Month: December 2021

California Teachers Accused of Coaching a Student on Clandestine Gender Transition

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Two teachers in a California school district are accused of coaching a student into coming out as transgender behind the backs of the student’s parents, according to video footage circulating on social media.

School staff reportedly changed the student’s name and pronouns and also called Child Protective Services (CPS) when the parents objected to the transition, according to a twitter thread by LibsofTikTok posted early Thursday morning, which included video of the parents addressing the school board of the Spreckels Union School District on Wednesday.

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Buzzfeed’s Holiday Party Becomes Super-Spreader Event Despite Company’s Vaccine Mandate

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Buzzfeed’s holiday party appears to have become a super-spreader event, despite a company-wide vaccine mandate that required partygoers to present their vaccination cards in order to get into the event.

Three BuzzFeed staffers were reportedly infected with COVID-19 following the company’s Christmas party in Manhattan last week, and about six others are awaiting test results after becoming ill.

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Border Agents Encountered a Five Percent Increase in Migrants Last Month

Admin

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported Friday that agents encountered 173,620 migrants at the southern border in November.

The number is a 5% increase from October’s encounters. Over 50% of those encountered were processed under a Trump-era public health order for expulsion, CBP said.

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Commentary: Democrats Promised An Insurrection But All They Got Was a Lousy Obstruction Case

Admin
Former President Donald Trump

History, it appears, is repeating itself—at least when it comes to the latest crusade to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him.

For nearly three years, the American people were warned that Donald Trump had been in cahoots with the Kremlin to rig the 2016 presidential election. Trump-Russia election collusion, the original “stop the steal” campaign—that is, until questioning the outcome of American elections was designated a criminal conspiracy after November 2020—dominated the attention of the ruling class and the entirety of the national news media.

Every instrument of power—the FBI, a secret surveillance court, congressional committees, a special counsel—was leveraged to uncover the “truth” about the Trump campaign’s alleged dirty dealings with Mother Russia.

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University Ordered to Pay Almost $2 Million After Students Win Religious Freedom Lawsuit

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A federal judge ordered the University of Iowa (UI) to pay $1.9 million in fees and damages after two student groups won a series of religious discrimination lawsuits against the university. 

The Becket Fund, which represents Business Leaders in Christ, will receive $1.37 million while Intervarsity Christian Fellowship will get $533,000, Crux reports. 

Eric Baxter, a senior VP and counsel at The Becket Fund, told Campus Reform targeting students of faith “comes at a price.” 

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Michigan’s $40 Million ‘Going Pro’ Fund Helps 30,000 Train and Get Jobs

The Center Square

A $40 million project is estimated to help 30,000 workers statewide secure employment through the state’s Going PRO Talent Fund.

The program aims to lure back Michigan’s workforce lost during COVID-19, encourage specialization, and help businesses fill jobs in a tight labor market. Between Feb. 2020 and April 2020, Michigan’s labor force plunged by 341,500 or 6.9%. Labor force levels in Michigan have rebounded modestly, increasing by 139,400 or 3% percent from April 2020 to August 2021.

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Manchin Says He Won’t Vote for Mass Spending, Climate Bill, Dealing Blow to Biden

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Senator Joe Manchin speaking

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., declared Sunday he won’t vote for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, saying he feared the bill’s mass spending and climate provisions may worsen inflation.

“This is a no,” Manchin told Fox News Sunday, “I have tried everything I know to do.”

The West Virginia Democrat’s decision all but dooms Biden’s signature legislation in an evenly divided Senate.

Manchin said he was concerned about the continuing effects of the pandemic, inflation, and geopolitical unrest. His decision came after an intense lobbying campaign by the president and fellow Democrats failed to change his mind.

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Boeing Suspends Vaccine Mandate for Employees

The Center Square

Boeing Friday said it has suspended its requirement that U.S.-based employees be fully vaccinated or face losing their jobs.

The announcement comes as several attempts by President Joe Biden to require vaccinations for workers in various settings have been blocked by courts in recent weeks.

“Boeing is committed to maintaining a safe working environment for our customers, and advancing the health and safety of our global workforce,” a company spokesperson told KOMO News. “As such, we continue to encourage our employees to get vaccinated and get a booster if they have not done so. Meanwhile, after careful review, Boeing has suspended its vaccine requirement in line with a federal court’s decision prohibiting the enforcement of the federal contractor executive order and a number of state laws.”

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Commentary: The Kavanaugh War and the End of Honor Culture

Admin

In the 2000 political drama “The Contender,” an opposition research attack is launched against a woman named Laine Hanson (Joan Allen) who has been nominated for the vice presidency. Part of the assault is a rumor, supposedly confirmed with actual videotape, that Hanson partook in group sex while she was in college. It turns out that the oppo was faked, part of a conspiracy not just to derail Hanson politically, but also to destroy her life. Still, Hanson will not go out and refute or deny the rumors even after they have been exposed as fake. In a key scene, Hanson is confronted by an irate president (Jeff Bridges) via his staffer (Sam Elliot), who demands she deny and debunk the rumors.

Hanson explains why she won’t address the scandal. It’s not just the questions they wanted to ask, she says. It’s that they felt it was OK to ask them in the first place. And it’s not. To respond to them is to forfeit dignity and honor. Hanson was not willing to do that.

It’s a remarkable scene because it is so rare these days that anyone in Hollywood or on the Left defends the concept of honor. 

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Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson Kick Off Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2021 Conference in Phoenix

Rachel Alexander
Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk

Turning Point USA is holding their annual AmericaFest 2021 conference this weekend in Phoenix, where they are based. Founder Charlie Kirk and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson spoke Friday on opening night. 

Kirk opened the event, hitting on a lot of social and cultural issues during his speech. He told the attendees not to let it bother them when the left calls them names for saying something true. He acknowledged that it’s so bad that if you speak out, “you might not be able to get a job in your field.” 

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Wisconsin Mom Says Five-Year-Old Child Accessed Porn Website, ‘Inappropriate Content’ with School iPad

Michigan Star Staff

Students at a Wisconsin school district were able to access pornography on their school’s iPads for months due to a lack of “working” filters, according to the mom of a student who accessed the material and spoke during the public comment portion of the district’s school board meeting Tuesday.

Kindergarteners at Burleigh Elementary School at Elmbrook Schools in Brookfield, Wisconsin were exposed to pornography and “other inappropriate content” on a school-issued iPad, because it had “no working filter” outside of the school environment between September 2021 and Nov. 22, 2021, mother Elizabeth Theis said during the public comment portion of the school board meeting.

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Commentary: Christmas Movies Without the Hollywoke Scrooge

Admin
Christmas tree, TV playing The Grinch and stockings on chimney

Hollywoke may be spearheading the War on Christmas, but three cable channels are mounting a far more effective counteroffensive, running traditionalist Christmas movies 24/7. And one of them, Lifetime, is a surprising beachhead. While HBO Max is showcasing the insufferable Seth Rogan’s latest bomb, Santa, Inc. (angry elf girl wants to succeed white male Santa Claus), the once male-bashing Lifetime “for Women” now boasts such romantic “heteronormative” fare as My Sweet Holiday, A Sweet Christmas Romance, and A Christmas Village Romance. Lifetime has joined the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries to reflect a realistic rather than fantastical vision of and for women, and their genuine desire for true love over a feminist-fueled man-light career pursuit.

Some Grinches criticize the films as bland, corny, and predictable. They’re certainly not on par with Yuletide classics by Ernst Lubitch (The Shop Around the Corner) or Leo McCarey (An Affair to Remember), and they do stress a secular more than spiritual Christmas magic. But normal viewers gleam from them values no longer found in the tiresomely “dark, edgy” mainstream series and feature films, such as beauty, sensitivity, warmth, uplift, and niceness.

Start with beauty. The movies are gorgeously photographed to resemble, yes, Hallmark cards. Many depict Robert Frostian villages and valleys in holiday winter, but even major cities like San Francisco in A Christmas Village Romance, Chicago in A Kiss Before Christmas, and New York in the majority appear as lovely metropoles instead of the crime-ridden progressive hellholes the Left has made of them.

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Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Immigration Reform from Democrats’ Spending Bill for Third Time

Michigan Star Staff
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.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected another Democratic effort to include immigration reform in President Joe Biden’s spending bill.

MacDonough’s ruling, which came late Thursday, is Democrats’ latest setback in their bid to overhaul the nation’s immigration system via the reconciliation bill. She rejected two bids earlier this year to include a pathway to citizenship in the package, ruling that the provisions did not meet the criteria to be included in the filibuster-proof legislation.

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Commentary: As Biden Courts Unions, Poll Shows Voter Split on Labor

RealClearWire

Staff were still finding their desks at the White House when the new first lady hosted a summit to celebrate educators. There were just two guests invited on that first full day of the new administration: the leaders of the two largest public teacher unions in the country. And not that there was ever any confusion, but Jill Biden assured them both that organized labor “will always have a seat at the table.”

That has been true throughout the 46th president’s first year. For the Bidens, unions aren’t a casual part of some coalition. Labor is family. The first lady is a card-carrying member of the National Education Association. It is personal when Joe Biden promises to govern as “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”

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Cereal Giant Reaches Deal with Union Group After Months of Labor Strike

Michigan Star Staff

Kellogg announced Thursday that it reached a tentative agreement with employees, potentially ending a 10-week labor strike at the company.

The agreement between the cereal giant and The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ (BCTGM) International Union and four other unions representing 1,4000 workers would cover five years, and two parties will vote on the terms by Monday, according to a Kellogg press release.

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Commentary: The Collapse of Yellow School Bus Transport

RealClearWire

Between 2012 and 2019, student ridership on school district buses declined nationally by 3.8 million riders. The drop is owed to various factors, especially increased demand for drivers in private industry. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the trend, via a combination of even more demand for drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses and reluctance of older drivers to return to work after the shutdown. A nationwide bus driver shortage has been in the headlines this fall, with stories focusing on stranded students and; most dramatically, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker called out the national guard to drive buses.

The decline of the yellow bus system presents an equity challenge for students. In a choice-based education system, lack of bus transport in certain areas means that children in those areas will have fewer schooling options. The problem will require an urgent effort to modernize. Nationwide, only about a third of students took buses to school in 2017, but in some states the figure is considerably lower – such as Arizona, where it had 23% by 2019.

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Two Airline CEOs Challenge Mask Mandates on Planes

Michigan Star Staff

Mask mandates do little, if anything, to make the air safer inside airplanes, two major airline CEOs argued before Congress Wednesday.

“I think the case is very strong that masks don’t add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment,” Gary Kelly, chief executive of Southwest Airlines, told lawmakers. Being inside a plane “is very safe and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting,” Kelly said. The air filters on planes turn over clean air every three minutes, eliminating nearly all airborne pathogens, he explained.

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New York Can Force Photographer to Take Pictures for Same-Sex Weddings, Court Rules

Michigan Star Staff

A federal district court ruled that the state of New York can force a photographer to take pictures depicting same-sex weddings.

In the decision issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci, Jr. dismissed the First Amendment claims of Emilee Carpenter, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Geraci was appointed to the federal bench in 2012 by former President Barack Obama.

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6th Circuit Ruling Restoring Employer Vaccine Mandate Falsely Claims ‘Options Available to Combat COVID-19 Changed Significantly’ When ‘FDA Granted Approval to One Vaccine on August 23, 2021’

Peter D'Abrosca

The majority opinion released on Friday by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which restored the Biden administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring employers with more than 100 employees to mandate that all employees take a COVID-19 vaccinefalsely asserts that Pfizer’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approved vaccine is currently available and in use among the general public.”

“At the same time, the options available to combat COVID-19 changed significantly: the FDA granted approval to one vaccine on August 23, 2021, and testing became more readily available,” the majority opinion asserts on page 24 of the ruling.

The majority opinion was written by Obama-appointed Judge Jane Branstretter Stranch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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Kentucky Congressman Massie: Comirnaty Not Available in United States

Peter D'Abrosca

A Kentucky congressman Saturday said that Pfizer’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COVID-19 vaccine is not available in the United States after The Ohio Star spent a week reporting on that subject. 

“Your first sentence, ‘Comirnaty is available in the US,’ is false. Show us one location it’s available to prove otherwise. The FDA requires Pfizer to disclose to other countries BioNTech is ‘subject to an EUA and is not approved or licensed by the FDA,'” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY-04) said on Twitter. 

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Michigan’s $25 Million Catastrophic Victim Crash Fund Hasn’t Spent a Cent

The Center Square

Not a cent from a $25 million relief fund created four months ago has been spent on medical providers to stabilize a July 45% fee cut for Michigan’s auto accident insurance providers.

DIFS spokeswoman Laura Hall told The Center Square in an email that the agency hasn’t received any complete applications for the Provider Fund as of Dec. 13, noting only one company submitted an incomplete application.

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Report: Inflation Costs Families Around $3,500 This Year

The Center Square

A new report estimated the annual cost of elevated inflation this year will be around $3,500 per household.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s leading business schools, released the report, which estimated much higher costs for American families because of inflation that has risen this year at the fastest rate in decades.

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Commentary: Democrats Promised an Insurrection but All They Got Was a Lousy Obstruction Case

Michigan Star Staff

History, it appears, is repeating itself—at least when it comes to the latest crusade to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him.

For nearly three years, the American people were warned that Donald Trump had been in cahoots with the Kremlin to rig the 2016 presidential election. Trump-Russia election collusion, the original “stop the steal” campaign—that is, until questioning the outcome of American elections was designated a criminal conspiracy after November 2020—dominated the attention of the ruling class and the entirety of the national news media.

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Biden’s Air Force Opens Strategic Tanker Contract to Airbus Less Than a Year After $4B DOJ Sanction for Hiding China Ties

Neil W. McCabe

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration opened up a significant chunk of a new Air Force tanker contract to the Leiden, Netherlands, based Airbus less than a year after the company paid a nearly $4 billion fine for corruption and despite its history of technology transfers to China.

“Airbus engaged in a multi-year and massive scheme to corruptly enhance its business interests by paying bribes in China and other countries and concealing those bribes,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in a statement released at the end of January.

“This coordinated resolution was possible thanks to the dedicated efforts of our foreign partners at the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom and the PNF in France,” Benczkowski said.

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Founder of Zuckerberg’s Election Group Took China-Funded Fellowship at Harvard Think Tank

Michigan Star Staff

The founder of the controversial, Mark Zuckerberg-backed election group Center for Tech and Civic Life was a fellow at a Harvard University think tank which receives funding from Chinese Communist Party-linked firms.

The CTCL was founded in 2012 by Tiana Epps-Johnson, a 2015-16 Technology and Democracy Fellow at Kennedy School of Government’s Ash Center, which is partly funded by several Chinese Communist Party-affiliated enterprises, according to the National Pulse.

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CDC Announces ‘Test-to-Stay’ School Policy for Students Exposed to COVID

The Center Square

The CDC on Friday announced it will allow children who have been exposed to COVID-19 to remain in school if they test negative at least twice in a week, after interacting with an infected person.

The goal of the policy is to keep as many children in school as possible, given the actual risk of them contracting and spreading the illness.

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Report: Democrats Strike Offshore Drilling Ban After Manchin Opposition

Michigan Star Staff

Democratic lawmakers reportedly eliminated a proposed measure to ban offshore oil and gas drilling along the U.S. coastline from their sweeping spending package after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin announced his opposition.

The provision was absent from an early draft of the roughly $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act that was circulated on Capitol Hill by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee which Manchin chairs, congressional aides toldThe New York Times and The Washington Post. The restriction would have applied to all drilling rigs located in the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

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War Room Pandemic: Steve Bannon Talks to The Star News Network CEO and Editor in Chief, Michael Patrick Leahy About OhioHealth’s Distribution of Not Fully Approved COVID-19 Vaccine

JCarr

  Stephen K. Bannon welcomed The Star News Network’s CEO and Editor in Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on Thursday’s War Room: Pandemic to discuss The Ohio Star’s breaking story by Peter D’Abrasco regarding the unapproved COVID-19 vaccines being distributed by OhioHealth. Bannon: Michael Patrick Leahy from The Ohio Star, you’ve…

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Biden White House Offers Bonuses for Doctors Who Mandate ‘Anti-Racism Plans’

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden Administration is planning to offer bonuses to any doctors who “create and implement an anti-racism plan” in their medical facilities, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The directive was issued under new rules from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which aim to update Medicare in order to “reflect changes in medical practice.” As of January 1st, doctors involved in Medicare can increase reimbursement rates by holding “clinic-wide reviews” of their facilities’ “commitment to anti-racism.” HHS notes that, in such surveys, race must be defined as “a political and social construct, not a physiological one.”

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Appeals Court Reinstates Biden Vaccine Mandate for Businesses

Michigan Star Staff

A federal appeals court on Friday night reinstated President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private companies with more than 100 workers, reversing lower court rulings and setting up a likely showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the authority to Impose the mandate due to take effect Jan. 4.

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Fentanyl Overdoses Leading Cause of Deaths in America in 2020

Michigan Star Staff

The government has reported that, since the year 2020, fentanyl overdoses have become the new leading cause of death for American adults between the ages of 18 and 45, as reported by Fox News.

The analysis from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) shows that nearly 79,000 Americans died from the drug between 2020 and 2021. Of those, just over 37,000 died in 2020 while almost 42,000 died in 2021. Fentanyl is an opioid that is sometimes laced with other drugs such as meth and heroin when used by addicts, but can also be deadly on its own in even small doses. The primary foreign sources for imports of the drug are China and Mexico.

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Commentary: Robbing America of Her Core Values

Michigan Star Staff

Portland anarchists crowned a season of monument destruction in October 2020 when they pulled down the city’s Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln statues and attacked the nearby Oregon Historical Society—despite its having been so woke and feminist for years it could be called the Oregon Hysterical Society. This occurred on what Antifa organizers billed as an “Indigenous Day of Rage” (something that was about as genuinely “indigenous” as the Boston Tea Party) and coincided with Portland’s official (anti-) holiday refuting Columbus Day—Indigenous People’s Day—which promises to grow more strident and violent, if no more indigenous, annually.

Last October, the nation and the city weren’t as far gone as they are now. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler felt compelled to stand with the police chief and denounce the rioters’ actions. But in doing so, he followed the same pattern he and the city used to acquiesce to anarchist and Black Lives Matter political terror over the summer of 2020: denouncing the violence, affirming the anarchists’ right to speech, even sympathizing with the goals of anti-police rioters, and conspicuously not defending their targets—then it was the police, in this instance, it was our history.

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Ex-Defense Contractor Charged for Allegedly Leaking Classified Information to Russia

Michigan Star Staff

A former U.S. defense contractor was arrested earlier this week on criminal charges in connection with espionage, according to the Justice Department.

John Murray Rowe Jr., a 63-year-old resident of Lead, South Dakota, allegedly attempted to provide classified national defense information to the Russian government.

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Gun Manufacturers Sue New York over Law Allowing Gun Stores to Be Held Liable for Armed Crimes

Michigan Star Staff

On Thursday, a lawsuit was filed against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D-N.Y.) over the state’s “public nuisance law,” which allows private citizens to sue gun stores and gun manufacturers if their weapons are used in an unrelated crime, CNN reports.

The law, signed into law in July, is the first of its kind in the nation, making gun stores and manufacturers liable in any civil suits that may result from firearms being used to commit crimes, even if the distributors had no role in the crime itself. It was deliberately signed as an attempt to circumvent the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a federal law which specifically granted immunity to arms manufacturers and distributors in such cases.

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Commentary: The Russia-Ukraine Crisis, the History Our Media Got Wrong

Michigan Star Staff

Russia’s looming invasion of Ukraine presents a clear and present danger to the safety of the European Union and a direct challenge to the NATO alliance, but only now are our major media waking up to this dire threat to Western security. We must now confront urgent questions: Did the United States strengthen Russia, did it weaken Ukraine, and did it do so under the nose of these media?

First, a quick run-through of American actions that strengthened Russia. In his 2009 inaugural address, Barack Obama promised to approach adversaries with an open hand, not a closed fist. For this, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, an oxymoronic name, equivalent to the Affordable Care Act.

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Michigan Legislature Passes Bill Banning Closed-Door Redistricting Meetings

The Center Square

In a marathon overnight session this week, the Michigan House voted 100-2 on a bill aiming to ban the Independent Citizen’s Redistricting Committee (MICRC) from meeting in a closed session for any purpose.

On Dec. 2, the Senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 728. The bill moves to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk, whose office hasn’t responded to a request for comment about the legislation. 

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Michigan State University to Require COVID Vaccine Booster Shot for All Students and Faculty

Cooper Moran

Michigan State University (MSU) announced on Friday that all students and faculty will be required to receive the coronavirus vaccine booster shot.

Beginning in the upcoming spring semester, all individuals must have the additional shot to remain in compliance with the university’s policies, according to an email from MSU President Samuel L. Stanley.

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Enbridge Files Lawsuit to Keep Line 5 Case in Federal Court

The Center Square

As many predicted, pipeline company Enbridge filed to remove a lawsuit to shut down Line 5 from state court to keep it in front of a federal judge.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have been attempting to revoke the easement that allows Line 5 to transport approximately 540,000 gallons of hydrocarbons across a five-mile stretch of the Straits of Mackinac. The easement has been honored since 1953.

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Commentary: The Left Is All of a Sudden Worried About the End of Democracy

Michigan Star Staff

What is behind recent pessimistic appraisals of democracy’s future, from Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Brian Williams and other elite intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians on the Left? Some are warning about its possible erosion in 2024. Others predict the democracy downturn as early 2022, with scary scenarios of “autocracy” and Trump “coups.” 

To answer that question, understand first what is not behind these shrill forecasts. 

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Nike Executives Funneled Money to Democrat Who Blocked Uyghur Forced Labor Bill

Michigan Star Staff

Several top Nike executives funneled more than $60,000 to the re-election campaign of Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden over the course of just 16 days in September.

On Wednesday evening, Wyden blocked the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which the House passed unanimously Tuesday and the Senate was expected to overwhelmingly approve. President Joe Biden vowed to sign the bill once passed by both chambers and work with Congress to “ensure global supply chains are free of forced labor,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

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Five Governors Request Defense Department Withdraw Vaccine Mandate for National Guard

Michigan Star Staff

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is joining four other state governors in requesting the Department of Defense withdraw vaccine mandate directives to National Guard members in Title 32 duty status.

U.S. National Guard members’ deadline to be vaccinated was Dec. 2. Nearly 50,000 military members across all branches have declined to get vaccinated, Reynolds’ office’s news release said.

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Commentary: DC Bar Association Restores Convicted FBI Russiagate Lawyer to ‘Good Standing’ Amid Irregularities

RealClearWire

A former senior FBI lawyer who falsified a surveillance document in the Trump-Russia investigation has been restored as a member in “good standing” by the District of Columbia Bar Association even though he has yet to finish serving out his probation as a convicted felon, according to disciplinary records obtained by RealClearInvestigations.

The move is the latest in a series of exceptions the bar has made for Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in August 2020 to doctoring an email used to justify a surveillance warrant targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

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New Customs and Border Patrol Chief Sends Staff Welcome Email, Ignores Illegal Immigration

Michigan Star Staff

New Customs and Border Protection (CBP) chief Chris Magnus sent a welcome email to staff on Tuesday, but he completely omitted any mention of illegal immigration.

The controversial Biden appointee was confirmed by the Senate last week and sworn in on Monday.

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Los Angeles Schools Delay Forcing Thousands of Unvaccinated Students Back to Online Learning

The Center Square

Los Angeles Unified School District will hold off enforcement until the start of the Fall 2022 semester for a vaccine mandate that would have moved thousands of students out of the classroom and into remote learning.

The LAUSD’s Board of Education voted Tuesday to suspend enforcement of a vaccine mandate for all students 12 and older until the fall. The original mandate, which passed in September, required students to show proof of full vaccination or obtain an exemption by Jan. 10, 2022, to continue attending in-person classes.

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Jobless Claims Rise from a 52-Year Low

Michigan Star Staff
Unemployment sign

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims totaled 206,000 in the week ending Dec. 11 as the tight labor market continues to recover, though it remains far from pre-pandemic levels.

The Labor Department figure shows an 18,000 claim increase compared to the week ending Dec. 4 when jobless claims reached 184,000. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected claims to increase to just 195,000 from the previous week’s figure.

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Congress Passes $770 Billion Defense Bill, Prevents Discharge over Vaccine Refusal

The Center Square

Congress passed a $770 billion defense bill Wednesday, authorizing a wide range of military spending for the next year.

The Senate passed the bipartisan 2022 National Defense Authorization Act with an 89-10 vote, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden. The bill, which is passed annually in some form, includes a revamp of how the the military deals with sexual assaults as well as a 2.7% pay increase for military members and employees at the Department of Defense.

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Michigan Legislature Passes Bill Aimed to Assist Small Businesses

Cooper Moran

Michigan lawmakers in both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure that aims to ease the tax burden on small businesses in the state.

When filing federal taxes, large corporations are allowed unlimited state and local tax (SALT) deductions. However, small business, considered flow-through entities, deductions are capped at $10,000.

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Former President Trump Slams Congressman Adam Schiff for Allegedly Altering Text Messages Shown During Committee Hearing

Cooper Moran

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed Congressman Adam Schiff for changing the substance of a text message that he read during a January 6th Committee hearing.

Congressman Schiff (D-CA-28) allegedly altered a text message between White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH-04), according to a report from The Federalist.

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Commentary: Nancy Pelosi Is Collecting the Phone Records of the Conservative Movement

Admin

Yesterday, former Rep. Mark Meadows was held in contempt by the same House he once served in before his appointment as former President Donald J. Trump’s last chief of staff. Meadows had been complying with Nancy Pelosi’s appointed select committee tasked with looking into January 6 until it went too far. 

Meadows is now suing Pelosi and the select committee.

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