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Friday, August 5, 2022

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Griner Moscow Trial: WNBA Star Sentenced to 9 Years for Drug Smuggling

Prisoner swap a no go. National Review: American basketball star Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony by a Moscow court Thursday after she was convicted of drug smuggling, concluding a multi-month trial that served as another stage for the geopolitical tug-of-war between Russia and the United States. Her punishment is a slight reduction from the nine-and-a-half year sentence prosecutors said they were seeking earlier Thursday. Griner’s sentence doesn’t necessarily preclude a prisoner swap, which the Biden administration had been negotiating with the Kremlin in order to secure her and another detainee’s release. The State Department claims Griner was “wrongfully detained” (National Review). NBC News: BREAKING: NBC News Special Report: WNBA star Brittney Griner sentenced to 9 years in jail on drug charges in Russia (Twitter). Katie Pavlich: Just last week the Biden administration started publicly negotiating her release and revealed an offer had been made in June to exchange Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan. With Griner’s conviction, that offer appears to have been rejected (Townhall). President Biden: Today, American citizen Brittney Griner received a prison sentence that is one more reminder of what the world already knew: Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney. It’s unacceptable, and I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates. My administration will continue to work tirelessly and pursue every possible avenue to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home safely as soon as possible (White House).

China Undergoes Missile Testing Off Taiwan Coast

Associated Press: China conducted “precision missile strikes” Thursday in waters off Taiwan’s coasts as part of military exercises that have raised tensions in the region to their highest level in decades following a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. China earlier announced that military exercises by its navy, air force and other departments were underway in six zones surrounding Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. Five of the missiles fired by China landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan’s main islands, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said. He said Japan protested the missile landings to China as “serious threats to Japan’s national security and the safety of the Japanese people.” Japan’s Defense Ministry also speculated that four missiles flew over Taipei, the capital city, crossing the mainland, according to a statement its embassy in D.C. posted on Twitter. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry did not deny the claim, saying that the flight path was “outside the atmosphere and is not harmful to the vast area on the ground it flies over” (Associated Press). Fox News: The People’s Republic of China has long claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait, the relatively narrow strip of ocean between the island of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. The Chinese military has frequently sent planes into the area, testing Taiwan’s air defense zone. The U.S. does not have official relations with Taiwan – also known as the Republic of China – and maintains a “One China” policy that recognizes the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate successor nation (Fox News).

Study: Home Ownership Out of Reach in 35 of 50 Country’s Largest Cities

Daily Mail: A family making the median national income can no longer afford the typical house in 35 of the country’s 50 biggest cities, according to a new study. Based on home price data from the first quarter of the year, the salary needed to afford the median US home stood at almost $76,000 – roughly $8,500 more than the typical household actually makes, according to an analysis from Visual Capitalism. Still, median home payments outpaced median local salaries in many of the cities on the list — a symptom of the broader unaffordability issue that has seen prices outpace wages for some time. Consumer prices have soared 9.1 percent over the past year, the biggest yearly increase since 1981. Housing costs, which make up a third of the consumer price index, were up 5.6 percent in June from a year ago — though that data is only collected twice a year, and likely lags behind real costs. The new home affordability study assumes a down payment of 20 percent, and assumes that no more than 28 percent of a family’s income would go toward monthly home payments (Daily Mail). Visual Capitalist: With the income gap widening in the U.S., the rental market remains a more attractive option for many, especially as prices are finally tapering off. The national median rent price was down nearly 3% from June to July for two-bedroom apartments (Visual Capitalist).

Governor DeSantis Suspends Woke DA Unwilling to Enforce State Law

Fox News: Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended liberal State Attorney Andrew Warren on Thursday. DeSantis made the announcement during a press conference broadcast on social media. DeSantis argued that Warren has repeatedly refused to enforce laws passed by the legislature cracking down on child sex change surgeries and abortion restrictions. “We are suspending Soros-backed 13th circuit state attorney Andrew Warren for neglecting his duties as he pledges not to uphold the laws of the state,” DeSantis’ office said in a statement. “The constitution of Florida has vested the veto power in the governor, not in state attorneys,” DeSantis said. “We are not going to allow this pathogen of ignoring the law get a foothold in the state of Florida” (Fox News). National Review: This is not the first time that DeSantis has used this power: He suspended Broward County sheriff Scott Israel after Parkland, Palm Beach supervisor of elections Susan Bucher for the failure of Broward and Palm Beach counties to meet ballot-counting deadlines in 2018, and the superintendent of Okaloosa County Schools over a grand-jury report of abuse of special-needs kids in her district. This is a more confrontational approach than taken by Rick Scott, who simply removed capital cases out of the hands of a county attorney who refused to use the death penalty. The power to review DeSantis’s decision rests primarily with Florida’s Republican-controlled senate, which is likely to back him up, rather than with the courts (National Review).

President Biden Declares Public Health Emergency Over Monkeypox Virus

USA Today: The monkeypox outbreak that has infected more than 6,600 people in the United States is a public health emergency, the Biden administration declared Thursday, a move that could make it easier to tap funding and wield the federal bureaucracy to combat the once-rare disease. The declaration came more than a week after the head of the World Health Organization, on July 23, said the “extraordinary” situation qualifies as a global emergency. The administration has been criticized for not moving more quickly — repeating some of the same mistakes that plagued the U.S. response to COVID-19 — and Thursday’s move is intended to help get ahead of the virus spread (USA Today). CNBC: Monkeypox is rarely fatal and no deaths have been reported in the U.S. so far, but patients often suffer debilitating pain from the skin rash caused by the virus. Eight people have died from the disease across the world during the current outbreak, primarily in Africa where the health systems aren’t as robust as the U.S. Spain and Brazil reported the first confirmed deaths from the virus outside Africa over the weekend. Monkeypox is primarily spreading through skin-to-skin contact during sex at the moment. Gay and bisexual men are at the highest risk of infection right now, public health officials say (CNBC). Dennis Prager: Five people in Africa have died of monkeypox. And I’m now going to give you the number of Africans who die each year as a result of hippopotamuses drowning them or biting them or crushing them: 3,000. Three thousand. What is that, 600 times more? For every monkeypox death, 600 Africans are dying from hippopotamuses (Daybreak Daily).

Whoopi Goldberg Invokes God and “Do Unto Others” to Support Abortion

Elisabeth Hasselbeck did not agree with “the view.” Daily Wire: Whoopi Goldberg, a leftist co-host of ABC’s “The View,” argued on the show this week that God supports killing unborn babies via abortion. Goldberg, who previously was suspended by the network for making an anti-Semitic remark about the Holocaust, argued Wednesday that abortion was okay because God gives people the “freedom of choice” (Daily Wire). Nicholas Fondacaro: Goldberg says “God doesn’t make mistakes” and thus it’s in his plan to have women choose abortion. “God made us smart enough to know when it wasn’t going to work for us. That’s the beauty of giving us freedom of choice.” “My relationship [with God] is always choppy,” she adds (Twitter). USA Today: Imploring a Bible verse, Goldberg added that she does not judge people who have an abortion because she was taught: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (USA Today).

Cut! Newsome Calls on Hollywood to Stop Filming in Pro-Life States

Fox News: California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the Hollywood film industry to bring back production moved to Oklahoma and Georgia amid pandemic lockdowns and rising crime, criticizing the Republican-controlled states over policies against abortion in a new ad published in Variety. This comes as Newsom also announced on Wednesday his support for a bill to invest $1.65 billion in California’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program to extend it for an additional five years, through 2030. This program allocates $330 million per year in tax credits for the industry (Fox News). Gavin Newsom: Today, Hollywood will wake up to this ad. Time to choose. You can protect your workers, or continue to support anti-abortion states that rule with hatred (Twitter). New York Post: The film and TV industry has upped its spending in Georgia from $2.9 billion in 2019 to $4.4 billion in the past fiscal year despite the passage of legislation that banned abortions after the detection of fetal heartbeats, according to the Hollywood Reporter (New York Post).

DOJ Charges Four Louisville Police Officers in Breonna Taylor Case

CNN: Four current and former Louisville police officers involved in the deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home — including detectives who worked on the search warrant and the ex-officer accused of firing blindly into her home — have been charged with civil rights violations and other counts, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday. The charges mark the first federal counts leveled against any of the officers involved in the botched raid. In addition to civil rights offenses, federal authorities charged the four with unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction, Garland said (CNN). Reuters: Louisville police on Thursday began the process of firing Meany and Goodlett, the department said in a statement. Hankison and Jaynes were previously fired by the department. The Justice Department also is conducting an investigation into whether the Louisville Metro Government and Louisville police engaged in a pattern or practice of abusing residents’ civil rights (Reuters).

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Arrested for Bribery to Finance 2020 Campaign

Wall Street Journal: Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced was arrested Thursday and charged with participating in a bribery scheme to finance her 2020 gubernatorial campaign, the Justice Department said. Ms. Vázquez Garced was sworn in as governor in August 2019, in the wake of a scandal involving the former governor and a constitutional crisis over who would succeed him. She had previously served as the territory’s justice secretary and was governor until the start of 2021. The scheme detailed Thursday is “yet another example of allegations of corporate corruption aimed at elected officials in the United States,” said Corey Amundson, chief of the public integrity section for the Justice Department. “This is a disturbing national trend that is not limited to Puerto Rico.” The alleged bribery scheme took place from December 2019 through June 2020 and involved bank executives, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a political consultant, according to the Justice Department (Wall Street Journal). NBC: Vázquez was the second woman to serve as Puerto Rico’s governor and the first former governor to face federal charges. Former Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá was charged with campaign finance violations while in office and was found not guilty in 2009. He had been the first Puerto Rico governor to be charged with a crime in recent history (NBC).

10.

Senators Introduce Bill to Add 2,500 Border Patrol Agents, Increase Pay

Homeland Security: Today, U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), James Lankford (R-OK), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) introduced the bipartisan Border Patrol Enhancement Act to establish the Border Patrol Reserve and provide a much-needed pay raise to our Border Patrol agents during this current border crisis. This bill would create a 2,500 agent reserve force, increase the number of total Border Patrol agents to 20,500, and raise Border Patrol pay by 14 percent to be more competitive with other federal law enforcement agents, including other agents under the Department of Homeland Security. The legislation also standardizes professional development and training requirements for all Border Patrol agents (Homeland Security). Hill: The bipartisan group also touted the proposed 14-percent pay raise as a way for Border Patrol salaries to be more competitive with other federal law enforcement agencies. Border Patrol agents’ salaries are based on factors like locality and amount of overtime, but agents on average are compensated between $70,234 and $111,407, depending on their grade level, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agency has reported more than 200,000 monthly encounters at the border with migrants in several months so far this year, surpassing levels reached in past years. Republicans have laid into Biden over the situation at the border amid the uptick in encounters (Hill).

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Dennis Prager | The Dennis Prager Show

Monkeypox: “The right to have a state of emergency should be abolished”

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Tudor Dixon: “We’re going to forge a family friendly Michigan”

Charlie Kirk talks with Tudor Dixon about her gubernatorial race against anti-family, anti-energy Gretchen Whitmer

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Kansas Abortion Vote: “I’m really surprised by this”

Mike Gallagher discusses the unexpected rejection of a pro-life measure in red-state Kansas

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Biden’s Border Wall: “They label Donald Trump as a racist and all that when they have plans to do exactly what he did”

Brandon Tatum points out the hypocrisy of Biden’s border plan

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New “Forward” Party: “These are basically people who have lost office, can’t really gain much traction”

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Draining the Swamp: “An empty seat is better than an enemy in your administration”

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