U.S. Gov’t Propaganda Machine to be Probed by ‘Church’ Committee: Rep. Dan Bishop

Ken Silva
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U.S. Gov’t Propaganda Machine to be Probed by ‘Church’ Committee: Rep. Dan Bishop

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Examining how U.S. security agencies propagandize the American public will be one of the top priorities of the newly created select subcommittee to investigate the weaponization of the federal government, according to committee member Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C.

Bishop was one of the 20 Freedom Caucus members to extract concessions from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., before making him House Speaker—one of the key concessions being a “Church-style” committee to investigate U.S. security agencies. Republicans are aiming to model the committee after the 1970s-era commission headed by former Senator Frank Church, which discovered shocking secrets such as CIA assassination plots, mind-control experimentation and FBI operations to infiltrate political and civil-rights organizations.

In an interview published Monday by the conservative organization American Moment, Bishop expressed optimism that the new House committee will uncover equally shocking revelations.

Bishop said he’s not looking to investigate partisan or “inside baseball” issues such as classified document storage—but instead more consequential matters such as how the U.S. government shapes the public’s view of reality.

Bishop said the recent disclosures made in the Twitter Files—a trove of internal emails and other records showing the inner workings of the company—demonstrates “how widely our entire social fabric is being manipulated, and our thoughts massaged and managed.” Bishop was referencing how Twitter would censor content at the behest of the FBI.

The congressman said Twitter is only a “peon” compared to tech giants such as Facebook and Google. Bishop said a full investigation is necessary to determine “how the people of the United States are having their choices and their destiny manipulated by a government that’s supposed to serve them.”

Bishop also said he aims to investigate the FBI’s undercover operations, which have come under scrutiny in recent years due to cases such as the Whitmer kidnap conspiracy. In that case, a group of militia members were accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in October 2020, but it has since been revealed that the FBI had at least 12 undercover informants, some who allegedly encouraged the plot.

Bishop acknowledged that he has an uphill battle when it comes to investigating the FBI. The DOJ already denied him information about the Whitmer case last year on the grounds that its investigation is still ongoing—even though charges have already been made in the case.

Bishop said he expects to have at least the amount of resources to pursue these issues as the Democratic-controlled Jan. 6 Committee.

“The deal we made is it would have all the funding and staffing as the Jan. 6 Committee,” he said, noting that the Church commission was funded with about $4.5 million—when adjusted for inflation—and had about 135 staff members.

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

Utah Gov. Signs Law Restricting Sex-Change Procedures for Minors

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Utah Gov. Signs Law Restricting Sex-Change Procedures for Minors

(Headline USA) Utah became the latest state to restrict or ban so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors this week, restricting both puberty blockers and hormones and prohibiting sex-reassignment surgeries.

“More and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement on Saturday.

The legislation, known as “Transgender Medical Treatment and Procedures,” makes it illegal for health care providers to provide “a hormonal transgender treatment to new patients who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria before a certain date.” It also “prohibits performing sex characteristic surgical procedures on a minor.”

The new law will take effect on July 1. And starting Jan. 1, 2024, doctors who provide hormonal treatment to minors can be charged for “unprofessional conduct.”

“While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures,” Cox said.

The leftist American Civil Liberties Union vowed in a statement to challenge the law in court.

“The bill is riddled with numerous constitutional issues. It violates the equal protection rights of transgender adolescents and the due process rights of their parents. This bill clearly discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status,” ACLU of Utah executive director Brittney Nystrom said in a statement. “The bill also infringes upon the substantive due process rights of parents to direct the care, custody, and control of their minor children, which includes the right to follow medical guidelines for treatment.”

Four other states have recently passed legislation to restrict sex-change treatments for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, and Tennessee. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott also signed an executive order restricting the procedures, instructing the state’s health agencies to classify sex-change treatments as “child abuse.”

Rhode Island School Fundraises to Pay Off Cartel Debt for ‘Coyote’ Services

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Rhode Island School Fundraises to Pay Off Cartel Debt for ‘Coyote’ Services

(Headline USA) A Rhode Island assistant principal encouraged faculty members to donate money to help a student pay off a cartel that trafficked him into the U.S., according to emails.

In an email shared to Twitter, Mount Pleasant High School Assistant Principal Stefani Harvey asked her colleagues to help an unnamed student pay off a $5,000 debt to a “coyote.” She claimed the boy was $2,000 short of the necessary payment.

“We have a student who came to America with ‘Coyote’ which is a group that helps people,” Harvey wrote in the email. “This group gives you a time frame to make a payment of $5000 dollars to those, who bring them to the states.”

Harvey said the student needed to raise the money by Feb. 1.

“Coyote” is slang for smugglers who traffic immigrants across the southern border for cash.

Shortly after the email went viral, Mount Pleasant High School Principal Tiffany Delaney shut down the fundraiser, calling it “not appropriate.”

“I was informed there was an email seeking financial support for one of our students,” Delaney wrote. “I appreciate the faculty and staff contributing to a cause that supports a student, but the nature of the request is not appropriate.”

The school at first tried to deny that the emails were real.

“That is a fake email. We are on top of that. We are trying to figure out who generated that and why. We do not have a student that is being human trafficked,” a school official told the Daily Caller.

However, Providence Public School District spokesman Nick Domings confirmed the emails were authentic and said a probe into the issue has been launched.

“I can confirm that the email in question was sent to staff at Mount Pleasant High School,” Domings said in a statement. “The school’s principal immediately took steps to have a retraction issued when she learned of the email. The Providence Public School District is now investigating.”

Democrats Push Chemical Abortions on College Campuses

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Democrats Push Chemical Abortions on College Campuses

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Leftist lawmakers from blue states are passing laws to require public universities to provide chemical abortions on their campuses.

On Jan. 1, a new California law took effect, requiring all public university health systems in the University of California and California State University systems to have abortion pills available for students, according to the Daily Caller. Massachusetts passed a similar law and New York is considering doing the same thing.

The California law that was signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 requires all 33 schools in the UC and CSU systems to stock “abortion by medication techniques at on-campus student health centers.”

“California has 150 abortion clinics, taxpayer-funded abortion and no shortage of abortion access. Mandating that state universities dispense abortion drugs is nothing more than lethal virtue-signaling by California politicians who prioritize delivering a dead baby over a live one,” Mary Rose Short, California Right to Life director, said.

Politico reported that UC Santa Barbara has written 50 prescriptions for students to receive abortion pills since they were stocked on campus in Apr. 2022.

“I believe abortion is health care, and it’s important to show students that it’s normal and something they should expect and demand,” Kellie DeLozier, an OBGYN at the UCSB health center, said.

Angie Magaña, a nurse practitioner at UCSB, said that after staff participated in a workshop to address any concerns, no one refused to prescribe the pill.

“We told them: This is just part of the range of services that we provide now and you can leave your personal beliefs at home,” Magaña said.

“We said: Really what you’re doing is giving students the safer option. And when we talk about it like that, most people say okay.”

Stancavage, spokesperson for Students for Life of America, said that educating students about the abortion pill should be one of the group’s top priorities. Stancavage praised Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, for introducing a bill to defund universities that promote murdering unborn babies in “SFLAction-inspired legislation called the Protecting Life on College Campus Act.”

“We’re closely monitoring news out of California as we want to see life protected in law and women provided with the full facts of Chemical Abortion which is four times more dangerous than a surgical abortion and can lead to injury, infertility, death, and misuse from sexual abusers,” Stancavage said.

Ilhan Omar Defends Her Anti-Semitism, Calls GOP Islamophobic

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Ilhan Omar Defends Her Anti-Semitism, Calls GOP Islamophobic

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., apologized for her anti-Semitic remarks, allegedly, and immediately launched into an attack that criticized Republicans for being Islamophobic.

On CNN’s State of the Union, Omar made the comments in response to her possibly being removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over her previous and numerous anti-Semitic statements, according to the Post Millennial. To remove Omar from the committee, a full House vote would be needed.

“I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in antisemitism,” she said. “When that was brought to my attention, I apologized. I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am.”

In 2012, Omar claimed that “Israel has hypnotized the world,” and added, “may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

In 2019, she responded to Glenn Greenwald’s tweet that said that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was targeting her and another “Squad” member — Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. — for their anti-Semitic criticism of Israel, writing that “it’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”

“I’m told that Republicans presented a list in their meeting, in a private meeting, this past week. Included in that list is that you said that Israel hypnotized the world,” CNN host Dana Bash said.

“You said Israel is an apartheid regime, that politicians with pro-Israel stance – stances were all about the Benjamins, which you very notably apologized for, that you support the BDS movement, which a lot of people think is rooted in antisemitism, compared the US and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban.”

Omar replied by saying that she didn’t know that “there are tropes about Jews and money,” but adding that people who think she is an anti-Semite are wrong.

She said that the Republicans who want to hold her accountable for her previous remarks are “politically motivated” and accused the Republican party of Islamophobia.

“It is politically motivated, and in some cases motivated by the fact that many of these members don’t believe a Muslim, refugee, an African, should even be in Congress, let alone have the opportunity to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee,” she said.

“I mean, I’m not making any accusations. I’m just laying out the facts. You remember Donald Trump coming into my state and saying Muslims, Somali refugees are infiltrating our country.”

“You remember Marjorie Taylor Greene coming to Congress after Rashida [Tlaib] and I got sworn in and saying Muslims are infiltrating Congress. You remember [Lauren] Boebert saying that I was a terrorist. What did McCarthy do? He said, ‘she apologized, and we don’t have to worry about her Islamophobia,’” she added.

Lightfoot Dances in Crime-Ravaged Chicago Streets Ahead of Election

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Lightfoot Dances in Crime-Ravaged Chicago Streets Ahead of Election

(Headline USA) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was blasted this week for posting a video of herself dancing in the streets of Chicago during a Lunar New Year parade while crime ravages the city.

In the video, Lightfoot can be seen dancing along to a drum line.

“It’s time to vote!” she wrote. “Thanks to the Kaotic Drumline for kicking off the party this morning. One month until Election Day, Chicago! Let’s do this thing.”

Lightfoot’s critics were quick to point out the record-high crime rates in Chicago. Just this past month, the city recorded more than 6,000 crimes — a 59% increase compared to the same time frame last year, according to the Chicago Police Department. Motor vehicle thefts are up by 166%; robberies are up by 25%; and sexual assaults are up by 25%, the data show.

“Since @chicagosmayor’s term began, Chicago has suffered 2,278 homicides and over 9,000 shot. Since January 1, the city has endured 41 homicides and 194 shot,” Chicago Contrarian tweeted. “Yet here Lightfoot is blissfully dancing and asking voters to return her to office.”

The rising crime rates are part of the reason Lightfoot faces a contentious Democrat primary. Nine challengers are seeking to oust her from office.

Lightfoot attempted to defend her handling of the city during a candidate’s debate earlier this month.

“We have started to change Chicago around for the better,” Lightfoot said. “I want to finish the job that we have started.”

In the same debate, Lightfoot suggested street vendors should rely on other forms of payment besides cash to avoid being robbed.

“To combat crime in Chicago, Mayor @LoriLightfoot says ‘not use money, if at all possible, (use) other forms of transactions to carry…’ What’s next? Laws demanding ‘cash control’?” conservative talk radio host Larry Elder tweeted in response.

DOJ Seeks to Suppress Questions about FBI Informant Participation in J6

Ken Silva
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(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Prosecutors in the ongoing Proud Boys sedition conspiracy trial have filed a motion to restrict defendants from asking questions about FBI informants who marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

This was revealed Sunday by defendant Ethan Nordean, one of the leaders of the Proud Boys. According to Nordean, prosecutors made a sealed filing the day before, asking the judge on Saturday to require defense attorneys to “pre-clear” any questions they intend to ask witnesses about FBI informants.

Prosecutors seek to restrict questions about FBI informants to protect “sources and methods,” and because “the identities of most of the informants whose information has been disclosed to defense counsel in this case are unknown to almost all of the agents the government expects to call as witnesses in this trial,” according to Nordean.

Nordean called the government’s reasons “unprecedented nonsense.”

“Plainly, there are relevant questions defense counsel may pose to FBI agents to provide context for the jury about this evidence, such as what an [informant] is in the first place, why an [informant] would have been communicating with a handler agent on January 6, what a handler agent is, and the like,” Nordean said in his opposition to the prosecution’s request.

“Even if those agents are still somehow unaware of the legal names of [informants]—despite the fact that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has had knowledge of them for perhaps a year or longer—the agents are still competent to field relevant related questions, such as those concerning the authenticity and meaning of FBI records establishing that certain [informants] were indeed present with the Proud Boys group on the march and in Proud Boys Telegram channels,” he added.

Nordean faces a seditious conspiracy charge, as do fellow Proud Boys Zachary Rehl, Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs.

Even anti-Trump outlets have raised questions about the role FBI informants played in the Proud Boys and Jan. 6. The New York Times reported last November that there were “as many as eight informants” in the Proud Boys around Jan. 6, which the newspaper acknowledged raised questions about federal foreknowledge of the attack.

The Proud Boys sedition trial started earlier this month, was paused last week, and resumed Monday with the cross-examination of former Proud Boy Matt Greene, who struck a plea deal in exchange for testifying against the defendants. The presiding judge hadn’t addressed Nordean’s motion before this article’s publication.

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

Treasury Dept. Plans to Ramp Up Borrowing Despite Debt-Ceiling Crisis

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Treasury Dept. Plans to Ramp Up Borrowing Despite Debt-Ceiling Crisis

(Headline USA) The Treasury Department said Monday it plans to increase its borrowing during the first three months of 2023, even as the federal government is bumping up against a $31.4 trillion limit on its legal borrowing authority.

The U.S. plans to borrow $932 billion during the January-to-March quarter. That’s $353 billion more than projected last October, due to a lower beginning-of-quarter cash balance and projections of lower-than-expected income tax receipts and higher spending.

The increased borrowing will take place as Democrats and the White House push for Congress to increase the federal debt limit. President Joe Biden wants the cap raised without any preconditions. The new House Republican majority is seeking to secure spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase.

Treasury officials say the debate over the debt ceiling poses a risk to the U.S. financial position.

“Even just the threat that the U.S. government might fail to meet its obligations may cause severe harm to the economy by eroding household and business confidence, injecting volatility into financial markets, and raising the cost of capital—among other negative impacts,” Ben Harris, Treasury’s assistant secretary for economic policy, said in a statement.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in a letter to congressional leaders earlier this month, said the department had begun resorting to ” extraordinary measures ” to avoid a federal government default. She said it’s “critical that Congress act in a timely manner” to raise or suspend the debt limit.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s borrowing authority or suspend the limit for a period of time. She said it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.

New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet with Biden at the White House this week to discuss the debt limit.

McCarthy told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday: “I want to sit down together, work out an agreement that we can move forward to put us on a path to balance—and at the same time not put any of our debt in jeopardy at the same time.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Ex-Twitter Execs to Testify Before House Oversight on Hunter’s Laptop Cover-Up

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Ex-Twitter Execs to Testify Before House Oversight on Hunter’s Laptop Cover-Up

(Headline USA) Former Twitter employees are expected to testify next week before the House Oversight Committee about the social media platform’s handling of reporting on President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

The scheduled testimony, confirmed by the committee Monday, will be the first time the three former executives will appear before Congress to discuss the company’s decision to initially block from Twitter a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks before the 2020 election.

Republicans’ longstanding concerns that the story was suppressed for political reasons appeared to be validated by the recent release of the Twitter files, which showed far-left social-media officials colluding with members of the intelligence community to bury that and other headlines they deemed objectionable.

The witnesses for the Feb. 8 hearing are expected to be Vijaya Gadde, former chief legal officer; James Baker, former deputy general counsel; and Yoel Roth, former head of safety and integrity.

The hearing is among the first of many in a GOP-controlled House to be focused on Biden family corruption as Republicans use their narrow House majority to hold accountable a Democrat-dominated administration that has acted with impunity over ethical and legal concerns.

The New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had received from former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a hard drive of a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved.

Twitter initially blocked people from sharing links to the story for several days and later used shadow-banning and bogus “contextualization” to suppress its spread.

Months later, Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey called the company’s communications around the Post article “not great.” He added that blocking the article’s URL with “zero context” around why it was blocked was “unacceptable.”

As part of the partisan cover-up effort, more than 50 former members of the intelligence community falsely claimed that the laptop might be Russian disinformation. At least one has since acknowledged that he knowingly lied about it, even though there was no intelligence to support the claim.

“This is why we’re investigating the Biden family for influence peddling,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the Oversight committee, said at a press event Monday morning. “We want to make sure that our national security is not compromised.”

GOP staff has spent the past year analyzing messages and financial transactions found on the laptop that belonged to the president’s younger son. Comer has previously said the evidence they have compiled is “overwhelming.”

Much of that which already has leaked from the now-verified laptops has pointed to a range of crimes, from drug use and prostitution to money-laundering and espionage.

The concerns about the laptop have been further amplified by reports that Hunter Biden may have had access to classified information that was stored in the garage of the family home in Wilmington, Del.

Comer has pledged there won’t be hearings regarding the Biden family until the committee has the evidence to back up any claims of alleged wrongdoing. He also acknowledged that the stakes are high whenever an investigation centers on the leader of a political party.

On Monday, the Kentucky Republican, speaking at a National Press Club event, said that he could not guarantee a subpoena of Hunter Biden during his term. “We’re going to go where the investigation leads us. Maybe there’s nothing there.”

He added, “We’ll see.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

W.Va. Advances Bill to Display ‘In God We Trust’ on Public School Buildings

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W.Va. Advances Bill to Display ‘In God We Trust’ on Public School Buildings

(Headline USA) Public schools in West Virginia may soon be required to display the phrase “In God We Trust” in every building if a bill passed by the state Senate on Monday becomes law.

The bill was introduced by Republican Sen. Mike Azinger, who said he wants to give kids in schools something to look up to and let them know it’s OK to “say God” in school.

“We know there’s a lot of kids that have problems at home, tough times at home that we don’t know anything about,” Azinger said, speaking on the Senate floor. “Maybe they’ll look up one day and say, ‘In God We Trust’ and know they can put their hope in God.”

The bill is now heading to the West Virginia House of Delegates. It requires public K-12 schools and public institutions of higher learning to display the official U.S. national motto on durable posters or in frames placed in a “conspicuous place” in each building.

The displays must also contain images of the U.S. national and state flags but can’t depict any other words, images or information. They must be either be donated or purchased from private donations.

Similar laws have been passed in Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and several other states. Mississippi was the first state to pass a law mandating “In God We Trust” be displayed in public schools back in 2001.

Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making “In God We Trust” the official U.S. national motto July 30, 1956, two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance.

“It was adopted during a time of disunity in America, at a time that unity was needed,” Azinger said Monday. “And I think that’s where we are in America in many ways.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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