More than 4,005,000 people have died from the coronavirus worldwide

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More than 185 million cases have been reported.

The coronavirus has killed nearly 4 million people since it first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

New confirmed cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, remain high, and the world struggles with unequal vaccine rollouts and new threats posed by fast-spreading variants.

“The pandemic is a long way far from over,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned in May. “It will not be over anywhere until it’s over everywhere.” Continue reading.

Rep. Steve Elkins (HD49B) Update: July 9, 2021

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Dear Neighbors,

I hope you and your family had a safe and relaxing July 4th! The mild weather we’ve had has been perfect for getting out into our community and exploring all our state has to offer.

Session ends

On July 1st the Minnesota House of Representatives finished approving a new two-year state budget and adjourned for the year. The Minnesota House, controlled by Democrats, and the Minnesota Senate, controlled by Republicans, convened for a special session on June 14th to finalize a bipartisan budget agreement and avoid a state government shutdown on July 1st. 

As the only divided legislature in the nation we had an almost monumental task ahead of us this session. I am pleased that we managed to find a compromise which balances the budget, provides tax relief for the small businesses and workers who were hit hardest by the pandemic; and still invests significantly in education, healthcare, public safety and infrastructure. Our community has a ways to go before it returns completely to normal, but I am confident that we are well on our way with this final budget agreement. I look forward to seeing you all in the interim.

Continue reading “Rep. Steve Elkins (HD49B) Update: July 9, 2021”

‘It sickens me’: Longtime GOP voter disgusted by the ‘corrupt and ridiculous’ Republican antics in Arizona

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The Republican Accountability Project describes itself as an initiative tasked with “defending the accessibility, integrity, and competitiveness of American elections.” This Tuesday, the group uploaded a video to YouTube featuring “Julie” from Prescott, Arizona, who described herself as a former Republican and Army veteran who worked for the federal government for 34 years.

“I love my country. I loved being a Republican. I was a Republican for 40 years. I voted in every election as long as I was stateside during that 40 years,” Julie said. “And I believed and still believe in the principles and the ideals of the Republican Party, which are smaller government and lower taxes, balanced budgets and free trade and all those things.”

“I still believe in those, but as of this day, I am a Democrat because I could not stay in a party that was committed to one person, to his bidding and his appeasement. And I just couldn’t do it. So I left the party because they left me and I am now a Democrat,” she continued.  Continue reading.

Rep. Erin Koegel (HD37A) Update: July 9, 2021

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Dear Neighbors,

I hope you and your family had a safe and relaxing July 4th! The mild weather we’ve had has been perfect for getting out into our community and exploring all our state has to offer.

Session ends

The House finally adjourned for the session early on July 1st. We negotiated until the very end to make sure we could pass the best final budget for all of Minnesota. Due to the nature of our divided legislature we had to make compromises so we weren’t able to get everything through that our communities need. However, the House DFL managed to accomplish a great deal this year while preventing many bad provisions from passing, like cuts to our schools.

Here are brief summaries on what was included in each bill:

Continue reading “Rep. Erin Koegel (HD37A) Update: July 9, 2021”

Trump briefly derails his own press conference as he bizarrely rambles about the word ‘nuclear’

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During a press conference this Wednesday in Bedminster, New Jersey, former President Donald Trump announced that he is filing a class action lawsuit against tech giants Facebook and Twitter, along with their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, over being banned from their platforms.

“We’re demanding an end to the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing, a stop to the blacklisting, vanishing and canceling,” Trump said, adding that “we are asking the court to impose punitive damages.”

Trump said the suit points out “so many violations of our Constitution” that were allegedly perpetrated by the tech companies, and referenced the fact that social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook removed posts that questioned the origins of the novel coronavirus, only to later relent when the question became more mainstream. Continue reading.

Scoop: Tucker Carlson sought Putin interview at time of spying claim

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Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him, sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios. 

Why it matters: Those sources said U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview. Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach — and that’s the basis of his extraordinary accusation, followed by a rare public denial by the NSA that he had been targeted.

  • Axios has not confirmed whether any communications from Carlson have been intercepted, and if so, why. Continue reading.

Trump golf club agrees to huge fine for overserving alcohol to customer who caused fatal crash

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One of president Donald Trump’s golf courses has agreed to pay a $400,000 fine for overserving alcohol to a customer who later caused a fatal car crash in 2015, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

However, in a victory for Trump’s company, the state of New Jersey will allow the club in Colts Neck, N.J. — as well as two others owned by the former president in the state — to keep their liquor licenses. 

The club pleaded no contest to administrative charges filed by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverages in 2019, alleging that it served alcohol to customer Andrew Halder when he was already intoxicated. On Aug. 30, 2015, Holder flipped his car four miles from the club, killing his father, who was ejected from the vehicle. Halder later pleaded guilty to vehicle manslaughter and was sentenced to three years of probation. Continue reading.

From corporate America to conspiracy theory promotion: How a Minnesota man made a career out of anonymously amplifying dark plots

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STILLWATER, Minn. — Sean G. Turnbull displays many of the hallmarks of a successful upper-middle-class family man, a former film producer and marketing manager for one of the country’s largest retail corporations who lives in a well-appointed home in this Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb. Former colleagues describe him as smart, affable and family-oriented.

But for more than a decade, the 53-year-old has also pursued a less conventional path: anonymously promoting conspiracy theories about dark forces in American politics on websites and social media accounts in a business he runs out of his home. His audience numbers are respectable and his ad base is resilient, according to corporate records and interviews.

Turnbull has identified himself online for 11 years only as “Sean from SGT Reports.” He has amassed a substantial following while producing videos and podcasts claiming that the 9/11 attacks were a “false flag” event, that a “Zionist banker international cabal” is plotting to destroy Western nations, that coronavirusvaccines are an “experimental, biological kill shot” and that the 2020 election was “rigged” against President Donald Trump, according to a Washington Post review. Continue reading.

Psaki dismisses MTG over Nazi comparison

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“We don’t take any of our health and medical advice from Marjorie Taylor Greene,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

Press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the White House would not “take any of our health and medical advice from Marjorie Taylor Greene,” a response to the Georgia lawmaker’s remark a day earlier comparing the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign to Nazis.

Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday called efforts by the Biden White House to vaccinate more Americans against Covid-19 a “political tool” and likened the administration’s on-the-ground push to a Nazi paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung, often referred to as “brownshirts.”

“People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” Greene wrote in response to a video of President Joe Biden describing a plan to offer vaccines door-to-door. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.” Continue reading.