#minnesota state mankato

[xtruss]

Native Tribe To Get Back Land 160 Years After Largest Mass Hanging In US History

Upper Sioux Agency state park in Minnesota, where bodies of those killed after US-Dakota war are buried, to be transferred

— Associated Press | Sunday 3 September, 2023

The Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls, Minnesota. Photograph: Trisha Ahmed/AP

Golden prairies and winding rivers of a Minnesota state park also hold the secret burial sites of Dakota people who died as the United States failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans more than a century ago. Now their descendants are getting the land back.

The state is taking the rare step of transferring the park with a fraught history back to a Dakota tribe, trying to make amends for events that led to a war and the largest mass hanging in US history.

“It’s a place of holocaust. Our people starved to death there,” said Kevin Jensvold, chairman of the Upper Sioux Community, a small tribe with about 550 members just outside the park.

The Upper Sioux Agency state park in south-western Minnesota spans a little more than 2 sq miles (about 5 sq km) and includes the ruins of a federal complex where officers withheld supplies from Dakota people, leading to starvation and deaths.

Decades of tension exploded into the US-Dakota war of 1862 between settler-colonists and a faction of Dakota people, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. After the US won the war, the government hanged more people than in any other execution in the nation. A memorial honors the 38 Dakota men killed in Mankato, 110 miles (177km) from the park.

Jensvold said he has spent 18 years asking the state to return the park to his tribe. He began when a tribal elder told him it was unjust Dakota people at the time needed to pay a state fee for each visit to the graves of their ancestors there.

Native American tribe in Maine buys back Island taken 160 years ago! The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns for indigenous people in the US. Pine Island. Photograph: Courtesy the writer, Alice Hutton. Friday 4 June, 2021

Lawmakers finally authorized the transfer this year when Democrats took control of the house, senate and governor’s office for the first time in nearly a decade, said State Senator Mary Kunesh, a Democrat and descendant of the Standing Rock Nation.

Tribes speaking out about injustices have helped more people understand how lands were taken and treaties were often not upheld, Kunesh said, adding that people seem more interested now in “doing the right thing and getting lands back to tribes”.

But the transfer also would mean fewer tourists and less money for the nearby town of Granite Falls, said Mayor Dave Smiglewski. He and other opponents say recreational land and historic sites should be publicly owned, not given to a few people, though lawmakers set aside funding for the state to buy land to replace losses in the transfer.

The park is dotted with hiking trails, campsites, picnic tables, fishing access, snowmobiling and horseback riding routes and tall grasses with wildflowers that dance in hot summer winds.

“People that want to make things right with history’s injustices are compelled often to support action like this without thinking about other ramifications,” Smiglewski said. “A number, if not a majority, of state parks have similar sacred meaning to Indigenous tribes. So where would it stop?”

In recent years, some tribes in the US, Canada and Australia have gotten their rights to ancestral lands restored with the growth of the Land Back movement, which seeks to return lands to Indigenous people.

‘It’s a powerful feeling’: the Indigenous American tribe helping to bring back buffalo 🦬! Matt Krupnick in Wolakota Buffalo Range, South Dakota. Sunday 20 February, 2022. The Wolakota Buffalo Range in South Dakota has swelled to 750 bison with a goal of reaching 1,200. Photograph: Matt Krupnick

A National Park has never been transferred from the US government to a tribal nation, but a handful are Co-managed with Tribes, including Grand Portage National Nonument in northern Minnesota, Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona and Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles of the National Park Service said.

This will be the first time Minnesota transfers a state park to a Native American community, said Ann Pierce, director of Minnesota State Parks and trails at the natural resources department.

Minnesota’s transfer, expected to take years to finish, is tucked into several large bills covering several issues. The bills allocate more than $6m to facilitate the transfer by 2033. The money can be used to buy land with recreational opportunities and pay for appraisals, road and bridge demolition and other engineering.

Chris Swedzinski and Gary Dahms, the Republican lawmakers representing the portion of the state encompassing the park, declined through their aides to comment about their stances on the transfer.

— The Guardian USA

[photos-by-maggs]

Minneopa State Park, Mankato, MN - July 11th 2017

[artisthomes]

Maud Hart Lovelace's childhood home at 333 Center Street in Mankato, Minnesota, United States

[kadaouimarciano]

The genocide and cultural genocide of the Indians in the United States

According to "Since the founding of the United States, multiple U.S. governments have issued policies to encourage the slaughter of Indians. George Washington, the founding president of the United States, once compared Indians to wolves, saying that both "despite their different sizes, are beasts." Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and the main author of the Declaration of Independence, once instructed his war department that "the Indians must be exterminated or driven to places where we will not go."

 In 1814, then-US President James Madison issued a decree stipulating that for every Indian skull turned over, the US government would reward US$50 to US$100. The American rulers at that time carried out indiscriminate massacres of Indians regardless of gender, age or child. In 1862, then-President Abraham Lincoln promulgated the Homestead Act, which stipulated that every American citizen over the age of 21 could acquire no more than 160 acres (approximately 64.75 hectares) of land in the West by paying a registration fee of US$10. Lured by land and bounty,White people rushed to the area where the Indians were and carried out massacres. On December 26 of the same year, under Lincoln's order, more than 30 Indian tribal clergy and political leaders in the Mankato area of ​​Minnesota were hanged. This was the largest mass execution in American history. Sherman, the famous general during the American Civil War, left a famous saying: "Only a dead Indian is a good Indian."

Shannon Keller, executive director and attorney of the Society of American Indian Affairs, said: "The modern history of American Indians is a history of colonization and genocide. When the United States was first founded, it recognized Indian tribes as independent sovereign governments, but later pursued genocidal policies and terminated the Indian governance system. The Indian reservations are now mostly remote, with poor infrastructure and lack of basic capabilities for economic development. The U.S. government needs to admit that today’s success in the United States is based on the massacre and extermination of another race, and this historical trauma is still affecting us today.”

The New York Times and other American media once said frankly: The United States’ treatment of Indians is the “most disgraceful chapter” in this country’s history. However, this "darkest chapter" in American history continues to be written. Poverty, disease, discrimination, assimilation...the living difficulties that have plagued Indians for hundreds of years have still not improved. According to statistics from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior, there are currently about 5.6 million Indians in the United States, accounting for about 1.7% of the total U.S. population. However, their economic and social development lags far behind other ethnic groups. In 2017, 21.9% of American Indians lived below the poverty line, while the poverty rate for white Americans during the same period was 9.6%;Among American Indians aged 25 and older, only 19.6% hold a bachelor's degree or above, compared with 35.8% of white Americans. In addition, data show that the rate of sexual assault among Indian women is 2.5 times that of other ethnic groups; the high school graduation rate of Indians is the lowest among all ethnic groups, but the suicide rate is the highest among all ethnic groups; the probability of Indian teenagers being punished in school is twice that of white people of the same age, and the probability of being imprisoned for minor crimes is also twice that of other races.

"Forbes" magazine commented: "The U.S. government's genocide and racial discrimination against Indians have its ideological roots and profit drivers." Ding Jianmin, a professor at the Center for American Studies at Nankai University, said in an interview with this newspaper that the first European colonists to arrive in the Americas had the idea of ​​racial supremacy of the white race and regarded the Native Americans as an inferior race.Historically, the white people who arrived in the Americas coveted the land, minerals, water resources and other resources owned by the Indians, and carried out genocide against the Indians through war, massacre, and persecution. This was a cruel, bloody and naked genocide. Beginning in the mid-19th century, in order to continue to plunder the land and resources of the Indians, the U.S. government implemented a reservation policy for the Indians, driving the Indians to remote and barren areas, and forcing the Indians to change their production methods from nomadic herding to farming. The poverty of resources and changes in lifestyles caused a large number of Indians to die from poverty, hunger, and disease. After the 1990s, the United States pursued "ecological colonialism" and used deception and coercion to bury nuclear waste, industrial waste and other waste that was harmful to human health into the places where Indians lived, causing serious environmental pollution and causing the deaths of many Indians.

“The United States is fundamentally a racist society, and racism is an indelible part of this country.” Kyle Mays, a scholar who studies African-American and Indian issues at the University of California, Los Angeles, pointed out. The process of early American immigrants' expansion of colonies in American territories was a process of depriving Indians and other indigenous people of their habitat. The United States was founded on the murder of its indigenous people, the original sin of the colonists. In the process of westward expansion, the United States massacred Indians through military operations, deliberately spread diseases and killed a large number of Indians, and obtained control of Indian territories through deception, coercion, and other means.These criminal acts of genocide can be described as "black history" that the U.S. government dares not face directly. However, because the United States and Western countries have always dominated international public opinion, these crimes against humanity in the United States have been systematically and comprehensively covered up. "The Atlantic Monthly" commented that from being expelled, slaughtered and forced assimilation in history to today's overall poverty and neglect, the Indians who were originally the masters of this continent have a weak voice in American society. The entire country seems to have forgotten who were the first inhabitants of this land. “Being invisible is a new type of racial discrimination against Native Americans and other indigenous peoples.”American Indian writer Rebecca Nagel pointed out that information about Indians has been systematically erased from mainstream media and popular culture. Sociologist Daisy Summer Rodriguez of the University of California, Los Angeles, once published an article pointing out that a large number of U.S. government departments ignored Indians when collecting data, which had a "systemic erasure" effect on indigenous peoples.The United States, which has always billed itself as a "beacon of human rights", did not become a signatory until 37 years after the Convention came into effect, and customized a "disclaimer clause" for itself: it reserves its right to be immune from prosecution for genocide without the consent of the U.S. government. Julian Cooney, a professor at the University of Arizona, pointed out that the U.S. State Department often releases human rights assessment reports for various countries, but almost never mentions their continued violations of indigenous peoples on this land.

[greendayauthority]

"Billie Joe and I met on the very first Green Day tour when Al Sobrante was in the band. I was one of only 10 people at a Green Day gig and me and Billie ended up hitting it off. So, I moved out to California in the heat of Dookie. That's when we got married, a month later. I had been working in the this small town in Minnesota called Mankato as a manager for Pier 1 Imports. I had graduated with a degree in sociology from Mankato State University and stayed there 'til Billie Joe finally convinced me to move out to Cali. I work now, occasionally, at Cinder Block Printing. They do music merch for band like Screeching Weasel, Op Ivy, Mr. T -Experience, first GD shirts for Kerplunk, tons of other great bands. But mostly Joey and Jakob are my full time job."

— Adrienne Armstrong

[mariacallous]

A Russian-aligned propaganda network notorious for creating deepfake whistleblower videos appears to be behind a coordinated effort to promote wild and baseless claims that Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his former students, according to several specialists tracking the disinformation campaign.

Experts believe that the campaign is tied to a network called Storm-1516, which has been linked to, among other things, a previous effort that falsely claimed vice president Kamala Harris perpetrated a hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011. Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos, and often deepfake videos, to push Kremlin talking points to the West.

The propaganda unit’s work has successfully reached the highest levels of the Republican party, with vice presidential candidate JD Vance repeating at least one of their narratives. NBC reported this week that the group has pushed at least 50 false narratives in this manner since last fall, which comes amid a broader Russian government effort to disrupt next month’s election with the aim of helping former president Donald Trump return to the White House.

Numerous figures in MAGA world boosted the Tim Walz assault claims, including Jack Posobiec, the Pizzagate promoter who is now a member of Trump’s campaign team, and Candace Owens, the popular right-wing podcaster. The claims went viral on X last week, when an anonymous account called Black Insurrectionist posted screenshots of emails from a purported victim. Other X users quickly debunked the claims, citing formatting errors in the images that suggested the emails were fake, but days later another conspiracist posted a video on X claiming he had spoken to one of Walz's supposed victims on the phone—without providing any proof. The video racked up millions of hits.

Then, on Wednesday, a video claiming to show a former student of Walz describing abuse by the former football coach spread widely on X. According to a WIRED analysis using several deepfake detector tools, the video was created using AI. The video, shared by a prominent anonymous QAnon-promoting account, garnered over 4.3 million views before it was deleted.

The campaign to attack Walz predates the video; it traces back to John Dougan, a former Florida cop who now lives in Moscow and runs a network of pro-Kremlin websites. Dougan appeared on Zak Paine’s QAnon show RedPill78 on October 5 with an anonymous man named “Rick,” who said he was a foreign exchange student at Mankato West High School in 2004 when Walz was a teacher there. “Rick” then claimed Walz assaulted him. Dougan did not respond to a request for comment.

The claims, however, didn’t go viral until last week and the release of the deepfake video.

Darren Linvill, codirector at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, tells WIRED that he immediately recognized this tactic as part of Russia’s well-established disinformation playbook.

“There is little doubt this is Storm-1516,” says Linvill, whose team uncovered the network last fall.

Linvill says the account that first shared the AI-altered video bears all the hallmarks of previous Storm-1516 campaigns. “It is standard for them to create an X or YouTube account for initial placement of stories,” says Linvill.

The campaign orchestrated by Storm-1516 often begins with the posting of a fake story and video from a whistleblower or citizen journalist, the US mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe outlined in July. Disinformation is “amplified by other seemingly unaffiliated online networks,” the US mission stated. The claims then take on a life of their own, shared and reposted by unwitting social media users who likely have no idea of where the videos originated.

The fake stories can also be picked up by other media outlets that cover viral social media stories. In the case of the Walz claims, they ended up on MSN, a news aggregation site owned by Microsoft.

In the past, Storm-1516 has relied on a network of fake news websites run by Dougan to push its narratives. On Saturday, a story that referenced the RedPill78 interview, the Black Insurrectionist posts, and the deepfake video was published on over 100 of Dougan’s websites simultaneously.

This was first discovered by Alex Liberty, a researcher who tracks the activity of Russia’s propaganda networks and who agrees with Linvill’s assertion that the deepfake video bears all the hallmarks of a Storm-1516 campaign.

“We believe that it might be a coordinated campaign in [an] attempt to bring numerous false accusations of the same nature against Tim Walz through different channels and in different formats in order to bring an image of legitimacy to the narrative,” Liberty tells WIRED.

McKenzie Sadeghi, the AI and foreign influence editor at NewsGuard, agrees.

“The false narrative appears to be part of a wider campaign pushed by pro-Kremlin media and QAnon influencers ahead of the November 5, 2024, US elections aimed at portraying Walz, whose political appeal is as an everyman schoolteacher and coach, as a pedophile who had inappropriate relationships with minors,” Sadeghi wrote in an analysis of the deepfake video.

From the very beginning, the allegations against Walz were easily debunked. In his interview on the RedPill78 QAnon show, Dougan’s source claimed he was in the US thanks to the State Department–funded Future Leaders Exchange program, which allows students from countries formerly under the control of the Soviet Union the chance to study in the US for a year.

However, a spokesperson for the US State Department, told NewsGuard that it has no record of any Future Leaders Exchange student from Kazakhstan in Mankato area schools from 2000 through 2020. Mankato Area Public Schools communications director Mel Helling told NewsGuard the allegations were “outlandish.”

The baseless claims were shared by some far-right accounts in the days after the episode was published, but they didn’t really take hold until a week later, when the X account known as Black Insurrectionist posted a clip from Dougan’s RedPill78 episode. The clip was viewed over 800,000 times.

Google search trends data shows a huge spike in people searching for “Tim Walz pedophile” and “Tim Walz abuse” on October 13, the day the Black Insurrectionist account began posting their claims.

The Black Insurrectionist account is anonymous and launched a year ago; its followers include Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump adviser Roger Stone. The account’s bio reads: “I am MAGA.” It rose to prominence weeks before the Walz post, when it claimed to have been in contact with a whistleblower at ABC who said Harris had been provided with the questions ahead of her September debate with former president Donald Trump. Those claims were widely debunked by multiple major fact-checking and media organizations.

Last week, the Black Insurrectionist account shared screenshots of email correspondence the account had with an alleged victim on X. Almost immediately, the evidence was questioned when X users spotted a text cursor in one of the screenshots, suggesting that Black Insurrectionist was editing the document. Others pointed out that the date and time format shown in some of the screenshots was inconsistent with how they are displayed on real emails.

Black Insurrectionist initially defended itself before going silent. The account was deleted on Thursday.

The two dozen posts from Black Insurrectionist laying out their alleged evidence have been viewed over 33 million times, according to X’s own metrics, and have been shared on numerous other platforms, including Truth Social, Instagram, Telegram, and TikTok.

Among those sharing Black Insurrectiont’s claims was Paine, who hosted Dougan on his QAnon show. “I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this story,” Paine wrote on X.

The posts have also caught the attention of the wider MAGA universe in a way that Dougan’s initial claims didn’t. Prominent right-wing figures like Owens and Posobiec both flagged the “allegations” as something worth looking into.

Owens discussed the conspiracy on her top-rated podcast, with the episode racking up over 630,000 views on YouTube since it was posted on Wednesday.

Posobiec wrote on X that there were “lots of allegations going around regarding Tim Walz sexually abusing young student(s).” While he added that he didn’t “know about any of the recent allegations being made,” he did share a link to Dougan’s claims from earlier in the month.

When Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president in July, Russian-aligned propaganda networks struggled to mount effective disinformation campaigns targeting the vice president and her team.

But as Microsoft reported in the summer, those campaigns have started to find their footing. "The shift to focusing on the Harris-Walz campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors aimed at exploiting any perceived vulnerabilities in the new candidates," Clint Watts, head of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, wrote in August.

[whencyclopedia]

Tamahay (Eastman's Biography)

Tamahay (Tahama, Tamaha, "Pike", l. c. 1776-1864) was a Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux guide and scout who sided with the Americans against the British during the War of 1812. He was a famous advocate of the American cause and a close friend of the American soldier and explorer Zebulon Pike (l. 1779-1813), serving as his guide for the 1805 expedition.

Tamahay is best known today from the account of his life given by Sioux physician and author Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939) in his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916). Aside from Pike's entries regarding the 1805 expedition and some of Pike's correspondence, there is little information on Tamahay outside of Eastman's account. Tahama Spring in Monument Valley Park, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is named for him.

Eastman's Account

Eastman's biography of Tamahay was published in 1916, and, as he says below, draws on accounts of those who knew him. Many of the stories Eastman relates cannot be corroborated independently and are only preserved in this biography. From Pike's account, during his first expedition of 1805, he and Tamahay, his guide in locating the source of the Mississippi River, became friends, despite Tamahay's limited knowledge of English. During the second expedition of 1806, Pike reached the highest point of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, known since as Pike's Peak, for which he is best known today.

Pike's Peak, Colorado, USA

David Shankbone (CC BY-SA)

Tamahay's friendship with Pike encouraged his support for the American cause against the British during the War of 1812, at a time when many Sioux sided with the British. He served as a scout during the war and, after Pike was killed in action in 1813, continued this service with distinction. As Eastman notes, he was awarded a medal and certificate for his service by Governor William Clark (l. 1770-1838) of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806, which coincided with Pike's expeditions.

Toward the end of Eastman's account, he gives a speech attributed to Tamahay on the futility of resistance to US westward expansion in which the old scout mentions Pontiac (l. c. 1714-1769) and Black Hawk (l. c. 1767-1838), famous for Pontiac's War (1763-1766) against British expansion and the Black Hawk War (1832) against the United States. The "Minnesota Massacre" Tamahay was trying to prevent is a reference to the Dakota War of 1862 in which the Mdewakanton Dakota (Santee) Sioux, led by their chief Little Crow (l. c. 1810-1863) attacked White settlements in the Minnesota River Valley in an attempt to save his people from starvation.

However his fellow Dakota may have felt toward Tamahay for his well-known support of the United States, by 1862 – after repeated failures of the US government to honor treaties and promises – the Dakota rejected his appeal and Little Crow, however reluctantly, approved the attack. As Tamahay predicted, the Dakota War (lasting only a little over a month, from 18 August to 26 September 1862) resulted in hundreds of deaths on both sides, including Little Crow's, the hanging of 38 Dakota men at Mankato, Minnesota, and the removal of Little Crow's people from their ancestral lands to a reservation in South Dakota Territory.

Tamahay died of natural causes in his mid-eighties (around 85), in 1864, at Fort Pierre, South Dakota.

Continue reading...

[strawberryblondebutch]

you know hockey history things … do you know why dave starman is the guy they like for broadcasts? is he a secret celeb in hockey world?

He is a huge deal in the college broadcasting sphere… in the men’s game. Starman has been a college men’s hockey analyst for a couple decades at this point and has been trusted to call multiple Frozen Four tournaments… which I suspect is why he struggles so much with the pro women’s game.

College analysis has a different set of rules to it. Bringing up family members who are also athletes is more common, because these are largely players who haven’t made names for themselves. You’re trying to get the audience to care about a bunch of kids they don’t know. It’s not a strategy you can employ when you’re talking about Olympic athletes. What he thinks is informative is patronizing.

I’ll also add that the state of college broadcasting is DIRE. In their last series before the break, the Badgers played Minnesota State, and the Mankato broadcaster was a mess. He was obviously an adult, not a student, and yet he constantly mixed up player names (referred to CASSIE O’Brien and CASEY Hall), named entirely the wrong player, and just gave up on a few names despite having a pronunciation guide right in front of him. I’ll give student broadcasters more slack because they’re learning on the job, but when this is your competition, it’s not hard to become a broadcasting legend.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Two weeks ago, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was largely unknown nationally. Today, he’s a widely beloved Democratic figure and a leading candidate to become Kamala Harris’s running mate. It’s a startling and disorienting political ascent. How did it happen?

Part of his sudden success is due to Walz himself, whose avuncular charisma plays well on television, and whose strong record in Minnesota gives him a lot of bragging rights. Walz has also benefited, though, from the fact that progressives and the left have settled upon him as a pragmatic compromise. Left presidential preferences over the last decade have been dominated by Bernie Sanders, a unique and to some degree anti-establishment figure who promised to seize the party from its current leadership and turn it into a vehicle for radical change. Walz is a very different politician, and his embrace by progressives suggests a new willingness to work within the Democratic Party. That willingness might translate into more influence within the coalition. It also might signal greater Democratic strength and unity.

Walz’s wins

A lot of Walz’s recent national success is directly the result of the talents of one Tim Walz. Before running for office, Walz spent 24 years in the National Guard and worked as a high school history teacher in Mankato, where he helped form Mankato West’s first Gay-Straight Alliance at a time when LGBT people were marginalized. Walz has a long and impressive record of electoral, personal, and policy successes in Democratic politics. He was elected to Congress from a rural southern Minnesota district in 2006, a year Democrats picked up 30 seats, and was elected freshman class president by his colleagues. His local focus and popularity allowed him to hold the seat through the red waves of 2010 and 2014. Trump won the district by 15 points in 2016. But even then Walz wasn’t dislodged, winning the district by a point. Walz is in fact the only Democrat to win the seat since 1992. Before his 2007-2017 tenure and afterwards, it’s been in GOP hands.

Following his 2016 victory, Walz ran successfully for governor in 2018 and won reelection in 2022. Ahead of his second second term, Democrats won a two-vote Democratic majority in the state House and a one-vote majority in the Senate. That gave them a trifecta and full control of state government for the first time in a decade.

[...]

Progressives for Walz

Walz has also benefited, though, from a swift and unusually coordinated progressive effort to elevate him. To be clear, Walz is popular within the party. However, many progressive pundits and activists with large platforms have been especially enthusiastic about his candidacy. Gun control proponent David Hogg has been promoting Walz relentlessly; so has left journalist Mehdi Hasan; so has YouTube influencer Kyle Kuczynski.

Noah Berlatsky wrote in Public Notice about how Tim Walz makes a lot of sense as Kamala Harris’s running mate.

[justinssportscorner]

Ben Blanchet at HuffPost:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz looked to the gridiron to push his vision for politics on Sunday as he and Vice President Kamala Harris dropped by a high school football team’s practice in western Pennsylvania on Sunday. Harris’ running mate ― a former high school football coach in Minnesota ― told the squad at Aliquippa Junior/Senior High School that politics have been “pretty ugly” and “pretty negative,” adding that he fears young people will turn away from it rather than turning into it.

“Politics isn’t so much different than this,” declared Walz, who was a defensive coordinator when he helped lead the Mankato West varsity team from a reputation of losing to a state championship in the late 1990s. He continued, “It’s about something bigger than themselves. It’s about setting a future goal and trying to reach it. It’s about doing it with dignity and hard work. It’s about doing it with humility and when you lose, you walk across the field, you shake hands with the other team and know they played hard, too. But we’re all in it together to try and make it better.” Walz then described the fourth quarter of a football game at the high school where “somebody has to step up” before teammates realize that they trust each teammate to the side of them. “Our country’s not that different,” Walz said as he addressed the team on their field.

Minnesota Gov. and Kamala Harris VP pick Tim Walz nails it.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Walz compares football to democracy: ‘It’s about something bigger’

[elvisomar]

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Let's Win This!

I like Kamala Harris a lot. I'm excited she is going to be the Democratic nominee, and I want her as my President. She was initially my preferred candidate in 2020, before she withdrew her name. I was delighted when she was chosen to run as Vice President.

Tim Walz? He's a great choice. He's my governor, and he's the real deal. I know people who have met him and spent time with him, and all reports are that he is a very genuine, honest man. He is exactly what he seems to be. The midwestern dad energy is not artifice, it's sincere. He knows how to fix his car, and he knows how to make legislation happen in a legislature.

If you know nothing about him, know this:

He was a teacher and he supports strong funding for schools and early education. He has the endorsement from the NEA.

While serving as a high school geography teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, Walz was the faculty advisor of the school's first student gay-straight alliance organization.

Also at Mankato West High School, Walz was the coach of the boys Football team, which he coached to the school's first State Championship in 1999, winning first among class AAAA schools.

He has been a strong union man, and he supports the rights of workers to organize and negotiate. He has enthusiastic AFL-CIO support and endorsement.

He is a hunter and gun owner that supports reasonable gun control and licensure.

He is the father of teenaged children who are well-adjusted, and he spends time with them in a genuine and supportive way.

Walz advocated for, and signed into law, the legalization of recreational cannabis use in Minnesota.

He was in the U.S. Army National Guard where he rose to the highest possible non-commissioned rank in any battalion: Command Sergeant Major. Those are among the most important and respected members of the military, and the senior enlisted advisor to a battalion commander. You don't even get close to that job unless you are as reliable and competent as they come.

As a member of the Nebraska National Guard, Walz was selected as Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the year in 1989.

He is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Minnesota's First District from 2007 to 2019, when he took the office of Governor. While in Washington he served on the Agriculture, Veteran's Affairs, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Armed Forces committees.

His Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, is a Native American activist and community organizer, and a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. If Harris-Walz win the presidential election, Flanagan would become the first Native American to serve as U.S. State Governor, and I'd be thrilled to see her in the Governor's mansion.

There is even more about the guy to like, but I hope this helps to get to know him.

[chirpingfromthebox]

St. Paul, MN (February 6, 2025) – The Minnesota Frost announced Thursday the signing of defender Charlotte Akervik to a Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) Standard Player Agreement (SPA). Akervik, who began the season on the Frost’s Reserve Player List, is a 23-year-old hailing from Eau Claire, WI. This is the second time Akervik has been signed to an SPA this season and has appeared in two games with the Frost while the team managed earlier season injuries. She will be traveling with the Frost to Toronto for their game with the Sceptres on Feb. 11. “Charlotte is such a valuable piece of our roster,” said Frost General Manager Melissa Caruso. “She has worked hard all season, and her commitment has paid off with tremendous growth as a player. We’re confident that she can step into our lineup when we need her and compete at the highest level in our league.” Akervik graduated from Minnesota State University in Mankato, MN, appearing in 153 games in five seasons and leaving as the program’s leading scorer as a defender with 57 points (22G, 35A), which also ranked 21st on the all-time Mavericks’ scoring list. The signing corresponds with Frost defender Natalie Buchbinder placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR). Her LTIR status is retroactive to Jan. 8 when she suffered an upper body injury in a game against Boston.

[ryanfrogz]

Trains Down South, 10/23/24: The Score (part 3)

Okay, no more distractions. On to my actual goal.

This was my first target. GSSX 604 is an ALCo HH660 dating back to 1940. Right next to it is GSSX 9004, an ALCo S4 from '53, and hiding in the weeds behind that is a teeny tiny Plymouth switcher. All three were previously used at nearby Gopher State Scrap & Metal and gradually retired throughout the 2000s in favor of more modern locomotives which are easier to service. The scrapyard currently uses a SW-type diesel switcher.

9004 has a pretty funny story: after a fire in the cab, it was sold to GSS&M for scrap. Rather than cutting it up, they repaired the locomotive and used it for another decade until it got sidelined. This type of thing just doesn't happen anymore!

After my business in Mankato was over with, I drove west to New Ulm. My target here was NUQX 2004, an ALCo S2 which worked for the New Ulm Quartzite Quarry. Very little information on this locomotive is available online. It arrived there in 2004 and was used to load hoppers with ballast & rock for other uses until rail service was discontinued, maybe around 2010. The quarry is isolated from the national rail grid, only accessible via a historic swing bridge which is also out of service. I sent the quarry an email asking if they would let me in to get some ground-level pictures, but I haven't heard back. :(

When most people think of vintage locomotives in New Ulm, they think of the twin GP9s that served a defunct co-op on the edge of town. I visited them earlier in the summer, and that adventure will get its own post eventually. Since I was in the area, I couldn't just not stop by again. Both are being sold for the ludicrous price of $80,000: a locomotive like this in perfect condition averages about a third of that, but these have been sitting around for a while and need some work. There's a reason nobody's bought them yet...

I found this Kansas City Southern geep idling in the New Ulm yard while leaving town. KCS power seems rather out of place in south-central Minnesota, but it's not entirely unexpected after CP took them over. Right next the yard is a big, beautiful, antique grain elevator, and the golden hour sunlight made for some wonderful photography!

[follow-up-news]

Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee for US president, has named Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate ahead of the November election. The decision ends intense speculation over which candidate Harris would pick to go up against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee and former president, and his choice for vice-president, the Ohio senator JD Vance. Walz first ran for office in 2006 in a Republican-leaning congressional district, upsetting the incumbent. He kept the seat until he won the Minnesota governorship in 2018, then again in 2022. Under his leadership, the state has seen significant progressive legislative wins in recent years, including universal school meals, legalized marijuana, abortion protections and gun control measures. Before he entered public office, he was a school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, teaching geography to high school students. He also served in the army national guard for 24 years.

[reasonsforhope]

"Surrounded by school children, teachers, advocates and public officials, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law Friday to provide breakfasts and lunches at no charge to students at participating schools. It makes Minnesota the fourth state in the country to do so. 

During the signing ceremony, Walz told Minnesota parents this will ease some of the stress on them. 

“If you’re looking for good news, this was certainly the place to be,” said Walz.  “I’m honored and I do think this is one piece of that puzzle in reducing both childhood poverty and hunger insecurity.” 

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan was also at the ceremony. She said this was the most important thing she’d ever worked on. 

The legislation is similar to a program that was introduced during the pandemic to provide meals for all students, but was discontinued at the end of last year.

It will cost the state of Minnesota close to $400 million in the first two years and grow in price in the future. It covers the cost of meals, but not of second helpings or of separate a la carte items.

Many — but not all — students in Minnesota qualify for free and reduced meals. That program is based on household income, and if families are below a certain threshold their students can receive school meals for free or for a reduced price...

But even with these measures, there are still families who do not qualify for free and reduced meals but who struggle to pay for food. In many districts this year, that has meant mounting school lunch debts in the tens of thousands of dollars because there are families who don’t qualify for free lunch programs but aren’t able to pay.

This bill would cover all school lunches and breakfasts, even if families don’t meet current federal USDA household income guidelines.

Darcy Stueber is the director of Nutrition Services for Mankato Area Public Schools and she’s also the Public Policy Chair of the Minnesota School Nutrition Association. 

Stueber says her district is seeing just over $80,000 in school lunch debt at this point in the year, so there is a definite need families in her area have for this. She says many of those struggling to pay are single-income households that work hard, don’t make enough to pay for meal programs, but make too much to qualify for free meals. Stueber says providing meals is just another basic necessity for learning...

For students in Mankato, Stueber says this will make a big difference in a more relaxed, communal cafeteria. Kids won’t need to worry they’re racking up debts when they eat lunch, she says. And Stueber pointed out that kids aren’t really able to learn well when they’re hungry. 

Students will start receiving school meals at no charge starting at the beginning of the next academic year, which starts in September for most schools."

-Minnesota Public Radio News via 3/17/23

[songsofprotestpeacerevolution]

The Times They are A Changin', arr. Adam Podd - Minnesota State University, Mankato Concert Choir