Day: January 25, 2023

Meta to Reinstate Trump’s Facebook, Instagram Accounts

Just the News

Social media giant Meta announced Wednesday that it would reinstate former President Donald Trump\’s accounts on both Facebook and Instagram. The former president was suspended from both platforms in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2022, Capitol Riot. Other social media platforms such as Twitter acted likewise, prompting Trump to create Truth Social, a digital platform similar to Twitter that practiced looser content moderation than its competitors.

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Wall Street Journal Rips Vaccine Makers: ‘Designed Studies to Get the Results They Wanted’

Susan Berry, PhD

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial board member Allysia Finley took to task both the federal government and the pharmaceutical giants profiting from the sale of their COVID mRNA booster shots for a “deceptive advertising” push for Americans to continue taking boosters without proof of their safety or effectiveness.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its health and regulatory agencies are engaged in a “deceptive advertising” campaign, wrote Finley Sunday, suggesting the pressure tactics “shouldn’t come as a surprise,” since the federal government “took the unprecedented step of ordering vaccine makers to produce them and recommending them without data supporting their safety or efficacy.”

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Vermont Supreme Court Upholds Law Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in Local Elections

Just the News

The Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of a law permitting noncitizens to vote in local, municipal elections.

In 2021, the state Legislature backed bills to change the local charters of Montpelier and Winooski to permit noncitizen voting in local elections. Though Republican Gov. Phil Scott vetoed those measures, the Democratic Legislature overrode his objections, the Associated Press reported.

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Catholic Churches Have Suffered 118 Attacks Since SCOTUS Dobbs Leak

Admin

A recent report found that Catholic churches have suffered 118 attacks since the leak of the Supreme Court draft majority opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center in May 2022.

Churches and pregnancy centers across the United States came under attack after the opinion was leaked to Politico, indicating that the Supreme Court intended to overturn Roe v. Wade. CatholicVote (CV) updated its tracker Sunday that keeps track of assaults on Catholic Churches and found that 118 churches had reported attacks since May 2022.

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Planned Parenthood Sex Educator Teaching Minors on TikTok to Use ‘Spicy Toys’ or Vegetables for Sexual Pleasure Under Fire

Susan Berry, PhD

The work of a Planned Parenthood sex educator whose viral TikTok videos instruct children and young teens to use “spicy toys” and fruits and vegetables for sexual pleasure has been condemned by a former sex educator also trained by the abortion industry giant.

Monica Cline, who, prior to her conversion, educated children as young as middle schoolers to engage in sex acts “safely,” said in comments sent to The Star News Network that Planned Parenthood sex educator and digital creator Mariah Caudillo is engaged in a “crime against children” paid for by American taxpayers.

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DOJ to File Lawsuit Against Google over Dominance of Digital Ad Market

Admin

The Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has an unfair dominance over the digital ad market.

As reported by the New York Post, the federal lawsuit could be filed as soon as Tuesday against Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. The suit will target Google’s lucrative advertising business, which accounts for 80 percent of Google’s overall revenue; in 2023, Google is projected to make at least $73.8 billion from advertising alone.

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Gov. Tony Evers Signals Big Spending Plans for Wisconsin in State of the State Address

M.D. Kittle

In his fifth State of the State address Tuesday evening, Gov. Tony Evers began laying out how he plans to use Wisconsin’s $6.6 billion surplus, pitching a spending bender of big government initiatives already with a price tag to date of around $1.3 billion. But there’s more to come. Evers is still constructing his biennial budget plan, set for release in a few weeks. 

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Pro-Life Advocates Pushing Personhood Legislation in Georgia

Eric Burk

Pro-life activists expect Georgia Republicans to file two bills granting equal rights to the unborn; the bills would impact exceptions currently in place under Georgia’s heartbeat law that bans abortions after six weeks.

Georgia Right to Life (GRL) Executive Director Zemmie Fleck said the heartbeat bill grants some rights, mostly to the mother, including counting the unborn in the census. It includes exceptions for certain circumstances surrounding conception or health.

“This would actually say all of those children who are classified in the rape and incest category or the fetal anomaly category, or the life of the mother category, those children also — they have equal protection of their life, and they have the equal recognition that they are persons to be treated just like a born person,” she said.

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Testimony to Arizona Senate Election Committee Reveals Almost Half the Ballots Ran Through Maricopa County Tabulators Failed

Rachel Alexander

The election committee of the Arizona Senate held a hearing on Monday featuring the results of an investigation into Maricopa County’s 2022 midterm election conducted by the election integrity group We the People AZ (WPAZ). Commissioned by outgoing Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott), the group submitted public records requests to Maricopa County Elections Department to obtain the data. The leader of WPAZ, Shelby Busch, testified to the committee chaired by State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) that 464,926 ballots fed into tabulators on Election Day in Maricopa County, 217,305 were rejected, which is nearly a 50 percent failure rate.

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City Officials in Ohio Inform Residents They Were Overtaxed for 15 Years

Hannah Poling

In a letter to Rittman residents, city officials announced that they overtaxed municipal income tax for the past 15 years, and refunds will not be given for all the years of human error because doing so would “bankrupt” the city.

In particular, Rittman has been collecting municipal income taxes for the past 15 years at a rate of 1.5 percent when the correct, permitted rate was 1 percent.

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Democratic Congressman: ‘No One Can Defend Having Classified Documents’ at Penn Biden Center

Bradley Vasoli

A Democratic California congressman this week weighed in on President Joe Biden’s classified-document scandal, characterizing the president’s housing of restricted records in his University of Pennsylvania office and his Delaware home as indefensible.

A member of the House Oversight and Armed Services committees, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA-17) told Fox News that Biden warrants scrutiny for keeping numerous records he obtained during his earlier service as a U.S. senator and later as vice president. Khanna noted that the law requires classified federal documents to be kept in “sensitive compartmented information facilities” (SCIFs). While presidents can sometimes temporarily designate rooms within their personal properties as SCIFs, Biden has never suggested any spaces in his home or office were deemed to be such areas. 

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Youngkin’s Business, Personal Tax Cuts Pass Out of House

Eric Burk

The Virginia House of Delegates passed Governor Glenn Youngkin’s bills to cut the business tax rate from six to five percent and the top  individual income tax bracket from 5.75 to 5.5 percent. The two bills would also increase individual and business income tax deductions.

“Virginians are still overtaxed, they deserve to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks and today’s significant move by the House of Delegates means Virginians are one step closer to additional relief,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a release after the bills passed out of the House on Wednesday.

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University of Wisconsin System Says It Will Ban TikTok After Congressional Warnings

M.D. Kittle

After Gov. Tony Evers finally relented and ordered TikTok banned from state government devices, Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation asked University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman to follow suit. A UW System spokesman on Wednesday said the schools will follow part of the lawmakers’ request and restrict TikTok from UW System-owned devices.

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Commentary: Biden Document Discovery Doesn’t Add Up

RealClearWire

Last week, CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan asked Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman why President Biden would dispatch his personal attorney, who didn’t have proper security clearance, to his Delaware home to search for classified documents. Presumably, Brennan believed that when searching for classified documents, one should have the credentials to actually read them. Brennan’s focus on who was reviewing Biden’s papers touched on a potentially interesting line of inquiry. The question hanging in the air, however, relates to the discovery that started this whole process: Why would lawyers be “packing up” Biden’s office in the Penn Biden Center in the first place?

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Florida’s DeSantis Announces Sweeping Reforms That Include ‘Teacher Bill of Rights’

The Center Square

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a news conference in Jacksonville on Monday to propose sweeping changes to education, including a Teacher’s Bill of Rights which will empower educators to be leaders in their classrooms.

In the proposed legislation, teachers will have their paychecks protected, while $1 billion will go towards teacher pay increases. School board members will have a maximum term of eight years, instead of twelve.

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Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Finds New Inmates Attempting to Sneak Suspected Fentanyl into Jail System

Neil Jones

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) announced Friday that it had made multiple discoveries of suspected fentanyl pills being smuggled by newly booked inmates into the Intake, Transfer, and Release Facility (ITRF).

“This week alone MCSO detention officers have seized approximately 260 pills in the jail system, suspected to be fentanyl and pending lab analysis. The seizures were a compilation of three unique incidents,” according to the office.

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Ohio Awards Multi-Million Dollar Grant to Ensure Kindergarten Readiness

Hannah Poling

Ohio will soon receive an influx of federal funding intended to improve kindergarten readiness.

According to a statement from Governor Mike DeWine’s Office, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services will receive a total of $48 million over three years to support and increase access to quality early childhood care and education as part of the Preschool Development Grant Birth to Five from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families.

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Arizona Senate Republicans Introduce Tax Cut Bills for Groceries and Rent Payments

Neil Jones

State Senate Republicans have introduced two bills that target Arizona’s grocery and rental taxes to give local families a financial break. Kim Quintero, the spokeswoman for the Senate Republican Caucus, told The Arizona Sun Times that it would be unwise for Governor Katie Hobbs (D) to veto bills like these should they pass the legislature.

“It would not be wise of the Governor to veto the food tax bill, as this will provide immediate inflation relief to those living paycheck to paycheck, and it’s something that resonates with a large portion of her voter base,” Quintero said via email.

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Ohio Speaker Stephens Announces Committee Chairs and House Leadership Team

Hannah Poling

New Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) has released his list of committee chairs and vice chairs with about 50 percent of those positions going to 20 of the 22 Republicans who supported him for speaker including most of the major committees, such as finance.

Earlier this month, lawmakers elected moderate Republican Stephens as the new Speaker of the Ohio House to succeed state Representative Bob Cupp (R-Lima). The choice came despite the Republican Caucus‘ previous selection in November of state Representative Derek Merrin (R-Moncolva) as the new Speaker. Although the GOP caucus voted for Merrin as Speaker of the House in December, Stephen fought in collaboration with the Democrats to collect votes and garner a win.

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Flow of U.S. Intelligence Analysts into Big Tech Jobs Raises Alarm

Just the News

As Congress and the courts delve deeper into federally sanctioned censorship by Big Tech, a troubling revolving door has emerged between the U.S. intelligence community and the Big Tech giants on the front lines of one of the fiercest battles over free speech in modern American history.

A Just the News review of LinkedIn employment histories of senior Big Tech executives found that at least 200 former workers of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Security Council and Homeland Security Department have landed Silicon Valley jobs, many within content moderation units regulating supposed “disinformation” and disproportionately throttling news and opinion deviating from approved, left-tilting norms. 

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Poll: Fewer than Three Percent of Hispanic Voters Support Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

Admin

Fewer than 3% of likely Hispanic voters support amnesty for illegal immigrants as they continue to overwhelm authorities stationed on the southern border, according to a poll conducted by Convention of States Action and The Trafalgar Group.

Just 2.8% of Hispanic likely voters believe that both individuals with pending asylum cases and those who entered the country illegally should be granted amnesty and eventual citizenship, according to the Tuesday poll. The findings come amid a record surge in illegal migration at the U.S.-Mexico border, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 250,000 migrant encounters in December alone and more than 2.3 million in fiscal year 2022.

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Filings: Major Left-Wing Nonprofits Funneled Tens of Millions to China in 2021

Admin

Two of the largest left-wing nonprofit organizations in the country collectively sent at least $39 million to China in 2021, according to IRS tax filings.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sent a total of $30 million to various Chinese organizations and government entities, which included $2.5 million to China’s National Health Commission and $1.4 million to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The Ford Foundation sent another $9.3 million, which included donations to at least three universities that are under the direct supervision of the government’s defense industry agency.

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FBI Agent Who Investigated Trump-Russia Collusion Has Been Arrested for Colluding with Russia

Admin

A former senior FBI counterintelligence official involved in the Trump-Russia probe was arrested and charged over the weekend for money laundering and violating sanctions against Russia while secretly working with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who the U.S. government sanctioned.

Charles McGonigal was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI’s New York Field Office until he retired in 2018. McGonigal was arrested Saturday afternoon at JFK Airport, following travels in Sri Lanka, according to Fox News sources.

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Ted Cruz Bills Aim to Advance School Choice Across the Country Through Tax Credits, 529 Expansion

Admin

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, commemorated National School Choice Week by filing two bills to advance school choice, one of which his staff said would be the most significant educational reform since the GI bill.

“We need to provide students with a variety of educational options to fit their needs,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in an email statement Tuesday. “I have often said that school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and I believe no differently today than I did when I began serving in the Senate a decade ago.

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Commentary: Overpopulation via Immigration Is Destroying America’s Environment

Admin

America is overpopulated. Unchecked population growth over the last 70 years, driven by immigration rather than a healthy birth rate, now poses a serious ecological threat in the American West and a monumental social and political challenge in the rest of the country. 

Since the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act in 1965, which radically overhauled American immigration policy to favor third-world migrants, tens of millions of additional human beings legally and illegally entered the country. Pew Research estimates that without the Hart-Cellar Act, the United States would have had 72 million fewer people as of 2015. 

That would have been a much better America. 

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