Day: May 7, 2021

John Fredericks Commentary: Analysis and Predictions for the GOP for Saturday’s Nominating Convention

John Fredericks
American flag flying above a large crowd.

On Saturday, May 8, up to 53,000 Virginia Republicans who pre-registered as delegates will nominate candidates for state-wide offices in November, including governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

It’s been a long time coming.

The nominating process for Republicans, an unassembled convention with about 40 voting locations across the Commonwealth – open for voting from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM – is a convoluted and confusing affair that took months to negotiate and consummate after numerous marathon and agonizing Zoom calls by the Party’s State Central Committee.

It’s been a long time coming.  

The nominating process for Republicans, an unassembled convention with about 40 voting locations across the Commonwealth–open for voting from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM–is a convoluted and confusing affair that took months to negotiate and consummate after numerous marathon and agonizing Zoom calls by the Party’s State Central Committee. 

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Tennessee Legislature Passes Bill Changing Davidson County Boundary Line

Corinne Murdock

Part of Davidson County will now go to Wilson County, according to a bill passed by the Tennessee General Assembly this week. As reported by The Tennessee Star, the latest development was the culmination of a lengthy process that began in 2019, undertaken by Davidson County resident Mason Hunter. Hunter’s property was divided between the two counties, and the only accessible driveway was located in Wilson County.

The boundary change received unanimous bipartisan support in both the House and Senate up until the final House vote on the bill. Only four members voted against the change: State Representatives Mark Cochran (R-Englewood), Ron Gant (R-Rossville), Chris Todd (R-Madison County), and Ryan Williams (R-Cookeville). 

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Speaker Paul Ryan’s Top Aide, Top Fundraiser Drive Cheney’s Anti-Trump Rebellion

Neil W. McCabe

The chairwoman of the House Republican Conference faces her second fight for her job in the coming days, a fight she is going to lose, the other loser is the is former Speaker Paul D. Ryan and his ring of Republicans opposed to the leadership of President Donald J. Trump.

Wyoming Republican Rep. Elizabeth L. Cheney, who has led the House Republican Conference since Jan. 3, 2019, has strong ties to Ryan, especially through at least two members of the former speaker’s political family, Kevin Seifert and Jeff Livingston.

Other members of Ryan’s political family – such as Brendan Buck, who led the communications shop  for Ryan, when he was the chairman of Ways and Means, and when he was speaker – have backed Cheney’s rebellion against Trump, but Seifert and Livingston are actively involved in Cheney’s operation.

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Despite Migrant Surge, ICE Deportations Fall to Record Low Under Biden Admin

Admin

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials performed a record low number of deportations in April despite illegal border crossings occurring at a 20-year high, according to the agency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials deported 2,962 immigrants in April, a 20% decline from March, an agency spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday. The April numbers mark the first time the agency has deported less than 3,000 individuals in one month since the beginning of ICE’s records, The Washington Post first reported.

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Biden Issues National Day of Prayer Proclamation That Does Not Include the Word ‘God’

Admin

President Biden has issued a National Day of Prayer proclamation in which the word “God” does not appear once.

“I invite the citizens of our Nation to give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I join all people of faith in prayers for spiritual guidance, mercy, and protection,” Biden says in the proclamation.

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Fauci’s Agency Spent over $400k on Experiments Grafting Aborted Fetal Scalps onto Mice and Rats

Admin

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the federal health agency run for decades by celebrated White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, has spent over $400,000 funding a series of experiments that grafted the scalps of aborted fetuses onto living mice, studies that were meant to investigate the human skin’s propensity for developing infections.

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Music Spotlight: Alex Kline

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee-  With both of Alex Kline’s parents being attorneys, writing/playing country music wasn’t even on the radar for the teen growing up in California. No one she knew even listened to country music.

Kline’s grandmother was a skillful classical pianist and her father grew up playing piano as well. Her dad would occasionally play classical pieces for the family and her grandmother encouraged her to play as well.

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Jobless Claims Fall to 498,000, Hit New Pandemic Low Once Again

Admin

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims dropped sharply to 498,000 last week as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics figure released Thursday represented a large decrease in the number of new jobless claims compared to the week ending April 24, when 590,000 new jobless claims were reported. That number was revised up from the 553,000 jobless claims initially reported last week.

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Judge Determines That CDC Does Not Have the Authority to Uphold Federal Eviction Moratorium

Admin

A federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled on Wednesday that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not legally have the authority to uphold a federal freeze on evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to ABC News.

The ruling was made by Judge Dabney Friedrich of the D.C. Circuit Court, who subsequently ordered that the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) vacate the policy. The eviction moratorium, which had been in place since it was first implemented last year under the Trump Administration, was meant to assist those who have been unable to pay rent due to the shutdown of small businesses, forbidding landlords from evicting such tenants until said tenants can return to work and start paying their rent again.

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Commentary: Republican Leadership Follows in the Footsteps of Democrats

Admin

The Republican Party is riding hard into a box canyon chasing after donor rolls and privileges while its enemies take aim from the walls above at the base it drags along below.

Earlier this year, on the eve of Donald Trump’s second impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) denounced the former president’s conduct surrounding the Capitol building riot as “a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” adding that there was “no question . . . President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” Trump shot back, calling McConnell a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.” 

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All Three of the Nation’s Largest School District Heads Have Resigned

Admin
Empty Classroom

Within a roughly two-month period, the heads of the three largest public school districts in the country have all resigned, as reported by Breitbart.

The most recent resignation comes from Chicago, where the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Janice Jackson, announced her resignation on Monday. After serving for nearly three years in the position, Jackson declared that it was time to “pass the torch to new leadership.” Under Jackson’s command, CPS began clashing with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.) over the issue of whether or not schools should return to in-person learning, with Lightfoot attributing the constant stalemates and delays to the union’s “aspirations,” which she said are more “akin to a political party” than a union.

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Biden Admin Considers Changing Trump’s Pandemic Border Closures to Allow ‘Vulnerable’ Migrants into US: Report

Admin

The Biden administration is reportedly considering changes to a Trump-era public health order that allows for asylum-seeking migrants to be rapidly expelled to their country of origin, BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday.

The Biden administration’s unofficial plan could grant humanitarian exceptions to some migrants allowing them to enter the U.S. regardless of former President Donald Trump’s implementation of Title 42, a public health order issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic allowing officials to expel migrants at the southern border, BuzzFeed reported.

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Nashville Mayor Appoints 11 Community Safety Advisory Board Members to Handle $1.5 Million for Violence Prevention, Reduction

Corinne Murdock

Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced Tuesday that he’d appointed 11 individuals to an advisory board tasked with addressing Metro violence. According to the mayor’s press release, these newly-appointed members will determine how $1.5 million in grants should be spent to prevent and reduce community violence.

The members of the Community Safety Partnership Advisory Board are Katina Beard, chair of the mayor’s Behavior Health and Wellness Advisory Council; Christiane Buggs, chair of Metro Nashville Public School Board of Education; Sheila Calloway, judge in the Metro Nashville Juvenile Court; Jennifer Gamble, chair of the Metro Council Public Safety Committee; Dwayne Greene, deputy chief of the Metro Nashville Police Community Services Bureau; Nawzad Hawrami, public safety chair of the mayor’s New American Advisory Council; Dr. Christopher Jackson, reverend for the Pleasant Green Baptist Church; Dr. Alex Jahangir, chair of the Metro Nashville Public Health Board; Andres Martinez, chair of the Metro Community Oversight Board; and Tom Turner, president and CEO of the Nashville Downtown Partnership.

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Maricopa County Withholding Subpoenaed Hardware from Election Audit, Citing Alleged ‘Security Risk’

Admin

Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County are withholding materials subpoenaed by the state legislature as part of its audit of the county’s 2020 election, claiming that surrendering them would constitute a security risk for both law enforcement and federal agencies.

A Monday letter sent from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to Ken Bennett, the former Arizona secretary of state and the liaison between the state Senate and the auditors, said the county had elected not to turn over “several routers” requested by the legislature due to an alleged “significant security risk to law enforcement data utilized by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as numerous federal agencies.”

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Florida Universities Set to Return to Pre-COVID Norms in Fall

Peter D'Abrosca

During the fall semester, Florida’s 12 public universities are set to return to normal, after a full school year of COVID-19 disruptions. 

“An early evening news release signed by Syd Kitson, chairman of the university system’s Board of Governors, and Marshall Criser, chancellor of the system, said the 12 public universities ‘expect to increase classroom occupancy to pre-COVID capacity by the 2021-22 academic year and return to pre-COVID operations. Further, we anticipate returning to full in-person participation in athletic and social activities on our campuses, including fan participation in stadiums and arenas,'” News Service of Florida reported.  

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Election Reform Law Faces Immediate Lawsuits

Grant Holcomb

Governor Ron DeSantis signed an elections reform bill into law Thursday and opposition groups have already filed lawsuits against it. The new law, known as SB90, sets in place limits on access to ballot drop boxes and well as requiring those same ballot drop boxes to be monitored by an employee of the supervisor of elections’ office.

Additionally, voters who wish to request an absentee ballot will have to do so each general election cycle.

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Governor DeSantis Announces Reinstatement of Work Search Requirements

Casey Owens

On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that on May 30th, he will be reinstating the work search requirements for jobless Floridians seeking unemployment benefits. In April, DeSantis and the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) extended the work search waivers through May 29th which allows applicants to receive benefits without reporting their weekly search for jobs to the DEO in the form of job applications.

Before the waivers were established in March 2020, individuals who were unemployed and looking for benefits had to complete and report five job applications to a registered career center or directly to the DEO. With the reinstatement of the work search requirements at the end of the month, and the denial of SB 1906 that would have increased the amount of weekly benefits and decreased the number of job applications required to report on a weekly basis, the process in attaining unemployment benefits will go back to how it was before the pandemic. 

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Kemp Approves Paid Parental Leave for State Workers in Georgia

The Center Square

State workers will have three weeks of paid parental leave under a bill signed into law Wednesday by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Under House Bill 146, state government or local school board employees who worked at least 700 hours over the six months preceding the requested paid leave date can qualify for the paid time off after the birth of a child, adoption of a child or taking in of a foster child. Paid parental leave would be granted only once a calendar year.

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Northern Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys Seek Big Budget Increases

Eric Burk

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s (D) office is getting more funding, after the Board of Supervisors adopted a budget for 2022 on Tuesday, according to the Tysons Reporter. The budget includes $8 million for Descano’s office, about 27 percent more than $6.3 million for fiscal year 2021. But that’s far less than the $19.1 million budget Descano has said his office needs.

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Ohio GOP Meets Friday to Decide on New Members, Term Limits, and Whether to Censure Pro-Impeachment Lawmakers

Jack Windsor

Members of the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee (SCC) are scheduled to meet Friday to determine if the party will censure Republican lawmakers who voted in January to impeach President Trump, elect two State Central Committee Members, and to vote on an initiative that would extend the term limit from two years to four.

According to one central committee member the initial intent was to censure U.S. Congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH-16) for his impeachment vote but the effort has been “watered down” to include broader language that shifts the focus from Gonzalez and includes all GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach.

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Michigan Doesn’t Know How Many Residents Vaccinated Out-of-State; Lawmakers Want Them Counted

The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 recovery plan requires the state must reach 70% of Michiganders ages 16 and older with a first vaccine injection before dropping all COVID-19 restrictions.

But the state doesn’t know how many residents have already been vaccinated in other states unless residents give that information to the state health department.

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Klobuchar Praises Trump Facebook Ban on NBC

Peter D'Abrosca
Amy Klobuchar

A Democrat senator from Minnesota sided with Facebook, a multi-billion dollar international corporation, in its decision to ban former President Donald J. Trump from its platform for life. 

“That was the right thing to do. He’s the disinformer-in-chief. He told the biggest lie of all time, which led to an insurrection by getting his followers to believe that the election was a fake,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said on “Late Night” with Seth Meyers. “It was an outrageous moment with a number of Republicans calling him out on it at the time.”

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Knoxville Appoints ‘Youth Council’ of 12 to 20-Year-Olds to Help Address City Issues

Corinne Murdock

On Wednesday, Knoxville announced the appointment of 17 youths to a council dedicated to addressing city issues through “strategic planning.” The “Mayor’s Youth Council” will work alongside the Knoxville City Council and other city officials as they focus on community organizing, leadership, and advocacy. The council has a total of four eighth-graders, three high school freshmen, four sophomores, four juniors, and two seniors representing eight schools.

The council will begin meeting over the summer. They will be tasked with learning municipal services, collaborating with their peers and youth-serving nonprofits, and “strategic planning.”

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