Day: January 21, 2021

Metro School Board Chair Vacationed in St. Lucia Shortly Before Closing Schools Due to COVID-19

Corinne Murdock

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Board Chair Christiane Buggs caught parents’ ire for continuing to keep schools closed in light of her activities in recent months. Shortly before the ongoing school closure began in November, Buggs hosted an election watch party and then vacationed internationally.

Buggs defended the board’s initial decision in the fall to adjust all schools to virtual learning. She described it as a necessity, explaining how her own father was concurrently battling COVID-19. Buggs explained that he was infected while working at one of their middle schools. She stated that preventing the spread was paramount to in-person learning, which she described as a “convenience.”

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Commentary: Under Your Pillow, Inside Your Closet, We Trump Supporters Are and Will Be Everywhere

Admin

It is so appropriate that Mike Lindell, founder and CEO of MyPillow — ♪ for the best night’s sleep in the whole wide world, it’s my pillow dot com ♪ — is the latest prominent person to come out yet again, even post January 6, for Donald Trump. Although I disagree vehemently with the “martial law” stuff and although Donald Trump decidedly is not my hero — my late wife Ellen of blessed memory is my hero — I still publicly count myself as a strong supporter of the entire four-year Trump presidency. His presidency was enormously powerful and successful. It was en route to Mount Rushmore until a once-in-a-century pandemic set off inevitable setbacks. None were his fault, and his “Operation Warp Speed” will have saved more lives than the Mainstream Media ever will admit. Indeed, had the COVID impact come during an Obama-quality bleak economy, the plague’s disaster’s catastrophe would have been amplified.

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Biden to Extend Student Loan Payment Freeze Until September 2021

Admin

President-elect Joe Biden will order the Department of Education to extend the student loan payment moratorium through September in one of his first presidential moves.

Joe Biden is set to sign the executive order on Wednesday following his inauguration, extending the current pause on student loan payments, which has been in effect since March, according to CBS News. The order is a fulfillment of Biden’s campaign promise to prioritize the U.S. student loan debt crisis.

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Governor Lee Appointed Co-Chair of National Task Force on Pandemic and Disaster Response

Corinne Murdock

Governor Bill Lee was appointed the co-chair of the National Governors Association’s (NGA) Pandemic and Disaster Response Task Force on Wednesday. The other chair selected was Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.

Lee and Lamont will oversee the Federal Emergency Management administration (FEMA), the National Guard, cybersecurity, healthcare, and all issues related to addressing and recovering from COVID-19, such as testing and personal protective equipment (PPE). Other members in the task force have yet to be announced; as of Wednesday, the two staffers on the task force were legislative directors Mary Catherine Ott and Maribel Ramos.

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Keystone XL Pipeline to be Scrapped Again

Admin

President-elect Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he would cancel a permit critical to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The move marks the second time that a Democratic administration has effectively killed the $8 billion project. While environmental and conservation groups praised the move, TC Energy, the company behind the pipeline’s construction, argued in an earlier Supreme Court brief that scrapping the project would strip 1,500 construction workers and 300 inspection and management workers of their jobs.

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Commentary: Five Ways Hospitals Can Help Fix Vaccine Rollout Debacle

RealClearWire

Hospitals have come under sharp criticism for their part in the chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout. That’s because in the rush to get the vaccine out quickly, many hospitals were shipped more vaccine than anticipated and fewer staff took it than anticipated. As a result, hospitals accrued a vaccine surplus and offered it to their low-risk grad students and young administrative staff working from home and are now scrambling to figure out what to do with the rest. The answer should be simple: give it to older members of your community, but a recent letter from the American Hospital Association cited a number of important barriers to effective vaccine distribution including a lack of coordination and guidance from federal, state, and local governments. 

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Default Settings for Inauguration Flag Donations Sends Money to Planned Parenthood

Admin

The default settings to sponsor inauguration flags sends money to the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s partners — including the Planned Parenthood of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee installed an “extensive public art display” that includes 191,500 flags on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Americans may symbolically sponsor flags by donating through ActBlue Charities.

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Over 100 House Republicans Support Removing Liz Cheney from Leadership Role

Admin

Over half of all Republican members of the House of Representatives are prepared to support an effort to remove Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as Chair of the House GOP Conference, according to Breitbart.

It has been reported that approximately 115 House Republicans are committed to voting in favor of a “no confidence” motion on Cheney’s leadership, which could allow for Cheney to be removed and replaced. The position is the third highest-ranking role in House GOP leadership, only behind the House Minority Whip and House Minority Leader.

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Gwinnett County Elections Chair Pushes for Election Law Changes; Civil Rights Groups Call for Her Resignation

Corinne Murdock

Activists and legislators are calling for Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections Chair Alice O’Lenick to resign for supporting election law changes. O’Lenick wanted to limit no-excuse absentee voting to the elderly and infirm, ban absentee ballot drop boxes, and expand early voting to last 21 days and be open on the weekends.

O’Lenick’s proposals incited negative responses from a variety of civil rights and activist groups, as well as a coalition of Democratic state legislators. Amongst the groups were The Lincoln Project, Fair Fight Action, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, Georgia American Federation of Labor and Congress of Individual Organizations (AFL-CIO), Georgia Equality, and Voto Latino.

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Virginia Senate Committee Passes Censure Resolution on Amanda Chase

Jacob Taylor

The Virginia Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections passed a resolution to censure Republican gubernatorial candidate Sen. Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) on Tuesday regarding her conduct and comments on the January 6 Capitol riots in Washington D.C.

Introduced by Sen. John Bell (D-Loudon) and sponsored by nine other Democratic legislators, Senate Resolution 91 was reported out of the committee by a 9-6 vote straight down party lines and will now be considered on the floor in the coming days.

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State Economist: Georgia Business Owners Deserve Credit for Keeping State’s Economy Afloat

The Center Square

Georgia’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic should be strong and swift, the state’s fiscal economist said Tuesday.

Georgia’s economy has been supported by federal aid, a recovering job market and business owners’ improvisation, state economist Jeffrey Dorfman told the House and Senate appropriations committees during a joint meeting Tuesday.

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Vice President Harris Swears in Ossoff, Warnock

Peter D'Abrosca

Vice President Kamala Harris, sworn into office herself just hours prior, swore in two new Senators from Georgia Wednesday afternoon. 

Democat Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who edged out former Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively, in a runoff election on January 5, became the newest members of the U.S. Senate, flipping control of the higher chamber of Congress the Democratic Party. 

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Georgia General Assembly Will Soon Examine Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws

Chris Butler

Members of the Georgia General Assembly will soon consider two separate bills that pertain to civil asset forfeiture, one which would make it harder for government officials to seize private property. This bill, the Due Process in Civil Forfeiture Act, would increase the burden of proof for the government in civil forfeiture proceedings. The bill would alsoprovide people with public defenders during civil forfeiture proceedings in certain criminal cases.

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Ohio Secretary of State LaRose Deactivates 97,795 Voter Registrations

Jack Windsor

  Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced Wednesday that 97,795 voters were removed from the rolls after Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections identified the abandoned registrations as part of the maintenance process required by Ohio and federal law. “Getting rid of bad voter data from the voter rolls helps prevent fraud, makes it easier for county boards of elections to do their jobs, and strengthens the confidence Ohioans place in our elections,” LaRose said. The purge process began in 2016 when registrants who had been inactive for two years at that point received notification to determine if they were at the registered address and wished to remain a registered voter. “If that record remains inactive for another four years or six years of total inactivity, it must be removed from the voter rolls,” the secretary of state’s release stated. On August 17, LaRose released to all county boards of election Directive 2020-14 announcing a December 7 deadline by which boards had to identify for removal inactive registrants. Between the August directive and the December deadline, 18,000 Ohioans took action to keep their active voter status – 10,000 did so by voting in the 2020 presidential election. “It’s important…

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Minnesotans Under the Age of 40 More Likely to be Murdered Than Die from COVID

Admin

Minnesotans under the age of 40 are two times more likely to be murdered than die from COVID-19, Center of the American Experiment economist John Phelan said in a recent article.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, 42 Minnesotans under the age of 40 have died from COVID-19. According to the Center of the American Experiment, at least 88 Minnesotans under the age of 40 have died in a homicide since March 21 — the date of Minnesota’s first reported COVID-19 case.

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Virginia House Passes ‘Good Apples Bill’ Requiring Officers to Report Misconduct to Supervisors

Eric Burk

The House of Delegates passed Delegate Mark Levine’s (D-Arlington) “Good Apples Bill,” which requires law enforcement officers to report acts of wrongdoing committed by other on-duty officers. It also requires officers to render aid if they witness someone suffering a serious bodily injury, and it expands a ban on biased-based profiling to include profiling by sexual orientation. In a vote Wednesday, HB 1948 passed 57-42, with three Republicans joining Democrats to vote for the bill.

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Senator McClellan Unveils Universal Child Care and Early Learning Plan as Part of Gubernatorial Campaign

Jacob Taylor

Democratic candidate for governor and Virginia State Senator Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond City) released a plan central to her campaign last Friday that seeks to provide affordable and quality child care for every family with a kid under the age of five by 2025.

Under McClellan’s Universal Child Care & Early Learning Plan, Virginia families that make below or up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level would receive free child care, no matter the family size. While families making above that poverty threshold would have to pay for child care costs, but no more than 7 percent of their annual income.

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Fairfax County Workers Seek Authority to Remove Union Bosses

The Center Square

Workers in Fairfax County are asking the National Labor Relations Board to change its policies so they can vote to remove union bosses at any time during a contract.

Under NLRB rules, workers cannot vote to oust union representatives until after a contract has expired or after three years have passed, whichever is earlier. Employees at Transdev, a public transport company, who are working at the public bus service Fairfax Connector are seeking a change to the rule with legal help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

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Virginia House Republicans Blast Slow COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout

Eric Burk

House of Delegate Republicans have repeatedly begun the regular sessions this week by blasting Virginia’s government for the slow COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

On Monday, GOP Caucus Chairman Delegate Kathy Byron (R-Bedford) said, “Madam Speaker, as we meet today, Virginia’s government is struggling in a critical life-saving mission. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Virginia has received over 850,000 doses of the COVID vaccine, but we have administered fewer than 250,000 doses. That performance ranks us among the lowest of the fifty states.”

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Nashville Officials Debate Project That Would Attract Technology Company Oracle, Create New Jobs

Chris Butler

Metro Nashville officials are evaluating whether to spend $13.8 million in new infrastructure costs to allow a private company, Oracle, to set up shop in Davidson County. Metro Nashville At-Large Council Member Steve Glover told The Tennessee Star that council members on Tuesday approved an agreement — on the second reading — to invest the money. They then referred it for a final reading.

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