Democrats in the state Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced numerous House bills relating to policing and justice reform and COVID-19.
All together the Committee considered 20 bills during the meeting and hastily reported 19 to be considered on the Senate Floor on Friday or sometime next week.
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The Michigan House of Representatives Education Committee approved legislation that increases accessibility to apprenticeship programs in high schools on Thursday.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ben Frederick (R-85-Owosso), brings Michigan apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs in line with federal workforce mandates so federal funding can be used.
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Three people were arrested after a large protest gathered outside Richmond Police headquarters in downtown Richmond Wednesday night.
The protest, which hundreds of people took part in, was in response to the decision by a grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky to not charge the police officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s death.
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Jill Biden spent Thursday in Virginia, starting her day meeting with educators and military leaders in Hampton Roads, then heading to Richmond where she met Mayor Levar Stoney in front of the Voter Registrar’s Office, and then going to Henrico with Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D- Fairfax) for a round-table with working mothers.
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Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) paid critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi $20,000 to give an hour-long virtual presentation. Kendi is the bestselling author of “How to Be Antiracist,” a book of circular definitions used to explain critical race theory.
The average teaching assistant earns $23,000 a year; the staff spent nearly that much for a 45-minute lecture and 15-minute Q&A.
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In a video statement posted on Twitter Wednesday, Ohio State University President Kristina Johnson ignited controversy with a statement about Breonna Taylor.
In the 45 second clip Johnson said:
“Breonna Taylor deserves justice, and this does not feel like justice. We cannot accept what has happened in Louisville, we grieve the tragic and senseless loss of Breonna Taylor, a daughter, a friend, a niece, a loved one, who was unarmed and asleep. The breakdown in the justice system and the killings of unarmed Black and Brown people in our country has become all too familiar, tragically. This isn’t going to stop until we create an anti-racist world. We must come together to draw strength from each other and advance our collective vision for a better world where we’ll one day have justice for all. There is much work to be done.”
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Michigan leaders sealed a $62.8 billion fiscal 2021 budget agreement, increasing spending by billions from last year’s initial budget even after state revenue plummeted from COVID-19 and policies placed to curb its spread.
Experts previously estimated Michigan’s revenue would drop by $6.3 billion over the next two fiscal years.
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Welcome to the Thursday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).
It’s officially 39 days until the election on November 3 – and four days until President Trump and Joe Biden square off in the first presidential debate.
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Five candidates for mayor faced off in Coburn Hall at Virginia Union University on Thursday evening. The two-hour event was live-streamed and Facebook reported over 28 thousand views late Thursday. Former Governor and Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder co-moderated the event, lending an air of political weightiness to the debate. The evening’s questions focused largely on government efficiency and the current crises facing the city, showcasing a variety of experience and ideology in the candidates.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper and his senior advisor allegedly misled the public and never intended to reveal the actual number of confirmed COVID-19 cases that Davidson County officials traced back to bars on Nashville’s lower Broadway.
As reported, Cooper ordered those bars and restaurants closed after he said they posed a health threat because of allegedly too many COVID-19 cases.
But Cooper and his senior advisor, Ben Eagles, closed those establishments because the two men allegedly had a vendetta against Steve Smith. Smith owns Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk and Steakhouse.
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About 870,000 workers filed new unemployment claims last week, a slight increase from the week prior though the overall unemployment rate continues its slow decline.
According to U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 8.6% for the week ending Sept. 12, with 12.58 million workers filing continued claims for benefits.
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U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is sounding the alarm about Netflix over the streaming service’s plans to adapt and promote a Chinese sci-fi book series written by an author who expresses support for the Communist government’s “re-education” camps for Muslim Uyghurs.
On Wednesday, Blackburn and U.S. Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Martha McSally (R-AZ) signed a letter to Ted Sarandos Jr., co-CEO and chief content officer for Netflix.
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Alecia Kitts drove an hour and a half from Marietta to Logan, Ohio to watch her son’s seventh grade football game.
In the first quarter she was approached by an officer from the Logan Police Department because she was not wearing a mask.
The video below shows the three-minute encounter between Kitts and the officer.
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In an odd echo of Patrick Buchanan, the godfather of Trumpism, Joe Biden has called this election “a battle for the soul of the nation.” The path forward for President Trump is again to take up Buchanan’s mantle, as he did so boldly four years ago. The sudden death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has put a sharper edge on the point: this is a culture war that must be won.
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Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN) officials this week accused members of the Nashville Election Commission of delaying a vote on the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act and urged them to verify it.
This, according to a press release that members of AFP-TN published on their website.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Theodore Wold, the special assistant of policy to the president in the Office of American Innovation to highlight many of Trump’s successes.
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In a decision that has inflamed Black Lives Matter activists in Louisville, a grand jury has indicted only one of three officers involved in the March 13 fatal police shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor.
Former detective Brett Hankison was indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment for showing “extreme indifference to human life” when he fired his gun into three apartments. The charges were not for killing Taylor, but for putting her neighbors in danger.
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On Tuesday, at 9:22 a.m., reporters covering the Joe Biden campaign were told that there would be no more events or newsmaking to issue forth from Team Biden for the rest of the day.
The same thing happened on Saturday. At 8:35 a.m. on Sept. 19, Team Biden put a “lid” on that campaign day.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed The Ohio Star Managing Editor Jack Windsor to discuss Governor DeWine’s poor reception at the Trump rally near Dayton this week.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the Tennessee Star’s National Correspondent Neil W. McCabe to the show to recount the Steve Bannon event on Monday in NYC.
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A bail fund promoted by Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris helped bail out of jail six men accused of domestic violence between June and August, court documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
Two of the men face felony charges for allegedly strangling women in their own homes, and another stands accused of beating his girlfriend upwards of six times with a closed fist, records show. All but one of the individuals had been convicted of prior domestic violence-related charges when the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) helped bail them out of jail, according to court records.
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A Florida High School has reportedly banned their football team from waving a flag meant to memorialize a police officer after critics said the display is racist.
The Fletcher High School football team had been running onto the field with the pro-law enforcement sign since last year to honor one of the player’s late father, a former cop who died suddenly in August 2019 after 29 years on the job. However the display was stopped this week after complaints, News4Jax reported.
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Republicans will ask the Supreme Court to review a ruling out of Pennsylvania that extended the due date for mail-in ballots for the coming presidential election. This will be the first political test of the Supreme Court following the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Friday evening.
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Johnson & Johnson began its final round of testing for its COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday.
The study is one of the most expansive to occur so far, involving 60,000 volunteers across the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Mexico and South Africa, the Associated Press reported. The vaccine is the latest to begin its final testing phase, joining candidates developed by Moderna and Pfizer, and is the only vaccine that would be administered as a single dose.
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A few weeks ago, Anthony Casa began sending lewd text and video messages to Austin Niemiec, an executive vice president at the world’s largest non-bank lender, Quicken Loans and third-parties including other bankers.
In one video, Casa said, in her college days, Niemiec’s future wife, Theresa, had performed oral sex on a man in college named Mat Ishbia and congratulated Austin for “marrying up.”
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Nineteen state representatives signed on to support law that would effectively put an end to COVID restrictions, the bill’s author, State Representative Diane Grendell (R-Chesterland) told The Ohio Star Wednesday.
“Government cannot protect us from every single one of life’s risks,” Grendell said.
The Star reported that the Representative-crafted a bill that would immediately cancel Governor Mike DeWine’s Executive Order declaring a state of emergency in Ohio.
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Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host John Fredericks welcomed Congressman Matt Gaetz to the show to discuss Bloomberg’s plan to buy criminals vote for Joe Biden and discuss his new book Firebrand.
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Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks welcomed Acting Director of ICE Tony Pham to the show to discuss his transition and a disturbing visit from the mobs at his home in Virginia.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed to block the payment of nuclear bailout money from House Bill (HB) 6.
HB 6, a bill that bailed out of the nuclear company First Energy, is at the center of the corruption scandal that led to the ousting and arrest of former Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder.
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The Charlottesville U.S. Attorney’s office dropped all charges of trade secret theft and computer intrusion against visiting Chinese scientist Haizhou Hu. The prosecution determined that some of the trade secrets were within Hu’s authorized access while at University of Virginia (UVA).
Hu has ties to the Chinese military. The researcher works for the Chinese Key Laboratory for Fluid Dynamics at China’s Beihang University, which the Chinese government and military both fund.
Another school district has been hit by pornography being displayed in Zoom classes. On Friday, Williamsburg-James City County Schools(WJCCS) had two incidents in high school classes.
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Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks welcomed Congressman Ben Cline to the program to discuss Virginia’s support for Donald Trump and turning the state back to red.
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I am not voting for a man. I do not give blanket or tacit approval to everything our President has done or said in the past and certainly what he will say or do in the future. I at times cringe at his tweets nor condone some of his actions. Like the fireman who drops the “f bomb” and uses other “salty” language while putting out the fire in your house, I can live with President Trump’s foibles. He gets the job done and at the end of the day it is results that count as our Commander-in-Chief. Nor do I approve of what Vice President Biden has said or done in the past or promises to do in the future. He has had forty-seven years in government to get it right and he has failed miserably. As Robert Gates stated, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” I challenge you to name one of Joe’s accomplishments.
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Ohio’s Interim Health Director Lance D. Himes released an amended version of the “Dine Safe Ohio” order Wednesday.
The new order has permitted the use of “self service” food stations at “retail food establishments. The order stated that all “Retail food establishments that are regulated by the Ohio Department of Agriculture are permitted to resume use of their self-service food stations in accordance with guidance from the Department of Health.”
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Since COVID-19 hit, official reports of child abuse and neglect have decreased nationally and in Virginia, but pediatrics experts warn that might not mean fewer cases of abuse.
“When families and parents are under greater stress, generally abuse increases,” President of the Virginia Chapter American Academy of Pediatrics Michael Martin told The Virginia Star.
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Welcome to the Thursday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).
It’s officially 40 days until the election on November 3 – and five days until President Trump and Joe Biden square off in the first presidential debate.
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A third of active Michigan voters have requested absentee ballots so far, a spokesperson from Michigan’s Secretary of State (SOS) office announced on Tuesday.
More than 2.39 million Michigan voters have requested ballots, more than 31 percent of the 7.7 million people registered to vote in Michigan and 35 percent of the state’s 6.7 million active voters, according to state data released by the SOS. Detroit City has requested the highest number of absentee ballots at 109,561 ballots, followed by Ann Arbor City at 40,786 ballots and Sterling Heights City at 32,083.
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Democratic and Republican legislators on the House Courts of Justice Committee killed legislation on Tuesday that would have eliminated the six month mandatory minimum sentence for assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Senate Bill 5032, sponsored by Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax County) was passed by indefinitely by a vote of 18-Y 1-N 1-A, ending any chance of being signed into law during the 2020 special session.
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Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Republican challenger Daniel Gade appeared virtually on NBC4 for their first debate. NBC News’ Chuck Todd moderated the debate from Washington, D.C. with a live Zoom audience.
Topics included the Supreme Court nominations, COVID-19, the digital divide, policing, racial justice, immigration, and the election.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two executive orders on Wednesday aimed at making Michigan carbon-neutral by 2050.
The first order creates an advisory council within the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) called the Council on Climate Solutions, which will be tasked with developing and implementing the MI Healthy Climate Plan. The second order creates EGLE’s Office of Environmental Justice Public Advocate, which will “ensure fairness for and representation from underserved communities,” the governor’s office said.
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University of Virginia (UVA) President Jim Ryan announced new COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday prohibiting student gathering of five or more people, mandating constant use of masks or face coverings and banning travel and visitors coming to campus for at least the next two weeks.
The restrictions apply to students, faculty and staff, living on and off campus, and went into effect on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
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Metro Nashville Health Department officials, whose COVID-19 policies have robbed people of their livelihoods, admitted Wednesday to incorrectly documenting the number of people in the city’s construction industry who contracted the virus.
And the discrepancy in the numbers wasn’t a small mistake either.
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Of the 2,619 cases accounted for on a list of 49 COVID-19 hotspots in Davidson County connected with 10 or more cases of COVID-19, 114 – or 4% – were tied to the six bars on the list.
The list of 49 case clusters in Nashville was released by Metro Public Health officials.
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by John Solomon A year-long Senate investigation concluded Wednesday that Hunter Biden’s efforts to cash in on foreign business deals during his father’s vice presidency raised alarm among U.S. government officials, who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged concerns about possible criminal activity ranging from bribery to sex trafficking. The long-awaited joint report by the GOP-led Senate Homeland and Government Affairs and Senate Finance Committees delivered several blockbuster revelations less than two months before Election Day, suggesting Obama administration officials ignored clear warning signs about ethical conflicts and possible extortion risks involving Joe Biden’s family. Perhaps the most explosive revelation was that the U.S. Treasury Department flagged payments collected overseas by Hunter Biden and business partner Devon Archer for possible illicit activities. The so-called Suspicious Activity Reports flagged millions of dollars in transactions from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina, and Chinese businessmen with ties to Beijing’s communist government, the report said. Senate investigators have yet to determine if the FBI or others investigated the concerns. “The Treasury records acquired by the Chairmen show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with…
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State Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) on Tuesday announced he wants members of the General Assembly to issue a vote of no confidence in Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn.
Griffey announced this through an emailed press release as well as a statement he published on his Facebook page.
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We moms treasure suburban life. We dream of having a home where our children can ride their bikes and play safely with their friends. We save our money for that special home on that special street in that special neighborhood and that special school district to educate our children. We live in the suburbs because we know what’s best for our families. And dads do, too.
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The Affordable Care Act mandated that states accept a hospitals’ decision on the eligibility of all able-bodied adults who verbally report their income to be below the Medicaid level, which has led to many fraudulent eligibility claims, according to a report published Monday.
The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) report examined recently released data from state Medicaid agencies. It specifically looked at the government Medicaid funds that were wasted through false hospitals’ presumptive eligibility (HPE) determinations.
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Some China observers are wary of a potential $40 billion initial public offering (IPO) by tech giant Ant Technology Group, saying the funds could underwrite China’s human rights abuses and risk U.S. national security.
The Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) is urging the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, U.S. investment banks and the Trump administration to block the Ant Group IPO, which could be the largest IPO in history.
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A naturalized American citizen who serves as a member of the New York City Police Department and the U.S. Army Reserves has been charged with acting as an illegal agent of China, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Baimadajie Angwang, 33, has also been charged with wire fraud, false statements and obstructing an official proceeding, according to the press release.
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Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed now say that they would not get a first-generation coronavirus vaccine as soon as it available, an Axios-Ipsos poll shows.
The percentage is eight points lower than a month ago, a drop that is reflected among both Democrats and Republicans, the Ipsos index shows. The United States is approaching 200,000 coronavirus deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
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