Ohio Communities Gain Control of Wind, Solar Projects

Three wind turbines

Local communities in Ohio got a little more power regarding renewable energy projects after Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that addresses wind and solar projects.

DeWine made Senate Bill 52 law and gave power to county boards on whether to allow or prevent certification of wind and solar projects. The legislation also establishes decommissioning requirements for certain wind and solar facilities.

“One of the most important things we can do as state legislators is to listen to the input of our fellow constituents,” Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, said Monday after DeWine signed the bill. “I can confidently tell you that Ohioans within Seneca County vehemently spoke out against a wind project being built within their communities – Senate Bill 52 being signed into law solidifies their right to local control over these types of projects.”

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Commentary: Unions’ Focus on Woke over Work Rankles Rank and File

Los Angeles school teacher Glenn Laird has been a union stalwart for almost four decades. He served as a co-chair of his school’s delegation to United Teachers Los Angeles and proudly wore union purple on the picket line.

But Laird is now suing to leave UTLA and demanding a refund of the dues the union has collected since his resignation request. His turning point came in July 2020 when the union, the second largest teachers union in the country, joined liberal activists to demand that Los Angeles defund the police in response to Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

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Democrats Announce Sweeping $3.5 Trillion Infrastructure Reconciliation Plan

Site Construction

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, announced a $3.5 trillion deal on their infrastructure reconciliation package late Tuesday.

The deal is the first step to beginning the reconciliation process, which Democrats hope will allow them to bypass a certain GOP filibuster and pass the plan on a party-line vote. The package includes an array of Democratic priorities that face near unanimous Republican opposition, including billions for child care, climate change and other forms of so-called human infrastructure, Schumer and Sanders said in a joint press conference Tuesday.

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Former President Trump Slams Fulton County Recount After New Claims of Irregularities

Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Wednesday slamming the recount of the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia — after a lawsuit alleged there was a 60% error rate in the hand count audit.

“The news coming out of Georgia is beyond incredible. The hand recount in Fulton County was a total fraud! They stuffed the ballot box—and got caught. We will lose our Country if this is allowed to stand,” Trump said.

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Andrew Cuomo’s Administration Continues to Undercount New York COVID Deaths

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration continues to undercount COVID-19 deaths in its own public reporting, months after it admitted to undercounting nursing home deaths from the virus by thousands.

New York’s state-managed tracker reported over 43,000 deaths from COVID-19 as of Wednesday morning, a figure more than 20% smaller than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tally of nearly 55,000 in the state, which is based on death certificates that list COVID-19 as a cause or contributing factor to an individual’s death.

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Republican Mayor Wants to Force Some City Employees to Get Vaccinated or Face Suspension

Mayor R. Rex Parris

A Republican mayor in Lancaster, California wants to suspend city employees if they refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Fox 11 reported Tuesday.

Republican Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris said that employees who interact with the public must be vaccinated, according to Fox 11. Employees would be suspended without pay if they don’t take the shot.

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Court Rules That Law Banning Handgun Sales to Americans Under 21 Is Unconstitutional

Guy shooting hand gun at gun range

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court overturned a decades-long law that prohibited the sale of handguns to Americans under the age of 21, on the basis that it violated the Second Amendment, according to USA Today.

The law was first signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and although it banned handguns for those under 21, it still allowed Americans as young as 18 to purchase rifles and shotguns. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Virginia, it was determined that the restriction for one type of gun based on a three-year age difference was arbitrary and had no merit.

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Facebook Files Petition Demanding FTC Chair Lina Khan Recuse Herself From Antitrust Case

Lina Khan Facebook Headquarters

Facebook filed a petition Wednesday asking for Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan to recuse herself from the FTC’s antitrust case against the company.

The tech giant argued in the petition that Khan’s public statements, in which she suggested Facebook’s conduct constituted an antitrust offense, violated the company’s due process rights.

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Analysis: What It Would Look Like If China Had to Pay Reparations for COVID-19

The U.S. and other nations can hold the Chinese government accountable for the 2020 outbreak of coronavirus and ensuing global pandemic through a variety of legal, financial and diplomatic means.

Republican senators and Asian policy experts have proposed a range of options for punishing the Chinese government for its alleged negligence responding to the outbreak and overseeing the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where coronavirus potentially leaked from in late 2019. Since the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic in March 2o20, the virus has killed more than 4 million people worldwide, nations have experienced economic devastation and the prevalence of other health issues such as depression has increased.

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North Carolina GOP Adds A Ban on Teaching the U.S. ‘Should Be Violently Overthrown’ to Anti-CRT Bill

Phil Berger in front of North Carolina State Capitol

North Carolina Republicans amended a bill Wednesday that would prevent educators from teaching critical race theory in the state’s public schools, adding five provisions, according to an updated copy of the legislation obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger added five provisions to House Bill 324 following worries that North Carolina students would be taught CRT in schools, the AP reported.

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Commentary: Conservatives Shouldn’t Accept the Idea of ‘Systemic Racism’

Black Lives Matter protest

The official “Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory” appeared in the New York Times last week. Penned by a progressive Yale professor, two non-progressives, and the allegedly conservative David French, the article claims state efforts to ban CRT undermine a good, free-thinking education. Others have dissected this silly claim in detail, so it’s not worth rehashing all of that here. What readers should take away from the Times op-ed is an increasing willingness among respectable conservatives to grant the idea of “systemic racism.” They believe there is nothing wrong with accepting this core tenet of modern liberalism and that it’s absolutely true. 

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President and CEO of the Job Creators Network Alfredo Ortiz Slams Biden ‘Voting Rights’ Speech

Biden ‘Voting Rights’ Speech

Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network (JCN), released a statement on Tuesday criticizing President Joe Biden for his recent speech on “voting rights” in Philadelphia. 

“Biden’s fear-mongering that Republicans are trying to take over state elections in defiance of the will of the voters is ridiculous slander. What he calls voter ‘suppression’ and ‘subversion’ is really just commonsense voting integrity measures,” Ortiz said of the speech.

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House Oversight Committee Launches Investigation into Arizona Election Audit

Arizona Democrat Audit

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced on Wednesday that they are launching an investigation into the forensic audit of ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The group penned a letter to Douglas Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas Inc — the company hired by the Arizona State Senate to conduct the review of almost 2.1 million ballots.

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New Vaccine Incentive Program Coming for Ohio

Gov. Mike DeWine and vaccines

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine plans to double down on an incentive program to encourage more Ohioans to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as cases are on the rise in the Buckeye State.

Speaking to reporters at a ribbon cutting celebrating the completion of a highway project in Columbus, DeWine said he expects to announce a new program soon in an effort boost the state’s vaccination percentage, which ranks as one of the lowest in the nation.

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