AT&T officials announced Sunday that they have restored more than 75 percent of their mobility sites impacted by Friday’s explosion in downtown Nashville. As reported, an RV exploded Friday in Nashville, outside an AT&T transmission building. The blast caused extensive damage and knocked out phone and internet communications throughout Middle Tennessee.
Read the full storyDay: December 28, 2020
Commentary: Donald Trump is The Essential Man
Once upon a time, there was a president called Ronald Reagan – a model of decency and probity, at once great and self-effacing, who, above all, was truly in love with America and saw it as his sacred mission to preserve and strengthen American freedom. During his eight-year tenure, he revitalized the U.S. economy, snapped us out of what his disastrous predecessor had referred to as “our malaise,” and helped bring down the Soviet Union.
Then he walked off into the sunset. And for the next seven presidential terms, we had to make do with mediocrity and self-dealing. Both parties were dominated by crime families – sorry, I mean political dynasties. The Bushes were uninspiring. The Clintons were pure slime.
Read the full storyOverdose Outnumber Coronavirus Deaths in San Francisco
The number of San Francisco residents who have died from drug overdoses this year far exceeded the number of residents who have died from the coronavirus.
621 people have died in San Francisco of drug overdoses – that equates to nearly four times as many as have been killed by COVID-19.
Read the full storyMark Green and Tulsi Gabbard Oppose CDC on COVD-19 Vaccine Distribution Policy
U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-02) have introduced a resolution urging federal officials to revise their decision to prioritize healthy workers over elderly Americans as they distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. This, according to a press release that Green and Gabbard published this week.
Read the full storyFour California Small Business Owners Share Their Struggles to Survive Under Lockdowns
California small businesses are crumbling under the weight of a new stay-at-home order and a lack of meaningful financial assistance.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a new region-based lockdown order for California on Dec. 3, forcing more California businesses to close their doors or severely limit operations.
Read the full storyMinimum Wage Hikes Set for 2021 Imperil Businesses Struggling Amid COVID Shutdowns
More than 80 states and local municipalities are slated to see minimum wage hikes in 2021, even as business owners continue to struggle during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Employment Policies Institute, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., that studies how public policy impacts employment growth, released a comprehensive list of the minimum wage increases that will go into effect next year and in subsequent years.
“Minimum wage increases are demonstrated to cause job losses even in times of economic health,” said Michael Saltsman, EPI’s managing director. “These states and local areas are increasing the cost of labor as businesses are dealing with forced closures or a drastic drop in revenue. Employers and employees will pay the price for these misguided good intentions.”
Read the full storyMIT Continues to Pay Prof Who Took Jeffrey Epstein Donations, Even After Severe COVID-19 Cuts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Seth Lloyd — who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — will continue to receive compensation from the university, and will eventually return to his teaching job.
As Campus Reform previously reported, Lloyd was fully aware of $850,000 donated to MIT over a period of 15 years. He was the direct recipient of $225,000 in research donations received after Epstein’s conviction.
Read the full storyJoe Biden’s About to Floor It to a Green Future – Straight into State Speed Traps
Joe Biden needs to put the pedal to the metal as he races toward his goal of ridding America’s energy sources of carbon emissions by 2035. But the president-elect’s headlong rush toward a green future may be slowed by a snarl of political speed limits in the states.
One of Biden’s most ambitious aims is to completely clean up the electrical grid, today powered mostly by fossil fuels, in only 15 years. Many energy executives consider that goal quixotic because it would require a breathtakingly fast transformation of the massive power industry — from replacing hundreds of dirty power plants to upgrading thousands of miles transmission lines.
Read the full storyJake Tapper on White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany: She ‘Lies the Way that Most People Breathe’
CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Sunday that he wouldn’t put White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on air because she “lies the way that most people breathe.”
Tapper told CNN’s Brian Stelter that throughout President Donald Trump’s term, “you had to steel yourself for interviews with people that might misrepresent the facts.” The CNN anchor said that “once somebody proved themselves to be a liar, I just stopped booking them.”
Read the full storyCartoon Network Promotes ‘Many Gender Identities’ for Kids
Cartoon Network released a comic strip highlighting the importance of respecting ‘many gender identities’ and loving a person no matter their preferred pronoun.
Read the full storyAnalysis: Republican’s 2020 Wins in State Capitals Sets the Stage for Lasting Victories Through the Next Decade
Carrie Delrosso, a Republican, won her campaign in Pennsylvania’s 33rd House District by defeating House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, a Democrat, to capture the seat.
In Ohio’s 75th House District, Gail Pavliga won her election, flipping the seat to the GOP after running a campaign on solving the opioid crisis in the district.
Read the full storyCommentary: The North Face’s Absurd, Hypocritical Virtue-Signaling
Virtue-signaling, and the hypocrisies that inevitably accrue to it, are nothing new. Neither is it new that those who virtue-signal while engaging in or benefiting from those things that they decry are deeply self-deluded about their hypocrisy.
In the middle of a pandemic, we’re seeing more than our fair share, from the mayor of Austin lecturing his citizens on the virtues of staying home while he himself was on vacation in Mexico, to the newly inaugurated mayor of Baltimore locking down businesses across his city and then finding himself caught shopping outside his city where the rules are more “relaxed,” to Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the architects of America’s “You Should Stay Home” policy, traveling to see family over the holidays.
Read the full storyLittle-Known Georgia Runoff Election Could Play Role in Utility Rates
More than just the two U.S. Senate runoff elections will be on the ballot in the Jan. 5 election for voters in north Georgia.
In a District 4 runoff for public service commissioner, Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. faces Democratic challenger Daniel Blackman. The Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) oversees utility rates in the state. District 4 includes more than three dozen counties in north Georgia.
McDonald was appointed to the GPSC by former Gov. Zell Miller in 1998. He remained on the commission until 2002 and was reelected in 2008. He defeated a challenge from Blackman in 2014.
Read the full storyVirginia AG Herring to Court: Ban ‘Ghost Guns’
Attorney General Mark Herring has joined 19 other attorneys general asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to force regulation of so-called “ghost guns” – partially assembled firearms kits that can be completed by consumers without the serial numbers law enforcement uses to track the weapons. Herring and the other attorneys general signed an amicus brief as third parties to Syracuse v. ATF, a lawsuit that says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) was too lenient in its 2015 interpretation of the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968.
Read the full storyDelegate Mark Levine Announces Run for Lieutenant Governor in 2021
Virginia State Delegate Mark Levine (D-Arlington) announced last Monday that he was officially running for lieutenant governor and joining the crowded contest.
Levine, 54, is the 12th contender to enter into the race so far and, if elected, he would become Virginia’s first openly gay statewide elected official.
Read the full storyOhio Moves Up School Employees for Vaccines to Get Students Back in Classrooms
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine plans to offer vaccines to all schools in the state that want it by mid-January in an effort to get children back to in-person learning in districts that want to return.
At his regular news conference Wednesday, DeWine announced new phases of vaccine distribution that included adults in school districts, those 64 years old and older, along with those with severe medical conditions.
Read the full storyMinnesota’s Henry Sibley High Drops Literary Classic ‘Of Mice and Men’ After Complaints
Henry Sibley High School recently set aside “Of Mice and Men” and “Montana 1948” from its curriculum after receiving complaints from parents.
Henry Sibley High School, which will have its name changed to drop the name of Minnesota’s first governor, has put a “pause” on the use of multiple books. The school board sent out a letter to parents explaining why the books were set aside.
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