Biden Plan Would Build EV Chargers on Interstate Highways Before Rural Areas

President Joe Biden’s ambitious $5 billion plan to construct an electric vehicle charging network across the country would prioritize the Interstate Highway System.

The federal government will distribute the funds to states over the course of five years under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, according to a joint Department of Transportation and Energy Department announcement Thursday. In 2022, $615 million will be made available to states that submit plans for how the money will be used to construct chargers along the interstate highway network, the announcement said.

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Time to Scrap One-China Policy, Recognize Independent Taiwan, Trump Security Adviser Says

Keith Kellogg

The United States should abandon its policy that China is one country and instead acknowledge Taiwan as an independent nation, according to Army Lt. Gen. (Ret) Keith Kellogg, a former Trump administration national security adviser.

“Taiwan is an independent country, and we need to support them,” said Kellogg, national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence and chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump administration. “The rest of the world should support them as well, their democratically elected leadership.”

Kellogg made his remarks this week on the John Solomon Reports Podcast, hosted by Just the News.

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Commentary: The Outcome if Government Unions Get Control of an Entire State

Chicago Teachers’ Union protesting

Chaos. Disruption. Uncertainty.

The Chicago Teachers Union provides a real-world example of what happens when a government union has too much power.

CTU has gone on strike three times in three school years. In the latest work stoppage, over 330,000 schoolchildren missed five days of school. Parents were notified of the walkout after 11 p.m. on a school night, leaving them just hours to develop a back-up plan after the union decided not to show up.

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Federal Court Halts Major Biden ‘Social Cost’ Climate Policy in Victory for Republican States

A federal district court in Louisiana halted one of President Joe Biden’s key climate initiatives implemented shortly after he was inaugurated in January 2021.

Judge James Cain, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, concluded that the policy — which declared there were “social costs” of continued greenhouse gas emissions — caused significant harm to Americans, according to his ruling published Friday. The federal judge granted a motion for a preliminary injunction, pausing implementation of the policy.

“Plaintiff States have sufficiently identified the kinds of harms to support injunctive relief,” Cain wrote in his ruling. “Moreover, the Court finds that the Plaintiff States have made a clear showing of an injury-in-fact, and that such injury ‘cannot be undone through monetary remedies.’”

“The Court agrees that the public interest and balance of equities weigh heavily in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge added.

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Tesla Recalls Nearly 600,000 Vehicles, One of Five Recalls in 8 Months

Tesla recalled nearly 600,000 vehicles on Thursday, the electric car maker’s fifth major recall in the past several months.

The recall, which affects all 2020-2022 Tesla Model S, X and Y cars and as well as certain 2017–2022 Tesla Model 3s, a total of 578,607 vehicles, is due to safety issues raised by the vehicles’ “Boombox” feature that plays music outside the vehicle, according to Bloomberg. The Boombox feature impairs the vehicles’ “pedestrian warning system,” an auditory feature that alerts pedestrians to the vehicles’ presence.

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Federal Court Reverses Trump Rule Eliminating Protections for Gray Wolf Population

A federal district court restored protections for the U.S. gray wolf population on Thursday, ruling that a Trump administration action failed to consider threats posed to the species.

Judge Jeffrey White, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, found that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under the Trump administration ignored the “best available science” when formulating the rule. The agency improperly concluded that West Coast wolves were not distinct from the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population, White said.

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French President Macron Announces Aggressive Nuclear Power Expansion Plans

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that his government would add at least six nuclear power plants to its arsenal in the coming decades.

“We are fortunate in France to be able to count on a strong nuclear industry, rich in know-how and with hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Macron said during remarks in the city of Belfort earlier in the day, France 24 reported.

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Commentary: Corporate Media and Their Insistence of ‘No Evidence of Voter Fraud’

Anyone with half an ounce of integrity knows the manner in which the 2020 election was conducted was neither free nor fair. Never before in our nation’s history did we have a presidential election with so many safety measures that were deliberately ignored or willfully removed. And never have we had an election with so much early voting, and mail-in voting.

All of this was made possible by drastic and unconstitutional rule changes implemented illegally by Democratic secretaries of state at the 11th hour, including the expanded use of mail-in ballots, unsupervised drop boxes, and ballot harvesting.

Yet the propagandists in the corporate media have remained silent about all of it, and have shown zero interest in exploring what may actually have occurred. Donald Trump is out of office. That’s all they care about. 

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Commentary: America’s Assault on Reason and Logic

man raising hand

“In critical moments,” said Star Trek’s master of logic, Mr. Spock, “men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”

Apparently so. The truth of this statement hit me like a bolt of lightning recently when a friend relayed his experience at a medical clinic. It seems the ignorance and lack of rational thinking in our medical system is even worse than I imagined.

It all started when my friend John, a man in his mid-60s, went to the doctor to fill out forms and answer questions before undergoing an in-house surgery. After about 30 minutes of taking his history, the nurse asked him if he had taken the COVID vaccine. John replied that he had not—a fact he had already told the office secretary when he made his appointment—but that he was prepared to take tests to see if he was positive for the virus.   

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Exclusive: Duo Hemp & Denim Release ‘Stay’ Video for Valentine’s Day

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The favorite retro-rock duo, Hemp & Denim has released a new single, “Stay” for Valentine’s Day. The song is about genuine love and love is what everyone needs right now in this world. The accompanying lyric video for “Stay” is debuting today exclusively to The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. The lyrics illustrate the hardships and triumphs that come with any loving relationship.

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Commentary: The Real Life History of St. Valentine and His Unlikely Connection to Romance

On Feb. 14, sweethearts of all ages will exchange cards, flowers, candy, and more lavish gifts in the name of St. Valentine. But as a historian of Christianity, I can tell you that at the root of our modern holiday is a beautiful fiction. St. Valentine was no lover or patron of love.

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Connecticut Supreme Court Orders Congressional Maps Drawn by Special Master Be Adopted

Connecticut Supreme Court Building

The state’s highest court ruled that new Congressional maps drawn by a court-appointed special master be adopted.

The Connecticut Supreme Court handed down the decision Thursday after members of the Reapportionment Committee failed to reach an agreement on new maps in December 2021. The maps were re-drawn using information from the 2020 Census.

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Minnesota College Ends Segregated ‘Anti-Racism’ Training Program After Civil Rights Complaint

Aerial photo of Carleton College

A liberal arts college in southeastern Minnesota ended its “anti-racism” training program following a civil rights complaint.

Carleton College, located in Northfield, held racially segregated “mandatory monthly affinity groups” as part of its “anti-racism training series” for employees and staff throughout the spring 2021 semester (January through May 2021).

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Police Clear Bridge at U.S.-Canadian Border, Arrest Remaining Protesters Blocking Key Trade Route

Royal Canadian Mounted Police in riot gear

Police in Ontario on Sunday arrested protesters still blocking the Ambassador Bridge, seeking to clear the major trade route between Canada and the United States after days of COVID-19 restriction protests that captured the world’s attention.

Windsor police told the Associated Press that arrests began and vehicles were towed starting just after dawn at the bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario — the busiest northern border crossing to the U.S.

“Television images showed officers detaining protesters. Only two pickup trucks and less than a dozen protesters blocked the road to the bridge before police moved in. Afterward, police barricades remained and it was not immediately clear when the bridge might be opened,” AP reported.

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Durham Alleges Clinton Campaign Hired Techs to ‘Infiltrate’ Trump Servers

Filings from Special Counsel John Durham this week allege the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign was working to establish a “narrative” linking the Trump campaign to a Russian bank, in an alleged gambit one expert said was an effort to “infiltrate” Trump servers to that end.

The allegations, first reported on by Fox News on Saturday, are another layer to the densely, multifaceted Durham investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, one that has continued long after Trump left office and that continues to produce fresh controversies on a regular basis.

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New CDC Data Say Vaccine Booster Effectiveness Wanes Sharply in Months After Dose

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week released data showing that effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine booster wanes markedly in the months following that shot, though the agency still said uptake of the booster is important for fighting against the virus.

The agency said in a press release that studies showed effectiveness against COVID-19 emergency department and urgent care incidents “was 87% and 91%, respectively, during the 2 months after a third dose [of the booster],” but that it “decreased to 66% and 78% by the fourth month after a third dose.”

The CDC said that “protection against hospitalizations exceeded that against ED/UC visits” with the shot.

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Commentary: Our Greatest Domestic Threat Is Pro-Government Extremists

Joe Biden and his administration sitting in the Oval Office at the White House

Though alarming and depressing, we can no longer avoid recognizing that America’s greatest domestic threat is from pro-government extremists.

We rue that pro-government extremists caused immense destruction during their less-than-“peaceful protests” in 2020; and we witness the continuing damage caused by their neurotic, totalitarian response to a plethora of problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic..

Indeed, what makes the pro-government extremists so dangerous is their far greater numbers than their anti-government extremist counterparts. Their noxious ideology that the citizen is subordinate to the omnipotent state is incessantly “normalized” and propagandized by their corporate media comrades.

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Report: 12 Percent of Law Enforcement Officers Were Assaulted While on Duty in 2020

people protesting in front of law enforcment

Nearly 12% of police officers were assaulted while on duty in 2020, according to annual state level data collected by the FBI. Alaska reported the greatest percentage, California the greatest number.

A total of 60,105 officers were assaulted nationwide, with the overwhelming majority assaulted, and injured, by assailants’ hands and feet.

Nationwide, 26% of assaults in 2020 involved a deadly weapon that wasn’t a firearm; 5% involved a firearm.

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Commentary: Humans Lived in Europe Earlier Than Thought, in Neanderthal Territories

a wax figure of a Neanderthal

Perched about 325 feet (100 meters) up the slopes of the Prealps in southern France, a humble rock shelter looks out over the Rhône River Valley. It’s a strategic point on the landscape, as here the Rhône flows through a narrows between two mountain ranges. For millennia, inhabitants of the rock shelter would have had commanding views of herds of animals migrating between the Mediterranean region and the plains of northern Europe, today replaced by TGV trains and up to 180,000 vehicles per day on one of the busiest highways on the continent.

The site, recognized in the 1960s and named Grotte Mandrin after French folk hero Louis Mandrin, has been a valued location for over 100,000 years. The stone artifacts and animal bones left behind by ancient hunter-gatherers from the Paleolithic period were quickly covered by the glacial dust that blew from the north on the famous mistral winds, keeping the remains well preserved.

Since 1990, our research team has been carefully investigating the uppermost 10 feet (3 meters) of sediment on the cave floor. Based on artifacts and tooth fossils, we believe that Mandrin rewrites the consensus story about when modern humans first made their way to Europe.

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Department of Homeland Security Says COVID Misinformation Is Inspiring Terrorism, But It Won’t Provide Any Evidence

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to provide evidence to support its claims that COVID-19 “misinformation” and “false or misleading narratives” inspired violent terrorism during 2021.

DHS issued a terrorism advisory bulletin Monday warning that of the dangers of online misinformation, which the agency said has been exploited by “threat actors” and to inspire acts of terrorism.

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Former EcoHealth Alliance Official Calls NGO a ‘CIA Front Organization,’ Calls Peter Daszak a ‘Sociopath’

A scientist who worked with Peter Daszak at the EcoHealth Alliance has sent a whistleblower complaint to Senator Gary Peters, the Chairman of the Senate Whistleblower committee, stating that he believes Daszak works with the CIA and could in fact be “a double agent working on behalf of the Chinese government.”

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TikTok Bans ‘Misgendering’ and ‘Deadnaming’ to Promote ‘Safety’ and ‘Security’

TikTok is banning users from “misgendering” and “deadnaming” others in an effort to improve the social media platform, the company announced Tuesday.

The company announced the new policies in updated community guidelines released Tuesday, saying it will now explicitly ban certain practices classified under the umbrella of “hateful ideologies.”

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Commentary: Mainstream Media Newspapers Are Stubborn About Correcting Errors

Many iconic U.S. newspapers sport slogans that seek to explain their mission – and self-image. “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has been called “the seven most famous words in American journalism.” “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was an overtly partisan call to arms. But the most telling section of a newspaper’s true values is its “Corrections” page. That’s where journalism distinguishes itself from just about every other profession, routinely and straightforwardly admitting its mistakes. Who else does that?

It is a soul-crushing enterprise. A single misspelled name is all it takes to ruin an otherwise stellar article. We reporters may forget the topic of the piece we wrote last week, while the error five years ago is seared into our memories. But it is also crucial: Reader trust is the lifeblood of journalism. If you can’t believe what you read, why bother?

And yet, we do get things wrong all the time. Despite the self-righteous claims of too many news outlets, journalists don’t print The Truth. The “first draft of history” is necessarily messy and incomplete. What journalists have long promised readers is that we will do our best to get the story right initially and then set the record straight when better information emerges. This isn’t solely a commitment to high-minded ethics. It is also transactional: Journalists can so readily acknowledge errors because readers honor and reward our honesty. They forgive us our trespasses because we acknowledge them.

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St. Paul Police Chief Sends Mayor a Dire Warning About Understaffed Department

Todd Axtell

St. Paul’s chief of police is pleading with city leaders for help once again.

Last Friday Chief Todd Axtell wrote a letter to Mayor Melvin Carter with a dire warning about the understaffed and overworked St. Paul Police Department.

Evidently not much has changed after a contentious Sept. 2021 meeting with the St. Paul City Council, in which Axtell sought a $3.1 million increase over what Mayor Carter initially proposed for the 2022 police budget.

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Minnesota College Planning Appreciation Lunch for Non-White Staff Only

Gustavus Adolphus College

Alpha News has learned that a private liberal arts college in southern Minnesota is planning an appreciation lunch for just non-white staff and faculty later this month, which potentially violates federal civil rights law.

The equity and inclusion office at Gustavus Adolphus College, located in the town of St. Peter and affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, recently announced the “People of Color & International Faculty and Staff Appreciation Lunch” that will take place on Friday, Feb. 25.

An email sent out to faculty and staff from the college’s office of marketing and communication mentioned that “Faculty and Staff who are People of Color and/or international … are invited to an appreciation lunch on Friday, February 25 from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. in the Three Crowns Room.”

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Commentary: High Pressure Tactics in FBI Coverup Surrounding Whitmer Case

Gretchen Whitmer

For months, the lawyer representing Kaleb Franks—one of six men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020—has produced some of the most detailed and damning reports to make a case for FBI entrapment. Defense attorneys last year discovered that at least a dozen FBI agents and informants were intimately involved in the abduction plot, brought to a dramatic conclusion in October 2020 when the men were arrested after an FBI informant drove them to meet an undercover FBI agent to buy materials for explosives.

With the trial date just weeks away, the Justice Department’s case is imploding amid numerous scandals.

The timing could not be worse for the government, especially the FBI, which is now under scrutiny for its suspected role in fomenting the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021. After all, the two events share many similarities, including plans to “storm” Michigan’s state Capitol building, the use of militia groups reportedly loyal to Donald Trump, and official designations that both represent “domestic terror” attacks.

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Department of Homeland Security Says Trucker Protests Could Start in U.S. During the Super Bowl

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned U.S. law enforcement and public safety officials that a trucker convoy protest similar to the one taking place in Ottawa, Canada, could begin on American soil on Feb. 13, the day of the Super Bowl, Yahoo News reported.

The warning, which was distributed nationwide on Tuesday, told authorities the DHS “has received reports of a convoy of truckers planning to potentially block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates for truck drivers,” according to senior law enforcement officials and documents obtained by Yahoo News.

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Commentary: The Longevity of the COVID Emergency

Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?

The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.

Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:

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Federal Judge Blasts DOJ for False Account of Kamala Harris’ Whereabouts on January 6

A D.C. District Court judge overseeing numerous Capitol protest cases today accused the Justice Department of repeatedly falsifying the location of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris during the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, openly doubted the validity of trespassing charges against Nicholas Rodean, indicted last March on several counts for his participation in the protest on Capitol Hill.

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Connecticut Parents Enraged by Eighth-Grade Assignment Using Pizza Toppings as Metaphor for Sexual Likes and Dislikes

A health class assignment to eighth-grade students in Enfield, Connecticut asked them to list their sexual likes and dislikes, using pizza toppings as a metaphor.

Parents of eighth grade students in a sex ed class at the John F. Kennedy Middle School in the Enfield Public Schools (EPS) district reported their children received an assignment that asked them to list their sexual likes and dislikes – and likened that to ordering toppings on a pizza.

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Senators Introduce Bill to Prevent ‘Crack Pipe’ Funding

U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and John Kennedy, R-La., introduced new legislation Thursday that would block American Rescue Plan taxpayer dollars from being used to purchase and distribute crack pipes.

The Cutting Rampant Access to Crack Kits (CRACK) Act of 2022 comes after the Washington Free Beacon reported federal taxpayer dollars had gone to a program that provides syringes and pipes to drug users as a form of “harm reduction.”

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Connecticut Governor’s Lifting of School Mask Mandate Depends on Legislature Voting to Extend His Emergency Powers

Connecticut children cannot be certain they can finally be free of wearing masks in school since, although Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said he would end the state school mask mandate by February 28, that plan may depend on the legislature voting to extend his pandemic emergency powers, and then on individual school districts.

In his State of the State address Wednesday, Lamont told residents he will roll back some coronavirus restrictions, including the school mask mandate, adding, “You have earned this freedom.”

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Biden Rejects U.S. Army Report Detailing Failures of Afghanistan Withdrawal

In an interview on Thursday, Joe Biden outright rejected an official investigative report by the United States Army that highlighted many of the failures that led to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the 2,000-page report was released by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request this week. The report included the sworn testimony of multiple commanders who were on the ground in Afghanistan and witnessed the failed withdrawal firsthand.

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Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi Sue Biden over Minimum Wage Hike for Federal Contractors

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration again Thursday, this time for requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s the 21st lawsuit the attorney general has filed against the administration. Joining him are the attorneys general from Louisiana and Mississippi.

“The president has no authority to overrule Congress, which has sole authority to set the minimum wage and which already rejected a minimum wage increase,” Paxton argues.

Their lawsuit follows one filed last December by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA), ​​a licensed river outfitter regulated by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). The CROA, a nonprofit trade association, represents more than 150 independent operators who primarily conduct business on federal lands using special use permits through Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.

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Twin Cities Starbucks Workers Joining Effort to Unionize

An effort to unionize by Starbucks employees in Buffalo, New York, is moving west, having worked its way into Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois, and now to the Twin Cities. 

“Early Friday morning, the hourly workers at two Twin Cities Starbucks locations, demanded union recognition from CEO Kevin Johnson and local management,” letter said. 

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Records Released in Amir Locke Shooting Show He Wasn’t Named on Arrest Warrant

According to warrants released in the shooting of Amir Locke, he was not the target of the police raid that led to his death. 

Instead the warrant was for 17-year-old Mekhi Speed, Locke’s cousin, who has been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of a St. Paul man last month, according to WCCO. The warrants were unsealed days ago, but needed a judge’s stamp of approval to be released to the public because Speed is a minor. 

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University of Minnesota Looks to Hire Professor with ‘Knowledge of’ and ‘Commitment to’ Critical Race Theory

The University of Minnesota is looking to hire an assistant professor of elementary literacy education with “knowledge of” and “commitment to” critical race theory (CRT), climate literacy, and other related areas.

The job posting appears in the U of M’s “Career” database, with the Center of the American Experiment first reporting on it Tuesday.

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Commentary: The Mystery of the Migrant Kids the Feds Are Spiriting into the U.S.

After months of delay, the Department of Homeland Security replied late last month to a Congressional demand for information about the number of illegal migrants the department has flown from border towns to communities around the country. In 2021, it said, 71,617 were dropped off in nearly 20 cities including locales as far from the Mexican border as Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

Immigration experts critical of the Biden administration’s permissive immigration policies believe those numbers are incomplete, especially regarding the most vulnerable migrants, those under 18, whom DHS classifies as “unaccompanied children.” The agency says some 40,000 of the total transported are such minors, but that number is only a fraction of the 147,000 “encounters” the agency reports having with unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border between January and October 2021.

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School District in Washington State Holding Racially Segregated Superintendent Search Meetings for Parents

A Washington school district plans to hold racially segregated meetings for parents and guardians who wish to participate in the search for a new superintendent.

As afternoon radio host Jason Rantz reported at MYNorthwest Wednesday, the Issaquah School District’s (ISD) weekly bulletin for February 7 listed its “upcoming events,” including separate meetings for “Parents/Guardians of Color.”

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Dems Pivot on COVID Response, Attempt to Rewrite History

With the midterm elections in sight, President Biden and fellow Democrats in Congress and governors’ mansions nationwide are completing a 180 on their COVID-19 response, abandoning the president’s promise to “shut down” the virus as Americans say they want to “get on with their lives.”

In the process, Democrats have begun to lift key COVID-19 restrictions and return to normal life — the same approach, long embraced by red states, that they once rebuked as cruel and dangerous. Yet Biden and his Democratic allies are now taking credit for ending the pandemic while adopting these same policies.

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Report: Federal Unemployment Benefits Kept Millions from Returning to Work

Increased federal benefits last year perpetuated unemployment and kept millions of Americans from returning to the workforce, a new study released Wednesday reports.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation published the report, which evaluated the impact of federal handouts, particularly the controversial federal unemployment payments of $300 per week. More than two dozen states opted out of the federal program before it was set to  expire last year, citing the elevated joblessness, while blue states largely continued to take the federal money.

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Commentary: The Department of Homeland Security Is Becoming the American Thought Police

The Department of Homeland Security, which under the Biden Administration routinely lets watch-listed terrorists cross the southern border unmolested, and which approved entry to the United States for Colleyville Synagogue hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram despite his being known to British authorities as a terror risk, has taken upon its broad bureaucratic shoulders an even more challenging job.

Stopping the flow of MDM.

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ICE Deportations Decrease by 70 Percent Under Biden in 2021

An annual report by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reveals that the agency deported fewer illegal aliens in 2021 than in the preceding five years, with a staggering 70 percent drop from the number of deportations in 2020.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, ICE’s report showed that just under 55,600 illegals were deported in 2021. In 2020, by contrast, over 185,000 illegals were deported, while over 267,000 were deported in 2019.

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Inflation Surges Far Above Projections

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.6% in January, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 7.5%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.

The CPI remained at its near four-decade high throughout January, growing 7.5% on a year-over-year basis, the BLS reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected the index would rise around 7.2%.

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Biden’s Average Approval Rating Drops Below 40 Percent

President Joe Biden’s nationwide average job approval rating fell below 40% for the first time Thursday, multiple sources reported.

Biden’s mean approval rating sunk to 39.8% as of early Thursday, according to the Real Clear Politics average of major nationwide job performance polls. The figure is just 2.7 points above former President Donald Trump’s all-time low approval rating of 37.1% in December 2017, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

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Commentary: Understanding Exchange-Traded Funds

Now that it’s easier than ever to trade stocks and crypto thanks to apps like Robinhood and Etrade, it’s time to think about other options. People were quick to jump on the crypto bandwagon when Doge went to the moon in early to mid-2021, but the crypto crash later that year reminded everyone what an unsafe investment it really is. For those looking to diversify their investment portfolio, there are options beyond the new-school cryptocurrencies, or the traditional stocks and bonds. Keep reading to learn about exchange-traded funds or ETFs.

To put it as simply as possible, an exchange-traded fund is like taking a specific type of investment, say a commodity like gold, and collecting it together in a single group. Instead of buying gold on your own, you can invest in shares of a gold ETF. But why would you want to do that? Well, gold is expensive. To buy a meaningful amount you’d need to invest thousands of dollars. Not to mention you’d now have giant bars of gold lying around your house. You need far less capital to invest in an ETF. (And you don’t have a hoard of gold in your basement like some kind of dragon.)

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PJTN’s Laurie Cardoza Moore Talks to John Fredericks and Puts School Board Members on Notice

Thursday morning on Outside the Beltway with John Fredericks, host Fredricks welcomed Proclaiming Justice to the Nation’s Laurie Cardoza-Moore to the program to discuss how parents can take over local school boards and her Taking Back America’s Children’s Summit this weekend in Orlando, Florida.

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Minneapolis, St. Paul Lift Vaccine Mandates on Bars and Restaurants

Minneapolis and St. Paul rescinded their vaccine-or-test mandates on bars and restaurants Thursday, effective immediately.

The cities cited a significant decrease in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. In Ramsey County, where St. Paul is located, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have dropped by 57.8% and 37.8% in the last seven days, respectively.

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