California’s already high gas prices could see an additional spike of almost 50 cents a gallon tucked inside a little-known draft report to meet the state’s aggressive emission reduction goal. They really want you out of your cars. California’s gas prices are the highest in the nation, and the Bay area’s are over $7 a […] The post California: $.47 per Gal. of Gas Increases Annually Till It Is No More appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The FACT SHEET for the Biden-Harris administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan was published in July 2023 but went largely unnoticed. Infowars pointed to a May 2024 update. It’s even worse than it was originally. They are calling for a digital ID with face recognition. It’s just like Maoist China! It’s top-down government ID forever. […] The post Biden-Harris’s Federally-Controlled Digital ID Has Face Recognition appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is ramping up efforts to monitor and crack down on election-related threats ahead of the 2024 election. DOJ officials announced on Monday that the department is prepared to “aggressively investigate and prosecute” those who criminally interfere with election processes, such as making threats against poll workers. “If you threaten to harm or kill an election worker, volunteer or official, the Justice Department will find you and we will hold you accountable,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said, according to POLITICO. “The public servants who administer our elections must be able to do their jobs without fearing for their safety or their families. We will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who threaten election workers.” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the “democratic process and the public servants who protect it have been under attack like never before,” according to Axios. Monaco added that artificial intelligence has created “new avenues” for bad actors to “hide their identities” and “misinform and threaten voters,” according to POLITICO. “A particularly disturbing trend across these cases is the way perpetrators use new technologies to mask their identities and communicate their threats,” Monaco said. “Today, criminals use a range of anonymizing technologies, not just burner phones and social media.” “These advanced tools are providing new avenues for bad actors to hide their identities and obscure sources of threats,” she continued. “They’re providing new avenues to misinform and threaten voters through deep fakes, spreading altered video or cloned audio impersonating trusted voices, and providing new avenues to recruit and radicalize with incendiary social media content that accelerates online hate and harassment.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP Monaco said that in cases that involve the use of such “advanced tools” that make crimes “more dangerous and more impactful, the Department of Justice will seek enhanced sentences.” The DOJ under President Joe Biden has focused significant resources on pursuing election-related charges, such as those related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The department’s focus has re-routed resources away from other significant areas of criminal conduct, such as child sex abuse, according to an FBI whistleblower. The Justice Department has also prioritized cases against pro-life protesters, which Republicans allege have become victims of political prosecution under the Biden administration. GOP lawmakers say that federal laws restricting protests have been used unequally against pro-life protesters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) spoke on Tuesday outside the Manhattan courtroom where Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is taking place, saying “it is painfully obvious” that the presumptive Republican nominee is being unfairly targeted by Democrats ahead of the 2024 election. Johnson joins multiple Republican lawmakers — including Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), JD Vance (R-OH), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) — who have shown up at the courthouse in solidarity with Trump in recent days. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum, and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were all in attendance at the courthouse on Tuesday. “This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial,” Johnson told reporters. “They are doing this intentionally to keep him here, to keep him off of the campaign trail. And I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is.” SPEAKER JOHNSON: Just apply common sense. Everyone can see. It is painfully obvious. We are now *SIX MONTHS* out from Election Day. That's the reason they brought these charges here and across the country. pic.twitter.com/4bAqgzNIYa — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) May 14, 2024 Manhattan Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an alleged attempt to cover up hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election cycle. The former president is forced to be in the Manhattan courtroom four days a week as he campaigns for president. Trump has also been hit with 10 fines for violating a gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan. The order is meant to prevent Trump from talking about jurors, attorneys, court staff, and the judge’s family during the trial, and Merchan threatened to put Trump behind bars if he violates the gag order again. During his remarks to the press on Tuesday morning, Johnson slammed the hush-money case against Trump, saying it’s an example of why the American people are “losing faith in our system of justice.” “I’m an attorney. I’m a former litigator myself,” he said. “And I am disgusted by what is happening here, what is being done here to our entire system of justice overall. The people are losing faith right now in this country, in our institutions. They’re losing faith in our system of justice. The reason for that is they see it being abused as it is being done here in New York.” Johnson pointed to the Justice Department previously investigating Trump’s alleged hush-money payments and choosing not to pursue any charges. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP “Eight years later, suddenly they’ve resurrected this case. They brought it back,” he added. “Why is that? Well, just apply common sense. Everyone can see. It is painfully obvious. We are now six months out from election day. That’s the reason why they brought these charges here and across the country.”

A judge in Washington, D.C., has come under fire after releasing on bail a teenager accused of firing dozens of shots from an AR-15 on a busy street. Lloyd U. Nolan, Jr., a magistrate judge who sits on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, released 18-year-old Amonte Moody ahead of his trial even though he is accused of firing more than two dozen rounds at a car full of people, Fox News reported. Moody has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and more, the New York Post reported. The attack happened on April 22 on Independence Avenue in D.C., with security footage allegedly showing Moody firing the weapon. Nolan released Moody even after he acknowledged that the teen’s alleged actions “could have killed someone” and stated there was probable cause to send the case to trial, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by WUSA9. Moody’s public defender requested he be released with GPS monitoring and claimed the teen had a supportive family that would keep track of him before his trial. Prosecutors argued that Moody had access to this supportive family prior to his alleged shooting spree, and Nolan appeared to agree. “For something to escalate to the point where you feel you need to go into the middle of the street and let off 26 shots, I don’t know what set of circumstances, short of incarceration, I can find,” Nolan said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. have filed an emergency order to reverse Nolan’s decision and place Moody back in jail ahead of his trial. Nolan, a self-described “woke” judge, set his Facebook profile to private after Fox contacted him, the outlet reported. Nolan’s social media accounts reportedly show that he is heavily involved in leftist politics, has promoted Black Lives Matter, and donated to a fundraiser that supported a professor tied to Democrat mega-donor George Soros. That donation went to Gideon’s Promise, which was founded in 2007 on behalf of a professor through a fellowship from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. The organization claims on its website that its mission is to “transform the criminal justice system by building a movement of public defenders who provide equal justice for marginalized communities.”

The following is an interview with author Corey DeAngelis, Ph.D., about his new book “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids From The Radicals Ruining Our Schools.” (May 2024, Center Street/Hachette Book Group) DW: Corey, you dedicate “The Parent Revolution” to parents, of course, but you also include a dedication to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Why? DeAngelis: Randi Weingarten and the teachers unions overplayed their hand and have inadvertently done more to advance school choice and homeschooling than anyone could have ever imagined. By fighting to keep schools closed, the unions showed their true colors and awakened a sleeping giant: parents. Families got to see that their children’s schools were focusing more on radical leftist indoctrination than education and that mobilized parents to wake up and push back. The parent revolution turned education freedom into a GOP litmus-test issue, and that has translated into 11 red states passing universal school choice since 2021. For far too long in K-12 education, the only special interests represented the employees – the adults – in the system. But now, the kids have a union of their own: their parents. We’re now freeing families from the depraved clutches of the teachers unions once and for all, and the unions have themselves to thank for losing their monopoly. DW: “The Parent Revolution” delves into the deleterious effects of the COVID lockdowns on students nationwide. In fact, you highlight one particular quote from a frustrated mother in NYC who wrote: “I am no longer content to let four men—Bill de Blasio, Michael Mulgrew, Richard Carranza and Andrew Cuomo—decide whether my children can go to school and whether I, as a working mother, can have a job and a career.” Was this the beginning of parents pushing back? DeAngelis: Yes, “two weeks to slow the spread” turned into two years to flatten a generation because of prolonged school closures. The power-hungry unions held children’s education hostage to secure billions of dollars in ransom payments from taxpayers. Randi Weingarten’s union threatened strikes in 2020 and even lobbied the CDC to keep schools closed as long as possible. The good news is their plan backfired. Families got to see what was going on in their children’s classroom during remote learning. Families who thought their kids were in good public schools witnessed another dimension of school quality that’s arguably more important than standardized test scores: whether the school’s curriculum aligned with their family’s values.  Voddie Baucham said it best: “We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.” The good news is parents are no longer surprised. They cannot unsee the rot they’ve witnessed in the government school system. Parents have since become a political force to be reckoned with. They’re more powerful than the teachers unions because parents care about their kids more than anyone else and outnumber the employees in the system. After the National School Boards Association sent a letter to Joe Biden suggesting parents should be investigated for “domestic terrorism,” at least 26 states pulled their funding or membership from the organization. The status quo’s attempt to bully and silence parents into submission for wanting a say in their children’s education only emboldened them to fight back even harder.  Parents can become a political juggernaut if they band together. Their predicted “red wave” didn’t happen in 2022. But there was a school choice wave. 76% of the candidates supported by my organization, the American Federation for Children and our state affiliates, won their races in 2022. We also targeted 69 incumbents in state legislatures – the hardest thing to do in politics – and we took out 40 of them for opposing parental rights in education. Ten of the 13 “Republicans” targeted by AFC Victory Fund – my organization’s super PAC – for voting against school choice either lost their elections outright or were forced to runoffs in Texas in 2024. The message is now clear: support parental rights in education or lose your job. Courtesy: CenterStreet/Hachette Book Group DW: During that same time, you became vocal on social media, exposing hypocrisy and taking on powerful leaders in America’s public education machine. Why did you voluntarily take on that mantle? DeAngelis: The prolonged government school closures were insane. The data consistently showed schools should have been the first institutions to open and the last to close, yet the opposite happened because of the control freaks running the unions. Private schools and businesses were open or fighting to reopen. Government school unions were fighting to remain closed. The main difference was one of incentives. Teachers unions knew they could keep receiving children’s education dollars regardless of whether they opened their doors for business. But it was actually worse than that, because they knew they could leverage school closures to extract more resources from taxpayers. The unions needed to be exposed for hurting children. The hypocrisy didn’t stop with them fighting to keep schools closed while vacationing overseas, though. The Los Angeles teachers union included unrelated political demands in their report on “safely” reopening schools. They let the mask slip by calling for Medicare for All, a wealth tax, police-free schools, and a ban on new charter schools. The Chicago Teachers Union boss, Stacy Davis Gates, sent her son to a private school just a year after calling school choice racist. Their positions have no basis in logic. The unions fight against school choice to protect their own monopoly. They want to trap other people’s kids–and the money meant for educating them–in their failing government schools to keep their gravy train going. Almost all of the teachers union campaign contributions go to Democrats, too, so the Democrat Party has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the teachers unions. 99.97% of the campaign contributions from Randi Weingarten’s union – the American Federation of Teachers – went to Democrats in 2022. That influence often makes union-controlled politicians look like hypocrites on school choice as well. North Carolina’s Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, for example, declared a state of emergency to try to block school choice after he sent his own kid to a private school. Talk about an abuse of emergency power. DW: All of this led to you becoming the leader of the Red State Strategy. What is that strategy? DeAngelis: The school choice movement made a mistake focusing too much on making lefty arguments that appeal to Democrats. The argument that school choice is an equalizer that disproportionately helps the least advantaged kids who are stuck in failing government schools is a good one, but it didn’t translate to legislative victories. The Democrat politicians continued to vote with the teachers unions even if they were on our side privately because politicians often respond more to power than logic or morality. At the same time, Republican politicians didn’t feel as much pressure to vote for school choice since it was viewed as a bipartisan policy. The Covid-era school closures helped turn school choice into a GOP litmus-test issue because conservative parents started paying close attention to the education system and politicians’ votes. Putting a spotlight on these votes helped Republican primary voters hold politicians accountable and pass universal school choice in 11 red states in just a few years. As red states engage in friendly competition to empower all families with education freedom, Democrats will feel more pressure to come along. In the book, I call this phenomenon “bipartisanship through hyperpartisanship.” The more the GOP leans into parental rights in education as a political winner, the more Democrats will be pressured to side with their constituents as opposed to special interests.  We saw what happened with former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe when he said “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” during the final gubernatorial debate in 2021. In a state that went ten points to Biden just the year before, McAuliffe ended up losing to Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, by six points with voters who listed education as their top priority, and that turned out to be the number two most important issue in that election. In 2022, then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, changed his education platform to include private school choice right before his gubernatorial election even though he was up by double digits in the polls. He even went on Fox News in 2023 reiterating his support for school choice. Whether he was reading the tea leaves or it was a true change of heart is not that important. That a high-profile Democrat who was up in the polls felt compelled to publicly signal support for school choice is good news for families in the long-run. As Milton Friedman famously said, “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.” I believe we’re reaching that point on the issue of education freedom because parents are now engaged. DW: Your opponents say, “No one in education policy, advocacy, or activism has ever lived rent-free in more heads at once than Corey DeAngelis.” Why is that true? DeAngelis: They’re losing control over the minds of other people’s children and they can’t handle it. They’ve been so drunk on power for so long that they don’t know how to deal with defeat. They also see the school system not as a means to educate productive citizens but as a way to raise other people’s kids in their socialist worldview. The radical Left doesn’t even need to have their own kids to shape the future of this country because they’ve infiltrated the government school system. School choice threatens the power the radical left has over the system, but more importantly the future of our country. That’s why they lose their minds over school choice more than anything else. It strikes at the root of socialist control. DW: You use the term ‘government schools’ throughout the book. Why? DeAngelis: They are run by the government. They are regulated by the government. They are assigned by the government. They are compelled by the government. They are funded by the government. They aren’t “public” in any meaningful sense of the word. They aren’t open to the public. They discriminate by ZIP code. Families have been fined and even gone to jail for lying about their address to get their kids into better “public” schools. They aren’t accountable to the public. Baltimore has dozens of schools with zero students proficient in math, and the nation’s report card shows two-thirds of American students are not proficient in reading despite taxpayers spending about $20,000 per year on their education. They aren’t a “public good” according to the economic definition, either. They are government schools, even if the truth hurts some people’s feelings. The real question is why does this basic truth upset so many people? It might be because it’s a tough pill to swallow knowing that the government sucks at just about everything it runs and that tens of millions of American kids attend government-run schools each year. DW: Loudoun County, Virginia, quickly became “Exhibit A” of parents battling an entrenched school board. What do you think was the turning point for the parents of Loudoun County? DeAngelis: The National School Boards Association sent a letter to Joe Biden suggesting parents should be investigated for “domestic terrorism” for making their voices heard at school board meetings. That infamous letter cited a story about the arrest of a parent who was upset at a school board meeting about his daughter being sexually assaulted in a school bathroom. The father, Scott T. Smith – who was later pardoned by Governor Glenn Youngkin – was concerned a transgender bathroom policy would put more girls in danger. A grand jury report later concluded that the school board covered it up and lied about it to the public, which explains why the father was so upset that day. Luke Rosiak published Smith’s full story in the Daily Wire in mid-October, right in the midst of Virginia’s gubernatorial contest. The story was explosive. The truth reignited parents’ anger and gave it added force. This story added to Terry McAuliffe’s infamous gaffe during the final debate when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Glenn Youngkin made parental rights in education a centerpiece of his campaign and showed the GOP how to win as the Parents’ Party. Win McNamee/Getty Images DW: Working parents can often feel out of touch with their kids’ school. How can they take steps to get more involved? DeAngelis: Talk to your children’s teacher and show up to the school board meetings to voice your opinion. Run for school board if it has been co-opted by radicals who care more about fringe indoctrination than education. Call your legislators and urge them to pass universal school choice. Education funding is meant for educating children, not for protecting a particular institution. We should fund students, not systems. Passing universal school choice changes the power dynamic between parents and school boards. When families have the power to take their children’s education dollars with them, school boards have a stronger incentive to listen to parents instead of cutting off their mics or labeling them as evil people. With school choice, parents are viewed as customers – with respect – as opposed to a nuisance. Choice gives families more agency. DW: Finally, as you may have heard, the 2024 presidential election is just around the corner. Are you concerned about who will take up residence in the White House for the next four years and how they might influence public education? DeAngelis: The GOP has emerged as the Parents’ Party. But President Donald Trump was fighting for parents with school choice even before the parent revolution ignited in 2020. Joe Biden, on the other hand, is a hypocrite on school choice. He went to private school and sent his kids to private school, yet he opposes school choice for other families. President Trump has supported federal tax credit proposals to provide families with scholarships for private education. One such proposal is the Educational Choice for Children Act in Congress. It already has about 140 Republican cosponsors in the House, including Speaker Mike Johnson. * * * “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools,” by Corey A. DeAngelis, Ph.D., (CenterStreet/Hachette Book Group) is now available.  The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

A New York appeals court shot down former President Donald Trump’s motion to challenge Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order against him on Tuesday as Trump’s hush-money trial continues into its fifth week, CNN reported. Merchan has fined Trump 10 times and threatened him with jail since implementing the gag order, which prevents the former president from talking about jurors, attorneys, court staff, and the judge’s family. Trump has argued that the gag order violates his First Amendment rights, but Merchan maintains that Trump’s public statements must be regulated to prevent witnesses from being intimidated. “We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” the appeals court said. “Justice Merchan properly determined that petitioner’s public statements posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well,” the appeals court added. Trump, who is being prosecuted by Manhattan Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg for alleged hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, suggested last week that he is willing to go to jail over Judge Merchan’s gag order. After issuing the 10th fine against Trump last Monday, Merchan said he would “consider a jail sentence” if Trump violates the gag order again. “The last thing I want to consider is jail. You are [the] former president and possibly the next president,” Merchan said, according to Fox News. “The magnitude of that decision is not lost on me,” he added. “Your continued willful violation of the court’s order … constitutes a direct attack … and will not be allowed to continue.” After Merchan’s strong warning, Trump told reporters, “I have to watch every word I tell you people. You ask me a question, a simple question, I’d like to give [an answer], but I can’t talk about it. Because this judge is giving me a gag order and said you’ll go to jail if you violate it.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP “And frankly, you know what, our Constitution is much more important than jail,” Trump added. “It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.” Trump again slammed the gag order during his remarks to the press before the trial began on Tuesday morning. “You ask me questions [and] I’m not allowed to respond,” he said. “The gag order has to come off.”