Day: October 7, 2023

Fox News Cancels Speaker of the House Debate After Candidates Pull Out

Georgia Star News Staff

Fox News has reportedly canceled a debate between Republican candidates for the speakership of the House of Representatives after multiple candidates withdrew from the planned program on Friday.

Fox had announced that it would host a forum between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan — the two candidates who have announced campaigns for the job — as well as Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, who is considering a campaign, to discuss their suitability for the job, from which Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was removed on Tuesday. However, following criticism from House Republicans, all three candidates decided to withdraw from the conversation, which led Fox News to cancel the whole program, according to multiple reports.

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No Charges for Georgia State Troopers Who Shot Protester During Occupation of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center

Tom Pappert

Prosecutors are recommending zero charges for the Georgia State Patrol (GSP) troopers who responded to civil unrest at the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Facility, according to a Friday report from the Mountain Circuit District Attorney’s Office. The report concerns the January 18 incident that saw one trooper shot by activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, which prompted the troopers to return fire and fatally shoot Terán.

The report includes testimony from troopers who responded to the future site of the public safety training center on January 18, and prosecutors ultimately ruled that use of lethal force by GSP was “objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case,” and thus requires no criminal charges.

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Liz Cheney Calls Trump’s Actions on January 6th as ‘Evil as You Can Imagine’

Zachery Schmidt

Liz Cheney said Thursday that what former President Donald Trump did on January 6th is as “evil as you can imagine” and as much of a “dereliction of duty of an American president we have ever seen.”

“[Trump was watching [the riot] on television, and he thought the mob was doing the right thing. And no matter how many times people pleaded with him to tell the mobs to go home, he wouldn’t do it,” the former Wyoming representative said in a talk at the University of Montana’s 2023 Mansfield Center Lecture series. “And did he not do it for over three hours, but in the middle of the violence, when the attack was happening, he sent out a tweet saying that Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what Trump wanted him to do.

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Debt-Laden Companies Are Headed Toward Doom as Interest Rates Take Their Toll

Georgia Star News Staff

Companies around the world could be in trouble in the first half of 2024 as the rising cost of debt due to heightened interest rates threatens a half-trillion dollar refinancing scramble, according to Reuters.

Businesses, particularly across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, that previously borrowed when rates were low and businesses that need to take out new loans to meet capital requirements need around $500 billion in the next half-year for refinancing to avoid cutting operations, according to Reuters, citing analysis from restructuring consultancy Alverez & Marsal. The value of company loans in the next six-month period is projected to be higher than any other similar period until the end of 2025, threatening businesses that will need to borrow during that time and risking corporate failures.

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America Adds over 300,000 Jobs in September as Interest Rates Remain Elevated

Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. added 336,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in September as the unemployment rate remained at 3.8%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.

Economists had anticipated that the country would add 170,000 jobs in September compared to 187,000 in August and that the unemployment rate would slide down to 3.7% from 3.8%, according to Reuters. Private employment data for September showed that only 89,000 jobs were added for the month, as the professional and business services, trade, transportations and utilities and manufacturing services sectors all had substantial losses, according to ADP.

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Commentary: Hillary’s ‘Deprogramming’ Wish and the FBI’s Latest Excuse to Hunt MAGA ‘Terrorists’

Julie Kelly

To the surprise of no one paying attention, Newsweek just confirmed the FBI is targeting supporters of Donald Trump in advance of the 2024 election. “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” investigative journalist William M. Arkin reported on October 5.

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Pro-Trump Attorney Challenges Fani Willis on First Amendment, RICO Validity in Georgia Election Case Against Him

Tom Pappert

In a pair of legal filings submitted Friday, attorney Kenneth Chesebro claims the case levied against him by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be dismissed based on First Amendment protections, and that she has failed to prove the racketeering charges against him. Chesebro, an attorney who assisted with former President Donald Trump’s effort to contest the 2020 election, requested Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee hold a hearing for arguments related to the latest filings.

The pair of filings were submitted by Chesebro’s attorneys on Friday afternoon, which The Messenger notes is the final day for parties to file written responses, and follow McAfee’s decision to toss a separate motion to dismiss the indictment earlier that morning.

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Starbucks Shutters Seven Stores in Crime-Ridden Parts of San Francisco

Georgia Star News Staff

Starbucks plans to close seven stores located in downtown San Francisco in October, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.

The corporation looked into “several factors” when it decided to close the seven locations, and added that it would continue to invest in San Francisco through its 40 other company-owned locations in the city, a Starbucks spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Although the company declined to comment on whether crime was a factor that led to its decision, all seven of the closing locations — Mission & Main, Geary & Taylor, 425 Battery, 398 Market St, 4th & Market, 555 California and Bush & Van Ness — are situated in or near the city’s troubledTenderloin district, a Starbucks store map showed.

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Air Force Sued over Free Speech Rights of Airman Who Called Out Cancel Culture While in Uniform

Georgia Star News Staff

A Space Force reservist filed a lawsuit against the Air Force, Space Force and the Department of Defense on Tuesday alleging he faced unlawful punishment for speaking out against cancel culture and progressive policies during a private event.

First Liberty Institute, law firm Winston & Strawn and the Ave Maria School of Law Veterans and Servicemembers Law Clinic filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jace Yarbrough, who in 2021 was invited to speak at a retirement ceremony for SMSgt Duane Fish allegedly in a personal capacity, according to a press release. After an unnamed Navy member present at the ceremony complained about the contents of the speech, the Air Force censured Yarbrough, now a Major in the Air Force Reserve and attorney.

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Federal Debt Increased by $2.2 Trillion in Fiscal Year 2023

Georgia Star News Staff

The federal government’s debt increased by $2,238,422,431,416.43 in fiscal 2023, according to data published by the U.S. Treasury Department.

On Sept. 30, 2022, the last day of fiscal 2022, the federal debt was $30,928,911,613,306.73, according to Treasury Department data. By Sept. 29, 2023, the last business day of fiscal 2023, it had climbed to $33,167,334,044,723.16.

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Commentary: The Era of ‘Just Do It’ Government

RealClearWire

Tim Scott did the impossible at last week’s Republican debate: He made me nostalgic for the politics of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

This was not the intent of South Carolina’s junior senator, as he condemned LBJ for creating programs during the 1960s that continue to undermine the very people they promised to help. “Black families survived slavery,” Scott said. “We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson’s Great Society, where they decided to put money – where they decided to take the black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, in devastation.”

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Commentary: Biden Administration Now Wants to Ban Furnaces

Georgia Star News Staff

In an attempt to force Americans to conserve energy, the Department of Energy is banning a whole class of popular furnaces, eventually raising heating costs and reducing product choices for families and businesses alike. And it is using an outdated law to give itself the authority to do so.

While the DOE did recognize many of the comments that I submitted arguing against its attempt to regulate gas furnaces, it did little more than brush them off. Unfortunately, higher costs and less choice won’t be so easy for American families and businesses to ignore. 

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