Former Secretary of State Colin Powell died Monday morning due to complication from COVID-19, according to his family. He was 84.
Powell was the first black U.S. secretary of state, serving in the second Bush administration from 2001-2005. From 1989-1993, he served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.
He was fully vaccinated, the family said.
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The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) is proposing a new long-term rule to ban mask mandates and enshrine its new quarantine rules for students in Florida’s public school system. Florida’s new surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, signed off on the first phase of the new rules last month which said students would no longer have to quarantine if they are exposed and asymptomatic.
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During the latter part of the 20th Century, Americans became accustomed to hearing stories of shortages of basic items in the Soviet Union. The metaphor of “waiting in line for bread” came to signify anything where a state-managed effort led to the inefficient and ineffective distribution of consumer goods and services. The state-generated supply chain problems were the butt of jokes for comedians everywhere.
Well, “bread lines” have now officially arrived in America and nobody is laughing. The middle class and the poor have especially lost their sense of humor over the supply chain disruptions that have led to shortages and higher prices being found everywhere from the grocery store shelves to the provision of medical supplies. Nothing is funny about shelves, wallets, and medicine cabinets all emptying out simultaneously.
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A series of economic struggles that have grown increasingly worse this year will likely have a significant impact on the holiday season, many economic experts predict.
After President Joe Biden gave remarks from the White House this week, one reporter called out, “Will Christmas presents arrive on time, sir?” The president did not respond to that question or the flurry of others as he walked away from the podium.
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For the first time in nearly 50 years, the National Assessment of Educational Progress results showed that the reading and mathematics scores of 13-year-old students fell from 2012 to 2020.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results showed no change in the scores of 9-year-old students since 2012, according to the assessment, also known as The Nation’s Report Card. Among lower-performing students, scores declined in both the 9 and 13-year-old groups in both reading and mathematics.
“This was the first time in the almost 50-year history of the long-term trend assessments that we observed declines among 13-year-olds,” said National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr in a press release. “These performance drops are especially notable among lower-performing students, who no longer demonstrate competency in skills that students were able to do almost a decade ago in both subjects and age groups.”
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Millions of illegal immigrants could have access to amnesty, assistance with college tuition, various tax credits and waived grounds for inadmissibility to the U.S. under the Democrats’ proposed reconciliation bill.
The reconciliation bill might allow illegal immigrants with expunged criminal offenses to enter the U.S. and give millions of others illegally living in the U.S. a chance at parole.
“It is outrageous that congressional Democrats and the Biden administration are trying to ram through a massive amnesty and significant increases of legal immigration during this historic and worsening border crisis,” Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy for the Center for Immigration Studies Robert Law told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.
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State Department evacuation flights out of Afghanistan will resume by the end of the year, a senior State Department official told The Wall Street Journal.
The operation to retrieve U.S. citizens and Afghan allies left behind will require coordination with the Taliban and other governments, the official told The Wall Street Journal. Kabul’s international airport remains closed to regular passenger travel since the U.S. ended its first evacuation attempt on Aug. 31.
U.S. citizens, U.S. legal permanent residents and immediate family members will receive priority treatment in securing seats on evacuation flights, the official said. The State Department is hoping to eventually have several aircraft leave the country each week.
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Organizations representing community banks and credit unions are blasting the Democrats’ commitment to expanding IRS reporting requirements, calling the proposal a government overreach that would require financial institutions to spend more money on compliance costs at the expense of products and services for their members.
According to the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, customers at some credit unions have already decided to close their accounts over “government intrusion” concerns fueled by the prospect of such new rules taking effect.
The Democrats’ proposal would require financial institutions to report account activity above $600 to the IRS.
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Nearly half of Americans believe natural immunity to COVID-19 is as effective as the getting vaccinated, according to a new Convention of States Action/ Trafalgar Group poll.
Among the roughly 1,000 respondents in the national survey of likely 2020 voters, 46.5% said they believe people who have recovered from COVID with natural immunity from antibodies have the same level of protection as those that are fully vaccinated.
The survey was conducted from Oct. 7-10, as the public debate continues over government-mandated vaccines and the efficacy of the shots and masks.
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There is no faster – or more amusing – way to make a campus radical lose his composure than to fuss about the importance of cultural literacy.
The term “cultural literacy,” made popular by the controversial scholar E.D. Hirsch, describes a person’s capacity to comprehend cultural references and use that knowledge in conversation with others.
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U.S. retail sales increased in September, beating expectations amid growing inflation and supply chain disruptions, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Friday.
Retail sales increased 0.7% in September, beating experts’ estimates of 0.2%, according to the Census Bureau report. The number rose 0.8%, excluding auto sales, beating the 0.5% forecast.
Sales were up 13.9% compared to September 2020, and they increased 15.6% compared to September 2020, excluding auto sales, according to the Census Bureau.
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A Chicago police union boss has instructed officers to defy the city’s upcoming COVID-19 vaccination reporting mandate, and predicted that at least half of the police force could be taken off the streets, this weekend.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced in August a directive ordering city workers to report their vaccination status by Friday, October 15.
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Democrats have inserted numerous provisions and subsidy programs into their $3.5 trillion budget that would benefit green energy companies and speed the transition to renewables.
The Build Back Better Act would invest an estimated $295 billion of taxpayer money into a variety of clean energy programs in what would amount to the most sweeping climate effort passed by Congress, according to a House Committee on Energy and Commerce report. That price tag doesn’t factor in the other costly measures approved by the House Ways and Means, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Oversight and Transportation committees last month.
“This bill is crammed with green welfare subsidies, specifically for corporations and the wealthy,” House Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
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Energy experts criticized President Joe Biden’s plan to prioritize wind farms, arguing wind power is costly, inefficient and indirectly produces greenhouse gas emissions.
Wind energy, like solar, is often unreliable since it is intermittent, or highly dependent on nature and out of the control of suppliers, according to the experts. Higher reliance on wind to produce even a fraction of a nation’s energy supply, therefore, cou ld lead to higher prices depending on the weather.
“Both wind and solar have Achilles heels in that they’re intermittent,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
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In the wake of the recent arrest of Maryland nuclear engineer, Jonathan Toebbe, and his wife, Diana Toebbe on charges they tried to sell classified nuclear warship information to a foreign country, the mainstream media has focused on the “mystery” of how this could happen. But very little media coverage has focused on their progressive political background—the most likely key to their misdeeds.
In fact, strangely enough, husband and wife traitor teams are often linked to left-wing politics. Why hasn’t the establishment media focused on this tie?
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A prominent liberal watchdog group filed a Hatch Act complaint against White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Friday, saying her apparent endorsement of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McCauliffe during a White House press briefing may have violated federal law.
“By mixing official government business with support of a candidate for partisan political office in the weeks before the election and engaging in political activity while on duty, Ms. Psaki appears to have used her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election, political activity that is prohibited by law,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said in its complaint filed with the Office of Special Counsel (OSC).
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Sixteen minutes after learning that a University of Minnesota student group booked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to speak at its main campus in Minneapolis, then-president Eric Kaler declared, “I do not want this in the middle of campus.”
All he knew at that point, four months before the February 2018 event, was that Shapiro was “a right wing speaker and he made some appearances on other campuses.”
Citing security needs, the university ended up putting Shapiro in a venue on its St. Paul campus, far from student housing. Demand far exceeded capacity, and a regent accused the university of passing over a larger venue on the main campus that was easier to secure.
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A Democratic activist told Loudoun County conservative parents that they are part of a “witch hunt” during a press conference condemning the district’s recent handling of sexual assault allegations within its high schools, Fox News reported Thursday.
At the press conference, Ian Prior, executive director of Fight For Schools and former Trump administration official, called on the superintendent to resign and asked the Justice Department to begin a Title IX investigation into its handling of the sexual assault allegations, Fox News reported.
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In East Lansing, Michigan, multiple elementary schools have announced the sudden cancellation of the celebrations of two beloved holidays, Halloween and Valentine’s Day, baselessly claiming that these holidays represent discrimination against some students, as reported by USA Today.
Schools in the East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) district sent a joint letter to parents, signed by the various principals in the district, declaring that the schools would no longer recognize either holiday. The letter claims that the decision was due to these holidays resulting in some families feeling uncomfortable due to their students being excluded from the celebrations.
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On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced more than $5.8 million in Florida Job Growth Grant Funds to support the opening of iTECH Glades Technical College in Moore Haven, a new location of Immokalee Technical College.
“When I took office, I asked DEO to focus on finding ways to support and invest in our rural communities – today, they delivered,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “I am proud to award $5.8 million through the Governor’s Job Growth Grant Fund to create a new technical college campus in Moore Haven.”
The new iTECH Glades campus in Moore Haven will serve an area that does not have any post-secondary training programs within 30 miles. The $5.8 million award will cover five years of startup costs for the technical college and will allow the campus to offer 12 career training programs. Workforce training will be offered in high-demand fields such as HVAC, diesel systems, accounting, nursing, welding and healthcare, and will be available to Floridians in Glades, Hendry, Highlands, Okeechobee and Collier counties.
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Emails show that the sponsor of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club at Montford Middle School – located in Tallahassee, Florida – advised a teacher that they were not obligated to share information from students related to gender/sexuality issues with their parents.
Stacy Thompson, the media specialist at Montford and GSA sponsor, was asked a question by a teacher after Thompson sought out volunteers to post “Safe Place” flags in Montford classrooms.
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