Month: September 2023

Berkeley Constitutional Law Professor John Yoo Testifies at Disbarment Trial of John Eastman That Vice Presidents Can Reject Electoral Slates

Rachel Alexander

The disbarment trial of former President Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, started its fifth week with testimony from Eastman’s star witness, Berkeley Constitutional Law professor John Yoo. The State Bar of California contends that Eastman gave Trump advice when he said one option to deal with the allegations of election fraud in disputed states was to have former Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept the electoral slates from those states or delay their certification, but Yoo said the majority of scholarship on the issue agrees with Eastman’s position.

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Judge Denies Mark Meadows’ Latest Effort to Remove Georgia Election Case from Fulton County

Tom Pappert

U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones denied the latest effort for Mark Meadows on Wednesday to remove the Georgia election case against him from Fulton County. The case against Meadows, former President Donald Trump, and 18 other defendants will proceed unless the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit intervenes.

Attorneys for Meadows argued last month that any actions taken by the former White House Chief of Staff for the Trump administration to contest the 2020 election results were part of his official role as a government employee. Thus, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and other laws require the case against him to be tried in federal court and not in Fulton County.

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New Mexico Attorney General Says He Will Not Defend Governor’s Gun Ban Stance

Just the News

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez announced Tuesday that he will not defend Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a fellow Democrat, in multiple filed lawsuits opposing her gun ban.

“I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety,” Torrez’s letter reads. “I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.

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Child Poverty More than Doubled in Biden’s Second Year, Census Data Shows

Admin

The U.S. saw a sharp rise in the government’s supplemental poverty rate and a fall in real incomes for Americans in 2022, with the rate for children more than doubling, according to census data released Tuesday.

The government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which calculates poverty by including the impact of government programs, geographic variation in housing expenses, taxes and medical expenses, increased for children from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022, while overall poverty increased by 4.6 points to 12.4% during President Joe Biden’s second year in office, according to a release from the U.S. Census Bureau. Biden blamed the rise in child poverty seen under his tenure on the lapse of the expanded Child Tax Credit, according to a Friday statement from the White House.

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CCP Officials Set Up Talent Recruitment Program at U.S. Firm Behind Taxpayer-Backed EV Battery Plants

Admin

A provincial Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary set up a talent recruitment “work station” at the Silicon Valley headquarters of a Chinese-owned company that is planning to build two taxpayer-backed battery plants in Michigan, according to Chinese language reports reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2017, a CCP delegation from Hefei, Anhui province visited the Fremont, Calif., headquarters of Gotion Inc., according to Chinese-language news website Sohu.com. During the visit, the Anhui party secretary leading the delegation “presided over the establishment of an Overseas Talent Work Station” in Gotion’s U.S. headquarters, another report published on the website of the firm’s Chinese parent company states.

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O’Connell Picks Up Endorsement from Metro Council Member, Former Mayoral Candidate Ahead of Thursday Election

Peter D'Abrosca

A Nashville mayoral candidate Tuesday touted an endorsement from a colleague on the Metro Nashville Council.

“16 years ago, [Council member Sharon Hurt] welcomed me to Jefferson Street, where her leadership produced business success and a stronger workforce. As we joined Metro Council together, I witnessed her steadfast commitment to building a more equitable city. I’m honored to have her support,” said Freddie O’Connell, attaching a video endorsement from Hurt. 

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Idaho Attorney General Labrador Joins Coalition Supporting Tennessee’s Defense of its Adult Entertainment Act

Hannah Poling

On Monday, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador (R) joined a coalition of 18 states in support of a Tennessee law protecting minors from lewd and obscene behavior.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) signed the Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act (AEA) into law in March of this year which bans “adult cabaret performance” in public or in front of children in the state of Tennessee.

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Fisk University Names New President

Peter D'Abrosca

A historically black university (HBCU) in Nashville Tuesday announced that it has hired a new president to lead the school.

“The Board of Trustees of Fisk University announced today the appointment of Dr. Agenia Walker Clark as its next president, effective November 6, 2023,” said a release from Fisk University. “She will be the University’s third female head and the 18th president of the 158-year-old-university, one of the nation’s highest-ranking Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).”

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Georgia State Sen. Beach Slams ‘Concentration Camp’ Overcrowding in Fulton County Jail, Blames Fani Willis

Tom Pappert

Georgia State Senator Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) compared the conditions of the Fulton County Jail to a “concentration camp,” pointing to the 10 deaths at the facility so far this year, and the facility’s overcrowding, as evidence that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) is not doing her job.

Beach condemned Willis during an appearance on “The John Fredericks Show” on Tuesday, suggesting that Willis is “obsessed” with prosecuting former President Donald Trump “for her own political gain.”

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University of Minnesota Spent over $200,000 On ‘Diversity’ Platform Teaching Physicians That Healthcare Is Racist

Admin

The University of Minnesota (UMN) paid over $200,000 to develop a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training program that teaches medical professionals that healthcare is fundamentally racist, according to documents received by the medical watchdog Do No Harm and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The training, developed by Diversity Science, is intended to educate healthcare professionals on obstetric care for black and indigenous women, which the training dubs “birthing people,” and highlights perceived “structural racism” in healthcare practices. Moreover, UMN’s DEI office blames “white supremacy” for certain disparities in perinatal care, and trains providers to view the development of medicine and the healthcare system as tainted with racism, documents obtained by Do Not Harm reveal.

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Fulton County Special Prosecutor’s Law Firm Earns Nearly $550,000 in Trump Case, so Far

Tom Pappert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has spent nearly $550,000 bankrolling defense lawyer Nathan Wade as special prosecutor in her case against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his current or former associates who helped him contest the 2020 election in Georgia.

Records made available by the Fulton County government reveals that the Law Offices of Nathan J. Wade earned $303,226.51 in 2022, and thus far in 2023 has earned an additional $245,750. Similarly, his legal partner Christopher Campbell has received $116,670 from Fulton County between 2021 and 2023, while former colleague Terrence Bradley was paid $74,480 by Fulton County in 2021 and 2022.

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Commentary: Ken Buck Is Wrong About the J6 Defendants

Admin

U.S. Representative Ken Buck’s big wet sloppy kiss to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week could not have come at worse time for the Colorado Republican.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the federal court in Washington, D.C. was in the process of ordering prison time typically applied to murderers, drug traffickers, and serial child pornographers for five members of the Proud Boys convicted of no serious crime related to January 6. A well-known gun storage company faced backlash for assisting the FBI in yet another armed raid against a January 6 trespasser. And a young man from Utah took his own life just weeks after his arrest on four misdemeanors for his participation in January 6, at least the fourth known suicide of a Capitol protester.

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New Ohio School Bus Safety Task Force Holds First Meeting

Hannah Poling

A new state task force in Ohio focused on thoroughly evaluating the safety of the state’s school buses held its first meeting on Monday at the Ohio Department of Public Safety headquarters.

As previously reported by The Ohio Star Ohio Governor Mike DeWine formed the Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group last month following a Northwestern Local School District bus crash that killed one student and injured more than two dozen in Clark County.

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Arizona GOP Signals They’ll Sue Biden Administration over Grand Canyon Monument

The Center Square

The Arizona Senate is inching closer to a lawsuit with the federal government after a national monument was declared in northern Arizona last month to limit mining in the area.

President Joe Biden visited the state in August to speak about the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, which is nearly 1 million acres.

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Commentary: The Biden Administration Misleads the Public on the Vast Expanses of Land Needed for ‘Net Zero’

RealClearWire

The Biden administration is misleading the country about the amount of land that will be required to meet its ambitious renewable energy goals, RealClearInvestigations has found.  

The Department of Energy’s official line – echoed by many environmental activists and academics – is that the vast array of solar panels and wind turbines required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area.” This topline number translates into 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles. 

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to Lay Out Blueprint for ‘Rolling Back the Powers’ of the Administrative State in Major Speech

M.D. Kittle

Republican Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday will lay out his plan to break the grip of power held by the administrative state.

“There is an unconstitutional, fourth branch of government that is choking American democracy, and it is called the administrative state,” Ramaswamy asserts in an advance copy of a white paper speech provided to The Star News Network by the Ohio entrepreneur’s campaign.

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Republicans Blast National Archives’ Taxpayer-Funded Equity Policies, Trainings

The Center Square

The federal archive agency that helped spark former President Donald Trump’s first federal indictment has come under fire from Republicans after reporting showed the agency has embraced far-left diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Republicans blasted the National Archives and Records Administration after The Center Square reported that the agency’s latest 2022 DEI plan pledges to double down on equity training for employees.

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Researchers Question One-Size-Fits-All COVID Booster Strategy as FDA Circumvents Advisors

Just the News

Federal health officials face a growing hurdle in their quest to persuade Americans of all ages and risk profiles to get updated COVID-19 boosters: strong proponents of vaccination.

From New England to the Bay Area, researchers voiced concerns to mainstream science and health publications in recent days that the one-size-fits-all model may be backfiring.

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Top Air Force Leader Warns China Is Prepping for War ‘Specifically’ with U.S.

Admin

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall gave a stark warning that China is preparing for a war that the United States has “no modern experience with” during a speech at Air and Space Forces Association’s 2023 Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Monday, according to an Air Force press release.

Kendall said that the catalyst for a war with China would likely be Taiwan and evoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example of an international war with no easy solution, according to the press release. Kendall warned in a memo penned last week that, as quickly as China’s military has advanced, the United States is “not optimized for great power competition.”

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Former TN Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn Fails Upward, Lands $367k per Year Job with University of Florida

TC Weber

Tennessee’s former commissioner of education, Dr. Penny Schwinn, has landed a new position with the University of Florida. Dr. Schwinn will join the school in a newly created position as vice president for PK-12 and Pre-Bachelors Programs.

According to an email from Cynthia Roldán Hernández, University of Florida’s director of Strategic Communications, this work will earn Schwinn an annual salary of $367,500, making her the second-highest-paid University of Florida vice president.

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Former Memphis Officers Federally Indicted in Tyre Nichols’ Death; Still Silence on ‘Vendetta’ Allegations

M.D. Kittle

If Tyre Nichols was targeted by members of a Memphis Police Department violent crime unit because of his alleged involvement with one of the officers’ ex-wives, there’s nothing on the subject included in a new federal indictment against the five former law enforcement officials.

A federal grand jury in Memphis on Tuesday returned a four-count indictment against Emmitt Martin III, 31; Tadarrius Bean, 24; Demetrius Haley, 30; Desmond Mills, Jr., 33; and Justin Smith, 28.

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9th Circuit Court of Appeals Hears Kari Lake Vote Tabulator Case

Tom Pappert

A lawsuit brought by former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake prior to the 2022 elections was heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday. Lawyers representing Lake, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), and Maricopa County were in court at the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix before a panel of three judges.

Lake, alongside former Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, brought the lawsuit on April 2022, and it was dismissed in August. By December, a district court judge had awarded $122,000 in sanctions against the attorneys for Lake and former Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem in the case, including against well known legal scholar Alan Dershowitz.

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Expert to Arizona Legislature: Kari Lake Would Have ‘Won Easily’ If Google Hadn’t Interfered in the 2022 Election

Rachel Alexander

State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), chair of the Arizona House Ad Hoc Committee on Oversight, Accountability, and Big Tech, held the first of a series of hearings last week investigating the impact of big tech’s election interference. The first half of the four-hour long session featured testimony by Harvard educated academic Dr. Robert Epstein, who discovered how Google influences election results. The second half consisted of testimony by First Amendment attorney James Kerwin of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, who discussed where the law is in regards to officials pressuring big tech about posts. He went over what then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office emailed to big tech during the last election, and suggested legislation the Arizona Legislature could propose to curtail the officials. 

Kolodin said during the hearing, “It is not acceptable for the government to censor free speech simply because it acts through the private sector.” He warned that the country is in the beginning of a nascent police state … nascent totalitarian society … I go to grassroots meetings where people are afraid to speak … afraid they will be arrested.” Kolodin said some presenters who were invited to speak at the hearing dropped out due to fear. 

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McCarthy Calls for Formal Impeachment Inquiry into Biden

Admin

CNN House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday he is calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, even as they have yet to prove allegations he directly profited off his son’s foreign business deals. The move comes amid increasing pressure from his right flank to move ahead with the inquiry, including some on his far right who have threatened to oust McCarthy from his speakership if he does not move swiftly enough on an impeachment inquiry. McCarthy is also trying to secure votes as part of negotiations to keep the government funded beyond the September 30 deadline to avert a shutdown. “These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption,” the California Republican said in remarks outside his office on Capitol Hill. “They warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.” READ THE FULL STORY    

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Tennessee State Representative Ron Gant Helps Secure $1 Million to Expand Fayette County Airport

Hannah Poling

Tennessee State Representative Ron Gant (R-Piperton) announced that he has successfully helped secure $1 million dollars in state funds to expand the Fayette County Airport and support future economic growth in the area.

The Fayette County Airport, in operation since 1975, is a county-owned, public-use airport located approximately two miles southwest of the central business district of Somerville, in Fayette County, Tennessee.

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Art Therapy Needs ‘Decolonization,’ Academic Paper Argues

Admin

Art therapy is offered through a “Western ideology” lens and needs “decolonization,” according to a recently published academic paper.

Titled “Furthering the Field of Expressive Arts Therapies Through Acts of Decolonization,” the 35-page paper explores how colonialism, under the guise of “Western ideology,” not only killed “millions of Native American Indians,” but continues to negatively influence art therapy and other aspects of society.

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Entrepreneur Establishes ‘Shark Tank’ Style Grant Competition for Austin Peay Students

Peter D'Abrosca

Through his charitable foundation, a Tennessee businessman plans to award grants to aspiring Austin Peay State University entrepreneurs in a competition modeled after the popular television show “Shark Tank.”

“Guidance from entrepreneurs and business leaders has played a key role in shaping my career,” said businessman Spencer Patton, who runs The Patton Foundation. “That’s the heart behind the Patton Foundation and the PEG Challenge – to pay it forward by offering education and assistance to young entrepreneurs with big dreams.”

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Democrat Tennessee State Senator Says Christians Use Faith to Justify ‘Hatred and Racial Terror’

Peter D'Abrosca

A Tennessee state senator said on X, formerly known as Twitter, Saturday that Christians use their faith to justify racial terror.

“Never forget that hatred and racial terror was – and still is – justified in the name of Christianity,” said State Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville), whose biography on the Tennessee General Assembly website curiously lists her as a Christian. 

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Republican Presidential Candidates Back in Iowa for Faith & Freedom Coalition Cattle Call This Weekend

M.D. Kittle

Ohio entrepreneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is back in the kickoff caucus state this week, barnstorming eastern Iowa in five stops in 24 hours.

In fact, the Hawkeye State will be a hive of presidential campaign activity in the coming days — leading up to and through Saturday’s packed Faith & Freedom Coalition Town Hall featuring most of the crowded field of Republican Party presidential candidates.

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Activists Turn in Petition to Force Vote on Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Just Days after RICO Case Unveiled

Tom Pappert

Activists seeking to challenge the construction of the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center claim to have turned in more than 115,000 petition signatures on Monday, three weeks after the City of Atlanta required signature gathering to conclude. The city has accepted the signatures, but will not examine them without a ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Originally given until August 21 to return at least 58,232 valid signatures, a legal ruling on July 26 gave the activists an additional 60 days, and stripped a requirement for those gathering the signatures to be residents of Atlanta. However, a stay was issued freezing that ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on September 1, meaning the additional time granted to activists may have disappeared.

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Potential UAW Strike Looms in Michigan

The Center Square

Up to 146,000 United Auto Workers could strike starting this week if the Big Three auto companies don’t reach a new union contract agreement by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday. 

UAW Union President Shawn Fain has repeated his mantra “record profits mean record contracts.” He says Big Three executives at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have received hefty pay raises while inflation has eaten away at UAW workers’ paychecks.

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Georgia Activists Knock on Doors in Republican Strongholds to Fuel Special Session Push

Tom Pappert

Conservative activists in Georgia are knocking on doors in the districts of House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington) and senators who have vocally opposed the petition for a special session created by Senator Colton Moore (R-Trenton), according to Georgia State Freedom Caucus Director Mallory Staples, with the aim of pressuring more legislators into backing the nascent effort.

Staples announced the plans to door knock on “The John Fredericks Show” last Friday, indicating the activists planned to start on Monday, and will target the most vocal opponents of Moore’s petition for a special session.

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Commentary: America’s Fertility Crisis Will Only Worsen with the College Gender Gap as U.S. Follows Japan

Admin

Declining fertility in advanced economies is nothing new. Since birth control was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960, at the same time more women were entering the labor force and attending higher education, amid higher inflation, greater unemployment and a weaker economy, birth rates have plummeted significantly, from 3.65 babies per woman in 1959 to 1.73 by 1976, according to World Bank and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

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Florida Enrollment in Medicaid Continues Recent Decline

The Center Square
doc nurse senior patient

Florida’s Medicaid enrollment continue to decline, according to recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on health policy, research and polling.

According to data from the Medicaid Enrollment and Unwinding Tracker, the number of people on Medicaid in the Sunshine State declined 7% from April to July, shrinking from 5.78 million to 5.36 million.

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