Month: October 2022

Report: Hunter Biden Reached $40 Million Real Estate Deal with Russian Billionaire While Joe Biden Was Vice President

Michigan Star Staff

In yet another revelation regarding the Biden family’s influence-peddling during Joe Biden’s vice presidential tenure, it has been reported that his son Hunter attained a Russian real estate deal worth $40 million back in 2012, while his father was still Vice President.

Breitbart reports that the deal was made between Hunter and Yelena Baturina, a Russian billionaire and the wife of the late former Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. The deal was made some time after Baturina had already paid a $3.5 million fee to Hunter’s real estate entity in exchange for access to the American business market. These details come from documents obtained by the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery, an anti-corruption group, and were first reported by the Daily Mail on Monday.

Read More

BlackRock Stock Downgraded over Investments in ESG

Michigan Star Staff

The asset management company BlackRock, which has been widely criticized for promoting multiple far-left concepts in the world of business, has seen its stock downgraded due to ongoing backlash.

According to The Daily Wire, UBS analyst Brennan Hawken downgraded the company last week due to its support for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) policies. The target stock price was reduced from $700 to just $585, resulting in a one percent drop in BlackRock shares on Tuesday.

Read More

Bannon Requests Home Confinement Hours After DOJ Calls for Prison Time for His Contempt Conviction

Just the News

Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon is attempting to have his contempt of Congress sentence halted pending an appeal and is alternatively asking for his sentence to be served on home confinement, according to a court filing Monday.

Read More

Fired Physician Assistant Sues Michigan Health Claiming Termination over Religious Beliefs

The Center Square

A physician assistant who claims she was fired after seeking a religious exemption from referring patients for transgender care and using their preferred personal pronouns has filed a federal lawsuit against the University of Michigan Health-West.

In September, The Center Square reported Valerie Kloosterman’s claims that diversity program director Thomas Pierce called her “evil” and blamed her for gender dysphoria-related suicides after she cited her Christian faith as a reason to avoid specific procedures.

Read More

FBI Whistleblower: Bureau Using Excessive Tactics to Ensure ‘Process is the Punishment’

Just the News

An FBI agent in Florida says he chose to blow the whistle on his agency because it has not been following its own rules while investigating the Jan. 6 riot, designing cases to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism in America and using excessive tactics to ensure “the process is the punishment” even if a suspect is innocent.

“We took an oath, before our family and our friends and the Lord Almighty, and we are supposed to be people of integrity,” suspended FBI Special Agent Steve Friend told Just the News in a wide-ranging interview. “And that’s not a leisure pursuit. And if you are indeed a person of fidelity, bravery, integrity — the FBI motto — and you have to be willing to do things that aren’t easy, especially when they’re as simple as stepping up and pointing out when we are not meeting the standards that we have set out for ourselves.”

Read More

Michigan Republican Candidate for Secretary of State Kristina Karamo Scorches Dearborn School Board for Sexually Graphic Content

Susan Berry, PhD

Republican candidate for Michigan Secretary of State Kristina Karamo joined her fellow parents at a Dearborn school board meeting to condemn sexually explicit materials and lessons in school libraries when academic achievement should be the focus of education.

Read More

Commentary: The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus

Michigan Star Staff
Washington DC

by Victor Davis Hanson   A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite…

Read More

Michigan Republican Candidate for Secretary of State Kristina Karamo Scorches Dearborn School Board for Sexually Graphic Content

Susan Berry, PhD

Republican candidate for Michigan Secretary of State Kristina Karamo joined her fellow parents at a Dearborn school board meeting to condemn sexually explicit materials and lessons in school libraries when academic achievement should be the focus of education.

Read More

Commentary: The Establishment Is Still Terrified of Donald Trump

Michigan Star Staff

Barring intervention from the justice system, Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024. His odds of defeating an abject, potato-brained failure like Joe Biden are looking better every day. Whether they admit it or not, the establishment is starting to dread the very real possibility of Trump returning to power through the normal operations of what we used to call democracy, or what’s left of it, anyway.

This is really all we need to know about the continued hysteria over January 6 and the government’s fishing expedition relating to some files Trump was keeping at Mar-a-Lago without permission from ideologically compromised librarians at the National Archives. The apparatchiks in the permanent administrative state see Trump not as a threat to democracy, as they claim, but as a threat to themselves and their power. While the bureaucrats have made significant inroads under the lawless Biden regime, they have not, at least not yet, been able to make Trump and the people he represents go away. This terrifies and angers them. As long as dissent is a possibility, they won’t be satisfied.

Read More

Fired Physician Assistant Sues Michigan Health Claiming Termination over Religious Beliefs

The Center Square

A physician assistant who claims she was fired after seeking a religious exemption from referring patients for transgender care and using their preferred personal pronouns has filed a federal lawsuit against the University of Michigan Health-West.

In September, The Center Square reported Valerie Kloosterman’s claims that diversity program director Thomas Pierce called her “evil” and blamed her for gender dysphoria-related suicides after she cited her Christian faith as a reason to avoid specific procedures.

Read More

Commentary: Expensive Energy Is a Core Feature, Not a Bug, of Biden’s Climate Agenda

Michigan Star Staff

“Every government intervention creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions,” observed the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. He was being generous by describing interventionism’s nasty side-effects as “unintended.” Some younger interventionists are naïve, and know not what they do, but the older, street-smart captains of progressive politics understand the harms their policies entail. For them, the adverse consequences are features, not bugs. The only downside is the risk of political retribution at the polls.

That’s the predicament in which the Biden administration now finds itself. It is also the theme of “Energy Inflation Was by Design,” a new report by supply-chain consultant Joseph Toomey.

Read More

Biden’s New China Strategy Is Hamstrung by Competing Democratic Priorities, Experts Say

Michigan Star Staff

Conflicting goals among administration officials and a lack of tangible solutions may hobble the White House’s long-awaited plan for ensuring U.S. national security in the midst of a rising threat from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, released Wednesday, proffered a vision for competing with China in technology and military modernization while seeking to cooperate on segments of shared interest, such as drugs and nuclear weapons. While the administration included adequate language to describe the threat China presents to the U.S.-led way of life, the strategy tries to accomplish too much, too late — resulting in an incoherent, poorly fleshed-out plan overburdened by conflicting viewpoints, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Read More

JP Morgan Cancels Religious Nonprofit’s Checking Account, Demands Donor List as Condition for Reconsideration

Michigan Star Staff

JPMorgan Chase & Co reportedly canceled the account of a religious nonprofit organization for unexplained reasons, and said it would only reconsider the decision if the group provided its donor list, and a list of political candidates it intended to support.

The National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF) launched on January 18, 2022 “to defend religious freedom for all Americans and all their religious communities by supporting political candidates at the local, state, and national levels—regardless of party affiliation—who support the free exercise of religion,” according to its website.

Read More

Rhode Island School District’s Sex Ed Curriculum Features ‘Genderbread Person’ to Teach Kids About Being Trans

Michigan Star Staff

A Rhode Island school district sexual education curriculum features a “genderbread person” to teach children about gender identity, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Sexual education materials for high school students at South Kingstown School District in Rhode Island, include a lesson titled “Gender, Sex, Orientation, Expression” which uses a “genderbread person” to help students understand sexual orientation and gender identity, according to documents obtained by the DCNF. The lesson defines gender neutral terms and provides videos on transitioning experiences.

Read More

Apartment Demand Drops to 30-Year Low as Renters Lose Confidence in the Market

Michigan Star Staff

Apartment demand in the third quarter of 2022 dropped into the negative for the first time in 30 years as many renters have lost confidence in the market due to economic uncertainty, according to RealPage analytics.

Rental markets boomed at the start of 2022, but Q3 data shows a 1.0% increase in apartment vacancies despite a 0.2% month-over-month asking price decrease in September, RealPage reported. Weak rental numbers, despite the first month-over-month asking price drop since December 2020, point to a general economic uncertainty among renters who have adopted a “wait and see” mentality, the outlet reported.

Read More

Juror Dismissed in Gov. Whitmer Kidnapping Trial for Alleged Flirting with a Defendant

Just the News

A female juror was dismissed during the trial of three defendants charged in an alleged plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. The juror was allegedly flirting with one of the defendants, Fox News reports.

Jackson County Judge Thomas Wilson made an announcement on Friday that the female juror was removed from the jury because attorneys raised concerns over too much “nonverbal communication” with defendant Paul Bellar, according to the Jackson Citizen Patriot.

Read More

Commentary: Voter Rolls Are Essential to Victory in the Election Integrity Fight

Michigan Star Staff

Voter rolls are the most important election integrity documents. They tell election officials who is eligible to vote. The voter rolls also tell election officials where to send mail ballots, so it is even more important that they are accurate in states that automatically send registered voters mail ballots.

It is essential that states have accurate and up to date voter rolls. This includes removing individuals who moved, have died, and duplicate registrants. Many states across the country are failing to do this essential voter list maintenance that is required by federal law.

Read More

Commentary: Karl Marx’s Gravest Miscalculation

Michigan Star Staff

I recently had occasion to re-read Karl Marx’s seminal Communist Manifesto. It had been nearly twenty years since my first reading of the text in graduate school and I remembered little beyond class antagonisms, Marx’s materialism, and the exploitation of the proletariat. But the ongoing crisis in Venezuela led me to once again reflect on the Socialist and Communist Philosophy underneath the unfolding crisis.

Read More

‘Shocking’: EcoHealth Alliance Receives Another Round of Funding for Coronavirus Bat Research in Asia

The Center Square
Anthony Fauci

A coalition of leading House Republicans is raising the alarm and demanding answers after the Biden administration approved another round of grant funding for research on coronaviruses and bats in Asia.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and serves as the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.

Read More

Border Authorities Discover New Version of Rainbow Fentanyl

Michigan Star Staff

Border authorities encountered a new form of rainbow fentanyl that smugglers attempted to bring into the U.S., Nogales Port Director Michael W. Humphries said in a tweet Tuesday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Sunday seized around 413,000 fentanyl pills, 44,000 of which “had the rainbow colors combined in each pill.” Humphries said the new version of the pills was “not encountered before” as the area continues to see seizures of the new type of candy-colored drug.

Read More

Prosecutors: U.S. Election Firm Gave Chinese Workers ‘SuperAdministration’ Access to Election Data

Just the News

A U.S. election technology company currently embroiled in scandal gave Chinese subcontractors high-level security access to American election data, according to a warrant filed by prosecutors this week in Los Angeles.

Authorities earlier this month arrested Eugene Yu, the CEO of the election software company Konnech, on charges of grand theft and embezzlement related to his work with that firm. Controversy has also swirled over Konnech’s alleged storage of poll worker data in servers located in the People’s Republic of China.

Read More

Report: Pfizer Board Member Helped Convince Twitter to Ban Vaccine Critic Alex Berenson

Michigan Star Staff
Alex Berenson

Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb, M.D. played a major role in COVID “vaccine” critic Alex Berenson suspended from Twitter in the summer of 2021, according to emails obtained through discovery in Berenson’s lawsuit against the social media giant. Gottlieb worked with former Biden White House senior coronavirus adviser Andrew Slavitt to suppress Berenson’s influential voice as the administration was preparing to impose boosters and vaccine mandates on the American public.

Read More

Clinics Sees Surge in Reproductive Sterilization Procedures amid Tightening Abortion Laws

Just the News

Planned Parenthoods and other clinics in some regions are seeing considerable surges in reproductive sterilization procedures for both men and women amid the tightening of abortion laws around the country following the repeal of Roe v. Wade earlier this year. 

The abortion clinic told the Associated Press that its clinics in Missouri have seen “a surge in demand” for vasectomies following the Roe repeal, while tubal litigations have also increased in frequency in the area.

Read More

Michigan Bill Would Classify Gender Transitions as First-Degree Child Abuse

Michigan Star Staff

Michigan legislators are considering a bill that would classify gender transitions for minors as first-degree child abuse.

The bill, introduced Tuesday, would classify knowingly consenting to or assisting in a gender transition procedure for a minor as first-degree child abuse punishable by life in prison. Several Republican-led states have pushed to restrict transgender-related procedures for children, which can include therapy reinforcing a minor’s transgender identity, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries.

Read More

Music Spotlight: Erin Kinsey

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Although she only vaguely remembers it, I met Erin Kinsey at a Writer’s Round in a side room at the Bavarian Bierhaus at Opry Mills in March of 2021 and we still weren’t sure if we should even be gathering.

Long before Kinsey officially launched her country music career, the Texas girl was already a full decade into it. Her parents had her in every sport, club, and extra-curricular activity they could think of. She played tennis, basketball, and soccer and even took piano lessons. They wanted to help her figure out what she loved. Their goal was to help her find a career born out of passion.

Read More

Commentary: Connecting ‘Energy Inflation’ with ‘Climate Extremism’

RealClearWire

In the approaching 2022 midterm elections, American voters will have the opportunity to decide whether oil industry executives are really to blame for high energy prices—or if it’s instead the political class that needs a shakeup. 

In a new report for Real Clear Energy, Joseph Toomey, a career-management consultant, makes a persuasive case that the energy inflation now victimizing American consumers and taxpayers is the result of deliberate public-policy choices made here at home. Even as President Biden vilifies energy companies, the evidence is overwhelming that the current regime in Washington is beholden to climate extremism at the expense of affordable energy, Toomey argues. 

Read More

Inflation Is Number One Concern for Struggling Small Businesses

The Center Square

Newly released polling data shows inflation is a top concern for small businesses as prices continue to rise.

The National Federation of Independent Business released the survey, which shows that 30% of owners named inflation as the single-most important problem in running their business.

Read More

Biden Uses Antiquities Act to Establish New National Monument in Colorado

The Center Square

President Joe Biden signed a proclamation on Wednesday that establishes Colorado’s Camp Hale as a national monument.

The Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument marks Biden’s first use of the U.S. Antiquities Act to establish a new national monument. Camp Hale was a training facility for the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II, and the division’s veterans played an influential role in establishing the state’s ski industry. 

Read More

Celebrity Drag Queen Serves as Crossing Guard for Denver Students to Promote Safety

Michigan Star Staff

A Denver school featured a drag queen as a crossing guard in celebration of National Walk and Bike to School Day, according to school social media posts.

Drag entertainer Dixie Krystals helped students cross the street at Denver Public School on Oct. 12 as a part of the school’s Walk & Roll to School Day, according to social media posts. Krystals was included as one of the school’s “celebrity crossing guards” in honor of Pedestrian Safety Month.

Read More

Commentary: USA Today’s Future

Michigan Star Staff

Hotel guests used to enjoy the morning courtesy of a complimentary newspaper before staying in or heading out on their way. Many of them opted not for the local paper of record but for the most generic one, USA Today, published by the conglomerate Gannett. Unlike the verbose and cerebral New York Times or Washington Post, it was written with the casual reader in mind. But the era of the newsroom has largely disappeared, and with it, perhaps also the daily newspaper.

Read More

Commentary: The Pro-Life Movement Charts a New Path

RealClearWire

For a half-century, anti-abortion protestors have traveled from across the country to Washington for the March for Life, an annual demonstration that starts on the National Mall and traditionally ends at the steps of the United States Supreme Court.

Now, for the first time in 50 years, the route will change. Organizers say they will start in the same place, but they won’t march to the high court. “It is more important that we finish at the U.S. Capitol,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Defense and Education Fund, which has organized the march since 1974, told RealClearPolitics. Noting that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the question has been returned “to our elected officials and to the people through their elected officials.”

Read More

Insider Advantage: Michigan Governor’s Race Tied; Joe Biden’s Approval Down to 37 Percent

Michigan Star Staff

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is tied with Republican challenger Tudor Dixon (44 percent to 44 percent), a new Insider Advantage poll shows. The poll, which surveyed 550 likely voters on October 11 and 12, showed 3 percent support for Libertarian candidate Mark Duzuma, and 2 percent for Green Party candidate Kevin Hogan. One percent of likely voters chose “other,” and 7 percent had no opinion.

Read More

Michigan Election CEO Allegedly Conspired to Store California Election Workers’ Data in China

Michigan Star Staff

Eugene Yu, whom police arrested last week for alleged data theft, allegedly conspired to store California election workers’ personal data in China during the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday.

Yu’s firm, Konnech, entered a contract with Los Angeles County to provide secure poll worker management software for the 2020 election that stipulated all employee payroll and scheduling data collected by the company should be stored in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Despite multiple statements to The New York Times denying Yu or Konnech stored data in China, new court filings indicate that Yu deliberately collaborated with unknown conspirators to transfer the personal information of hundreds of Los Angeles election workers through third party contractors based in China.

Read More

Parent Rips North Carolina School Board for Promoting Graphic Gay Sex Book to Seventh-Graders

Susan Berry, PhD

A mother from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina rebuked the school board and superintendent for allowing 7th graders access to a graphic book that promotes “the ins and outs of gay sex.”

Education investigative journalist Christopher Rufo posted the video to Twitter of the parent reading a section of This Book Is Gay by LGBTQ activist Juno Dawson.

Read More

Survey: 61 Percent of Americans Say Public Education on Wrong Track

Susan Berry, PhD

EdChoice’s annual Schooling in America survey found 61 percent of Americans believe government-run education is headed in the wrong direction, while 76% of the public back parental choice programs such as education savings accounts (ESAs).

In 2022, the poll’s tenth anniversary, the survey found 61 percent of Americans and 52 percent of school parents say public schools are on the wrong track, while 34 percent of Americans and 48 percent of school parents state government-led education is headed in the right direction.

Read More

‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ Documentary Set to Debut October 18

Peter D'Abrosca

A documentary about Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of America’s COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, and restrictions, is set to debut in only a few days.

“The Real Anthony Fauci, the latest film from documentary filmmaker Jeff Hays exposes the motivations behind “America’s Doctor” to issue unquestioned edicts that upended everyday life during the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to a press release. “Fauci has drawn criticism from a number of fronts. The film is based on the runaway bestselling book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”

Read More

Commentary: The Broken Promises of the January 6 Committee

Michigan Star Staff

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol conducted its final televised performance on Thursday afternoon, an event dutifully carried live by every cable and broadcast news station. Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) now plan to exit stage left as their congressional careers come to an end—the former at the hands of disgruntled Wyoming Republican voters and the latter at the hands of gerrymandering Illinois Democrats. It’s only a matter of time before both find a new home at some NeverTrump outlet funded by leftist billionaires to play the role of the “conservative” useful idiot to the Democratic Party.

Read More

Republican Gov. Candidate Widens Lead in Deep Blue State

Michigan Star Staff

Republican candidate Christine Drazan now leads in the Oregon gubernatorial race by a margin of 6%, per a new opinion poll by Clout Research released on Thursday.

The poll showed Drazan gaining 44% of the vote to the Democratic candidate Tina Kotek’s 38%. Meanwhile, independent candidate Betsy Johnson is garnering 11% support among respondents.

Read More

Report: Biden Admin Housed Record Number of Unaccompanied Illegal Migrant Children

Michigan Star Staff

U.S. shelters housed a record number of unaccompanied illegal migrant children under the Biden administration, according to CBS News.

Federal shelters housed nearly 130,000 unaccompanied illegal migrant children as border authorities saw record numbers of these migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally, CBS News reported, citing internal federal data. In fiscal year 2021, there were 122,000 unaccompanied minors in federal shelters, leading to overcrowded conditions.

Read More

Analysis: Final Hearing Undercuts Two Key Democrat Talking Points

Just the News

When House Democrats’ Jan. 6 committee convened its investigative hearings, members proclaimed there was no need to investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s role because she wasn’t involved in Capitol security and their end goal was to find the truth no matter where it led.

“We must confront the truth with candor, resolve, and determination,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, declared on opening day of the public hearings.

Read More

John Durham Puts FBI on Trial Alongside Its Russian Collusion Informant

Just the News

Igor Danchenko is the named defendant at this week’s trial, charged with lying as an informant in the now discredited Russia collusion investigation. But with probing questions and searing redirects, Special Counsel John Durham has turned the Russian researcher’s trial in the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria, Va., into an expose of stunning FBI failures and omissions in its now-infamous pursuit of Donald Trump for crimes that turned out to be nonexistent.

Read More

Edi Callier Wins The Road to Nashville

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- When I was invited to attend a reception that celebrated one of King Charles’ charities, The Unity of Faiths Foundation, (TUFF) who are co-organizers of The Road to Nashville songwriting contest, I knew it was going to be a spectacular event.

Read More

Poll: Republicans Retain Massive Lead on Midterm Ballots

Michigan Star Staff

Republicans are keeping a firm grip on their attempt to retake control of Congress, showing a massive lead over Democrats just three weeks away from the midterm elections, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

Forty-eight percent of likely U.S. voters reported that they would vote Republican if the election was held today, compared to 41% who said they would vote Democratic, according to the poll. The poll shows a continuously climbing lead for Republicans compared to last week when Republicans were at 47% and Democrats were at 43%.

Read More

Commentary: Lawsuit to Block Student Loan Bailout Can Set Stage for Solving Debt Crisis

RealClearWire

“Here’s the thing. People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not…. [H]e does not have that power. That would have to be an act of Congress.”

Is this the perspective of a conservative legal analyst? A Republican politician? Nope. Those are the words of none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, explaining to reporters last year why President Biden doesn’t have the authority to end student debt.

Read More