Christian Conference Cancels Antifa Investigative Journalist Andy Ngo After Former Speaker Doubts Veracity of Ngo’s Work

Journalist Andy Ngô, known for his undercover work on Antifa, was removed as a guest speaker from a prominent Christian conference on Monday. The speaker event, Culture Summit, is the 15th annual conference for Q Ideas. It is scheduled for April 22 through 23 in Nashville.

Ngô was scheduled to give a talk titled, “What is Fascism?” Q Ideas spokespersons told reporters that Ngô’s book dissecting Antifa, “Unmasked,” made him an appealing guest speaker. They didn’t give a reason as to why they’d disinvited Ngô from the event.

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Commentary: A Presidential Wild Pitch?

Biden and the All-Star Game

The president loves baseball, and has said the earliest memories he has are of the sport: a glove under his pillow the night before his first game and a too-big Little League jersey that hung past his knees. Given a chance to pick between an inning on the mound in the majors or the vice presidency, a much younger Joe Biden wouldn’t hesitate.

“I would have pitched!” the then-vice president told a crowd gathered for the final game of the 2009 Little League World Series, before following through with his trademark addendum, “By the way, I’m not kidding.”

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CBP Won’t Say How Many Illegal Migrants Are Released Without Scheduled Court Dates

Border officials won’t say how many illegal immigrants are caught and released without set court dates, though nearly 25,000 were issued Notices to Appear in immigration court in the first two months of 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Border officials issued 24,726 Notices to Appear to migrants encountered in January and February, of those a10,028 migrants were released and 14,698 migrants were detained, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It’s unclear how many illegal migrants were encountered and released without court dates.

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Ilhan Omar Blasts Biden After Reports of Continued Construction on Border Wall

After reports surfaced Tuesday that the Biden administration was planning to continue construction on former president Donald Trump’s border wall, a Minnesota congresswoman took to Twitter to voice her displeasure. 

“It’s shameful and unacceptable for [President Biden] to continue the construction of Trump’s xenophobic and racist wall,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) said.

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Governor Lee Hosts Criminal Justice Reform Round Table with Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Others

Governor Bill Lee hosted a roundtable to discuss criminal justice reform on Wednesday, as part of a national conservative campaign called “Right on Crime.” The discussion centered on the general agreement that rehabilitation should be emphasized more for prisoners. No specifics were offered during the roundtable.

On the call were Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Speaker of the House; Pat Nolan, Director Emeritus of the American Conservative Union Foundation Nolan Center for Justice; Rick Perry, former Governor of Texas and former Trump Administration U.S. Secretary of Energy; Brook Rollins, former Trump Administration acting director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council and former president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; and Josh Smith, a member of Lee’s Criminal Justice Reinvestment Task Force. 

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Brad Raffensperger Says Three Georgia Counties ‘Failed to Do Their Absentee Ballot Transfer Forms’ in Compliance with Rules and Regulations

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday announced that he had referred three counties for investigation after they bucked state law and failed to do their absentee ballot transfer forms from last November’s presidential election. Raffensperger, in a press release, identified those three counties as Coffee, Grady, and Taylor. The three counties account for only 0.37 percent of all absentee ballots cast in last year’s election, he said.

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Amazon, Which Routinely Avoids Taxes, Supports Biden’s Corporate Tax Rate Hike

Amazon endorsed President Joe Biden’s proposed higher corporate tax rate despite its history of routinely avoiding most or all of its federal tax obligations.

The massive online retailer supports President Joe Biden’s plan to pay for the $2 trillion infrastructure plan he unveiled last week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement Tuesday. Biden announced that the plan would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

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Commentary: When Hate Crimes Don’t Matter

On a Saturday afternoon in late March, middle-aged Charles Edward Turner walked into a McDonald’s in downtown Pittsburgh, tackled a 12-year-old boy, and stabbed him in the neck with a box cutter. 

It took three family members to free the boy of Turner, who resisted being held down by shoving and biting one of them on the bicep, spilling blood in the fast-food restaurant. The family had stopped by for a quick bite after the diabetic boy’s blood sugar fell low. As the family’s everyday outing turned into a chaotic scene of blood and violence, they found themselves fighting for his life. 

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‘Textbook Transparency Act’ Proposes Free Online Versions of Public School Textbooks

A bill proposing free online versions of public school textbooks would enable parents to review material their kids learn. The “Textbook Transparency Act,” introduced by State Senator Mike Bell (R-Riceville), is making its way steadily through the General Assembly.

The bill would require that if any electronic versions of a textbook exist, then they must be uploaded to an electronic database open to the public. The database would be maintained by and accessible through every public university’s main campus library. The only limitations the bill would impose concern readers copying the textbook or being charged to view the textbook. 

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Cuomo Repeals His Nursing Home Legal Immunity Measure Amid FBI Investigation And Impeachment Probe

Gov. Andrew Cuomo repealed a measure on Tuesday he had originally signed into law in April 2020 that shielded nursing homes from COVID-19 lawsuits.

The New York Democrat repealed the law as he faces an FBI investigation into his handling of nursing homes during the pandemic. FBI investigators are looking into how the nursing home legal immunity bill made it into the state’s budget legislation just before Cuomo signed it into law, according to THE CITY.

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Five Months After 2020 Election, Georgia Still Has Not Produced Chain of Custody Records for 355,000 Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes

Five months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, officials at the state and county level in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 355,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election.

Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes, or less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the November 3, 2020 presidential election in Georgia. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, 1.3 million of those votes were cast as absentee vote by mail ballots. Based on polling conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, 700,000 of those absentee vote by mail ballots were sent via regular mail and 600,000 were deposited in the estimated 300 drop boxes located around the state and were manually picked up and transported by election workers to the local county registrar for subsequent counting.

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Lt. Gov. Candidate Winsome Sears Calls for End of Virginia Mask Mandate, Opponent Lance Allen Fires Back

Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears announced that she is asking for Virginia to remove the “mask mandate” that has been instituted by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. In a video posted to Facebook, former Delegate Sears announced that she will be publicly calling for Governor Northam to remove the mandate to wear a face mask to enter Virginia businesses, open schools, and open Virginia businesses at full capacity.

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Ohio Judge: Health Dept Director Has No Authority to Issue Mask, Distancing and Other Orders

Ashland, Ohio – An Ohio judge ruled that the Director of the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) does not have the authority to issue mask mandates, social distancing or other types of mandates since Ohio law does not give the agency such stated or implied authority.

Ashland County Common Pleas Judge Ron Forsthoefel wrote that the ODH only has ultimate authority in matters of isolation and quarantine – matters the legislature defined in Senate Bill22, the law enacted when the General Assembly overrode Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of the bill last month.

The case Forsthoefel judged involved Cattlemans Restaurant and the Ashland County Health Department – the latter which issued a cease and desist order against the restaurant for an alleged violation of the COVID-related Dine Safe Order.

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Feds Deny Michigan’s Request to Waive Statewide Student Testing

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) denied Michigan’s request to waive the federal requirement to administer state summative assessments.

In late January, the Michigan Department of Education cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason not to test Michigan’s 1.5 million students. MDE requested waivers to federal requirements for state summative tests,and waivers of associated high-stakes accountability requirements. The accountability waivers were approved on March 26.

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Tennessee Senate Committee Approves Amended Bill Making County Health Boards Advisory Only, Prohibiting Vaccine Passports

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee approved a bill to make county health boards as advisory bodies only, and to prohibit mandatory vaccine passports. The bill was introduced by State Representative John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge), and also sponsored by State Senator Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma).

Currently, the components limiting county health boards’ powers and prohibiting vaccine passport mandates aren’t listed as part of the bill. They were introduced as an amendment in the House on Tuesday. Additionally, the bill would relegate local health authority to the state and limit county health officers’ quarantine-mandating powers – individuals and places that aren’t known to have contributed to the spread of a disease may not be quarantined.

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