Day: November 1, 2022

Government Officials Have a Special Portal to Flag Facebook Posts for Censorship

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Department of Homeland Security has left open a special feature that allows government officials to flag Facebook posts for misinformation after scrapping a controversial advisory board tasked with developing guidelines for social media censorship, the Intercept reported Monday.

DHS announced plans for a Disinformation Governance Board to “develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people’s free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in May, according to The Hill. While DHS shuttered the initiative after an onslaught of bipartisan opposition decrying the potential censorship, the Intercept found through an analysis of public and leaked documents that government efforts to police tech companies goes on.

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Congressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities

Just the News

Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.

The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.

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Washington State School District Appoints Board Director Who Called Police ‘Pigs’ and Advocated Riots

Susan Berry, PhD

The Olympia school district in Washington State appointed a woman to the city school board who, in July 2021, was recorded in a video speaking to a crowd at the state capitol, shouting “f**k the police,” calling the police “pigs,” and urging the crowd to “tear everything up in this “f**king city.”

The school board unanimously agreed to appoint Talauna Reed to fill the director vacancy in District 2 following the resignation of Justin McKaughan at the end of August, a press statement said.

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Judge Orders True the Vote Leaders Jailed for Contempt of Court

Just the News

A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered that two leaders of a conservative election integrity watchdog organization be detained for a day following their failure to comply with a court mandate to hand over evidence as part of their legal battle with Konnech, a Michigan-based firm that provides poll watcher management software to election offices.

After holding both in contempt in a Thursday hearing, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered that Gregg Phillips and Catherine Englebrecht comply with the court order to name an unidentified individual whom they say was present at a 2021 meeting during which they purportedly received evidence to substantiate their claims against Konnech.

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Biden Admin Weighing Plan to House Migrants in Guantanamo: Report

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Biden administration is weighing a plan to house migrants at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, according to NBC News.

The White House National Security Council asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the number of Haitian migrants apprehended at sea that would require them to designate a third country for them to stay while they await processing to enter the U.S., NBC reported, citing two U.S. officials and an internal document. If there is an overwhelming number of Haitian migrants for a third country, the Biden administration is considering Guantanamo Bay as a holding center.

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Government Unions, Progressive Donors Finance Assault on Pennsylvania’s Charter Schools

Admin

Liberal groups aligned with the Washington consulting firm Arabella Advisors have spent over $1 million to support attacks on school choice in Pennsylvania, joining public employee unions that have pumped tens of thousands of dollars into targeting charter schools.

An organization called Education Voters of Pennsylvania has published a series of articles and reports critical of the state Legislature’s funding of charter schools in general and so-called cybercharter schools in particular.

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Commentary: The Difference Between Free Speech and Violent Rhetoric (It’s Not What You Think)

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hit the airwaves to connect the recent assault on Paul Pelosi with “fascism” and “white nationalism.” She insists that both are now ubiquitous. And both prompt increasing politically motivated violence. (Ocasio-Cortez remains oblivious to the greatest sustained political violence in our recent history; the 120 days of Black Lives Matter and Antifa-fueled rioting, arson, looting, and mayhem of summer and fall 2020—often cheered on or defended by public officials and social media.)

The deplorable violent attack on Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has been described as the logical reification of increasing bitter political discourse. Shrill accusations spread even as full details of the attack are still not known. But the general picture of the assailant is one of an unhinged conspiracy freak of all flavors. He seems to have been a lunatic, drug-crazed white supremacist and anti-Semite, a former hemp jeweler, and nudist, who was either homeless or was living in a cluttered hippie-like commune in Berkeley plastered with pride and BLM flags. 

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Florida Medical Board Votes to Ban Transgender Hormone Treatments and Surgeries for Minors Under 18 Years

Susan Berry, PhD

The Florida Board of Medicine has voted to ban puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries such as double mastectomies and castrations – what LGBTQ activists call “gender-affirming care” – for children under the age of 18 in the state.

The move to prohibit the life-altering hormones and surgeries for the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and teens makes the Florida medical board the first in the nation to pursue such a rule, NBC News reported Saturday.

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Commentary: Carbon County Could Hold the Key to PA-07

Admin

This election is not only an important one but a costly one. It has been crisis after crisis under the Biden administration and Pennsylvanians are paying the price. As the crises continue to grow, Biden has become a drag on Democrats. Democrats like Susan Wild and John Fetterman are detached from Pennsylvanians and the issues that matter to families and business have fallen to the wayside under their leadership.

Gas prices and energy costs are crippling Pennsylvania families. This year as a country, we surpassed the highest recorded average gas price ever and those that heat their homes with oil are facing serious cost increases that are a direct result of the Biden-Democrat agenda.

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Massive Crowd Gathers for Zeldin Rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

by Madeleine Hubbard   Rep. Lee Zeldin, New York’s Republican nominee for governor, said thousands of people attended his Long Island, New York, rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. With both men facing gubernatorial elections next week, some observers online noted that the giant turnout for the rally Saturday evening with DeSantis may foreshadow…

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Mehmet Oz Commentary: My Plan to Fix Crime in Philadelphia and Across the Commonwealth

RealClearWire

Much like the inflation crisis created by misguided economic policies, violent crime is running rampant nationwide. Here in Philadelphia, over 400 homicides and 1,000 carjackings have already been reported thus far in 2022 – and those figures are not unique among major cities. Thanks to progressive leaders who refuse to enforce the law, violent criminals are roaming free and American families are left to feel unsafe.

Just last week, Philadelphia’s “Conviction Integrity Unit” earned the praise of John Fetterman. This misguided program, implemented by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, allowed a convicted murderer to be back on the street, and last week he was arrested again for involvement in a second murder. Allowing violent criminals to be let out of prison is a deadly consequence of the soft-on-crime policies that John Fetterman supports.

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GOP Senate Challenger Tiffany Smiley Now Tied with Dem Incumbent Sen. Patty Murray in Washington State

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Democratic Sen. Patti Murray is now tied with her Republican challenger and nurse Tiffany Smiley in the Washington Senate race, according to the results of a new survey published on Sunday.

The survey showed that Murray and Smiley each had the support of 46% of respondents, a two percentage point shift in favor of Smiley from the same poll conducted in September, according to pollster Moore Information Group. It also showed a three percentage point decrease in Murray’s net favorability ratings, while Smiley’s net favorability increased by the same amount.

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Commentary: Democrats Prepare to Lose as U.S. Senate Race in North Carolina Is Too Close to Call

RealClearWire

The 2022 midterms are less than a month away. With Election Day rapidly approaching, races in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have taken the spotlight, and according to most pundits, control of the Senate comes down to these five states. Conspicuously, political analysts in the Beltway have all but stripped North Carolina, a purple, perennial swing state, and its Senate race between Congressman Ted Budd and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley of its toss up status, and Democrats seem prepared to cede the state to Republicans.

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Twitter Removes Warning Flag on ‘Just the News’ Ballot-Harvesting Story After Direct Appeal to Musk

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Elon Musk

Twitter has removed its warning label on a post from the account of Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon about his story on a whistleblower alleging ballot harvesting in Florida, following Solomon’s direct appeal to the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk.

Solomon made the post Thursday that included a link to his interview with the whistleblower. The label was put on the post Friday, and as of Monday morning, it was no longer there.

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‘Scam’: Greta Thunberg Is Boycotting the United Nations Climate Summit

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg will not be attending the United Nations’ COP27 climate conference in Egypt because she believes that the conference fails to effectively push the environmental agenda.

Thunberg on Sunday declared COP27 to be a “scam” where world leaders feign concern for the “climate crisis” to get attention during a question and answer session at the launch of her new book in London. The 19-year-old environmentalist said that world leaders are endangering the planet by “lying and cheating” instead of implementing “major changes” to reduce carbon emissions.

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