Day: April 3, 2020

Gov. DeWine Lengthens Ohio’s Stay-at-Home Order Until May 1

Zachery Schmidt

  Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday he will extended – both in duration and scope – Ohio’s “Stay-at-Home” Order until May 1. The original order was set to expire on Monday, April 6.. Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton signed the updated order on Thursday. The new stay-at-home measure will take effect midnight on Monday. “We understand that this is tough – it is very difficult. But, I would not be making these decisions if it wasn’t a matter of life and death,” said Governor DeWine. “We have to keep this monster down. It’s not dead – it’s very much alive.”  Ohio is one of 38 states that are currently on a stay-at-home order, according to The Hill.  DeWine has been one of the most aggressive governors in combating the Chinese virus. In March, the governor closed down schools, banned mass gatherings, shut down restaurants and delayed Ohio’s presidential primary.  With the stay-at-home order extension, unemployment numbers will likely increase during April. In the last two weeks, 468,414 Ohioans have filed for unemployment benefits, which is more than all of the 364,603 jobless claims that happened in 2019. To help Ohioans through the coronavirus pandemic, DeWine created an economic…

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Senator Marsha Blackburn Says China Should Waive Some of U.S. Debt After COVID-19 Outbreak

Chris Butler

This week Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said China should waive some of the United States’ $1.08 trillion debt for inflicting COVID-19 upon this country and other parts of the world.

Blackburn said this while appearing on The Jeff Poor Show out of Huntsville, Alabama.

“One of the things is my Senate resolution 553 which expresses the sense of the Senate that we know this came from Wuhan, China, and that they hid the information and were not transparent, that they blocked the World Health Organization and the CDC from coming in to help. They tried to blame it on the U.S. military. We hold them accountable, and I will tell you I think that we need to look at the fact that China owns over $1 trillion of our debt,” Blackburn said.

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Commentary: The Pandemic-Inspired Economic Shutdown Likely to Increase US Corporate Consolidation

Admin

This writer and others who for decades railed against outsourcing industries to the People’s Republic of China were long dismissed as crackpots and Luddites. Now many of those who were doing the dismissing have been forced to admit the true cost of cheap goods is very high.

The Chinese Communist Party virus has exposed many of our nation’s infirmities.

The most glaring is our dependence on Communist China for medicine, medical equipment, and so many other essential goods.

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Dems Ask That Public Charge Rule Not Apply to Immigrant Coronavirus Treatment, Which It Already Doesn’t

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A group of House Democrats is asking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not to penalize green card applicants for seeking medical care for coronavirus, but the government already made clear it wouldn’t.

Thirty-eight House Democrats signed a letter delivered to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Tuesday, asking him to remove any assistance for COVID-19 care as part of the recently-enacted public charge rule. The rule takes into account a migrant’s past use of government-funded assistance when they apply for permanent status.

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Thales Academy-Franklin: Principal Rachael Bradley Joins Leahy to Talk About Affordable Private Education Coming to Tennessee in July 2020

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row 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.– host Leahy was joined by new all-star panelist and Thales Academy of Franklin’s principal Rachael Bradley.

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Mike Rowe on Rising College Tuition as Classes Move Online: ‘What Are We Paying For?’

Admin

Mike Rowe took a swipe at the rising cost of college tuition during an interview Tuesday with Fox News, asking, “what are we paying for?”

Calling what students are paying to attend college courses “somewhere between egregious and obscene,” the host of “Dirty Jobs” said that he predicts “one of the silver linings” from the coronavirus pandemic will be Americans’ commitments “truly to learning” and that the crisis could “completely redefine” how people learn moving forward.

Rowe told viewers that just the week before, he watched an online lecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Commentary: We Are All Homeschoolers Now

Admin

What does education look like in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic?

At the K-12 level, you’ve got problems. At the collegiate level, you’ve got existential problems.

School is out for the year in most locales. More innovative districts are retooling like crazy and trying to do online classes. Parents are looking for cheap or free resources to do the job and keep their kids occupied during our enforced isolation.

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FCC’s Ajit Pai Gives Wireless Internet a Major Overhaul as Americans Work Remotely Amid Coronavirus Fears

Admin

Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai announced Wednesday a plan to dramatically increase the United States’ wireless internet speeds to help pave the road to the kind of technology Americans can rely on to better cope with another coronavirus outbreak.

Pai proposed a plan to make 1,200 MHz of spectrum available for unlicensed use across the country as Americans become reliant on remote connectivity to slow the spread of COVID-19, which originated in China before traveling to the United States. Such a move could allow the so-called Internet of Things to pick up speed, connecting all devices to wireless internet.

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Nashville Nurses Pray Over Patients on Hospital Roof During Their Break: ‘Go to the Helipad and Pray’

Admin

A group of Nashville nurses went to the roof of the hospital during their break to pray for hospital staff and patients suffering from coronavirus.

Nurses Angela Gleaves, Sarah Franklin Kremer, Beth Hofflin Tiesler and McKenzie Gibson went to the roof of Vanderbilt University Medical Center to pray over the patients and staff in their hospital. Photographs show the nurses praying with hands folded on the rooftop of the building before posing for selfies with one another.

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CORONAVIRUS: TN Senate Candidate Bill Hagerty says, ‘There’s a Real Timing Factor in All of This. Taking a One Size Fits All Approach Will Not Work for the United States’

Julie Carr

Former Ambassador to Japan and TN Senate Candidate Bill Hagerty joined 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. – Thursday morning on the newsmakers line.

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Jihadist Pleads Guilty to Plotting to Blow Up White House with Anti-Tank Weapon

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A Georgia man who told an undercover FBI agent that he planned to wage “jihad” by attacking the White House with explosives pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of attempting to destroy a building owned by the United States.

Hasher Jallal Taheb, 23, had also planned to target the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and a synagogue prior to his arrest in January 2019, according to the Department of Justice.

“Taheb planned to conduct a terrorist attack on the White House as part of what he claimed was his obligation to engage in jihad,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said Wednesday. “And that was just one of the iconic American landmarks he wanted to target.”

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Minnesota Secretary of State Says Statewide Vote by Mail Possible for 2020 Election 

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said his office is exploring a number of “pandemic election options,” including conducting the entire presidential election by mail-in ballots.

“The current public health crisis has been a serious test for all Minnesotans. It has also been a test for our democracy. I’ve heard from many Minnesotans who wonder how, or even if, we will vote in this high-stakes election year,” Simon said in a statement released last week.

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272,117 New Unemployment Claims This Week in Ohio, One of Worst States in Nation

Zachery Schmidt

  Unemployment numbers in Ohio continue to surge as the coronavirus pandemic causes another 272,117 people to claim unemployment benefits, according to Fox19. Last week, 196,297 people filed for unemployment benefits. This means that in the last two weeks 468,414 Ohioans have filed for government assistance, which is more than all of the 364,603 jobless claims that happened in 2019. Last week, 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the week of March 25. This beat the previous record of 3.3 million people that was set the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. Previously, the two highest weeks for unemployment claims came in 1982 with 695,000 and in March 2009 at 665,000, CNBC reports.  Of these almost 10 million jobless claims, Ohioans make up almost five percent.  To put this into perspective, Ohio had a total of 13,951 unemployment claims from March 1 to March 14. Yet these last two weeks, the Buckeye State saw the third biggest jump in total number of these claims, according to PBS. This was a 3,347 percent increase. The number of Ohioans who will be laid off because of COVID-19 is likely to increase as Gov. Mike DeWine said this…

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House Lawmaker Calls on Ohio State Senate to Pass Bipartisan Opioid Measure

Samantha Witwer

Ohio State Representative Richard D. Brown (D-Canal Winchester) called on the State Senate Thursday to pass House Bill 10 (HB 10). The legislation was passed unanimously in June, 2019 with the help of the bill’s co-sponsor Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus (R-Paris Twp.).

“The all-encompassing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies exactly why we need a dedicated office to focus on drug addiction in our state. We cannot afford to take our eye off the ball even in the face of another crisis,” said Rep. Brown in a statement.

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