Month: July 2024

Biden Admin Contracts 1 Million Barrels from Emergency Gasoline Stockpile to ‘Lower Prices’ Ahead of July 4th

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Gas Station

The Biden administration is selling off a million barrels of gasoline from an emergency reserve in a deliberate effort to cut prices ahead of the upcoming holiday weekend.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has awarded contracts to five energy companies to purchase the barrels the administration is releasing from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve (NGSR), which is part of the federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) system. The NGSR releases are intended to “help lower gas prices ahead of the Fourth of July holiday,” according to DOE.

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Alvin Bragg’s Team Agrees to Delay Sentencing in Trump Trial Following SCOTUS Immunity Ruling

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Alvin Bragg

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office agreed on Tuesday to delay former President Donald Trump’s sentencing, The New York Times reported.

A Manhattan jury convicted Trump May 30 on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. Bragg’s office agreed to a request to delay the sentencing in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that found presidents have immunity from prosecution for “official acts” taken in office, but called the motion by Trump’s attorneys meritless, according to the NYT.

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Rudy Giuliani Disbarred for Work on 2020 Election

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Rudy Giuliani

Trump ally Rudy Giuliani was disbarred Tuesday in New York for his work during the 2020 election.

The New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department found that Giuliani, former U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York and New York City mayor, “deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession” in doing legal work for former President Donald Trump in 2020. Giuliani was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1969.

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Biden: Supreme Court Ruling on Presidential Immunity ‘Dangerous Precedent’

The Center Square
Joe Biden

President Joe Biden Monday night said the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the president has “absolute immunity” when acting in his core constitutional duties is “a dangerous precedent” that “undermines the rule of law of this nation.”

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled that the “president’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity.”

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Three Out of Four Electric Vehicle Charging Developers Say They Can’t Get Enough Electricity For Their Stations

Just the News
EV Charging station

Green Energy Failure: Supply chain issues, financing, fleet-adequate solutions, engineering costs, and inadequate software among roadblocks cited in the survey.

Businesses building electric vehicle charging stations say that finding enough electricity is a major — perhaps fatal — problem.

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Dave McCormick Named in ‘Carpetbagger’ Article Despite New York Times Confirming His Childhood in Pennsylvania

Tom Pappert
Dave McCormick

Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick was mentioned by The Washington Post among a list of Republican candidates across the United States who have faced questions about their ties to the state where they seek office, even after the New York Times confirmed the Republican nominee spent his childhood and formative years in the commonwealth.

McCormick was mentioned by the Post due to claims about his residency, which were advanced by the campaign of Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) in an advertisement that declared, “McCormick’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania but he doesn’t live here.”

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Commentary: The Lies We Have Lived Through

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Joe Biden

After last Thursday’s debate, Biden himself laid to rest the Democratic lie that he was robust and in control of his faculties. In truth, he demonstrated to the nation that he is a sad, failing octogenarian who could not perform any job in America other than apparently the easy task of President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief in charge of our nuclear codes.

In 2019, Democratic primary candidates often hit rival Joe Biden for his apparent senior moments and incoherence. During the 2020 campaign, Biden often became in bizarre fashion animated and nasty (“you ain’t black”/“fat”/“lying dog-faced pony soldier”/“junkie”).

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Commentary: TikTok and Instagram Turned Me into a Leftist, but X Helped Me Escape

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Black Lives Matter Rally

Social media plays a significant role in shaping the opinions of those 35 and under — it’s the primary news source for most in that age group, one survey found.

Some stats report that daily screen time for 16- to 24-year-olds is nearly eight hours among females and seven hours among males. To put that in perspective — that’s equivalent to the average time in a school day.

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Analysis: 55 Percent of Democrats Think Biden Should Keep Running, 45 Percent Say to Step Aside After Debate

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden continues to command the confidence of just 55 percent of Democrats in the most recent CBS News-YouGov poll taken June 28 to June 29 in the aftermath of Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, where Biden occasionally appeared confused and lost his train of thought and uttered unintelligible phrases.

45 percent of Democrats think Biden should definitely step aside. Catastrophically, so do 70 percent of independents, with only 30 percent saying he should keep running. Unsurprisingly, 75 percent of Republicans say Biden should step aside, with 25 percent saying he should keep running — likely because they think he’ll be easy to beat in his current state.

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Post-Debate Poll: 72 Percent of Voters Think Biden Lacks Cognitive Health for Presidency

Just the News
Joe Biden

Among Democratic registered voters, 45 percent said Biden should step aside

A vast majority of registered voters think President Biden lacks the mental capacity for the presidency, according to a new CBS News poll conducted after the first presidential debate.

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One of Oldest Women’s Studies Departments in U.S. on Chopping Block, Citing ‘Low Student Interest’

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Wichita State University

Wichita State University is closing its women’s studies department, one of the oldest in the country, due to continuously low student interest.

The Department of Women, Ethnicity, and Intersectional Studies will be dissolved and its degree program will be merged with the English Department, according to an action plan approved earlier this month by the Kansas Board of Regents.

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Trump Moves to Reverse Verdict in New York Case After Historic Supreme Court Ruling

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers moved quickly Monday night to take advantage of the Supreme Court ruling that he enjoyed immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, sending a letter notifying the judge in his New York hush money case that they intend to ask to set aside the verdict reached by a jury last month, according to multiple sources.

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Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Absolute Immunity for Some Official Acts, But Not Unofficial Ones

Just the News

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump is immune from federal prosecution for official acts he took while in office in split 6-3 ruling. However, the court ruled that there is no immunity for unofficial acts.

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Study: ‘Vast DEI Bureaucracy’ Negatively Impacting U.S. Armed Forces

The Center Square
F35 A - Nellis Air Force Base

A new Arizona State University study suggests that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in the United States military are ineffective.

The study done by the university’s Center for American Institutions argued that there is a emphasis on training new soldiers about social issues like “unconscious bias” and “intersectionality” in a way the center says runs contrary to typical American ideals. The study examined DEI plan’s in different sector of the military, including DEI office staffing and education at academies like West Point.

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U.S. Drivers Killed Fewer Pedestrians in 2023, Except in Pennsylvania

Just the News
Pedestrians

Pedestrian deaths are finally starting to drop across America to pre-pandemic levels.

Pennsylvania, however, bucked the national trend. Drivers killed 192 pedestrians in 2023, eight more than in 2022, and 25 percent more than in 2019, according to an analysis from the Governors Highway Safety Administration.

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Harvard Law’s Dershowitz Compares Lawfare Against Trump to McCarthyism, Says the Future is Dark

Just the News
Alan Dershowitz

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz say the political lawfare against former President Donald Trump is a return to the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

“I know lawyers who have been asked to defend Donald Trump on First Amendment grounds,” Dershowitz said on the Wednesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “They would normally take the case, but they say, ‘we can’t afford it for our family because they’re coming after our bar license.’ It’s exactly what happened during McCarthyism.”

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Dave McCormick Slams Bob Casey for ‘Lying to Pennsylvanians’ About Joe Biden’s Fitness, Drops Ad Highlighting Senator’s Friendship with President

Tom Pappert
Senator Bob Casey (D-PA)

Following the poor debate performance by President Joe Biden last Thursday, Pennsylvania U.S. Senate nominee Dave McCormick accused Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) of “lying to Pennsylvanians” about the mental and physical fitness of President Joe Biden on Friday and released a new advertisement highlighting their purported friendship on Sunday.

“Bob Casey has been protecting Joe Biden for years and lying to Pennsylvanians about his ability to serve as Commander-in-Chief,” wrote McCormick in a Friday post to the social media platform X.

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Commentary: SCOTUS Rulings, Biden-Trump Debate Shake Up Political Landscape

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Jil and Joe Biden post-debate rally

What a week it’s been! We started off with Justice Amy Souter Barrett writing the SCOTUS ruling in Murthy v. Missouri.  At issue was whether it was okay for the federal government (the FBI and related elements of the American Stasi) to pressure social media and data-hoovering companies (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) to suppress opinions they didn’t like about things like COVID, the 2020 election, and the Jan 6 jamboree at the Capitol.

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Fetterman Argues Biden Can Recover from Poor Debate Performance, Notes Pennsylvania Voters Forgave Performance Against Dr. Oz

Tom Pappert
Sen John Fetterman (D-PA)

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) argued on Sunday that President Joe Biden can recover from his debate performance that has Democrats questioning his candidacy, with the Pennsylvania Democrat noting his own 2022 victory followed a difficult debate against former Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman argued on “Fox News Sunday” that Biden will recover from his poor debate performance, which left some Democrats questioning whether he should be replaced as the party’s nominee.

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‘Social Justice Lawyers’ Told WPATH to Avoid ‘Evidence-Based Review’ of Sex-Change Guidelines for Minors, Docs Reveal

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Pediatrician with child patient

The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) avoided “evidence-based” reviews of child sex-change procedures on the advice of “social justice lawyers,” a court filing states.

Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall of Alabama filed a motion for summary judgment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Wednesday, seeking to beat back a challenge to Alabama’s law restricting the procedures. The Alabama attorney general’s office accused WPATH of placing “advocacy concerns” at the forefront of the creation of the organization’s “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC-8), which was based in part on the advice of the “social justice” attorneys who advised the organization to avoid seeking evidence-based recommendations.

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Mean Speech Not Protected at Public Universities, Appeals Courts Rule

Just the News
Stephen Porter

Faculty at public universities in nine states may have fewer speech protections than they assume following federal appeals court rulings against professors on the political right and left who were punished for perceived lack of collegiality – strong words short of harassment.

But a private university has egg on its face after taking seven months to allegedly clear a professor of wrongdoing for telling anti-Israel campus protesters they are “ignorant” and “Hamas are murderers,” despite having immediate access to both viral video and its own surveillance.

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Overpayments Account for Nearly 75 Percent of Federal Improper Payments

The Center Square
Finances

The federal government reported $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023, with the vast majority coming from overpayments, according to a new watchdog report.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report found 74% of improper payments – payments that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the wrong amount – were overpayments. Overpayments accounted for $175.1 billion of the total amount of improper payments in 2023. Overpayments are payments “in excess of what is due, and for which the excess amount, in theory, should or could be recovered,” according to the report.

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‘Very Unrealistic’: Replacing Biden Will Likely Land Dems in A Political and Legal Quagmire

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Joe Biden

Any effort to replace President Joe Biden with another Democratic candidate would likely be an uphill battle against practical, political and even legal obstacles.

Following Biden’s debate performance Thursday night, where he struggled to put together coherent sentences and often stared blankly away from the camera, Democrats began raising the possibility of replacing him as the party’s nominee. Biden, who has not indicated any intention to step down, would likely not be easy to replace due to internal party politics, state laws and numerous uncertainties.

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