Central Minnesota Political

It was a good day for Minnesota and the nation when the voters of the 5th Congressional District elected State Representative Ilhan Omar to represent them in the United States Congress. Representative Omar is a bright and charismatic young leader who has the interests of all her constituents, and all Americans, at heart. Take for example her legislation known as the College for All Act.  The College for All Act would eliminate tuition and fees at all public four-year colleges and universities, as well as make community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs tuition free for all. The proposal also eliminates all $1.6 trillion in student debt for 45 million Americans.  “That’s 45 million people who are being held back from purchasing their first home; 45 million people who may feel that they can’t start a family; 45 million people who have dreams of opening a business or going into public service, but are held back,” Omar said when the bill was introduced i

- By Fridays for Future To date, young people have led the climate strikes around the world. Now we need adults to join us too. On September 20, 2019, Fridays for Future, the Youth Climate Strike movements, and all of our international friends and allies call for a global general strike. Mark and add it to your calendar. Workers everywhere, please: we are asking you to join us and walk away from a system that is destroying our planet and will threaten the survival of millions of people, plants, and animals within the next 10, 20, 30 years. We don’t feel like we have a choice: it’s been years of talking, countless negotiations, empty deals on climate change and fossil fuel companies being given free rides to drill beneath our soils and burn away our futures for their profit. Politicians and fossil fuel companies have known about climate change for decades. They have willingly handed over their responsibility for our future to profiteers whose search for quick cash threatens our ver

I am of an age where I should have watched the televised moon walk fifty years ago. I was in Coast Guard boot camp in California, however. There were no televisions there. I could have been at the Woodstock music-fest that year also but I was painting the hull of a Coast Guard buoy tender in Seattle harbor while Hendrix sang the national anthem. I was eventually stationed at the Coast Guard base in Ketchikan Alaska. The following story, which is mostly or perhaps all true, was a definitive life experience. I hope that you find it interesting. By Tim King It had seemed an ill start.   I'd taken my olive drab sea bag, which didn't bulge with the full collection of my clothing and possessions, and gone to the Ketchikan flight office to purchase a ticket for San Francisco.  As in all things, I approached going AWOL from the Coast Guard with an innocence and naiveté that horrifies me as much as it pleases me. "I'd like a one way ticket to San Francisco,&qu

This picture of Guatemalan Lety Perez on her knees begging, through her sobs, a Mexican National Guardsman to let her and her son continue on to the United States was taken by Reuters photographer Jose Luis Gonzales last Monday in Juarez on the northern border with the U.S. Thanks to La Jornada Since Gonzalez took the photo it has been widely circulated in Mexico and  Latin America. The sentiment, as expressed by many including former Mexican President Calderon, is that Trump got his wall and the Mexicans paid for it. The National Guard was created by newly elected Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in January. The idea, which was mildly controversial, was to create a new military force to counter the corrupted branches the Mexican military. In May Trump threatened the Mexicans with crushing economic sanctions unless they took action to stop the flow of Central American migrants. Rather than threaten the stability of the  Mexican economy AMLO sent t

How did we become the nation that criminalizes children because they don't have a birth certificate? Tim Central Minnesota Political