Cell Phone Bans, Restrictions Are on the Rise in School Districts as Mental Health Concerns Arise

Kid on Cell Phone

Mental health has been widely discussed in the public sphere over the past few years, specifically how technology may play a role in it particularly for young people.

Recently, districts in different states have been implementing restrictions and bans on cell phones in schools in order to tackle the mental health crisis rising among teenagers and young adults. 

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The Pentagon is Paying a Chinese Communist Party-Linked Venture Capital Firm for Tutoring Services

Chinese Students

The CEO of a Chinese venture capital firm that quietly bought up a U.S. education company holding a Pentagon contract has long-standing connections to multiple Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence units, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Primavera Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm, was an early investor in TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and owns Princeton Review and Tutor.com. However, a review of the firm’s Chinese-language website found that CEO and founder Fred Hu has extensive ties to the Chinese government and belonged to organizations that the U.S. government has identified as part of the CCP’s “United Front” system.

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Bill Seeks to Cap Pay for Diversity Employees at Department of Defense

Two Republican Congressmen have filed legislation that would limit the pay of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion employees at the Department of Defense to that of front-line soldiers. 

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, introduced legislation Wednesday that would cap the amount of compensation for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion employees at the Department of Defense to the rank of E-5, which is $31,000 a year. U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, introduced companion legislation in the House.

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Republican U.S. Senators File Bill to End China’s Permanent Normal Trade Status

Several Republican senators filed a bill on Friday to end China’s Permanent Normal Trade Status (PNTR), citing concerns over American job losses and human rights abuses overseas. The China Trade Relations Act, which would strip China of its PNTR, was filed by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Budd, R-N.C., and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio.

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GOP Sen. Cotton Vows to Stall Nominations Until Congress Gets Biden, Trump Classified Docs

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton vowed that lawmakers would stall Biden government nominations until it handed over the materials the FBI recovered from both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. “Until the administration stops stonewalling Congress, there will be pain as a consequence for them,” Cotton said, according to The Hill. “Whether it’s blocking nominees or withholding budgetary funds, Congress will impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents.”

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Tom Cotton Freezes Confirmation of DOJ Nominees over Failure to Address Antifa Riots

At least eight of Joe Biden’s nominations for the Department of Justice have been placed on hold by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), due to the Department’s failure to answer Cotton’s questions about its inaction over the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of 2020.

As reported by Fox News, Cotton’s criticisms have focused specifically on the DOJ’s failure to properly defend a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, which ended up under siege by far-left domestic terrorists on a daily basis throughout 2020 and even into 2021. Cotton has already sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland pointing out that, on top of letting the courthouse itself be attacked, the DOJ has not offered any legal assistance to several U.S. Marshals who have been sued for defending the courthouse against rioters.

“These courageous officers were attacked by left-wing street militants with weapons such as mortar fire, ball bearings, and blinding lasers,” Cotton’s letter reads in part. “A refusal to represent these Deputy Marshals would violate the Department’s long-standing practice — not to mention its moral duty — to defend law-enforcement officers when they’re sued for actions in the line of duty.”

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Senators Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to End U.S. Reliance on Chinese Minerals

Mark Kelly and Tom Cotton

A Republican and Democratic senator introduced legislation Friday that aims to end U.S. reliance on rare-earth metals sourced from and produced in China.

The Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths (REEShore) Act would prevent supply disruptions and bolster domestic production of the minerals, according to Sens. Tom Cotton and Mark Kelly, the bill’s sponsors. They said the legislation is important for American national security and development of advanced technologies.

“The Chinese Communist Party has a chokehold on global rare-earth element supplies, which are used in everything from batteries to fighter jets,” Cotton said in a statement. “Ending America’s dependence on the CCP for extraction and processing of these elements is critical to winning the strategic competition against China and protecting our national security.”

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Cotton, Klobuchar Plan to Rein in Big Tech’s ‘Monopolistic’ Practices with New Bipartisan Bill

Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton

Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday intended to restrict how major tech companies acquire and merge with smaller firms.

The bill, titled the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, is a companion to antitrust legislation advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee in June. If enacted, the law would shift the burden in antitrust cases to the acquiring party for mergers greater than $50 million, meaning that the acquiring firm would have to prove that its acquisition of another company was not anti-competitive.

The bill explicitly targets Big Tech companies, and it applies to firms with market capitalizations over $600 billion, at least 50,000,000 U.S.-based monthly active users or 100,000 monthly active business users. This would include Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple.

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Attorney General Garland Grilled by GOP Senators over Department of Justice Memo Targeting Parents at School Meetings

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday faced a litany of hard-edged Senate questions about agreeing to allow federal law enforcement to investigate alleged incidents of outspoken parents at school board meetings.

Garland, in a memo, agreed to responded to a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Board Association to President Biden asking that the FBI, Justice Department and other federal agencies to investigate potential acts of domestic terrorism at the meetings. Parents across the nation have been voicing their concerns about the curricula being taught to their children, in addition to instances like the one currently playing out in northern Virginia, in which there was an apparent coverup of the sexual assault of a female student in a bathroom.

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Pelosi: ‘Yes,’ IRS ‘Tracking’ of Bank Accounts over $600 Still on Table as Opposition Grows

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., doubled down on the inclusion in a spending bill of a Democratic provision that would require banks to report to the IRS transactions for accounts holding over $600.

When asked Tuesday if the IRS monitoring would remain in Democrats’ proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation legislation, Pelosi emphatically said “yes.”

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Republicans Demand Release of Marine Lt. Col. Jailed for Criticizing Afghanistan Withdrawal

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller

Republican lawmakers in both houses of Congress are demanding that the United States Marine Corps release a Lieutenant Colonel who was jailed earlier this week for criticizing military leadership after the failed Afghanistan withdrawal, Breitbart reports.

A Marine spokesperson confirmed that Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller is currently in pre-trial confinement in the Regional Brig of Marine Corps Installations East, in Camp Lejeune, as he awaits an Article 32 hearing. Although he has not yet been formally charged, Scheller faces the possibility of being charged under a handful of articles, including “contempt toward officials” (Article 88), “willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer” (Article 90), “failure to obey lawful general orders” (Article 92), and “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” (Article 133).

Scheller first made his criticisms in a viral video he posted to Facebook on August 26th, the same day that a suicide attack at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in the capital city of Kabul claimed the lives of 13 American servicemembers, as well as hundreds of Afghan civilians. Scheller demanded accountability from military leadership for a withdrawal that has been universally viewed, both domestically and internationally, as a disaster.

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‘You Broke the Military’: Milley, Austin Set for Second Congressional Grilling on Afghanistan

Top American military leaders are set for another round of intense congressional grilling on Wednesday, following a day-long Tuesday session that at times featured blistering criticism of their part in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

The Tuesday hearing placed on the griddle Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

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Senators Cotton, Hawley to Work on Bipartisan Bills Aimed at Breaking up Big Tech

Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley

Senate Republicans are joining with Democrats to work on a series of antitrust bills aimed at breaking up and regulating major tech companies.

Sen. Tom Cotton is working with both Democrats and Republicans in developing complementary legislation to several of the antitrust bills the House Judiciary Committee advanced in June, a spokesman for Sen. Cotton told the Daily Caller News Foundation, including the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act.

The House’s version of the act, one of a series of antitrust bills introduced by bipartisan members of the House Judiciary Committee, sought to prevent major tech platforms from consolidating their market share by acquiring smaller competitors. Under the law, the burden of proof would be on big tech companies to prove their mergers are lawful.

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Commentary: Tax All Foundations and Endowments Now

Yale University

If there were trillions of dollars socked away in convenient vehicles to avoid taxes and benefit the ultra-elite should we not tax them? Are they not fair game in a just system of taxation, where the little guy and the middle class have to pay up—or else? 

The largest endowments, mainly universities indoctrinating students in social justice, wokeism, and class warfare, pay absolutely no taxes. 

The big foundations, promoting radical left-wing activism, likewise pay no taxes. 

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Tom Cotton Introduces ‘SECURE CAMPUS Act’ to Stop Chinese Spying at Universities

Tom Cotton

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced a bill to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from conducting espionage on American college campuses.

According to a press release from his office, Sen. Cotton re-introduced the “SECURE CAMPUS Act” on April 22. The bill would “prohibit Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the United States for graduate or post-graduate studies in STEM fields and would ban participants in China’s foreign talent recruitment programs and Chinese nationals from taking part in federally-funded STEM research.”

Sen. Cotton remarked that “Allowing China unfettered access to American research institutions is akin to granting Soviet scientists access to our critical laboratories during the Cold War.”

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Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Ban Critical Race Theory from U.S. Armed Forces

Tom Cotton CRT

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to ban critical race theory from being taught in the United States military, referring to such a practice as “anti-American,” as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Senator Cotton said that such teachings, which essentially claim that America is an “inherently racist” country and that White people are automatically racist and “privileged,” would only “demoralize and divide” members of the armed forces. In his statement announcing the bill, Cotton declared that “our military’s strength depends on the unity of our troops and the knowledge that America is a noble nation worth fighting for.”

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Commentary: If The GOP Wants To Put America First, It Should Put The Chamber of Commerce in Its Place

Georgia Republicans want to make their elections work better after the 2020 disaster. They’ve proposed sensible measures to eliminate no-excuse absentee ballots, remove dubious ballot drop-off boxes, and reform early voting times. This effort would restore trust in the election process and ensure every ballot is legitimate. But, for some strange reason, this legislation has drawn the ire of the state’s business community.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce last week expressed its “concern and opposition” to these measures in an official statement endorsed by Home Depot and Coca-Cola, two major corporations based in the Peach State. Black Lives Matter, Stacey Abrams, and other left-wing activists are pressuring these corporations and others to do more to oppose these election reform laws. They’re running TV and newspaper ads to strongarm companies into doing their bidding, and there’s a good chance the corporations eventually will bend the knee. Few corporations nowadays can resist the woke mobs.

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Cotton, Rubio Blast Biden over Decision on China’s Confucius Institutes

Two Republican senators on Tuesday blasted President Joe Biden for withdrawing a proposed rule that would require U.S. schools to disclose their partnerships with Confucius Institutes, which some U.S. officials and lawmakers have alleged serve as front groups for the Chinese Communist Party.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, both known as China hawks, criticized Biden on Tuesday following reports that the administration had withdrawn the rule, which the Trump administration proposed to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Dec. 31.

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