Republican Votes Still Being Counted to Determine McPike’s Opponent for Virginia’s State Senate District 29 Seat

With his Republican opponent still to be determined, Democratic State Sen. Jeremy McPike is a winner in Virginia’s District 29, accepting a concession on Sunday from Del. Elizabeth Guzman.

The Republican race from last Tuesday remains too close to call. In the most recent announced tabulation, only two votes separate candidates Nikki Rattray Baldwin, the leader, and Maria Martin.

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Commentary: Democrats Are Starting to Panic as Trump’s Numbers Unaffected by Indictment over Documents

“Democrats have a deep bench. They had better prepare now to turn to it.”

That was former Bloomberg News executive editor Al Hunt writing for The Messenger on June 25, pontificating about the prospects of replacing President Joe Biden in 2024 as the Democratic Party nominee as the incumbent president’s poll numbers still appear gloomy even after Biden’s Justice Department brought his top political opponent, former President Donald Trump, who is standing for election once again in 2024, up on charges over documents retained after the Trump administration that Trump says he declassified.

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DeSantis Lays Out Border Security Plan at Event in Eagle Pass, Texas

In a campaign stop in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis presented his border security plan as part of his platform to win the Republican nomination for president.

The plan includes reinstating several policies implemented by the Trump administration, including ending catch and release, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, among others. His plan also includes using the U.S. military to work with Border Patrol agents “on day one, and they’ll continue to help until the [border] wall is finished,” according to a campaign document obtained by The Center Square.

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Teachers Union Had Hotline to Education Secretary on COVID Policy, Parents Had ‘No Voice’: Watchdog

The country’s two largest teachers unions had direct access to the Education Department during the pandemic while parents had “no voice,” says a watchdog group of retired and former public servants.

Michael Chamberlin, the director of the group, Protect the Public’s Trust, made the claim in a recent episode of the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, saying research found “extensive coordination between … the two main teachers unions and high-level officials in the Department of Education,” namely the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

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Children’s Hospital Charges Schools Thousands For Trainings On How To Teach About Gender Identity, Anal Sex

An Illinois children’s hospital is charging school districts thousands of dollars for a sex education workshop that features lessons on how to teach kids about anal sex and gender identity, according to documents obtained through a public records request by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is charging school districts up to $1,500 for a presentation to educators on “inclusive sexual health ed practices” that promotes the National Sexuality Education Standards (NSES), a K-12 sexual education curriculum, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. The presentation recommends that fifth graders should learn several different sexual orientations, while eighth graders should be taught about anal and oral sex.

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Nearly Half of Californians Are Considering Fleeing the State: Poll

Nearly half of Californians are considering leaving the state, according to a June California Community poll.

The top cited reasons residents had for wanting to leave the state included the cost of living and political disagreement, according to the poll results. The poll was conducted between June 6 and June 16 and is an “ongoing partnership between Strategies 360 the Los Angeles Times,” the website reads.

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SCOTUS Throws Out Dem Lawsuit Seeking Trump Hotel Records

The Supreme Court threw out Democratic lawmakers’ lawsuit seeking to compel an executive agency to disclose records relating to the Trump hotel formerly located in the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C.

Though the Supreme Court agreed in May to hear the case, which questioned whether individual members of Congress can sue executive agencies to compel records disclosures, Democrats voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit in a June 7 filing. In an unsigned order Monday, the Supreme Court tossed the case.

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Commentary: The Left Fears the Revolutionary Model it Bequeathed to America, for Good Reason

by Victor Davis Hanson   The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were…

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GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill That Would Bar Biden from Invoking a ‘National Climate Emergency’

Republican Texas Rep. August Pfluger and West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito introduced legislation Monday morning aiming to preempt any possible attempt by President Joe Biden to use emergency powers to circumvent congressional checks on his administration’s sweeping climate agenda.

“The Real Emergencies Act” would clarify that the president is unable to invoke emergency powers permitted by the National Emergencies Act, the Disaster Relief and Emergencies Act and the Public Health Service Act on the basis of a perceived climate change crisis. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other left-wing congressional lawmakers have called for Biden to declare a national climate emergency to further his administration’s aggressive climate agenda.

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With New Evidence, Congress Unmasks a Multi-Year Government Plot to Protect Biden, Sully Trump

When the Justice Department discovered from journalists a storage locker containing evidence against ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a search was executed immediately.

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Maine House Democrats Pass Gov. Janet Mills’ Radical Late-Term Abortion Bill

Democrat lawmakers in the Maine House narrowly voted Thursday night to approve Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) radical late-term abortion bill, one that Planned Parenthood spent heavily in Mills’ and other Democrats’ 2022 campaigns to bring to fruition.

LD 1619, dubbed “An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws,” passed by a vote of 74-72 in the state House, but the Senate, which had been expected to vote to approve the measure on Friday and send it to Mills’ desk for signature, adjourned without doing so.

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Alan Dershowitz Commentary: Trump’s Prosecutors Shouldn’t Get to Use the Word ‘Espionage’

Former President Donald Trump has been charged with a variety of crimes, including violation of the misnamed Espionage Act.

That 1917 statute is misnamed because it covers a great many offenses that don’t involve spying or giving secrets to the enemy. In fact, over the years it has been used extensively against patriotic Americans who have opposed wars and dissented from other government actions.

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Pentagon Nominees Blocked by GOP Senator Are Pushing Left-Wing Initiatives to Reshape Military

Several of the military officers whose promotions are held up due to a senator’s fight with the Pentagon have supported left-wing cultural stances and diversity initiatives, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of social media posts, Pentagon materials and public footage.

Republican Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville has single-handedly blocked numerous officers’ confirmations in protest of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s directive that the military fund out-of-state travel for female troops seeking abortions, initiating a game of chicken between Tuberville and the Pentagon that shows no sign of stopping. Yet several of the candidates in line for promotion have a history of making political statements and backed or spearheaded internal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives related to race and sexuality, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of publicly available information.

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Texas’ Operation Lone Star: More Than 500 Buses Sent to Sanctuary Cities

Since Texas’ border security mission Operation Lone Star (OLS) launched more than two years ago, the multi-agency effort has led to the apprehension of nearly 400,000 foreign nationals who entered the U.S. illegally.

Since last April, Texas has sent over 500 buses of foreign nationals to six so-called sanctuary cities.

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U.S. Home Prices Sink Under Weight of Higher Interest Rates

The median existing-home price for all housing types declined 3.1% in May from the same month in the prior year – the biggest drop in more than a decade.

The national median existing-home price was $396,100 in May, down 3.1% from $408,600 in May 2022, the National Association of Realtors said.

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National Parks Sponsor Pride Marches, Create LGBTQ ‘Teaching’ Resources with Taxpayer Dollars

Instead of spending time preserving natural history, some federally funded parks are sponsoring Pride month events and teaching LGBTQ history to the public.

Earlier this month, Yosemite National Park in California held a weeklong Pride celebration sponsored by Yosemite’s LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group. The events included a speaker series as well as a Pride march and Pride festival co-hosted by drag queen Wyn Wiley, whose stage name is Pattie Gonia. 

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Commentary: Taxation Without Representation Meets the 21st Century

Who is authorized to tax the income of a commuter who doesn’t commute? This question—born of the pandemic and currently pending before the Supreme Court of Ohio—could be coming to a tax bill near you, and soon.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, government orders forced millions of employees to work from home instead of at their usual offices. These orders accelerated a trend which had already begun toward remote and hybrid work and—three years later—is all but entrenched.

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Music Spotlight: Kyle Petty

Kyle Petty is a former NASCAR driver turned racing analyst who has become one of the most popular personalities in all of sports. As a member of one of NASCAR’s pioneer families, Kyle is as much a product of racing as he is of his famous father, Richard Petty “The King,” and grandfather, Lee Petty. His son Adam Petty also raced before a tragic racing accident in 2020. While his name will forever connect him to NASCAR, Kyle Petty made significant strides outside of racing in music and philanthropy.

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Commentary: A Deep Dive into the Century of Conservatives’ Failure to Contain the Administrative State

by Theo Wold   James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government. Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt’s creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state…

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Energy Corporation Says Up to 30 Percent of Its Wind Turbines Could Be Malfunctioning

Siemens Energy announced Thursday that it will be undergoing a technical review after it was found that up to 30% of its wind turbines could have faulty components, according to statements made by the company.

Siemens Energy, an international energy company that seeks to “decarbonize global energy systems,” announced that it is withdrawing its profit guidance for the year after subsidiary Siemens Gamesa found that there was a “substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components.” The company believes that between 15% and 30% of its installed fleets are suffering from component failures, Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Gamesa, said during a Friday morning analyst call.

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Commentary: The Democrat-Funded ProPublica ‘Investigations’ into Conservative SCOTUS Justices Is Retribution for Overturning Roe

ProPublica launched a partisan “investigation,” this time targeting another conservative U.S. Supreme Court member.

As if on cue, mainstream media outlets jumped on the bandwagon, relishing in the prospect of free content for their publications — content that undermines conservative jurists, and conservative lawmakers by association. This is purely political payback for the Dobbs decision of 2022.

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Federal Trade Commission Sues Amazon for ‘Deceptive’ Tactics

The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday alleging the online retailer used “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive” practices to get customers to enroll in Prime subscriptions.

The Federal Trade Commission’s partially-redacted complaint alleges the company tricked millions of people into enrolling in Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime, a $139 annual subscription service that has fueled the company’s growth and made it part of many Americans daily routines.

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Canada’s Transportation Safety Board Launches Probe into Fatal Loss of Submersible Exploring Titanic

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is launching an investigation into the implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and the Canadian-flagged ship that dropped the vessel in the ocean for its doomed journey to explore the Titanic wreckage.

Officials announced the investigation Friday but said they are still assessing whether the fatal event was an accident or not.

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Trump Says Liberals Are ‘Waging War on Faith and Freedom’ as 2024 Hopefuls Woo Evangelicals

The annual Faith and Freedom forum – considered the country’s largest public policy gathering of Christian conservative activists – concluded Saturday evening with a keynote speech from front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in which he spoke passionately to a key part of a coalition he must rebuild to win the GOP nomination.

But Trump, like the other top-tier 2024 GOP presidential candidates who spoke during the three-day event in Washington, D.C., faces a long road to Election Day in which the nominee will also have to win over independents, the undecideds and other voters for Republicans to retake the White House.

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‘Gone with the Wind’ Features Trigger Warning About ‘Harmful Phrases’ and Racism in New Edition

The publisher of “Gone with the Wind” added a warning in the front of a new edition to advise readers that author Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic contains “racist” elements and “hurtful or indeed harmful phrases.”

“Gone with the Wind is a novel which includes problematic elements including the romanticisation of a shocking era in our history and the horrors of slavery,” the book’s publisher, Pan Macmillian, wrote in the opening page of the 2022 edition, The Telegraph reported Saturday.

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Commentary: Religious Conviction in Woke Sports

When the University of Oklahoma softball team showed up for the College World Series last week, reporters expected to hear pride and camaraderie from a squad on the way to winning its third consecutive national championship.  

But several star Sooners players startled the press and went viral online by declaring that their joy in Christianity trumped their considerable athletic accomplishments.  

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Feds Built Case Hunter Biden Evaded $2.2 Million in Taxes Dating to 2014 Before Being Thwarted

If Hunter Biden pleads guilty next month as expected to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges, he’ll be admitting he shorted the U.S. government of about $100,000 in taxes he owed in 2017-18.

But it’s a far cry from the evidence the IRS and FBI developed showing a pattern of tax evasion and avoidance that stretched back to his father’s term as vice president a decade ago, according to newly released documents and testimony.

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3M Settles Water Contamination Lawsuits with $10.3 Billion Payout

Chemical manufacturing company 3M agreed to settle multiple lawsuits with a $10.3 billion payout over the U.S. water supply being allegedly contaminated with “forever chemicals” contained in firefighting foam and other products, the company announced in a press release on Thursday. 

Under the settlement, 3M will provide the payout over a 13-year period to both public water suppliers that have found traces of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other suppliers that “may detect PFAS at any level in the future.” The company did not admit liability in the settlement. 

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Judge Blocks Wyoming Abortion Pill Ban, Pending Lawsuit

A Wyoming judge has temporarily blocked the state’s ban on abortion pills, pending legal arguments.

The state is the only one to have specifically banned abortion pills, though numerous others have effectively done so by banning abortion almost entirely, the Associated Press reported. Wyoming law generally bans the procedure, though that law is also the subject of a judicial block from the same judge.

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Disney’s First Movie with a Non-Binary Character Becomes Pixar’s Worst-Ever Opening Weekend

Disney’s film “Elemental,” which features Pixar’s first “non-binary character,” had the worst box office opening weekend in the studio’s history, bringing in just $29.5 million in domestic ticket sales over the three-day Juneteenth weekend.

With a $200 million budget, “Elemental” is set in a fictional town known as Element City, where fire, water, land and air live and work together. The younger sibling of the water element is known as Lake, who is non-binary and voiced by Kai Ava Hauser, who is also non-binary.

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Virginia Looking to Spend COVID Relief Child Care Funds

Virginia has received more than $1 billion in COVID-19 relief funding for its child care sector since the beginning of the pandemic, and it continues to appropriate those funds as the deadline to disburse more than $763 million approaches.

The federal government apportioned $52.5 billion to the child care industry in three pandemic relief packages, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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SCOTUS Holds Law Making It Illegal to ‘Encourage or Induce’ Illegal Immigration Does Not Violate First Amendment

The Supreme Court upheld a law that makes it a crime to “encourage or induce” illegal immigration, rejecting the argument that it violates the First Amendment.

The case, United States v. Hansen, stems from Helaman Hansen’s 2017 conviction for running a program advertising a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants through “adult adoption,” which earned him more $1.8 million between 2012 and 2016. Though it affirmed Hansen’s convictions on mail and wire fraud charges, the Ninth Circuit held that the law behind his two counts of encouraging or inducing non-citizens to reside in the United States for financial gain was “overbroad and unconstitutional,” covering “a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment.”

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Commentary: For the Love of English, Stop Changing Definitions

There has long been a debate in linguistics about how to approach language and how language should be used by native speakers. The two traditional schools of thought are prescriptivists and descriptivists. The former are concerned with establishing norms for language and formulating rules and proper ways of using said language. On the other hand, the latter believe that a given language should be understood by how it is used, without establishing certain rules and parameters.

It seems that the English language today, at least in America, is in the throes of taking the descriptivist position to the extreme. We are now seeing a concerted effort to overturn the traditional definitions of words and terms in order to push certain political and social agendas.

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JPMorgan Accused of Deleting Millions of Emails in the Midst of Ongoing Investigations

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials earlier this week fined JPMorgan Chase $4 million after the company allegedly deleted roughly 47 million emails while in the midst of security investigations.

The settlement order states that the messages were allegedly deleted from about 8,700 mailboxes that belonged to about 7,500 employees who had regular contact with Chase customers.

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Illegal Border Crossers Since 2021 Total More than Individual Populations of 38 States

The number of illegal border crossings at the northern and southern borders and all ports of entry since January 2021 totals more than 8 million people, greater than the individual populations of 38 U.S. states.

Put another way, the number of foreign nationals from all over the world believed to be primarily illegally entering the U.S. is comparable to the populations of eight Delawares, four New Mexicos, two Oklahomas or more than 13 Wyomings.

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Vivek Ramaswamy Calls for Special Counsel Investigation into Hunter Biden Following ‘Joke of a Plea Deal’

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released a statement Saturday calling for a special counsel investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden following his “joke of a plea deal” earlier this week to federal tax and firearm charges.

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Evangelical Leader Says GOP Candidates Need to ‘Grow a Backbone’ on Abortion

Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC) Founder Ralph Reed said that some GOP candidates need to “grow a backbone” on the issue of abortion, according to an Associated Press article published Friday.

FFC’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., from June 22-24 falls over the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and dismissed the idea of a constitutional right to abortion. Reed said that in light of the timing of the two events he wanted to give the candidates a “bit of a testosterone booster shot” to encourage them to be more aggressive on the issue of abortion, according to the AP.

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Supreme Court Sides with Biden Admin on Immigration Enforcement Plan

The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration Friday, ruling 8-1 against two states that challenged its immigration enforcement priorities.

Texas and Louisiana challenged guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2021 that prioritized arresting and removing certain groups of illegal immigrants, including suspected terrorists and criminals. The Supreme Court held Friday that the two states lack standing to challenge the guidelines, noting that the states “have not cited any precedent, history, or tradition of courts ordering the Executive Branch to change its arrest or prosecution policies so that the Executive Branch makes more arrests or initiates more prosecutions.”

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New National Coalition of Sheriffs Forms to Address Border Crisis

Following through on a pledge he made during his first border security summit in Arizona and ahead of his next border trip to Texas on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced the creation of a new national coalition of sheriffs committed to working together to combat crime stemming from the border crisis.

More than 90 sheriffs from 24 states are part of the coalition. Notably absent from the list are Texas border sheriffs who’ve been combating border-related crime for years.

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California Bill Would Enable Therapists to ‘Emancipate’ 12-Year-Olds from Their Own Parents

On Tuesday, Democrats in the state of California advanced a bill that would allow therapists and other mental health “professionals” to have children forcibly removed from their homes and placed into state custody without the consent of the parents.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the State Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved Assembly Bill 665, which passed by a party-line vote. If the bill became law, children as young as 12 would be legally allowed to check themselves into state-run shelters with the unconditional approval of a therapist or counselor, and without the parents’ knowledge.

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MTG, Elise Stefanik Move to Expunge Both Trump Impeachments

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik to expunge the first and second impeachments of former President Donald Trump, respectively.

Trump remains, to date, the only president in history ever to have been impeached twice. The first case stemmed from whistleblower claims that he had attempted to coerce Ukraine into announcing an investigation into the Biden family.

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Lawsuit Against Virginia Tech Bias Response Team May Land Before Supreme Court

A recent federal court ruling siding with Virginia Tech’s bias response team has prompted center-right watchdogs to call for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case to protect free speech in higher education.

The controversy centers on a 2021 complaint from Speech First, a nonprofit committed to safeguarding freedom of speech on college campuses, which argued Virginia Tech’s Bias Intervention and Response Team policies and procedures infringe on students’ ability to speak freely about controversial issues.

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Commentary: The Crumbling Relationship Between Big Business and the GOP

Relationships don’t always last forever. As with friendships, neighbors, employment, and even marriages, sadly, longstanding political bonds can be severed. Today, the supposed “marriage” between big business and the Republican Party seems on the rocks. It might even be in a slow-motion breakup.

A recent Wall Street Journal article recounts the growing rift between the GOP and big business. Republican leaders are more willing to criticize corporations, Republican lawmakers are proposing more legislation regulating business, and the GOP is becoming less and less dependent on corporate donations.

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