Tag: minnesota

Trans ‘sanctuary states’ Minnesota, California to defy Trump order barring biological males from women’s sports

In the wake of Trump signing an executive order banning biological males from women’s sports in schools that receive federal funding, multiple states are vowing to defy this order and continue allowing such athletes to compete against women.

The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL), which oversees interscholastic sports in the state, said in a statement to schools, “In Minnesota, participation and eligibility of transgender student-athletes is determined by state law, through the Minnesota Human Rights Act and the Minnesota Constitution. The Minnesota State High School League, similar to other youth sports organizations, is subject to state anti-discrimination laws, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity,” per Fox 9.

“Therefore, students in Minnesota are allowed to participate consistent with their gender identity. League Member Schools have done excellent work in respecting students and their individual situations as they determine their participation and eligibility within interscholastic sports,” the organization added. “The League will continue to review the existing state laws alongside the new Presidential Executive Order and its timeline, processes for states, and requirements that are included.”

Over in California, the California Interscholastic Federation said that the organization “provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law,” with the state’s education code saying that students can participate in sports based on their self-proclaimed gender identity, per the San Francisco Chronicle.

The group said that it would continue to follow state law despite an executive order from Trump that opposes the state’s education code. Washington State is also, and stated, “We are working closely with the Attorney General’s Office to understand the next steps for our state and for our school districts in response to this unlawful order.”

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Refugee awarded by Tim Walz pleads guilty to role in giant COVID-related fraud scheme

A refugee in Minnesota who once received an award from the Walz administration has pled guilty for participating in the largest known COVID-related scam in America.

On Friday, 43-year-old Ayan Farah Abukar, who lives just outside Minneapolis in Savage, Minnesota, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the Feeding Our Future case.

Following the COVID pandemic, the Minnesota Department of Education began allocating federal resources from the Federal Child Nutrition Program to the organizations Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care, with the expectation that the organizations would use the money to help Minnesota children in need, the Sahan Journal explained.

Abukar became involved through the organization she founded, Action for East African People. As executive director, Abukar partnered Action for East African People with Feeding Our Future and another group identified only as Sponsor A in the DOJ press release.

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14 current and former Minneapolis cops say Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell LIED during trial of Derek Chauvin

A group of 14 current and former Minneapolis Police Department Officers signed sworn declarations attesting to their belief that Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell committed perjury during the trial of Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Blackwell testified that the method of restraint used by Chauvin was not part of MPD officer training. Blackwell had said at the trial “that’s not what we train.”

However, others say that the “knee-on-neck restaint Chauvin employed was trained under the maximal-restraint technique (MRT), a restraint the MPD taught and allowed until 2023.” The officers who signed the declarations “swore that this training was well known—indeed, common knowledge—and omnipresent,” Alpha News said.

Reporting on the declarations, Alpha News said that these 14 statements “were among dozens of declarations submitted by lawyers representing Alpha News in a defamation lawsuit brought by Blackwell last October against Alpha News, Alpha News reporter Liz Collin, producer J.C. Chaix, and a publishing company.” Blackwell brought suit against Alpha News in response to their documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis,” which indicated that Blackwell had not been truthful in her testimony.

In a lengthy motion asking for the case to be dismissed with prejudice, attorney for Alpha News Chris Madel wrote “With this motion, 33 former MPD officers who served with Blackwell, and one who currently serves with her, have sworn that MPD trained this restraint as part of the ‘maximal-restraint technique’ (‘MRT’) and otherwise. Indeed, 14 of these officers have sworn—under oath—their belief that Blackwell perjured herself.”

“Blackwell remarkably claims that Collin and Chaix defamed her when they opined that it ‘seemed’ like Blackwell lied. In reality, this opinion was far more generous than necessary. It is a fact,” the motion further reads.

Floyd died in police custody after he was arrested in a parking lot on that fateful day in May 2020. Chauvin restrained him and Floyd later died. His death was deemed by the court of public opinion to be a racially motivated murder and within two days of his death, as cell phone footage of the arrest circulated online, riots began in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the country.

Floyd’s death was about 10 weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic which inspired local government leaders to insist on lockdowns, business, school and church closures. The riots began at the tail end of a spring as weather turned warm after the winter months. In many areas, lockdowns were still imposed except in the case of protests. Dozens of doctors signed a letter claiming that racism was a bigger health threat than Covid and that those who were out protesting were in the right. Anyone who wasn’t protesting for racial justice was told to stay home and churches, schools, and businesses remained closed.

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Minnesota Marijuana Regulators Abruptly Cancel Social Equity License Lottery Amid Litigation, Pivoting Toward Wider Lottery Next Year

The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) Wednesday announced it was canceling the special license lottery for social equity applicants and will instead move toward a lottery next year for both social equity and general applicants.

While no new date is set for license lotteries, a chart released by OCM suggests it will now be in May or June, months later than previous estimates of first quarter of 2025.

The office said it was responding to a Ramsey County court order late last month that put the lottery on hold to give disappointed applicants who were denied entry into that first lottery time to make their case to the court of appeals. At least eight legal actions have been filed with the appeals court seeking review of their cases. A ninth comes from successful lottery entrants who ask the court to let the lottery proceed soon.

Among those denied who have asked for relief from the appeals court is a group that OCM asserts is violating laws against multiple applicants for licenses and so-called straw applicants, that is applicants who are fronts for others.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat this,” said OCM interim director Charlene Briner during a Wednesday press conference. “The 648 social equity applicants who qualified and were expecting to participate in the lottery are understandably disappointed.”

“To avoid further delay and risks to social equity, OCM is ending the license preapproval process and moving forward with opening a standard licensing cycle for both social equity and general applicants beginning early next year,” the agency said in a press release. “This step allows the office to prevent delays to the market launch due to ongoing litigation and retain some benefit to social equity by allowing applicants for license preapprovals to move into this new round.

“Leaving these applicants in limbo is not an acceptable outcome and would diminish their opportunity to succeed in the market,” it said.

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Bomb Threat at Murdered CEO’s House Hours After Assassination

Twelve hours after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated in New York City, someone made a bomb threat targeting his Minnesota house.

According to documents from the Maple Grove Police Dept., obtained by TMZ, a City Attorney from Maple Grove received an emailed threat, claiming there was a pipe bomb at Brian’s home.

The threat came in Wednesday just after 7 PM. The bomb squad was dispatched and they did not find any explosive device.

The bomb squad also went to Brian’s estranged wife Paulette “Pauley” Thompson‘s house a few blocks away. Brian and Paulette have been separated for years, but live close to each other — one of their 2 children is still a minor.

Security at Paulette’s home told police … a female in a Jeep Renegade put something in her mailbox, about 15 minutes before officers arrived at the scene.

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Minnesota Election Judge Charged with Letting Unregistered People Vote in 2024 Election

A Minnesota election judge has been hit with felony charges for allegedly allowing several people who were not registered to vote to cast ballots in the 2024 election, officials said.

Hubbard County Auditor Kay Rave could not locate any completed registration forms among the ballots she received from Badoura Township head election judge Timothy Michael Scouton, a criminal complaint obtained by NBC Chicago stated.

Scouton, 64, had been overseeing the election process in the small township of just about 100 people, which is about 170 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

Officials began investigating after receiving the complaint from Rave, and then another judge who worked with Scouton on election night told a Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office investigator that Scouton directed voters not to fill out the Minnesota Voter Registration Application, the complaint said.

Yet another election judge told investigators that he was not aware that the Minnesota Voter Registration Application forms even existed, and that Scouton told him that new voters were only supposed to sign the back of a book, according to the criminal complaint. 

This incorrect statement allegedly led to 11 people voting illegally, officials said.

Investigators found out that Scouton’s son was also working as an election judge, and was supposed to be responsible for registering applications, FOX9 reported.

Scouton was arrested by the sheriff’s department last week and charged with one count of accepting the vote of an unregistered voter and one count of neglect of duty by an election official — both felonies.

Scouton “declined to provide a statement” upon his arrest, according to the complaint. 

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Minnesota dad who ranted against Trump election gunned down wife, ex-girlfriend and his 2 kids in murder-suicide

A Minnesota dad who ranted against President-elect Donald Trump online shot and killed his wife, ex-partner, and his two sons before turning the gun on himself, according to authorities.

The shooter, 46-year-old Anthony Nephew, had a “pattern of mental health issues,” Duluth Police Chief Mike Ceynowa said on Friday — one day after authorities found five people dead inside two homes in the city.

Authorities found Anthony Nephew’s ex-partner Erin Abramson, 47, and their son, Jacob Nephew, 15, dead from apparent gunshot wounds inside their home Thursday afternoon, police said.

After identifying Anthony Nephew as a suspect, police found his 45-year-old wife, Kathryn Nephew, and their 7-year-old son, Oliver Nephew, dead from gunshot wounds inside their family home close by.

Anthony Nephew was also found dead inside the home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Before his rampage, Anthony Nephew had been sharing left-wing and anti-Trump posts on his Facebook account.

“My mental health and the world can no longer peacefully coexist, and a lot of the reason is religion,” Anthony Nephew wrote in July.

“I am terrified of religious zealots inflicting their misguided beliefs on me and my family. I have intrusive thoughts of being burned at the stake as a witch, or crucified on a burning cross.

“Having people actually believe that I or my child are Satan or, the anti-Christ or whatever their favorite color of boogie man they are afraid are this week.”

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Governments must tax or ban Bitcoin to maintain deficits: Minneapolis Fed

A recent research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that assets such as Bitcoin should be taxed or banned to help governments maintain deficits. 

In an economy where the government tries to maintain permanent deficits using nominal debt, the presence of Bitcoin BTC$66,910 creates problems for policy implementation, the Minneapolis Fed said in a working paper released on Oct. 17.

Bitcoin introduces a “balanced budget trap,” an alternative state where the government is forced to balance its budget, the Fed wrote. 

The researchers used Bitcoin as an example of a fixed-supply “private-sector security” without “real resource claims.” They concluded that it should be banned or taxed to solve the conundrum. 

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Worst COVID Fund Fraud in U.S. Occurred in Minnesota’s Somali Community Under Gov. Tim Walz

The nation is learning that the single largest COVID relief-fund fraud in the country occurred in the Somali community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, under Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) tenure, and recently even CNN had to sit up and take notice.

On Friday, CNN reported about the massive amount of theft of government funding that has been going on in Minnesota under Walz. The network noted that non-partisan state auditors have published no less than 16 reports on the massive amounts of fraud occurring in the Gopher State during Walz’s governorship.

But the worst incident in Minnesota also stands as the most expensive fraud concerning COVID funding in the entire nation where 47 Somali immigrants have been charged with stealing $250 million in federal COVID funding.

Under Walz’s leadership, a fake Somali charity called “Feeding Our Future” was found to have defrauded the government of millions of dollars, money that was set aside to help children and families during the COVID crisis, but money that was stolen to pay for high-priced real estate, cars, clothes, travel expenses, and luxuries for the members of the Somali community that managed the funds.

Gov. Walz claimed that they caught the fraud “early” and patted himself on the back for working to clean up the mess and prosecute the fraudsters. But CNN noted that Walz’s own Dept. of Education left the door wide open for this type of fraud.

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Minnesota food pantry bans white people, says ‘resources’ are only for ‘Black & Indigenous Folx’

A Minneapolis, Minn. food pantry is only giving food to “Black and Indigenous” people, those who are hungry and white are told not to take the “resources” available. Mykelo ‘Keiko’ Jackson, who runs the food pantry, was awarded a Minnesota State grant to open the food pantry.

The sign on the pantry reads: “The resources found in here are intended for Black & Indigenous Folx. Please refrain from taking anything if you’re not.” An August post emphasized the mission, saying “With the help of our community and MDH: African American Health Office we’ve distributed 2,249 lbs of food to Black & Indigenous Folx in North Minneapolis. This is what liberation looks like on a small scale. We’d like to say THANK YOU to everyone that has supported this initiative, donated their time or resources to be in aid of commUNITY.”

Jackson’s policy forced the food pantry to close down and open in another location. After opening on July 27 on the north side of the city, near the Sanctuary Covenant Church, Jackson let it be known that white people were not welcome to the food for the poor. Local chaplain Howard Dotson, 54, said that he went to the food pantry but was denied entry due to his race. He’s white.

“This is not building community, it’s destroying it,” he told Alpha News. “I went over there and confronted her. I told her that I saw the sign and I asked if she really thought she could take grant money from the state and discriminate against poor white people.” He filed a complaint, which Jackson said was an exhibition of his “white privilege.”

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