Day: September 5, 2022

Navy SEALs Fighting COVID Vax Mandate Get Boost from Congress, States, Delta Force Legend

Admin

More than two dozen members of Congress and nearly half the states are supporting Navy SEALs in their legal efforts to secure religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates, rejecting the Biden administration’s invocation of judicial deference to military decisions.

They filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week, arguing the “near-total denial rate” for religious requests and preference for nonreligious requests violates the Free Exercise Clause, the “overwhelmingly bipartisan” Religious Freedom Restoration Act and state RFRAs.

Read the full story

Leftist Author Jon Meacham Named to Board of University of Tennessee’s Institute for American Civics

Michael Patrick Leahy

Author and former MSNBC contributor Jon Meacham was named to the Board of Fellows of the University of Tennessee’s newly established Institute for American Civics last week by University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd.

German-owned Politico reported that Meacham helped President Joe Biden “frame” his now infamously divisive “speech from hell” delivered in Philadelphia last week in which he attacked the 74 million Americans who voted for former President Donald Trump as a “threat to American democracy.”

Read the full story

Report: Vanderbilt University Professor Jon Meacham Helped Write Biden’s Anti-MAGA Speech

Peter D'Abrosca

According to a weekend story in German-owned Politico, one of the men behind President Joe Biden’s divisive Thursday night speech is a Vanderbilt professor who has long been mired in controversy for his far-left political leanings.

“The actual writing of the speech started about three weeks ago, with Jon Meacham, the historian who has had a hand in a number of Biden’s most sweeping speeches, helping the framing,” according to Politico.

Read the full story

Employee Attendance Plunges to 47 Percent at Financial Institutions: Report

Admin

Despite offering workers a variety of incentives to return to the office, employees at financial institutions are simply ignoring new requirements to come into work on hybrid schedules, Reuters reported.

On average, employee attendance at banks is 47%, with companies averaging about a day less of actual attendance compared to expected attendance, according to a survey of 80,000 workers conducted by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA). When hybrid companies demand two, two or three, or three days of attendance, employees only showed up to work for 1.1, 1.6, and 2.1 days on average.

Read the full story

Commentary: Mandating Kindergarten Is a Bad Idea

Admin

This back-to-school season, many parents are eager to drop-off their kindergarteners to begin the 13-year journey toward high school graduation. It can be a joyful time, full of anticipation and excitement. But just because something may be desirable for many families doesn’t mean it should be mandatory for all.

California is the latest state to try to mandate kindergarten for all students, angling to become the 20th to do so. The California legislature recently passed a bill for compulsory kindergarten attendance that is now awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature.

Read the full story

Tennessee Has the Highest Beer Tax Rate in the U.S.

The Center Square

Tennessee has the highest beer tax rate in the country, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation.

Tennessee’s rate is $1.29 per gallon, one of just two states that charge more than $1 per gallon in the country. Alaska charges $1.07.

In the fiscal year just completed at the end of July, Tennessee collected more than $19 million in beer tax, which was $1.6 million more than it had budgeted. The year before, it collected $18.7 million in beer tax.

Read the full story

‘Massive Abuse of Power’: Intel Committee Rep Mike Gallagher Vows to Use ‘Power of the Purse’ to Get Transparency from Biden, DOJ

Admin

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, denounced a “massive abuse of power” and vowed to use congressional funding powers to get transparency from the Biden administration about the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago during a Sunday appearance on Fox Business.

“For something of this magnitude, something unprecedented, you would expect the FBI and the DOJ to go to great lengths to insure they are conducting themselves with the highest level of professionalism, but they never notified our committee — which you would expect them to do if, indeed, there was a danger posed by the classified material that was in Donald Trump’s possession,” Gallagher told former Republican Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, who guest-hosted the show, adding that many committee members found out details of the raid from news reports based on leaks from the Justice Department.

Read the full story

Commentary: Saving America Now Requires a Ruthless Offense

Admin

The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new under the sun. But there is undeniably something new happening in American history. New and terrible. No hyperbole; we are living through the greatest threat to America since the Civil War.

This new threat, which has been germinating its poisonous fruit for decades in the darkened earth of sheltered universities, federal agencies, and media newsrooms has erupted into such full and ugly view today that it cannot be met and defeated, or even retarded, with any of our normal methods.

Read the full story

Tenured Professor in Utah Sues for Being Forced to Refer to Student with ‘They/Them’ Pronouns

Admin

A tenured theatre professor filed a federal court lawsuit against Southern Utah University (SUU) officials Tuesday over being required to use a student’s preferred gender-neutral pronouns, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

SUU determined in January that Richard Bugg’s conduct toward a student who asked him to use “they/them” pronouns during the Fall 2021 semester was discriminatory, gender identity-based harassment and broke university policy, the outlet reported. Investigators subsequently ruled he had sexually harassed the student in refusing to use those pronouns.

Read the full story

Democrats Duck Debates with Pro-Trump Opponents Scorned as ‘Weak’ General Election Candidates

Admin

In races scattered across the country, Democratic candidates are shying away from debates with Trump-aligned opponents — party nominees who have been widely dismissed by media and political elites as weak general election candidates devoid of crossover appeal.

Reuters, for example, opined in late July: “Republican voters’ embrace of fringe and divisive candidates is jeopardizing the party’s goal of taking control of the U.S. Senate in November’s midterm elections, as well as winning key governors’ races.”

Read the full story

Commentary: Trump Took a Sledgehammer to the Establishment. America Needs Him to Do It Again in 2024

Admin

Tucker Carlson, who seems to have his finger on the pulse of the America First movement, signs off his nightly Fox News show as “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think.”

The “lying” and “pomposity” surely represent the tactics of a Democrat/media complex who will stop at nothing — including using the power of the state to persecute their political enemies. President Joe Biden’s reprehensible speech in Philadelphia all but confirmed it.

Read the full story

Conservative Organization Unveils Ad Campaign Targeting ‘Hyper-Deadly Consequence’ of Democrats’ Crime Policies

Admin

Citizens for Sanity, a conservative organization, is targeting the effects of “far-left policies” on rising crime rates in a new six-figure nationwide ad campaign.

The ad from Citizens for Sanity, first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, is set to circulate on Facebook and YouTube after Labor Day and is targeted toward Latino voters. It criticizes “woke progressive prosecutors” releasing “dangerous predators before trial” and features footage of criminal violence.

Read the full story

White House Official Claims Biden’s Speech Attacking Trump Supporters Was About ‘Optimism’

Admin

A White House official claimed that President Joe Biden’s Thursday speech that labeled former President Donald Trump’s supporters as a “threat to democracy” was optimistic and had “words of encouragement” during a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Go to the White House website, WhiteHouse.gov, read the speech for yourself, I’ve read it multiple times,” former Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta told guest host Martha Raddatz in response to a question about criticism of the speech. “I see words of encouragement, I see optimism, a commander in chief who’s calling out to all of us no matter our political affiliation.”

Read the full story

Ahead of Forum Series, Renacci Sees Opportunities for Conservative Ascendancy in Ohio

Bradley Vasoli

Former Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Renacci has a hopeful outlook for conservatism in the Buckeye-State, though he expects progress to require serious toil and soul-searching as well as new leadership.

Renacci, who represented the 16th U.S. House District southwest of Cleveland and now chairs American Greatness PAC, spoke with The Ohio Star recently about the forum series his organization is commencing on September 15 in the Akron area and about other upcoming milestones for Ohio’s center-right movement.

Read the full story

U.S. Marshals Arrest Man in Tennessee Jogger’s Disappearance

Admin

U.S. Marshals arrested a man in connection to the allegedly “violent” disappearance of Tennessee elementary school teacher Eliza Fletcher, who went missing while jogging early Friday morning.

Cleotha Abston, 38, was charged Sunday with aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence, hours after law enforcement found him inside of an SUV they were searching for in connection to the disappearance. Fletcher, a 34-year-old mother of two young boys and granddaughter of a hardware company billionaire, has not been found.

Authorities arrested Abston after his DNA matched DNA that was found on shoes left near where Fletcher was kidnapped.

Read the full story

Connecticut’s Broadband Program Gains Federal Approval

The Center Square
Broadband Installation

A Connecticut plan to use federal funding to expand broadband access in the state has gained federal approval.

The Connecticut Broadband Infrastructure Program, Gov. Ned Lamont said, will use $42.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to expand service to underserved areas in the state and was approved by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Broadband will be expanded, or improved, in 10,000 households and businesses.

Read the full story

True the Vote Calls Out Arizona AG Criminal Division Over ‘Mishandling’ Its ‘2000 Mules’ Complaint, Unmasking Informants

Rachel Alexander

After over a year of “good faith attempts to work together,” Texas-based election integrity nonprofit True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and lead investigator Gregg Phillips of the OPSEC Group, an election intelligence company, say they no longer trust the intentions of the Arizona Attorney General Office’s Criminal Division.

The veteran grassroots organizer told The Arizona Sun Times the election integrity group turned over evidence to both the FBI and local law enforcement, including the Criminal Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO), and has met with AGO criminal investigators numerous times since first contacting them in the summer of 2021 – all to no effect.

Read the full story

Commentary: Democrats’ Climate Law Does Not Overturn West Virginia v. EPA

RealClearWire

“And whatever interpretive force one attaches to legislative history, the Court normally gives little weight to statements, such as those of the individual legislators, made after the bill in question has become law.” Barber v. Thomas, 560 U.S. 474, 486 (2010).

“The Court has previously found the post-enactment elucidation of the meaning of a statute to be of little relevance in determining the intent of the legislature contemporaneous to the passage of the statute.” Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 596 n.19 (1987).

Read the full story

Trump: FBI Did ‘Deep and Ugly Search’ of Teenage Son Barron’s Room

Admin

Former President Donald Trump said FBI agents searched the room of his 16-year-old son, Barron Trump, during their raid of Mar-a-Lago early last month.

Speaking at a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania, Trump said the United States is “like a third-world nation” after officials “trampled upon” his civil liberties throughout the raid.

“They even rifled through the first lady’s closet drawers and everything else, and even did a deep and ugly search of the room of my 16-year-old son, leaving everything they touched in far different condition than it was when they started,” Trump said.

Read the full story

Alliance Defending Freedom Requests Injunction Blocking Virginia School’s Transgender Policy

Eric Burk

The Alliance Defending Freedom is seeking a temporary injunction blocking the Harrisonburg City Public School’s transgender policy from going into effect while the conservative legal group’s lawsuit against the district’s school board goes forward.

In June, a group of HCPS parents and students represented by the ADF sued the district over its policy; the plaintiffs are focused on requirements that staff use preferred pronouns and protect students’ privacy from their own parents.

Read the full story

Feds Reimburse Michigan $50 Million for Emergency Road and Bridge Repairs

The Center Square

The Federal Highway Administration has awarded Michigan $50 million to reimburse emergency road and bridge repairs after heavy rain and dam failures in 2020 caused widespread flooding in mid-Michigan.

The deluge caused more than 10,000 people to evacuate from 3,500 homes, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency. Whitmer welcomed the reimbursement.

Read the full story

Pennsylvania House Republicans: Krasner Is Suing to Skirt Accountability

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Republican legislators seeking solutions to the crime and violence in Philadelphia that have spilt into other communities across the Keystone State denounced city District Attorney Larry Krasner this weekend for suing to escape their oversight. 

GOP General Assembly members, who allege Krasner has demonstrated a “willful refusal to enforce Pennsylvania’s criminal laws,” have made clear they want to impeach the far-left prosecutor and introduced a resolution to that effect months ago. They however almost certainly lack the two-thirds of Senate votes to do so. 

Read the full story

Commentary: Ohio Jobs Head for Right-to-Work States

RealClearWire

As workers across the country look forward to a long Labor Day weekend, we feel compelled to alert policymakers of a robust movement of manufacturing and other jobs and opportunities from Ohio to Michigan and Indiana, our home states.

We have examined the employment impact of state right-to-work laws at the county level. Right-to-work laws simply say that no worker need be compelled to join or financially support a union. These laws allow for greater worker freedom, and evidence shows that they are a powerful economic development tool. Our study found mostly positive impacts for states with such protections and an unambiguously negative impact on the Buckeye State, which lacks a right-to-work law.

Read the full story

Michael Knowles After Disinvitation to Speak: University of St. Thomas ‘Pretends to Be Catholic’

Admin

Michael Knowles is now speaking out after he was denied the ability to address students at a St. Paul, Minnesota, college.

In the spring 2022 semester, College Republicans at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution, attempted to invite The Daily Wire host, a practicing Catholic, to speak. The university denied the request due to Knowles’ past statements related to past comments expressing socially conservative opinions.

Read the full story

Virginia Nurse Files Lawsuit Alleging CVS Fired Her for Refusing to Administer ‘Abortion-Causing Drugs’

Eric Burk

The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit alleging that the CVS-owned MinuteClinic fired nurse practitioner Paige Casey from her northern Virginia job after Casey refused to violate her religious beliefs and provide “abortion-causing drugs.”

“Casey’s religious objection never posed an issue to coworkers, patients, or supervisors, and just two days before she was fired, she received a merit-based pay increase. For three and a half years, CVS respected Casey’s religious beliefs by allowing her to decline to provide or facilitate the use of abortion-inducing drugs. But in January, CVS informed her that they would no longer accommodate her faith and fired her a few months later—directly violating Virginia’s Conscience Clause,” the ADF said in a press release.

Read the full story

Tucson City Council Moves in Favor of Increased Electric Vehicle Readiness; Rising Costs a Concern

Neil Jones

The Tucson City Council recently approved an amendment to the Unified Development Code to ensure that new commercial development in Tucson is Electric Vehicle (EV) ready.

“These new regulations would require all new commercial development, multi-family, office, and retail to include EV stations or outlets, as well as conduit to support future expansion of EV capacity,” according to the city of Tucson. “These new requirements come after more than a year of stakeholder and public engagement, community input, and technical analysis to develop the proposal.”

Read the full story

The Heavy Favorite to Replace Boris Johnson as U.K.’s Next Prime Minister Described as a ‘Thatcherite’

Admin

Liz Truss, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, believes in limited government and low taxes in the vein of former leader Margaret Thatcher — and that’s why she’s set to be the U.K.’s next prime minister, Nile Gardiner, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation and former Thatcher aide, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A former Liberal Democrat who at one point called for the abolition of the royal family and opposed Brexit even after establishing herself as an exemplar of the conservative Tories, Truss has overtaken Britain’s top financial minister, Rishi Sunak, in the race to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Her “Thatcherite” qualities, referring to the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher who championed national strength and fiscal restraint, make her the candidate Britain sorely needs, Gardiner told the DCNF.

Read the full story

Report: Biden’s IRS Gave Prison Inmates over $1 Billion in COVID Relief

Admin

President Joe Biden’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gave a huge number of prison inmates at least $1.3 billion in COVID-19 stimulus checks, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

There are more than 1.1 million incarcerated individuals who took in the stimulus money, according to IRS data provided to the Free Beacon, as part of Biden’s $1.4 trillion American Rescue Plan. Those incarcerated who received the stimulus money includes roughly 163,000 people serving life sentences without parole, the IRS told Republican Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon in a letter obtained by the outlet.

Read the full story

Thousands of Coloradans Find Smart Thermostats Locked Thanks to ‘Energy Emergency’

Admin

Thousands of Colorado residents were unable to control the temperature of their homes after they were locked out of their smart thermostats due to an “energy emergency.”

Xcel Energy customers in Pueblo, Colorado, who opted into the company’s AC Rewards program, which offers a $100 enrollment bill credit and $25 annually, received a notification last week that they were locked out of temperature controls.

Read the full story