Incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles Trounces TN-5 Challenger Courtney Johnston in Straw Poll at Davidson County Republican Party’s Annual Picnic Event

Rep. Andy Ogles

Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) was the resounding victor among attendees at the Davidson County Republican Party’s annual picnic event on Saturday who participated in a straw poll weighing candidates running in the August 1 Republican primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.

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Five Illegal Immigrants Charged with Kidnapping 14-Year-Old Girl in American Heartland

Illegal Immigrants

All five men charged with kidnapping a teenage girl are living in the United States illegally, according to local law enforcement officials.

Five men were arrested early Monday morning in northeast Missouri after a 14-year-old Indiana girl was reported missing from her home, according to Fox 4, a Missouri-based outlet. The men — all of them Honduran or Mexican nationals and living in the U.S. illegally — were taken into custody and charged with kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.

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Nevada Judge Tosses Charges Against Six Pro-Trump Fake Electors

Axios  A Nevada judge on Friday dismissed the criminal indictments of six people for pretending to be electors in an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election, the AP reported. The case, brought by Attorney General Aaron D. Ford’s office, could be over on the grounds that prosecutors chose the wrong venue to file it. The judge also called off the trial scheduled for January. READ THE FULL STORY                 

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White House: Unlike Trump, Biden’s China Tariffs Only Hit Areas ‘Where We Import Very Little from China’

Breitbart On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein stated that the tariffs on China that President Joe Biden announced are different from the approach of 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump because Biden’s tariffs only apply to areas “where we import very little from China.” Bernstein said, “I think it’s the difference between the narrowly-targeted, very precisely-targeted tariffs that President Biden has put in place, in areas where we export – where we import very little from China. In fact, a little bit less than 4% of our imports, as regards to the recent announcement that the President has made. READ THE FULL STORY                   

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Top Biden PAC Scoops Up Cash from Bloomberg, Soros-Funded Group, and Other Megadonors

Washington Examiner The main super PAC supporting President Joe Biden‘s 2024 reelection campaign was cut large checks recently from Michael Bloomberg, a group bankrolled by George Soros, and other left-wing megadonors, new records show. Future Forward, which can raise and spend unlimited sums to support Biden through advertising, hauled in $39.5 million in May, with roughly half of the money, $19 million, coming from ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The super PAC also received $5 million from the Soros-backed Democracy PAC and $6.6 million from James Simons, an investor who died one week after his donation, among other cash transfers, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The haul comes one month after a Washington Examiner report on a mysterious and newly formed group linked to Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias funneling more than $2 million to Future Forward in April. But Future Forward, which has an affiliated nonprofit organization routing cash to the super PAC’s coffers, is also facing scrutiny from Democratic activists — some of whom say it is sitting on a large war chest but has taken limited steps to promote Biden’s agenda and platform. READ THE FULL STORY 

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Trump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark Files Post-Hearing Brief Poking Holes in the D.C. Bar’s Disciplinary Panel Findings

Jeffrey Clark

Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, is fighting a recommendation from the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel to discipline him over his concerns about illegalities in the 2020 election. Last month, he filed a Post-Hearing Brief challenging a nonbinding preliminary finding of culpability for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options in dealing with the irregularities.

The hearing panel found that Clark engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation and conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice, Rules 8.4(c) and (d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Those ethics rules have been accused of being broad, vague, and unconstitutional. State bars frequently use them to target conservative attorneys.

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Democrat State Rep ‘Disappointed’ That Trump will Be on Tennessee Ballot

Vincent Dixie

A Democrat State Representative told The Tennessee Lookout that he is disappointed that former President Donald Trump will remain on the ballot in the state after being convicted of 34 felonies in the state of New York.

Rep. Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville) reportedly wrote a letter to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti claiming that Trump should be barred from appearing on the state’s ballot, and asking for a legal opinion on the matter. 

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Biden DHS Board Painted Trump Supporters, Military and Religious People as Potential Terror Risk, Docs Show

People Praying

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory board characterized supporters of President Donald Trump, as well as those who are in the military and religious people, as posing potential domestic terrorism risks, according to internal documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL).

The board, called the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” was created in September 2023 to provide DHS with “expert” analysis on subjects such as terrorism and fentanyl trafficking. The panel included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, all of whom signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop and suggesting its release was a Russian disinformation ploy.

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Instagram Pushes Sexualized Content on 13-Year-Olds Within Minutes of Logging In, Studies Show

Teenager on Phone

Instagram recommends sexualized content to young teenagers within minutes of their first log in, according to studies from The Wall Street Journal and Northeastern computer-science professor Laura Edelson.

The studies, which consisted of scrolling through Instagram Reels using new test accounts with listed ages of 13, found that adult sex-content creators appeared in the test accounts’ feeds in as little as three minutes, according to The Wall Street Journal. Additionally, if a test account chose to skip other forms of content and watch sexually suggestive content to completion, its feed would be dominated by sexualized content in under 20 minutes.

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Over 500,000 Illegal Migrants Crossed Southern Border While Biden Claimed He Had No Power to Stop Them

Illegal Immigrants

Hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals descended on the U.S.-Mexico border between the time President Joe Biden declared there was nothing more he could do to stop illegal immigration and when he issued his executive order.

Border Patrol agents made nearly 525,000 illegal immigrant encounters across the southern border in February, March, April and May, according to the latest data by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Those were the four months between Biden claiming to the media on Jan. 30 that he’s done “all I can do” unilaterally to stop the immigration crisis and the executive order he issued on June 4 that seeks to cap southern border crossings.

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‘Incompetence’: Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Much Money It Sent to Chinese Entities for Risky Virus Research

Science Lab

The Department of Defense (DOD) does not know how much money it directly or indirectly sent to Chinese entities to conduct research on viruses with pandemic potential, according to a new report by the DOD’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The OIG’s report found that DOD has supplied Chinese entities — whether directly or indirectly via subgrants — with taxpayer cash to research pathogens and the enhancement thereof, but the exact figure is unknown because of “limitations” in the DOD’s internal tracking system. Government funding for such research in China has come under scrutiny since the coronavirus pandemic, which multiple government entities believe started when an engineered virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory that was hosting U.S. government-backed gain-of-function research.

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10 More Minneapolis Gang Members Charged with Illegal Gun Possession and Drugs

Andrew Luger Press Conference

Ten more alleged Minneapolis gang members have been charged in federal court for various crimes including illegal possession of firearms, possession of a machine gun, and drug trafficking, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger in a Tuesday press conference.

Luger was joined by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara and FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Leah Greeves in announcing charges against the “10z” and “20z” (pronounced “tens” and “twenties”) gang members who they say operate mainly in the area of East Franklin and Chicago avenues in south Minneapolis and are part of a two-year crackdown on gangs in the city.

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Virginia Congressional Primary Race Could Take ‘Weeks’ to ‘Complete’

John McGuire and Bob Good

Tuesday’s Republican primary race for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District between state Sen. John McGuire and incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Good is still too close to call.

McGuire holds a razor-thin lead of 313 votes, according to the latest numbers from the Virginia Department of Elections. Good, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, is holding on to hope that lingering votes will save his seat.

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Ohio Closer to Requiring Medical Pricing Transparency

A concurrence from the House of Representatives is all that stands in the way of reinforcing Ohio hospital requirements to provide transparency in pricing.

Both the Senate and House passed slightly different versions of House Bill 49, which requires hospitals to comply with the federal price transparency law. This includes maintaining and making a public list of standard charges for services a patient can schedule in advance.

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South Carolina Agency Changes Name and Doubles Down on Mission

Alan Wilson

A partially federally funded South Carolina Agency is changing its name as it doubles down on its enforcement of crimes targeting the state’s vulnerable adult population.

South Carolina’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is changing its name to the Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud Unit. State officials said the agency experienced a 30% increase in reports from law enforcement thanks to an outreach effort targeting local agencies over the past two years.

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Retired Border Chief Says Michigan and Other States Face Impacts of Border Crisis

Chris Clem

The immigration wave at the southern border is a crisis of national security, and Michigan is not exempt from its effects, a recently retired Border Patrol chief says.

Former Chief Chris Clem, who is visiting Michigan as part of Americans for Prosperity’s “Secure Borders, Secure America” tour, served more than 27 years and under five presidents as a U.S. border patrol agent. He was promoted to Yuma Sector chief in December 2020, right before President Joe Biden took office. 

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PennDOT Releases Draft Plan to Guide Transportation Improvements

The next major transportation plan is out and PennDOT wants the public to comment on it.

The Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan was released to the public this week, laying out how the agency plans to spend almost $29 billion in the next few years to build “a safe and reliable transportation network that connects Pennsylvanians to opportunities and services,” according to an agency press release.

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Commentary: Geopolitics and Demand Growth Underpin Need for Commonsense Energy Policies

Oil rig

The U.S. energy sector finds itself in a precarious position. Increasing geopolitical volatility and strong energy demand forecasts could spell trouble domestically in the future. The U.S. needs to stop hamstringing American energy companies and invest in the nation’s infrastructure, such as pipelines, processing, and production.

If we have learned anything in the last two and a half years, it’s that the U.S.’ energy industry is not free from geopolitical chaos globally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Houthi’s attacks in Yemen backed by Iran and turmoil in the Middle East have very real repercussions for the average American. We may not be as intensely intertwined with those realities as our European allies, but energy is a global market with implications for domestic prices, supply, and demand. While different events can affect prices at home, there are steps the administration can take to protect our energy sector.

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Congress Presses to See If U.S. Intel Warned Biden of Son’s Business Deals

Hunter Biden and Joe Biden

House Republicans have built a mountain of incontrovertible evidence that Hunter Biden made millions while his father was vice president from business associates with unsavory backgrounds, including a Ukrainian energy firm deemed corrupt by the State Department, a Chinese executive convicted by DOJ of corruption, a Russian oligarch unable to get an American bank account because of red flags, a Romanian oligarch charged with bribery in his country, and two Americans convicted of securities fraud.

And now, an Associated Press/University of Chicago poll shows that two thirds of Americans believe Joe Biden did something illegal or unethical.

But the tangle of complex transactions and foreign names can often complicate the explanations of influence peddling.

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