Tim & Kamala waltz. (Beth Clifton collage)
Not as good a pro-animal record as Kamala Harris, but Donald Trump & J.D. Vance have none
ST. PAUL, Minnesota––Introduced on August 6, 2024 as vice presidential running mate to Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the current U.S. vice president, Minnesota governor Tim Walz does not bring to the ticket the same strong pro-animal credentials as Harris herself.
But then, no previous U.S. presidential or vice presidential candidate ever has.
(See VP Kamala Harris has long, strong record on animal issues.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Walz opposes wolf hunting
Given Harris’s strong pro-animal positions, it was practically inevitable that her running mate would be a hunter. No winning Democrat or Republican presidential ticket since 1952 has not included a hunter.
(See Why U.S. Senate Democrats dance with Elmer Fudd & his hunting buddies.)
Conversely, Walz, while he is a hunter and generally favorable toward animal agriculture, indisputably loves cats and dogs and controversially opposes wolf hunting, a hot issue in his home state.
Walz, for his support of gun control bills, is vehemently hated by the National Rifle Association, National Shooting Sports Federation, Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, and a constellation of other pro-hunting organizations.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Trump & Vance
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as U.S. president from 2017 to 2021, though not a hunter, politically favored hunting and animal agriculture throughout his presidency––including wolf hunting––to a more extreme degree than any other president in almost two centuries.
Trump running mate J.D. Vance, within moments of his nomination, was strongly endorsed by both the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Federation. Both also favor Trump.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Vance trying to cover up agribusiness pollution
Vance while running for an Ohio seat in the U.S. Senate in 2022 was endorsed by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, a leading voice for animal agribusiness, and subsequently cosponsored S. 391, a Senate bill still in committee, to block the Securities & Exchange Commission from seeking disclosures about emissions from agricultural products.
That is, pollution from animal manure.
Vance may be best known lately, however, for a 2021 campaign remark directed by name at Kamala Harris, deriding “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
(Facebook photo)
Tim Walz & cats
Tim Walz, now running alongside “childless cat lady” Harris, perhaps inadvertently put his affection for cats on public display in 2018, when as Minnesota governor-elect he momentarily interrupted an appearance at a listening session with voters to pet a cat.
Walz and his wife Gwen adopted their most famous cat, an unusually friendly orange tabby named Afton, in 2019 from the Blue Earth Nicollet County Humane Society in Mankato.
Afton in short order had his own page on the Animal Humane Society of Minnesota website:
https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/news/minnesotas-first-feline-afton-walz.
Afton. (Tim Walz Facebook photo)
“Bipartisan appeal”
“As an important member of Governor Tim Walz’s family,” the website said, “Afton has bipartisan appeal. He lovingly pushes the buttons of his political family, Governor Tim Walz, First Lady Gwen Walz, and their children, Hope and Gus. He knows his cuteness helps him get away with anything.
“He inserts himself into the Governor’s public policy work to demand affection. He sends emails full of random letters from the First Lady to colleagues at the State Capitol.
“At the Governor’s mansion, Afton has the luxury of water bowls on every level of the house. But Minnesota’s first feline is obsessed with water being fresh. It’s not uncommon for him to demand a fresh refill by tipping over every bowl in the house.”
Afton & Tim Walz’s favorite soda, Diet MountainDew.
Afton wandered
In July 2023, however, “The Walz family relocated to a University of Minnesota-owned mansion along the Mississippi River so the official governor’s residence can undergo extensive renovations,” reported Torey Van Oot of Axios.
The Walz family was aware, Van Oot continued, that “Afton, the family’s 7-year-old tabby, was known for venturing beyond his home,” as “a frequent surprise guest at weddings held at a venue near the governor’s typical Summit Avenue residence,” wrote Van Oot.
“So Governor Walz decided to pop an Apple AirTag on the frisky feline in case he wandered away. The tracking tactic came in handy, though it sent the state’s chief executive on an early morning adventure of his own.”
“I woke up this morning at four,” Tim Walz told Van Oot, “and he was at my neighbor’s house.”
Honey the cat is the latest addition to the Waltz family.
(Tim Walz Facebook photo)
Honey
A month later, on August 26, 2023, Afton slipped his AirTag collar, found in the yard, and disappeared.
Four months after that, on December 20, 2023, Tim Walz posted to social media that while the Walz family continued to look for Afton, they had adopted an orange and white cat named Honey.
Updated Tim Walz on February 4, 2024, “Honey has been a great addition to the Walz family.
“Get out to the Animal Humane Society,” Walz said, “and bring home a new family member of your own.”
Tim Walz & Scout the family Labrador/Rottweiler mix. (Tim Walz photo)
Scout the dog
The Walz family dog, Scout, a black Labrador/Rottweiler mix, was adopted in September 2019 “from Minneapolis-based Midwest Animal Rescue & Services,” according to Dana Ferguson of Minnesota Public Radio, “after he was found with his nine siblings near a high-kill shelter in Oklahoma.”
Scout in October 2023 upstaged the ongoing search for Afton the cat, reported Drew Weisholtz of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, by accidentally locking himself in a bedroom.
The safe, easy resolution to such a problem is usually either to pick the lock, unscrew the doorknob, or to temporarily pop out the hinge pins holding the door in place, remove the door, then put the door and hinge pins back after resetting or replacing the lock.
Three members of the governor’s staff, apparently none of them familiar with door hardware, instead released the dog by climbing into the bedroom through a second floor window.
Tim Waltz & Afton the cat. (Facebook photo)
Endorsed by Humane Society Legislative Fund
A former social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School, where Tim Walz met Gwen, then a fellow teacher, and a 24-year member of the Army National Guard, Tim Walz in 2006 won election to his first of six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Tim Walz was endorsed by the Humane Society Legislative Fund in 2010, chiefly for his support of an amendment to the 2010 Farm Bill to federally criminalize taking a child to a cockfight.
NRA president Wayne Robert LaPierre, Jr.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Praised––once––by NRA
Walz was on February 26, 2016 prominently thanked by the National Rifle Association for helping to pass H.R. 2406, the Sportsmen’s Heritage & Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act.
Exulted a National Rifle Association media release, “In addition to allowing law-abiding gun owners increased access to carry firearms on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the SHARE Act also protects the use of traditional [lead] ammunition and requires that U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management plan to facilitate hunting, fishing, and shooting.
“Finally, the bill would more comprehensively address the interstate transportation of firearms and ammunition for hunters and law-abiding gun owners.”
That, though, appears to have been the last time the National Rifle Association praised Tim Walz, whose next run for office was for governor of Minnesota.
Bradley Lane Croft. (Beth Clifton collage)
Veterans Dog Training Therapy Act
Three months later, Tim Walz was lauded by then-Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle, now heading Animal Wellness Action and the Center for A Humane Economy, for pushing the Veterans Dog Training Therapy Act “to set up a program for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress to participate in therapeutic dog training and handling.”
This was the legislation which, however well-intentioned, was combined with other bills to set up grant programs exploited by Texas pit bull trainer Bradley Lane Croft, now in prison for fraud, and by recently exposed Michigan pit bull trainer Kirk Lanam, who received a “personality disorder” discharge after less than two years in the U.S. Air Force but has claimed to be a brigadier general.
(See Trainer of pit bull “service dogs” for veterans faked just about everything.)
Deer with CWD. (Wisconsin DNR photos)
Chronic wasting disease
Tim Walz might have expected praise from hunters when in February 2019, as part of his first proposed Minnesota state budget after becoming governor, he moved decisively to counter the spread of chronic wasting disease [CWD], a transmissible, always fatal form of spongiform encephalopathy afflicting deer, elk, and moose, related to “mad cow disease.”
The venison from infected deer is not considered safe to eat.
Specifically, Tim Walz asked the legislature to appropriate $4.6 million to fight chronic wasting disease over the next two years, and to appropriate $1.1 million annually to the program after that.
The money was to help organize special hunts for infected animals, promote deer culls in afflicted areas, and to hire USDA Wildlife Services to cull deer on afflicted elk and deer farms.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Wolf hunting
Partly because wolves are a natural brake on deer and elk overpopulation, and tend to kill diseased and disabled prey first, Tim Walz energetically opposed a Minnesota house bill to allow wolf hunting. The bill failed on April 30, 2019 by just one vote.
Meanwhile, just days ahead of the November 2020 U.S. national election, the Donald Trump administration removed grey wolves from the protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act in the Lower 48 states, enabling states with wolves to authorize hunting them.
Both Tim Walz and Minnesota lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, reiterated their opposition to wolf hunting.
Tim Walz & husky. (Facebook photo)
Accused of “extreme anti-hunter agenda”
Tim Walz throughout his gubernatorial tenure has led ceremonial “deer hunting openers.”
But the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association executive board voted unanimously to boycott the 2023 Governor’s Deer Opener due to what it termed “Walz and legislative Democrats’ extreme anti-hunter agenda.”
The central feature of that alleged “extreme anti-hunter agenda,” according to Associated Press, appears to have been “a proposed ‘red flag law’ that would allow authorities to ask courts for ‘extreme risk protection orders’ to temporarily take guns away from people deemed to be an imminent threat to others or themselves”; expanded background checks for gun transfers other than of transfers of hunting weapon among family members; and a hike of from $5.00 to $10 in fishing license fees.
(Tim Waltz photo on X)
Pheasant & turkey hunting
Tim Walz responded to that by announcing on October 24, 2023 that a “2024 Minnesota Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener” would be held in Sleepy Eye, a town of 3,600 people in Brown County.
This will be just 10 days before the 2024 U.S. national election.
Tim Walz has made no secret of his enthusiasm for bird hunting, in particular, for example posting to social meda a photo of seven wild turkeys on his lawn captioned, “For the past few years I’ve not seen a turkey while hunting. Today they mock me.”
In July, on the Anderson Cooper 360° show, Tim Walz responded to a J.D. Vance anecdote told to the Republican National about finding 19 loaded guns stashed around his grandmother’s house.
“That’s what J.D. Vance’s schtick is, talking about guns,” Tim Walz said. “I guarantee you he can’t shoot pheasants like I can,” but then immediately segued to, “but you know what, I guarantee I don’t want weapons of war in classrooms. And there’s no reason that you can’t have reasonable restrictions around that without infringing on your Second Amendment.”
(See Why the Second Amendment does not protect either hunting animals or self-defense.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Vance exposed for funding vivisection
Meanwhile NewsBytes editor Chanshimla Varah on July 28, 2024 suggested that, “Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, has found himself in another pickle,” after “Keen social media users dug up an old Rolling Stone article in which Vance was accused of animal cruelty,” in connection with “brutal tests on live animals,” including monkeys and dogs, by the biotechnology company AmplifyBio, financially backed by Vance’s venture firm, Narya.
The Rolling Stone article, “Cruelty Capitalism,” by Tim Dickinson, published on October 25, 2022, subheaded “J.D. Vance Has a Burnt Monkey Testicle Problem,” alleged that “Even under the best of circumstances, the monkeys used in AmplifyBio’s research have short, dismal lives.
Beth & Merritt Clifton.
“This is evidenced in a study published in June 2022 in the journal PLOS Pathogens, conducted at AmplifyBio on 25 macaques. The experiment required drilling holes in the monkeys’ skulls to deliver vaccine injections directly into their brains. After a month of observation, the study records, the animals were ‘humanely terminated,’ and their brains harvested for research.”
Added Varah, “The Rolling Stone article disclosed that Vance personally owned up to $100,000 in AmplifyBio’s non-public stock, based on Securities & Exchange Commission filings.”
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