Calif. Parents Sue Gov. Newsom for Depriving Children of Quality Education

Joshua Paladino
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Calif. Parents Sue Gov. Newsom for Depriving Children of Quality Education

Four California parents sued Gov. Gavin Newsom and other high-ranking officials for keeping schools closed, arguing that it violates the constitutional right of their children to education.

The Freedom Foundation filed the lawsuit Shasta County Superior Court on behalf of the parents and children, according to a press release.

Attorneys said part-time class does not fulfill California’s constitutional requirement to provide high-quality education, nor does it do anything to mitigate the miniscule threat of the coronavirus to children or the community as a whole.

“Governor Newsom has repeatedly told us to ‘trust the science,'” said Mariah Gondeiro, attorney for the Freedom Foundation.

“It is time for Newsom to take his own advice,” she said. “Thousands of educators, parents and even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) say students need to be in school.”

Evidence shows that the coronavirus poses “low risks” to children and that children are “unlikely” to contract the disease and transmit it to adults, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

“All three of my children have experienced adverse effects from the current distance learning model that has been mandated by our local schools,” said Beth Watt, one of the parents Freedom Foundation represents in the case.

“All of my children were straight-A students before distance learning began,” she said. “This spring my children received a ‘P’ for all subjects, causing them to lose all motivation and desire to excel in school.”

Many schools dropped perfomance-based assessments during the spring semester, since it is difficult to grade students on online work, especially when they spend a fraction of time in class with the assistance of teachers.

Instead, many schools opted for participation-based assessments.

“They are frustrated to tears over the lack of instruction,” Watt said. “They are upset trying to navigate poor connectivity to get through their assigned online curriculum.”

Watt said her son had gone on anxiety medication for the first time ever due to the stress.

“Online education is causing serious mental health issues, along with an academic crisis the students find themselves in,” she continued. “Our children deserve better than this; our tax-funded education system is failing students.”

The lawsuit also includes Attorney General Xavier Beccera, State Public Health Officer Sandra Shewry and four school superintendents.

FIRE CHIEF: Damage from Kenosha Riots Tops $11 Million

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FIRE CHIEF: Damage from Kenosha Riots Tops $11 Million

(Headline USA) Kenosha‘s fire chief says damage from the riots over the police shooting of Jacob Blake has now topped $11 million.

Fire Chief Charles Leipzig told the Police and Fire Commission Tuesday that the record fire loss came in the days following the Aug. 23 shooting of Blake, a 29-year-old black man who resisted arrest and appeared to reach for a weapon in his vehicle, when an officer shot him from behind.

Blake, who was accused of rape, is partially paralyzed.

“To put into context, that’s three years of fire loss for us in the span of about a week,” Leipzig told commissioners, the Kenosha News reported.

The shooting, which was recorded on video, sparked riots and violence in Kenosha, where roughly two dozen fires were set and numerous businesses were destroyed.

Big Trump Win: Big Ten Decides to Play Football After All

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Big Trump Win: Big Ten Decides to Play Football After All

(Headline USA) Big Ten is going to give fall football a shot after all.

Less than five weeks after pushing football and other fall sports to spring in the name of player safety during the pandemic, the conference changed course Wednesday and said it plans to begin its season the weekend of Oct. 23-24.

Each team will play eight games in eight weeks and the conference championship game will be held Dec. 19 — if all goes well. That should give the Big Ten an opportunity to compete for the national championship.

The Big Ten said its Council of Presidents and Chancellors voted unanimously Tuesday to restart sports. The vote last month was 11-3 to postpone, with Ohio State, Iowa and Nebraska voting against.

The decision to play came after sharp pressure from coaches, players, parents and even President Donald Trump, all of them pushing for a Big Ten football season. The conference is home to a number of battleground states in the November election, and Trump swiftly applauded the move in a tweet.

The emergence of daily rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university presidents and chancellors decided to pull the plug on the season, helped trigger a re-vote. The Big Ten said it will begin daily antigen testing of its athletes, coaches and staff on Sept. 30.

Team positivity rates and population positivity rate thresholds will be used to determine whether teams must halt practice or play. The earliest an athlete will be able to return to game competition would be 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis.

“Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” said Dr. Jim Borchers, team physician for Ohio State.

The Big Ten will take a bow, but the conference has been battered for a month.

First-year Commissioner Kevin Warren — a Trump opponent who reportedly wanted to use his new position to swing the election — was the main target, criticized for a lack of communication within the conference and not providing enough information to back the initial decision. It was only after a phone conversation between Trump and Warren that the momentum changed to favor the conference to play again.

The Big Ten had postponed Aug. 11, indicating it would try to make up the season in the spring. But there was no plan in place.

The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing, but was far more detailed in its explanation and also had more obvious hurdles to clear. Half the Pac-12 schools — under the lockdown control of Democrat governors — are still operating under statewide restrictions that make it impossible for teams to practice.

Meanwhile, as the Big Ten and Pac-12 bailed, the three other Power Five conferences forged ahead, along with three other major college football leagues. Games have started, with the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference kicking off last week. The Southeastern Conference is scheduled to start playing games Sept. 26.

Meanwhile, the Big Ten was on the sideline, with coaches struggling to explain to players why other teams could play but they could not.

“We’re excited and we can’t wait to get started,” Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons said.

In Nebraska, eight players had filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten over its decision to postpone. Glen Snodgrass, father of one of the players, Garrett Snodgrass, was teaching a class at York (Nebraska) High School when he received word of the reversal.

“This is what a lot of people have been fighting pretty hard for,” he said. “I can’t say enough about those eight boys and what they had the courage to do. They worked their entire lives to get where they are, and they just wanted to play.”

Nebraska was at the forefront in opposing the Big Ten’s original decision. The university had put out a joint statement from the school president, athletic director and coach Scott Frost expressing disappointment. Frost had also suggested Nebraska might look outside the Big Ten to play games.

The restart could be a key positive for Trump’s re-election, as many of the midwestern battleground states — Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have schools in the conference.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Calif. Awards No-Bid PR Contract to Pro-Biden Firm to Push Cheat-by-Mail Voting

Ben Sellers
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Calif. Awards No-Bid PR Contract to Pro-Biden Firm to Push Cheat-by-Mail Voting

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee put California Secretary of State Alex Padilla on notice Wednesday that they were investigating a potentially corrupt expedited contract that his office awarded to a pro-Biden public-relations firm to support spreading awareness of mail-in voting.

The $35 million contract granted to SKD Knickerbocker for the “Vote Safe California” campaign “will undoubtedly provide a partisan firm the opportunity to use taxpayer money to influence the federal election, said GOP Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Jody Hice of Georgia and Rodney Davis of Illinois in a letter to Padilla.

“Additionally, there are serious questions about how the contract was awarded, whether the firm will have access to sensitive voter information, and if any of the firm’s employees affiliated with ‘Team Biden’ will be involved with the project.”

The firm is linked to Biden campaign consultant Josh Isay, a former campaign manager for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY.

Other staffers have close ties to former President Barack Obama and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats.

On its website, SKD Knickerbocker boasts of being a proud member of “Team Biden” and appears to have done $806K in public relations work for Biden’s campaign earlier this year.

Those services for the Biden campaign conveniently coincided with a sexual-assault allegation made against Biden by former staffer Tara Reade.

Another of SKD Knickerbocker’s partners, Hilary Rosen, also happened to be the founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which dealt a blow to Reade’s effort and cast aspersions on her credibility by refusing to fund a #MeToo lawsuit on her behalf, Breitbart reported.

Reade—a Democrat who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders—later became the subject of an innuendo-driven smear campaign that suggested, among other things, that she was a Russian operative.

The congressmen noted that Padilla’s move to give the partisan SKD Knickerbocker preferred status over two competing companies that did not tout their political connections “essentially provides a pro-Biden entity the opportunity to conduct get out the vote efforts.”

In doing so, the canvassing effort may skirt campaign-finance laws—an area in which Biden has falsely trumpeted himself as a reformer despite leading the race in dark money and donations from deep-pocketed billionaire mega-donors.

Adding insult to injury, this illicit campaign donation to Biden would come at the expense of unwitting California citizens, said the congressmen. “Unfortunately, this voter contact operation is being funded by taxpayers.”

The scandal had echoes of an earlier attempt in Michigan to award a no-bid contract to a Democrat-linked political consulting firm to provide coronavirus contract tracing on behalf of the state health department.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer initially denied any involvement or knowledge of the contract, pinning the blame on partisan health officials.

But public outrage forced the state to cancel the crony data-mining operation, which had been approved by the governor’s office.

A subsequent investigation by the GOP-led state legislature revealed that health officials had actively consulted a longtime political operative—now leading the Biden campaign’s state outreach—to solicit recommendations.

SKD Knickerbocker attempted to coyly deny the conflict in its California operations after the Sacramento Bee first reported on the arrangement.

“As a public affairs firm, a great deal of our work (including this Vote Safe campaign) is nonpartisan,” claimed Heather Wilson, the managing director and head of the firm’s California office.

But the GOP congressmen said the “expedited” awarding of the contract failed to pass the smell test and lacked transparency.

“According to the Sacramento Bee reporting, a group of six people in your office huddled together to determine the winning bid,” they wrote.

They noted the massive vote-fraud operations already underway in the state, such as California’s decision to mail ballots to everyone on its blatantly outdated voting rolls.

Those figures undoubtedly will be used to pad the popular vote tally in Biden’s favor in an effort to erode faith in the Electoral College system.

In fact, some Democratic operatives have said they intend to use the deceptive, ill-gotten popular vote to justify Biden’s refusal to concede should President Donald Trump win an Electoral College landslide.

The congressmen also raised red flags about the security of voter information, on the heels of a report that a “glitch” in a Biden get-out-the-vote app had given users access to sensitive voter data.

“It remains unclear whether SKD Knickerbocker will have access to sensitive voter information, including voter contact information, potentially allowing them to target individual voters who will likely be in possession of general election ballots.”

The state currently has no restrictions on ballot-harvesting, the controversial practice of allowing outside parties to collect absentee ballots from voters.

Moreover, they noted that, according to a Reuters report, SKD Knickerbocker had been subjected to a massive hacking effort to gain access to the firm’s data and use phishing attacks to attempt to steal passwords from its clients.

“Since the California Secretary of State’s office is a client of SKD Knickerbocker, these attempted hacks raises serious concerns about whether any data related to voter information is being targeted,” they wrote.

In addition to demanding a tranche of documents from Padilla, the congressmen planned to schedule a remote briefing with him no later than Sept. 25 to discuss the election integrity concerns.

US Outlines Sweeping Plan to Provide Free COVID-19 Vaccines to Skeptical Public

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US Outlines Sweeping Plan to Provide Free COVID-19 Vaccines to Skeptical Public

(Associated Press) The federal government outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, even as polls show a strong undercurrent of skepticism rippling across the land.

In a report to Congress and an accompanying “playbook” for states and localities, federal health agencies and the Defense Department sketched out complex plans for a vaccination campaign to begin gradually in January or possibly later this year, eventually ramping up to reach any American who wants a shot. The Pentagon is involved with the distribution of vaccines, but civilian health workers will be the ones giving shots.

The campaign is “much larger in scope and complexity than seasonal influenza or other previous outbreak-related vaccination responses,” said the playbook for states from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the highlights:

— For most vaccines, people will need two doses, 21 to 28 days apart. Double-dose vaccines will have to come from the same drugmaker. There could be several vaccines from different manufacturers approved and available.

— Vaccination of the U.S. population won’t be a sprint but a marathon. Initially there may be a limited supply of vaccines available, and the focus will be on protecting health workers, other essential employees, and people in vulnerable groups. CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the National Academy of Medicine, and other organizations are working on priorities for the first phase. A second and third phase would expand vaccination to the entire country.

— The vaccine itself will be free of charge, and patients won’t be charged out of pocket for the administration of shots, thanks to billions of dollars in taxpayer funding approved by Congress and allocated by the Trump administration.

— States and local communities will need to devise precise plans for receiving and locally distributing vaccines, some of which will require special handling such as refrigeration or freezing. States and cities have a month to submit plans.

Some of the broad components of the federal plan have already been discussed, but Wednesday’s reports attempt to put the key details into a comprehensive framework. Distribution is happening under the umbrella of Operation Warp Speed, a White House-backed initiative to have millions of doses ready to ship once a vaccine is given what’s expected to be an emergency use approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Several formulations are undergoing final trials.

But the whole enterprise is facing public skepticism. Only about half of Americans said they’d get vaccinated in an Associated Press poll taken in May. Of those who wouldn’t get vaccinated, the overwhelming majority said they were worried about safety. To effectively protect the nation from the coronavirus, experts say upwards of 70% of Americans must either be vaccinated or have their own immunity from fighting off COVID-19.

Since the poll, questions have only mounted about whether the government is trying to rush COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to help President Donald Trump’s reelection chances.

Before the Republican National Convention in August, the FDA granted authorization for treatment of COVID-19 patients with plasma from people who have recovered, even though some government scientists were not convinced the clinical evidence was sufficiently strong. And last week it was reported that Michael Caputo, a Health and Human Services Department political appointee, tried to gain editorial control over a weekly scientific publication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As public confidence in core health agencies has taken a beating, Trump administration officials have been forced to play defense.

“We are working closely with our state and local public health partners … to ensure that Americans can receive the vaccine as soon as possible and vaccinate with confidence,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement Wednesday. “Americans should know that the vaccine development process is being driven completely by science and the data.”

That could be a tough sell. In the AP poll, 1 in 5 Americans said they would not get a coronavirus vaccine, and 31% said they were unsure.

Leaked DHS Email Reveals Antifa is an ‘Organized,’ ‘Anarchist’ Threat

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Leaked DHS Email Reveals Antifa is an ‘Organized,’ ‘Anarchist’ Threat

A leaked email from a former top Homeland Security official revealed that the federal government considers Antifa’s continued attacks in Portland to be “organized” and deliberate.

Brian Murphy, former acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed in the email that violence in Portland over the past several months was orchestrated by Antifa.

Contrary to the claims of Democrat sympathizers who insist it is merely a loose affiliation of like-minded networks, the domestic-terrorism outfit, which has been linked to possible arson and the shooting death of at least one conservative demonstrator during the riots, is a centralized group, Murphy said.

Murphy informed staff that future references to the Portland riots would be referred to as being “violent Antifa anarchists inspired,” according to the July 25 email.

“The individuals are violently attacking the Federal facilities based on these ideologies,” he wrote. “We can’t say any longer that this violent situation is opportunistic.”

Murphy said DHS had overwhelming intelligence to support the belief that the group was promoting violence as part of its basic ideology while deploying urban guerilla warfare tactics that it has continued to hone in deceptively sophisticated ways.

“A core set of Threat actors are organized, show up night after night, share common [Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures] drawing on like minded individuals to their cause,” he wrote.

Because the subversive actors tend to embed themselves in a crowd of otherwise peaceful demonstrators, not every rioter can be considered a member of Antifa, Murphy continued.

But given the “totality of the intelligence both current and previous,” government officials need to “recognize the motivation for the violence and why people have shown up to commit violence for about 60 days,” he said.

Antifa is a threat, Murphy explained, and the government must treat it as such.

“Threat actors who are motivated by Anarchist or ANTIFA (or a combination of both) ideologies to carry out acts of violence against State, Local, and Federal authorities and infrastructure they believe represent authority or represent political and social ideas they reject,” he concluded.

CNBC’s Cramer Apologizes for Calling Pelosi ‘Crazy Nancy’

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CNBC’s Cramer Apologizes for Calling Pelosi ‘Crazy Nancy’

(Associated Press) CNBC’s Jim Cramer apologized Tuesday for calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy Nancy” during an interview, saying he was trying to make a point about Washington intolerance that fell flat.

The fast-talking former hedge fund trader, one of CNBC’s leading personalities for two decades, was interviewing Pelosi on negotiations on a relief bill for those hurt financially by the pandemic.

“What deal can we have, crazy Nancy?” he said during the interview.

He immediately indicated that he was channeling President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly used that derisive nickname for Pelosi.

“I have such reverence for the office I would never use that term,” he said.

“But you just did,” Pelosi said.

“Oh, come on,” Cramer said. “You know what I mean.”

When he received criticism on Twitter, Cramer defended himself and suggested his intentions were obvious.

“I challenge anyone to listen to the interview and think I wasn’t imitating what the president says and how repulsive I find it,” he tweeted.

On his show “Mad Money” later, however, Cramer said that he had made a very stupid comment.

“It was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to make a point about the harsh tone of negotiations in Washington,” he said. “But it fell completely flat and I apologize for that.”

Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and executive director of the group UltraViolet said Cramer’s “patronizing and condescending bile” has serious consequences for the country and women who choose to run for political office.

“It’s time that CNBC takes steps to remove toxic misogyny from its airwaves, and that starts by firing Jim Cramer,” Thomas said.

There was no immediate comment from CNBC.

Ohio School Reinstates Suspended Football Players Who Waved Pro-Cop Flags During Game

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Ohio School Reinstates Suspended Football Players Who Waved Pro-Cop Flags During Game

Public backlash forced an Ohio high school to reverse its suspension of two football players after they carried pro-law enforcement flags honoring fallen police officers and firefighters during a recent game.

Little Miami High School, in Morrow, chose to suspend Brady Williams and Jarad Bentley after the students carried a Thin Blue Line flag and a Thin Red Line flag onto the football field before a Sept. 11 football game.

Williams, a senior cornerback whose father is a police officer, said he and Bentley were not trying to make a political statement.

Bentley, whose father is a firefighter, agreed and said they were both just trying to honor their parents and the first responders who lost their lives during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“I was just doing it to honor the people that lost their lives 19 years ago,” Williams told WKRC-TV.

“I was all for it,” Bentley added. “Because my dad is a firefighter, and if it had been him killed on 9/11, I would have wanted someone to do it for him.”

According to the school’s policy, Williams and Bentley were required to ask administrators’ permission to carry the flags onto the field.

They did that, but were denied and warned that if they defied the order there would be consequences.

Both players received an indefinite suspension after the game, although they have since been reinstated after an online petition gathered some 19,000 signatories.

“Listen,” Williams said. “I don’t care what my consequences are. So long as my message gets across, I’ll be happy.”

When asked why the school took such drastic action, Superintendent Gregory Power argued that students must follow the school’s guidelines.

He accused Bentley and Williams of politicizing the game.

“We can’t have students who decide to do something anyway after they’ve been told that they shouldn’t be doing it,” Power said.

“We did not want to place ourselves in a circumstance where another family might want a different flag to come out of the tunnel, one that maybe many other families may not agree with from a political perspective.”

The school’s community, however, was not pleased with Power’s decision and demanded that the school reinstate Williams and Bentley.

A group of community members gathered outside of the school on Tuesday waving Thin Red Line, Thin Blue Line and American flags.

Later that day, the school announced that the boys will remain on the team,  although they might still be disciplined by their coach for insubordination, according to a follow-up report by WKRC-TV.

“I’m sure the community is standing behind [the boys], and thanks to those two boys, patriotism is alive and well,” said Perry Denehy, who had assembled the group outside the school, said.

Va. County Rejected 915 ICE Warrants for Criminal Illegal Aliens in 2 Years

Joshua Paladino
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Va. County Rejected 915 ICE Warrants for Criminal Illegal Aliens in 2 Years

Fairfax County, Virginia denied more than 900 detainers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued to try criminal illegal aliens for deportation, the Immigration Reform Law Institute found in an investigation.

The sanctuary county received 929 detainer requests within a two-year period, from May 23, 2018 to May 6, 2020. The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office determined that 14 of these were “lawfully issued criminal detainer[s].”

This means that Fairfax County rejected 915 warrants on the grounds that a judge needs to sign ICE’s warrants, as the Fourth Amendment prescribes.

Congress has given federal immigration agents the right to issue unsigned warrants because illegal aliens do not have the same protections as American citizens.

“Requiring criminal warrants is the latest cynical tactic of sanctuary jurisdictions seeking to obstruct federal immigration authorities,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI.

“The criteria for handing over a criminal alien are set artificially high to make it almost impossible for ICE to comply,” he said.

Fairfax County announced in 2018 that it will not hold criminal illegal aliens in custody for an additional 48 hours so that ICE agents can prepare to arrest them upon release.

IRLI said the findings also reveal how many criminal illegal aliens the sanctuary county draws.

“There is nothing unacceptable about any detainer that seeks to remove criminals from our neighborhoods,” said Tom Homan, senior fellow at IRLI and former acting director of ICE.

“There is nothing unacceptable about law enforcement working hand in hand with other law enforcement to protect our communities and keep our streets safer,” he continued. “What IS unacceptable is when a law enforcement leader chooses politics over public safety and fails to protect the communities he is sworn to protect.”

Fairfax County escalated its obstruction of ICE’s work with a new order in May.

The county approved an order that prevents ICE agents from accessing county buildings and instructs local police officers not to arrest and book illegal aliens for minor offenses so that agents cannot track them in public records.

Criminal Illegal Aliens Kill Two People after Sanctuary Cities Release Them

Joshua Paladino
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Criminal Illegal Aliens Kill Two People after Sanctuary Cities Release Them

Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that the Baltimore County Detention Center transfer three illegal aliens who have been charged with murder into its custody.

Baltimore County authorities arrested and charged two Salvadoran nationals and one Honduran national in May. All three illegal aliens have connections to the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang.

The Baltimore County, Maryland Circuit Court charged Wilson Art Constanza–Galdomez, 21; Wualter Orellana-Hernandez, 19; and Jonathan J. Pesquera-Puerto, 19, with first-degree murder, first degree assault and kidnapping.

They are suspected of murdering Gabriela Ardon, 16, on May 29 as well as assaulting three people on June 6, which ended in a woman’s death.

“In this case, two of the suspects arrested had previously been encountered by ICE but due to state and local policies that put politics above public safety, they were released to the street,” said Acting Baltimore Field Office Director Francisco Madrigal.

“This is the worst-case scenario when detainers are not honored,” he added.

All three men entered the United States as minors.

Constanza–Galdomez and Orellana–Hernandez both had been previously arrested and released before being charged with murder.

Authorities in Suffolk County, New York, arrested Constanza–Galdomez in February 2018 for local-level crimes. He was taken into ICE’s custody on March 3, 2018.

An immigration judge released him on bond on May 29, 2018, until his hearing.

Suffolk County arrested Constanza–Galdomez later that year, on Dec. 8, 2018, but this time local authorities did not transfer him to ICE’s custody and he was released in April 2019.

He failed to appear at his immigration hearing in Oct. 2019. A judge ordered him to deported.

Prince George’s County Police Department arrested and charged Orellana–Hernandez on Jan. 20, 2020.

ICE agents sent a detainer to request his custody, but the authorities released him.

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