Author: Just the News

SCOTUS to Vote on Hearing 2020 Election Case Against Biden, Harris, Pence, Senators, Congressmen

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The Supreme Court is set to consider hearing a 2020 election case regarding actions taken on Jan. 6, 2021 by former Vice President Mike Pence, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, 291 House members, and 94 senators.

The lawsuit, filed by Raland J. Brunson, alleges the defendants violated their oaths of office by refusing to investigate evidence of fraud in the 2020 election before accepting the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, allowing for Biden and Harris to be “fraudulently” inaugurated.

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Attorney for Indicted Loudoun County Official in School Assault Case Says Client Accused of Lying

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One of the northern Virginia public school officials indicted last month in connection with how his school district handled two high-profile, 2021 sexual assaults in schools is facing a felony perjury charge in the case, his attorney said Thursday.

The official, Wayde Byard, a Loudoun County Public Schools spokesman, was indicted by a Virginia special state grand jury following an investigation into how the school system handled the assaults.

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John Bolton Confirms He Will Run for President in 2024

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Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton this week confirmed that he will be mounting a 2024 presidential bid, one meant in part to prevent former President Donald Trump himself from once again claiming the White House. 

Bolton told Good Morning Britain that he was planning on entering the race as a legitimate candidate and not merely a spoiler for Trump. “I wouldn’t run as a vanity candidate,” he told the show. “If I didn’t think I could run seriously, then I wouldn’t get in the race.”

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McCarthy Wins Speakership in Dramatic 15 Round Voting Marathon for the History Books

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House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy captured the House speakership in dramatic fashion early Saturday, winning enough votes on a historic 15th ballot that saw 20 renegade Republicans changing their votes under enormous pressure after winning significant concessions about how Congress will operate going forward.

The final vote was 216-212-6.

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House Adjourns Until 10 p.m. After McCarthy Comes Up Short for Speaker in 13 Rounds

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The House of Representatives convened on Friday for the fourth day of voting for speaker and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has picked up 15 votes from GOP holdouts but he’s still short of the simple majority needed to win.

The House passed a motion to adjourn until 10pm. McCarthy told reporters he’s confident he will have the votes to win Friday evening.

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Bills Damar Hamlin Has Breathing Tube Removed, Team Says He Continues to Make ‘Progress Remarkably’

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Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is breathing on his own after having a breathing tube removed by doctors, his team said on Friday. 

The Bills said in a statement posted to their website that “per the physicians at [University of Cincinnati Medical Center], Damar’s breathing tube was removed overnight. He continues to progress remarkably in his recovery.”

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Ex-Capitol Police Boss Says Politics Hampered January 6 Security Under Pelosi: ‘Recipe for Disaster’

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The Capitol Police chief who handled the Jan. 6 riot says political bureaucracy under Speaker Nancy Pelosi put optics over safety and hampered his department from crafting an appropriate security plan to protect the home of Congress that fateful day.

Steven Sund, who resigned as the head of the $600 million a year Capitol Police Department after the tragedy, told the “Just the News, No Noise” television show on Wednesday that significant lapses occurred inside his department, inside the political leadership of Congress and across federal law enforcement and security agencies in the days before the Capitol riot.

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Top Zelensky Adviser Rejects Peace Talks with Russia

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Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov this week rejected the idea that Kyiv would engage in peace talks with Moscow as the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on.

“There’s no way to have conversations with them; you can’t talk with terrorists,” he told NatSec Daily, adding that Ukraine would not end the war until it had reclaimed all of its territory, including Crimea.”

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Kohberger Murder Affidavit: Left-Behind Knife Sheath, DNA Led to Capture, Arrest

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The man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho college students to death was identified through DNA evidence left on a knife sheath at the crime scene and cellular data showed his phone was in the area of the Moscow, Idaho, crime scene at least a dozen times before the murders, officials said in an affidavit released Thursday.

The Idaho State Lab discovered DNA on a knife sheath left on the bed next to victim Madison Mogen, Moscow Police Department Cpl. Brett Payne said in the affidavit. 

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House Adjourns After 11th Failed Vote to Elect McCarthy Speaker, Deal Reportedly in the Works

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The House of Representatives has adjourned for the evening after California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy failed to win the speaker’s gavel for the 11th time.

The speaker election started Tuesday but McCarthy has fallen short of reaching the simple majority threshold needed to win in the 222-212 GOP-led House.

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Damar Hamlin Doctors: ‘Appears His Neurological Condition and Function Is Intact’

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Doctors treating Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin said Thursday his neurological condition and function appears “intact” and that he’s made “remarkable improvement” after having gone into cardiac arrest three days earlier on the football field after making a tackle.

The doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Hamlin was taken Monday night after being injured in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, gave an update early Thursday through the Bills, then in a news conference.

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Key GOP Congressman Confirms That Party Blocs Are Negotiating Speaker Deal

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Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube confirmed on Wednesday that the party’s competing wings have entered negotiations to reach a compromise on choosing the next Speaker of the House.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the party’s lead contender for the post, has failed six times thus far to secure the support of a majority of lawmakers. The House voted three times on Wednesday and no candidate received the necessary 218 votes. 

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Activists Push States for Free School Meals

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At least a dozen states are considering implementing or already have free student meal programs to continue the federal government’s COVID-19 giveaways, while some activists are demanding for more things to be made free.

Congress allowed a pandemic-era free student meal waiver to expire on Sept. 30, returning to the pre-COVID posture where only students at some schools or those whose families met specific income requirements were given free or reduced-price meals.

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Feds Use Facebook to Study COVID Vaccine, Testing, and Mask Messaging

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healthcare worker giving vaccination

Legislation that would use federal agencies to “nudge” social media platforms to reduce the spread of “harmful content” isn’t going anywhere in the waning days of the 117th Congress. 

As evidenced by the ongoing release of the “Twitter Files,” however, that’s no impediment to the government — and the research universities that so heavily depend on federal funding — enlisting Big Tech to promote favored narratives and throttle competing arguments on contentious topics.

Federal agencies and U.S. universities together have funded or sponsored a dozen studies mentioning Facebook and COVID-19, according to the National Institutes of Health’s ClinicalTrials.gov database.

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More than Half of States Poised to Raise Minimum Wage in 2023 as $15 an Hour Gains Traction

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Four states will have a $15-an-hour minimum wage by New Year’s Day, while 27 states are poised to raise the minimum wage in 2023.

Some states are enacting the wage change after Jan. 1, so by the end of 2023 there will be six states that are set to have minimum wages at or above $15 an hour. They are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington, according to a report last week from the National Employment Law Project.

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Buttigieg Warned Before Holidays by Own Party of Looming Airlines Crisis

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Like a slow-motion train wreck that wasn’t thwarted, the Christmas holiday travel disaster was forewarned to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a month ago by members of his own party who pleaded he take more aggressive action to force airlines to address wary consumer concerns about growing flight cancelations, delays and ticket refunds.

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Suspect Arrested in Connection with Fatal Stabbing of Four University of Idaho Students

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A 28-year-old man has been arrested in Pennsylvania in connection with the stabbing deaths last month of four University of Idaho students, according to several news reports Friday.

Paperwork filed by Pennsylvania State Police show Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was being held for extradition in a criminal homicide investigation based on an active arrest warrant for first-degree murder issued by the Moscow, Idaho, Police Department and Latah County Prosecutor’s Office, according to the Associated Press.

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Virginia High School Withheld Academic Awards for Equity Reasons, Parents Claim

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Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, reportedly delayed notifying its students of their receipt of certain academic achievement awards until after the deadlines for early selection at some colleges and universities, which many parents have alleged was done as part of the school district’s alleged efforts to create “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.”

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Tall Tales: Before George Santos, Politicians from Biden to Clinton Fibbed About Their Past

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Well before Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) admitted to fabricating key details of his biography, lying about one’s past was a rich political exercise. President Joe Biden got caught boasting about bogus academic credentials, Hillary Clinton made up a sniper attack in Bosnia, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren had to apologize for claiming Native American heritage.

Santos made headlines this week for admitting to the New York Post and WABC radio that he lied on the campaign trail about his education and work experience – specifically about where he attended college and his alleged employment history with high-profile Wall Street firms.

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Pope Francis Asks for Prayers for ‘Very Sick’ Benedict as Vatican Says Health Has ‘Worsened’

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Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for prayers for his 95-year-old predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who the Vatican said is constantly receiving medical care.

At the end of his weekly general audience, Francis said in Italian: “I would like to ask all of you for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church,” as translated by Reuters.

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10 Major Revelations Exposing Extent of Government Pressure on Big Tech to Censor Americans

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Two hundred and thirty-one years ago this month, America’s founders enshrined free speech as the first protection in the ratified Bill of Rights with a declaration that the government could not infringe expression. A series of blockbuster revelations at the end of 2022 show just how imperiled those protections have become in the era of Big Tech.

From Elon Musk’s “Twitter files” to an FBI agent’s candid testimony, Americans have gotten a glimpse into a once-hidden enterprise where federal agencies pressured social media platforms – directly and through proxies – to censor content under their terms of service. The goal, it appears, was to preserve the ruling elite’s favored narratives on everything from the pandemic to election integrity.

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Kari Lake Appeals Dismissal of Arizona Election Lawsuit

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Kari Lake, the Arizona Republican nominee for governor, is appealing a Maricopa County judge’s dismissal of her lawsuit challenging her defeat to Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is currently serving as secretary of state. 

In a notice of appeal filed Tuesday, Lake asked the Arizona Superior Court to reconsider all 10 counts that she brought up in her original lawsuit as well as the attorneys’ fees she was ordered to pay.

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Text Messages Reveal Lax Security Response to Threat to Crash Plane into Capitol Before January 6 Riot

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A day before the fateful Jan. 6 riot rocked the U.S. Capitol, security officials in the House and Senate received a warning of a possible aviation terror threat to the seat of Congress but shrugged off the concerns until congressional leadership found out from news media and began pressing for answers.

“Are you making any notification regarding the intel that I’m told is going public?” then-House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving texted Michael Stenger, his counterpart in the Senate, about the aviation security threat early on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, according to text messages reviewed by Just the News.

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Christians Face Genocide amid Rise in Persecution in at Least 18 Countries, Report Warns

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Christians are facing genocide in several countries as the persecution of followers of the religion has increased in at least 18 nations, according to recent research. 

The Catholic group Aid to the Church In Need released a report earlier this year titled, “Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report On Christians Oppressed For Their Faith 2020-22,” which highlighted “human rights violations” against Christians in 24 countries.

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Supreme Court Hands Border States Big Win, Orders Title 42 to Remain in Place During Legal Challenge

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that a COVID-19 era immigration order remain in place.

Title 42 is an order allowing border authorities to swiftly deport migrants if they hail from a country known to host a communicable disease such as COVID-19. Border officials have deported an estimated 2.5 million migrants under the order since its implementation. Many detractors of the Biden administration’s approach fear that its end could prompt an even greater surge.

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Gallup: Americans Report Mental Health at New Lows with Young Adults Ranking Worst

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Americans are rating their mental health at an all-time low, including nearly one-in-five young adults who describe their mental health as “poor,” according to a new poll released Wednesday. 

Overall, three-fourths of Americans say their mental health is “good” or “excellent,” which is the lowest number on record for Gallup. The polling outlet has conducted an annual mental health survey since 2001. In 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, 85% of Americans described their mental health as good or excellent.

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ByteDance Confirms Using TikTok to Monitor Journalists

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An internal investigation from TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has confirmed that its employees used the social media app to track the physical locations of several journalists.

The investigation revealed that several employees had worked to uncover the source of internal leaks and in so doing had used the app to obtain the IP addresses and user data of journalists to determine their physical proximity to any ByteDance employees, according to Forbes.

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Twitter Censored Accurate COVID Information that Conflicted with Federal Sentiments, New Files Show

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Twitter altered the COVID conversation by censoring information that was true but not in line with U.S. government policy, discrediting public health experts who disagreed and suppressing contrarian users, the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” showed Monday.

“[B]oth the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes,” reporter David Zweig said in the 10th Twitter Files release. 

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Netflix Poised to End Password Sharing, Potentially Affecting 100 Million Users

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Netflix is reportedly poised to cancel the widespread user practice of “password sharing,” limiting accounts to one single household in a move to shore up its struggling bottom line. 

The streaming company several years ago “identified password sharing as a major problem eating into subscriptions,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, but did not move to address it until this year due to significant gains in subscribers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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RNC Announces 2024 Convention Dates

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The Republican National Committee on Wednesday announced plans to hold its 2024 convention from July 15-18, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the GOP will select its 2024 presidential nominee.

“We look forward to our continued work with the beautiful city of Milwaukee to make this convention week a success. Republicans will stand united in Milwaukee in 2024 to share our message of freedom and opportunity with the world,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said. 

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Paul’s Annual ‘Festivus’ Report on Fed Spending Finds $482 Billion in What He Calls ‘Wasted Taxpayer’ Money

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Sen. Rand Paul on Friday released his annual federal spending audit in which the Kentucky Republican found what he considers about $500 billion in wasted taxpayer resources – from billions on COVID-19 relief funds to ineligible recipients to a $118,000 study on the Marvel movie villain Thanos.

Paul’s 2022 Festivus Report – inspired by the send-up Festivus holiday on the “Seinfeld” sitcom – finds “a whopping $482,276,543,907” worth of federal waste, according to Fox News.

Paul takes particular aim at the $3.5 trillion Inflation Reduction Act that the Democrat-controlled Congress recently passed.

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Senate Passes $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill

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The Senate on Thursday passed a massive $1.7 billion omnibus spending bill, sending the bill to the House for a hasty vote before midnight Friday to avert a partial government shutdown.

The bill includes at least $44 billion in additional money to help Ukraine thwart Russia’s invasion and was thrown into peril overnight by a GOP effort to force a vote on an amendment to the measure to extend a Trump-era effort to limit illegal immigration amid the pandemic by using a decades-old legal authority known as Title 42. 

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Netanyahu Announces Coalition Deal to Return to Power

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Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday announced that he had negotiated a coalition framework with supportive parties to allow him to return to power.

Israel’s longest serving prime minister will soon lead a coalition of six parties on a right-wing platform, the New York Times reported. Many establishment media outlets, including the Times, have bemoaned his return to power and warned that his victory could signal a drift away from democracy for the Jewish nation.

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GOP Prepping Steve Scalise to Become Speaker Should McCarthy Fail: Report

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House Republican lawmakers have reportedly approached Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise about a potential bid for leadership of the lower chamber should House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fail to secure enough support to step into the role of Speaker of the House.

McCarthy has struggled to win the support of a majority of lower chamber lawmakers and many House conservatives have withheld their support in a bid to secure concessions from the California Republican. A disappointing midterm showing has left the party with an incoming majority of just 222 seats, leaving McCarthy with little room to maneuver. To become speaker, McCarthy will need 218 votes. 

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House GOP Locates Emails, Texts Showing Pelosi Office Directly Involved in Failed January 6 Security

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House Republicans gathered a trove of text and email messages showing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the creation and editing of the Capitol security plan that failed during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and that security officials later declared they had been “denied again and again” the resources needed to protect one of the nation’s most important homes of democracy.

The internal communications were made public Wednesday in a report compiled by Republican Reps. Rodney Davis, Jim Banks, Troy Nehls, Jim Jordan and Kelly Armstrong that encompasses the results of months of investigation they did of evidence that had been ignored by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee. The lawmakers were authorized by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to do their own probe.

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‘Twitter Files’ Reveal Platform Aided Pentagon Propaganda Efforts Abroad

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The most recent release of Twitter’s internal documents, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” details the platform’s cooperation with the Pentagon to promote propaganda materials in line with the military’s strategic geopolitical interests.

Released by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, the latest release detailed Pentagon requests that the platform either verify or “whitelist” a plethora of accounts it used to “amplify certain messages.” Whitelisting an account exempts it from spam and abuse flags while also making it more likely to trend.

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Feds Lost Track of 150k Migrants due to Biden’s ‘No Processing’ Policy, Training Video Shows

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials lost track of 150,000 migrants that entered the United States due to the Biden administration’s “no processing” immigration policy, a training video from the federal agency shows. 

The Biden administration launched “Operation Horizon” in November 2021 to try to locate 150,000 migrants that were released in the summer earlier that year, but the training videos published Tuesday by Fox News show that officials had difficulty tracking down the migrants due to a lack of identifying information.

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Wells Fargo Ordered to Pay $3.7 Billion for ‘Illegal Activity,’ Including Mismanaging Accounts

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Federal regulators on Tuesday ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty and more than $2 billion in compensation to customers for what they say was “illegal activity affecting over 16 million consumer accounts.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wells Fargo “repeatedly misapplied loan payments, wrongfully foreclosed on homes and illegally repossessed vehicles, incorrectly assessed fees and interest, charged surprise overdraft fees,” among other things.

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California College Trustee Wants to ‘Cull’ Conservative Faculty, ‘Take ‘Em to the Slaughterhouse’

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A faculty-run think tank that challenges social justice orthodoxy at a California community college is so loathed by activists on and off campus that an elected official apparently suggested treating its leaders like his doomed livestock.

John Corkins, vice president of the Kern Community College District Board of Trustees, made the agricultural quip at a Dec. 13 meeting following public comments dominated by accusations of racism and harassment by the Renegade Institute for Liberty at Bakersfield College.

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Supreme Court Delays End of Title 42 Immigration Rule

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The Supreme Court on Monday delayed the termination of the Title 42 immigration rule that was set to expire this week.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued the temporary hold in response to an appeal from Republican-led states seeking to keep the order in place, according to NBC News. Roberts gave the Department of Homeland Security, which had sought to end the order until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to respond to the Republican appeal, per the New York Post.

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Trump Leads GOP Primary with DeSantis as Runner-Up: Poll

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Former President Donald Trump is the top choice for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coming in as the runner-up, according to a new poll.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released Friday found that 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support Trump if the primary were held today, while 25 percent said they would vote for DeSantis. If Trump does not run in 2024, 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support DeSantis, with former Vice President Mike Pence as the runner-up with 15 percent support.

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Florida U.S. Rep. Greg Steube Vows Justice for Troops Punished for COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal

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Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube is vowing to introduce legislation to obtain justice for those punished for refusing to comply with the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

“I intend on filing my own bill,” Steube said on the John Solomon Reports podcast Wednesday. “I am … not naive” about prospects for passage of such a bill in a Democrat-controlled Senate, he said, “but thankfully, the House has the power of the purse, and … when we do the appropriations process over the next year, we can put riders on appropriations bills to tell the Department of Defense how they’re going to give relief to these individuals.”

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Study: Vaccines ‘Barely’ Neutralize Newest COVID Variants

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COVID vaccing

A scientific study is sounding an alarm bell regarding the latest COVID-19 variants, claiming that vaccines and boosters offer little protection against the newest mutations of the virus. 

The study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Cell, claim that the BQ and XBB variants of COVID are “barely susceptible to neutralization by sera from vaccinated individuals.”

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Vatican Defrocks Priests for Life Director Father Frank Pavone for ‘Blasphemous’ Social Media Posts

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The Vatican defrocked Priest for Life Director Frank Pavone without the possibility of appeal for social media posts the church considered to be “blasphemous.”

The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy dismissed Pavone on November 9, according to a December 13 letter to U.S. bishops from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who serves as Pope Francis’ representative to the United States, the Catholic News Agency reported Saturday.

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Mortgage Rates Drop for Fifth Straight Week, Still More than Double from Year Ago

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Mortgage rates continued a slow but steady decline over the past week, suggesting a small but notable reversal from the meteoric rise they underwent over the past year. 

Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates “averaged 6.31 percent as of December 15, 2022, down from last week when it averaged 6.33 percent,” Freddie Mac said in its weekly rate update on Thursday.

Fifteen-year rates, meanwhile, averaged 5.54%, down from 5.67% last week.

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FBI Sued for Suspending Analyst, Military Vet for Espousing ‘Conspiratorial’ January 6 Views

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The government watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against the FBI for having put on administrative leave an analyst for espousing “conspiratorial views” that suggest support for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The suit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina on behalf of FBI analyst Marcus Allen. 

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