Month: September 2020

Minnesota Law Firm Plans Suit Against ‘Critical Race Training’ in Schools, Government Agencies

Minnesota Sun Staff

A Minnesota law firm said it plans to launch a legal challenge against the practice of conducting “critical race training” in government agencies, schools and corporations.

“Most of the ‘diversity’ and ‘anti-racism’ training being conducted today is Marxist and anti-American, as well as racist, in its fundamental premise that whites are inherently bad and must be subordinated to minorities because of systemic racism,” the Upper Midwest Law Center said in a press release issued Thursday.

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President Trump Hosts ‘Peaceful Protest’ with Huge Rally, Challenger Biden Speaks in Near-Empty Union Training Center

Corinne Murdock

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden both hosted campaign events in Minnesota on Friday. Trump held a “Great American Comeback” speaking event with a crowd, while Biden hosted an event addressing a near-empty union training center.
President Trump visited Bemidji Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota. He was greeted on the tarmac by a large crowd as the song, “God Bless the U.S.A.” played.

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U.S. Bans WeChat, TikTok from App Stores Citing Security Risk

The Associated Press

The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it will ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores on Sunday and will saddle the apps with technical restrictions that could seriously limit their functionality in the U.S.

The order, which cited national security and data privacy concerns, follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese owner to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a domestic company. It is not clear how the latest prohibitions will affect a deal recently struck by California tech giant Oracle aimed at satisfying U.S. concerns over TikTok’s data collection and related issues.

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Two Minnesota Representatives Help Pass Act Paying Schools to ‘Desegregate’

Corinne Murdock

Minnesota Representatives Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN-5) and Angie Craig (DFL-MN-2) helped pass a House bill to “desegregate” schools nationwide. All 105 cosponsors are Democratic.
“This legislation is an important step in making sure every student receives an excellent public education,” stated Craig in a press release.

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Commentary: The Weak Case for Biden v. Trump’s Strong Record

Minnesota Sun Staff

The best and probably only valid argument for voting to make Joe Biden president of the United States is that he is not Donald Trump. Unlike Mr. Trump, Biden’s personal behavior — except occasionally toward women — is rarely boorish, and his utterances, though often confused, incoherent, and inane, usually are not tasteless or insulting.

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Conservative Clergy of Color Offers Corporate Training Program As Alternative to Racist Narrative Pushed by Black Lives Matter

Jason M. Reynolds

The Conservative Clergy of Color wants businesses to know they have an alternative to the racist rhetoric being thrown around for diversity training.

The organization this week announced the “Getting to All Lives Matter,” a fact-based, six-step training program that operates on the assumption all Americans want to build a better society. This is an alternative to the rhetoric pushed by Black Lives Matter, which attempts to scare businesses, they said.

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Woke Government Training

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Trump Administration put critical race theory on notice this month. The White House issued a directive outlawing the inclusion of exercises based on this theory in government training. “These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce,” the directive declared.

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‘Nothing Left in the Bucket’: Wildfire Resources Run Thin

The Associated Press

Justin Silvera came off the fire lines in Northern California after a grueling 36 straight days battling wildfires and evacuating residents ahead of the flames. Before that, he and his crew had worked for 20 days, followed by a three-day break.

Silvera, a 43-year-old battalion chief with Cal Fire, California’s state firefighting agency, said he’s lost track of the blazes he’s fought this year. He and his crew have sometimes been on duty for 64 hours at a stretch, their only rest coming in 20-minute catnaps.

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In Leaked November 2016 Phone Call with Ukraine President, Biden Sought to Undermine Trump Administration

Minnesota Sun Staff

In November of 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden belittled and sought to undermine the incoming Trump administration, a recently leaked phone call between Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reveals.

In the call, which was brought to light by Ukrainian politician Andriy Derkach, the outgoing veep told Poroshenko that he had withheld certain information regarding Ukraine from the Trump transition team because they lacked foreign policy experience. Biden also promised to stay “deeply engaged” in Ukraine policy even after he left office.

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Support for BLM Drops Among Hispanics, White Voters, and Republicans, New Poll Shows

Minnesota Sun Staff

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen since June, dropping more than 12 percentage points over the past three months among non-black Americans, according to a poll published Thursday.

Roughly 55% of American adults said that they supported BLM in September, compared to 67% of people who said the same thing in June, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center. White American support fell the most, dipping from 60% in June to 45% in September, the poll found.

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Analysis: Is the Official COVID-19 Death Toll Accurate?

Minnesota Sun Staff

Roughly two-thirds of U.S. residents don’t believe the CDC’s official tally for the number of Covid-19 deaths. This distrust, however, flows in opposing directions. A nationally representative survey conducted by Axios/Ipsos in late July 2020 found that 37% of adults think the real number of C-19 fatalities in the U.S. is lower than reported, while 31% think the true death toll is greater than reported.

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Model That Predicted Five of Past Six Presidential Elections Has Trump in 2020 by ‘Landslide’

Minnesota Sun Staff

A professor of political science whose controversial election model has correctly called five of the last six U.S. presidential elections says President Trump will win reelection in 2020 in a “landslide.” 

Helmut Norpoth, who teaches at Stony Brook University, is giving Trump “a 90-percent chance of being re-elected in a landslide,” the Long Island, N.Y., school said in a recent press release. 

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Lacy Johnson Staffers Shot Monday – Suspect Arrested

Corinne Murdock

A suspect in a shooting that killed congressional candidate Lacy Johnson’s 17-year-old staffer and wounded another was arrested today.
Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) reported that they apprehended the suspect after a short vehicle chase. MPD attempted to stop the suspect’s vehicle in Minneapolis; they caught him about twenty minutes west in Plymouth.

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New Unemployment Claims Decrease to 860,000, Beating Predictions

Minnesota Sun Staff

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 860,000 last week as the economy continues to suffer the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.

The Department of Labor figure released Thursday represented an decrease of new jobless claims compared to the week ending on Sept. 5, in which there were 884,000 new jobless claims reported.

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Shooting Death of 17-Year-Old in Minneapolis Unrelated to Work for Lacy Johnson, Campaign Says

Minnesota Sun Staff

The victims in a Monday afternoon shooting in north Minneapolis had also worked for Republican Lacy Johnson’s congressional campaign, but the two facts are unrelated, the campaign told Alpha News.

According to a press release from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), officers responded to a shooting in the area of the 3800 block of Fremont Avenue North around 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon.

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UMN Football Back in Play After Big Ten Rescinds Month-Old Decision to Cancel Fall Season

Corinne Murdock

University of Minnesota (UMN) fall football is back in play after The Big Ten rescinded its decision to postpone the season until spring.

The Big Ten Conference canceled fall sports last month “due to ongoing health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The announcement caused widespread backlash within the football community.

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Commentary: America Is on the Ballot, So Let’s Win

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Democrats and Republicans spent hours giving speeches at their nominating conventions, but their respective takeaways were simple enough. One party thinks America is racist to the core and that it must give way to something radically new. The other party thinks America is already great and that it is worth defending. Vice President Mike Pence got to the heart of the matter:

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Commentary: Biden’s Green New Deal Will End Fracking, Make America Beholden to China

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former Vice President Joe Biden is promising to implement the Green New Deal, setting a national target for 2035 to cut carbon emissions in half in a move that would end the fossil fuel industry for transportation and electricity as we know it. That means no more oil. No more coal. And no more natural gas.

But in the same breath, Biden is attempting to persuade voters in states like Pennsylvania that he is not going to end hydraulic fracturing that makes it possible to extract petroleum and natural gas from geologic shale formations.

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More Than Half of Business Closures Caused by Economic Lockdowns Are Permanent, Yelp Data Show

Minnesota Sun Staff

More than half of American businesses that closed down due to economic lockdowns are permanently shuttered, according to data Yelp published Wednesday.

There’s been a 23% increase in the number of business closures since mid-July, with the number of permanent closures reaching 96,966, representing 60% of closed businesses that will not be reopening, the data show.

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Carol Swain Joins the Ingraham Angle to Weigh in on The University of Chicago’s New ‘PC’ English Department Policy

Julie Carr

Dr. Carol M. Swain appeared on Fox News Channel’s The Ingraham Angle with host Laura Ingraham to weigh in on the recent English department graduate program “Black studies only” requirement made at the University of Chicago.

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Rasmussen Poll: Black Lives Matter Riots Turning People in Riot Zones into Trump Voters

Minnesota Sun Staff

The violent Black Lives Matter riots that rocked multiple American cities this summer have turned voters who live in those riot zones into Trump supporters, a new Rasmussen poll finds.

The latest Rasmussen Reports Survey found that 63 percent of voters who have seen violent protests in their community “strongly approve” of the president while only 35 percent don’t.

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Leaked Facebook Memo Describes Company’s Underwhelming Response to Global Political Manipulation

Minnesota Sun Staff

A former Facebook data scientist released a 6,600-word memo on her final day at the company detailing what she considers the tech giant’s lackluster response to fake accounts and activities that impacts elections around the globe. 

The employee, Sophie Zhang, was fired this month from Facebook for what she says was ongoing friction between her and management about the platform’s approach to combating extensive, global manipulation, according to a recent Buzzfeed News report.

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Minnesota Man Faces Terror Charge for Allegedly Joining ISIS

The Associated Press

A Minnesota man accused of joining the Islamic State group has been returned to the United States and faces a terrorism charge after spending more than a year in Syrian custody with alleged IS fighters, according to documents unsealed Wednesday.

Abdelhamid Al-Madioum, 23, made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, appearing via video from a cell. Authorities say he was vacationing with his family in Morocco in 2015 when he secretly booked a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, and then traveled to Iraq and Syria, where he joined IS.

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Birx Visits Virginia Tech to Discuss COVID-19 Issues

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Wednesday, Dr. Deborah Birx – a key part of the Trump Administration’s vaulted Coronavirus task force – arrived in Blacksburg to meet  with state and local officials, faculty, students and health care professionals on the Virginia Tech campus to discuss Covid-19 and the response to reopening schools safely.

During a brief press conference, the White House coronavirus response coordinator had high praise for the school as she stated that a great amount of research had been done at the facility including animal and waste water testing to better understand the asymptomatic spread rate of the virus.

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Minnesota Department of Health: Even Kids Who Test Negative Must Quarantine If Exposed

Corinne Murdock

Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) stated Monday in a press release that even children who test negative for the coronavirus must quarantine if exposed. The MDH’s “COVID-19 Attendance Guide for Parents and Families” explains these standards.

“Getting tested does not shorten the time that they must stay home. Your child must stay home for 14 days (quarantine) from the last contact they had with the person who tested positive for COVID-19, even if the child tests negative,” states the guide.

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Freight Railway Companies Petition for Modernization of Standards for the Industry’s Financial Health

Laura Baigert

A joint petition has been submitted to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on behalf of the Canadian National Railway Company (CN), Norfolk Southern Railway Company (NS) and Union Pacific Rail Road Company (UP) freight-hauling railroad companies for the purpose of modernizing annual revenue adequacy determinations of the industry’s overall financial health.

CN, NS and UP are three of the seven railroads remaining in the U.S. from the 41 that operated in 1979 designated as Class I by the STB, based primarily on the annual operating revenue of the railroad company.

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Commentary: Chinese Market Meddling in Pebble Mine Threatens National Security

Minnesota Sun Staff

One of America’s foremost energy experts is raising alarms over China’s latest meddling in U.S. mineral production. Dan Kish, a distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, says the attempt by a dubious Chinese investment firm to undermine Alaska’s Pebble Mine is one of many “war tactics” China is using against the United States.

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Forget the Polls: Massive Enthusiasm Gap Between Trump and Biden Bodes Ill for Democrats

Minnesota Sun Staff

Although Joe Biden continues to lead President Trump in most national polls, the enthusiasm gap between the two candidates could not be more striking. The situation is reminiscent of the 2016 race, only there is even less enthusiasm for Biden than there was for Hillary Clinton.

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Signing of Abraham Accords Is ‘Paradigm Shift’ for Israel-Gulf Relations, Sen. Blackburn Says

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) applauded the signing Tuesday of the Abraham Accords, calling it a “paradigm shift.”

Blackburn on Tuesday tweeted, “Today, we are witnessing history at the @WhiteHouse. 27 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain have achieved monumental peace. This deal brings great potential and opportunity to the region and is a paradigm shift in Israel-Gulf state relations.”

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Harvard Poll Shows Voters Overwhelmingly United on Many Issues, But View Many Rights as Under Threat

Minnesota Sun Staff

Americans largely agree on rights and values that they deem fundamental to the United States, a Harvard University Carr Center poll shows, despite all-time high political polarization.

The survey shows that over 70% of Americans “have more in common with each other than people think” and that they favor an expansive view of rights beyond those in the Constitution. The poll also shows that most Americans believe those rights are under threat.

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Broncos Organization Says It Is Proud of Kneeling Players in Monday Night Football Game with Titans, Even as Viewership Plummets 38 Percent

Jason M. Reynolds

More than 30 players from the Denver Broncos and Tennessee Titans knelt in protest during the national anthem prior to their Monday Night Football game, Breitbart reported.

Eighteen Broncos and 13 Titans took a knee and/or raised fists, the outlet said.

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DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation into John Bolton’s Book

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Justice Department is investigating whether former National Security Adviser John Bolton illegally disclosed classified information in his book about his tenure in the White House, according to reports.

Federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas to Bolton’s publisher and his book agent, according to The Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

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Sen. Hawley Wants TikTok Deal with Oracle Rejected, Says Move Allows for China’s Control Over the App

Minnesota Sun Staff

Sen. Josh Hawley called on the Trump administration Monday to reject the partnership proposal Oracle reached with TikTok.

The Missouri Republican argued in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the partnership won’t prohibit the Chinese Communist Party from controlling the app. Hawley said the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is responsible for approving or rejecting the deal, should reject anything other than a complete break from China.

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Commentary: The Billionaire Backers of the ‘Insurrection’

Minnesota Sun Staff

The mostly behind-the-scenes attempt between Election Day and Inauguration Day to prevent Donald Trump from taking office the first time will go public in 2020.

As I reported last week, a cabal of Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans are plotting a post-election civil war of sorts to make sure Joe Biden assumes the presidency even if Donald Trump legitimately wins. “It’s insurrection,” President Trump said on Fox News last week when asked about the widely-circulated plan. “We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that.”

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Commentary: President Trump Is the Only Choice for North Carolina

Minnesota Sun Staff

On September 29, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will face off in Cleveland, Ohio for the first of three nationally televised debates. Unfortunately, by that time, some North Carolinians will already have started voting, as the first batch of absentee ballots were sent by the state on September 4th. That means that some North Carolinians won’t have the benefit of seeing the candidates on stage together to debate their visions for America prior to casting their vote. As you make your decision, it is important that you have the facts: President Trump’s leadership and policies built the world’s strongest economy once already, and he’s doing it again, providing opportunity and prosperity for North Carolina’s families and seniors.

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Minneapolis Citizens Desensitized to Crime: Uber Driver Footage Inside Look at Metro’s Reality

Corinne Murdock

Two Minneapolis citizens appear desensitized to their city’s worsening crime in a viral video of a downtown shootout early Sunday morning. The Uber driver’s dash cam recorded the incident.
The interaction between the female passenger and Uber driver is calm despite the violence occurring in front of them.

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HHS Secretary Alex Azar on President Trump’s Ban on Critical Race Theory Training: ‘The CDC Will be Complying with the Executive Order’ to Cease and Desist

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to the newsmakers line.

At the end of the second hour, Azar discussed the developments in the coronavirus vaccine trials and Operation Warp Speed. He added that all the proper gold standard requirements are being met to develop a safe vaccine in the shortest amount of time.

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Feds Award $928 Million to Build Minnesota’s Green Line Light Rail Extension

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Federal Transit Administration Monday awarded Minnesota’s Green Line Light Rail Extension, also called the Southwest LRT project, a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) of nearly a billion dollars. 

Southwest LRT is a 14.5-mile line with 16 stations serving Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie.

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Commentary: The ‘Great and Powerful’ Biden

Minnesota Sun Staff

Media bias is not new.

In addition to the Russian collusion hoax and the phone-call impeachment farce, who can forget the marquee media toadies of JournoList and the release of John Podesta’s email trove?
Or the moderator Donna Brazile’s primary debate questions, leaked through CNN, or Candy Crowley’s hijacking of a debate as moderator-turned-real-time-hack “fact-checker”?
Nothing then is new to the media’s fusion and collusion with the “progressive party.”

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Federal Judge Tosses Wolf Administration’s Limits on Gatherings, Orders Closing Businesses

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge on Monday threw out portions of the Wolf administration’s orders that restricted activity during the coronavirus pandemic, saying that the governor had exceeded his authority.
The ruling by Judge William Stickman in the Western District of Pennsylvania court delivers to Gov. Tom Wolf’s political opponents what they had failed to achieve for months in the Legislature as bill after bill to curtail the governor’s power was passed, only to be vetoed.

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California Mothers Sue California Gov. Newsom, Saying His Partial Reopening of Schools Hurts Special Needs Students, Causes Anxiety Over Grades

Jason M. Reynolds

Four mothers have filed a lawsuit against California Gov. Gavin Newsom over his coronavirus education plan, claiming adverse effects including anxiety over poor grades and lack of special education access.

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 10 in Shasta County Superior Court by the Freedom Foundation on behalf of the northern California families. The complaint is available here.

The plaintiffs allege the plan that requires students to be in classes part-time denies them their constitutional right to a quality education as enshrined in the California Constitution.

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