'A fresh look at our policies'

'The ostrich suffered no injuries'

'Gonna get overly scrutinized'

Confirmed Stauffer's identity through dental records

Working on a list like this is always a lot of fun because there’s so much material to review and research. It reminds us of many great albums we might have forgotten about or bands we haven’t considered in years. Picking ten songs from an entire decade of music to represent the best opening tracks on individual albums is a lot of work and involves a lot of listening. Of course, some tracks should be on this list, but we just didn’t have the room. The ’90s is one of the most interesting decades in rock music. The decade kicked The post Top 10 Opening Tracks From 1990s Rock Albums appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

The Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to extend amnesty to a half-million illegal immigrants has hit a roadblock, as a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the program temporarily halted. In June, the Biden-Harris administration announced an executive action that would grant an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens and who have lived in America for 10 years to remain in the United States and receive a green card, making them eligible to compete against U.S. workers for employment. The status, known as “Parole in Place” (PIP), would have waived the legal requirement for illegal immigrants to return to their home country while applying for citizenship legally. Aside from spouses of U.S. citizens, the action applied to approximately 50,000 stepchildren under the age of 21. But 16 state attorneys general, led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, a Republican, sued last Friday, saying the program would encourage illegal immigration. U.S. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker, appointed to the federal bench in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, issued a 14-day, renewable stay of the order on Monday. Such orders often indicate the judge believes the lawsuit is likely to prevail. He also expedited the case, so it can reach a legal ruling faster. The Department of Homeland Security said it had stopped confirming applications for the program in response to the order, although the order allows DHS to continue receiving applications. America First Legal, which brought the lawsuit, called the ruling a “huge victory.” Under Section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, “Parole in Place” has only been recognized for the immediate relatives of enlisted soldiers or veterans.  The order seems to have been intended to cement Biden’s place in presidential history. It came exactly 12 years after then-President Barack Obama instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for illegal immigrants who would have been covered by the DREAM Act—had Congress ever opted to pass it. The PIP provision has been controversial since its announcement. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., called it “a brazen political stunt.” The plan would “normalize lawlessness,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told “Washington Watch” at the time. A coalition of 16 U.S. senators expressed their “grave concern” over the program’s “legality,” noting in a letter that the latest executive amnesty fell into the Biden-Harris administration’s well-worn pattern of operating outside limits imposed by the law: “Under your Administration, the parole authority has been unlawfully used to circumvent screening and vetting, mass parole of illegal aliens after the cartels surge caravans at the border, and to circumvent normal refugee processing. These actions undermine the immigration laws Congress has passed, and they have eroded the rule of law at our southern border.” “This is just the first step,” promised Paxton. “We are going to keep fighting for Texas, our country, and the rule of law.” Originally published by The Washington Stand The post Biden’s Executive Amnesty Hits Roadblock appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—White House senior adviser John Podesta is set to meet with Chinese Communist Party officials to expand U.S.-China collaboration on climate change, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Podesta and China’s special envoy for climate change Liu Zhenmin are slated to meet during the first week of September to discuss reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing funding for climate initiatives in developing nations, according to the outlet. The talks follow efforts to Trump-proof environmental collaboration efforts between the two nations and come despite China continuing to hike coal production. Energy officials will use the meeting to continue working on climate initiatives agreed on by the countries in November 2023, such as promoting a transition to renewable energy sources and combating greenhouse gas emissions beyond carbon dioxide, Bloomberg reported. Creepy @johnpodesta heads to Communist China to negotiate the US surrender of its superpower status.https://t.co/PsvZDxgD26 pic.twitter.com/uSHAcwslPJ— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) August 28, 2024 The Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen climate ties with China come despite the country’s continued coal binge, with a Wednesday report from Reuters finding China has boosted both domestic coal production and coal imports to record highs. The two nations previously agreed to reduce methane and nitrogen oxide emissions, both of which are associated with coal. The discussion between Podesta and Zhenmin also comes amidst efforts from the White House to Trump-proof its climate collaborations with China, with the countries attempting to use nongovernmental organizations to sustain their environmental partnerships in case former President Donald Trump wins in November and U.S.-China relations cool, according to Bloomberg. “It will be important for John Podesta to do as much as possible given the short amount of time that’s really left in this administration,” Joanna Lewis, an international policy expert at Georgetown University, told Bloomberg. Last year, the U.S. and China agreed to work together to try and keep United Nations temperature targets within reach in a way that reflects “equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances,” as stated in the 2016 Paris Agreement. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in November 2020, only for President Joe Biden to rejoin it on his first day in office via an executive order. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post Biden Climate Czar, CCP Official to Discuss Climate Cooperation Amid Chinese Coal Binge appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge. Kamala Harris’ economic plan is taking shape, starting with $5 trillion in new taxes—because Washington clearly does not have enough money to spend. In the past fortnight alone, Harris has promised to hike taxes on small businesses to 39.6% and hike taxes on capital gains and dividends to a top rate of 44.6%—the highest in history, even beating the communist-adjacent Jimmy Carter. Since taxing half your life savings doesn’t come close to keeping Washington fed, she also wants to hike the corporate rate by a third to 28%. That would take us from one of the best places in the world to do business to one of the worst. We’d be worse than China, Canada, Britain, Russia, even the European Union. A company would literally make money moving to Canada. And for so-called strategic sectors, our tax rate would be double the rate in China. Note that workers are the ones who actually pay corporate income tax. A Tax Foundation study found that they pay around 70% of them in the form of lower wages. The rest is paid by shareholders in lower retirement returns and customers in higher prices. Yes, the same high prices she’s blaming on “price gouging.” The fun doesn’t stop there. Harris is also calling for a second death tax, something called “step-up basis” that would treat death as a taxable event. So, not only would the family business or farm have to pay estate taxes when it’s passed on, it would be taxed as if all the assets were sold, with up to 44.6% going to thegovernment on top of the death tax. Finally, the big one: Harris’ handlers are pushing for something we’ve never taxed in this country: unrealized gains. As in a bureaucrat pretends you sold all your stock and the family farm when you didn’t and sends you a bill anyway. Like all new taxes, this one is being sold as only hitting the rich, but in reality, it will hit family businesses and farms. Moreover, I mentioned in a recent video how the income tax itself started by only hitting the top 1% at a top rate of 7%—and yet here we are today, with more tax returns than people in this country and a top rate of—if Harris gets her way—44.6%. Incidentally, Americans overwhelmingly oppose taxes on unrealized gains by a factor of 3 to 1. Seventy-six percent of independents oppose it. It’s also worth noting Europeans have tried this kind of wealth tax over and over, and every time, it’s failed. The actual rich just move their money and hire better tax lawyers, while small business gets wiped out. Norway, for example, expected to collect $150 million per year from its wealth tax, but instead $54 billion fled the country, taking $600 million of taxes with it. So, what’s next? Barely a month into Harris’ presidential candidacy, she’s already far to the left of even President Joe Biden. And keep in mind, this is before the election, when they try not to sound crazy. We can only imagine what’s coming after the election. Like drinking radiator coolant, government spending always tastes sweet in the beginning. The stimulus checks, the trillion dollars for green energy, and this week’s war are all painless blips on a debt chart. Then comes the payback: First, the inflation; then, the taxes that amount to wholesale confiscation of your retirement, of a financial future for the young—all while gutting what’s left of the productive economy. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Kamala: $5 Trillion in New Taxes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign last week and endorsed former President Donald Trump.  I disagree with Kennedy about a lot. But at least he was willing to talk to people who disagree with him. In my newest video, we debate. Kennedy complains that mainstream media won’t have him on—even to argue with him.  “Nobody will. None of them. They won’t have me on any of their networks.”  “I see why,” I reply. “You get into the weeds of vaccine science, and we feel not all of it’s true.” “If it’s not true,” Kennedy responds, “then argue with me, or post something afterward.” OK.  Here are three incorrect things Kennedy says: No. 1: “I was in Dimock, Pennsylvania, watching fire come out of a faucet from fracking. Every home in that neighborhood, they can light up a cigarette lighter under their faucet, turn their faucet on, and it’ll flame like a lighter. That’s from fracking.” No, it isn’t. A leftist documentary, “Gasland,” publicized flaming faucets and claimed fracking is the cause. But it’s not. Water is flammable in many places in America where no fracking is done. It happens because of naturally occurring gas, already in the ground.  Even the director of the Environmental Protection Agency during Barack Obama’s presidency said, “In no case have we made a definitive determination that the fracking process has caused chemicals to enter groundwater.” No. 2: Kennedy claims many vaccines do more harm than good. I ask, “If your kids were young now, would you give them the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine?”  “No,” he says, “Studies show that kids who get measles as a child are much healthier when they grow up … resistant to cancers, atopic diseases … ” I tell Kennedy, “You convinced people not to get the measles vaccine. An outbreak resulted in 83 deaths in Samoa.” “That story is not true,” he says. “Nobody died in Samoa from measles.” But the Samoan government and the Lancet medical journal report there were 83 deaths. Kennedy blames the deaths on bad vaccines, and two babies did die after being given incorrectly mixed vaccines. But Samoa’s response, after years of anti-vax messages, was worse: They pulled the measles vaccine. That’s what caused the 83 deaths. Now, Samoa vaccinates kids again. No. 3: Kennedy ties vaccines to autism.  “You still say that autism is caused by vaccines?” I ask. “Yeah,” he replies firmly. “Autism is caused by vaccines.” He points to unpublished data presented decades ago by a researcher named Verstraeten. “They looked at children who got the hepatitis B vaccine during their first 30 days and compared those to kids who got it later or didn’t get it at all. There was a 1,350% elevated risk for autism!” That was true, about the preliminary raw data. But in later analyses of the same data, Verstraeten made adjustments, and the vaccine-autism correlation went away. RFK doesn’t trust the adjustments. Even if he were right, the chemical in the vaccines (thimerosal) that Verstraeten looked at was discontinued in vaccines, except flu shots, decades ago. More thorough researchers have now studied the effects of modern vaccines and found no connection to autism. One study even looked at every child born in Denmark over 10 years and concluded that the MMR vaccine “does not increase the risk for autism.” “You ignore the big studies,” I tell him. “You have this wrong,” he insists.  Finally, Kennedy’s critics claim he makes things up. One told me, “Studies he cites won’t show what he says they show. The web is full of detailed explanations of why nearly every study he has cited is bogus or wildly misinterpreted by him.” I didn’t find that. I found that when Kennedy cites studies, he cites them accurately. But he misleads by ignoring bigger, better, more reliable studies. This does a grave disservice to his followers. Vaccines (most of them, anyway) reduce misery and save lives. Although Kennedy and I disagree about a lot, I’m grateful that he will debate.  All my career, I’ve debated people for my TV shows. Debate is one of the best ways to get closer to the truth. But today, activists and politicians hide from skeptical inquiry. Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Kennedy are rare exceptions. Good for them.  COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Fact-Checking RFK Jr. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Robin DiAngelo, the pro-DEI author of the bestselling book “White Fragility,” is a fraud. She’s also been accused of rampantly plagiarizing minority scholars in a scathing new report by The Washington Free Beacon. “According to a complaint filed last week with the University of Washington, where DiAngelo received her Ph.D. in multicultural education, she plagiarized several scholars—including two minorities—in her doctoral thesis,” the Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium reported. For those who are unaware, DiAngelo is one of the most prominent public faces of the “antiracism” movement. She, alongside fellow guru of antiracism Ibram X. Kendi, exploded in popularity during the 2020 “racial awakening” and Black Lives Matter-provoked protests. We will look back with embarrassment at the knowledge that well-paid faculty at our top academic medical centers told everyone that this woman's book was essential reading: pic.twitter.com/MLXI7cyr5H— Brent A. Williams, MD (@BrentAWilliams2) August 26, 2024 Kendi, who is black, has already been exposed as a snake oil salesman. His Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University imploded after raking in $43 million from donors and grants. The center produced virtually nothing, which is a good thing. Even The New York Times admitted that Kendi’s star was fading and that his center was bunk. Now DiAngelo, who is white, is being exposed too. DiAngelo’s writing generally follows the same basic rubric with which I concluded my review of her book “Nice Racism,” the follow-up to “White Fragility”: “Everything you do is racist. If you want to do something about it you need to buy these books, attend these lectures, pay these consultants, and only then you will have begun the process of purging racism from society.” DiAngelo’s books are essentially surface-level self-help guides for guilty white liberals with one of those “In this house, we believe …” signs in their yard.  I imagine that countless copies of her books sit unread on coffee tables so that liberals can demonstrate to their friends and neighbors that they are good comrades, er allies, fighting for the cause. If they actually bother to crack open DiAngelo’s works, they will find that her analysis is shallow at best and relies on the reader’s simply accepting the premise that American society is irredeemably racist in countless unseen ways. It looks like she’s going to have to put herself in the category of hopeless racists. The Free Beacon noted that on the “accountability” section of her website, DiAngelo notifies “fellow white people” that they must “always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC people who have informed your thinking.” “BIPOC” means “black, indigenous, and other people of color.” Whenever a white person uses words or ideas that he or she got from a minority, DiAngelo wrote, “cite them.” Yet, according to the complaint and the Free Beacon’s reporting, DiAngelo lifted large parts of her 2004 University of Washington dissertation from a paper co-authored by Thomas Nakayama, an Asian American professor. She lifted a great deal from other authors too, sometimes using language that is extremely similar to the source. In the cases cited, she doesn’t use quotes and doesn’t make a direct citation. Those are definitely big no-nos. DiAngelo did reportedly include the works she lifted from in her bibliography for the dissertation, but generally that’s not good enough when copying a source so closely. “Though she cites all of her sources in her bibliography, DiAngelo omits quotation marks, footnotes, and other forms of attribution that would mark off her words from those of her sources,” Sibarium wrote in the Free Beacon. “And while a verbatim quote could have been copied accidentally, she often tweaks her sources’ prose—suggesting she is aware of what she is doing and intentionally misleading readers.” So, it’s not looking good for DiAngelo. Will her readers and supporters care? Maybe not, but it ramps up the pickle that academia finds itself in. DiAngelo leads with her credibility. She frequently is referred to, the Beacon notes, as a “Ph.D.” who acquired her degree from the University of Washington. Yet, DiAngelo along with many other pro-DEI academics apparently can’t follow the basic guidelines of citation that one assumes an elite scholar would have no problem with. It’s remarkable just how many left-wing academics—especially proponents of DEI—have been accused of rampant plagiarism in the past few years. Harvard President Claudine Gay, whose infamous testimony at a House hearing about antisemitism on campus put her in hot water, famously resigned after plagiarism accusations emerged. Other professors also have been hit with plagiarism allegations. The Left has cried foul, saying that these accusations—rarely rebutted—have been “weaponized” against its adherents.  But the issue creates a genuine dilemma for academia, which relies on the authority of its research to maintain a high status in society. Academics can’t simply dismiss these charges unless they are willing to risk letting the entire house of cards collapse. The truth is that the DEI/antiracism movement was never based on thorough research or an evenhanded assessment of American society. Sure, adherents sometimes point to studies and such, but even these often turn out to be bogus. Instead, the movement relied on ideology and emotion alongside a good deal of threats from institutions that really did weaponize DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—against dissenters. The wind has been taken out of their sails in recent years as the movement revealed itself to be discriminatory (by design, for those paying attention), divisive, counterproductive, and deeply unpopular. Elite institutions haven’t given up the DEI project, not by a long shot. But they are scrambling to rebrand their efforts to escape public scrutiny. That’s why it’s important to keep the pressure on, not only exposing the antiracist frauds such as DiAngelo, but insisting that institutions, corporations, and governments abandon the poisonous ideology they peddle. The Daily Signal reached out to the University of Washington about the plagiarism accusations, but the school did not immediately comment. The post Robin DiAngelo Is a Fraud. A New Report Claims She’s a Plagiarist, Too. appeared first on The Daily Signal.