Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced that Bob Cooper will resign as Metro Director of Law to return to private practice with a planned departure date in early June. Mayor Cooper has appointed Nashville attorney Wallace W. Dietz as Metro’s next legal director.
Read the full story
It’s about time.
U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) prompted outrage this week following his remarks during a congressional hearing on the events of January 6, 2021.
Clyde, along with several Republican House members, is finally pushing back on the Democrats’ allegedly unassailable narrative about what happened that day. The roughly four-hour disturbance at the Capitol, as I’ve covered for months, is being weaponized not only against Donald Trump but also hundreds of nonviolent Americans who traveled to their nation’s capital to protest the final certification of a fraudulent presidential election.
Big Tech used the so-called “attack” on the Capitol as an excuse to achieve its long-sought-after goal to deplatform the former president; NeverTrumpers such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) insist the chaos of the day was fueled by the “Big Lie”—in other words, the belief held by tens of millions of Republicans—and a good share of independents—that Joe Biden didn’t legitimately earn enough votes to win the White House. The Biden regime vows to use the “whole of government” to purge the country of “domestic violent extremists,” which is code for Trump supporters.
Read the full story
Many lawmakers who have ordered or urged citizens not to leave their homes due to the coronavirus pandemic have not followed their own advice.
The Daily Caller News Foundation has kept track of those politicians or local lawmakers who spurned their own COVID-19 rules to attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration and the lawmakers who flouted their own advice and then excused their behavior as essential, compiling lists of the biggest offenders such as Democrats New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many more.
The DCNF searched for, but did not find, examples of prominent Republicans who urged citizens to stay home due to COVID-19 and then did not follow their own advice. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, sparked a backlash when he traveled to Cancun in February as Texans struggled without power under heavy ice storms.
Read the full story
Some Latino adults are concerned to get a COVID-19 vaccine because they might have to provide identification or are worried it could affect their immigration status, according to a poll released Thursday.
Of the total number of unvaccinated Latino adults who were polled, 39% said they were concerned about potential requirements to provide a government-issued ID or Social Security number to be vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Monitor poll. And 35% of respondents expressed concerns that receiving the vaccine could negatively impact their own or a relative’s immigration status.
“Among unvaccinated Hispanic adults, those who are potentially undocumented, those without health insurance, and those with lower household incomes are more likely to express potential access-related barriers or immigration-related concerns to vaccination,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Read the full story
Tax deals for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and minor league baseball’s Tennessee Smokies were signed into law this week by Gov. Bill Lee.
The governor also signed two bills that are key cogs in his criminal justice reform initiative. They aim to reduce recidivism and keep lower level offenders related to substance abuse and mental health out of jail and in community-based alternative programs.
The Titans deal is estimated to have a $10 million annual sales tax impact on the state. It will allow the team to retain sales tax revenue from all events at Nissan Stadium and keep half of the tax revenue from a planned mixed-use development around the stadium to use toward future stadium upgrades.
Read the full story
A group of scientists called for a more objective investigation into the source of COVID-19 in an open letter in Science magazine on Thursday.
“A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest,” the 18 scientists wrote, many of whom have conducted extensive research in microbiology and are from top U.S. universities.
A World Health Organization-led team released a report on COVID-19’s origins in March, and the WHO’s director general, the White House, the U.S. State Department and 13 other countries expressed concern that the report was compromised, particularly as China blocked the team’s access to key data.
Public health agencies and research laboratories need to open their records for investigation, the scientists say in their open letter.
Read the full story
Shortly before Christmas in 2018, a woman named Darlene voluntarily turned in a 9mm pistol to the Baltimore Police Department. It was just one of about 500 firearms the department collected that day as part of the city’s gun buyback program, which paid citizens somewhere between $25 and $500 in exchange for their firearms and high-capacity magazines.
Darlene, however, had a confession. She was turning in her 9mm, she told a local news reporter, so she could “upgrade to a better weapon.”
Like what? the reporter asked.
“I don’t know,” Darlene said. “I haven’t quite decided.”
Read the full story
Pope Francis lamented news of plunging birth rates worldwide in a Friday address, warning that there is “no future” without the family.
“If the family is not at the center of the present, there will be no future; but if the family takes off again, everything will take again,” the pope tweeted Friday.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released in early May found that the provisional number of births in the United States in 2020 is down 4% from 2019. Women in the U.S. gave birth to approximately 3.61 million babies in 2020, compared to about 3.75 million births in 2019, and the United States total fertility rate fell to 1.64, the lowest rate since the government began tracking such data in the 1930s.
Read the full story
More than 120 retired military generals and admirals have posted an open letter questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Joe Biden’s mental health, and warning that the United States is in deep peril under Biden’s divisive leadership. The former high-ranking military officers blasted the “Commander-in-Chief,” accusing him of launching “a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner, and summed up the situation as a “conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty.”
“Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the ‘will of the people’ our Constitutional Republic is lost,” the 124 former officers stated in the letter, which was released by the group “Flag Officers 4 America.”
“Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State Legislature’s approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc. Today, many are calling such commonsense controls ‘racist’ in an attempt to avoid having fair and honest elections,” the letter continued. “The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020.”
Read the full story
Last week, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 90 into law. The bill, addressing elections, has been derided as a “Jim Crow” tactic and characterized as voter suppression by political opponents. However, in 2012, a grand jury taking part in an election fraud case in Miami-Dade County provided a list of recommendations to lawmakers to crack down on absentee ballot-related voter fraud. A number of those grand jury recommendations were included in SB 90.
DeSantis has praised the bill saying Florida has some of the “strongest election integrity measures” in the country.
Read the full story
The Eastern District Court of Virginia dismissed Senator Amanda Chase’s (R-Chesterfield) lawsuit over her censure by the Senate. On Wednesday, Judge Robert Payne granted a motion to dismiss filed by Attorney General Mark Herring on behalf of the Senate and the Clerk of the Senate. In April, Herring argued that the Senate and the Clerk have sovereign immunity and that the Senate’s decision to censure is a “non-justiciable” political question.
Read the full story
Michigan House GOP unveiled a plan to spend roughly $80 million to support local police departments.
The plan aims to counter the “defund the police movement,” House Speaker Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, said in a Thursday morning press conference.
House Republicans say the plan supports law enforcement, strengthens the criminal justice system and expands community policing statewide.
Read the full story
A former University of Georgia (UGA) professor who admitted to authorities that he possessed hundreds of images of child pornography was sentenced to federal prison and will have to register as a sex offender for life. This, according to a press release that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia published this week.
Read the full story
The federal government will award the Commonwealth of Virginia and local governments money related to the costs of damages from winter storms in mid-February, President Joe Biden announced.
Biden declared a major disaster for severe weather storms that happened between Feb. 11 and Feb. 13. Federal assistance will be available for the state, tribal and local recovery efforts related to the storms.
Funding is also available to some private nonprofits for the cost of emergency work and repair or replacement of facilities.
Read the full story
E-mobility charging systems producer Heliox is establishing its North American headquarters in Atlanta, creating more than 70 clean-energy jobs, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said.
Netherlands-based Heliox makes fast-charging systems for electric vehicles. It has installed more than 1,600 fast-charging points worldwide.
The headquarters is expected to open June 1 and will include a campus for research and development and corporate offic
Read the full story
After an announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 are free to gather without masks, several Florida staples have announced they will not require customers to wear masks this summer.
“Visitors won’t have to wear face masks outdoors at any of Central Florida’s major theme parks, as Universal Orlando, Disney World and SeaWorld relaxed the COVID-19 rule effective Saturday, sparking a mixed reaction among some fans,” The Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday.
Read the full story
Ohio House Democrats plan to offer their own solutions to potential redistricting issues caused by late census data, and it centers around following the state constitution and providing more public access to the process.
The U.S. Census Bureau announced last month redistricting data will not be available until September, creating a constitutional issue for Ohio. The state must meet certain requirements by the end of September.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has sued the U.S. Census Bureau to release information sooner, and Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, floated a constitutional amendment change last month.
Read the full story
The Minnesota House voted 72-61 to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and expunge minor marijuana convictions.
The Senate leader, however, designated the bill dead upon arrival.
“The war on drugs is a failed policy,” House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler said. “The harms caused by current cannabis laws cannot be allowed to continue. Minnesota’s illegal cannabis market creates bad outcomes for everyone. Responsible regulations and safeguards to prevent youth access are a better solution to address the harms our current laws fail to address.”
Read the full story
Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed two bills (SB 1954 and SB 2514) to combat the issue of climate change and the rise in sea level that is negatively impacting the state of Florida.
At his press conference in Tarpon Springs, alongside Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, DeSantis expressed the importance of the two bills and added that they were “the most significant steps that have been taken in Florida in quite some time.”
He also noted, “As soon as I took office we developed a bold agenda to be good stewards of Florida’s environment and a key component of that agenda has been recognizing and addressing coastal resiliency and flood mitigation.”
Read the full story
Thursday, Tennessee joined 19 other states to support Arkansas’ legal fight for its law banning discriminatory abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III announced the decision on Thursday – the same day that Missouri filed the amicus brief for the case, Leslie Rutledge v. Little Rock Planning Services.
“People with Down syndrome add unique joy, beauty, and diversity to our society. Yet the abortion of children with Down syndrome approaches genocidal levels, threatening the Down syndrome community with complete elimination,” asserted the brief. “All states share Arkansas’ compelling interests in preventing the eradication of people with Down syndrome through the practice of eugenic abortion.”
Read the full story