June 23, 2021

Florida students & faculty will have to declare political views to prevent liberal "indoctrination"

Source: LGBTQ Nation


The law also allows students to record lectures without consent so they can sue the professor or school for "discriminating" against conservative "thoughts."

By Bil Browning Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed legislation that will require university and college students, faculty, and administration to declare their political views to ensure the institutions aren’t “indoctrinating” children into liberal “ideology.”

The shocking law not only requires the schools to survey staff and students, but it also allows students to secretly record professors so they can sue if they don’t “feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom.”

Florida Republicans made it clear they did not intend for the law to protect liberal or minority students, decrying the institutions of higher learning as “socialism factories” and “hotbeds for stale ideology.”

“It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you’d be exposed to a lot of different ideas,” DeSantis said during a bill signing ceremony. “Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed.”

Read more: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/06/florida-students-faculty-will-declare-political-views-prevent-liberal-indoctrination

June 23, 2021

Kamala Harris is set to visit the border

Source: Politico


12:17 PM (6 minutes ago)

Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border this week, amid an unrelenting chorus of criticism from Republicans over her failure to visit there.

Harris, who was tasked by President Joe Biden to lead diplomatic efforts to stem the flow of migrants arriving on the southern border, will make a stop in El Paso, Texas on Friday, according to sources familiar with the trip. She is expected to be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

A spokesperson for Harris declined to comment. A DHS spokesperson had no comment.

Harris and her team have repeatedly pushed back at criticism that neither she nor the president have gone to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing that she is more focused on tackling the destabilizing conditions that are causing thousands of migrants from Central America to head to the border seeking refuge. That was the central message during her first foreign trip, a two-day visit to Mexico and Guatemala earlier this month. While there, Harris met with local officials and implored migrants not to make the journey across Mexico into the United States.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/kamala-harris-is-set-to-visit-the-border-495684

June 23, 2021

How Democrats Fumbled the Voting Rights Debate

Instead of highlighting GOP obstruction, the vote on S.1 devolved into a discussion of Democratic dissension

Dan Pfeiffer
3 hr ago

The Republicans waged war on democracy. Democrats responded with a whimper.

I hate being a Monday morning quarterback who hollers from the peanut gallery about the failures of those in the arena. I have been on the inside, and it’s always more complicated than cocksure Twitter strategists and professional pundits on the outside assume. I have a visceral reaction to the folks who seek out RTs by yelling about how Democrats need to “do better” and “fight harder.”

But still, it’s difficult to look at the run-up to yesterday’s vote on the most critical piece of legislation in a decade and not think that Democrats need to “do better” and “fight harder” — or at least “fight smarter.”

Every Democrat from the Senate to the White House touted the For the People Act as an absolutely essential response to Republican attempts to rig our elections, circumscribe democracy, and institute “Jim Crow in the 21st Century.” Yet all the Party could muster was a poorly planned, unchoreographed, failure of a procedural vote on Tuesday.

more
https://messagebox.substack.com/p/how-democrats-fumbled-the-voting

June 23, 2021

Exclusive: Conservative group targets vulnerable Democrats over abortion

Source: The Hill



BY BRETT SAMUELS - 06/23/21 10:11 AM EDT

A conservative pro-life group is launching a six-figure ad campaign targeting Democratic senators and House members in battleground states tying them to President Biden's decision to leave a longstanding ban on federal funding for most abortions out of his 2022 budget proposal.

Susan B. Anthony List, a conservative group focused on abortion issues, will spend six figures on digital ads targeting Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who both face reelection in 2022.

The ads also target vulnerable House Democrats, including Reps. Tom O’Halleran (Ariz.), Carolyn Bourdeaux (Ga.), Cindy Axne (Iowa), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Haley Stevens (Mich.) and Ron Kind (Wisc.).

The ads, which were obtained first by The Hill, accuse the lawmakers of aiming to "overturn decades of bipartisan consensus that taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for abortions."



Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/559791-exclusive-conservative-group-targets-vulnerable-democrats-over

---

June 23, 2021

Biden tackles crime, again -- but this time he's in charge

Analysis: It's an unusual step for a president to pause his agenda to point out what's going wrong in the country. But crime rates are impossible to ignore.

June 23, 2021, 8:13 AM EDT
By Jonathan Allen

WASHINGTON — For decades, crime has paid for Joe Biden — at least, trying to crack down on it has.

His signature legislative achievement as a senator was the 1994 anti-crime law that put more cops on the beat, established stiffer sentencing for drug offenses, created incentives for the construction of more prisons, and temporarily banned so-called assault weapons.

As a presidential candidate last year, Biden distanced himself from fellow Democrats — including some of his own aides — who clamored for "defunding the police" by highlighting his proposal to put more money into hiring cops. That decision helped Biden withstand a barrage of soft-on-crime attacks from his rival, then-President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Biden will focus Americans on rising rates of violent crime, so that he can outline his strategy for reversing them in a speech at the White House.

more
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-tackles-crime-again-time-he-s-charge-n1272077

June 23, 2021

GOP investigation finds no Michigan vote fraud, deems many claims 'ludicrous'

Source: Bridge Michigan


June 23, 2021
Jonathan Oosting

LANSING —A months-long Republican investigation into Michigan’s 2020 election uncovered no evidence of widespread fraud and concluded Wednesday with a recommendation the attorney general investigate those who made false claims for "personal gain."

The 35-page report prepared by Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, dives deep to debunk conspiracy theories perpetuated by former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters in the wake of the Michigan election, which Democratic President Joe Biden won by 154,188 votes.

While the Senate Oversight Committee investigation revealed some “glaring issues” and vulnerabilities the Legislature should fix, “there is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters,” McBroom wrote.

"Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan," the report concluded. “The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”



Read more: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/gop-investigation-finds-no-michigan-vote-fraud-deems-many-claims-ludicrous

---

NO PAYWALL ^^^^

June 23, 2021

153 people resigned or were fired from a Texas hospital system after refusing to get vaccinated

Dan Diamond 14 hrs ago

More than 150 health-care workers who did not comply with a Houston-based hospital system’s vaccine mandate have been fired or resigned, more than a week after a federal judge upheld the policy.

Houston Methodist — one of the first health systems to require the coronavirus shots — terminated or accepted the resignations of 153 workers Tuesday, spokeswoman Gale Smith said. Smith declined to specify how many were in each category.

The hospital system announced April 1 that staffers would need to be vaccinated to keep their jobs. While 24,947 workers did get vaccinated by earlier deadlines, Houston Methodist suspended 178 workers who had failed to do so on June 7, giving them an additional two weeks to prove they had been immunized. Twenty-five of those employees did get vaccinated, Smith said.

Earlier this month, a federal district court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by one of those employees, Jennifer Bridges, a former nurse who alleged the policy was unlawful and forced staffers to be “guinea pigs” for vaccines that had not gone through the full Food and Drug Administration approval process. The FDA has authorized three coronavirus vaccines for emergency use, following rigorous clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people, and both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for full approval for their vaccines.

More/NO PAYWALL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/153-people-resigned-or-were-fired-from-a-texas-hospital-system-after-refusing-to-get-vaccinated/ar-AALkmAV

June 22, 2021

Trump Denies Admitting Defeat in 2020 Election: 'I Have Not Conceded'

By Ken Meyer Jun 22nd, 2021, 11:58 am

Former President Donald Trump reaffirmed in a new interview that he has not conceded defeat in the 2020 election, months after losing it.

Real America’s Voice host David Brody spoke to Trump on Monday, and asked for the former president’s reaction to recent articles stating Trump admitted to not winning re-election. Those headlines were based on a moment last week when Trump spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity and said “we were supposed to win easily at 64 million votes, and we got 75 million votes, and we didn’t win. But let’s see what happens on that.”

Asked to clarify whether he admitted defeat, Trump said “No, I never admitted defeat. We have a lot of things happening right now…All you have to do is read the newspapers and see what’s coming out now. The word is concede. I have not conceded.”

Ever since Trump lost the election to President Joe Biden, he has pushed unsubstantiated claims that the election was “stolen” from him and corrupted by mass fraud. That rhetoric fueled Trump’s supporters as they stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th in a violent attempt to overthrow the election, yet the former president continues to rail against the election’s legitimacy.

more
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-denies-admitting-defeat-in-2020-election-i-have-not-conceded/

June 22, 2021

Christian preacher celebrates fatal accident at Florida Pride "f*g" parade

"I would love it if every f*g would die right now."

By Bil Browning Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Jonathan Shelley, pastor of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Hurst, Texas, celebrated a fatal accident at the Wilton Manors, Florida Pride parade last weekend. An elderly driver accidentally drove into the parade, killing one and injuring two others. “I think only one person died,” he told congregants. “So hopefully we can hope for more in the future.”

After listing off a litany of sins, Shelley told parishioners, “it is going beyond just saying you do all this wicked stuff. It’s saying you enjoy it. You enjoy murder. You enjoy malignity. You enjoy hating God.”

“Look, there’s only one group that enjoys that: It’s the Pride parades going up and down the street,” he said. “And, you know, it’s great when trucks accidentally go through those, you know, parades. I think only one person died. So hopefully we can hope for more in the future.”

“You say, ‘Well, that’s mean.’ Yeah, but the Bible says that they’re worthy of death! You say, ‘Are you sad when fags die?’ No, I think it’s great!”

more
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/06/christian-preacher-celebrates-fatal-accident-florida-pride-fg-parade/

June 22, 2021

Poll: Most Americans reject validity of 2020 election audits

By Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN

Updated 5:55 PM ET, Mon June 21, 2021

(CNN)Most of the public rejects Republican efforts to audit states' 2020 election results, saying they believe the reviews are an attempt to undermine valid election outcomes, according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday.

A 57% majority of Americans say that, based on what they've heard about the audits conducted or proposed by legislatures in some states, they view them as "partisan efforts to undermine valid election results." Just a third say they see them more as "legitimate efforts to identify potential voting irregularities."

Further, 40% of the public says that such audits will weaken American democracy, while 20% say it will strengthen it. Another 35% expecting them to have no impact.

The problem-ridden audit of Arizona's 2020 election results, which has exasperated even some Republicans in the state, hasn't uncovered evidence suggesting widespread voter fraud. But it has inspired pro-Trump Republicans to push for similar efforts in other states.

more
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/21/politics/monmouth-poll-election-audits/index.html