Day: April 20, 2021

Jury Finds Derek Chauvin Guilty on All Counts in the Death of George Floyd

The Center Square
Derek Chauvin

Less than a year after the death of George Floyd in police custody, a jury found former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Anger from the tragic death in police custody  on May 25, 2020, was fueled by a bystander filming part of the arrest, showing Floyd pinned under Chauvin’s knee for 9 minutes and 45 seconds, while he pleaded “I can’t breathe.” Floyd was declared dead later that day.

The video caused protests worldwide and pushed discussion of police accountability and proper levels of force for minor crimes, as Floyd was arrested for allegedly attempting to spend a fake $20 bill.

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Tennessee Tech Will Take Action on Professors for ‘Harassing, Threatening, and Intimidating’ Turning Point USA Students, Advisor

Corinne Murdock
Tennessee Tech University

After reviewing the incident of professors posting flyers targeting a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) advisor and students, Tennessee Tech University (TTU) stated that they will take action. Andrew Smith and Julia Gruber were identified as the professors who posted the flyers on campus.

In the investigation memorandum, the investigator recommended that TTU find the two professors in violation of TTU Policy 600 (Code of Conduct). In accordance with the TTU Policy 650 (Disciplinary Action), TTU will weigh the severity of the infraction to determine disciplinary action. That might include a verbal or written warning, performance improvement plan, suspension with or without pay, demotion, disciplinary probation, or termination. Ultimately, TTU Vice President for Planning and Finance has the final authority on interpretation of this policy for disciplinary action.

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Commentary: Proposed Education Department Rule Would Prioritize Funding Critical Race Theory Grant Applications

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Close up of person writing

The Biden Administration is wasting no time in working to promote highly controversial critical race theory and anti-racism concepts into curriculums nationwide.

A proposed rule from the U.S. Education Department seeks to prioritize funding grant proposals that support diversity and inclusion narratives within American History and Civics Education programs.

The department states on the Federal Register that such a move would “support the development of culturally responsive teaching.”

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NASA Makes History with First Helicopter Flight on Another Planet

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NASA Helicopter

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration made history Monday morning when it conducted the first ever powered and controlled flight on a different planet.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Ingenuity, a solar-powered helicopter, took flight on Mars for more than 39 seconds, reaching a maximum altitude of 10 feet, the agency announced. Hours after the flight, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California confirmed the success after it received data sent from the helicopter.

“Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement Monday.

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Nashville Business Coalition Attorney Jamie Hollin on the Davidson County Election Commission: Your Process is Flawed

Julie Carr
Jamie Hollin

  Nashville Business Coalition Attorney Jamie Hollin addressed the Davidson County Election Commission on Saturday. Here is a transcript of his comments: Hollin: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I represent an organization and I would like an opportunity for no more than three minutes and if that will help persuade you as the winning lawyer of lawless and FOP. I have to tell you that the preceding general election for this purpose is the August 2020 general election. Commissioner: Okay. What organization is that? Hollin: I represent the Nashville Business Coalition. Commissioner: Okay, alright. Commissioners, what is your pleasure? Herzfeld: I would like to hear from Mr. Hollins. Commissioner: Ok. Is that…Okay. Alright. Hollin: We have new members Mr. Chairman and I want to let them know and I’ll let professor Lumpstein know, too. Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and commissioners. For some less, this feels like deja-vu all over again. Rest in peace, Yogi Berra. I’m Jamie Hollins on behalf of the Nashville Business Coalition and as we mentioned, I litigated those cases you’ve been reading about and lectured to beginning to end and they all started right here. And as the Chairman said there is no question it’s going to…

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‘Students Right to Know Act’ Proposes Transparency on Costs, Loans, Post-Graduate Salary Data for Tennessee Colleges, Universities

Corinne Murdock

The Tennessee General Assembly is considering requiring more transparency when it comes to higher education. If passed, the “Students Right to Know Act” would require the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) to publish a database concerning different state universities or vocational schools’ attendance costs, monthly student loan payments, graduation or completion rates, and post-graduate salaries.

The bill was introduced by State Representative Kent Calfee (R-Kingston) and State Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield). The latest amendments to the act rewrote the bill to clarify and expand its scope – as well as expand the data to be included within the database on military options for students.

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Vandals Target Chauvin Defense Witness and Vandalize Wrong House

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minneapolis police department

Far-left domestic terrorists attempted to intimidate one of the key witnesses in the defense of Derek Chauvin over the weekend, but instead ended up vandalizing the wrong house, according to ABC News.

Barry Brodd, a former training officer with the Santa Rosa Police Department, testified during the defense of Chauvin, who is accused of murder in the death of George Floyd last year. Brodd concluded that, from his review of the evidence, Chauvin’s use of his knee to restrain Floyd was ultimately justified, and that he “was acting with objective reasonableness following Minneapolis Police Department policy and current standards of law enforcement in his interactions with Mr. Floyd.”

Following his testimony, a group of vandals dressed in all-black targeted his home in Santa Rosa early Saturday morning, throwing a severed pig’s head onto the front porch and splashing blood on the front of the building. However, Brodd no longer lives in that home, and the police were called by the terrified new homeowners at about 3 AM.

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Commentary: The Joe Biden Who Never Was

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These are the most radical first three months of a presidency since 1933, the most divisive—and certainly the most dangerous. And its catalyst is the myth of ol’ Joe from Scranton who has unleashed furies and hatreds never quite seen in modern American history.

“Woke” Joe Biden

At an age when most long ago embraced a consistent political belief, late septuagenarian Joe Biden suddenly reinvented himself as our first woke president. That is ironic in so many ways because Joe’s past is a wasteland of racialist condescension and prejudicial gaffes. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, he positioned himself as the workingman’s Democrat from Delaware (or, as Biden once beamed, “We [Delawareans] were on the South’s side in the Civil War.”). In truth, he exuded chauvinism well beyond that of his constituents.

Biden’s concocted working-man schtick meant praising former segregationists of the Senate like Robert Byrd and James O. Eastland. He would talk tough about inner-city predators, even as he pontificated about his support for tough drug sentencing. Kamala Harris, without any political traction other than her race and gender, once predicated her unimpressive and early aborted presidential campaign on the single strategy of knocking Joe out of the primaries for his purported innate racism that hurt victims of color, such as herself, the deprived child of two Ph.Ds.

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‘This is What Open Borders Agenda Looks Like,’ Trump’s ICE Chief Says

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U.S. Border Patrol

Tom Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Monday that President Joe Biden sacrificed the U.S.’ safety at the southern border in order to win the 2020 election.

“This is open borders agenda, Joe Biden sold out this country and our border security to win the election, he wanted to win over the progressive left, have an open borders agenda, Homan said on “Fox and Friends First.” Biden called the border situation on Saturday a “crisis” for the first time while discussing the refugee cap.

“We’re going to increase the number [of refugees allowed into the country]. The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people,” Biden said. “We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.”

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Arizona Senate on the Verge of Beginning Major Audit of Maricopa County Ballots

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Karen Fann

The Arizona Senate is poised to begin a major audit of over two million ballots cast in the 2020 election in the state’s largest county, a process the state Senate president claims has been stymied by county officials and which the county claims rests on legally uncertain ground.

Senate subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for information and equipment needed to perform the audit have been pending since Dec. 15, 2020 and were upheld by a judge on Feb. 25. In mid-March, the state Senate announced that Republicans in that chamber would be conducting a “broad and detailed” review of Maricopa’s ballots, one that would involve “testing the machines, scanning the ballots, performing a full hand count and checking for any IT breaches,” among other approaches.

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Americans for Prosperity’s Grassroots Engagement Director Grant Henry Explains the ‘Tennessee Truth in Taxation’ Bill

Julie Carr

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Grant Henry the Grassroots Engagement Director for Americans for Prosperity to the newsmakers line to talk about the Truth in Taxation bill that would provide transparency to taxpayers and prevent reckless spending at the local government level.

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10 Questions American Enterprise Institute Scholar John Fortier Should Ask Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger at Livestream Event

Chris Butler

Members of the Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) are scheduled to host a livestreamed question and answer session with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. AEI officials have scheduled the event for 3:30 p.m. Central on Tuesday on AEI’s website. People may submit their own questions to Raffensperger as they watch.

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Commentary: Too Much Data, Too Little Wisdom

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Every day, we are bombarded with information. A police shooting under questionable circumstances. A tense encounter between people of different races. A flood of statistics on COVID-19 cases, mortality, and vaccine effectiveness. 

We receive the data in the form of easily digested soundbites and a never-ending reel of videos. We are supposed to respond by taking a stand and making a judgment. If there is any doubt as to what that stand should be, the mood music on the news and the explicit narratives on social media make it plain what we are supposed to feel and think. 

Objectively speaking, these videos present as many questions as they present answers. Maybe it’s grainy and fast moving. Maybe the lens is distorting perspective. With YouTube, we can slow it down, rewind, and enhance the color. Ah ha! See! The kid dropped the gun a tenth of a second before the officer’s shot went off, says the know-it-all. 

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Biden Administration Won’t Define ‘Sex’ as Biological as Title IX Review Starts

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Women's soccer game

The Biden administration has rejected a petition to define sex in biological terms as it reviews the Trump administration’s Title IX policies on women’s sports and sexual misconduct proceedings.

The rejection came a day after the Department of Education announced it was soliciting public input on implementing President Biden’s March 8 executive order on sex discrimination.

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a self-described radical feminist group that opposes transgender policies, said it was pleased that the department did not reject its legal arguments out of hand.

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General Assembly Republicans Call for Special Session to Investigate Virginia Parole Board

Eric Burk

General Assembly Republicans renewed calls for a special session to investigate the Virginia Parole Board (VPB) after media obtained recordings of a call held last summer between Northam administration officials and State Inspector General Michael Westfall.

House of Delegates Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) said in a Monday press release, “The recording of the meeting between the Office of State Inspector General and Governor  [Ralph] Northam’s team explains why the Governor’s budget amendment only called for an investigation of OSIG, and not the Parole Board. The Governor’s office doesn’t think the Parole Board did anything wrong.”

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Minnesota College Forces Faculty to Attend Racially Segregated Anti-Racism Trainings

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Aerial photo of Carleton College

A private Minnesota college has mandated monthly anti-racism training sessions for all of its employees, with most sessions segregated by skin color.

“All faculty/staff will need to either attend the live session or watch the recorded session each month,” Carleton College’s website states.

Carleton College is a small but influential private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, with about 2,000 students and an endowment of close to $900 million. Tuition is $59,000 a yeaA private Minnesota college has mandated monthly anti-racism training sessions for all of its employees, with most sessions segregated by skin color.

“All faculty/staff will need to either attend the live session or watch the recorded session each month,” Carleton College’s website states.

Carleton College is a small but influential private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, with about 2,000 students and an endowment of close to $900 million. Tuition is $59,000 a year.

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Virginia Tech Claims to Follow the Science on COVID, But Does Just the Opposite

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Ralph Northam

Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam amended a previous executive order to ease up on COVID-19 restrictions, effective on April 1, allowing up to 50 people to gather for indoor events and up to 100 people to gather for outdoor events. However, Virginia Polytechnic Institute announced it would not follow these guidelines but maintain previous restrictions that limit indoor gathering to 10 people and outdoor gatherings to 50 people.

Alyssa Jones, president of the Turning Point USA chapter at Virginia Tech, contacted her school following Northam’s announcement that he would ease COVID-19 restrictions.

In a March 23 email obtained by Campus Reform, Student Engagement and Campus Life told Jones that “after April 1st groups are permitted to have up to 50 people in attendance for indoor events.”

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Proposed Florida Vote-By-Mail Restrictions Scaled Back, But Opponents Not Swayed

The Center Square
Dennis Baxley

A key Senate panel Wednesday amended a controversial bill imposing a range of restrictions on the state’s vote-by-mail (VBM) laws but did not vote on the measure after an exhaustive debate.

The Senate Rules Committee ran out of time before it could issue a verdict on Senate Bill 90 during a fiery marathon meeting that began with an hours’-long fracas over a proposed bill preempting local governments from regulating ports in areas “of critical state concern.”

Committee chair Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, concluded the meeting without calling for a vote on SB 90, saying the panel could take up the measure in its Friday meeting or next week. The bill was not on panel’s Friday agenda as of Thursday afternoon.

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Whitmer Makes Excuses as COVID Cases in Michigan Keep Soaring

Peter D'Abrosca

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) appeared Sunday on NBC’s’ “Meet the Press” to make excuses about why cases of COVID-19 in Michigan are soaring while they decline across most of the rest of the country. 

“We’re now in a much different position,” Whitmer said. “On top of that, in the waning months, I have been sued by my Legislature. I have lost in a Republican-controlled Supreme Court. And I don’t have all of the exact same tools.”

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Some Minnesota Businesses Report Hiring Problems, Citing Enhanced Unemployment Benefits

The Center Square
Job fair booth of Atlas Staffing

With more relaxed restrictions and the promise of warmer months ahead, businesses are struggling to find employees to come back to work, even after raising wages and offering flexible hours.

Some blame generous unemployment benefits.

Atlas Staffing Inc has 241 open jobs on their site for locations across Minnesota, but Minneapolis office manager Alison Barge says it’s “next to impossible” to fill positions right now.

It’s not a skills gap, Barge said. Most of the jobs are entry-level positions, and some employers are even offering a $3/hour incentive, boosting pay to $17 an hour, flexible scheduling, part-time availability, but people just “don’t want to work.”

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Virginia Republican Gubernatorial Candidates on Best Behavior at Liberty University Forum

Matthew Hall

The College Republicans of Liberty University hosted a forum for the Republican candidates for Governor of Virginia. Delegate Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights), State Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield), Colonel Sergio De La Pena, Glenn Youngkin, and Peter Doran participated in the forum that was held at Thomas Road Baptist Church. The candidates were well prepared and measured as the 100+ person plus room listened intently. 

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Attorneys Make Closing Arguments in Chauvin Trial, Case Heads to Jury

Peter D'Abrosca

Attorneys for the state and for former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of killing George Floyd during an arrest last may, made their closing arguments in Chauvin’s murder trial Monday.

The state characterized Floyd as a compassionate family man, and argued that Chauvin did not behave humanely towards Floyd during his arrest. Prosecutors argued that Chauvin was uncaring and malicious towards Floyd.

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