U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced legislation that she said proves it is possible to improve our nation’s infrastructure without implementing the largest tax hike in nearly three decades. Blackburn, in a press release, also said it is possible to accomplish this without adding $2 trillion to our federal deficit.
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Metro Nashville Police this week said the city has a persistent problem with thieves stealing guns from other people’s vehicles. “A review of stolen gun reports in Nashville from Sunday, March 21, through Saturday, March 27, shows that 12 guns were stolen from cars and trucks, five from unlocked vehicles,” MNPD officials said in a press release.
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Housing inventory in the U.S. remains significantly low, driving a white-hot market in which buyers continue to resort to aggressive buying tactics such as inspection-free transfers and hugely inflated offering prices.
Data from the Federal Reserve show housing inventory began declining last summer before dropping sharply in October. From over 1,550,000 units in May of last year, the Fed says stock has dropped to just above 1,000,000.
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by Larry Sand According to the Burbio school tracker, 53 percent of schools nationwide are now fully open for business. With the new Centers for Disease Control guidelines having determined that three-feet is a safe distance for students, one would think the other 47 percent would embrace the chance to follow suit. But teachers’ union leaders, including Randi “Follow the Science” Weingarten, are having none of that. The leader of the American Federation of Teachers is “not convinced” by the new guidance. There is also no buy-in from the National Education Association, which hemmed and hawed in a press release about reserving judgment until they could review “the new studies that were presented.” Neither union nor any shutdown hawk bothers to explain why schools in densely populated areas of Florida and Catholic schools across the country are fully open and not spreading COVID-19. In fact, the CDC has concluded that other adults, not children, are the primary source of exposure to the virus. With some schools closed now for over a year – many of them in California – the devastation to children is immeasurable. Of course, some union leaders and their acolytes refuse to acknowledge this tragedy. Chief union toady Diane Ravitch, who is wrong about, well, everything, recently…
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has struck down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide mask mandate as a coronavirus health-safety measure.
In a 4-3 vote on Wednesday, the court decided Evers had violated state law by unilaterally issuing emergency orders to enforce the mandates without legislative approval, according to the Associated Press.
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The streaming website Hulu has announced that it has acquired the rights to stream an upcoming series on the “1619 Project,” a far-left narrative that falsely claims the United States was built on racism, as reported by The Hill.
The series, based on a series of articles at the New York Times by Nikole Hannah-Jones, will be produced by Roger Williams, Geoff Martz, and Shoshana guy. The production will be carried out by Lionsgate Films and Oprah Winfrey’s studio Harpo Films, as previously reported.
In a statement to Variety magazine, Williams called the 1619 Project “an essential reframing of American history,” and falsely claimed that “our most cherished ideals and achievements cannot be understood without acknowledging both systemic racism and the contribution of black Americans.”
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We all desperately want normal lives again. And I’m not talking about the finnicky “new normal” that accommodates Aunt Karen’s irrational fear of leaving her house. I’m talking about “normal normal,” where people crowd into concert halls with standing room only, restaurants operate crowded tables at 120 percent capacity, and cruise ship buffets shove food and alcohol down my throat like it’s Fat Tuesday, all day, every day. Ah … don’t you miss 2019? I sure do.
It was only a matter of time before some in our society turned the national COVID experiment into an excuse to say, “Papers, please.” That’s right — the so-called vaccine passport is now emerging in the United States. It’s an app that is advertised as a way to help people do the things they miss doing from pre-pandemic times. Want to feel completely safe in your favorite store, and surround yourself with others who, like you, have rolled up their sleeve and gotten the vaccine? There’s an app for that. Just scan your QR code and enter feeling sanctimoniously sanitized.
Last week, New York became the first state to offer such a vaccine verification app. The state-sanctioned app, called Excelsior Pass, claims to let participants “Attend sporting events, arts performances and more! Excelsior Pass supports a safe reopening of New York by providing a free, fast and secure way to present digital proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test results.” Well that sounds fun to me! Sign me up!
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Hunter Biden’s dealings with Chinese nationals, including one who is now a convicted felon, pose an “enormous blackmail” threat to President Biden, a key Republican senator who investigated the matter warns.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and current ranking member on the powerful Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday that the case of Chinese businessman Patrick Ho chi-Ping illustrates the threat.
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by Eric Lendrum Former Communist Party activist and black nationalist Angela Davis spoke at a webinar for an elite California prep school Wednesday, where she told the K-12 students watching online that it was incumbent upon them to “dismantle capitalism,” as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The “diversity and inclusion”-themed webinar, titled the CommunityEd Series, was hosted by the Heads-Royce School, a prep school that costs just over $47,000 a year in tuition. “Ultimately, I think we’re going to have to dismantle capitalism if we really want to move in a progressive direction,” Davis said to the impressionable students on the final day of the webinar. “If we want our children and children’s children and their children to begin to move along a trajectory that is described by freedom.” Davis went on to bash the United States and voice her support for globalism, saying “I think that we have to struggle against this notion that this is the best country in the world, that we are always the ones to give leadership even when we’re talking about social justice struggles. We have to take internationalism into consideration.” Davis’s appearance received backlash for her history of radicalism and violence.…
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An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.
Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.
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He is known as the “zip tie guy.”
In one of the most iconic photographs of the January 6 Capitol melee, Eric Munchel, wearing tactical gear, is seen holding up a fistful of zip ties in the Senate gallery. Munchel, the media quickly concluded, brought the flex cuffs to arrest lawmakers attempting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The woman photographed with him later was identified as his mother, Lisa Eisenhart.
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A bill to increase state funding for Georgia charter schools was passed by the General Assembly and awaits approval by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Senate Bill 59 increases charter school allocations by about $100 per student. It also secures an equal portion of federal funding for local charter schools and gives teachers and staff more access to the State Health Plan.
The General Assembly approved the bill with limited debate in both chambers this week before its legislative session ended. The House gave SB 59 its final approval, 113-51, on Wednesday after it cleared the Senate, 40-11, on Tuesday.
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The LBGT Resource Center at Michigan State University will be renamed on July 1 to “be more inclusive to the diversity of sexual and gender identities” such as asexual and agender students.
The center will be known as the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center.
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State Senator Travis Hackworth (R-Richlands) was sworn in on Friday. Hackworth, who prior to being sworn in was the Chairman of the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors. The Tazewell businessman shocked the Southwest Virginia political establishment by shellacking his competition in the January party canvass held shortly after Senator Chafin’s passing
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by Scott McClallen An advocacy group for student-athletes sued Michigan’s health director, arguing new COVID-19 testing rules for teenage youth sports are “invalid.” The Honigman Law Firm sued state Health and Human Services Department (MDHHS) Director Elizabeth Hertel Thursday on behalf of Let Them Play Michigan and three student-athlete parents. The legal actions follow a March 19 health department rule ordering mandatory COVID-19 testing after increasing positive cases were said to stem from student-athletes. The order aims to battle 315 reported outbreaks associated with high school sports as of Mid-March, officials said. The guidance requires weekly testing for student-athletes ages 13–19. Testing is required three times per week for contact sports without masks. But some parents strongly disagree. “As a direct consequence of MDHHS’s violations of their due process rights, Plaintiffs have suffered incalculable damages,” the filing reads. “Plaintiffs have no adequate remedy at law for this continuing violation of their constitutional rights.” The lawsuit claims the rules of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration restrict student-athletes’ freedom of association. “For more than a year, student-athletes have endured unilateral orders enacted by Executive Branch officials that severely restrict their ability to freely associate with one another and compete in high school sports,” the suit reads.…
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Twenty miles means a world of difference for Minnesota breweries that have grown as much as state law allows.
Minnesota’s alcohol laws are pushing breweries to expand in other states, Brad Glynn, Lift Bridge Brewing cofounder and vice president of marketing told The Center Square in a phone interview.
In May, Lift Bridge Brewing Co plans to expand to a New Richmond, Wisconsin location.
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More than 500 agencies in Ohio have adopted the state’s new law enforcement minimum standards to be state certified, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday.
Ohio changed its standards after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota last spring and the subsequent protests.
The Ohio Department of Public Safety’s 2021 Law Enforcement Certification Report showed 529 Ohio agencies have adopted fully the primary standards, which include new ones created last year. Eleven agencies are in the process of adopting and being certified.
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Dominion Energy Chairman and Virginia philanthropist Thomas F. “Tom” Farrell II has died, causing the Commonwealth of Virginia and it’s political leaders to mourn the loss of one of the most powerful businessmen in Virginia history. Farrell, age 66, passed away due to cancer on Friday, one day after relinquishing the Chairmanship of the company he had steered from 2007 to 2020. Mr. Farrell and his family have heavily influenced some of the most important business and political decisions in the Commonwealth.
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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam proposed 18 amendments to the budget legislation passed by the General Assembly, which includes giving the executive branch more authority to address issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I also propose three language amendments to ensure our ability to continue responding to needs related to the COVID pandemic by giving agencies the flexibility to respond and the authority to address the opportunities presented by the federal funding such as the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), until we can address the matter fully at a special session,” Northam said in a letter to the House of Delegates.
One amendment to the budget would grant the director of the Department of Planning and Budget the authority to direct the additional Medicaid revenue from the recent federal stimulus plan to current services. Another would grant the superintendent of public instruction the authority to issue temporary flexibility or waivers for deadlines and requirements that cannot be met because of the COVID-19 state of emergency and school closures.
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A federal court heard a motion to dismiss Senator Amanda Chase’s (R-Chesterfield) lawsuit over censure on Thursday. The arguments took hours, and the judge said he would take some time to consider the motion before issuing a ruling on whether the suit can go forward, according to an update from Chase and her lawyer Tim Anderson.
The motion to dismiss argues that censure is a political question outside the jurisdiction of the court, and that the defendants — the Senate and Senate Clerk Susan Schaar — have sovereign immunity. However, Anderson argued that Chase was censured for things she had said, making the censure a violation of her First Amendment rights.
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More corporations are speaking out against Georgia’s voter reform law, otherwise known as Senate Bill 202. Officials at Microsoft, American Express, Google and others this week condemned SB 202 as a form of voter suppression.
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The Tennessee Legislature is considering the removal of a $400 annual “privilege tax” on certain professions in Tennessee.
The state levies an annual $400 professional privilege tax on individuals licensed or registered to practice in any of seven professions: attorneys, securities agents, broker-dealers, investment advisers, lobbyists, doctors and osteopathic physicians.
Senate Bill 884 would eliminate the tax for attorneys, physicians, investment advisers and lobbyists. Sen. John Stevens (R-Huntingdon) (pictured above) who sponsors the bill, said the legislation is likely to change as the Legislature continues budget negotiations in the coming weeks.
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