Day: March 16, 2024

Claiborne Thornton Says Governor Lee Did Not Consult with Homeschoolers While Crafting School Choice Bill

Kaitlin Housler

Claiborne Thornton, president of the Tennessee Home Education Association, said Governor Bill Lee did not consult with homeschool families before crafting his universal school choice bill, which is currently undergoing debate in the Tennessee General Assembly.

“The bill, the way it was written, the way it was crafted, was without any consultation from any homeschoolers,” Thornton explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

Thornton said particular objections to the bill surround the Tennessee Department of Education’s role in facilitating the program.

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Schweizer: ByteDance Opposes Profitable TikTok Sale Because China Wants Control, ‘Give It Up’ if We Can’t Pass Bill

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Breitbart News On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Peter Schweizer — who is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, a Breitbart News senior contributor, and the New York Times bestselling author of Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans — stated that if the House TikTok bill passes, ByteDance will make a profit on the sale of TikTok, and the reason they oppose a sale “is they don’t want to give up the control and the access to our kids.” Schweizer said that TikTok has “a lot of lobbyists. They have several former U.S. senators that are on the payroll, they have senior — former senior campaign advisers, both for Presidents Trump and Obama, and you have these large American investors, including Jeff Yass, who owns a large stake, and they are throwing a lot of money into this. The thing everybody has to keep in mind with these American investors you were talking about, the Chinese law is clear, if these investors disparage or criticize ByteDance, their shares can be seized and taken away from them. So, we should not really, I would argue, take the word of what these investors…

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Hunter Biden’s Partners: A Rogues’ Gallery of Corruption, Indictments, and Charges of Treason

Just the News

Hunter Biden and his associates, in their foray into the world of international deal-making, worked with a rogue’s gallery of foreign partners who were under investigation in their home countries or were convicted in the United States.

In certain cases, the Biden team appeared to use this to their advantage, extracting concessions in exchange for assistance in the United States.

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Senate Confirms Ambassador to Haiti as Crisis in Caribbean Nation Escalates

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Politico  The Senate confirmed Dennis Hankins to become ambassador to Haiti, as the Caribbean nation faces a crisis of gang violence and a vacuum of elected leadership. The Senate voted 89-1 to confirm Hankins. John Kennedy (R-La.) was the only vote against. A 38-year U.S. foreign service veteran, Hankins has worked in Sudan and Congo and served as ambassador in Mali and Guinea. He is currently a foreign policy adviser in the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon. READ THE FULL STORY             

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Riley Gaines Announces Lawsuit Against NCAA over Transgender Policies

Just the News
Riley Gaines

Former college swimmer Riley Gaines and 15 other college athletes on Thursday announced a lawsuit against the NCAA over its transgender policies. 

“I’m suing the NCAA along with 15 other collegiate athletes who have lost out on titles, records, & roster spots to men posing as women,” Gaines wrote on the social media platform, X. “The NCAA continues to explicitly violate the federal civil rights law of Title IX. About time someone did something about it.”

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Republican Liberty Caucus Endorses Tennessee U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles for Reelection

Kaitlin Housler
Andy Ogles

The Republican Liberty Caucus endorsed U.S. Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN-05) reelection bid for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.

“The Republican Liberty Caucus proudly endorses Andrew Ogles in TN-5,” the political organization wrote in an X post on Thursday. “[Ogles] has become one of the top defenders of liberty in the House. An unwavering voice for freedom and smaller government, he scored a 95 on our Liberty Index during his first year in Congress.”

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Supreme Court Rules Gov Officials Can Block Constituents from Their Social Media Pages in Certain Situations

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James Freed

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that there are circumstances when government officials can permissibly block a constituent from their social media pages, provided they are not claiming to speak on the state’s behalf.

The case, Lindke v. Freed, stemmed from Port Huron, Michigan, resident Kevin Lindke’s First Amendment lawsuit against city manager James Freed, who blocked Lindke from his Facebook page over comments criticizing the city’s response to COVID-19. While officials may look like they are “always on the clock,” not every encounter is “part of the job,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the opinion of the court.

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The Pentagon is Paying a Chinese Communist Party-Linked Venture Capital Firm for Tutoring Services

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Chinese Students

The CEO of a Chinese venture capital firm that quietly bought up a U.S. education company holding a Pentagon contract has long-standing connections to multiple Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence units, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Primavera Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm, was an early investor in TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and owns Princeton Review and Tutor.com. However, a review of the firm’s Chinese-language website found that CEO and founder Fred Hu has extensive ties to the Chinese government and belonged to organizations that the U.S. government has identified as part of the CCP’s “United Front” system.

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Virginia Home to More than 650 New Afghan Refugees

Peter D'Abrosca
Afghanistan People

Virginia has taken in more than 650 refugees from Afghanistan in the past five months as that nation continues to reel after President Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal of American troops.

According to a report on refugee resettlement from October 2023 through February, 655 Afghanis now call Virginia home. That is the most of any country of origin for the 1,295 refugees recently resettled in Virginia.

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Florida’s DeSantis Signs Three Bills Designed to Combat Illegal Immigration

The Center Square

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed three bills into law on Friday to bolster Florida’s efforts to prevent illegal immigration.

“We’re here today, one, to build off a record of success with respect to combating illegal immigration…if you go back six or seven years in the state of Florida, we were not leading against illegal immigration at all, in fact, we were one of the weaker states,” DeSantis said.

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Ranked-Choice Voting Push Continues at Minnesota Capitol

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MN RCV

A pair of DFL lawmakers who fell short last year of gaining enough support in the legislature to turn Minnesota into a ranked-choice voting state aren’t giving up on their goal. They’ve just scaled back their efforts to more incremental steps.

On Wednesday, a committee in the state House approved a bill that would make it easier for cities across the state to implement ranked-choice voting as a method of electing local representation.

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Conservative Publication Launches $1 Million Lawsuit Against Celebrity Pennsylvania Climate Scientist

Just the News
Michael Mann

The National Review is suing Penn State climate celebrity scientist Michael Mann for $1 million. “We cannot recover the time and effort that Mann has wasted, but we can recover more than a million of the dollars that we have lost defending our unalienable right to free speech,” the Review’s editors wrote Wednesday.

Mann won a defamation suit against two conservative writers who had criticized his “hockey stick” graph, which other climate scientists have questioned. Mann and his colleagues say the research demonstrates a sharp rise in unprecedented temperatures in the past few decades.

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Connecticut Democrats Rip Biden’s Proposed Cuts to Sub Production

The Center Square
Submarine

Members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation are criticizing President Joe Biden’s preliminary budget proposal that would cut spending for nuclear submarine production, saying the move would cost jobs and impact the state’s economy.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that it plans to cut a Virginia class submarine built by Groton, Connecticut-based Electric Boat from its proposed fiscal 2025 defense budget.

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Sedona Designates ‘Safe Place to Park’ for Homeless Arizonans Living in Vehicles

Tom Pappert
Sedona City Council

The Sedona City Council voted on Tuesday to designate an area for homeless Arizonans who live in their vehicles to park overnight.

In a decision proponents presented as a partial solution to the city’s housing crisis, the city council voted to allow residents to park and stay overnight in an unpaved parking area that formerly served Cultural Park, which closed in 2004.

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Wisconsin Has Awarded 14 $3 Million Tax Credits for Investors in Innovative Businesses in 2024

The Center Square
Wisconsin Capitol

Wisconsin’s Department of Economic Development has awarded $3 million in tax credits to investors in 14 startups in the state so far in 2024.

The tax credits are part of the state’s Qualified New Business Venture program, which began in 2005. It gives 25% transferrable tax credits for investors in qualified new businesses capped at $3 million for a $12 million cash equity investment.

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Commentary: America’s Intelligence Community is Broken

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CIA Logo

In the current discourse surrounding the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), a prevailing narrative has emerged, as highlighted in a recent Politico article, that mistakenly warns of a future Trump administration’s destruction of the IC as we know it. This perspective is biased and misguided. The real crisis in the Intelligence Community is not what Trump will do if reelected but how to resolve the total erosion of public trust in the IC due to the actions of the D.C. intelligence establishment over the past several decades.

The intelligence officials quoted by Politico, in decrying politicization, ironically contribute to it, exacerbating the broader loss of faith in our institutions. The Intelligence Community, a cornerstone of our national security, must operate insulated from politics — a necessity for its credibility and effectiveness in safeguarding national interests.

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Commentary: ADL’s Partisanship Harms the Fight Against Antisemitism

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Jon Greenblatt

For over a century, the Anti-Defamation League has enjoyed a reputation as the preeminent Jewish organization combating antisemitism and all forms of hate. Its acronym, ADL, has “household name” status—and not just in Jewish homes. This makes its current penchant for partisanship extraordinarily dangerous for, and beyond, the Jewish community.

Last December, Senate Republicans learned that a Joe Biden nominee for a lifetime judicial appointment, Adeel Mangi, was previously a board member and generous supporter of the antisemitic Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University Law School.

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Trump Endorses Wyoming Senator for Next Senate GOP Whip

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John Barrasso

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming to be the next Senate GOP whip Thursday.

Barrasso, who currently serves as the Senate Republican Conference chair, threw his hat in the race after current Minority Whip John Thune announced he’d vie to succeed Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump threw his support behind Barrasso for the position in a Truth Social post after the chairman endorsed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in early January for 2024.

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