Experts Divided on Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s new student loan forgiveness plan has legal experts divided, with some citing similar problems to his previous plan struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education Plan is an income-based student loan repayment plan that provides full loan forgiveness in certain cases.

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Republicans Rip Biden Admin Use of ICE Program that ‘Failed’ to Properly Monitor Illegal Immigrants

Border Crossing

A group of House Republicans is asking federal authorities for answers on a program meant to monitor illegal immigrants throughout the U.S., arguing it has failed to properly track enrollees and has essentially become a “social services scheme.”

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, along with 15 other House Republicans, sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Executive Associate Director Daniel Bible a list of questions on how the agency is managing the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program in a Friday letter. The lawmakers asked for details on the number of available ICE detention beds, the rate of enrollees showing up to their removal proceedings and information on how these enrollees are supervised, among other questions.

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Media Blame Climate Change for Soaring Insurance Rates, but Data Doesn’t Support Narrative

A tornado touchdown in a neighborhood

Homeowners across the U.S. are seeing skyrocketing insurance rates, increased deductibles, excluded protections, and canceled policies.

Insurers say that they’re having to adjust to changing conditions to remain profitable. Among the problems they blame is inflation, rising construction costs, and costs associated with regulatory compliance. But many insurers are also blaming climate change for driving extreme weather events and increasing losses, and much of the media coverage is zooming in on this narrative.

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USDA Delivers Grants to Historically Black Land Grant Universities

Virginia Farmland

The United States Department of Agriculture is awarding $30.8 million to the nation’s 19 historically Black land-grant universities, including the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Virginia State University, for agricultural and nutritional research and growing extension programs.

“1890 Land-grant Universities are a vital part of our nation’s fabric,” said Manjit Misra, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, in a statement. “This investment will strengthen the ability of 1890 Land-grant Universities to deliver innovative solutions that address emerging agricultural challenges impacting diverse communities.”

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Rubio, Consumer Advocate Want Chinese Online Retailers Investigated

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio

Lawmakers and consumer advocates are calling for a federal investigation into online Chinese retailers Temu and Shein.

The companies have spent billions of dollars in online American advertising with social media companies such as Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, and Google. The probe is warranted, critics say, because of anti-competitive practices skirting U.S. trade and public safety regulations; alleged use of slave laborers to make products sold at cut-rate prices; and advertising targeting children, low-income families and older Americans.

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Federal Judge Blocks Biden ATF Rule Expanding Gun Background Checks

ATF Agents

A federal judge temporarily blocked a background check rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Sunday night.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the rule covering background checks for firearms purchases April 10, claiming it was based on bipartisan legislation passed in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. United States District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the rule until June 2.

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Commentary: Congress Unveils Plan to Hold Entire Internet Hostage Annually to Extort Big Tech

Cathy McMorris Roberts anf Frank Pallone Jr

“It would require Big Tech and others to work with Congress over 18 months to evaluate and enact a new legal framework that will allow for free speech and innovation while also encouraging these companies to be good stewards of their platforms. Our bill gives Big Tech a choice: Work with Congress to ensure the internet is a safe, healthy place for good, or lose Section 230 protections entirely.”

That was House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) in a May 12 oped in the Wall Street Journal outlining their proposed draft legislation, the “Section 230 Sunset Act,” that would end Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protections on Dec. 31, 2025 for millions of interactive computer services, including websites, e-commerce stores and other small businesses.

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Biden Wants Companies to Disclose Climate Risks, Pilot Program Unreliable

Six major American financial institutions struggled to accurately assess the extent of their exposure to climate change and related risks, according to the Federal Reserve.

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Democrats Deny Non-Citizens are Voting in Federal Elections While Republicans Seek to Prevent It

Rep. Joe Morelle

Democrats claim that non-citizen voting doesn’t occur while Republicans and most states are trying to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in elections.

As states are adopting constitutional amendments to prevent non-citizens from voting and Republicans are raising the alarm about the issue as more evidence has been presented, Democrats insist that it is not a concern because non-citizens are not voting in U.S. elections.

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Lawmakers to Grill Biden’s Energy Secretary Over Energy Costs, Regulations

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Lawmakers will grill President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary at a newly announced oversight hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is expected to face lawmakers for questions amid elevated gas prices, a depleted strategic petroleum reserve, and ongoing criticism of Biden’s energy policies.

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Biden’s Signature Bills are Pumping Billions into Swing States as 2024 Elections Draw Near

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s signature pieces of legislation are routing billions of dollars into swing states, but pundits are not convinced that the money will make much difference in November’s elections.

The bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have cumulatively routed billions of dollars to battleground states over the course of Biden’s first term. The Biden campaign is running swing state ads to promote the funding and projects that Biden’s legislative agenda has created, but state and national pundits told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the benefits are unlikely to be a decisive factor in states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

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California Considers Rules That Could Push Gas Prices up an Additional $1.11/Gallon by 2026

Gas Station

California gas prices could rise by at least $1.11 per gallon by 2026 if the California Air Resources Board adopts amendments to its low carbon fuel standard program, CARB says. The LCFS amendments proposed at the end of 2023 would phase-out credits for turning manure into renewable natural gas, ending that business, and add jet fuel to LCFS purview, increasing flying costs for every flight that starts or ends in California even if the fuel was purchased elsewhere. Because so much of America’s imports come in through California, the LCFS amendments would raise the costs of goods for every American. 

LCFS uses a system of credits and deficits to reward or punish producers that make fuel better or worse than the rising “clean” standard.” Current LCFS guidelines call for a 20% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 compared to 2010, while the proposed amendments call for a 90% reduction by 2045, including significant step-downs starting in 2025 that would result in major fuel cost increases starting that year. 

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‘Yes, We Did’ Fund Wuhan Gain-of-Function Research, ‘Virtually Every Lab’ Does it Says NIH Official

Francis Collins, Lawrence Tabak

President Clinton’s infamous parsing of the word “is” remains apt 26 years after his deposition in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit.

National Institutes of Health Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabakfound himself in a Clintonian callback at a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing Thursday on NIH oversight of funding that may have helped unleash the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Lack of Operational Control at Northern Border Poses National Security Threats

US Border Patrol

The northern border largely has been unmanned and understaffed for decades as federal reports issue conflicting conclusions about how much, or how little, operational control exists.

Some officials have suggested the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has just 1% operational control over the northern border after a 2019 General Accounting Office audit of U.S. Customs and Border northern border operations. But a December 2022 DHS report claimed, “The Border Patrol is better staffed today than at any time in its 87-year history,” noting no surveillance of extensive parts of the northern border existed prior to 9/11.

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Demonized as Contributing to Climate Change, Cattle May Actually Decrease Emissions, Research Shows

Cows

Few things have escaped environmentalists’ scorn, and even cows have not been exempt from blame for climate change. Emissions from livestock production have become an increasing focus of efforts to fight climate change. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 11.1% of emissions worldwide come from livestock production, and the organization released a report last year urging Americans to eat less meat. If people aren’t eating meat, the argument goes, then fewer cows are produced. If there’s fewer cows, there’s less emissions.

However, research by pro-agribuisness outfits Alltech and Archbold suggests that the thinking on reducing emissions at the source is missing a bigger picture on cattles’ relationship with the land, and possibly, by removing grazing from pastures, emissions will actually go up.

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Biden Invokes Executive Privilege to Prevent Release of Recording with Special Counsel Hur

President Joe Biden on Thursday claimed the recording of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur about his retention of classified documents should not be released due to executive privilege just hours before House Republicans were set to move toward holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not releasing the recordings.

The Justice Department’s Legal Counsel Office said the recording should be considered protected by executive privilege, and Garland should not be punished for not releasing it, Associate Attorney General Carlos Uriatre said.

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Republicans Sound Alarm on RNC Security, Secret Service Turns Deaf Ear

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle

Republican lawmakers have approached the U.S. Secret Service with concerns about security issues at July’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but Secret Service has so far been unwilling to compromise, sources told the Daily Caller.

“We have identified a critical flaw with the Security Perimeter that creates an elevated and untenable safety risk to the attending public,” counsel to the Republican National Committee Todd R. Steggerda wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in April.

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Georgia Voters Tell MSNBC Trump’s Legal Issues Make Them ‘Support Him More’

Donald Trump

Republican voters in Georgia told MSNBC in a segment aired on Wednesday that former president Donald Trump’s legal battles have made them more passionate about voting for him.

A recent poll shows Trump beating Biden by 9 percent in Georgia even as he faces an election interference case in the state among other legal issues, such as an ongoing trial in New York. The voters told MSNBC the cases have increased their support for Trump as it seems like persecution to them, with the former president appearing to be a fighter.

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Tariff Proponents Say U.S. Needs Trade Fairness, but Critics Warn Costs of American Goods Will Rise

Construction site

President Joe Biden held a press conference Tuesday extolling the tariffs on Chinese products — including steel, aluminum, electric vehicles, solar panels and semiconductors — he is rolling out. The president argued that China aggressively subsidizes the products America imports, which makes it difficult for U.S. businesses to compete.

“Back in 2000, when cheap steel from China began to flood the market, U.S. steel towns across Pennsylvania and Ohio were hit hard,” Biden said.

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Record Number of Chinese Nationals Illegally Crossing into U.S., Latest Data Shows

The number of Chinese nationals illegally crossing into the United States is spiking, according to the latest data provided by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

A record-breaking 27,583 Chinese nationals have illegally crossed into the U.S. over the past seven months of fiscal year 2024, according to CBP. There were 24,125 Chinese nationals who illegally crossed in fiscal year 2023, up from the 1,987 who illegally entered in fiscal year 2022.

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Bezos Hosted Treasury Officials to Discuss Private Sector Climate Action: FOIA Documents Show

Jeff Bezos

Newly revealed documents obtained by a watchdog group show that Amazon founder, multibillionaire, and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos hosted an event bringing together international bureaucrats, a liberal foundation, and senior Treasury Department officials at his palatial Washington, D.C. home to advance “Climate Action” efforts.

The event shows how Bezos has used his convenient capital city location and private foundation to help the Biden Administration advance its climate goals by galvanizing private finance through grants.

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Commentary: At WNBA Ceremony, Biden Urges America to Support the Women’s Sports He’s Destroying

WNBA event at the White House featuring the players for the Las Vegas Aces

In previous years, people might have missed the irony. But not now—not after the meteoric rise of women’s basketball.

When the WNBA champs visited the White House last week, reporters didn’t cover it out of obligation. They covered it because it was a real story. And President Joe Biden’s betrayal of girls sports only made it more of one.

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Biden Says Americans Can Buy Any Car Despite His Administration Forcing EVs to Be Huge Share of Sales by 2032

President Joe Biden driving a car

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday it is false that his administration is restricting consumer choice in the automobile market, but his administration recently finalized a rule that will force electric vehicles (EVs) to make up a much larger share of overall auto sales over the next decade.

Biden made the remark during a Tuesday speech about his administration’s decision to significantly bolster tariffs against Chinese products including steel, semiconductor chips and EV batteries. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule in March that requires manufacturers to make EVs constitute between 35 percent and 56 percent of new cars sold in 2032, according to CNN.

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D.C. Holds Training Sessions for Noncitizens to Vote

An agency of the District of Columbia held a training session last month to teach illegal immigrants and other noncitizens how to vote, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.

News of the training session held by the local government in the nation’s capital comes as House Republicans push a bill—with the backing of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.—to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

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Trump Holds Lead over Biden Heading Toward November

Donald Trump and Joe Biden in front of the White House (composite image)

With less than half a year until the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump holds a sizable lead over incumbent President Joe Biden in several swing states.

While the overall national polling varies and shows a tighter race, Trump holds significant leads in several swing states.

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Leftist Nonprofit, ‘Bidenbucks’ Pushing Voter Registration of Low-Income Patients at Health Centers

Vot-ER leadership Alister Martin and Aliya Bhatia

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are partnering with a left-wing nonprofit for voter registration efforts as part of “Bidenbucks,” which is President Biden’s executive order to turn as many federal agencies as possible into get-out-the-vote (GOTV) centers across all states.

Health centers that are funded by the federal government and serve low-income patients are working with a progressive nonprofit on voter registration efforts to implement Biden’s wide-ranging executive order to use the federal government to register voters.

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Teachers Union Worked with Feds to Neutralize Parents with Concerns About CRT

American Federation of Teachers

Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial victory in Virginia in November 2021, widely credited to his promise to restore parental rights in public schools in the Democratic-leaning state, set off panic in the national education establishment.

Newly disclosed records reveal the American Federation of Teachers hired a prominent Democratic pollster the following month to survey parents and devise messaging to shore up AFT’s weaknesses – particularly by tarring dissenting parents as racists – and shared it with a senior Department of Education official.

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Former Admin Officials and Experts Lay Out Trump’s America First Foreign Policy Expectations

An “America First” foreign policy includes focusing on deterrence and building up U.S. military strength while developing a new approach to the Russia-Ukraine war and learning from mistakes made by President Joe Biden, according to foreign policy experts and former Trump administration officials.

In the new book “An America First Approach to U.S. National Security,” more than a dozen experts and former officials describe their foreign policy recommendations that may be implemented if former President Donald Trump is re-elected this fall.

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Behind-the-Scenes Recordings Reveal What Top Gender Doctors Really Think About Sex Change Procedures

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is the leading authority in the field of gender medicine. Its guidance is routinely used by top medical associations in the U.S. and abroad, while its standards of care inform insurance companies’ approach to coverage policies.

But behind closed doors, top WPATH doctors discussed, and at times seemed to challenge, the organization’s own published guidelines for sex change procedures and acknowledged pushing experimental medical interventions that can have devastating and irreversible complications, according to exclusive footage obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Biden Jacks Up Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles, Critical Minerals

BYD Chinese electric car

The Biden administration on Tuesday formally announced significant increases in tariffs targeting imports of electric vehicles (EVs) and other green energy technology from China.

The strengthened tariffs are designed to make it harder for cheaper Chinese green products, like electric vehicles, to flood the U.S. market and displace American companies, the White House said in its official announcement. Beyond EVs and critical minerals, the administration is also increasing tariffs on Chinese steel, computer chips, EV batteries and certain solar components.

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Virginia Gov. Youngkin Signs Biennial Budget

Glenn Youngkin

Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed Virginia’s budget for fiscal years 2025-2026 Monday after the state’s General Assembly voted to pass it in a special session convened for that purpose.

The $188 billion biennial budget was agreed upon at the tail end of last week after protracted and extensive negotiations between Youngkin and conferees.

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Commentary: Faulty U.S. Crime Stats Make It Hard to Know What to Believe

Americans can be forgiven for suffering from whiplash regarding law and order.

In recent weeks the Biden administration and many news outlets, including USA Today and The Hill, have touted declines in violent crime statistics to argue that America is becoming a safer place.

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Former DEA Official Warns China is Bringing Its Own Pesticides into U.S. and has Moved Past Fentanyl

Derek Maltz Sr

Former DEA Special Operations Director Derek Maltz highlighted how strategic China is when it comes to attacking other countries, and claimed that the opioid crisis facing the U.S. is largely because of China and its connections with Mexican drug cartels that sneak it across the U.S. border.

A former Drug Enforcement Administration official warned about the dangers of China on Monday, claiming the foreign country is bringing its own pesticides into the United States, and that it has expanded past the fentanyl, to a new opioid called “nitazenes.”

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CNN Data Guru: Sun Belt Polling Is ‘Absolute Disaster’ for Joe Biden

Joe Biden

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten on Monday said former President Donald Trump’s lead in sun belt states is disastrous for President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

Trump is leading Biden by 13 percent among likely voters in Nevada, 9 percent in Georgia and 6 percent in Arizona, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College survey. Enten on “CNN News Central” said Trump winning all these sun belt states would be rare for a Republican and asserted the former president’s lead is due to his coalition changing to consist of more nonwhite voters.

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House Committee To Investigate Spike In Chinese Illegal Immigration Following DCNF Report

A House committee is scheduled to examine the historic surge in Chinese illegal immigration next week, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability will hold a hearing on Thursday concerning the roughly 8,000 percent increase in Chinese illegal immigration the U.S. has experienced since March 2021, a committee spokesperson told the DCNF. The DCNF recently revealed an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) email showing that the Biden administration dramatically simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants in April 2023, which has increased the speed of Chinese illegal immigrants entering the country.

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Telehealth, Rural Physician Bills Clear Committee

Telehealth

Legislation to make permanent the extension of telehealth services for federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics has passed the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill of U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., and the Rural Physician Workforce Preservation Act he authored are also under consideration by the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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Virginia Lawmakers Urge Department of Defense to Send ‘American-Made’ Drones to Ukraine

Reps. Rob Wittman and Jen Kiggans (composite image)

A group of lawmakers, including two Virginia congressmen, are calling on the U.S. Department of Defense to send more “American-made” drones to be deployed on the Ukrainian battlefield.

In a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Virginia Republican Reps. Rob Wittman and Jen Kiggans along with nine other lawmakers say “most drones being used in Ukraine’s fight” against Russia are being made by a “single Chinese company.”

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Taxpayer-Funded Research Investigated How ‘Populist’ Politicians Spread ‘Misinformation’ During COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID Protest

The federal government funded a multilateral research project investigating how “populist” politicians allegedly sowed disinformation and eroded public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) paid out a grant to support research investigating “how populist politicians distorted COVID-19 pandemic health communication to encourage polarized attitudes and distrust among citizens,” which made the public “more vulnerable to misinformation generally,” according to federal spending records. The project, titled “Pandemic Communication in Times of Populism,” received just over $160,000 from the NSF and is focused on how leaders in the United States, Brazil, Serbia and Poland approached the pandemic, stressing the importance of elevating public health experts over “populist” politicians, according to a presentation produced by the researchers.

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The 2024 Sunset of the Trump Tax Cuts Becoming Election Year Issue as Inflation, Cost of Living Climbs

Donald Trump

The sweeping Trump-era tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are set to expire next year, setting up the tax debate as a potentially key political issue this election year.

While illegal immigration and inflation top Americans’ list of concerns, both parties are increasingly talking about the Trump-era tax cuts, which President Joe Biden has said he will allow to expire next year.

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Combined Social Security Trust Fund Projected to Deplete Reserves by 2035

Social Security

Two reports released Monday show that the U.S. combined Social Security trust fund is projected to deplete its reserves by 2035.

The Trustees for Social Security and Medicare released annual reports on Monday. The Trustees projected the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will exhaust its reserves in 2036. The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund was projected to be insolvent by 2033.

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Commentary: DHS’ Secrecy About ‘Disinformation’ Regulation Docs

Nina Jankowicz

Nearly two years after Nina Jankowicz briefly led the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, she’s launched an organization demanding transparency and the public release of documents about the public debate on disinformation. An interesting move, likely without true transparency in mind.

My organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, has spent the same two years fighting DHS for documents on the federal board Jankowicz managed. We’re filing a second lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to fight continued government stonewalling of our requests. Thus far, DHS has refused to provide unredacted versions of documents that outline its purported authorities to regulate disinformation. Nor will the agency release more information about its work on misinformation related to “irregular migration” and “Ukraine” before the board was disbanded in August 2022.

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Government Sets Rules for Spy Agencies Buying Commercial Data on Americans

People on phones

The government has put together new rules to guide how U.S. spy agencies buy and use mounds of highly personal information from smartphone apps, automobiles and other connected devices.

The new framework policy, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, does not require agencies to get a warrant before buying or searching commercially available information, or CAI.

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Commentary: A Bill to Ensure Fair Representation for American Citizens

The House of Representatives finally acted Wednesday to remedy an injustice that has been getting worse as the number of illegal aliens coming into the United States has skyrocketed: the distortion caused by including noncitizens when determining how many House members each state gets.

The House passed HR 7109, the Equal Representation Act, to mandate a citizenship question on the census form and use of only the citizen population in the apportionment formula for representation applied after every census.

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U.S. Fails to Counter Threat of Chinese Land Ownership, Report Finds

Tractor towing hay on a farm

The United States government is not appropriately addressing the threat posed by growing Chinese ownership of American land, according to a report released by the Heritage Foundation Thursday.

The federal government is woefully ill-equipped to track Chinese-owned real estate in the country, despite the serious threat these Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entities can pose to critical U.S. infrastructure, according to the report. The report calls on federal and state leaders to take action, such as increasing transparency and conducting more critical reviews of land purchases.

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