Wyoming Sues Biden Administration over Fossil Fuel Ban

Rep. Harriet Hageman

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been chipping away at the oil, gas and coal industries ever since President Joe Biden took office. Wyoming is an energy state that produces half the nation’s coal, as well as part of its oil and gas output. Since the federal government owns nearly half the state’s land, virtually all oil, gas and coal operations in the Cowboy State are heavily impacted by every rule the BLM throws at fossil fuels.

Although the Biden administration is waging war on fossil fuels, Wyoming is fighting back. The state, along with Utah, filed a lawsuit against the agency last Tuesday over its restoration lease program, and Rep. Harriett Hageman, R-Wyo., is rolling out legislation to fight back against the BLM’s proposed ban on federal coal leases.

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Sen. Blackburn Leads Push for Pro-Life Protections in 2025 Budget

Marsha Blackburn

Protections for the unborn belong at the forefront of the federal budget, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote in a letter sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday.

“As the Senate Appropriations Committee continues to work on legislation for fiscal year 2025, we urge the committee to ensure that long-standing, bipartisan pro-life provisions are included as bill text,” says Blackburn’s letter, co-signed by Republicans Sens. Steve Daines of Montana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and shared with The Daily Signal.

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In First Five Years, 79,000 of DACA Recipients Admitted to U.S. Had Arrest Records

DACA Rally

Within five years of a new program created to prevent deportation of minors brought into the country illegally by their parents, nearly 80,000 were released into the U.S. with arrest records. The majority were between the ages of 19 and 22 when they were arrested, according to the latest available data published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced he was expanding deportation protections and job opportunities for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by executive order by former president Barack Obama in 2012.

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Commentary: America Doesn’t Need Federal Homeschooling Standards

Home Schooling

Some of you may remember that four years ago this week I debated Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet who called for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling. The online event was hosted by the Cato Institute and drew thousands of participants, including many homeschooling families who were incensed by Bartholet’s proposal.

Now, Scientific American is joining the crowd of busybodies eager to constrain a family’s right to raise and educate their children how they choose. “The federal government must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in home­school­ing across the country,” read a recent editorial in the magazine.

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Biden DOJ Hits Five Pro-Life Activists — Three Already Facing Prison for Blocking Abortion Clinic — with New Lawsuit

Cal Zastrow

President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) hit five pro-life activists with a new lawsuit Thursday for allegedly blocking access to an abortion clinic.

Three activists named in the lawsuit — Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow and Chester Gallagher — were previously convicted this year on Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges in Tennessee. The lawsuit alleges they, along with defendants Kenneth Scott and Katelyn Sims, “trespassed onto a reproductive health center’s property, blocked the entrances and temporarily stopped operations at the center,” according to the DOJ.

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Commentary: More Catholics Believe in the Eucharist than Previously Thought

Catholic Eucharist

A new study by Catholic market research company Vinea Research found that belief in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist is greater than a 2019 Pew Research study previously estimated.

Pew Research had found that 69 percent of U.S. Catholics personally believe that “the bread and wine used in Communion ‘are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.’” By contrast, only 31 percent of Catholics said that they believe that “the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”

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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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Reporter Peter D’Abrosca: TN-05 GOP Candidate Courtney Johnston’s Reluctance Talking to the Press Fuels Assumptions She Is a Left-of-Center Candidate

Pete and MPL

Peter D’Abrosca, reporter at The Tennessee Star, said Metro Nashville Council Member Courtney Johnston’s reluctance to speak with the press on various issues only leaves voters to assume that she is a left-of-center candidate running in the August 1 GOP primary race for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.

Johnston is running in the August 1 primary against incumbent U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05), who boasts a 100 percent rating on the Heritage Action Scorecard, the nation’s leading conservative scorecard.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center Doctor Called Transgender Surgery ‘Big Money’ Year Before Covenant Killer Audrey Hale was Referred for Commitment

Shayne Sebold Taylor

Born a biological female, Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale began identifying as a transgender man and using the name Aiden prior to her devastating attack which claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adults on March 27, 2023.

Police documents published by The Tennessee Star determined Hale was a 22-year mental health patient of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), the home of a controversial transgender program that is reportedly considered “big money” for the hospital.

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Trump Floats Idea to Give Foreign Graduates in the U.S. a Green Card

Politico Former President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that foreign students who graduate from college in the United States should receive a green card so they can stay in the country. “You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges too,” Trump said in an episode on the All-In podcast, which is hosted by several venture capitalists. He floated the idea after being asked by a host if he would promise to “give us ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America.” The former president has used harsh rhetoric about illegal immigration, oftentimes at campaign rallies, and recently criticized President Joe Biden on his efforts to decrease the number of migrants crossing the border illegally. READ THE FULL STORY 

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Biden Has Paroled in 2 Million-Plus Inadmissible Aliens

Center for Immigration Studies DHS has publicly released a report captioned “Parole Requests” it sent to Congress back in December. It‘s only current through the end of last June but skip the boilerplate and go to a chart on page 10 that shows that in the first ninth months of FY 2023, DHS paroled in nearly 870,000 facially inadmissible aliens with no legal right to be here — one roughly every 28 seconds. That brings total Biden paroles to about two million, all under a restrictive authority Congress decreed be used only on a “case-by-case basis”. Did I mention they can all get work permits and Social Security numbers? If this sounds like a completely separate immigration system, divorced from the one Congress created, you’re right. Congress’ Authority Over Immigration, and the Executive’s Limited Parole Power. The Center has explained the many flaws in Biden’s various parole schemes ad nauseam, but to understand why nearly all these releases violate the law, it’s important to go to the language of the parole statute itself, section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It states, in pertinent part, that the DHS secretary may: “in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may…

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IRS Freezes Pandemic-Era Tax Credit Claims amid Widespread Fraud

Breitbart The Internal Revenue Service has reviewed some one million claims for coronavirus pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit (ERC) tax breaks representing $86 billion and declared the “vast majority” are at risk of being improper. Congress established the program during the coronavirus pandemic as an incentive for businesses to keep workers on the payroll but it quickly became a magnet for fraud. Demand for the credit soared as Congress extended the tax break and made it available to more companies. Aggressive marketers dangled the prospect of enormous refunds to business owners if they would just apply, AP reports. READ THE FULL STORY                   

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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Domestic-Violence Gun Ban

Reuters U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns, handing a victory to President Joe Biden’s administration as the justices opted not to further widen firearms rights after a major expansion in 2022. The 8-1 ruling, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned a lower court’s decision striking down the 1994 law as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” The law was challenged by a Texas man who was subject to a restraining order for assaulting his girlfriend in a parking lot and later threatening to shoot her. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had concluded that the measure failed the Supreme Court’s stringent test set in 2022 that required gun laws to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to comply with the Second Amendment. READ THE FULL STORY         

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Donor to Far-Left State Rep Aftyn Behn Says He Cancelled Planned Hosting of Fundraiser for TN-05 Republican Challenger Courtney Johnston Despite Invitation Obtained by The Star

A donor to far-left State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) said that he canceled hosting a planned fundraiser for Courtney Johnston, a Republican challenger to Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN-05), despite a flyer invitation for the event obtained by The Tennessee Star.

According to the flyer, Margaret and George Uribe were scheduled to host a fundraiser for Johnston on Wednesday.

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