News and Headlines: In The News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion.
In The News:
Concealed carry gun licenses delayed until 2022 in Detroit
Gun owners applying for a concealed carry permit in Wayne County, Mich. — home to Detroit — may have to wait until at least 2022 due to a significant backlog of applications and slower processing, according to reports this week.
“I was a little surprised that I was getting calls again this past week and the week before, calls and emails from my constituents saying they still couldn’t get an appointment,” said Melissa Daub, a Wayne County Commissioner, Fox 2 reported. “That the wait time was 10 months long. I went online this morning and I tried to book an appointment and the earliest I can get an appointment is January 17, 2022.”
In March last year, the Wayne County clerk’s office started requiring appointments for individuals seeking to apply for a concealed carry permit, rather than delivering an application to a county employee.
According to the Wayne County website, the county clerk “shall issue a license or notice of statutory disqualification within 45 days after the date the applicant has classifiable fingerprints taken.”
Duss Boosts Omar Tweet Praising Court Decision to Investigate Israeli ‘War Crimes’
The Bernie Sanders aide rumored to be in line for a State Department job has refrained from tweeting for several days, but has taken the time to boost a tweet from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) praising an International Criminal Court decision to investigate Israel over alleged war crimes.
The Washington Free Beacon has reported extensively on Duss’s ties to the anti-Israel movement and activists who promote boycotts of the Jewish state.
Duss’s positive views of the ICC investigation could set up a conflict with others at the State Department, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who reportedly provided assurances to Israeli leaders the United States will help combat the probe.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday that Duss has been critical of President Joe Biden’s pro-Israel views and has bashed pro-Israel Democrats for their opposition to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
A wave of violent attacks renews focus on anti-Asian racism
In the past few weeks, a slew of violent incidents in the Bay Area — including multiple attacks targeting elderly individuals — have renewed attention on anti-Asian racism during the pandemic.
In San Francisco, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee died after getting shoved to the ground. In Oakland, a 91-year-old was brutally pushed from behind. And in San Jose, a 64-year-old woman was robbed in the middle of the afternoon.
Over the past year, anti-Asian incidents have surged across the country: There have been more than 2,800 since last spring, according to Stop AAPI Hate, which has been tracking people’s reports.
Ranging from verbal abuse and workplace discrimination to storefront vandalism and physical violence, many of these assaults have been fueled by xenophobic sentiment that seeks to scapegoat Asian Americans for the spread of the coronavirus, given its origins in China.
Students at Catholic Georgetown U. Protest Appearance by MLK’s Pro-Life Niece
Student activists at Georgetown University, a Catholic school, have decided that Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., should be condemned after speaking there.
Her crimes? She is pro-life and supported President Trump.
Angela Morabito of Campus Reform notes that this was a virtual event, and attendance was voluntary:
Trio rescued after being trapped on deserted Bahamas island for 33 days survived on this diet
The two men and a woman were first spotted Monday by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flying a routine mission near the Florida Keys.
As of Wednesday morning they were being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Pompano Beach, Fla., the agency said.
“We were alerted to them by the flags that they actually had in addition to a large cross that they put out there for themselves,” helicopter pilot Mike Allert told WPLG.
Florida cousins wrangle massive python on their property: ‘My God! What a snake!’
The pair hooked and shot the snake before learning it weighed hundreds of pounds and was 16 feet, 4 inches long, Fox 13 reported.
“We measured him and laid him down and the two kids down beside him to get a rough idea and ended up finding a tape measure,” Wilkerson said.
The reptile was then handed over to Dustin Crum, a snake hunter. After he took the snake to be skinned, 100 eggs were reportedly found inside.
NBA will FORCE Dallas Mavericks to play the national anthem before games after owner Mark Cuban scrapped it because The Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t ‘represent people from all communities’
The NBA is once again enforcing its longstanding policy requiring teams to play the national anthem before games after Mavericks owner Mark Cuban decided to discontinue the practice in Dallas because he reportedly feels the song isn’t representative of ‘people from all communities.’
‘With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,’ NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in a statement.
Cuban told The New York Times that the team plans to comply with the league policy: ‘We are good with it.’
Antonia Okafor Cover: canceled gun show finds new TV home
Sinclair decided to nix Ammoland show after an education episode about the AR-15 and AK-47.
VIDEO: Crazed Man Attacking Deputy Soaks Up 12 Rounds Before He’s Stopped
A crazed man’s rampage came to a not-so-sudden end Saturday morning in Montgomery County Maryland, and a bystander caught it all on video. After striking a lone deputy twice with a long stick, the attacker took a dozen rounds while still advancing on the officer.
It looked like the stuff of nightmares. The attacker looked more like a college professor with his sport coat and khaki pants than a would-be cop-killing lunatic.
The wicked grin on his face added a freaky, horror-film feel as the man just kept advancing on the retreating deputy.
That was after he broke a long piece of wood with a couple of blows over the deputy’s forearm.
Politics:
State-Level Republicans Push Back on Big Tech
A Virginia Republican is taking the blueprint set last week by Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) and calling for new legislation at the state level to fight perceived bias by tech giants.
Republican Kirk Cox, a longtime member of the state legislature and current gubernatorial candidate, called on Wednesday for new state legislation on big tech to increase transparency and raise the bar for banning users on social media.
The move signals increased pressure from the right on state legislatures to regulate tech companies.
Movement at the state level appears to be picking up speed: The DeSantis proposal garnered support from other statewide GOP officials, including the speaker of the Florida House and the president of the Florida Senate.
FOX BUSINESS VIDEO: Biden making ‘one concession after another’ to China: Gordon Chang
‘The Coming Collapse of China’ author Gordon Chang provides insight into the Biden administration’s recent actions in regards to China.
Hawley, Scott introduce bill to withhold taxpayer money to WHO until reforms made
The legislation introduced Tuesday called the World Health Organization (WHO) Accountability Act aims to hold the WHO accountable for what the senators allege to be playing a role in China’s early coverup of the COVID-19 pandemic when it was just starting to spread through China.
“Time and again, [WHO] has prioritized advancing the Chinese Communist Party’s interests over building a healthier world,” Hawley said in a Tuesday statement, naming WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and “other WHO leaders” as those who “must be held accountable for this dereliction of duty.”
He added that “the WHO must undertake comprehensive reform before it is allowed to benefit from U.S. tax dollars once again.”
Arizona lawmaker proposes $20 an hour minimum wage
Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, recently introduced a bill that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $20 an hour beginning Jan. 1, 2022, and increase it each year based on the rate of inflation.
Quezada’s campaign website states, “No full-time employee should live in poverty while CEO pay increases,” but it does not go into detail regarding his minimum wage proposal.
In a separate bill, he calls for essential workers – as defined by the governor – to be paid $20 an hour plus overtime for anything over 40 hours in a week, starting in 2023.
FOX BUSINESSES VIDEO: Biden administration will be ‘most hostile White House’ oil industry has ever seen: Analyst
The Schork Group principal Stephen Schork argues the cancelation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline project will lead to a ‘considerable amount of job decay’ in the industry.
Alabama Would Ban Drug Treatment for Transgender Kids
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing Wednesday afternoon on the bill by Republican Rep. Wes Allen.
The bill would prohibit the use of puberty blocking drugs, hormonal therapy, and surgery to treat transgender minors. Violators could face up to 10 years in prison.
Advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, are opposing the bill that they say will prevent doctors from providing the best medical care to transgender youth.
Alabama is one of at least eight states where conservative lawmakers are pushing such measures, arguing such decisions should wait until adulthood. The bill calls the treatments a “public health risk.”
Left-wing media, Democrat lawmakers called for violence against President Trump for years
Commentary/Opinion:
Democrats and the left-wing media are continuing to falsely accuse President Trump of calling for violence.
However, Democrats are ignoring all the times they literally made threats against President Trump’s life.
One America’s Pearson Sharp explains.
The Psaki Sidestep: White House avoids addressing Democrat violence
The latest White House press briefing was filled with questions about the White House’s views of the impeachment trial, but answers were hard to come by. One America’s Chief White House Correspondent Chanel Rion has more.
The Party of Deceit
Commentary/Opinion:
“Impeachment 2” is NOT constitutional & only serves one purpose: to humiliate President Trump and marginalize his supporters, argues Bill O’Reilly.
He says the Democrat Party has become “a propaganda outfit” after the deceitful editing of their so-called video evidence of January 6.
Carlson: Media Rollout for Vaccine ‘Came off Like a Diet Pepsi Commercial at the Super Bowl’ — ‘Tons of Celebrity Endorsements, Not a Lot of Science’
Commentary/Opinion:
At the opening of Tuesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson criticized the media and tech companies for efforts to censor any skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Carlson called out restrictions on those trying to relay their ordeals with the coronavirus vaccine and warned the limitations could have long-term consequences.
Biden Administration Draws Criticism for Decision to Scrap Trump’s Policy on Confucius Institutes
The Biden administration has quietly killed a rule proposed by the Trump administration to safeguard U.S. academic freedom from the threat of Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes (CIs).
Under the rule, colleges and K-12 schools that are certified to host foreign exchange programs would need to disclose their financial ties to CIs and the affiliated Confucius Classrooms.
On Feb. 9, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the law enforcement agency under DHS, confirmed that the rule was withdrawn on Jan. 26, in an emailed response.
The spokesperson declined to comment on the reasoning for the rule’s cancellation.
World News:
Gov. Stitt signs order to protect Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry from Washington D.C.
Stitt’s order criticizes the Biden administration’s “attack on energy producing states like Oklahoma, specifically citing the federal overreach and dismissal of Oklahoma’s constitutional ability to properly determine how to best develop its own natural resources,” a news release from the governor’s office says.
“Energy production is the backbone of Oklahoma’s economy,” Stitt said in a statement.
“My executive order sends a clear message to the Biden Administration that threatening to destroy Oklahoma jobs and our constitutional ability to develop our oil and gas is unacceptable. We will not be passive in responding to systematic attacks on Oklahoma values.”
A number of state lawmakers also issued statements supporting Stitt’s action.
Iran-North Korea cooperate on ICBM development; Israel has the right to defend-TV7 Israel News 10.02
1) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasizes that the Golan Heights will always remain under Israeli sovereignty.
2) Iranian Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi warned that unless international sanctions are lifted, the Ayatollah regime may opt to develop a nuclear weapon.
3) A UN Report reveals: Iran and North Korea cooperate on a number of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile’ development projects.
Hungary Under Fire After Last Independent Radio Station Taken Off Air
“We have expressed our concerns about media freedom and pluralism” in Hungary, which is already under investigation for flouting the rule of law, European Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said on February 10, a day after Klubradio lost an appeal to keep its license.
The case of the radio station “only aggravates these concerns,” Wigand added.
Klubradio broadcasts mainly in Budapest. Its news and talk content is often critical of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.
Mother Demands Release Of Her Two Sons From Separate Chinese, Kazakh Detentions
Zauatkhan Tursyn held a protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, on February 10 after a Kazakh court found her son Baibolat Kunbolatuly guilty of violating the law on mass gatherings.
Kunbolaty was sent to jail for 10 days after he protested outside the consulate the previous day demanding the Chinese authorities release his brother, Baimurat, from a so-called reeducation camp in Xinjiang.
France plans to introduce an age of sexual consent for the first time, making sex with under-15s illegal following outcry over wave of child abuse
France is planning to introduce an age of sexual consent for the first time, making sex with under-15s illegal, and will make it easier to punish historic sexual abuse.
The move from France’s government comes amid growing public pressure and a wave of online testimonies about rape and other sexual violence by parents and authority figures.
Child protection activists and victims celebrated the announcement, but say France needs to do more as a society to stop this abuse.
Ten-year sentences for Covid rule-breaking ‘utterly ridiculous’
Jonathan Jones, the government’s former top lawyer who resigned earlier this year, tweeted that he would “eat a face mask” if the sentence was ever imposed, while Labour’s attorney-general called it “misleading spin” that would never be enforced.
Boris Johnson’s spokesman confirmed on Wednesday that the 10-year sentence, announced by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, for people lying about returning from travels to coronavirus hotspots, was the maximum penalty allowed under the 1981 Forgery and Counterfeiting Act.
“If people fail to abide by the rules and inaccurately or purposely didn’t fill in the relevant documentation properly, they will be charged under the Forgery Act, which includes forging, or lying on, forms,” he said.
Short Sentences for Two Paedophiles Hunting for Girls as Young as 10
64-year-old Abdi Shire, 64, of Small Heath, and 24-year-old Adean Ahmed, of Edgbaston, were snared by West Midlands Police officers who are “active on social media, instant messaging apps and other online platforms looking for people seeking to groom children online”.
The paedophiles had travelled to try and meet underage girls for sex, according to a West Midlands Police news bulletin, with Ahmed having asked “do you have any 12” and “is there anything like 10” as he attempted to pay for a victim.
Birmingham Crown Court saw fit to impose a sentence of just three years and two months on Shire, and three years on Ahmed — with the likelihood being that they will be automatically released on licence much earlier than that, as most criminal sentenced to non-“life” sentences are entitled to early release halfway or, more rarely, two-thirds of the way through their terms under Labour era legislation the governing Conservatives have left largely unchanged.
European Parliamentarians Slam Poland over Ban on Eugenic Abortions
In October 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal outlawed abortions on the basis of fetal anomalies, insisting that there can be “no protection of the dignity of an individual without the protection of life.”
The court argued that aborting a child because of probable birth defects constituted eugenics, an effort to purify the race by purging society of the weak and undesirable, notoriously practiced by the Nazis against Jews and disabled persons, and advocated by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger against blacks and minorities in the United States.
Previously, babies with Down syndrome and other anomalies could be legally aborted in Poland, a provision the European Parliament is determined to reinstate.
Lockdown Europe Style: Prostitutes Return to Work, Bars Kept Closed
Brothels and strip clubs will remain closed along with bars and restaurants as they are considered a separate category under the lockdown restrictions, Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.
Dominatrix and prostitution activist Shiva Prugger noted the problems with the new rules, saying: “If a customer is currently ordering a sex worker to their home, they don’t need a corona test, because the service takes place in their private premises.”
Austria’s sex workers are not the only ones to complain about restrictive lockdown measures. Last year, brothel operators in Germany launched a lawsuit against the government’s lockdown restrictions, arguing that the rules conflicted with professional freedoms.
Katie Hopkins – you are not alone…. and thank you to everyone coming up to say hello.
Commentary/Opinion:
Why the Media Completely Ignore Antifa/BLM Violence
Police Sgt Betsy Smith joins me to explain why the media is obsessively focused on the violence of January 6 but ignores the far greater violence of BLM and Antifa.
Is This the End of Women’s Sports?
If we don’t believe that biological men have a significant advantage over biological women in sports, then why did women’s sports ever need to be created in the first place? Let’s stop fooling ourselves.
Victor Davis Hanson on Impeachment and the ‘Cancer’ of Woke Ideology | American Thought Leaders
Tonight, we sit down with classicist and historian Victor Davis Hanson to discuss the rise of critical social justice and woke ideology, growing limits on freedom of speech, and his take on the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
“It’s like a public-shaming like the Communist Party used to make people wear dunce caps,” Hanson says.