Day: April 1, 2021

Nashville Metro Council Member Steve Glover to Introduce Resolution for Budget Transparency, Fight for Lowered Taxes

Corinne Murdock

Nashville Metro Council member Steve Glover is pushing for more budget transparency from Mayor John Cooper. Glover made this announcement during a press conference on Wednesday. In short, the resolution would ask the mayor to share with the council an estimate on revenues. Glover shared that his initial predictions of a $70-100 million surplus proved less than the actual current surplus of $102-150 million. 

As a result, Glover estimated that the mayor could reduce the tax increase anywhere from 31 to 50 percent. He explained that he’d relied on numbers from the state to draw these conclusions – the same information that the mayor knew while deciding on the hefty property tax increase.

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Commentary: New Census Data Show Homeschooling Tripled During the Pandemic—And One Key Group Is Driving the Surge

Admin

My daughter had a friend over this week whose parents just took her out of public school for homeschooling, and my neighbor recently unenrolled her child from public school to homeschool for the rest of the academic year. These families are much more than local anecdotes—they are representative of a national trend.

New Census Bureau data show that 11.1 percent of K-12 students are now being independently homeschooled. This is a large uptick from 5.4 percent at the start of the school shutdowns last spring, and 3.3 percent in the years preceding the pandemic.

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China Revives Dubious Theory That U.S. Military Base Was Source of Coronavirus

Admin
Fort Detrick

A top Chinese government official on Wednesday seized on the findings of a World Health Organization report about the origins of the coronavirus, and revived a baseless theory that a U.S. military lab in Maryland was somehow involved in spreading the virus.

Hua Chunying, the spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, endorsed the theory at press conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday, both before and after the release of a World Health Organization (WHO) report regarding the origins of the virus.

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Trump Considering Holding a Rally Soon, Says ‘Hope’ He’ll Run Again in 2024

Admin

Former President Trump is considering holding a rally in the near future.

“We’re thinking about doing one relatively soon just to let everybody know that there’s hope in the future,” Trump told daughter-in-law Lara Trump on Tuesday during her podcast “The Right View with Lara Trump.” “I love doing them. But more importantly, I think we get the word out.”

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Over 100 Professors Sign Letter Demanding Transparency with Colleges’ Ties to China

Admin
China College

Over 100 American college professors signed a joint letter on Tuesday demanding greater transparency of their colleges and universities with regards to business dealings with the Chinese government, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

The letter states, in part, that “universities and research institutions in liberal democracies also have a responsibility to respond to transnational academic repression and to protect a diversity of views. At a minimum, this requires real transparency over agreements signed with counterparts in autocratic states.”

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DeSantis to Take Executive Action Against ‘Vaccine Passports’

Admin

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vowed that he would issue an executive order forbidding local governments and businesses from requiring “vaccine passports” to show digital or physical proof of vaccination against COVID-19, The Hill reports.

At a news conference, the Florida governor announced he would introduce “an executive function, emergency function” against vaccine passports and requested the Republican state legislature draft a bill forbidding such passports.

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Commentary: President Biden’s American Job Killing Tax Plan

Admin

There is a deep irony in President Joe Biden’s decision to start looking for support for his American Job Killing Tax Plan in Pittsburgh, Penn. 

And make no mistake: Biden’s so-called American Jobs Plan is a tax increase bill masquerading as an infrastructure bill – which is in turn masquerading as a jobs bill. It will not create jobs or ultimately improve our infrastructure. It will kill jobs and make infrastructure projects more expensive in time and money.  

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Commentary: Did PPP Work?

Admin

As the Small Business Administration official who oversaw the Paycheck Protection Program, I’m often asked, “Did PPP actually work?”  

PPP was a response to state and local governments mandating shutdowns as a way to slow the spread of COVID-19. The premise was this: Encourage lenders to provide small businesses and nonprofits with forgivable, SBA-guaranteed loans over an eight-week period as a payroll-support measure. This small business financial support was designed to help prevent mass unemployment as Americans were confined to their homes.  

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Davidson County Election Commission Could Decide Fate of Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act Next Week

Chris Butler

Davidson County Elections Administrator Jeff Roberts updated new developments with the proposed referendum for the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act and when and if election commissioners will permit voters a chance to have their say. “We are in the process of verifying the 14,000 signatures turned in last week. The Charter states the number of signatures needed is based on the preceding general election,” Roberts told The Tennessee Star in an email Wednesday.

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Song Suffragettes Celebrate Seventh Anniversary

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Nashville is famous for its writers’ rounds. The Song Suffragettes is the only all-female writers’ round and they have been consistently performing at the Listening Room on Monday nights for seven years.

Todd Cassetty founded Song Suffragettes for the simple reason of giving female singer-songwriters a place to play their music and be heard. Those who follow country music know that it is not an even playing field when it comes to women getting record deals and having their music played on country radio.

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Top House Republican Argues Trumpism Is the Future of the Party

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Jim Banks

A memo from Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks, who leads the powerful Republican Study Committee, argued that the party must “embrace our new coalition” and double down on Trumpism in order to be successful in the future.

The memo, titled “Cementing GOP as the Working-Class Party,” argues that “President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt,” and that Republicans should not fight their “coalitional transformation” or corporate donors retreating from the party.

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Turning Point USA, Nashville Hosts Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens at Nashville’s Rocketown

Corinne Murdock

Conservative powerhouses Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens addressed college students, community members, and a few cross-country travelers in downtown Nashville on Wednesday. Turning Point Nashville arranged the event as a part of the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) GenFree Tour. Attendees filled every seat, stood along the walls, and in the empty spaces around seating – and more waited outside the building for any opportunity to enter.

Kirk and Owens sat in armchairs while onstage. The interaction came off as part talk show host interview, part easygoing conversation between friends. Their conversation largely focused on modern cultural issues, faith and morals, campus culture, and education.

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Ohio Priest Compares Jesus to George Floyd During Holy Week

Peter D'Abrosca

It is Holy Week in the Catholic Church, the most sacred time of the year for that religion, and one Jesuit priest at Xavier University is using it to weaponize Jesus on behalf of progressive politics.

“Jesus Christ and Derek Chauvin are on trial this week. If the justice system lets Derek Chauvin walk free, then we will have chosen Barabbas over Christ once again,” Jesuit Regent David Inczauskis said on Twitter. 

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Northam Proposes Legalizing Marijuana in July

Eric Burk

Marijuana legalization is back on track for July, after Governor Ralph Northam announced amendments to legalization legislation. In February, legislators surprised marijuana policy watchers by delaying the effective date of legalization until 2024, leading the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia to blast the bills as worse than nothing. Since then, legalization advocates have lobbied Northam to amend the legislation to go into effect in July, when most other recently-passed bills take effect.

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Virginia Family Foundation Sues over New Transgender Public School Guidelines

Eric Burk

The Family Foundation is suing the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) over its Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools. The model policies took effect March 6, 2021, and school boards must adopt policies consistent with the model by the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. However, the Family Foundation says there are legal problems with the policies and that the VDOE did not properly address comments made during a legally required public comment phase.

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Lucero Bill Would Protect Religious Freedom After Minnesota Gov. Walz ‘Blatantly Violated’ Constitutional Protections

Admin

A Republican representative introduced a bill last week to provide legal protections to churches during states of emergency.

Under HF 2422, authored by Rep. Eric Lucero, R-Dayton, health boards, whether at the state or local level, would not be allowed to impose restrictions upon religious organizations during a declared emergency.

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Former U.S. Senate Candidate Launches PAC to Help Elect Republicans in 2022

Peter D'Abrosca

A Republican former U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan is launching a Political Action Committee (PAC) with the goal of helping other GOP candidates get elected in 2022.

John James is a West Point graduate, Iraq War veteran and businessman who ran twice for U.S. Senate in Michigan. In 2020, he was barely edged out by incumbent Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) by a 49.6 percent to 48.5 percent margin. 

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Community Rallies to Support Vaccine Exemption Bill Ahead of Hearing; Senate Committee Recommends Passage

Corinne Murdock

The Tennessee Senate Health and Welfare Committee recommended for passage an amendment to a bill allowing for religious or conscientious vaccine exemptions. As The Tennessee Star reported, this amendment was originally a bill killed in the House Health Subcommittee early last month.

Prior the committee hearing, Tennessee Stands gathered in a “We the People” rally to show community support for the amendment. Tennessee Stands Executive Director and founder Gary Humble led the event, with speeches from State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon), State Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris), and a prerecorded statement from the bill sponsor, State Senator Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma).

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