This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The family of a 9-year-old boy accused by a publication of being in "blackface" has filed a defamation complaint against Carron J. Phllips and the publication Deadspin.
The boy, Holden Armenta, had his face painted half black and half red because he was a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, at whose game he was.
He also was wearing a headdress, and reportedly is part Native American.
A report from Twitchy explained, "Did we mention that the boy is only nine years old? We are being facetious of course, but our point in emphasizing it so much is that it is the original sin of this entire controversy. Even if this child was acting racist as heck (and we think he wasn’t acting racist at all), he’s nine years old and he shouldn’t be put on blast this way. If Phillips felt the need to complain about the situation, he shouldn’t have used any image or video of the kid in the first place. A description would have sufficed."
The report said, "Frankly, this author debated whether to mention this kid's name at all or to show his picture, but Deadspin has unfortunately made him famous and this piece is unlikely to contribute to making him more so. Further, this article defends the kid, which is a different moral calculus. We think it is worthwhile that if someone Googled ‘Holden Armenta’ they might find this piece where we defend the kid."
The report said there was a "good chance" the family could win.
"First, the law firm is the same one that sued Fox News on behalf of Dominion. How did that go for Fox News? Second, we think the complaint is sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss and the facts alleged largely make Deadspin and Phillips look terrible.
"For instance, Phillips also claimed that wearing the Native American headdress was racist against Native Americans. But allegedly the kid is Native American, which means that even if you buy into the essentially racist theory of cultural appropriation, the kid is allowed to wear it. And once again, they are doing this to a nine-year-old kid. The jury is likely to be furious at Deadspin and Phillips over this."
The report said Deadspin allegedly "threatened" the family.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Famed evangelist Franklin Graham has delivered a stunning verdict about the Democrats' agenda, pushed by Joe Biden ever since he took office, to keep America's southern border open for illegal aliens.
Graham, on social media, cited a comment from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who stated his party chooses illegal aliens to "care about most."
Charged Graham, who serves as chief of the worldwide ministry Samaritan's Purse, "Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, made a shocking statement to MSNBC when he said that undocumented immigrants are the ones they 'care about most.'"
"Wow. These are people who have broken the law and come into this country illegally—and they are being given millions of dollars in benefits that are being taken away from legal, bonafide citizens of this country. This reveals the evil intent of the Democratic party.
"Bottom line: it’s about buying votes with government money! They want to give them benefits, then they will want to give them IDs, and then the next step will be citizenship—so they can vote. They want to have the votes of the millions of people they have allowed into this country illegally, opening the door to chaos. It’s about the desperate struggle to keep these leftist elitists in power for generations to come.
"Wake up America—there’s an election coming!"
A Fox News report, in fact, confirmed Murphy said his party's push for a path to citizenship in border legislation has failed the people they "care about most" in this country, "undocumented Americans."
"Well, I mean, Chris, that’s been a failed play for 20 years. So you are right that that has been the Democratic strategy for 30 years, maybe, and it has failed to deliver for the people we care about most, the undocumented Americans that are in this country," the senator charged.
Murphy said, "This is also not 2013 any longer when we ran that play last. Back then, there were a couple hundred people showing up every day applying for asylum. Today, on some days, there are 8,000. And the reality is that the bulk of this country does not think that’s right or sustainable and wants us to change the reality at the border."
He said the Democrats' plan featured a right to representation and early work permits for illegals, but the GOP has opposed the special provisions.
Republicans said the bill simply didn't solve Biden's border crisis.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
One abortion promoter has been arrested and a second is being hunted by authorities in Florida who are accusing them of fraudulently submitting "signatures" in support of a ballot initiative that would enshrine late-term abortion in the state.
The case is being brought against the suspects by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
"Pro-abortion interest groups are attempting to lie and cheat their way to the ballot. With more than 60% of voters supporting Florida’s law protecting babies with a heartbeat, it's not surprising abortion advocates used deceptive language in the amendment and engaged in illegal activity. The abortion industry will not succeed in disregarding the laws and deceiving Floridians into supporting an amendment to enshrine second- and third-trimester abortions when babies can feel pain," explained Caitlin Connors, a southern regional director for SBA Pro-Life America.
"The ACLU is leading a national effort to erase protections for babies and moms using the same playbook of deceit and dark money to hide their extreme policy of legalizing painful late-term abortions and attacking the rights of parents. They were caught violating the law in Florida, but in every state, the ACLU is running campaigns, they are misleading voters."
Secretary of State Cord Byrd announced, "Florida’s Constitution is a sacred document and there is a lawful method by which voters can make amendments. However, when criminals seek to circumvent that process fraudulently, this is an affront to Floridians and the sanctity of our laws, and we will do everything within our power to ensure that Floridians and our Constitution are protected."
The initiative already was under fire, as the state Supreme Court is reviewing, charges it violates the state's single-subject rule for initiatives.
Reports confirm abortion extremists in Montana and Arkansas have also been reprimanded by attorneys general Austin Knudsen and Tim Griffin over "deceptive language" that they used in their proposals.
Further, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has issued a warning for unlawful misconduct in deceiving voters to sign petitions on the same issue in that state.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed the Heartbeat Protection Act to save tens of thousands of lives of babies with beating hearts and provide $25 million to support moms during pregnancy and beyond.
Polling shows nearly two-thirds of Florida's people support that.
A report from the Daily Signal explained inspectors arrested a "paid petition circulator" and issued an arrest warrant for another after they submitted 133 invalid petitions in multiple counties.
The report noted, "Those petitions are related to an amendment that would state: 'No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.'"
The report said authorities had arrested George Edward Andrews III, 30, and booked him on 10 felonies – criminal use of personal identification.
Named in the arrest warrant was 47-year-old Jamie L. Johnson.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Multiple commentators have explained just why Joe Biden opened the nation's southern border and has schemed to admit many millions of illegal aliens.
Because the ultimate goal is to convert those "non-voting" illegals to voting Democrats and thus establish America as a permanent one-party nation.
Now a report in the Federalist confirms that's not only possible, but likely, if there's not a change in America's trajectory.
And the consequences would be dire.
"If the Democrat Party of today (and especially of tomorrow) were to gain even temporary control of the federal government that included a supermajority in the Senate, the damage inflicted would be irreparable. If they were to succeed in establishing a new coalition of voters who usher in sweeping victories, the left would no longer fear electoral consequences for their increasingly deranged policies, and their lunacy would know no bounds."
The warning continued, "For these reasons and more, the next president must mobilize the federal government to deport as many illegal aliens as possible, beginning with violent criminals and the most recent arrivals. Our asylum system, which is scammed by millions of foreign nationals, must be scrapped, and we need a southern border wall. Our current trajectory is not sustainable, and while the task will be difficult, it is far better than watching the greatest civilization that’s ever existed go down the drain because we didn’t want to be perceived as 'mean.'"
The report explained the agenda being pursued by Democrats, citing the proposal in the Senate for a "border bill" days ago.
"President Biden and Democrats are now blaming Republicans for failing to pass the bill, but the reality is that for the 'open borders' Democrat Party, everything is going according to plan," the report said.
"The Democrat Party is well on its way to fundamentally changing America’s demographics, all to secure what they believe will eventually become an unbeatable coalition of new voters."
The report noted in 2018, the population of illegals in America was estimated at some 22 million. Now that's about 30 million.
"To put that into perspective, if we created a 51st state comprised entirely of illegal aliens, its population would be larger than every state except California, and it would be 77 percent of the entire population of Canada."
The solution to protecting America isn't complicated: Stop future illegal entries and deport those who are already here illegally.
And, the report pointed out, "As our nation becomes more diverse, tribal politics pay dividends for the left, and as racial animosity ensues, our country becomes a powder keg waiting to blow. This is hardly an environment that could cultivate the kind of integration required to assimilate tens of millions of people while simultaneously trying to assimilate the more than 1 million legal immigrants we take in every year."
The report noted legally, those aliens are not supposed to have voting privileges, but amnesty proposals abound, and their children certainly will vote.
"Democrats know this, of course."
Further, "In 2020, Joe Biden carried Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona by a total of about 45,000 votes, meaning a presidential election could be decided by only 0.15 percent of the illegal alien population voting in the right states."
Already, illegals cost taxpayers billions, and they are "wreaking havoc on our hospitals, schools, housing, public lands, and budgets while facilitating a drug epidemic that kills scores of Americans."
"It is not righteous or morally defensible to destroy our nation because we don’t want to inconvenience people who break our laws by coming here illegally. We must become a nation that enforces its most basic and necessary feature — its borders," the report charged.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., leads a news conference where he and health experts expose the problems of the "pandemic treaty" demanded by the World Health Organization.
Problems include "lack of transparency, the backroom negotiations, WHO overreach and infringement on U.S. sovereignty, unknown financial obligations for U.S. taxpayers, threats to intellectual property rights and free speech, funding for abortion, how the treaty will benefit China at the expense of the U.S.," and more, CBN News explains.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
China has indicated an attitude of cooperation on the issue of artificial intelligence. It has even suggested joining international talks on the challenges the world faces.
And bureaucrats in the Joe Biden administration are happy about that, with confirmation that the White House "is interested in engaging China."
But a prominent China expert, Gordon Chang, is warning America to go slow.
"America does not need another feel-good agreement with China. It already has them, especially the Biological Weapons Convention, which has no enforcement mechanisms. China's solemn obligations in that pact did not prevent the regime from maintaining a string of biological weapons facilities, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and deliberately spreading COVID-19 beyond its borders," he warned in a column at the Gatestone Institute, where he is a distinguished senior fellow.
"Whatever China wants is almost certainly not in the interest of either the United States or the international community. The risk is that, in another unenforceable agreement, the United States will forego employing critical advantages that AI affords in targeting conventional munitions."
He noted China has "signaled" its interest in talks about AI, and Bonnie Glaser of the Merman Marshall Fund for the Breaking Defense Site said that should be welcomed.
The White House would like to engage China, she said.
"Nobody wants to see AI-controlled nuclear weapons, right?" asked Joe Wang, a former State Department, and NSC staffer now at the Arlington, Virginia-based Special Competitive Studies Project, which specializes in AI and emerging technologies, Chang explained. "Like, even the craziest dictator can probably agree."
Chang, however, issued his warning.
"Yes, 'AI is a civilization-altering technology,' as technology analyst Brandon Weichert told Gatestone, and, no, no one should want machines to control the launch of nuclear weapons."
He cited "WarGames," a 1983 movie about a computer simulating all-out Soviet attacks.
"Life imitates art. In the first few hours of September 26, 1983, one Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov happened to be the duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 early-warning center south of Moscow. Successive alarms indicated that America had launched five Minuteman missiles from Montana toward Mother Russia. More than thirty reliability checks in Serpukhov-15 confirmed the attack was indeed taking place. Soviet procedures required a retaliatory launch."
But he didn't, because "a feeling inside told me something was wrong."
Right. "Sensors aboard the Kosmos 1382 satellite misinterpreted sunlight bouncing off the tops of clouds as incoming missiles," Chang explained.
But he said, "An AI-controlled system in this situation would have launched what it thought was a counterstrike on the American homeland but in reality would have been a first strike. As advanced as AI technology is, it is not possible to include 'gut feelings' in algorithms."
He said, "Whether we like it or not, the world is witnessing the 'Rise of the Machines.' The prospect of killer robots is chilling — even for those who have not seen any of the Terminator movies— but such horrible devices, like nuclear weapons, cannot be legislated away. Many may feel that it is unfortunate that humanity has made ghastly creations possible, but agreements with inherently untrustworthy regimes, such as China's, will not remedy the situation."
He explained China wants to "talk" about AI "largely because it is trailing the U.S. and thinks an agreement would help it catch up."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Homeschooling has been on the rise in America since even before its benefits were emphasized by the government's attacks on freedoms during the COVID pandemic.
Now a commentary posted at America Out Loud is blasting bureaucrats for blaming the continuing migration by students from public schools to homeschools on the homeschools themselves.
Podcaster Dean Bowen writes there, "The Washington Post editorial board recently stated, 'Where there's no oversight, there's no guarantee that children will learn skills considered foundational in public education and essential to adult life.'"
Bowen jumps in, "I strongly disagree. Many public schools are making the exact point, only in reverse. Where there is government oversight, there is no guarantee that children will learn skills considered foundational and essential to adult life. Some would say where there is government oversight, there is a guarantee that the children will not learn those skills. Parents who love their children are going to be sure their kids have the skills necessary to live a full life."
He said those in a position to make policy simply blame "other educational options" when it's clear that crowds are fleeing public schools.
He cited the problem that has developed even in mostly traditional states like Kansas and Missouri.
"The raw numbers are a loss of 16,000 students in Missouri and 18,000 in Kansas. Those numbers are huge. If you were to drill down into the individual school districts, you would see an enrollment loss in specific schools anywhere between 20%-65%. Those numbers are unsustainable," he said.
At the same time, "Missouri has seen a homeschool increase of 34%. The Kansas Department of Education has a department which oversees homeschool registration. Bert Moore, who runs that department, says, 'Thousands of the state’s families decided to stick with homeschooling after getting a taste of it during the COVID pandemic.'"
There are other indicators of the situation, too.
A report from Liberty Sentinel explains how a teacher in Maine told students to write their "Declaration of Independence" from something problematic in their lives, like "parents."
Or "government, racism, sexism, homophobia, inequality, 'any form of control/authority,' and more."
"Now is your chance to officially declare yourself independent from something… anything!" read the assignment description. "Think of something that is problematic for you in your life. Free yourself from whatever is causing you stress, making you unhappy, something with which you struggle, or is difficult for you to deal with."
One word that was banned from such declarations? "School"
The report explained, "Educational liberty advocate Shawn McBreairty, host of the Maine Source of Truth podcast, first exposed the scandalous assignment on X, formerly known as Twitter. 'This exercise teaches nothing but further narcissism,' he explained, showing images of the homework. 'Another 'teacher' who is nothing but a taxpayer-paid activist for the far-left democrats. Pull your kids now.'"
At the College Fix was a report that today's new scientists are "less capable" than their predecessors because of "the continued embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM combined with a broad decline in academic standards."
"From easier math classes in high school to the elimination of standardized tests to extreme grade inflation to DEI tropes that elevate lived experiences and ways of knowing over facts and data, the trend represents a pressing problem for science professors working to protect STEM and preserve its standards and meritocracy," the report confirmed.
Reported Alex Small, of California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, "The K-12 system is walking away from standards at all levels."
And at Discourse Magazine, a report noted, "School segregation has risen from the grave—disguised under a different name."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden's administration is pushing forward on a scheme to impose facial recognition scans on travelers coming through 430 "federalized" airports across the United States, despite bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate.
The operations being pursued by the Biden Transportation Security Administration are detailed in a substack report from Leo Hohmann, a widely known investigative reporter and commentator.
His reporting explains the TSA has begun the work with "enhanced Credential Authentication Technology devices" in an upgrade that started with a pilot program at 30 airports.
The scanners are known as CAT-2 units, and will "incorporate facial recognition technology by capturing real-time pictures of travelers and comparing them against their photo IDs," the report said.
Already deployed at 30 airports, they will be installed at the other 400 soon, the report said.
The opposition in the Senate was in legislation from Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., whose plan would ban the TSA from using such scan tech.
Their plan is called the Travelers' Privacy Protection Act.
The report explained facial recognition screens supposedly are "optional" at this point, but confirmed, "but there have been countless firsthand accounts from airport passengers who have indicated that they were not given any option by TSA to reject the face scans."
Hohmann explained, "Michele Bachmann, a former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota who ran for president in 2012, contacted me this past weekend to inform me of a recent experience encountered at a U.S. airport."
She wrote "I walked up to the agent at security in Norfolk; rather than handing her my ID she told me to put it in a card-reader machine. Then she said, ‘look into the camera.’ Before I could respond, the camera had taken my picture. She told me the camera matched my face with my ID! “There was no choice."
The report cited TSA assurances that the images would not be archived, or used, but that doesn't address other federal agencies that may.
Hohmann commented: "This is part of the 'two Americas' system that is taking shape in this country. One set of standards applies to foreign nationals and another to U.S. citizens. Two Americas — often operating within the same jurisdiction within a two-tiered system of justice which they refer to as a 'democracy.' Any U.S. citizen who complains about this system, or even questions it, risks getting placed on a government watchlist of persons considered to be, as described by the globalists who run the government and media, 'a threat to our democracy.'"
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden has had his administration obsessed with abortion and transgenderism, especially for children, during his time in the White House.
And this week his abortion-for-all agenda is being pushed forward on two fronts: continuing attacks on those who advocate for life, and Kamala Harris’ newly launched “abortion tour” of America.
It is the Daily Wire that explained Biden’s assault on pro-life activists.
A report notes a jury in Tennessee convicted several pro-life activists over a "peaceful life-affirming gathering at a Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, abortion facility."
Appeals for individual defendants are planned.
"We are, of course, disappointed with the outcome," stated Steve Crampton, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel and attorney for Paul Vaughn. "This was a peaceful demonstration by entirely peaceable citizens—filled with prayer, hymn-singing, and worship—oriented toward persuading expecting mothers not to abort their babies. Unfortunately, the Biden Department of Justice decided to characterize Paul Vaughn’s peaceful actions as a felony ‘conspiracy against rights,’ to intimidate and punish Paul and other pro-life people and people of faith."
The Department of Justice under Biden’s direction claimed that peaceful protest in 2021 amounted to essentially the same thing as someone trying to convince another person not to vote, or to block the entrance to a polling location.
The defendants in the case are Chet Gallagher, Coleman Boyd, Heather Idoni, Cal Zastrow, Paul Vaughn, and Dennis Green, and they could be jailed for up to 11 years for violating the federal FACE Act, a law that concerns access to medical facilities but is used almost exclusively by Biden in the protection of lucrative abortion industry businesses.
The report noted on that day in 2021, “a group of demonstrators gathered on the second floor of an office building in the hallway outside the Carafem Health Center Clinic. The group prayed, sang hymns, and urged women showing up to the clinic to not get abortions.”
Defense lawyers pointed out that it was intended as a “rescue” based on the religious faith of the activists, and they pointed out, according to the report, “the group would have ‘yelled and not sang church hymns,’ and carried weapons, not Bibles if they had malicious intent.”
Meanwhile, a report from Life News noted that Harris was touring the nation to promote abortion for Joe Biden.
”She claimed pro-life Americans are extremists for passing laws to protect babies from abortions and then lied about what those laws do,” the report said.
Harris, in fact, claimed, ‘State after state, we have seen extremists, so-called leaders, propose and pass laws that would criminalize health care providers, some of them literally legislating prison for life, punishing women, making no exception even for rape and incest.”
The report corrected her, explaining, “But she knows – or should know – that not one single pro-life law puts women in prison for having abortions. They punish the abortionists who would illegally kill babies in violation of the law. In fact none of the pro-life laws either right before Roe or right after Dobbs have punished women.”
Harris’ claims included that the Dobbs’ decision by the Supreme Court, rejecting the idea abortion is protected by the Constitution, took away the rights of women.
But the report noted, “As usual she ignored the basic fact that the baby is not the mother’s body.”
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A court in Virginia has struck down a censorship scheme adopted by the state real estate board that banned references to an agent’s Christian faith in her emails and other communications, her ads, and more.
”The court finds the portion of Va. Code Ann. § 36-96.3(A)(3) presuming unlawful animus due to the mere use of words or symbols associated with a particular religion, national origin, sex, or race to be an unconstitutional abridgment of the rights to speech and expression established by the First Amendment,” the ruling said.
It is the American Center for Law and Justice that announced the result of a battle it waged on behalf of Hadassah Carter.
She had been attacked by the Virginia Real Estate Board “for including Bible verses on her website and phrases like ‘Jesus Loves You’ or John 3:16 in her email signatures,” the ACLJ reported.
The state board originally filed a complaint against her, accusing her of violating Virginia’s fair housing statutes, “absurdly” stating that because “she used religious speech, she could make someone feel discriminated against,” the organization reported.
That despite the fact that “There were no actual complaints against Hadassah for any discrimination. She had a diverse clientele of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Kenyans, and Vietnamese. Not a single allegation of religious discrimination or any discrimination was made against her.”
Officials then dropped their complaint against Carter, but forced her then-employer to agree to a program of spying on her, through a “review” of a random sample of websites and communications that “shall always include agent Hadassah Carter.”
”That is targeted and unconstitutional discrimination against a Christian realtor for exercising her religious free expression,” the ACLJ reported. Its subsequent lawsuit was over Carter’s free speech rights.
Its request of the court was for summary judgment, to rule that the state’s assumption that ‘words or symbols” are proof of intent to discriminate was unconstitutional.
This month, the Richmond Circuit Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia did just that.
The ruling said, “Having considered the historical context for the Commonwealth’s Fair Housing Law, the court now turns to Carter’s overbreadth challenge. The statutory presumption makes unlawful any expression of individual identity that references religion, national origin, sex, or race, without any evaluation of the substantive message conveyed in the expression. The ban on expression is total. Thus, under the VFHL, a reference to the biblical verse: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear,’ Ephesians 6:5, would be presumed to carry an unlawful discriminatory purpose, but so also would reference to a verse such as, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Mark 12:31. All biblical references alike are presumed to convey the same invidious discriminatory animus. Even though the latter reference carries a message entirely consistent with the statute’s purpose of eliminating disparate treatment, it is considered just as unlawful as the former, on the sole basis that it contains ‘words associated with a particular religion.’”
The court found, “The Commonwealth’s response to the numerous instances whereby the presumption of animus could be triggered is that the suspected realtor could overcome the presumption by presenting their own evidence of contrary intent. (Transcript of Hearing at 64-65 (Dec. 21, 2023)). This proposed solution to the statute’s overbreadth misses the point. It is axiomatic that where the state alleges misconduct by its citizens, it is the state that bears the burden of proof. See Sutherland v. Commonwealth, 171 Va. 485, 494 (1938). The presumption in the VFHL relieves the Commonwealth of its burden and automatically penalizes the use of any and all words or symbols, even if they are entirely benign because they carry the stigma of merely being ‘associated’ with a particular religion, national origin, sex, or race.”