U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett Introduces Bill to Protect American Intellectual Property from China

Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) and Congressman Richard Hudson (R-NC-08) introduced a bill that would help protect American intellectual property (IP) from China and other adversaries. 

The Trade-Related Intellectual Property Protection (TRIPP) Act would prohibit any president, unless given Congressional approval, from waiving intellectual property rights for certain medical innovations, such as the coronavirus vaccines.

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Commentary: Massive Government Spending Has Caused High Inflation Levels and a Weakening U.S. Dollar

$100 bills in rubber bands

Inflation is up 4.92 percent the past 12 months as of May, the most since July 2008’s 5.5 percent, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid a torrent of trillions of dollars of government spending, Federal Reserve money printing and a weakening dollar combined with the continued economic rebound led by reopening businesses from the 2020 Covid lockdowns.

The past three months alone, inflation has grown at an accelerated rate of 2 percent combined. If that trend were to hold up for the rest of the year, inflation would come closer to 8 percent.

In the month of May, price jumps in fuel oil at 2.1 percent and piped gas service at 1.7 percent offset a 0.7 percent drop in gasoline prices. In addition, new car prices grew 1.6 percent. Used cars and trucks grew at 7.3 percent again after a 10 percent jump in April. Apparel jumped 1.2 percent. And transportation services grew 1.5 percent after a 2.9 percent jump in April.

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Rare Heart Inflammation Following COVID-19 Vaccination Sparks Emergency CDC Meeting

Doctors working on patient

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will discuss reports of a rare heart inflammation following doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in an emergency meeting, it announced Thursday.

The emergency meeting, set to take place on June 18, will include updates on mRNA COVID-19 vaccine safety with a specific focus on rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, Scott Pauley of the CDC told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The risks and benefits of administering the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to adolescents and young adults will also be discussed, according to the meeting’s agenda.

The announcement comes following a presentation to the Food and Drug Administration by Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, confirming 226 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in people under 30. These cases are more than twice what was expected under the FDA’s safety assessment for COVID-19 vaccines.

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Judge Halts Debt Relief Program for Farmers of Color After White Farmers Sue

A federal judge Thursday afternoon suspended a loan forgiveness program that issues relief to farmers and agricultural workers of color.

Judge William Griesbach of Wisconsin’s Eastern District handed down a temporary restraining order after the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit in April. The group alleged in its announcement that President Joe Biden’s relief program was unconstitutional and that white farmers should have been included in the loan program.

“The Court recognized that the federal government’s plan to condition and allocate benefits on the basis of race raises grave constitutional concerns and threatens our clients with irreparable harm, said Rick Esenberg, WILL’s president and general counsel, in a press release Thursday. “The Biden administration is radically undermining bedrock principles of equality under the law.”

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Feds: Illegal Immigration Continued to Worsen in May

Temporary soft sided facilities are utilized to process noncitizen individuals, noncitizen families and noncitizen unaccompanied children as part of the ongoing response to the current border security and humanitarian effort along the Southwest Border in Donna, Texas, May 4, 2021.

The surge in illegal immigration at the southern border continues to worsen, May numbers show, as the Biden administration takes more criticism for its handling of the issue.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released new data on the crisis at the southern border, showing the federal law enforcement agency encountered 180,034 people attempting to illegally enter the country last month.

May’s numbers were a 1% increase from the previous month, but illegal immigration since Biden took office has soared.

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Commentary: Letters from a D.C. Jail

This week, five Republican senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding his office’s handling of January 6 protesters. The letter revealed the senators are aware that several Capitol defendants charged with mostly nonviolent crimes are being held in solitary confinement conditions in a D.C. jail used exclusively to house Capitol detainees.

Joe Biden’s Justice Department routinely requests—and partisan Beltway federal judges routinely approve—pre-trial detention for Americans arrested for their involvement in the January 6 protest. This includes everyone from an 18-year-old high school senior from Georgia to a 70-year-old Virginia farmer with no criminal record.

It is important to emphasize that the accused have languished for months in prison before their trials even have begun. Judges are keeping defendants behind bars largely based on clips selectively produced by the government from a trove of video footage under protective seal and unavailable to defense lawyers and the public—and for the thoughtcrime of doubting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

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Peter Navarro: ‘St. Fauci’ and Others Have Blood on Hands after Blocking Trump Admin. from Distributing 60 Million HCQ Tablets

Hydroxychloroquine tablets

It turns out that the anti-malaria drug former president Trump famously touted in March of 2020 as a promising treatment for COVID-19, would indeed have been a “game changer” if only it had been widely used.

Use of Hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus can increase survival rates by over 100 percent, according to a new study.

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Nashville Mayor Launches Another Vaccination Freebies Campaign

a health care provider places a bandage on the injection site of a patient, who just received a vaccine

Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced the launch of another campaign offering freebies in exchange for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The “Shots on Goal” campaign launched Thursday. If individuals get their vaccination from any of the five pop-up clinics listed, they will receive a coupon booklet with 11 different incentives valued at over $100 from 20 different businesses.

Metro government will provide a partial reimbursement to the businesses involved. If a vaccinated individual takes advantage of every coupon in their booklet, the total cost to Metro would be $36. The mayor’s office clarified that these funds would come from their CARES Act reserves. The campaign didn’t mention a limit on the number of coupon booklets handed out.

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott Announces Statewide Plan to Build Border Wall and Arrest Illegals

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) announced on Thursday that the state of Texas will take action on its own to address the worsening border crisis, including by building its own border wall and taking extra steps to arrest illegal aliens who are released by federal border authorities, according to CNN.

Abbott made his announcement at a Border Security Summit with other Texas officials present, saying that he would dedicate $1 billion to border security and create his own task force to address the issue.

Abbott said that the efforts would build off of his disaster declaration that was issued last week, which directed Texas’s Department of Public Safety to more strictly enforce laws against criminal trespassing, smuggling, and human trafficking, while also allowing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to crack down on “any child care facility that shelters or detains unlawful immigrants.”

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Hackers Steal Customer Information in McDonald’s Cyberattack

McDonald's at sunset

Hackers obtained customer data from McDonald’s after breaching the company’s systems in the U.S., South Korea and Taiwan, according to The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. employees’ and franchisees’ contact information, seating capacity of U.S. locations and the dimensions of play areas at restaurants in the U.S were all exposed during the breach, McDonald’s said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. While McDonald’s said the hack didn’t cause disruptions at any of its locations, it vowed to launch an investigation into the breach and continue to invest in bolstering its cybersecurity protocol.

“McDonald’s will leverage the findings from the investigation as well as input from security resources to identify ways to further enhance our existing security measures,” the global fast food chain told U.S. employees in an internal message, according to the WSJ.

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Judge Rejects Bid to Move MLB All Star Game Back to Georgia

A federal judge Friday ruled against a nonprofit that sued Major League Baseball for moving its All Star game from Atlanta to Denver. 

“U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Carponi ruled against a not-for-profit organization representing small businesses, saying a lawsuit had failed to provide proof that its members have suffered any injuries by the decision to move the game,” Associated Press reported. 

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Rep. Ilhan Omar Demands Further Investigation of Minnesota Police Forces

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) wrote a letter to the United States Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to expand the DOJ investigation into Minnesota Police Departments.

The investigation was initially requested for the Minneapolis police force after the death of George Floyd in May 2020, but Omar wants the investigation to cover “Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Minnesota State Patrol (SP), Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), the Brooklyn Center Police Department (BCPD), the Richfield Police Department (RPD), the Edina Police Department (EPD) and the St. Anthony Police Department (SAPD).”

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Stacey Abrams Refers to Georgia’s Voter Integrity Law as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and others said at a Thursday night town hall that Republicans nationwide are passing voter integrity bills to prevent black people from voting. During this virtual town hall, Abrams told audience members to pressure the U.S. Senate to pass the For the People Act. Some people also refer to the bill as H.R. 1. The For the People Act, if enacted into law, would nationalize federal elections. The proposed law would require that states automatically register residents to vote and also require absentee ballot drop boxes. The For the People Act would also eliminate state restrictions on mail-in voting, require same-day voter registration, and gut state voter identification laws.

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Two Georgia Legislators Will Influence How Reapportionment Affects Peach State Residents

Members of the Georgia General Assembly are preparing to discuss reapportionment, which involves redrawing district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives following the 2020 Census. Members of the Georgia House Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee as well as members of the Georgia Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee will hold a joint virtual town hall hearing next week. The hearing will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15 on the Georgia General Assembly’s website.

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Florida Black Republican Hasn’t Been Allowed to Join Congressional Black Caucus

A Florida Black Republican congressman blasted the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in an interview with CNN, calling the group “off-putting” for ignoring his request for membership.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL-19) said he has “not really heard much from the CBC” since he attempted to join the group, and that nobody on the caucus has reached out to him to explain anything.

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Bill Haslam Says Republicans Under Donald Trump Too Extreme

Former Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, according to an article The Atlantic published this week, “is trying to figure out how religious Republicans got so extreme.” Haslam granted an interview to Atlantic writer Emma Green. Green said “Haslam is disturbed by some aspects of the national Republican Party’s recent direction—particularly the way politicians and activists have frequently used religion as a cudgel.”

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Florida Job Growth Grant Fund Accepting Applications

The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) tweeted on Monday they are accepting proposals for new projects to be a part of the Job Growth Grant Fund. DEO is accepting applications coming off Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing Florida’s $101.5 billion budget last week.
The grant program is getting an extra $50 million from this year’s budget and over $24 million left unspent from 2019. In all, the program will have over $74 million to spend on communities seeking “workforce training and public infrastructure projects to support growth and employment in Florida.”

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Turnout in Virginia Democratic Primary Dropped About 11 Percent

Ralph Northam

Voters from around the commonwealth cast their ballots Tuesday to determine which candidate will represent the Democratic Party in Virginia’s 2021 race for governor, but the turnout dropped by about 11% compared to the 2017 primary.

In total, more than 488,100 people voted in the party’s five-candidate primary, compared to 542,858 in 2017’s two-candidate primary. This shows an 11% drop and more than 50,000 fewer votes cast in 2021.

About 8% of Democratic voters turned out for the primary, which is lower than 2017 when about 10% turned out to cast a vote. However, despite the numbers being low compared to the previous election, they are still higher than average when compared to the other most recent gubernatorial primaries.

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Nessel Asked If Lockdown-Defying Restaurant Owner Could be Arrested Before Appearing on Fox News

In a shocking abuse of state power against a private citizen, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) asked if she could have a restaurateur who defied lockdown before she could join “Tucker Carlson Tonight” for an interview about her defiance. 

“Do we know her whereabouts? We should just have her picked up before she goes on. This is outrageous,” Nessel said in an email to staff on March 12. 

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DeWine Speaks Out Against Bill to Ban Vaccine Passports

Gov. Mike DeWine (R) will not support a bill that would essentially ban vaccine passports from the state of Ohio. 

H.R. 248, called the “Vaccine Choice and Anti-discrimination Act,” would allow Ohioans to choose not to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and would allow parents to decide whether their children should take it. It would prevent the state or businesses from discriminating against those who have not taken the vaccine. 

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Minnesota DFL Calls 2020 Election Concerns ‘Disgraceful’ and ‘Dangerous’

In a recent interview, Minnesota Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan did not take a position regarding the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Carnahan was being interviewed regarding the location of the Minnesota GOP convention where a candidate will be selected to run against current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

When Carnahan was asked if the 2020 election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, she refused to say one way or the other. Instead, she acknowledged the concerns that many voters have and that if there are concerns, they should not be overlooked. She said, “If there’s ever any question or doubt, or people don’t feel that they have the full transparency on enough things, what is wrong with just looking into things and answering those things?”

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Vernon Jones Accuses Georgia Gov. Kemp of ‘Sitting on the Sideline’ During 2020 Election

Former state lawmaker and GOP gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones released a video on Thursday criticizing Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for his actions during the 2020 election process.

“In 2020, I witnessed, firsthand, Brian Kemp abandon the President, costing us two Senate seats and the Oval Office. He chose to sit on the sideline,” Jones said. “While Brian Kemp was on the sidelines, I was on the frontlines — rallying support for the President, criss-crossing the country, and fighting for the integrity of our elections.

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Virginia Employment Commissioner Says Commission on Track to Address Claims Backlog; Legislators Still Receiving High Volumes of Complaints

The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) is on track to finish adjudicating outstanding unemployment insurance claims that were pending as of May 10th, Commissioner Ellen Hess said on Thursday. A settlement in a lawsuit against the VEC requires the backlog of 92,158 claims to be resolved by Labor Day.

“As of June 5, 66,966 claims remain in this effort,” Hess told the Commission on Unemployment Compensation, a joint commission with legislators from both chambers.

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MTSU First in Tennessee to Join Biden’s ‘COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge’

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) is the first university in the state to join President Joe Biden’s “COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge.” MTSU announced their decision on Thursday.

Since MTSU made their announcement, East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and Lane College have also joined the COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge. MTSU President Sidney McPhee said that the vaccinations were just another common sense step to control COVID-19.

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