Critics Say Georgia’s Gas Tax Moratorium Helps, but Isn’t Good Long-Term Policy

Georgia hasn’t collected its gas tax since March, as Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a series of legislation and executive orders to place a moratorium on collections.

“Those prices have a huge impact on the economy as a whole,” National Federation of Independent Business Region Director Nathan Humphrey told The Center Square. “On top of all the other issues that small businesses were particularly struggling with from supply chain, inflation and [the] overall cost of doing business, the margins were just super tight, so when that hit, it really provided necessary relief.”

Read More

Commentary: The Tyranny of the Minority

In the Federalist, James Madison famously warned against the “tyranny of the majority,” but it is unlikely he could have envisioned what we face today. Twenty-first-century America is dissolving before our eyes, as a tyrannical coalition of minorities steals our heritage and sovereignty. Not ethnic minorities—their American bequest is being stolen right alongside that of America’s shrinking white majority. Nobody is exempt, and everyone should unite to resist.

Read More

Fauci Worried That COVID Lab Leak Theories Would Increase Tensions with China

During testimony last week, Anthony Fauci admitted that one of the reasons he repeatedly shot down any theories of the COVID-19 virus originating through a lab leak in Wuhan, China was because he did not want to risk escalating tensions between China and the United States.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), made his comments during a 7-hour deposition as part of a lawsuit filed against the Biden Administration by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana. Fauci described his concern over “wild speculation and allegations” that China deliberately created the coronavirus, and then either intentionally or accidentally leaked it from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Read More

Commentary: Solar’s Lofty Ambitions Are Consuming Ever-Larger Expanses of Land Down Below

Wedged in the southern flank of Virginia, Charlotte County is home to some 11,500 people who live amidst rolling hills and family farms, pastures and sawmills, a historic Civil War battlefield, and four townlets tinier than many suburban subdivisions.  

But this pastoral tableau will be swept up in the green revolution when construction begins here on the nation’s largest solar power facility east of the Mississippi River. The planned 800-megawatt Randolph Solar Project in Charlotte County will replace a commercial lumber farm of loblolly pines with 1.6 million photovoltaic panels covering an area equivalent to seven square miles. 

Read More

ICE Is Massively Misreporting How Many Illegal Immigrants Are Being Released with GPS Trackers

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is massively misreporting the number of illegal immigrants released into the country with GPS tracking technology by nearly 600%, according to an internal document exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

ICE disclosed privately to participants of a closed-door event about the agency’s “Alternatives to Detention” Thursday, attended by ICE Director Tae Johnson along with several agency officials and non-profits, that 8,118 illegal immigrants are monitored with GPS tracking through the program as of Nov. 14. Publicly, however, ICE says on its website that 56,805 illegal immigrants are monitored by GPS as of Nov. 19.

Read More

House Democrats Block Religious Liberty Amendment to Same-Sex Marriage Bill to Assure Passage Before Republicans Take Over

House Democrats have blocked an amendment that would have strengthened religious liberty protections to their legislation to codify same-sex marriage to ensure swift passage of the bill before Republicans take over leadership of the House in the new year.

“If we were to amend this, and it goes back to the Senate, for all intents and purposes it’s dead for the year,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. James McGovern (D-MA), who rejected Representative Chip Roy’s (R-TX) amendment for advancement to the House floor.

Read More

Sen. Warnock Projected to Defeat Herschel Walker

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is projected to win by multiple media outlets; at press time, Warnock led Herschel Walker 50.81 percent to 49.19 percent with 95.6 percent of counties and precincts reporting. However, that margin is expected to widen with many of the Atlanta-area counties only partially reporting results and rural counties having largely complete their reporting.

In Georgia, a candidate can request a recount if the race margin is less than or equal to 0.5 percent, according to a state website. In a short speech after the race was called, Walker acknowledged the results and thanked his supporters, telling them to never stop dreaming and believing in America.

“There’s no excuses in life, and I’m not going to make any excuses now, because we put up one heck of a fight. And that’s what we got to do, because this is much bigger than Herschel Walker,” he said.

Read More

Andy Biggs Commentary: I’m Running to Replace Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker and Break the Establishment

It is time. It is time for new leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

People are thrilled that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reign of Leftist extremism is ending. The question is whether we will be treated to the status quo that will move us along the same path, though perhaps more slowly.

Read More

Commentary: Obama-Biden Government in Exile Ran Hunter Laptop Suppression Operation

They got the band back together—to the extent the original members ever broke up in the first place.

Recent disclosures by independent journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed what other reporters have been covering for the better part of two years: According to files obtained by Elon Musk, the new owner and CEO of Twitter, the social media platform protected Joe Biden and his family from a major and potentially election-altering scandal as millions of Americans were voting early for president in October 2020. Years of denials and dismissals related to Hunter Biden’s lucrative shakedown of hostile nations, including Russia and China, were set to explode just a few weeks before Election Day.

Read More

Inflation Slows, but Americans Still Feel It

Inflation has slowed from its rapid growth in the past two years, but surveys show Americans are still feeling the pain from the jump in prices.

Gallup released new polling data Tuesday showing that 55% of those surveyed say inflation is causing financial hardship for their household. Notably, 13% of Americans say inflation has caused their families “severe hardship.”

Read More

Meta’s ‘Unequal’ Moderation Policy Protects Elites on Facebook and Instagram: Report

Meta’s Oversight Board criticized the social media giant for unfairly favoring certain elite users of Facebook and Instagram, granting them amnesty from certain rules, and failing to publicly disclose the program’s extent.

Meta’s “cross-check” program is supposed to minimize the number of posts Facebook and Instagram incorrectly take down, by having a human review posts by certain “powerful” users when they are found to be violating the rules, according to the Oversight Board. The Board found that, in practice, cross-check protected these accounts, allowing their content to remain up even when it was in violation of the sites’ rules and helping favored accounts receive reduced punishments for infractions, all the while repeatedly failing to detail to the public and the Board which accounts and posts were subject to this policy.

Read More

Western Media Bought Iranian ‘Propaganda’ on Disbanding of Morality Police, Experts Say

Western media’s celebration of Iran’s alleged disbanding of the morality police plays into the regime’s “propaganda” efforts to convince the West it is open to reform, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

After Iran’s top judiciary official remarked that the Guidance Patrol, a police squad charged with enforcing the regime’s head covering laws for women, had “been put to a standstill,” Western media quickly seized the event as a victory for feminists in Iran demonstrating against restrictive modesty rules. However, the morality police remains active, suggesting many in the West fell for the regime’s ploy to restore legitimacy and deflect international pressure, experts told the DCNF.

Read More

Commentary: The ‘Crazy, Right-Wing Shooter’ Myth

If you only read the New York Times editorials, you’d believe that political violence in America is a “right-wing” problem. The Times has been warning of violence from the right for years, but on Nov. 19 and 26, they wrote two long editorials making these claims. The violence stems from the lies “enthusiastically spread” by Republican politicians. Democrats’ only complicity was their $53 million in spending on “far-right fringe candidates in the primaries.” The fringe candidates, it was hoped, would be easier to beat in the general election. 

Read More

Biden Administration Extends Temporary Protected Status for Haiti

The Biden Administration announced on Monday that it would be extending special protections granted to Haitians, allowing them to live and work in the United States. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that Haitians who currently have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and whose status was close to expiring will have an additional 18 months to live and work in the country. 

Read More

Senators Draft Bipartisan Framework to Legalize DACA Recipients and Extend Title 42

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have drafted a framework that seeks to grant DACA recipients citizenship and bolster security at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The two senators are seeking to take advantage of the lame-duck session—the period between the midterm elections and the new Congress—to pass legislation, including several immigration reforms. 

Read More

Biden Says He Has More Important Things to Do than Visit the U.S.-Mexico Border

President Joe Biden visited Arizona on Tuesday but did not visit the U.S.-Mexico border. He visited the state to tour a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility in the process of being constructed in Phoenix, Arizona. 

When a reporter asked Biden why he would come to Arizona and not visit the border, the president said visiting the border is not a priority. 

Read More

Hispanic American Voters Could Decide Georgia Senate Runoff Election, Dems and GOP Mobilize Latino Target Groups

Democrats and Republicans targeting their campaign efforts to win the Georgia Senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker have turned their attention to Hispanic American voters who could be a deciding factor.

Neither candidate reached the state required 50% threshold to emerge victorious on Nov. 8 due to the 2% garnered by Libertarian Party Senate candidate Chase Oliver.

Read More

Democrats’ Top Election Lawyer Litigating Nearly 50 Cases Against Republicans

The Democratic Party’s top elections attorney and his firm are litigating nearly 50 different post-election cases in 19 states to affect their results, he announced on Sunday night.

Marc Elias, the founder of Elias Law Group, which bills itself as “committed to helping Democrats win, citizens vote, and progressives make change,” announced that it was representing clients in 19 states, for a total of 48 cases. The cases have involved either legal defenses to challenges brought by GOP candidates regarding election issues, or efforts to change election laws in favor of Democratic candidates.

Read More

Biden Education Department Abruptly Disbands Parent Council Under Threat of Lawsuit Arguing Its Membership Consisted of Leftist Activists

The Biden education department has abruptly scrapped its National Parents and Families Engagement Council following a lawsuit against Education Secretary Miguel Cardona by parental rights organizations who argued the council’s membership consisted of leftist activists and Democrat donors.

A statement reported by The74 said the education department “has decided to not move forward with the National Parents and Families Engagement Council.”

Read More

Hillary Clinton Compares America to Taliban in Afghanistan After Overturning Roe v. Wade

Failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday America is now comparable to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sudan after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, returning abortion decisions to the states.

“It’s so shocking to think that in any way we’re related to poor Afghanistan and Sudan,” Clinton said, according to Fox News, regarding abortion rights during the Women’s Voices Summit at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. “But as an advanced economy as we allegedly are, on this measure, we unfortunately are rightly put with them.”

Read More

Herschel Walker’s Million-Man March Through Georgia on Game Day

Strong turnout in Republican areas at the end of early voting in the Senate runoff in Georgia is giving conservatives hope that Herschel Walker can close a 200,000 vote gap Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is estimated to hold. For Walker to win, Election-Day turnout, expected to favor the Republican, needs to hit at least one million votes.

On the day of the November 2022 General Election, about 1.5 million voters turned out, according to Mack Parnell, executive director of the Georgia branch of the nonpartisan Faith and Freedom Coalition.

“Obviously, you know, it’d be a miracle to get that same 1.5 million out, so you’re probably not going to do that. So the magic number in order to make up the margin that can be ascertained for Raphael Warnock, it’s got to be at least a million voters to come out” Parnell said, noting that would give Walker and Warnock even chances.

Read More

Commentary: On Her Way Out, Pelosi Threatens Year-Long Continuing Resolution of ‘Last Resort’

“[A]s an appropriator myself, left to their own devices, the Republicans and Democrats in a bipartisan way on the Appropriations Committee can reach a solution. But sadly we have no choice if they can’t that we would have to have a year-long [continuing resolution].”

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has issued an ultimatum to House and Senate negotiators of the year-end omnibus bill that either they “reach a solution” or else the House will “have no choice” but to just pass the same omnibus bill they passed last year via a year-long continuing resolution until Sept. 30, 2023, effectively freezing federal spending.

Read More

Commentary: The Legacy Media Is Ossified by Their Corruption and Blinded by Their Progressive Agenda

CNN logo outside of Atlanta, Ga., headquarters

by Victor Davis Hanson   The current “media” – loosely defined as the old major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, the network news channels, MSNBC and CNN, PBS and NPR, the online news aggregators like Google, Apple, and Yahoo, and the social media giants like the old Twitter and…

Read More

China-Linked Hackers Stole Millions in COVID-19 Relief Funds, Secret Service Says

Foreign hackers linked to the Chinese government allegedly stole at least $20 million in COVID-19 relief funds, according to the U.S. Secret Service.

The China-linked hackers, known as APT41, are “a notable player” among the 1,000-plus investigations into criminals defrauding public benefits programs, according to an NBC News report confirmed by the Secret Service to the Daily Caller News Foundation. It is unknown whether the Chinese government directed APT41 to steal taxpayer funds or simply looked the other way, but the threat is  “dangerous” and has serious national security implications, an anonymous senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official told NBC News.

Read More

FBI Met with Twitter ‘Weekly’ Ahead of 2020, Warned of ‘Hack-and-Leak’ Operations

In the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, FBI agents would hold “weekly” meetings with Big Tech company Twitter to discuss content moderation, eventually leading to the agency warning the platform of so-called “hack-and-leak operations” by foreign “state actors” shortly before the company censored the Hunter Biden laptop story on these grounds.

Read More

Stanford Under Investigation for Allegedly Discriminating Against Men

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is investigating Stanford University after it received complaints that the school allegedly discriminates against men by offering organizations exclusively for women, Forbes reported.

Kursat Pekgoz, CEO of the Turkish real estate company Doruk, and James Moore, a Stanford alumnus and emeritus professor at the University of Southern California, filed the complaint alleging that the university does not offer groups exclusively available to men like it does for women, according to Forbes. The pair argue that the discrepancy violates Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

Read More

Propagandist for CCP Increases Spending in Time Magazine

A propaganda outlet that is run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has increased its spending in Time magazine, one of the most iconic and widely-read magazines in the United States.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) records reveal that the outlet China Daily had already spent approximately $656,885 between May 1st and October 31st to have pro-China propaganda published in Time. In the preceding six months, the outlet had paid Time $649,603. Some of the propaganda published as a result of these deals include articles promoting Chinese culture, discussing the country’s so-called “climate change initiatives,” and Chinese technology.

Read More

Georgia’s Most Dangerous Roads are All in Atlanta: Study

A new analysis has identified the most dangerous roads in Georgia, all in the metro Atlanta area.

Moreover, a fifth of deadly crashes involved drunken driving, while a similar amount (19%) were connected to speeding, the analysis from MoneyGeek, a personal finance technology company, revealed.

Read More

Chinese Solar Giants Snuck Around U.S. Trade Barriers, Investigation Finds

The Commerce Department found on Friday that four large Chinese solar panel manufacturers are avoiding longstanding U.S. tariffs by assembling their products in Southeast Asia before importing them to the country.

BYD Co., Canadian Solar International, Trina Solar Science & Technology and Vina Solar Technology violated U.S. trade laws by finishing their products in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia, according to a department press release. The probe was launched in March after California-based solar company Auxin Solar alleged that some solar firms were circumventing tariffs on China by completing manufacturing in Southeast Asia.

Read More

EPA Quietly Quadruples Regulatory Cost of Carbon Emissions in New War on Fossil Fuels

With the price of everything from gasoline to food soaring in America, nobody is surprised by inflated price tags these days. But even by Washington standards, an action taken earlier this month by the Environmental Protection Agency is creating sticker shock: a nearly fourfold increase in the government calculation of damages from carbon emissions.

Read More

Utah to Emphasize LGBTQ and Minority Communities in Middle School Social Studies Classes

The Utah Board of Education passed social studies standards on Thursday for middle schoolers, emphasizing LGBTQ and minority communities, according to Fox 13 News.

The standards for fifth and sixth graders reflect an emphasis on diversity with a focus on minority and LGBTQ communities, John Arthur, a Utah middle school teacher who helped craft the standards said, according to Fox 13 News. The revisions, the first in more than a decade, faced backlash from parental rights in education groups such as Utah Parents United, who said the standards are “indoctrinating” students and promoting “social justice.”

Read More

Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls for Federal Investigation Over Emails from Arizona Sec State Hobbs to Twitter

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) wants a federal investigation in Arizona where Kari Lake is disputing results of the gubernatorial election against Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, whose office reports preliminary results that Hobbs has won 50.3 percent to 49.6 percent. Greene’s call was also a reaction to a post of emails showing that Hobbs’ office reported misinformation tweets to Twitter on January 7, 2021.

“The SOS of AZ and Gov candidate, Katie Hobbs, used the power of the AZ SOS to collude w/ Twitter to unconstitutionally violate 1st Amendment rights of Americans for her own political gain. This is communism and Hobbs can not be governor. I’m calling for a Federal investigation,” Greene tweeted Sunday morning.

Read More

Commentary: The New England Journal of Medicine Joins the Ranks of Science-Deniers to Promote Transgender Ideology

Gender Pride demonstration

The New England Journal of Medicine has published an article called “Protecting Transgender Health and Challenging Science Denialism in Policy.” It is the latest example of using denialism to denigrate any opinion contrary to that of the latest set of experts to claim sovereignty over a controversial subject. The technique is to stifle debate and force discussion from the subject to defense of an unrelated issue. This is what the NEJM paper does to perfection.

Read More

Commentary: Don’t Give an Inch on the Debt Ceiling

The dust has barely settled from the contentious midterms, and the battle lines are already being drawn for the next legislative fight in Washington: the debt ceiling. With the nation at unprecedented levels of indebtedness, the choice in this fight is a stark one: a path toward stability or fiscal Armageddon.

If that sounds hyperbolic, consider the following facts about America’s finances.

Read More

Commentary: ‘Reasonable’ Concessions to Climate Hysteria Lack Any Reason at All

First, there is no climate emergency. Claims to the contrary are based on exaggerations of carbon dioxide’s warming effect and computer models that have proven unreliable.

As Republicans settle into the leadership of the new House of Representatives, we are hoping for clearer congressional thinking about the climate issue. However, there is work to do on the Conservative Climate Caucus.

Read More

Credit Rating Agency Warns Recession Could Trigger Property Tax Hikes

Fitch Ratings said Friday that the outlook for state and local governments was “deteriorating” and an expected recession could put pressure on state and local governments to raise property taxes.

“Local governments may face slowed growth or possibly contraction in tax revenues associated with real property valuations, which may trigger expenditure controls or revenue-raising measures to preserve budgetary stability,” Fitch Ratings Senior Director Michael Rinaldi said.

Read More

Vermont Backs Down on Religion-Free School Choice after SCOTUS Knocks Down Maine Policy

Vermont families that want to send their children to religious schools will no longer be excluded from the state’s tuition benefit program, as a result of legal settlements in two cases brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The plaintiffs who were denied funding under the Town Tuition Program, which provides tuition for students who live in areas without local public schools, will get reimbursement for money spent out of pocket on tuition. Other families denied funding can apply as well.

Read More

Commentary: The Promise of Habit-Based Learning

Something has gone awry in American education. For example, over the past decades, the U.S. has dropped to the bottom of international rankings for developed countries in math. This decline has coincided with education reform, a shift that has emphasized understanding and downplayed practice. Could something that sounds so sensible have possibly been responsible for the drop?

The brain has two major learning systems. One is based on practice, and leads to fast, automatic behavior. This system is not accessible by conscious thought and is the source of intuition. The second system is based on deliberate thought—it is slow but flexible. You are consciously aware and can verbalize what you have learned. These two systems are roughly analogous to Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s “thinking, fast and slow.”

Read More

Chinese Operatives Ran a Massive TikTok Campaign to Help Dems in the Midterm Elections: Report

TikTok accounts operating as voices of Chinese state media promoted messages that appeared to denigrate Republican candidates and favor Democratic ones ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, according to a Forbes investigation.

While the Chinese-owned social media app has verbally affirmed the need to crack down on election disinformation and foreign interference, several news-oriented accounts failed to disclose their affiliation with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state-owned media on the platform, Forbes found. The accounts racked up tens of millions views on posts that covered divisive topics, such as abortion and race, as well as critical clips that mostly targeted Republican candidates ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Read More

Trump Calls for ‘Termination’ of Election rules in Constitution after Release of the Twitter Files

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution’s rules regarding elections after the release of information about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social.

Read More

Report: Charter School Enrollment Increases in Georgia

More Georgia students are attending charter schools, while enrollment at public schools is declining, according to a new report.

New figures from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools show that Georgia experienced a roughly 4.9% increase in charter enrollments between 2019-20 and 2021-22. Meanwhile, traditional public schools saw a roughly 1.9% decline in enrollments during the same period.

Read More

House GOP Working on Bill to Ban TikTok Across Federal Government

The House Republican Conference is currently working on legislation that may ban the use of TikTok by federal government employees, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

“We’re working on something right now,” said a Republican aide familiar with the matter. The proposal is said to be proceeding through the Judiciary Committee, which is set to be led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio in the next Congress when the GOP gains a majority.

Read More

FBI Official Admits Agency Colluded Weekly with Facebook to Flag, Take Down Posts

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) met weekly with large social media platforms to collaborate on moderating content, according to a deposition this week from FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan.

Chan, who was one of the two FBI agents who contacted Facebook ahead of its censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop warning of potential Russian disinformation operations, said that the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) officials met weekly with social media companies to remove specific accounts ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to his deposition cited by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. The deposition was part of a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration for allegedly censoring Americans’ speech in the name of “misinformation” led by Schmitt and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry of Louisiana.

Read More

Warnock Slightly Ahead in Three Polls

Three new polls released in the final days of early voting show Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) a little ahead of Herschel Walker, although Walker is within the margin of error in two of the three polls.

Emerson College found Warnock ahead, 49 percent to 47 percent, with 4 percent undecided out of 888 very likely voters and those who already voted. That poll has a 3.2 percent margin of error and was conducted November 28 through 30 on behalf of The Hill. SurveyUSA found Warnock at 50 percent to Walker’s 46 percent and 4 percent undecided out of 1,214 likely voters. The poll has a 3.6 percent margin of error and was conducted November 26 through 30 on behalf of WXIA-TV. Both polls were published Thursday.

On Friday, CNN published the results of a SSRS poll finding Warnock at 52 percent and Walker at 48 percent among 1,184 likely voters, with a 3.8 percent margin of error. That poll was conducted from November 25 through 29.

Read More