Month: January 2022

Hundreds of Sociology Syllabi Contain Liberal Bias Across Assignments and Readings, Survey Finds

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Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Campus Reform obtained copies of the syllabi from Spring 2021 undergraduate sociology classes at six universities.

Universities include: the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Ohio State University–Columbus, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign.

In total, Campus Reform surveyed 201 undergraduate course syllabi across these institutions. This number included 25 100-level introduction to sociology courses, which are sometimes taken by non-majors to fulfill general education requirements. The results of the survey, divided into the categories of assignments, biased language, and common textbooks and readings, are below.

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Commentary: Four Education Trends That Will Continue in 2022

Admin

There is a lot to be frustrated about as 2021 concludes. Some places are back in lockdown over rising coronavirus cases, while others are re-imposing previous restrictions and introducing new ones—including my city.

But at this joyful time of the year, I choose to be optimistic and focus on all the good things happening right now, particularly in the world of education.

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Connecticut Governor Lamont Directs Increase in Earned Income Tax Credit to Benefit Lower-Income Taxpayers

The Center Square
Ned Lamont

Nearly 200,000 households in Connecticut will benefit from an increase in the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, Gov. Ned Lamont said.

The governor said in a news release that the Department of Revenue Services will increase the 2020 Earned Income Tax Credit from 23% to 41.5% as directed by the state budget.

Lamont said the increase will “provide needed economic support to low-to-moderate income working individuals and families” who faced negative economic impacts amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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European Tech Firm Chooses Arizona as First American Location

The Center Square

A European solar power tech company has chosen Arizona as its first location in the United States.

Switzerland-based mechanical engineering company Meyer Burger Technology AG is establishing a production site for high-performance solar modules in Goodyear, Arizona. Production is expected to be operational by the end of 2022, creating an initial 250 jobs and more than 500 jobs at full capacity.

“I am very pleased to welcome Meyer Burger to our community,” Mayor of Goodyear Joe Pizzillo said in a news release.“The decision to make a large investment in our community shows Goodyear is an excellent location for advanced manufacturing businesses. Our highly skilled workforce, modern infrastructure, and low cost of doing business has created an environment where companies can thrive.”

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Recovered Carjacked Vehicle Processing Backed Up Five to Six Weeks, Police Say

Hayley Feland

The processing for recovered carjacked vehicles is backed up five to six weeks, the police say. Carjackings are happening across the Twin Cities, spilling out into the suburbs. In Golden Valley, Minnesota they experienced five carjackings in a span of 24 hours last weekend.

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Twitter Permanently Suspends Georgia U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Personal Account

Minnesota Sun Staff
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene

Twitter permanently suspended the personal account of Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over repeated violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy, the company confirmed early Sunday.

Greene’s personal account, @mtgreenee, was no longer active Sunday morning, and it has been labeled with an “account suspended” notice. Greene’s official government account, @RepMTG, is still active.

When reached for comment, Twitter confirmed Greene’s account was suspended, and the company said she committed “repeated” violations of its policy on COVID-19 misinformation.

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Minnesota Arsonist Who Attacked Target Headquarters During Nicollet Mall Riot Sentenced to 100 Months in Prison

Minnesota Sun Staff
Hands in handcuffs

Victor Devon Edwards, 34, of St. Paul traveled to Minneapolis during the Nicollet Mall riot in August 2020 where he was caught on video looting and committing arson. Earlier this week he was sentenced to 100 months behind bars.

The Nicollet riot occurred after online rumors spread that police had killed a black person outside the mall. In reality, a fleeing murder suspect actually killed himself — but this didn’t stop the looters who smashed, grabbed and burned their way through luxury stores and other buildings in what has since been praised in a local outlet as a “mini-rebellion of the alienated dispossessed.”

While the majority of rioters seem to have evaded punishment, one trio has been put under the law enforcement microscope for their roles in the chaos. Edwards is one of these men and was recently convicted and sentenced for causing just over $941,000 of  damage to the Target headquarters in addition to looting and burning other buildings.

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Commentary: 2022 Won’t Be More of the Same

Minnesota Sun Staff

End of the year reviews, along with predictions for the coming year, are a staple around this time. But, as Yogi Berra wisely said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

I took a look at what I wrote last year, and a lot of it held up reasonably well (You can be the judge). I argued that the system and its managers are not doing a great job, the coronavirus crisis exposed their incompetence and malevolence, and that bad economics and crime would be major factors in marring the year ahead. Specifically, “a crisis of authority and legitimacy is emerging from failures in the most fundamental tasks of a society: the provision for basic needs, physical security, and a fair and accepted means of making decisions and picking leaders.”

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Trump Confidant Kerik Surrenders Memos to January 6 Panel, Vows to ‘Eviscerate’ Democrat Narrative

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Then-President Donald Trump’s team assembled a 10-day pressure campaign in December 2020 hoping to shame governors and state legislators into officially investigating allegations of Election 2020 irregularities, according to memos newly turned over to Congress by former New York Police Commissioner and Trump confidant Bernard Kerik.

The strategy called for “protests” at governors’ mansions and the homes of politicians ranging from secretaries of states to “weak” congressional members in key battleground states, the memos show.

The documents, turned over Friday night under subpoena to the House’s Jan. 6 commission, are remarkable in part because they show the primary focus of the Trump team leading up to the Jan. 6 certification of the 2020 vote – an event that turned violent when pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol – was to get “support for hearings” to probe allegations of voting irregularities Trump’s team had received but not vetted.

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Commentary: In Scotland, They’ll Take the Woke Road

Minnesota Sun Staff

The online class on gender, feminism, and the law was underway when Lisa Keogh, a 29-year-old student and mother of two, introduced a note of unwoke contention into the discussion.

“We were talking about equal rights for women, and I said I don’t believe a trans woman is really a woman,” said Keogh, then attending Abertay University Law School here. “I said that my definition of a woman is someone with a vagina.” Keogh, disagreeing with another point of view expressed in the same meeting, also voiced the apparently retrograde opinion that not all men are rapists.

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Latest Research Chronicles the Impact of COVID Lockdowns on Children

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A growing body of academic research is chronicling the toll that pandemic lockdowns imposed on children, warning that the mental and social anguish the policies caused outweigh the health protections.

The “overall impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents is likely to be severe,” an Oxford University professor warned in a recent analysis.

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Navy Removes Two Top Commanders Citing ‘Loss of Confidence in Their Ability to Command’

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The Navy has made the rare decision to remove two high-ranking officers from their posts – commanders of the littoral combat ship Montgomery – citing a “loss of confidence in their ability to command.”

The announcement Thursday by the military service provided no specific information about why Cmdr. Richard J. Zamberlan, the ship’s skipper, and Cmdr. Phillip Lundberg, the vessel’s executive officer, were relieved of their command.

However, two Navy officials told The New York Times, on the condition of anonymity, that Lundberg and Zamberlan’s removal resulted from their handling of a sexual harassment investigation.

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Jobless Claims Remain Near 52-Year Low

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Photo “Unemployment Insurance Claims Office” by Bytemarks. CC BY 2.0.

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims decreased to 198,000 in the week ending Dec. 25 as employers continue to fight to retain workers amid a tight labor market and growing Omicron coronavirus variant concerns.

The Labor Department figure shows an 8,000 claim decrease compared to the week ending Dec.18, when claims reached a revised level of 206,000. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected claims remain near last week’s reported level of 205,000.

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Oklahoma Proposes Bill That Would Allow Parents to Remove Sexually Graphic Books from School Libraries

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An Oklahoma bill introduced on Dec. 16 may allow parents to seek the removal of books that they deem inappropriate from school libraries.

The bill, Senate Bill 1142, would give parents a right to ask for the removal of “books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it,” according to the bill’s language.

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Christian Group to Match All Donations up to $500,000 for Midwest Tornado Disaster Relief

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Foster’s Outriders, a Christian nonprofit organization, announced Thursday that it would match all donations up to $500,000 given to the ongoing tornado relief effort in the Midwest.

The group, founded by the late Foster Friess in 2018, noted that the recent tornadoes — which swept through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee on Dec. 10 and killed at least 76 people — were among the most devastating in U.S. history in an email sent to donors on Thursday. Photos of the storm’s aftermath in Mayfield, Kentucky, showed massive wreckage with entire blocks of homes wiped out.

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Commentary: Six Cultish Things Globalist Elites Want You to Look Forward to in 2022—and Beyond

Minnesota Sun Staff

The year is 2022. The place: a New York City so overpopulated that everyone is sleeping and dying on outdoor stairways. All sweating like pigs because of global warming. People have become unwitting cannibals because there is no more food. Elites still dine on delectables, but all that remains for the hoi polloi is the promise of a green wafer allegedly made of plankton, but in reality “It’s PEOPLE!!”

That’s the setting of the over-the-top 1973 movie “Soylent Green,” produced in the wake of Paul Ehrlich’s classic fear porn book The Population Bomb. Time has proven Ehrlich’s predictions of mass starvation due to population growth to be massively wrong. Ehrlich also lost his famous wager with the economist Julian Simon who predicted a more prosperous world. Still, Malthusian propaganda dies hard because it’s such an effective tool for social engineering.

“Soylent Green” is a random example, chosen because its year 2022 happens to be upon us. Certainly, dates and science used in science fiction have a heavy emphasis on fiction. The “Blade Runner” rebellion of genetically designed replicants was set in 2019. And, of course, Big Brother ruled in George Orwell’s 1984. Though much has come to pass, including genetic engineering and the surveillance state, there’s proof enough that we can’t predict the future with certainty.

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Commentary: A Coming Epidemic of Motion Sickness

RealClearWire

The tandem rise of autonomous driving and virtual reality has the potential to revolutionize modern life. At the same time, however, the technologies could introduce an epidemic of motion sickness.

This disconcerting prospect inspired Behrang Keshavarz, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ryerson University in Canada, and John Golding, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Westminster in the U.K., to review currently available research and, in an article recently published to the journal Current Opinion in Neurology, summarize why motion sickness occurs, who is susceptible, and what can be done about it.

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Missouri Gov. Parson Says St. Louis Newspaper Admitted to Violating Computer Tampering Law

The Center Square

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday expressed confidence the Cole County prosecutor will charge the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for violating a state law protecting computer networks.

Gov. Parson called for the Highway Patrol to investigate the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Oct. 15 after it notified the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education its public-facing website contained Social Security numbers of teachers in its HTML code – visible to anyone using an Internet browser. Parson stated the “hack” might cost Missouri taxpayers as much as $50 million.

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Hy-Vee Shoppers Who Want to Defund the Police Angry When Store Debuts Its Own Armed Security

Minnesota Sun Staff

Hy-Vee shoppers who want to defund the police are upset that the popular Midwestern grocery chain has introduced armed security guards amidst rising crime.

Hy-Vee operates 285 stores in the Midwest, several of which are located in Minneapolis — where the City Council has allocated funds away from the police and into the Health Department to fund “civilian violence interrupters,” per MPR. However, Hy-Vee customers who support such efforts to defund the police are unhappy with how the grocery store has chosen to protect itself amidst a growing trend of mass thefts from big box retailers.

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Commentary: The FBI’s Criminal Lead Informant in Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Caper

Minnesota Sun Staff
Gretchen Whitmer

In June 2020, as the country attempted to recover from deadly and destructive riots after the death of George Floyd, a man from Wisconsin hosted a national conference of self-styled “militia” members in a suburban Columbus, Ohio hotel. Stephen Robeson, founder of the Wisconsin chapter of the Three Percenters, an alleged militia group on the FBI’s naughty list, pestered his contacts across the country to participate in the gathering.

People who attended the conference, including two men later charged with federal crimes related to a plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage in 2020, observed that the hotel was crawling with federal agents.

One of the feds at the conference was none other than Stephen Robeson himself.

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Commentary: A Scientist Debunks His Own Study on the Implications of Finger Length

RealClearWire

Take a look at one of your hands, specifically focusing on your index finger (2D) and ring finger (4D). If you’re a man, your index finger is probably slightly shorter than your ring finger. If you’re a woman, they’re probably about the same length. How these two fingers compare might not mean much to you, but some scientists think the ratio between the lengths of these two fingers (2D:4D) can predict your health, personality, musical ability, and even your sexual orientation. Why? Because these researchers think that 2D:4D is a biomarker of exposure to higher levels of testosterone in the womb, and this, they say, can have lasting effects throughout one’s life. One of them even thinks that sports teams should use the ratio as a criterion for selecting players!

Dr. James Smoliga, a Professor of Physiology in the Department of Physical Therapy at High Point University, is not one of those scientists. Reviewing some of the more than 1,400 papers published over the past two decades linking 2D:4D to pretty much anything (reduced risk for video game addiction, sumo wrestling success, artistic ability, penis size, etc.), he grew skeptical that this one physical trait could reveal so much about our lives.

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Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Vacations to Florida, Escapes NYC Lockdowns

Minnesota Sun Staff

While COVID-19 cases surged in New York City, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was pictured vacationing in Florida, National Review reported.

Ocasio-Cortez was spotted drinking cocktails outside of a restaurant in Miami Beach on Thursday while New York City reported a record high number of COVID-19 cases, National Review reported. Ocasio-Cortez represents New York’s 14th congressional district, which includes parts of the Bronx and Queens.

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California Man Who Backed Clinton in 2016 Gets 35 Years to Life for Murder in Fight over Election

Minnesota Sun Staff

ACalifornia man who supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 was sentenced this week to 35 years to life in prison for fatally shooting a woman during an argument about the presidential race.

The incident occurred Jan. 10, 2017, when defendant John Kevin McVoy Jr. was told by a bandmate to “Get the f— out of my house,” after McVoy revealed he had voted for Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, according to Fox News.

McVoy then fired two shots. One hit the bandmate, identified by the Press-Enterprise of Southern California as Victor Garcia, in the head.

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In Shadows of Maxwell Trial, Sex Traffickers Continue to Exploit Porous Southern Border

Minnesota Sun Staff

The trial and conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell handed anti-sex trafficking advocates a big victory this week and focused public attention for a short while on a heinous criminal scourge. But in the case’s shadows, a painful reality plays out at America’s southern border, where U.S. Border Patrol agents almost daily encounter bad actors in the illicit sex trades.

The holidays were no exception.

A few days before Christmas, over a 24-hour period, Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents intercepted three human smuggling attempts which resulted in the apprehension of over 70 foreign nationals illegally in the U.S. They also recovered a stolen vehicle, and a methamphetamine seizure north of Laredo, Texas.

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Commentary: 12 Incidents of Defensive Gun Use Prove Armed Civilians That Make Situations Safer

Minnesota Sun Staff

I testified earlier this month at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Chicago on underlying causes of the spikes in gun violence in that city and around the country.

Although Sen. Dick Durbin’s interruptions of my opening statement stole the show in many respects, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the Illinois Democrat also solicited disparaging remarks on the right to keep and bear arms from another witness—Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown.  

In direct response to one of Durbin’s questions, Brown remarked that armed civilians make police officers’ jobs more difficult, and that he never has seen a lawfully armed civilian make a situation safer.

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Commentary: The ‘Runner’s High’ May Result from Molecules Called Cannabinoids – the Body’s Own Version of THC and CBD

Minnesota Sun Staff
Woman running on the road

Many people have experienced reductions in stress, pain and anxiety and sometimes even euphoria after exercise. What’s behind this so-called “runner’s high”? New research on the neuroscience of exercise may surprise you.

The “runner’s high” has long been attributed to endorphins. These are chemicals produced naturally in the body of humans and other animals after exercise and in response to pain or stress.

However, new research from my lab summarizes nearly two decades of work on this topic. We found that exercise reliably increases levels of the body’s endocannabinoids – which are molecules that work to maintain balance in the brain and body – a process called “homeostasis.” This natural chemical boost may better explain some of the beneficial effects of exercise on brain and body.

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Majority of Voters Disapprove of Biden’s Handling of Crime and Immigration

Minnesota Sun Staff

More than half of likely voters expressed their disapproval of Joe Biden’s job as president in a recent Rasmussen poll, particularly with regards to his handling of the issues of crime and immigration, as reported by the New York Post.

According to the Rasmussen survey, 51 percent of voters rated Biden’s performance as “poor” on the issue of crime and law enforcement, with only 31 percent describing him as “good” or “excellent.” On immigration, 54 percent described him as “poor,” with only 27 percent rating him as “good” or “excellent.”

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China Made an Artificial Intelligence ‘Prosecutor’ That Can Charge People with Crimes

Minnesota Sun Staff

Chinese scientists reportedly developed an artificial intelligence (AI) program capable of filing criminal charges.

The AI “prosecutor” is given a verbal definition of a case and then decides whether to file charges, according to the South China Morning Post, citing researchers involved in developing the program. The prosecutor files charges with a 97% accuracy rate, and is intended to reduce prosecutors’ workload.

“The system can replace prosecutors in the decision-making process to a certain extent,” said Shi Yong, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ big data and knowledge management laboratory that developed the program.

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Minnesota Attorney General Candidate Jim Schultz: ‘Minnesota Crippled by Crime, Elected Officials Failed Us’

Hayley Feland

In an exclusive interview with The Minnesota Sun, candidate for Attorney General Jim Schultz said that over the past three years, Minnesota’s elected officials have “failed us.” Scultz, a graduate from Harvard Law, went on to say that he believes Minnesota has become “crippled by crime.”

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