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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