The St. Paul City Council approved Mayor Melvin Carter’s 2019 budget this week, which includes a 10.5 percent property tax increase and $500,000 towards additional bike lanes throughout the city. The council unanimously approved the budget on Wednesday. Carter called the budget a “different take on what the city government…
Read MoreDay: December 15, 2018
Commentary: The Breakdown of Family and Religion Explains France’s Social Unrest
by Star Parker As France is gripped by civil disorder, many commentators identify, quite correctly, as the culprit the outsized burden that France’s bloated welfare state places on its citizens. According a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest tax burden in the industrialized…
Read MoreBATTLEGROUND STATE REPORT: Maine’s Vote Ranking System Explained
On Friday’s Battleground State Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – a one hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of a national weekend syndication rollout – the two hosts discussed the concept in Maine’s new “rank voting” system, who’s behind it, why it’s being…
Read MoreCommentary: Bernie Sanders Should Be Thrown Out of Politics for Supporting Venezuela’s Oppressors
by Barry Brownstein Would you use a doctor or dentist who didn’t believe in germ theory and used the same instruments all day without sterilizing them? What would you say if, when their patients developed infections, the doctor or dentist insisted he meant well and argued that capitalism, not…
Read MoreDocument Details the Eye-Popping Amount Attorneys Stand to Make From Climate Crusades
by Chris White One of the law firms involved in a trove of California lawsuits targeting ExxonMobil and other energy companies is poised to rake in millions of dollars from their climate crusades, according to Climate Litigation Watch. Sher Edling LLP could capitalize on a big pay-day if San…
Read MoreChinese Pastor Could Reportedly Face 15 Years in Prison for ‘Inciting Subversion of State Power’
by Joshua Gill Chinese authorities reportedly charged an evangelical pastor and his wife with “inciting subversion of state power” Wednesday, for which they face potentially 15 years in prison. Chinese police in the town of Chengdu arrested Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, his wife Jiang Rong and…
Read MoreTrump Administration Seeks to Enforce Trans Soldier Ban in Supreme Court
by Kevin Daley In an unusual move, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to let President Donald Trump’s administration enforce its ban on transgender military personnel while it litigates legal challenges to the policy in lower courts. Thursday’s application is the latest in a series of aggressive…
Read MoreParents Sue Over De Blasio’s Plan to Diversify NYC’s Elite Schools
by Neetu Chandak Asian-American parents and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against New York City officials Thursday over a plan that would increase admissions for black and Hispanic students to elite schools in the city. Black and Hispanic students make up 68 percent of the city’s population with…
Read MoreHomeland Security ‘Begging Parents’ Not to ‘Put Their Children at Risk’ After Guatemalan Girl Dies
by Hanna Bogorowski The Department of Homeland Security is “begging” parents to not put themselves or their children at risk following the death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl in the hospital hours after her father turned himself and his daughter in to Border Patrol officers in New Mexico. The…
Read MoreMN Gov.-Elect Tim Walz Has Missed 80 Percent of House Votes Since August Primary
Gov.-elect Tim Walz (D-MN), still a U.S. congressman until January, has missed 45 votes on the House floor since winning August’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in Minnesota. Between the days of September 4 and December 13, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted on 56 different measures, but Walz has been…
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