Month: February 2023

Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Calls for China to Pay Reparations for COVID Lab Leak

M.D. Kittle

In the wake of revelations the U.S. Energy Department now believes the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China, Republicans are calling for investigations and accountably. One presidential candidate, health science entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, says China owes reparations  and should be expelled from the World Trade Organization. 

“Now we know what we should have known all along: COVID-19 began in a lab in China,” Ramaswamy, who launched his campaign last week, said in a statement. “As President I will extract reparations from the Communist Chinese Party, using every financial lever available to us.”

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Wisconsin Congressman Gallagher Reintroduces Bipartisan Bill Targeting Over-budget, Behind-Schedule Projects

Bradley Vasoli

U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) and Katie Porter (D-CA-47) are pushing for passage of their reintroduced Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, a bill to publicize which federal projects are dramatically over budget or behind schedule. 

The measure instructs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to generate an annual report on all projects that run at least $1 billion over initially authorized expenses or whose completion takes at least five years longer than originally scheduled. 

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Commentary: The Real Pandemic in America Today Is Obesity

Admin

According to the mainstream media, the most important health crisis in the world today is either COVID-19 or mental health. We all know why they say that; money. Money is the most important factor deciding what is and is not important in America today. Hundreds of billions of dollars are up for grabs yearly from these two “pandemics,” and companies like Pfizer are only too eager to profit from them. 

Pfizer boasts on its website that the company has “successfully manufactured more than 3 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine in 2021 and expects to manufacture 4 billion doses in 2022.” Looking a little deeper, we can also see that hundreds of millions of prescriptions are written yearly for drugs that treat mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Pfizer sells a lot of those as well. In 2020 alone, more than 20 percent of U.S. adults had been issued a prescription for such drugs. Those are frightening numbers. 

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Report: Universal Licensing Has Helped 6,500 Arizona Residents Get to Work

The Center Square

A new Goldwater Institute report highlights all the ways House Bill 2569, which created licensing reciprocity for many professional licenses from other states, has been life-altering for thousands.

With universal recognition having gone into effect in the summer of 2019, “Economic Effects of Arizona’s 2019 Universal Recognition” estimates that some 6,500 residents – including physicians, tradespeople and other professionals – have now been free to work at their craft by exercising their rights under the first-in-the-nation universal recognition reform. The law streamlined occupational licensing by opening the door for skilled workers to use their out-of-state experience to swiftly acquire a license to work upon relocating to the state.

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Commentary: Artificial Intelligence and the Passion of Mortality

Admin

If we knew our existence would span millennia, would we be able to cherish each day or try as hard as we do now to leave something behind? Would voices from history still offer urgent advice, telling us we are part of something bigger or to make the most of our short lives so they matter? Would we still reach out to God for inspiration and guidance? If we didn’t have to die would we truly be alive?

When Homer composed the Iliad, it would have been ridiculous to think that someday mortal human beings would invent machines that might wield the power of the gods. But that’s where we’re headed. As economists struggle to imagine economic models that preserve vitality and growth in societies with crashing birth rates, and as individual competence is no longer required by institutions desperate to fill vacancies, artificial intelligence (AI) promises to fill the quantitative and qualitative human void.

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Five Dirtiest Cities in the U.S. Are Governed by Democratic Mayors: Study

Admin

A new study released Thursday found that the top five dirtiest cities in the United States in 2023 are run by Democratic mayors, according to LawnStarter, a site that conducts and publishes geographic area studies. Two of the five cities were located in New Jersey.

LawnStarter compared more than 150 of the largest cities across the country in four categories: pollution, living conditions, infrastructure and consumer satisfaction.

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Watchdogs Press JPMorgan Chase Bank for Answers on Cancellation of Religious Freedom Group’s Account

Admin

JPMorgan Chase & Co. wants to exclude shareholder resolutions from two conservative watchdog groups that relate to the bank’s closing of the account of a religious-freedom nonprofit founded by former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. 

Brownback, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during the Trump administration, is also a Republican former member of the House and Senate from Kansas. He founded the National Committee for Religious Freedom. 

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The World Bank’s New Focus on Climate Threatens World’s Poorest Nations, Researchers Say

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The World Bank’s plan to focus future efforts on climate change will have a disproportionately negative impact on its poorest client nations, despite those same countries having repeatedly reported that they would prefer the bank focus on other issues, researchers at the Center for Global Development (CGD) reported Thursday.

The Biden administration named former MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga as its nominee to replace the outgoing Trump appointee David Malpass as president of the World Bank Thursday, a key step in the administration’s efforts to refocus the agency from poverty prevention and take more climate action. However, just 6% of public and private representatives from 43 client nations listed climate change as one of the top three issues facing their country, according to a review of surveys conducted by the World Bank in 2020 and 2021, the GCD researchers reported.

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Tennessee Spent $81 Million on Site Development Grants Since 2016

The Center Square

Tennessee has spent more than $81 million on its Site Development Grant program to help pay to get rural industrial sites prepared for businesses since the program began in 2016.

While the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development recently lauded the spending in promotional materials on the impact of that spending, experts don’t agree that the funding was well-spent.

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Texas, Michigan Officials Say They Weren’t Warned Before Receiving Contaminated Ohio Soil, Water

Just the News

Officials in Texas and Michigan said they were not informed before their states received shipments of contaminated water and soil from East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailed with toxic chemicals and caused a public health and environmental crisis earlier this month.

Norfolk Southern, the rail company leading cleanup efforts after its train carrying vinyl chloride derailed Feb. 3, had contracted with licensed waste disposal facilities in Texas and Michigan to dispose of hazardous waste from the Ohio derailment, Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) said Saturday.

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Suspects Released on ‘Zero Dollar’ Bail Were Much More Likely to Be Rearrested, Study Finds

Admin

An updated study by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office released earlier this month found that those released on $0 bail were 70% more likely to be rearrested than their cohorts who posted bail.

Last year, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office conducted a study of 595 individuals released without bail in Yolo County. finding that 70% of those released without bail were rearrested. An update to that study found that not only did the majority of those released without bail get rearrested, but those released without bail were actually more likely to be rearrested than those who did post bail.

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Researchers: City-Wide Vaccine Mandates Did Nothing to Stop the Spread of COVID-19

The Center Square

A slew of city-wide vaccine mandates announced in 2021 across parts of the U.S. made virtually no difference in stopping the spread of COVID-19, newly released research found.

“These mandates imposed severe restrictions on the lives of many citizens and business owners,” the study, conducted through George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, says. “Yet, we find no evidence that the mandates were effective in their intended goals of reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.”

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Tennessee House Education Committee Holds Hearings on Third Grade Retention Law

TC Weber

Even as Tennessee’s third-grade retention law moves closer to implementation, talks on improving the law continue.

The State House Education Administration Committee held a hearing this week on the third-grade retention law. The committee provided a variety of literacy experts an opportunity to share their knowledge and experience in teaching kids to read.

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Commentary: Biden’s White House Is Infested with Foreigner Supremacists

Admin

To hear Joe Biden tell it, America is a dystopian hellscape uniquely cursed with unacceptable levels of injustice and bigotry. He routinely labels the purportedly cruel majority carrying out this supposed bigotry as “supremacists” who prioritize themselves over any minority group by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or gender identity. It’s a dark, cynical strategy that Biden has somehow parlayed into considerable political mileage.

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Maricopa County Leadership Furious That Brnovich Didn’t Agree with Two Employees Who Denied There Was Voter Fraud, Eight Bar Complaints Filed

Rachel Alexander

Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes issued a press release Thursday criticizing her predecessor Mark Brnovich for not agreeing with two of his employees that there was no election fraud. Now, Maricopa County officials and others skeptical of election fraud are chiming in and agreeing with her.

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Minnesota Secretary of State’s Election Reform ‘Wish List’ Moves Through Legislature Despite GOP Criticism

Admin

A major election reform bill that DFL members in the House and Senate are carrying for Secretary of State Steve Simon continues to progress through the legislature despite criticism its several sweeping provisions have received from Republicans in recent committee hearings.

HF3/SF3, coined the “Democracy for the People Act” by its sponsors, aims to implement automatic voter registration, pre-registration for 16- and 17-year olds, add new voter intimidation laws and related penalties, and require more disclosures of who is funding campaign ads, among several other provisions.

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Hospital Costs for Foreign Nationals Illegally in Florida Total $340 Million in Fiscal ’21

The Center Square

Taxpayers spent nearly $340 million for foreign nationals illegally in the U.S. who were admitted to Florida hospitals during fiscal 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office says. This is after taxpayers spent $312 million on illegal foreign nationals admitted to Florida hospitals in fiscal 2020.

According to the findings, donations from charities were used to help pay for illegal foreign nationals’ hospital bills.

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Wisconsin Law Firm Wins Race-Based Discrimination Lawsuit Against Comcast’s ‘Woke Corporate Policies’

The Center Square

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has won another case based on the argument that you cannot discriminate against people based on their sex or the color of their skin.

WILL recently settled a case with Comcast over the company’s Comcast RISE program. That program offered grants to small businesses, but only if they are 51% owned by someone who is “Black, indigenous, a person of color, or female.”

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Bill to Classify Fentanyl as ‘Weapon of Terrorism’ Approved in Virginia House and Senate

The Center Square

With drug overdose deaths on the rise in Virginia in recent years, lawmakers in both the House and Senate Friday agreed to a measure designating fentanyl as a “weapon of terrorism” and increasing penalties on those who knowingly and intentionally distribute or manufacture it. 

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate voted in favor of advancing Senate Bill 1188 Friday – a measure that defines any mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl as a “weapon of terrorism.” 

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Detroit City Council President: Reparations ‘Long Overdue’

The Center Square

The Detroit City Council on Friday announced the members of the city’s new Reparations Task Force.

The Task Force was established after 80% of Detroit voters approved a 2021 ballot proposal to explore the feasibility of a reparation initiative. According to the Detroit News, the proposal from the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus came in part from the national response to the 2021 death of George Floyd.

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Ohio Republican State Senator Reynolds Introduces Bill to Preserve Student’s Religious Expression

Hannah Poling

Even though public schools in Ohio cannot close for all religious holidays, a Republican state senator says that students don’t deserve penalization for observing them and that schools should treat them as legitimate absences.

Senate Bill (SB) 49 known as the “Religious Expression Days” Act sponsored by State Senator Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) aims to require local boards of education to draft “non-exhaustive” lists of religious holidays and excuse students for up to three days each academic year.

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Local Arizona Leaders Detail Reality of Border Crisis at Hearing Democrats Boycotted

Admin

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing at the southern border Thursday focused on the effects of the border crisis on a local Arizona community. “The Biden Border Crisis,” marked the second hearing the committee held on the situation at the southern border this Congress. 

“It’s about time we told the truth. It’s about time we fix this problem,” Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, R-N.J., said of the border crisis during an interview with The Daily Signal shortly before the hearing began.  

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Pope Francis Criticizes ‘Conservative’ and ‘Progressive’ Wings for Politicizing Church

Admin

Pope Francis criticized attempts on both the left and the right to politicize the church in his weekly address at the Vatican Wednesday, according to remarks released by the Vatican.

Francis has been known for taking a more liberal approach to the papacy on issues of same-sex marriage, divorce and capitalism compared to his predecessor Benedict. The Pope said during his General Audience on Ash Wednesday that the church should not be run by any ideology and instead should focus on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, according to the Vatican.

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Commentary: The Ukrainian War’s Bleak Future

Admin

The Ukraine mess is daily looking more like the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, a meat grinder that took 500,000 lives. That three-year conflict became a savage proxy war and prelude for the belligerents of World War II.

The Ukraine battlefield is proving a similar laboratory of death. New lethal weaponry and tactics are introduced, modified—and always improved—from drones to guided missiles to internet-fed artillery.

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Gun Ownership on the Rise for Asian-Americans

Admin

Following several mass shootings in predominantly Asian-American communities, Asian-Americans are buying more guns than ever before.

CNN reports that the surge follows two mass shootings that received widespread media coverage, in the California communities of Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, where Asian perpetrators carried out two separate shootings during Lunar New Year celebrations. Prior to these incidents, Asian-Americans began seeing an increase in violence against them during the 2020 race riots, with numerous viral videos of Asians being viciously attacked in the streets or on public transportation, most often by African-American culprits.

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Commentary: Yellowstone Showcases Leftist Propaganda

Admin

At the end of a long day, many of us unwind by kicking back to an entertaining television show or movie. However, because much of this media today is overt propaganda, choosing a show or movie to watch has become quite the challenge. Anything that isn’t obnoxiously propagandistic has become a welcome alternative. But this type of media can put our guard down and make it easier to accidentally uncritically accept the narrative being pushed, simply because it’s presented in a more palatable package.

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Legislation Would Block Hostile Actors from Land Purchase Near U.S. Military Bases

The Center Square

Legislation in Congress would block China and foreign adversaries from buying land around U.S. military installations, including six major bases in North Carolina.

U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, R-NC, is cosponsoring Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act, which was reintroduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX. The legislation targets efforts by hostile actors from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea to acquire U.S. land close to U.S. military installations or areas.

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Train Company Hit with Class Action Lawsuit After Toxic Derailment in Ohio

Admin

Ohio residents filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday against the railroad company Norfolk Southern after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in early February and cast a toxic plume of chemicals over the town and polluted the air and water, according to the lawsuit’s text.

Johnson and Johnson, a Youngstown, Ohio, based firm and Hagens Berman represent residents within a 30 mile radius of the East Palestine crash site, according to the lawsuit’s text. Residents reported various health concerns including headaches and rashes and worry about the long-term impact that the derailment could have on the community.

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Tennessee State University Leaders Push Back Against State Comptroller’s Report

TC Weber

On Thursday, Tennessee State Legislators heard directly from Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower on issues outlined in a newly released report on Tennessee State University’s housing crisis. The report, came after his office received 14 separate complaints involving TSU’s lack of student housing. While the housing issue was the focus of the report, the comptroller also found issues in other separate areas.

The report cites the university’s lack of a sound final policy, offering several examples of leaders giving conflicting statements and several instances of them not approving funding in a timely fashion. It was determined that TSU’s lack of planning and management, especially regarding scholarship practices, exacerbated the university’s housing problem. Furthermore, it is the belief of the comptroller’s office that TSU will continue to face a housing crisis for the foreseeable future.

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Colleges ‘Scrambling’ for New Ways to Discriminate with Race-Based Admissions Action Expected to End

Admin

With the United States Supreme Court set to rule against race-based admissions policies, colleges are looking for news ways to continue to factor race when admitting students, according to Axios.

In October, after hearing oral arguments against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s use of affirmative action in their admissions processes, the Supreme Court showed favor towards ruling against the use of race-conscious admissions policies. In the event that the Supreme Court rules against the admissions practices, universities may axe standardized tests, which schools argue discriminate against minority students, according to Axios.

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Legal Insurrection’s ‘Equal Protection Project’ Launches to Defend Americans Against Biden’s ‘Equity Discrimination’

Susan Berry, PhD

President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order last week that will embed woke critical race and gender ideologies into every agency of the federal government, an agenda Legal Insurrection’s Professor William Jacobson asserts amounts to “outright discrimination on the basis of race.”

Jacobson announced the launch of the Equal Protection Project Thursday night on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.

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Tennessee Titans Stadium Proposal Submitted to Metro Council for Approval

Kaitlin Housler

A final budget proposal for how the new Tennessee Titans football stadium will be funded has been submitted to the Nashville Metro Council by Nashville Mayor John Cooper and the football team.

The legislation will be subject to three readings, beginning at the council’s next meeting on March 7th. April 4th is the earliest possible date for the agreement to be finalized.

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Arkansas Senate Passes Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Massive Education Reform Bill

Susan Berry, PhD

The Republican-led Arkansas Senate Thursday passed Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ (R) Arkansas LEARNS Act, a comprehensive education reform plan that seeks to eliminate Critical Race Theory (CRT) in classrooms, increase the salaries of teachers, and broaden school choice in order to “empower parents.”

“We are one step closer to unleashing the boldest, most comprehensive, conservative education reform package in the nation — a blueprint for success for the rest of the country,” Huckabee Sanders tweeted.

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Fed’s Favorite Inflation Index Blew Past Expectations in January

Admin

The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, surged past economists’ expectations in January, breaking a recent downward trend, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Friday.

The PCE price index jumped by 0.6% on a monthly basis, and climbed to 5.4% on a year-over-year basis, up from 5.3% in December, the BEA reported. Economists had predicted the year-over-year number would continue to fall to 5% in January, but prices instead shot up at the highest levels since June, The New York Times reported.

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Biden’s Border Admissions Program Is Leading to Family Separations

Admin

The Biden administration’s program to admit migrants using an exception to a major expulsion order if they crossed illegally is leading to family separations, according to multiple reports.

The program allows individual migrants to make appointments through a phone application, known as CBP One, to apply for an appointment to get an exception to Title 42, the Trump-era expulsion order used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Parents are being forced to weigh a difficult decision of sending their children to cross the border when they can’t get appointments with the family for the admissions process, an immigration lawyer and advocates told Border Report.

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Texas and Michigan to Receive Toxic Wastewater and Contaminated Soil from East Palestine, Ohio

Hannah Poling

According to a county official in Texas, toxic wastewater used to put out a fire after a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio was carried to a suburb of Houston for disposal. According to the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, most of the contaminated soil is going to Michigan.

The wastewater is being delivered to Texas Molecular, a company that disposes of hazardous material by injecting it into the ground.

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Explosive Testimony at Senate Elections and House Municipal Oversight & Elections Joint Meeting Accuses Hobbs, Fontes, Runbeck, and Judges of Racketeering

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Legislature’s Senate Elections Committee and House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee held a joint hearing on Thursday featuring testimony from several people involved in researching the voter disenfranchisement that occurred in 2020 and 2022. The testimony by Arizona forensic investigator Jacqueline Breger accused multiple statewide and county officials, including Governor Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, of racketeering connected to the Sinaloa Cartel. Democrats on those committees refused to attend the hearing.

Breger said she has been working with a law firm investigating multistate racketeering and corruption, but in the process discovered election fraud as well. She said neither she nor the attorney she works for are very political; he didn’t vote in the last two elections and she is a registered independent. While investigating racketeering involving the Sinaloa Cartel, their team accidentally discovered election fraud, she said, including finding that Maricopa County’s database is being infiltrated from the outside. “The Maricopa County database has absolutely no integrity whatsoever,” she declared. “Racketeering enterprises are inextricably intertwined with election fraud.”

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Commentary: Abolish the IRS

Admin
Outside of IRS building

The American public has long held an unfavorable view of the Internal Revenue Service, as evidenced by several historical surveys. A Gallup poll taken more than 25 years ago in October 1997 found that 69 percent of the American public held the opinion that the IRS “frequently abuse[d] its powers.” Fast forward to October 2022, when another Gallup poll was taken on the American public’s job-performance rating of 11 federal agencies. The poll ranked the IRS dead last, with only 34 percent of Americans regarding the job performance of the IRS as “excellent/good.”

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