Author: Admin

U.S. GDP Ticks Up, but Recession Fears Remain

Admin

The U.S. economy grew modestly in the fourth quarter of 2022, despite signs of weak domestic demand, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Thursday. In the fourth quarter, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) grew by roughly 2.9%, down slightly from 3.2% in the third quarter, the BEA reported. Recession concerns among economists linger, however, amid fears that the Federal Reserve’s campaign of interest rate hikes — intended to reduce economic demand to slow inflation — will lead to reduced spending and layoffs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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Commentary: Nationwide Rent Control Is a Dangerous Proposition

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Some of our nation’s politicians seem to know very little about basic economic principles despite constantly proposing legislative action on economic issues. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D–N.Y.) now want federal regulators to impose rent control on the entire nation. In their letter to the Biden administration, which was signed by 50 members of Congress, Warren and Bowman request that the administration “pursue all possible strategies” to control high rents. These politicians portray themselves as fighting for the average American, but, if they get their way, the results will be catastrophic.

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Cardinal Says Pope Francis Has No ‘Contact with the Holy Spirit’ in New Book

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Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is releasing a book that accuses Pope Francis of giving “privileged status” to his friends that are accused of sexual abuse in the church, according to Catholic news website LaCroix International. The Roman Catholic Church has suffered multiple sexual abuse scandals over the years after several reports from the Vatican found that the clergy, particularly in France, had abused thousands of victims. While Müller says that France’s Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE) 2021 report was “inflated and exaggerated,” the cardinal claims in his new book, “In Good Faith: Religion in the 21st Century,” that Francis has helped protect those close to him by granting them a special “status,” citing the case of Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who was convicted in March 2022 of sexual abuse of two victims during seminary, as an example, according to LaCroix International.

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Abortion Pill Maker Sues Red States over Bans: ‘Impacts the Company’s Bottom Line’

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A company behind the manufacturing of a pill used in chemical abortions filed a lawsuit on Wednesday morning challenging state bans on the abortions, The New York Times reported. GenBioPro, which makes the abortion pill mifepristone, filed the lawsuit in a West Virginia federal court to argue that Federal Food and Drug regulations (FDA) take priority over state laws regulating abortion, according to the NYT. The lawsuit argues that the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill trumps state laws and that abortion bans violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which protects interstate commerce.

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Pope Francis Says Homosexuality Is ‘A Sin’ but Should Not Be Criminalized

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Pope Francis I said in an interview with the Associated Press that “homosexuality is not a crime” and encouraged bishops to stop practicing forms of conversion therapy. Francis has come under scrutiny in the past for his statements regarding the LGBTQ community, including his perceived endorsement of same-sex civil unions in 2020. The pope stated during the interview that while homosexuality is considered a sin, it should not be a “crime.”

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Commentary: The Environmentalist Assault on Civilization

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No reasonable person would deny the importance of protecting the environment. The accomplishments of the environmental movement over the past 50 years are undeniable: cleaner air and water, protected wildernesses, and more efficient use of resources. The list is endless and illustrious. Environmentalist values are an integral part of any responsible public policy agenda. But the pendulum has swung too far.

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DOJ Official Overseeing Prosecution of Pregnancy Center Attacks Has a History of Disparaging Them

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A top Department of Justice (DOJ) official who has criticized pregnancy resource centers, which she called “fake clinics,” is responsible for overseeing the prosecution of two individuals indicted for attacking pregnancy resource centers, according to the DOJ. The DOJ indicted Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart this week for various FACE Act violations after they allegedly spray-painted threats on pregnancy resource centers such as “If abortions aren’t safe than niether [sic] are you” and “WE’RE COMING for U,” according to the DOJ. Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General heading the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which will be prosecuting this case, condemned the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to strike down a California law requiring pregnancy resource centers to offer information about state-funded abortions, as previously reported by The Washington Free Beacon.

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Hawley’s ‘PELOSI Act’ Would Outlaw Insider Trading for Congress

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Lawmakers and their spouses would be prohibited from using privileged information to trade stocks, under legislation introduced Tuesday by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. Hawley’s bill follows news last year that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, traded between $1 million and $5 million worth of semiconductor stocks shortly before Congress allocated $52 million to the industry.

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Catholic Churches Have Suffered 118 Attacks Since SCOTUS Dobbs Leak

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A recent report found that Catholic churches have suffered 118 attacks since the leak of the Supreme Court draft majority opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center in May 2022. Churches and pregnancy centers across the United States came under attack after the opinion was leaked to Politico, indicating that the Supreme Court intended to overturn Roe v. Wade. CatholicVote (CV) updated its tracker Sunday that keeps track of assaults on Catholic Churches and found that 118 churches had reported attacks since May 2022.

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DOJ to File Lawsuit Against Google over Dominance of Digital Ad Market

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The Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has an unfair dominance over the digital ad market. As reported by the New York Post, the federal lawsuit could be filed as soon as Tuesday against Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. The suit will target Google’s lucrative advertising business, which accounts for 80 percent of Google’s overall revenue; in 2023, Google is projected to make at least $73.8 billion from advertising alone.

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Poll: Fewer than Three Percent of Hispanic Voters Support Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

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Fewer than 3% of likely Hispanic voters support amnesty for illegal immigrants as they continue to overwhelm authorities stationed on the southern border, according to a poll conducted by Convention of States Action and The Trafalgar Group. Just 2.8% of Hispanic likely voters believe that both individuals with pending asylum cases and those who entered the country illegally should be granted amnesty and eventual citizenship, according to the Tuesday poll. The findings come amid a record surge in illegal migration at the U.S.-Mexico border, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 250,000 migrant encounters in December alone and more than 2.3 million in fiscal year 2022.

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Filings: Major Left-Wing Nonprofits Funneled Tens of Millions to China in 2021

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Two of the largest left-wing nonprofit organizations in the country collectively sent at least $39 million to China in 2021, according to IRS tax filings. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sent a total of $30 million to various Chinese organizations and government entities, which included $2.5 million to China’s National Health Commission and $1.4 million to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The Ford Foundation sent another $9.3 million, which included donations to at least three universities that are under the direct supervision of the government’s defense industry agency.

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FBI Agent Who Investigated Trump-Russia Collusion Has Been Arrested for Colluding with Russia

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A former senior FBI counterintelligence official involved in the Trump-Russia probe was arrested and charged over the weekend for money laundering and violating sanctions against Russia while secretly working with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who the U.S. government sanctioned. Charles McGonigal was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI’s New York Field Office until he retired in 2018. McGonigal was arrested Saturday afternoon at JFK Airport, following travels in Sri Lanka, according to Fox News sources.

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Ted Cruz Bills Aim to Advance School Choice Across the Country Through Tax Credits, 529 Expansion

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, commemorated National School Choice Week by filing two bills to advance school choice, one of which his staff said would be the most significant educational reform since the GI bill. “We need to provide students with a variety of educational options to fit their needs,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in an email statement Tuesday. “I have often said that school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and I believe no differently today than I did when I began serving in the Senate a decade ago.

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Commentary: Overpopulation via Immigration Is Destroying America’s Environment

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America is overpopulated. Unchecked population growth over the last 70 years, driven by immigration rather than a healthy birth rate, now poses a serious ecological threat in the American West and a monumental social and political challenge in the rest of the country. Since the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act in 1965, which radically overhauled American immigration policy to favor third-world migrants, tens of millions of additional human beings legally and illegally entered the country. Pew Research estimates that without the Hart-Cellar Act, the United States would have had 72 million fewer people as of 2015. That would have been a much better America.

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Spotify Announces Hundreds Cut from Workforce

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Audio streaming platform Spotify is laying off 6% of its staff, becoming the latest in a series of tech firms to make major cuts, the company announced Monday. The cuts come less than a week after Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet both laid off more than 10,000 employees each as Big Tech firms cut costs following pandemic-related spending sprees. Spotify had roughly 9,800 employees through September 2022, so the company will likely cut less than 600 staffers Monday, according to Reuters.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Identity Politics Absurdities and the Ridiculousness of Reparations

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The last time racial reparations made the major news was on the eve of September 11, 2001 attacks. The loss of 3,000 Americans, which for a time fueled a new national unity, quickly dispelled the absurdities of the reparation movement, and turned our attention toward more existential issues. Now the idea is back in vogue again. Here are 10 reasons why the nation’s—and especially California’s—discussions of reparatory payouts are dangerous in a multiracial state, and why reparations are not viable either in an insolvent state or a bankrupt nation at large.

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New ATF Rule Sets the Stage to Classify Legal Gun Owners as Criminals

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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) recently implemented pistol brace final rule could classify millions of gun owners as felons should they fail to comply with the updated requirements, according to the gun rights advocacy groups. The rule, announced in January, will void all previous guidance on pistols braces, opting to redefine “rifle” as any weapon “designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder,” forcing pistol brace owners, many disabled, to register their pistols as short barrel rifles (SBR) with the federal government. The ATF has allowed 120 days for gun owners with pistol braces to adjust the barrel longer than the required 16 inches, file a Form 1 to “make” the pistol a SBR, remove the brace, surrender the firearm or destroy the firearm.

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Liberal Professor at Western Kentucky University Fired after Protesting His School’s DEI Dogma

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Former Western Kentucky University English instructor Ryan Hall said he was fired after canceling his classes in protest of his school’s political bias to embrace and enforce diversity, equity and inclusion above free speech and academic freedom and discourse. Hall, who describes himself as a liberal who has never voted for a conservative, said he risked his two-decade career in academia to defend the principles of classical liberalism the university “abandoned” in its pursuit of a DEI dogma.

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‘Child Protection’ Org Fought Against Efforts to Crack Down on Childlike Sex Dolls, Cartoon Child Porn

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The Prostasia Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization that claims to work to prevent child sex abuse, has fought against measures cracking down on fetish activities involving sexually fantasizing about children, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

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More than 200,000 Migrants Came to U.S. in December amid Mounting Border Crisis: CBP

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Authorities encountered 216,162 migrants at the southwest land border in December of last year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That figures marks an 11 percent increase in unique encounters from November of the same year. The federal agency attributed the surge to influx of Cuban and Nicaraguan individuals fleeing authoritarian regimes in those countries.

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GOP Lawmakers Take Aim at College Campuses Distributing Abortion Drugs

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Republican lawmakers are introducing pro-life legislation aimed at protecting babies with Down syndrome and stopping college campuses from distributing abortion pills to students. Introduced by Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy in the House and Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines in the Senate, the Protecting Life on College Campus Act of 2023 would prohibit “the award of federal funds to an institution of higher education that hosts or is affiliated with a student-based service site that provides abortion drugs or abortions” to students or university employees.

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Michigan Voting Firm Stored Election Data in China, Whistleblower Alleges

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A Michigan-based election infrastructure firm stored poll workers’ private data in China, a new whistleblower complaint obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation says, matching earlier allegations against the company and CEO Eugene Yu. Grant Bradley, a former employee at Konnech, a software firm that provides logistics for poll stations at 32 locations across the U.S., also said that the company’s “developers, designers and coders are all Chinese nationals based out of Wuhan, China,” in the complaint, which was first disclosed by the Federalist on Friday and filed in Michigan court on Dec. 22, shows. Bradley claimed to witness information of poll watchers “being made accessible” to individuals in China but did not comprehend the extent of the data routed through China until True the Vote, an election integrity advocacy organization, lodged allegations in 2021.

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Commentary: The World Economic Forum Is Making the World Safe for Autocracy

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Churning out carbon emissions to fly in on their corporate jets to Davos, Switzerland, for their annual fête to make the world safe for autocracy, the World Economic Forum’s hypocrisy is once again patent: Greenpeace accused attendees of ‘ecological hypocrisy’ before asking just why the WEF claims it is committed to the global goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) when the emissions generated from all the private jets flying in and out of airports serving Davos last year were equivalent to those produced by about 350,000 average cars for a week.

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The American Historical Association’s Fight over the Present

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The American Historical Association (AHA) is fixated on the present. At its recent annual meeting in Philadelphia, former AHA President James Sweet referenced his criticism of “presentism,” according to a report in The New York Times. Presentism, Sweet suggested in the August 2022 edition of AHA’s news magazine, leverages history to serve present-day social justice initiatives.

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Commentary: The Unbearable Lightness of Pining Backward

Admin

DISCLAIMER: Nearly everything I say in this essay I have already said at least once and, in most cases, more than once. At the same time, some points that might have borne repeating—such as why I think theoretical topics like this matter—I intend to skip. They’re all covered in the last one and, anyway, Paul Gottfried, to whom I am mostly responding, didn’t question the relevance of the subject matter. Those of you annoyed by repetition, uninterested in theoretical matters, or who just want MAGA red meat, do all of us a favor and don’t read this.

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Commentary: ‘Yellowstone’ as a Commentary on Manliness and Femininity

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Recently I offered a defense of the television series “Yellowstone” against the charge that it is just another soapy melodrama about a dysfunctional family, nothing more than an updated version of “Dallas” or “Falcon Crest.” Instead, I suggested a deeper meaning: that it appeals to its audience because it portrays a microcosm of America’s ongoing struggle, the defense of “place” against those who would threaten it. But closely associated with this meaning of the series, I believe there is another source of appeal: its treatment of what Harvey Mansfield calls “manliness.”

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DOJ Finds Six More Classified Memos in Search of Biden Home

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The Justice Department found six new classified documents inside President Joe Biden’s Delaware home during a search by government lawyers, the president’s attorney announced Saturday night. The discovery during a day-long search Friday marked the fifth time since November that classified materials have been found in an office or home of the 46th president.

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DOJ Finds Six More Classified Memos in Search of Biden Home

Admin

The Justice Department found six new classified documents inside President Joe Biden’s Delaware home during a search by government lawyers, the president’s attorney announced Saturday night. The discovery during a day-long search Friday marked the fifth time since November that classified materials have been found in an office or home of the 46th president.

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Blue State Sued for Allegedly Keeping Kids Locked Up for Months After They Were Supposed to Be Released

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The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) was sued Thursday for allegedly incarcerating large numbers of children in its guardianship despite court orders to release them, a problem dating back decades. Children as young as 11 were all placed in juvenile jails after coming into contact with the juvenile justice system but ultimately received court orders necessitating their release, according to the lawsuit filed by Cook County, Illinois Public Guardian Charles Golbert. The DCFS allegedly nevertheless kept the children incarcerated following the court orders, some for months afterward.

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Emails: Fauci Was Part of Group Aiming to ‘Disprove’ Lab Leak Theory

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Newly unearthed emails reveal that former head of the National Institute of Allergy Infectious Disease (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci, was part of a group of scientists assembled for the sole purpose of “disproving” the COVID-19 origin theory claiming that the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. According to the Daily Caller, others in the group besides Fauci included Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust; Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research; and Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier, among others. The emails revealing the collaborative effort were uncovered by journalist Jimmy Tobias after a prolonged legal battle with the NIH.

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Union Membership Plummets to Record Low Despite Biden’s Promises to Increase It

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Rates of union membership fell to an all time low of 10.1% in 2022, according to a Thursday report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), despite President Joe Biden’s promise to bolster American unions. Biden pledged to “be the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen” to a group of supporters the night before the 2020 election, according to the Associated Press, and signed an executive order in April 2021 creating a task force to investigate how the federal government could increase union membership. Despite these efforts, union membership continued its long decline in 2021 and 2022 as new non-union jobs outpaced union jobs, according to the BLS.

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Biden’s Approval Rating Remains Near All-Time Low

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Amidst multiple claims that President Joe Biden mishandled classified documents, his approval rating dropped to one of its lowest points since he first took office, according to a recent poll. Of 1,035 respondents, only 40% approved of Biden’s performance as president, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday. Over the last month, multiple classified documents have been found in various places occupied by Biden, and on Jan. 12 five additional pages of classified documents were discovered in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

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House Judiciary Committee to Investigate Dobbs Leak: Report

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The House Judiciary Committee intends to continue investigating the Supreme Court draft opinion leak that surrounded Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an anonymous source close to the committee told Fox News. The Supreme Court announced Thursday that its investigation into the Dobbs leak had failed to find the person responsible. The House Judiciary Committee is looking to pick up where the investigation left off, an anonymous source told Fox.

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Catholic Universities Continue to Endorse Pro-Abortion Agenda

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Wednesday marked the start of this year’s National March for Life, the first since the right to an abortion was federally overruled in June of last year in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In light of the impending Dobbs decision, Alcindor stated in May of last year that she was worried about “women who are poor, women of color [being] forced to have pregnancies that they cannot afford to terminate, and pregnancies that will then turn into children” if states ban abortion.

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Commentary: Miss Universe Is Just the Latest Organization Erasing Women

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Another day, another biological male stealing the spotlight from biological females in the name of feminism and equality. A new Miss Universe was crowned on Saturday and the transgender owner of the organization, Anne Jakrajutatip, took to the stage claiming to “celebrate women” and the supposed female-led future the beauty pageant. Jakrajutatip took over ownership of the Miss Universe Organization last year from IMG Worldwide LLC, which previously bought the pageant from former President Donald Trump. Jakrajutatip is the first transgender owner of the organization in its 71 years of existence—or, as Jakrajutatip now claims, the “first woman owner.”

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ICE Releases Thousands of Illegal Immigrants Affected by Data Leak

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released nearly 3,000 illegal immigrants from custody after they were affected by a data leak, an agency spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The late November accidental data breach involved the leaking of names, birth dates, nationalities and detention locations of approximately 6,000 illegal immigrants, according to ICE. The information was on ICE’s website for five hours before it was taken down.

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NYC Aims to Give 10,000 Free Abortions a Year Through New Program

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New York City began offering free chemical abortions through a Bronx clinic Wednesday as part of a new program, which is slated to expand to several other boroughs this year, Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday. The city already offers abortion pills at some hospitals, but will be expanding the program to clinics in the Bronx, Queens, Harlem and Brooklyn in the coming year, according to Adams. The program will aim to provide 10,000 free abortions by pill each year, according to CNN.

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Hunter Biden’s China-Linked Company Paid $49,910 Security Deposit for Washington D.C Office at the House of Sweden

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The monthly rent Hunter Biden listed on a background screening form in 2018 exactly matches the security deposit he paid for an office at the House of Sweden in Washington D.C. the year before. In the 2018 document, the younger Biden listed Joe Biden’s Delaware mansion as his residence, and claimed that he was paying a whopping $49,910 a month in monthly rent. Joe Biden stored a number of classified documents in the library and alongside his Corvette in the garage of his house in Greenville, Delaware, an upscale suburb of Wilmington.

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Commentary: Mexico Is Not Really an American Friend

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Left-wing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently praised a visiting Joe Biden: “Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the United States—40 million who were born here in Mexico, [or] who are the children of people who were born in Mexico!” Why wouldn’t Obrador be delighted? Since Biden took office in January 2021, America has allowed some 5-6 million illegal entries across its southern border.

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Commentary: New Abortion Numbers Don’t Show Whole Picture, Especially with Do-It-Yourself Abortions on the Rise

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute each released new reports last November about abortion data for 2020, showing conflicting reports of a decrease in abortions versus a significant increase. While the lack of clarity in the number of abortions is alarming, the spread of do-it-yourself at-home abortions means that neither report is telling the whole story.

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CDC Regularly Called the Shots on Facebook’s COVID-19 Censorship Decisions, Docs Show

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Facebook routinely took direction from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding COVID-19 moderation and fact-checking policies throughout 2021, according to documents published Thursday by Reason. Facebook regularly reached out to CDC staff throughout the year, requesting guidance on the accuracy of claims about both COVID-19 vaccines and the disease itself, in addition to guidance on whether the claims might “cause harm,” according to Reason. The social media titan would regularly make decisions based on this communication, notably reversing its monthslong prohibition on users claiming that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory on May 26, 2021, after a conversation with CDC staff the week prior informed the company that, while “extremely unlikely,” the virus having a man made origin was “theoretically possible.”

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After Seattle Defunded Its Police, Local Business Owners Say Crime Is Worse than Ever

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Two years after Seattle slashed its police budget, local business owners say crime has skyrocketed, with police unable to deal with thefts, homelessness and open-air drug use that plague the city. Seattle and broader King County had more than 13,000 homeless people within its boundaries in 2022, more than every other similar area except Los Angeles County and New York City, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, while the Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost more than 130 officers, KOMO News reported, as homicides, shootings and motor vehicle thefts increased. Local business owners say law enforcement is failing to effectively deter the rampant drug use and theft disturbing their livelihoods.

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Runbeck: Election Firm Involved in Maricopa County’s Alleged Chain-of-Custody Violations

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As Republican Kari Lake appeals a legal defeat in her lawsuit challenging certification of her narrow loss in Arizona’s Nov. 8 gubernatorial election, she is alleging that ballot chain-of-custody issues occurred at Runbeck Election Services, a company that municipalities across the country use for outsourcing election operations.

Lake is appealing a ruling against her last month in her suit against former Secretary of State and current Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County election officials demanding the election result be set aside due to alleged failures and misconduct by the county. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson found that Lake failed to meet a legal standard of clear and convincing evidence that intentional misconduct changed the outcome of the election.

In her appeal, which challenges the legal standard applied by the trial court, Lake alleges that Maricopa County’s “massive violations of law and maladministration” included violating Arizona law’s chain-of-custody requirements by not having Election Day dropbox ballots counted at Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) before going to Runbeck.

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