Commentary: Freedom Is the Essence of American Exceptionalism

Well Head where fluids are injected into the ground

President Joe Biden has continuously stated that “climate change” is the highest priority of his administration, fueled by Build Back Better spending. We are witnessing the disastrous impacts that establishing the wrong priorities can have.

On the day Biden became President, America was energy independent, our borders were secure, and the world was relatively peaceful.

Biden has done everything possible to shut down, curtail, and undermine American energy production. First, he shut down the permitted Keystone Pipeline. Then he eliminated fracking on federal lands, and slowed permits for new oil fields.

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Postal Service Legislative ‘Fix’ Will Dump Workers on Medicare

A bill to “fix” the troubled United States Post Office (USPS) is on the verge of passage in the Senate but does it solve more problems than it creates? The Postal Service Reform Act of 2021, H.R. 3076 was scheduled for a vote earlier this month but was blocked by Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) on a procedural technicality.  “We can’t afford to add stress on our already enormous national debt with poor financial planning, which I think this bill absolutely does,” Scott said of the bill.

Now it’s back and on track for a vote in the Senate.

The biggest financial liability facing the USPS is the legal requirement to fund 75 years of retirement health benefits in advance for its workers. Congress has found a way around that by dumping the future postal workers on to Medicare.

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Two Key Senate Races Moved in GOP’s Direction by Noted Election Handicapper Cook Political Report

Richard Burr and Michael Bennet

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its forecasts for two 2022 Senate races in the direction of Republicans.

The report moved the North Carolina Senate race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr moved from “toss-up” to “likely Republican.” And moved the Colorado Senate race, in which Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet is seeking a third term, from “solid Democrat” into the “likely Democrat” catagory.

The North Carolina GOP primary is now a competitive race between former President Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker, with (with Budd and McCrory currently deadlocked).

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Hacking Group ‘Anonymous’ Signals All-out Campaign Against Russia

group of people wearing masks

The infamous hacking group Anonymous appeared to declare an all-out digital war against Russia late this week, indicating the opening of a hacking front against Russian president Vladimir Putin amid his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Anonymous is a loosely federated collective of hackers who regularly carry out digital sabotage of targets they claim deserve to be hacked. On Friday, a Twitter account purporting to represent some members of Anonymous issued a broad call for hackers to target the Russian government.

“Hackers all around the world: target Russia in the name of #Anonymous,” the account posted. “Let them know we do not forgive, we do not forget. Anonymous owns fascists, always.”

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White House to Hold First-Ever ‘Climate Denial’ Roundtable

"It's not easy being green" sign

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) will hold a roundtable Thursday to discuss how officials can combat climate denialism and delay, The Washington Post reported.

The OSTP will host nearly 20 climate scientists, social scientists, economists and engineers from across the country for the first-of-its-kind event, the Post reported.

“Clearly, we see tangible evidence of climate change all around us with sea-level rise, increases in extreme heat, increases in drought, wildfires, ocean acidification (and) floods,” OSTP Deputy Director for Climate and Environment Jane Lubchenco told the Post, confirming the roundtable.

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Academia’s Woke Influence on the Media: Analysis

Higher education’s push for Critical Race Theory influences not just college campuses, but also American society and media.

Earlier this year, Campus Reform reported on a Jan. 20 speaking event at the University of Pittsburgh where three scholars used the Critical Race Theory framework to examine three controversial court cases decided in Nov. 2021.

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Abortion Pills Now More Common Than Surgical Abortions

Medication-induced abortions accounted for 54% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Abortion pills have grown in popularity since they were first introduced in 2000, the Guttmacher Institute reported. And rules requiring women to receive their first two abortion pills at a clinic or doctor’s office were lifted during the pandemic, allowing women to speak with doctors via “telemedicine” and get the pills by mail, The New York Times reported.

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Democrats, Environmentalists Stay Silent on U.S. Energy Independence Amid Ukraine Crisis

Democrats and environmental groups were silent when asked about the importance of U.S. energy independence in light of the energy market volatility caused by the Ukraine crisis.

Several Democratic leaders in the House and Senate who hold leadership roles on committees or subcommittees tasked with overseeing energy policy ignored requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation on Friday about the importance of promoting U.S. energy independence. In addition, five major environmental groups chose not to address the issue or stayed silent when asked about the issue.

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Trump Wins CPAC Poll While Support for DeSantis Grows

Former President Donald Trump won the CPAC 2022 straw poll for the 2024 presidential primary with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) coming in second.

The poll, conducted from Thursday to Sunday with 2,564 attendees, shows that 59% of people said they would vote for Trump in the 2024 primary. DeSantis has less than half the support of Trump, 28% as the second-highest-ranking primary candidate.

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Doctors Sue California for Threatening to Punish Them for not Facilitating Assisted Suicide

California doctors who object to assisted suicide are fighting an amended state law that implicates them in their patients’ intentional deaths.

They are suing California officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, Department of Public Health Director Tomas Aragon, and Medical Board members to block SB 380, which made it easier for patients to commit suicide under the End of Life Options Act that took effect in 2016.

The original law issued a broad exemption for healthcare providers, granting them a liability shield for “refusing to inform” patients about their right to physician-assisted suicide and “not referring” patients to physicians who will assist in their suicides.

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Commentary: Mike Rowe Scholarship Highlights the Lost Virtues of Hard Work and Sweat

Tracy Wilson is sitting in the cutest little ranch house in this Calvert County town. It is her dream house—literally her dream house, she explains, as she has had the image of this very home in her mind, down to the color scheme of the exterior.

It is 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the single mother of two just got home from another dream—her job. She spends her days working as an instrumentation technician in the flight test program at Boeing.

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Baltimore to Spend $90 Million in Federal Funds on Hotels for Homeless and Other Homeless Programs

Baltimore plans to spend $90.4 million of federal funds to buy hotels to replace existing homeless shelters and support other homelessness programs, The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.

The city has not yet announced which hotels it will buy, but it plans to replace 275 existing beds in several shelters with private rooms in city-owned hotels, the Sun reported.

“Non-congregate shelter is a best practice we’re seeing throughout the nation,” Director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services Irene Agustin told the Sun. “We know this is an intervention that’s going to work within the city of Baltimore.”

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Georgia Church Members Could Carry Guns Into Church Under New Bill

A new bill in the Georgia General Assembly would, if enacted into law, remove places of worship from a list of unauthorized locations where people in the state may carry weapons or long guns. Representative Rick Jasperse (R-Jasper) is the primary sponsor of the bill, HB 1378, according to the Georgia General Assembly’s website.

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Trump Wows CPAC Crowd: Torches ‘Weak’ Biden, Calls Ukraine Crisis ‘An Assault on Humanity,’ Decries Crackdown of ‘Peacefully Protesting’ Canadian Truckers

ORLANDO, Florida – President Donald J. Trump was in full-fighting form, less than two years before the 2024 Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary as he whipped up a packed-out crowd into a frenzy at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference.

“The socialists, globalists, Marxists, and communists who are attacking our civilization have no idea of the sleeping giant they have awoken,” said the 45th president to the more than 5,000 conservatives at 95,000-square foot Gatlin Ballroom in Orlando’s Rosen Shingle Creek resort.

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Georgia Legislators to Consider New Gun Rights Bill This Week

Jason R. Anavitarte

Members of the Georgia General Assembly this week will consider a bill that would, if enacted into law, allow all lawful weapons carriers to carry a firearm without needing a government permit. Senator Jason Anavitarte (R-Dallas) is the primary sponsor of the bill, SB 319, according to the Georgia General Assembly’s website.

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Commentary: They Can’t Make Trump Go Away

Donald Trump

In the election of 2016, Donald Trump appealed to citizenship, sovereignty, and borders. This was a direct entreaty to the people as the ultimate source of sovereign authority, bypassing the ruling-class elites that dominate the media and the universities; his appeal also ignored political experts, pollsters, and government bureaucracy. In the postmodern world, the nation-state is under attack everywhere as the source of all evil, the cause of war, selfishness, racism, white privilege, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and all the other irrational phobias that make up the universe of political correctness. The idea of the nation-state itself is said to be irrational and arbitrary.

All of this overwrought criticism of nationalism and the nation-state overlooks a very significant point developed in my new book, The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Nation State: the nation-state is the only form of political organization that can sustain constitutional government and the rule of law.

No empire has ever been a constitutional democracy or republic, nor will constitutional government exist in global government. If, as is widely alleged, the dialectic of History is inevitably tending toward global governance and universal citizenship, then it is also tending toward tyranny.

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Commentary: Russian Roulette in Ukraine

Kamov Ka-52

I admit, I was surprised by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin had decided, instead of invading, to recognize the separatist republics and send in “peacekeepers.” Given the binary choice of invading or losing face, Plan C seemed the most clever, something similar to the limited “hybrid” campaign in Crimea. Instead, he has launched a massive, multipronged attack on Ukraine with the goal of “demilitarizing” the country. 

The best analogy is the Russian attack on Georgia in response to its attack on the separatist province of South Ossetia in 2008. There, Russia surprised the West with its swift, decisive, and effective action against the pro-Western Georgians. Russia succeeded in its aims to degrade Georgia’s military and strengthen the separatists. These actions sent a message to Georgian leaders and its neighbors that a dalliance with the West may come at a high cost if Russia perceives it as a threat.

A war of some kind has been going on for eight years in Ukraine. While the West is now hyper-focused on the Russian invasion and its costs, the people of Donetsk have been shelled nearly every day by Ukrainian forces since 2014. And the so-called Revolution of Dignity was the culmination of a months-long violent riot in Kiev. 

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Commentary: The Reasons the Night Sky Isn’t White

night sky reflecting on a lake

The night sky, in all its astral beauty, has ever been a source of wonder for the human race. But over a century ago, some astronomers looked up and saw a paradox.

Why, they wondered, if the Universe is infinite, with an infinite number of stars, is the night sky not white? Every direction we look, there should be a star whose light has traveled all the way to Earth. So the night sky should be a sea of sunlight!

This conundrum is commonly called Olbers’ paradox, named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, who wrote about it in the early 1800s, though he was not the first, nor the only, thinker to ponder it.

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Lawmakers Call for Investigation, Criticize Federally-Funded Critical Race Theory Program

Gus Bilirakis

Republican lawmakers blasted a federally funded education program that trains researchers and teachers in critical race theory after The Center Square’s investigation broke news of the program. Now, one Florida U.S. Congressman is calling for an investigation into whether the program violates state law.

Newly uncovered Department of Education grant documents show that the department awarded $1,020,800 in a 2017 grant and $1,498,620 in a 2021 grant to a Florida-based program called Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education (PURPOSE).

The taxpayer-funded program – led by Florida State University, which has partnered with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University – offers participants one-year fellowships. Participants receive training in a range of issues, including critical race theory, during the fellowships.

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Texas District Attorneys Fighting Governor’s Order to Treat Sex Change Surgeries for Children as Abuse

District attorneys for five of the largest counties in Texas are defying Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order to treat sex change surgeries for children as child abuse.

Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) Tuesday to investigate instances of children undergoing sex change procedures, including “reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen.”

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DOJ Kills the China Initiative, Kowtowing to a Chinese-American Group with Documented Chinese Communist Party Ties

Matt Olsen

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday citing agreement with Asian-American groups critical of the anti-espionage strategy.

While announcing the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen launched the Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats, a program aimed to counter espionage stemming from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In addition to the high-profile December 2021 conviction of Harvard nanotechnology professor Charles Lieber, the Department of Justice website lists eight examples of successful 2021 China Initiative cases, which include crimes such as the theft of GE trade secrets, misleading global financial institutions, lying on government grant applications, illegally exporting $100,000 of U.S. goods to a Chinese military university, economic espionage against Coca-Cola, two cases involving the theft of trade secrets related to pediatric medical conditions and the illegal exportation of cesium atomic clocks.

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Biden Officials Repeatedly Pleaded with Chinese Communist Party Counterparts to Talk Sense into Putin; Were Rebuffed: Report

Over the past several months, senior Biden administration officials held six “urgent meetings” with Communist Chinese officials pleading with them to convince Russian  President Vladimir Putin not to invade, according to the New York Times.

The Americans presented the CCP officials—which included the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States—intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine’s borders, U.S. officials told the Times.

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Commentary: An Etude on Time, Chance, and Charters

The words “in the course of human events” open the Declaration of Independence. These words were delivered in a specific context, overturning a form of government, based on a principle of the divine right of kings. Divine right of kings would be displaced in favor of government republican in form and rooted in notions of consent which had made appearances in the colonies of America, in documents such as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, even before these ideas were whispered among and penned by the high intellects of Enlightenment Europe. Today, a course of human events has brought us to a place of discord, or crisis, if you will. In one direction lies a path that is increasingly compulsory. In another lies a kind of restructuring grounded in reflection and choice. 

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New Jobless Claims Dip to 232,000

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims decreased to 232,000 in the week ending Feb. 19, the Labor Department announced Thursday.

The Labor Department’s figure showed a decrease of 17,000 compared to the week ending Feb. 12, when claims increased to 249,000. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated that new claims reported Thursday would total 235,000.

Last week’s jobless claim figure marked the first increase after three straight weeks of decline as the Omicron coronavirus variant caused workers to call in sick and businesses to temporarily close.

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Biden SCOTUS Nominee Went Beyond Call of Duty to Defend Terror Suspects

Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court represented suspected terrorists when she was a federal public defender, going well beyond a bare-bones defense to lambaste the U.S. government for some if its counterterrorism policies and broader approach to the War on Terror.

Biden on Friday nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Jackson’s record will no doubt be heavily scrutinized in the coming days as the Senate prepares for its confirmation hearings. Perhaps no aspect of her past legal work will come under more scrutiny than her advocacy on behalf of prisoners detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison as enemy combatants for their alleged role in terrorist activities.

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Former President Trump Endorses Buckhead City Movement, Blasts ‘RINOs’ Who ‘Don’t Deliver’

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed a movement to establish a new city, Buckhead, as one separate from the City of Atlanta.

Residents of the region organized the movement following a series of decisions from leaders in Atlanta that, they argue, led to a spike in crime.

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Donald Trump Schedules Mar-A-Lago Fundraiser for Vernon Jones

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend and host a fundraiser for Vernon Jones, who is running for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. Organizers said in a statement that they have scheduled Jones’ fundraiser for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Thursday, March 17, at The Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

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Commentary: Russian’s Invasion of Ukraine Has the Potential to Embolden China

With a reconnaissance plane in tow Thursday, a small fleet of eight fighters deliberately probed disputed airspace before scrambled jets scared them away, an air-to-air episode that may be part of the larger international epoch which President Biden frequently describes as one of “democracy versus autocracy.” But these weren’t Russian fighters. They were Chinese.

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Georgia Republican Candidate Rich McCormick’s Name No Longer Appears on List of RINO-Endorsed Candidates

An organization tagged as catering to Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINOS) has apparently endorsed Republican Rich McCormick, who is running for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District — but reports say that they are keeping that endorsement under the radar. Members of McCormick’s campaign staff did not return The Georgia Star News’ repeated requests for comment this week.

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U.S. Senate to Vote on Extreme Abortion Bill Pennsylvania ‘Pro-Life’ Democrat Says He Will Vote to Debate

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has scheduled a vote on legislation that would embed abortion on demand, at any time during pregnancy, into federal law, making invalid many individual state pro-life laws.

The Senate will vote February 28 on the abortion lobby’s Women’s Health Protection Act (S. 1975), sponsored by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and self-described “pro-life” Senator Bob Casey, Jr., (D-PA) has said he will vote for debate on the bill.

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Another Key Inflation Indicator Surged to Highest Level Since 1983

woman in a grocery aisle with a mask and backpack on

A key inflation indicator increased to its highest level in 38 years while consumer demand remained strong despite soaring prices, the Commerce Department announced Friday.

The Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index grew 5.2% in January, exceeding the 5.1% Dow Jones estimate, the Commerce Department reported. The PCE is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, and January’s figure marks monthly the largest year-over-year increase since April 1983.

The PCE increased 0.5% on a monthly basis in January, the same pace as the previous three months, according to the Commerce Department. Including food and energy prices, overall PCE surged 6.1% since January 2021, marking the most annual growth since February 1982.

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National Pro-Life Leaders React to Biden Supreme Court Nominee Who Worked to Defend Partial Birth Abortion

National pro-life leaders say President Joe Biden’s choice of Ketanji Brown Jackson to fulfill his promise to nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court also fits his administration’s aggressive pro-abortion stance since Jackson has shown her support for “radical” and “extreme” abortion measures.

“Joe Biden is fulfilling his promise to only appoint justices who support the Roe v. Wade regime of abortion on demand up to birth – a policy so extreme only a handful of countries in the world hold it, including North Korea and China,” said Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement.

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Biden Announces ‘Devastating’ Sanctions and Deployment of 7,000 Additional Troops to Europe

Joe Biden announced on Thursday that an additional 7,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to Germany, bringing the total of U.S. troops sent to Europe this month to 12,000. On February 2, 1,700 troops were ordered to Poland, and 300 to Germany. Another 3,000 troops were added to Poland on Feb. 11, as the crisis loomed.

The U.S. forces are being deployed to bolster NATO’s defenses as Russia continues its military incursion into Ukraine.

Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Biden stressed that U.S. soldiers will not be going to Ukraine and will not be fighting Russian troops.

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Commentary: The Undeniable Common Sense of Border Walls

Although it sometimes may seem as though we live in a complex world and our country is beset with crises on all fronts, it is important to recognize that some of the most effective remedies are elegantly simple. They have worked for centuries and would work again today. We only lack the will as a people to implement them with conviction, and to shun the cacophony of malcontents who would seek to complicate sensible solutions. 

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Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee a Slam Dunk for Democrats

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden announced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson, who donated to and worked with former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, has a record of rulings that seemingly favor Democrats.

In a 2015 ruling, for example, she declined to force former Hillary Clinton aide Philipe Reines to explain why he used a private account for work-related emails, according to Politico.

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CDC Set to Announce Easing of Mask Guidelines

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is allegedly set to announce an easing of mask restrictions on the national level.

Fox News reports that the updated guidelines will focus less on the overall number of cases, and will instead emphasize a community’s general risk of spreading the coronavirus. As such, current guidelines apply to individuals who live in communities with allegedly “substantial or high transmission.” The CDC claims, without evidence, that 95 percent of all counties in the United States qualify as “high transmission.”

The new guidelines will apparently not apply to most Americans, as the new criteria will factor in hospitalizations with the overall capacity of local medical facilities. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said that the new guidelines will focus more on “enhanced prevention efforts.”

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Mom Arrested Again at Gwinnett County School Board Meeting

A mother who was previously arrested at a Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) Board meeting was again arrested Thursday night, according to a mother who attended the meeting.

“Last night Karen Pirkle was once again arrested at a school board meeting,” Brenda Stewart told The Georgia Star News. “She requested to secure a speaking slot and received written confirmation that she secured a spot.  She was arrested upon arriving and banned for life.”

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COVID-19 Whistleblowers Warn Alpharetta Audience About Corruption Within Medical and Pharmaceutical Industries

ALPHARETTA — Whistleblowers, some of whom have testified on Capitol Hill, told an audience in Alpharetta Thursday that the medical and pharmaceutical industries that treat COVID-19 have been corrupted. Organizers held this conference, COVID-19 Pharma Corruption: Your Life, Health, and Job, at Alpharetta’s Phase Family Learning Center.

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Commentary: Biden Makes It Easier for Putin to Act with Aggression

For all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable.

Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—but with only 75 percent of his country’s former territory and 140 million fewer people.

When does he strike?

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Commentary: U.S.-Bound Migrants in Southern Mexico Are Counseled on Controversial ‘Repressed Memories’

by James Varney   Two United Nations-sponsored groups in southern Mexico are reportedly coaching immigrants arriving there on “repressed memories” that would allow them to gain asylum cards in Mexico for passage northward and then illegal entry into the United States. Both the Jesuit Society of Refugees and an outfit called Fray Matias…

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Crime Task Forces, Bus System Among Issues Discussed at Connecticut Budget Appropriations Meeting

The efficacy of crime task forces, status of CTtransit bus lines and issuance of non-driver IDs were among the wide ranging issues Connecticut lawmakers dug into with state officials at a recent hearing looking into the back half of Gov. Ned Lamont’s biennium budget.

Members in both chambers of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee held a hearing Feb. 18 with state officials serving on transportation, regulation and protection agencies.

James Rovella, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, addressed how Lamont’s fiscal year 2023 budget will assist with a number of initiatives, including several targeted task forces aimed at such issues as violent crimes and stolen vehicles.

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