Biden Administration Will Fight to Keep Mask Mandate for Planes, Trains and Airports

The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge’s ruling overturning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mask mandate on planes, trains and in airports.

In her ruling to overturn the mandate, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle called the CDC mandate “unlawful,” saying the Biden administration did not follow proper procedures and went beyond its authority in making the rule.

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New Figures Show Biden Administration Thumbing Nose at Courts over Remain in Mexico Policy

The Biden administration has been repeatedly ordered by courts to continue enforcing the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy for illegal migrants, but its own records show it has willfully thumbed its nose at those rulings as it waits for a final crack at the Supreme Court.

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Former President Trump Blasts Georgia Governor Kemp, Reinforces Support for Perdue

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and reinforced his support for GOP challenger David Perdue.

Additionally, the former president connected Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to an effort to remove Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) from the ballot.

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Probable Cause Found in Blystone Financial-Reporting Probe; Election Commission Books Expedited Hearing One Day Before Election

Joe Blystone

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Elections Commission (OEC) found probable cause to further investigate and decide two complaints filed against Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Blystone’s campaign and booked a full-panel hearing for May 2, one day before the primary election.

Thursday, a Probable Cause panel comprised of commissioners D. Michael Crites (R), Charleta B. Tavares (D) and Ernest C. Knight (I) voted unanimously on an expedited investigation into cases that allege the Canal Winchester farmer and restauranteur improperly reported campaign contributions and expenditures and spent campaign funds for personal use.

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National Right to Life Backs Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate, Issues Rare Primary Endorsement

National Right to Life, a leading national Pro-Life organization, has endorsed Herschel Walker in the Georgia U.S. Senate race.

This is an uncommon step for the organization, as they don’t typical endorse candidates before the nomination has occurred.

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Commentary: Obama/Biden Team Empowered Terrorist Networks in Syria

Hours after the Feb. 3 U.S. military raid in northern Syria that left the leader of ISIS and multiple family members dead, President Biden delivered a triumphant White House address. 

The late-night Special Forces operation in Syria’s Idlib province, Biden proclaimed, was a “testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they hide around the world.”

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New Initiative Seeks to Counter ‘Woke’ Corporate Policies

The Boardroom Initiative, a new joint project from the Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF), Free Enterprise Project, and Second Vote, aims to counter “woke” policies in corporate America.

The group will be led by former president and CEO of McDonald’s Ed Rensi and hopes to focus corporations on their business goals, rather than political policies.

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Senator Raphael Warnock’s Campaign Donors Overwhelmingly Come from Outside of Georgia

Senator Raphael Warnock’s re-election campaign has overwhelmingly been funded by out-of-state donors, according to the latest disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Warnock has set records in the fundraising battle, as he announced raising more than $13 million in the most recent quarter.

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Massachusetts Parents Sue School District Alleging Officials Violated Parental Rights by Secretly Encouraging Gender Transition

Parents in Ludlow, Massachusetts, filed a federal lawsuit that alleges school officials secretly promoted their children’s gender transition and violated their parental rights by choosing not to inform them about issues related to their children’s health and well-being.

The parents, Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, and Jonathan Feliciano and Sandra Salmeron, claim in their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Springfield Division, the Ludlow School Committee and district officials “have exceeded the bounds of legitimate pedagogical concerns and usurped the role” of parents “to direct the education and upbringing of their children, make medical and mental health decisions for their children, and to promote and preserve family privacy and integrity.”

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Music Spotlight: Michael Rix

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The first time I recall seeing Michael Rix was when he played banjo in the Bank of America marketing campaign commercial for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Country Music. Even though the banjo originated in Africa, seeing a black, banjo-playing country musician in the 21st century is/was not very common.

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Commentary: Energy Myths Are Triggering a New Dark Age in Europe

Europe has an energy crisis. Factories are halting operations in the face of soaring energy prices; families are paying 50% more for heating (or opting to freeze in their homes), and  Europe as a whole continues to destabilize its political position by making itself dependent on Russia for natural gas.

Europe shows what happens when you adopt policies based on false ideas—myths about energy that all but guarantee high prices, power blackouts, and a crashing economy.

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States Launch ‘Border Strike Force’ to Challenge Biden on Lack of Enforcement

President Joe Biden has faced heavy criticism over the surge in illegal immigration since he took office, and now a coalition of states has formed to challenge the president on the issue.

So far, 26 governors have signed on to the creation of the “Border Strike Force,” a coalition of state leaders working together to fight Mexican cartels and to slow the massive spike in illegal immigration since early last year.

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Blocking Evidence: Clinton Campaign Tries to Keep Memos from Durham’s Upcoming Trial

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and its former top officials are intervening in Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation, seeking to block the release of memos about its Russia research on Donald Trump on grounds that it is covered by attorney-client privilege.

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Georgia Policy Group Warns That State’s Labor Force Participation Rate Lags Behind Other States

While state officials touted their recent unemployment numbers as an all-time record, a state organization says a deeper analysis of the numbers shows a troubling undercurrent.

Georgia’s unemployment rate in March dropped to an all-time low of 3.1%, down from February’s revised rate of 3.2%, as the number of employed Georgians also hit a record high. Georgia is tied with Arkansas for the 16th lowest unemployment rate, according to an analysis from the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO).

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Biden Admin to Reverse Trump-Era ‘Conscience’ Exemption for Healthcare Workers

The Biden Administration’s Department Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed that it plans to eliminate a policy implemented during the Trump Administration that allows healthcare workers to cite religious or moral beliefs when seeking exemptions from performing certain acts in the line of duty.

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A Lead Prosecutor in Michigan Gov. Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Trial Withdraws from Case

Following a stunning defeat in federal court earlier this month, one of the lead prosecutors handling the trial of four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 has withdrawn from the case.

Andrew Birge, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, announced in a filing yesterday that Jonathan Roth “withdraws his appearance as an attorney for the United States,” Roth and assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler represented the government during the three-week trial, which resulted in the acquittal of two men and a mistrial for two others.

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Atlanta Nonprofit Group Stands Up ‘Woke’ Coca-Cola, Papa John’s over BLM Support

A black-run nonprofit this week is standing up to “woke” companies like Papa Johns, Coca-Cola and others who have pledged their support to Black Lives Matter (BLM). 

“Officials with Concerned Communities for America (CCA) today delivered a pledge for signing by Papa Johns CEO Robert Lynch and Coca Cola CEO James Quincey to signal support of the women and men who serve their communities as police officers,” according to a Wednesday CCA press release. “This pledge is in response to Papa Johns’ and Coca Cola’s blind support, vocally and/or financially, of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and its affiliates.”

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Bruce LeVell Commentary: ‘Woke’ Corporations Need to Wake Up and Get on the Right Side of History

It’s time for America’s “woke” corporations to wake up. Their pandering to and support of the Marxist, anti-American organization known as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) is hurting the country and costing the lives of some of our finest citizens.

Before I continue, let’s get one thing straight: Black lives do matter. I say that as a Black man myself, but the concept isn’t really in dispute among ordinary, right-thinking Americans of any race or ethnicity. The BLMGNF does everything it can to cultivate the opposite impression because it profits off grievance politics – but its narrative couldn’t be further from the truth.

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The John Fredericks Radio Show: Senator David Perdue Highlights Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s Broken Promises and Rising Crime Rates

Tuesday morning on The John Fredericks Radio Show, host Fredericks welcomed Senator David Perdue who is running for Georgia governor to describe the rising crime and broken promises of incumbent Brian Kemp.

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Commentary: The White House’s Swift Surrender on Federal Mask Order Underscores the Tricky Politics of Mask Mandates

The Biden administration announced Monday it will no longer enforce a federal mask mandate on public transportation, including airplanes. The decision was announced after Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the directive was unlawful, noting that the CDC had not sought public comment prior to its order—issued 14 months ago—and did not adequately explain its reasoning.

Following the court’s decision, four major airlines immediately announced they would drop mask requirements on all domestic flights.

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Nearly Two-Thirds of Voters Believe Biden Is Compromised by Ties to China, Poll

Nearly two-third of U.S. voters think President Biden has been compromised by his and his families’ ties to China, according to new survey.

The survey from the Trafalgar Group, in conjunction with Convention of State Action, found over 50% of those polled said it is “very likely” that Biden is “conflicted/compromised when dealing with China due to the Biden family’s personal business dealings in China.”

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Border Patrol Arrests Highest Number of Migrants in over 20 Years

U.S. Border Patrol agents in March arrested the highest number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in a month in over 20 years.

Border agents arrested 209,906 people in March, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics released Monday. The figure is the highest number of monthly arrests at the southern border since March 2000, when Border Patrol apprehended 220,063 migrants.

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Numbers of Black Americans Murdered Increased in Wake of Defund the Police Movement: Report

Support for calls across the nation to to defund police departments nationwide and pandemic-related factors has led to an increase in the number of murders of black Americans, according to an analysis by the Manhattan Institute.

The overall murder rate increased 30% from 2020 to 2021, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Commentary: ‘Genocide’ Is Not a Throwaway Term of Abuse

Joe Biden / Ukraine demonstration

Soaring inflation is leaving Americans battered and bruised—and not just inflation in prices. Inflation in rhetoric is also doing a number on the people of our republic.

We’ve seen it unfold with depressing regularity. Donald Trump was a “fascist dictator,” we were told. The Capitol riot was a “coup” and an “insurrection.” Climate change poses an “existential threat” to all life on earth. And, just this past week, after failing to get the legislative redistricting map he wanted from the state Supreme Court, Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers declared: “At a time when our democracy is under near-constant attack, the judiciary has abandoned our democracy in our most dire hour.”

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Washington Post Publishes Straight-Up Propaganda Piece Outing ‘Libs of TikTok’

Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz exposed the identity behind the “Libs Of TikTok” Twitter account in an article that widely characterized exposure of questionable school policy and problematic teacher-student interactions as “anti-LGBT.”

Rather than grapple with the issues the account brought to light — some of which resulted in discipline of teachers — Lorenz drew on interviews from left-wing activists at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the left-wing organization Media Matters, who predictably supported the narrative that exposing controversial classroom instruction to the public at large essentially amounts to bigotry for the transgender and gay community.

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Commentary: European Military Contractor Must Be Punished for Cheating

Members of the military know they must be able to trust everyone in their squad. This trust is earned. That’s why troops drill together, eat together, and live together. It builds confidence and trust.

Of course, they must also be able to trust their equipment. The Army still remembers when its bazookas were useless against Soviet-made tanks during the Korean war. Today’s American warriors don’t want to repeat the same mistakes by using inferior equipment. And when it comes to weapon systems, there is no reason to trust certain contractors — including the European aerospace giant Airbus.

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Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

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Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

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Georgia Candidates for Statewide and Other Offices Set to Debate in the Coming Weeks

There are several Georgia primary candidate debates scheduled to occur in the upcoming weeks.

Many view the contest for the GOP nomination in the governor’s race as the main event. Incumbent Governor Brian Kemp and former U.S. Senator and Trump-endorsed candidate David Perdue are scheduled to face off on Atlanta, Georgia’s WSB-TV on April 24, Savannah, Georgia’s WTOC on April 28, and at the Atlanta Press Club and Georgia Public Broadcasting on May 1.

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Texas Mask Mandate Lawsuit Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge Striking Mandate in Separate Suit, but Says: ‘Our Case Will Continue’

The executive director and general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Star News Network he welcomed Monday’s ruling in Florida by federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for public transportation and air travel.

“The arguments that are pending in our ongoing lawsuit in Texas are the same arguments that prevailed in the case in Florida with a judge in Florida agreeing that the Centers for Disease Control did not have the statutory authority that it claimed to impose a face-covering requirement for all Americans engaging in transportation,” said Robert Henneke, who represents both the foundation and Texas Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne in an independent lawsuit challenging both the CDC’s mask mandate and the Transportation Safety Administration’s derivative mandate that relies on the CDC’s now-overturned authority.

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Solomon: ‘History Has Evolved,’ Now We Know Hunter’s Laptop ‘Worse’ Than We Thought

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed veteran Washington journalist John Solomon, who is now the founder and editor-in-chief of “Just the News” about his coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop.

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Commentary: Twitter Is Not a Business, It’s a Political Operation

Person holding phone up with Twitter sign up page on smart phone.

Here’s your first clue Twitter is not really a business with a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value – when Elon Musk made a public offer to buy the company for $54.20 a share (roughly $40 billion) the company’s management not only turned down the offer, but began to work on a poison pill defense aimed solely at Mr. Musk, who is already Twitter’s largest shareholder.

According to reporting by the New York Times, some investors and Wall Street analysts said that Mr. Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share was too low, and that he would need to go to at least $60 a share to appeal to shareholders. That would be 25 percent higher than the share price when Mr. Musk announced this month that he had acquired a 9 percent stake in Twitter.

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Surge in Homeschooling Families Continues after Schools Reopen

The number of families homeschooling in the United States has remained significantly above pre-pandemic levels even though government schools have reopened.

The number of homeschooling students increased by 63% during the 2020-2021 school year in 18 states that shared data, AP reported. That percentage then dropped by only 17% in the next academic year.

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New York City ‘Blue Ribbon’ Principal Accused of Fraud to Bolster Graduation Rate Removed from Post but Given $1.8 Million ‘Desk Job’

A Queens, New York City, high school principal who had been removed from his post after accusations he padded his school’s graduation rate, has received a “sweetheart” settlement deal that allows him to have a “desk job” with the city’s Department of Education and ultimately pocket more than $1.8 million, the New York Post reported Saturday.

Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir, former principal at Maspeth High School, which was conferred the federal “Blue Ribbon” award in 2018, demanded his teachers pass students and allow them to graduate regardless of their academic performance, the Post revealed in reports over the past several years.

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Commentary: Ohio Professor Wins Settlement in ‘Preferred Pronoun’ Case

In a refreshing religious liberty result from the world of academia, free speech won and preferred pronouns lost.

A professor at Shawnee State University, in Portsmouth, Ohio, will be able to honor his conscience as a Christian who believes God created human beings as male and female and that a person’s sex cannot change, and will not be required by the school to compromise that belief when addressing students.

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Commentary: Louisiana’s Bold Move to Overhaul High School Career and Technical Education

America’s high schools have problems. Nearly twenty years ago, Bill Gates observed that the existing model is obsolete — that, even when high schools “work,” the results are too often mediocre. In 2016, The Education Trust found that 47 percent of high schoolers graduated prepared for neither college nor a career. In 2018, Gallup reported that two-thirds of high schoolers described themselves as wholly or partially disengaged. And, just last month, the National Center for Education Statistics concluded that high schools are plagued by grade inflation: Over the past decade, grades have risen to a record high even as math and science performance by 12th graders has edged down.

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Biden White House Report Says Energy Taxes Are ‘Needed’ for Green Transition

The White House said Americans should pay higher taxes to ensure a rapid green transition away from fossil fuels in a report on President Joe Biden’s economic record.

The federal government can encourage such a shift through carbon taxes or a cap and trade system forcing an emissions limit on companies, said the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report released last week. The White House added that consumers would continue purchasing “artificially inexpensive, carbon-intensive goods” without proper government policies in place.

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Mitch McConnell Moves to Protect Republican Moderates, Unseat Dems in 2022 Through Senate Leadership Fund SuperPAC

A super PAC attached to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is reserving $141 million worth of advertisements to bolster conservative candidates in the midterms, Politico reported Monday.

“This is such a strong year that we need to invest as broadly and deeply as we can,” Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), told Politico. “In the Senate, majority control is everything. It determines what happens on the floor and what doesn’t happen. It will have an impact on future Supreme Court nominations. I mean, there’s so much at stake.”

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University Hosts ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ for 2-Year-Olds

Oklahoma State University hosted “Drag Queen Story Hour” geared towards small children as young as two years old, just days after hosting its annual Dragonfly Drag Show.

As part of the school’s Pride 2022 campaign, two local drag queens read books “highlighting inclusion and acceptance” to the children and led “come-and-go craft” activities.

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Four Largest Airlines Drop COVID Mask Requirement Hours After Trump-Appointed Judge Strikes Down CDC Mandate

Four major U.S. airlines are ditching COVID-19 mask requirements after a federal judge in Florida on Monday struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for air passengers and others mass travelers.

Several airlines, including United Airlines, Delta, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines announced that they were dropping the mask requirements for passengers and employees.

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Exclusive: Gwinnett County School Board Pushing Chamber of Commerce to Go ‘Woke’

According to emails obtained by The Georgia Star News, far-left Gwinnett County School Board (GCSB) Chairwoman Dr. Tarese Johnson pushed for the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce (GCCC) to adopt social justice initiatives. 

In a chain of internal GCSB emails from August, Johnson complains that the GCCC put on a skit regarding the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), the public transit system in the city, that “perpetuated deeply rooted stereotypes.” 

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Georgia Joins Coalition of 21 States Led by Arizona AG Brnovich in Lawsuit to Prevent Termination of Title 42

The State of Georgia, led by Attorney General Chris Carr joined a 21-state coalition, which filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration to block the federal government from ending Title 42.

Title 42 is a public health order from the Trump administration that allowed border officials to turn away individuals due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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Commentary: Obama Wants the ‘Contest of Ideas’ Rigged

Barack Obama holds court these days as a great authority on the preservation of a civilized democracy. He says that nothing worries him more than “disinformation.” Never mind that he rose to power as a manipulative acolyte of Saul Alinsky, the famously amoral Chicago activist who endorsed disinformation as a tool of “community organizing.” Much of Alinsky’s activism consisted of duping ordinary Americans. Were Alinsky alive today, he would no doubt enjoy the spectacle of a former president steeped in his duplicitous methods lecturing Americans on the dangers of disinformation.

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Commentary: The Other Phony Kidnapping Plot

In the spring of 2020, President Donald Trump posted three tweets in a row aimed at Democratic governors continuing to impose draconian lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” Trump tweeted on the morning of April 17, 2020. A few moments later, he tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA!”

His tweets coincided with anti-lockdown rallies in several states, including a blockade around the Michigan Capitol building in Lansing a few days prior. As usual, the media expressed shock and horror at the innocuous tweets, insisting the president was encouraging violence against his political rivals. 

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GOP Reps Demand DHS Provide ICE Data Biden Is ‘Hiding’

Republican members of Congress are asking Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for key immigration enforcement data they argue the Biden administration is hiding from the public, according to a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The letter, sent Thursday, is led by Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy and co-signed by 19 other Republican lawmakers who argued that delayed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fiscal year 2021 Enforcement and Removal statistics that showed significant decreases in arrests only provided a “limited” look into the agency’s enforcement and removals.

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Poll: Voters Skeptical of Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws

Americans are skeptical about gun control measures, according to a new poll.

Rasmussen reports released new polling showing that the majority of Americans do not think criminals will obey federal gun control laws. The poll comes on the heels of a mass shooting in Brooklyn and President Joe Biden’s speech on gun control earlier this week.

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