Category: Latest News

Today at 5:30pm: Majority Leader Winkler meets with violence prevention group EMERGE

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SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA. — House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler is meeting with violence prevention groups to discuss a new state grant program dedicated to innovation in community safety. The new state budget appropriates $800,000 for organizations that provide youth, young adult, and family anti-violence outreach programs; offer community healing and wellness; and help address mental health needs.

Members of the press are welcome to attend and should RSVP to matt.roznowski@house.mn to receive details about location of meetings. 

What: Meeting to discuss new grant program for innovation in community safety
When: Wednesday, July 28 at 5:30pm 
Who:

  • Majority Leader Ryan Winkler
  • Members of EMERGE

Wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities

As political battles continue around the nation over voting access and restrictions, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that a majority of Americans (57%) say voting is “a fundamental right for every adult U.S. citizen and should not be restricted in any way.”

Fewer (42%) express the view that “voting is a privilege that comes with responsibilities and can be limited if adult U.S. citizens don’t meet some requirements.”

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly say voting is a fundamental right that should not be restricted in any way – 78% hold this view, while fewer than a quarter (21%) say it is a privilege. Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican leaners say voting is a privilege that can be limited if requirements are not met, compared with about half as many (32%) who say it is a fundamental right. Continue reading.

COVID-19 could cause male infertility and sexual dysfunction – but vaccines do not

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Contrary to myths circulating on social media, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause erectile dysfunction and male infertility.

What is true: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, poses a risk for both disorders.

Until now, little research has been done on how the virus or the vaccines affect the male reproductive system. But recent investigations by physicians and researchers here at the University of Miami have shed new light on these questions. Continue reading.

Carl Bernstein called Trump ‘our own American war criminal’ over COVID-19 deaths and encouraging the Capitol riot

The Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has accused former President Donald Trump of being “our own American war criminal” over his actions during the coronavirus pandemic and the January 6 Capitol riot.

Speaking with CNN’s Brian Stelter, Bernstein said: “I think we need to calmly step back and maybe look at Trump in a different context: He is America’s, our own American war criminal. Of a kind we’ve never experienced before.”

Stelter interrupted Bernstein, saying: “You just said war criminal. What do you mean war criminal?” Continue reading.

Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

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Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

Disgraced Trump administration figure Michael Flynn boasted on Sunday that maybe he’ll “find somebody” in Washington with a new assault-style rifle given to him at California church.

Flynn, the former national security adviser pardoned by Donald Trump for lying about his Russia contacts, made the jaw-dropping remark after he was gifted the gun at the “Church of Glad Tidings” in Yuba City, California. Church members roared with laughter and clapped when Flynn suggested hunting humans in the nation’s capital.

“We were trying to come up with a rifle that we thought was appropriate for a general, so we went with an old-school Woodland camouflage … one of our top-quality guns,” said Jason Parker, who works for a gun company. The weapon he presented to Flynn appeared to be a Woodland Camo AR-15. Continue reading.

Today at noon: Frontline Worker Pay Working Group meets for the first time

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Saint Paul, Minnesota — Members of the Frontline Worker Pay Working Group are scheduled to meet for the first time today at 12pm. An agenda and pre-submitted public testimony are available here. Live video will be available here. 

The working group was established during the June 2021 special session to make recommendations to the Legislature on how to disburse $250,000,000 in direct financial support to frontline workers. In developing its recommendation, the working group must consider factors including a frontline worker’s increased financial burden and increased risk of virus exposure due to the nature of their work.

The working group must submit proposed legislative language implementing its recommendations to the Governor, Speaker of the House, and Senate Majority Leader by September 6, 2021. The Legislature would need to meet in a special session to pass and send a bill to Gov. Walz. 

What: Frontline Worker Pay Working Group holds its first public hearing
When: Wednesday, July 28 at 12pm
Where: Minnesota Capitol, Room G-3
Who: Members of the Frontline Worker Pay Working Group

GOP sees debt ceiling as its leverage against Biden

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Senate Republicans plan to demand big spending reforms in exchange for their support of legislation to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, seeking leverage to rein in President Biden’s plan to pump trillions of dollars into the economy.

GOP senators are reviving demands they made in 2011, the last time there was a political standoff over raising the debt limit, but it’s a risky move.

The 2011 debt limit was solved at the last moment, and a subsequent downgrading of the nation’s creditworthiness by S&P triggered a stock market crash. Continue reading.

Biden, pulling combat forces from Iraq, seeks to end the post-9/11 era

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President Biden on Monday announced that the United States will wrap up its combat mission in Iraq by year’s end, his latest effort to push American diplomacy past a post-9/11 worldview and shift its focus away from terrorism and the Middle East and toward threats like China and cyberwarfare.

Welcoming Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to the Oval Office, Biden promised ongoing support for democracy in Iraq, including elections this fall, but he said the military mission there will change.

“Our role in Iraq will be . . . just to be available to continue to train, to assist and to help, and to deal with ISIS as it arrives, but we’re not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission,” Biden said, referring to the Islamic State terrorist group. Continue reading.

Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Air Force veteran a ‘traitor’

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attacked an Air Force Lt. Colonel on Sunday, telling him that he’s a “traitor.”

She made the comment after Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) agreed to join the Jan. 6 special select committee as one of the Republicans willing to examine the attack on the U.S. Capitol in a bipartisan way. Greene didn’t feel that Kinzinger was right for the job because he already voted to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6 attack. 

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) attempted to put two members on the committee who are the biggest firebrands in the caucus. One of the two may also have been involved in the attack. Continue reading.

Political Spending At Trump Properties Plunges Sharply

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The number of federal political committees that have spent money in the first half of 2021 at Trump Organization properties has dropped dramatically from the same period two years ago, Federal Election Commission filings show. Those continuing to spend: a smaller circle of loyal supporters of former President Donald Trump and candidates jockeying for his favor in contested Republican primaries.

During the first six months of 2021, 27 federal committees have reported spending $348,000 at Trump Organization properties, with the Republican National Committee accounting for more than half the total. That’s a steep decline from the 177 committees that did so during the 2019-2020 election cycle or the 78 committees that spent more than $1.6 million at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump International Hotel in Washington and other company sites in the first half of 2019, filings show.

Of course, that spending came in the run-up to a presidential election in which Trump was the incumbent. The biggest spenders in 2019 were the RNC and Trump’s own political committees raising money to support his campaign. Continue reading,