Day: February 9, 2021

Democratic-Led Senate Votes 56-44 to Continue Impeachment Trial of Trump as Day One Concludes

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Democratic-led Senate formally voted on Tuesday to proceed with former President Trump’s second impeachment trial in the Senate following the first day of arguments.

The vote on the constitutionality of the trial of Trump was 56-44 in favor of moving forward with the trial. The second day of the trial begins at noon on Wednesday. There were six Republican senators voting yes with all Senate Democrats including Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

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Councilmember Cancels Meetings with Community Amid Attempt to Gut MPD

Minnesota Sun Staff

Minneapolis City Councilmember Phillipe Cunningham once claimed that “community engagement” is key to defunding the police. Now, Cunningham has canceled his “Community Office Hours” after facing backlash due to the council’s efforts to defund law enforcement.

Cunningham has served on the council since 2017, when he became the second female-to-male transgender person elected to public office in the U.S. Cunningham also took a key role in the push to amend the City Charter to defund the police in June, and presently heads up the continued action towards this goal.

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Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman Launches Senate Bid

Minnesota Sun Staff

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will launch his bid for his state’s open Senate seat on Monday, becoming the first major candidate to vie for what will likely be one of the most competitive races in the country.

Fetterman previously served as the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a small steel town outside of Pittsburgh, but has found grassroots support across the country. He announced that he raised over $1.1 million in the weeks before his campaign, and his strong support in western Pennsylvania could make him an early frontrunner among the multiple Democrats expected to run for the seat.

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Seattle Can’t Keep Up with All People They’re Charging, Criminals Being Left on the Streets

Minnesota Sun Staff

Increasing crime and COVID-19 restrictions have added to court backlogs in Seattle, allowing criminals to be released back on the streets as they await trial, Komo News reported Friday.

Law enforcement has continued to make arrests for minor and major crimes, even as arraignment has halted, which leaves the courts and prosecutors to decide who is jailed for safety reasons and who is released, Komo News reported. Over 500 out-of-custody cases have not been arraigned since the court stopped holding them in person due to COVID-19 restrictions in November, and several defendants were booked into jail and released on promises to appear in court.

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Biden Quietly Nixes Trump-era Rule Combating Chinese Communist-Funded ‘Propaganda’ Centers

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Trump administration attempted to enact a policy that would force American universities to reveal cooperation with chapters of the Confucius Institute. President Joe Biden quietly revoked the policy a few days after his inauguration.

Axios reported that in the final days of his presidency, Trump enacted a policy that would compel primary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions to disclose all contracts and transactions with the Confucius Institute. Under the policy, schools that do not report information would lose certification for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

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President’s Son Hunter Biden to Release Memoir ‘Beautiful Things’ in April

Minnesota Sun Staff

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, will release a memoir on April 6 titled “Beautiful Things.” The book will focus on the younger Biden’s well-documented and ongoing struggles with substance abuse.

The book is being published by Gallery Books, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster. The book has received advanced praise from authors including Stephen King, Dave Eggers and Anne Lamott.

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Life Will Return to Normal in Seven Years, Vaccine Database Shows

Minnesota Sun Staff

It will take seven years for life to return to normal and for coronavirus to subside, a Bloomberg database tracking worldwide coronavirus vaccinations found.

Although countries like the U.S. and Israel have administered coronavirus at a rate that will ensure herd immunity by 2022, most countries have fallen behind that pace and will not catch up for seven years, according to Bloomberg. More than 119 million vaccines have been administered in 67 countries and the most recent rate of vaccination was 4.54 million doses per day, the vaccine database showed.

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SBA Hid Communications with Planned Parenthood Amid GOP Criticism Over PPP Loans

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Small Business Administration hid communications with Planned Parenthood regarding COVID-19 loans that Republicans say were illegal, emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.

The SBA released heavily redacted emails between the agency, lenders and Planned Parenthood affiliates in response to a Freedom of Information Act request the DCNF filed in May 2020. GOP lawmakers had previously demanded an investigation into $80 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, saying they were obtained illegally.

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National Mental Health Crisis Emerges Among Youth During Pandemic Lockdowns: Reports

The Center Square

Children and young adults are experiencing increased mental health issues, and suicide also is on the rise within the age group at least in part because of ongoing state shutdowns, according to several reports.

Within months of governors and local authorities shuttering schools, children were increasingly brought to emergency room doctors and specialists, according to a by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Commentary: Tribalism Turns Toxic in the Social Media Age

Minnesota Sun Staff

Man is by nature a tribal creature. For many thousands of years, human existence was defined by family connections, with ties of blood and marriage providing the social network that ensured cooperation and support necessary to sustaining life. Loyalty to one’s kinship group — the tribe or clan — was vital to this system of cooperation, and from the deeply rooted tribal nature of human life emerges the sense of national identity that inspires what we call patriotism.

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Issues 60-Day ‘Stand Down’ Order to Address ‘Extremism’ in the Military

Minnesota Sun Staff

Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has issued an unprecedented “stand down” order for the entirety of the United States military over the course of the next 60 days, for the purpose of addressing alleged “extremism” in the military’s ranks, as reported by Breitbart.

Austin announced the decision in a Tweet on Wednesday, saying that he “met with senior leaders to discuss extremism in the military. As a first step, I’m ordering a stand down to occur over the next 60 days so each service, each command, and each unit can have a deeper conversation about this issue.”

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McConnell, Schumer Strike Deal on Impeachment Trial Rules

Minnesota Sun Staff

Senate leaders said on Monday that a deal has been agreed upon regarding the framework for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial slated to begin on Tuesday.

“For the information of the Senate, the Republican leader and I, in consultation with both the House managers and former President Trump’s lawyers, have agreed to a bipartisan resolution to govern the structure and timing of the impending trial,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,” the New York Democrat said.

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Commentary: The Left’s 1960s ‘Animal Farm’ Dream is America’s 2021 Nightmare

Minnesota Sun Staff

George Orwell published Animal Farm in August 1945, in the closing weeks of the Pacific War. Even then, most naïve supporters of the wartime Soviet-British-American alliance were no longer in denial about the contours of Moscow’s impending postwar communist aggression. 

The short, allegorical novel’s human-like farm animals replay the transition of supposedly 1917 revolutionary Bolsheviks into cynical 1930s Stalinists. Thereby, they remind us that leftist totalitarianism inevitably becomes far worse than the supposed parasitical capitalists they once toppled.

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Minnesota Senate Unanimously Passes Bill Allowing Dentists to Distribute COVID Vaccines

Peter D'Abrosca

In a 67-0 vote Monday, the Minnesota Senate passed legislation that will allow dentists to administer the COVID-19 vaccine.

SF 475 is a bill “amending Minnesota Statutes 2020, section 150A.055,” which gives dentists the ability to distribute influenza vaccines. The amendment broadens the original bill, extending to cover COVID-19 vaccinations, too. 

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