Day: October 19, 2020

Nashville’s Fatal Drug Overdoses So Far Surpass 2019 Total

Chris Butler

Nashville officials have recorded more fatal drug overdoses in the first nine months of 2020 than they did in all of 2019.

This, according to a press release that members of the Metro Public Health Department emailed late last week.

As The Tennessee Star reported in May, Nashville, at the time, had an increase in the number of overdoses since March. Mid-March was right around the same time that local, state, and federal officials in the United States first restricted people’s movements and other freedoms because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Democrats And Journalists Circulate Fake Email Saying Iowa Farm Bureau Retracted Endorsement for Joni Ernst

Admin

A group of Democratic political operatives and journalists circulated a fake email on Twitter on Sunday that the Iowa Farm Bureau retracted its endorsement of Sen. Joni Ernst, a move which would have been a heavy blow to the Republican’s re-election bid.

The fabricated email asserted that the farm bureau was retracting its support for Ernst because of her debate performance earlier this week against challenger Theresa Greenfield.

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Seattle Patrol Car Set on Fire With Officer Inside

Admin

Fox News reports a Seattle police officer sitting in a patrol car parked in an alley Thursday afternoon suffered minor burns after a man set the vehicle on fire and ran away, authorities said.

Police responded to the incident near the downtown area around 1.30 p.m. after receiving calls that a man was walking around with a piece of burning lumber, according to a Seattle Police spokesperson.

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Trump To Seniors: I Will Protect, Defend, and Fight for You With Every Ounce of Energy I Have

Admin

President Donald Trump traveled to Fort Myers, Florida Friday to give a speech focusing on health care costs, Social Security and other issues that impact senior citizens. In his speech, the president sought to reassure elderly voters, who have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, that he cares about them, and is doing do everything he can to protect and defend them.

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Twitter Removes Anti-Mask Tweet From Trump Coronavirus Adviser

Admin

Twitter removed a tweet from a top White House coronavirus adviser, saying that, contrary to official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, masks don’t prevent the spread of the virus.

On Saturday, Dr. Scott Atlas tweeted that evidence showed masks don’t work, according to NBC News. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidance in April urging Americans to wear masks in public to prevent the spread of coronavirus after weeks of recommending the opposite.

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Commentary: The Habit of Liberal Accommodation Has Precipitated a Crisis

Admin

As members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter continue their nightly exercise of kinetic economic redistribution, and protestors assemble outside Walter Reed Hospital, where President Trump is receiving treatment for the Wuhan Flu, to shout anti-Trump slogans, I thought it might be useful to step back and consider this current wave of anti-American sentiment in historical context.

Anti-Americanism is not new, of course. It was, as many writers have noted, a staple of 1960s’ radicalism. What seems novel today, however, is the extent to which radical anti-American sentiment has installed itself into the heart of many institutions that, until about 15 minutes ago, were pillars of the American establishment. How odd that (Democratic) members of Congress should lament that America is guilty, and has always been guilty, of “systemic racism,” etc., etc. Somehow, the fact that Boston Mayor Martin Walsh hoisted the Chinese Communist flag in front of City Hall there epitomizes the rot.

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Kentucky State’s New ‘W.O.K.E.’ Task Force Distributes Black Lives Matter Shirts

Admin

Kentucky State University is encouraging students to wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts as part of their “W.O.K.E.” task force initiative.

After no officers were charged directly related to the death of Breonna Taylor, the school announced on September 24 that it would create a task force to help students understand Black issues and fight against perceived injustice.

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Security Guard to Face 2nd-Degree Murder Charges in Denver Shooting

Admin

A private security guard who claimed self-defense will face a second-degree murder charge in connection with the shooting death of a man following political rallies last weekend, the Denver district attorney’s office said Thursday.

Matthew Dolloff, 30, will be charged on Monday for killing Lee Keltner, said Denver District Attorney Beth McCann. If convicted, Dolloff, faces up to 48 years in prison, ABC News reports.

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Holocaust Denial Posts Banned on Another Social Media Platform

Admin

Twitter will begin removing posts containing Holocaust denial, a Twitter spokeswoman told Bloomberg News just days after Facebook also implemented a policy banning posts that deny the Holocaust. 

“We strongly condemn anti-semitism, and hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service,” the spokeswoman told Bloomberg News in a statement. “We also have a robust ‘glorification of violence’ policy in place and take action against content that glorifies or praises historical acts of violence and genocide, including the Holocaust.”

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California Voters Are Disinfecting, Microwaving Ballots

Admin

Election officials in Sacramento, California are asking voters not to disinfect or microwave mail-in ballots after the state received at least 100 ballots returned with damage, according to Just the News.

California voters are taking extreme measures to ensure their mail-in ballots are COVID germ-free. The registrar told KCRA News they have received at least 100 ballots damaged by disinfectant and alcohol spray. In one case, someone even microwaved their ballot in an attempt to get rid of any germs.

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Commentary: They Are Ready This Time – But So Are We

Admin

Both main chapters of the anti-Trump fraternity—the to-the-manor-born aristocracy of left-wing political operatives who oppose Republicans reflexively and the life-peers, so to speak, of the NeverTrump gaggle, who just hate Donald Trump—have been practicing assiduously since at least 2016.

Back then, and for some years following, the forces arrayed against Trump were formidable but complaisant. First, everyone knew that Hillary was going to win, so although Trump was thoroughly disreputable, he was also eminently ignorable since he could never win the election.

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Think Tanks Square Off Over More Government Oversight of Michigan’s Charter Schools

The Center Square

A report recommending expanded government oversight of Michigan’s charter schools has prompted a rebuttal from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (MCPP).

“Improving Oversight of Michigan Charter Schools and Their Authorizers” was issued on Feb. 25 by the Levin Center at Wayne State University Law School, which had commissioned the study from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan (CRC), a Michigan-based think tank.

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Minnesota’s Bonding Bill Includes More Than $11 Million for ‘Response to Civil Unrest’

Admin

The $1.9 billion bonding bill passed last week by the Minnesota Legislature includes upwards of $11 million for “costs incurred” during May’s Minneapolis riots.

The bill appropriates more than $5 million from the trunk highway fund and $3.5 million from the general fund to the Department of Public Safety “for costs incurred related to the response to civil unrest in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.”

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TRUMPDATE: Latest From the Team Trump Virginia Campaign for October 19

Jordan Bondurant

Welcome to the Saturday 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 15 days until the election on November 3 – and 12 days until early voting in Virginia closes. President Trump meets Joe Biden in the final presidential debate THIS THURSDAY. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot in Virginia is Friday, October 23.

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VCU To Students: Zoom Time – No In Person Classes

Jacob Taylor

As the fall semester begins to enter its final weeks, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) announced Thursday that the spring 2021 term will look very similar with most classes online and schoolwide health and safety protocols still enforced.

VCU president Michael Rao published an online message to students Thursday providing an update for the upcoming semester and highlighting some of the changes being made.

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Commentary: The Exceptional Catalog of Polling Failure

Admin

The question looms in nearly every U.S. presidential election, even in this year’s race: Could the polls be wrong? If they are, they likely will err in unique fashion. The history of election polling says as much.

That history tells of no greater polling surprise than what happened in 1948, when President Harry Truman defied the polls, the pundits and the press to defeat Thomas E. Dewey, his heavily favored Republican foe.

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Ohio Public Health Advisory System – Indicator Six: Hospitalizations

Jack Windsor

  This is the seventh story in an eight-part series on the Ohio Public Health Advisory System (OPHAS). OPHAS is a tool created to supplement the state’s reporting on cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The color-coded map assigns each of Ohio’s 88 counties a color determined by how many of the seven indicators comprising OPHAS are triggered by each county. The colors: yellow (0-1 indicator), orange (2-3 indicators), red (4-5 indicators) and purple (6-7 indicators). The seven indicators making up OPHAS are: 1)-new cases per capita, 2)-sustained increase in new cases, 3)-proportion of cases not in a congregate setting, 4)-sustained increase in emergency department (ED) visits for COVID-like illness, 5)-sustained increase in outpatient visits for COVID-like illness, 6)-sustained increase in new COVID hospital admissions, 7)-intensive care unit (ICU) bed occupancy. Indicator 6, sustained increase in new COVID hospitalizations, is flagged if there is an increasing trend of at least 5 consecutive days in the number of new hospitalizations due to COVID over the last 3 weeks. According to the Ohio COVID website, indicator six is an “important indicator of hospital burden and disease severity.” However, the measure does not give respect to the population size of the county, it simply flags…

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Facebook Fact-Checkers Use Old Analysis Written for Another Article to ‘Disprove’ The Tennessee Star on CDC Data Comparing Mask-Wearing and Infection Rates

Corinne Murdock

Facebook’s team of fact-checkers claimed Saturday that The Tennessee Star’s article comparing mask-wearing and infection rates is both “partly false” and “factually inaccurate.” But the social media giant made a judgment based on the content and conclusions of an entirely different article by The Federalist.

The Star based its article on a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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