Day: August 21, 2023

Feds Urged Biden to Give Aid to Ukraine Before He Held Back to Force Burisma Prosecutor’s Firing

Just the News

Just weeks before then-Vice President Joe Biden took the opposite action in late 2015, a task force of State, Treasury, and Justice Department officials declared that Ukraine had made adequate progress on anti-corruption reforms and deserved a new $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee, according to government memos that conflict with the narrative Democrats have sustained since the 2019 impeachment scandal.

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Researchers Flay Medical Journals for COVID ‘Misinformation’ Claims

Just the News

Three and a half years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, American medical journals are still calling out what they consider commonly shared misinformation on vaccines, masks, transmission and viral origins, sometimes promoted by health professionals.

Yet voluminous research and real-world experiences over that span suggest the journals themselves are promoting outdated, unsupported or exaggerated COVID claims, if not outright misinformation.

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Biden’s CBP Phone App a ‘Boon for Alien Smugglers’ as Migrant Encounters Surge

Just the News

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection smartphone app known as “CBP One” is “facilitating illegal immigration” and has become a “boon for alien smugglers” as migrant encounters surge at the border, according to an immigration policy expert.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, noted that the app was initially being developed during the Trump administration as a way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among workers who were linked to companies doing business at the border. CBP rolled out the app in January 2023 for migrant asylum appointments and expanded it in May.

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Ivy League University Offers Seminar on ‘Fatness, Queerness and Family’

Admin

A freshman seminar this fall at Cornell University is focused on how queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color experience care through food, according to their website.

The seminar titled “Have You Eaten Yet? QTBIPOC Care” aims to use written texts and popular media such as “Lizzo’s music videos” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to analyze how queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color give, receive and experience care through food, according to the course listing. The seminar is offered through the Cornell Department of Performing and Media Arts by Ariel Dela Cruz, who is a Ph.D. student whose expertise is in “queer studies, trans studies, Filipinx diasporic studies, performance, and care work,” according to her bio. 

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Authorities Seize Nearly 100,000 Fentanyl Pills, Enough Powder to Kill More than 5 Million People in Two Arizona Busts

Tom Pappert

Federal and local authorities in the Phoenix area have seized nearly 100,000 fentanyl pills and more than 20 pounds of fentanyl powder in just two law enforcement actions. This quantity of the Schedule II drug could potentially cause more than 5 million fatal overdoses.

On August 10, agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), working with local Arizona police, reportedly apprehended three men attempting to sell 50,000 fentanyl pills in the Phoenix area, according to Border Report. Only days later, on August 17, Gila County law enforcement reported seizing 49,500 fentanyl pills and 22.88 pounds of fentanyl powder during a traffic stop in Payson on the previous day. Payson is about 90 minutes away of Phoenix.

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Florida’s New College Enrolls More Students, Looks to Cut Gender Studies

Admin

A small public Florida college has rapidly transformed under Governor Ron DeSantis-appointed trustee board, as liberal faculty have resigned in large numbers, a gender studies major is slated for demolition and admissions numbers rise.

Conservative activist and journalist Christopher Rufo, who serves as a trustee of the New College of Florida, motioned at the latest board meeting to begin to dissolve the gender studies program.

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Commentary: Uniparty’s Plan to ‘Save Our Democracy’ Unfolds

Admin

The fish are plentiful today. There’s Hunter Biden and his various lies: about the sources of his prodigious income, his payment (that is, non-payment) of taxes, drugs, guns, child support, laptops and prostitutes. There’s Joe Biden and his lies, the sources of his prodigious income, and—the latest—his use of pseudonymous email accounts when writing to Hunter and Hunter’s business partners to discuss the weather—or was it the whether and how to siphon 20 million of the crispest into virtually untraceable bank accounts?

There’s the seemingly endless series of indictments directed at Donald Trump. The latest new there, if I am up to date, is that he told people to watch election returns on One America News Network. Clearly part of a RICO conspiracy. Someone whose math is sharper than mine calculated that President Trump is potentially on the hook for 450 years in the slammer for . . . well, his torts are mostly in the eye of the beholder.

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The Field Is Set for November School Board Races in Minnesota

Admin

The field of candidates is now set for the 28 school districts across Minnesota that will hold “off-year” elections this November, where there are no legislative seats or congressional or statewide offices on the ballot.

While most of the nearly 300 other school districts across the state hold their elections during more visible campaign cycles (such as 2024), the school district communities with races this fall represent about 1.7 million residents across the state. Combined, those districts with seats up for election steward well over $4 billion in tax dollars.

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Ohio Republican Bill Aims to Allow Schools to Administer Expulsions for Dangerous Students as They See Fit

Hannah Poling

Two Republican Ohio state representatives have introduced legislation to allow school superintendents to administer expulsions for dangerous students in their districts as they see fit.

House Bill (HB) 206, sponsored by State Representatives Monica Robb Blasdel (R-Columbiana County) and Gary Click (R-Vickery), looks to allow schools greater flexibility for expulsions under Ohio law and to create re-entry plans to protect both students and staff.

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Ohio Coalition Forms in Opposition to November Adult-Use Marijuana Ballot Initiative

Hannah Poling

A broad coalition of Ohio leaders has joined together in order to defeat an attempt by marijuana legalization activists to put an initiative to legalize the purchase and sale of marijuana by Ohio residents aged 21 and older on the ballot in November.

The initial coalition represents respected leaders across children’s health care, business, veterans, and law enforcement institutions including Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, Ohio Adolescent Health Association, Buckeye Sheriffs Association, Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Ohio Veterans First, Veterans Court Watch, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, State Senator Mark Romanchuk (R-Ontario), Former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, Phillips Tube Group CEO Angela Phillips, and Smart Approaches to Marijuana CEO Kevin A. Sabet Ph.D.

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Arizona State University Course Using Taylor Swift to Teach Social Psychology

The Center Square

A new Arizona State University course is using Taylor Swift to show social psychology phenomena starting this fall semester. 

The class is called “Psychology of Taylor Swift – Advanced Topics of Social Psychology” but it won’t be a fan-club meeting for Swift, according to Alexandra Wormley, a PhD student in the psychology department who is teaching the class.

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The Center Square Parent Acquires Government Streaming Service

The Center Square

Franklin News Foundation, the nonprofit, nonpartisan news-media organization that publishes The Center Square newswire service, announced Friday it has acquired Advanced Digital Media, operators of BlueRoomStream.com.

ADM live streams unedited coverage of countless government proceedings across the state of Illinois, such as legislative hearings and other taxpayer-funded government activities, news conferences involving elected officials and other newsmakers, and more. Through Blue Room Stream, it makes the live streams available to subscribers including both in-state and national broadcast media partners.

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Commentary: Country Music Speaks for Everyday Americans

Admin

Taylor Swift may be the hottest ticket this summer, but her listeners don’t share her country roots. That space has been captured by a series of anthems singing the blue-collar blues, songs that are a lot closer to—and a lot more correct—about what is bugging everyday Americans.

American music has always been an echo chamber for popular culture. The Jazz Age was a rebellious response to the high-brow Victorian Gilded Age. Rock ’n’ roll was the rallying cry of baby boomers.

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Lab-Grown Meat Industry Increases Lobbying Efforts Ahead of Farm Bill

Admin

A new farm bill is facing opposition from a growing industry of artificial meat, which is employing many lobbyists to try to persuade lawmakers to give more government funding to this new industry.

As Politico reports, the market for “meat” grown in a lab is limited, with such food only being available at niche restaurants in San Francisco, California and Washington, D.C. But these companies are now employing a coalition of lobbyists and trade groups, as well as a new spending campaign, as Congress begins negotiations for the 2023 farm appropriations bill.

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Federal Judge Rules AI-Generated Art Cannot Be Copyrighted: ‘Approaching New Frontiers’

Admin

A federal judge ruled Friday that art produced by artificial intelligence without human involvement cannot be copyrighted.

District Court Judge for the District Of Columbia Beryl A. Howell agreed with the United States Copyright Office’s decision not to grant copyright protection to the owner of a computer system for art generated by the system. Stephen Thaler, who owns a program called the “Creativity Machine,” was denied a copyright by the office for a piece of visual art his system created because it “lacked human authorship,” which Howell notes is “a bedrock requirement of copyright.”

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