Border Patrol’s Fentanyl Seizures Increase by 4,000 Percent Amid Crisis, Officials Say

Twitter post that states "Officers at #CBPLaredo remain at the forefront of border security operations to protect the public of lethal narcotics, as seen in this seizure of fentanyl worth $384K."

Border officials seized 4,000% more fentanyl in 2021 than in 2018 as the border crisis continues, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Cartels have taken advantage of increased federal resources allocated for migrant encounters to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S. between ports of entry, according to NBC News. Border officials have found 41 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2021, compared with nine pounds in 2020, two pounds in 2019 and one pound in 2018.

“For the first time, we’re starting to see these tactics where fentanyl is being smuggled between ports of entry,” Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez said, NBC News reported. “Cartels are very creative. They find ways to intimidate migrants and find ways to illegally have them transport that narcotic into the United States.”

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America’s First Black Billionaire Calls for $14 Trillion in Reparations — and Wants His Own Check, Too

Robert L. Johnson

America’s first black billionaire proposed $14 trillion in reparations from the U.S. government, which he says is enough to close to black-white wealth gap, VICE reported.

Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, owns several homes, leads an asset management firm and is the first black person to own a majority stake in an NBA team, but wants cash reparations himself, VICE reported. Along with the check Johnson wants an apology for racism, including slavery and Jim Crow laws, he told VICE in an interview.

He believes the new reparations are Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education, COVID-19 relief solely for black farmers, local reparations for housing in Evanston, Illinois and pledges from corporations the past year, following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

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Commentary: Researchers Urge Americans to Focus on Loneliness Epidemic

Woman sitting in a chair, looking out the window, alone

As the pandemic recedes and Americans re-enter public life, the surgeon general and other public health experts are urging the country to focus on another national crisis, one that has lingered for decades and worsened in recent years: loneliness.

For many, pandemic-related lockdowns, social distancing, and physical isolation resulted in their most severe experiences of loneliness. Studies have shown that an uptick in loneliness and other mental health issues coincided with the pandemic, and that lockdown requirements almost certainly exacerbated pre-existing mental conditions. But for researchers who have studied loneliness, the recent increase is only one notable event in an extensive history.

Loneliness is not just a crisis in America, but also in Europe, Canada, Japan, China, Australia and, increasingly, South America and Africa. Loneliness also occurs regardless of race, class, culture, and religion. Even before the lockdowns, tens of millions of people throughout the world felt isolated.

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Commentary: The U.S. Needs Measured Confrontation with China

Policeman holding a rifle - in uniform

With the election of Joe Biden, there is increasing pressure for the United States to accommodate the global ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Such a policy will weaken the strategic position of the United States and embolden the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to transform the rules of international politics, and has demonstrated its willingness to employ coercive measures, including threats and open conflict, to achieve its aims. 

As it has done for decades, and does so now with the Biden Administration, the CCP makes appeals for accommodation while emphasizing the need to turn away from more confrontational policies, like those most recently advanced by the Trump Administration. And as always, China’s words must be seen as tactical measures it deploys in pursuit of its objectives. Thus, it is only a matter of time before attempts to cooperate with China fail. However tempting, accommodation will not succeed for the stark reason that China does not want it. 

Party Chairman Xi Jinping has made clear that what China seeks is world hegemony. And it is upon the pursuit of this hegemony that his power in the regime depends. 

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Former Justice Urges Michigan Redistricting Committee to Ignore UM Advice, Use Geographical – Not Ethnic – Boundaries

Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman urged Michigan’s independent redistricting committee to use geographical boundaries instead of racial, ethnic, or religious groups to determine the state’s new voting boundaries.

Markman took to the Wall Street Journal opinion page June 25 to air his concerns.

Markman, who retired from the Michigan Supreme Court in 2020, supports drawing boundaries via neighborhoods, instead of “communities of interest,” such as shared concerns for which a University of Michigan report advocated.

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Allen West to Challenge Abbott in Texas Governor’s GOP Primary Next Year

Allen West, a retired Army officer, former congressman and Texas GOP chairman, used Independence Day to launch a Republican primary challenge to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

West released a YouTube video and made an appearance at Sojourn Church in Carrollton, Texas, to announce his 2022 bid, saying he was focused on illegal immigration, the Democrat assault on energy resources and human trafficking.

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Congress’ Antitrust Legislation Avoids Regulating Many Big Tech Companies

Last-minute changes to major antitrust legislation working its way through the House appears to exempt several Big Tech companies from being affected by its regulations.

The legislation, which has been months in the making and was crafted to take on Big Tech monopolies, targets a handful of companies while excluding others that also have massive market power, a leading expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Existing federal and state antitrust law already prohibits a wide range of anticompetitive business activity across all industries like unlawful mergers and monopolization.

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Commentary: It is Time to Fight for the Rights of Independent Businesses

As a very young man, I was fortunate enough to start my own company out of my apartment using a small amount of investment capital from friends and family. Over time, that business grew to have over 6,000 employees and revenues in excess of $2 billion. Over nearly a 40-year span, my team and I built what some would consider a remarkable track record, as measured by both sales and profits.

Because of my experience growing that business, I feel a special kinship with small, privately owned businesses and their owners. I also come from a middle-class background, one that shaped me into the person I am today. It is through both the lens of entrepreneur and member of the middle-class that I look through when reflecting upon this Independence Day.

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Workers’ Coronavirus Fears Hit Pandemic Low

U.S. workers’ fear of contracting coronavirus while on the job has hit a pandemic low as the economy continues its steady recovery.

The number of Americans not working due to their fear of getting the virus while at their job dipped to 3.05 million by the end of June, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey released Wednesday. The figure hit its peak in July 2020 when 6.24 million unemployed Americans reported not looking for a job due to coronavirus fears, Axios reported.

“People are feeling safer about returning to work, which should help businesses staff-up to meet the tremendous demand we’re seeing right now,” Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House told Axios.

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Republicans Embrace Immigration Restriction with Trump Border Visit

Trump Border Visit

With President Donald Trump paying his first visit to the southern border since leaving the White House, numerous Republicans in Congress and various state offices solidified their support for his agenda of immigration hawkishness, as reported by Politico.

President Trump had been invited to the border by Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas), and after weeks of preparation, the president finally made his visit on Wednesday. Governor Abbott, in his introduction of the president, pointed out that he had done “more to secure the border than anybody and any president ever has.”

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State Department Will Let People Choose Their Gender on Passports

Photo of two passports in person's hand

The State Department will allow people to choose their gender on passports, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday.

The State Department will let people “self-select their gender as ‘M’ or ‘F’” and will waive the required medical certification for individuals whose gender on their citizenship or ID doesn’t match their “self-selected gender,” Blinken said.

Blinken also said his department was also working toward adding “non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming persons” gender markers for passport applicants.

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Commentary: Dissenting from Woke Superstition

Person sitting down. Praying hands on a Bible

A few weeks ago, I offered commentary on wokeism as a new iteration of Karl Marx’s notion of religion as the opiate of the people. Specifically, I made the case that wokeism is not so much Marxism but a heretical Christian construct that oligarchs exploit for the sake of their own preservation and dominance. Wokeism hoodwinks labor—those we often call the forgotten middle class—into serving the interests of monopolistic Big Tech and Wall Street capital, and its handsomely compensated technocrats (those Marx called the petty bourgeoisie).

Other recent pieces, including “The Art of Spiritual War,” by Michael Anton (which discusses wokeism as a parallel to the corrupted Christianity of Machiavelli’s day) suggest a growing consensus that wokeism, rather than something new under the Sun, has characteristics of something old, namely religion. Understanding wokeism as a religion, cult, or spiritual phenomenon may help us challenge and defeat it.

They Believe In Something Else 

Permit me to borrow for a moment a thought from a friend. Deion Kathawa wrote recently that our modern, technology-driven immorality may represent “a worldview that is closed off to the supernatural.” But this is only a superficial closing off. It is a fundamental feature of human psychology that it is never truly closed off to the supernatural.

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Facebook Is Spamming Conservative Users With Messages About a Support Group for ‘Extremists’

Facebook users are expressing shock and dismay after being spammed with messages touting a support group for people concerned about “extremists.”

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” the message begins. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support,” the message continues.

The Facebook message goes on to suggest that “you can help” by joining their support group. “Hear stories and get help from people who have escaped violent extremist groups,” the message concludes.

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Left-Wing Politicians Push Claim That Chauvin Sentence Is Not ‘True Justice’

Screen cap in Hennepin County on Chauvin case

A slew of left-wing politicians and activists continue to push the rhetoric that Derek Chauvin’s sentence does not show justice, but only “accountability.”

Chauvin was sentenced to 22½ years in prison for the murder of George Floyd. In April, a jury found him guilty on all charges, which included second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Following his sentencing Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar released a statement implying that the U.S. justice system does not promote “true justice.”

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Big Tech Cracks Down on Robert Malone, mRNA Vaccine Pioneer Who Warns About Their Risks

A scientist who credits himself as the inventor of mRNA vaccines, and has warned that they carry risks downplayed in the COVID-19 pandemic, said this week that LinkedIn “shut down” his personal account without explanation.

“The historic record of what I have done, stated, figured out (and when) etc. over time is a key part of establishing my credibility and track record as a professional,” Robert Malone tweeted Wednesday. “And that has been erased completely and arbitrarily without warning or explanation.”

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House Appropriations Committee Votes to Prohibit Funding to Wuhan Institute of Virology

The House Appropriations Committee in meeting

The House Appropriations Committee voted to include an amendment to prohibit funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the upcoming fiscal year on Thursday.

The amendment was introduced by Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania for the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill. “It is deeply disturbing that American taxpayers footed the bill for over $1 million to support dangerous and potentially deadly research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a laboratory run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and tied to military biological research,” Reschenthaler said in a press release Thursday.

“I thank my colleagues for including my amendment to end the flow of federal dollars to the WIV. We must ensure Americans’ hard-earned money never again funds risky experiments in labs operated by our adversaries,” he added.

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University of North Carolina Grants Tenure to ‘1619 Project’ Author Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The University of North Carolina’s Board of Trustees voted on June 30 to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the “1619 Project,” who will be the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.

It is rare for a university to grant tenure to someone who has not climbed the academic ranks through teaching and research. Tenure, which virtually guarantees job security, is usually the result of a multi-year process, not a privilege granted before a professor teaches a single class.

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McCarthy: Maybe Cheney Is ‘Closer’ to Pelosi Than GOP Conference After Joining January 6 Committee

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that Republican Rep. Liz Cheney accepting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nomination to the Jan. 6 Select Committee is “unprecedented” and “shocking,” suggesting that the Wyoming congresswoman might be “closer” to Pelosi than the GOP conference at this point.

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Republicans Demand Biden Include Historic Bipartisan Pro-Life Protections in Budget Request

Over 170 Republican members of Congress called on President Joe Biden Thursday to include pro-life protections in his budget request, warning that the current budget is “an affront to the majority of Americans who do not want their tax dollars funding abortion on demand resulting in the death of children in the womb.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation first obtained the letter warning the president that his fiscal year 2022 budget request will remove bipartisan pro-life protections such as the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions and has been included in appropriations legislation every year since 1976.

Republicans emphasized that Americans who oppose abortion should not be forced to see their taxpayer dollars fund a “brutal procedure that ends the lives of unborn children.”

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Michigan State University Student Government Demands Free Menstrual Products in All Campus Bathrooms

Free menstrual products in all campus bathrooms is the latest demand of the Michigan State University student government. 

Passing a resolution June 24, the Associated Students of Michigan State University assert “transgender people, non-binary people, gender non-conforming people,” and women are able to menstruate. 

Further, these groups “are not given the same access to these products in the restrooms that coincide with their gender.” 

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At Florida Rally, Trump Strikes Defiant Pro-America Tone as He Slams Biden Administration

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday struck a brazenly American tone at a Sarasota, Fla. rally, painting the Biden administration as radically un-American as he hailed the country’s legacy stemming from its July 4, 1776 origins.

“The mission of all of us here tonight is to preserve the legacy of July 4, 1776, and to defend our liberty from the radical left movement,” Trump told the enormous crowd at the event.

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Housing Prices Hit Highest Rate of Growth Ever Recorded

Home prices reached record highs in April as the housing market continued to boom, with home prices in areas around cities climbing at the fastest rate on record.

Average home prices in metropolitan areas, measured by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, rose 14.6% between April 2020 and April 2021, according to an analysis released Tuesday. The increase is the highest annual rate of housing price growth the index has measured, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: Reclaiming the Spirit of Independence Day

Planes in the sky letting off red, white and blue smoke

On Independence Day we reflect together as a nation on a remarkable moment in history 244 years ago, when 56 men from 13 colonies gathered in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. There, our founders declared with one voice: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This act of political and moral courage changed the world forever. Since 1776, the values and ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution have been exported to democracies around the globe and have lifted millions of people out of tyranny, poverty, and oppression.

Unfortunately, some in America seek to diminish America’s founding, rewrite our history, and invalidate the spirit of independence which led our founders to create the greatest, freest, and most prosperous nation on Earth.

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Newsom Recall Election Date Set for September 14

The recall election of California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been set for September 14.

Registered voters will receive a ballot in the mail whether they asked for one or not by mid-August.

“Gavin Newsom and his allies have tried every trick in the book to avoid this day of reckoning,” Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley said in a statement. Kiley, who has been asked by constituents to run for governor, said he will make an announcement about his own role in the recall “very soon.” He says the recall presents Californians with an opportunity “to turn the page on this era of corruption in California.”

Newsom’s campaign argues the election is “a naked attempt by Trump Republicans to grab control in California” and called on his supporters to “defend our state.”

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Judge Michael Warren Commentary: Celebrate Your Right to the American Dream as Written in the Declaration on Independence

American flag in the grass

The toxic cultural and political environment in which we live continues to slowly unravel our once shared belief in the American Dream. Many people on this Independence Day will undoubtedly go through the empty gestures of fireworks, barbecues, and family gatherings. Hardly any will reflect on the magnificent Declaration of Independence and how, despite its many flaws, it is a shining, monumental change for all of mankind. Let’s look at four such reasons:

First, it is the first major document in world history that dedicates the creation of a country to key founding First Principles:  the rule of law, unalienable rights, limited government, the Social Compact, equality, and the right to alter or abolish an oppressive government. Governments and countries before then were forged by blood, conquest, ethnic group, religion, and similar circumstances. In America, we committed ourselves to groundbreaking ideals. It has been those ideals that have motivated massive changes within our society for a more just and free government.

Second, the document is dedicated to freedom. Certainly many of the Founding Fathers were hypocrites when they proclaimed liberty and held slaves. Such Founding Fathers were flawed and blind men like the near entirety of human history before them. But with the Declaration, they did something earth shattering. They opened the entire world’s eyes to a new vision – one based on liberty, in which free people would rule themselves. The promise of the vision continues to reverberate today.

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Biden May Leave Up to 1,000 Troops in Afghanistan After Withdrawal

After Joe Biden further delayed efforts to withdraw all American military forces from the nation of Afghanistan earlier this year, new reports suggest that the withdrawal will be delayed indefinitely and could leave up to 1,000 troops in the country, according to CNN.

The report comes from an anonymous administration official, who claimed that the residual forces would stay behind to ostensibly secure the U.S. embassy and the airport in the capital city of Kabul. However, another anonymous official with the Department of Defense claimed that the residual forces left behind would not exceed 650.

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Commentary: Catholics Are Getting Smart About Responding to Gender Ideology

People sitting in pews at a Catholic church

Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses have for years responded to transgenderism by simply ignoring the issue altogether. But that’s starting to change, largely because the problem is getting too big for churches to ignore. 

“My sense is that nearly every parish includes families with loved ones grappling with identity issues or gender dysphoria,” Mary Rice Hasson told The American Spectator. 

Hasson, who directs the Catholic Women’s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently founded an initiative called the Person and Identity Project, which aims to equip Catholic parishes and schools with resources to combat gender ideology. 

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Michigan Employment Numbers Pick Up Pace for State’s Pandemic Recovery

Blue Collar worker with hard hat on

Michigan’s recovery from the massive unemployment endured during the COVID-19 pandemic is among the fastest in the country, last week’s employment numbers indicate.

That assessment is according to a recently released WalletHub report, which ranked the state fifth nationwide for progress made between the previous week and the week of June 21, 2021, and fourth nationwide for the smallest increase in initial unemployment claims between the beginning of 2020 and the week of June 21, 2021.

Michigan was ranked 13th nationwide for quickest unemployment recovery since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

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Economy Added 850,000 Jobs in June, Well Above Economists’ Forecasts

Person using a laptop, pointing to the screen

The U.S. economy reported an increase of 850,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.9%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.

Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 850,000 in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, and the number of unemployed persons increased to 9.5 million. Economists projected 700,000 Americans would be added to payrolls prior to Friday’s report, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“This is a trickier phase of the recovery,” Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House told The New York Times.

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Taxpayer-Funded National Public Radio Spreads 2020 Election Misinformation About Absentee Ballot Drop Box Chain of Custody Documents in Georgia

Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) spread 2020 election misinformation about absentee ballot drop box chain of custody documents in Georgia in an article written by Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) political reporter Stephen Fowler published on Friday. That article was the basis for a four-minute segment broadcast across NPR’s national network Friday afternoon.

The NPR Politics Twitter account tweeted the story, titled “How Pro-Trump Local News Sites Keep Pushing 2020 Election Misinformation,” out on Friday.

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Commentary: Defund the FBI

It’s been a gold star week for the men and women of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Nearly six months after the events of January 6, the FBI, under the direction of Joe Biden’s vengeful Justice Department, is accelerating the nationwide manhunt for anyone involved. Since June 23, agents have arrested 17 people from Florida to California. Charges range from assaulting police officers and criminal trespassing to something called “destruction of property in special maritime and territorial jurisdiction and aiding and abetting.”

The dragnet is part of the nonstop campaign of terror unleashed by the Biden regime against the political Right. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who compares January 6 to the Oklahoma City bombing and Capitol protesters to terrorists, pledged the “Capitol breach” probe would be his top priority. Garland last week bragged in a press release that his department reached the “benchmark” of arresting 500 people and warned he would “hold all January 6 perpetrators accountable” for their actions that day. His prosecutors routinely ask the courts to keep the accused behind bars awaiting trials that won’t start until late this year or perhaps even 2022; dozens have been held for months in a D.C. jail that specifically houses January 6 defendants.

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Biden Plan to Eliminate Suburb-Friendly Zoning Might Land in Dems’ Budget Bill

Housing development

President Joe Biden’s plan to “eliminate exclusionary zoning” for single-family homes in America’s cities and towns might land in the filibuster-proof budget bill that Democratic leaders in Congress are drafting.

A portion of President Biden’s $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan offers grants to cities that “take concrete steps” to end “exclusionary zoning” for single-family homes.

Under a section titled “Eliminate exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies,” Biden’s jobs plan argues that “for decades, exclusionary zoning laws — like minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking requirements, and prohibitions on multifamily housing — have inflated housing and construction costs and locked families out of areas with more opportunities.”

According to the White House fact sheet on the plan, which has not been formally drafted into legislation yet, Biden is “calling on Congress to enact an innovative, new competitive grant program that awards flexible and attractive funding to jurisdictions that take concrete steps to eliminate such needless barriers to producing affordable housing.”

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Top White House Aides Defend Kamala Harris Against Reports of Turmoil, Dysfunction in Her Office

Kamala Harris

Top White House aides have come to Vice President Kamala Harris’ defense in the wake of reports her office is poorly run, with increasingly low morale among staffers, according to Axios.

A Politico story released Wednesday described Harris’ office as an “abusive environment,” with chief of staff Tina Flournoy accused of ignoring the ideas of staffers, while also blaming them for failed initiatives.

“People are not fighting every day,” Symone Sanders, Harris’ senior adviser, told Axios. “There’s not consternation among aides. That is not true. … I hear that there are critics. Those who talk often do not know and those who know usually are not the ones talking.”

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Biden Admin to Launch Government-Wide Effort to Make Up to 9 Million Immigrants Citizens

The Biden administration is expected to launch a government-wide effort to make up to 9 million immigrants living in the U.S. citizens, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday.

President Joe Biden asked federal agencies to work on “welcoming strategies that promote integration, inclusion, and citizenship,” through an executive order, according to CNN. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the agency’s plan to “breaking down barriers to U.S. citizenship” and promote naturalization for immigrants who are eligible.

“The idea is to find a whole-of-government way to reach out to people who are able to naturalize,” a USCIS official reportedly told CNN. The official said there are around 9 million immigrants living in the U.S. as lawful permanent residents who could be eligible for citizenship.

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Stacey Abrams Purchased Two Homes Valued at $1.4 Million After Reporting Massive Debts in 2018

Stacey Abrams

Former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams purchased two homes worth a combined $1.4 million following her failed 2018 bid to lead the state, public records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.

Abrams purchased the homes despite reporting in a financial disclosure in early 2018 during her gubernatorial campaign that she owed the IRS $54,000 in back taxes on top of $174,000 in credit card and student loan debt.

Abrams purchased a 3,300 square foot home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, for $370,000 in September 2019, according to Nexis real estate records. The home is now worth $425,000, according to Redfin.

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Commentary: One Voting Group Could Hold the Key to Republican Victories in the Mid-Terms, If GOP Can Keep Them

Mail in ballot with U.S. flag

In 2016 the unprecedented turnout of non-college whites played a crucial role in former President Trump’s election. Since then, left-leaning research organizations have dedicated substantial effort to reinforcing the narrative that non-college whites are a shrinking demographic and will soon be outnumbered, paving the way for an unchecked left-wing agenda.

Not so fast. New analysis from Market Research Foundation (MRF) shows while whites without a college degree have declined as a share of eligible voters, their turnout rates are rising. This is particularly relevant in rust belt states, where non-college whites turned out substantially higher in 2020 than they did in 2016.

According to the latest Market Research Foundation Memo on Voter Turnout:  

“Nationwide the U.S. Census shows the share of white non-college Americans has declined as a share of eligible voters from 45% in 2016 to 41% in 2020. However, the white non-college turnout rate in 2020 was the highest observed in at least 20 years. Nationwide the white non-college vote rose six points from 58% in 2016 to 64% in 2020 according to new analysis from Brookings.

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Prominent Medical Journals Highlight Harm to Children from Masks, Death Risk from COVID Vaccines

The range of acceptable opinion on COVID-19 mitigation efforts may be widening, with peer-reviewed medical journals recently publishing research finding that masks likely harm schoolchildren and questioning whether benefits from COVID-19 vaccines outweigh risks.

Measured carbon dioxide content in “inhaled air,” observed in a study of masked German schoolchildren, was at least three-fold higher than German law allows, according to a research letter published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Last week, the journal Vaccines, affiliated with the American Society for Virology, published research that estimates every three COVID-19 deaths prevented by vaccination are offset by two deaths “inflicted by vaccination,” using Israeli and European data.

The papers share a lead author, Harald Walach, a professor in Poznan University of the Medical Sciences’ Pediatric Clinic in Poland and University of Witten/Herdecke’s psychology department in Germany.

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Gov. Whitmer Signs Emergency Insulin, Education Bills into Law

Gretchen Whitmer

Gov. Whitmer signed a flurry of bills Thursday with topics ranging from affordable insulin to changing college scholarship metrics.

“I am committed to bringing Republicans and Democrats together to make real, lasting change for Michigan families,” Whitmer said in a statement. “For people living with diabetes, access to insulin is a matter of life and death. I’m proud to sign Senate Bills 155 and 156 because they ensure access to an emergency insulin supply for people facing an interruption of care, and require insurance to cover that emergency supply. I’m also proud to sign House Bills 4055 and 4056 – students should be able to afford a college education based on their overall scholastic achievement, especially when facing unprecedented obstacles to taking otherwise required tests like the ACT and SAT. ”

Senate Bill (SB) 155 aims to ensure access to emergency insulin supply at an affordable cost by allowing pharmacists to dispense an emergency supply of insulin to individuals with an expired but otherwise valid prescription issued within the last 12 months.

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Microsoft VP Says It’s ‘Shocking’ How Routinely the Government Secretly Demands Private Customer Data

Microsoft building

Federal law enforcement agencies covertly request thousands of Microsoft users’ information every year, a company executive told a congressional committee Wednesday.

Vice President for Customer Security and Trust Tom Burt told the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on “Secrecy Orders and Prosecuting Leaks: Potential Legislative Responses to
Deter Prosecutorial Abuse of Power” that Microsoft receives between 2,400 and 3,500 secrecy orders a year, or about 7 to 10 a day, from federal law enforcement agencies.

“Most shocking is just how routine secrecy orders have become when law enforcement targets an American’s email, text messages or other sensitive data stored in the cloud,” Burt told the committee.

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Commentary: Military Potentially Losing Middle America

United States military troops

Traditionalist and conservative America once was the U.S. military’s greatest defender.  

Bipartisan conservatives in Congress ensured generous Pentagon budgets. Statistics of those killed in action, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, reveal that white males, especially those of the rural and middle classes, were demographically “overrepresented” in offering the ultimate sacrifice to their country.  

When generals, active and retired, have become controversial, usually conservative America could be counted on to stick with them.  

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Biden Admin Looks for Ways to Track Up to 100,000 Migrants Released into the U.S.

The temporary processing facilities in Donna, Texas, February 25, 2021, constructed to safely process family units and unaccompanied alien children (UACs) encountered and in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol. The facility will provide processing capacity in the RGV while the permanent Centralized Processing Center in McAllen is renovated. CBP photo by Jerry Glaser

The Biden administration solicited information that could help form a National Case Management Program to track up to 100,000 migrants released into the U.S. annually, documents uploaded Monday show.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would manage the program aimed at migrant adults aged 18 to 21 and other “vulnerable populations” to make sure the migrants are safe and prepared to attend their immigration court hearings, documents show. The request is solely for information gathering and does not mean the federal government will contract with any company that responds.

The program would “ensure that the program participants are safe, stable, and able to prepare for and attend their upcoming court dates and other immigration obligations and have access to legal and other services as needed while in the community,” according to the documents.

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Supreme Court Rules Against California Requirement That Exposes Non-Profit Donations

In a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court struck down a California requirement, pushed by Vice President Kamala Harris while she was Attorney General, that would force the disclosure of donations to various non-profits.

In an opinion siding with the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) and Americans For Prosperity (AFP), who both sued the state, Chief Justice John Roberts stated, “The government may regulate in the First Amendment area only with narrow specificity, and compelled disclosure regimes are no exception.”

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Satellite Images: China Constructing over 100 Nuclear Missile Silos

Air-to-air missiles, Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution

Recent satellite images appear to show the Chinese government constructing over 100 new silos designated for nuclear missiles, Fox News reports.

The images, captured by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in Monterey, California and first reported by the Washington Post, depicted approximately 119 missile silos under construction, bearing resemblances to the current missile-launching apparatuses that China already operates.

And the images don’t even show the full extent of China’s latest ambitions, according to a CNS spokesperson. Jeffrey Lewis, director of CNS’s East Asia Nonproliferation Program, said that “if the silos under construction at other sites across China are added to the count, the total comes to about 145 silos under construction. We believe China is expanding its nuclear forces, in part, to maintain a deterrent that can survive a U.S. first strike in sufficient numbers to defeat U.S. missile defenses.”

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Trump Says Southern Border Is ‘More Dangerous Than It’s Ever Been’ Under Biden

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday the southern border is “more dangerous than it’s ever been” after the Biden administration reversed most of Trump’s immigration policies, Fox News reported.

The Biden administration ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program on June 1 and is eyeing an end to public health order Title 42 that allows border officials to rapidly expel most migrants to Mexico at the end of July, Axios reported June 20. Biden also said he would stop construction on the border wall, prompting Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to announce plans for the state to begin construction on its own wall, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

“There has never been a border so secure as the southern border that we had, and now it’s opened up,” Trump said, according to Fox News. “Now we have an open, really dangerous, border. More dangerous than it’s ever been in the history of our country, and we better go back fast.”

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House Passes Resolution Creating Select Committee into Capitol Riot

The House approved a resolution Wednesday to create a select committee into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol weeks after Senate Republicans killed a bipartisan commission into it.

The bill authorizes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to select eight members and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to select five in consultation with her. It passed 222 to 190, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in voting in favor.

Though the bill passed with bipartisan support, it was significantly less than the 35 House Republicans who voted for the bipartisan commission in May. House Republican leadership came out against the bill Tuesday, urging its caucus to vote no on the grounds that it would “pursue a partisan agenda and politicize the Jan. 6 attack.”

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory Discourse Is Political Gaslighting

Back of the Statue of Liberty

Happily, the spirit of American liberty seems to be awaking from its decades-long slumber.

Unless you’ve been living in an underground bunker for the past two years (I wouldn’t blame you too much if you had), you know there’s quite a lot of controversy over critical race theory (CRT). You also know that just as those who oppose it have started to gain some momentum in pushing back against it (like parents in Loudoun County, Virginia), legacy media shills all leaped into action, concern trolling about ordinary Americans’ alarm over this racist theory’s presence in their children’s schools. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for 11 articles in two weeks on the RealClearPolitics homepage doing exactly that.)

This is a crystal clear example of what Michael Anton calls the “celebration parallax”: “a fact pattern is either true and glorious or false and scurrilous depending on who states it.” Thus, when CRT fanatics indoctrinate your children to hate America and to hate one another on the basis of their skin color, it’s a much-needed dose of hard medicine for a racist people whose country’s “very DNA” is racist (according to the “1619 Project”). But when you—a patriotic, decent American mom or dad—point out how evil a thing that is to say unironically, let alone teach to children and force on Americans across the country via human resources departments, it’s either not happening, or we’re overreacting, or opposing it will hurt the Right “in the long run,” or it’s innocuous and really just about “teach[ing] children that slavery is bad and racism still exists.”

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Michigan Senate Passes $17 Billion Budget Plan

The Michigan Senate passed a plan totaling $17 billion for K-12 schools, hours before the budget deadline that levies no penalties for late action.

The real deadline for the state budget is Sept. 30, ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the state’s fiscal year.

House Bill 4410 passed on a 34-0 vote, which Senate Appropriations Chair Jim Stamas, R-Midland, called an “immediate priority.” The bill includes $10 million to repair natural disaster relief in cities flooded in June 2021.

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