Month: February 2023

A draft World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement, released on February 1, would make U.S. sovereignty to make its own decisions about public health and pandemic management provisional, “provided that” the U.S. response and activities “do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries.”

Oklahoma Set to Debut a First-of-It’s-Kind School Choice Program

by Reagan Reese While conventional school choice programs typically involve vouchers administered by the state, Oklahoma is set to create a tax credit-based initiative to fund education outside the public school system. The state’s school choice program, which would create a refundable tax credit program for all families that…

Georgia Election Chief Blasts County for Taking $2M in Zuckerbucks, Suggests Legislative Remedy

February 28, 2023February 27, 2023 Just the News

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) slammed DeKalb County for accepting $2 million in private money for election administration — or “Zuckerbucks” — in “violation” of state law while suggesting a legislative remedy to prevent counties from directly receiving such funds.

Commentary: Americans Should Read the Fine Print on Biden’s Newest Border Enforcement Policy

If you believe the reporting of the legacy media, the Biden administration’s newly proposed 153-page asylum rule is a resurgence of the Trump administration policies they loathed.

The Washington Post describes the new rule as the administration’s “most restrictive border control measures to date,” and The New York Times claims the new policy “could disqualify most migrants from being able to seek asylum at the southern U.S. border.”

Commentary: The History of Jim Crow Laws Shows Modern Comparisons Are Just Cheap Political Demagoguery

What are “Jim Crow” laws? President Biden apparently thinks they are synonymous with election integrity. In fact, when Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill in 2021 requiring voter ID and strengthening rules against bribery and electioneering at the polls, the President condemned the law as “Jim Crow on steroids.”

Wall Street Investors Are Snatching Up Single-Family Homes and Taking Over the Rental Market

An ongoing shortage of housing will make it easier for banks and other Wall Street investors to take control of the market for single-family rental homes, National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Institutional investors, such as banks and other large investors, are on track to own 40 percent of single-family rentals in the U.S. by 2030, MetLife Investment Management predicted, according to CNBC. An ongoing shortage of single-family homes in the U.S. would normally limit growth potential for Wall Street firms looking to buy single-family rentals, but it is also making it easier for them to tighten their grip on the market, Yun told the DCNF.

GOP Presidential Candidate Calls on Trump, Haley to Sign ‘Anti-Woke’ Pledge

Vivek Ramaswamy, the latest 2024 GOP presidential candidate, called on former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to support the eventual Republican nominee and sign onto an “Anti-Woke Policy Pledge” in a Monday press release.

Texas Sheriff: We’re Experiencing ‘Silent Invasion’ of Military Age Men

February 28, 2023 The Center Square

What’s happening at the southern U.S. border with Mexico is in fact an invasion, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe says.

“We’re experiencing a silent invasion of military age men,” Coe told The Center Square when describing what his deputies have been increasingly facing over the past two years.

Social Media Mogul Zuckerberg Funds Recruitment of Progressives to Administer Elections

February 27, 2023February 26, 2023 Just the News

The injection of private money into public election administration — or “Zuckerbucks” — is continuing in a new form, as left-leaning candidates are being recruited to run for local elections offices by an organization that receives funds from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Recent IRS Controversies Raise Doubts About Auditing Army’s Potential Bias

February 27, 2023 The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s call for funding for 87,000 IRS agents to audit Americans has raised questions about whether the new rash of auditing will target poorer Americans or be politically motivated.

The Inflation Reduction Act included $80 billion to beef up IRS efforts, which Biden says will more than pay for itself in new audits.

33 Attorneys General Urging Supreme Court to Uphold Whistleblower Law

February 27, 2023February 26, 2023 The Center Square

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is leading 33 states attorneys general in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a pair of lower court rulings that could have broad implications for whistleblowers, and the government’s ability to go after public fraud.

In a 15-page legal brief, Tong and the other AGs are calling on justices to uphold a pair of federal whistleblower lawsuits accusing pharmacy operators of over billing government health insurance programs for prescription drugs.

Group Names Chicago, New Orleans as U.S. Murder Capitals

February 27, 2023 The Center Square

Chicago recorded 697 total homicides in 2022, far more than any other city in the United States, but New Orleans had the highest murder rate per capita, according to a new report from a nonprofit research group.

Chicago had more total homicides in 2022 than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435) and Los Angeles (382), which rounded out the top five, according to a report from Wirepoints, an Illinois-based research and news organization that surveyed 2022 crime data from 75 of the largest U.S. cities.

Deroy Murdock Commentary: A Snapshot of Insanity, Courtesy of the Democrats

Led by Quadrillion-Dollar Man Joe Biden — about whom more later — today’s Democrat Party has decayed into a collection of psychoses fortified by police power, perpetual-motion monetary printing presses and easy access to atomic weapons. What could go wrong? Damn near everything.

Democrats spent much of the last generation attempting to heal the Southern blacks whom they brutalized through Jim Crow segregation. They promoted legal equality for women, aimed to enrich the poor and eradicated tear-inducing air and blazing rivers.

Commentary: The Real Pandemic in America Today Is Obesity

According to the mainstream media, the most important health crisis in the world today is either COVID-19 or mental health. We all know why they say that; money. Money is the most important factor deciding what is and is not important in America today. Hundreds of billions of dollars are up for grabs yearly from these two “pandemics,” and companies like Pfizer are only too eager to profit from them.

Pfizer boasts on its website that the company has “successfully manufactured more than 3 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine in 2021 and expects to manufacture 4 billion doses in 2022.” Looking a little deeper, we can also see that hundreds of millions of prescriptions are written yearly for drugs that treat mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Pfizer sells a lot of those as well. In 2020 alone, more than 20 percent of U.S. adults had been issued a prescription for such drugs. Those are frightening numbers.

Analysis: Universities Offer DEI degrees as Students Flee to Traditional Liberal Arts Colleges

A growing number of colleges and universities are expanding their curricula to include degree programs in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DEISJ).

While certain schools are requiring DEISJ coursework for graduation, others are designing minors, majors, and master’s degree programs with identity politics at their core.

Commentary: Artificial Intelligence and the Passion of Mortality

If we knew our existence would span millennia, would we be able to cherish each day or try as hard as we do now to leave something behind? Would voices from history still offer urgent advice, telling us we are part of something bigger or to make the most of our short lives so they matter? Would we still reach out to God for inspiration and guidance? If we didn’t have to die would we truly be alive?

When Homer composed the Iliad, it would have been ridiculous to think that someday mortal human beings would invent machines that might wield the power of the gods. But that’s where we’re headed. As economists struggle to imagine economic models that preserve vitality and growth in societies with crashing birth rates, and as individual competence is no longer required by institutions desperate to fill vacancies, artificial intelligence (AI) promises to fill the quantitative and qualitative human void.

Five Dirtiest Cities in the U.S. Are Governed by Democratic Mayors: Study

A new study released Thursday found that the top five dirtiest cities in the United States in 2023 are run by Democratic mayors, according to LawnStarter, a site that conducts and publishes geographic area studies. Two of the five cities were located in New Jersey.

LawnStarter compared more than 150 of the largest cities across the country in four categories: pollution, living conditions, infrastructure and consumer satisfaction.

Watchdogs Press JPMorgan Chase Bank for Answers on Cancellation of Religious Freedom Group’s Account

JPMorgan Chase & Co. wants to exclude shareholder resolutions from two conservative watchdog groups that relate to the bank’s closing of the account of a religious-freedom nonprofit founded by former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

Brownback, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during the Trump administration, is also a Republican former member of the House and Senate from Kansas. He founded the National Committee for Religious Freedom.

The World Bank’s New Focus on Climate Threatens World’s Poorest Nations, Researchers Say

The World Bank’s plan to focus future efforts on climate change will have a disproportionately negative impact on its poorest client nations, despite those same countries having repeatedly reported that they would prefer the bank focus on other issues, researchers at the Center for Global Development (CGD) reported Thursday.

The Biden administration named former MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga as its nominee to replace the outgoing Trump appointee David Malpass as president of the World Bank Thursday, a key step in the administration’s efforts to refocus the agency from poverty prevention and take more climate action. However, just 6% of public and private representatives from 43 client nations listed climate change as one of the top three issues facing their country, according to a review of surveys conducted by the World Bank in 2020 and 2021, the GCD researchers reported.

Suspects Released on ‘Zero Dollar’ Bail Were Much More Likely to Be Rearrested, Study Finds

February 26, 2023February 25, 2023 Georgia Star News Staff

An updated study by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office released earlier this month found that those released on $0 bail were 70% more likely to be rearrested than their cohorts who posted bail.

Last year, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office conducted a study of 595 individuals released without bail in Yolo County. finding that 70% of those released without bail were rearrested. An update to that study found that not only did the majority of those released without bail get rearrested, but those released without bail were actually more likely to be rearrested than those who did post bail.

Red States Use Purse Strings to Check Momentum of ESG Woke Investing Movement

February 26, 2023 Just the News

With the woke investing movement known as Environmental Social and Governance gaining steam in corporate boardrooms and asset management firms across the U.S., red states are pushing back.

The ESG counteroffensive includes economic and legislative moves ranging from the leveraging of public investment to laws mandating that fiduciaries of public funds make investment choices based on financial rather than ideological criteria.

Researchers: City-Wide Vaccine Mandates Did Nothing to Stop the Spread of COVID-19

February 26, 2023 The Center Square

A slew of city-wide vaccine mandates announced in 2021 across parts of the U.S. made virtually no difference in stopping the spread of COVID-19, newly released research found.

“These mandates imposed severe restrictions on the lives of many citizens and business owners,” the study, conducted through George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, says. “Yet, we find no evidence that the mandates were effective in their intended goals of reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.”

Policy Group Pushes to Eliminate Georgia’s Certificate of Need Program

February 26, 2023February 25, 2023 The Center Square

Americans for Prosperity-Georgia recently launched a six-figure campaign encouraging Georgia lawmakers to repeal the state’s certificate of need requirement.

The General Assembly established Georgia’s CON program in 1979, though state officials started reviewing healthcare projects in 1975.

Commentary: Biden’s White House Is Infested with Foreigner Supremacists

To hear Joe Biden tell it, America is a dystopian hellscape uniquely cursed with unacceptable levels of injustice and bigotry. He routinely labels the purportedly cruel majority carrying out this supposed bigotry as “supremacists” who prioritize themselves over any minority group by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or gender identity. It’s a dark, cynical strategy that Biden has somehow parlayed into considerable political mileage.

Pope Francis Criticizes ‘Conservative’ and ‘Progressive’ Wings for Politicizing Church

Pope Francis criticized attempts on both the left and the right to politicize the church in his weekly address at the Vatican Wednesday, according to remarks released by the Vatican.

Francis has been known for taking a more liberal approach to the papacy on issues of same-sex marriage, divorce and capitalism compared to his predecessor Benedict. The Pope said during his General Audience on Ash Wednesday that the church should not be run by any ideology and instead should focus on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, according to the Vatican.

Commentary: The Ukrainian War’s Bleak Future

The Ukraine mess is daily looking more like the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, a meat grinder that took 500,000 lives. That three-year conflict became a savage proxy war and prelude for the belligerents of World War II.

The Ukraine battlefield is proving a similar laboratory of death. New lethal weaponry and tactics are introduced, modified—and always improved—from drones to guided missiles to internet-fed artillery.

Gun Ownership on the Rise for Asian-Americans

Following several mass shootings in predominantly Asian-American communities, Asian-Americans are buying more guns than ever before.

CNN reports that the surge follows two mass shootings that received widespread media coverage, in the California communities of Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, where Asian perpetrators carried out two separate shootings during Lunar New Year celebrations. Prior to these incidents, Asian-Americans began seeing an increase in violence against them during the 2020 race riots, with numerous viral videos of Asians being viciously attacked in the streets or on public transportation, most often by African-American culprits.

Commentary: Yellowstone Showcases Leftist Propaganda