De Blasio’s Married Lover Ignoring Hubby of 12-years Amid Affair Scandal

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De Blasio’s Married Lover Ignoring Hubby of 12-years Amid Affair Scandal

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The New York Post reported on Friday that former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was caught dating a married woman, who, in turn, is now not answering her doctor husband’s calls 

Owen Stark told the newspaper he’s working to salvage his 12-year marriage with Kristy Stark. However, she seems too occupied cruising New York City streets with de Blasio.

“Kristy is still the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” the seemingly estranged husband told the NY Post. “The only thing that’s ever mattered is what she wants.”

The news outlet asked the man whether he would take Stark back despite reportedly dating de Blasio, to which he responded, “Of course. She’s the mother of my children.” 

Chirlane McCray, the former New York City first lady, did not respond to questions about her now-separated husband’s affair with the married woman. Notably, McCray and de Blasio announced their separation earlier this year.

On the other hand, Owen Stark said he is unsure whether his wife will stay in New York City or return to Michigan, where the couple lives, according to the NY Post. 

“I never enforce demands on her. She does what she wants,” he said of de Blasio’s new partner. 

Owen Stark also said he does not think the relationship between his wife and de Blasio might be serious, considering the duo recently met.

“I don’t think they’re at that point yet,” he said. “I don’t think it’s been going on for very long. They met at some entrepreneur incubator thing, it might have been in Boston. It was probably within this year.” 

Owen Stark’s remarks come six months after de Blasio’s separation from his wife of 30 years became public.

De Blasio and McCray gained notoriety when De Blasio became New York City mayor in 2014. In the following years, the influential couple was likened and compared to the Obamas.

Melania Trump Addresses Newly Naturalized Citizens in Rare Appearance

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Melania Trump Addresses Newly Naturalized Citizens in Rare Appearance

(Headline USA) In a rare public appearance, former first lady Melania Trump stressed the importance of “guarding our freedom” and the responsibilities that accompany American citizenship as she spoke Friday at a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives.

Born in Slovenia, Melania Trump is the only first lady who is also a naturalized U.S. citizen. She recounted her path to that citizenship, beginning with a worker visa upon arriving in New York City during her career as a model.

“How fortunate to be with the naturalizing individuals and their families as they recite the Oath of Allegiance and become Americans before our great nation’s founding documents,” she said.

Friday’s ceremony marked a rare appearance for the former first lady, who supports her husband’s campaign, but has not yet been on the campaign trail as he seeks the 2024 GOP nomination.

She attended the memorial service for Rosalynn Carter in Georgia a little over two weeks ago.

She said Friday that becoming a U.S. citizen comes with a great deal of responsibility.

“It means actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom,” she said.

“It is a life-altering experience that takes time, determination and sometimes even tremendous strength.”

Friday’s ceremony featured 25 people from 25 nations being sworn in as new U.S. citizens, surrounded by founding documents including the Constitution.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Alex Jones’s $75K Fine for Being Sick Upheld by Appeals Court

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Alex Jones’s $75K Fine for Being Sick Upheld by Appeals Court

(Headline USA) A Connecticut appeals court on Friday upheld $75,000 in fines against radio host Alex Jones for missing a deposition in the lawsuit by Sandy Hook families due to an illness.

The state Appellate Court said that while Jones claimed an illness and doctor’s recommendations prevented him from attending the questioning in his hometown of Austin, Texas, in March 2022, he continued live broadcasts of his Infowars show at the same time.

Jones later appeared for a deposition early the next month in Connecticut and was refunded the $75,000 in fines he paid.

The appeals court decided that illness is not a reason to miss court, if one can still speak on the radio.

“We agree with the trial court that the undisputed fact that the defendant chose to host a live radio broadcast from his studio … significantly undercuts his claim that he was too ill to attend the deposition,” Judge José Suarez wrote in the 3-0 ruling. “We conclude that the court reasonably inferred … that the defendant’s failure to attend his deposition … was willful.”

Jones has said he could not sit for the questioning because of a medical problem that included vertigo. He said his doctors first thought it was a serious heart issue, but it later turned out to be a sinus infection.

Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, said an appeal of the Appellate Court’s ruling to the Connecticut Supreme Court is likely.

“It’s a sad day when a court decides it can countermand a doctor’s orders. Wow,” Pattis wrote in an email.

Pattis had argued in his appeal brief that trial court Judge Barbara Bellis’ contempt finding against Jones and the fine were “manifestly unjust” because she disregarded sworn statements from Jones’ doctors that he was too ill to attend the deposition.

Pattis said that although the $75,000 in fines were small, “the principle and point he seeks to make here is significant.”

He also criticized Bellis for faulting Jones for not providing more information on his medical condition, “effectively asserting that when it comes to civil justice, a Court’s need to manage its docket trumps medical confidentiality and advice.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Pentagon Falls 41,000 Short of Reduced Military Recruitment Goals

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Pentagon Falls 41,000 Short of Reduced Military Recruitment Goals

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) – The Pentagon came up short on its recruitment goals.

The Defense Department‘s senior officials testified Wednesday about shortfalls in Army, Navy and Air Force recruiting in the fiscal year that ended in September at a hearing of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. The Marine Corps and Space Force made their recruiting goals.

The military services together missed goals by about 41,000 recruits in fiscal year 2023, said Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Ashish Vazirani.

“That number understates the challenge before us as the services lowered [their] end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” he said. “The all-volunteer force faces one of its greatest challenges since inception.”

The all-volunteer force was created after the draft ended in 1973.

Vazirani cited multiple reasons for the recruitment shortfall, which he called “complex and multifaceted.”

Among the reasons: A strong economy that means more options for young people, a smaller eligible population, Generation Z’s generally low trust in institutions and fewer young people with family members who have served in the military.

In 1995, 40% of young people had a parent who served in the military, Vazirani said. By 2022, 12% had a parent who had served.

“This has led to a disconnect between the military and a large share of society,” he said.

Vazirani said that “while the picture of the current recruiting environment is acutely difficult, the Defense Department and the military services are working together to resolve issues, improve processes, and expand awareness of the many opportunities military service offers.”

In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on military housing. It detailed sewage backups and inoperable fire systems are among the safety hazards that U.S. service members living in barracks face. The report found such conditions undermine quality of life and military readiness.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that the Pentagon’s assessments of conditions at barracks “are unreliable” and “observed barracks that pose potentially serious health and safety risks – such as broken windows and inoperable fire systems – and that do not meet minimum [U.S. Department of Defense] standards for privacy and configuration.”

Conditions were so bad in some places that service members sometimes took “drastic action, such as getting married, just to leave the barracks,” according to the report. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops live in barracks, which are for the most junior-ranking unmarried service members without children or other dependents.

California Freezes Spending as State Faces $68 Billion Deficit

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California Freezes Spending as State Faces $68 Billion Deficit

(Kenneth Schrupp, The Center Square) – In the aftermath of a government report projecting a $68 billion deficit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the California Department of Finance ordered a spending freeze across all state agencies for the remainder of the ongoing 2023-2024 fiscal year.

“The State of California anticipates significant General Fund budget deficits in fiscal years 2023-24 and 2024-25,” wrote California Department of Finance director Joe Stephenshaw in a statewide memo.

“Accordingly, this [budget letter] directs all entities under the Governor’s direct executive authority to take immediate action to reduce current-year General Fund expenditures.”

While there are exemptions for declared emergencies, avoiding significant revenue loss, and achieving significant net cost savings, state agencies are directed to not enter any new contracts for goods and services, buy new IT equipment or vehicles, or travel outside of “time-sensitive or critical need.”

Agency secretaries and cabinet-level directors will also be required to report on all approved exemptions as well as achieved cost-savings on a monthly basis.

Assembly member Vince Fong, R–Bakersfield, who serves as vice chair of Assembly’s budget committee, noted that the state is unable to continue on its current fiscal path any longer.

“I have said for years, a slowing California economy coupled with unsustainable spending is a recipe for fiscal disaster,” Fong said in a public statement. “No more gimmicks; we must take action now to get our fiscal house in order.”

California’s approved budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year was $310.8 billion. The state last adopted a spending freeze at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 when state revenues rapidly declined.

Chicago Threatens to Impound Buses Dropping Migrants in the Middle of Traffic

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Chicago Threatens to Impound Buses Dropping Migrants in the Middle of Traffic

(Tom Gantert, Shirleen Guerra and Brett Rowland, The Center Square) – An influx of migrants from border cities has put Chicago at the center of the immigrant debate in the U.S. as it and other large sanctuary cities struggle to shelter and care for new arrivals.

Chicago’s elected leaders continue to welcome migrants, but the cost of doing so has created challenges for a city that has long struggled to balance its budget. With migrants expected to continue coming to Chicago as winter sets in, the city has adopted new measures to handle migrants and the buses that bring them to the Midwest from border states.

The Chicago Mayor’s office said that bus companies contracted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had dropped asylum seekers off in the middle of traffic, on street corners and at O’Hare Airport. The Chicago City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that allows it to impound and tow buses that don’t deliver asylum seekers to designated “landing zones.”

“This inhumane treatment further endangers the safety and security of asylum seekers, and adds additional strain to city departments, volunteers and mutual aid partners tasked with easing what is already a harsh transition,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement.

Chicago is not alone. In November, the mayors of Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and New York pushed for a meeting with President Joe Biden to address growing problems in their cities. In Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has repeatedly called on the federal government to do more to help sanctuary cities.

In New York, Mayor Eric Adams has also put pressure on the White House to do more. Adams has said it will cost about $12 billion over the next three years, according to city estimates. In November, Adams told migrants not to come to New York and sought to suspend the city’s right-to-shelter law.

Johnson has asked the White House for $5 billion for Chicago, but has yet to get a firm commitment that additional help will arrive from Washington D.C.

Since Aug. 31, 2022, the City of Chicago has taken in more than 25,000 new arrivals from the southern border.

The city of Chicago said that Abbott is sending up to 24 buses a day, 24 hours a day to Chicago.

The Texas buses have also dropped off asylum seekers in nearby municipalities, according to the Chicago Mayor’s office.

On Wednesday, the Village of Oak Park’s Emergency Operations Center sent a memo to the village manager saying it has no more space for asylum seekers.

Oak Park is a village with a population of 52,553 that is nine mile west of downtown Chicago. The village’s median annual household income was $103,264 from 2018-2021.

The memo stated that the present asylum seekers were staying at a hotel, a YMCA and a church.

“The Village does not have the capacity to accept additional new arrivals,” the memo stated.

The memo stated that village ordinances do not allow for buses to drop off asylum seekers unless authorized by the village via village-issued licenses.

Abbott posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he has sent 23,400 migrants to Chicago.

“Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities to provide relief to overwhelmed border towns,” Abbott posted on the social media site. “Busing will continue until [President Joe] Biden secures the border.”

Abbott stated besides Chicago, there were 12,500 migrants sent to Washington D.C., 28,200 sent to New York City, 3,200 sent to Philadelphia, 9,500 bussed to Denver and 1,200 sent to Los Angeles.

Abbott began busing migrants to Chicago in August 2022.

Gov. Pritzker announced in November the state would give an extra $160 million to the Illinois Department of Human Services to address the arrival of 24,000 asylum seekers form the U.S. Southern Border.

The city of Chicago has budgeted $150 million in 2024 to support temporary shelter, food and other services for migrants. The city also works with Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center to provide free legal services to asylum seekers.

On Thursday, the Chicago City Council convened to discuss a resolution that would let voters decide if the city should keep its Sanctuary City designation, something it has had since 1985. It was voted down.

In March 2023 while campaigning for office, Johnson supported expanding services for immigrants.

“… our city has not done everything it can to help families who have left everything they know and risked unthinkable danger and chaos to seek out better conditions in which to thrive. So we must work to expand our status as a sanctuary city and support a more accessible path to citizenship for all,” Johnson said on his campaign website. “A Brandon Johnson administration will pursue the following to make sure that every migrant, immigrant and refugee in Chicago has the resources they need to thrive, and proudly call the city home.”

The Chicago police do not conduct immigration enforcement and the police don’t ask about the immigration status of crime victims or witnesses.

MURDOCK: Boom Boom: Out Go the Lights!

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MURDOCK: Boom Boom: Out Go the Lights!

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) Ruling like the dictator whom he says Donald J. Trump aspires to be, President Joe Biden has decreed restrictions, if not prohibitions, on gas stoves, gas furnaces, gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and other products.

Congress has passed no such laws for Biden to sign. Instead, he has acted unilaterally, as despots do.

Emperor Biden further expects Americans to replace these fossil-fueled mechanisms with electric counterparts.

But what will propel these items as they draw electricity from America’s already fragile grid?

Team Biden has not gotten that far. To the contrary, they are hammering major sources of voltage, even while trying to coerce into existence the Electric States of America.

What Biden’s approach boasts in authoritarianism, it lacks in coherence.

Biden’s “Climate!” guru, John Kerry, attended the just-concluded COP28 global-warming hoe-down in Dubai. Some of its 80,000 participants got delayed en route, as their private jets bogged down as 17 inches of snow closed Munich’s airport.

Kerry soldiered forth and soon declared that “There shouldn’t be any more coal power plants permitted anywhere in the world.”

He added: “I do not understand how adults who are in a position of responsibility can be avoiding responsibility for taking away those things that are killing people on a daily basis.”

When coal took a break from its homicides du jour, it also yielded 19.7% of U.S. electricity in 2022, according to Biden’s own Energy Information Administration.

Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency unveiled edicts on Dec. 2 that would clamp down on methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas wells.

Methane and natural gas are essentially interchangeable. So, this bid to reduce 58 million tons of methane through 2038 is a barely disguised billy club to beat down the natural gas industry.

Never mind that, last year, 39.9% of U.S. electricity came from natural gas.

My Fox News colleague Liz Peek reports that these new regulations could padlock “8% to 10% of natural gas production.” She also mocked COP28 as “the Super Bowl of virtue signaling.”

Biden’s Council on Environmental Quality is holding secret discussions with fish-loving activists in Washington State. They hope to tear down four dams on the Snake River, to satisfy local salmon.

These green radicals seem little interested in the 100% carbon-free power that these dams produce, nor encouraged that 6.0% of America’s power was hydroelectric in 2022.

So, among coal, natural gas and hydroelectric, Biden has put bullseyes on the sources of 65.6% of U.S. electricity.

“Don’t worry!” Biden and his fellow Climatarians reply. “Solar and wind power will save us!”

Inconvenient truth: Solar power generated just 3.4% of U.S. energy, and wind 10.3%. Thus, these two sources of electricity, totaling 13.7%, would have to grow by 479%—damn-near fivefold—to replace coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric, which Emperor Biden finds somewhere between distasteful and morally repugnant.

Even worse, solar power wanes when the sun goes home early in the fall and winter. And year-round, solar power stops after sunset.

Offshore wind projects from New Jersey to Connecticut to Massachusetts have been canceled, in part because they seem to drive whales, dolphins and other marine mammals fatally onto beaches.

Even if one swallows Biden’s outlandish blather that the alleged “climate crisis” is “even more frightening than a nuclear war,” only a belief in energy-producing leprechauns could explain relentless decrees to plug everything into America’s walls while slashing the power flowing into America’s sockets.

While Joe Biden oscillates between eco-fantasy and enviro-tyranny, COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates operates in reality. He warned the warmists that fleeing fossil fuels before renewables are viable will “take the world back into caves.”

If Biden’s command economy for energy prevails, Americans will watch candles flicker beside blackened HDTVs.

Left uncorrected, Joe Biden’s staggering ignorance of supply and demand will generate consequences that recall Pat Travers’s rock ‘n’ roll classic.

“Boom Boom: Out Go the Lights.”

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.

Univ. of Fla. Offers Honors Course on Taylor Swift

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Univ. of Fla. Offers Honors Course on Taylor Swift

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) American universities sunk to a new low when the University of Florida announced that it would offer an honors course at the beginning of 2024 on pop music star Taylor Swift.

“In this class, students will fearlessly jump then fall into 13 gorgeous weeks of discussing Taylor Swift’s discography, with a focus on her evergreen songwriting,” the UF course description said.

In addition to that, the students will also “draw parallels between Swift’s enchanting lyrics and works by other famous female masterminds such as Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and Dolly Parton.”

The students who decide to take the course will be required to “write 2 online discussion posts” and see a musical about Gloria Estefan among other assignments, the College Fix reported.

Class instructor Melina Jimenez declined to comment on how students would apply the knowledge gained from the useless class and why the course became a part of the honors program in the first place. Jimenez’s teaching philosophy, however, revealed the reason — the indoctrination of students with “diversity, equity and inclusion” propaganda.

“In Florida, and in many locations around the nation, lawmakers are pushing back on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts,” she wrote, probably referring to Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., pushing back against Marxist brainwashing in the state’s colleges and universities.

Jimenez also wrote that she uses “culturally responsive pedagogy” and makes sure to include LGBT authors.

“I also choose articles by women, nonbinary and LGBTQ+ writers, so that students are exposed to a range of ideas, and we can have uncomfortable conversations about using pronouns in a safe environment where they are encouraged to ask questions,” she wrote.

As expected, she would also apply the same propaganda in the Swift course.

“People have very strong reactions because she’s a woman. She can sing about a topic and a man can sing about a topic and she gets all the hate, where men don’t get any reaction at all,” Jimenez told the student newspaper The Alligator.

It was also revealed that other Marxist indoctrination centers like Harvard University, Northeastern University and the University of South Carolina will also offer courses on Swift.

“Taylor Swift is a good way to think about what it’s like to have a lot of eyes on you and to wonder what you do with your privilege. To look around and ask, ‘I’m pretty ambitious and I got to this place when I was pretty young. What do I do next? What do I do with all this attention?’” Harvard professor Stephanie Burton told Harvard’s student newspaper.

School Board Member Sworn In on Porn Books, Not Bible

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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School Board Member Sworn In on Porn Books, Not Bible

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) A Virginia school board member took his oath of office with his hand on a stack of books containing graphic depictions of homosexual sex, instead of the Bible.

Karl Frisch, who will officially become chairman of the Fairfax County School Board, swapped the Bible for pornographic books including “Lawn Boy,” “Gender Queer” and “Flamer,” according to the Daily Wire. His homosexual male “partner” held the books as he placed his left hand on them and his right hand in the air.

“He was sworn in on a stack of the five LGBTQ-themed books most frequently banned by other school systems,” Frisch’s campaign bragged on his website.

Since Frisch doesn’t have any kids of his own, it seems that the only reason why he would be interested in working inside the school system is LGBT activism, the indoctrination and grooming of children and advocating on behalf of staff instead of the people he is supposed to serve.

His homosexual “partner” also works in the school system as a choral director.

Frisch has few roots in Virginia since he used to be a Democrat campaign consultant from California. In 2019, after raising massive amounts of money by fundraising from out-of-state donors based on LGBT “issues,” he won his first term on the school board.

Aside from being a sexual deviant, the other reason why Frisch preferred porn books over the Bible was the fact that he is an atheist. He even gave an hour-long interview to the American Humanist Association, a group for agnostics.

Frisch previously shared one of his delusional takes, which was that Fairfax County, a leftist D.C. suburb, was “targeted by religious extremists.”

“The religious nuts come out of the woodwork. Fairfax has a history of being an epicenter for right-wing religious fanaticism,” he said, even though every member of the Fairfax County School Board is a Democrat.

Nashville Woman Who Moved Next to BBQ Restaurant Sues over Smell

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Nashville Woman Who Moved Next to BBQ Restaurant Sues over Smell

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A fed-up woman took legal action against a neighboring BBQ restaurant over what she described as an unbearable smell of food. Ironically, the woman reportedly sought to become a partner in the store before filing several complaints.

Jeff Roy, the owner of the Tennessee-based Roy Meat Service, responded by accusing Natalie Castillo — the complainant who has dubbed a “Karen” — of “trying every way she can” to close the store, according to the Tennessean.

As reported by the newspaper, the woman complained that a shed and concrete placed adjacent to her home prompts “fumes of burning wood that permeate” her property. She claimed that the fumes have complicated her asthma.

Roy reportedly purchased the business from a friend of his dad in 2015. The shop serves as a convenient store, restaurant and butcher.

Roy purchased the shop to “carry on the family legacy of serving this community.” He cited his grandfather’s job as an iceman in the 1940s as part of his inspiration. Roy’s uncle worked as a community milkman and his dad ran a store on a local street.

However, Roy’s business has been affected by the nearly 50 complaints filed by Castillo, who reportedly showed interest in investing in the business.

“I told her I didn’t need any partners, and she just started picking at me,” Roy told the newspaper. “And it’s just gone on and on and on.”

After Roy rejected her offer, he was forced to spend over $20,000 on renovations to appease Castillo’s complaints.

“We’ve just been dodging rocks for two-and-a-half years now, and it’s just absolutely been a nightmare. It’s just — sleepless nights, ruined vacations,” Roy complained.

“It really hasn’t hurt us much because every agency, government agency she calls that comes out … they become customers,” he added.

The lawsuit is in the discovery phase, the Tennessean reported.

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