Day: September 11, 2022

Half of Americans ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Poll Finds

Admin

At least half the U.S. workforce is psychologically detached from work and putting in the bare minimum at their jobs, a recent poll found.

Employee engagement has dropped steeply since 2020 and is the lowest it’s been in nearly a decade, with only 32% of employees reporting being engaged at their jobs and 18% actively disengaged, the Gallup poll found. The findings align with the online trend of “quiet quitting,” or putting in the bare minimum at work rather than going above and beyond.

Read the full story

Brigham Young Says ‘No Evidence’ to Substantiate Claims of Racial Slurs at Women’s Volleyball Match

Just the News

Brigham Young University on Thursday announced that it had found no evidence to support claims that a visiting black volleyball player was heckled with racist taunts at a recent match at the Utah school’s campus.

The school said in a statement that an “extensive review” had produced “[no] evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs at the event.”

Read the full story

Small Businesses Might Drop Obamacare as Premiums Skyrocket

Admin

Health insurance premiums offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially known as Obamacare, will rise next year, hitting small businesses particularly hard and potentially pressuring them to drop out of the program.

While recent provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act have provided additional subsidies for individual consumers that will likely offset the increased cost of premiums, no such support was granted to small business owners, according to the Wall Street Journal. Insurers are proposing median premium increases of 10%, but some are proposing increases as high as 20%.

Read the full story

Commentary: Reflections on Calm Before Storm of 9/11 and Peace of Providence After

Admin

Sept. 11, 2001, dawned in Washington as the most beautiful day of that year and one of the most beautiful days I have ever experienced.

I left my home in Northern Virginia early that morning. The route to the White House was always inspiring because of its historic evocation along the way—driving around the Lincoln Memorial each day after having come across the Memorial Bridge from Arlington into Washington, with the Vietnam Memorial on the right-hand side.

Read the full story

Pentagon Funded Former Chinese Government Employee, CCP Member’s Nuclear Warfare Research

Admin

The Department of Defense (DOD) spent nearly $400,000 funding nuclear warfare research that was conducted by former Chinese government employees — one of whom the Daily Caller News Foundation previously identified as a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member.

Li Bin and Zhao Tong — two nuclear policy experts who previously served as Chinese government employees — were both fellows at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace when conducting the DOD-funded research, according to the think tank’s records. Li is also among at least 20 Carnegie staffers the DCNF previously identified as CCP members. These undisclosed CCP members worked at the think tank while current Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns served as Carnegie’s president.

Read the full story

UK Announces Children Under 12 No Longer Will Receive COVID Vaccine

Admin
Young girl with a blue shirt on getting a vaccine

Children under 12-years-old in the United Kingdom will no longer be offered COVID injections, except for those in clinical risk groups, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed this week. The agency said the offer of COVID shots to healthy 5 to 11-year-olds was always meant to be temporary.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said children who had not turned five by the end of last month would not be offered a vaccination, in line with advice published by the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in February 2022. UKHSA said the offer of Covid jabs to healthy five to 11-year-olds was always meant to be temporary.

Read the full story

Little Recourse, Little Consequence: Court Rulings Signal Impunity for Spygate Perpetrators

Admin

Over a one-week period, both Donald Trump and former Trump 2016 campaign aide Carter Page saw federal judges dismiss their separate lawsuits alleging improper conduct by the FBI, Hillary Clinton, and others during the Russia collusion investigation.

The dual dismissals on back-to-back Thursdays — one this week, one last week — shine a particularly harsh light on what critics say has become a pattern in the aftermath of the Trump-Russia probe: a lack of accountability.

Read the full story

Inspector General: DHS Failed to Properly Vet Afghan ‘Refugees’ During Evacuation

Admin

On Tuesday, an inspector general’s report was released regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) handling of the vetting process for alleged “refugees” fleeing Afghanistan as the country collapsed last year.

The Daily Caller reports that the DHS Inspector General concluded that the agency failed to “properly” vet refugees who were determined later to be a “risk to national security,” bringing potential terrorists back to the United States while leaving behind many American citizens as the country fell into the hands of the Taliban.

Read the full story

Juror In Whitmer Kidnapping Trial Wanted Defendants to ‘Hang’, Was ‘Far-Left’, Defense Says

Admin

A juror who helped convict two men last month of plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was allegedly “far-left leaning” and had said they would seek to “hang”, the defendants’ legal team alleged a witness said in a court filing this week.

A retrial jury found Adam Fox guilty Aug. 23 of conspiracy to kidnap and possession of a weapon of mass destruction, while Barry Croft Jr. was convicted of the same crimes in addition to unregistered destructive device possession. Fox and Croft’s lawyers asked Tuesday for a hearing on whether the juror committed misconduct, and a new trial because of the juror’s purported misconduct and an alleged appearance of judicial bias affecting the retrial proceedings.

Read the full story

Georgia Municipalities Burden Home-Based Businesses with Regulations

The Center Square

Georgia touts its business-friendly climate, but some home-based businesses face another layer of bureaucracy: local government licensing requirements, a Center Square analysis found.

Nearly 30 years ago, Georgia lawmakers passed legislation giving cities the power to impose business and occupation requirements, including taxes and regulatory fees. While lawmakers have revised the law, local governments may levy and collect occupation taxes on any business or practitioner with an office in the jurisdiction.

Read the full story

Minnesota Planned Parenthood Names Sitting DFL Legislator New CEO

Admin

A sitting DFL legislator plans to continue serving in the Minnesota House despite just being named the new CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which provides abortions to women in the Upper Midwest.

Rep. Ruth Richardson defended her new position in a statement Wednesday, saying she won’t “oversee political work or lobbying for Planned Parenthood while I hold this legislative seat.”

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Turnpike: More Debt than the State, with Toll Increases Likely

The Center Square

The auditor general noted “growing financial issues” with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the news is not good for drivers who pay tolls.

“Today, the Pennsylvania Turnpike has more debt than the entire state government of Pennsylvania, and the only way to pay it is to raise tolls,” Auditor General Timothy DeFoor said in a press release. “This is an unsustainable situation which highlights the need for innovative ideas and different solutions to rectify an issue that is decades in the making.”

Read the full story

Connecticut Program Up for National Award

The Center Square

A Connecticut family-based program has been nominated for a national award.

Care 4 Kids Parent Portal has been named for the National Association of State Chief Information Officers as a finalist in the 2022 State IT Recognition Awards, Gov. Ned Lamont said. The program, run through the office of Early Childhood, was created in 2021 to give low- to -moderate-income families a subsidy to pay for child care.

Read the full story

Virginia Beach Delays Vote on Plastic Bag Tax Until December

The Center Square

A proposal to impose a 5-cent plastic bag tax will not receive a vote in Virginia Beach until Dec. 6, which is a little less than one month after the midterm elections.

The Virginia Beach City Council voted 8-1 to delay the vote. The tax would apply to disposal bags provided to shoppers at grocery stores, convenience stores and pharmacies. It would not apply to plastic used for wrapping or used to prevent damage or contamination.

Read the full story

Lawsuit Challenges Florida Medicaid’s Exclusion of Transgenderism

Admin

On Wednesday, a federal lawsuit was filed against the state of Florida over a recently-enacted policy that orders the state’s Medicaid program to prohibit the funding of gender-altering procedures.

According to NPR, the suit was filed in the Northern District of Florida by a coalition of far-left groups allegedly representing four Florida Medicaid recipients, who claim to be either “transgender” or to be the parents of “transgender” children.

Read the full story

Gov. Doug Ducey Celebrates Removing Unneeded State Office Space While Unveiling New Remote Workspace

Neil Jones

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) celebrated several years of work to remove unnecessary state office workspace by unveiling a new work building Wednesday for state employees who work remotely.

“Over the past eight years, we’ve been dedicated to transforming our state government,” said Ducey in a news release. “Our goal: fewer employees, higher efficiency, unrivaled customer service, a smaller building footprint and a reduced burden on our hard-working taxpayers. It’s safe to say we’ve accomplished these goals.”

Read the full story

Democratic Attorneys General Association Cuts Almost $500,000 from Candidate’s Campaign After PR Consultant’s Anti-Police Tweets Surface

Rachel Alexander

The Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) slashed $474,280 from their Arizona ad buys after tweets surfaced from a public relations (PR) consultant for Arizona Democratic AG candidate Kris Mayes. The details of the spending cuts were independently confirmed by The Arizona Sun Times by sources familiar with the organization. 

In the past, Mayes’s PR consultant Stacey Champion made numerous tweets attacking law enforcement and white people. Champion is white.

Read the full story

Arizona Congressman Urges California to Cut Its Colorado River System Water Use

The Center Square

A U.S. Congressman has a request for California Gov. Gavin Newsom: reduce the state’s use of water from the Colorado River. 

U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, a Phoenix Democrat, penned a letter to Newsom telling him that because the Colorado River system faces becoming a deadpool, it needs every basin state to take action to prevent an economic catastrophe.

Read the full story