Month: April 2023

U.S. Closes Bridge to Mexico After Migrants Attempt Mass Crossing

Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. government closed a bridge to Mexico Thursday after a group of roughly 1,000 migrants tried to make a mass entry, according to Border Report.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) closed the Gateway International Bridge that connects Matamoros, Mexico, with Brownsville, Texas, according to Border Report. Roughly 1,500 migrants are living in a large encampment a few blocks from the bridge on the Mexican side, Andrea Rudnik, a volunteer with Team Brownsville, told Border Report.

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Democrats Re-Introduce Green New Deal

The Center Square

A group of liberal Democrats reintroduced the Green New Deal Thursday, the controversial environmental legislation that experts say would spike energy costs in the U.S. and cost taxpayers tens of trillions of dollars.

Advocates, though, argue the changes are needed to prevent worsening climate change and get ahead of an inevitable renewable energy transition.

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MARTA Advances Capital Program with ‘Unprecedented’ State Funding

The Center Square

As the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority advances its More MARTA Atlanta Program, the agency’s position is bolstered by what an executive called “unprecedented” state funding.

MARTA officials said the agency is advancing a program estimated to cost $2.7 billion over 40 years. It is partially funded by a half-penny sales tax Atlanta voters passed in 2016.

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Virginia Senator Introduces Bill to Ban Stock Trading in Congress

The Center Square

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and 22 of his colleagues have introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to ban members of Congress from stock trading.

The legislation, Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks Act, or ETHICS Act for short, would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from owning or trading securities, commodities or futures.

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Rep. Nancy Mace Teases ‘Astronomical’ Findings in Biden Family Probe

Georgia Star News Staff

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said Friday that a probe into the Biden family’s financial dealings had “astronomical” findings that were “real.”

“We found more Biden family members involved, more shell companies, the sources of funds unknown, where they’re going unknown, and why they were paid for,” Mace told Fox News host Bill Hemmer. “And the numbers are astronomical. It’s crazy. I’m very much a centrist. I’m right or left of center depending on the issue, and I have seen this with my own eyes. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is real.”

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Supreme Court Maintains Broad Access to Abortion Pill, Pending Litigation

Just the News

The Supreme Court on Friday opted to preserve access to mifepristone while a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug makes its way through the courts. The Biden administration and mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories had appealed to the court for relief. The court did not decide on the merits of the case, which will continue through the court system, the Associated Press reported.

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Report: Trump Would Reject Federal Abortion Restrictions

Susan Berry, PhD

The Washington Post reported Thursday that a Trump campaign spokesman said the former president believes abortion issues should be decided solely at the state level. “President Donald J. Trump believes that the Supreme Court, led by the three Justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the State level,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, according to the Post. “Republicans have been trying to get this done for 50 years, but were unable to do so. President Trump, who is considered the most pro-life President in history, got it done. He will continue these policies when reelected to the White House. Like President Reagan before him, President Trump supports exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”

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House Republicans Pass Bill Banning Biological Males from Competing in Women’s Sports

The Center Square

House Republicans voted Thursday to pass the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” the latest salvo in the ongoing battle over transgender athletes. 

The legislation would ban schools that receive federal funding, which is nearly all schools, from allowing biological males to compete in sports designated for women and girls. 

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Medicaid Expansions Meant to Stop the Opioid Crisis ‘May Be Making It Worse,’ New Report Finds

Georgia Star News Staff

Medicaid expansion has failed to prevent the ensuing opioid crisis, with 14 out of the 15 states with the highest overdose rates being expansion states, according to research exclusively shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The research from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) indicates that while Medicaid expansion was intended to combat the opioid crisis, it hasn’t helped and “may be making it worse,” co-authors Michael Greibrock and Sam Adolphsen wrote. Of the states with the lowest overdose rates, half of them are non-expansion states, and another two only recently expanded.

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Biden Will Hand over Another $1 Billion to UN ‘Green Climate Fund’

Georgia Star News Staff

The White House announced $1 billion in U.S. support for the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF) Thursday, ahead of a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF).

The new U.S. contributions will bring its total investment in the GCF, a U.N. project that promotes green technologies, particularly in developing nations, to $2 billion, according to a White House fact sheet President Biden will also request an additional $500 million from Congress to support the Amazon Fund — an anti-deforestation fund managed by the Brazilian Development Bank to protect the Amazon Rainforest — and promote a variety of green technologies, including carbon capture.

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DOJ Attorneys Improperly Introduced Evidence in Landmark January 6 Trial, Lawyer Says

Georgia Star News Staff

Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers improperly brought forward new pieces of footage as evidence during a Jan. 6 defendant’s cross-examination at trial, without giving the defense enough time to review them, the defendant’s attorney alleged Thursday.

Zachary Rehl testified between April 11 and Tuesday in his ongoing trial with other former Proud Boys members for allegedly conspiring to oppose the January 2021 transfer of presidential power, along with related charges. Minutes before cross-examining Rehl Monday, the government revealed two U.S. Capitol CCTV videos, a body camera clip and an open source video, using the last one to question Rehl without immediately admitting they received it recently from a yet-unidentified source, Rehl’s attorney Carmen Hernandez said in a Thursday court filing.

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IRS Whistleblower Bombshell Expands Hunter Biden Scandal to Coverup, Obstruction Concerns

Just the News
Hunter and Joe Biden - Inauguration

In the half century since Watergate, the adage that the coverup can be worse than the crime has been emblazoned in the American psyche of political scandal. And while historians still debate whether that adage was true or not for the Nixon scandal, allegations of coverup, false testimony or obstruction have transformed many a political controversy since.

On Wednesday, an IRS whistleblower’s stunning disclosure to Congress that “preferential treatment and politics” were “improperly infecting” the Hunter Biden investigation instantly transformed the scandal that has most bedeviled the Biden presidency.

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Georgia Could Develop Statewide Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Program

The Center Square

During the latest state legislative session, the Georgia House passed a measure that proponents say will “advance” the state’s electric vehicle industry.

The move comes after state officials have given millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded incentives to various EV projects, including $1.5 billion for a Rivian Automotive electric vehicle assembly plant in Morgan and Newton counties.

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Commentary: The Financial Costs of Biden’s Illegal Immigrants on American Cities

RealClearWire

In New York City, if the newcomers aren’t put up at the luxury cruise terminal that served the QE2, they could get $700-a-night midtown hotel accommodations with iconic Manhattan views. In Chicago, they found themselves whisked to suburban lodgings. In Denver, officials refer to them discreetly as “guests” and you needn’t bother inquiring about their inns or addresses.  

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Music Spotlight: Mark Taylor

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Rising Nashville artist and Maryland native Mark Taylor has had a guitar in his hand since he was two years old and has never looked back.

“My dad was/is a huge influence on my music career. He paid his way through college playing cover gigs in bars. By the time I was two years old, I was playing nonsense chords on a little guitar. By the time I was six and seven, I was playing in his band with a bunch of his friends,” he said. 

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Ex Spy Chief Admits Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Designed to Influence 2020 Election, Blinken Involved

Just the News

A former acting CIA director has admitted to Congress that he organized the letter that falsely portrayed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation in an effort to influence the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden and that he did so at the direction of current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to a letter released Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

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Mississippi Governor Signs Series of ‘Pro-Mom, Pro-Life’ Bills to Strengthen Adoption, Pregnancy Care Centers, and Foster Care

Susan Berry, PhD

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed multiple pieces of legislation Wednesday that provide support for mothers and babies, particularly in the areas of adoption, foster care, pregnancy care centers, and parental rights.

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Report: Only Three Americans Who Suffered Injuries or Death from the COVID Shots Have Been Compensated Thus Far

Georgia Star News Staff

As of April 1, the United States government has compensated only three Americans who suffered injuries or death due to the COVID-19 injections, a report from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) shows.

The payments to the three individuals, who were compensated through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), were listed as $2,019.55 for anaphylaxis, $1,582.65 for myocarditis, and $1,032.69 for myocarditis.

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Haley’s Campaign Haul Considerably Less than the $11 Million Originally Reported

M.D. Kittle

Earlier this month, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign boasted the former South Carolina governor had outraised former President Donald Trump, that Haley was a fundraising “force to be reckoned with.”

Turns out the $11 million Haley was said to have raised didn’t quite pan out. 

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Lawsuit Demands National Archives Obtain Secret Service, DHS January 6 Texts

Georgia Star News Staff

A new lawsuit in federal court is suing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to obtain text messages between Secret Service and Homeland Security officials about former President Donald Trump.

Ken Klippenstein, a reporter for The Intercept, filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday. It asks the Court to order NARA to seek the Department of Justice’s subpoena power to obtain all text messages “sent or received by 24 Secret Service personnel during the period of December 7, 2020, through January 8, 2021,” as well as those sent by top Trump DHS officials at the time, according to the complaint.

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Democrats Join ‘Patriotic Millionaires’ Group to Call for 90 Percent Tax on Income Above $100 Million

Just the News

A group of Democratic lawmakers and the Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-income and high net worth individuals favoring higher taxes on the wealthy, are calling on Congress to pass a 90% income tax on incomes above $100 million as fears of a recession are growing.

Abigail Disney, a documentary filmmaker who is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, cofounder of The Walt Disney Company, joined the lawmakers to call for higher taxes on “extremely high income.”

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Announces Presidential Bid with Potentially More Popularity Among Conservatives

Susan Berry, PhD

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced his bid for the 2024 Democrat presidential nomination Wednesday by promising to end the “toxic” polarization in America that has grown so “dangerous,” he said, “than at any time since the Civil War.”

The lifelong Democrat, whose family was portrayed for decades, by an infatuated media, as American royalty, now appears to be an outlier in his party’s current far-left worldview, and is even attracting some conservatives.

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Nearly 270,000 Apprehensions, Gotaways at Southern Border in March

The Center Square

There were nearly 270,000 apprehensions and gotaways reported of foreign nationals who illegally entered the U.S. at the southern border last month, according to official data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and data The Center Square obtained from a Border Patrol agent.

CBP reported that encounters of illegal foreign nationals processed at ports of entry in all nine southwest Border Patrol sectors in March totaled 191,900, up nearly 23% from 156,138 in February.

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Commentary: America Is a Land of Systemic Justice

Georgia Star News Staff

Abraham Lincoln described America as a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Today’s Left portrays America as a nation conceived in slavery, and dedicated to the perpetuation of racial oppression. When CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell asked Joe Biden in the summer of 2020, “Do you believe there is ‘systemic racism’ in law enforcement,” Biden answered, “Absolutely. But it’s not just in law enforcement. It’s across the board. It’s in housing. It’s in education. It’s in everything we do.” 

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Court Blocks Nation’s First Gas Stove Ban

Just the News

A federal court on Tuesday has overturned a citywide ban on natural gas implements in new buildings that Berkeley, Calif., had implemented in a first of its kind decision.

The appeals court took the side of Berkeley’s restauranteurs who challenged the ban on grounds that it would adversely impact their businesses, according to the Washington Times. The California Restaurant Association had brought the suit, asserting that “Cities and states cannot ignore federal law in an effort to constrain consumer choice, and it is encouraging that the 9th Circuit upheld this standard.”

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Twitter Ends Ban on ‘Misgendering’ and ‘Deadnaming’ Transgenders

Georgia Star News Staff

On Tuesday, the social media platform Twitter made several major changes to its “hateful conduct policy,” determining that users are now allowed to refer to so-called “transgender” people by their actual genders and their original, gender-appropriate names.

The Daily Caller reports that the original policy, first enacted in 2018, forbade users from engaging in “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” The new guidelines have removed this sentence altogether from the “Slurs and Tropes” section.

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ATF Director Says He’s ‘Not a Firearms Expert’ When Asked to Define Assault Weapons He Wants to Ban

Just the News

Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, would not define what an assault weapon is and said he is “not a firearms expert” despite saying he would support an assault weapons ban.

At a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing Tuesday on the ATF’s 2024 fiscal year budget, Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) asked Dettelbach: “In 15 seconds, would you define an ‘assault weapon’ for me?”

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Commentary: Tax Armageddon Day Is Coming

RealClearWire

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote in 1789 that “our new Constitution is now established and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Death and taxes are fated. However, are enormous tax hikes also a fait accompli? Is it a certainty – ‘an accomplished fact’ – that the White House and Congress will repeal tax reforms that worked? Tax breaks that helped small business owners and families.

For the past several days Americans have been scrambling to make the deadline to complete their 2022 tax returns. Most taxpayers will be relieved once the ordeal is done. However, here’s an unfortunate reality: if Washington fails to act, the federal tax code is headed for major changes in just a couple of years, including massive tax hikes on families and small businesses.

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Senior IRS Agent Blows Whistle, Alleging Biden DOJ Thwarting Criminal Prosecution of Hunter Biden

Just the News

Adecorated supervisory IRS agent has reported to the Justice Department’s top watchdog that federal prosecutors appointed by Joe Biden have engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” to block criminal tax charges against presidential son Hunter Biden, providing evidence as a whistleblower that conflicts with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s recent testimony to Congress that the decision to bring charges against Biden was being left to the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware.

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Biden Administration Loses Track of Tens of Thousands of Migrant Children

Just the News
Group of immigrants at border

Four years after Democrats made political hay out of migrant children being separated from their parents at the border, Republicans have turned the tables on the issue amid evidence the Biden administration has lost track of as many as 85,000 minors it allowed to enter the country unaccompanied by parents, leaving many prey to cartel extortion, forced labor, abuse and trafficking.

The extraordinary political boomerang will be on full display Tuesday when Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Director Robin Dunn Marcos is grilled by a House Oversight subcommittee on the failure of the Department of Health and Human Services to vet, monitor and track unaccompanied migrant children, whose arrival at the border has grown more than 10-fold since Joe Biden took office.

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Europe Imposes First-Ever ‘Climate Tax’ on Imported Goods

Georgia Star News Staff

The European Parliament finalized legislation Tuesday that will impose taxes on imports based on the greenhouse gas emissions made during their production, despite the objections raised by companies in the U.S. and China.

The European Union’s (E.U.) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) would first take effect in 2026, and first cover emissions from companies producing iron, steel, cement, aluminum, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen, according to the European Parliament. The taxes have been criticized by firms in the U.S., who are concerned about unnecessary regulation and red tape, and firms in China and the developing world, who use less green sources of energy than competitors in the U.S. and E.U., according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Republicans, Democrats Holding Their 2024 Party Conventions in Two of the Most Dangerous Cities in America

M.D. Kittle

The biggest parties in U.S. politics will be held in two of the more dangerous cities in America. 

A former conservative sheriff who has been an equal-opportunity critic of Democrats and Republicans wants to know what convention organizers are thinking. 

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NIH Gives $2.2 Billion to Foreign Animal Testing Labs That Lack Oversight

RealClearWire

There are disturbing gaps in oversight at overseas labs that use animals in experiments. Labs to which the National Institutes of Health has given $2.2 billion in contracts and grants from 2011 to 2021, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

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North Carolina School District Votes to Require Parental Notification of Pronoun Changes

Susan Berry, PhD

The Moore County School Board in North Carolina voted Monday night to approve a “parents’ bill of rights” policy that requires school personnel to notify parents if their children desire pronoun and name changes in keeping with a new gender identification.

The policy, which passed by a vote of 6-1, requires that teachers in the district’s schools notify parents of a child’s claim of a desire for pronoun or name change before making the changes in school, reported WRAL.

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Home Fashion Company Announces Georgia County Distribution Facility

Georgia Star News Staff

A design house concentrated on home fashion plans to open a new Liberty County distribution and light manufacturing facility.

New Jersey-based Creative Home Ideas, a YMF company, plans to spend more than $15 million on the facility, which state officials said will create 70 jobs. Operations at the new facility at 1962 Sunbury Road in Midway should start in 2024.

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‘You Couldn’t Cut It:’ DeSantis Team Launches Beer Ad Spoof Mocking Men Competing in Women’s Sports

Georgia Star News Staff

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched a spoof beer advertisement on Monday night mocking male athletes who compete in women’s sports.

The advertisement, posted on the DeSantis War Room Twitter account, is a spin-off of the popular Bud Light commercial “Real Men of Genius” that aired in the early 2000s, and comes on the heels of a conservative-led boycott of the beer company after it revealed its partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. The ad features transgender athletes including former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and mockingly congratulates them on their performances in the women’s division, according to the video.

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Commentary: House GOP Needs to Take the Road Show Home

Georgia Star News Staff

The House Judiciary Committee held a raucous hearing in the Big Apple on Monday to discuss New York City’s rising crime problem. Republicans sought to highlight the poor performance of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is refusing to prosecute various crimes as he instead pursues a criminal case against Donald Trump, and leaving a tide of victims in his wake.

It’s fine, and perhaps politically shrewd, for the GOP to shine a light on crime-enabling local prosecutors jeopardizing the safety of their cities in exchange for partisan witch-hunts. But for the next hearing, congressional Republicans need only walk a few blocks from their House offices to the office of Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

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Commentary: After Decades of Outsourcing to China, the U.S. is Running Out of Children’s Antibiotics

Georgia Star News Staff

Acute shortages of orally delivered amoxicillin, penicillin and other children’s antibiotics throughout the 2022 and 2023 cold and flu season have made it difficult for doctors to treat normal childhood illnesses like ear infections, bronchitis, strep throat and rarer cases of infections caused after suffering Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and also sickle cell disease—for months.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about the amoxicillin shortage in Oct. 2022 just at the start of the cold and flu season. But since then, no statement has been issued by President Joe Biden about what appears to be an underreported public health crisis.

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Philadelphia Children’s Hospital Quietly Scrubbed Videos Discussing Transgender Surgeries Amid Public Backlash

Georgia Star News Staff

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), which operates a gender clinic, removed numerous videos and posts discussing childhood gender transitions, including irreversible surgeries, from its website amid public backlash, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The CHOP Gender and Sexuality Development Program came under scrutiny in September 2022 after some of its training videos on childhood gender transitions were circulated online, and the clinic said it was tightening its security that October due to threats. Resources including videos in which clinic staff promoted cross-sex medical interventions for minors and advised school workers to keep children’s gender identity secret from their families have since disappeared from CHOP’s website; these pages are saved in online archives, but their links either redirect to error pages or go to pages that have been heavily altered with certain links removed.

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Music Spotlight: Kinsey Rose

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- From the first few measures of a twangy guitar, I knew instantly when I heard “Speed of Broken Heart” that Kinsey Rose was going to be an artist I would want to feature. As they say, people who date have a “type”; the same can be said for me regarding country music artists. I have a type and when I hear it, I know it’s going to be gold.

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Elon Musk Tells Tucker Carlson AI Could ‘Absolutely’ Take Control of Civilization

Georgia Star News Staff

Elon Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Monday that it was “absolutely” possible for artificial intelligence to take control of civilization and make decisions for people.

“That’s real? It is conceivable that AI could take control and reach a point where you couldn’t turn it off and it would be making the decisions for people?” Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, asked Musk during an interview that aired Monday.

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Harlan Crow Refutes Accusations, Speaks Out on Clarence Thomas Attacks: ‘Political Hit Job’

Georgia Star News Staff

Harlan Crow said media reports on his friendship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are “factually incorrect” and part of a “political hit job” in an interview Monday with The Dallas Morning News.

Crow said it’s possible for people to simply be friends without having an “angle” and slammed the media for attempting to spin his friendship with Thomas into something it’s not. “I think that the media, and this ProPublica group in particular, funded by leftists, has an agenda to destabilize the [Supreme] Court,” Crow told The Dallas Morning News.

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The House GOP Effort to Defund ‘Wokeness’

RealClearWire

Through executive orders and budget requests, the Biden administration has sought to embed “diversity, equity, and inclusion” principles across the entirety of the federal government – and in turn to touch the lives of every American. Now members of the Republican House majority, who see this whole-of-government effort as a woke assault on America and its core values, are working to combat it using the power of the purse.

In a series of letters to House appropriations leaders, Rep. Jim Banks and like-minded colleagues have identified and called for the defunding of all “‘woke’ programs and initiatives that are rooted in discrimination and promote far-left ideology in the federal government” in 2024 spending bills.

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