Day: January 15, 2022

Florida House Committee Approves Two Bills Involving Lobbying Restrictions

Casey Owens

Two bills (HB 7001 and HB 7003) that further restrict public officials from lobbying after leaving office were unanimously voted yes upon by the Florida House State Affairs Committee on Thursday.

Both bills, backed by Representative Traci Koster of Tampa, were filed to implement Amendment 12 from 2018 that prohibits lobbying by certain public officers during public service and for a six-year period following vacation of public office – instead of a two-year period as the law previously stated.

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Commentary: We Are All ‘Domestic Terrorists’ Now

Florida Capital Star Staff

Paul Hodgkins, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is a domestic terrorist.

A working-class man from Tampa, Hodgkins committed what Democrats and the media consider a murderous crime comparable to flying a packed jetliner into a skyscraper or detonating a truck filled with explosives under a crowded federal building.

Paul Hodgkins entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

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Star News Network Reports from Michigan CRT Protest at School Board

Peter D'Abrosca

Farmington Hills – The Star News Network’s Neil W. McCabe reported from a Farmington Hills high school, where parents protested the town’s school board over a Critical Race Theory (CRT) initiative. 

“Dozens of parents came to the school board meeting held here at the North Farmington High School to protest the schools 21-day equity challenge, which is a Critical Race Theory challenge which includes having the students attend and participate in an event with Black Lives Matter.”

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Analysis: Democrats in D.C. Brace for Two Winter Storms as Voting Bills Near Certain Failure

Florida Capital Star Staff
The U.S. Capitol on a snowy day

As Washington, D.C., prepares for its second winter storm in as many weeks, Democrats in Congress are all-in on their bid to pass their voting legislation and, if it fails, to abolish the Senate filibuster to advance it.

Their strategy has almost zero chance of success. Though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has brought his party’s voting bills to the floor throughout 2021, they have faced insurmountable opposition from Senate Republicans every time, who have relied on the filibuster to tank the legislation that they describe as a federal takeover of elections that could invite voter fraud.

In response, Schumer and most Senate Democrats have endorsed scrapping the 60-vote threshold, but in their way stand Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. The two centrist Democrats have said time and time again that they will not support abolishing the filibuster, denying Democrats the unanimous support they need to adopt the change even though they support their party’s voting legislation.

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Top Democrat Supports Localized Election Regulation While Party Pushes Federalized Elections

Florida Capital Star Staff

California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus and member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said localities have the “authority” to allow non-citizens to vote in certain elections.

Aguilar’s comments come as Democrats move to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which includes federal rules that localities and states would have to follow such as not requiring a photo ID or Social Security number to cast a ballot.

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IRS Blasted by Watchdog for ‘Horrendous’ Customer Service

Florida Capital Star Staff

Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), an independent watchdog within the Internal Revenue Service, released a 2021 report to Congress stating that tens of millions of taxpayers had a “horrendous” experience with customer service, including the worst phone service “ever” and long delays for refunds.

“Calendar year 2021 was surely the most challenging year taxpayers and tax professionals have ever experienced – long processing and refund delays, difficulty reaching the IRS by phone, correspondence that went unprocessed for many months, collection notices issued while taxpayer correspondence was awaiting processing, limited or no information on the Where’s My Refund? tool for delayed returns, and – for full disclosure – difficulty obtaining timely assistance from TAS,” the report stated.

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Biden Administration to Review 30 Million Acres of Ocean for Potential Wind Farms

Florida Capital Star Staff

The Biden administration advanced a federal review of the impact of leasing public waters for offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday.

The review is part of President Joe Biden’s goal to permit at least 30 gigawatts of offshore wind production by 2030, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced. BOEM will study the environmental impacts of wind farm leases across a 30-million-acre swath of ocean that stretches from the Mississippi River to the U.S.-Mexico border off the coast of Texas.

“The Gulf of Mexico is well-positioned to support a transition to a renewable energy future, as much of the infrastructure already exists to support offshore wind development in the region,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton.

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna Calls out Twitter for Trying to Hide Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Florida Capital Star Staff
Ro Khanna

Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna criticized Twitter and Facebook for censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden, saying the story should not have been blocked.

“I thought it was a mistake for Twitter to take down some of this stuff about Hunter Biden, or Facebook to do that,” Khanna said during an interview with Joe Lonsdale on the American Optimist podcast while promoting his book “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us.”

The New York Post published a story in October 2020 detailing a meeting between Hunter Biden, then-Vice President Joe Biden and a top executive at Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2015, relying on data recovered from a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter. Shortly after the story was published, Twitter blocked users from sharing the link and suspended accounts that attempted to tweet it out.

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U.S. Retail Sales Fell by 1.9 Percent in December

Florida Capital Star Staff

As the Omicron variant surged across the U.S., retail sales dipped 1.9% during the final month of 2021, according to information released by the Commerce Department on Friday.

Data shows that holiday shoppers took warnings about shipping delays seriously and shifted their holiday shopping schedule up last year. On the whole, consumer demand led sales to grow by 16.9% in 2021.

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Texas School District Tells Teachers Not to ‘Out’ Their Trans, Non-Binary Students to Parents

Florida Capital Star Staff
Group of people in a conference room

A teacher training at a Texas middle school reportedly instructed teachers to not tell parents if a student tells them they identify as transgender or non-binary, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“DO NOT contact their parents and out them to their families,” a teacher professional development training at Walsh Middle School (WMS) in Round Rock Independent School District (RRISD), told teachers, according to documents.

The training also provided teachers with advice if they “misgender someone,” advising them to “correct students” if they use the wrong pronouns, the documents show.

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Climate Activists Oppose Major Solar Projects over Deforestation Concerns

Florida Capital Star Staff

A group of environmentalists voiced opposition to potential Massachusetts solar projects that could generate at least 250 kilowatts of electricity.

The majority of those who attended a public hearing hosted by the Amherst, Massachusetts, Community Resources Committee said they supported a moratorium on such projects that would expire in May 2023, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. The proposed moratorium would prohibit surrounding municipalities from green lighting any solar project that exceeds the 250-kilowatt-capacity threshold.

The moratorium was proposed by three town councilors after an 11-megawatt solar farm was proposed in the area, the Gazette reported. A solar field that produces 250 kilowatts of electricity would power 71 households while one that produces 11 megawatts would power more than 3,000 homes, according to a federal estimate.

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Chinese Spy Suspected to Have Infiltrated UK Parliament

Florida Capital Star Staff

The U.K.’s domestic spy service, MI5, informed the House of Commons speaker that a woman is suspected to have been used by China to exert influence over British lawmakers, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.

The suspect, Christine Lee, is a London-based solicitor who “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party,” authorities said Thursday, AFP reported.

House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle confirmed to AFP he had informed lawmakers of the incident through an email, AFP reported. “The Speaker takes the security of members and the democratic process very seriously, which is why he issued this notice in consultation with the security services,” a spokesperson for Hoyle told the outlet.

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Commentary: All Hail Joe Biden, King of the Elites

Florida Capital Star Staff

Jim Gaffigan said on Joe Rogan’s program, “I’d still take Biden’s corpse over Donald Trump.” Congratulations, elites! You’re now being governed by a political corpse. Elites will be fine with a dead president governing a zombified American economy and society. Working and middle-class Americans? Not so much.

How dead is Joe Biden’s political life? Joe Biden is so toxic politically that Stacey Abrams, governor of the Georgia of her mind, refused to stand with him in the state she ostensibly governs about the legislation that is her signature issue: codifying the ability to commit election fraud at the federal level. Abrams was absent while a bunch of masked black people stood stoically behind the bellicose president. The optics were bad in every aspect. The content was worse.

Did Biden address the distress of the 1982-ish 7 percent inflation numbers crushing the lower and middle class? No. Did the president encourage people in the face of year three enduring the out-of-control omicron variant? No. Did the president discuss job innovation? No.

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Florida Will Not Enforce CMS Vaccine Mandate Upheld by SCOTUS

Grant Holcomb

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued two decisions impacting vaccine mandates in the United States. SCOTUS issued a stay on the Biden Administration’s OSHA-based vaccine mandate for businesses with over 100 employees, striking a blow to Biden. However, the high court upheld the vaccine mandate put into place by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for healthcare providers.

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