House Republican leaders sent a letter Friday to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz asking him to clarify the status of surgical abortions during the coronavirus pandemic.
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The Chinese virus is a clarifying agent. Among other things, one can see the choice between republican and progressive government—the rule of the people on the one hand and the rule of experts on the other. President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden perfectly embody this choice in response to the crisis.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the way the two men approach the expert advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and member of Trump’s COVID-19 Task Force.
Trump is adamant that he will listen to and consider what Fauci has to say, but in the end he, as the elected president, will determine the right course of action. For Trump, politics is the overarching art: immunology and epidemiology are subordinate sciences. Biden promises the opposite, saying “If I’m elected president, I will always lead the way with science. I will listen to the experts and heed their advice. I will do the opposite of what we’re seeing Donald Trump do every day.”
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As of March 31, 30 of the 50 states have issued stay-at-home orders to residents. Although the names of the orders – shelter-in-place, stay-at-home, stay home, stay safe – vary from state to state, they include at least two common elements: the closure of nonessential businesses and requesting all residents to stay home except for essential trips.
California was the first state to issue a stay-at-home order. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) did so on March 19. In total, 19 Democratic governors and 11 Republican governors have issued stay-at-home orders. Across all 50 states, there are 24 Democratic and 26 Republican governors.
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Back in 2014, the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 207, which banned grocery stores from offering customers “single-use” carryout bags. Permanent implementation was delayed by a November 2016 voter referendum, Proposition 67, which unsuccessfully attempted to repeal the measure. Today it is well-established law.
The only way SB 207 was sold to the grocery industry was through an incentive that permitted them to keep the 10 cents per “reusable” bag that they would be required to charge customers.
California’s pioneering ban is touted by environmentalists as an example for the nation, and progressive cities and states have enacted similar laws. But in reality, it is a misguided policy that does more harm than good.
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Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic candidate in November’s national presidential election, says the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the country is likely to force significant alterations or postponement of the party’s national nominating convention scheduled for July.
The Democratic and Republican national conventions are a quadrennial showpiece of American democracy, but Biden told MSNBC late Tuesday that it is “hard to envision” the Democratic convention set for mid-July in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, occurring as scheduled.
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A world-renowned epidemiologist credited with predicting the coronavirus pandemic blasted the World Health Organization in an interview for creating a false sense of security that the virus could be easily contained.
“Many of us were incredibly disappointed for lack of a better word in the WHO and its response,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in a podcast interview published Tuesday.
“When you look at what WHO did I think they set us back a great deal because they made countries believe if just a few countries that were going to get this would just do the containment work, we could stop it.”
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by Chris White Two left-leaning large super pac groups that kickstarted a digital ad campaign targeting President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response have ties to a wealthy, shadowy dark money network. American Bridge 21st Century and Pacronym are reportedly cutting ads thrashing Trump’s handling of the virus and becoming two…
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The Trump administration, citing continuing complications brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, is extending a delay of Migrant Protection Protocol hearings for asylum seekers in Mexico.
Foreign nationals under Migrant Protection Protocols, a program that holds asylum seekers in Mexico for the duration of their court proceedings, will have to wait longer before they can make their case before an immigration judge. All hearings scheduled through May 1 will be postponed, according to a statement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) on Wednesday.
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Given the spread of misinformation about Covid-19, Just Facts is providing a trove of rigorously documented facts about this disease and its impacts. These include some vital facts that have been absent or misreported in much of the media’s coverage of this issue. This research also includes a groundbreaking study to determine the lethality of Covid-19 based on the most comprehensive available measure: the total years of life that it will rob from people.
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A new Fox News poll predicts that voters would support a Joe Biden/Amy Klobuchar ticket over reelecting President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The poll was conducted between March 21 and 24 and shows Biden beating President Trump by nine percentage points in November. Since Biden promised to pick a female running mate, the poll examined his odds with Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as vice president.
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Whole Foods workers across the country called in sick Tuesday as part of a national day of protest against the work conditions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
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On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the human coronavirus a pandemic, which is defined as a global outbreak of a disease. The existence of the coronavirus has created a worldwide panic. Among the things I don’t understand: why this virus, compared with others before it, warrants shutting down the United States and killing its economy. Our nation survived 9/11, Swine Flu, and H1N1. But coronavirus (COVID-19), together with the politics behind it, threatens to annihilate us.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials prevented a Chinese national from sneaking undeclared biological materials into the United States in late 2018, roughly one year before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
An unnamed Chinese biologist carrying suspected vials of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) arrived at the Detroit Metro Airport in November 2018, according to an FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News.
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The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has a “lack of confidence” in the FBI’s procedures to validate information used to obtain spy warrants on American citizens, the watchdog said in a report released Tuesday.
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found errors in all 29 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications that were subject to the review.
The audit is a follow-up to an investigation of the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, the former Trump campaign aide.
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We need to remind everyone, “It’s the economy, stupid”
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Newspaper giant Gannett announced Monday it will begin furloughing employees across the country over the next three months to cut costs during the economic slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus.
The Hill reports, “the publisher of more than 100 newspapers, including USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, The Columbus Dispatch and The Arizona Republic, is reportedly furloughing workers who make more than $38,000 a year and they will be required to take one week of unpaid leave per month in April, May, and June, according to a tweet from investigative reporter Gregory Holman of the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri, a Gannett-owned paper.”
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Campus closures because of the coronavirus pandemic could lead to students being undercounted in the 2020 Census, at least according to one professor at Texas A&M University.
Professor Dudley Poston, who teaches sociology, wrote an op-ed for The Conversation explaining how undercounting could occur, and how it could financially affect college communities. He argued that self-isolating at home, which for students means possibly returning to live with their parents, could affect “where and if they are counted.”
“And that could have big implications,” he added.
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Big tech companies began the Trump era as a foil to the president amid concerns the companies are politically biased, but many of them are becoming crucial cogs in the president’s virus response.
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A top Chinese health official said Wednesday that the government will begin counting coronavirus patients without symptoms in its official tally of cases of the virus, in what is a tacit acknowledgement that Beijing has underreported data on the pandemic.
China’s National Health Commission disclosed that the government is monitoring 1,541 people who have tested positive for coronavirus but have no symptoms.
Chang Jile, the head of the health agency, said at a press conference in Wuhan that the government will start reporting asymptomatic patient numbers Wednesday.
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President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign digitized its entire field operation within 24 hours after staffers were forced to work from home because of the coronavirus pandemic, sources told The Minnesota Sun.
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The United States Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for donated anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate as doctors say the drugs are showing positive results for coronavirus patients.
The FDA issued the authorization to allow doctors to distribute and prescribe the anti-malaria drugs to hospitalized teen and adult patients who have coronavirus, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release. Doctors may distribute and prescribe the drugs “as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.”
The emergency authorization was issued to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is working with the National Institute of Health to plan clinical trials of the drugs.
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Mark Twain once famously said, “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”*
Twain said and wrote a lot of quirky/funny things in his lifetime but this particular observation is one of his most relevant and quotable because its analogical truth fits just about any situation. And the wisdom certainly works these days when thinking about the hegemonic and totalitarian nation that is communist China. American politicians have been griping and moaning about Asia’s self-possessed and secretive Middle Kingdom for a generation, but none — except for President Donald Trump — ever seriously proposed backing up the rhetoric with actual policy gravitas.
Trump’s concentration and emphasis on trade has been a refreshing departure from previous presidents of both parties who waxed poetically about “fair trade” and “helping American producers” but then went about making sure global powers like China had much leeway to dictate their own terms for sending goods across the seas while maintaining barriers to United States-made products at home. In China’s case, the country has manipulated its currency for years so as to protect Chinese industries — a gigantic corporate welfare subsidy that makes consumer goods — and everything else — appear inexpensive to the world’s buying public.
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The Justice Department is probing a series of stock trades that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) made in the weeks after receiving briefings about the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported.
The Justice Department is coordinating with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the matter, and the FBI has contacted Barr, a North Carolina Republican, according to CNN, which cited two people familiar with the matter.
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President Donald Trump has courted endless controversies for promoting nonconventional policies and entertaining contrarian views. From the outset, he oddly seemed to have believed that having navigated the jungles of the Manhattan real estate market – crooked politicians, mercurial unions, neighborhood social activists, the green lobby, leery banks, cutthroat rivals – better prepared him for the job than did a 30-year tenure in the U.S. Senate.
Certainly, candidate and then President Trump’s strident distrust of China was annoying to the American establishment. The Left saw China in rosy terms as the “Other” that just did things like airports, high-speed rail, and solar panels better than did America’s establishment of geriatric white male has-beens. Many on the Right saw China as a cash cow that was going to take over anyway, so why not milk it before the deluge?
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed that underage minors who unlawfully enter the United States without any parents or guardians are subject to immediate deportation, the latest action in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump administration, under orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), earlier in March declared that the northern and southern borders would be sealed off to all non-essential traffic as a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. While nearly all illegal aliens would be immediately repatriated under the order, CBP originally made an exception for unaccompanied minors.
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A political action committee supporting President Donald Trump filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s donation to the Democratic Party was illegal.
Bloomberg’s $18 million donation to the Democratic National Committee is an attempt to circumvent contribution limits and violate campaign finance laws, Great America PAC said in the March 26 complaint. The FEC is reviewing the complaint and will determine later if it will investigate.
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A progressive group in Minnesota wants state and national lawmakers to pass a “stronger unemployment insurance package” that includes benefits for illegal immigrants.
TakeAction Minnesota, a progressive community organizing group, released a list of policy proposals that it would like to see included in any stimulus package passed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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by Chuck Ross Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert on infectious diseases, predicted Sunday that the United States will end up with “millions” of cases of coronavirus and up to 200,000 deaths by the time the pandemic ends, though he cautioned that any projection of mortality statistics could…
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The coronavirus pandemic thus far has spread to more than 145 countries, causing high levels of infection and thousands of deaths. The worldwide costs of combating COVID-19, including efforts to overcome severe economic hardships for millions of people and organizations, undoubtedly will amount to many trillions of dollars.
There is widespread agreement and indisputable proof that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leaders are directly responsible for the worldwide spread of COVID-19.
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ICE Air Operations, the air transportation arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has so far rescued 466 U.S. citizens stranded in the Northern Triangle region of Central America amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Following orders of final removal, ICE deported Salvadoran and Honduran nationals back to their home countries on Friday. On the return leg of these flights, the agency took aboard U.S. citizens who were stranded due to COVID-19 lockdowns, according to an ICE press release.
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The governor of Oklahoma announced Friday that abortions are temporarily banned in the state.
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Gas prices are falling all over the country as oil prices tumble, yet prices are still relatively high in California, where environmental polices are restricting how oil refineries can produce gasoline.
The price of a gallon of gas has plummeted in Ohio to around $1 in part because Americans are self-isolating to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus. The average price dropped 35.1 cents over the past month, according to data from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service.
A BP station in Kentucky, for instance, posted a price below $1 a gallon, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Four other stations in Oklahoma City followed suit, along with another in Paris, Tennessee. The national average for gas on Thursday was $2.03, down from $2.41 at the beginning of March.
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Former Sen. Tom Coburn was a hero among fiscal conservatives and endless source of inspiration and courage. The Oklahoma Republican embodied financial stewardship, always showing great respect for the hard-earned tax dollars of working Americans.
Coburn, who died late Friday at 72, helped the American people better understand the size and scope of Washington’s spending problem by highlighting government waste.
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Hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made KN95 protective masks distributed to hospitals treating the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus in the Netherlands have proven to be unreliable and are being recalled, according to a report.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned 80 on Thursday. In the runup to that milestone, Pelosi launched impeachment proceedings against President Trump, who was duly acquitted. By way of follow-up, she decided to block the Senate’s coronavirus response package earlier this week, and on Monday offered a 1,200-page version of her own chock full of goodies meant to keep the Ocasio-Cortez-Tlaib-Omar squad in line.
And behind the scenes, Pelosi is pulling the strings on the Golden State.
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President Donald Trump on Sunday said the federal government is extending to April 30 its guidelines on social distancing and other measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 2,300 Americans. “The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end,” Trump…
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Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office received more than 500 complaints about price gouging in Minnesota last week alone.
The influx of complaints is part of Ellison’s effort to stop companies from hiking their prices on essential products during the coronavirus pandemic. Doing so is now illegal under an executive order issued by Gov. Tim Walz, which will remain in effect for the duration of Minnesota’s peacetime emergency.
Ellison’s office announced a statewide crackdown on businesses engaged in “pandemic profiteering” last week and encouraged Minnesotans to report instances of price gouging to his office.
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The House of Representatives on Friday passed the Senate’s $2 trillion coronavirus relief package and sent it to the president. What initially began as a bill designed to help the workers and families hurt by job loss or disruption caused by government measures to fight coronavirus morphed into an 880-page behemoth.
Here are the highlights: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said her husband is now recovering from home after testing positive for the coronavirus.
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COVID-19 has disrupted student life across the nation, closing schools and leading to major questions about what’s in store for high school juniors and seniors as they take their next steps toward college.
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U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill Friday to bolster the economy while he also used government powers to compel General Motors to manufacture ventilators to help COVID-19 patients as the United States became the first country in the world to surpass 100,000 coronavirus cases.
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Several unaccompanied alien children have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, making them the first minors in the agency’s custody to carry the disease.
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A coalition of immigrant rights groups is urging the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration’s attempt to undo Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
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President Trump has met and passed his supreme test. This has left his Democratic opponents desperately espousing gloom and demanding that the economic shut-down continue, according to frequent semi-high-brow Democratic ideologue and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, for up to seven months.
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President Donald Trump said Saturday he is considering travel restrictions and a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and other states hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
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The mayors of Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe and Tucson signed onto a letter demanding the U.S. Census push back the deadline to September 30, a month-and-a-half later than their already postponed date of Aug. 14.
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Numerous House Democrats criticized the Trump administration Friday for closing the U.S.-Mexico border amid the coronavirus pandemic and demanded a number of answers regarding the order.
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The Minnesota Legislature passed a $330 million omnibus bill this week to address the coronavirus pandemic, but some Republican lawmakers were frustrated with the unprecedented lack of transparency in the process.
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Gov. Tim Walz has issued a statewide shelter-in-place order for Minnesota to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The order took effect Friday at midnight and will remain in effect until 5:00 p.m. on April 10. As opposed to a complete lockdown, a shelter-in-place order still allows for many everyday activities and permits numerous industries to continuing working.
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With all we are facing today, with all the fear and outright transformation of our entire society, it might seem odd that a group of medical organizations would sign a letter opposing American independence in the production of medicines and medical equipment. You would think that in the crisis these groups would want to see America move toward a strong, independent position. But you would be wrong.
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