Day: October 11, 2021

Vaccine Mandate Could Trigger ‘Mass Exodus’ of Minnesota Nursing Home Workers

Minnesota Sun Staff

Minnesota long-term care facilities like nursing homes and memory care centers say they’re in an impossible situation.

President Joe Biden unveiled a mandate last month that effectively requires U.S. employers to make their workers receive the coronavirus vaccine or face termination. This is likely to force a significant portion of workers in long-term care facilities out of their jobs. However, the industry can’t afford to lose more staff as it’s already overburdened and unable to provide care for patients amid a labor shortage.

“There is going to be a mass exodus” of workers, warned Natalie Zeleznikar, a nursing home administrator and executive.

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Commentary: Remembering the Courage of Christopher Columbus

Minnesota Sun Staff

Today we remember the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who in October 1492 landed in the Bahamas and became the first Western European to discover what the Europeans would call the New World.

When Columbus and his crew of approximately 200 sailors left Spain in three crowded ships – the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria – they set their sails toward an unknown horizon. They expected to discover a trade route to India. (Most Europeans at the time knew the earth was round – but they were unaware of the North and South American continents.) Instead of finding a route to Southeast Asia, Columbus and his crew landed on a continent of new opportunities. Columbus’s accidental discovery opened a permanent passage across the Atlantic and redrew the known map of the world.

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Political Science Convention Deplatforms Conservative Group for Featuring Trump’s Lawyer, John Eastman

Minnesota Sun Staff

The nation’s largest gathering of social scientists deplatformed a conservative group because a lawyer for former President Donald Trump was participating in its events.

The American Political Science Association forced the Claremont Institute to make its “related group” discussions virtual at the annual convention in Seattle, a day after hundreds of APSA members demanded the association eject both Claremont and John Eastman.

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‘Majority of Faculty Agree with Many or Even Most of My Positions’: Canceled Professor Speaks Out

Minnesota Sun Staff
Dorian Abbot

A University of Chicago professor, whose prestigious lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was cancelled at the behest of a Twitter mob who disagreed with his viewpoints, warns that “free society is at risk” as “woke ideology” and cancel culture takes hold.

Dorian Abbot, a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, had his appearance at the Carlson Lecture cancelled on Sept. 30 “to avoid controversy” just eight days after a Twitter mob consisting of MIT students, postdocs and recent alumni went after him, according to a written account published on Common Sense by Bari Weiss

For 10 years, Abbot has been teaching and researching climate change and the possibility of life on extrasolar planets, never considering himself a very political person until about five years ago when he noticed a shift in attitude toward discussions involving a difference in opinions, Abbot wrote on Weiss’ Substack.

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Former President Trump Files Second Lawsuit Against Facebook in Effort to Reinstate His Account Immediately

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former President Trump has filed another lawsuit against Facebook, requesting that a federal judge order the Big Tech platform to reinstate his account.

Trump was suspended from most significant social media platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. Later in the year, he filed class-action lawsuits against Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and their respective CEOs.

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REPORT: Training Urged New Jersey Teachers to Track Conversations with Parents, Students Regarding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Minnesota Sun Staff
Group of adults sitting at a conference room table

New Jersey teachers said they were instructed during a teachers union training to log conversations regarding the COVID-19 vaccine with parents and students, Fox News reported.

The training provided by Made to Save, a vaccine “equity” nonprofit, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) directed instructors to “follow up and track” conversations with parents and teachers regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, Fox News reported. They were told to log their conversations into the Democrat campaign app, “Reach,” and were incentivized with gift cards to be active users.

Campaign operative Jake DeGroot devised Reach, which New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez utilized in her 2018 campaign, Fox News reported.

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Merrick Garland Cites Unexplained Threats of Violence to Involve Authorities in Culture War Issues

Minnesota Sun Staff

Merrick Garland, once hailed as a “moderate” choice for President Joe Biden’s attorney general, has now twice referenced unexplained threats of violence in directing authorities to investigate hot button culture issues.

The attorney general directed the FBI on Oct. 4 to target parents who allegedly threaten violence against public school officials. He also ordered authorities in September to enforce the FACE Act in response to any violence from pro-life activists.

But the Department of Justice has not explained or offered examples of the violence it is referring to in either of these instances. The DOJ did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s many requests for comment on this point.

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Google and YouTube Will Demonetize Content Denying ‘Scientific Consensus’ on Climate Change

Minnesota Sun Staff
Person on Smartphone

Google and YouTube announced a new policy Thursday demonetizing all content that denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

Google will no longer allow ads for “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the company announced in a support page added to its website Thursday. The policy, which Google will start enforcing next month, covers YouTube videos and websites that treat climate change as a “hoax or a scam,” content “denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming” and content “denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.”

The search giant said it was implementing the policy due to pressure from advertisers, who didn’t want their products associated with content promoting climate denial.

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DHS Says Climate Change Will Lead to More Illegal Border Crossings

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said extreme weather caused by climate change will lead to more illegal entries into the U.S. across the southern border.

Severe earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, tropical storms and other weather events caused by climate change will lead to “border mass migrations” that could put additional stress on U.S. border patrol, the DHS warned in its Climate Action Plan released Thursday. Climate change has “deep implications” for the security of U.S. borders, the agency said.

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German Officials Investigating ‘Havana Syndrome’ Cases Among U.S. Diplomats in Berlin

Minnesota Sun Staff

German officials on Friday announced their investigation into the mysterious “Havana Syndrome” among U.S. diplomats in Berlin.

Following a report from Der Spiegel, German officials said they are attempting to find the cause of the syndrome by investigating an “alleged sonic weapon attack” that is believed to have occurred in August near the U.S. Embassy.

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Federal Reserve Governor Thinks Regulators Need to Tell Banks How to Deal with Climate Change

Minnesota Sun Staff

Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard believes financial regulators should tell banks how to tackle climate change as a way to monitor threats to the overall financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Brainard outlined in a speech how the central bank should prepare for climate change events like flooding and wildfires, which she thinks could deliver a shock to the markets and economy.

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Man Accused in Sicknick Case: ‘We’ve All Been Destroyed’

Minnesota Sun Staff

George Tanios’ fiancée encouraged him to go to Washington on January 6 to hear President Trump’s speech. “You’re gonna regret it if you don’t go,” she said, hoping he could take a break from working 100-hours-a-week to run his popular sandwich shop in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Tanios and I both laughed after he told me that during a two-hour interview this week. (I was in contact with his fiancée, Amanda, as she cared for their three young children while he was incarcerated for five months.)

But there is nothing funny about how Joe Biden’s Justice Department is trying to ruin Tanios’ life to maintain the myth that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died at the hands of Trump supporters on January 6. 

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Elon Musk’s Tesla to Move Headquarters from California to Texas

Minnesota Sun Staff

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Thursday that the company will be moving its headquarters out of California and into Texas, according to CNN.

“I’m excited to announce that we’re moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk announced to a shareholders’ meeting on Thursday. The company, which specializes in electric vehicles, had been based out of California since its foundation in San Carlos, with its first factory built in Fremont and its current headquarters located in Palo Alto.

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Tens of Thousands of Afghan Refugees Set to Be Released in the U.S. Without Set Immigration Status

Minnesota Sun Staff
Afghan women refugee settlment

Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees could be released into the U.S. without a decision about their immigration status, CBS News reported on Thursday.

The refugees came to the U.S. on humanitarian parole instead of with visas, and many of them don’t have a way to obtain lawful permanent residence, according to CBS News. Since August, over 55,000 Afghan refugees were evacuated to the U.S., and around 40% of them qualify for special immigrant visas, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“We evacuated them here. We did that. It’s not very equitable to force people to stay in this limbo state,” Church World Service Policy Director Meredith Owen said, CBS News reported. Church World Service is one of the organizations working with Afghan refugees in the U.S. resettlement programs.

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Commentary: Five Reasons ‘Roe’ Is Ripe for Reversal

Minnesota Sun Staff
closeup of a baby

It seems like only yesterday the Left went to war to stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh from ascending to the Supreme Court. Crackpots and charlatans flocked to the call for accusations, no matter how fictional, that might sink his nomination. The Left extracted a compromise from squishy Republicans to give the FBI enough time to frame . . . er, “investigate” Kavanaugh before proceeding to a confirmation vote. The Left is still furious at FBI Director Christopher Wray for failing to gin up a predicate for stopping Kavanaugh’s eventual confirmation.

Even then, it was very clear that the public relations assault had nothing to do with Kavanaugh’s history with the opposite sex. As they tried to weaponize sketchy sexual abuse allegations against Kavanaugh, we learned later that Democrats suppressed allegations of sexual abuse committed by their own leaders and supporters (Andrew Cuomo, Harvey Weinstein, U.S. Represenative John Conyers, former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and Bill Clinton to name just a few examples). When these leaders were held accountable, it usually followed a long period of cover-ups and denials by their political allies. 

But Democrats didn’t really care about whether Kavanaugh committed sexual assault in the 1980s. It was, everyone knew, all about abortion. 

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Sidney Powell Sues Defense Department over Vaccine Mandate

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell announced Wednesday that she is suing the Defense Department in regards to their vaccine mandate.

According to The Hill, Powell is representing the Texas-based group “Defending the Republic” in a lawsuit against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in regards to the military’s mandatory vaccination requirements.

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Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to Hear Case on ATF Bump Stock Rule

Minnesota Sun Staff

This week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals became the fourth appellate court to hear a case involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) rule banning bump stocks on firearms that was promulgated under the Trump administration.

Then-President Trump started the process that led to the ATF’s rule, which makes bump stocks equivalent to illegal machine guns in terms of federal law. The regulatory action followed the October 2017 Las Vegas concert massacre, where the shooter used a rifle equipped with a bump stock to fire into the crowd, killing 58 and injuring over 400.

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Commentary: Canceling Columbus at American Universities

Minnesota Sun Staff

For years, Campus Reform has covered the trend of colleges across the country replacing Columbus Day with “Indigenous People’s Day.” Fueled by concerns of honoring “colonialism” and “genocide,” universities are opting for scrapping remembrance of the explorer all together.

University of Michigan History and American Culture Professor Gregory Dowd is one of many academics who assert that the country as a whole needs to end Columbus Day recognition completely in favor of Indigenous People’s Day. His view was promoted by the university ahead of the holiday this year.

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Georgia Gov. Kemp, Others Criticize IRS Monitoring Plan as ‘Invasion of Privacy’

The Center Square

Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia’s business and banking community are pushing back against a federal proposal that would allow the IRS to monitor bank accounts with more than $600.

The plan is part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill currently being considered in Congress. Kemp and leaders of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Bankers Association said it violates most Georgians’ privacy.

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Minnesota U.S. Rep. Omar Demands Biden Cancel Student Debt

Hayley Feland

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) wrote a letter to the Biden Administration demanding that they cancel student debt. Omar said that Biden could cancel student debt “with a flick of his pen.” The letter is asking that the Biden Administration “release the memo to determine the extent of the administration’s authority to broadly cancel student debt through administrative action.”

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