A woman accused of racism and animal abuse has lost her job after a video of an altercation in New York City’s Central Park went viral.
Social media users outed Amy Cooper after she was filmed threatening to call the police on a black man and tell them “there’s an African-American man threatening my life.” Cooper was first suspended from her position at the investment management firm Franklin Templeton pending an internal review and was later fired.
“Following our internal review of the incident in Central Park yesterday, we have made the decision to terminate the employee involved, effective immediately. We do not tolerate racism of any kind at Franklin Templeton,” the company said on Twitter.
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Following our internal review of the incident in Central Park yesterday, we have made the decision to terminate the employee involved, effective immediately. We do not tolerate racism of any kind at Franklin Templeton.
&mdash; Franklin Templeton (@FTI_US) <a href="https://twitter.com/FTI_US/status/1265348185201008641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Cooper lost her job despite issuing a public apology after the incident. “I&#8217;m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,” she told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/us/central-park-video-dog-video-african-american-trnd/index.html">CNN</a>.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sounded off on the incident in a tweet on Tuesday morning.
“The video out of Central Park is racism, plain and simple. She called the police BECAUSE he was a Black man. Even though she was the one breaking the rules. She decided he was the criminal and we know why. This kind of hatred has no place in our city,” the mayor said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The video out of Central Park is racism, plain and simple.
She called the police BECAUSE he was a Black man. Even though she was the one breaking the rules. She decided he was the criminal and we know why.
This kind of hatred has no place in our city. <a href="https://t.co/6PP7jIwL1g">https://t.co/6PP7jIwL1g</a>
&mdash; Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1265265665755230209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Cooper, a white woman, was exercising her dog in Central Park’s Ramble over the Memorial Day weekend. She had let the dog off its leash, breaking a rule for pets in the Ramble. Christian Cooper, a black man and no relation to Amy, told her that she was breaking the rules and that she should put her dog on a leash. He posted a rough transcript of what transpired on his Facebook page.
<blockquote>Central Park this morning: This woman&#8217;s dog is tearing through the plantings in the Ramble.
ME: Ma&#8217;am, dogs in the Ramble have to be on the leash at all times. The sign is right there.
HER: The dog runs are closed. He needs his exercise.
ME: All you have to do is take him to the other side of the drive, outside the Ramble, and you can let him run off leash all you want.
HER: It&#8217;s too dangerous.
ME: Look, if you&#8217;re going to do what you want, I&#8217;m going to do what I want, but you&#8217;re not going to like it.
HER: What&#8217;s that?
ME (to the dog): Come here, puppy!
HER: He won&#8217;t come to you.
ME: We&#8217;ll see about that&#8230;
I pull out the dog treats I carry for just for such intransigence. I didn&#8217;t even get a chance to toss any treats to the pooch before Karen scrambled to grab the dog.
HER: DON&#8217;T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!!!!!
That&#8217;s when I started video recording with my iPhone, and when her inner Karen fully emerged and took a dark turn&#8230;</blockquote>
The man also posted a video showing a distressed Amy holding her dog by the collar, presumably choking the animal, while threatening to call the police on Christian. Eventually, she does call the police, saying, “There is an African-American man. I am in Central Park. He is recording me and threatening myself and my dog.”
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<blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229" class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore">
Central Park this morning: This woman&#039;s dog is tearing through the plantings in the Ramble.ME: Ma&#039;am, dogs in the&#8230;
Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1">Christian Cooper</a> on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229">Monday, May 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Bill de Blasio

UPDATE: Woman From Viral ‘Karen’ Video Fired; NYC Mayor De Blasio Weighs In

animals

New York

Racism

A former Florida Department of Health employee was fired after repeatedly ignoring warnings and openly discussing the state’s coronavirus data tracking without authorization.
Rebekah Jones was fired from her position managing coronavirus data for the Florida government after receiving two warnings about publicly discussing her work without authorization, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The AP described the documents in a Sunday <a href="https://www.fox13news.com/news/public-remarks-prompted-florida-covid-19-data-curators-firing">report</a>:
<blockquote>Documents obtained by The Associated Press show a supervisor warned Jones on April 9 after she posted a message on a newspaper Facebook page about the dashboard. She was told she needs approval before publicly discussing the work. Less than two week later, she was warned again when a mapping company’s online magazine published an extensive interview with Jones. Her supervisor later found a public blog in which Jones discussed the dashboard, released unauthorized charts and added “political commentary” in posts that appear to have been taken down.</blockquote>
Jones was reassigned from her post managing the data hub on May 5, and on May 15, in her last email to subscribers of a weekly coronavirus report, she seeded doubt that the state’s tracking hub would be less reliable without her oversight moving forward.
“As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it,” she said in the email according to the <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/florida-health-department-officials-told-manager-to-delete-coronavirus-data-before-reassigning-her-emails-show/">Tampa Bay Times</a>. “They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data.”
After Jones’ then-supervisor, Craig Curry, outlined the instances of insubordination in an email, he was instructed to fire her. Jones’ last day working for the state health department was on Thursday after being fired on May 18.
In the aftermath of Jones’ ouster, a number of Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation into Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and his handling of coronavirus data tracking. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/19/858977838/florida-fires-a-scientist-for-her-refusal-to-manipulate-states-coronavirus-data">Media</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/us/florida-georgia-covid-19-test-data/index.html">outlets</a> reported news of Jones’ firing, pushing an unsubstantiated claim that she was dismissed over a refusal to manipulate data at health officials&#8217; request.
DeSantis spokeswoman Helen Ferre hit back at that allegation in a statement on May 19, saying the data manager was fired for “insubordination.”
“Rebekah Jones exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department, including her unilateral decisions to modify the department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors,” Ferre told <a href="https://thecapitolist.com/state-health-department-employee-fired-for-modifying-covid-19-dashboard-without-permission/">The Capitolist</a>. “The blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website was harmful to the team.”
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Ron DeSantis

Report: Florida Health Department Repeatedly Warned Data Manager Before Ouster

Coronavirus

Florida

Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter says hidden left-wing bias is a growing problem in the media and is threatening “social cohesion” in the United States.
In an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-liberal-leaning-media-has-passed-its-tipping-point-11590430876">op-ed</a> published by The Wall Street Journal Monday, Sauter, who led CBS from 1982-83 and in 1986, slammed news outlets that maintain a veneer of objectivity and fairness while pushing reporting biased in favor of left-wing politics.
Sauter began by recalling a conversation from 35 years ago when he insisted that the media at large was only tilted to the left and “could be corrected.” He goes on to say that his prediction was wrong and instead of the media correcting toward the center, it has driven farther left, especially under President Trump.
<blockquote>The highly influential daily newspapers in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Boston are now decidedly liberal. On the home screen, the three broadcast network divisions still have their liberal tilt. Two of the three leading cable news sources are unrelentingly liberal in their fear and loathing of President Trump.
News organizations that claim to be neutral have long been creeping leftward, and their loathing of Mr. Trump has accelerated the pace. The news media is catching up with the liberalism of the professoriate, the entertainment industry, upscale magazines and the literary world. Recent arrivals are the late-night TV hosts who have broken the boundaries of what was considered acceptable political humor for networks.</blockquote>
The former cable news executive notes that the traditional rules of journalism such as “objectivity, balance, and fairness” have been set aside by many reporters convinced that, in covering the Trump administration, they are more concerned with ousting a “dangerous leader” than reporting facts.
The left-wing media has catered to an audience that rewards outlets for overzealous reporting and minimally punishes mistakes as long they are made in favor of one side and against the other, he explains. The dynamic has made outlets reliant on the traffic driven by biased coverage to cover their bottom lines.
“There’s probably no way to seal the gap between the media and a large segment of the public. The media likes what it is doing. Admires it. Celebrates it. There is no personal, professional or financial reason to change. If anything, the gap will expand,” Sauter says.
Sauter proposes that rather than returning to the old doctrine of objectivity, media companies, and their audiences, would be better served if they became honest about their biases.
<blockquote>Publications open about their bias might feel freer to focus on the specifics: story selection, presentation, facts, fairness, balance. Not devoid of subtlety for sure, but manageable.
Journalism affects social cohesion. Convinced of its role and its legitimacy, however, the media doesn’t seem to much care. And the other side can certainly enjoy throwing rotten tomatoes at distant targets.
But America won’t reunite until far more people can look at a news story in print or on the screen and, of all things, believe it.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Van Gordon Sauter

Ex-CBS News President Skewers ‘Decidedly Liberal’ Media

Donald Trump

Media Bias

The World Health Organization has stopped research into hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug touted by President Donald Trump, as a potential treatment for Covid-19.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the “temporary pause” on Monday after a study published last week found that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine increased the risk of heart problems and death for coronavirus patients, according to The <a href="https://apnews.com/7be2152625e17d236e84b258cb8896fd">Associated Press</a>.
“This concern relates to the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in Covid-19,” Tedros said. Both drugs are on the WHO’s “<a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325771/WHO-MVP-EMP-IAU-2019.06-eng.pdf?ua=1">Model List of Essential Medicines</a>” for treating malaria and certain auto-immune diseases.
A <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext">study</a> published in the medical journal The Lancet on Friday showed the results of a multi-national analysis of the impact of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in patients diagnosed with Covid-19.
“We were unable to confirm a benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19,” the study says. “Each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19.”
The WHO’s decision comes after Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-reveals-he-is-taking-hydroxychloroquine-as-preventative-measure">announced</a> he had been on a hydroxychloroquine regiment for about two weeks on May 18. The president said many doctors and nurses are already making wide use of the drug for themselves and their patients.
“You’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the front-line workers before you catch it. The front-line workers — many, many are taking it,” Trump said. “I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it.”
Chloroquine has been in use as an anti-malarial drug since its discovery in 1934 and has been a central part in fighting malaria globally since the 1950s. The efficacy for treating coronavirus patients with chloroquine, and its more stable counterpart hydroxychloroquine, is still being debated by scientists and researchers studying it.
Trump began <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/malaria-drug-sees-promising-signs-as-future-coronavirus-treatment">touting</a> hydroxychloroquine around the same time that a small but promising study by a French researcher appeared to show that the drug helped coronavirus patients recover faster and with less severe symptoms.
Trump’s May 18 announcement elicited strong reactions from pundits and politicians. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-nancy-pelosi-knocks-trump-morbidly-obese-people-shouldnt-take-unapproved-medications">said</a> Trump should not be taking the drug because of its dangers to “morbidly obese” people.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/press-sec-kayleigh-mcenany-blasts-apoplectic-reaction-after-news-that-trump-is-taking-hydroxychloroquine">knocked</a> Pelosi and other critics of the president’s announcement for ignoring that the drug has been in wide use for decades and that many doctors are using it to treat Covid-19.
“Some of the misreporting on other networks — these apoplectic [analyses] of hydroxychloroquine — ignore the fact that tens of millions of people around the world have used this drug for other purposes,” McEnany said.
“The president has said pretty widely that this is a drug that he had looked at with optimism,” she added. “But nevertheless he said that this is a decision that must be made with a doctor, as he’s repeatedly said.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Hydroxychloroquine

WHO Pauses Research Into Hydroxychloroquine As Covid-19 Treatment

COVID-19

World Health Organization

A California church has appealed to the Supreme Court for relief from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown order.
South Bay United Pentecostal Church and Bishop Arthur Hodges appealed a lawsuit against Newsom to the High Court on Sunday after a panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the church’s request, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/25/california-church-supreme-courtlockdown-278641">Politico</a>.
The 9th Circuit ruled 2-1 against the church on Friday, with the majority arguing that the pandemic emergency warranted that the courts step back from determining whether the civil rights of certain groups were being violated by Newsom’s lockdown order.
“We’re dealing here with a highly contagious and often fatal disease for which there presently is no known cure,’” Judges Barry Silverman and Jacqueline Nguyen wrote according to Politico. “In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, if a ‘court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.’”
The court’s decision came down the same day the Trump administration told governors to deem churches and other houses of worship essential. While President Trump does not have the authority to deem religious services essential across the U.S., his Justice Department can back lawsuits brought by religious institutions against states’ lockdown orders.
On Tuesday, the DOJ <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-warns-ca-gov-newsom-stop-discriminating-against-religious-gatherings">sent</a> a letter to Newsom warning that his lockdown order and strategy for reopening discriminated against houses of worship. DOJ assistant attorney general Eric Dreiband said that Newsom’s lockdown arbitrarily allows some businesses to stay open “regardless of whether the product they are selling and shipping are life-preserving products or not.” Dreiband also pointed out that while a variety of stores and offices are allowed to open in Phase 2 of Newsom’s reopening plan, religious services are banned until Phase 3.
“This facially discriminates against religious exercise,” Dreiband wrote. “California has not shown why interactions in offices and studios of the entertainment industry, and in-person operations to facilitate nonessential ecommerce, are included on the list as being allowed with social distancing where telework is not practical, while gatherings with social distancing for purposes of religious worship are forbidden, regardless of whether remote worship is practical or not.”
“Simply put, there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights,” Dreiband added.
California and Newsom are facing multiple lawsuits from churches that are uniting against his lockdown strategy. Hundreds of pastors have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-churches-prepared-to-defy-governor-resume-in-person-services-says-attorney?%3Futm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=dwtwitter">signed</a> an open letter committing to opening their churches in protest of the order on May 31.
“The indefinite nature of the restrictions on faith-based meetings is in violation of the very principles this country was founded upon,” Robert Tyler, president of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, wrote in a letter signed by 1,200 pastors. “We agree that the government has a legitimate interest in preventing the spread of COVID- 19, but that interest cannot go unchecked.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Gavin Newsom

California Church Asks Supreme Court To Take Action Against Gov. Newsom’s Lockdown Order

California

A federal judge has hired a high-powered attorney after refusing to dismiss charges against former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn after the Justice Department requested to drop the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan retained Washington D.C. lawyer Beth Wilkinson to argue in front of a federal appeals court why Sullivan was right to reexamine <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-doj-just-dropped-its-case-against-flynn-here-are-some-of-the-key-moments">Flynn’s case</a> before dropping the charges, a source told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-judge-hires-high-powered-dc-attorney-to-defend-his-actions-in-flynn-case/2020/05/23/9cae4d5e-9d0c-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html">The Washington Post</a>. A panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/d-c-court-of-appeals-takes-extraordinary-measure-in-flynn-case-orders-judge-to-respond-to-dismissal-request">demanded</a> that Sullivan explain his decision to reject the DOJ request.
Wilkinson has represented a series of prominent officials in high-stakes legal battles. She represented Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation battle when several women made unsubstantiated accusations of sexual assault against him.
FBI Director Christopher Wray ordered an internal investigation into the Flynn case that will determine whether any FBI agents or officials abused their powers in probing Flynn, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-wray-opens-internal-investigation-into-how-bureau-handled-michael-flynn-case">Fox News</a>.
“Although the FBI does not have the prosecutorial authority to bring a criminal case, the Inspection Division can and will evaluate whether any current onboard employees engaged in actions that might warrant disciplinary measures,” the FBI announced on Friday.
The DOJ motion to drop its case against Flynn on May 7 after court documents unsealed in April revealed that the FBI’s top brass had interfered in an FBI probe into Flynn in January 2017 to hold the case open despite having little, if any, reason to do so. The documents also indicated that FBI officials sought to trap Flynn in a Jan. 24, 2017 interview into either lying to federal agents or admitting to breaking an obscure 1799 law. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017, but asked to rescind his guilty plea earlier this year.
After Sullivan refused to drop the case, the judge took the unusual step of asking a retired federal judge to essentially prosecute a case that Attorney General William Barr felt lacked enough evidence to make. Sullivan appointed John Gleeson, a former mafia prosecutor, to pursue the charges against Flynn in the absence of the DOJ’s team. Gleeson is also weighing whether Flynn should be charged with perjury for proclaiming innocence after already pleading guilty.
Flynn’s attorney Sydney Powell <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/flynn-attorney-denounces-travesty-of-justice-after-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-case">blasted</a> Sullivan’s decision to keep the case against Flynn open after the Justice Department decided to stop prosecuting the case.
“This travesty of justice has already consumed three or more years of an innocent man’s life — and that of his entire family. No further delay should be tolerated or any further expense caused to him and his defense,” Powell wrote in a court filing. “This Court should enter the order proposed by the government immediately.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-offered-to-pay-christopher-steele-significantly-for-dirt-on-michael-flynn-and-other-trump-associates">FBI Offered To Pay Christopher Steele ‘Significantly’ For Dirt On Michael Flynn And Other Trump Associates</a>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Michael Flynn

Flynn Judge Retains D.C. Attorney To Justify Decision To Keep Case Open, Report Says

Russia

William Barr

A Michigan county judge denied a request by the state attorney general to close down an Owosso barbershop that has now been open for weeks in violation of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lockdown order.
Shiawassee County Circuit Judge Matthew Stewart ruled against Whitmer on Thursday, refusing to grant an injunction on 77-year-old Karl Manke’s barbershop. Manke opened his shop on May 4 and closed it briefly last week after being served papers from the state attorney general. He again opened his shop on Tuesday, according to <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/21/judge-refuses-state-request-shut-owosso-barber-shop/5235653002/">The Detroit News</a>.
Stewart said the case was a “close call” but ultimately ruled in favor of Manke because the state could not conclusively show that Manke was a threat to the public by operating his business. The threat to public health “must be actual and not theoretical,” the judge said.
“[The government] has not presented any studies underlying the doctor&#8217;s conclusion. [It] has not shown any nexus between the cutting of hair and an increased risk of transmission,&#8221; Stewart wrote in his decision, according to the <a href="https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2020/05/21/judge-manke-owosso-barber-coronavirus-attorney-general-nessel/5236925002/">Lansing State Journal</a>.
State assistant attorney general Joseph Potchen intends to appeal Stewart’s decision. He had argued that Manke’s business was at risk to spread the coronavirus.
“This is not a clean business,” Potchen said. “There is close physical contact. You see the pictures of clients not wearing masks or the waiting room where safe distancing is not being practiced.”
David Kallman, Manke’s defense attorney, said that the barber’s actions were an expression of free speech and a demonstration against the government’s shutdown order.
Manke attended and spoke at a demonstration at Michigan&#8217;s state capitol on Wednesday dubbed “Operation Haircut.” Manke and other hairdressers cut hair on the capitol steps in protest of the state&#8217;s lockdown.
Stewart has ruled in Manke’s favor once before. Shortly after Manke reopened his shop at the beginning of the month, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel applied for a temporary restraining order against Manke’s business, which Stewart denied.
Owosso police have fined Manke twice since he reopened, and the state health department has pulled his license to operate. The barber has promised he will continue to do business as long as he has willing customers, however.
Manke has instituted his own set of social distancing rules in his shop, spacing chairs six feet apart for people who are waiting. He wears a mask while he works, and asks his customers to do the same, though he does not require them too.
Manke shut down for several days on May 14 after his license was suspended and he was served court papers. He slammed Whitmer’s administration, calling it a “police state.”
“I feel she’s breaking the law, I feel she’s entered into a police state type of situation now,” Manke <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-michigan-hairdresser-breaks-lockdown-as-barber-bashes-police-state-that-shut-him-down">said</a>. “Getting me and taking my license without due process, just pulling my license is a police state tactic.”
Manke <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/michigan-barber-promises-im-not-caving-after-state-suspends-his-license-for-violating-lockdown-order?%3Futm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=dwtwitter">reopened</a> his shop after about six weeks of forced closure under Whitmer’s executive order. He was forced to reopen, he said, because he needed to earn money to keep his business.
“I can … run my business how I feel I should run it,” Manke said at the time. “To tell you the truth, I am scared but I didn’t really have any choice. I need to work through that fear and open up.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Karl Manke

Judge Spikes Gov. Whitmer’s Request To Shut Down Michigan Barber

Gretchen Whitmer

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo forced nursing homes to take thousands of recovering and potentially infectious coronavirus patients from hospitals.
Between March 25 and May 10, the Democratic governor pushed an estimated 4,300 hospital patients diagnosed with Covid-19 into nursing homes with some of the most vulnerable targets of the coronavirus, according to a review of hospital data by The <a href="https://apnews.com/5ebc0ad45b73a899efa81f098330204c">Associated Press</a>. The New York state government has withheld releasing its own review of the data.
When told of the AP count, the New York Health Department said it “can’t comment on data we haven’t had a chance to review, particularly while we’re still validating our own comprehensive survey of nursing homes admission and re-admission data in the middle of responding to this global pandemic.”
Cuomo has faced a torrent of criticism over the orders that caused coronavirus positive patients to be placed in nursing homes. That decision led to a mounting death toll among New York’s long-term care facilities, especially around New York City.
“The state has failed to protect the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community,” Democratic assemblyman Ron Kim told <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-sent-recovering-coronavirus-patients-to-nursing-homes-it-was-a-fatal-error-11589470773">The Wall Street Journal</a>. “The fact we maintained and pushed Covid-positive patients into facilities that were not equipped to handle them, it was a fatal error.”
Since rescinding the order, Cuomo has attempted to distance himself from the death toll in New York’s nursing homes while previous decisions by his administration have concealed the true extent of the pandemic inside the state’s nursing homes.
New York officials have acknowledged that a subtle reporting change the administration made in late April has caused the state to undercount Covid-19 deaths in long-term care facilities. The rule change omitted nursing home residents who died outside of their facility from being counted as a long-term facility death. So, for example, any nursing home resident who died in a hospital is not counted in New York’s tracker.
New York’s nursing home death count “currently does not include out of facility deaths,” New York Health Department spokeswoman Jill Montag told <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/15/new-york-coronavirus-reporting-nursing-home-deaths-undercounting/">The Daily Caller News Foundation</a>. “Deaths of nursing home and adult care facility residents that occurred at hospitals is accounted for in the overall fatality data on our COVID-19 tracker.”
In late March and under pressure from the nursing home industry, Cuomo aids <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/nyregion/nursing-homes-coronavirus-new-york.html">inserted</a> a provision in the state’s budget that blocked people from suing facilities such as nursing homes for negligence regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
The governor has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cuomo-amid-nursing-home-scandal-weve-been-more-aggressive-than-any-state-in-nursing-home-precautions">attempted</a> to justify and rationalize his decision in recent press conferences over the state’s battle against the coronavirus.
“As a government, we are doing everything that we can,” Cuomo said on Tuesday. “We’re doing more testing than any other state. We’ve been more aggressive than any state in nursing home precautions. We have been smart. New Yorkers have been smart. The government has been smart and that should be respected.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Andrew Cuomo

Report: Cuomo’s Emergency Orders Forced 4,300 Coronavirus Patients Into Nursing Homes

Nursing homes

Washington state officials admitted to losing a massive amount of taxpayer money meant for workers who lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.
Employment Security Department Commissioner Suzi LeVine said Thursday that the state was scammed out of “hundreds of millions of dollars” by an international unemployment scheme, according to <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/washington-adds-more-than-145000-weekly-jobless-claims-as-coronavirus-crisis-lingers/">The Seattle Times</a>. The commissioner added that the state was attempting to retrieve as much of the stolen money as possible.
“We do have definitive proof that the countermeasures we have put in place are working,” LeVine said. “We have successfully prevented hundreds of millions of additional dollars from going out to these criminals and prevented thousands of fraudulent claims from being filed.”
Washington reported a surge of unemployment claims for the week ending on May 16. The total filings for the week jumped nearly 27% in the state over the week before as unemployment claims nationally have continued to trend downward. Washington now has the highest number of reported unemployed workers as a percentage of its population, according to the <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/unemployment-insurance-claims/">Tax Foundation</a>.
Federal authorities said on Saturday that an international group of fraudsters was targeting the U.S. unemployment system trying to syphon taxpayer dollars meant for jobless Americans. The U.S. Secret Service told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/coronavirus-unemployment-fraud-secret-service-washington.html">The New York Times</a> that investigators were trying to track down the syndicate.
”We are actively running down every lead we are getting,” said Roy Dotson, a Secret Service special agent who specializes in financial crimes. While no definitive conclusions have been made, agents suspect the scheme is being run out of Nigeria.
Besides Washington, the states of Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wyoming are also suspected targets of the scheme.
The pandemic has created an opportunity for fraudsters to take advantage of states that are buried underneath hundreds of thousands of unemployment filings because of pandemic-induced shutdowns. The wave of unemployment filings &#8212; up to nearly 39 million by the end of last week &#8212; have hit state labor departments and caused long delays and crashed outdated processing systems.
Officials are rushing to approve unemployment claims as the unemployment rate continues to rocket well into the double-digits and may hit a levels not seen since the Great Depression.
“There’s a dire need to get money out quickly,” LeVine told the Times. “This makes us an attractive target for fraudsters.”
Congress boosted unemployment checks by $600 a week in March, aiming to combat rampant job loss and float people through the pandemic until states began to reopen again, providing a chance for employment. Most states are now moving slowly toward reopening, but thousands of businesses are now permanently closed after roughly two months of mandated government shutdowns, and experts <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-poll/near-term-us-economic-outlook-darkens-slow-recovery-to-follow-reuters-poll-idUSKBN22R063">forecast</a> that the economic damage done since mid-March will take years to recover from.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Jay Inslee

Washington State Loses ‘Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars’ To Fraudulent Unemployment Claims

Washington

President Trump said the United States will not shut down again if a second wave of coronavirus cases hits the country.
Trump made the pledge while touring a Ford Motor Co. plant outside of Detroit on Thursday. The plant was converted from automobile manufacturing to ventilator production during the pandemic.
Trump spoke with reporters after touring the facility and fielded a question on what the strategy would be to combat a second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall or winter.
“People say it’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country, we’re going to put out the fires,” Trump said, as reported by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/trump-says-he-wont-close-the-country-if-second-wave-of-coronavirus-hits.html">CNBC</a>. “Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out, but we’re not closing our country.”
Throughout the pandemic, the president has left the decision to shut down or not up to the governors of each state. Although he weighed in on some states’ policies, the administration refrained from giving any direct orders and instead chose to offer assistance as requested.
Now, as Trump urges states to reopen, the Department of Justice has begun to push states to adopt more aggressive reopening plans by threatening lawsuits for violating Americans’ civil liberties. The DOJ <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-says-newsoms-lockdown-discriminates-against-religious-exercise">sent</a> a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this week saying that the state’s shutdown and reopening plans unfairly targeted houses of worship.
Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-directs-doj-to-go-after-states-localities-violating-civil-liberties-over-coronavirus">directed</a> the DOJ in an April 27 memo to look for instances of states being too harsh with lockdown orders or reopening too slowly.
“These kinds of restrictions have been necessary in order to stop the spread of a deadly disease — but there is no denying that they have imposed tremendous burdens on the daily lives of all Americans,” Barr wrote. “Now, I am directing each of our United States Attorneys to also be on the lookout for state and local directives that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”
Even without pressure from the DOJ, it remains unclear how feasible a second round of lockdowns would be. Unemployment data released by the Department of Labor on Thursday shows that roughly 39 million workers have lost their jobs or paychecks since mid-March. The lockdowns have sparked large protests from California to New York.
Businesses, churches, and local officials have begun pushing back against governors that are slow to lift lockdowns. In Texas, a salon owner was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dan-crenshaw-small-minded-officials-who-arrested-texas-salon-owner-are-drunk-with-power">arrested</a> and put in jail for opening her business against the lockdown order, sparking a national outcry against heavy-handed restrictions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the salon owner released from jail and rolled back restrictions on salons and barbershops.
In Michigan, a barber in Owasso has resisted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown order for weeks. Seventy-seven-year-old Karly Manke has refused to close his shop despite receiving several fines and having his license to operate revoked by state health officials. Local officials in Owosso have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-michigan-hairdresser-breaks-lockdown-as-barber-bashes-police-state-that-shut-him-down">refused</a> to grant or enforce state orders against the barber.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

President Trump

Trump: 2nd Covid Wave ‘A Very Distinct Possibility,’ But ‘We’re Not Going To Close The Country’

Economy

Andrew Weismann, lead prosecutor for ex-special counsel Robert Mueller, is headlining a fundraising event for former Vice President Joe Biden.
On June 2, Weismann will sit down with former New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram for a virtual “fireside chat” and fundraiser for Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Weismann was effectively Mueller’s right hand throughout the ex-special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion with the Trump campaign.
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Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor on Mueller’s special counsel team, is headlining a June 2nd virtual fundraiser for Biden. <a href="https://t.co/3lq7ld5m0u">pic.twitter.com/3lq7ld5m0u</a>
&mdash; Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/KThomasDC/status/1263484423510638597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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President Trump and critics of the Russian collusion conspiracy were vocal critics of Weismann and others on Mueller’s team throughout the special counsel investigation. Trump characterized Mueller’s team of prosecutors as agenda-driven Democratic agents who were willing to bend or discard the truth in order to get at Trump.
President Trump’s campaign is already preparing to use the Weismann event in campaign attack ads against Biden and the Democratic Party, as well as to bolster Trump’s claim that he has been a target of unfair investigations since he took office.
Trump campaign digital director Gary Coby confirmed as much in response to Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
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🤔🤔🤔 <a href="https://t.co/RxtZkrdX6s">pic.twitter.com/RxtZkrdX6s</a>
&mdash; Text TRUMP to 88022 (@GaryCoby) <a href="https://twitter.com/GaryCoby/status/1263503617673347073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“It’s no surprise that a guy who tried to take down the President through the sham impeachment would also help Joe Biden’s campaign,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lead-mueller-team-prosecutor-hosting-biden-fundraiser">the Washington Examiner</a>. “It doesn’t get any swampier than this: trying to stage a partisan coup against the President and then raising money for his political opponent.”
In October 2017, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/us/politics/andrew-weissmann-mueller.html">The New York Times</a> profiled Weismann, calling him Mueller’s “legal pit bull.”
“If Mr. Mueller is the stern-eyed public face of the investigation, Mr. Weissmann, 59, is its pounding heart, a bookish, legal pit bull with two Ivy League degrees, a weakness for gin martinis and classical music and a list of past enemies that includes professional killers and white-collar criminals,” the Times reported.
Weismann had a history of political engagements that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-prosecutor-step-down-mueller-probe-ashe-schow">aroused</a> suspicions from many of the president’s defenders and from skeptics of Mueller’s investigation. On election night in 2016, Weismann attended then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s election night party.
Weismann led the team of prosecutors arguing the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort was eventually convicted on eight counts of financial fraud.
In December 2018, Trump criticized Weismann directly over Twitter and suggested that the prosecutor’s biases were corrupting the special counsel investigation.
“Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies, only to be overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial &amp; many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report,” Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-opens-fire-mueller-comey-new-revelations-joseph-curl">wrote</a>.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Robert Mueller

Mueller’s No. 2 Headlines Fundraiser For Joe Biden

2020 Election

Joe Biden

Federal officials stripped a Michigan dam’s license to operate in 2018, turning oversight over to state regulators before the dam failed on Wednesday and caused severe flooding throughout the region.
State officials inspected the dam and its spillways shortly after the dam’s license was revoked, declaring that the dam stood in “fair structural condition.” Regulators quickly moved on to tracking freshwater mussels in the area, which were being threatened by what they deemed was an unlawful drawdown of Wixom Lake, according to <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/20/dangers-edenville-dam-failure-evaded-state-scrutiny/5228559002/">The Detroit News</a>.
The Edenville Dam, operated by Boyce Hydro, failed after heavy rains pounded the area. The breach overwhelmed another dam and caused roughly 10,000 people to flee from their homes just hours before up to 9 feet of water swamped parts of Midland County, Michigan.
Michigan officials at the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy said that regulators did not have sufficient time after taking over oversight of the damn from federal authorities to thoroughly inspect the structure and catch up on the state of the dam. Federal officials had been prodding the dam’s current and former owners to address structural issues for nearly two decades.
&#8220;The state has only had authority over the dam for a year and a half,&#8221; department spokesman Nick Assendelft said. &#8220;Having not had a previous regulatory role we started from Ground Zero in our assessment of various aspects of the dam’s condition and capacity.&#8221;
The governor and state attorney general have said they plan to find the parties responsible for the disaster and hold them accountable.
&#8220;Regarding the dams, the state of Michigan is reviewing every potential legal recourse that we have cause this incredible damage requires that we hold people responsible,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2wQekQzTohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2wQekQzTo">said</a> on Wednesday. “We are all trying to understand all the different proceedings that have taken place up to this point. The initial readout is that this was a known problem for a while and that’s why it is important that we do our due diligence and take action.”
The governor has declared a state of emergency and called on the federal government for aid.
“Over the past two days, a major rainfall event in mid-Michigan led to the failure of two dams and severe flooding in affected areas. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate as water surged into their streets, homes, and businesses in the county of Midland,” Whitmer said in a <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90499_90640-529848--,00.html">statement</a>.
“If you have not evacuated the area, do so now and get somewhere safe,” Whitmer <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90499_90640-529650--,00.html">said</a>. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in Midland County. If you have a family member or loved one who lives in another part of the state, go there now. If you don’t, go to one of the shelters that have opened across the county.”
The catastrophe has wrecked the state’s strategy for handling the coronavirus pandemic, forcing people to move in with relatives across the state or into shelters.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/catastrophic-michigan-dam-failure-forces-thousands-from-their-homes">The Daily Wire</a> reported:
“The incident is proving difficult for Michigan and its governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who has been adamant about enforcing the state’s coronavirus-related stay-at-home order. Now, residents of Midland and surrounding areas must break quarantines and self-isolation to stay with friends and family or in designated emergency shelters until the water recedes.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Michigan flooding

Feds Stripped Michigan Dam’s License Two Years Before Collapse

Michigan

The Supreme Court has delayed House Democrats’ attempts to dig through secret grand jury testimony from the Robert Mueller investigation until at least June 1.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), asked the court on Monday to release sealed evidence referenced in the Mueller report. The Trump administration had requested that the court issue a stay against a lower court ruling directing the Department of Justice to release secret grand jury testimonies.
The Supreme Court sided against House Democrats on Wednesday, issuing a temporary stay until June 1 to give the Trump administration time to appeal the lower court’s decision. If the Trump administration appeals and the Supreme Court extends the stay until arguments can be heard, Democrats’ chances of securing the testimony by court order before the election are close to nil, according to <a href="https://freebeacon.com/courts/supreme-court-temporarily-blocks-house-democrats-from-reviewing-mueller-grand-jury-materials/">The Washington Free Beacon</a>.
The House is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-democrats-demand-mueller-grand-jury-testimony-to-bring-new-articles-of-impeachment">requesting</a> the grand jury testimony to continue its impeachment investigation into President Trump. Democrats’ first attempt at removing the president fell flat in January after the Senate acquitted Trump in almost entirely party-line vote.
“The Committee and the public continue to suffer grave and irreparable injury each additional day the district court’s order is prevented from going into effect: the Committee is being deprived of the information it needs to exercise its weighty constitutional responsibility,” the Democrat-led Judiciary committee’s Monday <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/462339449/DOJ-v-House-Judiciary-Committee-opposing-application-for-stay">filing</a> said.
“The Committee’s impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing. As the Committee has explained, it ‘has continued and will continue those investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes,’” the filing said.
Grand jury materials typically remain sealed during and after an investigation. The House is arguing that the testimonies should be released under an exemption that allows for the materials’ use in a court proceeding. The question is whether an impeachment trial qualifies as a court proceeding under the rules.
The House impeached Trump in December on charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power related to a phone call he had with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on July 25, 2019. Trump asked Zelensky to look into allegations of misconduct against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Biden was in charge of the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Ukraine when he pushed the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016. At the time, Shokin was reportedly looking into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, for which Biden’s son was then a highly paid board member.
Audio released earlier this week has raised more questions about Biden’s motives for pushing for Shokin’s ouster. In an unconfirmed recording <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ukrainian-lawmaker-releases-recorded-phone-calls-of-biden-poroshenko-that-contain-eyebrow-raising-remarks">released</a> on Tuesday, Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko purportedly discuss Shokin’s ouster, and Poroshenko admits that the Ukrainian government does not have “any information about him doing something wrong.” Shokin resigned from his position at Poroshenko’s request, however.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Jerry Nadler

SCOTUS Blocks Democrats’ Attempts To Dig Up Dirt On Trump In Mueller Grand Jury Evidence

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) called for President Trump to fire the bureaucrats who illegally approved millions of dollars worth of small-business loans for Planned Parenthood clinics.
Sasse issued a strong statement on Wednesday slamming the well-known abortion provider for taking advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that it is ineligible to receive.
“Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, tried to defraud taxpayers during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Sasse said. “The Paycheck Protection Program is supposed to be a lifeline for small businesses, not a slush fund for Big Abortion. The administration needs to reclaim that money and fire the bureaucrats who signed off on this scam.”
Thirty-seven Planned Parenthood affiliates applied for and received over $80 million dollars in PPP loans. The funds were approved by Congress in March to go to small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, and affiliates of any organization with more than 500 employees are ineligible for such loans. Planned Parenthood has more than 600 employees.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-planned-parenthood-affiliates-improperly-applied-for-80-million-they-got-it-now-the-government-wants-the-money-back">slammed</a> the abortion provider on Tuesday and called for each clinic to immediately return the funds it had received.
“There is no ambiguity in the legislation that passed or public record around its passage that organizations such as Planned Parenthood, whose parent organization has close to half a billion dollars in assets, is not eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program,” Rubio said.
“Those funds must be returned immediately. Furthermore, the SBA should open an investigation into how these loans were made in clear violation of the applicable affiliation rules and if Planned Parenthood, the banks, or staff at the SBA knowingly violated the law, all appropriate legal options should be pursued,” Rubio added.
Officials in the Small Business Administration (SBA), which oversees the PPP, have been reaching out to the funds’ recipients, telling them to return the loan money, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/planned-parenthood-coronavirus-stimulus-money-ppp-return">Fox News</a>. The SBA is also warning that if any Planned Parenthood employee lied on an application to get approved for the loans, they and their clinic could face criminal and civil penalties.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for a federal investigation into the lending, and for charges to be brought against anyone found to have lied on a PPP loan application.
“The money needs to be recovered and if anybody knowingly falsified applications, they need to be prosecuted,” Hawley said.
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The money needs to be recovered and if anybody knowingly falsified applications, they need to be prosecuted <a href="https://t.co/FKnrkHnE2P">https://t.co/FKnrkHnE2P</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoxNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FoxNews</a>
&mdash; Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1262917888555601927?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Within the past year, Planned Parenthood has made several decisions that have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/planned-parenthood-commits-45-million-to-democrats-running-in-2020">cost</a> the organization significantly more money than clinics requested in PPP loans. In August, the abortion provider opted to lose more than $60 million in federal funding rather than stop performing abortions.
In January, Planned Parenthood’s political action arm committed $45 million to pro-abortion candidates running for office in 2020, claiming that “the stakes have never been higher” in an election year.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Ben Sasse

Ben Sasse: Fire Officials Who Approved Pandemic Aid For ‘Big Abortion’ Provider Planned Parenthood

Abortion

Planned Parenthood

Iran is curbing its aggressive tendencies and beginning to take small steps toward cooperating with the United States in the Middle East.
Tehran is taking intentional steps to avoid further conflict with the United States in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November. Iranian leaders are afraid that aggressive action on their part could benefit President Trump in the election, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/world/middleeast/iran-us-relations.html">The New York Times</a>.
Years of intense pressure by the United States to curb Iranian aggression in the Middle East is beginning to pay dividends, the State Department said.
“Pressure works,” U.S. special representative for Iran policy Brian Hook told the Times. “For over three years we have contained and countered Iran through deterrence and diplomacy. The regime is also broke because of our sanctions. Iran’s leaders today face a choice: either negotiate with President Trump or manage economic collapse.”
Trump has ramped up pressure on the Iranian regime since pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reasserting strict sanctions on Tehran. Iran is now facing political upheaval at home because of worsening economic conditions, as well as the outbreak of the coronavirus.
To ease tensions in the lead-up to the U.S. election, Iran has largely stopped using proxy militias and terror groups across the Middle East to launch attacks on U.S. forces. Iranian naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane, have cut down attacks on shippers and are staying away from U.S. military vessels after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-gives-order-to-shoot-down-and-destroy-iranian-gunboats-harassing-us-ships">threats</a> from Trump.
Tehran has backed off its influence on Iraqi politics, choosing not to interfere against the election of a U.S.-backed prime minister to lead the Iraqi parliament earlier this month. Last month, Tehran negotiated a prisoner swap in the U.S., offering an imprisoned U.S. Navy veteran for an Iranian-American doctor who U.S. forces were holding.
Analysts say that Iran’s new tactics should not be misinterpreted as a change of its overall strategy and ambitions. The loss of General Qasem Soleimani, who was responsible for coordinating Iran’s various militias and terror groups, was a blow to Tehran’s influence throughout the Middle East. That, along with increasing pressure from U.S. sanctions, has forced Iran into a defensive position.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington reached a boiling point around the start of the year when Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-reveals-attack-that-soleimani-was-planning-that-led-to-drone-strike">ordered</a> an airstrike that killed Soleimani, Iran’s top general and terror leader.
In late December, Iranian-backed militia launched rockets into an Iraqi airbase, killing several Iraqi soldiers and one U.S. contractor. The U.S. military responded with airstrikes against several militia targets in the region that killed at least two dozen militia members.
On December 30, Iranian officials inspired a violent mob to attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, prompting Trump to approve a Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Soleimani. Fearing open conflict with the U.S., Iran responded to Soleimani’s killing with several rocket strikes against an Iraqi military base where U.S. troops were sanctioned. No U.S. or Iraqi soldiers were killed in the attack, and the U.S. declined to respond as Trump’s red line – no more dead Americans – was not crossed.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

‘Pressure Works’: Two Years After Trump Scrapped The Iran Nuclear Deal, Tehran Is Beginning To Cooperate

Iran

Iran Nuclear Deal

The Department of Justice warned California Gov. Gavin Newsom that he was at risk of discriminating against religious groups with his state&#8217;s reopening strategy.
DOJ assistant attorney general Eric Dreiband sent a letter to Newsom on Tuesday saying that California has treated religious groups unfairly during its coronavirus lockdown, and that the state’s reopening strategy threatens to make that discrimination worse, according to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-19/trump-justice-dept-accuses-california-of-violating-religious-rights-with-coronavirus-restrictions">Los Angeles Times</a>.
Dreiband said that Newsom’s stay-at-home order exempted some businesses and industries “regardless of whether the product they are selling and shipping are life-preserving products or not,” but the order bans church services and other religious gatherings. In Newsom’s reopening plans, restaraunts, shopping malls, and offices are allowed to open in phase 2, but houses of worship are not allowed to open until phase 3.
“This facially discriminates against religious exercise,” Dreiband wrote. “California has not shown why interactions in offices and studios of the entertainment industry, and in-person operations to facilitate nonessential ecommerce, are included on the list as being allowed with social distancing where telework is not practical, while gatherings with social distancing for purposes of religious worship are forbidden, regardless of whether remote worship is practical or not.”
The letter pointed out that many houses of worship across the country are implementing their own social distancing procedures, such as holding drive-through services.
“Religious communities have rallied to protect their communities from the spread of this disease by making services available online, in parking lots, or outdoors, by indoor services with a majority of pews empty, and in numerous other creative ways that otherwise comply with social distancing and sanitation guidelines,” Dreiband continued.
“Simply put, there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights,” Dreiband said. “The Constitution calls for California to do more to accommodate religious worship, including in stage 2 of the reopening plan.”
Newsom said on Monday that the state would begin lifting its ban on religious gatherings after certain benchmarks in controlling the spread of the virus, testing, and available hospital capacity are met, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/05/19/justice-department-tells-california-to-reopen-churches-1284597">Politico</a>.
“I want to just express my deep admiration to the faith community and the need and desire to know when their congregants can once again start coming back to the pews, coming back together,&#8221; Newsom said.
On Tuesday, two GOP lawmakers introduced a bill to the state legislature that would strip the governor of some of his emergency powers, according to The <a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/doj-warns-california-church-closures-may-violate-religious-freedoms-in-letter-to-newsom/">Associated Press</a>. Assemblyman Kevin Kiley said that Newsom was using his office’s emergency powers to “remake all of California law indefinitely.”
San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon is handling several lawsuits filed against Newsom over his executive orders&#8217; impact on religious services. Dhillon is representing plaintiffs in at least 10 lawsuits <a href="https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/05/california-shutdown-lawsuits-newsom-dhillon-coronavirus-shelter-in-place-executive-orders/">against</a> the state over the governor’s shutdown order on canceled weddings, closed businesses, and restrictions on religious activity.
“Literally, this country was founded on the concept that the king cannot tell the peasants how they may worship,” Dhillon told Politico. “Gov. Newsom may not tell people of faith that they can only worship in their homes.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

DOJ Says Newsom’s Lockdown ‘Discriminates Against Religious Exercise’

Department of Justice

First Amendment

freedom of religion

Biotech company Moderna reported early signs of success in developing a vaccine against the coronavirus on Monday, announcing that in a small trial the vaccine appeared to inoculate recipients against the virus.
Moderna  is using a relatively new technique to construct a vaccine using the virus’s genetic code. The technique is faster than others, but has not yet resulted in any approved vaccine.
Moderna’s team conducted Phase 1 tests on eight people, giving each doses of the vaccine and testing whether the vaccine caused the recipients to develop a natural immunity to the coronavirus. The researchers said that all participants tested positive for antibodies against the coronavirus 15 days after their first dose.
“These interim Phase 1 data, while early, demonstrate that vaccination with mRNA-1273 elicits an immune response of the magnitude caused by natural infection starting with a dose as low as 25 µg,” Moderna chief medical officer Dr. Tal Zaks, said in a <a href="https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-positive-interim-phase-1-data-its-mrna-vaccine">statement</a>. “When combined with the success in preventing viral replication in the lungs of a pre-clinical challenge model at a dose that elicited similar levels of neutralizing antibodies, these data substantiate our belief that mRNA-1273 has the potential to prevent COVID-19 disease and advance our ability to select a dose for pivotal trials.”
Moderna’s Monday announcement sent the company’s stock price leaping 25% and, partnered with an announcement from the Federal Reserve that it would continue lending to banks, drove the stock market to its highest point in six weeks, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/health/coronavirus-vaccine-moderna.html">The New York Times</a>.
Hundreds of vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus are going through similar tests across the world, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-coronavirus-drug-vaccine-status/?sref=vuYGislZ">Bloomberg</a>. Remdesivir, a drug treatment being developed by Gilead Sciences, was fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration after initial testing showed signs of success at helping coronavirus patients recover faster.
Hydroxychloroquine is a drug touted by President Trump, who said on Sunday he has been taking doses of the drug for over week. Developed decades ago to combat malaria, hydroxychloroquine is not being tested in over 100 clinical trials after a French researcher reported that it had helped several patients recover from the virus.
The Chinese state-owned company China National Biotec Group began conducting vaccine trials on people in April and is attempting to position itself as the eventual savior of the world by being the first to create a viable vaccine. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/china-working-to-steal-u-s-research-on-virus-vaccine-report-says">Reports</a> say that Chinese agents are attempting to steal U.S. research into a vaccine.
United States and British intelligence agencies issued a warning on May 5 that that they are “currently investigating a number of incidents in which threat actors are targeting pharmaceutical companies, medical research organizations, and universities.”
“[Advanced persistent threat (APT)] groups frequently target such organizations in order to steal sensitive research data and intellectual property for commercial and state benefit. Organizations involved in COVID-19-related research are attractive targets for APT actors looking to obtain information for their domestic research efforts into COVID-19-related medicine,” the warning said.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Moderna

Moderna Vaccine Shows Success In Early Clinical Trials

Vaccines

House Democrats are continuing in their investigation for impeachable evidence against President Trump in the redacted version of the Mueller report.
Democratic lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday to release grand jury testimony from ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/house-supreme-court-mueller-grand-jury/index.html">CNN</a>.
House counsel Douglas Letter, who wrote the <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/05/18/opposition.to.application.-19a1035.pdf">court filing</a>, said that lawmakers needed access to the sealed documents to gauge whether Trump should be impeached for obstruction of justice or some other crime. Letter said that every day the court delays, “the Committee and the public continue to suffer grave and irreparable injury.”
Letter continued:
<blockquote>The Committee is being deprived of the information it needs to exercise its weighty constitutional responsibility. The Committee first requested this information from DOJ more than a year ago. The district court issued its disclosure order more than six months ago. If DOJ’s request for a stay is granted, DOJ need not file its certiorari petition until August 2020, and therefore this Court likely would not determine whether to grant or deny that petition until at least October 2020. This substantial delay will seriously endanger the Committee’s ability to complete its impeachment investigation during the current Congress — which ends not long thereafter on January 3, 2021.</blockquote>
The House impeached Trump last year on a largely party-line vote on two charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. Notably, neither is defined as criminal conduct under U.S. law. No Republicans voted for either measure. The Senate acquitted Trump on both counts in January.
“The Committee’s impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing. As the Committee has explained, it ‘has continued and will continue those investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes,’” Letter said.
The 2019 impeachment charges were based a redacted version of Mueller’s report to the Department of Justice on Russian interference in the 2016 election. After a roughly two-year investigation, Mueller turned up no evidence that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian agents.
Democrats’ stated reason for getting the grand jury testimony is to potentially build a case against Trump for obstruction of justice, an unlikely proposition since Mueller could not uncover an underlying crime, necessary to mounting an obstruction of justice charge in the legal system.
Meanwhile, U.S. attorney for Connecticut John Durham is conducting a follow-up in investigation to the Mueller probe, intent on uncovering the basis of the Russia investigation and exposing abuses of power in the Department of Justice and Intelligence Community. Some abuses have already come to light, such as the FBI’s abuse of the FISA court system to obtain warrants to investigate the Trump campaign.
Other evidence suggests that the FBI abused its investigative powers to target former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In April, unsealed text message by Peter Strzok showed that FBI top officials interfered in the investigation into Flynn to keep it open, though agents investigating the retired lieutenant general were ready to close it.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler

House Democrats Demand Mueller Grand Jury Testimony To Bring ‘New Articles Of Impeachment’

Democrats

Attorney General William Barr does not expect to bring criminal charges against former President Barack Obama nor former Vice President Joe Biden as part of the investigation into the origin of the Russian collusion conspiracy.
Barr said, on Monday, that Obama and Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, are not currently in the crosshairs of U.S. attorney John Durham’s investigation into the weaponization of the DOJ and Intelligence Community to target the Trump campaign in 2016 and beyond. Barr said that the Russian collusion probe into President Trump “was abhorrent, was a grave injustice, and it was unprecedented in American history” but insisted Durham’s investigation would not be a “tit-for-tat.”
“The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken, and if there were, those that broke the laws will be held to account,” Barr said in a <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?472243-1/attorney-general-barr-fbi-director-wray-hold-news-conference">press conference</a>.
“There is a difference between an abuse of power and a federal crime. Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime,” Barr continued. “Now as to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”
Trump has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/he-knew-everything-trump-says-obama-should-testify-to-congress-over-flynn-case">called</a> on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to call Obama to testify in front of Congress. Trump posited that Obama “knew everything” in a tweet last week.
“If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING,” Trump said. “Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!”
Graham said that he likely would not call on Obama to testify and offered a warning to Trump about pushing for such a hearing.
“I don’t think now’s the time for me to do that. I don’t know if that’s even possible. I have grave concerns about the role of executive privilege and all kinds of issues,” Graham said. “I understand President Trump’s frustration, but be careful what you wish for. Just be careful what you wish for.”
Documents released last week show that a number of top Obama administration officials, including Biden, filed requests to “unmask” former national security adviser Michael Flynn in Intelligence Community reports. The requests raise questions about who leaked information about Flynn’s 2016 phone calls with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to the press, a felony punishable with up to a decade in prison.
There is no evidence suggesting that either Biden or Obama was behind the leaks.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

AG Barr: ‘I Don’t Expect’ To Bring Criminal Charges Against Obama, Biden

Barack Obama

Obamagate

A Democratic sheriff in Michigan said his officers would not penalize residents and business owners for violating Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lockdown order but walked back his statements soon after.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson was the latest local law enforcement head to buck Whitmer’s mandate, saying he was not “writing tickets” for lockdown violations. A day later, though, he offered a confusing explanation of his stance while walking back his commitment not to enforce the governor’s heavy-handed actions.
Swanson appeared on “<a href="https://www.nobsnewshour.com/no-bs-news-hour-may-17th-2020/">No Bullshit Hour</a>,” a popular Michigan radio show, on Friday and told host Charlie LeDuff that the sheriff’s office has not and does not plan to enforce Whitmer’s coronavirus lockdown orders.
“You know people have to talk about the Constitution in its entirety, and that’s the separation of powers, and the sheriff is the executive branch of that separation. We enforce laws with discretion,” Swanson began. He added that the courts should decide whether a law is constitutional or not.
Swanson continued:
<blockquote>“It is dangerous for police officers to determine what’s right and what’s wrong. Otherwise I could look at Lafayette [Boulevard in Detroit] and say, ‘You know, by the order of the sheriff, I don’t agree with the speed limit. Go as fast as you want.’ I can’t do that. But what I can do is say, ‘I’m not going to park cars there and pull over everybody that’s going one [mph] over.’ I tell this to my people in Genesee County, because I have seen people and I have seen people on the nursing side, we’re going to talk about that; the business side, they’re dying. We have not raided a business. We have not shut a business down. We’re not pulling people over. We’re not writing tickets, and don’t expect us to do it.”</blockquote>
On Saturday, Swanson released a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/geneseecountysheriffsoffice/videos/822848618118745">video</a> on the sheriff department’s Facebook page expressing support for Whitmer’s lockdown, but muddying his stance on whether he intends to enforce the lockdown orders or not.
“Make no mistake, I applaud the governor and the governor’s office for the executive orders that they’ve done to protect the health and safety of this community and across the state,” Swanson said. “But there is a little bit more that creates conversation and that is what is this sheriff’s office doing for people that still have some questions. Well, let me assure you this: nobody want’s anybody arrested, be hauled to jail, to be criminalized … Even the governor doesn’t want that.”
Swanson said that he is asking for “voluntary compliance” with Whitmer’s orders and that he does not plan on arresting people or raiding businesses “as long as you do your part and I do my part.”
“Be very cautious not to put other people’s public health at risk. Use good sound judgement; we want compliance, not defiance,” Swanson continued. “I can tell you if you put other people’s public safety at risk that’s no different than victimizing them in a crime.”
Swanson did not respond to repeated requests for clarification.
Whitmer is increasingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-michigan-hairdresser-breaks-lockdown-as-barber-bashes-police-state-that-shut-him-down">struggling</a> to keep Michiganders and law enforcement officers abiding by her executive orders. She has extended her state’s lockdown to at least May 28, and has signaled that she will extend it further depending on how the state’s coronavirus pandemic develops. Michigan’s daily reported cases have been declining since early April.
Her authority to keep her state in lockdown is slowly slipping away as more residents, businesses, law enforcement, and judges refuse to implement her strict orders. In the town of Owosso, a barber opened his shop May 4 and stayed open nearly two weeks despite receiving two citations. A local judge denied a request for a restraining order against the barber from Michigan’s attorney general, and the sheriff overseeing Owosso has declared that he will not enforce the state’s lockdown order.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

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Tim Pearce

Articles by Tim Pearce