Bob Woodward, Tollbooth Records Undercut January 6 Panel Claim Kerik Attended Secret D.C. Meeting

Earlier this month, the Jan. 6 commission in Congress made headlines when it issued a subpoena alleging lawmakers had “credible evidence” that on the day before the Capitol riot former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik attended a meeting at the posh Willard Hotel in Washington where Trump advisers discussed how to overturn the November 2020 election.

The subpoena even cited an impressive source: a book by famed investigative journalist Bob Woodward.

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Despite Evidence to the Contrary, GoFundMe Says it Doesn’t Host Legal Fundraisers for Alleged Violent Criminals

Person receiving large cardboard check from GoFundMe.

After Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges Friday stemming from his self-defense killing of two rioters and the injury of a third in August of 2020, a crowdfunding platform explained its decision to ban him raising money for his legal defense. 

“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime,” GoFundMe, a popular online crowdfunding tool, said. 

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Commentary: The New ‘Blue Confederacy’

Why are progressive regions of the country—especially in the old major liberal cities (e.g., Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle)—institutionalizing de facto racial quotas through “proportional representation” based on “disparate impact”? Why are they promoting ethnic and racial chauvinism, such as allowing college students to select the race of their own roommates, calibrating graduation ceremonies by skin color and tribe, segregating campus “safe spaces” by race, and banning literature that does not meet commissariat diktats?

Why are they turning into one-party political fiefdoms separating the rich and poor, increasingly resembling feudal societies as members of the middle class flee or disappear? What does it mean that they are becoming more and more intolerant in their cancel culture, and quasi-religious intolerance of dissent, on issues from climate change and abortion-on-demand to critical race theory and wokeness?

Isn’t it strange that there are entire states and regions wholly reliant on the money and power of “one-crop” Big Tech monopolies? And why, in the 21st century no less, are Democratic-controlled counties, cities, and entire states nullifying federal law?

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Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Religious Rights and Freedoms This Thanksgiving

People putting wine glasses together for a toast

The majority of Americans, 73%, say their rights come from God, not government, and say government can’t force Americans to violate their religious beliefs, according to a poll conducted by Summit.org and McLaughlin and Associates.

“There’s a widening gap between the dominant media narrative and what the American people actually believe,” Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit.org said in a statement accompanying the poll results. “We’re seeing that in these numbers. As we approach a holiday established to thank God for His blessings on our nation, the American people still believe that our rights come from God, not from government, and that the right to believe and practice our religion must be respected.

“Despite everything, it is encouraging to see that Americans still acknowledge the freedoms that made this nation great.”

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Fox News Contributors Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes Say They Quit Paid Carlson’s Jan. 6 Content

Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg

Journalists and conservative pundits Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, whose commentary has not supported President Trump, have resigned from their paid TV contributor jobs at Fox News.

Hayes and Goldberg, long-time conservative commentators who most recently have rebuked Republican politics that revolves around Trump, co-founded The Dispatch in 2019. The site is described as “a place that thoughtful readers can come for conservative, fact-based news and commentary.”

On Sunday, they announced their joint resignation from the posts they have respectively held since 2009. They write that the network’s irresponsible coverage now outweighs its responsible coverage, which long kept them tethered to their lucrative contracts.

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Democratic Senate Bill Allocates $5 Million for ‘Chief Diversity Officer’ at National Science Foundation

Black scientist with safety goggles and mask on

A Senate bill that ostensibly focuses on strengthening American competition with China includes a provision between the lines that would designate $5 million for funding of a new “chief diversity officer” position at the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The bill is the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which is supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. The bill aims to address the ongoing economic rivalry and supply chain crisis between the United States and China, by increasing domestic manufacturing and tightening supply lines in the United States.

According to the bill, the duties of the NSF’s new “chief diversity officer” would include “establishing a strategic plan for diverse participation” in the foundation’s various programs, as well as collecting information on the demographics of the NSF’s staff and patent applicants, in order to know which demographics to hire to offset alleged “inequity.” The bill would direct states to close such “equity gaps” by giving subgrants to students in computer science education classes who face “systemic barriers.”

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Biden to Renominate Jerome Powell for Second Term as Federal Reserve Chair

Jerome Powell

President Joe Biden will renominate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to a second term leading the central bank.

The president, who was elected as a moderate, has faced pushback on Powell, who progressives feel is not tough enough on bank regulations or climate change policy.

Also in contention for the top job was Lael Brainard, who Biden will nominate to become the vice chair of the central bank’s board of governors.

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Democrats Boast That Their Donors’ Most Common Profession Is Teacher

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) tweeted that the most common DNC donor-reported occupation in 2021 is teacher.

The tweet sparked widespread mockery online, with commentators pointing out that teachers’ widespread alignment with Democrats is a root cause of conservatives’ distrust in public education.

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Commentary: The Communists in America Must Not Be Empowered

CCP flag in center, waving in wind

Just for the record, I am a life-long, card carrying, practiced anti-Communist.

As a proud Cold Warrior, I grew up in the heat-seeking years of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, and the infiltration of world capitals by communist revolutionaries.

At my church, I was a member of a kid’s youth group called the Jet Cadets, which met on Sunday nights. Our theme song was “We are Jet Cadets for Jesus, we are pilots for our Lord, we will strafe and bomb . . . ” You get the gist: the enemy was godless Soviet Russia.

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FDA Claims It Needs 55 Years Before Revealing Data on Approval of Pfizer Vaccine

Doctor giving vaccination to patient

On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested that the courts allow the agency to wait until the year 2076 to release all of the relevant documents regarding the approval of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, as reported by the Daily Caller.

The FDA made its request after a lawsuit was filed against the agency by the group Public Health Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). The PHMPT had previously made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on September 9th asking for the release of the vaccine approval documents; after the FDA denied the request, the group filed its lawsuit on September 16th.

The FDA concluded that there were roughly 329,000 pages in total that would qualify under this FOIA request. In its appeal to the courts, the agency said that, at most, employees would be able to “process and produce the non-exempt portions of responsive records at a rate of 500 pages per month.” Under this process, the FDA said that it would hand over prioritized documents to the plaintiff, and release non-exempt documents on a “rolling basis.”

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Colorado Considers Dropping the Term ‘Sex Offender’ Because of ‘Negative Effects’

Seminar of "inappropriate sexual fantasy for sexual offenders"

Colorado officials are set to vote Friday on whether to drop the term “sex offender” to describe people who engaged in “sexually abusive behavior,” due to “negative effects,” the Denver Post reported.

“I think the biggest thing is research really shows us that assigning a label has the potential for negative effects in rehabilitation,” said Kimberly Kline, chair of the Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), according to the Denver Post. The board is considering a number of other possible terms for offending individuals, including adults “who commit sexual offenses” and “who engage in sexually abusive behavior.”

“The term ‘sex offender’ will continue to be used in Colorado statute and the criminal justice system, including courts, law enforcement and the Colorado Sex Offender Registry,” a SOMB spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The change being considered is limited in scope and applies only to the language used in the standards and guidelines for treatment providers who assess, evaluate and treat people convicted of sexual offenses.”

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Legislation Expands Options for Pennsylvania Home-School Students

The Pennsylvania House has advanced legislation introduced by Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford, to expand educational offerings for home-school students.

House Bill 1041 amends the Public School Code of 1949 to permit home education students to take advantage of their local high school by attending up to four academic courses in a school day and participating in co-curricular activities. They also would have access to programs offered at career and technical education centers.

Pennsylvania home-school students currently are permitted to participate in extracurricular activities at the high school in their district.

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Amazon Mogul Jeff Bezos Will Donate $100 Million to Obama Foundation in Honor of John Lewis

Jeff Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, has announced a donation of $100 million to the Obama Foundation in honor of the legacy of civil rights icon and former Congressman John Lewis.

“Freedom fighters deserve a special place in the pantheon of heroes, and I can’t think of a more fitting person to honor with this gift than John Lewis, a great American leader and a man of extraordinary decency and courage,” Bezos said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to support President and Mrs. Obama and their Foundation in its mission to train and inspire tomorrow’s leaders.”

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Commentary: The Death of the City by the Bay

The San Francisco Bay area is home to some of the wealthiest people in the world with home values beyond the wildest dreams of many across the country, ironically, this epicenter of socialism may be in an uncontrollable death spiral induced by their embrace of suicidal policies that are destroying their retail sectors.

Just this past weekend, three separate events tell a story of a dysfunction and votes of no-confidence by retailers.

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Texas’ Effort to Secure the U.S.-Mexico Border Underway

RIO GRANDE VALLEY — A top official within Texas’ effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border told the Daily Caller News Foundation that his troops are prepared for a worst case scenario situation and that they can be deployed within hours to tackle it.

“We’re prepared to repel and block any sized element coming across,” The Texas National Guard border public affairs officer Major Mike Perry told the DCNF. “That’s what the rehearsals are for. Typically, they’re focused on one area cause it’s your low crossings and your ports. So, we can be anywhere with our ground assets in three hours to get the Steel Curtain up and prepare for it, and, of course, you saw the Contingency Reaction Force fly in with the military police.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas National Guard are prepared to “surge” resources to any location in Texas to “repel and block” large caravans or other illegal activity crossing the border, Perry explained.

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Massive Multi-State Democratic Climate Change Initiative Crumbles

Several Democratic states withdrew from an ambitious plan to curb transportation emissions less than a year after signing onto the agreement.

Massachusetts and Connecticut abandoned the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) last week, citing high gas prices and irreconcilable differences, E&E News reported. Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., also joined the agreement which promised to cut transportation emissions 25% and raise $3 billion for clean energy projects.

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Georgia House Votes for New Congressional Redistricting Map That Will Dramatically Change State Political Landscape

Members of the Georgia House on Monday voted for a Congressional Redistricting Map that removes U.S. Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA-06) from her current district and paves the way for a Republican to win that seat. The proposal now goes to Governor Brian Kemp to approve.

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Rand Paul Urges Whistleblowers to Expose Biden Administration Abuses of Civil Liberties

Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul sharply criticized the “politicized” FBI and the Department of Justice, calling for more whistleblowers to expose government trampling of American liberties. 

“I think anytime someone is breaking the law in government, it’s a good idea to hear about it,” the Kentucky Republican said in a Thursday interview with The Daily Signal. “And so, frankly, yes, I think it is a good idea for people to reveal when the government’s breaking the rules.”

Paul’s remarks follow news that the head of the FBI’s Criminal and Counterterrorism divisions reportedly ordered agents Oct. 20 to identify threats against school board members and teachers with a “threat tag”—although Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers the next day that the FBI was not using counterintelligence tools to target parents. 

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Commentary: Red China Persecutes Tennis Star Peng Shuai

Peng Shuai with tennis racket in hand

In early November, the Chinese (PRC) tennis star Peng Shuai wrote on her blog that she had been aggressed in 2018 by a Communist Party boss and vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli, who made her his concubine. The blog post, on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, was removed in less time than it takes to play a set, 20 minutes. 

Peng’s glory days as an athlete were in the mid-teens, when she was the first Chinese tennis player to reach a no. 1 ranking; hers was in doubles. In that format she won Wimbledon 2013 and Roland-Garros 2014, partnering with the Taiwan (Free China) player Hsieh Su-wei (at a time when the Chicoms were offering Hsieh big bucks to defect to their side); Peng was also strong in singles, ranked no. 14.  

Peng has not been seen in public or heard from since her blog was censured. 

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Biden Asks Asian Countries to Release Oil Reserves as Administration Scrambles to Combat High Gas Prices: Report

Joe Biden

The Biden administration asked China, Japan, South Korea and India to tap into their emergency oil reserves as the president continues to grapple with rising gasoline prices, Reuters reported.

The effort to simultaneously release oil reserves represents a rebuke of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel that controls oil production throughout the Middle East, several anonymous sources familiar with the request told Reuters on Wednesday. OPEC has repeatedly rejected requests from President Joe Biden and other top administration officials to increase oil production amid rising gasoline prices.

The four Asian nations the president appealed to represent some of the largest energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, according to a University of Oxford database.

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Election Handicapper Says Three Major 2022 Senate Races Now a ‘Toss-up,’ a Boon to Republicans

Raphael Warnock

Hotly contested Senate seats in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are now well within the realm of a “toss-up” in next year’s races, a notable political forecaster is predicting.

The Cook Political Report, a longtime newsletter that specializes in U.S. election predictions, this week moved those races to its toss-up column for the 2022 elections.

In Georgia, Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock faces re-election after narrowly winning a special election this year. His victory helped tip the Senate in favor of Democrats.

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College Instructor Charged with Battery of Anti-Mask Mandate Demonstrator

A North Idaho College instructor has been charged with Misdemeanor Battery for allegedly assaulting a person holding a sign in support of the college’s Board of Trustees decision to repeal the university-wide mask mandate.

Rachelle Ottosen stood at the September North Idaho College Board of Trustees meeting holding a sign picturing a red circle with the words “Medical Fascism” inside and a slash through it. Ottosen told Campus Reform that she brought the sign to show her support for the Board’s August decision to repeal its mask mandate.

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Report: Manhattan School Plans to Divide Students by Race for Social Justice Discussions

A Manhattan school plans to separate students by race during discussions scheduled for next week related to identity and social justice topics, the New York Post reported.

The Lower Manhattan Community School plans to divide students into affinity groups, based on skin color to “undo the legacy of racism and oppression in this country that impacts our school community,” according to an email sent to parents, the NYP reported.

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Facebook Silent on Whether It Will Allow Pro-Kyle Rittenhouse Posts

Facebook is remaining silent as to whether it will change its content policy regarding Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of several charges Friday.

During riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 after the shooting of Jacob Blake, Rittenhouse, then seventeen years old, shot three men in self-defense during an altercation, killing two of them. Rittenhouse was later arrested and charged with intentional homicide before being acquitted on all charges Friday afternoon.

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John Deere, United Auto Workers Union Reach Agreement, Ending Strike

United Auto Worker (UAW) John Deere production and maintenance members struck an agreement and went back to work Thursday after five weeks of striking. The strike was the first at the company since 1986.

The majority (61%) of the members approved a six-year contract with the billion-dollar manufacturer headquartered in Moline, IL, the union said in a news release. The workers had rejected two earlier offers from the company.

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Commentary: There Is No Room for ‘Privileging Feelings’ in the Marketplace of Ideas

Person holding a phone, group of people taking a photo together

In 2015, the University of Chicago issued a statement, referred to as the “Chicago Statement,” in response to “recent events nationwide that have tested institutional commitments to free and open discourse.”  Through the statement, the University reaffirmed its steadfast commitment to free speech and expression, including its “overarching commitment to free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation among all members of the University’s community.”  

The statement emphasized that:

“[E]ducation should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.”  

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Marriott Refused to Host Conference on Uyghur Genocide Because of ‘Political Theme’

Marriott Marquis Chicago in 2021

The Marriott hotel in Prague refused to host a conference on its premises for activists and leaders fighting for the rights of Uyghurs in China, Axios reported.

In an email sent to the World Uyghur Congress, which has attempted to shine a spotlight on the genocide of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China, the hotel cited the need for “political neutrality” as the reason the conference was denied the venue, Axios reported.

“Unfortunately, I have to inform you that we are not able to offer the premises,” the email read, Axios reported. “We consulted the whole matter with our corporate management. For reasons of political neutrality, we cannot offer events of this type with a political theme. Thank you once again for your time and understanding.”

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National College Democrats Organization Implodes as Members Cancel Each Other over Old Tweets

group of many students in the College Democrats of America

The College Democrats of America (CDA) has been rocked by public accusations of bigotry against its leadership and calls for members to step down.

Nourhan Mesbah, the group’s vice president, is undergoing impeachment proceedings after a tweet she posted at age 13 was shared by the CDA Jewish Caucus, Politico reported. “I blame this debate on the yahood,” Mesbah tweeted during a 2016 presidential debate. “Yahood” is an Arabic word used as a slur against Jews, Politico wrote.

Mesbah apologized for the tweet, reportedly saying “my comment was in no way rooted in malice or anti-semitism, especially as a 13-year old, relatively new immigrant from North Africa, with a different regional dialectic linguist comprehension … while I take responsibility for my actions, I am hurt by the Islamophobia and xenophobia that continues to unfold.”

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Marco Rubio Calls Biden Bank Nominee a ‘Communist’

Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio blasted President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, saying she supports communist policies on Friday.

“Saule Omarova supports abolishing private bank accounts, using govt to bankrupt energy companies & creating a Soviet style ‘National Investment Authority,’” Rubio wrote on Twitter.

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Bill to Streamline Campaign Finance Reporting Gets Pennsylvania Senate Approval

Legislation authored by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, to bring transparency and efficiency to Pennsylvania’s campaign finance reporting system was approved by the state Senate.

Under Senate Bill 140, all candidates for office and political action committees will be required to file with the secretary of the commonwealth by utilizing the Pennsylvania Department of State’s online filing system to provide campaign finance reports.

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Media and Higher Education Establishments Jeer New University That Challenges Academic Groupthink

Epic clown show.” “The best cancel culture grift yet.” “A Bible college for libertarians.”

And perhaps most damning: a “conservative university.”

A newly created university is facing an onslaught of accusations, assumptions and jeers from the higher education and media establishments for its self-described mission to build an institution “dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.”

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YouTube Demonetizes Video on Missing Chinese Tennis Star

YouTube prevented a video about a missing Chinese tennis star from receiving advertising revenue on Friday.

The video, titled “Chinese Star VANISHES After Rape Accusation I Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar” and appearing on the Breaking Points channel, was demonetized early Friday, according to a tweet from the channel’s host Saagar Enjeti.

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California Teachers Association Conference Instructed Teachers to Undermine Parents on Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation

California’s largest teacher’s union instructed members at a meeting in October about the best ways to undermine parents and conservative communities regarding gender identity and sexual orientation issues, according to leaked documents and audio obtained by Abigail Shrier.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) held a conference on Oct. 29-31 in Palm Springs, California. During workshops, teachers said they surveilled students’ Google searches, online chats and hallway conversations to identify and personally invite sixth grade students to join LGBTQ school clubs, according to the leaked documents and audio reviewed by Abigail Shrier, which were authenticated by three conference attendees.

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Students Behind Viral Arizona State University Video Face Code of Conduct Charges, Faculty Say That Is Racist

Screen cap of student with a laptop that has a "Police Matter" sticker on it.

Faculty members are pushing back against Arizona State University for charging Code of Conduct violations against the female students who attempted to kick out two White men from the school’s Multicultural Community of Excellence Center earlier this year.

Campus Reform obtained a copy of the email asking faculty and staff to sign an “internal letter requesting that the University Administration revoke Code of Conduct violation charges against” the students behind the now viral video from September.

Leah Sarat, an associate professor of Religious Studies, sent the mass email, which was co-signed by 11 other individuals, on Nov. 2.

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Study: Some Subsidized Medicine Michigan Programs Don’t Fulfill Goal

A taxpayer subsidy program intended to help vulnerable people afford medicine isn’t working as intended, according to a new study from the California-based, free-market Pacific Research Institute.

The 340B program, named for section 340B of the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992, is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The 340B program aims to provide discounted drugs to boost vulnerable populations’ access to medicine. Participating manufacturers provide qualifying clinics and hospitals discount up to 50% or more of the costs for outpatient drugs, otherwise, their drugs will not be covered by Medicaid.

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Illinois School Board Association Ends Membership with National School Boards Association over Parent-Threat Letter

The Illinois Association of School Boards voted Thursday to end its membership with the National School Boards Association after the national group sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking for federal intervention to investigate unruly parents who protest at local meetings.

“The decision follows previous attempts by IASB to initiate changes to the governance structure, transparency, and financial oversight of the national association,” a news release from IASB says. “IASB suspended payment of dues to NSBA for 2021-2022 but continued to work to try to bring about needed changes.”

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Commentary: A Former Prosecutor’s Take on the Rittenhouse Trial and Verdict

Could Kyle Rittenhouse face another trial? Does Rittenhouse have grounds to sue media outlets for defamation? What about the behavior of the prosecutors during the trial? The Heritage Foundation’s Zack Smith, a former prosecutor, joins Tim Doescher of “Heritage Explains” to answer these questions and more. Watch the full interview here or read, below, an edited and abridged transcript.

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Jody Hice and Austin Scott Tell Georgia That Joe Biden Caused the Most Expensive Thanksgiving Ever

U.S. Representative Jody Hice (R-GA-10) and U.S. Representative Austin Scott (R-GA-08) told their respective constituents this month that Thanksgiving this year will likely cost them more than any other.

Scott, in an email to constituents, said the following:

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Fauci Says ‘We Might Modify’ Definition of ‘Fully Vaccinated’ to Include Booster Shots

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the definition of “fully vaccinated” might be changed by health officials to include COVID-19 booster shots if the data supports it.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that everyone aged 18 and older get booster shots six months after receiving either two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

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Amid Bias Rebuke, FBI Raids Homes of GOP Election Clerk, Conservative Activists in Colorado

FBI logo outside of building

Even as the Department of Justice Inspector General released a report this week criticizing the politicization of the department, the FBI on Tuesday raided the homes of a Republican election official and several of her associates in Mesa County, Colo., in connection with a dispute about efforts to preserve 2020 election files.

In collaboration with state and county law enforcement, the FBI raided the homes of Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop, and two others.

The FBI operations targeting skeptics of the 2020 election results follow the bureau’s raids earlier this month on the homes of conservative guerrilla journalist James O’Keefe and several of his associates with Project Veritas.

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Republican Governors Association Stalwart Haley Barbour Warns There is No ‘This Wave’ for GOP in 2022 Yet

The man who led the Republican Governors Association (RGA) during the 2009-2010 Tea Party wave that swept Republicans into eight governorship pickups and control of the House expressed caution about predicting big GOP wins in 2022 this early in the cycle.

“There is still a long way to go before there is a ‘this wave,’ said former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, who was the RGA chairman from June 2009 through the 2010 midterms, when the GOP won 2009 governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, and including 2010 wins in crucial battleground states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

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Commentary: Taking Advantage of COVID to Change the Way Americans Vote

Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, famously said in 2008 that you should never let “a serious crisis go to waste” because it is “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Liberals in 2020 took Emanuel’s political tenet to heart and used the COVID-19 pandemic to try to implement through litigation and executive actions by state government officials the reckless changes in voting and election procedures that they had been wanting for years.

That effort involved voiding basic security protocols on election procedures, including absentee ballots, and pushing for the equivalent of all-mail elections, which would give their activists a free hand in pressuring, coercing, and influencing voters in their homes in ways they are unable to do in polling places. To force these changes, they ended up filing more election-related lawsuits than had ever been filed in an election year in U.S. history. The prior record was almost 200 lawsuits before and after the 2000 election when George W. Bush beat Al Gore; by late October 2020, more than 400 election-related lawsuits had been filed across the nation, the overwhelming majority by the Left.

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Republican Governors Association Stalwart Haley Barbour Warns There is No ‘This Wave’ for GOP in 2022 Yet

The man who led the Republican Governors Association (RGA) during the 2009-2010 Tea Party wave that swept Republicans into eight governorship pickups and control of the House expressed caution about predicting big GOP wins in 2022 this early in the cycle.

“There is still a long way to go before there is a ‘this wave,’ said former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, who was the RGA chairman from June 2009 through the 2010 midterms, when the GOP won 2009 governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, and including 2010 wins in crucial battleground states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

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Joe Biden Backpedals on Former Rittenhouse Take, Says He Supports the Verdict

After Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, was fully acquitted on Friday of all charges related to the shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin that left two Antifa agitators dead, and a third wounded, Joe Biden took the opportunity to praise the jury system.

The prosecution set out to paint the teen as a reckless vigilante who shouldn’t have been in Kenosha, and who had acted with “no regard for life.” The defense argued that the teen had acted purely in self defense, as virtually all of the evidence had showed.

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Commentary: Biden Using Backdoor Rule to Pass Free College Agenda

Americans by and large oppose giveaways to the affluent or privileged, which explains why they consistently oppose forgiving college student-loan debt. Eighty percent of Americans have no student loan debt, and those who carry debt are disproportionately millennials with advanced degrees – and higher earning potential. Easy loan forgiveness falls under the umbrella of the free college agenda championed by most Democrats, but strong opposition led the Biden administration to drop free college from the spending bill it proposed last month.

Not to worry: Democrats discovered a backdoor to free college through an obscure and arcane Department of Education (DOE) rule. Known as Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR), the rule existed as little more than a formality in the annals of the Federal Register, a stopgap to finalize the Federal Direct Loan Program. Through the first twenty years of its existence, it was implemented just five times, but it has now evolved into a battering ram for Democrats to get free college through the political barricades.

In 2015, Corinthian Colleges, which enrolled over 100,000 students at its 100 subsidiary campuses, filed for bankruptcy. The school’s collapse coincided with growing momentum for the “cancel college debt” and “free college” campaigns, which had evolved out of the Occupy Wall Street movement of the early 2010s and found friendly supporters in Congress, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin.

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State Attorney Generals Launch Investigation into Instagram’s Effects on Kids

Young person on Instagram

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general launched a probe into Instagram on Thursday to examine whether the company violated state-level consumer protection laws.

The states are investigating whether Meta (formerly known as Facebook), which owns Instagram, promoted the image-sharing platform “to children and young adults” despite being aware of its negative effects, according to statements from the attorneys general. The probe cites internal Facebook communications and research leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen and published by The Wall Street Journal showing Meta was aware that use of Instagram could contribute to body image and mental health issues among teens.

“When social media platforms treat our children as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws,” Republican Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said in a statement.

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Washington Florist Who Declined to Arrange Flowers for Same-Sex Wedding Settles Lengthy Lawsuit

Barronelle Stutzman

A Christian florist in Washington settled a legal case Thursday centering around her refusal to provide custom floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.

“I have put to rest the last legal considerations for a decision my husband, Darold, and I made nearly a decade ago,” Barronelle Stutzman said in a release from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The public-interest law firm that represented Stutzman stated that the legal battle that started in 2012 will end with a $5,000 payment to Robert Ingersoll, the customer she turned down.

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