Biden diplomats bend over for China

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxk9a/china-anal-covid-tests-us-diplomats

The Chinese government has promised to stop using anal swabs on American diplomats to test for COVID-19 after Washington complained that the practice was undignified, the U.S. State Department said.

“The State Department never agreed to this kind of testing and protested directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when we learned that some staff were subject to it,” a State Department spokesperson told VICE World News on Wednesday.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/west-virginia-state-senate-passes-legislation-to-ban-teacher-strikes/

The West Virginia state senate recently passed legislation that would make strikes by teachers and other public employees illegal. Companion legislation is pending in the House of Delegates.

“Public employees in West Virginia have no right, statutory or otherwise, to engage in collective bargaining, mediation, or arbitration, and any work stoppage or strike by public employees is hereby declared to be unlawful,” the legislation said. “Furthermore, any work stoppage or strike by employees of a county board of education poses a serious disruption to the thorough and efficient system of free schools.”

The legislation would also require the county board of education to withhold pay for any time a teacher is on strike instead of working.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/02/25/the-latest-payoff-in-pelosis-relief-bill-will-enrage-you-n2585331

The U.S. House version of the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic has an extra perk for federal workers: Enhanced paid time off if your child is enrolled in a school that isn’t back to full-time, in-classroom instruction.

Critics call it a personal bailout for bureaucrats. It is funded through a new $570 million family leave account exclusively for federal workers.

While millions of parents struggle to work from home with kids who are enrolled in shuttered or partially shuttered schools, and millions more left the workforce or lost jobs to care for their at-home children, evidently parents in the federal bureaucracy need their own, personal Covid-19 bailout.

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/02/25/vote-your-voice-splc-announces-10-million-new-wave-grants-deep-south-organizations-voter

The SPLC today announced the beginning of a new application process in its Vote Your Voice initiative that will make more than $10 million in grants available to Deep South organizations to build capacity and scale up their voter outreach and civic engagement efforts over the next two years.

Average grant sizes in the next round are estimated to range from $50,000 to $300,000.

The Vote Your Voice initiative, a program of the SPLC that is administered through the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, funds a range of voter and civic engagement efforts.

The SPLC also provided funds to Fulton County to assist in the purchase of additional absentee drop boxes.

https://cfgreateratlanta.org/about/board-of-directors/

Susan Grant

Board Chair

Susan Grant relishes her current community activist work as nonprofit board leader, anti-racist practitioner and mentor coach. Grant graduated from the corporate world after 30 years at CNN where she led the company’s digital and affiliate businesses. During her tenure, CNN Digital became the internet’s leading news destination globally across myriad online and mobile platforms. Her portfolio of businesses included CNN Digital, CNNMoney.com, CNN Newsource Sales, CNN ImageSource, the CNN Library, CNN Student News and CNN Business Operations. Under Grant’s leadership, CNN’s affiliate businesses built exceptional, sustainable collaborations with their broadcast, radio and licensing partners. She served as CNN’s representative on the Board of Internet Broadcasting Systems from 2005 through its sale to Nexstar in 2014.