Month: May 2023

Minneapolis Residents Plan ‘Pilgrimage’ to George Floyd Square

Admin

Two Minneapolis neighborhood organizations are inviting residents to participate in a “pilgrimage to George Floyd Square” along with a visit to the nearby “Say Their Names” cemetery.

George Floyd Square is the name given to 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the intersection where Floyd died in May 2020. The intersection, officially recognized as “George Perry Floyd Square” by the city of Minneapolis last year, is revered by left-wing activists as a “sacred space” where baptisms and even “miracles” have taken place.

Read the full story

DeSantis Signs Bill Blocking Chinese Property Ownership Near Military Installations

Admin

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday a bill that would block Chinese ownership of agricultural land and property near military installations, the latest state to crack down on Communist Party control of U.S. sites.

The law prohibits anyone from China and other totalitarian regimes, including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba and North Korea, from having a stake in any property within 10 miles of Department of Defense installations or critical infrastructure. A separate bill, also signed into law Monday, creates additional hurdles for foreign ownership of private schools after federal lawmakers raised red flags over Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ties to a private Florida high school operating a military pre-enlistment program.

Read the full story

Law Enforcers in Philadelphia Suburbs Blame Krasner’s Performance on Spreading Crime

Bradley Vasoli

In Delaware County on Monday, law-enforcement experts asked Pennsylvania GOP state lawmakers to consider a variety of responses to the state’s crime epidemic… and to one left-wing official’s lack of urgency about it. 

Speakers suggested various ideas like increased resources for detention facilities and youth courts. Over the course of the hearing, numerous testifiers complained that the leniency of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) remains a major hindrance to public safety in the City of Brotherly Love and nearby communities.

Read the full story

Ohio Marijuana Legalization Advocates Begin Collecting Signatures to Place Issue on November Ballot

Hannah Poling

An activist-led petition for marijuana legalization in Ohio could be on the November ballot now that state lawmakers have declined to evaluate the change.

The 34-page bill proposed by The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol aimed to impose a 10 percent tax on the sale of all cannabis products and legalize the possession, purchase, and sale of marijuana by Ohio residents aged 21 and older.

Read the full story

Ohio to Award Nearly $500,000 to Boost Law Enforcement Recruitment

Hannah Poling

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and his Department of Safety Director Andy Wilson have announced that the state of Ohio is awarding nearly $500,000 in funding to law enforcement agencies throughout the state to help aid in the recruitment of new officers.

31 law enforcement agencies in 21 counties will receive the grant funding totaling $445,449 as part of the second round of funding offered as part of the new Ohio Law Enforcement Recruitment Grant Program. The program was created by Gov. DeWine in 2020 to enable police departments throughout Ohio to focus on recruiting efforts.

Read the full story

New Law Blocks Nashville’s Supermajority Requirement for Speedway Demolition

The Center Square

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed a bill to block Metro Nashville’s requirement for a council supermajority vote on demolition at the Fairgrounds Speedway.

Nashville’s council is expected to soon hear a proposal on Bristol Motor Speedway rebuilding the grandstand and track at the Fairgrounds Speedway in order to bring a NASCAR race back to the fairgrounds.

Read the full story

Shapiro Takes Property Tax and Rent Rebate Plan on the Road

The Center Square

Gov. Josh Shapiro visited Erie recently to highlight his plan to grow the state’s property tax and rent rebate program for the first time in nearly two decades.

It’s the most recent stop in an unofficial statewide budget tour touting many of the administration’s key spending proposals meant to build the workforce and, by extension, a bank account flush enough to keep Pennsylvania from falling off a “demographic cliff.” 

Read the full story

Republican State Representative Applauds Increased Access to Childcare Coming to Arizona

Neil Jones

Arizona State Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix) released a statement Friday applauding the new executive rulemaking from Governor Katie Hobbs (D) that aims to increase access to childcare services in the state.

“This policy is designed to expand opportunities for Arizona’s working families and provide more options for their children when they are not in school,” Gress said. “Given the lack of providers for school-age children, it is crucial that we increase the supply of childcare centers to better serve our communities. For parents that qualify for federal subsidy, this effort will help ensure that parents can continue to work and provide for their families. I applaud the Governor for taking action on this important issue.”

Read the full story

Ballot Signature Matching System in Maricopa County Is ‘Almost Illegal,’ Says Longtime FBI Expert

Just the News

As Kari Lake’s lawsuit returns to the trial court for consideration of alleged violations of Maricopa County’s signature verification rules in the Arizona 2022 general election, a retired FBI counterintelligence agent with longtime expertise in signature analysis says that matching ballot signatures with little time to review is “almost illegal.”

If election workers have a limited amount of time to review signatures on early ballots to ensure they match with voters’ files, it’s “almost illegal to have it work that way,” said retired FBI Special Agent Wayne A. Barnes, adding, “almost pathetic.”

Read the full story

School District Pays Thousands for Controversial Emotional Survey Program with Ties to Merrick Garland

Admin

A Massachusetts school district has spent more than $30,000 to conduct “social-emotional learning” (SEL) surveys on students and staff led by an educational organization founded by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law, according to a public records request by Parents Defending Education (PDE), a parental rights in education group.

From 2018 to 2023, Old Rochester Regional School District spent $30,620.25 to partner with Panorama Education through January 2024 to conduct SEL surveys and trainings, a learning concept that has been accused of laying the foundation for Critical Race Theory (CRT), according to a public records obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Panorama Education has previously come under fire by parents for its connections to Garland, who directed the FBI in 2021 to “use its authority” on parents who protested at school board meetings.

Read the full story

DHS ‘Bystander’ Training Singles out Pro-Lifers, Government Critics as ‘Radicalization’ Suspects

Just the News

Nine days after President Biden’s inauguration, a Department of Homeland Security office proposed creating several “Choose Your Own Adventure” videos to show Americans how to identify and mitigate “radicalization and potential violence.”

Among the Americans that worry the sprawling bureaucracy created in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: middle-aged pro-life women, white men who question the government, and divorced mothers who suspect “government connections to child abuse and trafficking.”

Read the full story

U.S. Crude Oil Production Approaches Pre-Pandemic Levels

The Center Square

For the first two months of 2023, production of crude oil in the U.S. neared pre-COVID levels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The production of crude oil in the U.S. in January and February was the most since March 2020 when the pandemic hit.

The U.S. produced 12.54 million barrels of crude oil per day in January and 12.48 million barrels per day in February. That represented the highest levels since 12.80 million barrels per day in March 2020.

Read the full story

U.S. Air Force Abandoned a Social Experiment Designed to Graduate More Minority Pilots: Report

Admin

The U.S. Air Force abandoned an experiment aimed at boosting pilot training graduation rates for women and minority pilots after the 2021 initiative failed to achieve the intended results and officers privately warned it could violate anti-discrimination policies, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As part of the larger military-wide effort to promote diversity in the service’s pilot ranks, the 19th Air Force command near San Antonio, Texas, “clustered” racial minorities and female trainees into one class, dubbed “America’s Class,” to find out if doing so would improve the pilots’ graduation rates. However, not only did the effort fail to boost minority and women candidates’ success rates, but officers involved say they were ordered to engage in potentially unlawful discrimination by excluding white males from the class, documents show.

Read the full story

Texas DPS: Illegal Alien Apprehensions Reach Rate of 9,000 Per Day

Admin

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) recently claimed that the ongoing mass migration crisis has led to a daily rate of at least 9,000 apprehensions along the southern border.

Breitbart reports that DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez confirmed the claims, saying that the previous two days have seen over 9,000 such apprehensions of illegal aliens. These numbers surpass the previous highest daily rate in the month of December, which saw approximately 7,200 arrests per day.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Biden Admin Doesn’t Care About Creating Jobs – They Even Say So

Admin

Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the quiet part out loud last week. As the executive of our public lands agency, she does not believe that Americans need jobs because there are already so many jobs available. It’s better to lock up land, and lock down mining because who wants those jobs, when there are so many others?

Before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Haaland told Sen. Josh Hawley, “Senator, I know that there’s like 1.9 jobs for every American in the country right now. So, I know there’s a lot of jobs,” which was her explanation for canceling cobalt mining permits for Twin Metals Minnesota, an underground mine proposed for the northeastern part of the state. America won’t need those jobs, she was saying.

Read the full story

‘Do No Harm’ Questions East Tennessee State University DEI Office’s ‘Moon Shot for Equity’ Program After Signing of Higher Education Freedom of Expression and Transparency Act

Susan Berry, PhD

An organization of doctors, healthcare professionals, and policymakers attempting to protect health care from “radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” is questioning how East Tennessee State University (ETSU) will respond to the state’s new higher education transparency law that rolls back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements at publicly funded colleges, universities, and medical schools.

“ETSU is just continuing to double down on their DEI efforts,” Do No Harm’s Laura Morgan, MSN, RN, told The Tennessee Star in an interview, explaining that the school’s announced DEI program called “Moon Shot for Equity” is the “kind of program that House Bill 1376 and Senate Bill 817 is going to say you’ve got to get rid of because it’s pretty clear about not having courses or learning” related to DEI.

Read the full story

Texas Launches Probe into Children’s Medical Center for Potentially ‘Illegal’ Trans Procedures

Just the News

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is launching a probe into the Dell Children’s Medical Center, a non-profit hospital located in Austin, after a video surfaced showing staff at the facility allegedly saying that they are treating children who are transitioning genders as young as 8 years old.

Paxton issued a Request to Examine to the medical center on Friday to ensure the nonprofit complies with Texas law, which deems most gender transition treatments for minors as child abuse.

Read the full story

Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Transgender Ideology: Poll

Admin

A majority of Americans reject the idea that a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth, according to a poll conducted Nov. 10 – Dec. 1 by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Among adults, 57% believed gender was determined by sex at birth and 43% believed gender could be different from one’s sex at birth, the poll found. Respondents rejected other talking points promoted by transgender activists, widely opposing hormones for minors, participation in sports based on gender identity and teaching gender identity to young children.

Read the full story

New Study Identifies Eight Reforms that Took Florida’s Election Day from ‘Worst to First’

Just the News

Florida elections have come a long way since the “hanging chad” debacle of 2000. During the 2022 midterms, the state reported the results of all elections within two hours of polls closing, and a new report examines the election law changes that have been credited for the turnaround.

The 2000 presidential election between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore was decided by the 25 electoral votes from Florida, which didn’t announce its results until five weeks after Election Day.

Read the full story

Oprah Winfrey Laments ‘Death of Civility,’ Lauds ‘Two Justins’ in Woke TSU Commencement Speech

Tennessee Star Staff

Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey returned to her alma mater Saturday to deliver fiery, racially-charged commencement remarks to the graduating class of 2023.

Winfrey, who skyrocketed to fame and fortune with the success of her 90s-area television hit, The Oprah Winfrey Show, lamented to the audience that “you are the generation that is forced to depend on body cams to obtain justice;” “books are being banned, and history is being rewritten;” and that “children are being gunned down by military-grade assault rifles.”

Read the full story

DeSantis Signs Bill Nullifying Disney’s Last-Minute Agreements

Admin

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Friday to nullify Disney’s last-minute agreements intended to curb the governor’s state control board implemented to oversee the corporation’s special tax district.

Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District anticipated the governor’s signing of legislation to revoke the company’s self-governing privileges, and made eleventh-hour agreements granting Disney control of the district’s developmental rights and privileges. DeSantis signed the bill to nullify those agreements, as they were made within the three-month window that the state control board was enacted.

Read the full story

Bipartisan Ohio State Lawmakers Introduce Adoption Reform Legislation

Hannah Poling

A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill to modernize and streamline the adoption process across the state.

House Bill (HB) 5, known as The Adoption Modernization Act, sponsored by State Representatives Sharon Ray (R-Wadsworth) and Rachel Baker (D-Cincinnati), aims to provide financial support for expecting mothers, expedite kinship care, and clarify Ohio law to help streamline the adoption process.

Read the full story

Lawmakers Propose Reforms for Pennsylvania Budget Balance and Transparency

Bradley Vasoli

Several Republicans in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives are spearheading a package of proposed budgetary reforms to strengthen transparency and prevent fiscal imbalance. 

House Minority Appropriations Chair Seth Grove (R-York) announced the series of bills with Representatives James Struzzi (R-Indiana), Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg), Sheryl Delozier (R-Mechanicsburg) and John Lawrence (R-West Grove). The lawmakers suggested their proposals are needed to avert the budgetary problems that arose in Fiscal Year 2016-17. In that period, revenues to the state Treasury totaled $1.5 billion less than the forecast amount. 

Read the full story

Kemp Signs Georgia’s Fiscal 2024 Budget

The Center Square

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the state’s fiscal 2024 budget on Friday, saying it will help Georgia maintain its standing as “the best state for opportunity.”

“House Bill 19 funds our priorities and places our state on strong financial footing, keeping us on the road to economic growth even while policies coming out of Washington, DC, push the country closer to a recession,” Kemp, a Republican, said in remarks before the signing.

Read the full story

Some Arizona Taxpayers in Line for $30 Check from Intuit with TurboTax Settlement

The Center Square

Many Arizona taxpayers could have a roughly $30 settlement check in their mailbox as soon as next week following government legal action against TurboTax.

Nine other states, including New York, Tennessee, and Texas, all took part in a lawsuit against TurboTax’s parent company, Intuit, for what they say was deceptively getting people to pay for tax services that should have been free in the first place. However, all 50 states are part of the final agreement made between the states and the company, according to a statement. 

Read the full story

University President Apologizes for ‘Liking’ Tweets Criticizing COVID vaccine, Child Gender Surgery

Admin

The president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia recently issued an apology and walked back his apparent affirmation of tweets expressing conservative views.

“I regret my lack of understanding of how ‘liking’ a tweet is an implied endorsement,” President Mark Tykocinski, who is also a molecular immunologist and medical doctor, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Read the full story

Oberlin University Adds Risk Manager After Gibson’s Bakery and Other Lawsuits

Admin

Oberlin College’s record on lawsuits is so bad that it hired a new role this school year – a dedicated risk manager.

The college most famously paid out $36.6 million to local Gibson’s Bakery after its administrators were found complicit in damaging and false accusations of racism against the town staple. The damaging accusations of racism came after a bakery employee chased several black individuals who stole alcohol in November 2016 out of the store.

Read the full story

ATF Overstated Job Tasks to Overpay Workers, $20 Million Wasted on Overpayments, U.S. Special Counsel

Just the News

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives intentionally overstated the duties of multiple workers so they could be classified as law enforcement agents and be paid more, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel report this week.

Federal investigators say the agency has been making such overpayments since 2003. And over 100 jobs in the agency’s human Resources department and other departments were falsely labeled as criminal investigators, according to the Washington Times. 

Read the full story

State Voting Laws Banning Student IDs Won’t Tank the Youth Vote, Experts Say

Admin

State laws that prohibit students from using their school-issued IDs to vote are unlikely to suppress youth voter turnout, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

States including Idaho, Ohio and Georgia have laws on the books that limit what identification students can present to prove they are an eligible voter when at the polls. While critics of these laws argue that preventing student IDs from being used is a barrier to voting, several experts told the DCNF that there are other ways students can vote and that these laws likely will not have an overwhelming impact in preventing young voters from casting a ballot.

Read the full story

Trump Gaining Support of Minorities, both Trump and DeSantis Likely to Beat Biden in 2024: Poll

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump is gaining support from minorities and both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – the top two potential Republican candidates for 2024 –  are poised to beat President Joe Biden, spelling trouble for the president as he runs for reelection, according to a poll released Sunday.

Biden is losing support from black and Hispanic Americans as Trump is gaining, according to a Langer Research Associates poll produced for ABC News.

Read the full story