San Francisco city officials announced Wednesday they would launch a new guaranteed income program for the city’s transgender community.
The program, dubbed the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT), will provide 55, low-income transgender city residents with $1,200 each month for up to 18 months. The pilot program is the first of its kind for trans individuals in the city, though San Francisco has launched several other programs in recent years.
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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat poised to succeed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as his party’s leader in the House, has repeatedly denied the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s 2016 election.
But his claims of a stolen election and voter suppression have hardly gotten the same treatment as Trump and other Republicans who have raised ballot integrity issues and been endlessly branded as “election deniers.”
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An Ingham County Circuit Court ordered Detroit-based Recovery Park to repay $750,000 in Michigan Strategic Fund loans.
A May 2022 lawsuit filed by Michigan assistant attorneys general says the nonprofit Recovery Park and its subsidiary for-profit Recovery Park Farms failed to reach a third milestone of hiring six additional employees for loan forgiveness.
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October’s Consumer Price Index, the measure of the national rate of inflation, was at 7.7 percent in October, compared to a reading of 8.2 percent in September. The report propelled “U.S. stocks forward [at the open] and sent Treasury yields tumbling as Wall Street weighed the implication of softer prints on Federal Reserve policy.”
The decline in the rate of inflation was driven by declining annual prices of “necessities” such as smartphones (-22.9 percent), admission to sporting events (-17.7 percent), televisions (-16.5 percent), and women’s outerwear (-1.4 percent), all items that are discretionary purchases.
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The state of California is facing a budget deficit of $25 billion going into 2023, the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) reports.
According to the Daily Caller, the LAO’s Wednesday report claimed that the primary reason for the deficit will be the shortcomings in the state’s tax revenue, which will ultimately be about $41 billion less than originally projected. Corporate tax revenue in the state is expected to drop by about $6 billion from fiscal year 2021-2022 to 2023-2024, and personal income tax revenue has also declined, from $135.9 billion in the prior fiscal year to an estimated $122.6 billion in the coming fiscal year.
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What do you suppose the chances are that Merrick Garland, Joe Biden’s attorney general and chief enforcer, is a student of Søren Kierkegaard? Pretty slim, I’d wager. But his announcement yesterday that he was getting the old band back together and appointing yet another “special counsel” to investigate Donald Trump made me think that he should take a gander at Repetition, a book that Kierkegaard published in 1843 under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius.
The book is an arch, hothouse affair, full of Kierkegaard’s mocking and self-indulgent philosophical curlicues. But the MacGuffin of the book—whether one can really repeat the events of one’s life and, if so, what significance that repetition has—is something Garland might want to ponder for himself. I don’t think I will be spoiling things by revealing that Kierkegaard—or at least his pseudonymous narrator—concludes that, no, “there simply is no repetition” in life.
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Thanksgiving dinner will cost 20% more this year compared to last year, according to a Farm Bureau survey published Wednesday, with the market signaling record-high prices for the second year in a row.
The average cost to feed 10 people for Thanksgiving will be $64.05, or under $6.50 per person, the Farm Bureau said. This is a $10.74 or 20% cost increase from 2021’s average of $53.31, which was also a record high at the time, according to historical data.
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Hispanic voters say the U.S. government should do more to enforce immigration laws, according to new polling data.
An exit poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports and NumbersUSA found that more than half of Hispanics who voted in the 2022 midterm elections agree that the government isn’t doing enough to reduce illegal immigration.
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New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin is reportedly mulling a bid to chair the Republican National Committee following his loss in New York’s gubernatorial race to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
In an email to RNC members, which Politico obtained, Zeldin indicated he is “very seriously considering” a play for party leadership.
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During the Trump administration, the FBI paid $5 million to an Israeli software company for a license to use its “zero-click” surveillance software called Pegasus. Zero-click refers to software that can download the contents of a target’s computer or mobile device without the need for tricking the target into clicking on it. The FBI operated the software from a warehouse in New Jersey.
Before revealing any of this to the two congressional intelligence committees to which the FBI reports, it experimented with the software. The experiments apparently consisted of testing Pegasus by spying — illegally and unconstitutionally since no judicially issued search warrant had authorized the use of Pegasus — on unwitting Americans by downloading data from their devices.
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One of the nation’s leading epidemiologists is declaring there is no basis for President Joe Biden to extend his emergency pandemic powers and that it is essential for insurers to release data showing deaths and injuries to those who have received COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus at the Yale University School of Public Health, told Just the News on Friday evening that federal agencies have epically mishandled the pandemic strategy by substituting theories and politics for science.
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New Twitter owner Elon Musk declared Saturday night that former President Trump’s account will be reinstated.
Musk made the decision after polling Twitter users Friday. More than 15 million people responded, with nearly 52% supporting the return of the 45th president to the social platform.
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The same State Department office that partnered with a Department of Homeland Security-backed private consortium that reported purported election misinformation to tech platforms for removal in the 2020 and 2022 cycles is also using internet games to affect elections abroad.
In an Oct. 31 memo reviewed by Just the News, Secretary of State Antony Blinken encourages diplomatic and consular posts worldwide to promote “Cat Park,” funded by State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) and U.S. Embassy The Hague and released to coincide with UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy Week.
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Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate former president Donald Trump’s possession of classified information, was a key figure in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s infamous targeting of conservative non-profits, according to a 2014 report by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee.
On Oct. 8, 2010, Smith, then-Chief of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section at the time, called a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner “to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits,” according to testimony from Richard Pilger, then director of the section’s Election Crimes Branch and subordinate of Smith’s, to the Oversight Committee. Lerner eventually resigned from the IRS in 2015 following criticism of her targeting of conservative groups when denying or delaying tax-exempt status.
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The Arizona attorney general’s office has opened an inquiry into Maricopa County’s handling of the mid-term elections, demanding a full report of well-publicized irregularities and warning there is evidence of “statutory violations.”
The letter from Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s election integrity unit marks a major escalation in the dispute over how voters were treated on Election Day in the state’s largest county, where scores of ballot tabulators had problems because of printing problems.
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The accrediting council for the American Bar Association (ABA) voted 15-1 to no longer require the administering of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) for law school applications, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Starting in 2025, the ABA will no longer mandate that law schools require a “valid and reliable admission test” as a part of its application process, after feedback from a public comment period suggested that dropping the testing requirement would increase diversity, according to WSJ. Law schools may still require the test as a part of its admissions process, but the LSAT will no longer be required for accreditation.
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SMART officials in suburban Detroit say they won’t release ridership figures for the $147.5 million taxpayer-funded bus operation for fear of misinterpretation.
“We are currently operating at 65% service levels and ridership is trending back to approximately 70%,” said Brandon Adolph, the acting assistant vice president of marketing and communications for Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation. “Thus, any ridership data wouldn’t be accurate due to the fact we aren’t at our 100% levels prior to the pandemic.”
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“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
Abraham Lincoln and other future-minded Whigs recognized this in 1854 when they created the Republican Party. The Whig Party, a contributor of good ideas and good leaders during its heyday, had been on a losing streak and was divided between incompatible factions, one opposing slavery and the other supporting it. Six years later, Lincoln won the presidency on the Republican ticket, and the Whig Party disbanded.
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Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday said that current House Minority Leader and likely next House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would deny funding to the Department of Justice special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump.
In a Tweet detailing the plan, Greene insisted McCarthy would invoke the Holman rule, a procedural measure by which the House may adjust appropriations legislation to reduce the salary of or fire specific government employees. They may also use it to cut specific programs.
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The Texas Public Policy Foundation filed lawsuits against three federal agencies accusing them of failing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about their involvement with implementing the Biden administration’s climate policies in accordance with the Paris Agreement.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden accepted the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement on behalf of the United States. He later announced his administration would set a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) number, pledging an “economywide target of reducing America’s net greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent.”
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Joe Biden, the military-industrial-congressional complex, State Department neocons, the War Party comprised of all Democrats and many corporate Republicans, and Western globalist elites have the United States and NATO in a Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. The warmongers are obsessed with destroying Russia. To achieve it, they are determined to fight to the last Ukrainian.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that he is appointing a special counsel to oversee the federal criminal investigations into former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents.
This action comes days after Republicans—who plan to investigate the grossly political Justice Department—won the House of Representatives, and over a week after Joe Biden told reporters that his administration will make sure Trump “will not take power if he does run.”
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Major Republican donors Robert and daughter Rebekah Mercer, who backed former President Donald Trump in 2016, will not back Trump in 2024, according to CNBC.
The Mercers, who donated $20 million to GOP PACs in 2016, made their decision while also deciding to cut back overall campaign spending, according to anonymous sources that spoke with CNBC. The Mercers join a growing list of major donors who formerly backed the former president but have since distanced themselves from Trump, including Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, businessman Andy Sabin and billionaire Ronald Lauder.
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New research shows that a worldwide drop in sperm counts over the last 50 years could lead to a major reproductive crisis.
According to the New York Post, a peer-reviewed study in the journal Human Reproduction Update found that global sperm counts have plunged by over 62 percent between 1973 and 2018. The study was led by Professor Hagai Levine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with Professor Shanna Swan at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York.
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Oregon’s new law that will rigidly tighten the state’s gun restrictions led to a massive uptick in attempted firearms purchases, according to NBC affiliate KGW8.
Ballot Measure 114 was passed during the midterm elections and is credited as one of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, sending background checks skyrocketing from 850 per day, prior to the midterms, to 4,000 per day after the law’s passing, according to KGW8. The measure, often referred to as the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, will require deeper background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase any firearm, according to the legislation, set to be effective in December.
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Businesses and associates linked to the Biden family allegedly exchanged over $2 million in wire transfers with a Shanghai investment fund controlled by the Bank of China over a five year period, according to a Treasury Department document obtained by Republican members of the House Oversight Committee.
Biden-linked operatives allegedly exchanged $2,461,962.60 in total with the Shanghai firm through 93 wire transactions between 2014 and 2019, according to a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) obtained by House Oversight Republicans, which also identified Hunter Biden as a “politically exposed person.” The revelation comes amid a House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family’s financial dealings.
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Lansing’s crop of newly elected and reelected officials is mostly mum on the fate of Line 5, or more specifically, the five-mile dual pipeline spanning the lakebed of the Straits of Mackinac.
The 2022 midterm election delivered majorities for Michigan Democrats in the state House and Senate, and the governor’s office – a trifecta for the first time in 40 years. State public policies and litigations could be significantly impacted by both chambers and the reelection of two key Democrats, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
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During this midterm campaign, I attended hundreds of events in my district, around Arizona, and around the country. The issue I was asked about most often was whether I or the Republicans in the House, or the Republicans in the Senate, would keep the same leaders.
Not only did my constituents want the “red wave” that didn’t materialize, they also wanted new leadership.
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In few areas is economic policy’s inseparability from politics more manifest than in global trade. In the period immediately following ratification of the U.S. Constitution, for example, trade debates within the Washington Administration became quickly entangled with arguments about what should be America’s stance vis-à-vis the spreading global conflict between France and Britain in the French Revolution’s wake. Similarly, when Congress and the executive branch today develop or modify trade policy, whether in a liberalizing or protectionist direction, it inevitably has political ramifications for both America’s allies and its opponents in the world.
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In the wake of the Republican midterm election trickle, a coalition of left-wing Democrats led by Media Matters founder David Brock is planning a multimillion-dollar counteroffensive against congressional Republicans.
With funding from some of the biggest donors in Democrat politics, Brock’s new nonprofit group, “Facts First USA,” plans undermine congressional Republicans as soon as they take control the House of Representatives.
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Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said the old Republican Party is dead and must be replaced with a GOP that’s focused on working-class voters and the issues they care most about: work, family and culture.
The expected midterm red wave didn’t pan out for Republicans because the party can’t seem to win over working-class independents, Hawley argued in The Washington Post Friday, dismissing claims that turnout or candidate quality were behind the GOP’s faltering performance. The GOP can only make serious gains by reversing its recent policies on trade, crime, immigration and culture, he wrote.
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One of the top agenda items for the GOP’s new majority in the House of Representatives is the targeting of “woke” corporations on Wall Street, threatening investigations and other government action if such companies do not reverse anti-American policies and practices.
Politico reports that some of the measures the GOP will be scrutinizing include “ESG (environmental, social, and governance)” policies, divesting from fossil fuels, and race-based affirmative action hiring policies for the sake of “diversity.”
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In a 180-degree turn, Republicans are adopting the Democratic strategy for winning elections in states where mail-in voting, ballot curing and ballot harvesting are legal.
Republicans have repeatedly sounded the alarm over universal mail-in voting, ballot curing, and ballot harvesting because of the heightened possibility for fraud, but as Democrats have used these methods to help their candidates win elections, the GOP is belatedly accepting that they must play the same game.
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An Oregon school district superintendent has dismissed the concerns of parents and students that a high school English teacher’s whiteboard containing insulting descriptors of white girls and boys was simply part of a class discussion about “untrue stereotypes” and “implicit bias.”
“This week in the Scappoose School District, a photograph was shared out of context of a robust lesson in a high school English class,” wrote Scappoose Superintendent Tim Porter. “In order to ensure transparency and support for teachers and students in our district, we wanted to provide accurate information about what happens in our classrooms when we teach about topics like stereotypes and ‘implicit bias.’”
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The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency has chosen a vendor to design and install a new $78 million computer system to replace its previous system, which was riddled with flaws.
Deloitte will build the new system for filing UIA claims for workers and employers.
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Who or what was responsible for the Republican nationwide collapse in the midterms? After all, pundits, politicos, and pollsters all predicted a “red tsunami.”
Moreover, the average loss of any president in his first midterm is 25 House seats. And when his approval sinks to or below 43 percent—in the fashion of Joe Biden—the loss, on average, expands to over 40 seats.
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Judge Jennifer Dorow sentenced the Waukesha, Wisconsin, parade massacre’s perpetrator Darrell Brooks to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday, following weeks of trial proceedings marked by his repeated courtroom interruptions.
A jury convicted Brooks Oct. 26 of six counts of first-degree intentional homicide while using a dangerous weapon, necessitating a sentence of life imprisonment under Wisconsin law. He was found guilty of 70 other counts as well.
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Afghanistan’s government failed to recognize that the U.S. intended to withdraw, one of several reasons it collapsed 10 days after the Taliban takeover and two weeks before the U.S. military exit on Aug. 30, 2021, Congress’ Afghanistan watchdog revealed Wednesday.
After the fall of Kabul, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform directed the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) to produce a report pinning down the reasons for the Afghan government’s dissolution, including why 20 years of U.S. state building efforts failed to produce a viable democratic government in Afghanistan. In the report, dated Nov. 15, SIGAR found that not only was the Afghan government underequipped to function on its own and dominated by a strongman, but that the U.S. negligence virtually guaranteed the Taliban a victory.
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Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would not seek reelection as Democratic House leader Thursday, but will remain as a member of Congress.
Pelosi, 82, who held the position since 2019 and previously stated would only hold the position for four years, opted to step down, but will remain as a backbencher to guide the next Democratic leader, according to her Thursday speech. On Sunday, a spokesperson for Pelosi denied claims that she was stepping down, as she was still considering her options, but indicated that attack on her husband would be a deciding factor, despite Democrats, including President Joe Biden, asking her to consider running.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is expanding Operation Lone Star in an effort to further secure the state’s southern border with Mexico.
Abbott, who has been critical of President Joe Biden’s open border policies, sent a letter to Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and Texas Military Department Adjutant General Thomas Suelzer in which he said, “Until Congress acts or the Biden Administration does its constitutionally required job, Texas Guardsmen and Troopers must bear the burden of securing the border.”
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House Democrats voted against a bill intended to increase transparency into the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) wait time calculations at a committee markup Wednesday, as complaints mount that the VA is fudging data.
The proposed amendment from Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona would have required the VA to hand over documents relating to wait time calculations after the VA’s internal watchdog found in April that the department may be manipulating patient data to conceal the duration veterans have to wait before receiving medical care at VA facilities. The Democratic majority on the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) gave it an unfavorable recommendation Wednesday, effectively nullifying it before Congress, Fox News first reported.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee –I interviewed Netflix’s dynamic duo Clea and Joanna, from the Emmy-nominated show Get Organized with The Home Edit, to get their organization and wellness tips for the upcoming holiday season. And even though Clea is in the process of finishing her cancer treatment at Vanderbilt, they were gracious enough to speak to me for a few minutes.
The Home Edit was founded in 2015 by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin in Nashville, Tennessee. Brought together by a mutual friend, it was friendship at first text, and a business partnership immediately thereafter.
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House Republicans announced they were launching an investigation into President Joe Biden at a press conference Thursday, alleging that the elder Biden was “involved” in his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings.
Republican Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, citing unnamed whistleblowers, alleged that Joe Biden was the “chairman of the board” of the Biden family empire and oversaw Hunter’s business activity, claiming to find evidence of conspiracy to defraud the United States and money laundering. Hunter Biden currently holds a minority stake in a Chinese private equity firm responsible for investing in a previously sanctioned technology company that committed human rights violations against Uyghurs, and the new accusations point to involvement in the energy industry.
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Two days before Brian Kemp bested Stacey Abrams by more than seven percentage points in their closely watched rematch, the Georgia governor did something unusual for a Republican candidate in the 2022 midterms: He expressed confidence about where he stood and cited early voting as a top reason.
“We’ve also had record turnout for early voting, which ended this Friday. It’s been an incredible turnout, and we feel good about things,” Kemp told Trey Gowdy, the former congressman and host of Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America.”
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Faith leaders are calling upon Republicans to uphold their party’s platform that declares “the union of one man and one woman” to be the “cornerstone of the family.”
The leaders are reacting to the fact that 12 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats Wednesday to advance legislation, dubbed by Democrats the Respect for Marriage Act, that would codify the Supreme Court‘s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal across all 50 states.
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Christian actress Candace Cameron Bure says in her new top-level role at the Great American Family Channel, she will place faith and “traditional marriage” at the core of its Christmas movies.
In April, Bure became chief creative officer at Great American Family, a channel that is aiming to become the faith and freedom alternative to Hallmark, where the actress once served as the chief representative of the romantic comedy Christmas channel.
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Republicans gained control of the United State House of Representatives, edging out a narrow victory in the tightly-contested midterm elections.
The GOP currently holds 218 seats after mail-in ballots caused over a week of delays in results, The Associated Press reported, though that number may grow as the last few remaining races wrap up. The elections were far closer than pre-midterm projections, with most pollsters predicting Republicans would take between 225 and 255 seats.
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Senate Republicans re-elected Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as leader 37-10 on Wednesday.
South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune was also re-elected as Senate Republican whip.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) moved for a procedural vote Wednesday on legislation that would enshrine same-sex marriage in federal law and block any states refusing to recognize such marriages.
The bill also would provide federal protection for interracial marriage.
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He’s still got gas in the tank. A lot.
Former President Donald Trump announced on Nov. 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. that he will for a third time be running for president in 2024 against current incumbent President Joe Biden. And maybe three times is the charm.
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