Day: January 22, 2025

Taxpayers and Students Are Funding $2 Billion in DEI Course Mandates at Public Universities, New Report Finds

Rachel Alexander

The Goldwater Institute (GI) issued a report this month exposing how much DEI course mandates at public universities nationwide cost taxpayers and students. The report found that the cost is over $1.8 billion and could be as high as $3.8 billion, requiring 40 million hours. 

The report observed that the free speech advocacy organization Speech First found that 67 percent of U.S. colleges and universities require students to take a DEI course. Parents Defending Education revealed that the Department of Education awarded over $1 billion in grant funding for DEI courses within the past four years to K-12 schools and universities.

Read the full story

U.S. Universities Failed to Disclose Tens of Millions in Chinese Funding

Daily Caller News Foundation
UC Berkeley

American universities are failing to disclose millions of dollars in funding from China, a report released Wednesday found.

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) has received $87.5 million from China since 2013 and another $59.4 million from Hong Kong, while the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) accepted at least $32.3 million within the same time frame, according to a new report from OpenTheBooks. However, both universities demonstrated “significant failures in the reporting of foreign funding,” according to a 2024 House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party investigation, which also predicted there to be “likely hundreds of millions, if not billions in total” of Chinese dollars flowing into American universities that are not reported.

Read the full story

Trump Admin Just Turbocharged ICE’s Ability to Quickly Deport Illegal Immigrants

Daily Caller News Foundation
ICE Arrest

The Trump administration incredibly expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to quickly deport illegal immigrants from the U.S. on Tuesday, removing yet another enforcement hurdle.

“Expedited removal” is a policy that allows federal immigration officials within 100 miles of an international land border to remove illegal migrants via a streamlined process that bypasses the backlogged immigration court system. Per a notice posted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE agents now have the ability to implement expedited removal anywhere in the country, removing illegal migrants’ ability to slow-walk their removal by contesting their deportation order in court.

Read the full story

Pentagon Will Send Up to 1,500 Active Duty Troops to Help Secure US-Mexico Border

Admin

The Associated Press    The Pentagon will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, the White House confirmed on Wednesday, putting in motion plans President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration. Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses was expected to sign the deployment orders on Wednesday, but it wasn’t yet clear which troops will go, and the total could fluctuate. It remains to be seen if they will end up doing law enforcement, which would put American troops in a dramatically different role for the first time in decades. “This is something President Trump campaigned on,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary. “The American people have been waiting for such a time as this — for our Department of Defense to actually implement homeland security seriously. This is a No. 1 priority for the American people.” READ THE FULL STORY 

Read the full story

ICE Arrested 308 Illegal Migrants — Including Attempted Murderer and a Child Molester —on Trump’s First Full Day in Office

Admin

New York Post   ICE arrested 308 illegal migrants, including an attempted murderer and a child molester, during raids in and around sanctuary cities across the country on President Trump’s first full day in office Tuesday, The Post has learned. The Jan. 21 coast-to-coast raids — a multi-agency effort led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — brought the hammer down on criminal migrants near Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore and Miami, a senior Trump administration official said. Sex offender Edward Marlon Rauda-Aldnada, 56, of El Salvador, was arrested in Silver Spring, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC. READ THE FULL STORY                 

Read the full story

Refugee Flights Canceled Following President Trump’s Executive Action

Admin

Breitbart   Refugee flights have been canceled following President Donald Trump’s executive action, according to a memo. CNN obtained the State Department memo, alerting resettlement partners that “previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being cancelled, and no new travel bookings will be made.” “RSCs should not request travel for any additional refugee cases at this time,” the memo continues, adding that “all refugee case processing and pre-departure activities are also suspended.” READ THE FULL STORY                 

Read the full story

Robby Starbuck and Michael Patrick Leahy Agree Penny Schwinn Can Best Serve President Trump by Withdrawing from Consideration for Education Job

Kaitlin Housler
Penny Schwinn

Robby Starbuck, Tennessee political commentator and documentary filmmaker, and Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Tennessee Star, agree that Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee Education Commissioner who was controversially nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Deputy Secretary of Education, would best serve the president by withdrawing her name from consideration for the role.

Read the full story

Nashville Transit Plan Opponents File for Expedited Appeal in Lawsuit to Overturn Transit Referendum

Tom Pappert
Freddie O'Connell

An appeal has been filed in the lawsuit seeking to overturn the Choose How You Move transit referendum that was successfully passed at the ballot box by Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell last year, with both parties involved in the legal action additionally asking the court to grant an expedited appeal that would see a majority of filings due to the Tennessee Court of Appeals next month.

The appeal was filed with the court on January 15, with the Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax and its founder Emily Evans asking the appeals court to reverse the ruling released by Tennessee Chancery Court Judge Anne Martin two days prior.

Read the full story

Tennesseans Torch Christopher Rufo’s Uninformed and Ineffective Defense of Penny Schwinn

Tom Pappert
Penny Schwinn

Tennessee conservatives have lambasted education journalist and author Christopher Rufo for the support he expressed for Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee Education Commissioner who was controversially nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education last week.

After meeting with Schwinn, Rufo wrote in a Tuesday post to the social media platform X that the former Tennessee official provided sufficient answers to the allegation she allowed sexually explicit material to remain in school libraries and supported “wellbeing checks” for all Tennessee students.

Read the full story

Family Dollar Stores Agree to $1.1 Million Settlement with Tennessee Following Investigation into Rodent-Infested Warehouse

Kaitlin Housler
Family Dollar store

Family Dollar Stores reached a settlement with the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General agreeing to pay the state over $1 million and commit to new protocols as a result of an investigation that revealed Family Dollar stores in Tennessee were selling consumer goods that had knowingly been stored in a rodent-infested distribution center in Arkansas.

Read the full story

Arizona Realtor Files Lawsuit Claiming Realtors’ Anti-discrimination Rule, Which He Allegedly Violated with Political Memes, Tramples the First Amendment

Rachel Alexander
Chad DeVries

A realtor who was found to have violated an anti-discrimination rule due to posting memes on his personal anonymous Instagram account critical of LGBTQ has filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Association of Realtors (AAR). Represented by attorney Ryan Heath, Chad DeVries filed Devries v. Arizona Association of Realtors in July 2024, alleging that the AAR did not have authority over his personal conduct, and asserted that by punishing him, he will not be able to access the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for real estate, preventing him from doing his job until the discipline is completed.

Podcaster and real estate pro Notorious Rob posted a couple of the memes from DeVries’ Instagram account, which is accessible only to followers and does not have his name on it. One of the memes shows a pregnant man with another man, titled “Man Gives Birth to Child.” DeVries added a comment, “I feel like we live on Mars. WTF”

Read the full story

Virginia A.G. Jason Miyares Sues TikTok for Allegedly Designing Addictive App as Trump Gives Chinese Company 75 More Days to Sell

Tom Pappert
Virginia AG Jason Miyares

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed a lawsuit against the social media platform TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, alleging the company’s smartphone application was designed to be addictive to young people, and that its creators make false claims about its content being appropriate for minors.

A press release from the attorney’s general office confirmed the lawsuit was filed Friday, and revealed that Miyares argued TikTok was, “intentionally designed to be addictive for adolescent users.”

Read the full story

Commentary: Democrats Can’t Bully Their Way to a ‘Free Pass’

RealClearWire
Democrats gather on the House floor

I believe in restraint, tradition, decorum, and the precepts of our system of criminal justice: deterrence, punishment, and retribution. Turning the other cheek accomplishes none of these. Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons for his family, and his unprecedented preemptive pardons for members and staff of the January 6 Committee, Anthony Fauci, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Milley, underscore the necessity for Congress and Donald Trump’s Justice Department to perform their duties to investigate crime.

Read the full story

Commentary: Governor Hobbs’ ESA Proposal Unacceptable for Arizona Families

Star News Contributor
Kids in a classroom

More than 80,000 Arizona families are happily using Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. It’s unfortunate that these families live in constant frustration with Governor Hobbs and her constant attacks on the ESA program. As the newly elected Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, let me be clear: none of Governor Hobbs’ plans for the ESA program will come to fruition. 

Read the full story