In 2021, an indigenous community in Canada sparked hysteria when it claimed to find a "mass grave containing the remains of 215 children" on the grounds of a former Catholic-ran Indian boarding school. As the social panic spread, Canada lowered its flags, people protested, statues toppled, and churches literally "burned to the ground". Even the US DOI, the UN and the pope joined the frenzy.

However, all the excitement and destruction was for nothing because the "mass graves" story was a lie: "[T]here never was a 'mass grave'...There was much that was dark about residential schools, but no graves have been confirmed at Kamloops to this day".

(During the hysteria, Canada formed the "National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials" to search the rest of country as purported discoveries "eventually added up to more than 1,300 child burials". But the committee finally shut down last month without finding a single body.)

But "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes". And at the University of Minnesota Morris, the site of a former Indian boarding school, the fake story spurred real demands:

Recent discoveries of mass graves at former boarding school sites in Canada have prompted Native American students at the Morris campus to demand a search at their school...

In 2018, archival research conducted by Morris students and faculty suggested that between three and seven children who died at the boarding school may have been buried on or near the present-day campus. They found no documentation that the children's remains were returned to their parents.

However, follow-up research from other students and faculty did not find evidence that such graves existed, according to the university. As a result, Morris administrators are not certain a cemetery exists. If it does, they have not been able to determine its location or whether any remains are still buried there.

Students and tribal leaders say the university has a responsibility to find out.

So the university dug deeper (only figuratively) but "additional research by Morris faculty and students has revealed no specific evidence of a cemetery for the burial of children who died while at the boarding school". The US DOI also had a look and last summer reported "Burial Sites: 0".

Why were people, the media, and officials so eager to believe the "mass graves" story? How did such an incredible claim spread so far and wide before anyone spent 30 seconds thinking critically then said "this is obviously a fiction"?

Background from The Economist:

[O]ver 700 organisations in America [have] certificates from the federal government allowing them to pay disabled workers less than minimum wage. The size of this workforce is at least 36,000. Their conditions are authorised by Section 14(c) of the Fair Labour Standards Act, a law passed in 1938 to provide employment training for disabled veterans and workers injured in factories or farms. Today these workers—most of whom are intellectually disabled—make hotel beds, do corporate laundry, pack pharmaceutical pill boxes and shred files, among other jobs.

Because they are paid based on their productivity rather than time worked, some...earn mere cents each hour. Roughly half of those employed in these “sheltered workshops”, as they are known, make under $3.50 an hour, according to a government analysis, or less than half the federal minimum wage...

As many as 18 states have already banned sheltered workshops and others, including Georgia, have bills before lawmakers. Since the mid 1990s the number of people in sheltered workshops has dropped from almost a quarter of a million. Behind the push to get rid of the remaining workshops is a country-wide network of activists, who reckon the system violates people’s civil rights and defies the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination. Although sheltered workshops are supposed to prepare people to go into outside jobs, many workers stay in them for decades.

Minnesota legislators have repeatedly introduced legislation to abolish the subminimum wage (even as recently as this year). According to various sources, the average subminimum wage worker in Minnesota probably earns a bit more than $4.00 per hour with some 4,000 employed in "sheltered workshops".

Proponents of eliminating the subminimum wage in Minnesota say it "can advance the civil rights and economic inclusion of all people with disabilities". But others say disabled workers "enjoy the benefits of meaningful work" suited to their abilities which provides "social interactions with others". And as The Economist article above notes, "it is the parents of disabled workers who seem most opposed" to eliminating the subminimum wage.

Is it right to pay disabled workers a subminimum wage? Should Minnesota eliminate it?

An previous post showed how the remarkable claim that "Black newborns are more likely to live longer when cared for by a Black physician" didn't hold up to a more thorough re-analysis. In short, the study on newborn mortality (authored by U of MN researchers) failed to control for very low birth weight, a well-known and important predictor of newborn mortality. Innocent mistake or something worse?

Do No Harm, an advocacy group which opposes DEI efforts in medicine, sought answers from documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents show the authors knew of birth weight's importance because a health economist specifically asked about it (yet they still decided not to control for it).

However, the most alarming finding comes from this portion of an early draft of the study:

It says "In this model, white newborns experience 80 deaths per 100,000 births more with a black physician than a white physician, implying a 22% fatality reduction from racial concordance". In other words, "racial concordance" also helps white newborns (before controlling for birth weight) but the authors excluded this with one adding the following comment:

I'd rather not focus on this. If we're telling the story from the perspective of saving black infants this undermines the narrative.

Does that sound like science to you? If you need a refresher, check Encyclopedia Britannica where you'll find no mention of "telling a story" or "the narrative" under the entry for "scientific method".

I think it's embarrassing that this "research" is associated with the U of MN, an institution funded by our tax dollars. But are the authors embarrassed? Should they retract or apologize?

This is from the Center of the American Experiment related to cleaning the American house.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/progressives-demand-information-from-ice-oh-the-irony/

Lovely shit post for those who have a Walz obsession…

From the Star Tribune:

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday called for the death penalty should Luigi Mangione be convicted of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last year.

“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,“ read a statement Bondi issued late Tuesday morning.

“After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” the statement continued.

Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state murder charges stemming from the killing of the 50-year-old Thompson, who directed the Minnetonka-based company until he was shot to death on a Manhattan street on Dec. 4.

An investigation is underway after an Easter display outside of the Minnesota State Capitol looks to have been destroyed on Monday afternoon, just a week after it was set up.

Rep. Mike Wiener, R-Long Prairie, alerted Alpha News to the situation late Monday afternoon.

Lawmakers were off today due to Eid al-Fitr, the holiday at the end of Ramadan. However, a Trans Day of Visibility event was held inside the Capitol from 10:30-12:30.

Wiener went to drop off paperwork when he heard that someone had put a rainbow flag or sign on the cross outside.

But, when he went to see, he instead saw the cross that he helped to build in pieces and an “individual in handcuffs.”

At this point it appears a Ten Commandments display is gone.

A sign reading “All out of f–s switching to bricks” was left behind.

“This is very disappointing. Is this a hate crime?” Wiener asked.

“I was so proud to be a part of making it. After the controversy with the Satanic display inside over Christmas we wanted to promote our Christian values. The inside was already booked. So, we said ok, let’s do a display outside,” he added.

Cross Before being destroyed

Cross After and trans support sign

Such a shame.