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DEI’s defenders are massive First Amendment hypocrites

The Trump administration’s efforts to rein in diversity, equity, and inclusion policies plaguing public schools suffered a setback last month when judges in three states ruled in favor of advocacy groups defending the status quo. In one complaint, the American Federation of Teachers claimed the Trump administration policy change “will chill speech and expression.”

As a recently retired teacher who was a member of the union for decades, color me skeptical of the union’s commitment to the First Amendment. When I spoke against a union-approved DEI program and came under fire from school officials for my opinion, the union hung me out to dry.

Nineteen states, including my home state of Connecticut, followed the teachers’ union’s lead by suing the Department of Education over its plan to condition federal school funding on an end to DEI. The state coalition similarly claims that Trump’s policy change “threaten[s] to chill … speech[.]” But in my case, Connecticut school officials made it clear they can and will silence any speech they don’t like.

Such rank hypocrisy may not affect outcomes in court, but it should alert voters and teachers that when it comes to DEI, those cloaking themselves in the mantle of free speech view it as a one-way street.

This past fall, I ended a 35-year career teaching and training students in Hartford Public Schools. In that time, I successfully worked with kids from nearly every ethnic background.

But then I was told minority students couldn’t learn from me because I didn’t share their skin color, and that as a male I could not effectively teach female students. My privilege and implicit biases, according to DEI indoctrination, made me inadequate for the job — and possibly even a threat to the success of the children I thought I was helping.

What had changed? Not me. In 2017, new school administrators brought with them a race-focused agenda and sought to implement it through classroom teachers. They enlisted the Hartford Federation of Teachers, a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, to support their new direction.

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Germany arrests leaders of ‘kingdom’ linked to far-right plot, prosecutors say

Police arrested four people on Tuesday linked to a radical group seeking to replace the modern German state, prosecutors said, in the latest operation against a movement flagged as a potential threat to democracy.

The arrests took place as part of raids against the Koenigreich Deutschland, or ‘Kingdom of Germany’, after the interior ministry banned the group, which prosecutors said had established shadow institutions for a new state in line with a far-right ideology known as the ‘Reichsbuerger’ movement.

One of the four people arrested was the movement’s self-declared sovereign, the prosecutors said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service put the Reichsbuerger movement under observation in 2016, shortly after one of its members shot dead a policeman during a raid at his home.

Scrutiny of the movement, which is broad and covers a number of conspiratorial theories questioning the legitimacy of the modern German state, intensified in December 2022 when authorities thwarted advanced plans for an armed coup.

Its adherents believe that today’s German democracy is an illegitimate facade and that they are citizens of a monarchy which, they maintain, endured after Germany’s defeat in World War One, despite its formal abolition.

Police acted on four arrest warrants on Tuesday for suspects identified as Mathias B., Peter F., Benjamin M. and Martin S., omitting their surnames in line with German privacy laws.

Prosecutors said they are the ringleaders of a criminal organisation that had set up “pseudo-state-like structures and institutions”, including a bank and insurance system, an authority printing “fictional documents” and its own currency.

Peter F. was the group’s “supreme sovereign”, with oversight and decision-making powers over the group’s key areas, a statement from the prosecutors said.

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DNI Tulsi Gabbard says Biden-era domestic terrorism policy ‘must end,’ calls it an abuse of power

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the Biden-era mentality of treating conservatives and citizens with dissenting views like domestic terrorists was an “abuse of power,” signaling that a 2021 memo that empowered the FBI to probe Americans for “concerning non-criminal behavior” is no longer operative.

Gabbard told Just the News in a statement Monday that she has ended the domestic terrorism approach of the Biden administration that was used to justify the targeting of conservative Catholics, gun enthusiasts and parents who protested school board policies.

In fact, officials said, domestic terrorism was recently removed as a top threat from the intelligence community’s national threat assessment as a first step in that transition.

Gabbard’s statement came after Just the News reported last week that a June 2021 domestic terrorism policy memo empowered federal agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security Department to open probes on Americans solely if an agent believed they had been involved in “concerning non-criminal behavior.”

You can read that memo here.

DIG-Declassified-Strategic-Implementation-Plan-for-CT-April2025.pdf

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Russia rejects ‘biased’ UN ruling on 2014 downing of Malaysian airliner

The Kremlin on May 13 rejected as biased a ruling by the UN aviation council that Russia was responsible for the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2017 that killed all 298 passengers and crew.

“Our position is well known. You know that Russia was not a country that took part in the investigation of this incident, so we do not accept any biased conclusions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, and was shot down over eastern Ukraine as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

The victims included 196 Dutch citizens and 38 Australian citizens or residents.

In November 2022, Dutch judges convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man in absentia of murder for their role in the attack. Moscow called the ruling “scandalous” and said it would not extradite its citizens.

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A Closer Look at ARIA: Britain’s Secretive £800 Million Sun-Dimming Quango

The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), established in 2023 with an £800 million purse of taxpayer funds, received a burst of publicity last week when it was unveiled that the agency was planning to “dim the sun” to fight global warming. The agency approved £56.8 million to be spent on “climate cooling” projects which include looking into the logistics of building a ‘sunshade’ in space and injecting plumes of salt water into the sky to reflect sunlight away from Earth.

ARIA is the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, a prominent British political strategist who served as the chief adviser to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2020. Cummings pitched a lean, “audacious” agency to fund high-stakes research in AI, quantum computing and synthetic biology, sidestepping the “timid bureaucracy” of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). In a research paper published in 2018 on his website, ‘On the ARPA/PARC “Dream Machine”, science funding, high performance and UK national strategy’, Cummings proposed a high-powered publicly-funded British research agency to emulate the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC).

The latter two entities inculcated high-risk, high-reward research with minimal bureaucracy and exemplified high-performance team performance, flexible work processes and visionary leadership. They yielded many innovations such as GPS, the internet, laser printing, the graphical user interface and the computer mouse, which resulted in large societal and economic returns.

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German Researcher Calls out Science Magazine for Refusing to Consider Study Pointing to a Wuhan Lab Accident

In one of their many fact-addled news articles, Science Magazine falsely claimed last week that “no compelling evidence supports the allegation that the virus leaked from WIV.” But University Hospital of Wurzburg researcher Valentin Bruttel states that Science constructs this tendentious claim by refusing to even consider publishing studies that point to a possible lab accident.

Bruttel leveled these charges during a wide-ranging interview with the Berliner Zeitung last month. Several German media outlets, including Spektrum and the Frankfurter Allgemeine, reported last year that a British statisician found “blatantly nonsensical” errors in a Science Magazine study that argued against a lab accident.

Bruttel said his paper was accepted by another journal after Science would not even consider looking at it. However, the editor in charge of his paper was dismissed for protesting Israel’s genocide against Gaza. The editor’s replacement then rejected the paper, falsely claiming the journal couldn’t find a reviewer, even though a positive review for the paper had already been submitted to the journal.

“I have made a decisive contribution to clarifying the cause of this pandemic and invested a lot of time in preventing another one,” Bruttel told the Berliner Zeitung. “But I am also a committed democrat. If the majority of Germans are content with the fact that the deaths of millions of innocent people are not addressed, and thus no effective countermeasures are introduced, I have to accept that.”

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Congress advances $3.5 billion cut for CA for covering illegal immigrant health care

A new Congressional budget proposal would cut federal payments to California by $3.5 billion for allowing illegal immigrants to enroll in the state’s taxpayer-funded health care program.

California largely does not get federal reimbursements for illegal immigrant health care, though it is reimbursed for emergency care under a federal law requiring hospitals receiving federal funding to treat anyone in need of emergency medical attention.

The budget proposal would cut the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage to states that “use their Medicaid infrastructure to provide health care coverage for illegal immigrants under Medicaid or another state-based program.” The cuts would not impact emergency care reimbursements.

California has spent $9.5 billion this year on illegal immigrant health care and is reportedly set to face a $10 billion budget deficit the coming fiscal year.

According to an analysis Monday morning from California Policy Center Visiting Fellow Marc Joffe, cutting the federal reimbursement share from 90% to 80% would reduce California’s federal funding by $3.5 billion.

While the federal government does not reimburse the state for non-emergency care for illegal immigrants, other federal health care reimbursements enhance the state’s available resources for fully state-funded health care programs, such as coverage for illegal immigrants.

Joffee also noted the $3.5 billion cut equates to roughly the cost of coverage of five million beneficiaries at $7,000 per year.

In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom requested a $6.4 billion emergency bailout for Medi-Cal. He said that while benefits for illegal immigrants had a “partial” impact, ending benefits for such individuals was not on his “docket” and that he believes in “universal healthcare.”

With an estimated 1.9 million illegal immigrants and $9.5 billion spent by Medi-Cal on their health care, the state is spending approximately $5,000 per illegal immigrant on health care this year.

Working illegal immigrants in California earn a median wage of $13 per hour — well below the state’s $18 per hour minimum wage — and thus pay up to $1,846 per year in state taxes, assuming all income is property reported and taxed, and all non-rent, post-tax funds are spent at businesses collecting sales tax.

That’s well short of the average of $5,000 spent on each illegal immigrant’s health care — not including other state programs — leaving the program highly reliant on other state revenue, including indirectly via federal funding, for support.

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House GOP Floats Proposal To Ensure Non-Citizens Do Not Receive Tax-Funded Food Stamps

House Republicans are proposing to bar most non-citizens from receiving taxpayer-funded benefits, including food stamps, in President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.”

GOP lawmakers are pursuing an extensive overhaul of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help offset the cost of the president’s tax priorities. The House Agriculture Committee will include a provision in their draft bill to restrict SNAP benefits to those who are citizens or lawful permanent residents following Republican Illinois Rep. Mary Miller’s request to the panel to prohibit certain non-citizens from receiving food stamps. 

“Taxpayer-funded benefits like SNAP are intended for Americans in need, not foreigners who break the law to enter this country,” Miller told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “That’s why I fought to include my proposal in the Agriculture Committee’s reconciliation plan, saving taxpayers up to $8 billion over the next decade and reversing Biden’s unlawful handouts given to millions of illegal aliens. I appreciate my colleagues on the committee for working with me to include this critical reform in President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

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Texas House Approves Bill To Expand Medical Marijuana Access With New Conditions, Products And Dispensary Locations

The Texas House of Representatives has given initial approval to a bill that would significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana program.

After clearing committee last week, the bipartisan legislation from Reps. Ken King (R) and Penny Morales Shaw (D) passed the full House on second reading in a 118-16 vote on Monday. It will need a final third reading vote before potentially moving to the Senate.

The measure would expand the types of products patients could buy and also add multiple qualifying conditions for people to become registered patients.

“Back in 2015, Texas passed the Compassionate Use Act that allowed patients with epilepsy to access low-THC cannabis. Since then, the program has been expanded to include additional medical conditions, but Texans still struggle to get access to the medicine they’re legally allowed to receive,” King said on the floor. “There are not enough dispensing organizations licensed in the state, and current law limits how and where the products can be stored and distributed.”

Specifically, the measure would allow patients to access cannabis patches, lotions, suppositories, approved inhalers, nebulizers and and vaping devices. The currently limited list of qualifying conditions would be extended to include chronic pain, glaucoma, traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal neuropathy, Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel disease, degenerative disc disease and any terminal illness for patients receiving hospice or palliative care.

Military veterans would be able to become registered cannabis patients for any medical condition, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) would also be authorized for further expand the list.

HB 46 would additionally mandate that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) issue 11 dispensary licenses within the 11 designated public health regions across the state. It would further allow dispensaries to open satellite locations if approved.

An amendment that was adopted on the floor would grandfather existing medical cannabis satellite locations, amend the patient application process, ensure that cannabis potency dosages are determined by their physicians, create a timeline for when new licenses must be issued, remove a 1.2 gram limit for possession by patients and instead allow doctors to prescribe an amount they see fit.

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Fire Breaks Out in British PM Starmer’s London House – Arson Suspected, Counterterrorism Police Investigating

On the very same day that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to cut migration to the Kingdom, his North London home reportedly caught fire – or was set on fire.

The fire broke out in the early hours of the morning, and British police is now investigating the case.

GB News reported:

“The London Fire Brigade attended the property in north London after they received reports of a blaze at around 1.30am on Monday. The door to the four-bedroom property was damaged but nobody was injured.”

Met Police: “The fire is being investigated and cordons remain in place while enquiries continue.”

London Fire Brigade: “The [fire] brigade was called at 1.11am and the fire was under control by 1.33am. Two fire engines from Kentish Town fire station attended the scene.”

Downing Street spokesman: “The Prime Minister thanks the emergency services for their work.”

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