The Republican-led North Carolina state Senate voted to prohibit anyone from wearing masks in public. According to the Associated Press, the proposed legislation would even ban wearing masks in “public for health reasons.” The amended version of House Bill 237 passed in a 30 to 15 party-line vote. BREAKING: North Carolina State Senate has just voted to BAN masks from being worn in public. pic.twitter.com/sXVblIVIQ4 — Ian Jaeger (@IanJaeger29) May 17, 2024 “The controversial bill, which would also increase criminal penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a mask in public, comes in the wake of protests that have erupted on college campuses across the country in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict,” NC Newsline reports. The North Carolina state Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public, even for health reasons.https://t.co/wn8DtgMV94 pic.twitter.com/C0GK9vzJI7 — WAVY TV 10 (@WAVY_News) May 17, 2024 From the Associated Press: Opponents of the bill say it risks the health of those masking for safety reasons. But those backing the legislation say it is a needed response to the demonstrations, including those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that escalated to police clashes and arrests. The bill also further criminalizes the blockage of roads or emergency vehicles for a protest, which has occurred during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Raleigh and Durham. “It’s about time that the craziness is put, at least slowed down, if not put to a stop,” Wilson County Republican Sen. Buck Newton, who presented the bill, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. Most of the pushback against the bill has centered around its removal of health and safety exemptions for wearing a mask in public. The health exemption was added at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic along largely bipartisan lines. Democrat lawmakers expressed outrage over the bill’s passage. “It’s unconscionable,” said Sen. Lisa Grafstein (D-Wake), according to WRAL News. “Is it really that you find masked chemo patients that threatening? Something about them makes you really angry? Or is this, more likely, a desire to score some political points with the anti-mask crowd during an election year, at the expense of vulnerable people?” Sen. Natasha Marcus (D-Mecklenburg) questioned. North Carolina state Senate votes to ban all face masks in public, including for medical reasonshttps://t.co/Co2KSC9G5a pic.twitter.com/jw3s47yv1M — The Washington Times (@WashTimes) May 17, 2024 The bill must also pass the GOP-controlled state House before being sent to Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. WRAL News reports: Democratic lawmakers proposed different ways to amend the anti-mask bill to protect people who want to wear masks for health concerns. Republicans shot each of those proposals down, without explaining their opposition. Sen. Sydney Batch, D-Wake, is a cancer survivor. She spoke about how her husband and children wore masks to protect her while she was undergoing treatment and had a weakened immune system because of it. “This bill criminalizes their behavior, and mine,” she said. “… We talk a lot about freedoms in this chamber. I hear it all the time. I should have the freedom — my children and my husband should have the freedom — to wear masks in order to protect and save my life, without fear of being arrested and charged.” Batch and Grafstein each proposed amending the bill in ways they said would still give police the power that Republicans have said they want, to crack down on masked protesters, but to add back in legal protections for people who wear masks for public health reasons. A third Wake County Democrat, Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, proposed amending the bill to ban hate groups — he specifically mentioned the Ku Klux Klan and Proud Boys — from being allowed to wear masks in public, which the law currently allows them to petition for. His amendment also would’ve required state law enforcement officials do more to track hate groups. Like the other amendments, Republican lawmakers shot it down with no debate or explanation. Read House Bill 237 HERE.

Barron Trump, the former first son, towered over other students and administrators at his South Florida high school on Friday morning as he accepted his graduate diploma, with his parents, Melania and Donald Trump, smiling while watching from the stands.

Israeli forces have successfully recovered the bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip.

Congress was a Jerry Springer show for a while last night. It’s best to laugh as our country goes to Hell in a handbasket. To be fair, Jasmine Crockett has taken the female role normally played by Reps. Goldman or Schiff.  However, it was an inappropriate exchange in Congress. I’m waiting for shoes to fly […] The post Jerry Springer Show Comes to Congress appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

When college and university students — whose historical and constitutional obliviousness is matched only by their self-assured morality of outrage and entitlement — face no discipline from the adults who have abandoned education in favor of indoctrination, the barbaric antics now on display are the inevitable result.  The worst, and perhaps only, lesson these students have learned is that speech is violence if they disagree with it, and violence is speech if it serves their cause. The Marxists’ “long march through the institutions” may be a pyrrhic victory ending in the destruction of the very institutions they sought to control, if university presidents fail their students again by not enforcing sane policies and the law.  The purpose of education is to instill in the next generation the civic virtues necessary to live as free men among free men. On many university campuses today, we see the result of abandoning those fundamental precepts. Free speech is an essential component of a free society. Such a statement is as self-evident a truth as those named in our Declaration of Independence. There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, nor should there be. To revile another person, a fellow image bearer of God, for his ethnicity or religion is arguably the lowest form of human speech and indicative of a much deeper stain on the human condition. “For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So said the central figure in the history of the world, a Jewish carpenter, in His most famous sermon. The Judeo-Christian principles so prevalent in the minds and writings of the founding generation led to the establishment of our nation not as a theocracy, but a republic. One in which our Constitution is recognized as the highest civil law of the land, empowering government to protect the God-given rights of the people.  Anti-Semitic speech, as ignorant and hateful as it is, remains protected speech. But that does not give the speakers free rein to incite violence, trespass on school property, damage or destroy university property, or physically harass and intimidate Jewish students or block them from entering campus, as we have seen at Columbia, UCLA, and elsewhere. University presidents should use their authority to distinguish between simply despicable words and clearly illegal actions — and act accordingly. Some of the most valuable lessons in life are learned the hard way, and university presidents should be teaching some of their students a hard and valuable lesson right now. The University of Chicago, and the University of Florida stand out as examples of rational leadership demonstrating the proper balance between respect for free speech and the rule of law.  There is no right to a college education in our Constitution, or in the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” To foster an environment of learning and peaceful interaction requires discipline of those who disrupt that environment. Expulsion from the university is a necessary first step, while criminal penalties for criminal action can be left to local prosecutors. Anyone guilty of a crime while here as a guest of our nation through a student visa should lose the privilege immediately. Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Centuries later, our nation’s poet laureate, Robert Frost, would echo Aristotle when he stated, “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.” Judging by this standard, many of our universities have failed to truly educate our youth. Trigger warnings, safe spaces, and speech codes have sprung up like weeds to choke out free expression and civil discourse. What we are witnessing on college campuses across our nation is the fundamental misunderstanding of the right to free speech and its accompanying duties and limits. Worse, we’re seeing that combined with indoctrination into the toxic, Marxist ideology incompatible with a free, civil society and a constitutional republic. Those who have sewn to the wind for decades are now reaping the inevitable whirlwind. Yet, even amidst this chaos, there is a teachable moment to restore ordered liberty and return to the classical liberal tradition. These principles, deeply rooted in American soil, are not dormant. If we muster the moral courage and clarity to cultivate them, our nation can renew the bloom of Western Civilization and human flourishing once again.  * * *  Lathan Watts is vice president of public affairs for Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal). The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.