Day: August 2, 2021

Georgia to Start Accepting Applications for American Rescue Plan Funds Sunday

The Center Square
COVID Testing station

Georgia is still deciding how to divide more than $8.1 billion from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March.

Applications for more than $4.8 billion in funding opens up Sunday. State government entities, local governments, businesses and nonprofits have 30 days to apply for the aid.

The aid will be issued in two installments and cover expenses from March to the end of 2026, but the state has until December 31, 2024, to allocate all of the funds.

Read More

Commentary: The Elites’ Abuse of Average Americans

Georgia Star News Staff
Man in camo holding an American flag

When I went to pick up my laundry last week, one of the employees, who had just finished folding my clothes, began weeping. “This is the last load I’ll ever do here,” she said in a choked voice. “They’re letting us all go.”

That one little stifled sob described more than just one woman bemoaning the loss of her job. In it was the relentless cry of the average American who is increasingly crushed by the ignorance of our elites.

Read More

University Refuses to Rehire Math Professor Who Criticized Slavery Reparations

Georgia Star News Staff

Saint Joseph’s University will not renew its contract with math Professor Gregory Manco despite the fact that a three-month investigation into his Twitter history found he had not violated any campus policies.

Manco has been a non-tenured assistant professor of math at Saint Joseph’s since 2005 and also a volunteer assistant baseball coach, but tweets in February criticizing slavery reparations and racial bias training had prompted the probe even though he used an anonymous account.

He was put on administrative leave during the probe. Its outcome, announced in May, determined Manco could not be found guilty of violating any policies, citing “insufficient evidence.”

Read More

Corporations Silent on Why They Pulled Funding from Republicans Who Questioned an Election, but Not Democrats Who Did the Same

Georgia Star News Staff

Corporations were silent on why they chose to suspend political contributions to Republicans, but not Democrats who have objected to election results.

More than 15 major U.S. companies that announced they would suspend giving money to members of Congress following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot didn’t respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about their political contribution activity following the 2016 presidential election. The corporations were quick to condemn Republicans lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election earlier this year, but apparently didn’t criticize or punish Democrats who have similarly objected to election results in the past.

Read More

Study: Democrats’ Capital Gains Tax Hike Could Cost More Than 745,000 Jobs

The Center Square
Chris Van Hollen

A new Democratic proposal to increase the capital gains tax could cost 745,000 jobs, a study published by the Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) projects.

The Sensible Taxation and Equity Promotion (STEP) Act, which would tax unrealized capital gains when heirs inherit assets, among other things, would have a “significantly negative impact” on the economy, including average job losses of 745,000 over 10 years, the report found.

The analysis, conducted for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, found that sustained annual job losses from eliminating a tax benefit on appreciated assets known as the step-up in basis could eliminate between 537,000 to 949,000 jobs, with models predicting a base of 745,000 lost jobs through 2030.

Read More

Terrible TV Ratings Leave NBC, Advertisers Worried: Report

Georgia Star News Staff
The Tonight Show - NBC Studios sign

NBC Universal and its advertisers are becoming worried about the success of Olympic broadcasting as TV ratings plunge and star athletes struggle, Variety reported on Tuesday.

Low TV viewing numbers and early exits from star athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka have caused anxiety from Olympic advertisers, Variety reported.

Despite beating competitors’ nightly program views, the Olympics are “clearly not what NBC, our agency or our clients were looking for,” an unnamed media buying executive told Variety.

Read More

Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Protestor Sentenced to 9 Years in First Trial Under the National Security Law

Georgia Star News Staff

A Hong Kong pro-democracy protestor was sentenced to nine years in prison in the first prosecution under the country’s new national security law, the Associated Press reported.

Tong Ying-ki was convicted Tuesday on charges of inciting secession and terrorism for allegedly driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers with a flag donning the banned slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” at a July rally in 2020, the AP reported. Tong pleaded not guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years and eight years respectively on Friday, which judges ruled could be served concurrently for 9 years.

Read More

Big Tech Profits Continue to Surge, Latest Earnings Show

Georgia Star News Staff
Man on phone, looking at desktop computer

Big Tech companies reported massive, record-breaking earnings figures as their sales continued to surge amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Google, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter all beat earnings estimates and showed large revenue growth, executives for the tech companies said during earnings calls Tuesday evening. The four companies’ earnings reports suggested that the growth experienced by Big Tech during the pandemic will continue apace.

“Our long-term investments in AI and Google Cloud are helping us drive significant improvements in everyone’s digital experience,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement Tuesday, explaining his company’s strong performance.

Read More

Columbia Medical School Will Teach Students How to ‘Disrupt Racism’ and Confront Microaggressions

Georgia Star News Staff
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health entrance

Columbia University has developed new programming to help black and Hispanic medical students “disrupt racism” and confront microaggressions they could face.

A medical school professor, who is also the diversity director, said that the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota has made the situation worse at the New York institution.

Professor Jean Alves-Bradford said in a news release that “it’s been very difficult for students in general, but especially for students underrepresented in medicine.”

Read More

House Education Committee’s Top Republican Tells Secretary to Purge CRT-Related Material

Georgia Star News Staff

Faced with nationwide pushback against its plan to prioritize grant funding for American history and civics programs informed by critical race theory (CRT), the Department of Education clarified its thinking. Perhaps.

Secretary Miguel Cardona’s blog post on “invitational” priorities in grant competitions drew polarized interpretations among critics of CRT, who either claimed the agency backed off its plan or simply used deceptive language to create the impression that it backed off.

Read More

Athletes Fighting Biological Males in Women’s Sports Take Their Stories to Washington

Georgia Star News Staff

“We’re not often heard,” Cynthia Monteleone told a trio of female senators Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill. “Though we are just three of thousands that this is happening to.”

Monteleone is a world champion track athlete who competed against a transgender competitor in the 2018 World Masters Athletics Championships in Málaga, Spain. Dressed in a white pantsuit with a fresh tropical flower tucked behind her ear, she spent Wednesday and Thursday urging Republican lawmakers to fight back against biological males competing in women’s sports.

Read More

NPR Will Now Allow Journalists to Take Part in Partisan Activist Demonstrations

Georgia Star News Staff

National Public Radio this month said its reporters will now be permitted to take part in public partisan demonstrations and activist events of which the news service approves.

In a revision of its internal ethics handbook, the outlet said that its journalists may now participate in “marches, rallies and other public events” from which they were previously barred.

Read More

Commentary: Nope, I Won’t Mask up Again

Georgia Star News Staff

Last March, I followed the CDC’s advice and got fully vaccinated against COVID-19. I did so more out of a sense of civic duty than any actual fear that I might contract the virus. It was just an easy and scientifically sound way to help slow its spread. Naturally, I was delighted when the CDC finally announced that fully vaccinated people could safely participate in indoor and outdoor activities without wearing inconvenient and clinically useless face masks. Now, the CDC has reversed itself and issued new guidance telling 163.6 million fully vaccinated Americans to put our masks back on. Sorry, no sale.

First, the CDC published no data supporting its bizarre reversal. The Washington Post reports: “In the text of the updated masking guidance, the agency merely cited ‘CDC COVID-19 Response Team, unpublished data, 2021.’” Moreover, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is struggling to produce a plausible explanation. She claimed without evidence on ABC News that “new science” has emerged showing that fully vaccinated people should be masking.

Read More

Bipartisan Call for Biden to Appoint New ‘Border Czar’ as Immigration Crisis Grows

The Center Square

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are asking President Joe Biden to appoint former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to a special executive position to manage the border crisis.

In a letter to Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Cuellar and Graham wrote, “We write to you with a sense of urgency regarding the escalating situation at our southern border. In doing so, we hope to demonstrate that this bicameral concern is neither partisan nor political. To solve the growing problem, we request a special executive appointment for border issues to ensure sufficient federal resources are allocated to overburdened U.S. border communities and to recommend changes to our immigration policies as we work to regain control of the border.”

Read More

Lincoln Project Donors Silent on Underage Grooming Scandal of Founder John Weaver

Georgia Star News Staff

The Lincoln Project is primarily known for 2 things: their young male grooming scandal, and neocons raising money from liberal elites.

Now, the Lincoln Project is running ads going after Trump and Republican donors as well as advertisers on conservative media, attempting to link them to causing COVID or the January 6th Capitol riot.

Read More

Los Angeles Students Will be Forced to Undergo Weekly Testing Even If They’re Vaccinated

Georgia Star News Staff

The Los Angeles Unified School District this week announced that students and employees returning to in-person instruction in the fall would be forced to undergo weekly testing even if they’ve been vaccinated against SARS-Cov-2.

“All students and employees, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, returning for in-person instruction must participate in baseline and ongoing weekly COVID testing,” Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly told media this week. “This is in accordance with the most recent guidance from the Los Angeles County.”

Though the district policy is making no distinction between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals, Reilly herself stressed the importance of getting vaccinated anyway.

Read More

Woodson Center Celebrates 40 Years of Transforming Poor Neighborhoods as Founder Announces Retirement

Georgia Star News Staff

The life-changing impact that Robert Woodson has had on the lives of countless individuals and communities was highlighted Thursday evening during a 40th-anniversary celebration of the center named for him in Washington, D.C.

One after another, the grassroots leaders and individuals who have been touched by Woodson’s work at the Woodson Center thanked the civil rights leader for the ways in which he has empowered blacks and others living in America’s inner cities and low-income neighborhoods.

Read More

DOJ Drops Investigation into Gov. Cuomo’s COVID Nursing Home Policy

Georgia Star News Staff

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday celebrated the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to drop its investigation into his policy that sent COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, but with several other probes ongoing, his fate is still unclear.

The DOJ announced last week it would not investigate Cuomo’s March 2020 order forcing nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients, prompting the governor to hold a press conference Monday in which he described allegations his nursing home order caused deaths as “outrageous.” At least 4,000 nursing home residents died when the order was active, according to a report from New York Attorney General Letitia James, with the New York State Department of Health knowingly undercounting nursing home deaths, as first reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Read More

Trump Has Amassed over $100 Million to Fund 2022 Campaigns

Georgia Star News Staff
Donald Trump

Former President Donald J. Trump has amassed a political war chest of more than $100 million, an extraordinary haul for an ex-president that will allow him to play a major role in the 2022 elections when Republicans want to re-capture control of Congress.

According to campaign finance reports made public Saturday, Trump’s political committees took in $82 million in the first half of 2021 and have $102 million on hand.

Trump’s fundraising prowess came even as social media companies kicked him off their platforms, clearly illustrating the 45th president’s continued popularity among his base and among small conservative donors.

The funds were raised by his leadership Political action committee called Save America, another PAC called Make America Great Again and a joint fundraising committee that raised money for both.

Read More

Commentary: The Numbers Don’t Support Scapegoating the Unvaccinated

Georgia Star News Staff

If you’re tired of the pandemic and just want to go back to normal, David Frum at The Atlantic has news for you: It’s all the stupid people who refuse to take the vaccine that are prolonging our COVID misery.

Oh, wait, that’s not it exactly. In actuality, it’s all Trump’s fault. Frum, once a leading voice of the conservative establishment, declares: “Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a statement of identity and a test of loyalty.”

Read More

U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter Files Bill to Back up Federal Immigration Officers

Chris Butler

U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA-01) has introduced the Empowering Law Enforcement Act to provide backup to federal immigration enforcement officials. “I’ve visited the border four times as a member of Congress, including twice this year, to fully understand the struggles we face there. Immigration is getting out of control and every state is becoming a border state. As of last month more than 1.1 million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the border,” Carter said in an emailed newsletter to his constituents Sunday.

Read More