Joe Manchin Leaves Democratic Party

Joe Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Friday that he was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.

Manchin announced in November that he would not be seeking re-election for his senate seat, fueling rumors that the senator may be considering a gubernatorial or presidential run, according to Politico. Manchin, 76, who has served in the Senate since 2010 and was a member of the Democratic Party for decades, announced the decision on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that he wanted to “bring the country together.”

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Ken Paxton Says FBI Should Be Dissolved Because of Corruption in the Agency

Steve Bannon and Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday said the FBI should be dissolved because he argues it is filled with corruption and political influence.

Paxton, who has been the subject of law enforcement investigations, including by the FBI, told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that the federal agency should be dismantled because “it would be better to have nothing.”

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Reuters Anti-Trump Propaganda Begins in Pennsylvania

The global news organization Reuters claimed on Friday that women voters in Pennsylvania may now have second thoughts about voting for former President Donald Trump after he was convicted in the controversial New York hush money trial on Thursday.

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Supreme Court Unanimously Sides with NRA in First Amendment Case Against New York Official

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

The Supreme Court unanimously held Thursday that the National Rifle Association (NRA) “plausibly alleged” that a New York official violated its First Amendment rights, finding that government officials cannot “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”

The justices allowed the NRA to pursue its First Amendment claim against former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) Maria Vullo, vacating a lower court ruling that found the NRA failed to show Vullo “crossed the line between attempts to convince and attempts to coerce.” They held that the gun rights group has a plausible case that Vullo “violated the First Amendment by coercing regulated entities to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy.”

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Public Schools Push ‘Climate Crisis’ Narrative, as Skeptics Try to Offer Other Perspectives

Paul Tice, senior fellow for the National Center for Energy Analytics

Paul Tice, senior fellow for the National Center for Energy Analytics, took the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to criticize the climate change curriculum in New Jersey public schools.

The educational materials, Tice explained, are not just found in sections of science courses, but in all school subjects. Districts are encouraged to insert lessons on climate change into English language arts and mathematics. In foreign language classes, students discuss the impacts of climate change “on the target language of the world.”

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UCLA Med School DEI Leader Accused of Major Plagiarism Refuses to Address Allegations

Natalie Perry

Another university diversity, equity, and inclusion administrator is facing allegations of plagiarism – but neither she nor her employer, the University of California at Los Angeles, has responded publicly to the report.

Natalie Perry, the leader of the Cultural North Star program at the UCLA School of Medicine, and UCLA did not answer multiple requests for comment from The College Fix since a recent investigation alleged she plagiarized large portions of her doctoral dissertation.

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Commentary: Civil Unrest and Radical Reappraisals are Shaping the Future of American Culture

Pro-Palestine Protesters at Ohio State University

Sometimes unexpected but dramatic events tear off the thin veneer of respectability and convention. What follows is the exposure and repudiation of long-existing but previously covered-up pathologies.

Events like the destruction of the southern border over the last three years, the October 7 massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the campus protests, the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown, and the systematic efforts to weaponize our bureaucracies and courts have all led to radical reappraisals of American culture and civilization.

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Music Spotlight: MaRynn Taylor

MaRynn Taylor

When I met MaRynn Taylor at CMT’s Next Women of Country 2023, I knew I would love her music because I immediately loved her personality. And while I covered her at CRS and her music in my Christmas blog, I had not done a full feature on the songstress. When I learned her debut EP, Get To Know Me was being released at the end of May, I knew it was high time that I get to know her.

Taylor grew up in Rockford, Michigan, listening to country music. Although no one in her family was particularly musical, she was obsessed with artists like Hannah Montana, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Swift.

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U.S. Economic Growth in First Quarter Worse than Previously Thought

Jerome Powell and Joe Biden (composite image)

The U.S. economy grew less than previously thought in the first quarter of 2024 amid a slowdown in consumer spending, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced Thursday.

Gross domestic product (GDP) was revised down in the first quarter from 1.6 percent to 1.3 percent year-over-year in a sign that the economy is not as strong as initial estimates indicated, according to a release from the BEA. Economists originally expected growth in the first quarter to be around 2.2 percent, more in line with the above trend growth seen in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, which were 4.9 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively.

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Justice Department Investigated Conservative ‘Moms for Liberty’ in Same Manner as KKK: Report

Moms for Liberty

The internal emails appeared to show that the DOJ pressured local officials at times to accept their help, including by using emails from doj.gov accounts to allegedly pester them when they did not show interest.

The Justice Department (DOJ) appeared to investigate a conservative parental rights group in the same manner that it investigated the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), according to a news report on Wednesday.

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Commentary: Abiding Child Abuse in Schools

Kids in the classroom

The stories of pedophile teachers not being held accountable for their abominable crimes are endless. In an in-depth piece, reporter Matt Drange investigates the issue and what he finds is positively revolting.

A case in North Carolina is typical. In Durham County, a student at Neal Middle School said her chorus teacher, Troy Pickens, had groped her, only disclosing a few years later that he’d raped her. James Key, the school’s principal, didn’t open an investigation until the child’s mother got involved, and even then, according to a subsequent civil suit that settled out of court, the principal “failed to report the groping allegation to law enforcement or child protective services, as required by state law.” Instead, Key allowed Pickens to resign, paving the way for him to remain in the field.

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