Members of the Williamson County School (WCS) Board have scheduled a special meeting for Thursday to discuss COVID-19 response strategies related to health and staffing. According to the WCS website, the board meeting will commence at 6 p.m., Thursday, August 26, at the Williamson County Administrative Complex at 1320 West Main Street in Franklin.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, lawmakers, and some school administrators are clashing over back-to-school COVID-19 policies.
Ken Gutman, who serves on the K-12 Alliance of Michigan’s Board of Directors and is superintendent of Walled Lake Consolidated Schools, called on the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to develop a COVID-19 delta variant plan for schools and for the department or local health departments to enact a mitigation strategy that includes a possible mask mandate inside school buildings.
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In a keynote speech at a mid-August Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe said that it was imperative to “make life difficult” for Americans who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We have 93 million Americans today that are not vaccinated. We need to do everything that we possibly can … And I tell my private businesses all the time, I hope you mandate vaccines for people coming in,” he said in his speech. “Until we make it hard for people get on planes or go to movie theaters, people just aren’t going to do it … We’re not going door to door, but you make life difficult. If you’re going to come to the HIMSS conference, you got to be vaccinated.”
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In response to various business and governmental entities mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for employees, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb told people in a video posted to Twitter that he would not be imposing a mandate for his workers. Gov. Doug Ducey issued an order on August 16 prohibiting local governments from issuing vaccine mandates. It is punishable by a class 3 misdemeanor or other legal action.
Lamb said, “As long as I am your sheriff, we will never mandate the vaccine. We believe that your health choices are yours and yours alone. Whether you get the vaccine, or don’t get the vaccine, that’s your private information. Here, we believe in America and freedom and we’re going to continue on with that. God bless.”
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President Joe Biden encouraged private sector companies Monday to “step up” vaccine requirements for employees following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
“If you’re a business leader, a non-profit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that. Require it,” Biden said. “Do what I did last month. Require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements.”
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Despite the fact that the school has encouraged all students to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and decided to follow the Georgia University System’s guidance on mask recommendations in indoor spaces, two professors at the University of North Georgia have resigned in protest.
They say the school is not doing enough to protect their health during the recent uptick of cases of the virus.
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Virginia public schools are reopening under a new law, SB 1303, which requires all schools to make in-person instruction available for the minimum standard required instructional hours — virtual learning can be provided, but must be optional. However, that doesn’t mean that local districts can’t choose to go virtual-only for limited amounts of time, as Rappahanock County Public Schools is currently demonstrating. On Monday, the district announced that amid rising COVID-19 and flu cases, the school was moving to virtual-only until August 27 while the district implements new mitigation strategies.
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Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) introduced the “Americans Not Aliens Act” on August 20, which would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from issuing work permits to migrants with deportation orders. These are generally illegal immigrants who have received hearings before an immigration judge who has declined to give them asylum, instead ordering their removal.
“Providing work permits to aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States is the very definition of insanity,” Gosar said in a statement. “At a time when American citizens are struggling to find jobs, my legislation removes the incentives for aliens to ignore the rule of law and not return to their country of origin.” Under the current system, they can easily find jobs in America which they may not be able to find in their home countries.
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U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel caused a stir on social media over the weekend after he posted a photo Friday evening at a local brewery.
“PERRYSBURG, OH — [Inside the Five] is a cool brewery started by two NFL vets. Great food and spirited waitresses! Even though Brianne was sick today, she came to work because she knew they were short servers. These are the type of American workers that make our country strong,” he said in a tweet.
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Georgia State House Minority Leader James Beverly (D-Macon) and other members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus on Monday demanded that Governor Brian Kemp and other state officials mandate COVID-19 masks at public schools. Beverly did not return The Georgia Star News’ request for comment Monday. We contacted the eight other caucus members who said in an emailed press release that public school students must wear masks. Seven of those eight state representatives did not respond before Monday’s stated deadline.
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President Joe Biden’s plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for nursing home employees could damage further an industry struggling in Ohio, the executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association said.
Pete Van Runkle said the group is pro-vaccine but a federal mandate negatively could affect services to some of the most needy people in the state and be damaging to skilled nursing facilities.
“We believe the Biden Administration’s plan, at least articulated in the press conference, would be devastating to Ohio SNFs and to their staff and residents,” Van Runkle said. “While we support vaccination and recognize that it is the most effective defense against COVID-19, the proposed mandate does not account for staffing that is already stretched beyond the breaking point.”
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Speaking to a packed crowd in Scottsdale Saturday night for her birthday, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake declared, “We will elect Arizona’s first Trump governor!” Lake planned the huge birthday bash to include a live viewing of former President Trump’s speech at a campaign rally in Alabama. Afterwards, she gave a speech of her own to the well over a thousand who attended the Embassy Suites event.
Lake announced the results of a new poll taken by her campaign that showed her well ahead of the other Republican candidates. She came in at 37.4 percent, followed by Matt Salmon at 11.5 percent, Steve Gaynor with 2.7 percent, and Karrin Taylor Robson at 2.0 percent. She said one of her opponents also conducted a poll that showed her ahead in a “landslide.” She distinguished herself from the others, “I’m running against a bunch of swamp creatures.”
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Less than a week after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a lengthy tweet thread defending its pro-mask recommendations for children under 12, Twitter users started warning about an apparent memory-hole effort.
AAP resources on the importance of seeing faces to child development had recently disappeared from its website, now redirecting to the home page. It looked like AAP was trying to cover its tracks to align with its new recommendations.
The 67,000-member medical association has a different explanation: an unannounced website migration.
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Doctors in North Texas have allegedly been crafting a policy that would allow them to discriminate against unvaccinated patients in the event that Intensive-Care Units (ICU) run out of bed space, as reported by Dallas News.
The plans were revealed in an internal memo that was leaked to writers at Dallas News’ “The Watchdog” column. The memo was written by Dr. Robert Fine, who serves as co-chair of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force, a group that consists of roughly 50 members from hospitals throughout the North Texas region.
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School board members for the Franklin Special School District (FSSD) have voted unanimously to impose mask mandates. The mandates are scheduled to begin Monday, according to Nashville Public Radio.
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In spite of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s executive order, Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) officials have sent out robocalls to parents to tell them they may not opt their child out of COVID-19 mask mandates. The Tennessee Star obtained a recording of a robocall that MNPS officials sent out this week.
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Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) was grilled at a Tuesday evening meeting by a large conservative grassroots group in his district that wants the state senate speaker to call a special session to deal with Governor Bill Lee’s executive orders.
McNally said that “a special session is one of the options on the table” and that he wouldn’t rule it out.
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Every member of America’s expert class possessing even a modicum of integrity and self-awareness has long been aware of a simple truth: Only a fool would trust the emanations of America’s leading experts.
Worse, the more prestigious the job title, the less trustworthy the pronouncement. Official experts who speak for the government are the most suspect of all. Worse still, you can’t write off anything they say because a great deal of it is informed and valid.
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More than 250 residents gathered at Thursday’s Cherokee County School Board meeting to protest potential COVID-19 mask mandates, but parents’ comments irked board members to such an extent that those board members ended the forum prematurely. Witnesses said those board members then departed the building with police escorts.
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President Biden attacked Tennessee parents who protested mask mandates for the second time in less than a week in an address delivered at the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
Biden also threatened Republican governors around the country who have banned school board mask mandates, at the press conference, during which he took no questions. He did not address the unfolding military debacle in Afghanistan caused by his reckless decision to remove all American troops before American citizens in the country were evacuated. At present the Biden administration has abandoned thousands of Americans left behind enemy lines in the country which the Taliban overran earlier this month in a matter of days.
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Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, admitted to having spoken directly with faculty members from school districts that are defying the law and forcing mask mandates on their students, even if their states have banned such mandates, ABC News reports.
Cardona said that some such schools fear repercussions from the state governments if they continue defying the bans, including in Texas and Florida. “I have had the conversations with superintendents,” Cardona said in an interview on Tuesday. “And they have asked, if this goes in that direction, how do we get support? My message is, open the schools safely; we got your back.”
Cardona had previously sent a letter to several school districts in Florida promising that the federal government would fund the schools directly in the event that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) follows through on his promise to suspend the salaries of all superintendents who force such mandates onto their students in defiance of state law.
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Vanderbilt University officials have announced their COVID-19 masking requirements for the new 2021-2022 school year. Vanderbilt officials said in a Health and Safety Protocols memo that the Nashville-based school has a high vaccination rate of about 94 percent.
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In Alan Parker’s 1982 film, “Pink Floyd—The Wall,” a young boy’s reality turns into a nightmare. It’s post-war England, and the boy—now in his teens and fatherless—sits in a classroom tuning out his bland math lesson and composing poems instead. The teacher—a pedagogical sadist—mocks the boy, and then proceeds to mete out some good, old-fashioned corporal punishment. The boy winces, and overwhelmed with anxiety begins to see his world as an unbearable nightmare of human oppression.
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President Joe Biden’s average approval rating has dipped below 50% for the first time since taking office.
His approval stands at 49.8% in FiveThirtyEight’s tracker and 49.4% in RealClearPolitics’ average. While Biden’s approval rating still is higher than the 44% and 46.8% who disapprove in each average, it has steadily declined since May 25.
Biden has been plagued with multiple challenges since late May, including the resurgence of coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant and the sudden fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban. He has also been met with rising crime, growing concerns over inflation and a decades-high surge of migrants at the southern border.
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President Joe Biden called the head of Phoenix Union High School District after the district implemented mask requirements that may be contrary to state law, praising Superintendent Chad Geston for the move. In a statement, Biden said he told Geston during his Friday phone call that he “did the right thing.”
The issue is currently under litigation in Maricopa County Superior Court. Numerous state legislators asked Governor Doug Ducey a few days ago to take action against the school districts in violation, and Ducey responded on Tuesday with a directive financially penalizing the districts. They will not receive any of the $163 million that the state got through the American Rescue Plan to boost per-pupil funding. Students in those districts will receive vouchers to attend schools elsewhere.
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The Biden administration announced Wednesday that federal health experts now recommend vaccinated Americans receive a COVID booster shot.
The boosters will be widely distributed to the public after research indicated that the vaccine’s effectiveness declines over time.
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School board recall efforts are sweeping the country, with many driven by parents claiming Critical Race Theory (CRT) is infecting schools, demanding schools reopen in person, and arguing that boards are consumed by virtue signaling.
According to Ballotpedia, 58 such efforts against 144 board members have taken place in 2021. Those are both all-time highs since it started tracking school board recall efforts in 2006, and far above the next highest year, 2010.
Only one school board member has been removed in 2021, however, while three resigned and seven were retained in elections. One is scheduled for a November recall vote in Kansas for upholding a mask mandate.
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Retail sales in the U.S. declined in July as the number of coronavirus cases spiked, localities renewed some restrictions and businesses delayed their return to in-person work.
Sales dropped 1.1% in July compared to June and totaled $617.7 billion, according to the Census Bureau report released Tuesday. The decrease was driven mainly by declining used and new car sales, clothing purchases, building materials sales, sports goods sales and furniture purchases.
Economists expected retail sales to fall 0.3%, a relatively modest drop compared to the actual decline, CNBC reported. All major stock market indices declined between 0.5% and 0.8% on Tuesday morning following the worse-than-expected report.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s executive order granting public school students the right to opt out of COVID-19 mask mandates has prompted Nashville and Memphis school administrators to announce they will not comply with Lee’s latest directive. That, in turn, prompted a response on Tuesday from Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge). On Facebook, McNally said Metro Nashville Public Schools’ (MNPS) and Shelby County Schools’ (SCS) officials’ apparent defiance against Lee left him “appalled and alarmed.”
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During COVID-19, Georgia and Tennessee have both fared substantially better economically than Kentucky and Michigan with no significant increase in cases from reopening their economy. This, according to a report that members of the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published this month. Beacon is a free market think tank.
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MCALLEN, Texas — Several illegal migrants told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they aren’t responsible for spreading COVID-19 in America.
Migrants who illegally crossed into the U.S. near the Hidalgo Point of Entry on Aug. 10 in a group of about 20 people said they weren’t worried about catching COVID-19 at any point in the journey to their final destinations in America.
“Everywhere people are getting infected,” a vaccinated man from Ecuador told the DCNF after illegally entering the U.S. near the same location on Aug. 7. “It’s honestly not that the migrants are bringing the virus. It’s everywhere.”
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that all schools require mask-wearing indoors by teachers and students, vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID-19.
And many school districts are adopting that requirement, to the dismay of many parents.
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Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Tuesday.
“Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result,” said Office of the Governor Communications Director Mark Miner.
“Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment,” the statement continued.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Memphis is battling a new form of contraband: fake COVID-19 vaccination cards.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers (CBPOs) working at the port of Memphis flagged a suspicious shipment coming from Shenzhen, China en route to the central business district of New Orleans,” a CPB press release said. “It was described in the manifest as ‘PAPER CARD, PAPER’ and CBPOs already knew what it was. It was the 15th such shipment of the night, though all to different cities. Inside were 51 low quality, counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards.”
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday issued an executive order that grants parents the right to opt their children out of a school’s COVID-19 mask mandate if a school board or a health board enacts one over a district. Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) had requestedthat Lee convene a special session of the state’s General Assembly to address school districts who impose mask mandates upon students. Lee said Monday he would not call for such a session.
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Aboard an almost fully vaccinated Carnival cruise ship, 27 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday just before arriving in Belize City, according to the Belize Tourism Board.
While crew members are 99.8% vaccinated, 26 of the positive cases were among them, the statement said. One passenger tested positive, as well, and 96.5% of guests have received the shot.
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Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said President Joe Biden’s 90-day COVID origins investigation is an insult to the career intelligence officials who have been probing the virus’s origins for well over a year and will continue to do so as new information comes in.
Grenell, who led the intelligence community during the early months of the pandemic from February to May 2020, said Biden’s May 26, 2021, directive to the intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origins of the virus shows the president never paid attention to the evidence he likely received during his daily briefings.
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Employees of a major airline reportedly made an autistic boy with an exemption letter take a COVID-19 test before allowing him to board his flight, the BBC reported Thursday.
Ryanair employees forced Callum Hollingsworth, 12, who has autism as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), to take a COVID-19 nasal swab test before being allowed to travel home to the U.K. from Spain last week, his mother Katie told the BBC. Callum had a letter from his doctor exempting him from testing, which the U.K.’s COVID-19 guidance recognizes.
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Republican members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Friday urged that committee’s chair to commence an investigation into the decisions of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) and several other governors to discharge COVID-19-infected patients into their states’ nursing homes in 2020.
In addition to Whitmer, Tom Wolf (D-PA), Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and Phil Murphy (D-NJ) are specifically criticized in the letter written to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL).
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The physical return of people to downtown Minneapolis offices expected after Labor Day likely will not transpire to the degree expected just a month ago.
It’s been a troubling time across the Twin Cities.
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If Gov. Bill Lee calls for a special session of the Tennessee Legislature, it will cost state taxpayers more than $30,000 per day.
Each day the House and Senate meet costs $30,750 in per diem for lawmakers, while each round trip for all lawmakers costs taxpayers $15,474 in mileage, according to Connie Ridley, the director of Tennessee’s Office of Legislative Administration.
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Federal officials have arrested and arraigned a Benton, Tennessee woman and charged her with wire fraud, money laundering, and operating an unlicensed money transmittal business, commonly known as a “money mule” operation. This, according to a press release that staff members for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee published this week.
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Experts are increasingly disputing the overall efficacy of cloth face masks in fighting the spread of SARS-Cov-2, even as many insist that children must be forced to wear them when attending school in the fall.
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Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday denied the request for an emergency injunction to stop Indiana University’s vaccination mandate from going into effect.
Her decision, however, does not mark the end of the road for the eight IU students suing the university, or for their attorney, Jim Bopp.
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Eleven Senate Democrats on Thursday voted against a modest and commonsense amendment to the Senate Budget Resolution that requires illegal migrants apprehended on the southern border to be tested for COVID-19 before they are transported into the country.
The amendment, introduced by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a physician, establishes “a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting migrants and local communities against COVID-19.” Under the provision, migrants will be quarantined and not transported from the border until they tested negative.
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Governor DeSantis expressed his support for Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment Thursday, as COVID cases and the number of hospitalizations continue to surge in Florida.
According to DeSantis, “These treatments have been proven successful, with clinical trials resulting in a 70% reduction in hospitalization and death for COVID patients,” especially those who have higher risk for severe complications due to age or preexisting medical conditions.
As reported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful antigens such as viruses.” The treatment is meant for individuals who have tested positive or recovered from COVID.
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The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Midwest clean energy job market hard, with more than 17,000 workers at one point filing for unemployment.
But the industry appears to be rebounding, according to an analysis of employment data released by the nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) and Clean Energy Trust.
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As a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic, the total number of students being homeschooled in the United States has more than doubled from pre-pandemic levels, and continues to rise even as schools begin to slowly reopen, according to Fox News.
By March of 2021, the total number of homeschooled students in America stands at over 5 million, in comparison to just 2.6 million in 2020. Christopher Chin, president of Homeschool Louisiana, said that “interest has exploded,” and that although some students may ultimately return to regular schools after the pandemic, “many parents [are] finding this is a better way of life for them and their children.”
Additionally, Chin says the homeschooling model has proven successful even for households where both parents work, due to the rise in remote work at many companies and places of business.
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Americans are growing angrier by the day in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or Tea Party furor of over a decade ago.
The rage at the current status quo this time is not just fueled by conservatives. For the first time in their lives, all Americans of all classes and races are starting to fear a self-created apocalypse that threatens their families’ safety and the American way of life.
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Michigan voters upset with mask mandates and other school-board actions can organize recall efforts, as Mount Pleasant Public Schools parents are now doing.
Three directors of that central-Michigan school district could be electorally removed owing to public backlash over a requirement that all students up to the age of 12 wear masks in school.
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