Biden Declares 2024 Easter Sunday Date as ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’

Trans March

President Joe Biden declared March 31 “Transgender Day of Visibility,” the same 2024 date for Easter Sunday. 

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility,” the White House wrote in a Friday press release. 

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Family of Riley Strain Requests Second Autopsy Be Performed

Riley Strain

The family of Riley Strain, the 22-year-old University of Missouri-Columbia student whose body was pulled from the Cumberland River in West Nashville last week, requested that a second autopsy be performed on Strain’s body.

Strain went missing after being asked to leave Luke Bryan’s bar on the night of March 8 before being recovered in the Cumberland River in West Nashville, approximately eight miles from downtown, two weeks later on March 22.

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Google Threatens to Demonetize Wall Street Watchdog as GOP Targets Ad Collusion

Wall Street Bull

Google’s artificial intelligence isn’t particularly bright when it comes to evaluating publishers’ compliance with its advertising policies, if the experience of a heterodox economics blog with outsized influence is any indication.

With a megaphone from Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi, both darlings of progressives in the “Occupy Wall Street” era, Naked Capitalism accused Google of making “flagrant errors” in its threats to demonetize the 18-year-old site for verboten content.

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Obama Fears Trump Win in 2024, Making Frequent Calls to Biden’s Chief of Staff

Jeff Zients

Former President Barack Obama is reportedly becoming increasingly nervous over the likelihood of former President Donald Trump being re-elected in November, and has expressed his concerns to Joe Biden’s chief of staff on numerous occasions.

As reported by Fox News, Obama has made several calls to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and other top aides on the Biden campaign, attempting to provide them with advice ahead of the election in just over 7 months. A senior aide for Obama said that the 44th president has “always” been concerned about the possibility of President Trump returning to power.

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NYC Council Appeals Ruling Against Non-Citizens Voting Law While D.C. Receives Favorable Ruling

Vote Sign

The New York City Council has filed an appeal to the state’s highest court to reverse an intermediate appellate court’s ruling that struck down the city’s law allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections while Washington, D.C., recently had its non-citizens voting law upheld.

Cities are experiencing varying levels of success with their non-citizen voting laws, as New York City’s has been struck down twice in court while D.C.’s has survived an initial challenge.

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Youngkin Vetoes Recreational Marijuana Sales Bill, Citing Threats to ‘Health and Safety’

Weed Store

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Thursday vetoed legislation that would have created a state-regulated market for recreational marijuana sales.

The Old Dominion currently permits qualified patients to secure marijuana for medical purposes and in 2021 legalized its use and cultivation by residents aged 21 and older, though it has not yet approved a framework for legal retail sales, according to The Hill. The measure would have set up the process to permit the market to open in May of 2025 and set up a maximum tax rate of 11.625%, the Associated Press reported.

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McMaster Signs Bill to Help Improve South Carolina Student Reading

South Carolina Reading

Gov. Henry McMaster signed a measure to help ensure students read at their appropriate grade levels.

S. 418 builds on the Read to Succeed measure lawmakers passed a decade ago and requires the South Carolina Department of Education to implement a “scientifically based reading instruction” approach to reading education. The program includes professional development, administering universal screeners and summer reading camps.

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Commentary: The Biden EV Plan Needs American Mining

Mining Work

The Biden administration has just supercharged the electric vehicle (EV) revolution. With its finalized tailpipe emissions rule, the administration expects that by 2032 70% of new U.S. car sales will be electric.

This lightning-fast transformation of the nation’s car fleet faces myriad challenges but perhaps none are greater than sourcing the minerals needed for millions of EVs and addressing the nation’s alarming reliance on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains.  

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ACLU Argues Michigan Law Requiring Parental Consent for Abortions Harms Minors

Pregnancy Test

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report Thursday arguing that a Michigan law requiring parental consent for abortions harms minors.

The law, which became effective in 1991, requires all Michigan residents under the age of 18 to obtain parental consent before getting an abortion or receive a waiver from a judge. The ACLU of Michigan chapter, alongside Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health (MOASH), however, argued that the law “undermines the safety, health, and dignity” of minors and that the process to waive parental consent is “traumatizing.”

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Connecticut and 11 Other States Warn Gunmaker to Retain Decades of Files

Glock Gun

An Illinois lawsuit has led Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and attorneys general from 11 other states and the District of Columbia to notify gunmaker Glock to preserve 37 years of documentation regarding its handguns.

Earlier this month, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against Glock alleging the company failed to change the design of a pistol. Chicago claims Glock knew a do-it-yourself “switch” could make the handguns a “machine gun” and resulted in a “proliferation of illegal machine guns.”

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Minnesota Democrats Introduce Multiple Bills to Transfer Ownership of State Land to Tribes

Land back Minnesota

Four pieces of legislation that Democrats have introduced at the Minnesota Legislature in recent weeks aim to transfer ownership of property they say tribal nations inside Minnesota lost decades ago due to federal and state government policies.

But while proponents believe these land reclamation, or “land back,” bills are gaining momentum, many residents and local government officials in those areas are criticizing the legislation and opposing it at the Capitol.

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Georgia Association of Educators Pushes Woke Social Justice Activist Curriculum

Students in Class

The Georgia Association of Educators is advancing far-left gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, and social justice activist curriculum for members of its organization.

The Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), an affiliate of the National Educators Association (NEA), promotes racial justice education materials from various sources, including those offered by NEA, whose organization claims that racism is “systemic” and “is so deeply rooted in our history, culture and institutions that there’s no escaping it.”

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Hobbs: New Federal Funding to Prevent Street Releases Will Be Enough for Now

Katie Hobbs

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs addressed possible concerns about lower than requested funding in the spending deal signed by President Joe Biden last week.

Hobbs, as well as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, welcomed the news of $650 million being allocated toward the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Shelter and Services Program, The Center Square reported. However, the trio first asked for $752 million to go toward the fund, as it ends up being distributed.

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Washington Governor Signs ‘Natural Gas Ban Bill’ into Law

Jay Inslee

Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday afternoon signed into law a controversial bill meant to allow Puget Sound Energy to start planning how to move away from natural gas.

“This bill creates the roadmap and tools for our state’s largest utility to get out of the fossil fuel business and achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” Inslee said of Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1589 during the bill-signing event from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 46 in Kent.

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Biden EPA Locks in Stringent Emissions Rule for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Fight Climate Change

Garbage Truck

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized aggressive emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively require huge increases in the numbers of electric or zero-emission buses and trucks sold over the next decade.

The agency is projecting that the heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards for model years 2027 to 2032 could result in zero-emission or electric vehicles (EVs) making up 25% of new long-haul trucks sold and 40% of all new medium-sized truck sales by 2032, according to The New York Times. The EPA’s final emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles complements the agency’s recent release of the final tailpipe emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles that has been characterized as an “EV mandate.”

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Commentary: In 2024, Digital Is Everything in Politics

Computer

As the 2024 election heats up, now is the time for campaigns to invest wisely. Questions abound: Do you invest in cable news advertising? Door-to-door canvassing? Social media? Something else?

For answers, I look back to the past. In 2000, I oversaw the South Carolina Republican Party’s history-making effort to post real-time presidential primary results online. The election night vote-counting for the epic Bush vs. McCain battle played out on screens across the world – not just in the South Carolina GOP’s vote tabulation center. On that night, the ground shifted beneath our feet.

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