October 27, 2021 - The Michigan Star

Commentary: Schiff, Democrats Pivot Hard on Justice Department Election Interference

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

For five years, U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) insisted, without evidence, that the Russians helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Schiff, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), first seeded the collusion narrative in July 2016—the same month James Comey’s FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane—by falsely claiming Kremlin hackers confiscated thousands of emails off the Democratic National Committee’s server, correspondence damaging to Hillary Clinton.

From that point forward, Schiff leveraged his political power and newfound cable news stardom to perpetuate the lie that the 2016 presidential election was illegitimate.

So it’s beyond ironic that Schiff now sits on the January 6 select committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s latest weapon to annihilate TrumpWorld. After spending every waking minute during Trump’s presidency to conduct what author Lee Smith called The Permanent Coup, Schiff is flipping his coup-plotting script on anyone who questions the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Two Border Patrol Agents Fired, Dozens More Punished for Involvement in Facebook Group ‘I’m 10-15’

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents have been fired in connection with a probe that found roughly 60 of them committed misconduct while participating in a private Facebook group that mocked migrants and lawmakers, investigators said Monday.

Most agents’ penalties were significantly reduced from those recommended by an internal agency review board, according to a House Oversight and Reform committee staff report obtained by the Associated Press.

Chicago Set to Pass One of U.S.’s Biggest Guaranteed Income Plans, Amid Calls to Put Money to Violence

October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

The Chicago City Council is expected to pass a measure this week that would results in one of the largest guaranteed basic measures in the country, amid that if pass would be one of the largest in the county, amid calls from black lawmakers to put the money toward the city’s violent crime problem.

The Chicago police department as of last week reported 649 murders this year, compared to 634 for all of 2020.

The program, if passed, would give 5,000 low-income households $500 a month, using funding from the federal stimulus package that was rolled out earlier this year to address economic hardship as a result of the pandemic.

Treasury Department Hires First-Ever ‘Counselor for Racial Equity’

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

The Treasury Department announced Monday it hired its first every Counselor for Racial Equity to support President Biden’s push for economic opportunities for people of color.

Janis Bowdler, former president of the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Foundation, will serve as the first “Counselor for Racial Equity,” the Treasury Department said.

Western Nations Are Still Far Behind Their Climate Pledges Made Years Ago

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Most countries have fallen far behind the climate pledges they made in Paris more than five years ago, the United Nations said Tuesday ahead of its upcoming climate conference.

Actions taken by nations since 2015 would only reduce emissions 7.5% by 2030, not the Paris Climate Agreement goal of 55%, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report. Climate negotiators determined that a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 would ensure that the world could meet a goal of capping global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

In Fallout over National School Board Group’s Letter to Biden About Parents, Ohio, Missouri Depart

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Man standing in front of a room, giving a lecture with a presentation

The backlash from the incendiary language in a recent letter from the National School Board Association to President Biden asking for federal law enforcement to intervene on outspoken parents at school board meetings escalated this week when the group’s Ohio and Missouri chapters withdrew their respective memberships.

The Missouri School Boards Association in announcing its departure said the national group “demonstrated it does not currently align with MSBA’s guiding principles of local governance.”

The Ohio chapter was more direct, saying in its letter Monday that its departure was a “direct result” of the Sept. 29 letter to Biden.

Facebook-Linked Grants Backed Democrats in Pennsylvania in 2020

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

A new report reveals that multiple private grants tied to the Big Tech giant Facebook overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates and counties in the state of Pennsylvania in 2020, as reported by the New York Post.

The report by the publication Broad + Liberty (BL) reveals that one such grant, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), spent more money on turning out registered voters in Democrat-majority counties than Republican-majority counties. In addition to the increased push for voter turnout, these counties were given a jumpstart on this grant and information on how to apply by state officials.

Commentary: Ground Zero of Woke

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

Report: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officials Made the Lowest Number of Arrests in at Least a Decade

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials made the lowest number of arrests from September 2020 through September 2021 in at least a decade, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations agents made around 72,000 arrests in the fiscal year 2021, according to the Post. During the same time frame in 2020, the officials made 104,000 arrests and averaged another 148,000 arrests annually between 2017 and 2019.

Commentary: The War on Thomas Jefferson

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 RealClearWire

Portrait of Jefferson in his late 50s with a full head of hair

The final decision, after years of debate, was made on Oct. 8 to remove from the New York City Council chambers the statue of the man we all know to have been a dreaded slaveholder—to the tune of 600 over his lifetime—Thomas Jefferson.

Despite that, writing at Bari Weiss’s Substack, political science professor Samuel Goldman, with whom I concur, is less than happy.

“The removal is disgraceful. Unlike monuments to Confederate leaders that display them in full military glory, Jefferson is depicted as a writer. Holding a quill pen in one hand and the Declaration of Independence in the other, he is clearly being honored for composing an immortal argument for liberty and equality.”

George Soros Teams Up with Billionaire Who Backed Liberal Disinformation Efforts to Fund Anti-Disinformation Media Venture

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Liberal tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, a funder of numerous disinformation projects, is backing a new media venture launched Tuesday that seeks to combat disinformation, according to a report.

Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, joined ranks with financier George Soros to fund Good Information Inc., which will “fund and scale businesses that cut through eco chambers with fact-based information,” Axios reported.

Russian Hackers Behind SolarWinds Attack Are Targeting the Supply Chain, Microsoft Says

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

The same group of Russian hackers behind the December 2020 SolarWinds attack are targeting companies in the U.S. technology supply chain, according to a Monday report released by Microsoft.

Russian hacking group Nobelium is targeting cloud infrastructure companies and information technology software resellers in an attempt to gain access to these companies’ customers, according to Microsoft’s research. Microsoft believes Nobelium to be the same group responsible for the SolarWinds hack in late 2020 that affected multiple Cabinet-level agencies, federal contractors and critical infrastructure companies.

“This recent activity is another indicator that Russia is trying to gain long-term, systematic access to a variety of points in the technology supply chain and establish a mechanism for surveilling – now or in the future – targets of interest to the Russian government,” Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security and trust, wrote in the report.

Commentary: The Farce of American Despotism

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Reflecting on Joe Biden’s disastrous “town hall” with Anderson Cooper on Thursday, The Spectator’s Dominic Green asks a question that has to weigh heavily on the mind of every American adult: “Is it more worrisome that Joe Biden might not be in charge, or that he actually is in charge?” I have long argued that allowing Biden to appear in public is a form of elder abuse, and I have speculated that he really is not in control of his actions but is manipulated, puppet-like, by a shadowy cadre of unnamed string-pullers I have called “The Committee.”

I do not have any proof that such is the case. I infer the existence and machinations of The Committee from Biden’s ostentatious incompetence and apparent senility. Has any president in the history of the Republic overseen such a destructive litany of failures so early in his tenure? Observers around the world caught their breath in August as our botched exit from Afghanistan went from appalling to something much worse and more deadly. What will be its defining image? The desperate Afghans clinging to and then falling from the landing gear of a transport plane as it took off from the Kabul airport? Or will it be the images of the slaughter perpetrated by a suicide (that is, a homicide) bomber outside the airport, an incident that killed some 170 people include more than a dozen U.S. military personnel?

Or maybe it will be the image of the drone strike launched in retaliation for that slaughter, a strike that was supposed to have targeted an ISIS-K operative but in fact killed zero terrorists and instead blew to bits 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. The United States initially said they had obliterated an ISIS-K operative along with the collateral damage, but eventually they had to admit that, nope, they got no bad guys, just 10 innocent Afghans.

Whitmer, Challengers Bolster War Chests for Michigan Gubernatorial 2022 Race

October 27, 2021 The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2022 campaign funds have grown to about $12.6 million after raking in $3.1 million between July 21 and Oct. 20.

The Democratic governor has continued claiming an exemption to accept contributions above the state-imposed limit of $7,150 from an individual throughout the entire election cycle. Whitmer’s campaign says it can do this, citing a loophole by which donors may exceed campaign funding limits if their candidate of choice is facing a recall election. Despite several past recalls against the governor over the past three years, none are currently active.

The GOP has challenged this strategy in court, where an Oct. 13 court filing suggests roughly $3.4 million in excess donations must be returned or given to a charity since no recalls are active. New large contributions include Whitmer’s father, Richard Whitmer ($40,000), billionaire George Soros ($25,000), and Vice-Chair of the Detroit Pistons Arn Tellem ($25,000).

Pennsylvania Bill Would Clarify That Courts Can’t Redraw Electoral Maps, as State Supreme Court Did in 2018

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

Legislation currently in the works in the Pennsylvania General Assembly would spell out two rules for redistricting in the Keystone State: Elections cannot legally take place in outdated districts and courts can’t create new districts themselves.

In Feb. 2018, the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court not only struck down Pennsylvania’s congressional maps as unconstitutionally gerrymandered, it reimposed new maps created with no input from the legislature, something state law does not grant the court the right to do. The new maps strongly favored the Democrats’ electoral prospects.

Michigan Parents Allege Their Actions Were Mischaracterized at Recent School Board Meeting

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Cooper Moran

Frustrated parents, who attended a school board meeting in Grand Ledge, allege that their actions have been distorted by the leaders of the school board.

While the parents were visibly upset with the decisions from the school board members, the parents contend that Sara Clark Pierson, president of the Grand Ledge school board, is misrepresenting their actions.

Michigan Township Clerk Removed from Running November Second Election

October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 The Center Square

Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast’s office will run the Nov. 2 election next week in Adams Township after the Michigan Bureau of Elections said Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott failed to comply with legal requirements for election security.

“The voters of Adams Township expect, deserve, and have a right to have their election carried out in accordance with all state and federal laws,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement. “I am confident that the Hillsdale County Clerk’s office will administer the election in a manner that ensures that it is legal, transparent, and secure.”