Day: September 1, 2021

Michigan State University Sued over Vaccine Mandate

The Center Square

A Michigan State University (MSU) employee sued over the school’s recently announced vaccine mandate, saying she has naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 after recovering from the virus last year and doesn’t need the vaccine.

Jeanna Norris is a supervisory administrative associate and fiscal officer at MSU, which has threatened disciplinary action, including termination, if employees do not comply with the school’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for the Fall 2021 semester, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

Read More

Commentary: The Clear Case for Joe Biden’s Impeachment

Michigan Star Staff

Alan Dershowitz says calls for the impeachment of Joe Biden are “wrong.” He claims in his most recent op-ed at the D.C. establishment’s favorite Republican rag, The Hill: “Whatever one may think of what Biden did or failed to do, it does not constitute an impeachable offense under the text of the Constitution.” With all due respect, Dershowitz is full of crap.

“The Framers,” Dershowitz writes, “insisted that a president could not be impeached unless he committed criminal-type conduct akin to treason and bribery.” If this is true, then why did President Thomas Jefferson call for the impeachment of a federal district judge on the grounds that he was “a man of loose morals and intemperate habits?” Jefferson was a prominent founder, who greatly influenced the framers of the Constitution.

Read More

Trump Issues Statement Supporting Mother of Fallen U.S. Marine Who Criticized Biden for Response and Disrespect at Ceremony Receiving Bodies of Service Members Killed in Terrorist Attack

Cooper Moran

Shana Chappell, the mother of U.S. Marine Kareem Nikoui who was killed in the deadly terrorist attack in Afghanistan, slammed President Joe Biden for his response to the families of the fallen soldiers.

In a social media post, Chappell called out Biden for “disrespect,” describing that Biden repeatedly checked his watch as the bodies of the victims of the deadly explosion were carried off a plane.

Read More

Biden Admin Told Refugee Organizations to Prepare for Arrival of up to 50,000 Afghans Without Visas

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden administration told refugee organizations to prepare for the arrival of up to 50,000 Afghans without visas, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Nine State Department-contracted nonprofits that resettle refugees in the U.S. are trying to recruit more staff and volunteers to help process arriving Afghans, according to the WSJ. Some of the organizations said they haven’t been told how many refugees to expect or when they might arrive.

“We’re going to make it work, no matter how difficult, but I’d be lying to you if I said we aren’t concerned,” HIAS nonprofit President Mark Hetfield told the WSJ.

Read More

Conservative Student Group Threatened with Blacklisting for Refusing to Sign ‘Black Lives Matter’ Letter

Michigan Star Staff

A group of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign signed a letter of demands to the Federalist Society chapter at the university after the chapter stated it would remain neutral on the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I am incredibly proud to be part of an institution among leaders who, when faced with the recent cries from the black community who has for their entire existence in this country been oppressed, amplified these cries loud enough so that those in power will finally hear,” began the letter authored by University of Illinois College of Law student Celestina Radogno, a copy of which Campus Reform has obtained.

Read More

Biden Defends Withdrawal, Declares End of War in Afghanistan

The Center Square

President Joe Biden addressed the nation Tuesday afternoon, presenting a detailed defense of his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and once again honoring the lives of the 13 U.S. service members killed in a terrorist attack last week.

Biden’s speech came the day of the deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from the country. All U.S. troops were reportedly evacuated, though at least 100 Americans, possibly several hundred, remain.

Read More

Home-Schooled Children Increased from 13 Thousand in 1973 to 5 Million in 2020

The Center Square

The number of children being home-schooled has grown from an estimated 13,000 in 1973 to 5 million, according to a report by the National Home Education Research Institute.

The home-school population has grown an estimated 2% to 8% annually, but in 2019 home-schooling began to increase dramatically, the report said.

Read More

Mother of Slain Marine Suspended from Facebook, Instagram After Criticizing Joe Biden

Peter D'Abrosca
Shana Chappell

The mother of a U.S. Marine who died during the ISIS-affiliated attack on Kabul’s airport has been suspended from Facebook and its subsidiary, Instagram. 

“Shana Chappell, mother of Marine Kareem Nikoui who was killed in Kabul, had her FB and Instagram accounts suspended for posts she made about her son and her feelings about the President and Vice President,” Lynn Afendoulis, former Michigan State Representative, said on Facebook. “This is horrifying. Her son GAVE HIS LIFE FOR OUR COUNTRY. She can say what she wants. Her FB account is back up. For now. God be with her.”

Read More

Music Spotlight: Bridget Caldwell

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Singer-songwriter Bridget Caldwell does not come from a musical family. They loved music, but did not play or create music.  Her mother had “exquisite” taste in music and would play anything from Bonnie Raitt and Hank Williams to Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald.

Caldwell said she has always been a loud, boisterous kid and in third grade when she was cast as Snow White in the school play, her love for musical theater began. One day she started singing, her teacher ran down the hall to get her mother who was a special needs teacher, and said, “You have to come to hear this.”

Read More

‘We’re on a Mission’: Advocacy Groups Behind Push to Save Women’s Sports Campaign Against Trans Surgeries for Minors

Michigan Star Staff

The battle to “Save Women’s Sports” resulted in a slew of legislation banning biological males from girls’ sports and conversations on the national stage about gender, sex, individual dignity, and much more. Now the advocacy groups behind this push are assembling to battle the next burgeoning culture war issue — transgender sex change surgeries and procedures for minors.

Progressive activists, media, lawmakers, and even some medical professionals call such procedures “gender affirming medical care” and protest that denying an individual this “care” is cruel, regardless of age. Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed the state’s SAFE Act in April, arguing that the legislation was a “vast government overreach” and that it shouldn’t jump into every ethical issue.

But advocacy groups like the Family Policy Alliance (FPA) insist these procedures irrevocably hurt children. And backed by a network of about 40 independent, state-based family policy councils, FPA aims to multiply the number of states across the nation that legally protect children from gender transition.

Read More

Poll: Republican Trust in Media Lower Than Ever as Partisan Divide Widens

Michigan Star Staff
people using their phones while standing

The percentage of Republicans who say they trust the news has plummeted over the past five years despite Democrats’ faith in media remaining high, as the partisan gap in media trust continues to widen.

When asked “how much, if at all, do you trust the information that comes from national news organizations,” only 35% of Republicans said they have at least “some” trust, down from 70% in 2016, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Monday. Meanwhile, 78% of Democrats said they have “a lot” or “some trust” in the national news media, a slight drop from 86% in 2016.

The partisan divide in media trust is at its widest, and Republican trust in national news is at its lowest, since Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2016.

Read More

Commentary: Our Afghan Nightmare

Michigan Star Staff

Joe Biden’s scripted or no-questions press conferences, and the clean-up afterward by Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Jen Psaki, have been some of the most misleading episodes in modern presidential history—mostly in what was not said rather than was exaggerated, warped, and misrepresented.

The more Joe Biden mutters “The buck stops here” or “I take full responsibility,” the more we know he will not—and not just because of his now reduced mental state, but because 1) he repeats the same opportunist messaging that he has for the last 50 years of his political career, and 2) the only true thing he could say was “I ordered a withdrawal in the most reckless manner in U.S. military history.”

Read More

Report: Home Prices 41 Percent Higher Than Previous Peak in 2006 Before Great Recession

Michigan Star Staff
A beige house in a suburban community during the day

Home prices in the U.S. are more than 41% higher than the previous peak recorded in 2006 during the housing boom that preceded the Great Recession, according to a national index.

Home prices hit a new peak in June, increasing at an annual rate of 18.6%, and 2.2% compared to May, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index published Tuesday. The index is 95% higher than it was in 2012 when the housing market bottomed out following the recession.

“June 2021 is the third consecutive month in which the growth rate of housing prices set a record,” S&P DJI Managing Director of Index Investment Strategy Craig Lazzara said in a statement. “The National Composite Index marked its thirteenth consecutive month of accelerating prices.”

Read More

Exclusive: In Secret Texts, U.S. Military Officials Lamented Leaving Americans Behind in Kabul

Admin

President Biden declared to a puzzled country on Tuesday that the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan was an “extraordinary success,” while his Pentagon portrayed a prosaic, workaday process to repatriate Americans still stranded in the war-torn country.

But text messages between U.S. military commanders and private citizens mounting last-minute rescues tell a far different story, one in which pleading American citizens were frantically left behind at the Kabul airport gate this past weekend to face an uncertain fate under Taliban rule while U.S. officials sought to spread the blame between high-ranking generals and the State Department.

Read More

Commentary: A School Movement Targeting Minorities That Works, Progressives Don’t Like It

RealClearWire

Michael Landsbaum hit bottom after his father lost his job and couldn’t pay rent, leaving the teenager homeless in Dallas. He slept on friends’ couches for months until he was rescued by an unlikely source: his high school.

But Pathways in Technology Early College High School did much more than provide him with a place to stay at a counselor’s home. Its accelerated program, including college courses, gave Landsbaum the drive to get through the tough times and the hope for better days.

Read More

Apple and Google Face First Major Challenge to Their App Store Dominance

Michigan Star Staff
smartphone app store

Apple and Google might change their app store business practices because of a new South Korean law similar to recent legislative efforts by U.S. lawmakers.

The new law would prohibit app stores, including Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, from forcing developers to use the tech giants’ payment systems, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bill, passed by South Korea’s National Assembly, will become law once signed by President Moon Jae-in.

The Korean bill is similar to a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, and Marsha Blackburn to the U.S. Senate earlier this month that seeks “to promote competition and reduce gatekeeper power in the app economy, increase choice, improve quality, and reduce costs for consumers.” Both bills prevent app stores from requiring the use of their billing systems and take aim at the tech giants’ commission structure.

Read More

Commentary: The Puppet Master of the Republic

The Center Square

“Ya know, reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.”

– Joe Biden

During last year’s Democratic primaries when everyone fumbled the ball, the leftist voters turned to socialist Bernie Sanders. Although the DNC figured Sanders would fizzle with baseline Democrats, they misread their comrades. When Sanders won California and Nevada, they hurriedly regrouped. Their strategy was to pair Joe Biden with a babysitter VP, and use them as their progressive shills.

Read More

Biden Officials at Kabul Airport Warned American Rescue Plane to Turn Back or Be Shot Down

Michigan Star Staff

A private airplane that was flying into Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan to rescue stranded American citizens and Afghan allies allegedly was told to turn back or they would be shot down.

In the past 24 hours, American officials in charge of giving clearance at the airport told fellow Americans they would be fired upon if they didn’t leave, Mary Beth Long, a former Department of Defense official, told American Greatness in an exclusive interview.

Read More

Questions over Federal Renters’ Assistance Linger After Eviction Moratorium Tossed

The Center Square

Billions of available federal dollars for rental assistance remain in limbo after the U.S. Supreme Court for a second time rejected President Joe Biden’s plans to perpetuate a federal eviction moratorium without Congressional approval.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court ruled in a 6-3 decision late Thursday, with the court’s three liberal justices dissenting.

Read More

Michigan Republicans Launch Citizens Initiative to Implement Election Integrity Laws

Cooper Moran

Michigan Republicans are launching a citizen initiative to implement election reforms after the 2020 vote, WWMT reported.

The legislature has been making progress on a package of 39 bills that would require photo ID to vote, and provide proof of ID when submitting an absentee ballot application, among other things. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), whose signature would be required to enact the potential law, has vowed to veto the legislation.

Read More