Category: Policy

Commentary: Republicans Must Stop Retreating on Abortion

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While President Joe Biden’s halting performance in the first 2024 presidential debate generated the most significant commentary, it was some of former President Donald Trump’s remarks that raised concerns for pro-life voters. Those remarks ended up foreshadowing the recently proposed Republican platform’s surrender on the abortion issue.

Trump’s first misstep was his contention that “everybody” wanted abortion regulated at the state level. “Fifty-one years ago you had Roe v. Wade,” Trump argued, “and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. Everybody wanted it back… Ronald Reagan wanted it brought back” (emphasis added).

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Senate Committee Votes Against Biden-Nominated Judge Who Allowed Male Rapist in Female Prison

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Senate Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday against a judicial nominee who had allowed a male serial rapist, who identifies as a woman, to be housed in a female prison.

President Joe Biden nominated Sarah Netburn to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, but the nomination was blocked by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 10-11 vote. In August 2022, Netburn recommended the transfer of male inmate William McClain, who goes by July Justine Shelby, into a female prison despite his record of sex crimes, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

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Tennessee U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles Introduces the Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2024

Kaitlin Housler
Andy Ogles

U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) introduced a bill this week to protect surrogate mothers from being forced to have abortions as part of terms set in surrogacy contracts.

Ogles’ Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2024 would prohibit federal courts from enforcing any part of a surrogacy contract that requires a surrogate mother to get an abortion.

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Conservative Organization Investigating Biden Admin’s ‘Partisan’ Voter Registration Push in Key Swing State

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Voter Registration

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) launched an investigation Wednesday into a Biden administration program aimed at registering voters in a key swing state, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

AFPI is demanding documents from the Biden administration regarding the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) voter registration efforts in Michigan, an operation it suspects could disproportionately benefit Democrats in November’s election, the organization exclusively told the DCNF. The SBA’s voter registration operations in Michigan are part of Executive Order 14019, which compels federal agencies to develop a plan to promote voter engagement and participation, sparking concerns from some conservatives that public funds may be used to help Democrats in the looming general election.

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Ignoring Parents’ Objections, Virginia County’s School Board Unanimously OKs Gender Ideology Lessons

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Children in Classroom

A Northern Virginia school district will teach kindergartners about gay parents and middle schoolers about transgenderism in the wake of a unanimous vote late last month—despite significant parental opposition.

The Fairfax County School Board unanimously approved changes to its Family Life Education Curriculum on June 27 that include “broadening examples of family structures to be more inclusive of the many different families in our schools.”

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Arizona Rancher Charged for Shooting an Illegal Migrant on His Property Scores Final Court Victory

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A rancher previously charged with the fatal shooting of an illegal migrant who encroached on his Arizona ranch will not have to face trial again.

An Arizona Superior Court judge on Tuesday dismissed murder and assault charges against George Alan Kelly “with prejudice,” according to 9 KGUN. This ruling means the rancher cannot face charges again, closing a final chapter in a case that began over a year ago.

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Department of Interior Shuts Down Millions of Acres of Alaska to All Oil, Gas and Mining Activity

Just the News
Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

The Interior Department last Friday blocked 28 million acres of federal land in the state of Alaska from any mining or oil and gas development.

Rick Whitbeck, Alaska state director for Power The Future, said the decision on D-1 lands removes an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania from resource development, which will have severe energy impact to the nation and the state of Alaska.

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Cost Estimates for Florida Abortion Amendment Could Be Affected by Lawsuit

The Center Square
Abortion Rally

Florida state officials said on Monday that litigation could affect cost estimates for a proposed constitutional amendment that could enact a right to abortion statewide.

The Office of Economic and Demographic Research held a Financial Estimating Conference Monday to review the financial impact of the ballot initiative, which will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.

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Democrats Draw Backlash, Suspicion over Opposition to Hill Republicans’ Citizen-Only Voting Bill

Just the News
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark

Democrats’ opposition to the passage of GOP-led congressional legislation that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections is drawing backlash and suspicion.

“Why are Democrats so adamantly against ensuring only American citizens vote in our elections?” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson asked Monday on X above a repost of a Fox News story on such opposition.

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RNC’s Embrace of Trump Platform Signals Shift in GOP as Old Guard Fades in Influence

Just the News
Donald Trump at a rally event

Whereas Donald Trump as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee battled the GOP establishment over changing the party’s direction and in 2020 faced substantive internal resistance during his reelection bid, he now appears as the 2024 nominee to have won control of a party apparatus willing to embrace his policy platform and earnestly support his efforts.

The Republican National Committee on Monday formally adopted Trump’s 2024 party platform, which focused heavily on economy and border security issues. While both issues have been topline issues for Trump throughout his political career, the platform’s inclusion of other provisions highlighted the extent to which his own agenda had inserted itself into the party.

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Biden Admin ‘Strongly’ Opposed to Bill Cracking Down on Illegal Immigrants Voting

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Illegal Migrants

The Biden administration came out swinging against a bill that seeks to strengthen current law allowing only American citizens to participate in federal elections.

The White House said it “strongly opposes” the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act in a formal statement released Monday. The White House statement ripped the GOP-led bill for allegedly being based on “easily disproven falsehoods” and claimed that laws are already in place to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

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Commentary: The Nationwide 500,000 Electric Vehicle Charger Charade

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Tesla charging stations

The word charade has several meanings, and including an act or event that is clearly false (Cambridge Dictionary), something done just for show (Vocabulary.com), or a situation in which people pretend that something is true when it clearly is not (Oxford Leaner’s Dictionary).

The charade I refers to is President Biden’s $7.5 billion dollar investment to install 500,000 electric charging stations along America’s highways by 2030. A reliable and convenient public EV charging infrastructure is critical to achieve the President’s goal of meeting the recent EPA CO2 emission regulation that require nearly 72 percent of U.S. new light vehicle sales to be fully electric or plug-in hybrid by 2032. Without diving deeper into the announcement, one would likely assume that $7.5 billion is sufficient to construct the 500,000 charging stations, one every 50 miles along the nation’s highways.

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Democratic Activists Form ‘Pass the Torch’ Campaign to Push Biden to Drop Out of Race

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Joe Biden

Democratic activists launched a “Pass the Torch” campaign on Monday to push President Biden to drop out of race after his performance in the first presidential debate.

The “Pass the Torch” website includes a petition that its organizers want DNC delegates and the general public to sign calling on Biden to “pass the torch and pledge to support the new nominee.”

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Check’s Not In Mail: Postal Service Re-Organization Failed to Stem Billions in Losses

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USPS Trucks

The U.S. Postal Service has now accumulated a whopping $98 billion in losses since it went into the red in 2007 and its much-ballyhooed reorganization has failed to reverse the trend as expected, according to a sobering new report from the iconic mail agency’s watchdog.

The Postal Service inspector general reports that the mail service recorded losses of $950 million in 2022 and $6.5 billion in 2023, in the first two years after implementing its decade-long Delivering for America (DFA) reorganization plan.

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Oklahoma Becomes Latest State in Court over Illegal Immigration, Arguing It’s a State Issue

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Oklahoma Atty Gen. Gentner Drummond

Oklahoma is the most recent state facing a legal battle with the Biden administration on the issue of illegal immigration, with a federal judge blocking legislation that would make entering the country illegally a state crime. 

Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156 makes it a crime to be in Oklahoma without legal status. The legislation was signed into law on April 30, but was blocked by a federal judge in June after the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against the state. 

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Four Years Later, CDC Documents on COVID-19’s Origin in China Emerge as Oversight Wanes

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Newly released documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal early evidence and analysis four years ago in which U.S. government officials indicated that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China.

These findings in the CDC documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, dating from about six months after the disease’s initial outbreak, are coming to light only now because of the government’s repeated delays in releasing relevant documents through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

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Report: Warner Hopes to Enlist Senate Democrats to Encourage Biden to Leave Race

The Center Square
Joe Biden with Sen. Mark Warner

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is trying to gather a cohort of his Democratic Senate colleagues to convince President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, the Washington Post reported Friday. 

Last week’s debate has apparently persuaded Warner that a Biden campaign is untenable, and he wants to take a group of Democratic senators to the White House on Monday to speak with the president about exiting the race, according to two Washington Post sources who wished to remain anonymous.

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Panama Closes Three Darien Crossings on the Border with Colombia

ADN America
Darien River, Panama

Panama has closed at least three of the crossing points used by migrants to cross the Darien River, which marks the border with Colombia, with a “perimeter barrier” in order to “channel” the flow of migrants and exercise greater control over this irregular route used by hundreds of people every day on their way to North America, Panamanian authorities reported on Wednesday.

Panama’s National Border Service (Senafront) said in a statement to which EFE had access that “measures were taken to control the massive irregular migration that the Panamanian State faces” in order to “channel irregular migration” to Bajo Chiquito, the first town that migrants reach after crossing the Darien jungle on foot for days.

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Funds for African Immigrants and Delivery Fee Among New Laws on the Books in Minnesota

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African Immigrants

The latest round of legislation passed by the Minnesota Legislature includes $1 million in funding for the African Immigrants Community Services nonprofit and an added delivery fee on retail orders.

The Minnesota House of Representatives released a list of legislation which was due to go into effect on July 1, all of which were sponsored by members of the DFL. Chief among the pieces of legislation passed during the most recent session is new spending. $23.85 million was delegated to the Department of Employment and Economic Development for “job training and economic development programs in fiscal year 2025.” Included in that spending was “$1 million to African Immigrants Community Services for workforce development for new Americans” as well as “$1 million to the Minnesota Black Chamber of Commerce for technical support to Black-owned small businesses.” Furthermore, “the law also appropriates General Fund money to support programs through Explore Minnesota Tourism,” including “$400,000 to Ka Joog for Somali community and cultural festivals and events.”

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Virginia House and Senate Reach Deal on Military Education Program

The Center Square
Virginia Military Bill

Monday ended with another disappointment for those unhappy with recent changes to a state education assistance program for military families, but by Tuesday night, things had turned around.

Tuesday evening, the Senate of Virginia issued a press release stating that the House of Delegates and Senate finance chairs had finally reached an agreement on the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program after a month and a half of upheaval surrounding changes made to the program in the latest state budget.

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Arizona State Republicans Lament Water Basin Bill That Didn’t Find Hobbs’ Desk

The Center Square
Katie Hobbs

Some Republican lawmakers have expressed disappointment with the fact that a water basin management bill did not make its way to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk this session, which finished last month.

Senate Bill 1221 would have stopped “new groundwater pumping” in the Gila Bend, Wilcox and Hualapai basins as well as cut back on current usage of the water by 10-15% over the course of the next two decades, according to a news release. The bill passed the Senate in February, but absences from the Republican side and united votes against the bill on the Democratic slide led the bill to die in June.

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Federal Judge Pauses Biden’s Partial Liquefied Natural Gas Export Ban

The Center Square
Judge James Cain Jr.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s ban on new exports of liquified natural gas exports to non-free trade agreement countries.

Judge James Cain Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Energy’s partial LNG export ban after more than a dozen states sued, arguing the ban was illegal.

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Federal Court Halts Biden’s Title IX Regulations in Four New States

Just the News
Federal Judge John Brooms

Federal judge John Broomes ruled on the side of attorneys general in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, claiming that Title IX was meant to protect biological women from discrimination in education.

A federal court in Kansas on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations from taking effect in four states, becoming the latest court to stop the new controversial rules from taking effect in August.

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Raise the Wage Ohio Toes Deadline for Petition Signature Submissions

The Center Square
Minimum Wage Protest

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Wednesday he expects Raise the Wage Ohio to turn in petition signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would raise the minimum wage, joining two other filings for the November ballot this week.

The Raise the Wage Ohio campaign, made up mostly of volunteers, needs 413,487 valid petition signatures for the amendment to reach the ballot.

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McMaster Removing $2.3 Million from South Carolina’s 2024-25 Budget

The Center Square
Henry McMaster

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced 21 budget vetoes totaling nearly $2.3 million from the Palmetto State’s fiscal 2024-25 budget.

The Republican governor announced his vetoes during a Wednesday media briefing, calling on state lawmakers to replace earmarks with merit-based and competitive grants. The budget includes more than 500 earmarks totaling $424.7 million.

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Pennsylvania State Senate Passes Bill to Help Schools Ban Cell Phones

Tom Pappert
Student with Cell Phone

The Pennsylvania State Senate on Wednesday passed SB 1207, which seeks to amend the Public School Code of 1949 in order to establish a Cell Phone Lockable Bag Pilot Program that would encourage schools to restrict cell phone use among students.

Introduced by State Senator Ryan Aument (R-Lancaster), the legislation would “provide funding to cover the costs of purchasing secure cell phone lockable bags,” which will be available to schools throughout the commonwealth who establish a “policy that prohibits the use of cell phones during school time” and requires students to store their phones in “lockable bags.”

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Kamala Harris Is Floated as a Biden Replacement, but Her Past May Weigh Down Her Candidacy

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Kamala Harris

President Joe Biden’s debate performance raised so many concerns about his cognitive state and advanced age that more and more Democrats are mulling replacing him as their 2024 presidential nominee. But, the president’s most likely replacement—Kamala Harris—has a political past that may give voters pause.

As the current vice president and favorite to replace Biden because of her many institutional advantages, Harris is a known entity and likely the most vetted of the potential replacement nominees. But her rapid rise through the notorious San Francisco political machine was bound to leave some marks on her record, especially on issues that are important to Democratic voters.

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Commentary: Don’t Let the Department of Education Silence Our Kids

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Moms for America

The Founding Fathers recognized that an educated citizenry was vital to the survival of our republic. Thomas Jefferson, for example, saw education as essential to giving every citizen the opportunity to participate meaningfully in a free society.

Writing in 1818, our third president described public education as “the means to give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business … to express and preserve his own ideas … to improve his morals and faculties … to understand his duties, and to exercise his rights.”

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Another Complaint Adds to Mounting Evidence of FBI’s Political Bias and Whistleblower Retaliation

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Evidence is mounting that the FBI—the country’s premier law enforcement agency—has resorted to basing decisions to suspend or revoke security clearances on FBI employees’ political views.

The evidence, which suggests political motivations in how the bureau has treated several of its own workers, has surfaced through whistleblower complaints recently filed internally and with the Justice Department’s watchdog.

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‘There Is Always a Way’: Black Market Network Evading Biden Admin Sanctions to Deliver High-Tech Chips to China

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High tech computer processing chip

A black market network is evading Biden administration sanctions and delivering high-tech chips to China, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation released Wednesday.

Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip systems are highly prized by China in the country’s ongoing race to rival the American technology industry, and the Biden administration has imposed sanctions and export controls to prevent Beijing from getting its hands on them. Chinese companies and organizations are still obtaining these chips — specifically Nvidia AI chips — through a black market network made up of buyers and sellers spanning multiple countries, according to a WSJ investigation of records of the distributors involved.

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ICE Nabs Illegal Migrant Wanted on Child Rape Charges After He Was Released into U.S. Years Earlier

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ICE law enforcement officers arresting an illegal migrant

Federal immigration authorities arrested an illegal migrant wanted in his home country on child rape charges and hiding out in the United States.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehended a Ecuadorian national, who remains unidentified, in western Massachusetts last month, the agency announced on Tuesday. The individual entered the U.S. unlawfully in 2021 and is wanted in his home country for allegedly raping a child.

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