Month: April 2021

‘Unlock Michigan’ to File in State Supreme Court After Canvassing Board Deadlocks Petition Certification

The Center Square
Gretchen Whitmer

The Board of State Canvassers on Thursday deadlocked 2-2 three times on votes whether to certify or investigate further the conservative Unlock Michigan petition to remove Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 1945 emergency powers before adjourning.

On Oct 2, 2020, Unlock Michigan filed signatures with the Secretary of State’s office. The group gathered roughly 460,000 valid signatures, more than the 340,047 needed. Those petitions are normally handled within 60 days, but this time, 202 days after filing, two Democrat members are refusing to certify the petition.

Instead, Democrat Vice-Chair Julie Matuzak motioned to engage in the Administrative Procedure Act regarding promulgation of a new rulemaking process for petitions and to pause the petition. Matuzak said she didn’t know who would fund that investigation or how long it would take.

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Ohio Attorney General Continues Court Fight Over American Rescue Plan Taxing Provision

The Center Square
Dave Yost

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost says Congress crossed a line and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen struggles to explain whether states retain authority to set their own tax codes if they accept money from the recently passed American Rescue Plan.

Yost responded Thursday with a motion in support of his lawsuit for a temporary restraining order to stop the federal government’s tax mandate in the ARP. Yost believes the mandate holds states hostage and takes away Ohio’s control of its tax structure and economic policy.

“Congress crosses the line separating permissible encouragement from impermissible,” Yost’s latest motion reads. “Ohio stands to receive $5.5 billion. In the pandemic-caused economic crisis, Ohio cannot realistically turn that down.”

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Florida Senate Approves Three ‘Sales-Tax Holidays’ for Summer 2021

Casey Owens
Florida’s Historic Capitol and Florida State Capitol

On April 23rd, 2021, the Florida House of Representatives voted 109 to 3 for a bill (HB 7061) that was originally proposed by the Ways and Means Committee on April 18th, to provide multiple sales-tax “holidays” and other tax-related adjustments developed to explicitly impact both businesses and families alike.

 If the bill is successfully passed, the first sales-tax holiday would be the “Disaster Preparedness” holiday from May 28th, 2021, through June 3rd, 2021 that allows supplies specifically for disaster preparedness to be exempt from sales-tax and county discretionary sales surtaxes. Items exempt include:

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Georgia AG Chris Carr Joins Lawsuit Over Social Cost of Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Carbon

Chris Butler
Chris Carr

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced this week that he has joined nine other state attorneys general in suing to prevent the Joe Biden Administration, all to save several people’s financial livelihoods. Carr, in a press release, said Biden and members of his administration want to carry out an act of executive overreach that will kill thousands of jobs throughout the United States and threatens to impose more burdens and harms on the American people.

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Two Florida Cities Consider Guaranteed Income Policies

Steve Stewart
Lauren Poe

The guaranteed income movement – which advocates for providing cash to low-income families with no restrictions on how they can spend it – is coming to Florida.

This year the Gainesville City Commission voted to implement a guaranteed income pilot program slated to begin in October. Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe has been part of a national initiative, “Mayors for a Guaranteed Income,” to supply monthly, direct cash payments to people who are struggling. The Gainesville pilot program would begin by giving cash to people with criminal records and who are looking to rehabilitate their lives.

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Lawsuit: Walz Admin Engaged in ‘Complete Fabrication’ of Risks Associated with Youth Sports in Minnesota

Admin
Youth football players

A court document filed last week claims Gov. Tim Walz’s administration attempted to pin the blame for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities on youth sporting events without any evidence to back it up.

Let Them Play Minnesota previously filed a lawsuit against Walz for requiring youth athletes to wear masks while competing. Now, the group has amended its complaint to reflect evidence of the Walz administration’s effort to connect COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities to youth sports.

In its amended complaint, Let Them Play claims to be in possession of email evidence proving Walz officials engaged in a “complete fabrication” of the risks associated with youth sporting events.

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Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried Addresses Marijuana, DeSantis, and Democrats

Steve Stewart
Nikki Fried

  Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried recently appeared on Facing South Florida, with Jim DeFede and responded to questions related to medical marijuana, Governor DeSantis and her political future. Provided below is a summary of the interview. Jim Defede: You ran on legalizing medicinal marijuana and you want to move toward legalizing recreational marijuana, are there any other drugs you support legalizing? Fried was quick to respond that marijuana is the only drug she is in support of legalizing. However, she stated, she is aware of the push for legalizing psychedelics, but currently she does not support the move.  Also, she stated marijuana is the only drug she has ever used. Jim Defede: When are you going to announce that you are going to run for Governor of Florida in 2022? Fried responded by saying “that’s a question I get asked every single day” and as the only statewide elected Democrat official she said she feels obligated to consider a run. She said she is seriously considering running, but at this time is only evaluating the opportunity and talking with the public and hearing from them. She added, “It’s never been about me, its about doing right for our state.”…

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Democrat State Rep Larry Miller Pushed Amendment to Appoint Anti-Gun Activists to All Tennessee Gun Regulation Boards, Commissions

Corinne Murdock

State Representative Larry Miller (D-Memphis) proposed an amendment empowering one of his endorsers, a gun control group, with gun regulation power. Miller withdrew the amendment during the final House vote on the bill, which authorized permitless carry.

The amendment was short and to the point: the governor must appoint a Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (Moms Demand Action) representative to all boards and commissions regulating firearm ownership.   

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Commentary: The Rise of the New State Church

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Saint Marys Cathedral, Natchez, United States

The United States is historically a Christian country, that is, it was founded by Christians and its population remains largely Christian to this day. The speeches and statements of our presidents, our official holidays, the prayers that are said before the opening of Congress and the Supreme Court, the imagery we see on official buildings all attest to the religious, indeed Christian, foundation of our nation. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court in an 1892 decision declared explicitly that “we are a Christian nation.”

Nevertheless, at least until recent days, Americans have understood that we live in a pluralistic society where Protestants, Catholics, Jews, even atheists, were equal before each other and equal before the law. There was no official church at the federal level that would require belief, assent, or obedience. This is not to say that there have not been dark times in our history when we failed to live up to our ideals. Catholics may recall times when our churches were burned and there were riots against us. But the highest American aspiration has always been that all should be treated equally, that a Jew should get the same treatment in a court of law as a Methodist or a Muslim.

Our twin understanding of our country’s deep religious roots coupled with an ideal of religious freedom grew out of the English tradition of religious toleration. The English had an official state church, but the English also recognized the importance of providing dissenters with some measure of freedom. The Act of Toleration of 1689 provided this freedom.

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Arizona’s Democratic Senators Want More Homeland Security Personnel on the Southern Border

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Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly

Arizona’s Democratic senators called on President Joe Biden’s administration to increase the number of Homeland Security personnel on the southern border to better respond to increasing number of migrants.

In a letter Wednesday, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly also requested that the White House reimburse Arizona for its deploying of approximately 500 National Guard members to better respond to the crisis.

“From recent conversations with local community leaders, law enforcement, and local Department of Homeland Security officials, it’s clear that their resources, staffing and capabilities are strained,” they wrote. “While additional resources were passed in the American Rescue Plan and provided by FEMA and DHS, additional personnel are needed at the border to ensure our communities are protected, and migrants are treated fairly and humanely.”

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Dangerous God: Editor and Publisher of Nashville’s New English Review Rebecca Bynum on New Book Release

Julie Carr

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Editor and Publisher of the Nashville based New Review Press, Rebecca Bynum in studio to talk about her latest book by Albert Norton, Jr. called Dangerous God: A Defense of Transcendent Truth which examines the underlying destruction of faith through societal metanarratives.

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Commentary: Senate Republicans Just Handed Matches to Arsonists

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One of the most fateful decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency happened just weeks after Inauguration Day.

In March 2017, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to demand Jeff Sessions, a former Senate colleague and Trump’s new attorney general, recuse himself from anything related to the investigation into alleged Russian election collusion. Sessions’ two brief meetings in 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak—a figure who appeared often in collusion-related drama—amounted to evidence of collusion, collusion perps insisted.

Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were just a few top Republicans who asked Sessions to step aside—so he did.

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Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act: Attorney Jim Roberts Updates on Verified Petition Signatures and Election Commission Stall Tactics

Julie Carr

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act’s Attorney Jim Roberts to the newsmakers line to discuss the Election Commission’s official verification satisfactory petition signatures to get the referendum on the ballot and the calculated deception of Mayor Cooper.

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Biden Admin Appeals to Force Religious Doctors, Hospitals to Provide Trans Surgeries Despite Conscience Objections

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Doctor with arms folded, holding stethescope

President Joe Biden’s administration filed an appeal Tuesday that seeks to force religious doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries, regardless of religious objections.

Former President Barack Obama’s administration issued a mandate in 2016 requiring doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries upon a mental health professional’s referral. The transgender mandate, an interpretation of an Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination clause, did not include conscience or religion exemptions.

An association of over 19,000 healthcare professionals, several religious organizations, and nine states challenged the mandate in two different courts, according to a website on the mandate run by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

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Biden Lays Out Aggressive Climate Agenda at World Summit

The Center Square
Sign that says "Climate Justice Now!"

President Joe Biden hosted a virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders Thursday, the same day the White House released a set of aggressive climate goals. Critics say the plan could jeopardize the economy at a time it is recovering from record-breaking unemployment because of the pandemic and governments’ response to it.

First among those priorities is a pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030.

“The United States is not waiting, the costs of delay are too great, and our nation is resolved to act now,” the White House said in a statement. “Climate change poses an existential threat, but responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support good-paying, union jobs, strengthen America’s working communities, protect public health, and advance environmental justice.”

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Chicago May Require Approval to Chase Suspects on Foot

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Chicago Police Officer

Chicago police officers may have to check with their supervisor before chasing suspects on foot, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday. The mayor promised to announce details of a new policy “soon,” Fox 32 Chicago reported.

“No one should die as a result of a foot chase,” Lightfoot said.

Chicago law enforcement’s use of force faced new scrutiny after an officer chased and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo on March 29. Video of the incident released last week shows Toldedo dumping what appears to be a firearm a split-second before he turns and raises his hands. Allegedly, he was handed the gun by Ruben Roman, who allegedly had just used it to fire eight rounds at a passing vehicle. Apparently, no one was hit, according to Fox32.

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Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy Michael Waller on Senator Ron Johnson and the Capitol Riots

Julie Carr

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed The Federalist Contributor Michael Waller to the newsmakers line to clarify his first-hand account of the Capitol riots on Janauary sixth and address the media backlash of Senator Ron Johnson for referencing it in the recent investigative hearing.

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Kansas Governor Vetoes Ban on Biological Males on Women’s Sports

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Laura Kelly

The governor of Kansas has vetoed a bill that would have banned biological males from participating in women’s sports.

Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” Thursday, saying in a news release that the legislation “sends a devastating message that Kansas is not welcoming to all children and their families, including those who are transgender — who are already at a higher risk of bullying, discrimination, and suicide,” according to local outlet KMBC.

“As Kansans, we should be focused on how to include all students in extracurricular activities rather than how to exclude those who may be different than us,” Kelly said. “Kansas is an inclusive state and our laws should reflect our values. This law does not do that.”

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Officials Say Human Smugglers Bringing Migrants into the U.S. Illegally by the Hundreds

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Crowd of immigrants

Human smugglers have been transporting migrants into the U.S. illegally in groups of over 100 people, mostly comprised of families and unaccompanied minors, border officials said Thursday.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials encountered three large groups totaling 320 illegal migrants near Edinburg, Texas, over a two-day span, according to the agency. Officials apprehended 229 family members, 86 unaccompanied migrant minors and five single adults.

“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” CBP said in a statement.

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Parental Bill of Rights Legislation Heads to DeSantis’ Desk

Grant Holcomb

The Florida Legislature passed a bill instituting a “parental bill of rights” and sent it to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis.

The bill, HB 241, worked its way through the Florida House and then passed through the Florida Senate on Thursday. It was passed on a nearly party-line vote, with Sen. Lauren Book (D-32), the lone Democrat, siding with Republicans and voting to approve the bill.

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State Attorneys General, Environmental Groups File Briefs to Keep Line 5 Case Out of Federal Court

The Center Square

Citing the “grave threat posed by Enbridge’s unlawful operation of its pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac,” 28 entities filed friend of the court briefs in support of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s motion to remand in State of Michigan, et al v Enbridge Energy, et al.

Four Native American tribes, the attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia, six environmental organizations and the Great Lakes Business Network, and two state governors filed briefs expressing support of the attorney general’s efforts to ensure the lawsuit her office filed last November remains in Ingham County Circuit Court.

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Politicians Who Want to Defund the Police Hire Bodyguards to Visit Minneapolis

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Back of Police officers uniform

Politicians who want to defund the police won’t step foot in Minneapolis without their own personal security details.

U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Maxine Waters are both progressives who vocally support measures to defund the police. However, both of them used private security or an actual police escort when visiting Minnesota, the center of the defund movement.

Omar spent $3,103 on security in her home state in the first financial quarter of 2021, which spans from the beginning of the year through March, per Federal Election Commission records. One of the companies she hired, Aegis Logistics, provides armed and unarmed bodyguards. The other, Lloyd Security Services, provides video surveillance and intrusion detection — a vital service in a city that has experienced about 6,000 cases of theft so far this year after huge cuts to the the law enforcement budget.

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Coca-Cola’s Stance on Georgia Voter Integrity Law May Hurt Their Business, New Poll Reveals

Chris Butler

Coca-Cola officials who criticized Georgia’s new voter integrity law may have ended up hurting their company’s bottom line, according to a new poll from Rasmussen. “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 37 percent of American Adults the company’s stand against the new Georgia law makes them less likely to purchase Coca-Cola products. Twenty-five percent say they are more likely to buy Coke, but 30 percent say the company’s political stance doesn’t make much difference,” Rasmussen Report said.

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Ohio Restaurants, Bars Struggle to Find Employees

The Center Square
An empty bar

As sales slowly improve, Ohio’s restaurants and bars now face another issue that threatens ongoing COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts: lack of employees.

Ohio Restaurant Association President and CEO John Barker believes the intentions behind continued federal and state stimulus benefits are good, but a consequence is a lack of available employees as the state eases COVID-19 restrictions and customer traffic increases.

“Unemployment is an issue. There’s no question about it,” Barker said. “The intention by the government, both at the federal and state level, was to take care of people who are displaced and very much in need. It was the right thing to do. The problem we have now is these are looking like they’re going to be extended all the way through the fall. On top of that, people are getting big stimulus checks. And in some cases, they may be making more money staying at home than going back to work. And so, it’s a combination of factors.”

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Virginia Department of Education to Eliminate All Accelerated Math Courses as Part of ‘Equity’ Plan

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Child working on math problems

The state of Virginia is set to eliminate all accelerated math courses in the state’s public schools before the 11th grade, ostensibly as part of an “equity” plan to make math classes easier for all races, according to Fox News.

The change was made by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and was announced by multiple county-level school districts and officials. Formally known as the Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI), this plan essentially removes all options for students who would normally elect to take a more advanced level of math if they have demonstrated a proficiency in the subject, and instead keeps the curriculum at the most basic level for every grade up to 11th grade.

Ian Serotkin, a member of the Loudoun County school board, commented negatively on the change in policy on Facebook Tuesday. “This initiative,” he explained, “will eliminate ALL math acceleration prior to 11th grade. This is not an exaggeration, nor does there appear to be any discretion in how local districts implement this. All 6th graders will take Foundational Concepts 6. All 7th graders will take Foundational Concepts 7…Only in 11th and 12th grade is there any opportunity for choice in higher math courses.”

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Current Status of the Political Scandal Surrounding Matt Gaetz

Grant Holcomb

For the last month, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL-02) has been embroiled in investigation and public scrutiny since a New York Times story broke detailing an alleged illicit relationship Gaetz had with a 17-year-old girl and being a part of sex trafficking.

Immediately, Gaetz went public about the accusation by appearing on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and flatly denied the entirety of The Times’ report and claimed the allegations are part of an extortion plot.

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Florida Legislature Hearing Bills to Curb Foreign Influence

Grant Holcomb
Florida House Chamber

The Florida Legislature is working through two pieces of legislation aimed at curbing foreign influence in Florida’s colleges and universities, primarily research institutions.

The Florida House has already passed HB 7017 unanimously and sent it to the Senate for consideration. The bill will require state agencies and political subdivisions to disclose foreign grants and donations of over $50,000 or more to the state. Also, all donations of any size will be required to be reported from seven hostile nations. Among those nations deemed hostile are: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela.

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House Passes Bill Increasing Inmate Parole Eligibility, Reduces Punishment for Breaking Parole

Corinne Murdock

On Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill increasing parole eligibility and reducing parole violation punishments for inmates. The “Reentry Success Act of 2021” creates a presumption that eligible inmates must be granted parole on their eligibility date.

Additionally, parole violations that aren’t felonies or Class A misdemeanors would result in 15 days’ imprisonment for the first violation, 30 days for the second, 90 days for the third, and either one year or the remainder of the prisoner’s sentence for the fourth – whichever is the shorter of the two. Other changes to present law under the Reentry Success Act of 2021 include clarification that victims may submit videos for their victim impact statements, and waiving certain application costs for restricted drivers licenses. Felonies or Class A misdemeanors committed as part of parole violation would require prisoners to serve out the maximum of their sentence.

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Williamson County Parents Form Facebook Group to Fight School System’s Alleged Critical Race Theory Curriculum

Chris Butler

Williamson County residents who are upset with their public school system’s new race-based curricula have created a new Facebook group to organize and alert parents countywide that the schools are allegedly teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT). The page, Moms for Liberty — Williamson County, TN, debuted earlier this month, said admin Robin Steenman.

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Commentary: Chauvin Verdict Disappointed Democrats

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Tuesday afternoon the Democrats and the Left at large got exactly what they said they wanted from the trial of Derek Chauvin. The jury found him guilty of all three counts — second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter — with which he had been charged in the death of George Floyd. Yet prominent Democrats who commented on the verdict seemed slightly bewildered and disappointed. Their collective response was captured in this statement from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison: “I would not call today’s verdict justice, because justice implies restoration.” This is an odd assertion coming from the man who orchestrated Chauvin’s prosecution and secured an unequivocal conviction.

It is particularly odd considering that the city of Minneapolis agreed in March to pay $27 million to settle a civil suit brought by George Floyd’s family pursuant to his death. Neither that settlement nor Chauvin’s conviction will restore George Floyd’s life, of course, but it is all one can reasonably expect from the legal system. That, unfortunately, is the rub. When Ellison deploys words like “justice” and “restoration,” he isn’t talking about what most Americans think of when they hear such terms. He is claiming they are meaningless in a structurally racist legal system that is itself the root cause of tragedies like George Floyd’s death. This is what renowned legal scholar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) means by this obloquy:

I don’t want this moment to be framed as this system working. Because it’s not working. We saw a murder in front of all of our eyes, and yet we didn’t know if there would be a guilty verdict — it tells you everything. Verdicts are not substitutes for policy change…. and there are way too many people including my colleagues that think that’s the case…. This one case and this one verdict, we still have people getting killed by police every single day on average in the United States…. We’re willing to accept violence against some communities as a necessary cost for “safety.”

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Twitter Refuses to Address Whether Lebron James Tweet Violated Terms of Service

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LebBron James

Twitter is refusing to address whether a tweet by Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James violated the platform’s terms of service.

James tweeted, then deleted, a picture Wednesday of Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon who shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she attempted to stab another girl, body cam footage showed.

“YOU’RE NEXT,” James tweeted to his millions of followers with the hashtag #ACCOUNTABILITY. He has since deleted the tweet.

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Election Integrity Bill Fails in Arizona Senate After One Republican Betrays Party

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Kelly Townsend

Abill that was set to strengthen election integrity in Arizona by cracking down on voter fraud failed in the Republican-led State Senate, after a Republican member went against the party and voted it down, as reported by ABC News.

The bill, SB 1485, would have made it easier to remove inactive names from the state’s early voting list by removing the word “permanent” from the state’s definition of said list. Following this change, anyone on the list who did not vote in the state’s elections after a certain period of time could have their names removed completely. Inactive names remaining on a state’s voting rolls, such as in Arizona, can lead to a greater chance of voter fraud when those names are used to sway an election in a crucial swing state.

But a single Republican state senator, Kelly Townsend (R-Ariz.), voted with the Democrats against the bill. Her reasoning, ostensibly, was to wait for the results of a GOP-led audit of all 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County from the 2020 election.

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Retired General Picked by Nancy Pelosi to Review Capitol Security Appears on Chinese Propaganda Network

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Russel Honore

Chinese government officials and state-controlled media agencies have recently ramped up their rhetoric against the United States on the issue of climate change, portraying the U.S. as not doing enough to limit greenhouse emissions even though China is by far the world’s biggest polluter.

One shot fired in the propaganda war came this week in the form of an interview that CGTN America, the U.S. affiliate of the Beijing-controlled China Central Television (CCTV), conducted with retired Army Lt. General Russel Honoré.

Honoré, who is founder of the environmental group Green Army, decried in the CGTN interview that a “large part” of the population in his native Louisiana denies the existence of climate change.

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Commentary: The Teacher Pay Gap Is Really About the STEM Salary Premium

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Teacher reading to student.

With classrooms finally reopening and hundreds of billions of federal dollars earmarked for public schools, the issue of teacher pay will soon re-emerge. Before the pandemic, public school teachers were fighting against a widely perceived “teacher salary penalty.” President Biden vowed to “correct this wrong,” promising a dramatic increase in federal education funding to “give teachers a raise.” But what causes these pay differences? New Census Bureau data suggest that most teachers are paid roughly what they’d receive in other jobs. But if public schools wish to attract the best-qualified graduates to teaching, they need to stop paying the physics teacher the same as the gym teacher.

The Economic Policy Institute, a teacher-union-affiliated think tank, reports that public school teachers receive salaries about 20 percent lower than non-teachers with equal levels of experience and education.

But what does it mean for education to be “equal”? College graduates attended different institutions, majored in different fields, and received different GPAs, leading to different salaries later in life. That’s why parents encourage their children to attend more competitive colleges and, increasingly, to favor STEM fields over liberal arts majors.

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Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

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An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.

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‘George Floyd Square’ Singles Out White People with Special Instructions for Behavior

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George Floyd Memorial Square

The intersection where George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, which has since been converted into an informal memorial, has signs posted with special instructions for how White people are supposed to behave in the area, according to Fox News.

Having since been unofficially renamed “George Floyd Square,” the intersection of E. 38th Street and Chicago Avenue has become the epicenter for Black Lives Matter and other far-left protests, with numerous memorials built to Floyd and other black people who have allegedly been murdered by police. At one of the entrances to the area, a sign has been erected declaring it to be “a sacred space for community, public grief, and protest.” The sign also falsely claims that Floyd “took his last breath under the knee of” Officer Derek Chauvin, even though footage revealed that Chauvin’s knee was actually on Floyd’s back and shoulder blade, not his neck.

Further down, the sign contains special instructions for how White people are to act upon entering the area. White people, the sign says, are to “decenter” and “come to listen, learn, mourn, and witness. Remember you are here to support, not be supported.” The sign goes on to order White people to “contribute to the energy of the space, rather than drain it,” providing no specifics on how exactly this is supposed to be done.

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Senate GOP Counters Biden with $568 Billion Infrastructure Plan

The Center Square
Joe Biden

A group of Republican U.S. senators have unveiled a $568 billion plan that would look to rebuild and expand infrastructure nationwide and counter a more expensive proposal by President Joe Biden.

The GOP plan includes $299 billion for roads and bridges, $61 billion for public transit systems and $65 billion for broadband infrastructure. Also included in the plan is $20 billion for rail, $35 billion for drinking water and wastewater, $13 billion for safety, $17 billion in ports and inland waterways, $44 billion for airports and $14 billion for water storage.

Emphasized in the bill is the expediting of projects through regulatory processes and several measures to minimize new spending. The plan calls for repurposing federal COVID-19 relief funds that have remained unused, along with ensuring the federal debt is not increased.

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Revealed: Alternate Juror in Chauvin Trial Feared Violent Mob

Peter D'Abrosca
Crowd of Black Lives Matter protestors.

An alternate juror who heard evidence in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin admitted in an interview released Thursday that she was afraid of violent rioting and personal ramifications if Chauvin was not convicted of murder. 

Lisa Christensen told KARE that she was apprehensive to even be a member of the jury, because, “I did not want to go through rioting and destruction again and I was concerned about people coming to my house if they were not happy with the verdict.”

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‘Moment of Silence’ Bill Approved by Florida Senate

Casey Owens
Florida Senate Capitol

On Thursday, April 22, 2021, the Florida Senate approved a “moment of silence” bill (HB 529) that was previously approved by the Florida House of Representatives on March 18th of this year regarding the requirement of all school districts to enforce a 1-2 minute moment of silence for students of all grades at the beginning of each school day, specifically during first-period class times.

The House approved the bill with a 94-24 vote while the Senate approved the bill with a 32-6 vote. After Thursdays approval, the bill moves on to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis where he will make final actions regarding the bill.

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DeSantis Cuts Deal with Seminole Tribe to Bring Sports Betting to Florida

Peter D'Abrosca
Sports Book Betting

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is expected to reach an agreement with the Seminole Tribe to bring sports betting to the Sunshine State, as well as expanding current gambling rules.

“The broad parameters of the deal — as confirmed by multiple sources — are that the Seminole Tribe would control sports betting in the state and would offer it at their casinos, including the Hard Rock locations in Hollywood and Tampa,” according to POLITICO. “But sports betting would also be allowed at existing tracks and other poker rooms around the state where the tribe and other gambling operators would split the revenue generated.”

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With GOP Nominating Convention Two Weeks Away, Snyder, Sears Launch Tours

Eric Burk

With two weeks until the May 8 GOP nomination convention, GOP candidates are hitting the road. On Friday, gubernatorial candidate Pete Snyder announced a new “Conservative Outlaw Tour” of ten stops over 12 days spread across Virginia accompanied by his barbecue smoker the “Pig Rig” and  “conservative outlaw” special guests. The same day, Lieutenant Governor candidate Winsome Sears announced her “Take Back the Commonwealth” RV tour with 24 scheduled stops over five days.

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