by David Strom
As Ed wrote, Tim Walz is a ridiculous choice for Harris, proving once again that her political instincts are about as bad as humanly possible. I was expecting Josh Shapiro, fully aware that the antisemitic wing of the Democrat Party would howl in rage. Picking him would have been a smart Sister Soulja moment and help Harris in the must-win state of Pennsylvania.
Then 2 things are true. 1st picking @GovernorShapiro would’ve been about expanding the coalition picking Walz is about a base election. @GovTimWalz is deep blue progressive, often called a prairie progressive.
2nd this was Pelosi’s pick & she has been at the controls all along. https://t.co/V9E8CfC89Y— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) August 6, 2024
The choice was so glaringly obvious that, of course, she would avoid doing it, I suppose, because her political instincts were honed in San Francisco, where Walz would be seen as one of the few “good” people from flyover territory.
My fears about Harris are that she is incredibly bad at public speaking, and that she reliably makes bad political decisions. So far, she has done nothing to allay either fear. I’m not saying she can’t win, but I wish she gave me more confidence. https://t.co/pC1Ih2yi3j
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) August 6, 2024
Walz has two virtues that probably stood out for Harris: first, he looks like a farmer, and second he has a populist flavor on first look. To a San Francisco liberal, he seems the ideal choice to get some votes in flyover country.
He isn’t. Walz is a radical, every bit as liberal as Kamala Harris, and he isn’t really good at hiding it. He has a thin skin, and his populist rhetoric is deployed to justify socialism, and he even admits it.
“One person’s socialism is another person's neighborliness.”
— Tim Walzpic.twitter.com/DHVSo37jsZ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 6, 2024
There is a lot of videotape of Walz out there saying and doing outrageous things, and I suspect that the biggest vulnerability will be his utter failure during the George Floyd riots. He refused to call out the National Guard, and reportedly ordered the Minneapolis Third Precinct to be abandoned–leading to its occupation and eventual destruction.
BREAKING: The third precinct police station is on fire. Rioters have taken over pic.twitter.com/AJg4jDr9Tz
— Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) May 29, 2020
This will be a very effective line of attack for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that as Tim Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn–and it came out later that it was Walz more than our Mayor Jacob Frey, who begged for help as Walz blamed him–Kamala Harris was raising money to bail out the very rioters that Walz allowed to trash MY city.
Arrest, charge, indict, prosecute and incarcerate Kamala Harris for aiding and abetting domestic terrorism.
Here is,
in May of 2020, Minneapolis Police Department evacuating from its third precinct as the domestic terrorist organizations BLM and Antifa burning the facility to… pic.twitter.com/tdoCBjuEw5
— 🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸 (@Real_RobN) July 26, 2024
Walz had a reason for allowing this to happen: he approved of the riots.
No, I am not kidding. Early on, as the riots were seen as a ray of hope in a systemically racist society according to Walz. He said as much.
This was the Governors take in the midst of the BLM riots as his largest city was on fire pic.twitter.com/QdRKrFEvOG
— Rob O'Donnell (@odonnell_r) August 6, 2024
Walz literally called the destruction of our city “exciting.”
Walz didn’t call out the National Guard in Minneapolis because he thought they were dangerous rubes, despite having been a National Guard member himself. He obviously hated his comrades in arms, because they weren’t his comrades in politics.
🚨Kamala Harris VP pick Tim Walz disrespected MN National Guard members during 2020 BLM riots, referred to them as “19 year old cooks”. pic.twitter.com/I1GSs042wI
— Cryptid Politics (pro-DeSantis) 🇺🇸🐊 (@CryptidPolitics) August 6, 2024
Walz is a radical on the border, and ensured that illegal aliens could get as many government services as citizens–including drivers’ licenses even if they couldn’t provide any identification to back up their claims to live here.
Tim Walz would gladly replace Americans with illegals. pic.twitter.com/QNQnO9eQ0u
— Eric Cook (@Greentownmayor) August 6, 2024
Walz was also among the most radical governors on COVID policy, creating a snitch line encouraging neighbors to report each other for LEAVING THEIR HOUSES. He was a huge fan of totalitarianism and embraced it enthusiastically.
LINK
He’s weird.
Tampon Tim as he made sure to put sanitary products in boys bathrooms.
LINK
Kamala couldn’t risk pissing off the anti-Semites of the Democrat party because there are so many anti-Semites in the party. What is this thing Democrats have with drunk drivers? Weird.
Walz’s daughter admitted finding out what the National Guard was going to do during the riots and telling BLM leadership what the plan was.
Not a trustworthy family.
And once again we have a candidate with deep ties to China.
“Since the Walz Administration took office, Minnesota has experienced multiple claims of waste and fraud, all at the expense of taxpayers and their dollars. The cost of this fraud and mismanagement is over $500 million! This mismanagement has allowed rampant fraud that has gone unchecked for far too long. We must demand accountability.” State Senator Jeff Howe.
The state ran the 2022 Frontline Worker Pay Program, which was intended to provide checks to workers who met specific criteria during the COVID pandemic. 41% of payments were made to people not eligible to the program, resulting in about $205 million unverified payments.
Under the Walz administration last year, an OLA report found $3.5 million in overpayments through the RentHelp program.
In 2019, the OLA released a report regarding years-long claims of fraud within the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), which stated the fraud that occurred is over $5-6 million that was originally alleged, but they could not offer a “reliable estimate of how much fraud exists in the program.”
DHS has also seen fraud through opioid treatment payments sent to Tribes throughout the state, in which expenditures were classified as “overpayments” and equated to about $29 million.
In tandem with the fraud, there have also been cases of extreme waste.
In 2019, Minnesota’s Medicaid program paid $3.7 million for deceased enrollees, and DHS had $22 million in improper spending which had to be repaid to the federal government.
In 2020, DHS again disclosed up to $29 million in improper payments for duplicate accounts.
Since the Walz administration has taken over, there have been over 40 “scandals” involving agencies under his control.