Day: March 25, 2023

‘Race to the Bottom’: Legal Experts Fear Escalation Spiral Ahead of Possible Trump Indictment

Just the News

Ahead of a prospective indictment of former President Donald Trump, legal experts and elected officeholders are warning that such an unprecedented move may spur a dangerous escalation spiral of retributive political prosecutions that undermine the nation’s justice system.

Trump announced last week that he expected to be arrested imminently. While that arrest has not yet occurred, the prospect of a Trump indictment looms large as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg continues his investigation into an alleged 2016 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

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Effort to Squash Biden Family Stories Long Predated Hunter Laptop, Newly Released Emails Reveal

Just the News

Records newly released by the National Archives show efforts to suppress negative stories about the Biden family’s business deals long predate the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, dating back to 2015 when an aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden boasted she got a reporter to “only use” negative information “if her editors hold a gun to her head.”

The emails come from the Obama administration archives and were forced into the public through litigation by the America First Legal nonprofit public interest law firm. They chronicle efforts by Biden’s then-aides in the vice president’s office to suppress stories about Huter Biden’s relationship with the Ukraine energy compamy Burisma Holdings during a Biden trip to Ukraine in December 2015.

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Utah Becomes First to Limit Teens’ Social Media Use with New Law

Admin

Utah passed legislation Thursday to require parental consent for children to use certain social media apps, becoming the first state in the country to limit teenagers’ social media usage.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed two bills into law that limits minors from using social media apps like TikTok, requiring parental consent for those under 18. Minors are prohibited from using these platforms between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., and are subjected to age verification prior to social media use.

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Republicans Andy Biggs, Ken Buck, and Matt Gaetz Explain Why They Voted Against Parents Bill of Rights Act: ‘The Federal Government Should Not Be Involved in Education’

Susan Berry, PhD

The U.S. House passed the Parents Bill of Rights Act Friday, with most House Republicans voting in favor of the bill that would require school districts to give parents access to their children’s curricula and reading lists, to inform parents of any violence occurring on campus, and to notify parents if their child is sharing a bathroom or locker room with a student of the opposite biological sex.

The measure passed by a vote of 213-208, with five Republicans voting no. Representatives Mike Lawler (R-NY-17); Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05); Matt Gaetz (R-FL-01); Ken Buck (R-CO-04); and Matt Rosendale (R-MT-02) all voted against the legislation.

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House Passes Legislation to Give Parents More Say in Their Kids’ Education

Admin

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a piece of legislation on Friday aimed at giving parents more of a say in school curriculum and more control in their children’s education.

In a 213 – 208 vote, the House approved the Parents Bill of Rights, which would require school districts to annually post their curriculum online, allowing parents to review the materials. The bill, considered the “Politics over Parents Act” by Democratic politicians, moves to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is unlikely to pass.

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LGBT Activists, Parents Sue Florida over Gender Transition Ban for Kids

Admin

Four families backed by multiple LGBT activist groups filed a federal lawsuit against Florida on Thursday, challenging its new rule banning gender transition procedures for minors.

The ban, which took effect on March 16, prohibits minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures, puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Four parents, along with several LGBT and left-wing activist groups, filed the lawsuit against Florida’s Surgeon General Thursday on behalf of their children who they claim are transgender, arguing the ban is a violation of parents’ rights to “make medical decisions to ensure the health and wellbeing of their adolescent children,” according to the complaint.

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Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s Questionable ‘Friends’ the Liberal Media Seem to Have Forgotten About

M.D. Kittle

The liberal media are hitting Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly hard for campaigning with a conservative activist who was “on the grounds” of the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riots. But Kelly’s opponent, far left Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, has some interesting “friends” of her own. 

Protasiewicz was photographed smiling next to Brett Blomme, the former Milwaukee County Children’s Court judge now serving nine years in prison for distributing child pornography. 

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Pennsylvania Court Dismisses GOP Lawsuit Against Ballot ‘Curing’ Policies

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court on Thursday dismissed a Republican Party lawsuit seeking to prevent counties from “curing” mail-in ballots that contain mistakes. 

The GOP national and state committees who sued insisted state law does not outline procedures for local election boards to inform absentee voters they made mistakes filling out their vote envelopes or to let those voters fix their errors. In recent elections, various counties did so anyway, prompting Republicans to object that the rules aren’t being followed in certain jurisdictions across the commonwealth.

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Bill Passed Through Arizona Senate Aims to Provide Greater Protections to Children with Disabilities

Neil Jones

A Senate bill (SB) from Arizona State Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson), which aims to provide better protections for children with disabilities and allow parents to retain custody without enduring lengthy and potentially expensive legal processes, passed through the Senate Tuesday.

“This is a human bill, not a partisan bill, and something needs to be done to address this gross abuse of power. It’s time to put the onus of the process in the hands of the one state agency intimately involved in the parents’ and children’s lives, DDD [Division of Developmental Disabilities],” Wadsack said in a statement released Monday promoting the bill.

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Commentary: Parents’ Bill of Rights Is How Congress Can Help State School Reformers

Admin

The stunning success of conservative education reform across the country in the past few years is the result a moral fact: Parents are children’s primary educators. Until very recently, this was not disputed, let alone controversial.  

But lately, it has become clear that progressive elites who run teachers unions and school boards, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media no longer share this view. Their contempt for parents’ rights has fueled a long train of abuses, from racist curricula to a war on girls sports and bathrooms to darker episodes of criminal cover-ups and student grooming. 

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Virginia County Board Members Give Themselves Massive Raise amid Inflation, Tax Hikes, Cop Shortage

Just the News

The majority of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors formally voted to give members of the board salary increases of up to 38%, while residents of the county, located just outside of Washington, D.C., grapple with rising real estate and vehicle personal property tax assessments, resulting in higher tax bills.

The county is also dealing with a shortage of about 200 police officers in the midst of a crime surge. According to WJLA, a Washington, D.C. area local ABC station, there has been an increase of major crime incidents throughout the county. 

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Connecticut Weighs Bipartisan Plan to Move Presidential Primary

The Center Square

A proposal to move Connecticut’s presidential primary date is being pushed by an unlikely alliance between leaders of the state’s two largest political parties.

The legislation, if approved, would change the state’s presidential primary date to the first Tuesday in April, which in the next nominating cycle would be April 2, 2024. Under the current law, the primary is held on the last Tuesday, which would be April 30, 2024 in the next cycle.

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Cuyahoga County GOP Takes Action Against 22 Republicans Who Voted for Speaker Stephens

Hannah Poling

On Thursday, the Cuyahoga County Republican Party censured state Representative Tom Patton (R-Strongsville) for voting in favor of newly elected House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill).

The Cuyahoga County Republican Party Disciplinary Committee previously recommended that Patton be censured for disregarding his obligation to the party and public by voting for Stephens.

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Ohio Republican State Senators Move Closer to Putting Constitution Protections on the August Ballot

Hannah Poling

Republican state lawmakers are getting closer to putting a measure on the ballot in August that would need 60 percent of voters to approve constitutional amendments.

State Senators Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) and Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) introduced two pieces of legislation on Wednesday one which aims to alter the process of how constitutional amendments can be proposed by initiative petitions and one to allow for special elections to be held in August for certain purposes.

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Ohio GOP Chairman Discusses Vision for State to Bring ‘Strong Conservative’ Leaders to Washington

Hannah Poling

Alex Triantafilou, the newly elected head of the Ohio Republican Party, stopped in Hillsboro for the Highland County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner on Wednesday to discuss his positive vision for the Ohio Republican Party moving forwards.

According to Triantafilou, one of his primary focuses for the party is removing U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and President Joe Biden from office.

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Huge Proportion of ‘Trans’ Adults Haven’t Medically Transitioned, Survey Finds

Admin

A recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey purporting to find that transitioning made life more satisfying for transgender adults additionally found that a huge proportion of sampled transgender people had not undergone any form of medical transition.

Most — not all — of the transgender participants had socially transitioned, but fewer than one third had ever undergone puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and only one in six had undergone any type of surgery to present as the opposite sex, according to the survey. Additionally, the survey’s definition of transgender included many individuals who didn’t identify as either gender, and most transgender respondents didn’t consistently present as the opposite sex, the survey found.

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Border Patrol Busts Stash House Full of Illegal Migrants in Northern Border State

Admin

Border Patrol agents in Maine busted a stash house full of illegal migrants Tuesday, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statement.

Authorities found 17 illegal migrants from Nicaragua and Guatemala in a house located in Lisbon, Maine, according to CBP. The incident comes amid a surge in illegal migration at the northern border, where Border Patrol apprehended more than 2,800 illegal migrants between October 2022 and February 2023, according to agency data.

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Commentary: DeSantis Staff Need Not Apply for the Trump Campaign

RealClearWire

As Ron DeSantis emerges as a prospective rival for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump’s campaign has put word out that anyone who works for the Florida governor will be blackballed.

According to sources with direct knowledge of the edict, Justin Caporale, who helps lead the advance team for the former president, has said that anyone who staffed a recent DeSantis book tour will be considered “persona non grata.” A top Trump ally was more comprehensive, telling RealClearPolitics that the prohibition would apply to more than just the junior aides tasked with setting up folding chairs and hanging banners.

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