You ask: How did Minnesota elect someone as radical as Tim Walz? Minneapolis liberals laughing and cheering at an “art sled” of the third police precinct burning. 1/27/24 [video]

Minneapolis liberals laughing and cheering at an “art sled” of the third police precinct burning. 1/27/24

Walz voters, of course..

Creator of controversial art sled says burning of Minneapolis police precinct was a ‘good thing’

by Pafoua Yang, KSTP-tv, January 30, 2024

An annual art sled rally in Powderhorn Park turned controversial. One of the displays depicted a burning Minneapolis police precinct with a person dressed as a pig inside. “It’s funny that, you know, we made this thing into a sled. On the other hand, I think there’s a real sense that it is something to be celebrated,” said Andy Koch, the creator of the precinct sled. “It’s a moment when the tables were turned.”

Koch explains that the BLM burning of the precinct was “a little piece of justice against a system that regularly kills unarmed black people.” “During the BLM uprising, the police building, where the murderer was from, happened to catch on fire. And I think that was a good thing,” said Koch. Koch’s sled garnered outrage from several police activists, including Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.

In an internal email to staff, O’Hara wrote, “It’s appalling that people would celebrate an event – with children present – that has left our most vulnerable residents terrified – too scared to let their own children walk to the store; too afraid to have their own children’s beds positioned near a bedroom window.”

O’Hara says while this group cheers over a police station burning, “I can’t help but think of the hundreds of violent crime victims in this city, most in lower-income neighborhoods, who have been hit by bullets or have been killed in the chaos that resulted after the burning of the third precinct.” The email also looks back on minority business owners who “lost everything in the destruction.” Despite the violence, Koch says the burning of the precinct has a tide against injustice.

“I’m sure not everybody feels that way, but a lot of people saw it as justified,” said Koch. “It’s a dark chapter in our history that that murder happened here, that an unarmed person was killed in the street by someone kneeling on their neck, but I think we should be proud that also one of the biggest movements against that erupted here.”

Koch told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he was not living in Minnesota at the time of the uprise. In O’Hara’s email, he points out the crowd of “white people” in the video. He says, “I’ve been to several community meetings where I’ve seen people stand up and speak on behalf of marginalized communities,” (implying those present who remain silent don’t have the intellectual capacity to speak for themselves).

“I think it’s a good thing for white people to speak up about the violence and the police brutality against black people,” said Koch. “I’m with them, and I add my voice to theirs.” The Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association says they were not the host nor a fiscal sponsor of the sled rally but acknowledge the rights of community members to express themselves.

Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen, said she kept windows open
during BLM George Floyd riots. Said she liked to smell ‘burning tires’
new york post ^ | Aug. 7, 2024 | Olivia Land
Posted on 8/8/2024, 9:45:58 AM by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas

Minnesota Gov Tim Walz’s wife once admitted she kept the windows of the governor’s residence “open as long as [she] could” to smell the burning tires from the violent BLM 2020 riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death — as her husband’s handling of the protests is back in the spotlight.

Gwen Walz described her husband’s struggle to grapple with the outcry following the May 25, 2020, murder of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in a sit-down with KTSP in June of that year.

Gov. Walz’s response to the fiery Black Lives Matter riots in the Twin Cities is facing scrutiny again after the former National Guardsman was picked to be Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democratic ticket.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...

Gov. Tim Walz Raised Taxes as Most Governors Cut Them
Did this clinch Harris’ decision to pick him as her running mate?

August 6, 2024, By: Jared Walczak, taxfoundation.org

Most states have cut taxes at least once since 2021, with a renewed emphasis on tax competition taking hold in red and blue states alike. Twenty-eight states have cut individual income tax rates, fifteen states have cut corporate income tax rates, and other states have cut sales tax rates or focused on property tax relief. Under Gov. Tim Walz (DFL), Minnesota has been an outlier, one of the few states to raise taxes in recent years—despite the state posting large surpluses.

With her selection of Minnesota Gov. Walz as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen from a pool of prospective candidates—sitting governors—that seems obvious but has not historically been well-represented in the second slot on presidential tickets. Former President Donald Trump’s selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may suggest that governors are gaining ground as vice presidential nominees, but before that, stretching back a century, the only others are Spiro T. Agnew, Earl Warren, and John W. Bricker.

Governors bring executive experience. They also bring policy records that are more concrete than those of legislators, in the sense that a governor’s signature or veto makes (or prevents) law in a way that one vote in Congress rarely does. Observers will doubtless scrutinize Walz’s record as governor to get a sense of what policies he may favor at the federal level and what that may say about the Harris-Walz ticket.

Whereas other potential running mates charted moderate courses on state taxation, with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro advocating for the acceleration of cuts to the Commonwealth’s high-rate corporate income tax and signing legislation improving its structure (specifically by better aligning treatment of net operating losses with national standards), and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed a bill authorizing an individual income tax rate cut (albeit after vetoing a larger prior-year package that set those rate cuts in motion), Walz has presided over several tax increases, focused on businesses and high earners.

This makes Walz an outlier among contemporary governors, though perhaps not an outlier in his own state, which has a tradition of progressive fiscal policy that runs from the early 20th-century Progressive era through such progressive stalwarts as Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, and Paul Wellstone.

Under Walz, Minnesota became the only state to impose a surtax on the long-term capital gain income and other net investment income of high earners (all other states tax long-term capital gains at ordinary income tax rates or even preferential rates).

Walz also signed legislation partially phasing out the benefit of standard and itemized deductions for high earners, and later had to sign legislation fixing a drafting error that accidentally reduced the standard deduction for all taxpayers in what would have been an unintended $350 million tax increase.

snip

Tim Walz apparently under-reported investment fees of the state-run Teachers’ Pension Fund
<><>governor since Jan 2019, Tim Walz serves as chair of the State’s Teachers Retirement Association.
<><>Walz is vastly under-reporting annual fees paid to Wall Street investment managers
<><>Walz is “doing a Madoff” — posting near-impossible gains.
<><>the state-run TRA has disclosed less than 10% of some $2.9B in fees the past 10 years
<><>TRA posted gains claiming it beat its own custom benchmark over time by exactly 0.2%,
<><>investment experts say this is “virtually impossible.”
<><>concealing mismanagement may lead to a money shortage to pay retirees promised benefits.

(Source: Edward Siedle, former SEC lawyer and independent pension investigator).

Congress should file a complaint with the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the Department of Labor about pension plans, including 401(k)s, profit sharing, and defined benefit plans. EBSA is responsible for enforcing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which covers most private sector pension plans. You can also call EBSA at (866) 444-3272 or submit a question on their website.

How does the DFL control the state? Because in Minnesota all the political power is concentrated in two counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, which are essentially the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, and this area is filled with self-loathing white liberals. Anyone who isn’t a self-loathing white liberal quickly realizes the core Twin Cities are a lost cause, especially if they have school-age children, and they move their families out to one of the outer ring suburbs, where their political power is diluted because they’re all in different counties.

How did Walz get elected? By having a lock on the vote in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, and then putting on an old Carharts jacket, borrowing a shotgun and a retriever, doing a few photo ops in cornfields and duck blinds, and then stumping around outstate, talking about “standing up for the little guy” and “fighting the banks and the rich people,” which are lines that have played well in the farm belt since the Great Depression.

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