A federal agency is working with left-of-center nonprofits to increase voting among prisoners and former prison inmates under an executive order from President Joe Biden designed to increase election turnout.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has partnered with and regularly consults on voting issues with the League of Women Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.
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The whistleblower group that represented the IRS agents in the Hunter Biden case is warning that the Biden administration is preparing an “unconstitutional“ power grab to regulate private gun sales by requiring a background check.
In a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Empower Oversight said it had learned from two sources that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was directed by the White House to make the change and “has drafted a 1,300-page document in support of a rule that would effectively ban private sales of firearms from one citizen to another by requiring background checks for every sale.”
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Governor Glenn Youngkin announced on Wednesday the Virginia Permit Transparency (VPT) website, expanding a program Forbes hailed as “a model for other states” to include three Virginia agencies with more to follow.
The governor’s office explained in a press release that the VPT provides the public with “a centralized platform” to track daily status of their permit application.
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Republican Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah signed a bill on Tuesday that bans men from using women’s restrooms and locker rooms and creates a legal definition for male and female.
The bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Kera Birkeland, would designate restrooms in schools and public spaces as only “designated for the exclusive use” of females and males, according to the text. The bill was passed by the state House of Representatives on Friday before being signed by Cox this week, according to the press release.
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TikTok continues to distribute data to its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance despite its purported efforts to protect American data, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
TikTok attempted to address concerns from lawmakers and public officials over its handling of Americans’ data by spending $1.5 billion on establishing an isolated unit to safeguard American data called Project Texas. However, managers within TikTok are telling employees to share data to ByteDance, bypassing authorized channels, according to current and previous employees as well as company records the WSJ saw.
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Calling her state and America behind “the entire industrialized world,” a Virginia senator is one of two lawmakers pushing legislation to implement an employer-provided benefit to workers.
“Virginia and our entire nation are woefully behind the entire industrialized world when it comes to helping workers when their families need them,” Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, said Monday explaining a paid famil and medical leave program.
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Ranger Buddy, Wing Man, Swim Partner.
The Armed Services drills individuals from day one that you are part of a team. The military member is not alone. The chain of command has your back. But this doctrine, while well-known to those who have served in the military, may soon change depending on the outcome of an ongoing legislative debate in Richmond.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday issued a fiery defense against the impeachment articles he faces, calling the allegations “false” and urging Congress to fix the U.S. immigration system through legislation.
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A coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter Monday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas backing Texas in its border battle with the Biden administration.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott defied the Biden administration last week, making clear he would continue to put up concertina wire fencing at the southern border to help stop the flow of illegal immigration, which has soared since Biden took office.
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Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) indicated on Friday that Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) could see Democrats, who narrowly control the Virginia General Assembly, end their cooperation if he vetoes her bill to raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.
In a post to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the senator predicted that Youngkin “will quickly find the cooperative tone from Democrats changing” should the governor veto her minimum wage bill.
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High-profile Republicans are pushing a new strategy to tax universities’ endowments, arguing the institutions don’t deserve their tax-exempt statuses because they use their vast amounts of money to push “woke” biases.
While initial efforts in Congress appear to have stalled for now, watchdogs warn higher education leaders that this strategy has only just begun.
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by Bethany Blankley As the battle between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Joe Biden continues over state sovereignty and Texas’ constitutional right to defend its border, the leaders and residents of 25 states have come to Texas’ aid, as others did from 22 states nearly 190 years ago.…
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As part of making their case to impeach U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, House Committee on Homeland Security Republicans identified more than a dozen parole programs they argue Mayorkas illegally created to circumvent laws established by Congress.
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The number of Chinese nationals who crossed the southern border illegally in December surpassed totals for previous entire years, according to federal data updated Friday.
There were 5,951 encounters of Chinese migrants crossing illegally at the U.S.-Mexico border in December alone, which is more than fiscal years 2021 and 2022 combined, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Federal authorities recorded 302,034 encounters at both ports of entry and between ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border in December, marking the highest month on record.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares confirmed on Thursday a $2.8 million media campaign to support Operation Ceasefire, the campaign he began in 2022 to lower gun violence throughout the commonwealth.
A trailer for the attorney general’s campaign, posted to YouTube last month, reveals an upcoming “public awareness and media campaign” titled Ceasefire Virginia. Miyares intends to reach “young people who may be considering gang or violent criminal activity” by targeting them on social media.
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The Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life.
President Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these fees raises concerns about what would happen if these companies go bankrupt and leave behind wind farms they can’t afford to remove.
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Cities across the country are counting their homeless in an effort to get a handle on how big the problem is.
In the city of Detroit, 25 teams of volunteers will count the number of homeless throughout the city on Jan. 31.
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A program partially-funded by the city of Denver that pays homeless people a regular stipend is eligible to migrants as long as they meet the criteria, according to the city.
The Denver Basic Income Program, which was started in 2021 with the aid of $2 million from the city of Denver, announced it will go at least six months more beginning in February 2024.
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The natural gas industry plans to push for more support of a federal program to cover energy costs for low-income families in 2024 while talking up safety and reliability.
“We need to break the poverty cycle by working together,” Jerry Norcia, chairman of the board of the American Gas Association, said in a press call on Monday. “Government, nonprofits and corporations can remove the barriers that prevent access to a prosperous future.”
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Two bills to expand collective bargaining in the commonwealth came before the House Labor and Commerce Subcommittee #2 Thursday, one by Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Albemarle, for public transportation providers and the other by Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, for all public employees in Virginia.
The subcommittee quickly voted to incorporate Callsen’s bill into Tran’s HB 1001, expanding collective bargaining for public sector employees from something authorized at the local level to a universal right for all, including state employees.
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Brian Murphy, a former FBI agent who once led the intelligence wing of the Department of Homeland Security, reflected last summer on the failures of the Disinformation Governance Board – the panel formed to actively police misinformation. The board, which was proposed in April 2022 after he left DHS, was quickly shelved by the Biden administration in a few short months in the face of criticism that it would be an Orwellian state-sponsored “Ministry of Truth.”
In a July podcast, Murphy said the threat of state-sponsored disinformation meant the executive branch has an “ethical responsibility” to rein in the social media companies. American citizens, he said, must give up “some of your freedoms that you need and deserve so that you get security back.”
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With a constitutional crisis brewing in Texas and voters nationwide alarmed by the toll of illegal immigration, some of the FBI’s most famous retired executives are issuing a stark warning to Congress that President Joe Biden’s border policies have unleashed an “invasion” of military-aged male foreigners who pose “one of the most pernicious ever” threats to American security.
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Three major American charities collectively poured more than $10 million into Chinese government entities, universities and groups controlled by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 2017 and 2022, tax documents show.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation together donated about $10.2 million directly to the Chinese government and to organizations headed by top-ranking CCP members, according to tax disclosures. Chinese beneficiaries of the American philanthropies include state-run universities that collaborate with the People’s Liberation Army, as well as government ministries.
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Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had formed a Guideline Development Group made up of 21 members tasked with writing WHO guidelines on “the health of trans and gender diverse people.”
As a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health, WHO is looked to by most of the world’s nations for leadership on public health policy. Of the world’s 195 countries, 194 are WHO member states, with Taiwan being the lone exception.
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In Illinois, a lawmaker has proposed that residents of a wealthy suburb outside Chicago should be allowed to host illegal aliens in their homes.
According to Fox News, Councilman Josh McBroom (D-Ill.) of Naperville, Illinois made the proposal at a city council meeting last week, declaring that “I do know that there’s a lot of people that do care, and I think we live in a compassionate community, so before we go down the road of, you know, following suit on some of these other cities are taking action on, my idea would be, let’s find out, let’s find out who’s willing to help.”
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There were 3.3 million people who came to the U.S. illegally, were released into the country via parole or overstayed their permission to remain in the country in fiscal year 2023, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The number includes 1.1 million who were released by federal authorities after entering illegally, 900,000 who were released at ports of entry, 860,000 who are known to have evaded arrest and 430,000 who overstayed their temporary residency in the country, according to the report. Federal authorities at the southern border recorded more than 2.4 million encounters in fiscal year 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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The Biden administration has poured billions of taxpayer dollars into the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) since October 2022, according to a new report from Open the Books.
The Biden administration spent $8.925 billion in fiscal year 2022 and $10.928 billion in fiscal year 2023 on the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at ORR to accommodate, transport, and provide migrants with various other services like medical care and loans, according to the report, which was released Tuesday. In recent months, HHS has faced scrutiny for ORR’s alleged mishandling of cases of unaccompanied migrant children, some of whom have been released to poorly vetted sponsors where they are used for child labor, according to The New York Times.
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The Virginia Senate unanimously passed on Tuesday a bill that would ban colleges and universities in the state from giving preferential treatment or consideration to legacy admissions, which are typically the family members of graduates.
Passed with 39 votes in favor and one senator not voting, the summary for SB 46 reveals the lawmakers voted to prohibit “any public institution of higher education from providing any manner of preferential treatment in the admissions decision to any student application on the basis of such student’s legacy status,” which the bill defines as those students with a familial connection to either an alumnus or a donor.
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The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was aware of the issues with mail-in voting during the 2020 election cycle but censored social media narratives about the risks as alleged disinformation, according to agency documents.
CISA documents were released on Monday by America First Legal, showing the agency’s concerns about mail-in voting while it was also monitoring online opinions about such concerns.
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Seven sanctuary state governors signed onto a letter Monday begging President Joe Biden and Democrat and Republican leaders in the House and Senate for help in dealing with the surge of migrants arriving in their areas of the country.
Governors from the sanctuary states of New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Mexico joined with the governors of Arizona and Maryland in sending a letter to Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, citing their need for federal support in dealing with the crisis. Meanwhile, negotiations over permanent border security funding are continuing in Congress amid the ongoing surge of illegal immigration, and the governors are asking for more funding as part of the deal that is ultimately made.
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The Democrat-run states such as New York and Illinois are increasing 2020 census numbers after successfully asking for a review of the once-a-decade population survey that helps determine federal funding distribution as the states struggle with population losses.
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Legislatures in 23 states and the District of Columbia have passed some form of a carbon-free electricity goal, but many of these measures do not address the ancillary costs of making it happen.
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The Oregon secretary of state’s office used artificial intelligence in the 2022 election that flagged election fraud concerns as mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) and may use it again this year, similar to how Arizona monitored online election information. The effort is already facing a lawsuit.
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House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good is sending a warning to Speaker Mike Johnson on spending bills.
“Don’t assume you have our votes for the things that don’t matter, when you don’t want ‘em for things that do matter,” the Virginia Republican said on Friday, according to The Hill.
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While globalists, heads of large corporations, and officials in international organizations may consider democracy more of a spectator sport than a representative political system embraced by countries around the world, at least they were willing to allow some competition into the ring this year. In addition to its usual list of drastically tired global elites such as John Kerry, Bill Gates, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, The World Economic Forum decided to invite a handful of conservative leaders to its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland this past week. The opposition offered a reality check to those in desperate need of one, even if it wasn’t welcome. A couple of unabashed speakers even drew a little blood.
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Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Richmond) filed SB 718 on Friday to form the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority and Financing Fund to oversee the funding and eventual construction of the new sports complex to house the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards proposed by Governor Glenn Youngkin in December.
The Authority that would be created by Surovell’s bill would consist of nine members, including six appointed by Virginia’s governor and three appointed by elected leaders in Alexandria, Virginia, where the new complex is being contemplated.
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While President Joe Biden has made respect for tribal sovereignty a pillar of his administration, some Native Americans are saying that respect ends where Biden’s energy policy begins. The dynamic has created some tension between a Democrat president and one of his party’s key constituencies.
“It seems like they elevate the voices and are willing to consult with indigenous groups when the voice is supportive of their policy,” Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, told Just The News.
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by Michael McKenna Last Thursday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works reported legislation (the Prove It Act) that sets the stage and lays the foundation to impose a carbon dioxide tax on American families, workers, and consumers. This new energy tax was voted out of committee 14-5, with four Republicans…
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Almost nobody doubts that the federal government wastes a lot of money. Every day we hear stories of fraud, mismanagement, and misplaced priorities that cost taxpayers millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars.
But just how much money is wasted? In his annual Festivus report—named after the fictional Seinfeld holiday—Senator Rand Paul tallies up some of the most egregious examples of government waste from the year. The report for 2023 came out on December 22, and as usual, the stories spanned the range from hilarious to deeply disconcerting. In all, Paul identified $900 billion in government waste from 2023.
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On Wednesday, the Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee revealed even more drastic examples of government surveillance and breaches of privacy in the aftermath of the protest on January 6th, including the searching of Americans’ private bank transactions.
According to Fox News, the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government described their latest findings in a letter obtained by Fox. The letter states that investigators ordered banks to search through their customers’ private transactions for key terms such as “MAGA” and “Trump,” while also claiming that the purchasing of “religious texts” were a sign of “extremism.”
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Uh oh.
I’m in trouble now.
Last December, I walked into a Cabela’s on my way to Christmas vacation. I needed, you see, a gift card for my cousins. A Christmas present. They love the outdoors. Hikers and nature lovers, they have grown fond of Cabela’s. So what else to give them but, of course, a Cabela’s gift card?
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order to implement artificial intelligence standards and guidelines he says will protect Virginians.
Executive Order 30 will implement AI educational guidelines for the classroom and policy and information technology standards. He says it will “safeguard the state’s databases while simultaneously protecting individual data” for Virginians.
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Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana stopped an abortion ballot proposal from going through on Tuesday, claiming it was “legally insufficient,” according to the Montana Free Press.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana launched the ballot initiative in November 2023, which would prevent “the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability,” according to the Idaho Capital Sun. Knudsen dismissed the proposal, arguing in a memorandum that it was “legally insufficient” and “logrolls multiple distinct political choices into a single initiative,” the Montana Free Press reported.
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Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon asked the Biden administration to investigate a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member’s multimillion dollar purchase of Oregon land, according to a letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Chavez-DeRemer sent a letter to the Treasury Department on Wednesday expressing “deep concern” that the second-largest foreign owner of farmland in the U.S. is a “Chinese billionaire and Member of the Chinese Communist Party.” Chen Tianqiao, who is a CCP member, purchased nearly 200,000 acres of Oregon timberland for $85 million in 2015, Chavez-DeRemer’s letter states, citing a recent DCNF investigation.
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A bill in the Virginia General Assembly, submitted by Delegate Rae Cousins (D-Richmond), would allow convicted criminals in the commonwealth to petition for their sentence to be terminated after serving 15 years, regardless of the crime they committed.
Cousin’s HB 855, according to the bill’s summary, “Provides a process for a person serving a sentence for any conviction or a combination of any convictions who remains incarcerated in a state or local correctional facility or secure facility” and meets criteria established in the law.
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The Food and Drug Administration wants to continue its selective promotion of off-label drug use: good for COVID-19 vaccines, bad for alternatives to those vaccines. It just doesn’t want the public to see its full reasoning for the latter.
The FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services filed a renewed motion to dismiss a lawsuit by doctors claiming the agencies have a practice of demonizing ivermectin by conflating its human and animal doses and using “command” language, such as “stop it,” to discourage using the anti-parasite drug against COVID.
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The newly-inaugurated Governor of Louisiana has ordered all of the state’s agencies to start actively tracking the costs of illegal immigration, so the taxpayers of the state can know how much they are spending on illegals due to Joe Biden’s open-borders policies.
As reported by Breitbart, Governor Jeff Landry (R-La.) signed an executive order on Tuesday mandating such tracking efforts by every statewide agency, in order to better understand how to cut such costs. Every agency head must report their data directly to Landry’s office.
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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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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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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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