Day: August 6, 2020

Ohio Gov. DeWine Tests Positive for the Coronavirus on His Way to Meet President Donald Trump

Zachery Schmidt

  Governor Mike DeWine was headed to Cleveland to meet President Trump who is visiting the state today. During his ride to the Burke Lakefront Airport, he took a rapid response test which returned a positive result for the coronavirus. DeWine is headed back to Columbus after his positive test. Currently, the 73-year-old has not experienced any symptoms, according to the Governor’s statement. The positive test raises several questions, the most apparent is whether the positive test result is accurate. The gold standard in COVID-19 testing is the molecular test.  The rapid test is an antigen test with rapid return technology, which does not detect the COVID-19 virus, instead the test measures viral proteins – a less accurate measure of infection. Earlier in the week Governor DeWine discussed the state’s need to ramp rapid testing to alleviate a burden on state labs working to process nearly 20,000 tests a day. The tradeoff favoring speed opens the door for increased false positives associated with antigen tests. When DeWine and First Lady Fran get back to Ohio’s capital, they will both take another coronavirus test. The governor will follow COVID-19’s protocol and quarantine for two weeks, DeWine’s statement says. Governor DeWine has…

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Complaint Filed Against State Sen. John Stevens for Misuse of Campaign Funds

Laura Baigert

A sworn complaint was filed against State Sen. John Stevens to the state’s Registry of Election Finance alleging the improper use of campaign funds for the August 6 Republican primary.

Stevens is finishing up his second term as senator for the state’s 24th district, having first been elected in 2012.  District 24 includes the counties of Benton, Carroll, Gibson, Henry, Obion and Weakley.

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Nearly 75 Percent of Americans Say News Bias Is ‘a Major Problem’

Admin

The vast majority of Americans consider news bias to be “a major problem,” but more than half believe the issue is with the news other people consume, according to a survey from Gallup and the Knight Foundation released Tuesday.

Nearly half of the adults surveyed believe there’s “a great deal” of “political bias in the news,” while 37% believe there’s “a fair amount,” according to the survey. Nearly three-fourths, 69%, note they’re more worried about bias in others people’s news than their own.

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Virginia Blocked Over 1,000 Handgun Purchases During First Month of One-Pistol-per-Month Regulation

Admin

A total of 1,102 people were denied handguns in Virginia in July, following the implementation of a new law that prohibits more than one pistol purchase per 30 days.

Roughly 59% of Virginia’s 1,877 total firearm denials were attributed to confusion about exactly when the first 30-day period began, according to data obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The policy, which Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law in April along with other gun regulations, took effect on July 1. However, the state had been tracking handgun purchases since June, the Dispatch reported.

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Biden Denies Ever Taking a Cognitive Test After Claiming That He’s ‘Tested Constantly’

Admin

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday denied ever taking a cognitive test—even though he recently bragged that he takes them “constantly.”

After scoffing at the idea, Biden, who was appearing at a virtual forum at the 2020 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Joint Virtual Convention, compared the question to asking if black CBS reporter Errol Barnett had taken cocaine before the interview.

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Less Than One in Eight Excessive Force Complaints Are Substantiated, NYPD Complaint Data Shows

Admin

According to recently released NYPD complaint data, less than 13% of excessive use of force complaints filed against New York Police Department officers is substantiated.

The raw data was published by ProPublica, which obtained it from the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). The database includes every complaint against active-duty officers who’ve had at least one complaint substantiated.

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GOP Rep. Roger Marshall Defeats Kris Kobach in Kansas Senate Primary

Admin

Kansas Rep. Roger Marshall won the Republican primary Tuesday, beating Kris Kobach in the race for the state’s open senate seat.

Marshall, a second-term congressman from the western part of the state, won with 37.2% of the vote, compared to Kobach’s  25.6%, according to the New York Times. He now faces former state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former Republican who cruised to victory in the Democratic primary, in a competitive race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.

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Condoleezza Rice Warns the ‘Problem of the Left’ Is Assuming How Black People Should Think

Admin

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a Tuesday interview that the “problem of the left” is that it assumes how black people should think.

Rice spoke with The New York Times’s Peter Baker during an Aspen Security Forum interview in which the former secretary of state said she does not believe the U.S. will ever become truly colorblind. She said she hopes Americans will stop making assumptions about one another based on race.

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Commentary: Expect a Big Back Lash Against the Left If Joe Biden Fails to Denounce Riots and Threaten Defunding the Police

Admin

It is former Vice President Joe Biden, and not President Donald Trump, who has a political problem due to ongoing riots in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd as public backlash against the political left has begun seeping into public attitudes concerning the race for president in 2020.

On July 28, as attention was focused on attempts by radical leftist mobs led by Antifa to burn a federal courthouse in Portland, Oreg. to the ground, Biden issued a weak statement unbelievably blaming President Donald Trump and federal law enforcement for the riots.

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On Election Eve, Donald Trump Pushes One More Time for Bill Hagerty

Chris Butler

On Wednesday, one day before Thursday’s GOP primary, U.S. President Donald Trump held another tele-town hall for U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty, whom he endorsed last year.

“I went to Bill. I said we need your help. I want you to be on our transition team. I appointed him as ambassador to Japan. And he was truly one of our best. He was an incredible ambassador to Japan. They still talk about Bill. He really became legendary over there, and that is why we are doing this next step,” Trump said during a six-minute call.

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Biden Won’t Go to Milwaukee to Accept Democratic Nomination

The Associated Press

Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept the Democratic presidential nomination because of concerns over the coronavirus, party officials said Wednesday, signaling a move to a convention that essentially has become entirely virtual.

It is the latest example of the pandemic’s sweeping effects on the 2020 presidential election and the latest blow to traditional party nominating conventions that historically have marked the start of fall general election campaigns.

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Virginia Attorney General Joins Amicus Brief Aimed to Block Trump Administration’s New Rules for Asylum Seekers

Zachery Schmidt

  Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring joined an amicus brief Tuesday that disputes the Trump administration’s new rules pertaining to asylum seekers’ employment authorization. The Trump administration announced in June that asylum seekers must wait a year before applying for employment authorization rather than 150 days. Also, the administration eliminated the rule that employment authorization forms be processed in 30 days, according to Herring’s press release. These new rules will take place on August 25, according to Fox News. Chad Wolf, who is the secretary of Homeland Security, said that asylum claims have been used by illegal aliens to obtain work authorization” for far too long. “This abuse of the system is unfair to legitimate asylum seekers, diminishes job opportunities for Americans, & disrespects the rule of law,” Wolf said on Twitter. For too long, frivolous & fraudulent asylum claims have been used by illegal aliens to obtain work authorization. This abuse of the system is unfair to legitimate asylum seekers, diminishes job opportunities for Americans, & disrespects the rule of law. https://t.co/SLhpNGC23k pic.twitter.com/SNJr8fKaRq — Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) June 23, 2020 However, Herring does not see it like this. The attorney general said that “individuals” who come to…

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Trump to Visit Ohio Thursday as Election Heats up

Ben Kolodny

President Trump will be visiting Ohio Thursday for the first time since the pandemic started. Governor Mike DeWine has moved his scheduled Thursday COVID-19 brief to the following day to make room for the president, WKBN reports. 

The visit comes as the election continues to heat up between the president and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Polls are mixed but poll averages from 270towin.com show President Trump up in Ohio by a narrow margin over Biden.

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Whitmer Creates Black Leadership Advisory Council, Calls Racism a ‘Public Health Issue’

Jordyn Pair

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created the Black Leadership Advisory Council on Wednesday, declaring racism a “public health issue.”

The council — the first of its kind in Michigan — will give advice to the governor and help recommend policies to combat systemic racism. This includes identifying state laws that create or perpetuate inequities, promoting legislation that seeks to correct racial inequality within Michigan, helping community groups serve Black communities and promoting the cultural arts within Black communities, according to the governor’s office.

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Meshawn Maddock Commentary: Joe Biden’s Tax-and-Spend Agenda Is a Declaration of War on Middle-Income Americans

Admin

America’s working families need allies, not obstacles. 

As a mother and a Michigan small business owner, I vividly recall the anemic “recovery” we experienced under the Obama-Biden administration, which increased regulatory costs to a historic high of nearly $2 trillion a year — a tab paid in large part by hard working entrepreneurs like me. 

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DeWine to Expand Mask Mandate to K-12 Students

Ben Kolodny

Governor Mike Dewine announced Thursday that the Ohio Department of Health will soon release a new order mandating K12 students to wear masks as they return to school.

This announcement came after the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association (OCHA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics Ohio Chapter (AAPOC) issued a letter showing support for “face coverings/masks in our hospitals, schools, and communities.”

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Candidate Kendall Qualls Outraises Incumbent Dean Phillips, Again

Corinne Murdock

Republican candidate for MN’s 3rd Congressional District Kendall Qualls has outraised incumbent Dean Phillips (DFL-MN-03) once again. According to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) July pre-primary reports released last Thursday, Qualls accumulated significantly more campaign contributions and cash-on-hand than Phillips.

In total, Qualls raised over $106,000 more than Phillips, and has about $68,000 more cash-on-hand. Representative Phillips’s $250,000 debt from his previous campaign was also listed on the report.

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