Day: November 16, 2023

George Santos Announces He Will Not Run for Re-Election

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Republican Rep. George Santos of New York’s 3rd District announced that he will not seek reelection to the House of Representatives following the release of a report by the House Ethics Committee regarding his actions.

Santos was indicted by federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for a number of alleged felonies related to his 2022 congressional campaign, including wire fraud, false statements, identity theft and credit card fraud, among others. After the House Ethics Committee released a report corroborating the allegations of prosecutors following its independent investigation of the matter, Santos announced on Twitter that he would not seek re-election to his office in 2024.

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Police Arrest Suspect in Death of Jewish Protester

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Officers announced on Thursday that they have arrested a suspect in connection to the death of Paul Kessler.

Kessler, a Jewish man who was participating in a pro-Israel demonstration, died from a blow to the head after allegedly getting into a physical altercation with a pro-Palestinian protester. Police said that they arrested Loay Analji on Thursday morning in connection with Kessler’s death for involuntary manslaughter, according to a press release from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

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Videos of People Sympathizing with Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ Go Viral

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Videos showing people reading Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter justifying the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon went viral Wednesday evening, prompting a media outlet to delete its translation of the document.

The Guardian deleted the letter Wednesday after it had been active on the site since being published on Nov. 24, 2002, directing readers to an article from that date about the letter. Videos on the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok showed users reading the letter, Rolling Stone reported.

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Commentary: ‘Delinking’ Proposals in Washington Would Upend Our Pharmacy Benefits and Cost Taxpayers Billions

Admin

As the CEO of Resolve Diagnostics, a company dedicated to lowering patients’ costs and encouraging transparency in the health care sector, I feel compelled to speak out against a new development at the federal level that could jeopardize affordable health care for millions across America. The Senate Finance Committee, as well as other Congressional committees, are currently considering ‘delinking’ legislation targeting pharmacy benefit companies, which has the potential to wreck the fundamental economics of our nation’s health care sector.

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Growing Number of Americans Turning to TikTok for News, Research Finds

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The Epoch Times A growing number of TikTok users now get their news from the video-sharing app, with almost a third of adults between 18 and 29 regularly using the platform for news while consumption of news across other social media sites has declined, according to new research published Nov. 15. According to the survey data by Pew Research, in just three years, the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from Chinese-owned TikTok has more than quadrupled, rising from just 3 percent in 2020 to 14 percent in 2023. Pew Research surveyed 8,842 adults from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, 2023, via self-administered web surveys. The data has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points. READ THE FULL STORY  

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Knox County Sheriff Says Viral TikTok Challenge Lead to Officer-Involved Shooting

Peter D'Abrosca

Knox County’s Sheriff said in a Tuesday press conference that a shootout between two teens and his deputies, the result of a car theft, stemmed from a TikTok challenge. 

“This case involved a TikTok challenge where you steal a vehicle, drive it for a day or two and then ditch it,” Sheriff Tom Spangler said in the press conference. “Some of the TikTok challenges that are out there are pretty disturbing. I’m sure that if some of our parents were aware of some of the things that are going on, I hope it would be safe to say they wouldn’t be real happy about that.”

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Meta Is Allowing Political Ads That Question the 2020 Election — But Censoring Doubts About 2024

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Meta’s social media platforms now allow political ads questioning the 2020 presidential election, but will censor ads questioning the 2024 election, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The company permits fraud claims about past elections but not current or future ones, according to its updated policy. Meta rolled out the policy after blocking certain Republicans during the 2022 midterm election primaries from releasing ads with assertions about the 2020 election being fraudulent, according to the WSJ.

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Inflation Still Biting Homebuyers as Headline Number Falls

Admin

The price of shelter increased substantially in October despite topline month-to-month inflation remaining flat, dashing many Americans’ dreams of buying a home, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Inflation decelerated to 3.2% in October, down from 3.7% in September, owing to substantial deflation in the price of energy, but the shelter sector individually had prices increase by 5.5% for the year. Since the beginning of 2021, when President Joe Biden first took office, home prices have risen 29%, rents are up 17% and mortgage rates have neared 8%, according to the WSJ.

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Near-Record Number of Illegal Immigrants Are Crossing the Northern Border

Admin

Border Patrol encounters of migrants crossing the northern border illegally hit a two-decade high in October, according to recently updated Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

There were 1,521 such encounters recorded in October alone, according to the data. The last time monthly encounters surpassed that number was in August 2001, when Border Patrol recorded 2,016, according to federal data.

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MTSU Student Newspaper’s Former Editor Says Faculty Adviser Was ‘In the Room’ When Editorial Board Drafted its Apology Letter to Placate ‘Free Palestine Crowd’

M.D. Kittle

The editorial board for the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) student newspaper issued a statement Wednesday in defense of the newspaper’s faculty adviser following the publication’s apology for running a story on an MTSU student worried about his friends in Israel.

But Matthew Giffin, the former editor-in-chief of Sidelines who wrote the profile piece, told The Tennessee Star that associate professor Stephen Leon Alligood was “in the room” when the editor’s note was crafted.

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Virginia Mosque Comes Out in Support of Hamas

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The Manassas Mosque, a mosque in the Washington, DC area, explicitly declared its support for the Hamas terrorist organization in a recent newsletter. The mosque’s support for the Iranian regime has raised the concern of several congressmen.

The newsletter, which was first noticed by the Capital Research Center in collaboration with Focus on Western Islamism, states:

We stand firmly with the Palestinian Resistance (Hamas) and the courageous people of Palestine. With the help of Allah (swt), they will bring liberation and justice to Palestine and to the rest of the world. The Israeli regime is weak and afraid of all the calls for the freedom of Palestine taking place all over the globe. The regime’s days are numbered.

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Ohioans Could Be Allowed to Carry Weapons in Buildings with Courts

The Center Square

Local governments in Ohio could soon expand concealed carry laws and allow citizens to carry guns in courtrooms.

House Bill 272, which recently had its fourth hearing before the House Government Oversight Committee but has yet to be voted on, would allow local governments to create an exception to carry a deadline weapon into a building that contains a courtroom when court is not in session.

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Minnesota Democrats Prime the Pump for Bill That GOP Rep Calls ‘Feeding Our Future on Steroids’

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The next legislative session doesn’t begin for another three months. But a duo of DFL legislators who represent swing districts up for re-election in 2024 and 2026 are getting a head start on a bill they plan to push early next year that would provide significant childcare subsidies for Minnesota families above the median household income.

Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn of Eden Prairie and Sen. Grant Hauschild of Hermantown are calling their bill-to-be the “Great Start Affordability Program.” And they say it would aim to subsidize the cost of daycare and preschool for families who are currently just above the income threshold to qualify for state-funded Early Learning Scholarships. Kotyza-Witthuhn and Hauschild said in a hearing at the State Capitol on Monday their goal for such a program is to shore up enough state funding to bring the childcare costs down for Minnesota families to just 7 percent of their monthly income.

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Fani Willis Expects Georgia Trump Trial Will Be Live on Election Day, Maybe Continue into 2025

Tom Pappert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed during an appearance at the headquarters of The Washington Post on Tuesday that she expects the trial of her racketeering case against former President Donald Trump will be ongoing on Election Day in 2024, and may continue past the inauguration in January 2025.

Willis appeared at the Global Women’s Summit on Tuesday, which was sponsored by the Post and held at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. A transcript of Willis’ appearance at the event with Post reporter Amy Gardner reveals the prosecutor was to clarify when she expects her trial of Trump and those who helped him contest the 2020 election will conclude.

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Commentary: NewsGuard Is a Surrogate the Feds Pay to Keep Watch on the Internet and Be a Judge of the Truth

RealClearWire

In May 2021, L. Gordon Crovitz, a media executive turned start-up investor, pitched Twitter executives on a powerful censorship tool. 

In an exchange that came to light in the “Twitter Files” revelations about media censorship, Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, touted his product, NewsGuard, as a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” His written pitch highlighted a “separate product” – beyond an extension already on the Microsoft Edge browser – “for internal use by content-moderation teams.” Crovitz promised an out-of-the-box tool that would use artificial intelligence powered by NewsGuard algorithms to rapidly screen content based on hashtags and search terms the company associated with dangerous content.

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Phoenix Woman Sentenced After Recruiting Arizonans to Smuggle Illegal Immigrants Using Social Media

Tom Pappert

A Phoenix woman became the latest Arizonan to be convicted and sentenced to prison for using social media to entice American citizens to participate in human smuggling of illegal immigrants, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed on Wednesday.

In a press release, the DOJ revealed Destiney Rae Montoya, a 22-year-old, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison by United States District Judge Raner Collins. The prosecutors explained that Montoya’s sentence was enhanced due to her status as the “coordinator” of the human smuggling operation.

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YoungkinWatch: Governor’s Allies Retain Virginia House Leadership Positions Despite GOP Losses

Tom Pappert

The Republican members of the Virginia House of Delegates chose legislators considered allies of Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) for party leadership last Sunday, including one who spent over $500,000 to win a district considered safe for Republicans after Virginia’s 2021 redistricting.

Virginia Republicans chose House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) to become the party’s new Minority Leader in the House of Delegates, and Delegate Amanda Batten (R-York) will retain her position as the Republican Caucus Chair.

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Report: Connecticut’s Revenue Down, Budget Still Balanced

The Center Square

Connecticut’s revenues are down about $460 million, according to a new report, which says the state’s financial outlook remains positive despite a drop in tax collections.

The consensus revenue forecast, released by the Office of Policy and Management and Office of Fiscal Analysis on Monday, shows the state is likely to close out the fiscal year more than $630 million above initial budget projections. That’s still a surplus but well below the $1.1 billion projections when the budget was approved in June.

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Nikki Haley Surges in New Hampshire: Poll

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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley jumped by 14 points to second place in the key early primary state of New Hampshire, according to a Wednesday poll.

Haley received 18% support, a massive increase from her 4% support in August, behind only former President Donald Trump’s 49%, according to an Emerson College poll. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in third with 9% support, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fell to fourth at 7%.

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Team Trump Takes Victory Lap as Michigan Dismisses 14th Amendment Cases Against Candidacy

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is celebrating the dismissal of a litany of cases in Michigan challenging his eligibility to run for president again.

Trump has struggled to fend off challenges to his appearing on the ballot in multiple states. The litany of challenges have largely asserted that he was ineligible to hold public office under the 14th Amendment for having led an “insurrection” against the nation in the form of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Riot. He recently notched a win at the Minnesota Supreme Court allowing him to appear on the GOP primary ballot.

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Exit Clause for Abused Renters Debated in Pennsylvania House Committee

The Center Square

Legislation offering an exit clause to renters subjected to domestic abuse is headed to the floor of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, despite concerns that the proposal could cause unintended harm to landlords.

Under the bill, renters can break a lease on a property shared with an abuser after providing written notice to the landlord detailing their experiences and concerns. Police reports, medical notes, arrest records, protection from abuse orders, and documentation from the state’s Victim Advocate Office also suffice as notice.

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Fulton County Election Issues: Ballot Counting, Voter Rolls, Challenges, Board Seats, Lawsuits

Just the News

While Fulton County, Ga., initially missed a box of early voting ballots during tabulation of last Tuesday’s election results, the county has a history of election issues since at least 2020. Fulton County, which includes Atlanta and is the most populous Georgia county, has experienced issues with ballot counting, voter rolls, and lawsuits over elections.

On Tuesday, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections (BRE) has acknowledged “some batches” of absentee in-person ballots were missed from the Nov. 7 elections, but later found during the recount.

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Soros-Backed Virginia Prosecutor Who Jailed Parent of Bathroom Assault Victim Loses Reelection by Just 300 Votes

Tom Pappert

Election officials determined on Tuesday that Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj (D) narrowly lost her re-election.

Biberaj lost her bid for a third term to challenger Bob Anderson, a Republican who served in the position from 1996 through 2003, by exactly 300 votes. Anderson received 68,068 votes, or 49.92 percent of the total, compared to Biberaj, who received 67,768 votes, or 49.7 percent of the total. A total of 518 voters wrote in a candidate for their ballots.

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Arizona GOP Unveils Ballot Measure Sending School Funds Directly to Teachers

The Center Square

Noting a trend of growing administrative spending and teacher pay lagging those increases, Republican lawmakers want to require school districts to revert more of their allotted state funding directly to educators.

In a Monday announcement, several GOP lawmakers touted the “Teacher Pay Fund” plan they say would deliver K-12 public school teachers an average pay hike of 7% without increasing taxes.

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Citigroup Set to Begin Massive Layoffs

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One of the U.S.’ top banks will begin massive layoffs on Wednesday in a corporate overhaul as the company seeks to trim its operating expenses to levels more in line with its competitors, according to CNBC.

Citigroup will begin cutting employees on Wednesday, with new terminations continuing to be announced through next week, affecting some chiefs of staff, managing directors and lower-level employees, according to CNBC. Following the initial round of layoffs, more employees in less senior positions are expected to be dismissed in February, with the layoffs being expected to be fully completed by March 2024.

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Oklahoma Supreme Court Keeps Block on Three State Laws Restricting Abortion

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The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against three of the state’s pro-life laws Tuesday, arguing that they would inhibit a woman’s right under the state constitution to get an abortion to protect her health, according to court documents.

The three laws in question require doctors to be board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound 72 hours before administering any drugs used to initiate an abortion, according to the Associated Press. Several pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood (PP) and the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) sued the state, arguing the laws were unconstitutional and the state Supreme Court agreed to place a temporary halt while the lawsuit runs its course, according to the ruling.

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Commentary: The Demographics of Polarization

Admin

Women around the world are having fewer than two children. But while population decline is well underway in most nations, there are a handful of nations that are still experiencing a population explosion. The implications of this challenge the foundations of cultural and national independence, most particularly in nations whose populations have stopped reproducing. The nations still experiencing rapid population growth have cultural traditions that stand in stark contrast to the nations with stable and declining populations. These profound demographic and cultural differences, when combined with a massive and ongoing transfer of people from high birth-rate nations into low birth-rate nations, introduces the potential for polarization on an almost unimaginable scale.

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Dem-Controlled FCC Votes in Favor of New Rules to Combat ‘Digital Discrimination’ in Broadband Access

Admin

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed a vote related to “preventing digital discrimination” in accessing broadband internet at a meeting on Wednesday.

The FCC, which has three Democratic commissioners and two Republicans, voted along party lines in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking Wednesday at the meeting to tackle “digital discrimination,” based on President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr asserts the rules would massively increase the commission’s regulatory authority to almost all facets of internet service.

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