Free Republic

New standards proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education would banish lessons about World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Civil War, the American Revolution, communism, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Replacing those significant history topics will be "systemic racism," how democracy has "excluded certain groups," an "awareness" of "the LGBTQ+ community" and how the disenfranchisement of freed blacks during Reconstruction connects to "persistent discrimination and inequity" today. John Hinderaker at the Powerline blog explained that under Minnesota law, the state's Department of Education establishes standards for K-12 public schools in a number of categories. "The benchmarks for...

A former Minneapolis police officer who held his knee to the neck of George Floyd for several minutes will be tried separately from three other former officers accused in his death, according to scheduling orders filed Tuesday.Derek Chauvin will stand trial alone in March due to the coronavirus pandemic while the other three former officers will be tried together in the summer, according to the orders filed in Hennepin County District Court.

MINNEAPOLIS—Overseeing sober living homes for newly recovering drug addicts is difficult in the best of times. But the endless shutdowns have created conditions that are challenging for healthy people, let alone those who are fresh out of rehab, vulnerable, and still reeling. Matt Royce, 35, oversees seven sober-living homes in Minneapolis. All of his houses, each holding between 9 and 13 people, have been “pretty full the whole time.” No overdose deaths had occurred in his homes in almost three years, but last summer he lost two people, while another three were revived from overdoses with opioid-blocker Narcan. Depression has...

A Minnesota man was arrested after he allegedly pulled out a gun in a gym because members were not wearing masks while they worked out. Michael Florhaug, 64, reportedly went to an LA Fitness on Dec. 31 in Maplewood to monitor whether gym members were wearing face masks. He is not a member of the gym. He reportedly spoke to an employee at the front desk to alert them that members were not complying with mask mandates and spoke in an "aggressive and angry" tone. A manager then spoke with the man and said the gym does not employ enough...

Thursday afternoon, Minneapolis Police released body camera footage showing the fatal shooting of a man in south Minneapolis. The shooting happened at about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday at a Holiday gas station near East 36th Street and Cedar Avenue. Police said officers were engaged in a traffic stop with a felony suspect when gunfire was exchanged and the suspect was struck. While police have not yet identified the man, who died at the scene, a person who said he's the victim's father identified the man as 23-year-old Dolal Bayle Idd. The body camera video shows officers that were part of a...

A group of anti-cop protesters attacked Minneapolis police officers following an officer-involved shooting Wednesday night. Officers reportedly shot an armed man who fired at them first, Minneapolis police officials stated. A tweet by Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Kim Hyatt revealed that police came under attack from a group of protesters. The group of more than 100 protesters reportedly threw bricks and ice balls at the officers. The incident followed an officer-involved shooting that left a felony suspect dead. Protesters gathered Wednesday night after an officer-involved shooting earlier in the evening. Minneapolis police officers shot and killed a man in an exchange...

Minneapolis crowd forces police cruisers away following the killing of an armed felon MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis police said a man has died following an exchange of gunfire with a felony suspect during a traffic stop on Wednesday evening. MPD spokesperson John Elder told reporters that officers conducted the traffic stop around 6:15 p.m. near a gas station at 36th Street and Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis. Elder said gunshots were exchanged during the stop and the suspect was wounded. Police said medics on the scene pronounced the man dead. An adult female passenger at the scene was not injured. No officers...

<p>Police in Minneapolis shot and killed a man in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop on the city’s south side Wednesday night, authorities said. Department spokesman John Elder said the incident happened about 6:15 p.m. while officers were carrying out a traffic stop with a man suspected of a felony. Elder said the man was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel. A woman in the car was unhurt, Elder said.</p>

The Democrat governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, has implemented rules for sports that apparently would force children as young as five in hockey leagues to wear masks while playing. The Minnesota Department of Health, in its “COVID-19 Sports Practice Guidance for Youth and Adults,” writes: Starting Jan. 4, 2021, practices for organized youth and adult sports may resume. Practices cannot exceed pod sizes of more than 25. Spectators are not allowed; however, this does not prevent a parent, guardian, or support person from being present if necessary due to a participant’s age, disability, or medical condition. … Face coverings must...

t the time of this writing, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the United States. There is ample reason to hope that the vaccines now beginning to arrive will soon knock the coronavirus off that morbid perch. Nothing will bring back the loved ones we’ve lost to the pandemic, but at least we’ll be worrying about our old familiar foes — heart disease, for example, and cancer. And guns. Gun violence remains one of the more potent threats to U.S. public health. Firearms play a role in most of the murders committed in the United States each year,...

'Squad' bill not tied with other coronavirus aid, unlike bill introduced by Rep. Richard Neal ------ Members of the progressive "Squad" in the House on Thursday introduced their own bill to send $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans after President Trump this week demanded the $600 checks included in Congress' stimulus deal be increased to that number. The legislation was spearheaded by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Pramila Jayapal D-Wash. It came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House will meet on Monday to vote on stand-alone legislation for $2,000...

Two Minnesota lawmakers have called for an investigation of the state’s COVID-19 mortality data after finding that hundreds of recent deaths may have been misattributed to the virus. State senator Scott Jensen and state representative Mary Franson, both Republicans, released a video last week pressing officials to “audit the death certificates” in light of discrepancies uncovered by Franson. After being “given the raw files from [Minnesota Department of Health] on the death certificates,” Franson said, “my team and I” “listed several examples of records where COVID is the underlying condition and where COVID is only mentioned.” “We looked at 2,800...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) this week claimed that President Trump is “trying to burn this country down on his way out” of office by not supporting the new coronavirus stimulus and government funding bill passed by Congress on Monday. In an appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show Tuesday night, Klobuchar responded to the president’s remarks shared on Twitter earlier in the day, in which he called the $2.3 trillion package that includes stimulus checks of $600 to Americans “a disgrace,” adding that the payments should be increased to $2,000. The Minnesota senator and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate told Maddow...

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is inviting Minnesota bar owners to relocate to her state after a COVID-19 restrictions crackdown. “Come to South Dakota! We respect your rights. We won’t shut you down,” the Republican governor wrote Monday on Twitter. Noem, 49, is widely seen as a Republican rising star and is an outspoken advocate against lockdowns.

When the church doors open, only white people will be allowed inside. That’s the message the Asatru Folk Assembly in Murdock, Minnesota, is sending after being granted a conditional use permit to open a church there and practice its pre-Christian religion that originated in northern Europe. Despite a council vote officially approving the permit this month, residents are pushing back against the decision. “I think they thought they could fly under the radar in a small town like this, but we’d like to keep the pressure on them,” said Peter Kennedy, a longtime Murdock resident. “Racism is not welcome here."...

The government of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has announced it will be investing $40 million into home ownership opportunities exclusively for black people. ... our Government knows that much more needs to be done,” Minister Hussen said. Hussen, a Somali refugee, held his former Immigration Minister position during the surge of illegal border crossings from the United States, with most of the migrants crossing the border coming originally from Haiti. Last January, while still immigration Minister, Hussen and the Trudeau government announced plans to add more than one million immigrants to the Canadian population over a three-year period. Hussen...

Minnesota educators and families all learned last week that students of elementary age would be returning to their school campuses next month. It hardly seems a coincidence that the return date is set as January 19, just a day in advance of Joe Biden's presumed swearing in. With everything else COVID-related taking on a political bent, why shouldn't the sudden resumption of in-person learning be at all different? Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Students should be in schools. They should have been there since September. The abrupt announcement, or rather the response to it, is not...

Rep. Omar asked for privacy when her father died over the summer. And that seemed fair enough since she didn't politicize his death beyond a brief Islamic social media tribute. But Omar can't stop being her own usual horrible self for very long and so she decided to blame President Trump for her father's death. "My father and over 300,000 people have lost their lives because of dangerous criminal neglect by Trump and his administration," she told MSNBC. "I agree with Clyburn that it is not enough for us just to issue subpoenas, we have to investigate and prosecute...

Larvita McFarquhar is America embodied. An African-American single mom with four children to support, Larvita never asked for handouts. She opened Haven's Garden, in Lynd, Minnesota, a family-oriented restaurant with an attached gymnasium for kids to have a good time. She is the ultimate entrepreneur and family woman, but in Walz's Sodom and Gomorrah, she is now a criminal. She had the audacity to pursue the rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and kept her business open at great expense with full compliance with all the unscientific distancing restrictions. The twisted irony is that Walz is all in...

The Minnesota National Guard is preparing for a potentially massive and indefinite deployment early next year, during the high-profile trial of the four former Minneapolis police officers tied to the death of George Floyd, according to an internal plan obtained by 5 INVESTIGATES. The 12-page warning order called "Operation Safety Net" outlines in great detail how the guard will respond to anticipated civil unrest before, during and after the trial of Derek Chauvin, J Alexander Keung, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. The worst-case scenario calls for all available guard forces in the state to be activated for an indefinite period...