Tag: politics

Facebook Blocks Search Results for ‘Kyle Rittenhouse’

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Person looking on Facebook with trending topics

Despite massive public interest in the court proceedings in Kenosha, Wisconsin,  this week, Facebook has blocked search results for the name “Kyle Rittenhouse.” Facebook shows zero posts when the query “Kyle Rittenhouse” is entered into the social media platform’s search bar. A message appears that states that “832,000 people are talking about this,” but no results show up.

An attempt to find Kyle Rittenhouse posts brings up a message informing the user that Facebook did not find any results with a prompt to make sure your spelling is correct.

Rittenhouse, 18, is currently on trial for shooting three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin,  killing two of them outright during a riot in August 2020. He is charged with two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, recklessly endangering safety and illegal possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18.

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Former Senate Staffer Under Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Awarded $2.75 Million in Race Discrimination Firing

The Center Square
Katie Hobbs

A former adviser to Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has again won a racial discrimination case against the state official from their time in the state Legislature. 

A jury sided with Talonya Adams, a former legal advisor to the Arizona Senate Democrats, in her claim that she was discriminated against when she was fired in 2015. 

Adams, who is Black, was awarded $2 million for being retaliated against and $750,000 for proving she was racially discriminated against. It’s unclear how much Adams will receive, since federal discrimination cases are capped at $300,000 plus legal fees for employers of more than 100 people.

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Arizona School District Opens Probe into Dossier Assembled on Parents Opposing Board President

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An Arizona school district announced Friday night is has hired a forensic investigator to determine if school resources were used to “compile, access or modify” a private dossier on parents critical of the school board president.

The Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) acknowledged it was aware of allegations that the dossier may have been assembled by School Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg’s father, Michael, a local activist, and some of its contents shared by the school board president.

The district “began the process of hiring an independent forensic investigator to determine if any school resources were used to compile, access or modify the private dossier allegedly created and maintained in Google drive folders by Mark Greenburg, the father of SUSD Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg, and shared by the latter,” Superintendent Scott A. Menzel announced.

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Analysis: Five Controversial Policies Tucked Inside $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Passed by Congress

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The final $1.2 trillion INVEST in America Act passed the Democrat-led House in a late night vote on Friday. Tucked away inside the infrastructure bill are some controversial policies, including these five:

1. The cryptocurrency tax provision in the Senate version of the bill was the subject of scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans. The language was not amended in the final bill that passed the House. The legislation includes an IRS reporting requirement for brokers of cryptocurrency transactions.

2. Under the “national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot” section of the bill, there is a pilot program to create a vehicle miles traveled system for taxing drivers based on their annual vehicle mileage. During his confirmation process, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg floated the idea of taxing motorists based on the number of miles they travel each year as a way to partly fund the legislation. The Biden administration backed off of full-scale development of the controversial proposal, settling instead for a pilot program.

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Federal Workers with Natural Immunity to COVID-19 Sue Biden Administration over Vaccine Mandate

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President Joe Biden talks to Veterans and VA staff members during a briefing on the vaccine process Monday, March 8, 2021, at the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Federal workers with naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 filed a class-action lawsuit Monday against the federal government over the Biden administration’s mandate that all federal workers be vaccinated against it as a condition of employment. The mandate doesn’t allow for exemptions for religious or other reasons, including having natural immunity.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil liberties group, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation on behalf of 11 individuals.

Those named in the lawsuit include Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief COVID Response Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and over 20 officials including cabinet heads, as well as several task forces and several federal agencies. They include the U.S. surgeon general, director of CDC and OPM, the secretaries of the departments of Veteran’s Affairs, FEMA, FPS, OMB, Secret Service, USGA, among others.

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Inflation Increases at Record Rate for Second Month in a Row

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Woman shopping

The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, rose 8.6% year-over-year as of October, growing at a record rate for a second straight month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Thursday.

BLS reported Thursday that the PPI, which measures inflation before it hits consumers, grew 0.6% in October, in line with Dow Jones estimates, highlighting that inflationary pressure is still strong.

Over 60% of the month-over-month increase in producer prices resulted from a 1.2% spike in the price of goods rather than services, BLS reported. Goods prices rose 1.2% in October compared to a 0.2% increase in the cost of services.

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Biden Administration Collecting Information on Millions of American Gun Owners

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Guy shooting hand gun at gun range

In just one year, the Biden Administration has collected records of over 54 million legal gun-owners in the United States, for the purpose of increased surveillance of such citizens by the federal government, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

As shown in internal documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the ATF processed approximately 54.7 million records in fiscal year 2021. These documents were obtained by the gun rights advocacy group Gun Owners of America (GOA). The records in question are “out-of-business” documents, which consist of all firearms-related transactions made by a particular gun store after the store has gone out of business, at which point those records become property of the ATF.

In the year 2021, the ATF used this method to collect 53.8 million paper records, and roughly 887,000 electronic records. Gun stores are currently allowed to destroy records that are 20 years old or older; the Biden Administration is actively pursuing avenues to ensure that such records are made permanent and cannot be destroyed.

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Commentary: The New Nuclear Arms Race

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President Joe Biden and Personal Aide Stephen Goepfert walk through the Colonnade, Friday, August 6, 2021, on the way to the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

The Defense Department just released its annual report on China’s military power, and the report undermines those in the Biden administration who are promoting nuclear arms reductions with Russia and the adoption of a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons — a policy that is opposed by most of America’s allies.

The Pentagon’s report could not be clearer: “Over the next decade, the PRC aims to modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.” It is “expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.” This includes the construction of “fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities” that will enable China to “produce and separate plutonium.”

The report projects that the PRC will have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, and perhaps 1,000 by 2030, significantly more than the Pentagon projected in last year’s report. China has what the report calls a “nascent ‘nuclear triad,’” with the capability to launch nuclear missiles from land, sea, and air platforms. It has expanded its silo-based force and moved to a “launch-on-warning” posture. Last year, the PLA “launched more than 250 ballistic missiles for testing and training,” a number greater then the rest of the world combined. It is growing its inventory of DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and those missiles are capable of launching multiple independent warheads — known as MIRV capabilities. The CCP has ordered the construction of “hundreds of new ICBM silos” and is “doubling the number of launchers in some ICBM units.” China’s CSS-10 Mod 2 ICBM has a range of 11,000 kilometers, which makes it capable or reaching most targets within the continental United States. China is also investing in space and counterspace capabilities, including kinetic-kill missiles, orbiting space robots, and ground-based lasers.

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MSNBC Article Suggests Republicans Are Worse Than Nazis

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Group of people at a Trump rally, man in a "Keep America Great" hat

A Tuesday article in MSNBC suggested that Republicans’ use of the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” is worse than the Nazi ‘Sieg Heil’ salute.

The author noted a recent comparison of “Let’s go Brandon” to the Nazi salute. “To this I say: Calm the hell down; that’s an insult to Nazis. And furthermore, Biden doesn’t have the gall to steamroll these would-be Nazis like Joseph Stalin’s army did in Berlin.”

The article also called “Let’s go Brandon” a “significant downgrade from the glory days of the far right,” and said the phrase is “inoffensive and very vanilla” when compared to “Lock her up” and “Build the wall.”

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As Fuel Costs Rise Heading into the Winter, Biden May Utilize Strategic Reserves

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Jennifer Granholm

As the supply chain crisis continues to worsen, Americans can expect to pay higher energy costs in order to maintain heating in the coming winter, says Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Granholm said “this is going to happen…it will be more expensive this year than last year.”

While Granholm claimed that “we are in a slightly beneficial position…relative to Europe,” she nonetheless admitted that the United States has “the same problem in fuels that the supply chains have, which is that the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires.”

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Hackers Allegedly Breach Nine Companies Involved in Defense, Energy, and Other Vital Sectors

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Ryan Olson

A security firm claims that foreign hackers have infiltrated at least nine companies in several crucial sectors of the economy and government, including defense, energy, technology, and others, according to CNN.

Palo Alto Networks (PAN) shared the information on the breaches with CNN, showing that other affected sectors include education and healthcare. They say that the National Security Agency (NSA) is working with cybersecurity researchers to expose this and other ongoing efforts by foreign entities to hack American infrastructure. PAN’s report included information contributed by a division of the NSA which focuses exclusively on threats against American industrial defense bases by foreign hackers.

Examples of the breaches include the inconspicuous theft of passwords, with the goal of using these passwords to remain inside these networks for a prolonged period of time without anyone even being aware that there was a breach. This would allow hackers to freely receive sensitive data sent over basic communications such as email or information contained on internal storage drives.

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Commentary: Chief Justice of the Court of Natural Law

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Justice Clarence Thomas

Recently, the Heritage Foundation and the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University honored Justice Clarence Thomas on the 30th anniversary of his joining the Supreme Court. A day of panels featuring former Thomas clerks and prominent legal scholars commented on his legacy and future. The justice responded that evening. 

Yet even a full day of often enlightening panels and speeches, doubtless to be supplemented in the years to come by law review issues, articles, and books, misses the crucial fact about Thomas’ jurisprudence that has made him the indispensable justice: his overarching focus on natural law. 

In America natural law comes to sight in the principle of equality, which continues to confuse both conservatives and liberals. With the Democrats’ embrace of “equity,” they have cast aside equality as a principle. Conservatives have never been comfortable with equality to begin with, as Harry Jaffa consistently pointed out in his work. Equality does not mean socialism but rather government by consent, and all the institutions that follow from the preservation of this fundamental element of justice. The clearest expositor of this principle, as Thomas explains, has been Abraham Lincoln, when he attacked the evil of slavery. 

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Ellison Admits ‘Defund Police’ Slogan Was a Tactical Mistake for Progressives

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Keith Ellison speaking

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison apparently thinks Democrats should have sought to defund the police without saying “defund the police.”

“I think allowing this moniker, ‘defund the police,’ to ever get out there, was not a good thing,” he recently told Washington Post reporter David Weigel. This comment followed an election in Minneapolis in which voters rejected a measure that would have replaced the police with a largely unarmed “Department of Public Safety.”

While Ellison’s most recent comment has drawn significant media attention, this position is not new — the AG has long wanted to reduce policing, only taking issue with the slogan his fellow progressives often use.

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Commentary: Trump Justice Department Official Invoked Executive Privilege at January 6 Select Committee

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In a 15-page letter obtained by American Greatness and prepared by his attorney, Jeffery Clark,  the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division in President Trump’s last few months of office, invoked executive privilege today before the January 6 Select Committee.

Clark, who has been under intense media scrutiny for attempting to address election illegalities in the 2020 presidential election, was subpoenaed by the committee on October 13. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D- Miss.) claimed Clark thwarted “the peaceful transfer of power.” Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee last month prepared a lengthy report accusing Clark of working with Donald Trump to overturn the election results.

Harry W. MacDougald, Clark’s lawyer, explained to Thompson why Clark would not testify. “Because former President Trump was properly entitled, while he held office, to the confidential advice of lawyers like Mr. Clark, Mr. Clark is subject to a sacred trust—one that is particularly vital to the constitutional separation of powers,” MacDougald wrote. “As a result, any attempts—whether by the House or by the current President—to invade that sphere of confidentiality must be resisted.”

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Commentary: Virginia Conservatives – Don’t Let the Establishment Steal Your Election Victory!

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Glenn Youngkin smiling next to a woman

While all the media and talking heads were atwitter over the statewide contests in Virginia last week, the real story and the real threat was on the local level.  When the dust settled, the GOP had gained 7 net seats in the Virginia Assembly, enough in theory to give them control of the House.  With control of the Virginia House of Delegates and through that the Committee Chairmen — coupled with the Governor and a very closely divided Senate and the tiebreaker being newly elected Republican Lt Governor Sears – the hope of repealing the radical agenda of the Democrats from the last two years would appear very possible.

But conservatives should not count their chickens before they are hatched.  You see, the vote in the Congress on Friday is a warning that all of us who want to see liberty installed in the Commonwealth need to heed.  While the Democrats were unable to push through their wasteful “infrastructure bill,” 13 RINOs came to their rescue.  Yes, 13 so-called Republicans voted with Nancy Pelosi and saved the Biden agenda item.

And, unless there is a mobilization now, this week, in Virginia, that same rotten, despicable tactic will be used to steal our majority in Virginia.

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Cotton, Klobuchar Plan to Rein in Big Tech’s ‘Monopolistic’ Practices with New Bipartisan Bill

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Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton

Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday intended to restrict how major tech companies acquire and merge with smaller firms.

The bill, titled the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, is a companion to antitrust legislation advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee in June. If enacted, the law would shift the burden in antitrust cases to the acquiring party for mergers greater than $50 million, meaning that the acquiring firm would have to prove that its acquisition of another company was not anti-competitive.

The bill explicitly targets Big Tech companies, and it applies to firms with market capitalizations over $600 billion, at least 50,000,000 U.S.-based monthly active users or 100,000 monthly active business users. This would include Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple.

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Two Minnesota Organizations Receive ‘up to $1M’ in Community Navigator Pilot Program Grants

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U.S. Small Business Administration members

The Chinese American Chamber of Commerce, MN and the Minnesota State University Mankato’s Strategic Partnerships Center have each received up to $1 million in Community Navigator Pilot Program grant funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The program is an American Rescue Plan initiative intended to increase small businesses’ access to critical support. It distributed $100 million, in total, to 51 organizations across the nation that will partner as hubs for local groups to connect entrepreneurs with government resources, the administration said. The funding was announced late last month.

“The Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized building our small business ecosystems back better so that all of our entrepreneurs have a fair shot at achieving the American dream of business ownership,” SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman said in the news release. “We need to meet businesses where they are with resources to start, grow and be resilient, and the Community Navigator Pilot Program will power a trusted network of community partners to connect America’s entrepreneurs with the SBA. The program’s Community Navigators will develop strong relationships with deeply trusted community-based organizations that will tap into one-on-one, targeted support from programs designed to help them create jobs and drive innovation.”

The program has a 3-tier approach that provides funding over two years according to geographical level of reach. The Chinese American Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota State University Mankato’s Strategic Partnerships Center received Tier 3 funding (up to $1 million) to focus on city, countywide and/or rural engagement, while Tier 1 (up to $5 million) recipients are national and Tier 2 (up to $2.5 million) are regional or statewide.

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Lawmakers Call on Minnesota School Boards Association to Withdraw from National Organization

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Minnesota School Boards Association meeting

Several state lawmakers want the Minnesota School Boards Association to withdraw from the national affiliate after it compared concerned parents to domestic terrorists.

The National School Boards Association wrote to President Joe Biden in September regarding an alleged increase in “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials.”

The infamous letter described this alleged behavior as “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

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Commentary: The Navy’s New Emphasis on ‘Diversity’ Puts the Nation at Risk

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group of Navy members sitting on bleachers

After the 2020 summer of riots, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations stood up Task Force One Navy (TF1N) on July 1, 2020. After a six-month effort, the final 142-page report was submitted on January 28, 2021 Its two operating assumptions are, first, that the Navy, as an institution, is systemically racist, and, second, that “Mission readiness is stronger when diverse strengths are used and differing perspectives are applied.” Notwithstanding several key military principles—such as unit cohesion, strict discipline across the chain of command, and, well, uniforms—the Navy is now ideologically committed to the mantra that “diversity is strength.”

Not surprisingly, considering the key entering assumptions, the task force report identified problems with Navy systems, climate, and culture; and submitted almost 60 recommendations aligned with four lines of inquiry: Recruiting, Talent Management/Retention, Professional Development, and Innovation and STEM (as well as a fifth line for miscellaneous recommendations).

One should be skeptical, however, about the entire exercise and the recommendations that flow from it. It inaccurately depicts the proud institution of the United States Navy as systemically racist—a slander that has more potential to undermine morale, good order, discipline, and military effectiveness than any geostrategic adversary. 

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Virginia Democrats Concede Control of House of Delegates, Completing GOP Election Sweep

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Eileen Filler-Corn

Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates conceded control of the chamber to Republicans several days after the state’s off-season elections saw massive Republican gains in the state.

Democratic Del. Eileen Filler-Corn publicly announced the transfer following the concession of Democratic Del. Martha Mugler in a hotly contested race in the state’s Hampton Roads region.

“While the results of the election were not in our favor, our work for the people of Virginia goes on,” Filler-Corn said in a statement.

Democrats over the past two years had wielded majorities in the state House and Senate, as well as control of the state’s governorship, to pass a large package of progressive policies, including marijuana decriminalization and gun control.

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Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Requests $59M Increase in Next Year’s Budget

The Center Square
Gov. Bill Lee

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation requested a $59 million budget increase in its budget hearing this week with Gov. Bill Lee and advisers.

The request includes $24.9 million for a career path initiative that will assist with recruitment and retention of staff, an issue many government agencies cited in hearings this week.

TBI’s proposal also included requests for $11.7 million for one-time training and equipment and $10.2 million to hire forensic services positions, including $5.65 million in recurring expenses and $4.5 million in one-time expenses.

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: 2021 Lessons for Republicans

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Man in camo holding an American flag

The 2021 elections are filled with key lessons for Republicans.

Vice President Kamala Harris had already warned in a Virginia visit late in the campaign that “what happens in Virginia will in large part determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on.”

If Republicans learn the lessons of 2021 – and apply them to 2022 and 2024 – they can prove Harris was truly prophetic.

It is already clear that the Democrats’ power structure in Washington has learned nothing. In 2009, after losing Virginia and New Jersey, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through Obamacare four days later. Remember, she said cheerfully “Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” 

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Republicans Vow to Fight White House Plan to Pay Migrants Who Entered Country Illegally

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U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

Congressional Republicans say they will fight a White House plan to pay up to $450,000 in reparations to migrants separated from their families under the Trump administration after entering the country illegally.

After The Wall Street Journal reported on the plan earlier this week, President Joe Biden called the report “garbage,” only to be corrected by his spokesperson the next day.

At issue is former President Donald Trump’s policy of prosecuting all adults who entered the country illegally, in accordance with federal immigration law, including those with children. The Biden administration rescinded the policy, along with many other immigration enforcement efforts.

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Republicans, Democrats Still at Odds over Ohio Congressional Maps

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Thomas West and Rob McColley

Ohio’s effort to redraw congressional districts bounced back to the General Assembly, where Democrats are calling the Republican proposal heavily gerrymandered and against the wishes of Ohioans who voted for reform in 2018.

State Sen. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, however, said the Republican proposal meets state constitutional requirements.

“It is the product of a deliberate effort to draw compact districts, while keeping Ohio’s largest cities whole,” McColley said in sponsor testimony.

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Minnesota Lawmakers to Push for Legalized Sports Betting Next Session

The Center Square

Surrounded by states that have legalized sports betting, some Minnesota lawmakers will push to create additional tax revenue and entertainment next session.

Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, held a press conference to announce his plan to pursue legalized sports betting.

“Minnesotans deserve the chance to engage in safe and legal sports betting right here in Minnesota,” Stephenson said. “That is why I am announcing I will lead an effort to legalize sports betting during the next regular session of the Legislature.”

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International Visitors to Flood Arizona After Borders Reopen

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Arizona-Mexico border

Arizona’s businesses are soon to get a shot in the arm from COVID-19 vaccinated international visitors as the U.S. reopens its borders to leisure travel. 

The Biden administration will reopen the country’s borders Monday for nonessential travel. The opening marks 18 months of borders closed to nonessential travel because of COVID-19 restrictions. 

The decision was announced in October. It does not apply to illegal border crossings.

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Michigan Redistricting Committee Ignores Lawyer’s Advice, Votes to ‘Interpret’ Map Rules

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Citizens gather for a meeting to draw out Congressional maps

The Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission (MICRC) ignored advice from its lawyer when it voted Thursday to limit when commissioners can submit individual maps.

It’s unclear if the vote conflicts with its Constitutional amendment.

Commissioners argued for more than an hour about Constitutional requirements before approving several motions as they pushed proposed collaborative maps.

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Commentary: McAuliffe’s Defeat Shows Abortion Extremism Doesn’t Win

RealClearWire
Terry McAuliffe

I woke up Wednesday morning so grateful that my state, Virginia, had voted out abortion extremism. Abortion activists were supposed to sweep Terry McAuliffe back to the governor’s mansion. McAuliffe spent millions of dollars on ads blasting Glenn Youngkin for being pro-life and brought in outside speakers, including former President Obama, to campaign on the issue of abortion. Instead of keeping Virginia blue, these efforts may have propelled Youngkin to victory. The 5% of voters who said abortion was their top issue in the 2021 election backed Youngkin by a 12-percentage-point margin. 

Some policy analysts seem shocked by how abortion radicalism blew up in McAuliffe’s face, but they shouldn’t be. More than three quarters of the American people support significant restrictions on abortion and are making their voices heard at the polls. Instead of listening to them, McAuliffe pandered to an extreme base that makes up a tiny portion of the electorate. 

Protecting the most vulnerable is a winning issue, it should be a bipartisan issue, and Youngkin’s success paves the way for a wave of pro-life candidates in 2022 to win in purple and blue states by calling out the extreme pro-abortion views of their opponents. 

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Border Patrol: 27 Percent of Migrants Arrested at Border Are Repeat Offenders, Many with Other Criminal Convictions

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Federal law enforcement officers arrested more than 17,300 migrants with past convictions of other crimes attempting to cross the border illegally last fiscal year. That’s up from 9,447 in fiscal 2020.

The federal government’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

An additional 8,979 in fiscal 2021 were of migrants with outstanding arrest warrants against them from other law enforcement agencies.

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Bipartisan Bills Would Eliminate Michigan Sales Tax on Vehicle Rebates

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row of cars

The Michigan Senate will consider legislation to eliminate sales and use taxes from automotive manufacturer rebates, which could save new car buyers in the state an estimated $31 million annually.

House Bills 4939 and 4940 passed the Michigan House earlier this week. The bipartisan bills were sponsored by Reps. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, and Joe Tate, D-Detroit.  The bills aim to take new vehicle customers off the hook for paying taxes on automotive manufacturer discounts.  

Currently, Michigan car buyers incur a tax obligation for the full price of the vehicle they purchase, and no deductions are allowed for rebates offered by manufacturers. The bills under consideration would exempt rebates from state sales and use taxes.

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Commentary: The Washington Post Finally Releases Sketchy Details That Raise Questions About the January 6 ‘Pipe Bombs’

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Several storylines related to the events of January 6 have crumbled under closer scrutiny over the past 10 months: the “fire extinguisher” murder of Officer Brian Sicknick; the notion it was an “armed” insurrection and a grand “conspiracy” concocted by right-wing militias; claims that the building sustained $30 million in damages, and so on.

In the meantime, the Biden regime has attempted to cover up key aspects of that day, including the name of the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, which was only recently revealed. Justice Department lawyers continue to resist the release of 14,000 hours of surveillance video and the U.S. Capitol Police refuse to publish an 800-page internal investigation on officer misconduct as well as internal communications before and after the Capitol breach.

But a deep dive by the Washington Post, published last weekend, raises new questions about the alleged “pipe bombs” discovered just before Congress met on January 6 to certify the results of the 2020 Electoral College vote. Like so many supporting scenes, the veracity of the pipe bomb tale is in doubt after the Post revealed eyebrow-raising details about those involved.

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Radical Left-Wing Billionaire Funding Hunter Biden Art Shows, Raising Ethical Concerns

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Hunter Biden

The latest round of art shows featuring paintings and other artwork by Hunter Biden are being funded by a radical far-left billionaire with a history of political activism, according to the Daily Caller.

An exhibition of Biden’s work took place on October 1st at the Milk Studios in Los Angeles; Milk Studios is owned by billionaire businessman Moishe Mana. Mana has repeatedly donated to the Democratic Party, and was also behind several vulgar art displays with political messages behind them, including an infamous nude sculpture of President Donald Trump.

Between 2015 and 2018, Mana donated over $115,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and various Democratic candidates around the country. He was a donor and strategist on the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and co-hosted a fundraiser for Clinton in the closing weeks of the election where he auctioned off artwork to support her bid for president. One of Mana’s most infamous stunts was his public offer of $2,000,000 to a charity of then-candidate Donald Trump’s choice if he released his tax returns.

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NBC’s Ken Dilanian Reports Gun Dealer to Secret Service For Selling ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ AR-15 Safety Selectors

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AR-15 Magazine that says "Let's Go Brandon"

An NBC reporter said Monday that he has contacted the Secret Service about a gun dealer’s anti-Biden weapons parts. As Joe Biden sinks in the polls, multiple gun dealers appear to be capitalizing on his unpopularity to sell weapons parts and ammunition.

The dealers, according to NBC News’s “Fusion” Ken Dilanian, are “using a right-wing slogan widely understood as code for profanity” to mock Biden, and sell gun supplies.

That slogan—”Let’s Go Brandon”—”isn’t actually about supporting a guy named Brandon,” NPR explained in a hard-hitting investigative report this past weekend. The publicly-funded radio organization spilled the beans on what the phrase actually means: “it’s a euphemism that many people in conservative circles are using in place of saying, ‘F*** Joe Biden.’”

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UPDATE: College Republicans Can Now Sell ‘Back the Blue’ Apparel, But Only to Members

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Campus Reform reported earlier this month on the denial of a “Back the Blue” shirt designed by the College Republicans chapter at Ohio Northern University. 

ONU College Republicans president Madeline Markwood submitted a shirt design to the university’s Communications and Marketing Department with the pro-police phrase printed on the sleeve and a Thin Blue Line flag printed on the back. 

The department denied Markwood’s submission because other schools have had to “retract and apologize” for similar initiatives.

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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal of Ruling Forcing Hospitals to Perform Gender Transition Surgery

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Woman performing surgery

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case from a Catholic hospital challenging a ruling that forces it to sterilize patients through gender transition surgery.

Evan Minton, a patient seeking uterus removal surgery as part of the gender transition process, will be allowed to go forward with suing the Mercy San Juan Medical Center for canceling the surgery.

Minton seeks to compel the hospital to perform surgeries that directly contravene Catholic teachings, Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan, told the court. The case “poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith,” according to Dignity Health’s petition.

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‘America Is Back’: Biden Unveils Sweeping Oil, Gas Regulations That Would Cut Methane Emissions by 41 Million Tons

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Drilling site at night

The Biden administration rolled out broad new regulations that it said will substantially reduce U.S. methane emissions within 15 years.

The sweeping regulations would cut methane emissions, which account for roughly 10% of the greenhouse gasses emitted by the U.S., by 41 million tons between 2023 and 2035, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday. Such a reduction is equivalent to 920 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the amount emitted by all cars and commercial aircraft in 2019.

“As global leaders convene at this pivotal moment in Glasgow for COP26, it is now abundantly clear that America is back and leading by example in confronting the climate crisis with bold ambition,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

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New Poll: 44 Percent of Democrats, Democratic-Leaning Independents Don’t Want Biden in 2024

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Joe Biden

Apoll released Monday shows that 44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want a Democratic nominee other than President Biden to run for the White House in 2024.

The results come amid sinking job-approval ratings for Biden, including those in the new national poll, by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist.

The poll showed 44% of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing as president and 49% disapprove. The numbers compare to 45% approve/46% disapprove in the group’s October poll.

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‘What Were You Thinking?’: State National School Boards Association Members Slammed Letter to White House About Domestic Terrorist Parents

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National School Boards Association meeting

State members of the National School Boards Association slammed the organization following its letter addressed to President Joe Biden’s administration that compared parental concern at school board meetings to actions of “domestic terrorists,” according to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education through a public records request.

Emails between Delaware, Florida and Ohio school board officials and National School Boards Association (NSBA) leadership showed the discontent its state members had with how the national organization handled the letter and the claims it made. The NSBA sent a letter on Sept. 29 that asked President Joe Biden’s administration to use federal legislation, such as the PATRIOT Act, to stop threats and violence in public schools toward school board members over actions that could be “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

On Oct. 10, Devin Sheehan, a regional director for the NSBA, sent a letter to executive directors to “compile any concerns, thoughts or recommendations” from its northeast region state board associations, according to the emails.

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Gov. Whitmer Asks Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association to Refund $5 Billion to Ratepayers

The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is calling for the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association to refund $5 billion in surplus funds to Michigan automotive insurance customers.

“My office recently reviewed the Annual Report of the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (MCCA) to the Legislature issued in September 2021,” the governor wrote in a Nov. 1 letter addressed to R. Kevin Clinton, MCCA executive director. “The report stated that the MCCA had a surplus of $2.4 billion at the end of 2020. In your annual statement issued on June 30, 2021, the surplus is now $5 billion. I am calling on you today to refund money to Michiganders.”

The governor attributes the surplus to the bipartisan Senate Bill 1 insurance reform bill she signed in May 2019. Provisions of the bill include:

Guaranteeing lower rates for drivers for eight years;    
Giving people the choice to pick their own Personal Injury Protection (PIP) options with coinciding PIP rate reductions, offering unlimited coverage (at least 10% PIP reduction), $500,000 coverage (at least 20% PIP reduction), $250K coverage (at least 35% PIP reduction), $50,000 coverage for Medicaid eligible recipients (at least 45% PIP reduction), or a complete opt out for seniors or anyone with sufficient private insurance (100% PIP reduction).  
Increasing consumer protections by banning companies from using the following non-driving factors to set rates: ZIP code, credit score, gender, marital status, occupation, educational attainment, and homeownership.  
Setting fee schedules for hospitals and providers to prevent overcharging for auto-related injuries.   

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Commentary: Taking the Infrastructure Bill Hostage Didn’t Work

RealClearWire
Nancy Pelosi, AOC's mother and her all together

Back in August, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait blessed the strategy of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to withhold their votes for the Senate’s bipartisan physical infrastructure plan until that bill was effectively linked to a bigger, broader, and surely partisan, measure investing in a range of items from climate protection to universal preschool. He argued that “ransoming the infrastructure bill” would turn the tables on the party’s moderates:

Historically, most partisan bills are shaped by the preferences of the members of Congress closest to the middle, and their colleagues on the political extreme simply have to go along with it. … This time, the left has real power. Progressives can credibly threaten to sink a priority that moderates care about more than they do.

Twice in the past two months, most recently last Thursday, the House progressives successfully executed this strategy, blocking attempts by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass the bipartisan infrastructure legislation before an agreement is reached on the larger “Build Back Better” bill.

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TennCare Proposes $600M Budget Increase

The Center Square

Tennessee’s TennCare program would like to spend $600 million more next fiscal year than this year, according to a budget request presented Monday to Gov. Bill Lee and Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley.

The proposed spending increase in the state’s Medicaid program includes a $250 million increase in recurring federal funds and $182 million in nonrecurring federal expense increases.

The spending increase would cost the state $137 million in additional recurring expenses.

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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Texas Heartbeat Act

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Pregnant woman holding ultrasound photo in front of stomach

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on the constitutionality of Texas’ Heartbeat Act.

The Texas law effectively bans most abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which typically occurs around 6 weeks after conception. The law is enforced through civil lawsuits against individuals who perform abortions illegally or who knowingly help women to get abortions after the baby has a heartbeat.

The private enforcement mechanism was a response to district attorneys stating their intent to not enforce any abortion bans, according to Republican Texas state Sen. Brian Hughes. While abortion bans are frequently blocked in court, Texas’ Heartbeat Act quickly resulted in a 50% decline in abortions performed in the state, according to The New York Times.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned Texas about the prospect of other states creating laws with similar enforcement mechanisms to block constitutionally protected rights such as freedom of religion.

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Commentary: Conservatives File Suit to ‘Derail Biden Climate Railroad’

RealClearWire
Michael Regan

Michael Regan began his tenure as President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator by dismissing dozens of outside scientific advisers appointed during the previous administration — part of an effort to “ensure the agency receives the best possible scientific insight to support our work.”

At the time, Regan (pictured) called it a “reset.” Opponents grumbled that it looked more like “a purge.” Now, one of those advisers, Stanley Young, has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the agency of violating U.S. law; the suit also seeks an injunction to halt the work of his former committee.

The legal dustup is the latest rearguard action from the right on environmental issues. Conservatives see the case as their best chance to thwart the Biden administration’s multi-agency approach to combating climate change, seen as hostile to the fossil fuel industry.

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REVIEW: Hemingway’s ‘Rigged’ a Bone Chilling Page-Turner About the 2020 Election

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Person with mask on at a computer.

We are a year overdue for the true story of the 2020 elections. Mollie Hemingway has at last delivered it to us in one tidy volume.

It’s a complex story, which makes for a weighty book. The research is thorough, the writing is evidentiary, the style is clinical—like investigative journalism and social science used to be. The endnotes alone run nearly 100 pages. 

Reading Rigged, one isn’t jarred by hyperbole, conjecture, or spin. Hemingway is unequivocal on progressive malice, yet she can be scathing of Republicans, too. She is particularly critical of Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to publicize fraud nationally, thereby undermining prior case-by-case efforts to get particular state courts to recognize particular violations of particular state laws. 

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Brooklyn Park Seeks Job Applicants Who Believe in Progressive Racial Theories

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Brooklyn Park City Hall

A Minnesota city is hiring for a position that pays up to $125 an hour and requires that applicants subscribe to various left-wing racial theories.

“The Brooklyn Park Economic Development Authority (EDA) and North Hennepin Community College (NHCC) are seeking a Project Manager to coordinate collaborative work and fundraising for the Center for Innovation and the Arts,” reads the job posting. The applicant selected for this role will be charged with “support[ing] the development of more arts programming in the community” and increasing donations to the city’s planned arts center. Apparently these tasks require a firm faith in progressive ideas about race.

One of the “desired qualifications” is a belief in systemic racism. The preferred candidate “acknowledges the history in our country of the oppression of black and indigenous peoples, and the power, privilege, and access disparities along the lines of social identities.”

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DeSantis’ Florida Offers In-N-Out Haven from Regulatory Overreach in Newsom’s California

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Refusing to ask patrons if they got the COVID-19 shots or to show a negative test in order to eat in, the popular California-based burger chain In-N-Out is taking a stand — and paying for it. But the company may have a new place to call home, if it takes up an offer from the state of Florida.

If the besieged fast-food chain were to leave, it would follow Elon Musk’s recently decamped Tesla in a growing exodus of companies from a Golden State that has lost its luster for many business owners.

Currently, three Bay Area health jurisdictions — San Francisco County, Contra Costa County and the city of Berkeley — are requiring restaurants to screen customers for on-site indoor dining by either showing proof of a negative COVID test or of COVID vaccination status.

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Pennsylvania Republicans Blast Wolf Administration’s Role in Private Election Grant Process

The Center Square
Tom Wolf

Legislative Republicans excoriated Gov. Tom Wolf for “playing favorites” after a report concluded his administration helped only Democratic counties secure $21 million in private grants ahead of the 2020 election.

Broad + Liberty reported the Pennsylvania Department of State and various left-wing groups worked together to funnel private grant funding to Democratic-leaning counties without offering the same assistance to Republican-leaning counties. 

“This latest report indicates the administration and the Department of State played favorites when they connected certain counties to large sums of grant funding while ignoring other counties,” Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, said. “Not only did this create unequal access to voters, but it also essentially disenfranchised voters in counties that did not receive equal funding.” 

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Commentary: Low Characters of the Elites in Ludicrous Situations

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sock and buskin masks

Reflecting on the unfolding disaster that is our social and political life in the United States during the consulship of Biden, I cannot help but think of Aristotle’s description of the structure of Greek tragedy. Obviously, the parallels are not exact. For one thing, tragedy as Aristotle understood it was a quick affair, its action over within a single day. Our national tragedy, by contrast, seems to lumber on indefinitely.

Then there is the question of the character of the protagonist. Aristotle’s chap is “a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty.” Sound like Joe Biden? Almost, maybe, but not really. Rudy Giuliani was not talking through his hat when he invoked the specter of the “Biden crime family,” as the words “laptop,” “China,” and “10 percent for the big guy” remind us.

There are many other differences between tragedy in Aristotle’s sense and the disaster we are suffering through. Still, when I think about the development Aristotle traces from ἁμαρτία (the tragic flaw) through ἀναγνώρισις (recognition) to περιπέτεια (the sudden reversal of fortune) to καταστροφή, the “catastrophe” that ties up the loose ends and consummates the action, I think “We’re somewhere on that road,” though exactly where is hard to say. Have we achieved the enlightenment of recognition yet? I am not at all sure about that.

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Commentary: The Democratization of Information Threatens the Left

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Man on phone, looking at desktop computer

With the democratization of information, we are witnessing an immensely beneficial development for every American. This development is best recognized by the fascistic attempts of Big Tech, the Pravda media, and the Biden Administration to destroy it.

As many have noted, social media has empowered individuals to pursue their happiness and shape their destinies to an extent unimagined in human history. While many are more familiar with the economic and social aspects of the internet (hence, the term “social media”), it is the political dimension that most frightens the Left.

Given their perpetually failed, morally bankrupt, coercive agenda, the democratization of information is an existential threat for the Left and to its psychotic aim to “fundamentally transform” the most prosperous, powerful, and equitable nation ever known.

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As Washington Shirks Federal Border Enforcement Role, Burden Falls to Frontline Sheriffs

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Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels

Acoalition of law enforcement agents, mostly comprised of sheriffs combatting cartel violence along the southern border, in cooperation with Border Patrol agents, is working to bring awareness to Americans of the dangers they face because of the Biden administration’s hands-off border enforcement policies.

“A nation without secure borders cannot stand,” argues Mark Hager, Army veteran and founder of the U.S. First Defense Coalition. “As a republic, the citizens of the United States are the responsible first line of defense,” he says, and sheriffs are “the only law enforcement branch elected by the people,” Hager told Just The News. “They are comparable to the grassroots of law enforcement.”

Also a historian and a professor, Hager notes that sheriffs “hold a special place in American history, and especially along our southern border, where they are protecting citizens when the federal government won’t.”

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