A Democrat Rhode Island governor who told residents to “stay home except for essential activities” was snapped in a photo at a wine and paint night.
“The picture, taken by Erica Oliveras last Friday, shows Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo sitting at table in Barnaby’s Public House in Providence without a mask,” Fox News reported.
Read More
During a school year disrupted by pandemic-related closures, students across the U.S. will soon be absent for a scheduled reason: the annual Christmas break.
In New York City, the U.S.‘s largest school district, children will be off from Dec. 24 to Jan. 1. Officially called “winter” recess, the December hiatus coincides with Christian celebrations, adding to the number of approved days that many students take off from school on religious holidays, including Eid al-Fitr and Yom Kippur.
Read More
A fact-checking outlet for Facebook is defending its business relationship with an app company linked to the Chinese Communist Party, an arrangement that has raised some controversy in recent weeks amid elevated activity by fact-checkers across social media platforms.
Read More
Southern California has intensive care unit bed capacity reached 0% amid a surge of coronavirus cases, according to a Thursday report from the Los Angeles Times.
The area, which encompasses Los Angeles County, has begun moving patients out of intensive care units (ICU) and local hospitals are keeping certain patients in the emergency room for longer than normal, the Times reported. However, the situation is set to boil over if hospital capacity exceeds 20%, the local outlet wrote.
Read More
The deep divisions plaguing our country may find a remedy in the most unlikely of places: the Bill of Rights. Ratified 229 years ago on December 15, 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. There is little public commemoration of December 15, in contrast to the tradition of celebrating two famous dates in the history of the United States—the Fourth of July, the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, and September 17, the day that the members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. Yet, of the three documents, the Bill of Rights is perhaps the one most invoked by citizens and advocates in everyday life.
Read More
Vice President Mike Pence announced on Friday that Space Force troops will be named “Guardians,” according to a White House transcript of the announcement.
Pence made the announcement during a White House ceremony that commemorated the military branch’s first birthday, according to the transcript. President Donald Trump established Space Force in a $1.4 trillion national security bill in December 2019.
Read More
Arizona’s largest county refused Friday to comply with a subpoena from the state Legislature, going to court instead to fight turning over election evidence to a Senate committee investigating alleged ballot irregularities.
Read More
Internal FBI messages declassified this month make a cryptic reference to an audio recording of a conversation between a Fox News executive and George Papadopoulos, a revelation that the former Trump campaign aide calls “disturbing.”
The message in question is from the Lync account of Peter Strzok, who was the FBI’s lead investigator on Crossfire Hurricane, the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.
Read More
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller reportedly ordered a halt to cooperation with the transition team of Joe Biden on Thursday, resulting in cancelled meetings building-wide.
According to Axios, officials across the Defense Department were shocked at the directive, and unsure of what prompted it. Apparently, a top Biden official was also taken by surprise by the directive.
Read More
Atlantic City has launched an auction and the winner will get to virtually push the button that starts the long-anticipated implosion of the former Trump Plaza Hotel, according to The Hill.
The building at the center of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk was used as a casino since 1984 and shut down in 2014 and fell into a state of disrepair. The demolition work had already begun early this year but the remaining structure is set to be blown up on 29 January.
Read More
Trump team lawyer Lin Wood on Friday filed suit against the state of Georgia, arguing that the state is violating the U.S. Constitution and Georgia law in several ways with respect to its handling of next month’s runoff elections.
Read More
A Prince William County sensitivity presentation to the school board and Board of Supervisors (BOS) members exploded into a shouting match earlier this month, leading to three Republican Supervisors leaving the meeting. The “Raising Awareness of Unconscious Bias to Foster Inclusivity and Equity” presentation was part of a joint work session between the two boards.
Read More
It’s not quite a nonpartisan issue, but Virginia legislators expect an effort to legalize marijuana will receive enough bipartisan support to pass in the 2021 regular session. The biggest hurdle to the plan is the massive legislative changes that are required. Legislators have to choose how the cannabis business will interact with many sectors of business and government including banking, law enforcement, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Taxation, and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority.
Read More
Democrats who are unhappy that Republicans are skeptical of the 2020 election results have no one to blame but themselves. Democrats cannot understand why Republicans would question the election results in spite of the fact that Democrats sought to undermine anti-voter fraud measures in the run-up to the election; that Republican observers were not allowed to observe vote counting; and that massive numbers of Biden votes were counted in the middle of the night while no Republican observers were present. Of course, in recent years, Democrats have repeatedly disputed unfavorable election results, pushed wild conspiracy theories, and lied about their opponents. A quick review of recent political history seems in order.
Read More
The Minnesota National Guard may deploy indefinitely to Minneapolis while the four former police officers involved in the death of George Floyd are on trial in 2021, an ABC affiliate reported Wednesday.
The National Guard’s 12-page plan dubbed “Operation Safety Net” details a worst-case scenario plan where all available state guard forces are deployed for an indefinite amount of time during and after the trials of former Minneapolis police officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Keung, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, local outlet KSTP reported.
Read More
Almost 76,000 voters who did not vote in Georgia’s November elections have registered ahead of the state’s dual Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
If those new voters turn out, they could make a sizable difference in a state where the November presidential race was decided by only 12,000 votes.
Read More
San Francisco’s school district has cancelled Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln High School is going to be renamed. Why? “Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties or wealth building,” Jeremiah Jefferies, the chairman of the school district’s renaming committee and a first-grade teacher, virtuously pontificated to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Read More
NASHVILLE, Tennesse- I am often sent songs to review to see if I want to feature the song(s) and/or artist in my column. When I heard Lilly Winwood’s song “Few More Records” I knew this singer/songwriter was talented. But surely this Nashville girl wasn’t related to the Brit rocker, Steve Winwood.
It turns out, surely, she is. Lilly Winwood is the 25-year-old daughter of famed rock and roller, Steve Winwood.
Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to President Donald Trump’s plan to not include illegal immigrants living in the U.S. in the count to determine congressional districts, Reuters reported Friday.
The court ruled 6-3 against a lawsuit attempting to block Trump’s plan to exclude illegal immigrants from the count, Reuters reported.
Read More
As sane Americans reluctantly resign themselves to the approach of an unimaginable Joe Biden presidency, the unrelenting blitzkrieg of media Trump-hate is occasionally, but each week more frequently, punctured by glimmers of recognition of what the apparently outgoing president has achieved. There seems to be a consensus, even embracing many Democrats, that President Trump has scored a significant success with the Abraham Accords in the Middle East.
Read More
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.
Read More
President Trump on Friday leaned into Senate Majority Mitch McConnell and others fellow Republicans in the GOP-controlled chamber, telling them to “get tougher” and “fight” for the presidential election.
Read More
President-elect Joe Biden says he is “not concerned” about a federal investigation into his son, Hunter, and accused his opponents of weaponizing the probe for political points.
Biden said that Hunter, who has been involved in a string of high-profile personal and business controversies in recent years, as “the smartest man I know.”
Read More
The FDA approved Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use Friday, making the United States the first country to have approved two safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19.
Its approval follows a key FDA panel’s overwhelming vote Thursday to endorse the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. The Moderna vaccine’s approval means that its distribution could begin within hours, providing hospitals and long-term care facilities across the country thousands of much-needed doses.
Read More
At 9:00 am on Monday, February 6, 2019, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax’s meteoric political ascendency could not have been any higher or brighter. Indeed, Fairfax was on the verge of being elevated to the highest office in the Commonwealth – Governor – due to the political blackface scandal that engulfed Governor Ralph Northam. Indeed, if Governor Northam were to resigned – which many in the State Democratic Party where calling for – Justin Fairfax would automatically become the 74th Governor of Virginia.
Read More
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam unveiled his recommendations for the biennial budget on Wednesday with big spending toward the state’s continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic, public education and other items.
The governor presented his budget proposals to lawmakers during a joint virtual meeting of the House of Delegates and Senate appropriation committees.
Read More
After two years in Congress, Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10) has been nominated to the powerful House Appropriations Committee for the 117th session which starts in January. The current session is the first in over a century where Virginia had no representatives on the committee, according to a Wexton press release. She will be able to advocate funding for Virginia priorities like infrastructure and national defense.
Read More
Virginia is now expected to receive just under 110,000 fewer COVID-19 vaccine doses from the federal government than originally anticipated.
Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccination program, informed the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) late Thursday night, and now the state is preparing to get 370,650 vaccine doses by the end of December instead of the initial 480,000 projection, according to a press release.
Read More
Dominion Voting Systems issued a warning to Georgia officials prior to the 2020 election that memory cards might need to be removed from vote tabulation machines prior to the end of the election to deal with a limitation in its system, according to records obtained by Just the News through an open-records request.
Officials acknowledged Thursday at least 36 memory cards had to be prematurely removed from vote tabulating machines in the Atlanta area that had reached counting limits. The cards were stored in a locked cabinet until polls closed, officials said.
Read More
Over 800 table-sized satellites constantly falling in orbit at 340 miles above the earth are solving a problem for rural Wise County students, according to data from Wise County, Sky and Telescope and Space.com. The satellites are part of Starlink, a program from private rocket and space hardware company SpaceX that aims to bring high-speed internet to some of the remotest parts of the world. On February 1, 2021, 45 families will have access to the network, thanks to a program developed by the Wise County Public Schools.
Read More
The Democrats stole the election. President Trump is right to fight this. The U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to stand aside and let it happen. (Texas had standing to sue over it, for whereas Texans must grin and bear it when we are outvoted fair and square by other states, if our votes are nullified by cheating in other states, then we have been injured and we have a right to seek redress.) Even without the cheating, the impact of massive private subsidies aimed solely at boosting turnout in Democrat strongholds, pre-election bias in the press, and censorship by Big Tech may itself have been enough to tip the results in Joe Biden’s favor.
Read More
After three recounts, Georgia certified the 2020 presidential election.
But on Thursday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a statewide move to match signatures to their absentee ballots in all 159 counties in the state.
Read More
Hunter Biden was repeatedly told by his business partner that he would begin receiving significant payments from a Chinese private equity firm starting in 2019, emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
The business partner, Eric Schwerin, also told Hunter Biden in a December 2018 email that the Chinese private equity firm, BHR Partners, would generate income for him “over the next couple of years.”
Read More
Some vials containing Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine contain more doses than expected, potentially expanding the country’s supply by up to 40%, public health officials said late Wednesday.
The FDA advised that the extra doses were acceptable to use and that it was collaborating with Pfizer over the issue.
Read More
The Justice Department declassified a batch of internal FBI messages from Peter Strzok, the former counterintelligence official who oversaw the bureau’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.
The messages, which Senate Republicans released Thursday, provide new insights into the thinking of investigators who worked on Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the investigation into the Trump campaign.
Read More
A vaccine maker under investigation for misrepresenting its involvement in Operation Warp Speed has hired lobbyist Jeff Ricchetti, whose brother will be the top White House counselor to Joe Biden.
Ricchetti’s firm, which he founded with his brother Steve, the incoming Biden adviser, registered as a lobbyist on Nov. 1 for Vaxart, a California-based biotechnology company that specializes in developing oral vaccinations.
Read More
The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims increased to 885,000 last week as the economy continued to suffer the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) figure released Thursday represented an increase of new jobless claims compared to the week ending Dec. 5, in which there were 853,000 new jobless claims reported. Roughly 20.6 million Americans continue to collect unemployment benefits, according to the BLS report Thursday.
Read More
A group of Northeast and mid-Atlantic states are inching toward a regional climate pact that’s aimed at reducing emissions and easing traffic congestion, but could ultimately increase prices at the gas pumps.
Modeled on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has reduced emissions from power plants, the Transportation and Climate Initiative would create a cap-and-invest program to drive down emissions from cars and trucks, which contribute to about 40% of regional greenhouse gas emissions scientists say contribute to a warmer planet.
Read More
Nobody quite knows what is going to happen with President Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election, but one thing is certain—America should not conduct another national election without massive reforms.
Read More
Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is confident that the Senate will soon pass the two-part COVID-19 relief package he helped develop. In a Thursday telephone press conference, Warner described key provisions of the plan and addressed controversy over a stimulus check added to the package while also limiting provisions to extend federal unemployment benefits past Christmas.
Read More
Northern Virginia received a range of less than an inch up to eight inches of snow, according to WUSA9.
As a result, Loudoun County and Prince William County declared snow days. But Arlington Public Schools and Fairfax County said classes would still be held online. That means that for some students, snow days are another casualty of COVID-19 precautions.
Read More
After Governor Ralph Northam made a number of proposals to the state’s biennial budget on Wednesday, several Republican legislators rebuked the Democrat’s recommendation to expand the Virginia Court of Appeals and claimed he was trying to pack the court.
Northam presented his budget proposals during a virtual meeting with the House of Delegates and Senate appropriation committees.
Read More
Beginning January 2nd, 2021, undocumented immigrants living in Virginia will be able to apply for official driving credentials, called a driver privilege card, with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), allowing non-citizens to lawfully drive within the Commonwealth for the first time.
The change in the state code stems from legislation the Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed earlier this year during the 2020 regular session and signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam.
Read More
Following a summer of racial tension and civil unrest in Virginia’s capital, the City of Richmond is continuing its efforts to remove or change public honors related to the Confederacy.
On Monday night, the Richmond City Council voted to adopt an ordinance renaming a portion of the Jefferson Davis Highway, otherwise known as U.S. Route 1, to the Richmond Highway.
Read More
Flagrant election cheating in several swing states, it seems, is of no interest to the self-appointed watchdogs of American democracy or even to those specifically tasked with investigating such unlawfulness.
Read More
If Joe Biden sticks to his campaign promises, student loan forgiveness will be part of his plan as president to combat our shutdown in economic activity. Forgiving student loans would be ill-advised during normal times. It is downright irresponsible pandering during our current situation.
Read More
Democratic Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff in a Monday campaign video called on federal immigration authorities to ensure illegal aliens aren’t being paid “less than minimum wage.”
“In Georgia’s agricultural sector, the campesinos (farm workers) who work in the fields, enduring some of the most brutal conditions of labor anywhere in this country to keep America fed, paid less than the minimum wage, [are] often subject to abuse by employers,” Ossoff told a group of supporters on the video call.
Read More
A runoff election may very well be the closest thing in politics to extra innings in baseball, and with control of the Senate at stake, the GOP in Georgia hopes an appeal to America’s pastime will help keep the majority Republican.
This would explain why Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are talking baseball in December.
Read More
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, working from home is the new normal.
In 2018, just 5.4 percent of the US’s working population worked remotely. By mid-2020, it had turned into reality for 56 percent of the workforce. While not all workers forced to stay home were quick to welcome the change, many learned to enjoy it over time. With state governments beginning another round of lockdowns, it isn’t shocking to see many companies choosing to carry on with remote work.
Read More
The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the U.S. Department of Commerce seeking access to communication records of conservative individuals and groups that are fighting to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Their FOIA request with Department of Commerce sub-agency, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) targets “emails, text messages, and other communications from NTIA Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce Adam Candeub, who was recently named to a senior position at the Department of Justice, and others.”
Read More