School-Choice Advocates Applaud Ohio Senate’s Budget Plan

Matt Dolan

School-choice advocates are calling the recently passed Ohio Senate budget proposal as a step in the direction toward more options for parents.

The Senate’s version of the budget includes differences negotiators still must work out with the House’s budget, but it includes a provision that allows parents to create an education savings account for afterschool care. Negotiations begin this week.

“While the new Afterschool Child Enrichment Education Savings Account program is limited, its inclusion in the budget is an important step in helping parents afford desperately-needed resources giving them the flexibility necessary to improve their children’s educational outcomes,” said Rea Hederman, executive director of the Economic Research Center at The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank.

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Commentary: Donald Trump’s Comments on the Virus, Elections Deem True

On Saturday, June 12, former President Donald Trump released a statement that, in tone, will have his opponents rolling their eyes.

“I told you so,” they will say, because Donald Trump told them so and managed to get in a bit of signature Trump braggadocio along the way.

Under the legend “Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America,” this is what he wrote:

“Have you noticed that they are now admitting I was right about everything they lied about before the election?”

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Commentary: The Real Threats to Our Democracy

United States Capitol at night

In the Wall Street Journal of June 10, Peggy Noonan captured the kernel of the crisis of national division that afflicts America: Donald Trump and opposed perceptions of last year’s presidential election. Equitable person though Noonan is, she qualifies as a Trump-hater, whose invective against Trump has only escalated over time.

Noonan’s premise today is that any question about the 2020 presidential election is unfounded conspiracism, but that suspicion is growing, spread by “the Trump underworld—the operatives, grifters, and media figures around him  . . .  This lessens our faith in our systems   . . . it leaves the GOP with an untreated cancer.” She holds that “QAnon is important” in propagating this fraud. She thinks that anyone who wasn’t appalled by the storming of the Capitol on January 6 has given up on democracy. Lingering concern about the fairness of the result is in itself an assault upon democracy. “The breaching of the Capitol happened because of a conspiracy theory: that the election was actually won by Mr. Trump but stolen from him by bad people.”

She makes no allowance for exactly the opposite view: that there is ample evidence that Trump was sandbagged in rigged voting and vote-counting in only six states, stonewalled by the courts, and defamed by a unanimous national political media: the courts couldn’t face overturning the election, and the media can’t accept the idea that it was a tainted election. I agree with her that “the only thing that can stop” (the cancer that supposedly afflicts the GOP, even if it is in fact benign righteousness) “is true facts independently developed and presented with respect and receipts.” 

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Biden’s ICE Shuts Down Trump-Era Initiative to Help Victims of Illegal Aliens

Under the orders of Joe Biden, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ordered the shutdown of an office created by President Donald Trump for the purpose of helping victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens, as reported by CNN.

The announcement was made on Friday that the Victim Of Immigrant Crime Engagement (VOICE) office was coming to an end, instead being replaced with an office that will focus on helping victims of crime irrespective of the immigration status of either the victims or the culprits.

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that “all people, regardless of their immigration status, should be able to access victim services without fear,” directly implying that the new office will actually cater to illegal aliens rather than American citizens. Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson confirmed these intentions in his own statement, declaring that ICE would be “committed to serving all victims of crime.”

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Pompeo to Launch PAC Supporting Republicans in 2022

Mike Pompeo

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is launching a super PAC to help elect conservatives in the 2022 midterms, Politico reported Tuesday.

The Champion American Values PAC (CAVPAC) will allow him to travel the country and raise unlimited funds for members of the GOP running campaigns in local, state, and federal elections.

“We’re going to go out, and we’ve started this already, but we’re going to go out and expand to a greater degree, helping candidates all across the country,” Pompeo told Politico in a phone interview.

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Arizona Governor Issues Executive Order Preventing COVID Vaccine Mandates on College Campuses

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced on Tuesday an executive order that will prevent the state’s public colleges and universities from mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for its students.

The executive order comes in response to Arizona State University informing its students that they “expect” students to return to campus in the fall fully vaccinated. Further, individuals who choose not to receive the coronavirus vaccine would be subjected to a mask requirement and weekly testing.

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After Skyrocketing to Record Highs, Lumber Prices Fall Back to Earth

Close up of wood after being cut down - lumber yard

Lumber prices have begun to drop following record highs, with futures closing Monday at their lowest price in over two months.

Lumber futures reached their highest-ever price in early May according to Nasdaq, trading at $1,711.20 per thousand board feet. Futures closed Monday at $966.20 per thousand board feet, still well above pre-pandemic levels which hovered around $400.

Prices skyrocketed due to a variety of factors, including supply chain disruption due to COVID-19 restrictions, labor shortages, and higher demand due to the surge in the housing market, according to a report by Wells Fargo economists. The report noted that while prices were unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels, restarting domestic lumber production and restoring domestic supply chains would stabilize the market.

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Immigration Cases Have Doubled Since 2017

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Immigration cases deciding if migrants will be legally allowed to stay in the U.S. have doubled since 2017, according to migration data released Monday.

Over 1.3 million cases are pending, with more than 110,000 pending in New York courts alone, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Migrants wait an average of two and a half years for a judge to decide their case, Axios reported Monday.

“The number of pending deportation cases more than doubled during the Trump administration, but the court backlog still continues to grow under the Biden administration,” TRAC Assistant Professor Austin Kocher told the Daily Caller News Foundation Tuesday.

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Dozens of Chinese Warplanes Enter Taiwan Airspace, Largest Incursion Yet

Flypast of the Chengdu J-20 during the opening of Airshow China in Zhuhai

Taiwan claims dozens of Chinese warplanes penetrated its airspace Tuesday, the largest and most recent Chinese incursion as tensions between the two countries escalate.

Twenty-eight People’s Liberation Army aircraft, including fighter jets, bombers, and anti-submarine airplanes, entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) Tuesday, according to a report issued by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense. It marked the largest recorded daily incursion, exceeding a 25-aircraft incursion on April 12, Reuters reports.

Taiwan dispatched air patrol troops to intercept the Chinese planes and mobilized anti-aircraft missile systems in response, the ministry’s report said.

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Ohio Reaches Record Settlement with Publicly Traded Pharmaceutical Company for Alleged Overpayment of Services

Dave Yost

Centene Corp (CC) reached a record settlement agreement Monday with Ohio for its alleged overbilling of the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) for its pharmaceutical services.

America’s largest Medicaid managed care organization agreed to pay $88.3 million to Ohio after Dave Yost, the state’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit in March, according to a Yost press release.

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