April 6, 2021 - The Minnesota Sun

Bill Aims to Ban Minnesota Vaccine Passports

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 The Center Square

As Minnesota returns to a semblance of normalcy with an increasing number of injected COVID-19 vaccines, one Republican aims to ban “vaccine passports.”

SF 1589 aims to ban forced COVID-19 vaccinations, forced digital contact tracing, and required proof of COVID-19 vaccination before entering a government business.

“Your personal health information should not be made public. I stand against the special interests that want your private health information,” Senate Health Committee Chair Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, posted on Facebook.

Commentary: Why America’s Elites Want to End the Middle Class

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A recent column by Victor Davis Hanson titled “Radical New Rules for Post-America” lists “10 new ideas that are changing America, maybe permanently.” Hanson offers a thorough description of what’s wrong: Fiscal and monetary negligence, selective enforcement or nonenforcement of laws, anti-white racism, rights and privileges for immigrants over citizens, an infantilized culture, hypocrisy, urban chaos, censorship and cancel culture, politicized “science,” and “woke” as the new religion, with Big Tech as the clergy.

While there may not be a more succinct description of the new and radical rules Americans face these days, Hanson is covering familiar territory. But what is the cause of these changes?

It doesn’t require a conspiracy theorist to suggest these wholesale shifts in American culture are not happening by accident. Nor are they solely the result of nefarious intent, at least not among everyone occupying the highest rungs of power and influence in America. What motivates members of the American elite, billionaires and corporate boards alike, to approve of these radical changes?

Human Traffickers Using Facebook to Lure Customers, Promising Safe Passage to U.S.

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Peter D'Abrosca

Group of protestors holding human trafficking signs

A report released Monday details how human traffickers are using Facebook – and the Biden administration’s new open border’s policies – to generate business and smuggle illegal aliens into the United States.

Public Facebook pages called “Migrants from Various Countries in Mexico” and “Migrants in the Mexico-U.S.A. Border Awaiting Hearing,” among others, were openly being used by smugglers on the Big Tech platform to scheme with would-be illegal aliens about how to break America’s immigration laws.

Over 100 Portland Police Officers Have Quit Over the Last Year

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

After almost a year of nonstop violent riots by Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other far-left domestic terrorist organizations in the city of Portland, over 100 of the city’s police officers have quit the force out of protest of the city’s failure to adequately handle the violence, according to Fox News.

The report first came from the newspaper The Oregonian, which said that since July of 2020, approximately 115 officers have left the department to take lower-paying jobs just to get out of the dangerous environment. The paper described it as “one of the biggest waves of departures in recent memory.”

Out of 31 exit interviews from officers who left during this time period, the general consensus was that the officers quit because they felt that they were receiving “zero support” from the community and local leadership. One officer said that “the city council are raging idiots, in addition to being stupid,” and that “the mayor and council ignore actual facts on crime and policing in favor of radical leftist and anarchist fantasy.”

As a result of the spike in riots, which began last summer after the accidental overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, Portland also saw its homicide rate surge to its highest point in 26 years, with 55 deaths over the course of 2020. Numerous efforts by Mayor Ted Wheeler (D-Ore.) to try to curb gun violence in the city, through special police forces and various multi-million dollar studies, have all failed thus far. Wheeler and other local leaders were widely criticized for refusing to crack down on the riots, with their inaction attributed to the fact that they shared many of the same political stances as the far-left rioters.

Ten Percent of Migrant Minors Held in San Diego Convention Center Test Positive for COVID-19

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 The Center Square

Of the more than 700 unaccompanied migrant minors who were transported to the San Diego Convention Center from Texas, roughly 10% have tested positive for COVID-19, according to multiple news reports citing health officials.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported on March 30 that 70 of these minors tested positive; none required hospitalization.

The San Diego Convention Center is currently holding 723 girls between the ages of 13 and 17 – all of whom were transferred from federal shelters in Texas.

Newly Unveiled Greta Thunberg Statue Rankles Students, Local Community

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A recently unveiled statue of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has miffed Winchester University (U.K.) students and local residents alike.

Titled “Make a Difference” and commissioned in 2019 (the same year Winchester declared a “climate and ecological emergency”), the statue cost the school almost 24,000 pounds (just over $33,000) and is thought to be the first commemorating Thunberg, the Daily Mail reports.

The university says the statue symbolizes Winchester’s commitment to “sustainability and social justice.”

LG to Exit Phone Industry after Unprofitable Sales

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Losses in the mobile phone business have driven the South Korean electronics company LG to quit the production of phones and instead focus more on profitable items including electric vehicle components, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Following approval from the company’s board, LG on Monday announced the changes and expects to fully exit the phone industry by July.

GOP Probes $35 Million in Tax Dollars to ‘Team Biden’ Firm in California

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

House Republicans say they still want to know why $35 million in taxpayer dollars went to a Democrat-aligned consulting firm to boost voting last year in California—and whether it was even legal.

The federal agency that oversees related issues seems uninterested in investigating why federal money sent to California was used in part to pay for election safety measures in a $35 million contract with a political consulting firm that touted itself as part of “Team Biden.”

At least $12 million of the total came from federal taxpayers, while the remainder was from California taxpayers.

Using federal funds for a get-out-the-vote operation or to help one political party over another would violate federal law, Republican lawmakers say.

Teaching Assistant Docks Point on Conservative Student’s Black Panther Essay: ‘White People Cannot Experience Racism’

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A student at Virginia Tech University was told by a teaching assistant that “White people cannot experience racism” when asked why she received a low grade on her final paper.

Students in the Nations and Nationalities class at Virginia Tech were asked to complete a paper describing a hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list, and analyze how that group justifies its worldview, according to Alyssa Jones, a student in the class.

Jones is also the president of the Virginia Tech University Turning Point USA chapter and a campus ambassador for The Leadership Institute, the parent organization of Campus Reform.

‘Reeks Of Hypocrisy’: Rubio Calls Out MLB over Deal with Chinese Media Conglomerate

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio accused Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred of hypocrisy on Monday over the league’s relationship with a Chinese media conglomerate that has backed Beijing’s opposition to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

“Since Major League Baseball now appears eager to use its ‘platform’ to demonstrate ‘unwavering support’ for fundamental human rights, will you cease your relationship with the Chinese Government?” Rubio wrote in a letter on Monday to Manfred.

The Republican accused Manfred of “woke corporate virtue signaling” for pulling this year’s All-Star game out of Atlanta in protest over a Georgia voting bill passed last month.

Disparate Treatment in Two Fund-Raising Fraud Cases Renews Debate Over Dual Justice System

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Just a few short weeks apart, the U.S. Justice Department settled two major fund-raising cases involving foreign money injected into American elections.

In February, a longtime Democratic bundler named Imaad Zuberi, who also donated to Donald Trump’s inauguration, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and millions in fines in a criminal information that alleged he routed foreign money into U.S elections, sometimes through straw donors.

Last week, Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire Gilbert Chagoury, 75, a large donor to the Clinton Foundation, got a fine, no prison and deferred prosecution for allegedly routing his foreign money to straw donors to help Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and some GOP congressional candidates. An associate also made a secret loan to Obama-era Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who failed to disclose the assistance.

Commentary: Too Much of a Unity

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

“The city comes in to being for the sake of life, but it continues for the sake of the good life. ” — Aristotle, Politics

“[The Declaration of Independence] was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple — not the apple for the picture.”—Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and Union”

The crisis of our time requires clear thinking about political means and ends, and the ways they are connected. The two epigraphs above address this central question of practical wisdom—the first from the general perspective of theory, the second as relates to the particular nation of the United States. Both quotations may be familiar to educated conservatives, and particularly to those students of political philosophy broadly associated with the Claremont school of thought. Yet there is a danger that such familiarity may breed, if not contempt, then the forgetfulness that settles on “sonorous phrases” which lapse into clichés. I would like to reconsider these arguments made by Aristotle and Lincoln—along with some related observations by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson—not as hackneyed commonplaces but as genuine insights that remain relevant and even urgent. Circumstances in the coming years may require new or unusual means to secure the ends of liberty and justice. Our thinking must be appropriately radical.

Brown University Students Overwhelmingly Vote in Favor of Reparations for Black Students

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

On Monday, Students at the Ivy League school Brown University voted in favor of two resolutions approving reparations for black students, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Both resolutions seek to identify any black students who are direct descendants of slaves, or “who were entangled with and/or afflicted by the University and Brown family and their associates,” in reference to the university’s founder Nicholas Brown Jr.

One resolution would give priority admission to any such black students, while the other would give direct monetary payments to said students. In the vote amongst all students on campus, the admissions resolution received 89 percent of the vote, while the financial payment resolution received 85 percent. The vote was held after the student government at Brown passed a resolution, introduced by the student government president Jason Carroll, “calling upon Brown to attempt to identify and reparate the descendants of slaves entangled with the university.”

Defense Counsel Casts Doubt on Placement of Chauvin’s Knee

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

One of the most highly-anticipated moments of ex-cop Derek Chauvin’s trial came Monday when Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo took the stand for the state.

Chauvin’s former boss testified at length on the Minneapolis Police Department’s training protocols, use of force and de-escalation policies, and his work history in the department.

“The goal is to resolve the situation as safely as possible. So you want to always have de-escalation layered into those actions of using force,” Arradondo said.

Commentary: U.S. China Relations Go from Bad to Worse

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The most significant diplomatic event in the month of March was a rapid, seemingly irreversible deterioration of relations between the United States and China. Its signs were on display at the first high-level meeting between the two sides since President Joseph Biden took office on Jan. 20. Held in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18, it ended very badly indeed.

The encounter was unprecedented in the annals of great power diplomacy. Speaking first—with cameras present for what was supposed to be purely opening formalities—Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the U.S. would “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, [and] economic coercion of our allies.” Blinken also criticized China for its lack of transparency on the origin of the COVID-19 virus and went on to say that “each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability” which the U.S. intends to uphold.

A lengthy and angry response came from Yang Jiechi, the leading architect of China’s foreign policy, who since 2013 has served as director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office of the Chinese Communist Party, joining the CCP Politburo in 2017. He upbraided the United States in a lengthy rebuke, in the course of which he charged the U.S. with hypocrisy on human rights, criticized America’s foreign interventions, and accused his counterparts of possessing a “cold war mentality.”