Think back on all the financial corruption scandals in recent Minnesota history.

The non-profit scandals that edged a couple of Minneapolis DFLers out of office ten-ish years ago.

The DHS Daycare fraud case – involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Feeding our Future” – $250M at least, probably more like $500M.

What do they all have in common?

They all involve the cozy relationship between the DFL and the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex which, when manifested in policy, turns into the systematic transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the political class. It’s done over the table, via taxes, and under the table via graft paid to the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex.

And if the DFL accomplished anything in the State Legislature this past session, it was institutionalizing that stream at the state level.

Lawsuit claims Minneapolis illegally and arbitrarily awarded funds to violence prevention groups

Based on data gathered, [Minneapolis resident, attorney and plaintiff Zachary] Coppola alleges in the complaint that violence prevention contracts are “replete with apparent conflicts of interest.” In one case, Coppola found that the founder and sole employee of Cause and Effect, an organization that has received multiple violence prevention contract awards, is a city employee.

The complaint states that many of the violence prevention programs are also improperly using federal public funds. The complaint cites the example of One Family One Community, an organization that has received at least $175,000 in funds from the city. The organization operates a lobbyist association named the Community Housing Development Coalition, which lobbies the city on issues related to housing, public safety, transportation, and human services. In other words, the city is “paying a lobbyist to lobby the city,” the lawsuit says. Coppola states through the complaint that “not only is this a conflict of interest, but all federally funded violence prevention contracts expressly prohibit the use of funds for lobbying or political activities, so this use of federal funds is illegal,” he alleges.

Not mentioned in Coppola’s complaint, Crime Watch Minneapolis posted in September that Trahern Pollard, who is the founder of We Push for Peace, an organization that has received over $2 million in funds from the City of Minneapolis for “violence interrupter” activities, has formed a new LLC through which he is pursuing to acquire the embattled Merwin Liquors in north Minneapolis at the intersection of West Broadway and Lyndale avenues north. Pollard’s new venture, TXT LLC, seeks to acquire tobacco and liquor licenses to continue sales operations at Merwin Liquors, a move Crime Watch and others have implied is a clear conflict of interest to his city-funded violence interrupter activities as well as a possible indicator that money being doled out under the city’s Neighborhood Safety program isn’t being properly tracked or measured for accountability or measures of success.

I used to joke about Saint Paul being “Chicago on the Mississippi”, while Minneapolis was “Berkeley on the Prairie”.

I’m starting to think “A Cold New Jersey” is better.