DOJ Supreme Court Filing Reveals Details Inconsistent with DHS Narrative Blaming Texas for Migrant Drownings

CBP Help

A new Supreme Court filing by the Department of Justice (DOJ) raises new questions that could help exonerate the Texas Military Department after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) English) accuse the state agency of allowing the deaths of three migrants who drowned in Shelby Park last week.

Both the White House and Biden’s Department of Homeland Security blamed state officials after three migrants, including two children, drowned in the Shelby Park area.

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China Finishes Off Year with Sluggish Growth as Economy Fails to Recover

China flag

China’s economy grew at a rate of 5.2% in 2023, failing to return to the same growth of around 6% year-over-year that was common before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The year’s growth was an improvement on the even worse growth in 2022, which totaled just 3% for that year, and economists expect similar sluggish growth in 2024 unless a big policy change occurs, according to the WSJ. A number of different indicators added to the dismal report, including real growth in urban disposable income, which grew at just 4.8% in 2023 and was the lowest year since 2002, barring 2020 and 2022.

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Congress Reaches Deal to Increase Child Tax Credit, Negotiate Tax Treaty with Taiwan

Family Learning

Congressional negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives announced a deal on Tuesday to increase the child tax credit and negotiate a new bilateral tax treaty with Taiwan, among other matters.

The child tax credit was first enacted in 1997 to provide parents with greater funds to care for children under the age of 17 and was expanded in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act, though that expansion expired in 2022 and has not been reauthorized. The new deal — known as the “The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024” — reached between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will change the way the tax credit is calculated, increase the credit every year until 2025 and index it to inflation, according to a technical summary of the plan published by the House Ways and Means Committee.

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FAA Pushes to Hire People with ‘Severe Intellectual, Psychiatric’ Disabilities in the Name of Diversity

FAA

In a new statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it intends to expand its push for diversity hires by hiring people who suffer from “severe intellectual” disabilities.

As reported by Fox News, the FAA’s website clearly states its intentions on the page for a hiring initiative focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The site says that “targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.”

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Art Dealer Told Congress That Joe Biden Called and Met Him While He Sold Hunter Biden’s Paintings

Georges Berges

The art dealer who sold Hunter Biden’s paintings told Congress that President Joe Biden both called and met him at the White House as he was pitching Hunter’s artwork and that the first son also made an unusual request to be informed about who bought his pieces, according to testimony that directly undercuts the White House narrative on the sales.

The Biden White House repeatedly told the public that Hunter Biden’s art sales were covered by an ethics agreement to ensure they were arms-length and that the first family — Hunter included — was blinded to the identity of buyers.

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Commentary: Only Trump Can Save America

I believed that Republican voters were ready for a new post-Trump chapter of the America First movement. I now believe I was wrong. Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else. It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.

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YoungkinWatch: Governor Says 2023 Revenues Met Expectations After Forecasting Recession in New Budget

Glenn Youngkin

Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a Monday statement that Virginia revenues met his office’s expectation during the first half of the 2023 fiscal year. The governor’s confirmation comes as he seeks to pass his new budget, which forecasts a “mild recession” in the next two years.

Youngkin’s office confirmed in its press release that “general fund revenues for December 2023 remain in line with updated revisions to the official revenue forecast,” and state revenues grew by 0.2 percent and 7.1 percent over the course of the year.

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Commentary: A Pointless Republican Primary

Trump AF1

President Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee. He is far ahead in every primary poll. His supporters originally worried that he would be too polarizing and would go down in flames in the general election, but it appears he will also win the general election against incompetent, unpopular, and increasingly demented Joe Biden.

Indictments, lawfare, media propaganda, and phalanx-style opposition from the organs of conservatism have all been arrayed against Trump. He has also earned the contempt of the managerial class’s elite: the judges, the academics, and the think tankers, as well as the GS and SES class around Washington, D.C.

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Commentary: Moderna Came Up with a Vaccine Against Vaccine Dissent

Moderna Vaccine

Finances at the vaccine manufacturer Moderna began to fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as most Americans resisted getting yet another COVID booster shot. The pharmaceutical company, whose pioneering mRNA vaccine had turned it from small startup to biotech giant worth more than $100 billion in just a few years, reported a third-quarter loss last year of $3.6 billion, as most Americans refused to get another COVID booster shot.

In a September call aimed at shoring up investors, Moderna’s then-chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, attributed some of the hesitancy pummeling Moderna’s numbers to uninformed vaccine skeptics. “Despite some misinformation,” Garay said, COVID-19 still drove significant hospitalizations. “It really is a vaccine that’s relevant across all age groups,” she insisted.

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Billionaire Bill Ackman Boosts Democrat Dean Phillips’ Presidential Campaign with $1 Million

Dean Phillips

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is giving Rep. Dean Phillips a $1 million donation to boost the Minnesota Democratic congressman’s 2024 presidential primary bid against President Joe Biden. 

Ackman, who has already made the maximum individual campaign donation of $3,300 to Phillips, said he plans on donating $1 million to We Deserve Better, a political action committee supporting Phillips, on Tuesday, according to a post the financier made over the weekend on X, formerly Twitter.

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Senator James Lankford Commentary: The Abortion Industry’s ‘Very Safe’ Lie Is Putting Women at Very Big Risk

James Lankford

It sounds so simple. Take these pills, and your problem will be over—except, it isn’t. People do not forget an event so significant. A few months ago, social media went into a frenzy when Britney Spears shared that she was pressured by her boyfriend 20 years ago to take abortion pills. After two decades she still described the chemical abortion as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” She is not alone.

The abortion industry has worked overtime to convince women that chemical abortions are “very safe”—even making the claim that they are safer than Tylenol. They attempt to conflate chemical abortions with contraceptive pills to push them on moms as a “safe” way to end a pregnancy. But the drugs used in a chemical abortion are far more dangerous.

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New York Manufacturing Sees Biggest Plunge Since Pandemic Lockdowns

Blue Collar

The index for New York state’s general business conditions fell by 29 points to -43.7 for January, with a negative number indicating a contraction, declining to the lowest point since May 2020 when the state was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve of New York.

Accompanying the decline and contraction in general business conditions, shipments fell 25 index points, the number of unfilled orders remained high at -24.2 index points and the amount of inventory held shrank to -7.4 index points, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey conducted between Jan. 3 and 10. Despite poor current conditions, optimism about future activity levels by businesses increased, with the index rising 7 points but still remaining relatively low at 18.8 points, indicating that businesses expect an economic expansion in the coming months.

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DOJ Attorney Playing Key Role in Jack Smith’s Prosecution of Trump Worked on Case That Put Pro-Life Activist in Jail

Molly Gaston

One of the prosecutors helping special counsel Jack Smith prosecute former President Donald Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election also worked on a high-profile case against a pro-life activist.

Molly Gaston, a prosecutor who spent years in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office and is now playing a key role on Smith’s team, worked on the early stages of the prosecution of pro-life activist Lauren Handy. Handy had been in jail since August when she, along with four co-defendants, were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic in 2020.

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Gates Foundation Announces Intentions for Record-Breaking Donations in 2024

Gates Foundation

On Monday, the left-wing Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced from the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland that it intends to spend billions of dollars on left-wing causes in the year 2024.

According to the Daily Caller, the foundation’s board of trustees voted in favor of a record-high budget of $8.6 billion in 2024, up from the previous year’s $8.3 billion and $7 billion in 2022. The foundation has a history of spending millions on such causes as abortion, pro-Democrat nonprofits, and Chinese government entities.

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