Month: August 2022

Report: The Gay-Straight Alliance Network Now Operates in More than 4,000 U.S. Schools

Susan Berry, PhD

The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Network, which promotes radical gender theory in elementary, middle, and high schools, now operates over 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” under the guise of student “clubs,” reports Christopher Rufo at City Journal.

A senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory (CRT) at the Manhattan Institute, Rufo explained the GSA Network is a “professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states.”

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Poll: Americans Skeptical of DOJ’s Motives in Trump Raid

The Center Square

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence has led to a drop in trust for the law enforcement agency, a new poll shows.

Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar group, released the poll Thursday, which showed a large segment of Americans say the raid has lessened their confidence in federal law enforcement and that they question the motives for the raid.

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Georgia Policy Groups Say Biden Plan to Forgive Student Loan Debt ‘Simply Transfers the Burden to Taxpayers’

The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some federal student loan debt received a lukewarm reaction from some Georgia groups who say the policy is unfair and won’t help ease inflation.

“We’re disappointed to see yet another policy out of Washington that creates more problems than it solves,” Eric Cochling, the chief program officer and general counsel for the Georgia Center for Opportunity, said. “In addition to contributing to already runaway inflation, this plan from the White House doesn’t actually forgive debt, it simply transfers the burden to taxpayers.”

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Texas School Board Approves Policy Requiring Educators to Use Students’ Gender at Birth, Removes CRT Books

Georgia Star News Staff

A Texas school board approved a policy which requires educators to only recognize a student’s gender assigned at birth and bans the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) from the classroom during an Aug. 22 board meeting.

The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District Board in Grapevine, Texas, voted 4-3 to implement a policy which advises educators to only use students’ pronouns that correspond with their gender at birth. The policy also bans the teaching of CRT in the classrooms and requires books to be reviewed before entering the school library.

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Commentary: For Democrats and Due Process, It’s Now or Never

RealClearWire

The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago represents the logical next step in the left’s ongoing effort to destroy Donald Trump. The raid also evinces Democrats’ spiral of worry: A successful Trump return, once unthinkable to them, is looking more possible by the day. To stop it, Democrats and their anti-Trump Republican allies are prepared to shred every last norm of American due process.

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Federal Judge Blocks Biden’s Attempt to Override State Abortion Law

Georgia Star News Staff

James Hendrix, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s attempt to force states to provide abortions in certain emergency situations in a Tuesday ruling, according to court documents.

Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide emergency medical aid in an attempt to override state abortion bans. Hendrix halted the guidance and temporarily blocked the HHS from enforcing its interpretation of EMTALA.

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Taxpayers to Pay Billions After Biden ‘Forgives’ $10K to $20K in Student Loan Debt per Borrower

The Center Square

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday his administration would “forgive” $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 per year. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said the plan could cost taxpayers more than $200 billion.

The total income cap is expected to be higher for married couples, likely around double the $125,000 mark, though that has not been confirmed.

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Commentary: Racism to Achieve Diversity Harms All Americans

Georgia Star News Staff

If you’ve navigated the thicket of microinstructions, hectoring, guilt-tripping, institutionalized resentment, establishment-generated misinformation, double standards, and bizarre new terminology, then welcome to the world of woke antiracism in America today.

One of the biggest absurdities spread by the woke antiracists is that white people must practice “allyship” and refrain from sharing their opinions on race relations with “people of color.” There is nothing wrong with listening as well as talking, but for white people to remain silent in the face of one of the most destructive movements in American history is negligent and cowardly.

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Big Tech Colludes with Abortion Industry and Democrats to Discriminate Against Pregnancy Care Centers

Susan Berry, PhD

Yelp announced Tuesday it will add a “prominent consumer notice to crisis pregnancy center listings,” in order to distinguish the pro-life centers from abortion clinics.

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Federal Judge Questions Idaho Abortion Ban in Lawsuit Brought by Biden Administration: Updated

Susan Berry, PhD

UPDATE: Late Wednesday, Judge Lynn Winmill granted the Biden Department of Justice’s request for an injunction on Idaho’s abortion ban as it pertains to medical emergencies.

“The Court hereby restrains and enjoins the State of Idaho, including all of its officers, employees, and agents, from enforcing Idaho Code § 18-622(2)-(3) as applied to medical care required by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA),” Winmill wrote, adding the state is prohibited “from initiating any criminal prosecution against, attempting to suspend or revoke the professional license of, or seeking to impose any other form of liability on, any medical provider or hospital based on their performance of conduct that (1) is defined as an “abortion” under Idaho Code § 18-604(1), but that is necessary to avoid (i) “placing the health of” a pregnant patient “in serious jeopardy”; (ii) a “serious impairment to bodily functions” of the pregnant patient; or (iii) a “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part” of the pregnant patient.”

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FBI Whistleblowers Say Senior Officials Ordered Bureau Not to Investigate Hunter Biden Laptop

Georgia Star News Staff

FBI whistleblowers allege that the Bureau’s leaders ordered agents not to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, according to a letter Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson sent to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking that he investigate the matter.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She’s ‘Not Backing Down’ After Being Swatted by Trans Extremist

Georgia Star News Staff

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was “swatted” at her home in Rome, Georgia at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, after a pro-trans extremist made a false 911 call to the police. Five officers were reportedly dispatched to Greene’s house in response to an alarming false report. In an interview later Monday, Green said she had immediately grabbed her gun upon hearing a ruckus outside her front door, but she thankfully put it down before she answered.

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Baltimore Post Office Discovers 2020 Mail-In Ballots

Georgia Star News Staff

More than two dozen Baltimore voters received their 2020 election ballots earlier this month after the U.S. Postal Service discovered a tray of undelivered mail nearly two years too late.

The Baltimore City Board of Elections is working to figure out why the ballots were delivered late. President Biden won the heavily-Democrat city by a landslide – about eight votes to every ballot cast for then-President Trump.

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House Republicans Vow to Investigate Anthony Fauci After Resignation

Georgia Star News Staff

On Monday, Republican members of the powerful House Oversight Committee announced their intentions to pursue investigations of Dr. Anthony Fauci when they reclaim the majority, even after Fauci announced his plans to step down in December.

As reported by The Daily Caller, Fauci will be leaving his positions at the White House, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in December, after spending 38 years in government. The 81-year-old Fauci said that he will remain active in public health to some degree, and that after leaving government he will enter the “next chapter” of his career.

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Natural Gas Prices Hit 14-Year-High After Biden Signs Dems’ Climate Bill into Law

Georgia Star News Staff

The price of U.S. natural gas futures reached its highest point since 2008 as gas demand continues to spike amid the worldwide energy crisis and the passage of the Democrats’ climate bill, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Natural gas futures for November, December and January each surpassed $10 per million British Thermal Units (BTUs) on Monday, reaching highs that have not been seen since 2008, according to the WSJ. High prices are largely due to the strong demand for gas in Europe amid uncertainty surrounding Russian natural gas flows, the WSJ reported; furthermore, the Democrats’ new climate bill includes regulations that will hike expenses for natural gas producers.

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Pandemic Triggers 89 Percent Increase in U.S. Food Stamp Spending

The Center Square

Spending on food stamps has increased by $53.5 billion – an 89% increase – in the two pandemic years. By comparison, that’s how much the entire program cost in 2009 during the Great Recession.

Spending on the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program grew 88.5% from $60.3 billion in 2019 to $113.8 billion in 2021. Spending on the SNAP program had previously peaked at $79.8 billion in 2013 before declining for the next six years.

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Commentary: Authoritarian Democrats Love the Deep State

Georgia Star News Staff

The unprecedented raid at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month has energized the Democratic Party’s embrace of authoritarianism. The real outrage, they say, is not that the raid happened but that people are disturbed by it. The messaging from top Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and FBI Director Christopher Wray is of a piece: Republican lawmakers risk inciting violence by questioning the raid and the bureaucrats who orchestrated it. Won’t someone please think of the unaccountable shadow government? 

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Teachers Union President Defends Minnesota School District That Will Lay Off White Teachers First

Georgia Star News Staff

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten defended a contract between Minneapolis Public Schools and the union which will fire white teachers over minority teachers, according to a Monday tweet.

The March contract between Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) includes a deal that fires teachers who are not a part of underrepresented populations first, instead of basing termination on seniority. Weingarten tweeted an article by Associated Press with a quote from Greta Callahan, the president of the teachers chapter of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

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Brian Kemp Accuses Stacey Abrams of Flip-Flopping on Key Issues

Addison Basurto

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) took his opponent, Stacey Abrams(D), to task, when he called her out for her inability to stick to a stance on political issues in a statement released on Tuesday. 

“Stacey Abrams opposed suspending the gas tax and returning $1 billion to taxpayers, but now she’s on my record. She can’t have it both ways. Abrams has embraced the policies of Joe Biden that have led to disaster at the border, high gas prices, and empty grocery shelves,” Governor Kemp said. 

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Commentary: Americans Should Support Cryptocurrency to Improve America’s Economic Woes

Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. financial system is not working for too many Americans. We see it every day at the gas pump and grocery store with record-high inflation. We see it with empty store shelves and higher rents. We see it with high fees and slow transactions at the big banks – the same ones we taxpayers bailed out a little more than a decade ago. 

There’s an alternative that can help these systemic problems: cryptocurrency. 

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Catholic School Enrollment Surges After Government School COVID Lockdowns

Susan Berry, PhD

Enrollment in Catholic schools in the United States has risen for the first time in two decades after teachers’ unions worked with the Biden administration to keep government schools locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The enrollment rise since last year by 3.8 percent, or 62,000 students, in Catholic elementary and secondary schools, is also the largest surge recorded in at least 50 years by the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), the Associated Press reported in February.

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Critics Push Back as Biden Administration Uses Taxpayer Dollars to Grow Public Unions

The Center Square

The federal Office of Personnel Management is actively helping public unions recruit more members, and critics are calling it a major conflict of interest.

OPM recently released updates to FedScope, a public database of federal employees, that will allow union leaders to recruit those employees to grow their member rolls, and as a result, their coffers.

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Federal Court Decision Clears Way for Medicaid Waiver for Georgia

The Center Square

Georgia could soon implement a program that proponents say will lead to more coverage for Georgians who are otherwise ineligible for Medicaid.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision when it rescinded a Medicaid waiver for Georgia Pathways to Coverage program, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled last week.

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Federal Judge Refuses to Issue Injunction in Georgia’s Ban on ‘Line Relief’ at Polling Places

The Center Square

Opponents of a state voting law say they plan to continue their fight after a federal judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction against Georgia’s “line relief” ban at polling places.

Senate Bill 202, the Election Integrity Act, which lawmakers passed in 2021, included several changes to Georgia’s election laws. Under one of the provisions, volunteers cannot engage in so-called “line relief,” which bans people from giving food and water to anyone waiting to vote.

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‘Unprecedented’: Judge Ruling Moves Trump Raid Affidavit One Step Closer to Release

The Center Square

Judge Bruce Reinhart on Monday released an order rejecting the Department of Justice’s argument that the affidavit used to justify a raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence should remain entirely sealed, moving the document one step closer to potentially being released.

The federal government now has until Thursday to propose redactions and make any other arguments as to why the document should not be made public.

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FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago Was ‘Improper’: Dershowitz

Admin

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said that the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida estate was incorrectly conducted.

Earlier in August, FBI agents with the Washington Field Office raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home seeking classified documents he may have removed from the White House. Reports subsequently emerged that Trump had already been served with a subpoena seeking classified records related to the investigation and had cooperated extensively with federal authorities.

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30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders

Admin

In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.

In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.

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Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: American Academy of Pediatrics Continues Defense of Youth Transgender Treatments While Other Nations Reject Them

Susan Berry, PhD

Pediatrician Dr. Julia Mason and Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir warned in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the leftwing media has championed a “deeply flawed” study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) flagship journal, one that argues the surge in young people claiming to identify as transgender is not due to “social contagion,” a concept, therefore, that should not be cited by state legislatures to regulate puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries for youth.

The study, published in Pediatrics, was penned by child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Jack Turban, a controversial clinician-activist, who completed a fellowship at Stanford Medical Center and went on to specialize in helping gender dysphoric youth obtain puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries.

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Report: 78 Percent of Georgia Hospitals Are Not Following Federal Accurate Pricing Law

The Center Square

A year-and-a-half after a law requiring hospitals to post accurate prices online went into effect, roughly three-quarters of Georgia hospitals continue to hide the cost of care from consumers.

That’s according to a new report from PatientRightsAdvocate.org. The organization reviewed 2,000 of the 6,000 accredited hospitals nationwide and found that a mere 16% complied with a federal hospital price transparency rule that took effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

In Georgia, 78% of hospitals are non-compliant.

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‘Psychologically Abusive’: Some Back-to-School Programs Dividing Students by ‘Gender, Culture, and Identity’

Admin

A back-to-school curriculum focused on social-emotional learning (SEL) lays the foundation for Critical Race Theory (CRT) by dividing children through the creation of identity charts, “getting to know you” questionnaires and classroom contracts, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A curriculum created by Facing History and Ourselves, a group that partners with more than 100,000 teachers to provide education resources to combat “racism, antisemitism and prejudice at pivotal moments in history,” has a five day back-to-school lesson plan that teaches kids about gender, culture and identity. The curriculum is based in SEL, which focuses on teaching students social skills for their emotional well-being but has been criticized for laying the groundwork for CRT in the classroom, as similar lesson plans based in SEL are growing in popularity across the country, experts told the DCNF.

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Commentary: Yes, It’s Harder to Win the Senate – But That’s Always True

Admin

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate.”

That was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Aug. 18 at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, handicapping the Nov. 2022 Congressional midterms, giving Republicans greater odds to win back the House than the Senate.

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Commentary: With a Lack of Empathy, Disregard for Social Norms and Rules, and Aggressive Tendencies, Is the Democratic Party Sociopathic?

Admin

Parties from principle, especially abstract speculative principle, are known only to modern times . . . what madness, what fury can beget such unhappy and such fatal divisions? . . . This principle, however frivolous it may appear, seems to have been the origin of all religious wars and divisions. As no party, in the present age, can well support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find, that each of the factions into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues.

That profound sentiment comes right from the lips of the father of the Scottish Enlightenment himself, David Hume, circa 1742. It is chock full of insight for our own times. And the practical reason of that era formed the background context for the American founding, much as Scotland itself was the origin of the modern era by inventing, law, economics, science, technology, medicine and unleashing the power of the market.  

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Commentary: Enormous Amounts of Money Flow into the Bottomless Education Pit

Admin

Spurred by COVID panic, schools have been the recipient of ungodly sums of money. And it’s not as if the beast was starving before. To put things into perspective, the United States spends about $800 billion on national defense, more than China, Russia, India, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Japan combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. America now spends even more on K-12 education, with an outlay of about $900 billion dollars a year, which includes an additional $122 billion from the COVID-related American Rescue Plan. 

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Democrat U.S. Senate Candidate John Fetterman Calls for ‘Prosecuting’ Oil, Grocery CEOs

Admin

Democratic Pennsylvania senatorial candidate and lieutenant governor John Fetterman called for prosecuting executives of oil and food companies in a Sunday guest column for local media outlet Times Leader.

Fetterman blamed executives of large oil and food companies for the high prices that Americans are experiencing at gas stations and grocery stores across the country, stating that he would “crack down” on CEOs to bring down costs, according to the opinion column. The senatorial candidate juxtaposed the record profits of companies like Chevron, Exxon and Tyson, a large food company, with the high prices of gas and basic necessities.

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Biden White House Facilitated DOJ’s Criminal Probe against Trump, Scuttled Privilege Claims: Memos

Admin

Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump’s estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-o-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.

The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.

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Dem-Appointed Judge Opens the Door to More Men Being Housed in Women’s Prisons

Admin

A Democrat-appointed federal judge opened the door to allowing more males to be housed in women’s prisons Tuesday by ruling that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) covers people with gender dysphoria.

Kesha Williams, a biologically male former inmate who identifies as a transgender woman, sued several people associated with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in Virginia for allegedly violating the ADA in their decision to house Williams with men, according to court documents. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Clinton appointee, sided with Williams and rejected a lower court’s dismissal of the initial lawsuit.

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Columbus Teachers Start School Year on Picket Lines

Georgia Star News Staff

Students in Ohio’s largest school district will begin classes Wednesday remotely after teachers rejected a final contract offer and voted to strike late Sunday night.

Columbus Education Association teachers were on the picket line at several school buildings Monday morning, the first day teachers were scheduled to report, after 94% of its members voted to strike for the first time since 1975.

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Breaking: Fauci Announces Resignation from NIAID and Biden Administration

Peter D'Abrosca

The Chief Medical Advisor for President Joe Biden and head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIAID) who was also the face of the America’s COVID-19 response has announced that he will resign from those positions effective in December. 

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to have led the NIAID, an extraordinary institution, for so many years and through so many scientific and public health challenges. I am very proud of our many accomplishments,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in his resignation announcement. “I have worked with – and learned from – countless talented and dedicated people in my own laboratory, at NIAID, at NIH and beyond. To them I express my abiding respect and gratitude.”

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Court Temporarily Pauses Order Requiring Graham to Testify About 2020 Election in Georgia

Georgia Star News Staff

Afederal appeals court temporarily paused an order Sunday that required Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to testify in front of an Atlanta-area grand jury about attempts to illegally influence Georgia’s 2020 election results.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals instructed the district court judge to consider whether the Fulton County grand jury subpoena of Graham should be modified to follow the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, CNN reported.

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Federal Data: Retail Sales Remain Flat, Job Openings Decline

The Center Square

Retail sales did not meet expectations and the number of job openings declined in states around the country, newly released federal data show. 

The U.S. Census Bureau released data Wednesday showing retail sales remained unchanged for the month of July, despite expectations of a 0.1% increase. A drop in gas prices and auto sales helped fuel the decrease.

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Commentary: Ignoring the Study of War Is a Recipe for Disaster

Admin

Liberal bias in higher education extends to academics’ bias against teaching military history.

There are 299 programs in America that offer the MA and/or PhD in history according to the American Historical Association. But only 37 programs allow for specialization in military topics.

This trend is symptomatic of the left dominating universities. Leftists shun military and traditional political histories for post-modern critique in the discipline.

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