Month: October 2020

Feds Obtained FISA Warrant Against Hunter Biden’s Chinese Business Associate, Documents Show

Ohio Star Staff

Federal investigators obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against one of Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates, suggesting that the executive was suspected of acting as a covert agent of a foreign government.

Prosecutors revealed the existence of at least one FISA warrant against Chi Ping Patrick Ho, known as Patrick Ho, in a Feb. 8, 2018 court filing obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ho was charged on Dec. 18, 2017 with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering related to CEFC China Energy contracts in Uganda and Chad. Ho had been an executive at the multi-billion dollar Chinese energy company prior to his arrest.

Read More

Music Spotlight: Church of Roswell

Bethany Bowman

I was intrigued when Candi Carpenter, who has one of the strongest voices in country music, announced that she, along with British rocker, Josh Doyle, were forming a new conceptual collective duet called the Church of Roswell.

I interviewed Carpenter last year right before she performed for Dolly’s 50 Year Opry Celebration. Doyle and his pop/punk band, the Dum Dums, were a recognizable force in the early 2000s when they toured England extensively. They sat down with me recently and helped me connect the dots concerning their newest endeavor.

Read More

Average California Home Expected to Cost $1 Million by 2030

The Center Square

The average home in California is expected to be valued at more than $1 million by 2030, according to research by RenoFi, an online company that specializes in home loans for renovation projects.

California has outpaced the national average for increasing home prices over the past decade, growing 78 percent and sending the average home value from $331,000 in 2010 to $598,000 today.

Read More

Senator Marsha Blackburn and Other Republican Senators Have ‘Concern’ About the College Board’s Relationship with Chinese-Backed Confucius Institutes

Zachery Schmidt

  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) along with six other Republican Senators sent a letter Tuesday to the College Board (CB) questioning the organization’s relationship with the Chinese-backed Confucius Institutes. In the letter, the senators expressed “concern” about CB’s relationship with the Confucius Institute. The CB is a non-profit organization that…

Read More

‘Charges of a Rigged Election Could Explode’: Wisconsin Can’t Count Late Ballots, Supreme Court Rules

Ohio Star Staff

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling Monday night in a 5-3 vote, prohibiting the State of Wisconsin from counting mail-in ballots that arrive days after the election.

Voting rights groups, state and national Democratic parties and the League of Women voters sought to extend ballot counting in Wisconsin, according to NBC News. They argued that the coronavirus pandemic presents challenges to voters who wish to vote by mail, but the Supreme Court ruled that citizens have plenty of options if they wish to vote.

Read More

Commentary: The Media’s Smear Job Campaigning for Joe Biden

Admin

As the national political media have conducted practically the entire Democratic presidential election campaign, the credibility of the media is entirely implicated in the election result. In the latest revelations about the financial activities of the Biden family while presidential candidate Joe Biden was the vice president, the national political media and the principal social media companies have sandbagged another large media company, News Corporation’s New York Post, and have tried to impose online silence on the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Read More

Deaths Are Low but DeWine Sounds the COVID Alarm

Jack Windsor

Governor Mike DeWine said on Tuesday that “all Ohioans should be alarmed” with the trajectory of the state’s COVID numbers.

DeWine reported 2,509 cases, 198 hospitalizations, 20 ICU visits and 22 deaths.

However, reported numbers are always higher than the actual numbers for the day – reported numbers can go as far back as the beginning of the epidemic.

Read More

Commentary: The Steel Belt Would Turn into a Scrap Heap Under Biden

Ohio Star Staff

Manufacturing states have prospered under President Trump, but the Steel Belt has no future under Joe Biden — the presumptive Democratic nominee’s radical agenda would annihilate countless blue collar jobs across the Midwest. 

Although the coronavirus pandemic has temporarily put America’s strong and growing economy on ice, Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate who has the record to prove he can get it back to working order. His pro-growth agenda of middle-class tax cuts and strategic deregulation already propelled our economy to record-setting heights once before, after all. 

Read More

Ohio House Introduces Bill to Bring Back Bar Hours

Jordyn Pair

Ohio representatives introduced a bill on Tuesday seeking to reinstate normal business hours for bars and restaurants with liquor licenses in order to boost business.

The bill would remove the sanctions placed on Ohio bars, which currently bans alcohol sales past 10 p.m. and consumption past 11 p.m. Regulations would instead return to the Ohio Revised Code, which allows sales until 2:30 p.m. It also waives any disciplinary action taken against a bar or restaurant for breaking the restricted hours on or after July 31, when it went into effect.

Read More

Ohio Per Capita Spending on Law Enforcement Among Lowest in the Nation

Ohio Star Staff

As calls for police reform and defunding police departments across the nation continue, a new report shows Ohio ranks in the bottom half of spending compared to the rest of the country.

MoneyGeek, a personal finance technology company, analyzed the $200 billion spent on policing and corrections by state and local governments.

Read More

Hunter Biden Group Touted Joe Biden in Investment Pitch to Chinese Firm

Admin

In 2017, Hunter Biden and a group of business partners seeking a $10 million investment deal with a Chinese energy firm touted Joe Biden’s friendly relations with Colombia’s president in their sales proposal, which suggested a series of oil investments in the South American country, according to documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hunter Biden and four other businessmen, including his uncle James Biden, highlighted the former vice president’s positive relationship with Juan Manuel Santos in a May 15, 2017 investment outline for CETC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate.

Read More

Grassroots Volunteers Rally Voters in Swing State of Ohio

The Associated Press

Something changed in Yana Duke this year. She came to the U.S. as a youth from Ukraine, had never been involved in politics before. But during the 2020 campaign season, she felt she had to do something.

“What I’m afraid is coming to this country is what I’m running away from,” she said. “I’m really worried about socialism.”

Read More

Politics, Competition With Religious Schools, Far Outweighed Science in School Shutdown Decisions, Analysis Found

Ohio Star Staff

In response to state and local government shutdowns reportedly designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, schools districts and local governments implemented different reopening guidelines and timelines – but did so more because of politics or competition with private schools than because of science, a new report published by Brown University found.

The EdWorking Paper published by The Annenberg Institute at Brown University authored by Michael T. Hartney from Boston College and Leslie K. Finger from the University of North Texas found that “the most critical decision facing the nation’s school boards – whether or not to re-open in person and to what degree – appears to be closely related to the partisanship of a local school district.”

Read More

Sorority Apologizes for Congratulating Amy Coney Barrett

Ohio Star Staff

The Kappa Delta sorority deleted and apologized for a congratulatory message for Amy Coney Barrett, who was a member of the sorority during her time at Rhodes College.

The sorority tweeted an image of a statement, saying “KD alumna Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. While we do not take a stand on political appointments, we recognize Judge Coney Barrett’s significant accomplishment. We acknowledge our members have a variety of views and a right to their own beliefs.”

Read More

Analysis: Jobs, Housing Show Recovery Continues

Ohio Star Staff

There were only two insightful reports on the economy this past week—for jobs and housing. Both show impressive gains.

Weekly initial unemployment claims fell by 56,000, to 787,000. They are down more than 100,000 from a month ago. There has also been a substantial decline in the insured unemployment rate to 5.7 percent from 8.7 percent a month ago. Also, the number of people receiving unemployment insurance payments fell to 8.4 million; it was 12.6 million a month ago.

Read More

New Mexico Legislator Flees Home After Receiving Threats

The Associated Press

A New Mexico state senator said he fled his house after receiving anonymous threatening telephone messages following his criticism of a protest outside the state Capitol against coronavirus restrictions.

State Sen. Jacob Candelaria said Sunday that he received the series of profanity-laced telephone telephone messages after he issued the criticism Saturday night in a TV appearance.

Read More

Analysis: Media Titans Subvert Reality About Biden-Ukraine Profiteering

Admin

After big tech companies suppressed a New York Post article exposing written evidence that Joe Biden “spent some time together” with a top executive of a corrupt Ukrainian energy firm that was enriching his son, media titans are misleading the public about the central facts of this explosive affair.

Twitter, for a prime example, pinned a post to the top of its home page claiming that Biden “played no role in pressuring Ukraine officials into firing the prosecutor” at the core of this case.

Read More

Top Al-Qaida Leader on FBI Most Wanted List Killed in Afghanistan According to Report

Ohio Star Staff

Afghanistan on Sunday claimed to have killed a top al-Qaida terror leader and propagandist who is on the FBI’s most wanted list.

Husam Abd al-Rauf, who was wanted by the FBI for providing support to terrorist organizations and conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, was reportedly killed in firefight in a Taliban-controlled area, according to the Associated Press. A total of six other suspected Islamic militants were dispatched in the raid and one Afghan authority was killed, the AP reported.

Read More

Commentary: A Ban on Fracking Would Kill 6 Million Jobs Across Seven States by 2025

Ohio Star Staff

Joe Biden upended the historic formula of a Democratic presidential nominee. Usually, the hopeful plays his liberal greatest hits to the primary crowd, before tacking to the center as the election dawns and ordinary Americans start listening.

Since his assisted capture of the nomination, Biden has veered leftward, crafting, with the help of the party’s progressive wing, the most progressive platform since the ill-fated George McGovern in 1972.

Read More

Conservatives Critical of VP Hopeful Kamala Harris Stop at Cuyahoga County Polling Place

Jack Windsor

With just 10 days before the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and President Donald Trump’s approval numbers increasing, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris toured northern Ohio on Saturday to rally voter turnout in the battleground state.

One of the stops the Vice Presidential candidate made was to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in downtown Cleveland – on the first day of early voting in one of Ohio’s largest counties.

The visit was criticized on social media – some claiming that Harris violated Ohio election law by campaigning at a poll location.

Read More

U.S. Senate Confirms Barrett to Supreme Court, Giving Conservatives a 6-3 Majority

The Center Square

The U.S. Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to be an associate justice on the nation’s highest court Monday. 

Barrett fills the vacancy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September at the age of 87 from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. 

Read More

Commentary: It’s Decision Time for the Costco Mom

Ohio Star Staff

Earlier this year, a strange spectacle kept recurring at one of the country’s most popular big box stores.

Costco shoppers across the land wrestled each other for industrial-sized packages of toilet paper; as panic set in about the looming coronavirus pandemic, well-heeled suburbanites quickly depleted the retailers’ nationwide supply of Charmin and Quilted Northern. Even the store’s discount Kirkland brand sold out fast.

Read More

AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson Resuming U.S. Tests of COVID-19 Vaccines

The Associated Press

Two drugmakers announced Friday the resumption of U.S. testing of their COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Testing of AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate had been halted since early September, while Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine study was paused at the beginning of last week. Each company had a study volunteer develop a serious health issue, requiring a review of safety data.

Read More

Report: Some Public Schools Obstructing Parents’ Efforts to Withdraw Children for Home-Schooling

The Center Square

Some public schools are telling parents they can’t withdraw their children to home-school or aren’t following the TEA guidelines for withdrawal, according to a new report published by the Texas Home School Coalition Association (THSC).

The largest statewide advocacy organization for home educators in the state sent a written notice to 9,500 school administrations in August, clarifying the Texas Education Agency policy for student withdrawal.

Read More

Commentary: Why Democrats Still Love to Spy on Americans

Ohio Star Staff

The very last op-ed progressive journalist Michael Hastings wrote for BuzzFeed was titled, “Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans.” Ten days later, on June 17, 2013, Hastings emailed his BuzzFeed associates warning them, “The Feds are interviewing my ‘close friends and associates.’ ” He added that he was “onto a big story” and had to go “off the rada[r] for a bit … hope to see you all soon.”

Hastings did not get to see those associates soon or otherwise. In the early morning hours of June 18, his leased Mercedes crashed into a palm tree at high speeds in a residential Los Angeles neighborhood. The car burst into flames upon impact, and Hastings’s body was burned beyond recognition.

Read More

Crews Vacuum ‘Murder Hornets’ Out of Washington Nest

The Associated Press

Heavily protected crews in Washington state worked Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called murder hornets discovered in the United States.

The state Agriculture Department had spent weeks searching, trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.

Read More

Senate Votes to Advance Barrett; Confirmation Expected Monday

The Associated Press

Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Sunday to advance Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett toward final confirmation despite Democratic objections, just over a week before the presidential election.

Barrett’s confirmation on Monday was hardly in doubt, with majority Republicans mostly united in support behind President Donald Trump’s pick. But Democrats were poised to keep the Senate in session into the night in attempts to stall, arguing that the Nov. 3 election winner should choose the nominee to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Read More

Federal Agency Secretly Offered FBI Documents on Trump Officials, Senate Report Says

Ohio Star Staff

The federal agency that stores records for presidential transition teams volunteered to provide documents to the FBI regarding the Trump presidential transition team in early 2017, in possible violation of an agreement with the Trump campaign to destroy the records, according to a Senate report released on Friday.

The report from Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee says that officials at the General Services Administration (GSA) contacted the FBI on Feb. 15, 2017 to inquire whether they should preserve documents related to Michael Flynn.

Read More

Republicans Want to Know Whether Amtrak Have Any Perks to Biden

Ohio Star Staff

Republicans on the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee want to know whether Amtrak gave Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden special treatment.

In a letter to Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer William Flynn, the lawmakers ask whether the former vice president’s use of a chartered Amtrak train for a recent campaign trip disrupted Amtrak service or interfered with freight train operations. They also want to know how many employees were “taken off their regular duties to staff the Biden campaign charter train, including any overtime hours worked.”

Read More

Dems With Power Flex Their Muscles Ahead of Election Day to Push Agendas, Punish Trump Supporters

Ohio Star Staff

As Election Day draws near, Democrat business owners and politicians are increasingly flexing their muscles to push their politics into peoples’ faces and punish those who have opposing views. There have been multiple reports in the past year about Trump supporters being fired for expressing their support for the president.

In the past couple of weeks, two more Trump supporters have been fired and a CEO of a major software company has sent a mass email to millions of customers telling them to vote for Joe Biden.

Read More

Constitutional Scholar Alan Dershowitz Spoke, Fielded Questions at the 2020 National Constitution Bee

Corinne Murdock

Leading constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz spoke during the 2020 National Constitution Bee on Saturday. All contestants had the opportunity to join the video call and ask questions afterwards.

Dershowitz touched on topics including Electoral College, impeachment, equal protection, and Supreme Court justice term limits.

Read More

Facebook Demands Academics Disable Ad-Targeting Data Tool

The Associated Press

Academics, journalists and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is being micro-targeted by political ads on the world’s dominant social media platform.

The researchers say the disputed tool is vital to understanding how Facebook has been used as a conduit for disinformation and manipulation.

Read More

College President Publicly Condemns Prof’s ‘Hateful,’ ‘Vile’ Tweets Exposed by Campus Reform

Ohio Star Staff

After Collin College received backlash from a story by Campus Reform regarding a professor calling Vice President Mike Pence “a demon” and to “shut his little demon mouth up,” the college president publicly came out and condemned the comments. 

President Neil Matkin wrote in a public statement on the school’s website that the professor’s comments were “hateful, vile, and ill-considered.”

Read More

‘Brian’s Song,’ ‘Roots,’ ‘Purple Rain’ Screenwriter William Blinn Dies

The Associated Press

William Blinn, a screenwriter for the landmark TV projects “Brian’s Song” and “Roots” and the Prince film “Purple Rain,” has died. He was 83.

Blinn died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living community in Burbank, California, his daughter, Anneliese Johnson, said Saturday.

Read More

Ohio Boat Parades, Road Rallies Buoy Trump and His Supporters Across the Country

The Associated Press

When a flotilla of pontoon and fishing boats decked out with “Trump 2020” flags cruised past him this summer, Dale Fullenkamp got an idea.

“I figured I don’t have a boat, but I do have a tractor,” he said.

Soon he was leading nearly 300 combines and tractors pulling hay wagons and manure spreaders through the western Ohio village of Fort Recovery, one of many parades nationwide organized by a swell of grassroots supporters for President Donald Trump.

Read More

Top Trump Adviser Wants More Nations to Field Asylum Claims

The Associated Press

One of President Donald Trump’s top priorities on immigration if he wins a second term would be to use agreements with Central American governments as models to get countries around the world to field asylum claims from people seeking refuge in the United States, a top adviser said.

Stephen Miller, a key architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said Friday the agreements would help stop “asylum fraud, asylum shopping and asylum abuse on a global scale.”

Read More

Commentary: Three Big Reasons Trump Will Be Reelected

Ohio Star Staff

There are lots of reasons President Trump is likely to be reelected – some are purely technical political campaign reasons and others are matters of policy preference for the majority of the electorate, but in our view the top three reasons Trump will be elected are centered on how Trump has branded the Democrats and how the Democrats have branded themselves.

And the third of those top three is that Democrats have branded themselves as opponents of American Exceptionalism and haters of the country they aspire to govern.

Read More

The 2020 National Constitution Bee Grand Champion Declared

Corinne Murdock

BRENTWOOD, Tennessee – This year’s annual National Constitution Bee Grand Champion was senior high school student Jackson Carter. He received the $10,000 educational scholarship from the Star News Education Foundation. Carter plans on attending the University of Alabama, where he hopes to double major in communications studies and economics.
The event took place at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Brentwood, Tennessee. 23 students ranging from eighth to twelfth grade arrived to compete. The Tennessee Star Report host and Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary Students co-author Michael Leahy served as the emcee.

Read More

Trump Takes the Lead in Arizona in New Poll

Ohio Star Staff

Donald Trump took a small lead in Arizona according to a new survey by Susquehanna Polling and Research for the Center for American Greatness.

The phone survey of 500 likely voters conducted October 19-22 showed Trump with 46.6 percent and Biden with 46.2 percent support, with a 4.3 percent margin of error. The poll also showed that Biden’s negatives in the states popped up to 49 percent. In the same poll at the end of September they stood at 44 percent while his favorable rating declined to 39 percent.

Read More

Student Sues After School Suspended Her for Wearing Pro-Trump Clothing

Ohio Star Staff

A Pennsylvania high school student who claims she was sent home for wearing pro-Trump clothing filed a lawsuit against her school district in Federal court on Tuesday, accusing the district of violating her free speech rights, PennLive reported.

On October 1, the school district issued a new policy on clothing which banned students from wearing anything that contained political messaging.

Read More

Nigeria Says 51 Civilians, 18 Security Forces Dead in Unrest

The Associated Press

At least 51 civilians have been killed in Nigeria’s unrest following days of peaceful protests over police abuses, the president said Friday, blaming “hooliganism” for the violence while asserting that security forces have used “extreme restraint.”

President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments are expected to further inflame tensions in Africa’s most populous country after Amnesty International reported that soldiers shot and killed at least 12 demonstrators Tuesday night as a large crowd sang the national anthem. The deaths sparked international condemnation.

Read More

Trio of Cities Take Trump to Court Over ‘Anarchist Jurisdictions’ Designation

The Center Square

Seattle, Portland, and New York City are suing President Donald Trump and his administration over legal actions that have put future federal funds on the line.

The joint lawsuit is in response to a memo issued by the Trump administration last month requesting U.S. Attorney General William Barr review a list of cities that could be considered hotbeds for civil unrest.

Read More

California Utility May Cut Power to One Million People

The Associated Press

Pacific Gas & Electric may cut power to over 1 million people on Sunday to prevent the chance of sparking wildfires as extreme fire weather returns to the region, the utility announced Friday.

The nation’s largest utility said it could black out customers in 38 counties — including most of the San Francisco Bay Area — as weather forecasts called for a return of bone-dry, gusty weather that carries the threat of downing or fouling power lines or other equipment that in recent years have been blamed for igniting massive and deadly blazes in central and Northern California.

Read More

Commentary: The Battle for California Is the Battle for America

Ohio Star Staff

By now, this is a familiar story. California is a failed state. Thanks to years of progressive mismanagement and neglect, the cities are lawless and the forests are burning. Residents pay the highest prices in America for unreliable electricity. Water is rationed. Homes are unaffordable. The public schools are a joke. Freeways are congested and crumbling. And if they’re not still on lockdown or otherwise already destroyed by it, business owners contend with the most hostile regulatory climate in American history.

Read More

Court Ruling Reverses Trump Administration’s SNAP Changes

The Center Square

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sunday blocked a Trump administration change to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that could have removed eligibility for almost 700,000 unemployed, able-bodied Americans.

A lawsuit filed in January by a multistate coalition alleged a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rule wrongly reversed a decades-old policy that allowed states to waive SNAP work requirements. The previous rules granted waivers for larger geographic areas by lumping certain regions with lower unemployment with locations registering higher unemployment, as well as carryover unused exemptions.

Read More

Commentary: Your Favorite TV Show Now Promotes Open Borders and Black Lives Matter

Ohio Star Staff

Millions of Americans continue to watch network TV shows—not exactly a favorite pastime of the chattering class. The primary audience for these programs is older Americans living out in flyover country, the kind of people who aren’t aware of the latest trendy show on Amazon Prime or Netflix. The audience generally prefers more conservative programming that doesn’t feature gratuitous violence, nudity, or overbearing political messages. They just want to be entertained as they relax at night. 

Read More

Tanya Tucker Releases ‘Live From The Troubadour’

Bethany Bowman

In 2019, Tanya Tucker released her first full-length record with new songs in twenty years. Produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, the album While I’m Livin’, would go on to win a Grammy for Country Album of the Year, and the song, “Bring My Flowers Now,” would win Country Song of the Year in January 2020.

Read More