Readers Write (Jan. 3): U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, global affairs, police unions, deterring crime, Muslim registry

In Amy Klobuchar's two previous runs for the U.S. Senate, they ended up being good years for Democrats in Minnesota. In 2006, Democrats captured the state House, the auditor position, the secretary of state position, and one new congressional seat, while retaining the state Senate and the attorney general position, losing only in the governor's race. In 2012, Democrats captured the Legislature and one new congressional seat, while also choosing to re-elect Barack Obama as president. That said, it should not matter much that Klobuchar chose to run for the Senate again over the governor's race ("Klobuchar will stick with Senate," Dec. 25). As long as good candidates for governor, legislative and statewide races are chosen who can appeal to swing voters and independent voters and keep them from voting for third-party candidates (a big problem for Democrats in Minnesota in the past) or protest candidates or Republicans, they should be able to ride on Klobuchar's coattails.

In the days since we learned that the FBI and CIA concur that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen has called for funding hops-related agricultural research to support the brewing industry but has been silent in condemning this attack on our democracy. Are the constituents of the Third Congressional District to understand that craft beer is more important than denouncing a foreign government working to undermine our electoral system? It's past time to make clear his position on this offense against our democracy. I'm left wondering: Does Paulsen stand with party or country? And how does this represent the values of our district? Paulsen is not as moderate as he paints himself to be, since he appears to lack the will or courage to break with Trump on this issue.

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Please tell me why the U.S. has any business meddling in the affairs of other countries as if they were our own (as in Israel vs. Palestine) but gets quite indignant when some other country meddles in ours (Russia's supposed involvement with elections)? Seems pretty hypocritical to me. Let's tend to our own business.

My winter home overlooks the ancient Mimbres River Valley in New Mexico. Twelve hundred years ago, the Mimbres Indians lived in this valley, fished the river, hunted in the area.

And they made pottery. The pottery they made is beautiful and very valuable now. They raised their pottery-making to a wonderful art. They traded over a very large area, extending west to the Pacific.

They were able to do this because for 800 years they lived peaceably and did not have to involve themselves in warfare with their neighbors. Eventually, raids by tribes such as the Apache and others, plus the effect of decades-long droughts, placed great stress on them.

This world needs peace. Peace.

It was many, many years ago that every other year, right around Christmastime, my father would go on strike for a three- or four-cent-an-hour increase in his hourly pay. It was during those times that I learned about the value of labor unions and the efforts they put forth in support of their members. Without my father's union, he probably would have been working for a dollar an hour. That's a good union.

A recent decision by an arbitrator says that a Richfield police officer, who according to official records has been involved in a number of inappropriate actions, must be reinstated. The Dec. 29 article on the matter states that "police union contracts allow officers to grieve discipline or termination and take it to an arbitrator." This arbitrator's decision was lauded by Sean Gormley, executive director of Law Enforcement Labor Services, when he said that this police officer is "held in high regard by his fellow officers and supervisors," but the Richfield police chief said: "We are extremely disappointed with the arbitrator's decision."

With all due respect to the majority of police officers across America who have an extremely difficult job under extremely difficult circumstances and are doing a "helluva" job of protecting and serving, I have to say that this is a bad union.

In a Dec. 22 article on sentence disparity in sex-trafficking crimes between Hennepin and Ramsey counties, Amy Walsh Kern, the executive director of the nonprofit court monitoring group WATCH, is quoted as saying that "the sentence is what serves as the deterrent." This unfortunate statement is contradicted by most research. (See "Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century: A Review of the Evidence," by Daniel S. Nagin of Carnegie Mellon University, 2013.) The consequences of misguided statements such as these is that public policy is often pushed and implemented that has the opposite effect than what is intended. In fact, longer sentences may increase the rate of recidivism. The certainty of being caught (and presumably convicted) has more of a deterrent effect than length of sentence. The 90 percent conviction rate cited by Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman in the Dec. 23 article is a much more valuable statistic for deterrence than putting someone in prison for 19 years vs. six years.

A sitting U.S. president incarcerating a segment of our own population based on race! No Japanese-American was ever convicted of anti-American activities. Ironically, many young men from these camps joined the war effort and formed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became one of the most decorated regiments in U.S. Army history. The risked their lives for a country that held their families in concentration camps. To those who say it was a different time, I say there is no time when this is acceptable! Time will tell during this new administration whether history will repeat itself. As a nation that considers itself a leader of the free world, I pray for sensibility to prevail, and not hysteria.