Fla. Education Board Pushes to Expand Parental Rights through 12th Grade

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Fla. Education Board Pushes to Expand Parental Rights through 12th Grade

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) The Florida Board of Education plans to modify the Parental Rights in Education bill that prevents woke teachers from discussing sexual orientation and “gender identity” for children in kindergarten through third grade by implementing a rule that would expand it to grade 12.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 1557 into law on March 28, 2022. Immediately, leftists falsely labeled it “Don’t Say Gay,” even though it does not ban a word or phrase or even contain the word “gay.” The bill also requires schools to notify parents of healthcare services offered at the school and provide parental review of questionnaires or health screenings given to children in K-3, according to Breitbart. Parental permission is required for the school to administer such questionnaires or screenings.

While the Florida legislature plans to expand the law to apply to children through eighth grade, the Florida Board of Education is considering a rule that would prohibit classroom discussions on sexual orientation or “gender identity” to children in all grades.

“Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida,” would provide “ethical guidelines for Florida Educators to practice and be held accountable for, if there is a violation of the principles.”

“The amendment prohibits classroom instruction to students in pre-kindergarten through grade 3 on sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to the rule’s summary.

“For grades 4 through 12, instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student’s parent has the option to have his or her student not attend.”

The board is supposed to vote on the rule in April.

As expected, the Biden administration lashed out at any attempt to allow parents to know what their children are being taught, grooming students with a radical LGBT agenda, calling it a dangerous attack on LGBT community.

“Make no mistake, this is a part of a disturbing and dangerous trend that we’re seeing across the country of legislations that are anti-LGBTQI+, anti-trans, anti-the community in a way that we have not seen it in some time,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said, using the fake news label “Don’t Say Gay” once again.

Colorado Climate Alarmists Want to Ban Gas Stations

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Colorado Climate Alarmists Want to Ban Gas Stations

(Headline USA) A Colorado city is considering a resolution that would ban new gas stations in an effort to combat climate change, according to reports.

The Louisville, Colorado, city council has expressed support for an ordinance that would cap the number of gas stations and vehicle service stations in the town and prevent any more from being permitted unless they are part of a large retail center.

“We have an obligation to take every step possible to address the changes to our climate that are ravaging our planet and directly impacting the health, well-being and livelihoods of the constituents we represent in Louisville,” council member Maxine Most said in a statement.

The ordinance defines vehicle service stations as businesses “engaged in the sale of motor fuels and in supplying goods and services generally required in the operation and maintenance of automotive vehicles and the fulfilling of motorists’ needs.”

If the city does decide to grant permits for new gas stations, they must have at least two charging stations for electric vehicles, according to the ordinance.

The proposal claims that plenty of other suburban areas are considering cracking down on gas stations “due to health and environmental concerns with the continued use of gasoline powered vehicles and equipment,” citing California towns such as Petaluma and Santa Rosa in Sonoma County.

“Gasoline station bans may also be seen as promoting the use of Electric Vehicles (EVs), thus, reducing vehicle emissions and encouraging low-carbon and cleaner energy options for transportation,” the ordinance states.

But the proposal doesn’t stop with gas stations. It adds that Louisville ought to generate 75% of the city’s residential, commercial and industrial energy with carbon-free sources by 2030.

“The proposal for a cap but not a full ban on new gasoline and automobile service stations is in recognition that there will continue to be some demand for gasoline and automobile service stations as more EVs enter the market and gasoline vehicles are transitioned out of the market over time,” the document says.

Illegal Aliens Broke Out of Border Patrol Bus, Remain At-Large

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Illegal Aliens Broke Out of Border Patrol Bus, Remain At-Large

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) A group of illegal migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua broke out of a Border Patrol bus on Wednesday and now are somewhere in El Paso, Texas.

The Daily Caller reported that the group of illegal immigrants that were bound for expulsion under Title 42 with other 18 illegals escaped from the bus at the Stanton bridge commuter crossing by kicking open a hatch in the bus. Two Border Patrol agents who requested anonymity confirmed the illegal migrants’ escape.

“As the bus was moving, the migrants opened the top emergency exit hatch and jumped out onto nearby public streets in downtown El Paso, Texas. Immediately thereafter, the Border Patrol Agent driving the bus, pulled over on a nearby street to prevent more migrants from jumping out,” a Border Patrol spokesperson for the sector said.

“This group of migrants were not seeking asylum and were previously encountered in Santa Teresa, N.M. and El Paso, as they attempted to evade arrest. U.S. Border Patrol in the El Paso Sector entered an alert for their arrest after escaping from federal custody.”

According to the Daily Caller, having only one agent accompanying the group was a violation of policy.

“The never-ending disregard to enforce immigration law by the current administration is causing frustration throughout CBP [Customs and Border Protection]. Overcrowded detention facilities and limited transportation is a daily occurrence,” an anonymous Border Patrol agent working in the El Paso sector said.

“Migrants that are still arriving at the southern border from the original surge invitation by the president are becoming impatient with extended processing times and turning frustrations against CBP personnel. Damaging facilities, creating unrest and escaping while in custody are just a glimpse of what this president has allowed into our communities.

Manhattan DA Rejects GOP Demand for Info on Trump Case

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Manhattan DA Rejects GOP Demand for Info on Trump Case

(Headline USA) The Manhattan district attorney investigating Donald Trump rebuffed House Republicans’ request Thursday for documents and testimony about the case, dismissing it as an “unprecedented inquiry” with no legitimate basis.

In a letter obtained by the Associated Press, the general counsel for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg slammed the congressional request as “an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty.”

“The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,” Leslie Dubeck wrote in the letter. “Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

The Republican chairmen of three House committees on Monday sent a letter to Bragg seeking information about his actions in the Trump case. The Republicans criticized the grand jury investigation as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”

The chairmen requested testimony as well as documents and copies of any communications with the Justice Department to be turned over by Thursday. The request came as Republicans in the House quickly rallied around the former president as a grand jury in New York weighs whether to bring an indictment against him.

“If a grand jury brings charges against Donald Trump, the DA’s Office will have an obligation, as in every case, to provide a significant amount of discovery from its files to the defendant so that he may prepare a defense,” Dubeck wrote.

The five-page response from Bragg’s office provides a rare insight into what has remained a secret grand jury process, marking one of the first public acknowledgments that there is a sitting grand jury currently investigating Trump.

The DA’s office has adhered closely to centuries-old rules that have kept grand juries under wraps to protect the reputations of people who end up not being charged and to encourage reluctant witnesses to testify.

In proceedings closed to the public and members of the media, grand jurors listen to evidence presented by prosecutors and hear from witnesses. There is no judge present nor anyone representing the accused, and prosecutors do not have to offer any evidence favorable to the defense.

The disclosure comes as the grand jury appears close to finishing its work, after hearing last week from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, but the timing of a possible decision on whether to charge the ex-president remains uncertain.

However, questions arose after the grand jury canceled all its sessions for the remainder of the week following what some reported as damning testimony on Monday or Tuesday that assailed Cohen’s credibility.

New evidence presented to the jury may, in fact, have included an exculpatory letter that Cohen wrote in 2018 accepting full responsibility for the hush-money payoffs to Trump extortionists Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had affairs with the business mogul and ex-‘Apprentice’ host 10 years prior to his successful run for president.

Further complicating matters is the level of protest anticipated if Trump, the leading GOP contender for 2024, is publicly arraigned, giving the appearance of partisan impropriety.

Law enforcement officers in New York—many of whom already resent Bragg for his failure to enforce crime in the city—have been making preparations for any unrest, should Trump face charges.

On Thursday, one of the GOP chairmen, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, expanded his probe into the handling of the Trump case by demanding testimony and documents from Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, two former Manhattan prosecutors who had been leading the Trump case before quitting last year in a clash over the direction of the probe.

“Last year, you resigned from the office over Bragg’s initial reluctance to move forward with charges, shaming Bragg in your resignation letter—which was subsequently leaked—into bringing charges,” Jordan, an Ohio Republican, wrote in the letter to Pomerantz late Wednesday. “It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called ‘zombie’ case against President Trump using a tenuous and untested legal theory.”

Requests for comment from Pomerantz and Dunne were not returned.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

TikTok CEO Bombs Congressional Appearance, Making Ban More Likely, Experts Say

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TikTok CEO Bombs Congressional Appearance, Making Ban More Likely, Experts Say

(Headline USA) U.S. lawmakers grilled the CEO of TikTok over data security and harmful content Thursday, responding skeptically during a tense committee hearing to his assurances that the China-based video-sharing app prioritizes user safety and should not be banned.

Shou Zi Chew’s rare public appearance came at a crucial time for the company, which has 150 million American users but is under increasing pressure from U.S. officials to to concerns of espionage on behalf of China’s communist government.

TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, have been swept up in a wider geopolitical battle between Beijing and Washington over trade and technology, as well as China’s increasingly aggressive and hostile efforts to undermine America’s global leadership role—and possibly to erode its democratic institutions by supporting Marxist insurgencies within the U.S.

In a bipartisan effort to rein in the power of a major social media platform, Republican and Democratic lawmakers pressed Chew on a host of topics, ranging from TikTok’s content moderation practices, how the company plans to secure American data from Beijing, and its spying on journalists.

“Mr. Chew, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, said in her opening statement.

Chew, a 40-year-old Singapore native, told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that TikTok prioritizes the safety of its young users and denied it’s a national security risk. He reiterated the company’s plan to protect U.S. user data by storing it on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.

TikTok has been dogged by claims that its Chinese ownership means user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government or that it could be used to promote narratives favorable to the country’s communist leaders.

Notably, the platform in China pushes educational content, while the American version is a pipeline promoting some of the worst qualities of America’s cultural rot, even giving rise to the watchdog site Libs of TikTok, which exposes child-groomers and sexual deviants using the site to reach and influence a young audience.

In 2019, the Guardian reported that TikTok was instructing its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square and images unfavorable to the Chinese government. The platform says it has since changed its moderation practices.

ByteDance admitted in December that it fired four employees last summer who accessed data on two journalists and people connected to them while attempting to uncover the source of a leaked report about the company.

For its part, TikTok has been trying to distance itself from its Chinese origins, saying 60% percent of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group.

“Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns,” Chew said.

China has also said it would oppose any U.S. attempts to force ByteDance to sell the app.

In one of the most dramatic moments, Republican Rep. Kat Cammack played a TikTok video that showed a shooting gun with a caption that included the House committee holding the hearing, with the exact date before it was formally announced.

“You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security, privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you can’t even protect the people in this room,” Cammack said.

TikTok spokesperson Ben Rathe said the company on Thursday removed the violent video aimed at the committee and banned the account that posted it.

Chew also noted the failure of U.S. social media companies to address the very concerns for which TikTok was being criticized.

“American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security,” he said. “Look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, just one example.”

As the Energy and Commerce committee questioned Chew, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was questioned about the threat TikTok poses at a separate committee hearing Thursday. Asked by Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican of Colorado, if the platform is a security threat to the United States, Blinken said: “I believe it is.”

“Shouldn’t a threat to United States security be banned?” Buck responded.

“It should be ended one way or another. But there are different ways of doing that,” Blinken responded.

Committee members also showed a host of TikTok videos that encouraged users to harm themselves and commit suicide.

Many questioned why the platform’s Chinese counterpart, Douyin, does not carry the same controversial and potentially dangerous content as the American product.

Chew responded that it depends on the laws of the country where the app is operating. He said the company has about 40,000 moderators that track harmful content and an algorithm that flags material.

Wealth management firm Wedbush described the hearing as a “disaster” for TikTok that made a ban more likely if the social media platform doesn’t separate from its Chinese parent.

Emile El Nems, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said a ban would benefit TikTok rivals YouTube, Instagram and Snap, “likely resulting in higher revenue share of the total advertising wallet.”

To avoid a ban, TikTok has been trying to sell officials on a $1.5 billion plan, Project Texas, which routes all U.S. user data to Oracle. Under the project, access to U.S. data is managed by U.S. employees through a separate entity called TikTok U.S. Data Security, which is run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.

As of October, all new U.S. user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historic U.S. user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw noted that regardless of what the company does to assure lawmakers it will protect U.S. user data, the Chinese government can still have significant influence over its parent company and ask it to turn over data through its national security laws.

Congress, the White House, U.S. armed forces and more than half of U.S. states have already banned the use of the app from official devices.

But wiping away all the data tracking associated with the platform might prove difficult. In a report released this month, the cybersecurity company Feroot said so-called tracking pixels from ByteDance, which collect user information, were found on 30 U.S state websites, including some where the app has been banned.

Other countries including Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, along with the European Union, have already banned TikTok from government-issued devices.

A complete TikTok ban in the U.S. would risk political and popular backlash.

The company sent dozens of popular TikTokers to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers to preserve the platform. And a dozen civil rights and free speech organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and PEN America, have signed a letter opposing a wholesale TikTok ban, arguing it would set a “dangerous precedent for the restriction of speech.”

At least one lawmaker, “Squad” member Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., appeared to have taken the bait, staging a press conference earlier in the week to insist that there was no evidence that TikTok posed a threat and labeling criticism of the platform as “innuendo.”

David Kennedy, a former government intelligence officer who runs the cybersecurity company TrustedSec, said he agrees with restricting TikTok access on government-issued phones but that a nationwide ban might be too extreme.

“We have Tesla in China, we have Microsoft in China, we have Apple in China. Are they going to start banning us now?” Kennedy said. “It could escalate very quickly.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

DeSantis Clarifies Comment on Ukraine ‘Territorial Dispute’ as Critics Pile On

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DeSantis Clarifies Comment on Ukraine ‘Territorial Dispute’ as Critics Pile On

(Headline USA) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared to walk back—or at least to clarify—his characterization of Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” following criticism from a number of fellow Republicans who expressed concern about the potential 2024 presidential candidate’s dismissive description of the conflict.

In excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan that aired Thursday on Fox Nation, DeSantis said his earlier comments referenced ongoing fighting in the eastern Donbas region, as well as Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. Ukraine’s borders are internationally recognized, including by the United Nations.

“What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now, which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately, but they had,” DeSantis said in the interview.

“There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there,” he continued. “So, that’s some difficult fighting, and that’s what I was referring to, and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”

DeSantis made his initial comments last week in a written response to questions sent to declared and potential GOP presidential candidates by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The Florida governor, seen as a top rival to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, said that defending Ukraine—which thus far has cost the U.S. an estimated $112 billion at least, as the country struggles through its own economic crisis— wasn’t a national security priority for the U.S., and he downplayed the Russian invasion.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis wrote.

The day responses were posted, Trump told reporters traveling with him that DeSantis’s answers were just “following what I am saying.”

A day later, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley—already in the 2024 GOP field—said she agreed with Trump that “DeSantis is copying him.” In an op-ed Monday, she wrote that the characterization of the war as a “territorial dispute” represented “weakness.”

A number of Republican senators have also weighed in with criticism. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said DeSantis “doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor,” adding that “foreign policy is all about nuance.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign, told Fox News that DeSantis “is basically taking the Chinese position when it comes to Russia’s invasion.”

Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, John Cornyn of Texas and Roger Wicker of Mississippi said they disagreed with DeSantis’s framing.

In the interview with Morgan, DeSantis sought to toughen his position toward Russia, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and arguing that his detractors had incorrectly characterized his “territorial dispute” remarks.

“I think it’s been mischaracterized,” he told Morgan, according to excerpts. “Obviously, Russia invaded—that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014—that was wrong,” of the military incursion to which the Obama administration failed to respond meaningfully.

Some, however, have pointed to U.S. and NATO provocations both in the 2014 invasion—which followed a CIA-backed color revolution in Ukraine—and the current crisis, which Russia has said concerns, in part, bioweapons facilities supported and operated by American-linked contractors and non-governmental organizations.

Democrats have also seized on DeSantis’s apparent shifting stance, blasting out emails rounding up the GOP criticism and saying DeSantis’s “stumbling over this answer makes clear he is out of his depth.”

Asked by The Atlantic about DeSantis’s initial comments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that failure to act on Russia’s aggression in his country could ultimately draw the U.S. into a conflict if incursions are also made into NATO member countries.

“When they will occupy NATO countries, and also be on the borders of Poland and maybe fight with Poland, the question is: Will you send all your soldiers with weapons, all your pilots, all your ships? Will you send tanks and armored vehicles with your young people? Will you do it?” Zelenskyy said. “Because if you will not do it, you will have no NATO.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Fetterman Handlers Duck Questions on Return Date, as Some Wonder If He’s Alive

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Fetterman Handlers Duck Questions on Return Date, as Some Wonder If He’s Alive

(Headline USA) The handlers responsible for cognitively impaired Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., once again avoided questions about his return to the U.S. Senate as even the mainstream media begins to wonder if they are being forthright.

Meanwhile, some conservatives have begun to question whether Fetterman is alive at all.

Questions about Fetterman’s status exploded in late February as rumors spread via social media that he might be clinically braindead and that his staff was attempting to forestall an announcement until after an August deadline had passed, allowing the state’s far-left governor to avoid calling a special election.

Despite the gravity of the concerns, the Fetterman camp—which actively lied about his health conditions throughout the 2022 campaign—remained characteristically evasive, even blocking journalists who inquired about it on platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

But with outlets like the Associated Press now seeking answers, they were finally obliged to field questions while remaining noncommittal about anything that would require actual proof of life

Fetterman’s office claimed Thursday that he is expected to return soon to the chamber, although Democratic leaders are giving no timeline five weeks after he ostensibly sought inpatient treatment for clinical depression.

Fetterman, 53, was weeks into his service in Washington and still recovering from the aftereffects of the stroke he had last May during his campaign when he checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Feb. 15.

Aides said at the time that Fetterman had not been his usual self for weeks. He was withdrawn, showing a disinterest in talking, eating and the usual banter.

Asked about when Fetterman might return, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said only that Fetterman is recuperating.

“We want to give him the space to recuperate,” Schumer said at a Wednesday news conference. “He needs it, it’s fair, it’s right. There are other people in the Senate who have taken their time to recuperate, but I’m confident he’s going to come back and be an outstanding and fine senator.”

There is no evidence that any senator has ever taken an extensive leave of absence due to a supposed mental disorder.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said in an interview that he has purposely not called Fetterman to talk—“the last thing he needs is a lot of phone calls,” Casey said—and does not know when Fetterman will return.

Casey said his sense from Fetterman’s staff is that Fetterman has made “good progress.”

“I’m just happy he’s getting the time that he needs and most people understand that these things don’t occur over two or three weeks, it takes a little longer,” Casey said.

A spokesperson claimed Fetterman is getting better and that the recovery is going well.

“He’ll be back soon, at least over a week, but soon,” spokesperson Joe Calvello said Thursday.

Calvello claimed Fetterman is receiving daily in-person briefings by chief of staff Adam Jentleson.

The senator is reading the news and getting briefings, he said, while issuing statements through his office and even sponsoring legislation. Aides are opening new regional offices in Pennsylvania.

After Fetterman checked in to Walter Reed, his office admitted he had experienced depression “off and on throughout his life,” but it had only become severe in recent weeks.

The Capitol physician, Brian P. Monahan, recommended Fetterman’s hospitalization after conducting an evaluation, his office said then.

In the meantime, Fetterman’s aides and his wife, Gisele, have released photos of the senator smiling, being briefed or visiting with her and their three school-age children.

Fetterman had the stroke last May as he was campaigning in a three-way Democratic primary race. The stroke nearly killed him, he has said, and he had surgery to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator to manage two heart conditions, atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathy.

Leftist media steadfastly circled the wagons for him during his campaign, decrying any questions about his condition first as disinformation and later as ableist bigotry when it became clear in an October debate that he was cognitively impaired.

At that point, many of the state’s mail-in ballots already had been returned, enabling him to beat GOP nominee Mehmet Oz in November in the campaign cycle’s most expensive race. Fetterman’s victory boosted Democrats to a 51-49 majority.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Anti-Gun Extremists ‘Overwhelm’ Capitol Police, Interrupt Hearing into ATF Abuses

Ken Silva
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Anti-Gun Extremists ‘Overwhelm’ Capitol Police, Interrupt Hearing into ATF Abuses

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A House Judiciary Committee hearing into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s recent transgressions against the Second Amendment had to be temporarily halted Thursday after anti-gun protestors “overwhelmed” U.S. Capitol Police and disrupted the proceedings.

Thursday’s hearing came on the heels of several controversial regulatory actions by the ATF, including its new rule requiring owners of guns with stabilizing braces to destroy, reconfigure, register or turn in their firearms to ATF within 120 days.

About two hours into the hearing, a group of protestors started shouting as legislators attempted to speak.

“Is this an insurrection?” quipped Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, who was leading the hearing.

Fallon’s comment didn’t sit well with Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who retorted that the disruptive protestors didn’t storm the Capitol to overthrow the government—implying that the leftist mob seeking to curtail a constitutional right was more entitled to a redress of its grievances than were Jan. 6 rallygoers outraged over the dubious outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

But as Fallon tried to resume the hearing, the protestors continued to be disruptive.

“Is the Capitol Police not doing their jobs? What in the hell is going on?” a frustrated Fallon said before recessing the hearing.

The footage of the hearing doesn’t show the protestors, but U.S. Capitol Police were apparently overwhelmed by them.

When the hearing resumed about 10 minutes later, Fallon recounted what happened.

“Unfortunately, we had some folks disruptive during the hearing,” he said.

“We asked Capitol Police to remove them, and they were removed,” he continued. “One decided to come back in … Capitol Police were overwhelmed outside in the hallway.”

Fallon further admonished Cicilline for encouraging the anti-gunners.

“We should have a spirted debate in this committee, which we have had,” he said. “But to be that disruptive and to be that narcissistic … that shouldn’t be applauded, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be applauded by members of this committee.”

This led to Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Mass., to attempt to draw false equivalence between what happened in the Capitol to the parent who disrupted a Loudoun County, Virginia, school board meeting because the school was covering up the sexual assault of his daughter.

Fallon told Ivey it wasn’t his turn to speak, and continued the hearing, which included testimony from Alex Bosco, the inventor of the stabilizing brace that the ATF is trying to regulate out of existence.

Basco explained that, among other things, his brace helps injured combat veteran shoot safely and effectively.

“I thought it unconscionable that [injured vets] should be denied the opportunity to safely use a firearm due to wounds received in service of the United States,” he told the committee. “This experience led to the invention of the pistol stabilizing brace.”

Bosco also disagreed with the notion that stabilizing braces could make mass shooters deadlier.

“It also is not a force multiplier in any way, shape, or form,” he said. “It simply allows a shooter to fire a weapon more accurately by giving the shooter an additional point of contact at the forearm.”

The ATF’s new pistol-brace rule is subject to multiple lawsuits, and Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would block it as an “abuse of rule-making authority.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has gone even farther by introducing a bill that would abolish the ATF altogether.

“The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on their repeated actions to convert law-abiding citizens into felons,” Gaetz said in January. “They must be stopped.”

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

Texas Univ. Cancels Student Drag Show, Slams ‘Derisive, Divisive, and Demoralizing Misogyny’

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Texas Univ. Cancels Student Drag Show, Slams ‘Derisive, Divisive, and Demoralizing Misogyny’

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) The president of West Texas A&M University canceled a student drag show on campus, explaining in an email to students that the nature of the show was degrading.

University President Walter Wendler also posted the message on his blog with an entry titled “A Harmless Drag Show? No Such Thing.”

The drag show was originally scheduled for March 31 to raise funds for The Trevor Project, a LGBTQ advocacy group that reportedly gives crisis support to teens struggling with suicidal thoughts, the Daily Wire reported.

Though Wendler accepted that the cause was noble, he maintained that drag shows violate human dignity in every possible way.

“Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not. As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood,” Wendler wrote. “Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong.”

Drag shows are “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” Wendler claimed, elevating the LGBT community while mocking other groups. He continued, noting that such shows counter the purpose of an environment that aims to treat all people equally, and he could not let that go on as the University president.

“I would not support ‘blackface’ performances on our campus, even if told the performance is a form of free speech or intended as humor. It is wrong. I do not support any show, performance or artistic expression which denigrates others—in this case, women—for any reason,” Wendler maintained.

Instead of organizing and attending drag shows to support any purported cause, Wendler suggested simply donating to an organization.

“Mocking or objectifying in any way members of any group based on appearance, bias or predisposition is unacceptable,” he wrote. “No amount of fancy rhetorical footwork or legal wordsmithing eludes the fact that drag shows denigrate and demean women—noble goals notwithstanding.”

More Schools Observing Muslim Holidays

Ezekiel Loseke
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More Schools Observing Muslim Holidays

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) More American schools are altering their culture, school buildings and student expectations to meet the demands of the growing numbers of Muslim students in American schools.

Muslims are on track to become the second-largest religion in America, according to a 2018 study by Pew Research Center.

“By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians,” the study said. “By 2050, the U.S. Muslim population is projected to reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nation’s total population—nearly twice the share of today.”

According to a pamphlet published by the leftist Center for American Islamic Relations, titled “An Educator’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practices,” this explosion of growth most impacts the American public-education system.

“This presence is perhaps most evident in the public school system, where Muslim students … make up an increasing percentage of the school population,” it said. “Recent studies show that most Muslim children are enrolled in public schools.”

This cultural collision is most evident around the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, where religious practices might conflict with the typical learning schedule and with students’ ability to maintain focus on instruction.

Ramadan includes a month long dedication to fasting during the hours of the day and specific prayer times throughout the day.

According to Axios, Muslim demands for Ramadan usually include a full day off from school—which cannot be scheduled in advance on the school’s pre-approved calendar, as CAIR explained in its pamphlet.

“Because the occurrence of Eid depends on the sighting of the new moon, the exact date can only be determined with certainty the night before,” it said.

More than requesting an unpredictable day off, Muslim students also require all tests to be administered earlier in the day, excusing students from afternoon work and excusing them from physical education during the month.

Axios noted that the Muslim demands regarding Ramadan can extend as far as having a designated room for Muslim students to pray in.

Though “Worship may be performed in any quiet, clean room …  others should not walk in front of or interrupt the worshipper during the prayer,” said CAIR. “When the Muslim prays, he or she is fully engaged,” and will not respond to others speaking to them.

Muslims will also refuse to perform the Pledge of Allegiance, according to CAIR.

Disruptive and taxing though these demands may be, more and more American public schools are now fully capitulating to them:

  • In January, the Watchung Borough School District in New Jersey chose to close schools on the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
  • The Fairfield Board of Education in Connecticut also caved on the day off.
  • The Miami-Dade County School Board in Florida made the day a teacher planning day.
  • The Palm Beach County School Board granted the days off in 2024 and 2025.

Currently, a total of 15 school districts have acquiesced to the Muslim demands, according to Religion News Service.

The schools are following the Department of Education. In 2020 it issued guidance on religious freedom, which specifically instructed schools on how to deal with students during Ramadan.

“It would be lawful for schools to excuse Muslim students from class to enable them to fulfill their religious obligations to pray during Ramadan,” said the DOE.

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