Posted on 05/09/2025 4:48:23 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Minnesota has been in the news a lot in recent years, and not in a good way. This essay is a wistful look back at the decline of a once great state.
I moved to Minnesota in 1975, partially inspired by the famous Time Magazine cover featuring Governor Wendall Anderson holding up a caught walleye, touting the “Good Life in Minnesota.” I came for the good life and the in-state college summer school rates offered by the University of Minnesota.
I ended up getting a job in Minneapolis, putting down roots, getting married, having three kids, eventually owning three businesses and owning four Minneapolis houses.
The good life narrative was mostly true. Minnesota was a low-crime, high–quality of life state for most of that time. Yes, the state had liberal tendencies but mostly the do-good, community caring type of liberalism in keeping with the state’s Scandinavian founding population and embodied by politicians such as Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone.
Over the first three decades of my life in MN, the political environment was mixed but acceptable. Interspersed with elected Democrats were Republicans such as senators Dave Durenberger, Rudy Boschwitz, and Rod Grahams. Even as recently as 2011, the state benefited from two-term Republican governor Tim Pawlenty.
But in the last several years, things have changed radically. Democrat Governor Mark Dayton was no friend of freedom-seekers during his reign from 2011 to 2019. But things were to turn far worse. The election of Tim Walz in 2019 brought in an unprecedented level of wokism and oppressive state control. Tax hikes increased in the already overtaxed state. Tampon Tim earned the nickname featured in his hopelessly failed V.P. candidacy for mandating that menstrual products be available in public school boys’ bathrooms as young as fourth grade. Walz was one of the most
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The left is really good at tearing things down.
Bkmk
They can pray to St. Floyd of Fentanyl.
Yup, all true. I’ve lived in Minnesota my entire life, it used to be nice everywhere.
Now you need to get far enough away from the city to forget about the crime but it’s still nice.
Campaign finance records show 42-year-old Somali fraudster Liban Yasin Alishire
donated $2,500 stolen tax dollars to the reelection campaign of Democrat AG Keith Ellison.
By Anthony Gockowski -September 23, 2022
Minnesota Alpha News
Somali Liban Yasin Alishire, used money stolen from the federal Child Nutrition Programs to purchase this resort in Kenya. At least nine of the 48 people accused of defrauding the government of $250 million meant to feed hungry children have donated to Democratic officeholders in Minnesota. The number is likely higher and Alpha News is working to confirm the identities of additional defendants.
Campaign finance records show 42-year-old Liban Yasin Alishire donated $2,500 in May of this year to the reelection campaign of Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Alishire listed Hoodo Properties as his employer, which was a shell company he created to purchase luxury items and real estate with money he stole from the government, according to an indictment. “[A]s the list of those indicted in the federal fraud investigation into Feeding Our Future became public, we became aware of a donation to our campaign from one of the individuals charged. We immediately refunded the donation in full,” Ellison’s campaign said in a statement provided to Alpha News.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced charges against 48 Minnesotans Tuesday for allegedly defrauding the federal government’s Child Nutrition Programs of $250 million in a little over 20 months. “These [48] defendants engaged in a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said during a press conference announcing the charges.
At the center of the charges is Aimee Bock, the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit whose offices were raided in January. Feeding Our Future participated in the Summer Food Service Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Programs, both belonging to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child Nutrition Programs.
These programs provide reimbursements for meals distributed to low-income children by food sites, like schools, nonprofits, restaurants, and more. Each food site must have a sponsor organization, in this case Feeding Our Future. The food sites submit reports on how many meals they are serving to the sponsor organization, which then submits the reports to the government for reimbursement. In Minnesota, the federal reimbursements are wired to the sponsor organizations via the Department of Education, hence the recent criticism of this state agency. The sponsor organization then disburses the money among the food sites.
In some cases, the money flowed to the “fake meal sites” and then back to Feeding Our Future in the form of kickbacks, according to Luger. Somali Alishire was the president of an organization called Community Enhancement Services, located in the JigJiga Business Center in Minneapolis. His company operated a food site under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, falsely claiming to serve as many as 2,700 meals a day, seven days a week, according to an indictment. In total, Community Enhancement Services falsely claimed to have served more than 800,000 meals to low-income children between February and October 2021, the indictment says.
pic-—Liban Yasin Alishire, right, pictured with Minnesota Sen. Omar Fateh, center.
He and his co-defendants received more than $1.6 million in Child Nutrition Programs funds. He allegedly transferred this money to shell companies and used it to purchase property in Kenya, a truck, and a boat. Alishire also paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee in exchange for Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship of his company’s “fraudulent participation” in the program, according to the indictment.
Alishire operated a second fake food site with his co-defendants, which received $180,000 in reimbursements, the indictment says. During his first court appearance Thursday, prosecutors revealed Alishire purchased a resort in Kenya using the stolen funds, KARE 11’s Lou Raguse reports. A judge ordered his release, despite concerns from the prosecution about him fleeing the country. At least three defendants have already left the country, according to Raguse.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Sen. Omar Fateh, and Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, the attorney general’s son, have all received donations from defendants in the case. Three of the defendants previously served in appointed positions in the Minneapolis city government.
Omar, Fateh, and Frey have said in previous statements to the media that they’ve returned the donations. None of them replied to requests for comment.
Somali donor——recipient
Liban Yasin Alishire
Attorney General Keith Ellison: $2,500 (5/27/22)
Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Asad Mohamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/2021)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (3/31/2021)
Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (2/23/21)
Salim Ahmed Said
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdulkadir Nur Salah
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud, previously served on Mayor Frey’s community safety working group
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Abdi Nur Salah, former aide to Mayor Frey
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
but with mpls/St. Paul , Rochester and Duluth. You have walls that are crumbled and falling apart, that can't be cleaned.
The really ugly part is, all those somilies were imported by catholic and Lutheran charities. Under the guise of " save these innocents". You are fighting the church.
And.. Does ICE have the balls to go to Minneapolis and deport Somalia illegals? When the police and illegals will shoot you just for showing your face??
Not to mention the POC will join the shooting spree. Just because.
minnesota is beyond hope. The good counties should join n Dakota, s Dakota and iowa.
Mark Dayton was Gay, wasn’t he?? And he was followed by JAZZ HANDS and ROCKETTE KICKER Walz!!! EGADS!
Look around.
Everyone knows what happened to American cities.
Indeed it IS all around.
I did the same thing in California 1986-2019.
Starting to happen in Texas.
I lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin, they were so white that when I would walk into a group as a white guy, I was often instantly asked what type of Indian I am, being from Texas and states like California, I had never seen such white people and such a white America.
Almost all of outstate MN is gorgeous farm, forest and lake country, and formerly deep blue and purple areas are becoming politically conservative.
But the heavily leftist population centers have tightly locked in Rat corruption and governance that the rest of the state has to put up with.
The days of family trips to the Twin Cities for sporting events, shopping etc. are long gone.
I won’t go near the place, and I know there are many out-staters who feel the same.
“”imported by catholic and Lutheran charities. Under the guise of “ save these innocents”. You are fighting the church””
Not really - the names mean nothing..They’re good to catch the eye and deceive the public but not meaningful in any way to the practice of those denominations themselves. Same with Baptist charities. They sponsor immigrants, get them into the US, support them for a limited time and then they become the states responsibility...
Move to Florida. Stop freezing your butt in MN. I am so glad we moved here in 2016. Best state I ever lived in. Worst state was CA. Lived in Chicago burbs until 1998 for 37 years. It was good then with great job opportunities. Spent 17 years in WA state near Oregon border. Overall it was good experience, may be because it has the best golf weather year round. Mild weather 10 months/12.
What are you talking about? I feel dumber just for reading your reply.
That’s the only thing they are good at: tearing things down. They don’t know how to build something good and decent and sound. Their ways are crooked.
I remember a golf nut that played a course near Coos Bay, OR, every chance he got. One day he walked in wearing rubber boots. I said “Kentuck is flooded, isn’t it?” He said it sharpened his game, shooting from island to island.
What bleeding hearts and “Minnesota Nice” got you.
Happened in California too - two decades ago.
Elected Democratic pols like Gerry Brown and Gavin Newsom have driven the state into the ground- mass 3rd world immigration, huge tax hikes, oppressive regulations on businesses causing them to flee, gas at $5.00/gallon with another $.65/cent/gallon gas tax hike coming on July 1st
My wife is from Hibbing MN and the rest of her family lives in Duluth. I’ve been there twice and we had a grand time. The airport is probably the cleanest I’ve ever been to and downtown Duluth was so much fun. Cold but fun. Minnesota nice is real, especially at the Vikings games. One of the few places i am really looking forward to visiting again.
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