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Let court decide on vaccine mandate

The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals put a hold on the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate ordering businesses with over 100 employees to have them vaccinated, or get weekly testing. The mandate was to take effect Jan. 4, but the appeals court paused the rule, saying it raised “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” The government argued on Monday why the stay shouldn’t be made permanent. The government claims it is “a matter of life and death,” that delaying vaccination mandate will lead to thousands more people getting sick or dying of COVID. That may be ...

Hope for moderates?

Politics in America has become so polarized in recent years that one wonders if there an effective bipartisan government is going the way of the passenger train and 25-cent a gallon gasoline. Can we have a government where representatives debate, listen to each other, come up with compromises, or are we fated to have more of what we have today, where politicians get elected by appealing to the most radical wings of their parties, where moderate members who don’t toe the party’s new line are jettisoned? It is true for both Democrats and Republicans. Donald Trump holds such command ...

U free tuition plan bold move for equity

The University of Minnesota has taken an important and bold step toward creating equity in education by offering free or discounted tuition to many of its Native American students. Much of Minnesota belonged to Native Americans before the white settlement of the 1800s. Treaties to trade land for goods and food between Native Americans and white settlers, such as the Traverse des Sioux Treaty, were fraudulent and deceptive. At one time, federal law required Native Americans be vanquished from the state. While white society can never pay reparations equal to harm done to Native ...

Status quo won’t cut it for MPD

The Minneapolis Police Department remains in place following Tuesday’s Minneapolis city elections. A ballot question to dissolve the MPD and replace it with a Department of Public Safety (whatever that would look like) was soundly defeated by Minneapolis voters who, apparently, prefer the devil they know than the one they don’t know. The ballot question was vague and contained no plans for how the city would protect its citizens, and it deserved to go down. But the election should not be seen as a vote of confidence for the Minneapolis Police Department. The department is in need ...

Drug price deal important for seniors

As the Democrats in Congress worked on the final draft of the $1.75 trillion domestic policy bill, one of the parts that fell by the wayside was legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Fortunately, a deal announced Tuesday brings it back into the bill, smaller perhaps than before, but still an important win for the nation’s seniors . According to Sen. Chuck Schumer, for the first time Medicare will be able to negotiate prescription drug prices in its Part B and Part D programs. There is also a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs for those older Americans with the Part D ...

Making a subpoena mean something

The challenge in polarized political times is to keep your eye on democratic institutions and their proper authority. That’s the reason to applaud the nine House Republicans who voted last week to hold Steve Bannon, the sometime Donald Trump counselor, in contempt for defying a Congressional subpoena. The subpoena was issued by the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and there are no doubt some partisan motives at play. Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes the committee will find evidence to back up her claim that the riot was part of a larger plot to stage an ...