Month: September 2022

Commentary: The Importance of Doug Mastriano

Ohio Star Staff

Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor — that would be state Sen. Doug Mastriano — is under attack by the establishment elite for not being … part of the establishment elite. And, of all people, the Republican Governors Association has signed on for the attack.

For those who have not followed the tale, Mastriano is a 30-year active-duty combat veteran who retired as a colonel in the Army. Apart from being deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm (1991), assigned to the U.S. forces liberating Kuwait, in the post–9/11 world he was assigned to NATO and had three tours in Afghanistan. He ended his military career as a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in nearby (to me) Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has four master’s degrees and holds a doctorate in history.

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Manchin Caves, Asks Schumer to Drop Energy Permitting Plan from Continuing Resolution

Just the News

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to remove his energy permitting reform plan from a continuing resolution in the face of bipartisan opposition.

Schumer promised that he would “continue to have conversations about the best way,” to advance Manchin’s plan by the end of the year, per Politico. Senate Republicans were poised to block the continuing resolution amid concerns about the Manchin proposal attached to it.

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Pennsylvania GOP Gubernatorial Candidate: Biden DOJ ‘Trying to Intimidate’ Conservatives Through Arrest of Catholic, Pro-Life Father

Ohio Star Staff

Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Doug Mastriano warned Monday that President Joe Biden’s administration sought to “intimidate” anyone “on the political opposition” through the arrest of a Catholic, pro-life father last week.

Mastriano referred to the early Friday morning arrest of Mark Houck, whose wife told Life Site News that 25-30 FBI agents entered their home around 7 a.m. with “big, huge rifles” to arrest her husband as their children watched, crying and screaming, from the top of the stairs.

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‘Satanic Temple’ Sues Indiana over Abortion Ban

Ohio Star Staff

A group called “The Satanic Temple” has sued the State of Indiana to block its near-complete ban on abortions, per a lawsuit filed in federal court on Sept. 21.

The group, naming the state’s Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney Gen. Todd Rokita, as respondents, filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. It claims to be filing the suit on behalf of a female member of the group that became “involuntarily pregnant” and wishes to terminate the pregnancy.

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Group Sues U.S. Department of Education over Biden’s Student Loan Cancellation Plan

The Center Square

A nonprofit legal group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Education to block its move to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for some borrowers.

“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Caleb Kruckenberg said. “It’s flagrantly illegal for the executive branch to create a $500 billion program by press release, and without statutory authority or even the basic notice and comment procedure for new regulations.”

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New Jersey to Become First State to Introduce Global Warming Curriculum in Public Schools

Admin

New Jersey is set to become the first state in the country that will mandate its public school students to learn about so-called “global warming,” with curriculum focusing on the subject being introduced in the 2022-2023 academic year.

According to ABC News, the effort was led by Tammy Murphy, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy (D-N.J.). In an interview on Thursday, the First Lady of New Jersey falsely claimed that “climate change is becoming a real reality.”

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Greenwald: ‘Democratic Politics Is About Criminalizing Opposition’

Admin

Journalist Glenn Greenwald is criticized the Democratic Party, calling members authoritarians trying to criminalize their opposition. 

After The Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper complained about Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz not being indicted with in a sex-trafficking probe, Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept,  responded with his criticism. 

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Republican Leadership Pledges to ‘Repeal’ IRS Auditor Expansion if GOP Wins Majority

The Center Square
Kevin McCarthy

President Joe Biden sparked controversy for pushing through Congress increased federal funding for 87,000 new IRS employees to audit Americans, but Republican leadership has pledged to overturn that expansion if they win the majority.

House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., pledged at a Pennsylvania event to “repeal” the IRS expansion.

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UC Berkeley Gave Hundreds of Thousands to Left-Wing Charity That Has Funded Groups Trying to Empty Prisons

Admin

The University of California, Berkeley gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2021 to a left-wing nonprofit funding groups that seek to empty prisons across the U.S., according to California financial records.

Berkeley sent over $262,500 to the Heising-Simons Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity that opposes “mass incarceration” and backs prison reform, according to records obtained by the transparency watchdog OpenTheBooks. The charity has granted huge sums to groups trying to overhaul the criminal justice system and get inmates back onto the streets, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.

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Commentary: The Fed’s Interest Rate Hikes Have only Destroyed $398 Billion of the $6 Trillion It Printed

Admin

“Our expectation has been we would begin to see inflation come down, largely because of supply side healing.  We haven’t. We have seen some supply side healing but inflation has not really come down.”

That was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Sept. 21, speaking to reporters following the central bank’s meeting where the Federal Funds Rate was once again increased 0.75 percent to its current range of 3 percent to 3.25 percent in a bid to combat sticky 8.3 percent consumer inflation the past year.

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More than Half the Nation Wants a Crackdown on Violent Crime, Poll Suggests

Admin

More than 75% of probable voters said they would not likely back candidates supporting policies that stop police from detaining criminals charged with violent offenses, according to a new poll, with a state measure set to potentially free some violent crime suspects.

About 76.9% of respondents said they would not be at all likely to vote for a candidate supportive of such policies toward criminals facing violent charges like kidnapping and armed robbery, according to the September poll by the Trafalgar Group partnered with Convention of States Action. Illinois’ Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE–T) Act is set to permit the bail-free release of people accused of kidnapping, aggravated battery and other crimes punishable by probation next year, Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Reitz told ABC 20.

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Elite DC Think Tank Hired High-Ranking Chinese Communist Party Scholar After Obscuring Ties

Admin
Beijing, China

A decade-old Chinese-language press release reveals an elite Washington, D.C., think tank knew of a prominent Chinese academic’s high-ranking Communist Party position before hiring him a month later — an affiliation the think tank omitted from the English-language press release heralding the opening of their new center in Beijing.

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Giorgia Meloni Poised to Become Italy’s Prime Minister

Admin

Italy is set to elect a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, exit polls showed Sunday after voting for the country’s next prime minister ended.

The major left-leaning coalition, with between 25.5 percent and 29.5 percent of the vote, ceded defeat to the Brothers of Italy party and its nationalist allies who collectively obtained up to 45 percent of the vote, Reuters reported. As prime minister and leading Italy’s most rightward government since WWII, Meloni has said she will seek to cut taxes, expand natural gas infrastructure and regulate immigration, Politico reported.

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Ohio Economists Split on Progressiveness of EV Fees

The Center Square
Electric car being charged

A group of Ohio economists disagree over moves by the state and the country as a whole toward electric vehicles and whether government investment in electric vehicle infrastructure is cost-effective.

Nearly half of the 19 economists at Ohio colleges and universities surveyed by Scioto Analysis said the state’s current $200 annual fee for registering electric vehicles is progressive, while a little more than half believed spending tax dollars on EV infrastructure is likely to be more cost-effective than providing the same amount in tax credits.

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Parent Group Reveals States’ Trans Policies Involve Keeping Students’ Gender Identities Secret from Parents and Inviting Students to Turn to LGBTQ Activists for Help

Susan Berry, PhD

Parents Defending Education’s (PDE) new resource for parents seeks to inform them of their state education agencies’ policies about gender identity and reveals multiple states instruct teachers to keep their students’ gender identities a secret from parents.

As it continues to add information from more states, the national grassroots organization’s resource for parents currently provides links to the websites of 29 state education departments across the country along with their policies regarding transgender students and gender identity.

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Connecticut Parent Leader: Superintendent’s Support for Teacher Who Introduced Woke Worksheet ‘Slap in the Face to Parents’

Susan Berry, PhD

A leader of Southington, Connecticut’s Families for Freedom organization told The Connecticut Star she views the district superintendent’s support for a teacher who introduced a vocabulary worksheet for high school students, instructing them in the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology, a “slap in the face to parents.”

“We are going to be pushing for policy change because it was clear that this teacher taught outside the curriculum,” said Susan Zabohonski during a telephone interview. “Taught a biased paper without following the proper procedure. Yet, the superintendent said he’s still going to back this teacher and all teachers going forward.”

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Commentary: Undermining U.S. Citizenship at K-12 Schools on American Military Bases

RealClearWire

Schools on American military bases, educating almost 70,000 children of service personnel, push the same anti-racism curriculum found in America’s most liberal school districts, with the goal of preparing these students for lives dedicated to a global citizenship meant to displace American citizenship and the American way of life.

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‘MAGA’ Republicans Seek to ‘Destroy the United States of America,’ Senior Biden Adviser Claims

Admin

A senior adviser to President Joe Biden claimed “MAGA” Republicans pose a “danger to our democracy” and seek to “destroy the United States of America” during a Sunday morning appearance on MSNBC.

“It is important that as we look at this MAGA Republican agenda and those who seek to lead our country like Kevin McCarthy, who will lead our country if Republicans take the House in November, it is important that we pay attention to what they, what the agenda will be,” former Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, now a senior adviser to President Biden, told host Jonathan Capehart. “This MAGA Republican agenda is a very dangerous agenda.”

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Air Force Academy Tells Cadets to Be Gender Inclusive by Avoiding Using ‘Mom and Dad:’ Report

Just the News

The Air Force Academy has reportedly told cadets in diversity and inclusion training to use words that “include all genders” and to refrain from using terms such as “mom and dad.”

“Some families are headed by single parents, grandparents, foster parents, two moms, two dads, etc.: consider ‘parent or caregiver’ instead of ‘mom and dad,’ ” the presentation stated on a slide, Fox News reported Thursday.

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Ohio Think Tank Joins Minnesotan’s Fight for Property Rights

Bradley Vasoli

The Columbus, OH-based Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday defending Minnesota widow Geraldine Tyler’s right to the profit from the forced sale of her home. 

Tyler’s one-bedroom Minneapolis condominium was taken and sold by Hennepin County after the elderly resident could no longer afford her real-estate taxes. She quickly moved out of the condo in 2010, determining she could not safely stay in light of rising violent crime. For five years she incurred tax debt on the original residence while paying rent on a new apartment. 

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Report: Fraudsters Stole $45 Billion in Unemployment Benefits Using Dead People, Prisoners

Admin

The Department of Labor announced Thursday that 1,000 people have been charged for receiving $45.6 billion of fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) payments since March 2020.

The pandemic overwhelmed state offices responsible for distributing benefits, with 57 million people filing initial UI claims within five months of March 2020, the DOL-OIG reported. Fraudsters were successfully able to take advantage of the chaos, filing for claims in multiple states, using fraudulent emails and using the Social Security Numbers (SSN) of dead people and federal prisoners.

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Goldman Sachs Warns Investors High Rates Are Here to Stay

Admin

Even in the best case scenario where the Federal Reserve is able to combat inflation without causing a recession, it is unlikely to cut interest rates, Goldman Sachs analysts warned in a note, according to Business Insider.

The Federal Reserve has raised rates three times in the past four months, with Wednesday’s 0.75% increase bringing primary credit rates to 3.25%, one of the most aggressive increases since the 1980s. However, even in a so-called “soft landing” where a recession and layoffs are avoided, the Fed is unlikely to cut interest rates until “something goes wrong,” according to a Goldman Sachs note reported by Business Insider.

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Report: Latinos’ GDP Increased in U.S. from Eighth to Fifth in 2020 – Bigger than Those of France, UK

Just the News

If Latinos in the U.S. were their own independent country, then they would have the fifth-largest GDP in the world, up from the eighth-largest at the beginning of 2020, according to a new report. 

The Latino Donor Collaborative, in conjunction with Wells Fargo, released a report Thursday that found Hispanic Americans had an economic output of $2.8 trillion in 2020, up from $2.1 trillion in 2015 and $1.7 trillion in 2010. 

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Democrats Pivot on Law and Order as Soft-on-Crime Liberals Assaulted, Burglarized

Admin

Democrats’ virtual 180 on the issue of crime — a journey from supporting the “defund the police” movement to espousing tougher law enforcement — has been accentuated by a striking pattern in recent months: prominent liberals being mugged, sometimes quite literally, by the harsh reality of rising crime as victims themselves.

The latest liberal to embody this shift is Bill Walton, the 69-year-old basketball legend-turned-garrulous broadcaster, who has a history of stirring controversy and advocating a range of progressive causes over the years.

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Top Trans Medical Org Recommends Castration for Those with ‘Eunuch’ Identity

Admin

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which sets medical standards for transgender-related procedures, recognized eunuchs as a gender identity group in its newest guidelines, recommending castration as a treatment option.

Eunuchs are males who wish to remove all male genitals, genital functioning or other masculine attributes, according to WPATH. Eunuchs are listed alongside gender identities and sexual conditions like “nonbinary” and “intersex” in the eighth edition of WPATH’s standards of care, which states that eunuchs need “gender-affirming care” that can include physical and chemical castration in order to live out their identities.

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Commentary: Democrats’ November Nightmare Could Finally Be Coming True

Admin

Despite what you may have read or heard, the Republicans running in this cycle have an advantage that may, at this point, be dispositive.

A recent batch of polling has made it clear that the issues voters consider most important are the same issues on which they most trust Republicans.

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Liz Cheney Says She Will Leave GOP if Donald Trump is 2024 Nominee

Just the News

Rejected by her own voters in Wyoming, Rep. Liz Cheney says she won’t remain a Republican if Donald Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.

“I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican,” Cheney told the Texas Tribune festival on Saturday.

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Military Subsidizes Service Members’ Grocery Bills amid Higher Prices

Admin

The U.S. Department of Defense is taking new measures to help U.S. service members deal with rising costs as inflation continues to put the pressure on Americans.

Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder laid out a series of changes from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to help families deal with the recent rise in costs, particularly in food, housing and childcare.

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FBI Whistleblower: ‘Nobody I Know Signed Up’ to Investigate Parents Who Vented at School Board Meetings

Admin

An FBI whistleblower who was recently suspended said in an interview this week that he became a whistleblower last November because of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s email ordering the FBI to use Patriot Act counterterrorism tools to target parents at school board meetings.

Special Agent Kyle Seraphin, who was indefinitely suspended on June 1 after nearly six years with the Bureau, said that he was so disturbed by the directive, he went to his congresswoman’s office in New Mexico, and made a “protected disclosure.”

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Fair Trials Are Impossible for January 6 Defendants

Admin

Odds are jurors in Douglas Austin Jensen’s trial took longer to fill out the verdict forms than they took to decide his fate.

After only a few hours of deliberations on Friday, 12 residents of the nation’s capital found Jensen guilty on seven counts related to his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Jensen, an alleged QAnon follower, infamously confronted Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman inside the building that afternoon; he potentially faces decades in prison for convictions on impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, a dubious nonviolent felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

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Stores Implementing New Ideas to Keep Up with Inflation

Admin

Financial executives across the retail industry have been forced to adjust strategies to account for customer expectations as inflation puts pressure on outlets, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Major retailers, including Macy’s and Target, who used discounts to clear excess inventory after overestimating demand for their products following a wave of pandemic-era retail spending, are being forced to develop strategies, such as reducing the size of bundles or subtly cutting down on discounts, to entice customers while protecting profit margins, the WSJ reported. Dollar stores have gained popularity as consumers struggle with inflation and — in tandem with the more aggressive discounting campaign by retailers — customers’ heightened demand for value has left some retailers concerned that customers might start to expect discounts that damage profits.

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Nation’s Second-Largest School District Stocks Overdose Reversal Drugs After Student Deaths

Admin

The second-largest school district in the country is stocking its schools with naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, following student deaths, according to a Thursday news release.

In the recent weeks, nine students have died from overdoses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, with one student overdosing in the bathroom after obtaining a pill containing fentanyl from a peer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Every school in the district, beginning with elementary schools, will be stocked with the nasal spray version of naloxone, or Narcan, according to news release by the school.

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Most Americans Believe Migrants Should Be Sent to Sanctuary Cities, Poll Finds

Admin

The majority of Americans believe illegal immigrants should be sent to sanctuary cities, a new poll from Scott Rasmussen and RMG Research Inc found.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent 50 migrants last week to Martha’s Vineyard, which advertises itself as a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, last week, sparking widespread backlash. The new poll suggests that ordinary Americans are actually supportive of the decision despite the media’s negative response.

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Vance Tells ‘A Tale of Two Tims’ in Ad About Ohio Senate Opponent Ryan

Bradley Vasoli

Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance released a new television advertisement this weekend contrasting his Democratic opponent Tim Ryan’s hard-left record with his moderate rhetoric.

In his ad monologue, Vance tore into the 13th-District congressman’s voting history.

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Canadians See Housing Prices Plummet at Historic Rate

Ohio Star Staff

A housing bubble that has been causing pain for Canadian homeowners and buyers alike may have started to pop as housing prices plummeted at a historic rate in August.

Housing prices fell 2.4% in August as compared to July, the largest monthly decline since the data was first tracked in 1999, according to management firm Teranet and the National Bank of Canada, who compute the index jointly. As of July, prices had risen almost 42% faster than wages since 2015, making housing less affordable to purchase, while spiking interest rates made houses more expensive to own, financial advice company The Motley Fool reported in July.

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Commentary: The End of Globalization

Ohio Star Staff

In the 1990s, William Strauss and Neil Howe predicted a “Fourth Turning” around 2020, meaning the final reordering of a once-in-a-generation global order. Their thesis is not necessarily pessimistic, although a “positive” resolution is not guaranteed. Either way, their thesis is inconvenient to progressives, who promise linear progress, not generational cycles. 

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BlackRock CEO Hails High Energy Prices for ‘Accelerating’ Green Transition

Ohio Star Staff

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said during a forum at the Clinton Global Initiative that increased energy prices are “accelerating” the transition to “green” energy.

“Because of the rising energy prices, we are certainly seeing the green premium shrink quite considerably. And so, the amount of investment dollars that are going into new decarbonization technology is accelerating, and accelerating very rapidly,” Fink told former President Bill Clinton.

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Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted: Ohio Has Seen Decrease in Domestic Opioid Production and Distribution

Hannah Poling

Thursday, the Republican National Committee hosted a Zoom press call with Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted and congressional nominee Max Miller (OH-07) to discuss border security, the fentanyl crisis, and crime.

In speaking with Tricia McLaughlin Communications Director for Governor Mike DeWine and Husted, “The domestic supply of opioids from over prescribing pharma companies both production and distribution have largely ceased.”

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Mark Zuckerberg, Wife Sued over Alleged 2020 Election Funding Fraud

Just the News

The Center for Renewing America (CRA) hit Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, his wife, and three voting rights groups with legal complaints over an alleged effort by which they improperly channeled roughly $500 million in a bid to influence the 2020 presidential election.

CRA alleges, according to Fox Business, that the Zuckerbergs sent the money to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), and National Vote at Home Institute (NVAHI), which in turn moved the money to Democrat leaning areas aiming to move competitive states into President Joe Biden’s column. Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was reportedly Zuckerberg’s point man on the effort.

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Key Lawmaker Worried FBI Whistleblowers Facing Retaliation as Evidence of Politicization Mounts

Just the News

An FBI whistleblower who alleges the bureau has been diverting resources to create a false political narrative that America has a violent domestic extremism problem has been suspended, raising concerns about retaliation for cooperating with Congress.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and its likely chairman if the GOP wins the House in November, confirmed to Just the News that Steve Friend, a whistleblower whose identity was outed on TV recently, is facing some form of disciplinary action.

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Dramatic Increase in Attendance for Off-Campus Religious Instruction in Central Ohio

Hannah Poling

Religious release time programs increase in popularity as optional classes during the school day.

Pastor Claude Davis of New Life Church in Whitehall, the facilitator of a released time program, said that their program drastically jumped from a mere 18 students on the first day to 269 students in attendance last year.

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Commentary: GOP’s New Plan Proves America First Policies Are Making a Huge Comeback

Ohio Star Staff

In 1994, it was called the Contract with America. Between 2016 and 2020, it was just known as America First. If you want to return to the policies that worked, there is a simple solution — the policies of the newly released “Commitment to America.” Simply put, it is the policies that put America First.

When people look at the current state of our country, most don’t like what they see. Inflation is the highest it has been in 40 years. The price of eggs, milk, and groceries has increased by double digits. Many people must decide whether to fill their gas tank or buy food. Some are cutting back on travel and entertainment. Many wonder if they will have to cut back on Christmas gifts for their children this year.

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Ohio’s Largest City Plans to Spend $200 Million on Housing, If Voters Approve

The Center Square

Ohio’s largest city wants to spend $200 million on affordable housing if voters approve borrowing a total of $1.5 billion in November.

Columbus mayor Andrew Ginther had previously said the city has a goal of combining $1 billion in public and private funds to meet housing needs in the region, calling housing a regional problem.

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Commentary: Phaseout of Oil Cars Show Contempt for Rural America and the Developing World

RealClearWire

America’s big auto companies, less than 15 years since they were bailed out of bankruptcy following the Clinton-Bush recession of 2008, are betraying the American people out of their greed for government cash and favor. Their “net zero” plans – in conjunction with the globalist dictators and the Biden Administration – include eliminating huge numbers of jobs and devastating major segments of the U.S. economy.  

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U.S. Military Educational Summit Pushed Gender Ideology Using a ‘Genderbread Person,’ Report Finds

Ohio Star Staff

The U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) hosted an “Equity and Access” summit in 2021 that featured presentations on gender ideology and anti-racism, according to a report by the Claremont Institute.

The “Equity and Access” summit trained military school educators on curriculum and practices which featured teaching gender identity using a “genderbread person,” according to the report by the Claremont Institute. The DODEA oversees more than 160 K-12 schools on military bases throughout the world and is responsible for educating roughly 69,000 students.

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TikTok Bans Political Fundraising Just Weeks Before Midterms

Ohio Star Staff

TikTok announced plans to ban all forms of campaign fundraising on its app Wednesday morning, just weeks ahead of midterm elections in the U.S.

In addition to this fundraising ban, which TikTok framed as an extension of existing policies that prohibit political advertising, the app is planning to offer verification to government officials, politicians and political parties to ensure users are aware of what content is made by public figures, according to TikTok’s press release. The announcement comes less than one week after a TikTok executive repeatedly refused to stop sending U.S. users’ data to China, and denied allegations in a bombshell Buzzfeed News report that employees in Chinese-based parent company ByteDance are able to see that data.

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