Month: December 2021

Two Minnesota Colleges Requiring Booster Shots for Spring Semester

Peter D'Abrosca

Two Minnesota colleges have joined a handful of schools across the country who will require students to receive a COVID-19 booster shot in order to attend spring semester classes.

“News about the new Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus is undoubtedly on all of our minds, particularly as we spend more time indoors and in close proximity with loved ones over the winter break. While we don’t yet know how this new variant might impact our community, we are paying close attention to its development and will be ready to adjust plans on campus if needed,” Carleton College said on its website. 

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Twitter Suspends Just the News Founder for Report on Legal Distinctions Between COVID Vaccines

Minnesota Sun Staff

Twitter suspended the account of Just the News founder John Solomon for sharing an article about the legal distinctions between Pfizer’s fully approved and emergency use authorization (EUA) COVID-19 vaccines, which could affect the legality of vaccine mandates.

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Rural Areas of Minnesota Have Highest Wage Increases, Job Vacancy Rates, Report Says

The Center Square

The population continues to decrease in rural Minnesota. Additionally, rural Minnesota continues to experience the highest increase in wages along with the highest job vacancy rates, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Rural Policy and Development.

Marnie Werner, CRPD vice president, research, and Kelly Asche, CRPD research associate, wrote the nonprofit policy research organization’s “The State of Rural” 2021 update.

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Minnesota Mother, Wife of January 6 Defendants Speaks Out: ‘I Can’t Believe Our Government Is Doing This’

Minnesota Sun Staff

Rosemarie Westbury’s life was turned upside down on April 9. Armored vehicles carrying federal agents equipped with fully-automatic rifles and battering rams were looking for her son.

It was 6:30 in the morning and Rosemarie was on her way to work as the sole breadwinner of the family. Her 62-year-old husband, Robert, has had eight strokes.

She received a terrifying call from one of her sons: the FBI was at their door.

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Commentary: The Left Is Being Consumed by Its Own Hatreds and Hubris

Minnesota Sun Staff

Joe Biden, first as a candidate and then in the White House, from the outset saw the COVID-19 pandemic mainly as a means of leveraging political support, from the manner in which the lockdowns allowed him to run a virtual campaign from his basement to equating Donald Trump with the COVID-19 virus.

Like many on the Left, Biden was overt in such cynicism. So were Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom, and Jane Fonda—who claimed that COVID was a “never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste” moment. Panic and lockdowns could help achieve single-payer health care, or a recalibrated capitalism, or the end of Donald Trump himself.

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Amid U.S. Nuclear Talks, Iran Provokes by Firing Missiles, Inviting Venezuelan Leader for Visit

Minnesota Sun Staff
missile firing into the sky

Iran fired missiles in a provocation toward Israel and invited Venezuela’s socialist leader for a visit as it continued to antagonize the West in the midst of slow-moving negotiations to stop Tehran’s nuclear program.

The official IRNA news agency reported the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired 16 surface-to-surface missiles Friday at the end of five days of military drills in the desert, airing footage of the missile launches and suggesting it was a warning to Israel.

“These exercises were designed to respond to threats made in recent days by the Zionist regime,” Major General Mohammad Bagheri told the state television network.

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United Pilots Laid Off Due to Vaccine Mandate Say They Could Have Prevented Holiday Flight Disruptions

Minnesota Sun Staff

Thousands of flights were delayed or canceled on multiple airlines across the United States over the holiday weekend, leaving thousands of travelers frustrated and stranded, according to FlightAware.

Sunday saw a total of 5,936 delays and 1,387 cancellations of flights within, or out of the United States on Sunday. United, Delta, and JetBlue blamed the flight disruptions on staff shortages due the highly transmissible Omicron variant, US News reported.

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National Political Parties Have Raised $716 Million in 2021, Republicans Hold Slight Edge

Minnesota Sun Staff

Six party committees have raised a combined $716 million over the first ten months of the 2022 election cycle. In November, the committees raised $54 million, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. This was the lowest cumulative fundraising month of the 2022 election cycle.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raised $12.6 million and spent $6.4 million in November, while the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) raised $7.3 million and spent $7.9 million. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the DCCC has raised 6.8% more than the NRCC ($130.8 million to $122.1 million). November was the fifth consecutive month where the DCCC outraised the NRCC.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) raised $8.4 million and spent $8.0 million, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) raised $6.8 million and spent $4.5 million. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the NRSC has raised 14.3% more than the DSCC ($93.6 million to $81.1 million). This was the 10th consecutive month where the NRSC outraised the DSCC.

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Auction Houses See Record Sales in 2021

Minnesota Sun Staff

The world’s three largest auction houses reported record sales of over $15 billion in 2021, highlighting a surge in global wealth and more first-time, young collectors entering the market, multiple sources reported.

Christie’s reported total sales of $7.1 billion in 2021 on Monday, marking the highest figure in five years, according to CNBC. Sotheby’s saw sales surge to $7.3 billion in 2021, the company announced Wednesday, the best year in its 277-year history, and Philips said its sales hit a record high of $1.2 billion.

“Every single category is outperforming,” Guillaume Cerutti, chief executive of Christie’s, told CNBC.

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Nearly 60 Percent of American Parents Are Concerned With What Their Kids Are Learning: Poll

Minnesota Sun Staff

Roughly 6-in-10 parents are concerned about the current quality of American education, according to a survey conducted by an education advocacy group.

An overwhelming number of parents believe they should be able to determine what their kids are taught in the classroom, according to a Free to Learn (FTL) poll. Concerns over COVID-19 mitigation measures, Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender ideology and virtual learning have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic.

CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

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1619 Project Creator Says She Doesn’t ‘Understand This Idea That Parents Should Decide What’s Being Taught’ in School

Minnesota Sun Staff

The 1619 Project Creator said she doesn’t understand the argument “that parents should decide what’s being taught” to their children in school on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

The 1619 project was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a writer for The New York Times, and it promotes the idea that America’s ‘true founding’ occurred when slaves arrived in the colonies, framing the history of the country around race and slavery.

“I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught,” Hannah-Jones said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science,” she said.

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Thousands of Federal Prisoners Released Early Due to COVID Surge Do Not Have to Return to Prison

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it would be permanently extending the early release of thousands of federal inmates who were set free due to a spike in COVID cases, as reported by the New York Post.

In doing so, the DOJ reversed an order previously made by President Donald Trump in January that would have seen such prisoners eventually returned to confinement. Instead, over 5,000 prisoners will now either remain in home confinement or be allowed to roam completely free.

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Commentary: American Citizenship Is Caught Between Creed and Clan

Admin

Our politics is currently overwhelmed with identity. Rights, votes, participation, all understanding of one’s place in the country is said to be based on one’s “identity.” The one identity that people shy away from is that of the American citizen. Who precisely is this person?

The American Constitution speaks in the voice of “We the People,” but never defines who that people might be, even if they already existed in 1787, even before the establishment of a “more perfect Union.” Who are these Americans? Who, as an individual, is an American? On the one hand, this is a simple question to answer. There is a legal definition of citizenship based on birth or naturalization, and some people simply are Americans and others are not. It is a matter of paperwork.

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Commentary: It’s Time to End Race-Conscious Admissions Policies

Minnesota Sun Staff

It’s no secret that there is an obsession with race among our nation’s colleges.

On every campus, there seems to be another multicultural center for BIPOC students, or a class on how to be woke, or a bias response team.

And while the country is finally waking up to just how far left American society has drifted recently, such politics have been the norm on college campuses for years.

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Surveillance Video Allegedly Shows D.C. Police Beating Women on January 6

Minnesota Sun Staff

Recently-released surveillance video from inside the lower west terrace tunnel at the Capitol building from last January 6 confirms what American Greatness has reported for months: law enforcement officers from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police led a brutal assault against Trump supporters trapped inside that tunnel during the Capitol protest.

The three-hour clip offers one angle of what happened between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the tunnel, the site of the most violent clashes between police and protesters. It also is the location where Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter from Georgia, died.

One clip shows the attack on Victoria White, a Minnesota mother of four who was viciously beaten by at least two D.C. Metro officers including a supervisor:

The video supports what White told me in a series of interviews earlier this month; she was repeatedly beaten on the head with a baton and punched directly in the face numerous times by police. One officer grabbed her by the hair and shook her head side to side. Government charging documents, however, claim White—who is 5’6”, weighs 155 pounds, and had no weapon—was the aggressor:

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Commentary: The World May See a Red Revolution Before a Green One

RealClearWire
Chinese flag

In the current day and age, energy security is a prerequisite for national security. When America became energy independent in 2019, it freed us from the political whims of unstable countries. But dogmatic leftists across the world have made it clear that they will sacrifice energy security for their idea of necessary climate policy, seemingly undisturbed by the transfer of that security to communist and authoritarian regimes in China and Russia. As a result, the world might see a Red Revolution before it ever sees a Green one.

While in recent years the US has embraced its liquified natural gas (LNG) boom, European countries steered the other way, ramping down fossil fuel production and increasing their dependence on fossil fuel imports. They have justified this as a “necessary” sacrifice until solar and wind deployment catches up. They are seemingly unconcerned that Russia has become the EU’s largest supplier of fossil fuels, supplying around 40% of the EU’s LNG and coal. 

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Republicans Move to Ban Federal Funds to States, Cities That Allow Non-Citizens to Vote

Minnesota Sun Staff

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is leading a coalition of Republicans in Congress to sponsor legislation that would ban federal funding to states or localities that allow foreigners to vote in U.S. elections.

The new legislation, dubbed the Protecting Our Democracy by Preventing Foreign Citizens from Voting Act, was introduced after many liberal municipalities from San Francisco to New York have moved in 2021 to allow non-citizens to cast ballots in local elections

“It’s ridiculous that states are allowing foreign citizens to vote,” Rubio said. “However, if states and localities do let those who are not U.S. citizens to vote in elections, they shouldn’t get U.S. citizen taxpayer money.”

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Kansas Lawmakers Reveal Draft Bill to Eliminate the Food Tax

The Center Square
Laura Kelly

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and the Legislature’s Democratic leadership on Thursday released a draft bill to get rid of the food sales tax in the state. 

Known colloquially as the “Axe the Food Tax” bill, the legislation would eliminate the state’s 6.5% sales tax on food. The draft bill also includes a full exemption on state and local taxes for items bought at farmers markets. 

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, and House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, helped craft the legislation and are formally looking for co-sponsors. 

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Commentary: Democrats’ 2020 Tactics in Philadelphia Part of a Failing Attempt to Keep Control

Minnesota Sun Staff
Mail in ballot with U.S. flag

Pennsylvania was by far one of the most contentious battleground states in the 2020 election, but new analysis shows even in Philadelphia Democrats are only treading water.

In 2020, both Democrat and anti-Trump groups dumped millions into Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs, with roving food vans that would extract votes out of people in exchange for a meal, or the use of “street money” to incentivize election-day door knockers to push people to the polls.

Despite these borderline-bribery efforts to drag people out to vote against Trump in 2020, Democrats gained less than 20,000 votes in Philly compared to 2016 numbers.

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Commentary: Wokeness is Dangerous

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Paul Gottfried   In a widely noted analysis of wokeness at The American Conservative, Scott McConnell indicates that there’s good news ahead. Woke culture may soon be a spent force. It may be following the paths of other attempted revolutions like communism and Jacobinism, which reached a high point in power…

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Minnesota County Executives’ Days of Working from Sunny California May Be Over

Minnesota Sun Staff

California may not be what it used to be, but it still looks tempting in the middle of a Minnesota winter. So tempting two of Hennepin County’s highest paid public employees made the Golden State their home base for working remotely during–and now–after the pandemic.

Michael Rossman takes home $189,000 in salary as Chief Hennepin County Human Resources Officer supervising 70 employees from his Palm Springs pad, while Chad Helton gets paid $184,000 to lead over 500 employees of the Hennepin County Library system out of Los Angeles.

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Minnesota Gives Non-White Patients Preferential Access to Life-Saving COVID Treatment

Minnesota Sun Staff

Minnesota says healthcare providers should provide non-white patients with preferential access to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s written in a state document and apparently upheld by local hospitals.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) says in a document titled “Ethical Framework for Allocation of Monoclonal Antibodies during the COVID-19 Pandemic” that “race and ethnicity alone, apart from other underlying health conditions, may be considered in determining eligibility for mAbs [monoclonal antibodies].”

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Commentary: Falling Unemployment Rate Is Entirely Due to Minnesotans Leaving the Labor Force

Minnesota Sun Staff
man in yellow hardhat and work jacket

‘Minnesota job growth outpaces US, unemployment at 3.3%‘– Duluth News Tribune

‘Jobless rate in Minn. hits pre-pandemic level‘ – MPR News

‘Minnesota jobless rate falls to 3.3%, lowest since pre-pandemic‘ – Fox 9

‘Minnesota Unemployment Rate Fell in November‘– Twin Cities Business

(Center of the American Experiment) — These were some of the headlines in Minnesota’s media covering the monthly jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They paint a pretty rosy picture. So what was the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reporting with this headline: ‘Minnesota unemployment rate continues to drop, but labor force concerns grow‘?

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Commentary: The Poison Fruits of Identity Politics in the Military

Admin

For many years, the U.S. military has been among the most trusted of American institutions, certainly the most trusted part of the U.S. government. It has maintained that status despite its failure to achieve success in the post-9/11 wars. Americans seem to have accepted the argument that this failure has more to do with the political constraints placed on the military than on the military’s doctrine, planning, and execution. They have continued to accept the military’s self-image as a profession rather than a self-interested bureaucracy, and have supported its professional ethos understood as duty, honor, and sacrifice.    

But attitudes toward the military seem to be changing. According to a recent survey conducted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, the number of Americans who express a great deal of confidence and trust in the military has dropped from 70 percent to 45 percent in just the past three years, including an 11 percent drop since February.

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Minnesota Pedophile Sentenced to 24 Years in Jail

Hayley Feland

A Minnesota pedophile was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in jail after he produced child pornography. According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office in the District of Minnesota, Russell James Anderson-Baldwin, 39, created sexually explicit videos of minors using social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and messaging apps.

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Official Washington Looks Ahead to a New Year with More COVID, Inflation, and Supply Chain Risks

Admin
President Joe Biden walks along the Colonnade with the Combatant Commander nominees U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson on Monday, March 8, 2021, along the Colonnade of the White House.

Inflation, “softness” in the White House, and pandemic uncertainty make up some of the biggest risks to the U.S. economy in 2022, according to a Washington consulting firm.

“Every quarter, I take a macro look at trends driving politics and policy looking both backward and forwards and identify where key political risks may lurk and where political opportunities may present themselves,” Bruce Mehlman, former assistant secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The most recent analysis targets 2022 and identifies the emerging risks business and government leaders should anticipate and prepare for.”

A founding partner of the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Mehlman advises prominent companies to understand and prepare for emerging trends and risks critical to the ever-evolving policy environment.

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Healthcare Activists Push for Policies to Hardwire Marxism in Medicine

Admin
Healthcare worker in hair net and mask on

The Biden administration proposed giving bonus payments to physicians who acknowledge systemic racism as the primary cause of health differences between racial groups and incorporate so-called “anti-racism” into their medical practices.

The move to pressure healthcare professionals to repeat the claim that racial health disparities are caused by racism and not lifestyle choices is part of a broader, years-long push to hardwire “race Marxism” into the medical field. The effort stretches from medical schools and research institutions to patient care and medical administration, with potentially devastating effects for patients and the healthcare system as a whole.

“Race Marxism,” analogous to “anti-racism” as popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, seeks to promote equal outcomes across racial groups, as opposed to a “colorblind” approach which favors equal opportunity and does not take race into account.

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‘Sci-Fi Becoming Reality’ as New Government Office Studies UFOs

Admin

The U.S. will establish a new government program that will investigate unidentified aerial phenomena, also known as UFOs, TODAY reported.

The National Defense Authorization Act called for the creation of the permanent office and was a part of a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. “I really see this as trying to know what is knowable and not having a head in the sand perspective on this,” she told TODAY.

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Thousands of Accounts Spreading Chinese State Propaganda Are Evading Bans from U.S. Social Media

Admin

A network of social media accounts spreading Chinese state propaganda is thriving on tech platforms despite social media companies’ attempts to crack down on foreign influence campaigns.

Over 2,000 accounts are involved in a coordinated propaganda campaign to spread Chinese regime talking points on U.S. social media platforms, according to a report from Miburo, a research collective that studies disinformation campaigns. The accounts disseminate false or misleading claims including the denial of China’s ongoing mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China, as well as criticism of Guo Wengui, a Chinese dissident and financial backer of U.S. social media site Gettr.

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Dog Tag Manufacturing Company Sues Department of Defense over Ban on Religiously-Themed Items

Admin

A company that specializes in creating military dog tags has sued the Department of Defense over a ban on its products, the Daily Caller reports.

Shields of Strength, a company that has produced dog tags for over twenty years, was first issued a cease-and-desist order back in 2019. That order was filed by the left-wing Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which accused Shields of Strength of producing “sectarian proselytizing merchandise” whenever its merchandise included religious themes.

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Over 2,000 Vaccine Religious Exemption Requests Denied by Air Force

Admin

On Tuesday, the U.S. Air Force announced that it had rejected approximately 2,130 requests from service members for a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, as reported by the Daily Caller.

“More than 10,000 requests from across the Total Force have been received,” the Air Force’s statement read, “of which approximately 2,100 have been disapproved due to military readiness considerations.”

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Democrats Resist Election Integrity Probes, Reforms Nationwide

Admin

Elected officials and like-minded activists across the country are refusing to cooperate with ongoing efforts to thwart voter fraud and promote the integrity of future elections, lambasting such efforts as antidemocratic campaigns to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The apparent resistance of mostly Democratic and some Republican figures to investigating allegations of election fraud and supporting reforms to decrease its likelihood comes at a time when millions of Americans say they don’t have faith in the country’s electoral process.

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New York Times Editor Dies of Heart Attack Day After Moderna Booster Shot

Peter D'Abrosca

Just a day after taking the Moderna booster shot, a New York Times editor unexpectedly died of a heart attack. 

“This is Carlos’s wife, Nora. It’s with deepest sorrow that I have to share with you that Carlos passed away last night of a heart attack. I’ve lost my best friend and our kids lost a truly great dad. I will be off social media for awhile,” Carlos Tejada’s wife announced on his Twitter account on Dec. 18.

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United Employees Granted Vax Exemptions Put on Unpaid Leave, Can’t Work Elsewhere, Activists Claim

Admin
United Airlines plane on runway

United Airlines employees who have been granted exemptions to the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are allegedly being placed on indefinite unpaid leave, unable to seek employment elsewhere within the industry, access their 401(k) retirement savings, or file for unemployment.

United Airlines Capt. Sherry Walker, who has been placed on indefinite unpaid leave, told Just the News that United employees seeking reasonable accommodation regarding the company’s vaccine mandate for religious or medical reasons are being placed on indefinite unpaid leave and cannot leave their job for another airline because of the noncompete clause in their contracts.

Walker is cofounder of Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom (AE4HF), which represents 4,000 airline employees, about half of whom are with United.

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Report: Weak Wind Power to Blame for European Energy Crisis, Greater Reliance on Fossil Fuels

Admin

Low wind power generation is largely to blame for Europe’s ongoing energy crisis and scramble to import more fossil fuels, according to a Reuters report.

Wind farms across Europe produced just 14% of their capacity from July-September compared to the previous average of 20-26%, market data from Refinitiv showed, according to Reuters. As a result, European energy providers have been forced to purchase more coal and natural gas which have skyrocketed in price as demand has increased.

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Commentary: It is Time to End Corporate Sports Welfare

Admin
Man swinging a golf driver

One of the biggest complaints the American people have about the federal government is that Washington, D.C. is infected with cronyism and special-interest favoritism. In the area of tax policy, the corporation with the best tax lobbyist usually gets preferential treatment.

Look at the Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) as a case study in how wealthy, professional golfers are getting a subsidy from the federal government to make even more money. Just like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the PGA enjoys tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization.

This tax status has been a big moneymaker for the PGA. ESPN reported back in 2013, that “the PGA Tour’s nonprofit business model has allowed it to avoid paying up to $200 million in federal taxes over the past 20 years, and its tournaments—designed to benefit local charities—operate in ways that fall short of acceptable charitable practices.” While the Biden Administration is intent on soaking the middle class for more taxes, apparently wealthy sports organizations don’t make that list. Just goes to show you, yet again, how unfair the U.S. tax system is; the middle class gets soaked while the well-connected elites game the tax code to add tens of millions annually to their bottom lines.

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Biden Administration Green-Lights Multiple Solar Projects to Power 274,000 Homes

Admin

The Biden administration approved two solar projects, and it is nearing approval of a third, that will power hundreds of thousands of homes in California.

Construction of the Arica and Victory Pass solar projects — the two that received administration approval — will begin immediately on a large swath of land in Riverside County, California, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on Tuesday. Together, the projects will cost $689 million, be able to produce 465 megawatts of electricity, store 400 megawatts of energy and power 132,000 homes.

Oberon, the third solar project mentioned in the announcement, would be built on 2,700 acres of public lands in Riverside County if approved, according to DOI. The project would generate 500 megawatts of electricity and power an additional 142,000 households.

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Paxton, Schmitt Ask Court to Require Biden Administration to Finish Border Wall

The Center Square

As Texas and Missouri attorneys general ask a federal court to require the Biden administration to immediately resume building the border wall with funds allocated by Congress, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was using the funds on environmental projects instead.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued the administration in October. In November, they filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to require it to resume building the border wall using funds already appropriated by Congress to do so.

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Most Americans Don’t Trust TikTok, Facebook to Keep Their Data Safe: Poll

Admin
Facebook logo with smartphone showing lock in front

A majority of Americans don’t trust major social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, to keep their data safe, according to a new poll.

Over 70% of American internet users say they don’t trust Facebook to responsibly manage their personal information or data related to their internet activity, according to the results of The Washington Post/Schar School poll released Wednesday. Similarly, 63% say they don’t trust TikTok to handle their data and 60% say they don’t trust Instagram.

Amazon and Apple were deemed the most trustworthy major tech companies, with just 40% of Americans saying they distrust the tech giants, according to the poll results.

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U.S. Life Expectancy Drops to Lowest Level Since Second World War

Admin

The U.S. life expectancy dropped to its lowest level since World War II in 2020, multiple sources reported.

Life expectancy fell from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77 years in 2020, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, NBC News reported.

The average life expectancy for males fell 2.1 years from 76.3 in 2019 to 74.2 in 2020, NBC News reported. Women’s average life expectancy decreased 1.5 years from 81.4 in 2019 to 79.9 in 2020.

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REVIEW: George Will’s Thoroughly Spectacular ‘American Happiness and Its Discontents’

RealClearWire

The first book I ever read on public policy was Compassion Versus Guilt. A collection of columns by the great Thomas Sowell, it was what I regularly referred to on all questions economic toward the end of high school, in college, and well beyond. I have it to this day, and it informs my thinking to this day.

In many ways Sowell’s collection is a look back in time. Thanks to the internet, these kinds of compilations aren’t as common nowadays. This is unfortunate, but at the same time some writers are so prominent and popular that they still rate this kind of publication. Washington Post columnist extraordinaire George Will is one of them. Thank goodness. His latest collection of essays, American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent 2008-2020 is nothing short of spectacular. Though a little under 500 pages, I read it in a few sittings so unputdownable was it. Every column had me wanting more, which meant a few late nights and early mornings in a very short, very busy 8-day stretch.

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Commentary: The East Slams the West’s Climate ‘Colonialism’

Admin
Narendra Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent explosive comments about Western elites and their notions about climate policy are not surprising to anyone who has been closely observing the opposition of India and China to western pressure for policies contrary to the two countries’ economic objectives.

“The colonial mindset hasn’t gone,” Modi said at a Constitution Day event. “We are seeing from developed nations that the path that made them developed is being closed for developing nations . . . If we talk about absolute cumulative [carbon] emissions, rich nations have emitted 15 times more from 1850 till now . . . The per capita emission is also 11 times more in the U.S. and the EU.”

Senior ministers in the past have called out the colonial nature of climate politics. This is the first time, however, that Modi has publicly recalled in this context the colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries, when Western countries denied basic rights and autonomy to India and other colonies.

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Exclusive: Interview with Lisa Hanson About Her Christmas Behind Bars for Violating Minnesota Gov. Walz’s COVID-19 Indoor Service Ban

Neil W. McCabe

In an exclusive interview, the Hayward woman held for a 90-day sentence in the Freeborn County Jail after her conviction for violating Gov. Timothy J. Walz’s executive order banning indoor restaurant service told The Minnesota Sun she about her Christmas behind bars.

“Merry Christmas! I am doing well by the grace of our Lord,” said Melissa “Lisa” Hanson, whose Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro was an institution here for the years before the state charged here for violating the Walz orders, followed by the city’s decision to shut down her restaurant and let her lease expire at the end of the year.

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At Least Nine Republican Senators Demand Answers from DHS on Afghan Refugee Vetting

The Center Square
Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley and Rick Scott

At least nine Republican U.S. senators are continuing to pressure the Department of Homeland Security for answers over its vetting process of Afghan evacuees entering the U.S.

Three Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members sent a letter last week to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting information about Afghan evacuees. This week, six additional senators sent a letter to DHS asking for an overdue report they were supposed to have received Nov. 30.

Their letters followed news reports that the State Department didn’t have reliable data on everyone who evacuated Afghanistan and what types of visas they qualified for, and after a convicted rapist on an evacuation flight reached Washington-Dulles Airport. The letters also were sent after assaults and arrests were reported at military bases in New Mexico and Wisconsin where evacuees were being housed, and after several of the senators expressed concerns at a senate committee hearing in September.

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Commentary: The Left Needs to Stop Lying About Coup Attempts

Minnesota Sun Staff
Jan. 6 capitol riot

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, three retired generals, Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson warn of a supposedly impending coup should Donald Trump be elected in 2024.

The column seemed strangely timed to coincide with a storm of recent Democratic talking points that a reelected Trump, or even a Republican sweep of the 2022 midterms, would spell a virtual end of democracy.

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Electric Truck Maker Pays $125 Million to Settle Charges It Defrauded Investors

Minnesota Sun Staff

Electric truck manufacturer Nikola announced Tuesday it had settled fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), agreeing to pay the regulator $125 million.

The settlement is in response to allegations by the SEC that Nikola’s founder and former chief executive Trevor Milton misled investors about Nikola’s products and technological progress in order to boost the company’s share price. The SEC alleged that Milton misrepresented the anticipated costs and sources of electricity for its truck venture.

Milton was indicted by the Department of Justice in July on fraud charges, to which he pleaded not guilty.

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Commentary: The Left Needs to Stop Lying About Coup Attempts

Minnesota Sun Staff
Jan. 6 capitol riot

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, three retired generals, Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson warn of a supposedly impending coup should Donald Trump be elected in 2024.

The column seemed strangely timed to coincide with a storm of recent Democratic talking points that a reelected Trump, or even a Republican sweep of the 2022 midterms, would spell a virtual end of democracy.

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Manchin Reportedly Told the White House He Supports a Billionaire Tax

Minnesota Sun Staff
Joe Biden and Joe Manchin

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told the White House last week that he was willing to endorse some type of billionaire tax in President Joe Biden’s domestic spending package before coming out against it days later, The Washington Post reported.

Manchin said that a tax on billionaires’ wealth could be a means to pay for the package, according to the Post, citing three people familiar with his offer to the White House. The outlet reported that it was unclear whether Manchin provided an estimate of how much money the provision would raise.

Programs in Manchin’s $1.8 trillion counteroffer included universal pre-K for ten years, expansions to the Affordable Care Act and billions of dollars for climate change mitigation measures, according to the Post, but it did not include the child tax credit, which many Democrats have touted as one of the single biggest policy achievements of the year.

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