Minnesota Business Owners Call for Reopening Economy During Press Conference at the Capitol

Several small business owners called for reopening the economy during a Monday press conference at the Minnesota Capitol.

“We desire to honor our God, and our government and governor. We think we can do both. But we have no idea how to get a plan approved, to whom to submit it, or if anyone needs to or will consider it. The church needs to gather, we are more the church when we gather than at any other time. Please, Gov. Walz, help us by providing clear ways for plans to be approved and for us to meet,” said Rory Martin, pastor of the Liberty Baptist Church in Eden Prairie.

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MTSU Intends to Resume On-Campus, In-Person Classes this Fall

Middle Tennessee State University officials have announced they will move forward with COVID-19 preparations with a goal of resuming on-campus, in-person classes and operations in August for the Fall 2020 semester.

MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee announced the news in a press release late last week.

“The task before me as president … is to chart a course that will allow us to welcome our new incoming freshman class, transfers and returning students, as well as faculty and staff, to a safe and healthy campus for the new academic year,” McPhee said.

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Commentary: That Americans Were Poorly Educated Before Mass Government Schooling Is a Myth

Parents the world over are dealing with massive adjustments in their children’s education that they could not have anticipated just three months ago. To one degree or another, pandemic-induced school closures are creating the “mass homeschooling” that FEE’s senior education fellow Kerry McDonald predicted two months ago. Who knows, with millions of youngsters absent from government school classrooms, maybe education will become as good as it was before the government ever got involved.

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SBA: 2.2 Million Loans, $175B Issued So Far in 2nd Round of Paycheck Protection Program

The Small Business Administration and the U.S. Treasury revealed Sunday that the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program has issued 2.2 million loans, totaling $175 billion.

PPP loans are forgivable loans for small businesses to offset some of the losses experienced by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The loans are meant to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll.

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University of Texas Under Investigation for Possible Ties to Wuhan Biolab

The Department of Education sent a letter to the University of Texas requesting all records pertaining to its dealings with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel sent a letter to University of Texas Chancellor James Milliken on April 24 requesting records related to the University’s dealings with Chinese state-owned companies and universities.

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ICE Detainees Refuse Coronavirus Tests, Rush Officers and Trash Detention Center

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees in Massachusetts rushed officers, barricaded themselves inside the facility and caused more than $25,000 worth of damage after being told they would be transferred to a medical wing of the facility and tested for coronavirus, authorities said.

Roughly 10 inmates at an immigration detention center in Dartmouth, Massachusetts reported symptoms of COVID-19 to medical personnel, according to a press release from the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office.

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Commentary: Be a Daniel and Take Charge of Your Own Lives

by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch   There is an old Puritan hymn (based on the apocalyptic Old Testament book of Daniel for the less-than-biblically literate) we grew up singing. Perhaps you recall it: Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone; Dare to have a purpose firm, Dare to make it known.  In a famous essay written just after World War II, George Orwell, in one of his great punchlines, suggested, “to bring this hymn up to date one would have to add a ‘Don’t’ at the beginning of each line.” He was talking about the timidity of modern people, thinkers and doers alike, in relatively safe circumstances, to be quiet about dishonesty. Doesn’t intelligence require truth-telling? But then in the first sentence of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell himself wrote satirically: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” In our present-day Chinese-induced viral pandemic, which started with colossal lies from the East, perhaps it is time to get to the essential truth. Our brilliant global elites over a number of decades made a dangerous Faustian bargain with the Communist Party of Beijing. The deal was supposed to bring them into the capitalist fold and yield greater international…

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Americans Are Ending the Lockdown, Despite Orders from Elected Officials

by Chris White   Americans are venturing out more to fast food restaurants, gas stations and public places even as health experts and government officials demand extending economic lockdowns, location data show. People are back to visiting gas stations and fast food restaurants at pre-COVID-19 levels, according to location data collected by Foursquare, a local search-and-discovery app that helps users discover places near them to visit and eat. Foursquare noted the changes in how people are moving in a blog post Thursday showing that people are apparently feeling free to travel about. Americans are changing their behavior even as governors and mayors across the country continue extending stay-at-home orders to prevent an uptick in coronavirus deaths. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for one, extended her state’s lockdown until May 28 and increased her executive powers as protesters stormed Michigan’s state capitol amid a flurry of demonstrations. Michigan has seen more than 4,000 people die from coronavirus, or COVID-19, which originated in Wuhan, China before going global, killing more than 160,000 people worldwide. Meanwhile, people are getting used to the new situation and even bucking some guidelines, location data show. Gas stations are down only 6% nationally as of April 24, compared to 8-11% weeks prior, Foursquare noted.…

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Minnesota Congressional Candidate Kendall Qualls Launches a Plan to ‘End America’s Reliance on Chinese Manufactured Pharmaceuticals’

Congressional candidate Kendall Qualls just launched a plan to end the production of important pharmaceuticals in China. Qualls is running in the 3rd Congressional District and – assuming Qualls wins the nomination – will run as a Republican come November against incumbent Democrat Dean Phillips.

The issue of America’s reliance on pharmaceuticals and personal protective equipment (PPE) made in China has been a growing concern. America relies on Chinese production for the vast majority of its antibiotics, and China has cut supplies of PPE to the United States during the coronavirus crisis. Not only that, China lied to the world about the coronavirus when it was first spreading in Wuhan, China, wasting precious time that the world had to respond to the virus. China’s ability to exert control over the World Health Organization (WHO) – to the point where the WHO helped China shape its false narrative about the virus and its origins – has only added to these concerns.

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Taskforce Will Help Develop Best Practices to Reopen Ohio’s Restaurants, Barbershops, Salons

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he is forming a pair of advisory groups tasked with developing best practices for reopening dine-in restaurants, barbershops and salons.

The group will develop recommendations to protect the health of employees and customers as businesses reopen. It will be comprised of relevant business associations, Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford; Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina; House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes, D-Akron; and Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko, D-Richmond Heights.

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80 Percent of Minnesota Craft Breweries Say They’ll Be Closed in Six Months if Shutdown Continues

A new report indicates that the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out more than half of Minnesota’s craft breweries.

“With the closure period extended, breweries continue to see a decline in revenues despite their ability to sell curbside and delivery. The biggest hurdles to continued revenue are a lack of off-sale options as well as a drop in orders from distributors and retailers given the inability for bars and restaurants to serve draught beer,” states an April 26 report from the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild.

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House Republicans Will Block Major Legislation Until Walz Ends Peacetime Emergency

The leader of the Minnesota House Republicans said Saturday that his caucus will block a bonding bill from being passed while the governor’s emergency powers remain in effect.

Republicans have made three unsuccessful attempts to end Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency declared in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The emergency declaration expires May 13 but can be extended for an additional 30 days. Walz has already extended the peacetime emergency once.

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Metro Nashville Coronavirus Task Force Chair’s Misleading COVID-19 Claim: Failed to Note ‘Surrounding Counties With More Cases Than Davidson County’ Included More Than 1,000 Asymptomatic Trousdale County Prisoners

On Friday a Metro Nashville Davidson County Coronavirus Task Force official said that surrounding counties had a higher number of COVID-19 cases than Davidson County itself had — but it appears that claim is highly misleading.

“We now have 2,832 confirmed cases. That’s an increase of 163 cases in the last 24 hours. There are an additional 3,227 cases in the surrounding counties. That’s an increase of 955 in one day. Now, for the first time, the surrounding counties have more cases than Davidson County, ” Metro Coronavirus Task Force Chair Alex Jahangir said at Friday’s press conference with Mayor John Cooper.

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Commentary: ‘Flattening the Curve,’ and Other Lies

To our betters in the American ruling class:

Just a note to say thanks for giving us a much-needed lesson in the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who were not shy at all in admonishing us to be wary of surrendering the kind of government power you people have wielded, supposedly for our benefit, since the Chinese Communist virus hit our shores at some indeterminate point in the recent, or maybe not-so-recent, past.

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Commentary: No, Antarctica Is Not ‘Rapidly Melting’

The BBC, which in September 2018 announced its decision to censor any reports by climate skeptics, continues to propagandize for climate alarmists. On March 12, BBC “Science Correspondent” Jonathan Amos published an alarming article entitled “Greenland and Antarctica ice loss accelerating.” According to Amos, “Earth’s great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, are now losing mass six times faster than they were in the 1990s thanks to warming conditions.”

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Owner Carey Bringle of the Peg Leg Porker BBQ Restaurant in Downtown Nashville Joins Leahy to Discuss His Recent Letter to Mayor Cooper

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.– Leahy was joined on the newsmakers line by Carey Bringle who is the local business owner of the popular BBQ restaurant located in The Gulch of downtown Nashville the Peg Leg Porker.

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Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

  An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday. Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET. The show’s broadcast partners are America’s Voice News, the John Fredericks Radio Network, Salem Media Group, and Newsmax TV and the podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and Google Play. You can watch past episodes here. Episode 155: 10 a.m. ET livestream link: https://youtu.be/89rLtqoozzc Episode 156: 11 a.m. ET livestream link: https://youtu.be/IaU5ZALno1s Previously, Bannon hosted a series of three, two-hour long special programs entitled Descent into Hell: The Chinese People Confront the CCP. The groundbreaking specials aired live on the John Fredericks Radio Network, America’s Voice Network, Dish TV Channel 219, The Epoch Times, ND TV, GTV and GNews in Mandarin. For more information, visit www.pandemic.warroom.org and @WarRoomPandemic.    …

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