Center for Immigration Studies Senior Fellow Todd Bensman Says the ‘Entire World’ Knows of the Biden Administration’s Catch and Release Policy

Illegal Immigrants

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the U.S. is on track to encounter more than 600,000 illegal aliens that have traveled through the Darién Gap, which is the only land path connecting Central America and South America, to get to the U.S.-Mexico border this year.

The Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama consists of more than 60 miles of dense rainforest, steep mountains, and vast swamps. Illegal immigrants from South America and other parts of the world use the land path as a passageway to get to North America.

Read the full story

Federal Court Bars NCAA from Enforcing NIL-Recruitment Ban After Legal Challenge by AGs of TN and VA

Skrmetti UT

The Eastern District Court of Tennessee granted Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s preliminary injunction request in his lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) illegal name, image, and likeness (NIL)-recruitment ban on Friday.

Through its NIL recruitment ban, the NCAA prohibits prospective student-athletes from discussing potential NIL opportunities with schools and collectives prior to enrolling. Specifically, the ban prohibits student-athletes from negotiating with collectives, reviewing NIL offers before making enrollment decisions, and adequately considering the full scope of NIL-related services a school might offer upon enrollment.

Read the full story

Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian: There’s Very Little Screening of Incoming Illegal Aliens for Health Problems or Criminal Behavior

Illegal Immigrants

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said migrants who are crossing illegally into the U.S. are not being thoroughly screened for illnesses or criminal backgrounds.

“They often screen them before they go to detention, but they’re not being detained,” Krikorian explained on Thursday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy. “As far as criminal behavior, they do run their names through some databases before they let them go, but that only works if we have records of them having committed crimes in the United States. The problem always with vetting is garbage in, garbage out. Do you think that the Somalia DMV or the medical records office or whatever in Venezuela is going to tell us anything about people? Of course not. So, yes, there is some kind of pro forma screening but it doesn’t really screen very much.”

Read the full story

Tennessee House Advances Bill Banning Local Governments from Returning Expelled Lawmakers

A bill advancing in the Tennessee House of Representatives would prohibit local governments from returning lawmakers to the General Assembly after they have been successfully expelled from office.

HB 2716 by State Representative Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) seeks to amend Tennessee law to mandate that any local government body must “elect a successor to fill a vacant seat” in the General Assembly due to a vacancy caused “due to the expulsion of a member for disorderly behavior, then the local legislative body shall not elect the expelled legislator to be the successor to fill the vacant seat.”

Read the full story

Cellphone Data Raises Questions about Start of Willis-Wade Relationship

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Nathan Wade appeared to make almost three dozen visits to the Hapeville neighborhood where Fani Willis was living before the district attorney hired him to lead Fulton County’s election interference prosecution, according to cellphone data included in a court submission filed Friday. The filing, by attorneys for Donald Trump, raises fresh questions about the relationship between the two prosecutors, which the former president and other defendants argue has tainted the case against them and should result in Willis and her office being disqualified. Trump’s lawyers relied on data collected from Wade’s cellphone and cellphone tower transmissions to track his movements. It seems to contradict Wade’s testimony last week in which he said he had visited Willis at her condo in Hapeville no more than 10 times before he was hired in November 2021. It also indicates Wade twice arrived late at night at the condo and left early the next morning in the months before Willis and Wade said their relationship became romantic early in 2022. READ THE FULL STORY     

Read the full story

Trump Pledges to Defend Christianity Against the Left, Which He Says Wants ‘To Tear Down Crosses’

Breitbart News Former President Donald Trump promised to use a second term in the White House to defend Christian values and even suggested he’d shield the faith’s central iconography, warning a convention of religious broadcasters on Thursday night that the left wants “to tear down crosses.” “Remember, every communist regime throughout history has tried to stamp out the churches, just like every fascist regime has tried to co-opt them and control them. And, in America, the radical left is trying to do both,” Trump told hundreds of cheering attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention in Nashville. “They want to tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags,” Trump added. “But no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.” READ THE FULL STORY    

Read the full story

Biden Studies Reducing Asylum Applications by Executive Order to Stop the Migratory Flow

Illegal Immigrants

The Biden Administration is studying the possibility of invoking broad presidential authority to make it more difficult for migrants to pass the initial asylum test at the southern US border, three officials with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

The actions, which are still weeks away from completion, would be an effort to reduce the number of migrants illegally crossing the border, in what has become an issue of utmost importance in the country ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.

Read the full story

RussiaGate Hoax Paved Way for Security State’s Domestic Censorship During 2020 Election, Internet Free Speech Expert Says

Mike Benz

According to an expert in internet free speech, the RussiaGate hoax perpetrated against former President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 election campaign was the beginning of the security state’s inward focus on domestic censorship online.

Mike Benz, the founder and executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), told Tucker Carlson in an interview last week that since the mid-20th century, there was an unwritten rule that security state apparatuses like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were not to be used domestically against the American people, but that the security state knew how powerful its apparatus could be if turned inward.

Read the full story

Left-Wing Dark Money Network Quietly Added a New Arm to Move Millions in Anonymous Funds

Money in case

The nation’s most prolific left-wing dark money behemoth quietly added a new organization to its network of nonprofits, newly surfaced documents reveal.

The Telescope Fund became the seventh organization managed by the shadowy for-profit firm Arabella Advisors in 2021, joining a network of organizations notable for pouring hundreds of millions of untraceable dollars into left-of-center political and advocacy groups, The Washington Free Beacon reported. The new nonprofit will offer donor-advised funds (DAFs), a type of charitable account that allows donors to obscure their giving by routing donations through a DAF.

Read the full story

Red States Considering Sex Ed Bills That Would Require Students to Watch Pro-Life Video

Multiple legislatures are considering bills that would require students to watch a video of an infant’s development in the womb as part of their sex education.

Live Action, a pro-life activist organization, created a three-minute video, which shows an animated infant named Olivia go through the developmental process from conception to full term at nine months. Bills have been proposed in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and West Virginia to include an animation “comparable” to the Live Action video for students from high school to as young as third grade.

Read the full story

New York City Law Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote Ruled Unconstitutional

Vote Here Sign

A New York City law that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections was deemed unconstitutional by a state appeals court on Wednesday.

The law would have allowed roughly 800,000 green card holders and individuals with federal work authorization living in the Big Apple to vote in the city’s elections, including in mayoral and City Council elections. Democratic and Republican elected officials have been in a drawn-out legal battle over the law, and the court’s ruling Wednesday hands Democrats a defeat.

Read the full story

Tennessee Senate Passes Bill Banning Politicians from Running in Multiple Elections at the Same Time

Richard Briggs

The Tennessee State Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would ban politicians in the state from seeking more than one elected office simultaneously.

SB 1968 passed the Tennessee Senate on Thursday with 17 votes in favor and 15 votes against. The bill, introduced by Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), would prohibit an individual from holding multiple elected offices in Tennessee, and would also ban any politician in the state from actively campaigning for more than one elected position.

Read the full story

Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine Asks Biden Not to Send ‘Offensive Weapons’ to Israel

Tim Kaine Joe Biden

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) revealed details of a letter he sent to President Joe Biden on Wednesday to urge his administration to refrain from sending “offensive weapons” to Israel. Kaine said sending such weapons would hurt the chances of successful negotiations to secure the release of hostages taken during the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and ease tensions with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Kaine’s office said the senator “underscored the importance of pursuing a deal to immediately release all hostages taken by Hamas” during the radical group’s October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, “end the violence in Gaza,” and all for the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Read the full story

Haley Campaign, Super PAC Silent After Report That She is Targeting Democrats for Primary Votes

Nikki Haley

A Republican presidential candidate is silent after a news report said that entities related to her campaign might be targeting Democrats to vote for her in South Carolina’s Saturday primary election.

A report by NBC News shows a mailer sent by the Stand For America PAC, a political action committee solely dedicated to getting Republican former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley elected president, soliciting the votes of Democrats who did not vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary on February 3.

Read the full story

Poll Finds Nearly Half of Americans Want Fani Willis Removed from Trump Election Case in Georgia

Fani Willis

A poll of U.S. voters released on Thursday found just under half of American voters want Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to be disqualified from prosecuting her election case against former President Donald Trump in Georgia.

The Rasmussen poll, conducted after Willis testified on in the hearing to determine whether she should be removed from the case against Trump, determined that 48 percent of likely U.S. voters say there is significant evidence indicating Willis should be disqualified. The pollsters found that just 39 percent said Willis should remain on the case, while 13 percent were unsure.

Read the full story

Lake Holds 33-Point Lead in Arizona GOP Senate Primary, Statistically Tied with Gallego Among All Voters If Race Includes Sinema

Kari Lake Senate Candidate

Kari Lake holds a commanding, 33-point lead in the race to secure the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) nomination to run for U.S. Senate, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Pollsters additionally found Lake statistically tied with Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03), who is poised to secure the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, when Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) was included in the survey.

Read the full story

VoterGA’s Garland Favorito Slams Georgia Secretary of State’s Request for Funds to Audit Ballots

Georgia Voting Machines

VoterGA, a nonprofit election integrity organization, spoke out against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s request for more taxpayer funds from the Georgia Legislature to implement an audit of Georgia’s QR-coded Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5 voting system.

On Monday, Raffensperger called on the Georgia State Senate to “agree to funding for new technology approved by the House that would give election officials the ability to audit the text of every choice on every ballot, in every contest – without the use of QR codes.”

Read the full story

Report: CBS News Seized Files, Computers and Records of Fired Journalist Catherine Herridge

Catherine Herridge

CBS News has reportedly “seized the files, computers and records” of fired investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, including information on privileged sources.

“The network grabbed Herridge’s notes and files and informed her that it would decide what, if anything, would be turned over to her,” George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley reported at the Hill on Thursday. “The files likely contain confidential material from both her stints at Fox and CBS.”

Read the full story

Music Spotlight: Due West

Due West is a trio of country musicians who met at a house party in 2004. Tim Gates, Matt Lopez, and Brad Hull are from the western U.S., but like many aspiring artists, they found themselves in Music City.

The three of them were all invited to the same party. As happens in Nashville, when everyone gets together, they usually sing. When Gates started singing, Hull and Lopez chimed in, playing and singing harmony.

Read the full story

Alabama’s Largest Hospital Pauses IVF Treatments After Ruling Classifying Frozen Embryos as Children

UAB Hospital

Alabama’s largest hospital paused in vitro fertilization treatments to help women get pregnant following concerns about potential prosecution of patients and health care providers after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled this week that frozen embryos are children. 

“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through I.V.F., but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for I.V.F. treatments,” the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system said Wednesday, according to The New York Times.

Read the full story

Commentary: States Must Act Now to Save Rural Lives from Fentanyl Crisis

Heidi Heitkamp

Across rural America, the expanding crisis of fentanyl-fueled overdoses is ravaging a generation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl deaths in the U.S. have tripled since 2016, and initial data from 2022 indicates that synthetic opioids cause about 90% of all opioid overdose deaths – which translates to nearly 75,000 Americans killed in that year alone. Rural communities, where hundreds of hospitals have already closed and more are on the chopping block, are bearing the additional weight of overdoses. We need states to do more to protect Americans and ensure access to all overdose reversal agents that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Hidden in counterfeit prescription pharmaceuticals like Adderall, Xanax, and Oxycontin, it’s so lethal that just two milligrams, the size of a pencil tip, can kill. 

Read the full story