At least 140 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives plan to challenge the electoral vote results on January 6 when Congress meets to certify the next president, CNN reported on Thursday.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who launched the effort to challenge the “flawed election,” expressed surprise on Twitter that the number of House members joining him had grown that high.
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The year 2020 was tough for everyone, children and adults alike. Most school-age kids were forced to attend school virtually, at least for part of the year. This, combined with lockdowns, caused screen time use to surge.
More than usual, parents may fear kids aren’t learning well or are being exposed to things they aren’t yet mature enough to handle. On this, their intuition may be correct: 2020 saw an increase in LGBTQ-friendly marketing targeted at kids.
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Electric-powered cars are now the rage. Tesla’s market capitalization is seven times larger than that of General Motors and fourteen times larger than Ford’s, though it builds a fraction of the vehicles that those companies do. Many politicians are even considering banning gasoline-powered cars within a few years in favor of electric vehicles (EVs), all in the name of saving the planet.
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Georgia Republicans say they have doubled the number of poll watch volunteers to supervise the contentious Senate runoff elections which will be tallied next week.
A total of 8,000 people volunteered to join a “historic effort” to ensure election integrity ahead of Jan. 5, Fox News reported, citing GOP officials. The number of recruits increased two-fold from the 4,000 volunteers who have been supervising early voting in the state for the past few weeks, according to Fox.
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The Senate on Friday voted to override President Trump’s veto of the $741 billion defense authorization bill, giving Trump the first veto overide of his presidency.
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President Trump’s supporters across the country are escalating efforts to contest the Nov. 3 election results ahead of Wednesday’s official certification by Congress, with some Pennsylvania lawmakers making a special appeal to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Georgia Republicans scoring an 11th-hour court hearing.
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January 2 will mark the one-year anniversary of the novel coronavirus being in Ohio, according to backdated data from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH).
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Richmond residents struggling to keep up with their utility bills or already several months behind as a result of economic hardships from the coronavirus pandemic can now apply for assistance from the city.
The city of Richmond Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has received funding from the COVID-19 Municipal Utility Relief Program – originally provided by the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) – to make this assistance possible.
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On New Years Eve, Senator Bill DeSteph (R-Virginia Beach) struck a deal with leaders of the Virginia General Assembly that will provide space for constituents to meet with legislators near the Capitol grounds even though the Pocahontas Building and Capitol Building remain closed to outsiders due to COVID-19.
DeSteph said the out-of-court settlement was a win. “This will allow citizens, subject matter experts, and other professional staff to meet face-to-face with legislators during the upcoming regular session. This is a huge victory for the First Amendment and for open access to government for all Virginians,” the press release states.
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Evangelist Franklin Graham this week told Georgia residents that they must vote in Tuesday’s two U.S. Senate run-offs because “the soul of our nation is at stake.” Graham said this on his Facebook page.
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Let Them Play MN, a nonprofit, issued a press release outlining its concerns regarding the newest guidelines for youth sports.
A guidance released by the Minnesota Department of Health on Dec. 28 requires all youth sports players to wear masks during practices and, when the time comes, during games. A few exceptions exist, including wrestling, gymnastics, and swimming and diving.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday released a 29-page report saying her office found “no evidence of criminal conduct” after an investigation into April allegations the state health department unlawfully contracted with a COVID-19 contact-tracing vendor associated with Democrat consultant Michael Kolehouse.
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Anybody who knows me knows I’m a jobs guy. I believe in jobs, good wages and all the positives than come from infrastructure projects. We have one about to explode in our own backyard here in Virginia – and I mean explode in a good way. It’s the multi-billion dollar economic development blockbuster known as the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project. This thing has been under development for a long time…from the informational meetings years ago, the drawing boards, the public meetings, the regulatory hurdles and the construction.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put out an alert to pet owners and veterinarians on Wednesday that certain lots of Sportmix pet food have been recalled after the deaths of 28 dogs that ate the products was reported.
Multiple samples of Sportmix products were tested by the Missouri Department of Agriculture and found to contain high, potentially fatal levels of aflatoxin, a toxin that is produced by the mold Aspergillus flavus and can cause both illness and death in pets, according to the FDA alert.
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Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner reversed part of her ruling late Wednesday night, allowing Muscogee County to impose provisional ballots for challenged voters. However, Gardner maintained that the challenge of eligibility can’t be made solely on the basis of National Change of Address (NCOA) registry data. Gardner’s updated order followed shortly after an original ruling prohibited two counties from imposing provisional ballots for over 4,100 challenged voters.
Gardner is the sister of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic activist leading several organizations and a political action committee dedicated to voters rights. Despite the pair’s connection and Abrams’ interest in the case, Gardner refused to recuse herself. She published an explanation on Thursday, several days after her first order.
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This week Governor DeWine added several new laws to the books and required the state to pony up money for grandparents and extended family members raising their related children.
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Members of Tennessee Stands said this week that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and members of the state legislature should prioritize students — and not school district budgets — during the upcoming special session on education. Tennessee Stands is a nonprofit based out of Williamson County.
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Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) stated that last year’s investigation into the Nashville bomber yielded no evidence or suspicion of a crime. Chief John Drake revealed those details in a statement on Anthony Warner, the bomber linked to the Christmas Day explosion in downtown Nashville.
Drake explained that MNPD were called by an attorney to address a suicidal woman with two guns last August. The woman at the scene was Pamela Perry, Warner’s girlfriend at the time. She reported to police that Warner was making bombs in his RV trailer, and stated that both guns belonged to him. The attorney, Raymond Throckmorton III, reportedly represented both Warner and Perry.
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This year has been dominated by the pain and suffering thrust upon the globe by the criminal acts of the Chinese Communist Party. Even amid these harsh challenges, President Trump persevered to reach historic achievements. Therefore, as the year draws to its conclusion, it is worth detailing his 2020 accomplishments, as I have previously cataloged for each of the last three years.
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President Donald Trump is right: There’s a lot of ridiculous gimmicks and wasteful projects in the new massive spending bill.
And the good news is there’s something that Trump can do about it, even though he recently signed the huge COVID-19 stimulus and omnibus spending bill into law.
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In 2015, Princeton University became the second higher-education institution to sign the University of Chicago Statement supporting campus free speech. Yet, five years later, Princeton professor Keith E. Whittington wrote that the university stood “on the front lines” of the battle over speech. Those battle lines were drawn this summer by students and faculty demanding the adoption of “anti-racist” policies, which some on campus say run counter to free speech and open inquiry.
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A number of companies and brands have been linked to labor forced on Uighur Muslims by the Chinese government, according to multiple reports.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Apple supplier Lens Technology uses Uighur workers in its factories, according to documents obtained by the Tech Transparency Project. These workers were transferred from labor camps in the Xinjiang region of western China, WaPo reported.
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Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the immigration-skeptical Center for Immigration Studies, spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Samantha Renck about the implications of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, a possible influx of migrants at the southern border and more.
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The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 787,000 last week as the economy continued to suffer the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) figure released Thursday represented a decrease of new jobless claims compared to the week ending Dec. 26, in which there were 803,000 new jobless claims reported. Roughly 19.6 million Americans continue to collect unemployment benefits, according to the BLS report Thursday.
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Representative-elect Diana Harshbarger announced Thursday that she will object to the Electoral College results during next week’s certification.
“On Jan 6 when the Electoral College meets, I will join my other GOP [colleagues] in objecting,” wrote Harshbarger. “I stand for free and fair elections, and I am ready to fight for Tennessee and our Country.”
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We’ve all been deluged with lists of 2020 winners, losers, and reasons why everyone is saying good riddance to this challenging, tragic, chaotic, and unusual year.
This one has a different slant: Five “never before and never again” phenomena unique to 2020. (Yes, I know that one must “never say never,” but the following qualify as two-headed freaks of politics and economics.)
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Fulton County Superior Court has granted a hearing for a forensic inspection of Fulton County’s mail-in ballots. Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA) relayed the news in an email sent to The Georgia Star News on Thursday. The announcement followed Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee’s motion to request all absentee mail-in ballots from Fulton County on Wednesday. The next day, the subcommittee sent their formal request to the county.
The hearing will take place Monday at 11 a.m. EST. The Senate subcommittee hasn’t filed a petition with the court, but instead has sent a letter to Fulton County officials, requesting a response by noon Thursday. Their request would include all absentee mail-in ballots processed at the State Farm Arena. VoterGA organized voters into plaintiffs a little over a week ago to obtain a court order granting similar relief.
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The Colonial Downs Group is opening a new Rosie’s Gaming Emporium in Dumfries on January 8. The new location will offer simulcast horse racing and betting, as well as 150 historical horse racing machines. The machines use historical horse race data to offer a slots-style gaming experience to patrons.
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Members of the Georgia Republican Party this week said the media must ask U.S. Senate candidate Raphael Warnock a list of specific questions about his past. Georgia GOP members, in a press release, submitted the questions that they want the media to ask.
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President Trump issued an executive order on Monday allowing states to use COVID-19 funds to be provided as emergency learning scholarships for students who don’t have access to in-person learning. The funds are directed at families, not schools, and can also be used by homeschooling students. Gubernatorial candidate Delegate Kirk Cox’s staff (R-Colonial Heights) said the program is similar to one that he introduced in the General Assembly.
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Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff accused incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) of campaigning with a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member, ignoring her remarks to the contrary. He made his accusations during an impromptu interview with Fox News on Wednesday. Ossoff’s allegation was based on a viral photo of Loeffler with a former KKK leader, Chester Doles, taken earlier this month.
“We have two United States Senators in Georgia who have blatantly used their offices to enrich themselves. This is beyond partisanship,” stated Ossoff. “Here’s the bottom line: Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. She is stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she’s been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
“Right now, we have a crisis of corruption in American politics. And since we’re live on Fox right now, let me take this opportunity to address directly the Fox audience. We have two United States Senators in Georgia who have blatantly used their offices to enrich themselves. This is beyond partisanship,” stated Ossoff. “Here’s the bottom line: Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. She is stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she’s been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Falls Church City Public Schools plans to have all students back to in-person classes by the end of January, according to a notice from Superintendent Peter Noonan.
“ALL students are slated to return in the month of January,” Noonan said on Monday. “We plan to return students in phases beginning on January 5, 2021, consistent with employee capacity to clean our buildings. We will open, starting with the smallest cohort and lead up to the largest cohort.”
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During a COVID briefing on Wednesday Ohio Governor Mike DeWine rescinded the State of Ohio guidance suggesting students quarantine after being in close contact with other COVID-positive students in school and the classroom.
“Today we are changing our guidance,” said DeWine, who continued “I know that there’s been a great deal of pain – students not being able to do things because they are in quarantine. I fully understand that and I’m sorry that happened, but we had to follow the CDC guidance.”
The Governor said the decision was based on an evaluation of Ohio students, a CDC report involving students in Mississippi, and priority the Governor has given to teachers and staff to receive the COVID vaccine.
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Michigan business and political leaders are pondering exactly why Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chose to veto Tuesday a bipartisan effort to allocate $220 million for Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.
Although the governor signed the bipartisan relief bill, she exercised a line-time veto of a portion of the bill that would have appropriated $220 million to the UITF.
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Coronavirus vaccination efforts by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) have been ongoing since December 15, but the number of administered doses is significantly less than the amount distributed throughout the Commonwealth.
According to the COVID-19 vaccine dashboard, as of Thursday, Virginia has distributed 388,100 doses, but only 64,882 have actually been administered so far.
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Today Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Director Stephanie McCloud signed the Director’s Second Amended Order that All Persons Stay at Home During Specified Hours Unless Engaged in Work or Essential Activity.
Sources inside the state government told The Star in November that the original curfew order came as a reaction to significant backlash from Ohioans as information leaked that Governor DeWine was going to push for another shutdown.
One source said, “people in the room when the decision was made agreed that a curfew wouldn’t do anything significant,” but would be an acceptable compromise the DeWine team would accept.
Thanks to a recently implemented law from the Virginia General Assembly, emergency relief payments from the federal government to Virginians will be protected from being seized or garnished by debt collectors and creditors.
The new law, stemming from House Bill 5068, comes as Virginians and Americans from across the country are starting to receive a second round of relief payments relating to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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State officials are now seeking additional penalties against Larvita McFarquhar, a defiant restaurant owner in Lynd, Minnesota, who is being fined $250 per day for remaining open.
A Ramsey County judge ordered McFarquhar to close her restaurant earlier this month and comply with Gov. Tim Walz’s COVID-19 executive orders. But she refused and was found in contempt of court, which comes with a $250 daily fine for non-compliance.
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U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) and U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais this week explained how and why they voted on three key budget bills. Green this week said he voted no on the $2.3 trillion omnibus bill. He said it “contained billions of waste and foreign aid.”
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