Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robby Stephany-Saunders, a former senior national security Senate staffer, about how senators have the power to block or delay promotions for military officers facilitating the involuntary separations of unvaccinated military personnel.
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The Richmond Police Department thwarted a mass shooting of Virginians on July 4 by two men who were in the U.S. illegally. Their plans, which were unknown to the Department of Homeland Security – the agency tasked with preventing terrorist attacks – were thwarted by an anonymous tipster who called the police.
Republican Gov. Glen Youngkin called the tipster a “hero.”
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You’d think after achieving $5 a gallon nationwide gas prices and gutting domestic oil and gas producers, America’s environmental extremists would be elated and emboldened. But President Joe Biden’s energy policy is so incoherent, even Green New Deal socialists are frustrated, according to reporting by Politico’s Zack Colman.
“The climate advocates who cheered President Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House last year are preparing to give up on Washington,” Colman writes. “Instead, environmentalists and many of their Democratic allies are starting to shift their focus to state capitals as the places to press for action on climate change — going back to a strategy that they employed with some success during the Trump era.”
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The incomparable pop diva, Karine Hannah, turns rock ballads on their heads with her unique twists on the songs. Her voice evokes emotion like none other as is evinced in her latest single, “Hysteria.”
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When Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the Indonesian island of Bali on Saturday, the FBI will likely be in the process of launching a new probe into Chinese espionage against the U.S. — if it hadn’t already done so earlier in the day.
That’s based on an estimate by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who on Wednesday said his agency opens counterintelligence investigations into China roughly every 12 hours.
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Republicans have a plan to combat high prescription drug prices, without reverting to socialist price controls.
When I was a practicing pharmacist, I witnessed seniors trying to decide whether to pay for their medicine or pay for their groceries. I witnessed mothers crying because they couldn’t afford their children’s medicine.
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The Department of Justice invested almost $1.5 million of taxpayer dollars into a “transgender programming curriculum” focused on transgender inmates’ needs.
The curriculum is designed to help transgender inmates with their gender “identity,” sexual health and safety, according to a summary of the government contract. Though it’s unclear if the curriculum has been implemented, the program could be available for up to 1,200 transgender inmates, according to Justice Department estimates.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security “could do more to address the threats of domestic terrorism,” the Office of Inspector General concluded in a newly published report. The findings come after DHS has acknowledged that at least 50 people on the terrorist watch list have entered the U.S. illegally through the southern border since President Joe Biden has been in office.
The OIG found that DHS doesn’t have “staff dedicated to long term oversight and coordination of its efforts to combat domestic terrorism” and unless it puts in place “a cohesive long-term approach,” the agency charged with preventing terrorism “may not be able to proactively prevent and protect the Nation from this evolving threat.”
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Governor Glenn Youngkin discussed a 15-week abortion ban, inherently divisive concepts, the U.S. Supreme Court, same-sex marriage, the 2020 elections, and a potential 2024 presidential campaign in a Sunday appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation after Vice President Kamala Harris’ interview aired on the show. That’s part of a recent wave of national media focusing on Youngkin with speculation about 2024, and comes the day after he spoke to the Nebraska GOP convention.
At the end of the interview, host Robert Costa asked Youngkin if he was mulling a presidential run.
“That’s not a decision that we have even begun to undertake. The reality of course is I’ve been in- I’ve been governor of Virginia for six months, we’ve got an extraordinary amount done. $4 billion tax cuts, a record budget for education, $400 million into law enforcement to raise salaries and keep our community safe. This is where I’m focused,” Youngkin said.
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A town in northern Virginia has adopted a gun buyback ordinance, which will allow residents to receive compensation for giving unwanted firearms to the town.
The Dumfries Town Council approved the gun buyback program at a meeting this week. The ordinance the council adopted authorizes the town manager to contract an individual or entity to manage the firearm buyback program. The contract would be administered by the police department.
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We’re going to get a massive red wave this fall. The 2021 results in Virginia, out of control inflation, Joe Biden’s dismal approval ratings in recent polls (for perspective, Obama’s approval rating was 44.7 percent in October 2010, just before the midterm mauling Democrats got that year), soaring gas prices, and a porous southern border indicate that even places Biden won by 20 points in 2020 are in play this fall.
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Claiming that Twitter was in “material breach” of its agreement to sell the microblogging platform to him, Elon Musk said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that he does not intend to purchase Twitter, invoking a massive response in the tech space.
“Today’s announcement that Elon Musk is abandoning his takeover of Twitter comes as no surprise to those of us who predicted the implosion for months,” GETTER CEO Jason Miller said in a statement. “But the lasting result of the failed acquisition will be permanent, and Musk deserves credit for further exposing the incurable, rotting, politically discriminatory culture inside the Blue Bird.”
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Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week alleging that the federal agency is withholding documents that detail the foreign transactions conducted by the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
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The Biden administration is expanding restrictions on carbon emissions that could impact half the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity in the U.S.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding a rule under the U.S. Clean Air Act called the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Pollutants (NESHAP), which places restrictions on the emission of formaldehyde and benzene from stationary combustion turbines. Starting in August, the rule will now apply to two types of gas-fired turbines that were previously left out of the regulation, the EPA announced in February.
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An additional $30 million in Operation Lone Star (OLS) grant money is available to Texas cities and counties to enhance border security operations, the governor’s Public Safety Office (PSO) announced.
The announcement came two days after six county judges and sheriffs asked the governor to declare an invasion at the southern border, and to do more to help them thwart illegal activity in their counties after experiencing a surge of drug and human smuggling and other criminal activity resulting from the Biden administration’s border policies.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Chris Magnus promised discontented rank-and-file officials that the agency would always support them despite pursuing charges against agents involved in the now-debunked “whipgate” incident, an internal email obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation showed.
When CBP personnel “do the right thing,” the agency “will always stand behind you,” Magnus wrote in the email before announcing the results of the investigation into the September incident that took place in Del Rio, Texas. During the incident, Border Patrol agents used reins to steer their horses and maneuver around migrants entering the United Sates at the Rio Grande, which prompted some Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates to falsely claim the agents whipped migrants.
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The leader of recent migrant caravans has helped bring thousands of people through Mexico on a mission he says is driven by God, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Luis Rey Garcia Villagran told the DCNF that he’s directly helped 40,000 migrants cross into the United States through caravans he’s led since September 2021, believing it’s his duty to God. He’s done so through the work of his organization, the Center for Human Dignity.
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RICHMOND, Virginia – Congressman Bob Good (R-VA-05) held a rally on the Virginia Capitol grounds on Saturday afternoon to pressure Republican lawmakers to pursue a from-conception abortion ban, about two weeks after Governor Glenn Youngkin and leading pro-life lobbyist organization The Family Foundation said that they’d push for a 15-week pain threshold bill, due to the politically difficult environment in the General Assembly.
“The timeline of abortion should not be negotiated, abortion should not be negotiated, it should be eliminated,” Good said in his speech. “I’m sorry to say Republicans here in Richmond are the worst negotiators of all. You want to play poker with these folks. They show you what’s in their cards, they tell you the highest bid, and then they fold anyway.”
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Joe Biden attempted to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two weeks ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization by signing an executive order Friday that seeks to impose abortion on demand on the nation.
Pressed by radical pro-abortion leftists still reeling after the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the White House has produced a “fact sheet” about the executive order it claims will “protect access to reproductive health care services” until Congress enshrines the tenets of Roe into federal law.
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The deadline for second quarter finance reports isn’t until July 15, but Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC has already reported $1.5 million in donations of $10,000 or more, which are required to be reported within three days of receipt, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. That exceeds his previous three predecessors by about $1 million at this point in their terms, even accounting for inflation.
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It’s no secret that President Biden has been dismantling the U.S. immigration system since he took office. Under his all-but-named open-border policies, an estimated 794,112 illegal immigrants have escaped into the United States. The crisis is accelerating as roughly 476,000 such crossings have been in the first six months of 2022.
The “successful” crossings at the U.S. border will continue to skyrocket, as more immigrants attempt to enter, with agents encountering a record 239,416 migrants in May alone.
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First, don’t blame the vehicle. It is a tool that might be just what Los Angeles needs to cope with inversions. Electric vehicles are also very good as airport shuttles and for other locations where short, repetitive routes are the primary use. Some may even be fun to drive (except when they catch on fire).
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday announced that he was canceling plans to purchase social media giant Twitter, citing the company’s failure to produce information on fake accounts.
Musk sent a letter to Twitter’s board of directors on Friday announcing he would not acquire the company. He told the Securities and Exchange Commission that Twitter has “not complied with its contractual obligation,” according to the Associated Press.
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Google has offered to break apart in a bid to avoid greater punishment for antitrust violations from federal regulators, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The tech giant has raised the prospect of separating a major business operation off from Google—the auctioning and placing of online advertisements—to form a separate entity also under the umbrella of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, people close to Google reportedly told the WSJ. It was unclear if the offer would satisfy the Department of Justice (DOJ), which declined to comment on the story, according to the WSJ.
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The Charlotte County Board of Supervisors approved a use permit for an 800 megawatt solar facility — the largest in Virginia so far, according to SoVaNow. That moves the Randolph Solar Project close to its sale from developer SolUnesco to Dominion Energy, which needs to reduce carbon emissions after the General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed attorney and former Army JAG officer Sean Timmons about corruption in the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate program.
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The recently-passed Virginia budget for fiscal years 2023-2024 includes legislation delaying implementation of state bans on polystyrene for five years. The ban, sponsored by Delegate Betsy Carr (D-Richmond) required large food vendors to stop using the packaging material by July 2023, and all vendors by July 2025. But those deadlines are now July 2028 and July 2030, respectively.
After the ban’s final passage in 2021 under Democratic control, Virginia earned praise for its position from environmental groups. At the time, restaurant lobbyists warned that restaurants needed the containers amid an increase in takeout due to COVID-19. At the same time then-Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill, he also signed a ban on executive branch agencies using single-use plastics, which was reversed this year by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
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Virginia is receiving almost $22.8 million in federal funds to help reclaim abandoned mine land, according to a Wednesday announcement from Governor Glenn Youngkin. In February, Senators Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) announced that the funding is possible thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021.
“We are excited to get to work and assist in getting others back to work with this announcement of federal funds,” Youngkin said in his release. “Creating jobs in coal-impacted communities is a priority and through the reclamation and repurposing of these mined lands, we hope to see an additional economic activity for properties that can become suitable for development.”
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For many readers, the above title will conjure up memories of the 2008 housing crash caused by the proliferation of subprime mortgages and the subsequent tsunami of defaults. But a better corollary for the coming Biden bust is the Carter crash that occurred three decades earlier. During the final two years of Carter’s term, sales of existing and new homes collapsed because the Fed was forced to raise interest rates sharply to get double-digit inflation under control. This, in turn, produced double-digit mortgage rates that priced millions of potential buyers out of the market.
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A coalition of organizations and individuals convened by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) has released its model social studies standard, “American Birthright,” to teach America’s foundational history of liberty.
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The president of the nation’s largest teachers’ union told union delegates at the start of the Representative Assembly (RA) Sunday that 2016 was the year of a “fateful election,” one that made clear the U.S. Supreme Court would become “radicalized.”
In her keynote address Sunday in Chicago, National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle targeted former President Donald Trump for his choices in appointing Supreme Court justices.
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The Hard Rock Bristol Casino is opening its temporary location on Friday — the first casino to be opened in Virginia after the General Assembly legalized casinos with five prospective host cities in 2020. The casino has already hosted invitation-only events in Bristol on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, including a Thursday event at the Bristol Motor Speedway for casino employees.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed former Army JAG attorney Sean Timmons, a partner at Tully Rinckey, about how officers enforcing the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate could be sanctioned for issuing and or following unlawful orders.
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by Micaela Burrow Heads of intelligence agencies in the U.S. and UK warned against a widespread Chinese espionage campaign in a unique joint statement Wednesday. FBI Director Christopher Wray and MI5 Director General Ken McCallum addressed an audience of leaders in business and academia outside of the MI5 headquarters…
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You thought this last Supreme Court term rocked the political world? The next term threatens to blow up a system of “ghost” funding that the administrative state uses to run operations without voter accountability.
Over the last several decades, government agencies have discovered ways to fund operations without congressional appropriations, further fraying the already weak connection between the ballot box and real power in Washington, D.C. What’s worse, the “ghost” budgets go a long way in explaining the runaway inflation under which we all now suffer.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution states, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” This key clause has come back into focus because of a lawsuit challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB) which funds its operations directly from money printed by the Federal Reserve and not through appropriations.
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Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) was at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Waterbury, Connecticut, Tuesday to urge Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to declare a “public health emergency” in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that returns issues about abortion to the states.
“We’re pressing President Biden to use whatever authority he has, to the maximum extent to explore the possibility of a national emergency that would enable telemedicine prescription, which could then result in medication abortion through the mail,” Blumenthal said, according to the Stamford Advocate.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin’s environmental policy is frustrating both environmentalists and hard-line Republicans. Since he took office, Youngkin has touted a middle road on energy policy although some Republicans think solar and wind are harmful for Virginia. On the other hand, Youngkin has reversed a plan to phase out single-use plastics for state agencies and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from a regional greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program.
“We were obviously very disappointed in the direction that the administration is taking regarding offshore wind, but we’re not the only ones,” SUVGOP Senior Advisor Terry Johnson, a former Bush appointee, told The Virginia Star.
Read MoreA bill that would actually allow Critical Race Theory (CRT) to be pushed on every public school in the country has finally been exposed for what it is by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R).
In a statement June 30, DeSantis’ office released the positive results of Florida’s 2022 civics assessments since a major update to the state’s civics standards emphasizing the exceptional nature of the American founding and Constitution.
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A left-wing nonprofit that labels conservative and Christian groups “hateful” is reportedly funneling research to the committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — which claims to be “nonpartisan.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a legal advocacy group with former employees President Joe Biden has handpicked for federal roles, is collaborating with the committee, Politico reported. The group has provided roughly 40 pages of research and written testimony to the committee to facilitate its investigation of the riot, an SPLC lawyer told the outlet.
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U.S. judges declaring an invasion at the southern border hasn’t occurred before until this week, Ken Cuccinelli, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director and deputy secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said.
On Tuesday, four county judges in Texas declared an invasion citing Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. They called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”
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In the latest open-borders move by the Biden Administration, there will be new alterations to pre-existing immigration law allowing migrants with known terrorist ties to enter the country legally and more easily.
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The Office of Attorney General (OAG) Jason Miyares is arguing in court that it is too late to grant 2023 House elections — a response to Thomas v. Beals, a lawsuit alleging that the 2022 elections, held on pre-redistricting lines, disenfranchised voters in areas with significant population growth. The OAG argues that plaintiff Jeff Thomas delayed in filing the lawsuit — after Thomas alleged that both Miyares and former Attorney General Mark Herring themselves tried to block the elections through delay.
“This is a case about delay,” the OAG states in a July 1 memorandum supporting a motion to dismiss. “Almost a year after the first lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 2021 House of Delegates election, seven months after that election took place, and just over four months before the 2022 general election, Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the 2021 election.”
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Midterm elections involve high stakes, a great deal of groundless guessing, and lots of numbers – oddly similar to lotteries. Unlike lotteries, though, the many numbers associated with midterm elections are meaningful. The six meaningful midterm “lotto” numbers below should help historically ground your anticipation of what is likely or unlikely to happen in this year’s House elections, as well as set the eventual outcome in its historical perspective. You will have to use your imagination about the numbered ping-pong balls and the machine mixing them up. On to the all-important numbers.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, reports that the Trump-endorsed Arizona GOP Senate hopeful got a boost to his campaign in the final weeks before the Aug. 2, 2022, primary, when he was endorsed by Ric Grenell and Kash Patel.
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As the Democratic Party faces multiple political crises ahead of the November midterms, some are especially concerned that the party is losing its support among the youngest generation, Generation Z, over its response to the Supreme Court’s historic decision on abortion.
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Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has doled out hundreds of thousands on private security despite her ties to the Defund the Police movement, according to Fox News.
Abrams’ campaign paid $450,000 to an Atlanta-based security firm called Executive Protection Agencies between December 2021 and April 2022, Fox News reported Tuesday. But Abrams also sits on the board of The Marguerite Casey Foundation — a nonprofit she joined in 2021 that has supported abolishing and defunding police.
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Asked how American families who can’t afford to pay $5 per gallon of gasoline can survive, Biden’s National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said, “This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.”
President Joe Biden has thrust us into a new liberal world order of high inflation, open borders, shortages of critical items such as food, and so many disasters in foreign policy that they’re too many to catalogue.
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The U.S. Supreme Court marshall has asked Governor Glenn Youngkin to enforce state law in response to protesters outside justices homes, according to ABC News but Youngkin’s office placed the main responsibility on local authorities in statements to the media.
In a new statement Tuesday, Youngkin spokesperson Christian Martinez said, “Governor Youngkin has condemned picketing at the homes of the Supreme Court Justices. At the direction of the Governor, Virginia State Police have been at the ready and in constant coordination in the protest response which is led by the local primary authorities, the Fairfax County Police Department. The Governor remains in regular contact with the justices themselves and holds their safety as an utmost priority. Governor Youngkin will continue to push for every resource of federal law enforcement, including the U.S. Marshalls, to be involved while the Justices continue to be denied the right to live peacefully in their homes.”
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, reports attorney Kateri L. Dahl’s lawsuit against the Johnson City, Tennessee, police department and its Police Chief Karl Turner, in which the former special federal prosecutor claims Turner and his officers mishandled her investigation and attempt to bring to trial a serial rapist.
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More than a third of small businesses can’t pay rent, newly released data shows.
The small business network Alignable released new survey results that found that 35% of U.S. small business owners “could not pay their rent in full or on time in June.”
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