Day: August 10, 2020

State Department of Education Will Provide $15 Million in Grants for Student Internet Access

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Tennessee’s Department of Education has announced $15 million in matching grants to help school districts provide MiFi devices and data coverage for 100,000 student households without internet access. MiFi devices access the internet over the cellular network using a procedure commonly referred to as “tethering.”

Funds will go to school districts as a matching grant to provide an estimated 100,000 households with internet access for distance learning amid the coronavirus pandemic. Priority will be given to households most in need.

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Commentary: Adam Laxalt on Nevada Democrats’ Election Theft Scheme

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Our friend Morning in Nevada PAC President Adam Laxalt has alerted us to the details of the “election reform” measure Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and the Democrat-controlled legislature rushed through in an emergency special session — on a party-line vote, in just a 48-hour period over the weekend, with no members of the public present, and under the cover of night.

And it’s even worse than we thought.

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Some Parents Turn to Micro-Schooling as Back-to-School Debate Rages

Admin

As states and school districts continue to change their back-to-school policies due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the national debate rages over in-person or virtual learning for instruction, some parents have taken their children’s education into their own hands.

A new form of quasi-homeschooling, called micro-schooling, is emerging. In this not-so-new format, neighboring families have decided to educate their children in a modern version of the 19th century era one-room schoolhouse.

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Lindsey Graham: Memo Shows FBI Lied to Senate About Dossier Source

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Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday released an FBI memo from 2018 that he says shows investigators lied to the Senate about statements that the primary source for the Steele dossier told the FBI regarding the salacious document.

“This document clearly shows that the FBI was continuing to mislead regarding the reliability of the Steele dossier,” Graham said in a statement announcing the release of an eight-page briefing document that the FBI provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2018.

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Commentary: Joe Biden Is the Man Who Wasn’t There

Admin

Those things with which we are most familiar are often hardest to see. This is perhaps particularly true of such fraught subjects as politics. There we are every day staring at the same people, reading news stories that are virtually indistinguishable from one another, and what do we know?

Our situation is similar to Alice’s in Through the Looking Glass when she finds herself in a shop that seemed full of curious things. “[T]he oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold.”

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Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin Brace for Record 2020 Turnout, Won’t Say When Election Results Will Be Available

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Election officials in three battleground states wouldn’t say when the U.S. can expect the results from November’s presidential race, and an official in a fourth state said the timing is uncertain.

Numerous news reports have indicated that election results could take a week to return due to the coronavirus pandemic and an increased reliance on mail-in ballots. Accuracy and timing will be especially crucial in the battleground states that will likely determine whether President Donald Trump will serve another term or be ousted by former Vice President Joe Biden.

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Three Hundred Female Athletes Support Idaho’s Barring of Biological Males from Women’s Sports

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More than 300 female athletes are speaking out in support of Idaho’s decision to protect women’s sports from biological men.

Female professional, Olympic, and National Collegiate Athletic Association athletes on July 29 sent a letter to the NCAA board of governors asking it to reject calls from LGBT activists to boycott Idaho over its new law protecting women’s athletics from participation by transgender biological males.

“We do not want to watch our athletic achievements be erased from the history books by individuals with all the inherent athletic advantages that come from a male body,” Save Women’s Sports wrote in its letter.

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Analysis: Churches in Danger of Self-Destructing for ‘COVID Safety’

Admin

A large swath of U.S. churches have not reopened for in-person services even though they have legal license to do so. It’s a decision that may very well spell destruction — with dwindling congregations and empty coffers — but it’s a decision many pastors are making nonetheless.

Almost one-third of church-going adults, 31 percent, attend a church which was still closed for public worship as of mid-July, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center published Thursday. In addition, half of church-going adults (those who attend services at least once a month) said they have not attended any in-person religious services for the past month. At the time of the survey, July 13-19, public worship was permitted everywhere in the United States except in some counties in California.

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Memphis Police Must Continue to Live in City, Per City Council

Chris Butler

Memphis Police officers will be required to live in the city, whether they like it or not.

Memphis City Council members approved an ordinance this month that removed the question of residency from the November 2020 ballot.

Specifically, the approved ordinance rescinds Referendum Ordinance No. 5744, which might have allowed specified personnel employed within the Divisions of Police and Fire Services to reside 50 miles outside of the City of Memphis.

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Schools Having Difficulty Retrieving Thousands of Digital Devices Sent to Students for Distance Learning

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Some school districts are having a difficult time accounting for thousands of devices that were sent home with students this spring to participate in distance learning programs during COVID-19 shutdowns.

Federal CARES Act funding allocated money to states to purchase millions of students laptops, tablets and Chromebooks. Now some districts are having difficulty finding them.

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Study Shows Collective Bargaining, Now Reinstated in Virginia, Shields Police Officers from Discipline

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A recent study of collectively bargained deals negotiated by police unions nationwide found these deals often scale back accountability and shield police from disciplinary action.

Before this year, public-sector collective bargaining was banned in Virginia. But after Democrats won control of the House and Senate, party leaders were able to pass legislation to end that prohibition, and Gov. Ralph Northam signed it into law. The law will go into effect in May 2021.

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Plane Skids off Runway in India; 17 Killed, Including Pilots

The Associated Press

At least 17 people were killed and 123 injured when a special return flight for Indians stranded abroad because of the coronavirus skidded off a hilltop runway and cracked in two while landing Friday in heavy rain in the southern state of Kerala, police said.

Among the injured, at least 15 were in critical condition, said Abdul Karim, a senior Kerala state police officer. Rescue operations were over, he said.

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Joe Biden Clarifies Comment About African American Community After Media Downplays

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Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden (or his staff) Thursday evening felt the need to “clarify” comments the candidate made  suggesting lack of diversity among “the African American community” – even after the corporate media worked valiantly to excuse the comments.

“In no way did I mean to suggest the African-American community is a monolith — not by identity, not on issues, not at all,” Biden said in an series of tweets.

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Minnesota’s Absentee Ballots Move Closer to Becoming Mail-in Ballots

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Ramsey County District Judge Sara Grewing has single-handedly overturned Minnesota election law by ruling on Aug. 3 that Minnesota’s absentee ballots no longer require the signature of a witness who is a registered voter or a notary public.

The judge also ruled that absentee ballots can be accepted after the election, as long as they are postmarked as of Election Day. Under the Minnesota law that the judge scrapped, absentee ballots had to be in by 8 p.m. on the night of the election. 

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Police, Criminal Justice Reform Advocates Share Some Views Ahead of Legislative Special Session

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Police officers and criminal justice reform advocates share some common ground going into Virginia’s special session to address policing reform, but the two groups break apart on some of the more controversial reforms.

“We are as repulsed by bad police officers … as anyone [else],” Wayne Huggins, executive director of the Virginia State Police Association, told Virginia House members Thursday during the last criminal justice reform hearing ahead of the special session, which convenes Aug. 18.

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Person ‘In Charge’ of Contract Tracing Won’t Cooperate with Probe, Auditor Says

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An Auditor General’s recently released report answered questions about a canceled no-bid contact-tracing contract tied to a Democratic political consultant, but the person “primarily in charge of contact tracing” refused to cooperate.

Contact tracing is a method of gathering information to discover who might have been infected with COVID-19 by following an infected person’s interactions.

For example, one event at an Ingham County bar resulted in 187 COVID-19 infections across the state.

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Ohio Lawmakers Propose Expanding List of Offenses That Would Disqualify Officeholders from Retirement Benefits

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A pair of Republican lawmakers want to expand the list of offenses that would render an elected official in Ohio ineligible for retirement or disability benefits.

House Bill 741 adds to the list felony offenses of extortion and perjury and a slew of federal violations, including racketeering. It also adds theft and bribery involving programs receiving federal funds; mail, wire and honest services fraud; and interference with commerce by threats or violence in violation of the “Hobbs Act.”

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Feds Expand Crime Fighting Operation to Memphis

Chris Butler

Federal officials late last week announced an initiative, Operation Legend, to fight violent crime in Memphis and St. Louis.

“The most basic responsibility of government is to protect the safety of our citizens. Today, we have extended Operation Legend to Memphis and St. Louis, two cities experiencing increases in violent crime that no resident of those cities should have to accept as part of everyday life,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement.

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