Day: May 17, 2022

Poll: 64 Percent of Americans Say Being Transgender Not Healthy, 72 Percent Oppose Teaching Sexual Identity-Based Curriculum in Elementary School

Susan Berry, PhD

A wide-ranging poll on the issues surrounding gender ideology and sexual identity has found nearly two-thirds of Americans believe transgenderism is not healthy, while 72 percent say schools should not teach elementary school-age children about sexual identity and sexual behavior.

Summit Ministries, which provides education and curriculum resources that promote a biblical worldview, and renowned polling firm McLaughlin and Associates released results of the national poll Tuesday, one that surveyed 1,000 likely general election voters nationwide between April 22-26.

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Tennessee Republican Party Reports Record Number of GOP Candidates Running for Office

Aaron Gulbransen

Tennessee Republican Party Chair Scott Golden, in a statement exclusively provided to The Tennessee Star, reports that 2022 saw a record number of GOP candidates qualifying to run for office in the state. 

“Red Wave ’22 is sweeping across the Nation and there are more Republicans than ever before running in Tennessee. We have more candidates for more offices in more counties than we have ever had in the history of Tennessee,” said Golden.

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Hagerty, Blackburn: Tennessee’s MAGA Duo Votes Against Fast-Tracking $40 Billion Ukraine Bill

Neil W. McCabe

Tennessee’s two GOP senators were two of the 11 senators who voted May 16 against expediting a floor vote on President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, H.R. 7691, known as the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022—after both Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D.-N.Y.) and Minority Leader A. Mitchell “Mitch” McConnell (R.-Ky.) rejected Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.)’s request for a special inspector general to monitor America’s largesse to the non-NATO country.

Sen. William F. “Bill” Hagerty IV, who was joined in voting against cloture for the bill by his Volunteer State colleague Sen. Marsha Blackburn, told “The Tennessee Star Report” host Michael Patrick Leahy that he is frustrated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s prioritizing other countries while he ignores problems at home.

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MSNBC: Homeschooling a Racist ‘Evangelical War’ to Undermine Integration Policies

Susan Berry, PhD

An opinion author at MSNBC has condemned homeschooling as a racist tool of evangelical Christians seeking to undermine public schools and policies that promote integration.

“It should come as no surprise that evangelicals, fundamentalists and other religious conservatives have fought against public education since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education,” Anthea Butler wrote at MSNBC in a column published Thursday.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The Cycles of Revolutions in Our Midst

Admin

We are witnessing a number of radical military, social, and political revolutions that are changing the United States—and the world—in fundamental ways that we still have not appreciated. 

The taboo about never mentioning the first-strike use of nuclear weapons in a major conventional war is now apparently over. Vladimir Putin routinely threatens their use. Communist China hints at its growing nuclear capability and is hell-bent on rushing into production a huge new nuclear missile force. The world is defining nuclear incineration down.

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Exclusive: Adam Warner Releases ‘Reason to Redneck’ Lyric Video

Bethany Bowman

Adam Warner hails from the farm country of southern Illinois, quite near to where my mother and her family lived. This area is so consumed by farming, specifically corn and soybeans, that you really do feel as if you are in the middle of nowhere.

Just like my mother and aunts, both of Warner’s grandmothers played piano and sang at church. His mother was involved in theater and singing as well. He was certainly not the only one in the family who did music but would be the only one who chose it as a career path.

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Wisconsin’s Republican Gubernatorial Candidates Promise Tough-on-Crime Approach After Deer District Shootings

Admin
Police Car

The Republicans running for governor in Wisconsin are promising more cops, more prisons, and say they’ll fire prosecutors who don’t get tough on crime after a violent weekend in Milwaukee that saw more than two dozen people shot.

Milwaukee Police say Friday night’s shootings near the Deer District wounded 21 people. Another of those shootings saw 17 people shot. A string of shootings on Sunday saw another five people shot, including two people who died.

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Whitmer Touts Job Numbers While Analyst Criticizes Corporate Welfare

The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and one economic analyst agree that Michigan needs more workers but disagree on the proper strategies necessary to acquire them.

John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability, a nonprofit organization for transparent economic development policy, questioned Whitmer’s “doubling down” on big business subsidies while many businesses need workers. There are about 10 million Michiganders but, as of January 2021, only 4.7 million are in the workforce.

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Florida Gas Prices Hit New Record

Steve Stewart

According to AAA-The Auto Club Group, the Florida average price for gasoline reached a new record high of $4.49 per gallon on Sunday.

The latest price beats the previous record of $4.38 per gallon set back in March soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. Before this year, the record high was $4.08 per gallon, which was set back in 2008.

Florida’s average price jumped about 30 cents in the past week. The state average is now $1.60 per gallon more than a year ago. It now costs $67 for a full 15-gallon tank of gas. That’s $24 more than what drivers paid this time last year.

Based on the gasolinemiserindex.com website, Florida consumers are paying $889 more annually on gasoline when compared to spending last year. The is approximately 21% higher than the $735 the average American family is spending this year.

“Drivers are dealing with unprecedented pain at the pump and things could soon get worse before they get better,” said Mark Jenkins, spokesman, AAA – The Auto Club Group. “We saw more big gains in the gasoline futures market late last week, which could trickle down to yet another 10-20 cent jump at the pump in the near future.”

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Former Arizona School Counselor Who Organized Drag Show for Students Arrested for Alleged Inappropriate Relationship with 15-Year-Old Student

Susan Berry, PhD

A former Arizona high school counselor who helped organize a drag queen show for students has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old student.

Zobella Brazil Vinik, 29, who resigned on May 5 from Tucson Unified School District, is accused of having the inappropriate relationship off school grounds with a 15-year-old student, KOLD News 13 reported Friday.

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Connecticut AG Leads Bipartisan Coalition Alleging in Amicus Briefs Big Pharma Violates Affordable Drug Mandates

The Center Square

Connecticut’s attorney general is leading a nationwide charge against big pharma for violating mandates of a federal drug program and to secure affordable prescription drug prices for low-income Americans.

AG William Tong announced that a pair of amicus briefs have been filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit and District of Columbia. The briefs defend actions taken by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in cases files by Sanofi SA, Novartis Pharmaceutics, United Therapeutics Corp, and NovoNorisk.

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Grove Proposes Bill to Address Future Pennsylvania Election Complaints

Bradley Vasoli

State Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA-York) told legislative colleagues on Monday that he will introduce a measure to ease the process by which Pennsylvanians can report voter fraud and other election-related problems. 

The bill would require the Pennsylvania secretary of state to establish a 1-800 hotline that voters could call to note any alleged misconduct they encounter in the course of an election. The secretary would also need to host annual training sessions for county-level prosecutors on the commonwealth’s election rules. 

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Stacey Abrams Sponsored Legislation Related to Her Private Business Interests

Michael Patrick Leahy

Public records indicate Georgia gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams sponsored legislation when she was the Georgia House minority leader that was related to her private business interests. The legislation Abrams sponsored in 2015 – with four other Republicans – addressed taxes paid on debt that was not collected.

At the time the legislation was under consideration, Abrams was senior vice president at a company called NOWaccount, according to an archive of the company’s website.
 

Abrams had started NOWaccount in 2010 with two business partners. The company charged fees to small business for accepting the task of collecting the businesses outstanding receivables.

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Youngkin, Miyares Announce Violent Crime Task Force

Eric Burk

Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares announced a violent crime task force composed of officials from the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Criminal Justice Services, and the Virginia State Police. Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Bob Mosier will lead the task force alongside Chief Deputy Attorney General Chuck Slemp.

“There is a clear recognition of a violent crime crisis in Virginia and my administration is committed to joining with community leaders, law enforcement, and Virginians around solutions with the Violent Crime task force,” Youngkin said in the Monday announcement.

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Minneapolis-Area School Children Made to Recite Historically Inaccurate ‘Land Acknowledgement/BLM’ Statement Before the Pledge of Allegiance

Admin

The Pledge of Allegiance is preceded by a “land acknowledgement / BLM” statement in at least one Roseville public school.

All Minnesota public and charter schools are required by law to lead students in reciting the pledge at least one time each week. While Roseville schools maintain compliance with this policy, at least one elementary school in the district has inserted politically charged language into what is usually a brief moment of patriotism.

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Commentary: Employer-Based Microschooling Could Be the Newest Workplace Perk

Admin

When Elon Musk created a small school for his children and some of his SpaceX employees on the company’s California campus, he created a spark that could just now be catching on in other workplaces across the country. 

In a 2015 interview about the school, the billionaire inventor said: “The regular schools weren’t doing the things that I thought should be done. So I thought, well, let’s see what we can do.” A year earlier he had pulled his boys out of an elite private school in Los Angeles and launched Ad Astra, a project-based school with no grade levels, no mandatory classes, and an emergent curriculum.

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Pima County Democrats Say Republicans Sponsoring ‘White Supremacy’

Peter D'Abrosca

The Pima County Democratic Party has joined in the chorus of far-left Democrats who are blaming Republicans for Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, that left 10 people dead. 

“White Supremacy is not mental illness, it is intentional radicalization of large groups of people, with the purpose of conducting terror operations,” the group said on Twitter. “It is enabled and often sponsored by Republican lawmakers. It is weaponized by [Fox News]. It is tearing our nation apart.”

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Forty-Eight Year Georgia State Rep Chosen as Ambassador to Bahamas

Peter D'Abrosca

After serving for nearly a half-century in the Georgia General Assembly, a former Democrat State House Representative has been appointed by President Joe Biden to become the United States Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. 

“Calvin Smyre has served for 48 years as an elected Representative in the Georgia State Assembly, and was Chairman of the Democratic Caucus within the Assembly for over a decade and still serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Caucus,” the White House said in an announcement of Calvin Smyre’s (D-District 135) appointment. “He is the ‘Dean’ of the Georgia House of Representatives and serves on the Appropriations, Rules, and Higher Education Committees. Smyre is President Emeritus of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL), and a member of the National Conference of State Legislators.”

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Rubio, Demings Race Heating Up

Grant Holcomb

The senatorial race between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and Congresswoman Val Demings (D-FL-10) is beginning to heat up with each trading jabs. While Demings has not officially received the Democrat nomination, much Democrat support, fundraising, and polling is coalescing around Demings.

Demings recently went on the attack against Rubio calling him an abortion “extremist.”

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Commentary: Democrats Show Their True Colors in Attempt to Intimidate and Coerce U.S. Supreme Court Justices

Admin

Following the leak of a draft United States Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the country and our Commonwealth have seen Democrat extremism on full display. They have seen the release of a draft, pre-decisional document, which is itself a threat to the judicial process. They have also seen extreme pro-abortion activists gather outside the private residences of Supreme Court Justices in Virginia, threatening their safety and that of their families. These blatant acts of intimidation go far beyond legitimate political protest and should be condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Since Roe v. Wade was first decided in 1973, legal scholars on both the right and the left have held that the decision has no basis in Constitutional law and was wrongly decided. For liberals, Roe is merely a mechanism for leveraging the power of the federal judiciary to produce a preferred policy outcome. For conservatives, Roe is an affront to both an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and basic human decency.

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NIH Director Confirms Agency Hid COVID Genes on Orders from the Chinese

Admin

On Wednesday, Lawrence Tabak, the acting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), confirmed during congressional testimony that officials at the NIH deliberately withheld crucial information about early genomic sequences of the COVID-19 virus on the orders of Chinese scientists.

As reported by the New York Post, Tabak told the House Appropriations subcommittee that the agency “eliminated from public view” all the data from the location of the virus’s origin, Wuhan, while adding that researchers can still access the information through a “tape drive.”

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21 U.S. Federal Agencies Are Analyzing the ‘Environmental Damage’ of Ukraine War

Admin

The federal government has assembled a 21-agency working group to study and assess the environmental impacts of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The “Interagency Working Group on Environmental Damage in Ukraine” — which was assembled by the Department of State and includes officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense — has met weekly for about a month, Axios first reported Friday.

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Georgia Bill Requires Superior Court Judge to Grant Bail in Human Trafficking Cases

The Center Square

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation to keep defendants facing human trafficking charges from immediately returning to the streets after their arrest.

Senate Bill 461 adds human trafficking to the list of violent and sexual offenses that require a Superior Court judge to grant bail. The list also includes treason, rape, murder and aircraft hijacking.

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Commentary: The Huge Anchors of Container Ships Are Wrecking the Coastal Seafloor

RealClearWire

by Ross Pomeroy   In a study published May 7 to the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Auckland in New Zealand observed and quantified the damage that anchoring container ships can do to coastal seafloors. Container ships are the behemoths of the seas. The largest are longer, wider, and heavier than even the grandest aircraft carriers. And as you might imagine, they also have humongous anchors, weighing anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 pounds depending upon the ship’s size, and attached to the vessel with a 1,000 to 2,000-foot metal chain comprised of 3-foot links that each tip the scales at 200 to 500 pounds! Ideally, container ships don’t use their anchors at all, arriving laden with cargo to a port with an open berth and workers ready to unload it. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case of late. The COVID-19 Pandemic shocked maritime shipping and supply chains into disarray, and everyone is still attempting to catch up. At the Port of Long Beach over the last year, ships have spent days or weeks at anchor before docking. Thankfully, the wait times have vastly improved of late. For the study, the authors combined imaging and underwater depth data to characterize what a container ship anchor can…

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Anatomy of the American Baby Formula Shortage

Admin

At the outset of his presidency, Joe Biden promised competence by a bigger, better government. A few days ago, one of his loyal allies exposed a gross incompetence by federal officials on Biden’s watch that defied that promise and inflamed a baby formula shortage now panicking parents nationwide.

Rep. Rose DeLauro, D-Conn., a reliable liberal ally, unveiled documents showing the Biden Food and Drug Administration was alerted by a whistleblower last fall about potential contamination issues at the Abbott Nutrition baby formula factory in Michigan and failed for months to act aggressively.

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Voters Increasingly Returning to In-Person Ballots over Mail

Admin

In many states across the country, voters appear to be returning to in-person voting for their top preference, after vote-by-mail was greatly increased and heavily promoted during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Associated Press, many states, including key swing states, have seen massive drops in the number of requests for mail-in ballots. In Georgia, where nearly one million ballots were cast by mail in the primary elections in 2020, only about 85,000 voters have requested mail-in ballots for this year’s primary. Other states that saw similar declines include Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana.

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