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Friday, February 23, 2024

New York Appellate Court Upholds Election Integrity

Townhall: A lawsuit in New York led by the Republican National Committee saw sanity prevail when an appellate court ruled that no, non-U.S. citizens cannot vote in our elections. If the absurd policy had been allowed to stand, some 900,000 non-citizens to cast votes in municipal elections in the Big Apple. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel emphasized that “American elections should be decided by American citizens – full stop” (Townhall). RNC Election Integrity: HUGE ELECTION INTEGRITY WIN! A New York appellate court just ruled in favor of the GOP’s lawsuit to stop 900,000 non-citizens from voting in NYC elections. The RNC has been fighting this battle since 2022. We will always lead the charge to stop non-citizens from voting (X)!

Claire McCaskill on MSNBC: "I move that every newspaper in America quits doing any fact-checks on Joe Biden"

Katie Pavlich: During an appearance on MSNBC Thursday morning, former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill went ballistic over the New York Times fact checking President Joe Biden. In her remarks, McCaskill declared Biden shouldn’t be fact checked at all and laughably implied the media isn’t focused enough on criticizing former President Donald Trump (Townhall). Steve Guest: UNHINGED: Former Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill on MSNBC: “I move that every newspaper in America quits doing any fact-checks on Joe Biden” (X).

Chicago Looks To Remove Police Officers From Public Schools

Washington Examiner: Chicago is advancing an effort to scrap a $10.3 million program that places police officers in Chicago Public Schools and direct their full removal by the 2024-2025 academic year. Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson is backing a measure to remove school resource officers and find a different plan to “create a comprehensive whole school safety policy” without them. The new policy is being requested from Chicago Public Schools by June 27 for the Chicago Board of Education to tally a final vote (Washington Examiner). ABC: The Chicago Board of Education is meeting to consider dropping the school resource officer program by 2025. Right now, 39 high schools have police on campus. Meanwhile not all school communities want to see student resource officers go (ABC).

Americans Overwhelmingly Support Ban on Abortions After 16 Weeks

Townhall: We’ve been tracking polls for years showing that Americans broadly support quite a few abortion limitations and restrictions. They oppose the inhumane and extreme position of national Democrats: Abortion on demand, for any reason, through all nine months of pregnancy, funded by taxpayers. Even President Biden recently seemed to intuit that voters don’t want that, even though it’s his official position. But if voters are given the choice between something that’s sold to them as a moderate pro-choice policy and something that they see as an overly-prohibitive anti-abortion policy, they’ll choose the former, pretty decisively (Townhall). Interactive Polls: YouGov Poll: Do you Support or Oppose a national ban on abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy? Support 48%. Oppose 36% (X).

San Francisco Police Suspends Investigation Into Protestors Who Held Riley Gaines for Ransom After Her Speech

Outkick: Almost one year after Riley Gaines was attacked and held hostage after a speaking engagement at San Francisco State University, it appears no one will be held accountable. Gaines was harassed and threatened while giving a speech on the SFSU campus on April 6, 2023. Gaines says she was also struck by a man wearing a dress. Campus police barricaded her in a room for safety, where she was held for several hours while the protesters screamed outside. The angry mob tried to demand money for her release. In the months following the SFSU police gave her the runaround. Gaines reached out to SFSU police at the end of January for an update on the case. And in an email sent on Feb. 2, Detective Corporal Thalya Fernandez informed Gaines that there wouldn’t be charges filed. “After a thorough investigation, the alleged charges are unfounded and have been suspended pending further lead,” Fernandez wrote in the email (Outkick). Riley Gaines: Remember when I was assaulted & held for ransom through the night by a mob of violent protesters at SFSU? The police have finally informed me the case has been suspended as all charges are “alleged” & “unfounded” I guess audio, video, & eyewitness evidence aren’t admissible in SF (X).

CBS Fires Investigative Journalist, Seizes Personal Files, Materials

New York Post: The acclaimed CBS reporter who was investigating the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before she was fired last week had her personal files seized by the network in an “unprecedented” move. Catherine Herridge — who is the middle of a First Amendment case being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among 20 CBS News staffers let go. Her firing had stunned co-workers, but the network’s decision to hold on to her personal materials, along with her work laptop where she may have other confidential info, has left many staffers shaken (New York Post). Hill: Herridge had been a celebrated investigative reporter at Fox News. An old-school investigative journalist, she is viewed as a hard-driving, middle-of-the-road reporter cut from the same cloth as the network’s legendary figures. The timing of Herridge’s termination immediately raised suspicions in Washington. She was pursuing stories that were unwelcomed by the Biden White House and many Democratic powerhouses, including the Hur report on Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity, the Biden corruption scandal and the Hunter Biden laptop. She continued to pursue these stories despite reports of pushback from CBS executives, including CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (Hill).

Venezuela Halts All Flights of Deported Illegal Immigrants From U.S., Mexico

Wall Street Journal: Venezuela has followed through on a threat to stop accepting flights of migrants deported from the U.S. and Mexico, people familiar with the measures say, adding pressure on President Biden as a surge in illegal migration becomes a key issue in this year’s presidential election. President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime introduced the measure after Washington reimposed some of the economic sanctions it had previously lifted on Venezuela. The U.S. said that Caracas has failed to live up to the loose pledges it made to restore the democratic order and move toward holding fair presidential elections. Venezuela has also asserted a claim to a resource-rich region of neighboring Guyana, drawing further warnings from the US (Wall Street Journal). Post Millennial: According to data from the US government, the United States deported approximately 1,800 Venezuelans on 15 flights since October, which is a negligible amount of the nearly half million Venezuelans who have been detained illegally entering the US over the past two years, the outlet reports (Post Millennial).

Yale University Reinstitutes SAT/ACT Requirement for Admissions

Just the News: Yale University said Thursday it will reinstitute its standardized test requirement for first-year applicants for fall 2025 admission and later, saying that their test-optional policy instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic can put students from “low-income, first-generation and rural backgrounds” at a disadvantage. Yale is now instituting what it calls a “Text-Flexible Policy” that will allow applicants to choose between four different tests to submit scores from: the SAT, the ACT, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams, the latter two of which are subject-based (Just the News). Yale: The experience, originally necessitated by the pandemic, has been an invaluable opportunity to think deeply about testing policy and to generate new data and analyses. With testing availability now fully restored for prospective applicants around the world, we have reevaluated our policy with the benefit of fresh insights (Yale).

Billboard in NYC Highlights Biden’s Border Catastrophe

Townhall: A billboard in Times Square went up on Thursday highlighting how the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border is affecting communities across America. The billboard reads, “Hey Joe! If cops aren’t safe because of your open borders, nobody is,” and shows video of NYPD officers getting assaulted by a group of illegal immigrants last month. Viewers are then directed to SecureOurBordersNow.com where people can learn more and sign a petition (Townhall). Job Creators Network: New Times Square Billboard! Biden has allowed the border to descend into chaos, and it’s affecting the entire country, including small businesses that face elevated costs due to crime. Sign the petition to secure the border (X).

10.

Google to Fix AI Imaging After Generating Historical Images Without White People

Fox Business: Google will pause the image generation feature of its artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, after the model refused to create images of White people. The Alphabet-owned company apologized Wednesday after users on social media flagged that Gemini’s image generator was creating inaccurate historical images that sometimes replaced White people with images of Black, Native American and Asian people. “We’re aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,” Google had said on Wednesday (Fox Business). NBC: Gemini’s racially diverse image output comes amid long-standing concerns around racial bias within AI models, especially a lack of representation for minorities and people of color. Such biases can directly harm people who rely on AI algorithms, such as in health care settings, where AI tools can affect health care outcomes for hundreds of millions of patients (NBC). Paul Graham: The ridiculous images generated by Gemini aren’t an anomaly. They’re a self-portrait of Google’s bureaucratic corporate culture (X).