Month: June 2023

Pennsylvania House Democrats Want a New Agency to License AI-Created Products

Bradley Vasoli

Democratic Pennsylvania lawmakers are drafting several bills to enable regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), including one measure creating a new state agency to oversee the technology. 

The new proposals build upon legislation Representative Chris Pielli (D-West Chester) announced last month that would mandate labeling of all AI-generated content. Other parts of the legislative package, which Pielli is cosponsoring alongside Representative Bob Merski (D-Erie), also includes a policy governing the commonwealth’s use of software and devices that perform tasks that were once possible only through human action. 

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Minnesota Secretary of State Dodges Question over Voting Rights of Incarcerated

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Everything was rolling along smoothly at a press conference in St. Paul on Thursday morning where Secretary of State Steve Simon gathered with felon voting rights restoration activists and a handful of legislators to celebrate the June 1 enactment of a new law that restores voting rights to an estimated 55,000-plus Minnesotans serving probation or parole for a felony crime.

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Joe Biden’s Pick for CDC Director Pushed for COVID Lockdowns, Child Masking While N.C. Health Director

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Joe Biden has tapped an avid COVID lockdown and child masking advocate to become the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Mandy Cohen, the former head of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, will reportedly replace current CDC director Rochelle Walensky, when she steps down  on June 30.

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Commentary: Green Energy Has a Dirty Secret

Admin

As with most things espoused in the name of social progress, the left’s aggressive push for EV technology conveniently forgets the lives of those affected by it the most.

“On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified…you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle,” Biden exclaimed during a photo-op in a shiny electric Hummer. I bet that tax credit will come in handy when the average American is forced to buy a $60,000 EV after gas-powered cars are banned outright.

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YouTube Reverses Misinformation Policy, Allows Claims About 2020 Election on Platform

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YouTube reversed its misinformation policy regarding content about elections on Friday and will now permit content that questions the veracity of the 2020 presidential election results, according to the company’s website.

YouTube’s parent company Google has a policy that prohibits content “advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in certain past elections to determine heads of government,” and Youtube wrote in December 2020 that it would remove content that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.” The platform will now “stop removing” such content about the 2020 election, per its website.

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14 GOP Governors Sending National Guard Troops and Resources to Texas to Secure Southern Border

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Republican governors are sending National Guard troops to the southern border.  

Governors of Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia announced this week they will send troops and resources to Texas to support the work of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Operation Lone Star to secure the southern border.  

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Confirmed: Alleged Carjacker Shot by Memphis Police Is an Illegal Alien

Peter D'Abrosca

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed for The Tennessee Star that the man arrested for a litany of crimes in Memphis last week was an illegal alien. 

“ICE issued an immigration detainer on May 31 for Honduran national Jairo Ponce, 29, following his arrest by the Memphis Police Department on charges of aggravated robbery, carjacking, aggravated assault on a first responder, employment of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony and evading arrest,” an ICE spokesperson told The Star Friday. “On an unknown date and location, Ponce entered the United States without being admitted or paroled by an immigration official.”

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Mark Finchem Slams ‘Two Tier Justice System,’ Advocates Removing Judges After Sanctions Granted Against Him for Election Challenge

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Iyer Julian awarded sanctions on May 26 against Mark Finchem and his attorney over Finchem’s lawsuit challenging his election loss in the Arizona Secretary of State’s race to Democrat Adrian Fontes.

Finchem issued a response from his Substack. Titled “Yes, We Have a Two Tier Legal System.” In this piece, he advocated removing “judges who act outside of the law.”

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Minnesota to Move Biological Male Inmate to All-Female Facility, Pay for Vaginoplasty

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Under a settlement reached this week, the Minnesota Department of Corrections has agreed to transfer a biological male inmate who identifies as a woman to an all-female facility and will allow him to pursue a vaginoplasty procedure.

Left-wing legal group Gender Justice announced the settlement agreement Thursday, saying its client Christina Lusk will also receive $495,000 in monetary compensation, about half of which will go towards legal fees.

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GOP Presidential Candidates, Sans Trump, Descend on Iowa for Senator Joni Ernst’s Annual Roast and Ride

M.D. Kittle

In many ways, the start of the 2024 presidential election year began Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines — with Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride. 

Eight Republican presidential hopefuls assembled all under one roof, making their case to some 750 Iowans on why they’re best suited to lead the most powerful nation in the world. 

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Georgia Supreme Court Upholds Dismissal of Challenge to Campus Gun-Free Zones

The Center Square

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed a Fulton County judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit by five University System of Georgia professors filed challenging a change to campus gun-free zones.

The professors challenged a 2017 amendment to state law removing public colleges and universities from the designated “school safety zones” prohibiting weapons. Before the 2017 amendment, carrying a weapon on campus was a misdemeanor.

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Ohio Republican Lawmakers Introduce Legislation to Exempt Sales Tax from Firearms and Ammunition

Hannah Poling

Republican lawmakers in the Ohio House and Senate have introduced legislation to exempt sales tax from guns and ammunition and provide business incentive growth in Ohio.

House Bill (HB) 189, sponsored by State Representative Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) and companion bill Senate Bill (SB) 134, sponsored by State Senator Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster) aim to remove sales tax from guns and ammunition and provide gun and ammunition manufacturers a tax credit that would offset the federal excise tax imposed on these manufacturers.

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Commentary: Trump Still Has the Magic

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The Republican primary is already in full swing. While a few second-tier candidates have joined the fray, including neoconservative Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and old school evangelical and former Vice President Mike Pence, the chief contest is between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Things are already heated. Some former Trump supporters now support DeSantis. Indeed, they have completely turned against Trump. The firehose of criticism reminds one of the refrains of a jilted lover.

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Florida Marijuana Initiative Has Enough Signatures to Appear on 2024 Ballot

The Center Square

Smart & Safe Florida, a campaign supporting a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in Florida, has collected 967,528 valid signatures, exceeding the 891,523 valid signatures needed to be placed on the ballot in 2024.

State officials confirmed on June 1, that the campaign had submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot and had met the signature distribution requirement mandating that signatures equaling at least 8% of the district-wide vote in the last presidential election be collected from at least half (14) of the state’s 28 congressional districts.

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Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates Will Not Run for Re-Election in 2024

The Center Square

After serving on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors since 2016, Bill Gates announced on June 1 he would not run for reelection in 2024. 

Gates released a statement on Twitter saying he planned to “pursue other interests and opportunities.” His announcement comes after the Board of Supervisors faced many false allegations of election fraud following the 2020 and 2022 elections. 

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Catholic Org Launches Initiative Encouraging Parents to Revolt Against Sexually Explicit, Transgender Books

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A Catholic organization is launching a campaign through the month of June that encourages parents to revolt against books containing sexually explicit and transgenderism content offered to children in public libraries as a part of Pride Month.

CatholicVote, a nonprofit conservative advocacy group, is promoting its second annual “Hide the Pride” campaign, which encourages parents to visit their local libraries and check out as many books as they can that “push eroticism, glorify LGBTQ identities, undermine parental rights and are 100% contrary to the Church’s teaching on love and sexuality” in an effort to prevent others from accessing them, the organization told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Parents joining the campaign are encouraged to participate in groups and request that librarians take their Pride Month display down, the campaign information stated.

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Commentary: Don’t Believe The Jobs Day Hype — Americans Are Still Getting Poorer

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Friday’s jobs report shows 339,000 jobs were created in May, beating expectations again. While Democrats and the media celebrate, the labor market condition is not as strong as this topline number suggests.

The report shows that real wages continue to decline. For the 26th consecutive month, average wages grew slower than inflation. The Biden presidency will forever be marked as one where Americans got poorer and saw their living standards decline.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Makes the Cut for the GOP Debates

M.D. Kittle

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has risen in the polls to a top 5 candidate. Now the Ohio businessman and political outsider has secured a spot on the Republican National Committee debate stage. 

In fact, Ramaswamy’s campaign crossed the RNC debate stage criteria threshold in May, several months before the debates are set to take place, according to the candidate’s camp.  

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Red Flag Proposals at Center of Tennessee Special Session Debate

The Center Square

As Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee prepares to call a special session of the Legislature on public safety, the specifics of that special session call have yet to be announced.

One bill that Democratic leadership is intending to propose is a red flag law bill sponsors refer to as the Families Know First Act, an “extreme risk protection order” bill proposed late in the legislative session by Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, and Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville.

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Biden DOJ Won’t Charge Mike Pence over Classified Docs

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to charge former Vice President Mike Pence for classified documents found at his home, according to a DOJ letter obtained by the New York Times.

The DOJ sent Pence a letter Thursday night informing him that “no criminal charges will be sought” in connection with the department’s investigation into classified documents found at his Indiana home, per the NYT. One of Pence’s lawyers found the documents at Pence’s home in January, alerting the National Archives, CNN reported.

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Biden Admin Closes Off More U.S. Lands to Oil and Gas Drilling

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The Biden administration on Friday ordered a 20-year ban on new oil and gas drilling leases within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, according to multiple reports.

The moratorium — which the Department of Interior initially began considering in November 2021 — is a long-sought goal of several local politicians, conservation groups and Native American tribes that want to preserve the centuries-old Pueblo ruins located there, although some tribes have opposed the ban for limiting future economic opportunities, according to E&E News.

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More than a Dozen GOP States Sue Biden Admin over Recent Border Policy, Claim It’s ‘Encouraging More Border Crossings’

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Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and more than a dozen other GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over a recent policy to address an expected surge of illegal migrants at the southern border, according to a statement from his office.

The Biden administration rule Miyares is contesting was implemented to mitigate an expected surge of migrants at the southern border when Title 42, a Trump-era expulsion order, ended on May 11 which made migrants ineligible for asylum if they pass through another safe country before coming to the U.S. Miyares, however, argues that the rule has many exceptions that allow migrants to enter the country, including using a phone app to book entry appointments, claiming they face imminent danger in their home country and having their asylum request denied in another country, the lawsuit argues.

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Counties Switching to Hand Counting Ballots as Election Integrity Advocate Provides Model

Just the News

Counties across the U.S. are switching to hand-counting election ballots instead of using electronic tabulation machines over concerns about the accuracy and security of the devices.

At the forefront of the transition is election integrity advocate Linda Rantz, who says her model, now being used in a Missouri county, is less expensive than critics continue to say it is.

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Gov. Lee’s Office Clashes with NRA over Red Flag Laws

Peter D'Abrosca

According to a memo from Republican Governor Bill Lee’s office on the subject of gun control, those in Lee’s camp believe that attempting it is not possible to contain mental illness, and thus his proposal for red flag laws should be implemented.

One of the memos, obtained via public records request by The Associated Press, claims that Lee accused the National Rifle Association (NRA) of wanting to use involuntary commitment laws “to round up mentally ill people and deprive them of other liberties.”

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Pennsylvania State Senator Drafting Bill to Kill ‘Culturally Relevant’ Guidelines

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania state senator is working on legislation to abolish the commonwealth’s new Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CR-SE) guidelines that impose leftist ideology on teachers and students. 

The document instructs teachers to “know and acknowledge that biases exist in the educational system,” biases the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) specifies as “racial and cultural.” Educators are further called on to “believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real and take steps to educate themselves about the subtle and obvious ways in which they are used to harm and invalidate the existence of others.” Another guideline tasks teachers with “disrupt[ing] harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness.” 

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Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Who Has Criticized DeSantis Recuses Himself from Disney Case

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Ron DeSantis

A federal judge known for ruling against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recused himself Thursday from Disney’s lawsuit against the governor, according to a court filing.

Chief U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Florida Mark Walker, an Obama appointee, recused himself after discovering “a relative within the third degree of relationship” owns 30 shares in The Walt Disney Company, per the a court filing. Walker blocked DeSantis’ “Stop W.O.K.E. Act”  in November, calling it “positively dystopian,” and struck down parts of his election law as unconstitutional in March 2022, citing the state’s “horrendous history of racial discrimination in voting,” according to Politico.

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Connecticut Lawmakers Approve Early Voting

The Center Square

Connecticut voters would get up to two weeks early voting ahead of federal and state elections under a proposal headed for Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk for consideration.

The legislation, which passed the Democratic-controlled state Senate Tuesday on a 27-7 vote, authorizes a 14-day early voting period for general elections, a seven-day period for primaries, and a four-day early voting period for special elections and presidential primaries. Lamont has pledged to sign the bill, which the House previously approved.

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Minnesota to Provide Illegal Immigrants with Free College Tuition

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Illegal immigrants will be eligible for free college tuition in the state of Minnesota, according to Axios.

Under Minnesota’s free tuition program, dubbed the “North Star Promise,” illegal immigrants will have their full tuition paid for if they enroll in a two or four-year program within the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State systems and come from a household with an income of $80,000 0r less, according to Axios. To be eligible for the free tuition, applicants must have either graduated from a Minnesota high school or have lived in the state for a year without being enrolled in a college for six months.

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Ohio Supreme Court Upholds Ballot Board Decision Advancing Amendment to Enshrine Abortion in State Constitution

Hannah Poling

On Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling that upholds the Ohio Ballot Board’s unanimous decision that the proposed constitutional amendment called “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety,” incorporated only one constitutional amendment.

The Court’s 7-0 ruling rejects a lawsuit by Margaret DeBlase of Montgomery County and John Giroux of Hamilton County claiming that the Ohio Ballot Board erred in its decision and that the proposed amendment contains multiple topics.

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Commentary: The Real Cost of the Debt-Ceiling Deal

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President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spent weeks of negotiating to authorize $4 trillion in new deficit spending over the next two years. This means that our national debt will be $35 trillion in 2025. The interest cost will be up to $1.4 trillion annually, only a small amount less than the current cost of national defense and Social Security combined. This staggering debt undermines the future prosperity of every American.

Federal spending contributes to a sense of entitlement, including for every person receiving federal largesse. Think of the adverse impact of federal student loans. President Barack Obama promised that government-granted student college loans would be more efficient, but these loans have, in fact, ballooned the cost of college. Concurrently, colleges have reduced quality outcomes and propagandized students, undermining our society because many students are hopelessly in debt. Now, progressives in Congress want to terminate the provision requiring repayment of student loans. For many of our young workforce, the burden of high student loans precludes marriage and buying a house.

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Michigan Council to Address Population Decline, Education, and Infrastructure

The Center Square

Michigan’s governor by executive order has created the “Growing Michigan Together Council,” a team of nearly two dozen she wants to continue economic momentum while also stopping the migration out of state that has dropped population.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced her new initiative Thursday morning, which she said would address the state’s outbound population and spur further economic development. The council will be chaired by John Rakolta Jr., a Republican, and Shirley Stancato, a Democrat.

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Iowa Senator Ernst and Wisconsin Representative Gallagher Introduce Taxpayer Transparency Bill on Dollars Sent to China, Russia

M.D. Kittle

Two Midwest members of congress have joined forces on a bill aimed at creating transparency and accountability for U.S. taxpayer money handed out in China and Russia. 

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) and U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) have introduced the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act requiring every penny from a government grant paid to any organization in China and Russia to be tracked and publicly disclosed. 

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Georgia GOP Convention Replaces Mike Pence with Kari Lake

Rachel Alexander

Kari Lake will be the keynote speaker at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention, replacing Mike Pence who was originally scheduled. Former President Donald Trump will also be speaking at the convention. The state party Chair David Shafer sent an email to delegates stating that Pence canceled “because of a televised national town hall at which he will be making an announcement regarding his future plans.”

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Three People in Michigan Charged in $6 Million Pandemic Fraud Scheme

The Center Square

Eight people were charged for alleged roles in a $6 million fraud scheme targeting multiple pandemic relief programs, announced United States Attorney Dawn N. Ison.

Since COVID began, foreign and domestic criminals have targeted government assistance programs often using stolen identities bought from the dark web. The indictment says the defendants caused fraudulent unemployment insurance claims, fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications, and fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications to be submitted for multiple individuals and business entities.

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Arizona State Republicans Celebrate Large Investments in Water Security and Projects

Neil Jones

Arizona will be investing over $360 million in state water security and new projects, according to a Thursday statement from the Arizona House Majority Caucus.

State Representative Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water, shared that these investments come from the state general fund through the new state budget. Some of the funded projects include $20 million to reconstruct the Winslow levee, $25 million for groundwater delivery infrastructure, $15 million in on-farm irrigation efficiency grants, nearly $40 million for well projects in Peoria and Gilbert, and $810,000 for irrigation systems projects in Glendale. Additionally, funding will also go to studying water supply demands, rural water needs, and brackish groundwater.

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