Law Professor Accuses University of Violating Federal Trade Commission Rules with Mask Mandate

A business law professor who has been put on paid leave for refusing to wear a mask in class is defending his actions with an unexpected authority: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

“[B]y requiring employees to wear a mask, you are promoting the idea that the mask can prevent or treat a disease, which is an illegal deceptive practice,” David Clements, who teaches consumer law at New Mexico State University (NMSU), told provost Carol Parker in a Sept. 13 letter.

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Few Americans Trust the Government to Keep Their Data Secure: Poll

Only a small minority of Americans say they trust the government to keep their online personal information safe, according to a new poll.

Just 23% of Americans say they are very or somewhat satisfied with the federal government’s efforts to keep their online data secure, according to the results of a poll released Thursday by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MeriTalk. Almost 4 in 10 Americans say they are dissatisfied with the government’s efforts.

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Brown University Exempts its Official Functions from New Indefinite COVID Restrictions

On Monday, administrators at Brown University  informed students that the school had confirmed eighty-two “positive COVID-19 asymptomatic tests in the past seven days”  arising largely from asymptomatic undergraduate students.

Brown then introduced several temporary restrictions. But rather than providing a specific end date, the university told students that restrictions will be removed “after achieving a decrease in positive tests.”

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Louisiana State University Begins Disenrolling Students Not Compliant with COVID Regulations

Louisiana State University has begun unenrolling students who failed to comply with COVID-19 regulations.

As Fox 23 reports, seventy-eight students were told that they had been “resigned” from the school and would be refunded 50 percent of their fees. Louisiana State media relations director Ernie Ballard confirmed on Twitter that the students are “being contacted that they are being unenrolled from the university.”

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UK Court Decides Kids under the Age of 16 Can Take Puberty Blocking Medication Without Court Approval

Bink, a gender non-conforming 10 year old child playing outside.

Doctors can now prescribe puberty blocking medication to children under the age of 16 without a judge’s approval, Britain’s Court of Appeals ruled on Friday.

The decision reverses last year’s ruling that children seeking gender reassignment aren’t mature enough to give informed consent to take puberty blocking medicine, the Associated Press reported. The decision said that doctors should seek court approval before prescribing the medication because the drugs were still experimental.

The Tavistock and Portman National Health Service (NHS) trust, Britain’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, appealed last year’s ruling, the AP reported. The Court of Appeal sided with the trust Friday, ruling it was “inappropriate” for the high courts to issue their guidance, and it was up to the doctors to “exercise their judgment” regarding patients’ consent.

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At Least 18 Republican Governors Support Biden’s Afghan Refugee Resettlement Plan

Afghan women refugee settlment

After the Biden Administration announced its intentions to resettle at least 95,000 Afghan refugees in the United States, over a dozen Republican governors have voiced their support for his plan, as reported by Breitbart.

Last week, the White House declared that at least 36,000 Afghans will be resettled in the United States across 46 different states. The only four states that will not be receiving any refugees are Hawaii, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Washington, D.C.

In August, only about 10 Republican governors supported the proposed resettlement, including well-known “moderate” Republicans such as Larry Hogan in Maryland, Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Brian Kemp in Georgia, Doug Ducey in Arizona, and Phil Scott in Vermont. But since then, eight more Republicans have joined in their support for the plan. In total, the 18 states with Republican governors that now support refugee resettlement are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont.

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Twitter Offers $800 Million to Settle Class Action Lawsuit Over Claims it Misled Investors

Twitter proposed an $800 million dollar settlement agreement to resolve all claims the company misled investors regarding its user and engagement data, the company announced Monday.

Twitter submitted the agreement to the Northern California District Court to settle a class action lawsuit filed by shareholders in 2016, the social media platform announced in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday. If the settlement is approved by the court, Twitter will pay shareholders $809.5 million.

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Robin Hood in Reverse: Democrats Plan $12,500 Tax Credits for Pricey Electric Car Purchases

House Republicans are arguing against a Democratic proposal to increase the $7,500 taxpayer-funded credit for electric car purchases to as much as $12,500, arguing that it would disproportionately help wealthy Americans who can afford to buy pricey electric vehicles.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have proposed increasing the credit as part of their party’s filibuster-proof $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which includes new social programs and billions for electric vehicle infrastructure.

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26 Governors Seek Meeting with Biden over Border Surge

More than half of the country’s governors would like a moment of the president’s time – and soon: Twenty-six Republican governors are urging Joe Biden to do more to address the deteriorating situation along the southern U.S. border.

“As chief executives of our states,” they write in a letter postmarked for Monday and first obtained by RealClearPolitics, “we request a meeting with you at The White House to bring an end to the national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders.”

The GOP chief executives are requesting an audience “within 15 days” given that the “the crisis that began at our southern border now extends beyond to every state and requires immediate action before the situation worsens.”

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Manchin Reportedly Calls on Democrats to Push Budget Back to 2022

Joe Manchin

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin reportedly said in private that the “strategic pause” he has pushed for regarding his party’s budget should last through the end of the year.

Manchin’s remarks, first reported by Axios, would mean a sharp departure from Democrats’ long-stated goals, which include passing both the budget and the bipartisan infrastructure bills before the end of September.

His remarks align both with a Wall Street Journal op-ed he wrote earlier this month and recent comments he made calling for a “pause” on the budget as Congress addressed other priorities ranging from a messy Afghanistan withdrawal to multiple natural disasters.

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Commentary: Epitaph for the ‘War on Terror’

Twenty years after the U.S. government declared war on terrorism, it consummated its own defeat in Kabul and Washington, in a manner foreseeable, foreseen, and foreshadowed in 9/11’s immediate aftermath. Fixation on itself and unseriousness about war are the twin habits of heart and mind that disposed the ruling class to defeat. The practical explanation for why and how it accepted defeat is found in the overriding interest each part of the ruling class has in doing what it wants to do. 

On the night of September 11, 2001, Muslim governments strictly forbade public celebrations of the carnage. The Palestinian Authority, anticipating that outraged Americans would destroy them to avenge the day’s events, even called the attacks al nachba—“the disaster.” But as the U.S. ruling class made clear that it was accepting defeat, the Muslim world’s media and streets celebrated.

Two decades later, after that defeat’s logic had worked its way through and transformed American life, and as the government’s self-humiliating exit from Afghanistan consummated it, much of mankind followed Muslim crowds in celebrating—including prominent Americans. 

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Judge in Case of Anti-Trump Mudslinger is Married to Attorney for Ex-FBI Lawyer Lisa Page

FBI logo outside of building

Last week, the special counsel appointed to oversee the probe into the FBI’s investigation of former president Donald Trump indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Republicans and Trump allies are optimistic about the latest development in John Durham’s investigation but are still concerned that Attorney General Merrick Garland might halt the investigation to protect allies and even the president himself.

FBI notes appear to suggest that as vice president, Joe Biden played a role in the Democratic Party project to smear Trump as a Russian asset by raising the obscure, disused, 18th century statute the Logan Act as a possible vehicle for prosecuting Michael Flynn for speaking with the Russian ambassador to Washington — even after FBI case agents had cleared Trump’s incoming national security adviser of wrongdoing.

And now Republicans are raising concerns that the judge appointed to the Sussmann case has too many conflicts of interest to preside over it fairly.

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Stock Market Nosedives as Massive Sell-Off Continues

Major stock market indices plummeted Monday in a continuing sell-off tied to China’s declining property value, increasing COVID-19 cases and lack of progress in Congress on increasing the debt limit.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), an index measuring 30 major U.S. corporations, dropped 1.78% on Monday. The S&P index, which measures 500 of the largest publicly traded companies, fell 1.7%, while the NASDAQ, an index composed largely of technology firms, declined 2.19%.

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TikTok Parent Company Limits Screen Time for Chinese Kids to 40 Minutes Per Day

TikTok maker ByteDance announced Saturday it was limiting screen time for Chinese users under 14 years old.

The Chinese version of video sharing platform TikTok, called “Douyin,” unveiled a new “youth mode” feature that limits the use of its app for children under 14 to 40 minutes a day, its parent company ByteDance announced Saturday. The app will also be unavailable for children between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., ByteDance said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Commentary: House Abortion Bill Would Repeal Existing Laws, Prohibit Future Pro-Life Laws

In response to pro-life policy victories like the Texas Heartbeat Act and an upcoming Supreme Court case asking the justices to provide a constitutional course correction to America’s arbitrary and unworkable abortion jurisprudence, pro-abortion legislators in Congress are advancing a deceptively named piece of legislation called the Women’s Health Protection Act. The radical, far-reaching proposal would entrench unfettered access to abortion in federal law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her congressional allies—as well as the media —have characterized the Women’s Health Protection Act as simply “codifying Roe v. Wade.”

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Designer of AOC’s ‘Tax the Rich’ Gown Owes Back Taxes on $1.6 Million Hollywood Hills Home, Report

The designer of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Tax the Rich” gown for the recent Met Gala reportedly has her own tax issues, including owing thousands on a $1.6 million home she recently purchased in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills.

Designer Aurora James bought the home in September 2020, but the property is already listed as “delinquent” by the Los Angeles County assessor’s office. The office told The New York Post, which this past weekend reported on James’ tax issues, the designer owed $2,504 in property taxes.

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Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Pathway to Citizenship from Democrats’ Budget

Capitol building

The Senate Parliamentarian blocked Democrats’ effort to include a pathway to citizenship in their $3.5 trillion spending package Sunday, a major setback in the party’s bid to reform the nation’s immigration system.

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough wrote in her decision that Democrats’ proposed legislation is “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” adding that it “substantially outweighs the budgetary impact of that change.”

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Pennsylvania Senate Democrats File Suit, Allege GOP ‘Overreaching’ in Election Subpoena

Anthony Williams and Jay Costa

Pennsylvania Senate Democrats filed a legal challenge in Commonwealth Court against what they call an “overreaching” subpoena of election records containing personal information for nearly 7 million voters.

The lawsuit filed late Friday alleges Republican members of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee – including Chairman Cris Dush, R-Wellsboro and President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte – broke the law when they issued a subpoena against the Department of State seeking the name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number and partial social security number of each and every resident that voted by mail or in person during the last two elections.

In a joint statement, the Democratic members of the committee – including Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Pittsburgh; Minority Chairman Tony Williams, D-Philadelphia; Sen. Vince Hughes, D-Philadelphia; and Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Lower Makefield – said the consequences of the subpoena “are dire” and leave the personal information of residents in the hands of an “undisclosed third party vendor with no prescribed limits or protection.”

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Exclusive: ‘Wrong Way’ Milley Beat 1982 DUI Charge, Paid $100 Fine

The Star News Network can confirm as of Monday that Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was arrested in Cumberland County, North Carolina in 1982 for driving under the influence, or DUI, after a traffic stop. 

A clerk at the Cumberland County, North Carolina records section confirmed to The Star last week that a man named Mark A. Milley was charged with driving under the influence on November 19, 1892. 

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U.S. to Begin Expelling Thousands of Migrants in Del Rio, Texas, Effort to Include Flights to Haiti

A crowd of Haitian people

The Biden administration is expected to begin the large-scale expulsion Sunday of thousands of migrants encamped in the Texas border city of Del Rio, using several flights a day to return them to their home country.

The effort is expected to involve two to eight flights daily, sources told the Associated Press.

Migrants began arriving in Del Rio, a frequent destination for illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, several days ago, huddling under a bridge while they wait to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Many of them are from Haiti.

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Dow Plummets More Than 500 Points at Monday Open, Following Three Straight Weeks of Losses

U.S. stocks shed more than 500 points as the markets opened Monday morning as emerging risks continue to become the September story for Wall Street.

The Dow Jones Industrial average fell 570 points – its biggest single day drop since mid-July. The S&P 500 lost 1.4%, while the tech-oriented Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.6%.

The sell-off comes as a the result of a number of investor concerns. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve will begin a two-day meeting, which investors are worried will result in a decision that will pull stimulus funds as inflation continues to surge.

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Small Business Group to Sue Biden over Vaccine Mandate

The Job Creators Network announced plans to sue the Biden administration over its mandate requiring private sector workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

The advocacy group said it would soon file a lawsuit alongside several of its small business members, according to a Thursday announcement. The Job Creators Network (JCN) argued the mandate would make hiring more difficult, harming small businesses that are already struggling to find workers amid a slowing economic recovery.

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Commentary: Virginia, Not California, Will Provide Lessons for 2022

In the wake of a big statewide campaign win of any kind, political pundits rev into overdrive with broad pronouncements about the takeaways and what the result reveals about the mood of the nation. Often, the results are more prosaic — simply the political status quo for that particular state or district in that specific slice of time.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s smackdown of the recall was no different this week. Few longtime state politicos were surprised by his ability to win big in solidly blue California.

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Thousands of Migrants, Mostly From Haiti, Overwhelm Border Officials in Texas

A crowd of Haitian people

Thousands of Haitian migrants overwhelmed border officials in Del Rio, Texas, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

Border officials reportedly said that over 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, were waiting to be processed under the Del Rio International Bridge, according to the Times. A few hundred migrants crossed the shallow section of the Rio Grande River to the temporary site earlier this week, and officials reportedly expect thousands more to show up over the next few days.

More Border Patrol agents will be deployed to the area “to immediately address the current level of migrant encounters and to facilitate a safe, humane and orderly process,” the agency said, the Times reported. Migrants are told to wait under the bridge to get out of the hot Texas sun in an effort to stem heat-related illness before they’re taken into custody.

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Commentary: The Tedious Work of Politics

In his crystalline column about the California recall and, by extension, the center-right populist movement in general, American Greatness Managing Editor Ben Boychuk singled out what must be done, namely “the tedious work of politics”:

That means laboring and building at the local level—beginning in our own neighborhoods. That means not only attending school board and city planning meetings but also running for those seemingly low-level posts because that’s how real candidates for higher office are made . . . [I]t is an argument for seeing the state as it is and changing course accordingly . . . Nobody was ever coming to save us. We can only save ourselves.

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Arizona Attorney General Condemns Biden Administration’s Warning Label on Constitution, Declaration

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich condemned the National Archives Records Association’s (NARA) decision to label documents with a “harmful language” alert.

Brnovich demanded that NARA immediately remove the warning labels from documents including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in a Sept. 10 letter to the agency first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The warning labels only serve to further divide Americans, the attorney general said.

“This is shameful action from the National Archives, and the misguided ‘alerts’ should be taken down immediately,” Brnovich wrote to U.S. Archivist David Ferriero. “There is nothing ‘harmful’ about our founding documents. These inspired writings governed the formation of our new country in the late 18th Century and provided the roadmap for it to grow into the greatest nation in history.”

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FDA Says It Does Not Buy Fetal Tissue – Any More

Baby covered in a blanket

The Food and Drug Administration assured the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday that it has not entered into any contracts “for the purchase of human fetal tissue” since 2018.

The agency’s response follows the release of documentation obtained by Judicial Watch showing that the FDA procured fetal organs, tissue, and heads for research that involved “humanized mice.” Previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch found that the FDA requested “fresh and never frozen” fetal organs.

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years. These documents we’ve gotten from the FDA and our other lawsuit…they are the worst things I’ve ever seen,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday. “The most troubling documents I’ve ever seen.”

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Texas Tech to End ‘Anti-Racism’ Seminar that Separated Students by Skin Color

Students walking on Texas Tech campus

Texas Tech University has cancelled an anti-racism seminar where students were segregated by race, the school told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Faculty and students were broken up into two groups within the “Allyship and Co-Conspirator” session of the “Deeply Rooted Conversations” training, Young America’s Foundation (YAF) reported based on documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. YAF filed the requests for information in May 2021 after a student told the group about the “anti-racism” training.

“Upon reviewing materials from the ‘Deeply Rooted Conversations’ discussion series, we learned that some of the content does not align with our university values, and we have discontinued this program,” Matt Dewey, a spokesman for Texas Tech University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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‘The Numbers Are Skewed’: Colorado Officials Warn of Inflated COVID Death Statistics

Multiple public officials in Colorado are warning that the state’s official COVID-19 death count is skewed due to the practice of conflating patients who have died directly due to the disease with those who have merely tested positive for it prior to death.

Data experts and health officials have long struggled to separate out those two key data points in government tallies of COVID deaths, leading to accusations that the death rate for the disease is being inflated modestly or even significantly.

Multiple public officials in Colorado, meanwhile, told “Full Measure” host Sharyl Attkisson that they had personally observed death tallies that erred on the side of COVID, leading to death counts that were effectively misleading to the public.

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Internet Watchdog Says Ex-Intelligence Community Officials Are Echoing Big Tech Talking Points

A warning by former national security officials about the dangers of regulating technology companies is in lockstep with arguments made by Big Tech chief executives, according to a report from an internet watchdog group.

A group of former intelligence community officials sent a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy arguing against the passage of a series of antitrust bills advanced in the House Judiciary Committee in June. The warnings echo talking points made by groups lobbying for the tech industry and major tech firms themselves, according to a report by the Internet Accountability Project, a nonprofit conservative advocacy group focused on issues related to Big Tech.

The intelligence community officials argued the bills would make the U.S. less competitive with China and could even compromise America’s national security. 

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Blinken Replaces ‘Controversial’ Pro-Hong Kong Tweet with Milder Statement

Antony Blinken

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took down a tweet he posted Thursday saying the U.S. would “stand with the people of Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post reported.

“Beijing should let the voices of all Hong Kongers be heard. The PRC’s disqualification of district councillors only weakens Hong Kong’s long-term political and social stability,” Blinken said in the tweet, as shown in screenshots from the South China Morning Post.

“We stand with the people of Hong Kong & continue to support their human rights & fundamental freedoms,” he added. Blinken took down his tweet on Friday, later replacing it with a milder message, South China Morning Post reported.

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Commentary: Like His Hero, FDR, Joe Biden Shambles His Way Through History, Leaving the World to Wonder Who is Captaining this Ship of State

The distant eyes and slack mouth, the befuddled shuffle off the walkway, recurrent unexplained schedule gaps and public disappearances, and off-the-wall comments finally make Joe Biden a pale copy of his hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In wrapping up a war and realigning the world order, the first eight months of Biden as president resemble the last years of Roosevelt—except that FDR was on the cusp of victory against an avowed enemy.

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CDC: Childhood Obesity Increased Dramatically During COVID Pandemic

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), childhood obesity rates skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic to “substantial and alarming” levels, as reported by Fox News.

The CDC’s findings, released on Thursday, determined that increases in obesity were most prevalent among children who were already overweight before the pandemic started, but found a “profound increase in weight gain for kids” across the board. Overall, the study determined that 22 percent of American children and teenagers were obese in August of 2020, which marked an increase of 3 percent from August of 2019.

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Faculty in Universities Unwilling to Sponsor of Conservative Student Clubs

Conservative students across the country are facing difficulty when they attempt to start a right-leaning student organization on campus due to a lack of faculty members willing to serve as the advisor.

Most universities require prospective student organizations to obtain a faculty advisor before the school will consider recognizing the organization as an official on-campus club.

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Music Spotlight: Creed Fisher

Creed Fisher

With over 22 million combined streams on Spotify and over 17 million views on YouTube with past releases like “Life of A Workin’ Man,” “The Way That I Am,” and “Old School” Texas-born and bred southern rock artist Creed Fisher is one of the most streamed and popular artists I have ever featured.

Fisher hails from Odessa, Texas, where his family’s roots trace back to his granddad, who was highly involved in the oil game back in the fifties. He started writing songs/poems at age nine. He states that “it wasn’t very good” but it was the beginning of his fruitful songwriting career.

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Report: Law Enforcement Regularly Uses Google Data to Identify Suspects in Criminal Investigations

Police are reportedly increasingly using Google data to identify suspects in criminal investigations, a trend that has experts warning about possible privacy and civil liberty concerns.

“Geofence location warrants and reverse search warrants” are “increasingly becoming the tool of choice for law enforcement,” according to The Guardian.

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Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters’ Plans to Tackle Big Tech’s ‘Predatory’ Business Practices

Woman in a red suit on Smartphone

Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to break up Big Tech and ban their business practices he believes are harmful.

“I think Republicans need to reacquaint themselves with their history of antitrust enforcement, and realize huge concentrations of power in private hands can violate people’s liberties just as much as government,” Masters said in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Masters, who announced his candidacy in July, serves as chief operating officer at investment firm Thiel Capital and runs the Thiel Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. He competes in a crowded Republican primary with fellow candidate and current Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for the chance to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022.

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Political Prisoners

Capitol Riot

The latest “conspiracy theory” consuming the political Right, our media betters warn, is the idea that the Biden regime is creating a class of political prisoners stemming from the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill. Scoffing at accusations that January 6 protesters are treated differently from other protesters, columnists and talking heads insist it’s nothing more than right-wing media spin.

A rally scheduled this weekend for January 6 defendants has official Washington apoplectic. Dozens of Americans remain locked up in a D.C. jail and at facilities across the country as they await trials that won’t begin until at least mid-2022.

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Voting Reform Bill Reintroduced after Pennsylvania Governor’s Veto

Seth Grove and Tom Wolf

The prime sponsor of a vetoed voting reform bill said Friday he reintroduced the measure after Gov. Tom Wolf shifted his public opinion on some components of the legislation over the summer.

Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, said House Bill 1800 would bolster voting rights “through three broad concepts of increased access, increased security and modernization.” 

“We know access and security are not mutually exclusive,” he said.

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Memo Shows Border Patrol Is Experiencing ‘Critical Shortages’ of Frontline Personnel

An internal memo within U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that agency leaders are warning of a major shortage of personnel amid a surge of immigration activity at the country’s southern border.

The memo, dispatched on Sept. 17 and obtained by Just the News via a source, warns that Border Patrol “continues to experience critical shortages of frontline personnel due to the rising encounters of individuals attempting to enter the United States without proper authorization along the Southwest Border.”

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Fairfax, Arlington, and Alexandria Approve Plastic Bag Taxes

Five-cent taxes on single-use plastic bags are spreading across Virginia’s more urban localities. On Saturday, Arlington County and the City of Alexandria adopted the local tax ordinances, while Fairfax County adopted a similar ordinance on September 14. The taxes take effect on January 1, 2022.

“Arlington is proud to take this step to reduce plastic bag waste in our community and to do so with our regional partners,” Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a press release. “We have long sought the legal authority for this small fee as a way to protect our environment and become a more sustainable community. We look forward to working with residents and neighbors on implementation.”

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Biden Administration Funds New Project to Bolster Tajik-Afghan Border, Abandons U.S. Border Wall

While the Biden administration halted construction of the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the United States is funding border security efforts for Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic trying to keep Afghan insurgents and refugees out.

One day after the Biden administration’s Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan, the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, announced that it had launched a project to construct new facilities for a Border Guard Detachment in Ayvoj, along the Tajik-Afghan-Uzbek border.

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Commentary: Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Could Rise or Fall Based on 2012 Roberts Ruling on Obamacare Individual Mandate

“Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.”

That was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion ruling in 2012 that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was unconstitutional under Congress’ Article I, Section 8 power to regulate interstate commerce.

And yet, the mandate was rescued in the very same decision by Roberts, ruling that penalty under the individual mandate was a valid exercise of Congress’ Article I, Section 8 power to collect taxes.

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Former FDA Head Says CDC Guidance Hurt Pandemic Response

Scott Gottlieb

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance ultimately hindered the U.S. response to the pandemic, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in his upcoming book “Uncontrolled Spread,” set to be released Sept. 21.

Gottlieb said in the book that U.S. intelligence agencies need to play a more active role in preparing for a pandemic, as opposed to leaving plans solely to health agencies like the CDC.

“We need to have human assets in the medical community so we understand when an outbreak emerges,” Gottlieb said, Axios reported. “We need to have the capability of monitoring typical streams of intelligence, like signals intelligence and maybe even satellite intelligence, looking for things that could be trip wires for an outbreak of disease.”

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War Room: Steve Bannon to Steve Moore, ‘We Are the DIP Lenders, No More Continuing Resolution’

  Stephen K. Bannon welcomed economic writer and political analyst, Steve Moore on Friday’s War Room: Pandemic to discuss the federal government’s budget timeline and how Republicans are now in a position as DIP lenders to say no to more time. Bannon: Ok. Let’s go to Steve Moore. Steve Moore,…

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Ocasio-Cortez Hit with Second Ethics Complaint over ‘Tax the Rich’ Met Gala Appearance

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her "Tax the Rich" Met Gala dress

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have violated a myriad of House ethics rules for attending the ritzy Met Gala on Monday evening while wearing a “tax the rich” dress, a conservative watchdog group alleged in a complaint obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The watchdog group, National Legal and Policy Center, alleged in a complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics on Thursday that Ocasio-Cortez’s acceptance of free tickets to the event, which reportedly run at $35,000 apiece, for both herself and her boyfriend violated House Gift Rules. The group also alleged that Ocasio-Cortez received a prohibited gift from a paid attendee of the Met Gala by sitting at a sponsored table during the event, which are reportedly valued at up to $300,000.

In addition, the watchdog group alleged that Ocasio-Cortez may have accepted prohibited in-kind gifts due to her use of her custom-designed “tax the rich” dress and other services and amenities.

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Commentary: A China Story Bob Woodward Chose Not to Tell

In a just world, if the reporting of Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their new book Peril is accurate, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley would be sharpening his ceremonial sword and planning seppuku. Woodward and Costa have reported that Milley circumvented the chain of command and made unauthorized calls to CCP Gen. Li Zuocheng.

If Woodward and Costa got the story wrong, however, they should be the ones sharpening their swords. Although more reliable than most in Big Media, Woodward has reported many stories of questionable accuracy over the years. There was the dubious “potted plant” signal for the equally dubious “Deep Throat,” the imaginative deathbed confession of CIA Director William Casey, and the misinterpreted “slam dunk” quote by former CIA Director George Tenet among others.

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Retail Sales Surprisingly Increased Last Month After Plummeting in July

Woman checking out a business

Retail sales unexpectedly increased last month despite continued challenges facing the economy as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sales ticked up 0.7% in August relative to July and totaled $618.7 billion, according to a Census Bureau report published Thursday. E-commerce, furniture, general merchandise, building materials and energy purchases drove last month’s sales increase.

Dow Jones economists had expected sales to decline 0.8%, CNBC reported. In July retail sales posted a sharp 1.8% decline as coronavirus cases surged, the Census report said Thursday.

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Commentary: Bullets, Ballots, and Books

The bomb that detonated at Scripps College on the afternoon of February 26, 1969, didn’t injure anyone, but an innocent young woman was badly maimed when another device exploded almost simultaneously in Carnegie Hall at adjacent Pomona College. Hidden inside a shoebox wrapped in brown paper, the second bomb left 20-year-old Mary Ann Keatley blind in one eye and ripped two fingers from her right hand. Keatley, married just five months earlier to an undergraduate at Claremont Men’s College, worked as the secretary for the Pomona political science department. These two explosions, and a third two weeks later, shattered windows, and wrecked buildings.

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Wisconsin Lawmakers Look at Opt-out Option for Parents on Gender and Sex Classes

Girl student standing and holding books in hand in a classroom

Wisconsin lawmakers are wrestling with the question of who should talk to their kids about sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Assembly Committee on Education on Thursday held a marathon hearing on a plan that would allow parents to opt their kids out of classes on both.

“This is merely just a way to give parents a choice,” Rep Bob Whitke, R-Racine, said. “Because there are a lot of concepts now that are coming out in school … it’s being done in a way that parents don’t understand, and parents aren’t notified.

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