Day: June 25, 2023

Trump Says Liberals Are ‘Waging War on Faith and Freedom’ as 2024 Hopefuls Woo Evangelicals

Just the News

The annual Faith and Freedom forum – considered the country’s largest public policy gathering of Christian conservative activists – concluded Saturday evening with a keynote speech from front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in which he spoke passionately to a key part of a coalition he must rebuild to win the GOP nomination.

But Trump, like the other top-tier 2024 GOP presidential candidates who spoke during the three-day event in Washington, D.C., faces a long road to Election Day in which the nominee will also have to win over independents, the undecideds and other voters for Republicans to retake the White House.

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First Week of Disbarment Trial of Trump Attorney John Eastman by Judge Who Contributes to Democrats Concludes

Rachel Alexander

The first week of the disbarment hearing of Trump attorney John Eastman concluded on Friday, with State Bar of California (SBC) attorneys putting Eastman on the witness stand again along with Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Waschin. The SBC continued to try and show that Eastman provided bad advice to President Donald Trump by telling him that one option for handling election fraud in the 2020 election would be to have Vice President Mike Pence reject certification of electoral votes from the disputed states.

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‘Gone with the Wind’ Features Trigger Warning About ‘Harmful Phrases’ and Racism in New Edition

Just the News

The publisher of “Gone with the Wind” added a warning in the front of a new edition to advise readers that author Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic contains “racist” elements and “hurtful or indeed harmful phrases.”

“Gone with the Wind is a novel which includes problematic elements including the romanticisation of a shocking era in our history and the horrors of slavery,” the book’s publisher, Pan Macmillian, wrote in the opening page of the 2022 edition, The Telegraph reported Saturday.

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Commentary: Religious Conviction in Woke Sports

RealClearWire

When the University of Oklahoma softball team showed up for the College World Series last week, reporters expected to hear pride and camaraderie from a squad on the way to winning its third consecutive national championship.  

But several star Sooners players startled the press and went viral online by declaring that their joy in Christianity trumped their considerable athletic accomplishments.  

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$114 Million Knoxville Baseball Stadium, to Open in 2025, Relies on Tax Capture Funding

The Center Square

Starting in 2025, the Tennessee Smokies Minor League Baseball Team will have a new $114 million home in East Knoxville.

After a $65 million publicly backed bond sale in late May, the team held a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site last week to discuss the 7,000-seat stadium, touting numbers from Convention, Sports and Leisure International, which claim the stadium will have a positive economic impact for Knoxville residents.

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Feds Built Case Hunter Biden Evaded $2.2 Million in Taxes Dating to 2014 Before Being Thwarted

Just the News

If Hunter Biden pleads guilty next month as expected to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges, he’ll be admitting he shorted the U.S. government of about $100,000 in taxes he owed in 2017-18.

But it’s a far cry from the evidence the IRS and FBI developed showing a pattern of tax evasion and avoidance that stretched back to his father’s term as vice president a decade ago, according to newly released documents and testimony.

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3M Settles Water Contamination Lawsuits with $10.3 Billion Payout

Just the News

Chemical manufacturing company 3M agreed to settle multiple lawsuits with a $10.3 billion payout over the U.S. water supply being allegedly contaminated with “forever chemicals” contained in firefighting foam and other products, the company announced in a press release on Thursday. 

Under the settlement, 3M will provide the payout over a 13-year period to both public water suppliers that have found traces of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other suppliers that “may detect PFAS at any level in the future.” The company did not admit liability in the settlement. 

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Judge Blocks Wyoming Abortion Pill Ban, Pending Lawsuit

Just the News

A Wyoming judge has temporarily blocked the state’s ban on abortion pills, pending legal arguments.

The state is the only one to have specifically banned abortion pills, though numerous others have effectively done so by banning abortion almost entirely, the Associated Press reported. Wyoming law generally bans the procedure, though that law is also the subject of a judicial block from the same judge.

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Disney’s First Movie with a Non-Binary Character Becomes Pixar’s Worst-Ever Opening Weekend

Just the News

Disney’s film “Elemental,” which features Pixar’s first “non-binary character,” had the worst box office opening weekend in the studio’s history, bringing in just $29.5 million in domestic ticket sales over the three-day Juneteenth weekend.

With a $200 million budget, “Elemental” is set in a fictional town known as Element City, where fire, water, land and air live and work together. The younger sibling of the water element is known as Lake, who is non-binary and voiced by Kai Ava Hauser, who is also non-binary.

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Tennessee Department of Education Announces New State Chief Academic Officer

TC Weber

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) announced Jackson County Superintendent Kristy Brown as the state’s new chief academic officer. Brown replaces former Deputy Secretary Eve Carney. who recently tendered her resignation effective July 1.

The announcement comes just a week before Lizzette Gonzales Reynolds is slated to assume the role of Tennessee’s new Commissioner of Education at the beginning of July. Reynolds replaces Penny Schwinn, who resigned on June 1.

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Connecticut Attorney General Probes Theft-Prone Vehicles

The Center Square

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has launched a consumer protection investigation into automakers Hyundai and Kia after hundreds of the vehicles have been stolen across the country.

As part of the investigation, announced on Wednesday, Tong seeks records and information on certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles sold in Connecticut, including complaints, internal reports on the company’s decision-making, and anti-theft software and internal communications.

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Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Legislation Increasing Penalties for Reckless Driving

Hannah Poling

Two Republican Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill into the Ohio House of Representatives that aims to increase penalties for reckless driving.

House Bill (HB) 56 sponsored by State Representatives Andrea White (R-Kettering) and Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) aims to stop reckless driving also known as “hooning” from creating dangerous conditions on Ohio roads.

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Minnesota AG Hints at Using His AG Powers to Ensure Target Keeps Pride Merch on Shelves

Admin

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has co-authored a letter to the CEO of Target that suggests he would use the powers of his office to ensure that Target is not intimidated into “pulling some Pride merchandise from stores.”

In a June 20 letter Ellison and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell wrote to Brian Cornell, chairman and CEO the Minneapolis-based retail titan, they expressed concern over Target’s “choice to pull Pride merchandise,” which Ellison and Campbell said “demonstrates that intentional violence and intimidation can set back the march for social progress and LGBTQIA+ equality which as we have noted is already under intense attack nationwide.”

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Michigan House Approves Tax Changes for Prepared Foods

The Center Square

The Democrat-dominated Michigan House passed two sales and use tax bills critics say are unnecessary and will confuse business owners.

House Bills 4377 and 4378 passed on votes of 56-53. The bills cover prepared food either sold in a heated state or heated by the seller or that is two or more food ingredients that are mixed or combined by the seller for sale as a single item.

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Virginia Looking to Spend COVID Relief Child Care Funds

The Center Square

Virginia has received more than $1 billion in COVID-19 relief funding for its child care sector since the beginning of the pandemic, and it continues to appropriate those funds as the deadline to disburse more than $763 million approaches.

The federal government apportioned $52.5 billion to the child care industry in three pandemic relief packages, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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New Florida Law Will Prohibit Direct-to-Consumer Auto Sales

The Center Square

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last week that will expand prohibitions on direct-to-consumer auto sales in Florida while exempting electric car manufacturers such as Tesla.

House Bill 637, sponsored by state Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Port St. Joe, prohibits legacy automakers from offering online sales or direct-to-consumer options if the licensee has existing dealerships that sell its vehicles in the Sunshine State.

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Pennsylvania Lawmakers Question If the State Should Be a Sanctuary State

The Center Square

by Lauren Jessop   To be, or not to be, a sanctuary state – that is the question Pennsylvania lawmakers will attempt to answer as they seek support for two diametrically opposed House bills. A Democrat-sponsored version would limit local police assistance with immigration enforcement. A Republican-sponsored bill, in contrast, wants to prevent local governments from designating themselves as “sanctuary.” The common thread between the two is safer communities; one side claims sanctuary policies make them safer, and the other says they threaten the safety of legal citizens. Rep. Jose Giral, D-Philadelphia, is reintroducing legislation from a previous session that would prohibit police from spending resources on immigration enforcement and state postsecondary educational institutions from “enacting or enforcing discriminatory immigration enforcement policies.” In a memo, Giral (pictured above, left) said, “forcing local police agencies to devote resources to immigration enforcement simultaneously makes it harder for them to investigate crimes and wastes taxpayer money.” Giral’s office did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment. Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Connellsville, wants to prevent local governments from enacting sanctuary polices. Warner (pictured above, right) told The Center Square he believes encouraging illegal immigration is dangerous, irresponsible, and insulting to those who entered the country legally. “It…

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SCOTUS Holds Law Making It Illegal to ‘Encourage or Induce’ Illegal Immigration Does Not Violate First Amendment

Admin

The Supreme Court upheld a law that makes it a crime to “encourage or induce” illegal immigration, rejecting the argument that it violates the First Amendment.

The case, United States v. Hansen, stems from Helaman Hansen’s 2017 conviction for running a program advertising a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants through “adult adoption,” which earned him more $1.8 million between 2012 and 2016. Though it affirmed Hansen’s convictions on mail and wire fraud charges, the Ninth Circuit held that the law behind his two counts of encouraging or inducing non-citizens to reside in the United States for financial gain was “overbroad and unconstitutional,” covering “a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment.”

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Commentary: For the Love of English, Stop Changing Definitions

Admin

There has long been a debate in linguistics about how to approach language and how language should be used by native speakers. The two traditional schools of thought are prescriptivists and descriptivists. The former are concerned with establishing norms for language and formulating rules and proper ways of using said language. On the other hand, the latter believe that a given language should be understood by how it is used, without establishing certain rules and parameters.

It seems that the English language today, at least in America, is in the throes of taking the descriptivist position to the extreme. We are now seeing a concerted effort to overturn the traditional definitions of words and terms in order to push certain political and social agendas.

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JPMorgan Accused of Deleting Millions of Emails in the Midst of Ongoing Investigations

Just the News

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials earlier this week fined JPMorgan Chase $4 million after the company allegedly deleted roughly 47 million emails while in the midst of security investigations.

The settlement order states that the messages were allegedly deleted from about 8,700 mailboxes that belonged to about 7,500 employees who had regular contact with Chase customers.

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Illegal Border Crossers Since 2021 Total More than Individual Populations of 38 States

The Center Square

The number of illegal border crossings at the northern and southern borders and all ports of entry since January 2021 totals more than 8 million people, greater than the individual populations of 38 U.S. states.

Put another way, the number of foreign nationals from all over the world believed to be primarily illegally entering the U.S. is comparable to the populations of eight Delawares, four New Mexicos, two Oklahomas or more than 13 Wyomings.

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