Analysis: The First Gulf War Validated Five Major Weapon Systems, All-Volunteer Military

The First Gulf War, or Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was a strategic failure, but an operational success came to an end Feb. 28, 1991 with President George H.W. Bush calling a halt to combat operations after the 100 hours of combined land and air offensive.

It was the culmination of months Desert Shield’s diplomacy and military build-up beginning Aug. 7, 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded and conquered its neighbor Kuwait. Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991 with a ferocious air campaign that prepared the battlefield for the last 100 hours.

It is important to record operations success in the ledger of a war whose memory has become awkward and difficult.

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Commentary: The U.S. Post-Trump Era

These are only the opening days of what is supposedly the post-Trump era, and whether the country has really seen the last politically of Donald Trump is a matter that depends upon Donald Trump. The principal Trump-hate outlets are still pleased to refer to him as “the disgraced former president” but, of course, he has not been disgraced and there is no indication that he will be.

All of the Democrats and about a third of Republican officeholders are engaged in an elaborate and strictly observed pretense that Trump was a freakish and horrifying interruption of the normal, serene, bipartisan devolution of events in Washington. Like a dreadful meteor, he came and he went, pushed into the instantly forgotten past by a united effort of civilized Americans.

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More Than 700 Kids Currently Detained in Border Patrol Custody, Report Shows

More than 700 migrant children are currently detained in Customs and Border Patrol facilities, according to an internal government report.

At least 200 children had been held in the facilities for over 48 hours and nine had been held more than 72 hours, according to an internal Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) report dated Feb. 21, Axios reported. The CBP is not allowed to hold children more than 72 hours, according to a previous agreement.

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Commentary: Democrats Declare War on Conservative Media

Henry Ford famously quipped, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” The Democrats take a similar view about what the public should be permitted to see on broadcast and cable networks. A Wednesday hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology made it abundantly clear that they believe we should be free to view anything we like so long as it fits the Democratic version of the “facts.” Titled “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media,” the hearing was primarily devoted to testimony from “media experts.”

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Citing Wikipedia’s Capture by the Left, Site’s Co-Founder Launching Free-Speech-Friendly Competitor

A co-founder of Wikipedia is launching a competing website as a free-speech-friendly alternative to what he views as the increasingly monolithic left-wing bias of his former organization.

Last May, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger wrote an op-ed on his personal website titled “Wikipedia is Badly Biased” claiming that Wikipedia’s neutrality policy — known as “NPOV,” or neutral point of view — “is dead.”

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Analysis: Nine Things You Should Know About Ranked-Choice Voting

Proponents of overhauling elections to allow voters to have a backup plan if their candidate doesn’t win went 1-1 at the state level in the 2020 election, but are looking to change how elections work in other states. 

More than 30 bills on ranked-choice voting have been proposed in state legislatures across the country, according to Fair Vote, the nonprofit group that is promoting the system nationally. 

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FDA Panel Votes to Recommend Johnson & Johnson’s Coronavirus Vaccine for Emergency Authorization

The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel voted Friday evening to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency approval, clearing the way for its authorization, distribution and administration nationwide.

The vote followed hours of the panel live-streaming its process of scouring over data from the pharmaceutical company in order to reaffirm that the vaccine was safe for the millions of Americans who will receive it. The FDA also released the vaccine’s clinical trial data on Wednesday showing that the vaccine was effective in fighting the virus itself.

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President Trump Planning to Launch a New Super PAC

President Donald Trump, at a meeting with senior political advisers in Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, announced some of the details of his plans for a new super PAC going forward, as reported by Politico.

The 45th president revealed that he plans for the PAC to be run by Corey Lewandowski, his original campaign manager from the 2016 election. The meeting where he explained these details lasted for several hours, and included such key figures as former 2020 campaign managers Bill Stepien and Brad Parscale, former White House social media director and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, and senior adviser Jason Miller.

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Music Spotlight: Marc Scibilia

Years ago, a friend who was visiting told me about Marc Scibilia. We went to see him at an outdoor concert at Centennial Park. I was told he was recently featured in a Jeep commercial singing “This Land is Your Land.” That was in 2015 at the Super Bowl. To be honest, I hadn’t started blogging yet, so I didn’t pay much attention.

Fast forward six years when a publicist sent a press release about Marc Scibilia releasing a new single, “Rivals” off his Seed of Joy album. I decided to look him up and was truly blown away.

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‘We Never Agreed to This’: State Dept. Objects After Diplomats Given Anal Swab Covid Tests in China

The Biden State Department is crying foul after an unknown number of American diplomats were reportedly subjected to anal swab Covid tests in China.

“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 News on Wednesday. ‘We Never Agreed to This.’

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Virginia General Assembly Votes to Remove Statue of Former Governor Harry Byrd, Sr.

The Virginia Senate voted 36 to 3 Tuesday to remove the capitol’s statue of former Democratic Governor Harry Byrd, Sr. His legacy is marked by his expansion of Virginia’s economy and roads, and is tarnished by a battle to block desegregating schools. The House of Delegates had already voted in favor of the bill, HB 2208, introduced by Delegate Jay Jones (D-Norfolk.) Governor Ralph Northam is expected to approve the bill.

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Mason Public School Teacher Quits After School Refuses Radical Black Lives Matter Teaching Curriculum

A Mason Public Schools special education teacher resigned Friday after the school district refused to allow her to indoctrinate students with a radical Black Lives Matter and social justice curriculum.

Katelyne Thomas was a first through fifth grade teacher in the school system near Lansing, who in January suggested to her superiors that the school should implement the Black Lives Matter at School learning program during the first week of February, which is Black History Month, according to The Detroit Free Press.

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Minnesota Cities’ Police Settlements Ranged from $50,000 to $24.3 Million from 2018-20

Freedom of Information Act research conducted by The Center Square reveals Minnesota cities relied on taxpayers to foot police-settlement payouts ranging from $50,000 to more than $24 million between 2018 and 2020.

Police settlements compensate the public for violated rights and also avoid clogging the court system.

Still, over the past few decades, taxpayers are being left with more significant bills.

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Virginia Budget Agreement Includes Five Percent Teacher Pay Raise, Tax Relief for Businesses

A Virginia budget compromise will include a 5% pay raise for teachers and tax relief for businesses negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic after several weeks of debate among lawmakers.

The budget legislation still needs to pass both chambers of the General Assembly, which is expected. Then, the bills will head to Gov. Ralph Northam’s desk at which time he can choose to sign the legislation or propose changes to it and send it back to the legislature.

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Georgia Nonprofit Owner Arrested for False Statements After Allegedly Letting Criminals off the Hook

A Marietta man has been charged after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said his Atlanta-based nonprofit was scamming the criminal justice system. 

“On Thursday, February 25, 2021, Derek ‘Al’ Sneed, age 39, was arrested in Marietta and charged with one felony count of false statements and writings,” GBI said in a press release. 

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Ohio Leader of Black Militia Arrested of Federal Gun Charges

The Ohio-based leader of a black separatist militia has been charged with several federal gun crimes in relation to his attendance of the Breonna Taylor riots in Louisville, Kentucky last summer. 

A grand jury indicted John “Grandmaster Jay” Johnson, the leader of the “Not F***ing Around Coalition” (NFAC) Wednesday on “one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees and one count of brandishing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence,” first reported by The Courier-Journal.

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Ohio Sen. Portman Offers Minimum Wage Increase, Legal Worker Verification Plan in U.S. Senate

With plans to include a $15 minimum wage in President Joe Biden administration’s COVID-19 recovery proposal quashed by rules procedures, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, has introduced his own wage hike.

Portman’s legislation calls for a more modest minimum wage increase to $10 an hour over the next four years and ties it to inflation every two years. It also ties the minimum wage to his recently introduced E-Verify Act legislation that helps ensure the increase goes only to legal workers.

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Virginia General Assembly Kills Bill to Require Equal Educational Opportunities Across All Schools

After passing in the Senate 34 to one, Senator Bill Stanley’s (R-Franklin County) constitutional amendment to require equitable educational opportunities in all Virginia schools was killed by the House of Delegates Privileges and Elections Committee. Virginia’s constitution requires that free school be provided for all school-aged children. Stanley’s bill SJ 275 would have added a requirement that those schools include “equitable educational opportunities” for all school-aged children.

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Tennessee Investigation: COVID-19 Vaccines Possibly Stolen, Children Vaccinated in Shelby County

The Shelby County Health Department director has resigned after a state investigation uncovered potential theft of COVID-19 vaccine doses, evidence that two children were inappropriately vaccinated and a handwritten log as the only record sent to the state documenting expired doses.

Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey shared Friday that after a week-long investigation into vaccine waste by the SCHD, the state received only one record of vaccine waste from county health officials: a scrawling six-line, handwritten log labeled “Pfizer waste.”

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Nashville’s COVID Vaccine Registration Site Crashes as Vaccine Becomes More Widely Available

Nashville’s COVID-19 vaccine registration website crashed early Friday, as the vaccine became more widely available in the state. 

“The Metro Public Health Department said that a system malfunction is preventing people from registering for a COVID-19 vaccine on Friday morning,” according to The Tennessean. The glitch comes on the first day of sign-ups for residents 65+ in Davidson County and was likely due to a high volume of traffic starting at 7 a.m., city spokesperson Brian Todd said.”

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Commentary: Ten Crazy Examples of Unrelated Waste and Partisan Kick-Backs in New ‘COVID’ Bill

President Biden has proposed $1.9 trillion in additional COVID-19 spending. He’s asking Congress to authorize another round of checks, more expanded unemployment benefits, a $15 minimum wage, and much, much more. Over the weekend, House Democrats finally released the text of the 600-page bill meant to make Biden’s broad COVID proposals a legislative reality. 

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Representative Green Urges President Biden to Hold Cuba Accountable for Human Rights Abuses

U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) and two other members of Congress on Friday sent President Joe Biden a letter urging him to implement a Cuba policy that holds the regime accountable for its human rights abuses and support for authoritarian regimes in the region. 

Joining Green in sending the letter were U.S. Representatives August Pfluger (R-TX-11) and Maria Salazar (R-FL-27), according to a statement issued by Green, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Pfluger and Salazar are members of the subcommittee as well.

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Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

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.

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ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN Ignore Former Cuomo’s Aide’s Explosive Sexual Harassment Allegations

In their prime time news broadcasts last night, five major broadcast networks reportedly neglected to cover the explosive sexual harassment allegations made by a former aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D).

ABC, CBS, and NBC, MSNBC, and CNN all ignored the accusations of Lindsey Boylan, who on Wednesday published an exposé in Medium detailing Cuomo’s inappropriate and harassing behavior toward her, (which Cuomo has denied), according to Newsbusters.

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‘My Income Has Dropped to Zero’: About 45 Percent of Small Businesses Risk Closure Within Months

At least 13.9 million of the nation’s small businesses are at serious risk of shuttering their doors by April 1, a recent industry report found.

Forty-four percent of the country’s 31.7 million small businesses are at risk of closing by the end of the first quarter, according to small business group Alignable. Small businesses on the brink of closure expect to earn less revenue than their owners estimate is needed to stay afloat.

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Founder of Chinese Front Group Spoke at CIA Nominee’s Think Tank Amid Beijing Propaganda Push

The founder of a front group for the Chinese Communist Party appeared at an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in May 2016, where he pushed a pro-Beijing argument regarding a decades-long stalemate over control of the South China Sea.

The speech, by Tung Chee-hwa, the founding chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), was held more than 14 months after William Burns, President Joe Biden’s nominee for CIA director, took over as president of the Carnegie Endowment.

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Minimum Wage Increase Disallowed from Biden Rescue Plan, Senate Rules Official Says

Democrats aren’t allowed to attach a provision increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour to their coronavirus relief package, a top Senate official ruled, according to reports.

Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who oversees the interpretation of the chamber’s rules and precedents, decided Thursday evening that the proposed minimum wage hike couldn’t be included in President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan under budget reconciliation, CNBC reported. MacDonough had held private meetings over the last week with Democrats and Republicans, hearing their arguments for or against keeping the measure.

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German Chancellor Merkel Says Vaccine Passport Has Unanimous Support Within European Union

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says European leaders agree on the concept of a COVID vaccination passport that would allow people to travel more freely through the region amid the ongoing pandemic and continuing health-safety restrictions.

“Everyone agreed that we need a digital vaccination certificate,” Merkel said Wednesday after a meeting with European leaders.

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Former U.S. Olympics Coach Charged with Human Trafficking Commits Suicide

Former U.S. Olympics gymnastics coach John Geddert has died by suicide at 63 years old after being charged with human trafficking, the New York Post reported.

On Thursday, Geddert was charged with crimes including sexual assault, human trafficking, lying to a police officer and running a criminal enterprise, the Post reported.  According to the criminal charges filed by Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel, the former coach could have faced up to a life sentence, ESPN reported.

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Georgia State Rep. Bonnie Rich Benefits from Chamber of Commerce PAC Donations

Georgia’s chamber of commerce interests have donated $4,250 to Georgia State Rep. Bonnie Rich (R-Suwanee) since 2018, shortly before she took office. As reported this week, Georgia State Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) said she suspected members of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Metro Atlanta Chamber are working behind the scenes to kill Byrd’s Voter ID legislation. She said Rich is working to block Byrd’s legislation in a Special Committee on Election Integrity subcommittee.

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The Ohio Republican Party Chooses Bob Paduchik as Its Next Chairman

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee (SCC) voted 53-11 on Friday to elect Bob Paduchik chairman over candidate John Becker.

Paduchik will replace Jane Timken who resigned just weeks following her mid-January re-election to run for the U.S. Senate seat that will not be sought by the incumbent and two-term winner Rob Portman (R-OH).

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UM: Students Reporting Huge Spike in Anxiety, Depression During COVID-19

Continuing with a national trend, a University of Michigan study found that college students reported record levels of anxiety and depression during the fall semester of the 2020 school year, during nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns. 

“The UM Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey looking at mental health and service utilization among undergraduate and graduate students, found that 47% of respondents screened positive for clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety – up from 44% last year and the highest since the survey started in 2007,” according to Michigan Live.

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Virginia Legislators Call for New Parole Board Investigation After More Details Leaked About Release of Man Convicted of Killing Police Officer

Legislators are calling for a new investigation into alleged misconduct by the Virginia Parole Board (VPB). Last summer, a leaked six-page report from the Office of the State Inspector General detailed how the VPB violated laws and policies when, in April 2020, it decided to parole Vincent Martin without giving his victims the required 50-day notice. Martin was serving a life sentence for killing police officer Michael Connors in 1979, and was released last June. But a new 13-page draft of the report leaked this week, first reported by WTVR, revealing more details about the alleged misconduct by the board and by former Chair Adrianne Bennett, who is now a judge.

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Tennessee Legislators Likely to Pass Bill Tackling Gender and Interscholastic Sports

A bill in the Tennessee General Assembly would require that middle school or high school students’ biological gender determine whether they may participate in interscholastic sports specifically tailored either for males or females. Supporters of the bill told The Tennessee Star Friday they believe the bill will pass both the state house and the state senate.

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After Defying COVID Groupthink, Big Tech Censors, DeSantis Hosts CPAC as Rising GOP Star for 2024

When Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis takes the stage to deliver a welcoming address at the Conservative Political Action Conference on his home field in Orlando Friday, it will be as a fast-rising force in the conservative movement and an increasingly plausible and popular contender for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

DeSantis will be followed in the spotlight on the first full day of CPAC 2021 by a succession of marquee GOP names vying to woo the party’s conservative base at the movement’s signature annual gathering of the tribes. Among them will be potential 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls and aspiring heirs to the leadership of their party’s populist conservative wing, including Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley, of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, respectively.

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Former Georgia Legislators Say Chamber of Commerce ‘No Friend’ to Average Peach State Residents

Two former state legislators said Georgia Chamber of Commerce members, not unexpectedly, have tremendous influence at the State Capitol, but those two men also said Chambers’ members sometimes work against political conservatives’ best interests.

Former State Rep. Jeff Jones, who represented District 167 from 2015 until last month, told The Georgia Star News this week that he never hesitates to speak freely, and he didn’t even when he held office. And he said he won’t hold back now.

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Commentary: The Pennsylvania Case Is Not Only About Trump

The Supreme Court has always been an anomaly in our democratic republic. This now-powerful body meets in secret, wears uniforms, and has life tenure. The nine-member court has issued rulings explaining how Americans need to alter their views about everything from sex to taxes, affecting the rights of presidents and of prisoners. Recent Republican nominees to the court have been the unjustified targets of fierce fights, with Democrats making wild charges and ad hominem attacks. Of course, Joe Biden and his crew have put the court on notice that they will pack it, when given the excuse. 

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