Court Rejects Massachusetts Middle-Schooler’s Free Speech Request to Wear ‘Two Genders’ Shirt at School

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston denied 12-year-old Liam Morrison’s request this week for a temporary injunction or restraining order to block his school from prohibiting expression of his view that “there are only two genders” before the court issues its final decision. “MFI [Massachusetts Family Institute] recently filed suit to vindicate the rights of this brave Middleborough 7th-grader to wear a shirt to school that simply stated ‘There Are Only Two Genders,’” the pro-family organization said in a press statement sent to The Star News Network. “After being censored by his school, Liam’s case went viral. MFI has partnered with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to file a federal lawsuit against the school.”

Read the full story

Republican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Lays Out Peace Deal to End War In Ukraine, Sever Russia’s Partnership with China

Speaking at a campaign event Friday in New Hampshire, Ohio businessman and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy laid out his plan for peace in Ukraine by opening up Russia. The 37-year-old political outsider, who has often said political leaders need to “think on the timescales of history, not on two-year election cycles,” believes a Nixon approach to Russia would curtail the looming threat of communist China.

Read the full story

Comer Wins: FBI Relents, Agrees to Deliver Subpoenaed Memo Alleging Biden Bribery to Capitol

Facing a potential contempt of Congress vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray relented and has agreed to bring a subpoenaed document from the Biden family investigation to Capitol Hill for lawmakers to inspect on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Friday. The document in question, an FD-1023, contains uncorroborated allegations that an informant provided the FBI in June 2020 alleging that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, was engaged in a bribery scheme to change US policy in return for $5 million to his family’s businesses, lawmakers have said.

Read the full story

Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s Term in Office Officially Concludes

June 1st officially marked the end of Penny Schwinn’s tenure as the top education official in Tennessee. Schwinn submitted her resignation on May 1st but gave the state 30 days’ notice before making it official.

Long-time Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) employee Sam Pearcy will assume the reins for the next 30 days. At that time, Governor Bill Lee’s appointed successor, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds, officially begins her term.

Read the full story

Nashville SC Owner Against Neighboring Fairgrounds Speedway Rebuild Proposal

The owner of fellow Nashville Fairgrounds tenant Nashville SC spoke out in a letter to Nashville’s Metro Council against a deal to rebuild the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway with a 30,000-seat grandstand.

The speedway deal, expected to cost taxpayers $120 million and first be discussed by the council in July, would include $86 million in Nashville Sports Authority bonds and $34 million combined from Tennessee and Nashville’s Convention and Visitors Corporation. The Nashville CVC funds come from a Davidson County hotel tax surplus.

Read the full story

National Archives Refuses to Hand Over Emails Between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s Staff

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) refuses to hand over requested communications between Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden’s staff.

Just The News reports that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by America First Legal (AFL) has been rejected by NARA, which is claiming an exemption that allegedly includes communications between the president and his advisors, as well as communications between advisors.

Read the full story

University of Colorado Boulder Website Declares Misgendering an ‘Act of Violence’

In his report Wednesday that the University of Colorado (CU Boulder) is facing backlash for a statement on its “Pride Office” website that claims misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence,” legal scholar Jonathan Turley observed that when schools declare opposing views to be “violence,” they allow professors and students to “rationalize their own acts of violence or censorship.”

Read the full story

Biden Admin Will Admit Thousands More Migrants Each Month Through Phone App

The Biden administration will expand its program to legalize migrants to accept roughly 40,000 per month starting in June, according to CBS News.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will continue to evaluate expanding the program, according to CBS News. Between January, when the program launched, and April, more than 79,000 migrants have scheduled appointments using CBP One, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Read the full story

Biden’s ‘Equity’ Panel Pushes Woke Farm Policy

The Agriculture Department’s new Equity Commission is seeking the public’s comments after its interim report called for more diversity on related county boards as part of “closing the racial wealth gap and addressing longstanding inequities in agriculture.”

Members of USDA’s 15-member Equity Commission, which was established in February 2022, include NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who recently flagged the state’s policies in issuing a travel warning for Florida, where agriculture is a major industry. 

Read the full story

Commentary: The FDA Must Partner with State AGs to Crack Down on Illegal Vapes and Keep Kids Safe

Millions of kids and teens in America are falling victim to an insidious campaign to get them hooked on illegal, disposable vapes that are made in China and intentionally marketed in youth-enticing flavors.

After years of inaction, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally said it will make compliance and enforcement against these products a priority. FDA’s decision to start taking action to stop the rising tide of illegal disposable vapes in youth-enticing flavors that are flooding our country from China is an important step forward but letters won’t be enough to get these products off our shelves.

Read the full story

Commentary: Boycotts Aren’t Enough

Department store superchain Target has lost over $10 billion in value since conservatives across the U.S. started boycotting the woke corporation for pushing “pride” merchandise on children, including pro-trans “tucking” and binding” clothes designed for toddlers. This follows Anheuser-Busch’s reaching a six-month low after consumers started boycotting Bud Light, which the beer manufacturing giant decided to brand with the face of biological male Dylan Mulvaney, who now dresses and acts as a grotesque caricature of a woman. Although these are, from an authentic conservative perspective, positive results, boycotts aren’t enough.

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Senate Bill Would Reprioritize In-Person Votes

Two Pennsylvania state senators told colleagues this week they are drafting a measure to count in-person ballots rather than absentee ballots in instances when someone uses both methods to vote. 

Before Act 77, a 2019 law letting Pennsylvanians vote by mail without an excuse like illness or travel, those who submitted absentee ballots but became able to vote in person could do so while having their absentee ballots voided. The new law however directs election boards to let an absentee voter cast their vote in person using a provisional ballot; in cases when the mail-in ballot was received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, the earlier mail-in ballot, not the in-person one, is recorded.

Read the full story

Report: Michigan Cut Its Rape Kit Backlog 95 Percent in Past Five Years

From 2018 to 2022, Michigan reduced by 95% the number of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits held by law enforcement,

USAFacts released last week a state-by-state analysis of rape kits backlogs. Researchers filed public records requests with each state, asking them to provide rape kit backlog data between 2018 and 2022. Thirty states and Washington D.C. provided data.

Read the full story

Finnish Company Picks Ware County for First U.S. Manufacturing Facility

A company specializing in industrialized manufacturing of buildings and homes plans to build its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Ware County.

ADMARES, which is from Turku, Finland, is relocating its headquarters to the U.S. and plans to create more than 1,400 jobs. According to a news release, the company intends to invest $750 million in its Waycross facility — a 2.5-million-square-foot build-to-suit facility — and has selected a greenfield site on Highway 23 in Waycross.

Read the full story

Norfolk Southern Donates Historic East Palestine Train Depot to Village

Norfolk Southern Railway announced that it intends to renovate and donate its historic East Palestine train depot as part of the railroad’s response following the catastrophic train derailment earlier this year.

Norfolk Southern said it will restore and upgrade the exterior of the building. The railway giant will turn the interior into a blank space so the community may shape the future development of this property according to its own vision. To help the village continue to improve the facility, Norfolk Southern will donate $100,000.

Read the full story

Judge Orders Preliminary Injunction Against Biden’s ATF in Key Second Amendment Case

A Milwaukee-based public interest law firm has won a key victory in a Second Amendment battle. 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty on Wednesday secured a preliminary injunction in federal court on behalf of three veterans challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ rule regulating up to 40 million pistols equipped with stabilizing braces. 

Read the full story

Trump’s Message to Iowa Voters on Latest Campaign Trip: ‘We Have to Win. It’s Not a Game’

Former President Donald Trump stormed back into Iowa Thursday with an urgent message for voters in the kickoff caucus state: I’m here to win. 

The frontrunner Republican — by far — in the Republican presidential nomination chase made several campaign stops in the Des Moines metropolitan area. But this latest swing through Iowa found Trump eschewing his usual massive campaign rallies for more intimate venues with smaller crowds, perhaps recognition that winning in the first-in-the-nation caucus state will require the kind of face-to-face retail politics Iowans have grown accustomed to. 

Read the full story

Florida Poll Has Trump and DeSantis Tied, but Questions Remain About Polling Data

A new poll shows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis statistically tied with former President Donald Trump in the Sunshine State’s presidential primary race, a reversal of fortune for DeSantis from a few months ago. 

But Fort Meyers, Florida-based pollster Victory Insights has provided no topline or key demographic background data on the poll, raising more questions about surveys used to power a narrative that DeSantis is more electable than Trump.

Read the full story

DFL Party Bans Minneapolis City Council Candidate After Endorsing Convention Melee

The DFL has officially banned a Minneapolis City Council candidate from seeking future endorsement from the political party, two weeks after his supporters were allegedly involved in starting a melee that broke out at a local endorsing convention.

On Tuesday evening, longtime DFL Party Chair Ken Martin released a statement announcing the organization had utilized a pair of newly-approved bylaws that allowed its state central committee to ban Nasri Warsame, a Minneapolis resident, from “seeking the DFL Party endorsement for any office.”

Read the full story

No Word Yet from Pennsylvania State University on FIRE’s Freedom Concerns

The Pennsylvania State University has reportedly yet to answer a Philadelphia-based free-speech nonprofit’s request that the school confirms adherence to freedom of association.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) asked Penn State to do so after a brief disagreement this spring between administrators and the College Independents. This student group hosts political discussions featuring “a wide variety of viewpoints.” 

Read the full story

State Senate Committee Turns Down Another Director Nomination from Katie Hobbs After Troubling Meeting

The Senate Committee on Director Nominations (DINO) met again on Wednesday to vet Governor Katie Hobbs’s (D) choice to be the director of Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC), Martín Quezada.

According to his testimony before the committee, Quezada graduated from law school, served under the Arizona Court of Appeals, started a solo law practice, and then, most notably, served as a Democrat legislator in both the House and the Senate until this year. After leaving the Legislature, he applied for the director position, and Hobbs offered him the job, which he said has thus far been an enjoyable experience.

Read the full story

Ohio Senate Unanimously Passes Legislation Removing Hundreds of Pages from the Ohio Revised Code

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed legislation that removes hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code, increasing efficiency at the state level.

Senate Bill (SB) 74, sponsored by State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green), contains over 100 individual changes to the Ohio Revised Code, most impacting government-to-government interactions. The bill eliminates 64 code sections, cutting hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code.

Senate Bill (SB) 74 sponsored by State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) contains over 100 individual changes to the Ohio Revised Code with the vast majority of these changes impacting government-to-government interactions. The bill eliminates 64 code sections altogether, cutting hundreds of pages from the Ohio Revised Code. 

Read the full story

Ohio Republican Party Pushes Back Against Newspaper Editorial for Disrespecting Lawmakers and Ignoring the Value of State Issue 1

The Ohio Republican Party is pushing back against a “repugnant perversion” of Ohio State Issue 1 recently published in The Columbus Dispatch.

Issue 1, if approved by voters, would mandate a 60 percent approval percentage for any future constitutional amendments, call for signatures from all 88 counties, and do away with the opportunity to “cure” petitions by collecting additional signatures if necessary.

Read the full story

Bill Sent to Katie Hobbs’ Desk to Prevent Lewd Videos from Being Created on Government Property

Senate Bill (SB) 1696, sponsored by state Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), has arrived at Governor Katie Hobbs’s (D) desk and is awaiting a final decision.

Should this bill become law, it would prohibit any state entity, including any agencies, political subdivisions, cities and towns, or any state contractors, from exposing minors to sexually explicit materials. Furthermore, it prohibits the use of state facilities or property from being used to film explicit acts, such as filming pornography. Any violation of this bill would result in a class 5 felony.

Read the full story

Mother Sues After Trans Student Allegedly Assaults Daughter in School Bathroom

A mother is suing the Edmond School District in Oklahoma after a male student who identifies as transgender used the girls’ bathroom at school and allegedly attacked her daughter, according to the lawsuit.

A 17-year-old male allegedly entered the girls’ bathroom and “severely” attacked and beat the 15-year-old girl at approximately 7:15 a.m. on Oct. 26, according to the lawsuit filed on May 25. The school knew that the male student was biologically male, had made repeated threats of violence against the girl and routinely used the girls’ bathrooms in violation of a state law that requires students to use bathrooms aligned with their sex, the lawsuit alleges.

Read the full story

Liz Warren, JD Vance Join Forces to Punish Execs of Failed Banks

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance are uniting to introduce legislation announced Thursday to reduce the risks of large bank failures.

The Failed Bank Executives Clawback Act would propose harsher penalties for failed bank executives, which serves as a bipartisan response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in early March, according to Warren’s office. The proposed legislation would require the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to recover some or all of executive payments from the three years prior to their bank’s failure, covering larger banks with more than $10 billion in assets.

Read the full story