Tennessee’s lawmakers worked all day and well into the evening Thursday to approve a budget for fiscal year 2021 before adjourning for a recess that will go until June 1, 2020.
Read the full story
California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order late Thursday night direct all of the state’s 40 million residents to stay at home in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. You can read the executive order here: The governor acted based on new information from Johns Hopkins University that as many as 50 percent of the state’s residents will within the next eight weeks have the Coronavirus. Politico provided these details: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered California’s nearly 40 million residents to stay home, making it the first state to impose that strict mandate on all residents to counteract a looming surge of new infections. The order takes effect immediately and remains in place “until further notice.” Californians are not allowed to leave home except for essential purposes. They are allowed to purchase groceries, prescriptions and health care, as well as commute to jobs deemed essential. The governor’s order comes with misdemeanor penalties for anyone who violates the restrictions, though he said he believes social pressure will keep people home rather than law enforcement. Breitbart News added these details: We need to bend the curve in the state of California,” Newsom said in an announcement. “There’s a social contract…
Read the full story
As of Thursday, Davidson and Williamson counties continued to tally the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, according to the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH)’s website.
Read the full story
The virus that originated in Wuhan, China poses a double threat to America.
The first is to our health as the virus spreads through the U.S. population. The second is to our economy as more businesses, schools, and events shut down to slow the spread of the contagion.
We must not underestimate the economic threat because the Chinese Communist Party is using the pandemic to achieve its goal of supplanting the United States as the world’s leading economic, diplomatic, and military power.
Read the full story
U.S. Republican senatorial candidate Manny Sethi believes the United States can avoid Italy’s fate and not allow the coronavirus to overwhelm our country’s resources.
Read the full story
Live from Nashville, Tennessee Thursday 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 in studio by former Vanderbilt and Princeton professor Dr. Carol Swain.
Read the full story
On Thursday’s 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. – Michael Patrick Leahy and all-star panelist Crom Carmichael spoke with special guest former Breitbart colleague and Washington journalist Neil McCabe.
Read the full story
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday released its first batch of data on coronavirus patients in the United States, showing that while older adults are more likely to experience severe problems with the virus, younger adults are also falling seriously ill.
Read the full story
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) may no longer be running for president, but her agency lives on.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) doesn’t want to be controlled by the Trump Administration. The Supreme Court might end the agency’s streak of independence later this year. Ostensibly, the CFPB aims to protect ordinary Americans from untoward business practices. Instead, it only advances left-wing causes and identity politics.
Warren proposed the CFPB in 2007 when she was a Harvard law professor. President Barack Obama established it in 2010. It is supposed to protect Americans from malpractice in the financial industry, yet the CFPB’s main task during the Obama Administration was fighting “disparate impact.” Disparate impact is a legal concept that considers racially disproportionate outcomes as evidence of discriminatory policies, even if the policies had no discriminatory intent and were administered objectively.
Read the full story
U.S. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee reportedly wants reforms that would expand people’s access to telehealth and thus protect them from the coronavirus.
Read the full story
The State Department is suspending visa services in most countries across the world, the Trump administration’s latest response to mitigating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement released late Wednesday, the State Department announced it’s cancelling all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant appoints at embassies and consulates in numerous countries. The suspensions became effective immediately, and no specific date was provided on when services would begin again.
Read the full story
On Thursday’s 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. – host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Roy Matlock, Jr. to the newsmakers line.
Read the full story
Tennessee has submitted a request for Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday.
The assistance allows small businesses and nonprofit organizations negatively impacted by the coronavirus to apply for loans of up to $2 million.
“For most of my life, I’ve been a small business owner and understand the unique challenges each of you face,” Lee said in a statement. “While I am pleased with our progress on targeted relief for small businesses, we know this is just a first step from our federal partners to provide liquidity to our businesses. We are in constant dialogue with our delegation members to ensure that federal aid is responsive to our concerns and needs.”
Read the full story
During the coronavirus pandemic, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Director Amy Acton have taken a number of actions, some controversial, designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Just in the last ten days, DeWine has closed bars and schools, postponed primaries and banned mass gatherings. Even more controversially, on Monday Acton defied the order of an Ohio court and ordered the cancellation of the Ohio primary election, a usurpation of the Ohio General Assembly’s constitutional authority to set election dates. Gov. DeWine clearly orchestrated this controversial decision. Despite these dramatic and controversial actions by DeWine and Acton, Ohio has lagged behind every other state in the country in reporting the number of negative coronavirus tests in the state. It stopped releasing that data on Monday. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) said Thursday that every state must report aggregated data of coronavirus testing to it. Currently, ODH only shows the number of confirmed cases, number of counties in Ohio with a case and the number of hospitalizations. This causes concern because last week, Acton and DeWine said they were operating as if 100,000 Ohioans had the virus. “Just the fact of community spread says at…
Read the full story
Skeptics are calling Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s June 2 primary election date theoretical, saying the Legislature, not he, has the power to move the date.
Adjectives that are being thrown around include “anarchy” and “executive fiat.”
LaRose is already dictating the rules 88 county boards of elections should follow, the Ohio Capital Journal said. These LaRose rules include the dictate that county boards of election should not accept any new voter registrations ahead of the not-yet-official June 2 election.
Read the full story
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order temporarily suspending parts of the Open Meetings Act (OMA), so public groups can meet electronically through April 15.
“We are taking every measure we can to mitigate the spread of coronavirus and protect Michigan families, but recognize that public bodies still have an obligation to conduct business as usual,” Whitmer said in a news release.
Read the full story
The Central Ohio Transit Authority announced on Thursday that it will be temporarily suspending fare collection for all trips.
Read the full story
Gov. Mike DeWine called in the Ohio National Guard Wednesday to help food banks distribute food during the state’s coronavirus relief efforts.
Three hundred personnel members will deploy to 12 food bank warehouses, which helps provide food to all 88 counties in the state. The National Guard members will help pack and sort food into boxes, distribute food through “no touch” methods, and assist with logistical needs to help protect the public, according to the Ohio Association of Food Banks (OAFB)’s press release.
Read the full story
State lawmakers said Wednesday that an employee of the Minnesota House of Representatives has tested positive for COVID-19.
Read the full story
Michigan is now reporting its first death from the coronavirus in addition to a rising total of 336 confirmed cases.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development has reportedly received a dramatic increase in unemployment benefit claims.
Read the full story