Over 1.6 Million Border Apprehensions, Gotaways to Date This Fiscal Year

More than 1.6 million foreign nationals have been apprehended or reported evading law enforcement officers after illegally entering the U.S. in fiscal 2023 through February, according to Customs and Border Protection apprehension data and gotaway data obtained by The Center Square.

When reporting February enforcement data, CBP stated nationwide total encounters for fiscal 2023 through February totaled 1,285,056, excluding gotaways.

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Notre Dame Invites Gay Priest for ‘Queer Holiness’ Event

The University of Notre Dame is hosting a “Queer Holiness” event next week to discuss “Experiential Christian Anthropology,” according to the event page.

On March 23, the university’s John J. Reilly Center is hosting a “Queer Holiness” event with Rev. Dr. Charlie Bell to address the church’s “hostile questions” regarding the LGBTQ community. Bell, a gay deacon in the Church of England and a Cambridge fellow, is also the author of the book “Queer Holiness,” which claims to “find a better way to do theology – not about, but with and of LGBTQI people.”

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Congress, States Are Trying to Rein in Election-Funding ‘Zuckerbucks’ 2.0

As the Georgia General Assembly advances a bill to further restrict private money from bankrolling elections—as occurred with Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s grants in the 2020 elections—congressional Republicans are reintroducing a similar measure. 

Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a measure on March 8 to strengthen an existing ban on private dollars funding election administration in his state.

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New Bill Aims to Make Minnesota a ‘Sanctuary State’ for Illegal Immigrants

A new bill in the Minnesota Legislature would prohibit police and all other state employees from cooperating in the enforcement of America’s immigration laws.

The bill, HF2860/SF2724, is sponsored by Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, and Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, along with 16 other Democratic co-authors in the House.

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Commentary: The Right Is Still Afraid to Fight the Culture War

Republican culture warriors have devoted considerable energy to subjects like “drag queen story hour” and “protecting women’s sports.” While these battles must be fought, they are oblique ways of addressing the real problem. Drag shows are low-hanging fruit. It doesn’t require much courage to denounce them. What does take some courage is to say, “so-called transgender individuals are mentally ill, and their dangerous delusions must be rejected for the sake of our children, and our personal dignity as rational beings.” 

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Commentary: Biden Turns Christianity on Its Head

Gender ideology preys upon the young, convincing girls and boys that they were “born in the wrong body” and rushing them onto experimental drugs, hormones, and surgeries that will leave them stunted, scarred, and infertile. Yet the ostensible Catholic who currently occupies the Oval Office not only supports this horror but had the gall to condemn those who would protect children from it as “sinful” and “cruel.”

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Commentary: The Thing Exercise and Economics Have in Common

With a background in both studying economics and working in the fitness industry, I can see how the two fields complement each other and together provide a valuable learning opportunity. I’ve found that the lessons I taught my fitness clients in the gym about the well-being of their bodies are similar to the lessons that governments, and the public, need to learn about the well-being of the “body politic,” particularly when it comes to the economy.

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Medical School Under Federal Investigation over Its Allegedly Racist Scholarship Program

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched a federal investigation March 6 into St. Louis University (SLU) after a complaint was filed accusing the school of offering a racially discriminatory scholarship, medical watchdog group Do No Harm reported.

The complaint, filed by Do No Harm senior fellow Mark Perry in September, accused SLU School of Medicine’s Scholarship Program for Visiting Medical Students Underrepresented in Medicine violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race-based discrimination, because it is only accessible to students that identify as a specific race, the OCR letter reads. The office “will investigate whether the University discriminates against students based on race, color, or national origin in connection” with the program.

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Pence Tells Iowans U.S. Must Continue to be ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ in Ukraine

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Taking a different position than his old boss on a key foreign policy issue, former Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of Iowans Saturday that the U.S. must continue to help provision Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. While he repeatedly trumpeted “Trump-Pence” successes, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate definitely differs with potential top presidential race rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on U.S. involvement in the war-torn European country.

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Janet Yellen’s Policy Would Destroy Small U.S. Banks While Bailing Out Chinese Depositors, Experts Say

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated during her testimony at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on March 16 that she, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board, the Fed board, and President Joe Biden would only safeguard uninsured deposits at banks whose failures they determine would pose “systemic risks” to the economy, which will destroy small regional banks, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

On the other hand, it will enable big banks to be more reckless because their depositors will be made whole if they fail. In the case of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), this will include many Chinese companies that will be getting reimbursed by community banks, according to Reuters.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Calls Potential Indictment of Trump a Politically-Driven ‘Dark Moment’ in U.S. History

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says an indictment against fellow candidate and former President Donald Trump would be a “national disaster.”

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FBI, DOJ Investigating TikTok Parent over Surveillance of Americans: Report

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are investigating Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for surveilling Americans, according to Forbes.

The DOJ Fraud Section and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia subpoenaed information from the company about its employees’ efforts to access the location and other private information of American journalists through TikTok, Forbes reported, citing an anonymous source. The FBI is conducting interviews on the same subject.

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Republican Lawmakers Unveil New Plan to Spike Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

Several Republican lawmakers announced on Friday that they will introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse President Joe Biden’s attempt to cancel student loan debt, according to a press release sent to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Cornyn of Texas and Joni Ernst of Iowa made the announcement shortly after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled that the CRA, a congressional oversight tool to reverse rules by federal agencies, can be used to counter the Biden administration’s student loan cancelation proposal, according to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ press release. The senators argue that the plan does not cancel debt, but shifts the burden to the taxpayers.

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Rachel Levine Promises Idea of Transgender Children Will Soon Be Normalized, Has ‘Highest Support’ of Biden Administration

Transgender Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rachel Levine recently praised the work of children’s hospitals, such as Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford, for their “gender-affirming care” clinics that provide children and teens with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies.

Levine (born Richard Levine) told a very welcoming audience at CCMC’s Pediatric Grand Rounds in February that “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex Americans, especially our youth … need our attention because they’re being attacked and … are attempting suicide at an alarming rate.”

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Dem-Linked Nonprofit Sues DeSantis Admin for Records on Decision to Reject AP History Class

A left-wing watchdog organization sued Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration on Thursday for allegedly withholding records relating to the decision to reject the AP African American Studies course.

American Oversight filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education claiming the government agency is allegedly not responding to eight public records requests for the communications between state agencies, DeSantis’ office and outside parties discussing the decision to reject an AP African American Studies course because it lacked “educational value and historical accuracy.” The lawsuit comes after DeSantis rejected the college-level course because it violated state law against the teaching of CRT.

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Planned Parenthood Reports 40 Percent Increase in Second-Trimester Abortions at Minnesota Hearing

Dr. Sarah Traxler, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood North Central States, said second-trimester abortions have increased substantially in the region during a hearing this week in the Minnesota Senate.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Traxler said PPNCS has seen a 13% increase in patients coming from out of the region for abortions and a 40% increase in second-trimester abortions. PPNCS includes Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

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Commentary: Legacy Media Ignored Voting Irregularities in 2020 Election

The lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Services, set to go to trial on April 17, may turn out to be a seminal case in First Amendment jurisprudence, with effects that reach well beyond Fox. In a nutshell, Dominion charges that Fox defamed them by putting on air people who claimed that Dominion’s voting machines yielded incorrect results, to the benefit of Joe Biden. More than this, the plaintiffs have secured, through depositions, evidence that Fox News hosts and news executives themselves disbelieved the claims their on-air guests were making.

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Commentary: The Way Government Lost 15 Million Acres of Public Land in the United States

Leave it to the United States Government to lose track of almost three states worth of public land. Only an institution with so little incentive and ability to allocate resources for the betterment of human wellbeing could instantiate such a catastrophic waste of potential.

The following is a story of an engineer named Eric Siegfried, a Montana man who caught public officials in almost unimaginable levels of incompetence and waste. It is also a cautionary tale about the way extreme misallocations of resources are the predictable outcome of America’s current form of land use governance, which systematically severs control over certain resources from anyone equipped to use them rationally and effectively.

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Over Two Tons of ‘Missing’ Uranium Found in Libya

On Thursday, more than two tons of radioactive uranium that had previously thought to have been missing was discovered in a Libyan warehouse, easing concerns about the possible nuclear threat of the missing materials.

As the New York Post reports, Khaled Mahjoub, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army (LNA), released the statement revealing that the uranium was discovered in southern Libya, contained in at least 10 barrels; video taken from the recovery shows workers counting up to 18 barrels.

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As DHS Extends Reach into County Elections Offices, Republicans Urge Continued Local Control

As the federal government extends its reach into county elections offices by funding cybersecurity services through the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans, state and local officials are arguing that election administration should stay local.

County elections offices across the U.S. are receiving ambiguous “cybersecurity services” free of charge from the nonprofit Center for Internet Security (CIS), which has played a key role in flagging purported election “misinformation” for Big Tech censorship and collaborates with other left-wing nonprofits and the Democrat-connected cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

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Texas Announces State Takeover of Houston Independent School District

The state of Texas intends to take control of the Houston Independent School District, citing poor academic accountability, violations of the law and the expiration of an injunction that had previously prevented the state from acting, state officials said Wednesday.

The Texas Education Agency said it would name a new district superintendent and suspend the district’s board of trustees. This is the latest in a yearslong fight between the state and the district of about 200,000 students over poor academic performance and the behavior of trustees.

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Minnesota State Senator Calls for Abolishing Met Council

Minnesota Sen. Mark Koran called for abolishing the Metropolitan Council, whose members are entirely unelected, in response to a damning new report issued Wednesday by the legislative auditor.

The report into the Met Council’s mismanagement of the Southwest light rail project found that the council was not transparent with the public, committed itself to spending more money than it had available, and knew that its initial estimates were incomplete.

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Commentary: America’s Byzantine Trajectory

When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.

Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.

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From Prisoner to Saint: The Unexpected Path of Ireland’s Best-Known Missionary

Saint Patrick’s Day is here, and so it goes we join millions across the globe to don our best green garb and imbibe in a panoply beverages from the unnaturally verdant Shamrock Shake to the local pub’s green draft – all in a joyous tradition to cheer one another in the name of a spiritual hero of Ireland.

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China Enters Artificial Intelligence Arms Race, Flops Disastrously

by Jason Cohen   China released its main Chat GPT competitor, developed by search engine giant Baidu, Thursday in Beijing, but its debut of the bot was a failure and led to the company’s shares falling, according to CNBC. During the unveiling, the bot named Ernie “summarized a science fiction novel…

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‘That’s a Lie’: GOP Senator Presses Janet Yellen on Plan to Pay for Social Security

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana accused the Biden administration of lying about its commitment to working with Congress to protect seniors’ social security benefits at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.

Cassidy asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was testifying about President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024, if the president was aware that “when [Social Security] goes broke in nine years” there would be a 24% cut in benefits for current recipients.

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Investigators Release Details on Bank Record Trail Leading from China to Biden Family

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky) on Thursday released a summary of the first bank records showing how a $3 million payment from a Chinese company came into the United States, was broken up and eventually infused $1.3 million into the accounts of President Joe Biden’s family members. “Pursuant to a subpoena, the Committee recently obtained financial records related to Mr. John Robinson Walker, a Biden family associate, and his company Robinson Walker, LLC,” Comer’s committee reported in a new memo summarizing its investigative findings.

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‘Getting Very Close to Joe Biden’: Congress Probes Dozen Bank Accounts that Enriched First Family

Congressional investigators have identified a labyrinth of at least a dozen bank accounts that were used to funnel money from foreign sources to Joe Biden’s family and uncovered the first evidence that some funds went to benefit the future president, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has disclosed.

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Feds’ ‘Foreign Corruption’ Double Standard: They Protected Bidens as They Bore Down on Trump

At the same time that Department of Justice officials were using spying and corruption statutes to aggressively pursue Donald Trump’s allies based on what turned out to be rumor and innuendo, they declined to use those same laws to investigate evidence of wrongdoing involving Biden family members and one of their corrupt Chinese business partners, DOJ documents and federal court records reveal.

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Texas Case Could End Access to ‘Dangerous’ Abortion-Inducing Drug Nationwide

A federal judge heard oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that could end availability of abortion-inducing drug mifepristone throughout the nation.

The case was brought against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November by Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a coalition of pro-life OB/GYNS, pediatricians, and other Christian healthcare providers, who are seeking a preliminary injunction to require the FDA to either withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug while the lawsuit continues.

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‘Apparently, I Am the Wrong Kind of Black’: California Equity Director Fired for Viewpoint Diversity

Dr. Tabia Lee, faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza College, alleges that she is being terminated for not adhering to anti-racist “orthodoxy.”

Lee, a Black woman who grew up in central California, was fired last week from her position as a tenure track Faculty Director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at the community college in Cupertino, California, according to Inside Higher Ed.

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Minnesota Considers Bill That Provides Free School Meals to All Students

Minnesota is poised to become just the third state in the nation to provide free school meals for all students. But it will come at a taxpayer cost of about $200 million a year, regardless of whether a family has any trouble at all paying for their kids’ breakfast and lunch — which amounts to about $6 a day.

On Tuesday four Republicans joined 34 DFLers as the Minnesota Senate voted 38-26 to pass a universal school meals bill that Gov. Tim Walz has said he’ll sign when it reaches his desk. Last month the House passed the bill by a 70-54 vote. No Republicans in the House supported the measure.

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Commentary: Michelle Obama Is Not Coming to Save the Democrats

I love a good conspiracy theory. Aliens, ancient builders, Bigfoot—I will absolutely click on that headline and read the latest conspiracy, no matter how fanciful or ludicrous. Everyone has a harmless personal foible, right? And in the times we live in now, shadowy government conspiracies and UFOs are no longer just for “The X Files.”

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Stacey Abrams Joins Dark Money-Backed Group Looking to Crack Down on Gas Stoves

by Bronson Winslow   Two-time failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is joining an environmental advocacy group that is looking to crack down on gas stoves, according to the group’s website. Abrams will be joining Rewiring America, a group that aims to electrify homes and appliances and suggests gas stoves can lead…

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Pentagon’s ‘Strategic Management Plan’ Devotes Roughly One Out of Every Six Pages to Diversity, Climate Change

Nearly one of every six pages of a document detailing the Pentagon’s management strategy are devoted to combating climate change and fulfilling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

The Strategic Management Plan for 2022 to 2026, released Tuesday, covers 124 pages and underscores the actions the Department of Defense (DOD) is taking to fulfill the Biden administration’s broader national defense strategy. It lays out high-level, long term goals and steps the department will take to accomplish those objectives and overcome anticipated challenges, as well as performance metrics for so-called Agency Priority Goals (APGs) that include climate and diversity targets.

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Commentary: DeSantis Charms GOP by Condemning ‘Leaks’ and ‘Palace Intrigue’

On its face, there wasn’t anything unusual about the email that landed last week in the press office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Background interview request from the Washington Post,” read the subject line that summarized the industry-standard process whereby information is shared with reporters under pre-negotiated terms, usually anonymity. When sanctioned by a politician or their team, it is called “going on background” to shape and broaden a story with additional facts and contexts but without direct attribution. When not sanctioned, well, then that is just called leaking.

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Foreign Actors Suspected in Hack of D.C. Obamacare Exchange, Theft of House Members’ Personal Data

A malign foreign actor could be behind the theft of personally identifiable information of hundreds of House members and staff in the hack of an Obamacare health insurance exchange in the nation’s capital, according to the chair of the House Administration Committee.

Lawmakers and their staff were notified a few days ago by the House chief administrative officer of the hack of the D.C. Health Link exchange.

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Left-Wing Mobs Shatter Windows, Assault Police Officer Outside Conservative Campus Speaker Event

Vandals protesting Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk during his speech at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), Tuesday night shattered windows and assaulted individuals outside the venue, according to videos posted to Twitter.

Kirk was invited to UC Davis by the TPUSA chapter as part of his Live Free tour, which features stops at eight universities across the country during the spring 2023 semester, according to the TPUSA website. Protesters dressed in black to rally outside the venue and can be seen on video breaking windows after security secured the doors and assaulting individuals outside the venue.

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Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton Proposes Next Step for Tennessee in Possibly Rejecting Federal Education Funds

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) has laid out the next step required for Tennessee to possibly reject federal education dollars in the future. On Monday, he filed legislation (add an attachment here) that would create an 11-member task force, helmed by  Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, to study the process required for the state to forego federal funding.

The proposed committee would begin meeting monthly in August and would be expected to deliver a strategic plan to Governor Lee and the General Assembly by December 1. The legislation further requires that Commissioner Schwinn, in her role as chair, notify the US Department of Education by August 31 and advise them on Tennessee’s intent to explore the possibility of Tennessee rejecting federal funding.

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As Losses Mounted, Silicon Valley Bank Doubled Down on Woke Investments and Left-Wing Rhetoric

Long before its epic collapse, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a darling of the left. It allied in cash and manpower with a liberal nonprofit run by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife and fully embraced the environmental, social and governance (ESG) platform now being banned in some red states, while celebrating its executives’ involvement in the LGBTQ+ movement.

As SVB’s investment failures mounted, the bank doubled down on its ideological commitments by pledging $5 billion in new green tech outlays, despite signs of rising interest rates negatively impacting that sector. Some institutional investors also began to raise concerns about the overall balance sheet.

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Illegal Migrant Apprehensions Drop as Biden Ushers in Trump-Era Policies: Report

Illegal migrant apprehensions dropped in February as the Biden administration brought back Trump-era immigration policies, CBS News reported Tuesday, citing internal federal data.

Border Patrol recorded approximately 130,000 illegal migrant apprehensions in February, marking the continuation of a two-year low that began in January, according to CBS News. President Joe Biden expanded in January the Trump administration’s use of Title 42 to expel illegal migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.

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Treasury Department Agrees to Hand over Hunter Biden Files

The House Oversight Committee said Tuesday that the U.S. Treasury Department is providing the investigatory committee with access to Hunter Biden’s Suspicious Activity Reports after months of delay.

The revelation is the latest chapter in the committee’s ongoing investigation into the president’s son and his associates. The lawmakers concerned with the issue argue the president could be compromised if foreign sources have knowledge of his or his son’s alleged wrongdoing.

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10 More Charged in Feeding Our Future Case, Still More to Come

U.S. Attorney Andy Luger announced charges against 10 additional Minnesotans in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal Monday, bringing the total number of defendants to 60.

One of the new defendants, Sharon Ross, was the executive director of a nonprofit called House of Refuge Twin Cities. According to an October Fox 9 report, DFL Sen. Sandy Pappas from St. Paul personally intervened to help Ross’ nonprofit receive funding through Feeding Our Future in the spring of 2021.

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Commentary: Leftist Groups Tapping $1 Billion to Vastly Expand the Private Financing of Public Elections

Democrats and their progressive allies are vastly expanding their unprecedented efforts, begun in 2020, to use private money to influence and run public elections.  

Supported by groups with more than $1 billion at their disposal, according to public records, these partisan groups are working with state and local boards to influence functions that have long been the domain of government or political parties.

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