03 May 2024—printed off 5/4/24--newsmax
Roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children are expected to enroll in the Affordable Care Act's health insurance next year under a new directive the Biden administration released Friday. The move took longer than promised to finalize and fell short of Democratic President Joe Biden's initial proposal to allow those migrants to sign up for Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides nearly free coverage for the nation's poorest people.
But it will allow thousands of migrants to access lucrative tax breaks when they sign up for coverage after the Affordable Care Act's marketplace enrollment opens Nov. 1, just days ahead of the presidential election. While it may help Biden boost his appeal at a crucial time among Latinos, a crucial voting bloc that Biden needs to turn out to win the election, the move is certain to prompt more criticism among conservatives about the president's border and migrant policies. The action opens up the marketplace to any participant in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, many of whom are Latino. Xavier Becerra, the nation's top health official, said Thursday that many of those migrants have delayed getting care because they have not had coverage. “They incur higher costs and debts when they do finally receive care," Becerra told reporters on a call. "Making Dreamers eligible to enroll in coverage will improve their health and well-being and strengthen the health and well-being of our nation and our economy.” The administration's action changes the definition of “lawfully present” so DACA participants can legally enroll in the marketplace exchange. Then-President Barack Obama launched the DACA initiative to shield from deportation immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children and to allow them to work legally in the country. However, the immigrants, also known as “Dreamers,” were still ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance programs because they did not meet the definition of having a “lawful presence” in the U.S. The administration decided not to expand eligibility for Medicaid for those migrants after receiving more than 20,000 comments on the proposal, senior officials said Thursday. Those officials declined to explain why the rule, which was first proposed last April, took so long to finalize. The delay meant the migrants were unable to enroll in the marketplace for coverage this year. More than 800,000 of the migrants will be eligible to enroll in marketplace coverage but the administration predicts only 100,000 will actually sign up because some may get coverage through their workplace or other ways. Some may also be unable to afford coverage through the marketplace.
Other classes of immigrants, including asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status, are already eligible to purchase insurance through the marketplaces of the ACA, Obama’s 2010 health care law, often called “Obamacare.” Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

By Sam Barron--03 May 2024—printed off 5/4/24
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, is ripping the Biden administration's new policy on which electric vehicles are eligible for tax credits, saying they are endorsing "Made in China."
The Biden administration announced it is loosening provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that bar tax credit eligibility for vehicles whose batteries contain materials from China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran, according to The Hill. "The Administration has made clear from Day 1 of implementing the consumer electric vehicle tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act that they will break the law in pursuit of their goal to flood the market with electric vehicles as quickly as possible," Manchin said. "It's outrageous and illegal." The rule includes a two-year carve-out for minerals whose origins are difficult to trace and show up in small amounts, the Hill said, and extends the carve-out to graphite, which can compose a significant portion of an electric vehicle battery and is often produced in China, according to the Hill.
Manchin argued the entire point of the Inflation Reduction Act was to provide American businesses with incentives to bring energy and manufacturing supply chains back to the country and reduce dependence on foreign adversaries. "The administration is so desperate for Chinese EV components that they are blatantly breaking the law by implementing a bill that they did not pass and ignoring what Congress agreed upon at the expense of American workers and taxpayers," Manchin said. The senator, who declined to run for re-election this year, said this new rule will put the country further into debt and jeopardize energy independence and national security.
Manchin said he will lead a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval. Earlier this week, Manchin said he wanted to undo the Biden administration's final rule on permitting, according to The Hill. Manchin, a vocal opponent of the permitting law and other Biden energy policies, said he plans to file a Congressional Review Act resolution. Aside from not running for re-election, Manchin also declined a third-party presidential run.

By James Morley III--03 May 2024—printed off 5/4/24
Administration officials at several Middle Eastern universities offered enrollment this week to students in the U.S. and Europe who are facing consequences for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Breitbart reported. Chaos has crippled dozens of college campuses in the United States with protesters that began April 17, demanding that schools divest from companies they claim "profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine." Columbia University; Yale University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were among the most active. More than 2,300 people have been arrested on more than 44 college and universities campuses across dozens of states, The Associated Press reported on Friday. As a result, many students are now facing expulsion, and some universities in Iran and Yemen have offered assistance. On Thursday, dean of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Seyed Mahmoud Aghamiri, encouraged any protesters in the U.S. or Europe who are facing discipline for their actions to apply to the school and even offered financial aid. "We accept students who have been expelled from European and American universities for protesting against the actions of the Zionists," Aghamiri said. "We have considered scholarship for these students and we fully cover the cost of education, dormitory and accommodation." Shahid Beheshti University followed the earlier example set by Shiraz University, which on Wednesday had extended its invitation to any professors that may find themselves out of work. "Students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies at Shiraz University and I think that other universities in Shiraz, as well as Fars Province, are also prepared," the head of school Mohammad Moazzeni told Iranian state-owned Press TV. On Friday, an official at Sanaa University in Yemen, which is run by the Iranian-backed Houthis joined the movement as well. "We are serious about welcoming students that have been suspended from U.S. universities for supporting Palestinians," an official with this school told Reuters. "We are fighting this battle with Palestine in every way we can." Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.

Tax refunds boosted by 3 percent.
By Tom Ozimek-Updated:--4/20/2024—PRINTED OFF 4/30/24—EPOCH TIMES
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has disclosed that it raked in nearly $5 trillion in taxes from Americans in the last fiscal year, while boosting the amount it paid out in refunds by nearly 3 percent and boasting that it kept its pledge not to increase audit rates for those earning less than $400,000 per year.
After a record $4.9 trillion haul in the 2022 fiscal year, the IRS collected a slightly lower but still substantial $4.7 trillion last year, according to the IRS’s annual Data Book for fiscal year 2023.
The eye-catching tax-intake amount was made possible in part due to a significant funding boost of $78 billion that the IRS used in part to hire more enforcers and deploy advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to squeeze more dollars from non-compliant taxpayers.
“Initial investments of Inflation Reduction Act funding in compliance operations, including hiring additional staff to more adequately address areas of noncompliance, began in fiscal year 2023,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel wrote in the report. “We continued to make progress developing and using innovative approaches to better understand, detect and resolve potential noncompliance, such as leveraging new technology and data analytics to fairly enforce tax laws.”
The IRS got roughly $79.4 billion in supplemental funding when President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law, though Congress later clawed back around $1.4 billion.
At the time, many Republicans opposed the funding boost, warning that a large portion of the money would be used to hire an “army of 87,000” tax enforcers who would come down hard on ordinary Americans and squeeze them for “every last penny.”
As claims of the “army of 87,000” enforcers captured the spotlight, the IRS went to great pains to push back on this notion, including by pledging repeatedly that audit rates wouldn’t rise for Americans making less than $400,000 per year.
Critics panned the promise as empty, while the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the watchdog overseeing the IRS, warned that this pledge could be hard to keep because the IRS uses outdated income thresholds and has no way to identify the complete population of taxpayers that meet the $400,000 criterion.
The IRS insists its $400,000 pledge was a promise it managed to keep.
“In fiscal year 2023, there was no increase in audits of tax returns for taxpayers making under $400,000 per year,” the IRS said in a statement.
Enforcement, Refunds
The IRS expanded its workforce by around 5 percent last year, according to the report. The agency added roughly 5,800 new employees, many of them to work on compliance and bring in more tax dollars.
Forty percent of the the IRS’s 82,990 full-time staff in 2023 were dedicated to enforcement activity, which includes the examination of tax returns, collection of balances due, and administrative and judicial settlement of taxpayer appeals of examination findings.
The agency ramped up spending on enforcement last year, from around $5.41 million in 2022 to $5.62 million in 2023, with most of the increased spending in the area of examinations and collections.
“The IRS has increased its enforcement and collections efforts on high wealth non-filers and those who underreport their tax liability through complex schemes,” the IRS said in a statement.
Thanks in part to the added hiring and funding boost, the IRS its staff processed 271.4 million tax returns and other forms last year, including more than 163.1 million individual income tax returns.
The agency said it paid out $659 million in refunds, a 2.7 percent increase over the 2022 fiscal year.
“The effects of this IRA funding—to hire more IRS employees and modernize the agency’s technology and systems to provide better service to the American people—started showing up in the 2023 tax season,“ Mr. Werfel said in a statement. ”And that progress has accelerated into 2024.”
More Tax Enforcers Hiring
A recent report from the TIGTA shows that the IRS is hiring thousands more tax enforcers in 2024 as the agency looks to boost its tax revenues going forward.
The watchdog report reveals that the IRS is on track to hire a total of 5,582 tax enforcers across three staffing categories: revenue officers, revenue agents, and special agents.
The bulk of the new hiring will be revenue agents, who are employees in the “examination” function that carry out face-to-face tax audits of more complex returns. The IRS plans to hire 4,663 revenue agents in the 2024 fiscal year, which will bring their number up to 12,358.
Some of the hiring will involve onboarding another 517 staff members in the IRS’s “collection” function, whereby employees collect delinquent taxes and secure delinquent returns. This will bring the total by the end of the 2024 fiscal year to 3,470.
The smallest number of new hires is armed special agents in the criminal division. The IRS plans to hire 402 of them this year, bringing the total by the end of the current fiscal year to 2,500.
Given the spotlight on claims of an “army of 87,000” tax enforcers, the watchdog also weighed in on this in its report.
“There has been widespread reporting that the IRS will be hiring 87,000-armed enforcement agents,” the watchdog wrote, adding that “this claim is unfounded.”
“The only enforcement personnel employed by the IRS who are armed are Criminal Investigation Division special agents,” the TIGTA added, noting also that special agents have the lowest number of staff of all the IRS’s enforcement personnel.

May 2, 2024—printed off 5/3/24
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Elite higher education in America—long unquestioned as globally preeminent—is facing a perfect storm. Fewer applicants, higher costs, impoverished students, collapsing standards, and increasingly politicized and mediocre faculty reflect a collapse of the university system. The country is waking up to the reality that a bachelor’s degree no longer equates with graduates being broadly educated and analytical. Just as often, they are stereotyped as pampered, largely ignorant, and gratuitously opinionated.
No wonder polls show a drastic loss of public respect for higher education and, specifically, a growing lack of confidence in the professoriate. Each year, there are far fewer students entering college. Despite a U.S. population 40 million larger than 20 years ago, fertility rates have fallen in two decades by some 500,000 births per year. Meanwhile, from 1980 to 2020, room, board, and tuition increased by 170 percent.
Skyrocketing costs cannot be explained by inflation alone, given that campuses have lightened faculty teaching loads while expanding administrative staff. At Stanford, there is nearly one staffer or administrative position for every student on campus. At the same time, to vie for a shrinking number of students, colleges began offering costly in loco parentis counseling, Club Med-style dorms and accommodations, and extracurricular activities.
As applicants grew scarcer and expenses went up, universities began offering “full-service” student-aid packages, heavily reliant on government-subsidized student loans. The collective indebtedness of over 40 million student borrowers is nearing $2 trillion. Worse still, an entire new array of therapeutic majors and minors appeared in the social sciences. Most of these gender/race/environmental courses did not emphasize analytical, mathematical, or oral and written skills. Such course work did not impress employers.
Faculty hiring had become increasingly non-meritocratic based on diversity/equity/inclusion criteria. New faculty hires have sought to institutionalize self-serving DEI and recalibrate higher education to prepare a new generation for self-perpetuating radical ideologies. At the more elite campuses, racial quotas vastly curtailed the number of Asian and white students. But that racialist social engineering project required dropping the SAT requirement and comparative ranking of high school grade point averages.
As less well-prepared students entered college, faculty either inflated grades (80 percent are A/A- now at Yale), watered down their course requirements, or added new soft-ball classes. To do otherwise while attempting to retain old standards earned targeted faculty charges of racism and worse.
Another way to square the circle of rising costs and fewer and poorer students was to attract foreign students. They pay the full costs of college, especially those on generous stipends from the Middle East and China. Nearly a million foreign nationals, the majority from illiberal regimes, are now here on full scholarships. While here, many see their newfound freedoms as invitations to attack America. Once here, they too often romanticize the very autocratic governments and illiberal values of their homelands that they seemingly sought to escape by coming to America.
Most foreign students assume they are exempt from the consequences of violating campus rules or laws in general. After all, they pay the full cost of their education and thus partially subsidize those who do not. Almost half of all those enrolled in college never graduate. Those who do, on average, require six years to do so. All these realities explain why teenagers increasingly opt for trade schools, vocational education, and community colleges. They prefer to enter the work force largely debt-free and in demand as skilled, sought-after tradespeople.
Most feel that if the old general education curriculum has been destroyed at weaponized universities, then there is no great loss in skipping the traditional BA degree. A far better selection of demanding and well-taught classes can be found online at a lower cost.
The result is a disaster for both higher education and a wake-up call for the country at large. Entire generations are now suffering from prolonged adolescence as they drag out college to consume their early and mid-twenties. The unfortunate result for the country is a radical delay in marriage, childbearing, and home ownership—all the time-honored catalysts for adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it.
Politicized faculty, infantilized students, and mediocre classes have combined to erode the prestige of college degrees, even at once elite colleges. A degree from Columbia no longer guarantees either maturity or preeminent knowledge but is just as likely a warning to employers of a noisy, poorly educated graduate more eager to complain to Human Resources than to enhance a company’s productivity.
Yet it may not be all that unfortunate that much of higher education is going the way of malls, movie theaters, and CDs. The country needs far more skilled physical labor and less prolonged adolescence and debt.
STEM courses, professional schools, and traditional campuses are better insulated from mediocrity and should survive. Otherwise, millions more starting adulthood at 18 debt-free and fewer encumbered, ignorant, and entitled at 25 is not a bad thing for the country.

By Sandy Fitzgerald-newsmax- 02 May 2024—printed off 5/2/24
A trove of unsealed documents connected with the investigation into allegations that former President Donald Trump mishandled classified materials has revealed that several top Biden administration officials were working with the National Archives to help bring Special Counsel Jack Smith's case against him.
Lawyers representing Trump in the Florida case compiled court exhibits consisting of more than 300 pages of unredacted items, including emails and other correspondence showing that Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su had been regularly communicating with National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Archive officials, as had the Department of Justice, reports Real Clear Investigations' Julie Kelly.
The correspondence also indicates that the Department of Justice had been communicating with NARA throughout most of 2021, even though it had claimed it became involved only after the Archives had sent in a criminal referral on Feb. 9, 2022.
The referral was based on the Archives reporting that records with "classified markings" were included among the 15 boxes of materials Trump had turned in. President Joe Biden, who denied involvement in the investigation, was not specifically named in the exhibits, which Trump's attorneys filed in January. The items were at first heavily redacted, but the team asked U.S. District Court judge Aileen Cannon, the judge presiding over the case to remove many of the redactions.
Meanwhile, Smith claimed that releasing the materials would jeopardize his investigation, reveal potential witnesses, and potentially subject them to risks of harassment and intimidation. Cannon, however, posted the mostly unredacted archives on April 22, and a comparison of the redacted and the unredacted materials showed the coordination between NARA and the DOJ, the White House, and the intelligence community. The documents revealed that shortly after Trump left office in 2021, Biden's Office of Records Management and the National Archives started making demands to the former president's transition team and Mark Meadows, his chief of staff. Archives general counsel Gary Stern emailed Trump's team in May 2021, the unredacted documents show, and asked the attorneys to account for almost 2 dozen original presidential records that were not transferred.
He did not specify any particular records except for “original correspondence between President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jung-un” and “the letter that President Obama left for President Trump on his first day in office."
One of the unsealed FBI reports indicated the Archives also wanted to get hold of a map that Trump had drawn on with a Sharpie during a 2018 briefing on the track of Hurricane Dorian. David Ferriero, a national archivist appointed by Barack Obama in 2009, warned the Trump transition team in June 2021 that he was "running out of patience, and on Aug. 30 told Trump's team that he assumed the boxes were destroyed and he would have to report the loss to lawmakers, the DOJ, and the White House. Other documents showed evidence that White House lawyers were advising the archives, including a draft letter accompanying a Sept. 1, 2021 email where Stern said he had advised White House counsel about the documents. The letter, from Ferriero to Attorney General Merrick Garland, said that presidential records "may have been unlawfully removed from U.S. government custody or possibly destroyed."

BY: VICTOR HANSON—5/2/24—PRINTED OFF 5/2/24
Recently, viral videos have highlighted the furor—and narcissism—of progressive elites when they rarely face the consequences of their own actions. The most hilarious video was the defiant DA of New York’s Monroe County, dripping with elite condescension. She felt she had the right to go 20 mph over the speed limit, ignore a patrol car signaling her to pull over, and then in her garage dress down hoi polloi officers for daring to treat her like she was a mere citizen. Another was the Emory professor screaming (“I am a professor!”) when handcuffed and hauled off her campus by Georgia law enforcement. She exited whining to cameras that she had only “lightly” hit a policeman on the head (“I impulsively hit him on the head very lightly to get his attention and they grabbed me.”). And then there was the Bakersfield fiery leftist who bragged to the City Council about murdering them in their homes, only to flicker and weep in court when facing felony indictments. Progressive hothouse plants assume their supposed moral superiority exempts them from living by the rules in the manner of others. But sometimes it is not just the police who anger them, but the very Frankensteinian monsters they created who do not cooperate with their degreed and elected enablers. In California, an epidemic of crime, from theft to assault, has struck liberal politicians in the last few months, including most recently Adam Schiff, the leftwing mayors of San Jose—Matt Mahon—and Los Angeles—Karen Bass, and even the unhinged district attorney of Oakland Pamela Price. Critical legal theory, no-bail, and defund the police apparently offer no protection. Sen. Chuck Schumer thought it a neat trick in 2020 to assemble a pro-abortion throng outside the Supreme Court doors, and threaten Justices Kavanagh and Gorsuch by name. He grandstanded that they would not know what would soon “hit” them as they reaped the “whirlwind”. Now a pro-Hamas whirlwind hit his own home, in the fashion leftists not long also did with impunity to Supreme Court Justices’ homes—then to the sudden silence of the otherwise loud Schumer. Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky kindly invited his own law students to his home for dinner—only to have his hospitality hijacked by pro-Hamas activist students that commandeered a microphone to spout their drivel, leading to a scuffle with his wife. The cry-bully mob offered no exemption to the dean—who in antisemitic fashion was portrayed on campus posters as a veritable IDF vampire. They also seemed indifferent to (or emboldened by?) the fact that Chemerinsky in the past has often offered advice about how to get around statutes prohibiting race-based hiring by not explicitly mentioning the operative agenda of diversity. And of course, in the past he had encouraged more campus protests to combat “racism”. Most college presidents, many hired under DEI pressures, are now being eaten alive by their own ideologues, shocked that pro-Hamas activists are at heart fascistic and anti-Semitic and, well yes, spout “hate speech”. So terrified college presidents talk tough, virtue signaling to alumni and donors by issuing “deadlines”, and promising“consequences” —but otherwise usually ending up negotiating and extending or making new deadlines to their campus occupiers. So the pro-Hamas crowd takes over their campuses, and often forces all students either to finish the semester remotely or to have their graduation ceremonies cancelled or abbreviated. And all to the applause of Hamas in Gaza and delight of the mullahs in Iran. The left in the last 30 years absorbed America’s maininstitutions and hallmarks. And now from Disney and Anheuser-Busch to the Ivy League to CNN and blue-state big cities, it has more or less destroyed their brands and reputations. The progressive touch eventually turns everything to dross.

OAN’s Brooke Mallory--April 8, 2024—printed off 4/30/24
If approved, a new student loan policy that the Biden administration unveiled on Monday will take away debt payments for millions of Americans.
However, edworkforce.house.gov reported: “There is no such thing as ‘forgiveness,’ and student loan debt does not go away—it remains on the federal government’s books. Cancelation alone is estimated to cost at least $400 billion dollars. The Biden administration simply [would move] the loan debt, agreed to by millions of student loan borrowers, onto the backs of American taxpayers. Biden’s student loan bailout will cost every taxpayer, even those who never went to college, at least $2,500.”
The suggested programs would primarily impact borrowers who qualify for income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, those who have been making loan payments for 20 years, those who have “runaway interest,” or “those facing hardship.”
Regardless of income, the plan would grant debtors $20,000 in loan forgiveness for sums that had increased as a result of unpaid interest since beginning payments. The entire amount of unpaid interest would be waived for those who meet the requirements of the SAVE IDR scheme.
As a result, “23 million Americans” would have their whole debt growth erased, and 25 million would receive relief from balance growth resulting from unpaid interest.
Additionally, the government wants to automatically waive debt for people who meet the requirements of the SAVE plan, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and other loan forgiveness schemes. With this option, an estimated 2 million Americans would receive complete loan forgiveness.
Finally, the administration seeks to provide relief to borrowers who are having difficulty repaying their loans, including those who are at high risk of defaulting and families who are struggling with additional debt, such as medical bills, as well as those who were enrolled in low-value education programs that the Department of Education has determined to be inadequate.
“The Biden-Harris Administration plans to release proposed rules on these plans over the coming months. If these plans are finalized as proposed, this fall the Administration would begin canceling up to $20,000 in interest for millions of borrowers and full loan forgiveness for millions more,” the administration said.
The White House also highlighted how this move could benefit community college graduates, specifically Black and Latino borrowers, who are statistically more likely to struggle with student loan debt in comparison to Whites and Asians, the administration claims.
“These actions are expected to provide significant relief to Black and Latino borrowers, borrowers who attended community college, and borrowers who are financially vulnerable because they took out debt but never had the chance to complete their degree,” the administration added.
Meanwhile, it will still take months to find out if these proposals will be approved. The plans are also expected to be contested in court if they are approved.

OAN’s Abril Elfi--April 9, 2024—printed off 4/30/24
The Vatican has released a new document stating that gender theory, gender-related surgery, and surrogacy are violations to “human dignity.”
On Monday, the document called Dignitas Infinita, which is Latin for “Infinite Dignity,” was released after more than five years in development by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
“In the light of Revelation, the Church resolutely reiterates and confirms the ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ,” the document states in its beginning.
The document addresses more than a dozen issues, including abortion, human trafficking, poverty, euthanasia, and more through papal teachings and scripture.
“Regarding gender theory, whose scientific coherence is the subject of considerable debate among experts, the Church recalls that human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God,” the document states. “This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good. Desiring personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.”
Pope Francis has previously stated that gender ideology is one of the world’s “most dangerous ideological colonizations.”
“Another prominent aspect of gender theory is that it intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them. In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvelous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world,” the document continues.
After several months of revisions, Pope Francis finally gave Dignitas Infinita the go-ahead to be published on March 25th. The document was presented by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the DDF prefect, during a press conference held in Vatican City on Monday.
The text elaborates on the Church’s long-standing ethical criticisms of surrogate pregnancies, which it claims are at odds with the pro-life stance, while also restating the Church’s teachings on abortion.
“The Church also takes a stand against the practice of surrogacy, through which the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object,” the document states. “First and foremost, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child. Indeed, every child possesses an intangible dignity that is clearly expressed – albeit in a unique and differentiated way – at every stage of his or her life: from the moment of conception, at birth, growing up as a boy or girl, and becoming an adult,” the dicastery wrote in the document. “Because of this unalienable dignity, the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”
Surrogacy via in vitro fertilization typically requires the artificial fertilization of multiple human embryos, some of which are often later frozen or destroyed.
The Catholic Church has stated that human life must be protected and valued from the moment of conception to natural death, regardless of developmental stage or life circumstances.
Additionally, it has expressed serious concerns about the global surrogacy industry, which involves wealthy Western couples paying poor women from third-world countries to carry their embryos to term.
“Although not comprehensive, the topics discussed in this Declaration are selected to illuminate different facets of human dignity that might be obscured in many people’s consciousness,” the text reads. “Some topics may resonate more with some sectors of society than others. Nevertheless, all of them strike us as being necessary because, taken together, they help us recognize the harmony and richness of the thought about human dignity that flows from the Gospel,” it continues. “This Declaration does not set out to exhaust such a rich and crucial subject. Instead, its aim is to offer some points for reflection that can help us maintain an awareness of human dignity amid the complex historical moment in which we are living. This is so that we may not lose our way and open ourselves up to more wounds and profound sufferings amid the numerous concerns and anxieties of our time.”

OAN’s James Meyers-April 12, 2024—printed off 4/30/24--
The Biden Administration has announced they are canceling an additional $7.4 billion in student loan debt just ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
Biden said the latest student loan forgiveness plan will target an estimated 277,000 borrowers across America, with the national debt topping $34.5 trillion.
The president praised his Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, which came after the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) stopped Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
“These 277,000 borrowers are enrolled in my administration’s SAVE Plan, or were approved for relief because of fixes we made to Income-Driven Repayment Plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” Biden said in a news release. “From day one of my administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity.”
Additionally, Biden said he will promise to “never stop” working to cancel student debt, which took a shot at Republicans who have been in opposition of student loan repayment plans due to the knowledge that taxpayers nationwide would be “picking up the check,” even if they have never attended college.
“Republican elected officials across 18 states want to prevent their own constituents from benefiting from the SAVE plan,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “They want to end SAVE and make their constituents’ monthly payments go up and keep them under mountains of loan debt with no end in sight.” “The president will continue fighting to give people more breathing room and using every tool at his disposal to help borrowers.”
According to the Department of Education (DOE), it said that the new plans would wave built up and capitalized interest for millions of borrowers, automatically discharge debt for borrowers, and eliminate student debt for borrowers in repayment for 20 years or more. Additionally, the plans are also there to help those enrolled in low-financial-value programs, and assist borrowers who experience hardship in repaying their loans. The newly announced student loan forgiveness plan comes as 18 states have sued against Biden’s student loan plan.
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma joined a growing number of states and filed a complaint against the plan on Tuesday. Furthermore, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s (R-Mo.) lawsuit has argued that Biden’s “SAVE” plan, which was originally announced in February, is illegal and would cost taxpayers an estimated $475 billion.
“With the stroke of his pen, Joe Biden is attempting to saddle working Missourians with a half trillion dollars in debt. The United States Constitution makes clear that the President lacks the authority to unilaterally ‘cancel’ student loan debt for millions of Americans without express permission from Congress,” Bailey told Fox News Digital. “The president does not get to thwart the Constitution when it suits his political agenda. I’m filing suit to halt his embarrassing attempt to buy the 2024 election in direct violation of the law. The Constitution will continue to mean something as long as I’m Attorney General.” According to the DOE, the public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed actions “in the coming weeks.”

OAN’s Brooke Mallory-- April 12, 2024—printed off 4/30/24
After an audit revealed that California spent $24 billion over a 5-year period in an attempt to address homelessness, but neglected to regularly monitor whether the enormous outlay of public funds resulted in any real progress toward the escalating issue, California GOP officials are demanding better accountability.
The state auditor’s report discovered that several communities continued to face homelessness and housing issues in spite of spending around $24 billion on these initiatives throughout the 2018–2023 fiscal years.
The California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH), which oversees agency coordination and resource allocation for homelessness services, ceased monitoring program effectiveness in 2021, according to the report.
“It also failed to collect and evaluate outcome data for these programs due to the lack of a consistent method, the audit found,” Fox News reported.
James Gallagher, the Republican leader of the California Assembly, directly blamed the Newsom administration.
“This is standard Gavin Newsom—make a splashy announcement, waste a bunch of taxpayer money, and completely fail to deliver,” Gallagher said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Californians are tired of the homeless crisis, and they’re even more tired of Gavin’s excuses. We need results—period, full stop.”
Despite calling the audit “troubling,” Republican state Senator Roger Niello told reporters that he “wasn’t terribly surprised.”
“The one issue I had with the audit was that the focus was mostly on housing and shelter issues, which is certainly important, but really very little about actual results, getting people out of homelessness, not just into shelter,” he said. “That’s sort of half the job, maybe not even quite half the job. And, so that was a little bit of a disappointment.”
After visiting a sizable homeless camp in San Jose last year, Democrat state Senator Dave Cortese made the inital request for the audit, stating that it “highlights the need for improved data and greater transparency at both the state and local levels.”
“Unfortunately, there is a balkanized approach to data collection and outcomes, with no centralized system for tracking our investments,” he continued. “This audit underscores the urgent need to establish best practices and create a blueprint for how the State of California and our cities can address our most visible challenge.”
Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player and current GOP candidate in the upcoming 2024 U.S. Senate election, made a post on X (Twitter) concerning the recent audit.
Despite the audit’s conclusions, the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) said that since AB 977 went into force on January 1st, 2023, data collection “has improved.”
According to the law, the Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) must have certain data items about individuals and families entered by grantees of state-funded homelessness services.
Local governments, according to Cal ICH, should bear greater responsibility as they are the ones “primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
“The Council continues to improve its ability to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent judiciously and effectively, including by providing technical support to local jurisdictions to help align data standards and reporting,” Cal ICH said.
UPDATE: Top date corrected – 2023 date was changed to 2024.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

‘The unfortunate reality is that what we are seeing today is something that most survivors never see,’ said Rachael Denhollander, one of his victims.
By Tom Ozimek-UPDATED -4/24/2024—EPOCH TIMES-printed off 4/30/24
The Biden administration has agreed to pay over $138 million to victims of convicted sex abuser Larry Nassar while acknowledging the FBI’s failures to properly investigate warnings that the sports physician was exploiting his position to molest young girls under the guise of treatment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in an April 23 statement that it had settled 139 civil claims arising from allegations of sexual abuse committed by Mr. Nassar, who was earlier found guilty of having abused hundreds of victims under the pretext of performing medical treatments.
The settlements—which total $138.7 million—resolve administrative claims made against the DOJ alleging that the FBI failed to carry out an adequate investigation into Mr. Nassar’s actions. A DOJ watchdog found in July 2021 that parts of the FBI’s response to allegations against Mr. Nassar, as well as the agency’s investigation into his actions, were inadequate.
The “FBI failed to conduct an adequate investigation of Nassar’s conduct,” Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement. “For decades, Lawrence Nassar abused his position, betraying the trust of those under his care and medical supervision while skirting accountability,” he continued.
“These allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset. While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing,” Mr. Mizer added.
The $138.7 million will be distributed to the claimants.
There have been other settlements involving Mr. Nassar, who was the U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor.
In total, settlements concerning the convicted sex abuser have totaled nearly $1 billion, including Michigan State University agreeing to pay $500 million to over 300 women and girls whom he assaulted.
‘Institutional Betrayal’
After allegations of Mr. Nassar’s abuse were first reported to the FBI Indianapolis Field Office by the president of USA Gymnastics in 2015, local field agents failed to respond “with the utmost seriousness and urgency that the allegations deserved and required,” the 2021 report by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found.
Further, the report found that two FBI officials lied during their interviews to cover up or minimize their errors. One of the agents also made a false statement to the media in 2017 and 2018 about how his office handled the Nassar case.
That agent also violated the FBI’s conflict of interest policy by discussing a possible job with the U.S. Olympic Committee while he was involved with the Nassar investigation.
The watchdog noted the seriousness of the former agents lying during the investigation into their conduct in the years after the events but said there wasn’t enough to bring a federal criminal case.
The Justice Department has acknowledged that it failed to step in. For more than a year, FBI agents in Indianapolis and Los Angeles had knowledge of allegations against him but apparently took no action, an internal investigation found.
FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke to survivors of Mr. Nassar’s abuse at a Senate hearing in 2021, expressing contrition for the agency’s failures. The assault survivors include decorated Olympians Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and McKayla Maroney.
“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” Mr. Wray said. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.”
After a search, investigators said in 2016 that they had found images of child sex abuse and followed up with federal charges against Mr. Nassar.
Separately, the Michigan attorney general’s office handled the assault charges that ultimately shocked the sports world and led to an extraordinary dayslong sentencing hearing with gripping testimony about his crimes.
“I’m deeply grateful. Accountability with the Justice Department has been a long time in coming,” Rachael Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, told The Associated Press. She is not part of the latest settlement but was the first person to publicly step forward and detail abuse at the hands of Mr. Nassar.
“The unfortunate reality is that what we are seeing today is something that most survivors never see,” Ms. Denhollander said. “Most survivors never see accountability. Most survivors never see justice. Most survivors never get restitution.”
The Army of Survivors (TAOS), an organization created by a group of over 40 survivors of sexual violence, praised the settlement but had words of criticism for what it characterized as “institutional betrayal” of Mr. Nassar’s victims.
“No amount of money can truly compensate for the pain and suffering endured by the athlete-survivors, a direct result of negligence and institutional betrayal by the very systems designed to safeguard them,” the group said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.
“However, the acceptance of this settlement brings a semblance of closure, marking the resolution of the last remaining legal battle against the network of institutions that failed in their response to the allegations against Nassar,” it added.
TAOS added that, after the dust settles from the DOJ’s admission of institutional failure, efforts must turn to embedding the lessons learned from the case into the fabric of athletic institutions in the country.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.
Caden Pearson, The Associated Press, and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

Justices issue new directive.
Updated:-4/24/2024—printed off 4/30/24-- By Zachary Stieber
The U.S. Supreme Court on April 23 directed the U.S. Department of Justice to reply to a man convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Justices said the department’s response to Russell Alford is due May 23.
Mr. Alford was convicted by a jury of four misdemeanor counts but is challenging two of the charges, arguing that they don’t apply to his conduct.
The charges should not have been brought because the laws on which they’re based bar disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building and in a restricted building, but Mr. Alford merely entered the Capitol and stood silently against a wall before exiting, the Supreme Court was told in a filing from Mr. Alford’s lawyers.
U.S. District Judge Tonya Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, originally rejected Mr. Alford’s request to dismiss the counts, finding that his “mere presence inside the Capitol disturbed the public peace or undermined public safety.”
find that his unauthorized presence in the Capitol as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety,” the ruling stated.
“The court should grant review because this case presents an important question of federal statutory interpretation,” Mr. Alford’s lawyers wrote to the Supreme Court, describing the appeals court ruling as “establish[ing] a slippery and counter-textual standard for criminalizing conduct in settings for political activity.”
One of the laws, 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2), bars people from “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of government business or official functions.”
The other, 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D), makes it a crime to “utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either house of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either house of Congress.”
The lower court rulings were wrong in part because they focused on the effects of Mr. Alford’s conduct, not the nature of the conduct, according to the writ to justices.
That focus “collapses the conduct element into the harm element by giving the adjectives no apparent force,” they said. They argued later that merely being present “is not disorderly conduct unless the presence is in defiance of an order to disperse.”
If the court grants the petition, it would review the case and decide if the rulings were appropriate.
The Department of Justice’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, told the court on April 12 that the government was waiving its right to file a response to the filing, “unless requested to do so by the court.” The petition was distributed to justices on April 18 for their scheduled May 9 conference. Then, on Tuesday, justices directed the Department of Justice to file a response to Mr. Alford.
Lawyers for Mr. Alford and the government did not respond to requests for comment.
If justices take up the petition and rule in favor of Mr. Alford, a number of other Jan. 6 defendants and convicts could see charges thrown out.
Obstruction Charge
The court already agreed to review another charge brought against many Jan. 6 defendants.
Justices sat for oral arguments on April 16 concerning obstruction of an official proceeding, a charge brought against former police officer Joseph Fischer after he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
One of Mr. Fischer’s attorneys said the charge should not have been brought because the law was only intended to be used in cases of evidence tampering.
Ms. Prelogar told justices that the charge was proper because it was “not limited to evidence impairment.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by former President Donald Trump, wondered whether the government would bring the charge against people who heckled the court.
“Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify, or at the State of the Union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?” he asked.
Another justice later questioned if protesters blocking access to a trial would face the charge, noting that protests have taken place in the past at the Supreme Court but the government did not charge the protesters under the law.
Ms. Prelogar said the law might apply in such cases, if there was proof of “corrupt intent.”
Justices are due to hand down a decision in the case at some point in the future.

The package includes aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as a measure requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest the app.
By T.J. Muscaro--4/24/2024—EPTOCH TIMES—printed off 4/30/24
Just 12 hours after the Senate gave its late-night approval, President Joe Biden signed the contentious $95 billion national security package that sends more foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. The legislation also includes a measure that forces TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent company and authorizes the seizure of Russian assets to further fund Ukraine’s war effort.
“America stands with our friends; we stand up against dictators,” President Biden told reporters after signing the legislation. “We bow to no one, to no one. Certainly not Vladimir Putin.”
“It’s an investment in our own security because when our allies are stronger, we are stronger.”
The president stated that he would ensure that the shipment to Ukraine begins immediately. In just a matter of hours, he said, the United States will start sending equipment to Ukraine for air defense munitions, artillery, rocket systems, and armored vehicles.
President Biden also touched on the aid being sent to Israel and Gaza.
“With this aid, the United States can help replenish Israel’s air defense and provide other critical defense so Iran can never carry out the destruction it intended with its attack 10 days ago,” he said.
President Biden noted that it includes $1 billion for humanitarian aid in Gaza, stating that “everything we do is guided by a goal of bringing hostages home, securing a cease-fire, and setting the conditions for an enduring peace.”
“Israel must make sure all this aid reaches the Palestinians in Gaza without delay,” he said.
The House passed the package on April 20; it was split up into four separate bills with bipartisan support over the objections of the GOP’s right flank.
The House voted 311–112 to give Ukraine another $61 billion in aid, 366–58 in favor of providing $26.4 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza, 385–34 in favor of providing $8.1 billion for the Indo-Pacific and Taiwanese security, and 360–58 in favor of ordering the Chinese divestment of TikTok and the allowance of the seizure of Russian assets.
“Remember this moment,” President Biden said. “For all the talk about how dysfunctional things are in Washington, when you look over the past three years, see that time and again on the critical issues we’ve actually come together.”
Three days after the House approved the package, the Senate passed the legislation in a 79–18 vote.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the Senate, President Biden, and the American people on social media platform X for their continued support, stating: “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery, and air defense are critical tools for restoring just peace sooner.
“I thank Majority Leader Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.] for their strong leadership in advancing this bipartisan legislation, as well as all US Senators on both sides of the aisle who voted in favor of it.
“This vote reinforces America’s role as a beacon of democracy and the leader of the free world.”
Mr. McConnell appeared on Fox News on the morning after the bill’s passing and emphasized the importance of defending Ukraine. He criticized President Biden, saying that the withdrawal from Afghanistan “was like sending a green light” to Mr. Putin. He also said that the United States didn’t give Ukraine “sufficient weaponry” fast enough.
The Senate vote saw 15 Republicans, two Democrats, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voting against it.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) told The Epoch Times that he is “sympathetic” to the causes of Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel but that the United States should have focused on a fourth border—its own—in that package.
“It doesn’t deal with that,” he said. “And that’s the problem, which is that we’re dealing with three other countries’ border issues and not our own.”
Mr. McConnell sided with his fellow Republicans, calling the border crisis “an unmitigated disaster for this administration and for our country.”
However, he also believes that the United States does not have to choose between securing the border and providing foreign aid.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Mr. McConnell said. “We ought to be able to fix that border, as well as help democratically elected countries around the world stand up to the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians.”
President Biden addressed the fact that border security was not in the bill and blamed Congress for not getting it done.
“Just this year, I proposed and negotiated and agreed to the strongest border security bill this country has ever seen,” he said. “It was bipartisan. It should have been included in this bill. And I’m determined to get it done for the American people.”
The president took no questions and rushed off to a speaking engagement at the North America’s Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference.
Samantha Flom, Joseph Lord, and Stacy Robinson contributed to this report.

EPOCH TIMES-- Kevin Stokliin—4/06/24—PRINTED OFF 4/30/24

Several recent reports say that President Biden’s new EV mandates will likely amount to a sizable wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, and from rural red regions to urban, blue, Democrat-voting districts.
On March 20, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its tailpipe emissions rules for the auto industry starting in 2027. These rules are the strictest in history and will effectively force carmakers to have one-third of new car sales be plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) by 2027 and more than two-thirds be EVs by 2032.

Climate activists cheered the move, with the Environmental Defense Fund calling it “a day to celebrate American achievement.”
But critics say that these measures will be costly, especially for less wealthy Americans who don’t want, can’t use, or can’t afford EVs.
“This isn’t industrial policy,” Robert Bryce, author and energy analyst, told The Epoch Times. “In reality, it’s a type of class warfare that will prevent low- and middle-income consumers from being able to afford new cars.”
According to an October 2023 report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as much as $48,000 of the cost of the average EV sold in the United States is paid, not by the owner, but in the form of “socialized costs” that are spread out among taxpayers and electricity consumers over a 10-year period.
These socialized costs come in the form of taxes, subsidies, fuel economy credits paid by gas carmakers to EV manufacturers, and higher electricity bills as consumers absorb the capital costs to expand the power grid and build charging stations.
The report states that “the average model year 2021 EV would cost $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period without $22 billion in government favors given to EV manufacturers and owners.”
If carmakers go along with Biden’s plan to shift their fleets to EVs, the cost of remaining gas-fired cars and trucks will likely escalate as demand dwarfs supply.
“The EPA mandate is aimed at accommodating a very narrow segment of the auto-buying public: wealthy, white Democrats who live in a handful of liberal communities,” Mr. Bryce said.
In a February analysis, Mr. Bryce reported that 57 percent of EV buyers earn more than $100,000 per year, 75 percent are male, and 87 percent are white. In addition, EV buyers are overwhelmingly Democrats, with 71 percent of Republicans stating in a Gallup poll that they would not consider owning an electric vehicle.
A 2023 University of California Energy Institute report found “a strong and enduring correlation between political ideology and U.S. EV adoption.” Looking at county-level data on new vehicle registrations between 2012 and 2022, the report stated that 50 percent of all new EVs were sold into the top 10 percent of most-Democrat counties, with 70 percent going to the top 25 percent most-Democrat counties, and 90 percent going to the top 50 percent most-Democrat counties.
Twenty counties bought 40 percent of all EVs sold in this period, the report states, and “most of these counties are urban, high-income, and in Democratic states.”
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, California had 903,600 registered EVs, or 37 percent of all EVs owned nationwide, as of year-end 2022. The next-largest states for EV owners were Texas, Florida, and Washington state, with 149,000, 168,000, and 104,100 EVs respectively, followed by New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
The common denominator among these states is the presence of large cities and suburbs, as opposed to rural states like Wyoming and North Dakota, where 800 and 600 EV owners reside, respectively.
According to a report by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP), “if you count all the EVs in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Montana, and Idaho, they account for less than one percent of the total U.S. sales.”
“Ironically, Joe Biden is the worst thing that ever happened to this industry,” CTUP states. “EVs have become ‘Biden cars.’”
Politics aside, there are practical reasons why people are unwilling to spend thousands of dollars more on what, for them, is an inferior vehicle.
Rasmussen Reports, which polled Americans’ views on the Biden EV mandate, stated that “EVs may be practical to zip about in the mild weather of the Pacific Coast and over the short distances of the Northeast—Biden territory in 2020. But EV batteries run out of charge over long distances, when it’s freezing outside, or when you’ve got your air conditioning on—all common experiences in the South, Midwest and Rocky Mountain states, which Trump carried in 2016 and 2020.”
A recent Rasmussen poll of voters found that only 14 percent were strongly in favor of regulations to phase out gas-powered cars and trucks, while nearly 60 percent were against. Opinions split along party lines, with 53 of Democrats in favor of the EPA regulations and 76 percent of Republicans against, with 59 percent of independents also opposing. The strongest support for EV mandates came from people earning more than $150,000 a year.