Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Scores Victory Over College Board’s AP African American Studies Course

The New York Times is lamenting the College Board’s revised curriculum for its course in Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) – its abandonment of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the move to make Black Lives Matter (BLM) merely an optional topic of study – both changes that suggest Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) firm rejection of the radical content of the prior version significantly contributed to the new direction.

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Tennessee Senator Blackburn Readies for Debt-Ceiling Fight

Having received an appointment to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee this week, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is poised to play a major role in this year’s fight over raising the debt ceiling. 

Earlier this week, Blackburn joined her Utah Republican colleague Mike Lee in penning a letter, signed by 22 of their fellow senators, insisting a rise in the federal debt limit must only happen as part of a deal to pare back government spending. In an interview with The Tennessee Star, Blackburn explained her view that fiscal circumstances demand such an agreement so debt does not snowball into an even more unmanageable burden on American families. 

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Republican Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill to Permanently Block U.S. Foreign Aid Going to Fund or Promote Abortions

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision last year ending federalized protections for abortion under Roe v. Wade hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from promoting abortion abroad. 

A group of Republican senators is reintroducing a bill that would permanently enact and expand existing prohibitions on the use of U.S. foreign assistance to pay for the performance or promotion of abortion services overseas.

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Far-Left Dark Money Group Working to Sabotage Republican Investigations into Biden

As the House GOP plans numerous investigations into Joe Biden’s various scandals, ranging from government misconduct to his family’s questionable business ties, a far-left dark money group is organizing to deliberately sabotage those probes.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Congressional Integrity Project (CIP) plans to regularly send information to the Biden White House to help combat the probes, including opposition research on the Republicans leading the investigations, poll data, and political ads.

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Jim Jordan Says Crisis at the Border Is ‘Intentional;’ Articles of Impeachment Filed Against DHS Chief Mayorkas

Efforts to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the border crisis appeared to gain steam on Wednesday as the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee met to examine the “Biden Border Crisis.”

“Month after month, we have set records for migrants coming into the country, and frankly, I think it’s intentional,” said House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

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More Americans than Ever Before Are Dipping into Their Retirement Savings to Make Ends Meet

A record-setting number of Americans are pulling money from their 401(k) plans to cover emergency expenses, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing data from major investment manager, Vanguard Group.

The proportion of people who pulled from their 401(k) jumped by about one-third in 2022, to 2.8%, up from 2.1% in 2021 and 2% in the pre-pandemic era, according to the WSJ. Vanguard manages roughly 5 million accounts, so the total number of people making withdrawals climbed from roughly 100,000 to roughly 140,000 in 2022, as people both struggled with financial stress ranging from credit card debt to eviction.

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Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment Not Approved by Lawmakers in Time for May Ballot as Anticipated

Although State Representative Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said that there was ample time to have the “Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment” on the May ballot, it did not pass in the Ohio House and Senate prior to the February 1st deadline.

Stewart introduced House Joint Resolution (HJR) 6 in November; however, the legislation did not pass before the end of the session. Stewart indicated at the end of the year that he intended to resurrect the legislation in the 135th General Assembly which he did along with 30-plus GOP cosponsors last month.

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Ohio U.S. Senator Vance Introduces Bipartisan PARTS Act to Prevent Catalytic Converter Theft

U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) in collaboration with Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mike Braun (R-IN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the PARTS Act on Monday, to prevent the thefts of catalytic converters by making the highly sought-after auto part traceable.

The PARTS Act, Preventing Auto Recycling Thefts, is a piece of bipartisan legislation that aims to reduce catalytic converter thefts by requiring new vehicles to have the VIN stamped onto the converter, allowing law enforcement officers to link stolen parts to the originating vehicles.

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Georgia House Democrats Introduce Gun Bills

Georgia House Democrats have rolled out a series of bills they say will help stem gun violence in the state.

On Wednesday, state Reps. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, and Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, announced four pieces of legislation ranging from a proposal to institute a three-day waiting period to buy firearms to holding firearm owners responsible if a minor uses their firearm to threaten violence.

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Virginia Lawmakers Asked to Amend Spending to Address Education Funding Shortfall

Virginia lawmakers are being asked to amend their proposed spending plans to address an error with a state calculation tool, that will result in schools across the state receiving millions less in state aid than they initially expected. 

The Virginia Department of Education confirmed this week a calculation tool estimating the amount of state funding each school division will receive had an error. The tool did not account for funding changes after the state cut the grocery sales tax on Jan. 1, according to Charles Pyle, director of communications for the Virginia Department of Education. 

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Michigan State Superintendent Opposes Retention Part of ‘Read-by-Three’ Law

The Democrat-dominated Michigan Legislature wants to scrap the retention part of the 2016 read-by-grade-three law.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, introduced Senate Bill 12, which aims to stop the state from possibly holding students back who are one or more grade levels behind on reading. The law also requires reading intervention and ongoing monitoring assessments to support student literacy.

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Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels Speaks in Washington on Southern Border Crisis Affect in Arizona

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels spoke at the US House Judiciary Committee’s Wednesday hearing on the southern border crisis, speaking on how his county has been affected by the ongoing issue.

“Our southern border, against all public comfort statements out of Washington D.C., is in the worst shape I have ever seen it,” Dannels said. “Communities have been neglected and abandoned, relying on our own local and state resources to address a border that is in crisis mode.”

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Drop-Box Elimination Proposed in Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania state senator this week announced he will soon reintroduce legislation he proposed last session to end use of election drop boxes and satellite offices. 

In a memorandum asking colleagues to cosponsor his bill, Senator Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) characterized drop boxes where voters can deposit absentee ballots as fraught with security problems. Lawmakers never enacted a law authorizing counties to set up the receptacles, but the commonwealth’s Democrat-controlled executive branch issued guidance to counties in 2020 permitting drop boxes’ usage. 

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Republican Attorneys General Warn CVS and Walgreens Against Mailing and Distributing Abortion-Inducing Drugs

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey led 19 other Republican state attorneys general (AGs) in a warning letter to CVS and Walgreens that asserts federal law forbids using the mail to send or receive drugs that are intended to be used to produce an abortion.

Bailey and the coalition of attorneys general wrote to the two drugstore chains, informing them that their announced plan to use the mail to distribute abortion pills is both unsafe and illegal.

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Retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor to Spearhead Ohio Redistricting Reform in 2024

According to former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor , a group seeking to overhaul Ohio’s redistricting procedure plans to put a constitutional amendment before voters in November 2024.

Last year, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected maps produced by Ohio’s Redistricting Commission on numerous occasions. O’Connor sided with the Democrats in redistricting lawsuits despite the GOP holding a one-seat majority.

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Minnesota School Denies Concealing Gender Transitions from Parents

A Hopkins principal accused Libs of TikTok of spreading “false and hateful claims towards LGBTQ youth” after a report from the popular Twitter account said the school is offering chest binders to students without parental knowledge.

The Libs of TikTok report begins with a picture of a flier that is hanging in a hallway at Hopkins West Junior High School. The flier includes the contact information for the school’s “health mentor,” Caroline Hickey, who offers to talk with students about “gender norms,” “gender and identity,” and “circles of sexuality.”

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Commentary: Black Reparations Inspiring a Multicolored Pandora’s Box of Intersectional Demands

Until a few years ago, the idea of paying financial reparations to descendants of African slaves was dismissed as a fringe idea.   

Now a notion that President Barack Obama once rejected as impractical is becoming public policy. California offers a dramatic example as officials there review a proposal that could pay in excess of $1 million each to some black residents, while more than a dozen U.S. municipalities are moving ahead with their own race-based programs to redress the legacies of slavery.  

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University of Wisconsin System Survey Shows Free Speech Under Assault on College Campuses

Nearly half of the University of Wisconsin System students who responded believe administrators should ban the expression of views that some students feel cause harm to certain groups of people, according to an extensive survey on campus freedom of speech released Wednesday. 

Some 68 percent of those surveyed say students should report an instructor who says something in class deemed harmful to certain groups. 

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Moderate GOP PAC Spent Only $700,000 of $1.8 Million Raised Helping Republican Candidates

The Republican Legislative Victory Fund (RLVF), a PAC supporting moderate Republicans, posted its end-of-year campaign finance report recently, and of $1.8 million raised, only about $700,000 was spent on independent expenditures (IEs) to support candidates. Almost all of that was spent during the last 15 days of the general election, which Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi told The Arizona Sun Times was well after many of the strongest attacks came against Republican candidates in September.

“I am hearing Camelback Strategies and others associated with the 2022 Victory Fund are trying to take credit for ‘saving’ the majorities at the legislature,” Mussi said. “If anything, their actions contributed to the slim majorities. They did nothing to help Michelle Pena in LD 23, which if she didn’t win we wouldn’t even have a majority.”

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Lawmakers Call for Scottsdale School District Superintendent to Resign After Hateful Comments Emerge

A group of Republican state lawmakers joined in sending a letter to the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board calling for the resignation of Superintendent Scott Menzel after racist comments about white people he made in 2019 were unearthed by the media.

“The racist words and sentiments Menzel publicly expressed have no place in Scottsdale schools. Superintendent Menzel was hired and trusted to foster a culture of mutual respect among students, parents, and teachers. However, his racist words prove that he is incapable of doing that job,” according to the legislators.

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Arizona Court Rules Against the City of Phoenix in Free-Speech Lawsuit, Even After the City Made Changes to NFL Signage Rule

Arizonan Bramley Paulin has achieved victory in a free-speech lawsuit against the City of Phoenix which allowed the National Football League (NFL) and Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee (ASBHC) to decide what signs residents could or could not display in a part of the City.

“This ruling is a huge victory for Bramley’s rights. Thanks to today’s order, Bramley will be able to exercise his free speech rights without unconstitutional restrictions on what he can and cannot say,” said Goldwater Institute Staff Attorney John Thorpe in a statement emailed to The Arizona Sun Times.

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Arizona Senate Rocked by Claims of Election Violations, as Lake Presses Appeal in Challenge to 2022 Vote

The Arizona Court of Appeals held a private conference Wednesday in Kari Lake’s election challenge, as a state Senate panel is hearing explosive allegations of 2022 election failures in Maricopa County, and the Democrat Secretary of State seeks to have Lake, the 2022 GOP nominee for governor, prosecuted for tweeting evidence from the public Senate hearings of mismatched ballot signatures.

The appeals court’s conference was regarding Lake’s appeal of a December decision in Maricopa County Superior Court rejecting her election lawsuit against county election officials and Gov. Katie Hobbs. Lake’s suit alleged that numerous irregularities in the 2022 gubernatorial election, including election machine issues in nearly 60% of the county’s 115 vote centers, effectively suppressed heavily Republican Election Day vote.

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Four Lawmakers Sent Thousands of Campaign Funds to CCP-Linked News Organization

Four members of the House of Representatives funneled campaign money to a Chinese government-backed company during the 2022 election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Democratic NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic NY Rep. Grace Meng, Democratic CA Rep. Kevin Mullin, and Republican  NY Rep. Nicole Malliotakis sent thousands of dollars to Sing Tao U.S., a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao News Corporation, according to the FEC. The money was used for campaign advertisements in Chinese publications in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

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Commentary: The Unacceptable Cost of Open-Border Mission Creep

U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

One of the pitfalls of political extremism is that a few bad foundational ideas beget a host of even worse ideas and results. Such is the case with our immigration crisis, as what began with faculty lounge bull sessions has become accepted government policy that now threatens America’s future.

The idea that America’s borders should be softened to the point that any noncitizen could enter the country on his own terms was always problematic. From that flawed logic has come an intricate web of problems that most in our government have no will, no courage, and no competence to repair.

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NBC Claims Law Enforcement ‘Did Not Act on Intelligence’ Ahead of January 6th

On Tuesday, NBC host Lester Holt claimed that federal law enforcement did not do enough to combat the peaceful protests that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, Fox News reports.

“The January 6 Committee’s final report was more than 800 pages,” Holt said in his report. “But some material did not make the cut, including much of its findings on the failures of federal law enforcement leading up to the attack.”

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Chinese Communist Party-Linked Companies Are Purchasing U.S. Military Academies, Florida Congressman Warns

Companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party are purchasing U.S. military academies with officer training programs across the country, warns Florida GOP Rep. Michael Waltz.

“It’s incredibly concerning that there are American private schools owned by companies with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a Green Beret.

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