August 18, 2021 - The Florida Capital Star

Americans’ Allegiance to National Anthem Remains Strong Despite Protests, Poll Shows

August 18, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Polling ahead of the 2021 NFL season indicates that, despite an increasingly political landscape for the sport and its fans, Americans overwhelmingly would prefer that the National Anthem continue to be the sole anthem played prior to games.

According to a recent poll conducted by Newt Gingrich’s American Majority Project in conjunction with McLaughlin & Associates, a total of 61% of Americans believe that “only” the American National Anthem should be played at NFL Games. That figure ticks up slightly to 64% among Republicans, and falls to 58% among Independents, while 11% of those polled said they don’t know.

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National Gingrich 360 Anthem X-tabs 8-3-21 .pdf
The poll was conducted in the wake of the NFL’s recent decision to play “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – often referred to as the black national anthem – before all games during the upcoming season, ahead of the playing of the American National Anthem. The song was initially introduced by the NFL when it was sung by Alicia Keys at the Super Bowl for the 2020-2021 season. The decision to play the song before each game is reportedly part of the league’s quarter-billion dollar investment in social justice messaging and initiatives.

School Board Recall Attempts Spike Amid Concerns About COVID Closures, Critical Race Theory

August 18, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Group of young students at table, reading and wearing masks

School board recall efforts are sweeping the country, with many driven by parents claiming Critical Race Theory (CRT) is infecting schools, demanding schools reopen in person, and arguing that boards are consumed by virtue signaling.

According to Ballotpedia, 58 such efforts against 144 board members have taken place in 2021. Those are both all-time highs since it started tracking school board recall efforts in 2006, and far above the next highest year, 2010.

Only one school board member has been removed in 2021, however, while three resigned and seven were retained in elections. One is scheduled for a November recall vote in Kansas for upholding a mask mandate.

Democrats May Hand GOP a 2022 Election Gift: Hearings on Biden’s ‘Flawed’ Afghan Exit

August 18, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

President Joe Biden is facing bipartisan backlash over the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan ahead of the 2022 midterm elections as lawmakers from both parties call for an investigation into his administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal.

Democrats vowed “tough questions” Tuesday as they used words like “flawed,” “failures” and “horrifying” to describe the administration’s exit strategy and the scenes unfolding in Kabul.

The president, for his part, is not changing course and vows to complete a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. But he now faces the specter of his own party investigating his team’s conduct and competence in the shadows of a 2022 election where control of Congress is up for grabs.

Biden Backs Defiant Florida School Districts

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Grant Holcomb

President Joe Biden has commended the Florida school districts who are defying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order banning mask mandates in Florida’s schools.

Biden called Broward Superintendent Vickie Cartwright earlier this month and praised her “leadership and courage to do the right thing for the health and well-being of their students, teachers, and schools,” by imposing a district-wide mask mandate.

Commentary: The Woke Road to Kabul

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

If stagflation, rising urban crime, and a weak Democratic president did not remind us enough of the 1970s, we now have our very own fall of Saigon.

To the astonishment of many naïve observers, especially those among the polite and orderly caretakers of America’s decline (for whom I suggest the acronym “POCAD”) now so foul misplaced atop our discredited foreign policy establishment, Afghanistan’s Taliban shrewdly—and predictably—waited until U.S. forces had nearly completed their withdrawal from the country before launching a massive offensive that has conquered almost all before it.

Outside Kabul’s precariously held airport, the capital has fallen. Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani fled the country and was within a matter of hours replaced by a Taliban mullah. U.S. diplomats destroyed the secret papers (and, reportedly, images of the American flag) while pusillanimously begging the new regime not to attack the embassy, over which the colors no longer fly. Taliban fighters are joyfully lounging in captured bases where they have won huge caches of American military hardware for use against their doomed countrymen, or to supply whatever other terrorist groups take refuge with them.

Retail Sales Dipped in July Amid Spiking Coronavirus Cases

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Retail sales in the U.S. declined in July as the number of coronavirus cases spiked, localities renewed some restrictions and businesses delayed their return to in-person work.

Sales dropped 1.1% in July compared to June and totaled $617.7 billion, according to the Census Bureau report released Tuesday. The decrease was driven mainly by declining used and new car sales, clothing purchases, building materials sales, sports goods sales and furniture purchases.

Economists expected retail sales to fall 0.3%, a relatively modest drop compared to the actual decline, CNBC reported. All major stock market indices declined between 0.5% and 0.8% on Tuesday morning following the worse-than-expected report.

Commentary: Climate Change Activists Misrepresent Extreme Weather Events

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 RealClearWire

The Pacific Northwest was hit with a record-shattering heat wave in June, with temperatures over 35 degrees higher than normal in some places. On June 28, Portland, Ore., reached 116 degrees. Late last week the region suffered another blast of hot weather, with a high in Portland of 103 degrees. The New York Times didn’t hesitate to pronounce the region’s bouts of extreme weather proof that the climate wasn’t just changing, but catastrophically so.

To make that claim, the Times relied on a “consortium of climate experts” that calls itself World Weather Attribution, a group organized not just to attribute extreme weather events to climate change, but to do so quickly. Within days of the June heat wave, the researchers released an analysis, declaring that the torrid spell “was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”

World Weather Attribution and its alarming report were trumpeted by Time magazine, touted by the NOAA website Climate.gov , and featured by CBS News, CNBC, Scientific American, CNN, the Washington Post, USAToday, and the New York Times, among others.

Former State Attorney General Adam Laxalt Launches Senate Bid in Nevada

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt launched a long-expected Senate bid Tuesday, becoming the highest-profile Republican to take on Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

“The radical left, rich elites, woke corporations, academia and the media, they’re taking over America,” Laxalt said in an announcement video likening them to Star Wars’ Galactic Empire.

Laxalt served as attorney general from 2015-2019. In 2018 he lost his bid for governor to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak.

‘It’s Everywhere’: Migrants Say They’re Not Responsible for Spreading COVID-19

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Acting Executive Officer of the RGV U.S. Border Patrol Sector Oscar Escamilla, left, fields questions from tour participants as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, right, leads a delegation of Congressional representatives on a tour of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Donna Processing Facility in Donna, Texas, May 7, 2021. Secretary Mayorkas updated the delegation on unaccompanied children arriving at our Southern Border as they viewed conditions at the facility. CBP Photo by Michael Battise

MCALLEN, Texas — Several illegal migrants told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they aren’t responsible for spreading COVID-19 in America.

Migrants who illegally crossed into the U.S. near the Hidalgo Point of Entry on Aug. 10 in a group of about 20 people said they weren’t worried about catching COVID-19 at any point in the journey to their final destinations in America.

“Everywhere people are getting infected,” a vaccinated man from Ecuador told the DCNF after illegally entering the U.S. near the same location on Aug. 7. “It’s honestly not that the migrants are bringing the virus. It’s everywhere.”

Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction Says 20 Year Effort is Marked by ‘Too Many Failures’

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Special IG for Afghanistan ReconstructionFollow Inspector General John F. Sopko Testifies before Congress

The special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is calling the two-decade effort to rebuild the country a failure. The August 2021 report details the areas in which the American effort to rebuild the country came up far short of the initial goal.

“The extraordinary costs were meant to serve a purpose – though the definition of that purpose evolved over time,” reads the 140-page report, alluding the United States’ changing goals in the region over the course of its 20-year military presence in Afghanistan.

“After 13 years of oversight, the cumulative list of systemic challenges SIGAR and other oversight bodies have identified is staggering,” reads the report.

Former Soccer Player Hope Solo Says Megan Rapinoe Would ‘Bully’ Teammates into Kneeling for Anthem

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Hope Solo, the former goalie for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, said during an interview on Tuesday that her teammate Megan Rapinoe would resort to bullying tactics to coerce the other players into kneeling during the National Anthem, Fox News reports.

“I’ve seen Megan Rapinoe almost bully players into kneeling because she really wants to stand up for something in her particular way,” Solo said on the podcast “All of US: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Show.” However, Solo noted, “it’s our right as Americans to do it in whatever way we’re comfortable with,” before going on to describe the kneeling phenomenon as “very divisive.”

For this reason, Solo said she was relieved when the National Anthem was removed from the beginning of the game “to really remove that decision from athletes, because that’s very tough.”

Science on Mask Usage Indicates Scant Benefit

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that all schools require mask-wearing indoors by teachers and students, vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID-19.

And many school districts are adopting that requirement, to the dismay of many parents.

Florida Tourism Industry Rebounds in the Second Quarter of 2021

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Casey Owens

Tourism numbers in Florida continue to rebound in 2021, as data from quarter two (Q2) by the state’s tourism marketing agency, Visit Florida, shows 31.692 million visitors from April 1st to June 30th – 16.3% more visitors than quarter one.

The first two quarters of 2021 show an improvement compared to quarters two, three, and four of 2020 during the pandemic, which recorded 9.92 million, 20.33 million, and 19.09 million visitors, respectively.

Texas GOP Gov. Abbott Tests Positive for COVID-19

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Tuesday.

“Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result,” said Office of the Governor Communications Director Mark Miner.

“Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment,” the statement continued.

Florida’s Senators Blast Biden over Afghanistan Withdrawal

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Grant Holcomb

Florida’s senators went on the offensive in the wake of the Taliban reconquering Afghanistan, heavily criticizing the President Joe Biden administration over the way the withdrawal of American and allied forces were withdrawn from the war-torn country.

Florida’s junior senator, Rick Scott, even floated the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment which deals with presidential succession related to the capability of the current president, and possibly removing Biden from office.