Five out of the six “newly reported” COVID deaths for Minnesota were actually from February. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) heralded Monday as having the highest number of newly reported deaths in the last two months. A tweet, from a person who analyzes the Minnesota data showed the specific dates that the “newly reported” deaths were from.
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In recent days, conservative media outfits have gleefully presented one of the least surprising headlines of modern times. Namely, that Joe Biden’s presidential approval rating has sunk below the waves.
In the latest Rasmussen poll, Biden is now at a 47 percent approval rating, with 52 percent disapproval. Worse, his Strong Approval number is only 27 percent, compared to a Strong Disapproval of 42. That gives him a minus-15 in Rasmussen’s approval index numbers.
Thursday’s numbers were one point better than Wednesday’s, which is likely statistical noise. The trend, however, is not Biden’s friend.
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Public health confidence in the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be waning as officials warn of enhanced danger — even for vaccinated individuals — from the “Delta variant” of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
For most of the past year officials have claimed that vaccinations are the only viable path back to normalcy and away from lockdowns and other aggressive mitigation measures. “Look at the folks in your community who have gotten vaccinated and are getting back to living their lives — their full lives,” President Joe Biden said at a May press conference, arguing that the vaccine was “going to help them and their loved ones be safe, get our businesses open again, and get us back to normal.”
The rollout of the vaccines starting last year and continuing throughout the spring and summer of this year has been hailed as the driving force behind the reopening of the economy and the ending of masking mandates and similar restrictions.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) held a conference Friday where he said he will be issuing an executive order “protecting the rights of parents” permitting them to make decisions about masking their children in this upcoming school year and banning school mask mandates.
“In Florida, there will be no lockdowns, there will be no school closures, there will be no restrictions and no mandates in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis feels Florida’s parents should be allowed to decide about masking issues for their own child’s safety.
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Tennessee’s former leading vaccine official, Michelle Fiscus, said that white, male, rural conservatives refuse the COVID-19 vaccine and are willing to risk the lives of others and themselves out of spite for the left. The former Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) Vaccine and Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program (VPDIP) Director made these statements during an interview with PBS.
“But I think the other thing in Tennessee, and I think in a lot of our Southern states that’s happening, is this ideology that if you get this vaccine, you’re somehow placating to the left part of the political spectrum,” said Fiscus. “And so what we’re actually seeing is our most hesitant population in Tennessee is the white, male, rural conservatives, and that they are stating that they’re not going to get the vaccine really out of spite and are willing to put their own lives and the lives of the people that they love at risk because they feel that if they get the vaccine, then they have placated the left or done what the Biden Administration wants them to do.”
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Minnesota has begun its “Vax to School” campaign to try to get students and families fully vaccinated against COVID before the start of the school year. To kick off the campaign, the Minnesota Department of Health partnered with teachers across Minnesota to make a “Vax to School” video.
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Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the recently fired director of the Tennessee Department of Health’s (TDH) Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program (VPDIP), blasted Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey this week for the latter’s handling of a $26.5 million COVID-testing contract.
“We knew that she was not being truthful with that committee,” Fiscus said to NewsChannel 5, referring to testimony Piercey gave before the state legislature last December.
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The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based policy institute and fiscal watchdog, has added its voice to those calling for an investigation into Metro Nashville Public Schools’ (MNPS) contract with Meharry Medical College Ventures.
The contract provided COVID-19 testing and other services, including a COVID website for the school district—one that cost about $1.8 million.
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Vanderbilt University announced on Wednesday that it awarded a total of $25,000 to staff and postdoctoral scholars in a giveaway for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Each winner received $1,000. The university held a giveaway handing out thousands of dollars as an incentive to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, despite requiring all students and staff in May to be vaccinated against COVID for the upcoming school year. The deadline to submit vaccination records is this Saturday.
Even if staff are working remotely, the university requires vaccination. Additionally, those who already contracted the virus are still required to be vaccinated.
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14 Minneapolis barber shops are participating in a national program called “Shots at the Shop” which is seeking to increase COVID vaccination rates in the Black community. The campaign is “a White House-led effort that is working with 1,000 barbershops and beauty salons across the country.” Some of the barber shops are even offering the COVID vaccine on site, including one Minneapolis shop.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has maintained Florida will not go back into lockdown and will not implement mask mandates, however Jacksonville doctor Dr. Sunil Joshi is calling on DeSantis to order Florida back into a state of emergency.
Joshi, an immunologist, said the rise in hospitalizations should be enough to force Florida back to consider how serious the virus still is.
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Five U.S. athletes have tested positive for coronavirus prior to the start of the Tokyo Olympics, crushing their dreams of competing in the world’s largest sporting event.
U.S. men’s basketball player Bradley Beal tested positive on July 15 which made him unable to travel to Tokyo, USA basketball announced in a tweet.
U.S women’s tennis star Coco Gauff announced on twitter that she tested positive for COVID on July 18. Gauff, 17, received her positive test in Tokyo, and has been barred from competing in the Olympic games, according to the tweet.
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Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins said Sunday that he, his wife and his son all tested positive for COVID-19.
“I have COVID, Becca has COVID, my son has COVID,” Higgins wrote on Facebook, adding that he and his wife had already tested positive for the virus early in 2020.
“Becca and I have had COVID before, early on, in January 2020, before the world really knew what it was,” Higgins wrote. “So, this is our second experience with the CCP biological attack weaponized virus… and this episode is far more challenging.”
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The CDC awarded the University of Arizona (UA) $15 million to study COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and immunity in children and underserved communities. Children as young as 4 months to minors as old as 17 years will be eligible for study of the emergency use authorization vaccine. The announcement didn’t specify who qualified as an “underserved community.” The grant was awarded specifically to the Arizona Healthcare, Emergency Response, and Other Essential Workers Surveillance (AZ HEROES) study, originally designed with a focus on frontline workers such as firefighters.
AZ Heroes lead official and associate dean for research and professor at Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Jeff Burgess, asserted that this research would offer a better understanding of how effective COVID-19 vaccines are in youth.
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The University of Minnesota system’s Bias Response and Referral Network asked students to report suspected bias “related to the COVID-19 outbreak.”
As a result, it appears that the School of Public Health removed a reference to COVID-19’s origin in China.
The College Fix filed a public records request with the University of Minnesota system for all COVID bias reports for the past year. This is the first response to the request.
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Before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia on Thursday, legal counsel for several Pennsylvania counties as well as numerous public officials and private companies, argued Governor Tom Wolf (D) abused his police powers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Specifically, the private-sector compainaints charge that the governor’s shutdown of and other demands on businesses during parts of 2020 and 2021 violate the takings clause and the due-process clause of the U.S. Constitution. All plaintiffs, governmental and private, further insist that the governor’s restrictions on public gatherings over the past year violated the rights of assembly, association and religion secured by the First Amendment.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss the silent but public partnership of the Biden administration and Facebook, and the Texas Democrats who spread COVID.
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According to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), the now deconstructed Memphis and Nashville COVID-19 overflow emergency hospitals, created with a $51 million federal grant, never treated a single patient.
The facilities were intended to receive patients with “low to moderate acuity” cases of the novel coronavirus but with too high severity to warrant discharge home. They anticipated that patients would stay an average of four days.
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Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) tweeted Monday in support of a bipartisan group of fellow congresspersons asking President Biden to more quickly reopen travel to the U.S.
“We should fully reopen international travel to the U.S.,” Rose wrote. “I joined with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to urge President Biden to reopen travel to the U.S. in order to accelerate our economic recovery.”
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A new study found that Minneapolis experienced the fifth-highest increase in homicides in the nation between 2019 to 2021.
The overall rankings were based on both a city’s current homicide rate and the change in its number of homicides across the last two years. Minneapolis landed in the 11th position overall, behind cities like New Orleans, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit, according to the WalletHub survey.
From the second quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2021, the city of lakes saw the fifth-highest increase in per capita homicides in the nation. In this time, Minneapolis endured the death of George Floyd, unprecedented levels of rioting, mass unemployment caused by COVID-19 lockdowns, and a political assault on its police department.
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The United States federal government is coming to Virginians’ doorsteps to ask for their personal medical information and vaccination status. Vaccination efforts in the western Tidewater counties of Franklin, Suffolk, Isle of Wight County, and Southampton County are ramping up to include door-to-door operations.
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Hamline University announced that they will be requiring students to be vaccinated against COVID before classes commence in the fall. The University’s President Fayneese Miller said, “We want, and need, to be together as a community. We value a sense of community at Hamline and all that entails, but to return to what we value and who we are, mandating a COVID-19 vaccine is necessary.” The announcement was made on Thursday with the expectation that students will be fully vaccinated before returning to campus in August.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss the dismantling of America’s woke military and compared Opioid deaths to COVID.
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Many Minnesota restaurants are struggling to find enough staff to be open at full capacity. A Champlin couple who were opening a Pizza Ranch franchise had to delay their grand opening two months to fill the labor shortage with teens out of school. Even with the school-age employees, the Pizza Ranch that opened in June still has to close one hour earlier than normal due to the shortages.
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A biology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville has started a study to look at herd immunity, while ensuring that his research also upholds pro-life principles.
Part of Professor Kyle McKenna’s research into herd immunity involved the development of an antibodies test that “did not utilize any materials produced in cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue,” he said.
“The Catholic Church has indicated the need for alternatives to the use of cell lines, derived from tissues of elective abortions, in vaccines and medical testing,” McKenna told The College Fix via email. “We saw the opportunity to provide an alternative by creating a test for evaluating antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 that used no materials that were produced in cell lines derived from elective abortions,” McKenna said.
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Earlier this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill exempting Florida’s colleges and universities from COVID-related lawsuits. The schools would be shielded from those seeking to sue the school based on decisions made to close campuses forcing students online.
“The Legislature finds that during the COVID-19 public health emergency, educational institutions had little choice but to close or restrict access to their campuses in an effort to protect the health of their students, educators, staff and communities,” the bill read.
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Last week, the watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over the administration’s refusal to disclose information regarding how it is handling the coronavirus among illegal aliens who are flooding the southern border, Breitbart reports.
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The Food and Drug Administration has added a warning to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine fact sheets that describes a rare but serious heart inflammation problem that’s now been attributed to the pharmaceutical companies’ COVID-19 vaccines.
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Metro Nashville health officials will continue to administer Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be discussed in an upcoming emergency meeting called by the CDC. According to preliminary reports, there have been double the expected cases of heart inflammation occurring in both Pfizer and Moderna vaccine recipients.
The CDC meeting is scheduled for this Friday. Officials will discuss whether there exists a definitive link between the two vaccine types and the reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis. The Tennessee Star inquired with the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD) if they would continue administering the Pfizer vaccine up until the CDC holds its emergency meeting. MPHD spokespersons confirmed to The Star that they would.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci this week over his handling of COVID-19 and apparent collusion with Big Tech. Following the mass release of Fauci’s emails through an open records request last week, Blackburn published a video Tuesday to offer some summarized insight on Fauci’s involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak and his email correspondence with Facebook.
“Here are the facts on Fauci that big tech doesn’t want you to know,” tweeted Blackburn.
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After a year of supporting mandated COVID closures, Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) begged the Biden Administration to save some of Nashville’s historic live music venues. On Wednesday, Cooper penned a letter to the Small Business Administration (SBA). The representative asked the SBA to expedite their Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) for the businesses that faced several months of mandatory closure and a year of lockdowns and restrictions in his district.
“Nashville’s live music venues and theaters are in dire need of help through the Shuttered Venues Operators Grant program,” tweeted Cooper. “I’ve urged the @SBAgov Administrator to immediately expedite the applications of our cultural centers. Music City can’t lose these treasures.”
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The U.S. economy reported an increase of 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate declined to 5.8%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.
Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 559,000 in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the number of unemployed persons dropped to 9.3 million. Economists projected 671,000 Americans would be added to payrolls prior to Friday’s report, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“We think it will take several months for frictions in the labor market to work themselves out,” Barclays chief U.S. economist Michael Gapen told the WSJ. “That just means we shouldn’t be expecting one to two million jobs every month. Instead, it will be a more gradual process.”
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Tennessee’s Republican U.S. representatives urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold China accountable for causing the COVID-19 pandemic. The representatives signed onto the four-page letter last Friday, along with 202 other Republican representatives.
Two Republicans – Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL-16) and Virginia Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-09) – didn’t sign onto the letter. The House Republican representatives that did sign onto the letter derided Pelosi for dismissing previous President Donald Trump’s speculation of China’s involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak last year. Sources say Pelosi hasn’t responded to the letter yet.
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Tennessee is considering giving over $40 million in additional COVID relief funds to businesses, as the state’s economy continues to recover.
The Financial Accountability Stimulus Group proposed utilizing the funds from the federal government, enabled by this year’s COVID-19 relief package. The goal of the funds is to increase the size of payouts businesses can receive for their losses throughout the pandemic.
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The annual budget deficit has already hit $1.9 trillion and counting for the fiscal year that will end in September, according to the U.S. Treasury’s April statement, and it will reach as high as $3.6 trillion this year, says the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Comparatively, in 2020, the deficit totaled about $3.1 trillion for the entire year.
This comes amid the massive government spending in response to the Covid pandemic, including the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020, the $900 billion phase four legislation in Dec. 2020 and then President Joe Biden’s additional $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus bill in March 2020. Another $2.1 trillion infrastructure plan is in the works. And now, Biden is offering his $6 trillion budget, which will blow another $1.8 trillion hole in the deficit in 2022.
As a result, 33 percent of marketable national debt, or about $7.27 trillion of the $22 trillion of publicly held debt, will be coming due within the next year, according to the latest data by the U.S. Treasury. For perspective, that’s more debt than existed as recently as 2003.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Mayor of Maury County, Andy Ogles to the studio to give more details on MuleFest coming to downtown Columbia this Friday.
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Come fall, Vanderbilt University and Maryville College are requiring students to be vaccinated for COVID-19 – even if the vaccine isn’t fully approved by the FDA. Maryville College was the first to announce a mandate of that nature in this state, issuing their press release late last month. Vanderbilt University issued their announcement on Monday.
Maryville College is the more lenient of the two Tennessee colleges in their mandate: they will allow exceptions for personal preference in addition to medical or religious reasons. The news release didn’t mention an accommodations request deadline. Vanderbilt University made no mention of personal preference-based exceptions – only medical and religious exemptions will be accepted. Their deadline for an accommodations request is June 15.
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In a state-wide address, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced on Wednesday that individuals who get vaccinated will be entered for a chance to win a drawing of $1 million — 5 different winners will be selected.
DeWine noted that the money to be given away comes from federal Coronavirus Relief funds.
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On Wednesday, May 12, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that the COVID-19 restrictions that are currently in place will end on June 2nd.
A state-wide mask mandate and other regulations have been active since July 2020.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed blog creator and California refugee by way of Texas, Mark Pulliam to the newsmakers line to discuss his recent piece addressing the continuation of COVID restrictions after vaccination and lack of scientific efficacy.
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COVID’s grip on America is relaxing, not so the Left’s. The Left seized COVID as an unprecedented statist opportunity to advance their agenda. Unsurprisingly, they now resist relinquishing it. Since the Left refuse to let go of America, America must let go of the Left.
Last week the CDC relaxed its guidelines for outdoor mask-wearing by those fully vaccinated against COVID. It was more a rearguard action than a vanguard one, but at least it was a start. Several states are well ahead in their return to normalcy.
America’s virus statistics demonstrate the remission of the virus and validate accelerating relaxation of the lockdowns. On a seven-day moving average, active cases, daily new cases, and daily deaths have been plummeting since the beginning of the year.
On the ledger’s other side, vaccinations began in the U.S. in December, averaging over two million a day since February; as a result, around 31 percent of the population is now fully vaccinated at this writing.
The Tennessee General Assembly determined that local governments can’t classify workers as “nonessential” – but the governor and state still can. The House passed an amended version of a bill, the “The Essential Workers Act,” on Tuesday that struck original language prohibiting the governor and state entities from classifying workers as “nonessential.”
Under the modified act, the governor and state may impose an executive order, ordinance, or resolution that identifies essential and nonessential businesses, trades, professions, or industries for the purpose of closing them. The Tennessee Star inquired with the sponsor, State Representative Brendan Ogles (R-Franklin) as to why they decided the governor and state entities should retain that authority. They didn’t respond by press time. The amendment also struck language that prohibited calling certain workers “essential.”
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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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Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said the municipality is putting together a plan to relax its mask mandate by as early as June.
“We are working with the department of health on a plan to phase reducing requirements of wearing facial coverings and social distancing,” Demings said. “We are reviewing how CDC requirements are evolving along with COVID infection data and a plan will be announced soon.”
White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Thursday conceded in a tense exchange with Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise that the Biden administration is violating major Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coronavirus guidelines by packing countless illegal immigrants into relatively small facilities without enforcing social distancing or masking measures.
The CDC has aggressively pushed those guidelines over the past year, directing that Americans should work to remain six feet apart from each other in public spaces and wear face coverings when away from the home.
Images from U.S. border facilities over the past several weeks, however, have shown little enforcement of those guidelines among illegal immigrants detained amid the current surge of unlawful migration at the southern border.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed former (D) State Rep. John DeBerry to the newsmakers line to talk about how his new role as Sr. Advisor to Governor Lee, his pastorship, and establishing lines of communication with state lawmakers, officials, and the Biden administration.
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President Joe Biden’s new spending plan amps up rhetoric on national competition with China, maintaining the confrontational approach established by the previous administration. But whereas the 45th president championed what he called American energy dominance as a key element of grand strategy, the 46th seems bent on eschewing America’s natural resource advantages and playing to China’s strengths.
The White House fact sheet on the American Jobs Plan refers to China five times directly, claiming that the plan will “position the United States to out-compete China,” that China’s ambitions are one of “the great challenges of our time,” that the U.S. is “falling behind countries like China” on infrastructure, that “countries like China are investing aggressively in R&D,” and that the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales is one-third of that in China — something President Biden “believes that must change.”
The president asserts that this plan will simultaneously reduce the risks posed by climate change and by China’s rise, but the evidence suggests his approach to energy will undermine the United States’ strategic positioning, not reinforce it.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed author and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute Kerry McDonald to the newsmakers line to talk about her book Unschooled, homeschooling and the ever-changing way people are looking at educating their children in the home.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Craig Huey of the Huey Report and California Refugee in studio to talk about this recent trip to California and the fear and lack of freedom and liberty he witnessed compared to Tennessee.
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The Tennessee House passed a bill cancelling the excise tax on certain COVID-19 payments given to businesses. The legislation would cover all payments from March 1 to December 31 of last year.
If passed, the bill would apply to payments from the Tennessee Business Relief Program, the Tennessee Supplemental Employer Recovery Grant Program, the Coronavirus Agricultural and Forestry Business Fund, the Hospital Staffing Assistance Program, the Emergency Medical Services Ambulance Assistance Program, the Tennessee Small and Rural Hospital Readiness Grants Program, or the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant.
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