Suspected Russian Spy Whale Captured off Coast of Sweden

Molly Bruns
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Suspected Russian Spy Whale Captured off Coast of Sweden

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) A beluga whale that may be a Russian spy, known as Hvaldimir, recently reappeared off the coast of Sweden.

According to the Daily Wire, the whale is now in the care of local authorities and an organization called OneWhale, which tracks the creature.

“After four years of swimming south down the coast of Norway, Hvaldimir—known worldwide as the ‘Russian spy’ beluga whale—is now in Swedish waters,” the group said.

Hvaldimir was first spotted in 2019 off the coast of Norway wearing a harness with GoPro camera mounts labeled “Equipment of St. Petersburg.”

Norwegian intelligence officials concluded that the Russian military likely trained the whale as a spy; however, Russia denied the claims—despite previously seeking dolphins for a training program as recently as 2016.

“Hvaldimir is a friendly, tamed, displaced, formerly captive whale who relies on humans for social interaction,” said a statement from OneWhale. “Belugas are highly social whales and he has been living all alone the past four years.”

OneWhale plans to release Hvaldimir back into a wild beluga population near Norway.

The whale is constantly vulnerable due to his fame and desire for interaction with humans. Unregulated tourism resulted in injury of the whale by boat propellers and fishing hooks.

“Hvaldimir’s situation remains an extremely vulnerable one as Sweden is a highly populated country, but we are very grateful Swedish authorities have quickly taken action to care for the whale,” said OneWhale President Rich German.

The idea that Hvaldimir was a military asset came from the Soviet Union’s military dolphin training programs. The military reportedly used the animals to find underwater mines and plant bombs.

In 2000, Iran purchased the highly trained military dolphins for undisclosed purposes.

The rogue Islamic regime also purchased a beluga whale trained to either attack enemy divers with harpoons or to drag them to the surface to take them into captivity.

Hvaldimir’s name is a combination of the Russian word for whale, “hval,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s name.

Wash. State DEI Chief Fired after Saying ‘Mexicans’ Can Choose to Be White

Jacob Bruns
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Wash. State DEI Chief Fired after Saying ‘Mexicans’ Can Choose to Be White

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Karen Johnson, the first director of equity in Washington state, has been fired for making derogatory comments about Latinos, the Blaze reported.

Johnson, who is black, had held the position since May 2021. She was quickly let go, however, in the wake of an investigation into her treatment of people of other races.

According to reports, she railed in front of audiences against “Mexicans”—appearing to conflate all people of Hispanic and Latino heritage with a single nationality.

While that alone might be an unforgivable transgression in politically correct dogma, Johnson then proceeded to conflate them further with Caucasians, and to imply that both ethnic groups were untrustworthy as a result of their racial identity.

“This may take some time for me because I generally distrust Mexican people,” she reportedly said, according to the Seattle Times. “Mexican people have the option of being white when it is convenient for them.”

Investigators also found that Johnson’s belligerence had created a hostile work environment that caused many people to quit.

“Each of the individuals who resigned attributed their decision to leave, at least in part, to a chaotic, overburdened, and disrespectful workplace culture created by Dr. Johnson,” they wrote.

Making matters worse, she accused a white woman of “cultural appropriation” because the woman wore her hair in a braid.

In response, Johnson told the Seattle Times that she was “saddened” by the investigation, claiming that she was fired before she was able to defend herself.

“First, I was never given the opportunity to seek reconciliation with the people who obviously feel I harmed them; and, second, my right to learn about and respond to those allegations was taken away from me without my consent,” she wrote, adding that she expected an apology.

“To the people I harmed, please forgive me,” she continued. “To the people who violated my due process, I forgive you.”

A spokesman for Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee cited high turnover rates and budget mismanagement as the reasons for Johnson’s firing, the Stranger reported.

“Every state employee should feel safe and welcome at work,” the spokesman said.

“This report’s findings confirm that wasn’t the case at the Office of Equity,” the spokesman contined. “As we seek new leadership for this agency, restoring that culture will be a top priority.”

What Travel Warning? LGBT Revelers Flock to Fla. for ‘Gay Days’ Festival

Editor 1
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What Travel Warning? LGBT Revelers Flock to Fla. for ‘Gay Days’ Festival

(Headline USA) Tens of thousands of LGBT people are shrugging off recent performative travel advisories and flocking to central Florida this weekend to go on theme park rides, mingle with costumed performers, dance at all-night parties and lounge poolside at hotels during Gay Days, a decades-long tradition.

Even though Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers have championed a slew of pro-values laws—spurring the most prominent gay rights group in the U.S. and other civil rights organizations to issue press releases with over-the-top warnings that the Sunshine State may no longer be safe—Gay Days organizers are still encouraging visitors from around the world to come to one of Florida’s largest gay and lesbian celebrations.

They say a large turnout will send a message that LGBT people aren’t going away in Florida, which is continually one of the most popular states for tourists to visit. If the hoped-for 150,000 or more visitors come to the half-week of pool parties, drag bingo and thrill rides at Orlando’s theme parks and hotels, then “that’s the point,” said Joseph Clark, CEO of Gay Days Inc.

“Right now is not the time to run. It’s not the time to go away,” Clark said. “It’s time to show we are here, we are queer and we aren’t going anywhere.”

Yet, the mixed messaging is likely to bolster DeSantis’s argument that partisan left-wing activists have taken far too much for granted and overstepped their bounds in the state, as he uses a recent feud with Disney to launch his 2024 presidential campaign.

It’s not lost on the organizers that the highlight of the weekend will be a Saturday meetup of LGBT visitors at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, where the first Gay Days started as a single-day celebration in 1991. Traditionally, participants wear red shirts to identify themselves, and they meet for the afternoon parade in front of Cinderella’s Castle.

Currently Disney is embroiled in a legal fight over the governor’s and Republican lawmakers’ takeover of Disney World’s governing district—after Disney officials publicly opposed the state’s anti-grooming legislation.

At first, the law banned classroom instruction about sexual orientation and sexually deviant gender identities up to third grade, but this year it was expanded to apply to all grades.

On top of that, Florida lawmakers recently passed bills making it a felony to provide life-altering transgender health care to transgender minors, as well as banning people from entering bathrooms other than their biological sex, and prohibiting children from some performances, which takes aim at drag shows.

The administration of DeSantis, who launched his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination last week, also 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.

In response, some Florida cities, including St. Cloud near Orlando, have canceled Pride events altogether.

“These laws have created a climate of fear and hostility for LGBTQIA+ people in Florida,” organizers for St. Cloud’s Pride events wrote to announce the cancellation. “We believe that holding an LGBTQIA+ event in this environment would put our community at risk.”

Responding to Florida’s new laws and policies, the far-left Human Rights Campaign—the largest LGBT activist organization in the U.S.—recently issued a travel and relocation warning for the state, joining the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Equality Florida.

Those calls have been widely ridiculed, however, particularly after it was revealed that NAACP chair Leon Russell himself lives in Tampa.

Meanwhile, some, such as Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., suggested that the move may benefit the state by deterring leftist radicals from visiting while keeping Florida free and open to everyone of sound mind.

While the HRC since backpedaled by insisting it wasn’t calling for a boycott of all travel to Florida, it clarified that it wanted to highlight new laws passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature which they claimed were hostile to the LGBT community and restricted abortion, as well as making the state more free to gun-owners by allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Even before these travel advisories were issued, some regular Florida visitors were reconsidering their plans. Sara Haynes, who lives in metro Atlanta with her husband, decided not to visit the state after lawmakers started planning legislation to restrict treatment options for trans people.

“It’s less a crusade and more like, ‘I’m not going to spend my money where bad things are going on,’” Haynes said.

But the organizers of Gay Days and their supporters say that Orlando is as gay-friendly a city as they come, earning a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign index, which measures how inclusive cities are of LGBT residents and visitors.

They say that tourists can support the LGBT community by visiting cities like Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg, which also received perfect scores.

“We live in a bubble here in Orlando, where even with the chaos in Florida, we feel safe here,” said Jeremy Williams, editor-in-chief of Watermark Publishing Group Inc., a Florida-based media company that is one of the sponsors of Gay Days.

Gay Days has survived past challenges, including in the early years when Disney posted signs at the Magic Kingdom’s entrance warning visitors there was a large gathering of gays and lesbians and offering passes to other parks for guests who might be offended.

Over the last three decades, though, the theme parks and resorts have thrown down the welcome mats as Gay Days has become a profitable bounce between the spring break and out-of-school summer crowds. SeaWorld’s water park, Aquatica, is a sponsor this year.

Other groups have adopted hostile attitudes in the past. During Gay Days in the 1990s, hundreds of pro-life activists with Operation Rescue protested outside Walt Disney World, and the Southern Baptist Convention cited the gathering in calling for a boycott of all things Disney.

Some Christian groups tried to buy air time during Gay Days in the late 1990s to pressure people to renounce their sexual orientation, but mainstream TV stations in Orlando rejected the ads.

If Clark, the CEO of the Gay Days business, had his wish, DeSantis would accept an open invitation to see one of the drag shows during this year’s festivities.

“Come on out and see that not everything you hear out there is reality,” said Clark, as if he were directly addressing DeSantis. “There’s a part of me that hopes that if he were to see a show, maybe his mind would change, or maybe he would see the people his actions are affecting.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

‘We Rolled Them’: Dems Boast about Besting McCarthy on Debt Deal

Mark Pellin
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‘We Rolled Them’: Dems Boast about Besting McCarthy on Debt Deal

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Democrats openly boasted on social media Wednesday night about bamboozling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and fiscally squishy Republicans to support a spending plan that provides token cuts, while delivering the Biden administration a sky-high debt ceiling for the rest of his term.

The U.S. House with its alleged GOP majority passed the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act that raises the debt ceiling at least $4 trillion, retains the bulk of new IRS compliance agents sought by Democrats and claws back a meager spoonful of a bloated $4 trillion in excess COVID-19 funds.

The bill passed the House by a 314-117 vote, with a group of 71 fiscally conservative Republicans opposed for its prolific spending, along with 46 Democrats who thought it didn’t spend enough to satisfy their wants but were assured it would pass without their support and that they’d eventually get what they demanded.

“I wonder how many of the Democratic ‘no’ votes were cast by people who were told by Democratic leaders to vote against the bill—so as not to signal too much to their Republicans colleagues that they’ve been played,” wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. The signals were loud and clear, nonetheless.

“Now we are allowed to say it: we rolled them” crowed Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., after the bill passed.

Democrats weren’t the only ones who agreed that the bill, as approved by a House with a GOP majority, played into the hands of the Biden administration and its far-leftist agenda.

“The term for a bill that gets more Democrat votes than Republican votes is a Democrat bill,” tweeted The Federalist’s Sean Davis. “GOP leadership just whipped for and passed a Democrat budget that completely eliminates the debt limit for the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency.”

Ignoring jabs from gloating Democrats and criticisms from fiscally responsible Republicans, McCarthy said, “We’ve done our job,” and proclaimed the passage a victory.

It was a sentiment that flew in the face of reality, said House Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy, R-Texas, who voted against the spending package.

“My beef is that you cut a deal that shouldn’t have been cut,” Roy said. “The fact is, at best, we have a two-year spending freeze that’s full of loopholes and gimmicks that allow for increased funding of the federal bureaucracy in order to achieve a $4 trillion increase in the debt.”

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., another Freedom Caucus member, reiterated those concerns during an impassioned speech before the vote was taken, trying to rally GOP votes against the looming disaster.

“Every supposed ‘get’ for the Republicans, was chock-full of cosmetic things, artificial things, things that have actually been outright lied about,” Bishop said, specifically noting the bloated funding still on tap for the IRS to hire an army of new compliance agents.

“The only thing we get here is tokenism, a token, artificial, fake, nothing-benefits,” Bishop said.

The bill is widely predicted to pass the Senate, but Biden reportedly emerged from his cognitive stupor long enough to see sense in withholding boasts over how McCarthy and the Republicans had been played like a cheap fiddle.

Biden economic adviser Bharat Ramamurti cut through his boss’s obvious spin and made clear what McCarthy had given Democrats with a deal “essentially locking in the wins that we have gotten for the last two years.”

“What this deal allows us to do is continue to see that through,” he said of Biden’s agenda, an admission that prompted Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to highlight the brag with multiple red flags.

“This should tell you a ton about how bad this 4 trillion $ deal is,” Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., added.

Bombshell: Hunter Biden’s Unveiled Influence in Obama’s White House

Luis Cornelio
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Bombshell: Hunter Biden’s Unveiled Influence in Obama’s White House

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act investigation, following a legal battle between America First Legal and the partisan National Archives, have exposed the unfettered access enjoyed by Hunter Biden, the embattled first son, during his father’s tenure as vice president in the Obama White House.

The revelations provide further corroboration to the troubling allegations made by several Republicans that the Biden family leveraged the White House as a personal money-making institution. AFL’s newly released documents expose how the Bidens shared influence and access to the Obama administration with their family and friends, the report said.

One particular email, made public by AFL, revealed communications between Dennis Toner, Biden’s former deputy chief of staff in the Senate, and the White House via Alan Hoffman, who was then deputy chief of staff to Vice President Biden.

AFL highlighted Toner’s significant involvement with the Delaware Board of Trade, which was ultimately sold to Bruno Wu’s Ideanomics, a company with financial ties to Chinese-based Harvest Fund Management.  This connection linked back to BHR Partners, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter and other investors tied to the Chinese Communist Party, as outlined in the damning AFL report and backed by The New York Times.

Another email, albeit partially redacted by the National Archives due to claims of containing “confidential advice between the President and his advisors, or between such advisors” — showed Hunter’s business partner Eric Schwerin contacting the Office of the Vice President about an event called the “China Lunch,” which occurred months before former Chinese communist President Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S.

President Joe Biden has falsely claimed he was unaware of Hunter’s shady business dealings with communist China. However, a several exposed correspondence, including the recent AFL report, directly contradict Biden’s assertions, leaving his dubious claims in doubt. 

A separate email demonstrated Hunter’s influence over White House staff. On July 7, 2010, Hunter demanded that the White House write a letter, the purpose of which remains unclear according to AFL.

AFL further reported that Hunter’s influence extended beyond letter-writing. In a third email obtained through FOIA requests, Hunter torched a White House staff for repeatedly asking his family members, including Kathleen Biden, Naomi Biden, Finnegan Biden and Maisy Biden to leave the White House “at least 5 times.” Hunter later demanded that taxpayer-funded staff be available to escort them to their seats, highlighting his authority.

In the same email, Hunter reprimanded the White House staffer over a date error. “Also your original email said this was on the 21st of MAY not April- that’s why are late to a decision,” a seemingly annoyed Hunter said in the berating email.

AFL’s vice president and general counsel, Gene Hamilton, torched the Biden family’s “influence peddling and personal enrichment.” Hamilton, a conservative attorney, warned however that, “The full extent has yet to be seen, but with each release, we are painting a fuller picture for the American people of the extent to which the Biden family business was intertwined with the official business of the United States.”

For access to all the documents released by AFL, click here.

Comer Blasts Wray’s Private Offer: Biden ‘Bribery’ File Must Go Public

Luis Cornelio
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Comer Blasts Wray’s Private Offer: Biden ‘Bribery’ File Must Go Public

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) FBI Director Christopher Wray informed the House Oversight Committee that they have the opportunity to privately review the FD-1023 informant file, which allegedly contains a complaint detailing a potential bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, during his tenure as President Barack Hussein Obama’s vice president.

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who is pushing forward for contempt of Congress charges against Wray, warned that allowing House Republicans to view the potentially damning document behind closed doors is insufficient. According to a source familiar with the matter, Comer effectively denied Wray’s offer, as reported by the New York Post.

Comer confirmed the call in a press release on Wednesday, in which he further threatened Wray with contempt charges if he failed to hand over the requested documents.

“Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national,” Comer stated. “However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.”

The committee chairman blasted the FBI for its refusal to release the document, a move that many see as a way to protect Biden. Comer added, “While Director Wray – after a month of refusing to even acknowledge that the form existed – has offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI headquarters, we have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena.”

Comer concluded by doubling down on the charges threat, saying, “If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.”

House Republicans, with the assistance House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, gave the FBI until Monday to release the document. Comer referred to the bureau’s tactics as “obstructionist and unacceptable.” On May 21, McCarthy incorrectly asserted he was confident that the FBI would turn over the files following a conversation with the bureau’s director the next day. However, on May 22, Wray once again declined to release the FD-1023 document.

The Oversight Committee first learned of the document after a highly-credit whistleblower raised the concerns in a meeting with Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about FBI’s failure to take appropriate action to investigate it.

On May 3, Comer and Grassley issued a subpoena for the document, arguing, “We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States.” 

Grassley also torched the FBI’s attempt to prevent the House Republicans from fulfilling their constitutional duty of oversight, accusing the bureau of treating Congress as “second class citizens.” The Iowa senator warned of consequences.

CBS Apparently Stonewalling Reporter Targeted by DOJ

Ken Silva
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CBS Apparently Stonewalling Reporter Targeted by DOJ

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last month, a federal judge ordered CBS to provide the hard drive that journalist Sharyl Attkisson was using when the government hacked her in retaliation for her stories on the Obama-era Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

Attkisson needs the hard drive as part of her lawsuit against the federal agents who hacked her. In a Tuesday filing, she said she received the hard drive from CBS—but some of the data was missing.

“What is for certain at present is that the CBS drive produced per the Court order contains only about 80-90% of the information contained on the Original hard drive and has significant differences that are not explainable without further clarification from CBS or its vendor,” Attkisson said in her filing.

The former CBS journalist seeks answers as to why she didn’t get the original hard drive that she needs.

“It is odd or unusual that a forensic consultant retained by CBS would hand-deliver evidence to a third-party and there be no record of what evidence was removed, copied, or provided, nor evidence of who received the evidence,” she said.

The apparent stonewalling by CBS is the latest barrier Attkisson has run into in her quest to obtain justice against the feds who hacked her. CBS has argued that it has already done plenty to aid the journalist in her lawsuit against the government, and that the hard drives sought by Attkisson contain “proprietary CBS data and information protected by the reporter’s privilege, making it impossible to produce the drives wholesale.”

Attkisson’s lawsuit stems from “anomalies” she noticed on her electronic devices while working on the “Fast and Furious” stories more than 10 years ago.

“Fast and Furious” was an operation overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, in which the government purposely allowed firearms dealers to sell marked weapons illegally with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels.

The operation turned into a major scandal when one of the firearms was used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

“On Feb. 13, 2012, unknown to Attkisson at the time but later revealed through forensic exams, remote intruders downloaded new spyware into Attkisson’s CBS Toshiba laptop at approximately 10:30 p.m. after she downloaded an mp3 file and clicked on an email,” Attkisson said of the government targeting her.

Attkisson sued then-Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials over the matter in 2015, but that lawsuit was largely unsuccessful because the courts ruled that Holder had sovereign immunity protections. (Holder earlier had been held in contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with a GOP-led investigation into the matter, but he declined to prosecute himself for the crime.)

Nonetheless, Attkisson’s lawsuit proceeded against former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges, who had been assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force at the time her computers were hacked, and undercover DOJ informant named Ryan White. She is also suing “unknown named agents of the DOJ,” according to court records.

Attkisson is apparently hunting down the DOJ informant, White, to serve him a subpoena.

“Efforts to locate and serve Ryan White for deposition continue, but are still unsuccessful,” she said in a status report last month.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Utah Mom Bullied by PTA for Opposing Radical LGBT Intrusion on Private Property

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Utah Mom Bullied by PTA for Opposing Radical LGBT Intrusion on Private Property

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) The president of a Utah school’s parent-teacher association reportedly bullied a parent who refused to accept a radical LGBT agenda being pushed by the Murray School District, the Daily Caller reported.

In a video shared on Twitter by Utah mother April Wilde Despain, a woman is shown standing in a yard with some Pride flags.

The video explains that the PTA president of Hillcrest Junior High, Jennifer Auwerda, ordered people to place those flags on Despain’s property without permission. 

In a tweet, Despain wrote, “PTA president in @MurraySchoolsUT, Jennifer Auwerda, has relentlessly bullied me and my family just because we don’t want Gender/Queer ideology in Murray School District, Utah. Today she ordered 7 Pride flags to be staked into our front yard without our permission.”

The harassment allegedly followed Despain’s objection to a third-grade class reading a transgender text aloud. She said the experience traumatized her son.

Afterward, when she followed up with the school, she alleged that they lied to her about it.

“I tried working with Murray City School District to resolve my concerns, but instead of working with me they orchestrated a charade to cover up their teachers’ and administrators’ lies and doubled down on their push for ‘equity,’” she said.

A screenshot shared by parental rights activist Nicole Solas revealed that Auwerda replied to the video, which Despain also posted on Facebook. “Happy Pride to our favorite Murray Citizen, April Wilde Despain,” the PTA president wrote. 

Utah election results revealed that Despain ran for the Murray City School Board in 2022, but was unsuccessful.

However, Despain noted that she had relentlessly tried to expose educators promoting gender ideology in MCSD. However, Auwerda had continued to bully her and her family, even after several warnings to stop that.

The Utah mother said, “It finally culminated in her sending 7 LGBTQ Pride flags, which she knew are contrary to our religious and personal beliefs, to be staked into my front yard without my permission.”

Despain has since removed her six children from the school system and is now homeschooling them.

N.H. School Spends Grant Money On Drag Queens

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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N.H. School Spends Grant Money On Drag Queens

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) West High School officials in Manchester, N.H., defended stealing American Rescue Plan Act money to fund a Youth Pride event and groom students this week by inviting drag queens.

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, an application that was submitted in April by Manchester West art teacher Richella Simard to the city’s Community Event and Activation program revealed that the total cost of the event was $6,150.

CEAG grant money covered $4,000 of that total amount. The additional $2,150 were covered by matching funds. Union Leader reported that the city’s Community Event and Activation grant money originated from ARPA funds.  

“As a district, we support and care for all of our students as they learn and grow,” Manchester Superintendent of Schools Jenn Gillis said. “Events such as this are consistent with the goals of our community-developed strategic plan, and in line with district policies.”

The school spent $800 for printed T-shirts, $500 for Pride decorations and $500 for drag performers to groom the kids.

“We are looking to get equipment that is sustainable and durable for many more Pride celebrations and activities at West to come,” Simard said.

“As a committee member and youth co-chair of the Manchester City Pride for three annual pride celebrations, this will also be shared and open to all youth in the district and city to attend.”

Thomas Brescia, the city’s Community Grants Administrator, who serves as the principal administrator of ARPA funding for the Queen City, approved the grant application on Apr. 7, 2023, via email.

In her statement, Tina Kim Philibotte, chief equity officer for the Manchester School District, said that city schools are committed to “celebrating LGBTQ+ identities, lived experiences and history.”

“Events like this Pride celebration continue in West High School’s tradition of honoring youth voices in ways that feel meaningful to them,” Philibotte said. “Joyful spaces where LGBTQ+ youth feel loved, celebrated and centered is the work of public education.”

West High School Principal Richard Dichard agreed.

“West High School supports all clubs and organizations and the Diversity Club’s Pride event is no exception,” he said. “We are thankful for the grant money which will not only support this event, but many others that we hold for all students at West High School.”

States Push Back against Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in Universities

Wire Editor
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States Push Back against Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in Universities

(By Casey Harper, The Center Square) A coalition of education experts, governors and lawmakers are pushing back against the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” policies that have become the norm in public colleges and universities around the country. Several states have legislative efforts underway to require intellectual diversity, and professors tell The Center Square they welcome the change.

Texas is the latest state to take on DEI, a broad category that employs teams of administrators to enforce equity and racial policies at the educational institution.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation this week that would stop taxpayer funding for DEI programs at public colleges and universities.

Critics say these DEI programs have become taxpayer-funded “indoctrination” into ideas pushed by one political party.

Scott Turner, who works with the National Association of Scholars, told The Center Square that “the DEI problem is ultimately political in nature, so the responses must themselves be political.”

“This is sticking in the craw of many academics, who see these initiatives as threats to academic freedom, whereas we see them as restoring the necessary conditions for academic freedom,” added Scott, who is a ​​professor emeritus of Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Ohio’s state Senate passed Senate Bill 83 with a 21-to-10 vote earlier this month that would, among other things, ban most mandatory diversity training at state-funded colleges and universities.

These efforts have been met with pushback. Ohio State’s Board of Trustees released a statement publicly opposing the legislation.

“We acknowledge the issues raised by this proposal but believe there are alternative solutions that will not undermine the shared governance model of universities, risk weakened academic rigor, or impose extensive and expensive new reporting mandates,” the statement said. “Trustees will seek to continue to engage with the members of the legislature to address the fundamental flaws in this current version that diminish Ohio State’s ability to fulfill its educational and research missions and negatively impact the state’s economic future.”

Florida Gov. and now-presidential candidate Ron DeSantis signed legislation earlier this month that bans state taxpayer funding for DEI programs at the state’s public colleges and universities. DeSantis also signed legislation that would ban those institutions from using DEI statements in hiring and admissions decisions, forbidding what critics say has become an ideological litmus test for new hires and students.

DeSantis said the bills he signed “reorient our universities back to our traditional mission.”

“And part of that traditional mission is to treat people as individuals, not to try to divvy them up based on any type of superficial characteristics,” he said. “We are going to elevate merit and achievement above identification with some groups, and in order to do that we had to look at this relatively new concept called [DEI].”

DeSantis argued there should be intellectual diversity on campuses but that DEI enforces “orthodoxy” of belief.

“But this is basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda, and that is wrong” he added. “And in fact, if you look at the way this has actually been implemented around the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for ‘Discrimination, Exclusion, and Indoctrination,’ and that has no place in our public institutions.”

About three dozen bills of this kind have been introduced in roughly 20 states around the nation.

“The push to force higher education institutions to admit students, hire faculty and require courses based on race, sex, or other determinants is not a movement in the right direction,” Hillsdale College Economic Professor Gary Wolfram told The Center Square. “Identifying people other than on the basis of, as Martin Luther King said, ‘the content of their character,’ is likely to divide us rather than unite us.”

Wolfram argued there are other ways to encourage diversity in education.

“Scholarship aid based upon financial circumstances as well as educational potential can be a method where a college or university can create a mixture of students that leads to an improvement in our society and so-called ‘diversity’ without encouraging discrimination,” he said.

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