Month: October 2022

Commentary: Dems Inexplicably Block Demand for FBI to Cough Up Ray Epps Documents

Admin

For those who do not know who Ray Epps is and why he matters—and this includes most Democrats and many journalists—U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) served up a handy reference guide last week. Gosar did this in the form of a resolution of inquiry (ROI) directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over all documents relevant to the Epps case within 14 days. 

“Multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C. on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building,“ Gosar explained. “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed.”

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Fed-Backed Censorship Machine Targeted 20 News Sites: Report

Just the News

The private consortium that reported election “misinformation” to tech platforms during the 2020 election season, in “consultation” with federal agencies, targeted several news organizations in its dragnet.

Websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Epoch Times and Breitbart were identified among the 20 “most prominent domains across election integrity incidents” that were cited in tweets flagged by the Election Integrity Partnership and its collaborators.

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Biden Appoints First-Ever Envoy for Plants and Animals

Admin

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is appointing a special diplomat to oversee international animal and plant habitats for the first time in U.S. history.

The State Department appointed Monica Medina as the U.S. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources to solve the world’s intertwined biodiversity and water crises, according to a department media note. Medina will adopt an “all-of-government effort” to represent the interests of plants and animals abroad because the administration believes that such species are currently threatened by the “climate crisis.”

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House Republicans Demand DOJ Investigate $637 Million COVID Deal Between New York Governor, Major Donor

Just the News

House Republicans are demanding that the Department of Justice investigate New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office over a massive deal the governor struck between the state and one of her wealthy campaign donors. 

Hochul’s office came under scrutiny earlier this month following the revelation that the governor organized a $637 million deal to buy COVID tests from a company owned by one of her largest campaign donors.

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Number of U.S. Millionaires Increased by 41 Percent in 2022

Admin

New figures from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) show that the number of American citizens who report more than $1 million in income have jumped by a staggering 41 percent this year alone.

As reported by Politico, the IRS claims to have processed up to 387,840 returns reporting seven-figure incomes by mid-July; at the same time last year, the agency only found 274,879. The increase has been attributed to a strong performance on Wall Street last year, before the inflation crisis hit; in 2022 thus far, millionaires reported a collective total of $252.5 billion in capital gains, 80 percent higher compared to the previous year. In addition, millionaires’ salaries and wages rose by 45 percent.

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Gubernatorial Hopeful Tudor Dixon Pledges to Protect Line 5 from Whitmer’s ‘Attacks’

The Center Square

Although there are many telling differences between Michigan’s 2022 gubernatorial candidates, energy policy may be the most significant from an economic perspective for families.

Democrat incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has led the charge to close the Line 5 dual pipeline that has spanned the Straits of Mackinac since 1953, whereas Republican challenger Tudor Dixon has pledged to keep the hydrocarbons flowing through the five-mile stretch of pipeline positioned on the lakebed of Lake Michigan.

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Commentary: Democrats’ 8-Point Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot Evaporated

Admin

Don’t look now, but Democrats’ 8-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot question from a month ago has evaporated in the latest Economist-YouGov poll of registered voters, which now shows the race for Congress tied, 44 percent to 44 percent on Sept. 24-27.

On Aug. 28-30, Democrats were leading Economist-YouGov’s generic ballot 46 percent to 38 percent. Leading the change in the state of the race is largely an apparent collapse of support for Democrats among younger adults, and a strengthening of support for Republicans among older adults.

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Homeless People Sue Liberal City for Taking Their Belongings, Kicking Them Out of Public Spaces

Admin

Multiple homeless individuals and the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city of San Francisco, California, Tuesday for allegedly arresting people lacking available shelter and destroying belongings, without providing affordable housing options.

The city has subjected homeless people to “ongoing criminalization and property destruction practices,” according to the lawsuit. It contends San Francisco has violated Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment protections by threatening, citing, arresting and removing homeless individuals from public spaces and infringed on Fourth Amendment rights by illegally confiscating and destroying possessions.

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Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Not to Let ‘Defund the Police and Socialism’ Hurt Them This Election

Just the News

Former President Bill Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it shouldn’t let “defund the police and socialism” damage their chances of winning the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton was asked how the U.S. should handle existing threats to its democracy.

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Researchers Say Better Data Is Needed to Verify Claims, Extent of Teacher Shortages

The Center Square

New research on the demand for teachers highlights the lack of information about teacher shortages at all levels of government.

A working paper from Brown University found that “teacher shortages are still poorly understood, and it remains unclear whether there is a shortfall of teachers on the national scale or if shortages are localized – a key component of the current debate around teacher shortages.”

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Commentary: The Civil Disobedience of Raising a Family

Michigan Star Staff

In case you haven’t noticed, times have changed, and somehow, those who hold to traditional societal norms have become the new face of counter culturalism. As this is unfamiliar territory to those on the traditional end of the spectrum, a few lessons are needed in how to live up to this new moniker. One of those lessons is how to engage in civil disobedience.

If you’re like me, the phrase “civil disobedience” conjures up images of bra-burning hippies protesting Vietnam and demanding that society “make love, not war.” But in a world where up has become down and good has become evil, civil disobedience no longer means we must take to the streets and chain ourselves to some inanimate object. In reality, the best civil disobedience we, as members of the new countercultural movement, can perform is right in our own homes, raising our families.

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Airline Shows Off ‘Inclusive’ Uniform Policy with Trans, Cross-Dressing Flight Attendants

Michigan Star Staff

Virgin Atlantic Airways launched an ad campaign Wednesday highlighting the company’s new uniform policy allowing men to wear skirts, along with several other new transgender-related policies.

The company’s new ads feature men in women’s uniforms and several people who appear to be transgender dancing, walking on a red carpet and giving interviews about the company’s LGBT-inclusivity. The airline also introduced optional pronoun pins employees can wear on their uniforms, mandatory “inclusivity training” for employees and a ticketing system update allowing people with “gender-neutral” passports to use their gender codes and titles, according to a press release.

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Three More Counties Want Texas to Declare Invasion at Southern Border; Total at 32

The Center Square

Three more counties are the latest to express support for Texas declaring an invasion at the southern border, bringing the total to 32.

The judge and county commissioners of Ector County, in the Permian Basin, signed a Declaration of Local State of Disaster on Sept. 27 stating the “health, safety, and welfare of Ector County residents are under an imminent threat of disaster from the unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.”

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Man Who Ran Over and Killed Conservative Teen Charged with Murder

Michigan Star Staff

A North Dakota man arrested for running over a teenager he purportedly believed to be a Republican extremist was charged with murder Friday.

Shannon Brandt admitted to hitting Cayler Ellingson with his vehicle Sept. 18 and left the scene before returning, calling 911 and leaving again, according to a police affidavit. Brandt was subsequently charged with felony criminal vehicular homicide involving a motor vehicle and duty in accident involving death, but Foster County State’s Attorney Kara Brinster replaced the first charge with the more severe felony charge of murder.

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Michigan Legislature OKs $1 Billion Spending, Mostly Economic Development

The Center Square

The Michigan Legislature approved a $1 billion spending plan primarily meant to attract critical state projects. The supplemental spending bill was passed Wednesday over objections from some Republican lawmakers that the spending package wouldn’t benefit taxpayers in the long run.

The state is spending a $7 billion taxpayer surplus.

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Commentary: Neither White House nor Common Man Can Evade Recession Data

Michigan Star Staff

Newly released data from the Commerce Department show what some people have been saying for months: The nation is in recession.

Furthermore, the Biden administration’s cherry-picking of data has come back to bite it, with even its selected data points now being revised to indicate a recession. And while these numbers confirm the economy shrank in the first half of the year, the rest of this year holds little promise of recovery.

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House GOP: FBI Retaliating Against Whistleblowers and Conservative Agents

Michigan Star Staff

On Thursday, three Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives claimed that the FBI has been actively retaliating against agents who are suspected of being whistleblowers, as well as those who hold conservative beliefs.

As The Daily Caller reports, a letter was sent to Jennifer Moore, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s Human Resource Branch, detailing these allegations. The letter was signed by three members of the House Judiciary Committee: Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and Mike Johnson (R-La.).

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84-Year-Old Michigan Woman Shot While Canvassing on Abortion Speaks Out

Admin

Eighty-four-year-old Joan Jacobson never imagined she would be shot when she knocked on the door of a Michigan couple’s home, hoping to convince them not to vote for a local pro-abortion ballot proposal.

Sharon Harvey answered the door and quickly became “hostile, belligerent, and antagonistic” when she learned Jacobson’s mission, according to David Kallman, Jacobson’s attorney with the Great Lakes Justice Center.

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Michigan Legislature OKs $1 Billion Spending, Mostly Economic Development

The Center Square

The Michigan Legislature approved a $1 billion spending plan primarily meant to attract critical state projects. The supplemental spending bill was passed Wednesday over objections from some Republican lawmakers that the spending package wouldn’t benefit taxpayers in the long run.

The state is spending a $7 billion taxpayer surplus.

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Music Spotlight: Noah Hicks

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- If there is one thing that means something to me in country music, it is authenticity. Are you singing your truths or just latching onto the newest country fad?

Noah Hicks is probably the most authentic country guy I have ever interviewed. He is a fifth-generation farmer from Carrolton, Georgia. The land he tilled with an air-conditioned tractor is the land his grandfathers plowed with a mule.

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Suicide Rate in U.S. Spiked in 2021 After Two Years of Decline

Michigan Star Staff

After two years of steady decline, the rate of suicide deaths in the United States rose sharply in 2021, reversing the progress made in 2020 and 2019.

According to CNN, 47,646 Americans take their own lives over the course of the year 2021, according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which amounts to roughly one death every 11 minutes.

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Major Government Unions Lose over 200K Members

The Center Square

The top four public labor unions in the U.S. lost hundreds of thousands of members since a 2018 Supreme Court case that ruled government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job, a new report shows that.

The Commonwealth Foundation released the report, which found that the top four public labor unions – AFT, AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU – lost nearly 219,000 members altogether since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling.

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Commentary: Setting Expectations for the House in 2022 Midterms

RealClearWire

As the generic ballot closed over the course of the summer, the battle for the House of Representatives has moved into the forefront of political analysis. House races tend to develop late, and it is too soon to predict with specificity what the outcome is going to be. But we can probably set some reasonable bounds for expectations at this point.

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Trump Scores Another Win in Mar-a-Lago Case

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday scored a major win in the ongoing court battle pertaining to the FBI’s seizure of documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate in early August.

“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials, to lodge ex ante final objections to the accuracy of Defendant’s Inventory, its descriptions, or its contents,” wrote U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in the Thursday ruling.

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New York Will Ban Gas Car Sales by 2035, Copying California

Michigan Star Staff

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said Thursday that it will follow California’s lead by banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.

All passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs sold in the state will have to be classified as “zero-emissions vehicles” by no later than 2035, according to a press release. Hochul directed the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to begin implementing the new rules that will also require 35% of state vehicle sales to consist of electric cars by 2026, rising to 68% by 2030.

“With sustained state and federal investments, our actions are incentivizing New Yorkers, local governments, and businesses to make the transition to electric vehicles,” Hochul said.

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21 Attorneys General Want U.S. Supreme Court to Uphold Immigration Law

The Center Square

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is leading a group of 21 attorneys general in an amicus brief regarding federal immigration law.

The attorneys general are asking the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold a federal statute to enforce federal immigration law in United States v. Hansen.  

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Mortgage Rates Surpass Seven Percent for First Time in 20 Years

Michigan Star Staff

Mortgages have hit their highest rates in decades, with the 30-year fixed interest mortgage rate surpassing 7% for the first time since 2002, according to the Mortgage News Daily (MND) index.

At 7.08%, the current fixed rate is a far cry from September 2021 rates of 2.86%, and has increased by nearly 2% since the end of August 2022, according to MND. Applications for home refinancing have dipped by 10.9% and new home buyer applications fell by 0.4% in September as interest rates continue to climb, Trading Economics reported.

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Feds Used Private Entity to Target Millions of Social Posts in 2020

Michigan Star Staff

A consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News.

The Election Integrity Partnership is back in action again for the 2022 midterm elections, raising concerns among civil libertarians that a chilling new form of public-private partnership to evade the First Amendment’s prohibition of government censorship may be expanding.

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Commentary: Time to Investigate the FBI’s Confidential Human Sources Program

Michigan Star Staff

To the surprise of no one paying attention, the Department of Justice recently acknowledged the use of several FBI informants in its investigation of the Oath Keepers, an alleged militia group tied to the events of January 6. 

Prosecutors last week asked for a protective order to conceal from jurors information about confidential human sources (CHS) expected to testify during the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers; jury selection is now underway. Not only does the government want to prevent defense attorneys from asking personal questions that could reveal the informants’ identities but prosecutors don’t want the sources to publicly disclose any involvement in past or pending criminal investigations or details of “the FBI’s CHS program and the training and methods used by the FBI as part of their undercover operations.”

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CompassCare CEO Says Police Won’t Return His Surveillance Video of Firebombing Attack Because It Might Inspire Rightwing Violence

Michigan Star Staff

The CEO of a crisis pregnancy center in Buffalo, New York, says the police and FBI will not give back his surveillance footage from the night abortion extremists firebombed his facility because they are afraid it may inspire rightwing violence.

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Gavin Newsom Signs Bill Making California Sanctuary State for Parents Seeking Child Transgender Surgery

Susan Berry, PhD

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill (SB-107) into law Thursday that makes his state a safe haven for parents who want their gender dysphoric children to be treated with drugs and surgeries when their own states have attempted to protect minors from such life-altering interventions.

“In California we believe in equality and acceptance,” Newsom said in his signing message. “We believe that no one should be prosecuted or persecuted for getting the care they need – including gender-affirming care.”

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House Passes Sweeping Antitrust Package Targeting Big Tech

Michigan Star Staff

The House of Representatives passed sweeping antitrust legislation targeting Big Tech with bipartisan support following a Thursday afternoon vote.

The bill, known as the Merger Fee Filing Modernization Act, passed 242 to 184, combining a trio of antitrust bills designed to limit the impact of Big Tech firms by increasing merger application fees to fund stricter antitrust enforcement, requiring companies to disclose foreign subsidies when applying for a merger and exempting antitrust lawsuits brought by state attorneys general from processes that can result in court cases being transferred to districts more favorable to defenders. The package, passed with 39 Republican votes, was endorsed by the White House on Tuesday as part of its ongoing efforts to beef up antitrust enforcement.

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Michigan Mother Sues School Board over COVID-19 Policy ‘Retaliation’

The Center Square

After Sandra Hernden voiced her opinion to the Chippewa Valley School District school board, she says the district retaliated.

Now she’s suing the district with help from the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, alleging the board violated her First Amendment rights. Her request in damages if successful, is a public apology and one dollar.

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Putin Signs Decree Bringing Ukrainian Territory Under Russian Rule

Michigan Star Staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to inaugurate the annexation of four Ukrainian territories in a ceremony at 3 p.m. local time Friday.

Separatist leaders from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine and the self-styled Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics agreed at a ceremony in Moscow to recognize the results of Russian-backed referendums in the breakaway territories, Forbes reported. The Kremlin said it will consider any attack on the annexed territories a direct attack on Russia, urging Kyiv to return to the negotiating table to avoid a catastrophic escalation in the war.

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Fauci and Wife’s Net Worth Skyrocketed During Pandemic, Analysis Finds

Michigan Star Staff

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci and his wife saw a net worth increase of $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by a government watchdog group.

Between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2021, the Faucis expanded their net worth from $7.6 million to more than $12.6 million, according to OpenTheBooks’ Wednesday analysis of the 81-year-old retiring NIAID director’s financial disclosures. The director was the highest paid federal employee in both 2021 and 2022, earning $456,000 per year and $480,000 per year, respectively, the analysis noted.

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Georgia Congressman to Introduce Legislation Banning Federal Agencies from Pressing Big Tech to Censor

Just the News

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) plans to introduce legislation called the Free Speech Defense Act that will prohibit federal officials from collaborating with Big Tech to censor Americans’ voices and create some legal recourse for those harmed by free speech infringement.

Clyde unveiled his plans for the bill during an appearance Thursday night on the “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show.

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Inflation Rose More than Expected in August, Federal Data Shows

The Center Square

Inflation rose more than expected in August, leaving Americans facing even higher prices on a range of everyday purchases, according to newly released federal inflation data.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the pricing data, which showed the Personal Consumption Expenditure excluding food and energy, a key marker of inflation, rose 0.6%, higher than expected by Dow Jones.

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