter, Lee felt a compulsion to push himself in. The clamor of the far right pre-empted the emergence of the facts for Lee and served as his incitement.But, of course, Lee is a learned man who knew that what he was doing was malicious. The facts were always irrelevant. He trivialized a tragedy in order to implicate Walz as the villain commissioning the hit. Lee’s tone was one of mocking derision to belittle and distort. The killer, Walz and the victims were all tiny, dehumanized figures he arranged to illustrate his tweets. His manipulation was more than a maneuver. It was a revelation of Lee’s own mentality and political imagination he believed would be embraced to his advantage. His depraved humor was designed to cement fellow feeling between the jokester and his intended audience. He was playing to the gallery that he knew how to own the libs. He would gain approval and acceptance. In the hothouse in which he operates, he thought his mindless cruelty passed as wit.Soon enough it was reported that Boelter was not a Marxist or for that matter a hitman hired by Marxists. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Walz “did not know him” and Walz was on his “kill list”. Boelter was reportedly an abortion opponent, an evangelical Christian and a registered Republican who attended Trump rallies.Mike Lee is also a man in a mask. He altered his identity, discarding the veneer of a statesman for the Maga mask. Both Boelter and Lee profess to be men of faith, draping themselves in the authority of the law as one allegedly committed murder and the other hooted at it. They have both posed as heroic avengers and truth-tellers as they target victims. While speaking of God, the law and a higher calling, they worship at the shrine of Trump. The alleged assassin and the character assassin embody parallel lives that have intersected at the tragedy under the influence of Trump.One grew up in a traditional middle-class family; the other is a privileged son. Each of their fathers were prominent in their communities – one a high school coach, the other solicitor general of the United States. One graduated from St Cloud State University, the other from Brigham Young and its law school. One appeared susceptible to the latest conspiracy theories; the other knows these are lies but amplifies them anyway for personal aggrandizement to win the approval of the mob and its boss. One is a true believer; the other is a cynical opportunist. One is a “loser” in the Trump parlance. The other is a winner in the Trump galaxy. Both put their enemies in their crosshairs. One has been booked for homicide; the other is disgraced as a moral reprobate. One is indicted for his alleged crimes; the other has indicted himself. Both spiraled under Trump and both became lost souls, though Boelter would believe that he was found at last.Vance Luther Boelter grew up in the town of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, one of five siblings, living in a large house, the captain of the high school basketball team, voted “most courteous” and “most friendly”, according to the Washington Post, and his father acclaimed in the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. But when he was 17, the mainstream Lutheran young man became a born-again Christian, living in a tent in the local park and shouting sermons to passersby.After he received a degree from a state university, he wound up at the Christ for the Nations Institute, a Texas Bible school that emerged in 1970 from a faith healing group founded by Gordon Lindsay. On the lobby wall of the school is a Lindsay saying: “Everyone ought to pray at least one violent prayer each day.”Lindsay was also an organizer for the Anglo-Saxon World Federation, an antisemitic organization in the 1930s and 1940s that spread the doctrine of what was called British Israelism, that Anglo-Saxons, not the Jews, were the chosen people of God. The group distributed Henry Ford’s antisemitic tract, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, as well as Nazi propaganda, and preached that God would punish Franklin D Roosevelt. Lindsay was a close associate of Gerald Winrod, a pro-Nazi demagogue, who ran a group called Defenders of the Faith and was indicted for seditious conspiracy in 1944. After the war, British Israelism was rebranded as Christian Identity, a theocratic doctrine based in part on racist distinctions between superior and inferior races. Lindsay preached “spiritual war” against the satanic demons of secular culture.Boelter graduated in 1990 from the Christ for the Nations Institute with a degree in practical theology. He wandered as a missionary spreading his gospel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In one sermon, he said: “There’s people, especially in America, they don’t know what sex they are. They don’t know their sexual orientation. They’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.”Boelter claimed he was the CEO of the Red Lion security group. He continued his soul-saving. “In the Middle East, I went to the West Bank, the Gaza strip, southern Lebanon, and I would give pamphlets to everybody I could,” he said in one sermon. He created a website for a religious group he called Revoformation. He managed a 7-Eleven store, a gas station, and after taking courses in mortuary science worked transporting bodies to a funeral home. He listened to Alex Jones’s stream of conspiracy-mongering, Infowars.Boelter created a website for a security firm called Praetorian Guard for which his wife was listed as the CEO and he was the head of security. He bought two cars that he fitted out to look like police cars, stockpiled weapons and uniforms, but had no known business. On 14 June, with his “kill list” in hand, he sent a message to a longtime friend: “I made some choices, and you guys don’t know anything about this, but I’m going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly …”Boelter’s apparent disguise as a law enforcement officer was an expedient that tricked his victims into opening their doors. Pretending to be a police officer, he traduced the law to impose his idea of order.Christ for the Nations Institute issued a statement renouncing Boelter: “Christ For The Nations does not believe in, defend or support violence against human beings in any form.” It added that the school “continues Gordon Lindsay’s slogan of encouraging our students to incorporate passion in their prayers as they contend for what God has for them and push back against evil spiritual forces in our world”.Mike Lee took the news of the assassinations as the signal for him to tweet. Lee was born to Mormon royalty in Utah. His father, Rex Lee, was Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general, a principled conservative with an independent streak. He resisted pressure to argue cases on behalf of the administration against separation of church and state that would endorse government-sponsored prayer and religious symbols. He resigned in 1985, stating: “There has been a notion that my job is to press the Administration’s policies at every turn and announce true conservative principles through the pages of my briefs. It is not. I’m the solicitor general, not the pamphleteer general.” Rex Lee became the president of Brigham Young University and dean of its law school, both of which his son attended.Lee was elected to the Senate in great part on the strength of the family name. In 2016, Lee endorsed Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination for president. When Trump wrapped up the nomination, Lee refused to endorse him. “I mean we can get into the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK,” Lee said. “We can go through the fact that he has made some statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant.” Lee demanded: “I would like some assurances that he is going to be a vigorous defender of the US constitution. That he is not going to be an autocrat. That he is not going to be an authoritarian.” Lee remained a holdout at the convention until the very end.By 2020, Lee touted Trump as a virtuous figure, comparing him to the self-sacrificing leader in the Book of Mormon. “To my Mormon friends, my Latter-day Saint friends, think of him as Captain Moroni,” a hero in the Book of Mormon, Lee told a rally, with Trump standing beside him. “He seeks not power, but to pull it down. He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news, but he seeks the wellbeing and the peace of the American people.”After Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Lee sent John Eastman, a law professor with a scheme to have the vice-president throw out the votes of the electoral college on January 6, to the Trump White House. While Trump focused on the insurrection, Lee strategized with the chief of staff, Mark Meadows – “trying to figure out a path that I can persuasively defend”, Lee texted Meadows. Lee diligently worked to realize the coup plan using fraudulent electors. “I’ve been calling state legislators for hours today, and am going to spend hours doing the same tomorrow,” Lee wrote Meadows.The journalist Tim Alberta, writing in the Atlantic, described a conversation Lee recounted with one of his staffers about Trump that went far to explain his motive for switching from a critic of Trump’s authoritarianism to a defender. “Donald Trump walks up to the bar,” said the staffer, “and he’s got a beer bottle in his hand, and he breaks the beer bottle in half over the counter and brandishes it.” Lee said he replied: “Immediately, a bunch of people in the room get behind him. Because he’s being assertive. And odds are lower, as they perceive it, that they’ll be hurt if they get behind him.”As Vance Boelter’s life unraveled, perhaps he imagined himself risen into a spirit warrior.Mike Lee knows better. To know better, but not to be better, is his peculiar disgrace. He lacks introspection into the source of his hateful behavior, except to offer the excuse that he won’t “be hurt” by Trump. Not to feel any ordinary emotion for the victims of a terrible and unprovoked crime and instead to engage in taunts betrays his father’s legacy and the shining figure of Captain Moroni, whom Lee has upheld. His fall from grace is one of the incidents that illuminates not only his but also the true character of the Trump era.

      Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      ‘True model of humility’: hundreds pay tribute to victims of Minnesota killings

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      Hundreds gathered at the Minnesota capitol on Wednesday night to honor the state Democratic representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were killed at their home on Saturday night in what authorities have described as a “political assassination”.Some mourners reportedly brought flowers to place in front of this memorial, while others held candles. Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, grew teary at the vigil, and consoled attenders, as a brass band from the Minnesota Orchestra performed, according to the Associated Press.Colin Hortman, Melissa and Mark’s son, hugged Walz and placed a photograph of his parents on their memorial. This is the first of several public vigils planned to memorialize the Hortmans before their funeral, MPR reported.The vigil also featured a string quartet, as well as a Native American drum circle. Attenders sang Amazing Grace together.Mourners, standing “shoulder to shoulder”, also brought “flags, handwritten notes and other mementos to Hortman”. A large blanket, laid out on the ground, allowed attendees to pen messages, per MPR.One message reported by MPR said: “Melissa was a true model of humility. She didn’t do this work to boost her own ego, further her political career or garner fame and glory. She did it to improve people’s lives.”The vigil’s organizers told attenders not to bring signs and decided not to have a speaking program. Walz said that Hortman should lie in state at Minnesota’s capitol, MPR said.The Hortmans’ suspected killer, Vance Boelter, also stands accused of attempted murder for shooting state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in nearby Champlin. Boelter, 57, faces state and federal charges for the fatal shootings.The Hoffmans are recovering from their injuries. Authorities said that Boelter, who allegedly had a list of targets including other Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates, traveled to two other legislators’ homes that evening – with plans to assassinate them.Attenders, some of whom knew the Hortmans personally or through her work, came from diverse political backgrounds. As Zack Stephenson, who co-chairs a state house budget committee, prepared to honor Hortman several hours before the vigil, he described their friendship.View image in fullscreenStephenson said that he met Melissa Hortman when he was 18, volunteering on her campaign. He worked closely with Hortman in the state house and described her as a mentor.“She was a leader who was not afraid to invest in other leaders. It didn’t threaten her,” Stephenson told the Guardian.Hortman prioritized kindness in her work and told fellow Democrats in 2023 that they shouldn’t confuse kindness for weakness. They could be strong leaders and still be respectful and kind, Stephenson recalled her saying.“No one worked harder than her,” Stephenson said. “Those kind of timeless values of, be kind to people, work hard, care about the institution more than partisan politics, those things really matter. People saw that.”Lynne Billing, of St Paul, Minnesota, told MPR she knew Melissa Hortman “was special and I knew she really cared about people”.“It’s just a huge, huge loss and I’m just here to say I’m going to miss her,” Billing said.While remembrances for the Hortmans have come from people of all political stripes, Donald Trump said he will not call Walz, adding that calling would “waste time”, AP said. Trump, in ruling out a call to Walz, described Minnesota’s governor as “slick” and “whacked out”.“I could call him and say: ‘Hi, how you doing?’” Trump reportedly said. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a, he’s a mess.”Walz’s office said that the governor hoped Trump “would be a president for all Americans”. US presidents routinely contact governors, as well as other state and local officials, after tragedies.“This tragedy isn’t about Trump or Walz,” Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for the governor, said. “It’s about the Hortman family, the Hoffman family, and the state of Minnesota, and the governor remains focused on helping all three heal.”Walz did speak with JD Vance as well as former president Joe Biden and former vice-president Kamala Harris, AP said.Rachel Leingang contributed reporting More

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      A US senator’s X posts after the Minnesota shootings were horrific – and predictable | Austin Sarat

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      National tragedy used to bring national unity. If only momentarily, partisanship was put aside, and people of all political persuasions came together.No more. The nation received a startling reminder of that sad fact on Sunday when the Republican senator Mike Lee went online to share his reaction to the weekend’s horrible shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses.“This is what happens,” Lee wrote in a since-removed post on X, “When Marxists don’t get their way.” Accompanying this ugly, unfounded comment was a photo of the suspect in the shooting, Vance Boelter, wearing what appears to be a latex face mask.As if that wasn’t enough, Lee posted another picture of Boelter under the caption “Nightmare on Waltz Street”, an apparent reference to the Minnesota governor and former Democratic nominee for vice-president, Tim Walz. During the 2024 campaign, Republicans accused him of being soft on crime and mishandling the riots after the murder of George Floyd.So why not suggest that he is somehow to blame for the shootings?Shameful. Lee has dishonored the institution in which he serves, and he knows it.Republican Senate leaders should censure their colleague. If they do not, they will further shred whatever dignity is left in that body.Put in context, Lee’s posts show how far we have come from the vision and hopes of the founders of the American republic. Recall that James Madison, co-author of the Federalist Papers and fourth president of the US, warned that government by the people could become what he called a “spectacle … of turbulence and contention”, driven by passions to make decisions “adverse to the rights of others or the permanent and aggregate good of the community”.Madison preferred what he called a republic, a government in which representatives would display the wisdom necessary to “discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations”.Oddly enough, in October 2020, Lee channeled Madison when he insisted “that our form of government in the United States is not a democracy, but a republic … Insofar as ‘democracy’ means ‘a political system in which government derives its powers from the consent of the governed’, then of course that accurately describes our system”. He continued: “But the word … is often used to describe … the view that it is the prerogative of government to reflexively carry out the will of the majority of its citizens.“Our system of government,” Lee noted, “is best described as a constitutional republic. Power is not found in mere majorities, but in carefully balanced power.” In that system, the job of the Senate, Lee suggested – citing Thomas Jefferson – is to cool “hot passions … It’s where consensus is forged, as senators reach compromise across regional, cultural, and partisan lines.”Perhaps the senator has forgotten those lines.His posts about the Minnesota shootings seem designed to further fuel the “hot passions” of our political moment, rather than to “cool” them. They surely do not help build consensus across party lines.Now Lee’s agenda seems different. He wants to show his Maga scapegoating bona fides by conjuring leftist plots as an explanation for every problem.And he is not the only member of the Maga crowd to do so. He was joined by Elon Musk, who wrote on X: “The far left is murderously violent.” Musk reposted the following from a person who identifies herself with these words: “GOD | #MAGA | Freedom |#Trump2024 | Constitutionalist | America First | Shall Not Be Infringed | USMC Wife”.“The left kills the CEO of United Healthcare. Kills two Israeli ambassadors staffers. Attempts twice to assassinate the President. Doxes and attempts to murder federal ICE agents and Police – all week. And now kills a MN state rep and her husband and injures a Senator and his wife. The left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization.”Madison must be turning over in his grave.And, as to the evidence that supports Lee’s or Musk’s claims about the Minnesota suspect? There is none.Don’t forget that the president himself has frequently demonized “radical left lunatics” and labelled people Marxists. Last September, he blamed a “violent, radical-left monster” for the second attempt on his life.Using tragedy to demonize others and stoke fears about adversaries has become a new normal. No more rallying around the flag and doing the job that Madison thought political leaders in a representative democracy should and would do.In 2016, the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty, writing in the wake of what was then the deadliest mass shooting in American history, suggested that “not since 9/11 has a moment like this brought the nation together, and that evaporated quickly. Since then, calamity seems only to drive the left and the right further apart, while faith in the nation’s institutions deteriorates further.”We know that Lee knows better than to do what he did on Sunday. He demonstrated that in 2020.So why, five years later, would he go after Walz or Marxists after a national tragedy? We can only speculate.Politicians like Lee live for and on social media. Legislating is hard; accumulating “likes” with a quick post is easier.Getting attention by being outrageous or provocative is the name of the game in what is now referred to as the attention economy. Madison, who thought that any damage done by what he called “fractious leaders” would be limited to their local area, could never have imagined the gravitational pull of that economy or its global reach.Sadly, Lee’s posts are making him a winner in that economy. By Monday morning, the first of them had been viewed 5.3m times, and the second attracted 7.8m views.Not bad for someone with 799,000 followers on X.In a deeply divided nation riven by political sectarianism, Lee did what his partisan supporters expect him to do. Give no quarter. Be on the offensive. Push your point.These are the rules, even when a tragedy occurs. In fact, it increases the “opportunity for free publicity” that people like Lee crave.But let’s be clear. While we can understand the forces that might explain why Lee turned tragedy into disinformation, that doesn’t mean we should accept or forgive him for doing so.In the kind of constitutional republic that Madison imagined and Lee once praised, tragedies like the murders in Minnesota should bring out the best in our leaders. Their duty was, when Madison wrote, and remains today: “to remind us of our shared humanity, not deepen our political divides.”

      Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty More

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      Tough, whip-smart and selfless: Melissa Hortman, ‘singular force for democracy’, remembered

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      A group of white male lawmakers were playing cards in a back room while their female colleagues gave speeches on the Minnesota house floor. They weren’t paying attention, and Melissa Hortman had had enough.“I hate to break up the 100% white male card game in the retiring room,” Hortman said in 2017. “But I think this is an important debate.”The comment upset some Republicans, who said it was racist for her to call them white men and wanted her to apologize. Her response: “I’m really tired of watching women of color, in particular, being ignored. So I’m not sorry.”The moment went viral – people made shirts and rallied in support of her comments. The Republican men knew that they had lost, the Minnesota senator Tina Smith said about the incident. “Melissa won the day.”“I think you have to call bullshit when you see bullshit,” Hortman said at the time. “And we see plenty of it.”It was one of many moments Hortman’s friends and colleagues have shared since the 55-year-old longtime legislator and her husband were murdered in what appears to be a politically motivated shooting spree in suburban Minnesota on Saturday.Her friends and colleagues have remembered her legislative accomplishments – an ability to bring people together, stay organized, find common ground and, perhaps most of all, actually get things done. She injected humor and levity into her work. She was whip-smart. She raised two kids and had a beloved rescue dog, Gilbert.“She demonstrates how being a steely negotiator and showing toughness isn’t in tension with being human and warm and likable,” said Steve Simon, the Democratic secretary of state who knew Hortman for three decades, since the two were in law school together.Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, an ally and friend of Hortman’s, called her “the most consequential speaker in state history”. Democrats held a trifecta in 2023 – controlling both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion – which allowed the left to achieve a host of its longstanding priorities, including protecting abortion access, universal school meals, childcare assistance and paid family leave, and felony voting rights restoration. The list was long, and Hortman held together her caucus through it all, gaining national attention for the “Minnesota miracle”. Those gains are Hortman’s legacy, the result of many years of laying the groundwork so that when Democrats had power, they could move quickly, Smith said.Walz, in an interview after her assassination with Minnesota Public Radio, said Hortman understood procedure, policy and people, and she had an incredible work ethic. He puts Hortman high on the list of consequential politicians in Minnesota history and counts her as one of the people who have affected him most. She didn’t seek credit, but if things got done, it was because of her, he said.“Melissa was a singular force of understanding how democracy worked in getting things done,” Walz said. “You didn’t have to agree with her politics to know that she was effective. She was decent when it came time, and if her point did not win out, she accepted it, shook hands and signed it.”The 2025 legislative session started acrimoniously. The House was tied at 67-67, but Republicans tried to press a temporary advantage into leadership power, leading Hortman and Democrats to boycott the session until Republicans would agree to a power-sharing agreement. Hortman gave up the speaker title, becoming speaker emerita, and got to work governing the tied chamber.The session proved difficult – Hortman described, with emotion, how hard it was to be the lone Democratic vote to repeal healthcare coverage for undocumented adults, but that she had agreed to it so the state could have a bipartisan budget and prevent a shutdown.Her Republican colleagues said they liked and respected her, despite their political differences. Lisa Demuth, the Republican house speaker, said she looked at Hortman as a mentor. They could disagree politically without being cruel, in public or in private, she said.When Demuth became minority leader, Democrats held complete control of the state government. Hortman didn’t need Demuth’s help to advance legislation, but she still wanted to meet with Demuth every week so they could get to know each other. When the chamber became tied, they had a two-year working relationship to build on, Demuth said. Hortman called the bipartisan group “Team House” this year.“I learned so much from her leadership and just who she was as a person that was willing to compromise and negotiate well and do really what she felt was best for Minnesota,” Demuth told the Guardian.They shared a love of Cheetos – snacks are essential for late-night governing – and talked about Hortman’s love of flowers. Hortman had a tree that bloomed every year, and that was her monitor for when the state budget should be done: before the tree bloomed. Demuth would ask, so how’s that tree? They missed the deadline this year.Even in rocky moments, Hortman was direct, true to her word and looking for creative solutions, Demuth said. The session started with Republicans forging ahead and Democrats boycotting, an undoubtedly rough time. “We both agreed that we had to find a way through,” Demuth said.Hortman grew up in Minnesota. She told MinnPost she decided when she was 10 years old she would be the first female president, while watching the 1980 presidential campaign. She left for college at Boston University, but returned home for law school at the University of Minnesota, then began work as a lawyer. Along the way, she interned for Al Gore and John Kerry.Keith Ellison, the Democratic attorney general, shared at a rally the day she was killed that she was a “beautiful human being”. He met her before she was a lawmaker, when she was a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, a non-profit that provides legal services for people who can’t afford it, when she fiercely defended tenants, he said. In a statement after her passing, legal aid noted that Hortman had secured what was then the largest jury verdict for housing discrimination in Minnesota history.“If you did things that she did, you’d be on the right track in your life,” Ellison told the crowd. “She fought for people, she stood with people. She was a powerful political leader, but she also was a compassionate and kind person. Melissa proved that you could be a politician and a good person, and I know some people wonder about that sometimes, but she really was both.”Her swing district was not an easy win. She ran twice, losing both times, before winning on the third attempt by a few hundred votes in 2004. She kept her seat through 11 elections, rising up the ranks in her caucus, ultimately becoming speaker in 2018. She considered a run for Congress, previously one of her childhood dreams, but decided she could make more happen as a state lawmaker, she told MinnPost.Zack Stephenson met Hortman when he was 18 and volunteered on her second campaign. Then, as a college student, he suggested Hortman make him her campaign manager and a few of his friends full-time campaign staff during Hortman’s third run for office. They would take time off from college and work for free. Hortman would joke that, after two losses, she was so desperate she’d try anything. She won.Now a state representative, Stephenson got to work closely with his longtime mentor and friend in what became the final months of her life – he as co-chair of a house committee that worked on the budget and she as speaker emeritus. He’s one of many who called Hortman a mentor. “She was a leader who was not afraid to invest in other leaders. It didn’t threaten her,” he said.She talked about running for higher office at times, and Stephenson advocated for her to run for governor someday. But she also had a full life outside the office. In one classic example, Stephenson recalled a staff member who said his parents’ gardening business was having trouble finding seasonal help. Hortman, an avid gardener, asked how much the gig paid. “She’s like, ‘oh, yeah, great. I could pin my earbuds in, listen to disco music and just garden.’ And then she was talking about it for weeks,” he said.There are several pots of money in the state budget for tree-planting that she snuck in, he said, a testament to her love of the outdoors. She used to joke that her only two forms of exercise were cross-country skiing and doorknocking.The 2017 moment when she called out white male lawmakers brought her legislative career more attention and solidified her as a voice for her caucus, but she was always tough, Smith said. When Smith was lieutenant governor and Hortman was minority leader, the men in leadership roles once met without Smith and Hortman to try to strike a deal. Hortman called Smith early in the morning and told her they were being shut out, and they raced over to the capitol. She was determined and made clear she wouldn’t be dismissed, Smith said.“She was just so strong, like, what is going on here? This deal isn’t done until we say it’s done,” Smith said. “And it was a classic moment of her not being afraid to lean in and using her power and after it was over, we were like, can you believe those guys? I can’t believe they tried that.”Hollies Winston, the mayor of Brooklyn Park, where Hortman lived and represented, said she had to balance delivering for the local community and delivering for the whole state, and she did so “from a place of wisdom and empathy”.“She really moved the ball in terms of education and childcare, workers rights, public safety, criminal justice,” he said. But it’s the quieter moments he saw from her that truly showed her character – her willingness to serve as a mentor to youth in the area, who came to her home to learn about politics, her support for emerging voices at the statehouse.She was more interested in the work than the publicity, Simon said. She wasn’t seeking to promote herself, but to deliver results that would help the most people in Minnesota. Even her opponents knew she was “fundamentally selfless”, and it went a long way to helping her negotiate during tough moments, Simon said.“She went into politics to do something, not to be something,” Simon said.Sophie and Colin Hortman, her two children, released a statement after her death, saying their parents’ love for them was “boundless”. Their statement was a testament to their parents, whose “legacy of dedication to their community will live on in us, their friends, their colleagues and co-workers, and every single person who knew and loved them”.They called on people to honor their parents with a list of Hortman-approved acts of kindness: “Plant a tree. Visit a local park and make use of their amenities, especially a bike trail. Pet a dog. A golden retriever is ideal, but any will do. Tell your loved ones a cheesy dad joke and laugh about it. Bake something – bread for Mark or a cake for Melissa, and share it with someone. Try a new hobby and enjoy learning something. Stand up for what you believe in, especially if that thing is justice and peace.” More

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      in US Politics

      Tina Smith on confronting colleague over his posts: ‘Joking about an assassin killing people is beyond the pale’

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      The Minnesota senator Tina Smith said she was so “appalled” by her colleague Mike Lee’s social media posts spreading misinformation about the assassination of state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband on Saturday that “I felt that he needed to hear directly from me.”The Democratic senator told the Guardian that she lost a friend and colleague this weekend when a shooter killed Hortman and her husband, Mark. Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, posted erroneously that the assassin was a “Marxist” and blamed the state’s governor for the killings. Although he deleted the posts on Tuesday, he has not apologized.Lee needed to know he had disrespected not only Hortman, but all those who grieved her, Smith said. Rather than take it up with him online and get into a back-and-forth social media spat, she told him to his face.Photos of Smith confronting Lee went viral, perhaps because person-to-person accountability is rare in Washington. Smith, who is retiring from the Senate after finishing her current term, previously grabbed headlines for colorfully calling out Elon Musk and Donald Trump.She knew if she talked to Lee in person, he and others watching would be reminded that his words had an impact on real people.“I’ve gotten a flow of messages from people in Minnesota and around the country that have said, I’m so glad you said that to him, because that’s what I wanted to say to him,” she said.She said she had not talked to Lee much in the past. She wasn’t aggressive or angry when she approached him, but said they needed to have a conversation. She told him he had posted photos of the man who killed her friend, potentially seconds before he started shooting.“I want you to know how painful that was for me and for thousands and thousands of Minnesotans, and you have a responsibility to think about the impact of your words,” she recounted telling Lee.Lee’s post about Walz has more than 15m views, while the one about Marxism has more than 8m. He needed to take responsibility for that, she said.Smith’s deputy chief of staff, Ed Shelleby, also reached out to Lee, sending an email to Lee’s office, which was obtained by media, that questioned how the senator could post such things after a tragedy. Shelleby wrote that he knew Hortman, as did many in Smith’s office, and he wanted Lee to know that his posts caused “additional pain” on an “unspeakably horrific weekend”.“You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats,” Shelleby wrote. “Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet[s]? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?”He wrote that he prayed Lee would not go through anything like this, but that if he did, he would find himself “on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster”.The suspect had a hit list of Democrats and abortion providers, and Smith’s name was among them. Lee didn’t say anything to her about that element. He didn’t really say much of anything, she said. He seemed surprised to be confronted for something he said on social media, where his feed is full of conspiracy theories.When reporters asked Lee about his conversation with Smith and about his social media posts, he refused to answer questions. Lee’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.“I mean, literally joking about an assassin killing people is beyond the pale,” Smith said. “I think he listened to what I had to say. He didn’t have much to say about it, and he certainly didn’t do anything that I would have hoped he would have done. For example, he should apologize. He should take those posts down. He should clarify that the man who did the shooting is not a Marxist, that that is not what was happening here, and he hasn’t done any of those things.”Smith described Hortman as both a skilled lawmaker and a person who found joy in the job. She always had a glint in her eye, a smile on her face, Smith said. She was ready to work, but appreciated the absurdity and hilarity that can come alongside that work. She wasn’t afraid to call people out, but she was never cruel. “She, regardless of which side of the political line you lived on, she was so respected,” Smith said.Local Republican elected officials in Minnesota have pushed back on Lee’s posts, too. Harry Niska, the Republican floor leader in the Minnesota house and a colleague of Hortman’s, wrote on X that Lee’s post was “a very bad take on so many levels” and said Lee should reconsider it. “Sen. Lee’s post was classless, baseless, and counterproductive,” Niska said in another post.Smith said the responses from state Republican officials have given her hope. “They are showing the respect and not spreading misinformation about what happened here, which is what’s happening in Washington.” More

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      in US Politics

      How the right spread ‘brutal and cruel’ misinformation after Minnesota lawmaker killings

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      Tina Smith, a Minnesota senator, confronted Mike Lee, a Utah senator, on Monday to tell him directly that his social media posts fueled ongoing misinformation about a shooting that killed her friend.Lee’s posts, which advanced conspiracies that a Minnesota assassin was a “Marxist” and blamed the state’s governor for Melissa Hortman’s death, were among many threads of false or speculative claims swirling online after the killings.Smith told Lee his posts were “brutal and cruel”, according to CNN. “He should think about the implications of what he’s saying and doing. It just further fuels this hatred and misinformation,” she said. She wanted him to hear from her directly how painful it was to see his words after the brutality her state endured. Lee didn’t say much, according to Smith, and seemed surprised to be confronted.Within hours of the shootings, rightwing social media accounts with millions of followers manufactured false conspiracy theories about the suspect and his motives, falsely portraying the man whose friends say he is an evangelical Christian Trump supporter as a radical leftwing assassin and attempting to paint him as a political ally of Tim Walz, the Democratic governor and former vice-presidential candidate.It was the latest example of a rightwing media ecosystem that swiftly spins up narratives that serve their political agendas after tragic events, regardless of accuracy, and does not correct them after further information shows them to be untrue or incomplete. Elected officials such as Lee and others often share in the spreading rumors, lending legitimacy to these claims.Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was captured on Sunday after he allegedly killed Hortman, a Democratic house speaker, and her husband, and wounded John Hoffman, a state senator, and his wife.Collin Rugg, an engagement farmer on X, advanced a debunkable theory to his followers on X that Hortman was killed over healthcare policy for undocumented immigrants, implying the violence came from the left. He shared a video that ping-ponged around the rightwing internet of Hortman, emotional, describing a vote to repeal healthcare eligibility for undocumented adults.Missing from the post was the context: Hortman supported this care, only voting for its repeal to pass a state budget deal in an evenly split state House. Hoffman, the state senator, had not voted to repeal the provision.Rightwing social media personality Mike Cernovich, with 1.5 million followers, escalated the lie by suggesting Walz ordered the assassination. He hasn’t taken the post down and has continued to advance the claims, posting on Monday that “Democrats know they are now seen as the party of political violence so their propaganda agents are trying to shift the blame. It won’t work.”Laura Loomer, the far-right conspiracy theorist and Trump whisperer, posted that “Walz’s goons are now assassinating lawmakers who support legislation Walz opposes” and called the Democratic party “a terrorist organization”. Loomer and others on the right also tried to tie Boelter to the “No Kings” protests against the Trump administration. Officials found rudimentary signs in the suspect’s vehicle that said “No Kings”, an indication he knew of the event, not that he would attend it as a protester.Elon Musk, a frequent poster of unverified rightwing claims, amplified the narrative to his 200 million followers, quote-tweeting claims that “the left” killed Hortman and saying “the far left is murderously violent”.The lies ignore overwhelming evidence of Boelter’s actual politics: his roommate David Carlson told reporters that Boelter voted for Trump and “was a strong supporter” of the president. Other longtime friends told local media Boelter was right-leaning. While Minnesota voters don’t list party affiliation, he was registered as a Republican in Oklahoma in 2004.Boelter’s own recorded sermons expose his extremist views. Preaching in Congo in 2023, he is recorded as saying: “The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong.” He ranted against LGBTQ+ people as “confused”, claiming “the enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul”. His alleged hit list included abortion providers and pro-choice advocates.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionInfluencers seized on Boelter’s appointment to a state board, branding him a “Walz appointee” to misleadingly suggest a personal relationship. In reality, Boelter was first appointed by Walz’s predecessor, who was a Democrat, in 2016 to a 60-member volunteer advisory board. Walz did, however, renew the appointment in 2019, considered a routine administrative decision for one of hundreds of such positions. Walz did not know Boelter.“It was the equivalent of calling a Sunday school volunteer an ‘appointee of the bishop’,” a local reporter wrote.Rightwing X user Viva Frei, with more than 700,000 followers, posted a thread casting doubt on Boelter being a Trump supporter. The account has continued to post about the shootings, attempting to tie Walz to Boelter and his wife, Jennifer. A different Jennifer Boelter interned in Walz’s congressional office, though Frei has not accepted that fact.“Do you believe @GovTimWalz spokesperson when they claim that the Jennifer Boelter who interned for Tim Walz in 2010 is not the same Jennifer Boelter who is married to suspected assassin/domestic terrorist Vance Boelter?” the account asked in a poll.On Monday, posts showing a man at a protest with a shirt with a gun that says “resist” falsely claimed the man was Boelter. “Yea Libs sorry. He’s one of you. Keep saying he’s not. No one believes you,” said one post that got more than 2m views. The actual man in the picture debunked it, saying he was at a “No Kings” rally in Texas in the photo, making clear it was not Boelter.Local Republican officials have largely not contributed to the rumors, in some cases pushing back on the narratives.Harry Niska, the Republican floor leader in the Minnesota House, said on X that he often has and will continue to criticize Walz’s policies and rhetoric. “But there is no responsible basis to attribute to him any of the evil acts committed by Vance Boelter,” he said. More

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      in Elections

      Minnesota Assassin Posed as Police Officer to Carry Out Shootings

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      Impersonating a police officer is a tactic sometimes used by criminals to win victims’ trust, police say.When the gunman in the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers approached their homes early on Saturday morning, he was armed with not just a handgun but also a wealth of other gear: a black tactical vest, a badge, a flashlight, a Taser. He arrived in a black S.U.V. with flashing police lights.“No question, if they were in this room, you would assume they were a police officer,” Mark Bruley, the police chief of Brooklyn Park, Minn., said not long after the shootings, as officers searched for a suspect.On Monday, state and federal authorities investigating the case filed murder and other charges against Vance Boelter, a Minnesota resident who was in the process of starting his own private security company.The killings were the latest in a long history of crimes committed by people who won the trust of victims by posing as law enforcement officers. Among the more well-known cases was a prank caller who posed as a police officer to convince a McDonald’s manager in Kentucky to strip search an employee in 2004, and a man who was convicted of murdering a Long Island man in 2005 after pulling him over on the road with flashing lights on his S.U.V.And this year, amid high-profile immigration raids conducted by federal authorities, several people have been arrested and accused of impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in order to threaten and intimidate others.In the Minnesota shootings this weekend, officials said, the suspect was even able to fool a real officer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More