Day: February 22, 2021

More Than 1,300 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Expire in Shelby County

The Center Square

Around 1,315 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine scheduled to be administered in Shelby County expired as winter weather closed vaccination sites this week, the Shelby County Health Department announced Friday.

Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter said the health department was not informed the doses were about to expire. The department contracts with a pharmacy, and the pharmacist is responsible for managing the vaccine and thawing doses in the appropriate timeline for use. The vaccine spoilage was first reported by the Commercial Appeal.

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Gov. DeSantis Says Flags in Florida Will be Lowered to Half-Staff to Honor Rush Limbaugh

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During a press conference Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that flags in Florida will be lowered to half-staff for conservative talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh once his funeral arrangements are made.

“I know they’re still figuring out the arrangements but what we do when there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of internment for Rush is announced, we’re going to be lowering the flags to half-staff,” the governor said. Limbaugh, who resided at his “Southern Command” oasis in Palm Beach Florida for the past ten years, died on Ash Wednesday after a year-long bout with  stage IV lung cancer. He was 70.

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NASA Releases Perseverance Rover’s First Photos of Mars

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration released the first photos taken by its Perseverance rover on Mars after it became just the fifth rover to ever successfully complete the landing.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) photos released Saturday showed Mars’s vast landscape and rocky terrain. On Thursday, Perseverance successfully completed its landing on the Red Planet after a nearly seven-month flight from Earth.

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Trump National Security Official Says Evidence for Wuhan Lab Error ‘Far Outweighs’ Other Theories

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Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, said Sunday that the evidence that the coronavirus resulted from human error in a Chinese lab “far outweighs” other theories about the origins of the pandemic.

“If you weigh the circumstantial evidence, the ledger on the side of an explanation that says that this resulted from some kind of human error, it far outweighs the side of the scale that says this was some natural outbreak,” Pottinger said in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

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New York Legislature ‘Inching Toward’ Impeachment Probe of Cuomo, Democratic Assemblyman Says

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A Democratic state assemblyman in New York says that lawmakers are “inching toward” opening an impeachment probe of Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his handling of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes.

In an interview on the “Skullduggery” podcast, Ronald Kim, a Queens assemblyman, also said he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators in an ongoing probe of the Cuomo administration.

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Commentary: The Libertarian Party Delivers Wins to Anti-Liberty Democrats and There Is No Principle in That

Admin

If you want to find a Libertarian Party organization that has achieved relevance, look no further than Georgia. That’s where Shane Hazel, running for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, garnered 2.3 percent of the vote in November. Hazel’s showing may have been insignificant, but the Republican candidate, David Perdue, only needed 0.3 percent more votes to have avoided a runoff, where he lost.

America’s political system today, with rare exceptions, is a two party system. All that Perdue needed was for one in seven of Hazel’s voters to choose him instead, and the GOP would still control the U.S. Senate. In a two party system, it doesn’t take much to be relevant. Hazel now intends to run as a Libertarian for governor in Georgia in 2022.

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‘Comprehensive’ Methane Rule in Sight Under Biden Administration, Experts Say

The Center Square

Environmental experts said Thursday momentum behind the new presidential administration brings the promise of a comprehensive methane rule in sight – a move that would have a significant impact on Pennsylvania, one of the top natural gas-producing states.

Dan Grossman, senior director of advocacy for the Environmental Defense Fund, said controlling methane emissions from the oil and gas sector remains an important component of lowering greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which contribute to one quarter of the climate effects witnessed across the globe over the last decade, he said.

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Virginia Poised to Mandate ‘Cultural Competency’ Evaluation, Black History Training for Teachers

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A pair of bills that recently cleared the Virginia state legislature will mandate that all teachers in the state undergo “cultural competency” training, with history and social science teachers required to undertake additional training regarding African-American history.

The bills, one in the state House of Delegates and one in the Senate, would add “cultural competency” evaluations to the standard slate of regular evaluations to which teachers in the commonwealth are subject and require “each teacher and any other school board employee holding a license issued by the [state Board of Education] to complete cultural competency training, in accordance with guidance issued by the Board, at least every two years.”

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Commentary: The Corruption of ‘Politically Correct’ Language Puts Us All Under the Curse of Babel

Admin

In C.S. Lewis’s novel about totalitarianism, That Hideous Strength, we find this line, “Qui verbum Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbum hominis,” which translates, “They that have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.”

This line occurs in a passage during which an elite who dreamed of making themselves masters of mankind find themselves under the “curse of Babel,” unable to speak anything other than gibberish.

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Feds Threaten to Remove Work Requirement from Georgia’s Partial Medicaid Expansion

The Center Square

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) could decide in a matter of weeks whether it will remove the work or activity requirement in Georgia’s partial Medicaid expansion plan.

The CMS said the plan, which was approved by former President Donald Trump’s administration in October, does not “promote the objectives of the Medicaid program” and would be impossible to accomplish because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Former State Rep Who Brought Impeachment Against DeWine Announces Run for Ohio GOP Chair

Jack Windsor

Friday, former Ohio lawmaker John Becker, who represented Ohioans from House District 65 between 2013-2020, announced his candidacy for Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party (ORP).

The top spot in the Ohio GOP is open after former Chairwoman Jane Timken announced her resignation on February 5 to run for the U.S. Senate.

The Southwestern Ohio Republican declared his candidacy in a letter to the ORP State Central Committee that contained his resume.

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New Georgia Bill Would Demand More Detailed Vote Reporting System from Secretary of State

Chris Butler

Georgia legislators have submitted a bill that would require the secretary of state create a far more detailed election reporting system for general primaries, general elections, and runoffs from general primaries and general elections. “Such system shall provide for the entry of the number of ballots cast by type in each precinct, the results of state and federal races by precinct, the number of absentee ballots issued and returned, the number of absentee ballots certified, the number of absentee ballots rejected, the number of provisional ballots cast, and such other information which the Secretary of State deems relevant and useful to the citizens of this state,” according to the language of the bill.

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Senator Amanda Chase Still Dominates Virginia Gubernatorial Conversation as Other Candidates Announce New Policy Plans, Make Campaign Stops

Eric Burk

More gubernatorial polls this week show most voters are undecided, allowing contest leaders to continue to claim front-runner status while allowing everybody else to claim theoretical wins. But there’s more gubernatorial news than that — this week’s campaign news features new policy announcements, major endorsements, messaging controversy, and a late-night television mention.

First, the poll: 49 percent of Democratic voters and 55 percent of Republican voters are undecided, according to a Christoper Newport University/Wason Center Poll. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe leads Democrats with 26 percent, while Senator Amanda Chase leads Republicans with 17 percent.

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Harlan Hill Commentary: With ‘Republicans’ Like Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Who Needs Democrats?

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by Harlan Hill   Due to their Republican leadership, many great states like Florida are open for business while successfully managing and mitigating the COVID-19 crisis. The same cannot be said for Ohio: you’d be forgiven for mistaking its leadership as Liberal. Ohio is not open, as its Republican-in-name-only Governor Mike DeWine has shut the state to small businesses, restaurants, family celebrations, and more. In doing so, the already precarious state economy is faltering. And Republicans should especially worry: the GOP’s hold on the state looks likely to suffer as a result. Please don’t just take my word for it; look at the data. Recent polling reveals DeWine is massively underwater with Republican voters. This isn’t a new phenomenon for the “RINO,” but it’s remarkably worse than ever before. In this survey of likely Ohio Republican primary voters from December 2020, just 14 percent of voters say Ohio is on the right track, while an eye-watering 72 percent say Ohio is heading in the wrong direction. And who is to blame? Mike DeWine. A mere 16 percent of Ohio Republicans approve of DeWine’s handling of COVID-19. And his approval rating – an abysmal 17 percent is barely better. Therefore, less than one in five people approve of DeWine…

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General Assembly Passes Bill to Study Gold Mining, but Removes Gold Mine Moratorium

Eric Burk

The General Assembly passed HB 2213, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman’s (D-Prince William) bill to create a work group of scientists, local representatives, activists and state officials to study the impacts of gold mining. Although the bill originally included a two-year moratorium on permits for new gold mines bigger than 10 acres, the Senate removed that clause before passing the bill Tuesday 23 to 16. The House passed the amended version Thursday 56 to 43, sending it to the Governor for final approval.

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Home Schooling in Minnesota Skyrocketed 50% Amid School Closures

Admin
Homeschoolers

A Friday report from the Minnesota Department of Education confirmed what many have suspected all along: parents are opting to take their children out of public schools.

Overall public-school enrollment decreased by 2% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, MDE said in its report, which translates to a net loss of about 17,000 students. This decrease was driven largely by a 9% drop in public kindergarten enrollment, according to the MDE.

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Chances for Ohio Death Penalty Repeal Appear to be Growing

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The biggest-ever bipartisan coalition on Thursday announced a renewed effort to repeal the death penalty in Ohio.

State Sen. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, and Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, hosted a virtual press conference to announce that they and three other Republican and four Democratic senators so far have said they will co-sponsor the repeal legislation. The measure also has bipartisan support in the House.

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Community Pressures Tennessee State University President into Backing Out of CoreCivic Board

Corinne Murdock

After backlash from the community, Tennessee State University (TSU) President Dr. Glenda Glover reversed her decision to join CoreCivic’s board. Glover tweeted about the change suddenly, less than a day after CoreCivic had announced her appointment. Glover was expected to assume her position on March 1. In that press release, Glover had only positive things to say about the private prison company.

“Every single day, CoreCivic engages with thousands of individuals in educational programs who have the opportunity to positively change their lives,” stated Glover. “As I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the company, it’s clear to me that there is a genuine commitment to progress through innovative reentry programs, strong corporate governance, active public policy support and transparent ESG reporting. I look forward to being an inside voice that can help CoreCivic realize the full potential of its purpose of helping people prepare for the next step in their lives.”

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