More Than 3.8 Million New Unemployment Claims Filed – 6 Week Total Exceeds 30 Million

The six-week surge in new unemployment claims continued last week as businesses deemed nonessential by state and local governments reduce staffing in response to COVID-19.

More than 3.8 million Americans filed unemployment claims for the week ending April 25, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday. The 3.839 million claims is down 603,000 from the week prior, when 4.42 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits.

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Nashville School Board Members Say No to More Charter Schools

Members of the Metro Nashville School Board this week shot down the idea of having five more charter schools.

Members offered a variety of reasons.

Board members said, among other things, that charter school staff didn’t meet the county school district’s curriculum standards. Board members also said that charter schools relied on too many volunteers and turned in too many generic applications.

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Commentary: Political Ideology Is Pushing Religion Out of Religious Studies

Many academic disciplines have gotten “woke” in recent years, especially in the humanities and social sciences. For the most part, this transformation has occurred in plain view as colleges created departments for (and offered degrees in) “Women’s and Gender Studies,” “Black Studies,” “LGBTQ Studies,” “Latino Studies,” and the rest of the intersectionality parade.

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Gov. DeWine Reverses Course on Face Coverings Requirement

Gov. Mike DeWine said he will no longer require people to have face coverings on who enter businesses set to open under the Responsible RestartOhio plan, according a statement statement released Tuesday.

When the governor announced details about reopening Ohio’s economy on Monday, face coverings were required by the public to enter businesses. However, he changed the rule due to the fact some Ohioans found this rule “offensive.”

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Rep. Vitale Wants Gov. DeWine to End the State’s Lockdown

  State Rep. Nino Vitale (R-Urbana) told Ohio Future Foundation (OFF) Chairman Jim Renacci that Ohio needs to end its lockdown. “I don’t think the government should be locking us down at all,” he said during OFF’s Facebook live forum Wednesday night. Vitale has been one of the most vocal House Republicans who has criticized Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton for shutting down almost all of Ohio’s economy. He, along with 32 other House Republicans, created a plan the “Open Ohio Responsibly Framework”  that recommended business start opening on Friday, which DeWine announced will happen. “Many businesses have already modified their operating protocols to safely function in this current environment. Businesses/organizations recognize if they do not make it safe for their employees and customers, they will not come back,” the plan states. We believe it is time to trust Ohioans. They have respectfully followed the guidelines and NOW is the time to responsibly open all businesses. Two weeks ago, Vitale also called on DeWine and Acton to ease restrictions to allow hospitals and doctors to perform elective surgeries. A major concern Vitale expressed to Renacci was what was going to happen to the healthcare…

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Commentary: The Changes to Come

The Democrats are taking their stand on the coronavirus crisis in an untenable position. It is like building a defensive redoubt in a valley surrounded by hills in the hands of the enemy (like the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1955, as President Eisenhower warned them). Whether this is tactical stupidity by the president’s enemies or strategic genius by the president or—more likely—a bit of both, is not clear except to insiders.

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Republican State Senator Kerry Roberts Discusses the Possibility of the Tennessee General Assembly Reconvening in June

On Tuesday’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 welcomed his weekly regular guest and all-star panelist Tennessee state Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) to the newsmakers line.

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Commentary: Globalism Is Not Slowing Down Anytime Soon

Nothing, not even a pandemic, will dissuade the people who brought us globalization to modify, halt, or roll back the decisions they have made for us. As I was scrolling through Twitter, I came across these gems. First, there was this tweet from the George W. Bush Presidential Center. It links to an article which tells us that calling for Americans to start to “Make it here at home” has a nice ring to it, but we must have no illusions: “Restricting trade and using taxes, tariffs and subsidies to manipulate the market can only be done by dramatically reducing freedom. That path leads to poverty.”

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Gov. DeWine Unveils His Plan to Reopen Ohio’s Economy

Gov. Mike DeWine released details on what Ohio’s economy will look like when it opens up on Friday.

“We put this plan together based on all the information we have about how dangerous COVID-19 still is right now, balanced with the fact that it’s also dangerous to have people not working,” DeWine said. “COVID-19 is still out there. It’s still killing people. We’re asking Ohioans to be reasonable and rational. Please don’t take huge chances, and please use common sense when you go out and where you go out.”

The goal of DeWine’s Responsible RestartOhio plan is to “protect the health of employees, customers, and their families, supporting community efforts to control the spread of COVID-19,” according to the governor’s press release.

Set to open on May 1 is the healthcare industry. Ohio will allow doctor visits, well-care checks, out-patient surgeries, imaging procedures, diagnostic tests, and dental and veterinary services.

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Hundreds Rally at the State Capitol from Across the State in Support of the #FreeTN Movement

  NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Hundreds of people from all parts of the state gathered again at the state capitol Monday in support of the #FreeTN movement, following a rally of the same name last Sunday. In addition to those standing on either side of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard with a wide variety of messaging on their hand-held signs, numerous others slowly drove in between sporting signs and flags while honking their horns. The #FreeTN movement continues, even as the state is set to start a phased reopening under the guidelines of the Tennessee Pledge launched last week by Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee’s Economic Recovery Group. #FreeTN organizer, Kimberley Edwards scheduled the rally as a follow-up to those held in seven cities across the state last Sunday, The Tennessee Star reported. The bipartisan effort is focused on the immediate lifting of the state and local government’s safer-at-home executive orders, allowing the opening of all businesses without social distancing mandates. After saying that the event should exhibit gentleness, togetherness and kindness, Edwards’ wedding DJ and musician husband led the group in a prayer. The prayer was followed by an acapella rendition of the national anthem by Bridget Cheek, who…

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Tyson Tennessee Plants in Good Shape During COVID-19, Local Officials Say, Despite HQ’s Dire Warnings

Tyson Foods has four locations in Tennessee, and if the one in Union City ever closed then it would dent Obion County’s tax revenue in a big way, said County Mayor Benny McGuire.

Tyson officials took out dire newspaper ads this past weekend. Those ads warned that America’s food supply chain might nearly collapse because of the way the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted some of their facilities.

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Commentary: Anti-Lockdown Protests and the Defiant Protestant Heart of America

by George Rasley   In his 1904 masterwork, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. German social researcher Max Weber argued that Western capitalism and the Protestant Reformation were inextricably linked. Weber made the case that the Protestant theology of John Calvin and the idea of work and economic activity as a God-given “calling,” inspired Protestant societies to develop a strong work ethic, leading to the development of Western capitalism. Today, only about 49 percent of Americans identify as Protestants, but the Pilgrims and Puritans continue to exercise a powerful influence on the American psyche whether one is Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or adheres to no religion at all. And, Weber’s monumental work, and the century of research and thought it spawned, tells us much about the psychological and philosophical underpinnings of the protests against the government-imposed lockdowns of the economy that have sprung-up in the past week. In 2013 André van Hoorn and Robbert Maseland of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands published research demonstrating that the psychic harm from unemployment is about 40% worse for Protestants than for the general population. Moreover, people living in Protestant societies are hurt more by being unemployed than people living in other societies,…

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