Pennsylvania Supreme Court Hears Tax-Versus-Fee Arguments About Whether RGGI Can Stand

Arguing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, one state agency alleged another improperly refused to publish an executive action implementing a de facto carbon tax, effectively halting the polcy. 

At issue is a decision made by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) not to publicize a regulation decreed by then-Governor Tom Wolf (D) entering the state into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The LRB, which drafts all state legislation upon lawmakers’ requests and provides other policy reference services, declined to promulgate the rule enrolling the commonwealth in the multistate compact, citing a state House of Representatives resolution opposing it.

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COVID Vaccine Injury Victims Sue Biden Officials, Alleging They’ve Been Victimized by Censorship

The Biden administration is using “threats, pressure, inducement, and coercion” to censor social media groups for COVID-19 vaccine injuries and prevent them from raising money, according to a new First Amendment lawsuit based in part on legal discovery from ongoing state-led litigation.

Plaintiffs Brianne Dressen, Shaun Barcavage, Kristi Dobbs, Nikki Holland and Suzanna Newell allege they “suffered –and continue to experience – serious and debilitating medical injuries within days (and, in many cases, hours)” of COVID vaccination. And plaintiff Ernest Ramirez says his 16-year-old son died of cardiac arrest five days after the boy’s first Pfizer dose. 

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Senators Want to Know Why Former FBI Officials Refused to Cooperate With Durham Investigation

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) want Special Counsel John Durham to explain why former high-level government officials refused to cooperate with his investigation exposing the FBI for its many failures in the bogus Trump-Russia collusion probe. 

Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Johnson, ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent Durham a letter Tuesday asking why former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok declined to fully cooperate.

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NATO Countries Talk Big About Beefing Up Defense Spending, But Most Haven’t Backed Up Pledges

Most NATO countries have failed to meet pledges to inflate defense spending made in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite voicing concerns about the intense security environment in Europe, according to The Wall Street Journal.

NATO countries on the eastern flank, most notably Poland, are girding for war as the conflict in Ukraine shows no sign of abating in the near term, prompting renewed commitments to beefing up their own and Ukraine’s militaries in line with the U.S., according to the WSJ. Others believe that Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine, illustrated in recent days by an incursion of pro-Ukrainian partisans into a Russian border territory with little initial resistance, means there is less urgency to increase spending on weapons and military equipment than previously imagined, according to the outlet.

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Tax Documents Show Black Lives Matter Lost Millions in 2022

The official Black Lives Matter organization lost millions of dollars in 2022, according to recently unearthed tax returns.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation Network saw a deficit of $8.5 million in 2022, and also lost $10 million from its investment accounts. In addition, the group recorded a loss of $961,000 on a securities sale of $172,000, amounting to a roughly 85 percent loss as a result of the transaction.

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South Carolina Lawmakers Send Heartbeat Bill to Governor’s Desk

The South Carolina Legislature gave final approval to its heartbeat bill Tuesday, one that would ban abortions from the time a fetal heartbeat is detected and a move that will continue the trend in the southern states to restrict abortion.

The state senate passed the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act (S. 474) Tuesday by a vote of 27-19 and sent the measure to the desk of Governor Henry McMaster (R), who said he “look[s] forward to signing this bill into law as soon as possible.”

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Voter Data-Sharing System Issues Dominate Schmidt’s Pennsylvania Senate Confirmation Hearing

At Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt’s initial confirmation hearing on Wednesday, many senators inquired about the commonwealth’s participation in a controversial voter data-sharing program. 

Schmidt, a moderate Republican former Philadelphia city commissioner who subsequently was president of the left-leaning nonprofit Committee of Seventy, will sit for a second hearing covering non-electoral issues his department oversees (e.g., professional licensure). But Senate State Government Committee Chair Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) suggested discussion of Pennsylvania’s participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) will come up then as well. 

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Commentary: The Corruption of Climate Science

“We need to criticize the people who got us here,” says Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of Fossil Future. “We can’t keep treating these designated experts as real experts. They are not real experts, they are destroyers. They are anti-energy, non-experts. And that needs to be made clear.”

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Commentary: Mask Mandates Unmasked

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “There’s no reason for you to be walking around with a mask.” But the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) soon changed his stance. Although not 100 percent effective, Fauci said, wearing masks is “a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing.”

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Non-Binary Ex-Biden Official Sam Brinton to Be in Men’s Jail over Suitcase Theft Charges: Sheriff

Ex-Energy Department official Sam Brinton, believed to have been the first non-binary person to be a top-level government official, will be placed in a Maryland men’s jail while waiting to be sent to Virginia for charges related to alleged suitcase theft.

Brinton, 35, is in a “pre-placement” hold at the Montgomery County Jail and will be placed with the “general population” in the men’s jail next week, a county sheriff’s deputy told The New York Post on Tuesday.

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House Follows Senate in Voting for Resolution to Halt Tougher EPA Vehicle Emission Standards

The GOP-led House on Tuesday voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s  emissions restrictions for heavy-duty trucks. 

The joint-chamber resolution, which passed the House by a 221-203 vote, was introduced by Republican lawmakers in February via the Congressional Review Act (CRA) – a law that allows Congress to reverse rules made by a federal agency.

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TikTok Sues Montana over Total Statewide Ban

Chinese social media platform TikTok on Monday filed suit against a Montana law barring the platform from operating within the state and forbidding app marketplaces from offering it for download.

“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana. We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts,” the company wrote in a complaint filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, per Politico.

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BlackRock’s Board Fends Off Climate Proposals from Left-Wing Shareholders at Annual Meeting

Investing giant BlackRock’s board of directors recommended voting against two climate report proposals at its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, and investors followed the firm’s advice.

Each proposal demanded reports from BlackRock; left-wing activist organization CODEPINK requested a report from BlackRock concerning the climate-related risks of its aerospace fund. Paul Rissman, co-founder of Rights CoLab and a fellow for the George Soros-founded Open Society Foundations, requested a report on engineering decarbonization and its impact on pension fund returns; BlackRock’s board of directors recommended voting against both because the firm argued they do not provide the best results for shareholders.

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