Arizona Oath Keeper Described as ‘Cooking for Protesters’ on January 6 Convicted of Seditious Conspiracy

A jury convicted Arizona Oath Keeper Edward Vallejo of seditious conspiracy and other charges on Monday for his involvement with the protest on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. Three other Oath Keepers were also convicted of that and other lesser offenses. The 63-year-old Army veteran’s defense attorney, Matthew Peed, said he plans to appeal.

“Ed brought 30 days of food with him, not just for himself but for a group, and he believed he was going to a campground where he would set up a food kitchen and cook for protesters,” Peed described Vallejo’s role during opening statements. “And it would be kind of a, kind of like a festival.”

Read More

Biden’s National Security Council Held Meetings with CDC on COVID Disinformation, Emails Show

President Joe Biden’s National Security Council (NSC) meetings with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about COVID-19 disinformation in 2021, according to documents obtained in an America First Legal (AFL) lawsuit. After the Kaiser Family Foundation published its latest State of Vaccine Confidence Insights Report — a report it routinely produced for the Biden administration — in May 2021, Elisabeth Wilhelm, a “Vaccine Confidence Specialist” at the CDC, shared it with numerous CDC and White House officials, according to emails obtained by AFL. This prompted a meeting between agencies of the federal government, including the CDC and the NSC, about the vaccine disinformation, according to heavily redacted emails.

Read More

Arizona State University Student Convicted of Criminal Trespassing for Handing Out Copies of the Constitution on Campus Files Appeal

Arizona State University (ASU) student Tim Tizon was convicted in October of criminal trespassing in the third degree for handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution on the school’s campus. University Lakes Justice of the Peace Tyler Kissell, a progressive, conducted the trial. The Liberty Justice Center is now representing Tizon with an appeal, which was filed on Thursday.

Read More

Sen. Marco Rubio Cites Project Veritas Undercover Video in Letter to Pfizer CEO on Alleged Gain-of-Function Research

Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R) cited the most recent undercover investigation released by Project Veritas (PV) in a letter to Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, and noted that, according to the PV video, Pfizer may be conducting gain-of-function research to mutate the COVID virus to create additional variants and vaccines to combat them for profit. Rubio’s office noted that, in the PV exposé, Pfizer executive Jordon Trishton Walker claimed the drug company is considering the possibility of mutating the COVID virus itself via “directed evolution” in order to keep profiting off a continued stream of vaccines – which he later said would be a “cash cow” for the company.

Read More

Trump Unveils Plan to ‘Save’ Education from ‘Radical Left Maniacs’

Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday his plan to “save American education” from “the Radical Left maniacs” as part of his 2024 presidential campaign. The plan, unveiled on Twitter, focuses on tackling cultural issues in education including critical race theory (CRT) and gender ideology. Trump proposed cutting federal funding from schools that promote “[CRT], gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children,” the investigation of schools which engage in “race-based discrimination,” and keeping men out of women’s sports.

Read More

SPN Poll: Parents Support School Choice

More than six out of every 10 voters with children under 18 would be receptive to the prospect of their child attending a school outside of their locally zoned public district, a new State Policy Network poll finds. Overall, the SPN State Voices opinion poll of roughly 2,000 registered voters conducted in partnership with Morning Consult through online interviews found that 62% of respondents said they would interested in such an option, some 30% of them very much so.

Read More

State Legislative Leaders Weigh in on Abe Hamadeh’s Election Challenge with Friend of the Court Brief

The Arizona State Senate and House leaders, Sen. Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) and Rep. Ben Toma (R-Peoria), filed an amici curiae brief, known as a friend of the court brief, weighing in on Republican Abe Hamadeh’s request for a new trial in his election challenge.

“Our system of government depends on the accurate tabulation of every legal vote. This imperative does not lapse on Inauguration Day; it imparts to the courts an enduring obligation to guarantee a full and fair adjudication of every bona fide dispute that may be material to the determination of an election,” according to the brief.

Read More

As House GOP Secures First Cooperation in Biden Probe, Pressure Grows for Damage Assessment

As House Republicans secure the first government cooperation for their probe of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, pressure is building in national security circles to conduct a damage assessment that could determine if the storage of national secrets at insecure locations aided foreign powers. On Thursday, two prominent figures — a new member of the House Intelligence Committee and the FBI’s former intelligence chief — became the latest to add their voices to calls for a national security assessment of the five tranches of documents found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home and his old think tank office in Washington D.C. since November.

Read More

Fiscal Hawks Warn Biden: No Debt Ceiling Deal Without Fiscal Reforms

Sens. JD Vance and Ron Johnson

The fiscal hawks are sticking to their guns. On Friday, Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) joined 22 of their fellow Republican senators in a letter warning President Joe Biden that they will not vote for increasing the debt ceiling without structural reforms to the federal government’s budget and debt problems.

Read More

Republican Legislative Leaders Request Katie Hobbs Give Leftover Inaugural Funds for General Use

State House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) and Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) sent a request to Gov. Katie Hobbs Thursday, requesting she transfers the remainder of her inaugural fund to the state for general use.

“We appreciate your commitment to transparency in releasing the list of 120 donors and the amounts of each donation to the ‘Katie Hobbs Inaugural Fund,'” the legislators wrote. “We urge you to follow in your predecessors’ footsteps and transfer any monies left over in the Inaugural Fund to the Protocol Fund.”

Read More

Commentary: January 6 Was the Worst Incident of Police Brutality Since Civil Rights Era

One might be inclined to apply Hanlon’s razor—never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity—to the actions of law enforcement on January 6, 2021. One might even be inclined to replace “stupidity” with “incompetence” to explain why police behaved the way they did that afternoon. But a growing body of evidence suggests neither stupidity nor incompetence can justify what now appears to be the worst incident of police brutality against political protesters since the civil rights era. After two years of watching cherry-picked video clips produced by the Department of Justice and the news media to depict Trump supporters as the violent aggressors on January 6, the public now has an opportunity to see what really happened thanks to police body camera footage released at trial.

Read More

25 States Sue Biden Administration over Federal ESG Policy

Twenty-five attorneys general and several other plaintiffs have sued the Biden administration asking the court to halt a federal ESG policy that could negatively impact the retirement savings of 152 million Americans. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Northern District Amarillo Division naming Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh and the U.S. Department of Labor as defendants.

Read More

GOP Sen. Cotton Vows to Stall Nominations Until Congress Gets Biden, Trump Classified Docs

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton vowed that lawmakers would stall Biden government nominations until it handed over the materials the FBI recovered from both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. “Until the administration stops stonewalling Congress, there will be pain as a consequence for them,” Cotton said, according to The Hill. “Whether it’s blocking nominees or withholding budgetary funds, Congress will impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents.”

Read More

Agriculture Economists See Several Concerns for Farmers in 2023

Farmers aren’t likely to enjoy a calm year this year, according to agricultural economists from Purdue University. After a year of dealing with historic inflation rates, farmers must now be prepared for an economic downturn that could spark a recession. However, there’s even more uncertainty across the horizon, said Roman Keeney, an associate professor of economics at Purdue’s College of Agriculture.

Read More