Day: March 9, 2021

Stimulus Package Includes $86 Billion Bailout for Union Pensions

Minnesota Sun Staff

An $86 billion bailout for nearly 200 union pensions was included in the Democrats’ massive stimulus package, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law soon.

More than a million unionized truck drivers, retail clerks, construction workers and others would likely miss out on retirement income without the bailout, according to The New York Times. The union bailout, among the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package’s provisions unrelated to the pandemic, rescues 185 pension plans across several states.

“There’s more money in this to bailout [sic] union pension funds, than all the money combined for vaccine distribution and testing,” Republican Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty tweeted last week.

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Middle School Lesson Separates Students into ‘Privileged’ and ‘Targeted’ Groups

Minnesota Sun Staff

A sixth-grade teacher in Minnesota recently offered her charges a lesson in “oppression” when she separated them into groups dubbed “privileged” and “targeted.”

According to documents obtained by The Blaze.com, Sunrise Park Middle School teacher Odelis Anderson prefaced the lesson by reminding students it is easier for the privileged to talk about race, while “much harder” for those who are not.

Students then were asked to consider what group they belonged to based on five types of oppression: racism, sexism, religious oppression, heterosexism, and xenophobia. Among the “privileged”: whites, men, Christians and heterosexuals.

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory as a Leftist Hammer

Minnesota Sun Staff

You have to hand it to the Left: they are relentless and always at war on a thousand fronts. As my father once told me when he was in Congress, “The shame is our people come and go, while evil never sleeps.” As I have pointed out, leftists are on the level of religious zealots; politics and government are their religion, the vehicle by which perfection and utopia will be achieved in this world. 

The worst that can be said about many on the Right, however, is that they are just careerists. Most are nine to five types on weekdays and politics is not a religion for them. They consider politics a necessary evil. So if it seems like the Left is always on the move, it’s because politics is a lifestyle for them and they fully intend to reshape this country into their vision for it, everything else be damned.

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University of Buffalo Med School’s Surgery Department Kicks off Anti-Racism Initiative with Cornel West Lecture

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Department of Surgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo has launched an Anti-Racism and Health Care Equity initiative.

The initiative includes a lecture series, with Harvard University Professor Cornel West as the inaugural speaker, presenting a speech via Zoom called “Beyond the Knife” on February 18. At the event, West discussed systemic racism, recent social movements and their relation to healthcare.

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Missouri House Sends Bill Clipping Health Officials’ Emergency Powers to Senate

The Center Square

A bill that would require local governments to approve extensions of public health emergency orders after 15 days is ready for adoption by the Missouri House.

House Bill 75, sponsored by Rep. Jim Murphy, was perfected Wednesday in a floor debate and awaits only a floor vote to be transferred to the Senate, where a raft of similar bills are matriculating in committees.

HB 75, which has already passed through the House Special Committee on Small Business and Rules – Legislative Oversight committees, would allow local public health officials to order a closure for no more than 15 days.

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Biden Orders Examination of Trump Era Due Process Rights on College Campuses

Minnesota Sun Staff

President Joe Biden called for an examination of collegiate due process protections enacted under former President Donald Trump’s administration in a Monday executive order.

The president announced his “Executive Order on Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free from Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation” on International Women’s Day, calling on the Education Department to evaluate a Title IX regulation issued under the Trump administration that encouraged due process for those accused of campus sexual misconduct.

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Ex-FBI Boss Has ‘Grave Concern’ FISA Court Was ‘Defrauded Intentionally’ in Russia Probe

Minnesota Sun Staff

“I have grave concern that the court was defrauded intentionally … There was some type of agenda, an inappropriate agenda beyond an objective intelligence or criminal investigation,” said Kevin Brock, a retired FBI assistant director for Intelligence who helped implement most of the intelligence and informant rules the FBI uses today.

“I struggle to find any other explanation,” Brock told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “Any other explanation just doesn’t pass the smell test. I mean, the glaring — the Steele dossier, for an experienced counterintelligence agent in the field, was blinking red lights Russian disinformation campaign, and yet you’re going to have the highest levels of the FBI executives use that to create an investigation?”

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Commentary: Progressive Educators Dumb Down Education in the Name of Antiracism

Admin

Some progressive educators are calling on their peers to go easy on students when grading their essays or math homework, all in the name of antiracism.

Don’t mark them down too much, you might hurt their feelings, the argument goes.

Or, it’s white supremacy to actually grade students using traditional, objective standards. Who are you to tell them they’re wrong? As long as they try, let’s not break their hearts or bruise their egos!

I wish I were kidding. I’m not.

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Three More Universities Close China-Funded Confucius Institutes

Minnesota Sun Staff

Confucius Institutes across the country are closing, the most recent being at Michigan State University, the University of South Carolina, and Colorado State University.

MSU began its Confucius Institute in 2006 and USC followed in 2008, according to The State newspaper. Both schools will discontinue their programs by the end of 2021. Colorado State University also recently announced that its Confucius Institute will close by the end of June.

While national intelligence officials, including President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the CIA, have warned that Confucius Institutes serve as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, these schools are not closing their institutes for this reason. Rather, each of the three schools cited former President Donald Trump moving to restrict the amount of funding for universities with Confucius Institutes.

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Leaders In Newsom Recall Effort Believe They Have Enough Signatures To Trigger Special Election

Minnesota Sun Staff

Organizers of the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday they had gathered over 1.95 million signatures supporting the effort, enough to trigger a special election.

The signatures were announced during a press conference, with the effort’s organizers saying that they were on track to obtain 2 million signatures before the state’s Mar. 17 deadline.

“That is more than enough to be able to have this initiative qualified for a special election later this year to let the people decide,” said senior advisor Randy Economy during the conference. “Californians are consistently becoming more disgruntled with how their state’s run.”

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Analysis: Senator Elizabeth Warren Appears to be Distorting Reality in Order to ‘Sell’ Her Wealth Tax Proposal

Minnesota Sun Staff

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently revived her campaign proposal for a wealth tax on taxpayers with a net worth exceeding $50 million. Unfortunately, the plan retains the same defects as her previous proposals to tax wealth, along with the same distortions she used to defend it last time.

Warren’s proposal, introduced along with companion legislation in the House sponsored by Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep. Boyle (D-PA), would tax wealth above $50 million at a rate of 2 percent, and wealth above $1 billion at a rate of 3 percent.

Senator Warren has routinely presented her wealth tax proposal as a minor, moderate tax on the ultra-wealthy. Just as she did on the presidential campaign trail, Warren is describing her plan as a “two cent” tax. This dishonest framing allows Warren to pretend that the tax is small.

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Adam Smith’s Grave Targeted by Pro-BLM Investigation

Minnesota Sun Staff

In Scotland, the gravesite and memorial of Adam Smith, the Enlightenment philosopher who is widely considered the father of modern capitalism, is now being targeted by local officials’ in an investigation over possible ties to “slavery and colonialism,” as reported by Breitbart.

The Edinburgh City Council launched a formal review of various statues, memorials, monuments, and other historical locations throughout the city in the aftermath of the far-left race riots last summer. The investigation is seeking any potential candidates for “removal or re-interpretation” if any of them are found to allegedly have ties to “racism and oppression.” The council consists almost entirely of members of left-wing parties, including the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party.

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Ohio Prosecutors Support Bill to Force Convicted Rioters to Pay for Damages

The Center Square

Last summer, millions of dollars in taxpayer money were spent in response to protests that turned violent throughout Ohio. A bill proposed in the Ohio Senate looks to make sure those responsible will pay for it.

Senate Bill 41, currently being discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, calls for restitution from those who are convicted of property damage during riots, including vandalism. The restitution would pay the expenses of police and emergency crews who have to respond to riots. The bill also allows the government to take possession of any property left behind by those who end up convicted.

State Senator Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, is sponsoring the bill. Lou Tobin, the Executive Director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, offered his support before the committee recently.

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Hundreds Gather in Streets as Jury Selection Begins in Chauvin Trial

Peter D'Abrosca

Ahead of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s second-degree murder trial, hundreds have gathered in the heavily-fortified streets of Minneapolis to protest.

“Hundreds of people demanding justice for George Floyd and others killed by police as the trial of Derek Chauvin begins in Minneapolis,” Star-Tribune video journalist Mark Vancleave said on Twitter, attaching a video of the crowd. 

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