Mercenary Rebel Headed Toward Moscow

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Mercenary Rebel Headed Toward Moscow

(Headline USA) Moscow on Saturday erected checkpoints with armored vehicles and troops on its southern edge, Red Square was shut down and the mayor urged motorists to stay off some roads as the Russian capital braced for the arrival of a private army led by a rebellious mercenary commander.

Authorities declared a “counterterrorist regime” in the capital and its surrounding region, enhancing security and restricting some movement.

On the southern outskirts, troops erected checkpoints, arranged sandbags and set up machine guns.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin warned that traffic could be restricted in parts of the capital. He declared Monday a non-working day for most residents.

Crews dug up sections of highways to slow the march of the Wagner mercenary army.

Access to Red Square was closed, two major museums were evacuated and a park was shut.

Prigozhin’s private army appeared to control the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city 660 miles (over 1,000 kilometers) south of Moscow that runs Russian operations in Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said.

Wagner troops and equipment also were in Lipetsk province, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) south of Moscow, where authorities “are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the population,” said regional Gov. Igor Artamonov, via Telegram.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Ga. Won’t Update Dominion Voting Machines Before 2024

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Ga. Won’t Update Dominion Voting Machines Before 2024

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Despite cybersecurity experts warning of vulnerabilities, Georgia delayed a software update for its Dominion voting machines until after the 2024 presidential election.

Last week, a nearly 2-year-old report was made public and showed that Dominion voting machines had significant vulnerabilities, Just the News reported. The findings led the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency [CISA] to issue a public advisory last year.

Despite the revealed information, Georgia election officials said that the machines won’t be updated until after the 2024 elections because it’s such a massive undertaking.

In July 2021, University of Michigan Professor of Computer Science and Engineering J. Alex Halderman with Professor Drew Springall, of Auburn University, completed the report and focused in part on vulnerabilities they found after examining Dominion’s ImageCast X Ballot Marking Devices for three months.

On June 14, 2022, a redacted copy of the report was released by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division. ​

Just the News wrote that the report was completed on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case of Curling v. Raffensperger and found that the Dominion machines are vulnerable to vote-flipping.

Halderman said that the machines were capable of being easily manipulated in mere minutes by bad actors, adding that the QR codes on printed ballots could be altered and malware installed on individual machines “with only brief physical access.”

The report also concluded that the broader voting system could be attacked if bad actors have the same access to it as certain county-level election officials.

However, Halderman said that these vulnerabilities could not have been exploited in past elections.

“My technical findings leave Georgia voters with greatly diminished grounds to be confident that the votes they cast on [the current Dominion ballot-marking devices] are secured, that their votes will be counted correctly, or that any future elections using Georgia’s [ballot-marking devices] will be reasonably secure from attack and produce correct results,” he said.

Anti-Life Donations Dry Up a Year After Overturning Roe v. Wade

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Anti-Life Donations Dry Up a Year After Overturning Roe v. Wade

(Headline USA) The ‘rage giving’ did not last.

Anti-life pro-abortion activists, who received a windfall of donations following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade one year ago, say giving has dropped off.

After the Dobbs decision, some major funders of abortion access also have ended or shifted funding from organizations working in states where infanticide is now banned, said Naa Amissah-Hammond, senior director of grant-making with Groundswell Fund, which funds abortion activist groups.

Holly Calvasina explained her experiences with the boom and bust of abortion fundraising as director of development at the reproductive health clinic CHOICES in Memphis, Tennessee.

Last year, CHOICES raked in over $150,000 in donations to their annual spring appeal. That’s up from $2,000 in 2021. This year, the appeal raised $40,000.

Organizations in states where abortion has been banned or limited have needed to pivot away from funding abortions, said Marsha Jones, executive director of The Afiya Center, based in Dallas.

However, she said funders are less interested in supporting maternal health than they were in supporting abortion activism.

Data on last year’s charitable giving to any sector is hard to come by. The overreaction to COVID-19 has slowed the public release of donor reports to the IRS, though a delay of up to two years was typical before.

Donations to human services and public society benefit organizations, sectors that could include abortion access nonprofits, both declined in 2022, according to the Giving USA report released last week.

In comparison, red states have been generously funding pregnancy centers after the Dobbs decision.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Republican Lawmakers Receive White Powder and Threats in Mail

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Republican Lawmakers Receive White Powder and Threats in Mail

(Headline USA) Republican lawmakers in Montana are sharing that they received letters with white powder as federal agents investigate mysterious substances similarly mailed to GOP officials in two other states.

In a Friday night tweet, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte said he has received “disturbing” reports of anonymous threats sent to legislators.

The Montana attorney general posted on Facebook that the local sheriff’s office collected evidence after his mother, a state representative, opened one letter with a “white powder substance” sent to her home address.

“PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS about opening your mail,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in the post directed toward legislators.

“If you receive a suspicious package, contact law enforcement immediately.”

Republican officials in Tennessee and Kansas have recently received similar letters.

A legislative office building in Nashville temporarily locked down on Thursday after the House Speaker said multiple Republican leaders got mail with “a white powder substance.”

The letters included “obvious threats made by a liberal activist specifically targeting Republicans,” according to a House Republican Caucus spokesperson who did not provide further details.

The FBI said Thursday that ongoing lab tests did not indicate any risk to public safety.

About 100 such letters have been sent to lawmakers and public officials across Kansas, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Preliminary tests did not detect any common dangerous toxins and no injuries have been reported.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Hunter Biden Deducted Payments to Prostitutes, Sex Club from His Taxes

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Hunter Biden Deducted Payments to Prostitutes, Sex Club from His Taxes

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) IRS whistleblowers revealed to Congress that Hunter Biden committed another crime by deducting tens of thousands of dollars in payments he made to a prostitute and a sex club from his taxes.

One of the whistleblowers — who is anonymous — worked on the Biden tax probe and told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that Biden improperly deducted those expenses from his 2018 taxes, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Another whistleblower, IRS criminal supervisory special agent Gary Shapley, told lawmakers that the Justice Department‘s tax division and the prosecutors who were working on the Biden probe viewed the deductions as “a slam dunk case” of tax fraud.

AG Seeks to Stop Transgenders Altering Birth Certificates

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AG Seeks to Stop Transgenders Altering Birth Certificates

(Headline USA) Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas, asked a judge to end a requirement for Kansas to allow transgenders to change their birth certificates.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree imposed the requirement in 2019 to settle a lawsuit filed by four transgenders against three state health department officials.

It wasn’t clear whether Kobach’s effort would succeed, given a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2020 declaring a federal law barring sex discrimination in employment also prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Also in 2022, federal judges in Idaho and Ohio struck down rules against transgenders changing their birth certificates.

However, this month federal judges in Tennessee and Oklahoma dismissed challenges to two of the nation’s few remaining state policies against such changes.

Kobach’s move appears to be in keeping with a new, Kansas law taking effect July 1 that protects the state’s women from biological males forcing themselves into their bathrooms, locker-rooms, and other private areas, and was enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto.

A memo filed electronically with the request by Kobach cited the law as a reason to revisit the 2019 settlement.

The memo argued Crabtree’s order makes it “impossible” to follow the new state law and that since the Legislature “has spoken,” the state health department, which handles birth certificates, is now “bound to execute the law as written.”

Kobach scheduled a Monday afternoon news conference at the Statehouse to discuss enforcement of the new law.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the legal group Lambda Legal, which represents sexual deviants, predictably condemned Kobach’s request.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Librarians Strategize to Remove Parental Control of Books

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Librarians Strategize to Remove Parental Control of Books

(Headline USA) Opposing parental control over the children’s sections of libraries will be a major focus of the American Library Association’s annual meeting this weekend in Chicago.

Librarians may attend sessions aimed at helping them confidently counter parental book challenges and fight legislative regulation of indecent library material.

All day Saturday, attendees are invited to climb atop a giant chair to read their favorite banned book, in an infantile display of opposition.

“With an unparalleled rise in challenges and bans and legislation suppressing access to books and learning materials in libraries, schools, and universities, it is more important than ever to join forces in the fight against banning books!” the event description reads, putting a radical left-wing spin on parents not wanting their kids to be exposed to perverted material.

The conference brings together authors, educators and librarians who seek to oppose parents and red-states that seek to regulate children’s access to obscene material.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, explained that her organization is supplying material for the left’s side of the culture war.

“We have almost two dozen programs addressing intellectual freedom, advocacy … attacks on public education and public libraries, all intended to equip our members with the knowledge they need to go out and advocate and defend the right to read in their libraries,” she said.

Christine Emeran, director of the Youth Free Expression Program of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a First Amendment advocacy organization, explained that her organization would not listen to parental concerns regarding the content of libraries.

“You can’t just concede to demands of a particular group of parents and to censor libraries,” she said.

Emeran, who is scheduled to be featured in a panel discussion called “Help! They’re coming for our books!” at the conference Sunday, explained that library activists are feeling the pressure of the culture war.

“Librarians are under pressure and they’re feeling frustrated, discouraged,” said Emeran, indicating that parental rights groups, like Moms for Liberty, are putting pressure on their opponents.

Groups such as Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education and Citizens Defending Freedom have had a large impact on the indecent material children are exposed to, according to Emeran.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Federal Judge Blocks Law Prohibiting Minors from Attending Adult Performances

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Federal Judge Blocks Law Prohibiting Minors from Attending Adult Performances

(Headline USA) A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a new Florida law prohibiting children from attending live adult performances.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell granted a preliminary injunction stopping the law from being enforced until a trial is held to determine its constitutionality, and he denied a Florida licensing and regulatory agency’s request to dismiss it.

The complaint was brought by the owner of a Hamburger Mary’s restaurant and bar in Orlando, which regularly hosts drag shows, including performances on Sundays where children were invited to attend.

The restaurant owner said it violated First Amendment rights by chilling speech.

An email seeking comment was sent to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which is the remaining defendant after the judge dismissed DeSantis and the state as defendants.

Proponents of the legislation have said the law is meant to keep children from viewing sexually explicit performances and is constitutional.

The new law punished venues for allowing children into “adult live performances.”

Though it did not mention drag shows specifically, the sponsor of the legislation said it was aimed at those performances.

Venues that violated the new law faced fines and the prospect of their liquor licenses being suspended or revoked. Individuals could be charged with a misdemeanor crime.

The Florida agency moved to revoke the liquor licenses of a Miami hotel and a performing arts center owned by the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation after they hosted drag shows where investigators claim minors were present.

Ahead of announcing a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination this spring, DeSantis made protecting children from sexually explicit material a large part of his agenda as governor.

Other bills he signed would ban genital mutilation for minors and the anti-grooming law.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Putin Denounces Armed Rebellion and Promises to Punish its Leader

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Putin Denounces Armed Rebellion and Promises to Punish its Leader

(Headline USA) President Vladimir Putin vowed Saturday to punish the organizers of an armed rebellion in Russia after mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops out of Ukraine and into a key southern city.

Putin denounced the uprising as “a stab in the back.” It was the biggest threat to his leadership in over two decades in power.

The private army led by Prigozhin appeared to control the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city 660 miles (over 1,000 kilometers) south of Moscow that runs Russian offensive operations in Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said.

As the fast-moving events unfolded in Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow is suffering “full-scale weakness” and that Kyiv was protecting Europe from “the spread of Russian evil and chaos.”

In his address, Putin called the actions by Prigozhin, whom he did not mention by name, a “betrayal” and “treason.”

“All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment,” Putin said. “The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”

Prigozhin’s private military contractor, known as Wagner, has been fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. His goals weren’t immediately clear, but the rebellion marks an escalation in his struggle with Russian military leaders, whom he accused of botching the war in Ukraine and hobbling his forces in the field.

Prigozhin confirmed Saturday he and his troops reached Rostov-on-Don after crossing the border from Ukraine.

He posted a video of himself at the military headquarters in Rostov and claimed that his forces had taken control of the airfield and other military facilities in the city. Other videos on social media showed military vehicles, including tanks, on the streets.

The rebellion comes at a time when Russia is “fighting the toughest battle for its future,” Putin said, as Western governments heap sanctions on Moscow and arm Ukraine.

“The entire military, economic and information machine of the West is waged against us,” Putin said.

Prigozhin said he wanted to punish Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after he accused Russian government forces of attacking Wagner field camps in Ukraine with rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery. He claimed that “a huge number of our comrades got killed.”

After Putin’s address, in which he didn’t mention concrete steps to suppress the rebellion but rather called for unity, officials and state media personalities sought to reiterate their allegiance to the Kremlin and urged Prigozhin to back down.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said lawmakers “stand for the consolidation of forces″ and support Putin, adding that “Wagner fighters must make the only right choice: to be with their people, on the side of the law, to protect the security and future of the Motherland, to follow the orders of the commander-in-chief.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova echoed Volodin’s sentiment, saying in a Telegram post that “we have one commander in chief. Not two, not three. One.″

Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of the Chechnya region who used to side with Prigozhin in his criticism of the military, also expressed his full support of Putin’s “every word.”

“We have the commander in chief, elected by the people, who knows the situation to the slightest detail better than any strategist and businessman,” Kadyrov said. “The mutiny needs to be suppressed.”

While the outcome of the confrontation was still unclear, it appeared likely to further hinder Moscow’s war effort as Kyiv’s forces probed Russian defenses in the initial stages of a counteroffensive. The dispute, especially if Prigozhin were to prevail, also could have repercussions for Putin and his ability to maintain unity.

The Wagner forces have played a crucial role in Ukraine, capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, an area where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized the military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of munitions.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

MURDOCK: The Left’s Turn Toward Sheer EVIL Upends Conventional Political Wisdom

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MURDOCK: The Left’s Turn Toward Sheer EVIL Upends Conventional Political Wisdom

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) My friend Lawrence W. Reed is one of Earth’s biggest optimists. The legendary free-market scholar recalls flipping his vehicle at age 26 on an icy Michigan road in 1980. As he rolled over inside his Ford Fairmont, he smiled: “Hey, I’ll get a new car out of this!”

Thus, his recent essay for the Foundation for Economic Education, of which he is president emeritus, is a surprise. Reed has gone from cheerful to chilly.

“There’s an awful lot of bad behavior going on,” Reed writes. “We are witnessing an alarming collapse of social cohesion that is propelled, as if it were consciously planned, by something bigger and more menacing than simply falling standards of character.”

Reed adds: “I call it ‘evil,’ and I sense that it’s on the loose and on the rise.”

One cannot dispute Reed’s FEE.org essay titled “Evil Is Rising, but Despair Is Not an Option.” Supporting evidence abounds, courtesy of America’s volcano of evil, the Democrat Left.

Too bad Democrats have abandoned their tax-and-spend roots. Republicans debated and even found solutions with their opposite numbers who wanted merely to take from the Haves and give to the Have Nots. Leftists once listened to Rightists’ alternative vision for boosting prosperity through freedom and growth. Taking and giving were compromised on, measured, and corrected as necessary.

But how do today’s Republicans split the difference with people who scream that America is a bigoted country, has been since 1619.

How does the Right compromise with people who would deny life-affirming care to babies who somehow survived abortions, as all but one U.S. House Democrat voted on Jan. 11?

How can conservatives do business with people who unleash the FBI on parents who attend school-board meetings to complain about racially divisive, sexed-up and gender-confused curricula?

How can the GOP negotiate with folks who see a 7-year-old boy and can’t wait to chat him up about the prospect that he is a girl—and vice versa? Meanwhile, hormone-filled syringes and penis-slicing and breast-chopping scalpels sit at the ready?

How can pro-law-and-order Americans respect people who see shoplifters, carjackers, violent hoodlums and even murders, and either ignore their crimes or, if they are arrested, speed their return to the streets, so they can resume their criminal careers?

No wonder Rightists lately chant “No more Mr. Nice Guy!”

Democrat Leftists are beyond convincing. The most elegant conservative arguments glide off their heads like raindrops rolling across an umbrella.

The only answer is to crush them.

The Democrat Left must be vanquished at every election.

Conservative victories then must yield Vengeance:

Uproot the Left’s programs. Defund their every subsidy. Arrest those who have committed crimes (e.g., much of ANTIFA and BLM).

In Trump’s words, the “thugs, misfits, and Marxists” at the FBI and “Department of Injustice” who perpetrated the endless Russia hoax must be fired, disbarred, stripped of their law licenses, and—if they broke federal law—tried, and (if convicted) imprisoned for years.

The teachers unions must be destroyed. Their media bodyguards must be challenged relentlessly, shamed into telling the truth, and circumvented via robust and aggressive alternative media.

The Evil Left must be demolished. Obliterated. Erased.

This will take toughness. Trump has the necessary guts. Ron DeSantis might. Sunshine Tim Scott probably does not. Mike “Turn the Other Cheek” Pence surely does not. This problem cannot get prayed away.

The antidote to American Evil is hardheadedness that supersedes the gentle persuasion that Reed, yours truly, and so many other conservatives have practiced for decades. These methods stopped Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Joseph Lieberman, Dick Gephardt and their kind. But such Democrats are as obsolete as an 8-Track tape.

It will take far more stringent but peaceful measures to neutralize Patrice Cullors, Ibram X. Kendi, Randi Weingarten, Merrick Garland, AOC, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, and their comrades as a clear and present danger to the American republic.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.

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