California’s Jurupa Unified School District Board on Monday approved a $360,000 settlement agreement for Jessica Tapia, a Christian teacher who was fired for refusing to use preferred pronouns or lie to parents about their child’s gender identity. “This is wonderful news,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “Schools behaving this way should find it is very expensive for them.” “Today’s settlement serves as a reminder that religious freedom is protected, no matter your career,” proclaimed Julianne Fleischer, legal counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom, who represented Tapia. “Jessica’s story is one of faithful courage. She fought back to ensure her school district was held accountable and that no other teacher has to succumb to this type of discrimination.” “Today’s settlement serves as a reminder that religious freedom is protected, no matter your career,” said Julianne Fleischer, legal counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom. “If the school district’s actions were legal, no teacher of faith would be qualified to serve as a… pic.twitter.com/iXaIIl8Q46— Advocates for Faith & Freedom (@advocates4faith) May 15, 2024 District spokeswoman Jacqueline Paul claimed the settlement “is not a win for Ms. Tapia” because [the Jurupa school district] “has not admitted any fault or wrongdoing.” However, the settlement amounts to more than five times the median salary ($68,000) for a Jurupa school district teacher. “The settlement certainly does not state or prove any illegal action or discrimination by the district,” Paul asserted. But Fleischer responded, “If the school district’s actions were legal, no teacher of faith would be qualified to serve as a public school teacher.” The Jurupa school district fired Tapia in January 2023 after she said her religious beliefs made her “unable to comply” with the district’s directives “to refrain from disclosing the gender identity of a student who is transgender to a parent who does not know the student’s gender identity” and “to address students by their preferred name and preferred gender pronouns.” “It was crazy to be in the position where I realized that I couldn’t be a Christian and a teacher,” said Tapia, a mother of three children herself. “I made sure to clarify, too, with [the] district personnel that were sitting across from me. I looked them in the eye, and I said, ‘Are you asking me to lie to parents?’ and they said, ‘Yes. It’s the law.’” California law stipulates that “parents … have an absolute right to access to any and all pupil records related to their children.” In most cases, accessing student records requires parental consent. However, guidance from the California Department of Education directs school districts: A transgender or gender nonconforming student may not express their gender identity openly in all contexts, including at home. Revealing a student’s gender identity or expression to others may compromise the student’s safety. Thus, preserving a student’s privacy is of the utmost importance. The right of transgender students to keep their transgender status private is grounded in California’s anti-discrimination laws as well as federal and state laws. Disclosing that a student is transgender without the student’s permission may violate California’s anti-discrimination law by increasing the student’s vulnerability to harassment and may violate the student’s right to privacy. “You believe that God created man and woman and that God creates every individual to be the person with the gender assigned in the womb and at birth,” the Jurupa school district wrote to Tapia in a termination letter. “Based on your religious beliefs, you cannot be dishonest with parents. … The district cannot accommodate your religious beliefs that … prohibit you from maintaining a student’s gender identity and refraining from disclosing a student’s gender identity from his/her/their parent(s)/guardians.” “The decision to settle this case was made in conjunction with the district’s self-insurance authority and in the best interest of the students,” Paul claimed, “such that the district can continue to dedicate all of its resources and efforts to educate and support its student population, regardless of their protected class.” The settlement precludes Tapia from obtaining future employment with the Jurupa school district, which allows the school district to continue hiding students’ gender transitions from parents without accommodating this Christian teacher’s scruples of conscience. Tapia, however, has other ideas. She plans to join forces with Advocates for Faith and Freedom in launching “Teachers Don’t Lie, a resource that will be committed to giving a voice of truth to teachers,” she said, adding:I am confident that we are making progress to ensure that no teacher has their faith violated within schoolhouse gates again. “Today’s settlement serves as a reminder that religious freedom is protected, no matter your career,” said Julianne Fleischer, legal counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom. “If the school district’s actions were legal, no teacher of faith would be qualified to serve as a… pic.twitter.com/iXaIIl8Q46— Advocates for Faith & Freedom (@advocates4faith) May 15, 2024 “What happened to me can happen to anybody, and I want the next teacher to know that it is worth it to take a stand for what is right,” Tapia said. “Across the country, we are seeing teachers’ freedom of speech and religious liberty violated through policies that require them to forsake their morals. I want teachers to be confident in the fact that the best thing we can do for students is educate in truth, not deception.” “Teachers must be able to speak truth, especially to parents about their own children,” Kilgannon said. “I’m very grateful to this teacher for standing up and thankful for the settlement.” Originally published at WashingtonStand.com The post California School District Denies ‘Wrongdoing’—but Pays Fired Christian Teacher $360,000 in Settlement appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Chinese nationals are crossing America’s southern border at abnormally high rates, according to Customs and Border Protection data.   Already in fiscal year 2024, more Chinese nationals have crossed America’s southern border than the three previous fiscal years combined. Under the Biden administration, “there is no serious vetting” of illegal aliens from China, Rep, Dan Bishop, R-N.C., said during a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability hearing held Thursday afternoon.   A five-question “limited interview,” as Bishop calls it, “combined with a lack of reliable information from China to verify biographical claims and limited translation services, severely constrain CBP’s ability to conduct rigorous vetting for criminal and national security concerns.”  Levels of illegal Chinese immigration are skyrocketing under President Biden, with little to no vetting of those entering.The CCP sees our open border as an opportunity. This surge of unvetted Chinese nationals at our border is an unambiguous threat to our national security. pic.twitter.com/r6MQHNmA3N— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) May 16, 2024 So far in fiscal year 2024—which began Oct. 1—27,700 Chinese nationals have crossed the southern border. In fiscal year 2021, CBP only encountered 450 Chinese nationals at the southern border, but that number rose to 2,176 the following year, and then soared to 24,314 in fiscal year 2023.   Encounters of Chinese nationals have also risen sharply at the northern border, increasing from 897 in fiscal year 2021 to over 7,000 in the first seven months of fiscal year 2024.   During Thursday’s hearing, titled, “Security Risk: The Unprecedented Surge in Chinese Illegal Immigration,” expert witnesses offered members of Congress explanations as to why so many Chinese nationals are crossing the border now.    “Illegal immigration ebbs and flows corresponding to a risk-reward calculation, and the reason that Chinese are coming in great numbers today is simply because they can,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told the subcommittee. “The worldwide awareness of our open border, spread by social media, shows them how,” Hankinson added. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)  Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, acknowledged that there is not one simple answer for why so many Chinese nationals are choosing to enter the U.S. illegally. “Economic instability and political repression within China have propelled many Chinese to seek better lives abroad,” Singleton said. “Yet this migration is also facilitated by sophisticated Chinese smuggling networks, readily accessible through Chinese social media platforms like WeChat and Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.”   The rise in illegal border crossings “provides cover for Chinese intelligence operatives, or those acting on their behalf, to potentially infiltrate our borders,” Singleton said.   “These operatives benefit from newfound operational flexibility, and so much as instability at the border allows them to evade traditional screening procedures and other American ports of entry,” the senior fellow explained. “Furthermore, their diversification of tradecraft using everything from false documentation to exploiting vulnerabilities in our border screening protocols, equips these individuals with a varied arsenal designed to overwhelm our defenses.”   Todd Bensman, a national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said many of the Chinese nationals who cross the border illegally commit the second crime of  “asylum fraud” after entering the country.   Holding up a crumpled passport, Bensman said Chinese nationals “disfigure and toss their passports, like this one, because the stamps inside prove their holders passed through safe countries that would have granted protection. That would disqualify them for U.S. asylum.”  “This administration tolerates mass, illegal entry and asylum fraud,” he added.   Since Biden took office, CBP has encountered nearly 150,000 Chinese nationals at and between U.S. ports of entry, about 50,000 of which have been encountered along the southern border.   “To be sure, most of those 50,000 Chinese nationals are merely coming to work and enjoy America’s famed lifestyle,” Bensman said. “But there can be little doubt that Beijing’s spymasters also noticed right away when a welcome wagon greeted the first of its 50,000 citizens, that America’s new president had just opened a new superhighway over the U.S. southwest border, tailor-built to carry intelligence operatives. U.S. counter-intelligence agencies must assume Beijing is already injecting agents into this flow.” The post Congress Seeks Answers to ‘Unprecedented Surge’ of Chinese Nationals Arriving at Border appeared first on The Daily Signal.

CNN Throws in the Towel on NY Trump Case

Billy Graham, the famed evangelist whose crusades reached hundreds of millions of people, was officially honored at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.A 7-foot statute of Graham's likeness was unveiled inside the National Statuary Hall during a ceremony that was attended by Graham's family, Speaker Mike Johnson (R), North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), former Vice President Mike Pence, and other North Carolina lawmakers.'I think it's providential that it's right here. I think it's the perfect placement.'"Today North Carolina gives the nation a symbol representing one of our dearest treasures: the Reverend Billy Graham, a man of faith, a man of North Carolina," Cooper said at the ceremony.The statue depicts Graham holding an open Bible with his left hand, and his right hands points to the text. The Bible is opened to Galatians 6:14, which reads, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."The base of the statue includes two additional Bible verses:John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."John 14:6: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"Speaker Johnson remarked that he was thrilled of the statue's position — prominently situated near the opening of the Capitol hall — because it means millions of people will be confronted with the Bible verses and Graham's faith."I think it's providential that it's right here," Johnson said. "I think it's the perfect placement."Franklin Graham said that his father would be uncomfortable with Thursday's ceremony "because he would want the focus to be on the one that he preached. He’d want the focus to be on the Lord Jesus Christ."Known for being a pastor to presidents — counseling Harry Truman to Barack Obama — Graham died in 2018 at the age of 99. Because of his oversized influence, Graham became just the fourth private citizen to lie in honor inside the U.S. Capitol. He was laid to rest at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, next to his wife on March 2, 2018.Graham's statue replaces the statue of Charles Aycock, a Democrat and segregationist who served as the 50th governor of North Carolina. The campaign to install Graham's statue dates back to 2015. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Robert Costello, Michael Cohen's former lawyer, accused the prosecution's key witness of lying on the stand in the New York criminal case against former President Donald Trump.On Wednesday, Costello appeared before House Judiciary Committee Republicans during a hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.Costello claimed that his former client, Cohen, lied to jurors during his testimony this week. '[H]e cherry picks certain emails or text messages and tries to make them look like something else.'Cohen, Trump's former attorney, took the stand on Monday as the prosecution's final witness in its case against the former president. Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 so-called hush money payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. Cohen testified that he made the payment at Trump's request and was later reimbursed. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied Daniels' affair allegations. Costello, who represented Cohen from April 2018 to July 2018, told lawmakers that Cohen is an "inveterate liar" who previously told him information contradicting his testimony this week. He noted that Cohen waved the attorney-client privilege at the request of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York because he had pleaded guilty to eight felony counts and "was seeking to lessen his sentence and thought he could be clever by going into the U.S. Attorney's Office and lying about cooperation." #BREAKING: Michael Cohen's former attorney reveals huge news:\n\n1. Michael Cohen didn't actually believe the Stormy Daniels allegation.\n\n2. Cohen paid Stormy Daniels all on his own. \n\n3. President Trump had nothing to do with it. — (@) Cohen accused Costello and Rudy Giuliani of "conspiring to obstruct justice by tampering with a witness, namely Michael Cohen," Costello told the committee."The story which they were floating at the time ... was that we had dangled a pardon under Michael Cohen's nose in order to keep him quiet so that he wouldn't testify against Donald Trump," Costello stated.He explained that he met with the two assistant U.S. attorneys and two FBI agents and detailed his "entire history" with Cohen."I explained the many, many lies that Michael Cohen told us," he said. After reviewing Cohen's Tuesday testimony, Costello said he identified several lies he told the jury."Virtually every statement he made about me was another lie," Costello told lawmakers. "What he tries to do is he cherry picks certain emails or text messages and tries to make them look like something else."Costello explained that the first time he met Cohen, which was shortly after the FBI raided Cohen's hotel room and office, his behavior was "absolutely manic," and "he looked like he hadn't slept in four or five days." According to Costello, Cohen told him at least 10 to 20 times, "I want you to know I will do whatever the F- I have to do. I will never spend one day in jail."During the meeting, Cohen allegedly told Costello that he had not done anything wrong and was "cooperating with the special counsel" and Congress."Of course, he forgot to tell us that he lied to Congress," Costello said, adding that he explained to Cohen that Trump was the actual target in the special counsel's investigation.He claimed that Cohen told him that just a couple of nights before their meeting, he was "seriously considering" committing suicide by jumping off the roof of the hotel "because he couldn't handle the pressure of the legal problems that he saw coming his way.""What he wanted to find out from us that day was his escape route. That's what he called it, 'Guys, you have to tell me what my escape route is. What can I do to get out of this?'" Costello continued. He told the House committee that he asked Cohen whether he had "truthful information about Donald Trump" and, if so, then "all your legal problems" could be "solved by the end of the week.""His response, 'I swear to God, Bob, I don't have anything on Donald Trump.' I said, 'Michael, I want you to think carefully about this.' I probably came back to this subject 10 or 20 times during the two-hour period," Costello remarked.He noted that each time he asked Cohen the question, Cohen responded the same way: He did not have anything incriminating on Trump."I said, 'Michael, whatever you have has to be truthful. If you think you can go in there and tell these people lies, you're crazy. It's going to backfire on you," Costello continued. "Probably the fifth or sixth time I got around to doing that, he said, 'Well, I know that money is missing from the Trump inaugural ball.' I said, 'Is Donald Trump involved in that?' No. 'Does Donald Trump know anything about that?' No. I said, 'Michael, that's useless. You're not going anywhere with that.'"Costello explained that Cohen's recent testimony is "exactly the opposite" of what his client previously told him. United States Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) asked Costello whether Cohen is "a liar." Costello responded, "That doesn't even begin to describe him. He lies at every opportunity when it's in his favor.""Is there a single branch of government that Michael Cohen hasn't lied to?" Gaetz inquired.Costello replied, "Gee, I think there isn't."He noted that Cohen has "changed his story" since their first meeting."You have to believe Michael Cohen in order to convict Donald Trump, if there's actually a crime, which there isn't," Costello told committee chairman Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).Representative Greg Steube (R-Florida) asked Costello to explain his view on Cohen's motivation for sending Daniels the $130,000 settlement payment.According to Costello, Cohen told him, "I got a call from a lawyer representing Stormy Daniels, who represented that she was going to testify that Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels." He noted that Cohen stated he did not believe Daniels' allegations but thought that it would be "embarrassing" for Melania Trump."That's why I decided to take care of this on my own," Cohen allegedly told Costello. Costello told the committee that he asked Cohen several times whether Trump was involved in the settlement agreement, to which Cohen allegedly replied that he was not. "I went back to that several times. 'You did this on your own?' On my own. 'Did Donald Trump have anything to do with it?' No. 'Did you get the money from Donald Trump?' No. 'From any of his organizations?' No. 'From anybody connected to Donald Trump?' No," Costello recounted his alleged conversation with Cohen.According to Costello, Cohen told him he took out a "HELOC loan" against his property to secure the funds to pay Daniels. When asked why he did that, Cohen allegedly told Costello that he did not want anyone, including his wife, to know where he had gotten the money. Costello claimed that Cohen's wife is "in charge" of the family finances and would have asked him "a hundred questions" about the payment.Costello accused Cohen of feeling "betrayed" by Trump's decision not to offer him a White House position after securing the 2016 presidential election. "He said to me that he should have been Attorney General of the United States or at least the chief assistant to the president. Ludicrous," Costello continued. "He was very angry about that. He wanted to do something to put himself back into the inner circle of Donald Trump. That's why he took care of this on his own. There had to be a motivation. Michael Cohen is always working for things that benefit himself." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Antifa militants at the University of Washington encampment were filmed harassing a cameraman for Fox Q13 as tensions continue to rise at the school with the occupied zone entering its third week. The Post Millennial's Katie Daviscourt took video of Antifa members using umbrellas and their bodies to block the camera. Mike Harvey, Fox Q13's cameraman, can be heard asking the protesters if they are on drugs because the harassers are acting very strangely. One of the protesters asks if Harvey understands why they are asking him not to film them. "Yes, and, honestly, I don't care because this is a public space; it's a newsworthy event. ... I have a right to report," Harvey tells them. The masked protester says Harvey is putting them in danger by filming them because of apparent doxxing attempts. Harvey further defends his actions because he is taking video of the overall scene, not necessarily individual people. One of the more crazed individuals starts to mock Harvey after pointing out they can't interfere with his work as a journalist. — (@) 'We again call on members to dismantle the encampment voluntarily for everyone’s safety.' Harvey posted the full video from his camera's viewpoint on X. — (@) "These people are clearly mentally ill. Listen to them. So [UW] is allowing unhinged people to patrol the campus like security guards are harass[ing] a free press? ENOUGH! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! COWARDS," local media host Brandi Kruse said in response to the incident. The encampment at UW does not appear to be going away anytime soon. Unlike most colleges, finals week at UW does not start until early June. UW President Ana Mari Cauce released a lengthy statement that said while the addition of graffiti on many campus buildings was an escalation, the school is simply calling for the zone to be disbanded. "While I strongly support free speech and peaceful protest, I also strongly support the rights of all our community members to live, learn and work without fear. I want to thank our Office of Campus Community Safety, UW Facilities and state and local partners for supporting our community despite challenging circumstances, including two very tense counter-protests," Cauce said. "But every day the encampment remains, safety concerns escalate for our UW community and for the people in the encampment itself. We again call on members to dismantle the encampment voluntarily for everyone’s safety, end the vandalism to our campus and continue constructive engagement with us on the issues of concern." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In a video taken as Kessler was placed in an ambulance, pro-Hamas demonstrators can be heard saying, ‘Hitler didn’t want you.’

Representative John Moolenaar was tapped to lead the House panel after Mike Gallagher stepped down.

Exposing Election-Related Shenanigans Is More Crucial Than Ever but We Need YOUR Help

Dopey Sara Haines of 'The View' Says 'Latin Mass' is Extremist and Doesn't Know Where Christianity Began