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Thursday, June 8, 2023

House Oversight Committee Brings Resolution to Hold Contempt of Congress Proceedings Against Christopher Wray

Daily Wire: House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) introduced on Wednesday his resolution to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for not producing a document containing bribery allegations against President Joe Biden. Lawmakers will consider penalizing Wray for refusing to comply with a subpoena during a business meeting scheduled to take place Thursday (Daily Wire). Rep. James Comer: Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand accountability. GOP Oversight must follow the facts and ensure the government is held accountable. I just introduced the Resolution to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress (Twitter). Spencer Brown: Comer notes that “Director Wray’s actions impeded and caused meaningful delays to the Committee’s ability to perform its Constitutional oversight duties” (Twitter).

CNN Cleans House

Leadership team is out. National Review: Chris Licht is out as CNN CEO after growing criticism over the network’s Donald Trump town hall as well as the release of an Atlantic profile that did not go over well with staffers. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had defended Licht’s efforts to move the network away from the oppositional stance it adopted toward Republicans in the Trump era, but the outgoing CEO appears to have lost Zaslav’s support after the publication of a biting Atlantic profile by Tim Alberta, in which Licht was quoted disparaging CNN’s Trump era journalism (National Review). Townhall: Licht is gone, but so are two other CNN executives: Matt Dornic and Kris Coratti (Townhall). Dylan Byers: Chris Licht comms chief Kris Coratti cleaned out office last night and has told staff she expects to leave. Veteran CNN P.R. guru Matt Dornic also likely out. Licht’s biz chief Chris Marlin and CoS Devan Cayea likely out this week as well (Twitter).

Illinois Democrat Governor Limits Lawsuits Against the State to Come Only from Two Heavy Democrat Counties

Governor Pritzker doesn’t want to be challenged. My State Line: On Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law that would limit lawsuits challenging the state constitution to be brought only in either Cook or Sangamon Counties. The amendment to House Bill 3062 makes the counties that are home to Springfield and Chicago the only places that the state government will hear arguments that it violated the constitution after two high-profile cases — a challenge to Illinois’ no-cash bail law and its semi-automatic gun ban — were filed in Kankakee County and Macon County. Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) told The Center Square that the law would tilt those cases in favor of the state, since Cook and Sangamon counties are heavily Democrat (My State Line). Attorney Beverly Pekala: Illinois Gov Pritzker signs law requiring lawsuits challenging constitutionality of executive orders or state laws be filed in only 2 counties, Cook or Sangamon. There are 102 counties in Illinois (Twitter).

Canadian Wildfire Smoke Spreads to New York, State Issues Air Quality Advisory as Sky Turns Orange

New York Post: New York City’s air was more polluted than any other major world city Wednesday as thick smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Canada was set to continue to choke much of the Northeast through the weekend. An ominous orange haze crept over the city for a second day as all five boroughs were placed under an Air Quality Health Advisory until Thursday morning due to wind patterns pushing smoke south from over 150 forest fires in Quebec — 110 of which have been deemed out of control. “Unhealthy” air and smoky conditions are expected to linger over the five boroughs until Sunday. The air quality index reached an amazing 353 Wednesday afternoon (New York Post). Things got so bad, the FAA grounded airplanes for a short time. CNN: The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a ground stop for flights bound for New York’s LaGuardia airport due to smoke, but has delayed some flights on the ground. Flights into Philadelphia are also being impacted because of the wildfire smoke, the FAA says. It reported the average delay is about a half-hour. A similar delay to the one at LaGuardia is in place in Newark. As of 2:45 p.m. ET, airlines in the U.S. have canceled 120 flights and delayed another 1,928 (CNN).

NYC Mayor Eric Adams Sues 30 Counties in New York for Not Wanting to Take Any Additional Illegal Immigrants

Just the News: New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday announced that the city is suing 30 counties in the state over their issuance of orders seeking to stop the metropolis from sending excess illegal migrants to their territories. The city has struggled to cope with a massive inflow of asylum seekers as Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott continues his policy of busing illegal migrants to sanctuary cities in a bid to highlight the Biden administration’s lax approach to border enforcement. Adams has faced considerable pushback from upstate communities over his efforts to pass additional asylum seekers on to them, prompting the suit. The city currently shelters more than 47,000 migrants (Just the News).

Southern Poverty Law Center Equates Parental Rights Groups with the KKK and Nazis

Fox News: A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists some parents’ rights organizations as “hate and anti-government groups” akin to neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. With the release of their “Year In Hate and Extremism 2022” report on Tuesday, SPLC appeared to change their infamous “Hate Map” to now be a map of “hate and antigovernment groups.” After counting 733 “hate groups” in 2021, the number increased to 1225 “hate and antigovernment extremist groups” in the 2022 report, many of which were focused on education. According to the new SPLC report, schools “have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks.” After being “spurred by the right-wing backlash to COVID-19 public safety measures,” parental rights groups appeared to have “grown into an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination and LGBTQ identities” (Fox News). New York Post: The SPLC report hones in on Florida-based group Moms for Liberty – a nonprofit with 280 chapters in 45 states and 115,000 members. “They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, ‘We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT,’” the SPLC writes about Moms for Liberty, designating it an “extremist group” (New York Post).

Air Force Pride Month Celebration Tweet Receives Immediate Pushback

Post Millennial: As Pride month is underway, the United States Air Force on Wednesday tweeted an image of a soldier saluting the LGBTQI+ flag (Post Millennial). Air Force Global Strike Command: Our diversity is our competitive advantage (Twitter). John Burk: More proof that the military has put their main focus on corporate agendas to appease the progressive crowd. Their recruitment numbers are plummeting and this is the main reason. So rather than simply focus on war fighting and the like, they continue down this path that is destroying them. Sad state of affairs for the military (Twitter). Libs of TikTok: What an embarrassment (Twitter).

Girl Scouts Pushes Troops to Participate in LGBTQ Pride Events, Hands Out Special Rainbow Patches

It was hard for something to ruin their cookies for me. Daily Caller: The Girl Scouts organization is encouraging its young members to participate in Pride Month by offering a special patch for scouts who complete a series of LGBT-themed activities. Scouts can earn the rainbow-striped LGBTQ+ Pride Month segment of the multicultural community celebration patch by participating in LGBT educational activities and activism. Those activities include participation in pride celebrations and completion of educational assignments about gay and transgender activism (Daily Caller).

Trans Contestant Enters in Miss California Pageant

Townhall: If you haven’t heard, men can do anything women can do. That includes competing against females on their sports teams, giving birth, wearing dresses and sports bras, and now they can be deemed beauty queens. Monroe Lace, a man who identifies as a woman, will compete in the 2023 Miss California pageant— going up against biological women who have spent years training and participating in the pageants to qualify for the big league. In March, the “beauty queen” won the Miss San Francisco pageant, the first transgender man to be crowned in the competition’s 99-year history. The 25-year-old said he feels responsible for being a role model for young children. Lace visits elementary schools as “pageants try to evolve from their sexist, swimsuit-competition past” (Townhall).

10.

New Cato Poll Reveals 29 Percent of Gen Z Would Allow Government Surveillance in Their Homes

The scary thing is their vote counts just as much as everyone else’s. This is truly 1984 stuff. National Review: The Cato Institute’s recent 2023 national survey on central bank digital currency yielded troubling findings about younger Americans’ affinity for government surveillance within their own homes. Nearly a third (29 percent) of those age 18–29 support “‘the government installing surveillance cameras in every household’ in order to ‘reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity,’” the Cato Institute reports. This figure is more than twice as large as that for the general population: 14 percent (National Review). Cato: Other demographics also differ in their tolerance of government surveillance in their homes. African Americans (33 percent) and Hispanic Americans (25 percent) are more likely than White Americans (9 percent) and Asian Americans (11 percent) to support in‐home government surveillance (Cato).