Lawmakers in the Ohio Senate have reinstated Governor Mike DeWine’s requirement for verified parental consent before children use social media in their version of the state budget.
DeWine included the Social Media Parental Notification Act in the executive budget for 2023-24, which he submitted to the Ohio General Assembly in February. In April, the House Finance Committee removed the proposal from the budget in favor of a potential separate bill.
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Kari Lake gave the keynote speech at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention last week after Mike Pence controversially withdrew. Multiple people complained after Pence was announced and after Lake was announced as the replacement, 900 purchased tickets, more than twice as many who bought them last year.
Lake’s speech focused on election fraud and the indictment of Donald Trump. “The two states that have been fighting the hardest to get our sacred vote are Arizona and the peach state of Georgia,” she opened. She thanked Pence for not showing up, “He’s the reason I’m here tonight.” She said when asked if she could fill his shoes, she responded, “I’m more than willing and able to fill Mike Pence’s shoes,” in a subtle reference to possibly being chosen to be Trump’s running mate in 2024 instead of Pence.
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There is no Berlin Wall or 38th Parallel separating Lyle, Minnesota, from Mona, Iowa, just 1.4 miles south along 1st Street, but the two towns are under governments with widely diverging visions. Iowa, once a “purple” state that leaned Democrat is now a “red” conservative state, while Minnesota, long a reliable Democrat state, has taken a radical, leftward turn. These neighbors exemplify the different visions for America that its citizens are likely to be offered in 2024.
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by Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH-02) “What are you doing to celebrate Flag Day?” It’s a question you probably won’t hear in the checkout line at the grocery store or around the dinner table with friends this week. That’s because, unlike other hallmark holidays of summertime—Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day—Flag Day isn’t always celebrated with grand gestures, gatherings, or parades. More often it passes by with perfunctory commemorations at best. At worst, it is all but forgotten. Yet it wasn’t meant to be that way. When Congress approved and President Harry Truman signed the national observance of Flag Day into law on June 14, 1949, it was for an important reason: “It is our custom to observe June 14 each year with ceremonies designed not only to commemorate the birth of our flag,” Truman said, “but also to rededicate ourselves to the ideals for which it stands. This beloved emblem, which flies above all our people of whatever creed or race, signalizes our respect for human rights and the protection such rights are afforded under our form of government.” Truman’s words cut right to the heart of this holiday. Our flag is far more than fabric stitched together in…
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As I continued writing my Music Spotlight column, a new name kept popping up: Anne Wilson. In 2022, Wilson won a Dove Award for Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year, “My Jesus.” She won Songwriter of the Year and New Artist of the Year. She also sang a duet with Hillary Scott which won Bluegrass/Country Roots Song of the Year, “Mamas.”
The reason I had never heard of her before is because Anne Wilson, who is 22, has only been singing for a few years.
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A Justice Department prosecutor who helped secure last week’s indictment of former President Donald Trump was publicly reprimanded by a judge in 2009 for “gross negligence” in connection with secretly taping a defense lawyer and an investigator, an agency source has confirmed to Just The News.
The prosecutor, Karen Gilbert, is now serving as a deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who on Thursday issued the 37-count indictment of Trump.
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When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army — an act Roman law strictly prohibited — he is reported to have said, “Alea iacta est,” Latin for “the die is cast.” Caesar, one of history’s most brilliant military and political minds, understood there was no turning back, even though the outcome was uncertain and quite possibly catastrophic.
History will question whether, during his occasional moments of lucidity, Joe Biden or his hubristic Justice Department experienced any such epiphany before crossing an American Rubicon, the indictment of a former President and Biden’s chief political rival, Donald Trump.
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Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL) announced Monday that it had seen an increase in abortions by over 50% since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a press release.
The Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 that abortion was not a constitutional right and left the decision up to the states to enact their own laws on the issue. Nearly a year later, PPIL announced that clinics reported an increase in abortions by 54% with almost a quarter of the patients traveling out-of-state to get the procedure, according to the press release.
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Poverty can be a jailable offense in Whitehall Village Court, a judicial outpost in upstate New York. Brandon Wood learned the hard way after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors in 2015.
His sentence included no incarceration, but he faced $555 in fines and fees. A wealthier defendant could have settled the tab on the spot and walked free, but Wood lacked the money. After failing to pay—for no reason other than insufficient funds—he found himself behind bars until his wife could appear in court and confirm his financial straits.
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Four Nashville private schools are seeking entry into a nationally watched public records lawsuit that demands the release of the Covenant School killer’s manifesto and related documents.
Attorneys for Franklin Road Academy, Montgomery Bell Academy, Oak Hill School, and St. Paul Christian Academy filed a motion on Monday asking Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles for permission to file an amicus — friend of the court — brief in the lawsuit.
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Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an “insurance policy” in case he got “in a tight spot.”
Early last month, a whistleblower made legally protected disclosures to Grassley’s office regarding an FBI-generated FD-1023 form detailing an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions while Joe Biden was vice president.
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Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 charges at the Miami courthouse during his arraignment on Tuesday. He stayed at his property in Doral on Monday evening.
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Political outsider and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is calling on all of his 2024 competitors — Republicans and Democrats — to commit to pardoning former President Donald Trump should he be convicted of the federal classified documents charges against him.
On the same day Trump faced his arraignment in the 37-count indictment, Ramaswamy held a press conference from the same Miami courthouse where the former president was to briefly appear.
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Elite Johns Hopkins University (JHU) has eliminated the term “women” in its LGBTQ Glossary, in which a “lesbian” is now defined as a “non-man attracted to non-men,” even as a “gay man” is still defined as a “man who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other men.”
The glossary, found on the “Diversity & Inclusion” website’s page titled “Gender & Sexuality Resources,” continues regarding the definition of the term “lesbian” that “[w]hile past definitions refer to ‘lesbian’ as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually attracted to other women, this updated definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label.”
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) recently re-introduced a bill that would impose stricter penalties on those who target veterans through telemarketing or email marketing fraud schemes.
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President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department has been accused by at least one whistleblower of being involved in serious data security breaches, resulting in demands from watchdog groups for more information about the allegations before the Senate votes on whether to confirm her.
The nominee, Tanya Bradsher, currently serves as Veterans Affairs chief of staff. She was nominated to the position of deputy secretary by Biden in April.
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Eleven candidates running for Nashville mayor discussed a wide range of issues while participating in a debate hosted by FOX 17 News Monday evening.
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A Biden administration official is a major donor to an organization that characterized Christian charter schools teaching a classical education as “far-right” ideologues attempting to advance “Christian nationalism.”
The Department of Labor’s Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs Thea Lee and her partner Mark Simon gave at least $5,000 in 2022, the highest level of sponsorship, to the Network for Public Education, a left-wing activist group focused on promoting public schools, according to the organization’s sponsors page. The Network for Public Education released a June 2023 report which notes that “right-wing ideology” is growing in charter schools that teach a “classical” or “traditional” education.
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Results of a poll targeting California voters have found an overwhelming majority say parental rights continue when children attend government schools.
The survey, conducted by Rasmussen Reports and Real Impact, an organization that seeks to “equip the Church to stand for righteousness in the public square,” observed 82 percent of respondents disagreed with a statement that says, “A person loses their parental rights when a child enters public school.”
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The Democratic League of Women Voters have said that they are adamantly against Ohio State Issue 1 which aims to change the percentage needed to amend the constitution by a statewide ballot initiative to a supermajority of 60 percent from the current 50 percent plus one.
Their opposition is inconsistent however as their own organization’s bylaws require a 66 percent vote for amendments.
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On Sunday, approximately 70 Soldiers and Airmen from the Tennessee National Guard landed in Bulgaria to begin conducting an international joint readiness exercise the next day, the Tennessee Department of Military announced.
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It’s a good time to be a coot, especially an old one. Old coots rule the roost (or more accurately, the nest) in the world’s most powerful and populous countries.
The leaders of the nine most populous countries in the world are today all led by men in their seventies and eighties. U.S. President Joe Biden is 80 years old as is the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. President Lula of Brazil is 77. Pakistan’s president Arif Alvi is 73 and its prime minister is 71. Narendra Modi of India is 72.
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, First Lady Marty Kemp, and other state officials will travel overseas this week to “focus on reinforcing strategic partnerships while promoting economic development opportunities with industries in Europe,” according to a press release by Kemp’s office.
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Hundreds of employees of the country’s largest federally-contracted call center went on strike in Virginia last week to protest claims of “unfair layoffs,” poor pay, lack of career advancement opportunities and racial inequality in the workplace.
Maximus is contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services to supply call center services for the federally-mandated health care marketplace, Medicaid and Medicare enrollees, and the CDC-INFO line. Maximus employees handle millions of calls on behalf of HHS every year.
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According to a Monday report, LGBT groups in Tennessee will be helping residents who believe their gender is different from their biological sex obtain new legal names.
The report comes as SB 1440, which defines “sex” as “biological sex” is set to take effect in the state.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced that he along with 21 other attorneys general have secured final approval of a combined $17.3 billion settlement to hold two drug makers and two pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid-addiction crisis and help fund opioid recovery efforts.
Under the settlement, Ohio expects to receive a total of $679.6 million from drug makers Teva and Allergan and pharmacies CVS and Walgreens over the next 15 years.
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Gov. Bill Lee (R) Monday released a proclamation marking June as “Great Outdoors Month” in Tennessee.
“From Mountain City to Memphis, Tennessee is blessed with an abundance of beauty & rich natural resources. I’m proud to proclaim this June “Great Outdoors Month” & celebrate our commitment to preserving Tennessee’s outdoor heritage for future generations,” Lee said on Twitter.
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The St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) is encouraging teachers to ignore a letter from the Freedom Foundation notifying them of their right to opt out of Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union.
Caitlin Reid, lead organizer for SPFE, sent an email with an “anti-union postcard alert” telling members to toss the letter from the Freedom Foundation “in the garbage” and let their building organizers know if they received it, according to a copy of the email obtained by Alpha News. Reid did not respond to a request for comment.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) is drafting a bill to ensure voters have their in-person votes counted in cases when their defective mail-in ballots were tossed.
Boscola sponsored Act 77, the 2019 law that legalized no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, and her emerging bill seeks to clarify a part of that statute. A provision in that law led the Delaware County Board of Elections to vote unanimously on May 23 to throw out six of its eligible voters’ ballots cast in the May 16 primary. Three of those voters are now suing the board in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas to have their votes tallied and to guarantee those in similar situations have their ballots counted in the future.
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by Kathleen Marquardt People are excited thinking about being able to live in alternative universes. Unbeknownst to them, they already do – and have been for most of their lives. Especially those born after the era when we wore our Texas Instrument calculators on our belts (our slide rules were put on the shelf to be oddities to show our children how we calculated in school) and built computers we bought in parts. Now, people who would have trouble putting a slot-car together can go to the Himalayas, try on clothes from their favorite store, play video games – all the while lying on a recliner in their basement. There is reality – the actual events as they happened. And there is what has long been, spun as reality, i.e., pharma-phantasmagoria, genders/sexes of more than two, and myriads of other factoids dressed as facts. All built upon the biggest lie fed to a now well-programmed public – manmade global warming. And virtual reality rules over factual reality. Think about it. Almost everything you read/hear in mainstream and social media, in schoolbooks, even in “juried” scientific and medical papers is a lie. Wrap your head around that – you don’t need…
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Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order on Sunday creating a statewide LGBTQ commission to address inequality and discrimination.
The commission will advise Whitmer and the director of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity on policy which directly impacts the state’s LGBTQ community, the executive order reads. The commission will also identify ways to attract members of the LGBTQ community to Michigan by assuring them that the state “is a safe place where its members and their families can thrive.”
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Actress Denée Benton directly compared Republican Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis to the “Grand Wizard” of the Denée Benton (KKK) in a speech delivered Sunday night at the 2023 Tony Awards show.
Benton made reference to “the current Grand Wizard — I’m sorry, excuse me — governor of my home state of Florida” at the Tony Awards, an annual ceremony for Broadway plays and musicals. Her equation of the conservative governor to the national leader of the KKK received applause from the New York City audience.
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A printer company says a report by Arizona’s Maricopa County on errors at voting centers on Election Day 2022 is “factually inaccurate” and is seeking a correction from the county attorney’s office.
Ballot printer issues at more than 70 vote centers in the county on Election Day last year resulted in long lines because tabulator machines could not read some of the voters’ ballots.
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For the third year in a row, the state of Arizona was awarded the Gold Shovel by Area Development magazine for states within the 6-10 million residents category.
The award, given on June 7, recognizes states that, “garnered large job-creating and investment projects through innovative policies, infrastructure improvements, and other processes that attracted new employers as well as investments in expanded facilities.” Since 2007, Arizona has won five gold shovel and six silver shovel awards. The state bested silver shovel winners Virginia, Indiana and Tennessee in the population category.
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The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is running “Pride Camps” for middle and high schoolers in June and July.
Campers are invited by the university to “build community with other LGBTQ+ and allies” their age.
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“I’ve put everything on the line and I will never yield. I never yield. I will never be deterred. I will never stop fighting for you.”
That was former President Donald Trump in Columbus, Georgia on June 10 in his first appearance after being indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on supposed violations of the Espionage Act over documents Trump says he declassified before leaving office, with Trump unsurprisingly using the prosecution to his political advantage in his 2024 election bid to oust President Joe Biden.
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The Ohio House of Representatives advanced a Bipartisan piece of legislation that aims to require insurance providers to cover hearing aid costs for minors.
The Ohio House Insurance Committee passed the legislation 14-0 advancing it to the House floor for further consideration.
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Gov. Mike DeWine praised a plan by a Columbus-based policy group that calls for a state-based immigration policy to allow Ohio to attract legal immigrants to fill a growing need in the high-tech labor force.
The Buckeye Institute recently released a report on how a state-based visa program could impact what it called urgent problems in the high-tech job market. That followed the group’s plan to upskill and reskill Ohio workers to meet labor shortages.
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China’s regime is trafficking illegal drugs, protected wildlife, and humans. It is laundering cash and participating in ransomware attacks. It steals intellectual property. The ruling group, as a matter of state policy, murders people for their organs.
The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a common criminal. Perhaps we should say it is an uncommon or state criminal, the most powerful and insidious kind.
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Flavored, nicotine-packed vape products manufactured in China are becoming increasingly common among teenagers and raising health concerns.
The problem took off in February of 2020 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration implemented a ban on the sale of many flavored vaping products, pushing compliant manufacturers out of the flavored market while some Chinese-based manufacturers continued to distribute and sell the now banned-products to American youth.
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The U.S. Marine Corps is facing fire from high-ranking retired officers as the outgoing commandant passes on responsibility to implement his radical changes to new leadership, according to experts and a review of arguments by current and retired Marines.
A secretive group of retired Marine Corps generals, including two previous commandants, renewed a years-long assault against what they characterized in multiple articles as dangerous narrow-mindedness underlying Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s plan to revamp the force, of which the latest update was released on Monday. As Berger is slated to depart by the end of this year and be replaced with his second-in-command, the service will face new struggles amid new leadership and political pressures, where the stakes could mean failure in a conflict with China, according to an expert and the retired officers.
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A Tennessee Republican lawmaker on Monday introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Rep. Andy Ogles accused the president of having used his position as both president and previously vice president to protect his family business and their alleged illicit activities from congressional oversight.
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Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk filed an amicus — friend of the court — brief on Monday in the nationally watched public records lawsuit over the Covenant killer’s manifesto and related documents. Funk, as attorneys for the parents of students at the Covenant Presbyterian School do, argues that the parents are victims and entitled to certain rights.
Attorneys for family members of the students and staff argue those rights allow them to keep the documents locked from the public, a controversial legal theory that plaintiffs in the lawsuit say could have a chilling effect on Tennessee’s public records laws.
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Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley on Monday announced that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter kept recordings of his conversations with each as an “insurance policy.”
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While many Americans feel former President Donald Trump is the target of a political witch hunt by the Biden administration and its allies, the latest allegations against the Republican Party’s top presidential candidate are troubling, according to a leading constitutional law expert.
Trump arrived in Miami Monday, a day ahead of his arraignment in federal court on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 37-count indictment, including 31 counts alleging the former president violated the Espionage Act prohibiting willful retention of national defense information. He’s also charged with obstruction of justice and making false statements.
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by Reagan Reese and Megan Brock The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a nationally known LGBTQ activist organization, uses its “Rainbow Library” program to teach kids about “they/them” pronouns and push books on gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom, according to a video unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Launched in 2019 by a third-grade teacher, GLSEN’s “Rainbow Library” program, which provides “LGBTQ+ affirming K-12 text sets,” is in 5,800 schools and libraries across 31 states, according to a 2022-2023 school year request form. The initiative makes books and resources on transgenderism and sexual orientation available to children as young as 5, according to a GLSEN 2021 recorded online workshop on the initiative. “The Rainbow Library, we send LGBTQ+ affirming books to schools and libraries for free along with additional GLSEN resources,” Michael Rady, the Rainbow Library Program manager, said in the 2021 workshop. “We have four different grade ranges for the books that we send out: K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. We put a major emphasis on books that center the voices of trans and nonbinary people as well as books that attend to the voices of BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color] LGBTQ+ people.” The initiative…
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South Carolina senator and 2024 candidate Tim Scott racked up nearly 150 endorsements from current and former elected officials in his home state Monday.
Scott entered the Republican primary in late May, and already gained the backing of South Dakota’s GOP Senate Majority Whip John Thune and Sen. Mike Rounds. The South Carolina senator received 148 endorsements, including several members of the state legislature’s leadership, the mayor of South Carolina’s capital, Columbia, and a former U.S. congressman, the Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed.
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Fresh from the looming trainwreck that is the deal to increase the debt limit, four Republican senators recently signed onto legislation that would require the Biden administration to study the feasibility of . . . a national tax on energy that would be collected at the gas pump and in electricity and heating bills.
The four Republicans — Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — joined five Democrats in asking Team Biden to determine the amount of energy used — and carbon dioxide emitted — by various countries in the production of essentially everything that makes modern life possible (aluminum, iron, steel, plastic, crude oil, batteries, etc.).
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Ohio entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says his campaign has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to uncover communications between the White House, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Jack Smith, special prosecutor behind the latest indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Ramaswamy plans to hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami, where Trump is scheduled to be arraigned on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents.
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More than 5,000 congregations have now been approved to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church throughout the last two years over the longstanding dispute regarding the denomination’s position on homosexuality, the Christian Post reported Saturday.
“The number of churches that have had their disaffiliation votes approved by their annual conferences under Paragraph 2553 of the UMC Book of Discipline went from around 4,600 on Tuesday to 5,321 as of Friday morning,” the report observed.
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