DEI Programs Could Soon Face Supreme Court

The controversial business practice known as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) could soon see its legal challenges take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

According to Axios, the case that could spark Supreme Court action was filed by the same group that successfully saw the practice of affirmative action overturned by the court last year. The current case saw an appeals court ultimately rule that a venture capital firm had to shut down its grant program that was exclusively for black women.

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Silicon Valley Tech Moguls Flock to Trump’s Banner

David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya (composite image)

Big names in the cryptocurrency and venture capital worlds, some of whom are former Democratic donors, are throwing their support behind former President Donald Trump.

Venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya organized a high-dollar fundraiser for the former president Thursday night in San Francisco, raising $12 million for the Trump 47 Joint Fundraising Committee at a sold-out fundraiser where tickets cost up to $500,000 per couple. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, prolific tech investor Shervin Pishevar as well as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, famous for their dispute with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook, all attended the event, a source familiar with the fundraiser told the Daily Caller News Foundation

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ACLU to Spend $25 Million on November Elections, Pro-Abortion Measures

My Body My Choice

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) plans to spend more than $25 million on the November elections and will particularly focus on pro-abortion state constitutional amendments.

This year, the ACLU is spending the largest amount of money it ever has on elections, Deirdre Schifeling, ACLU’s chief political and advocacy officer, told NBC News.

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Ten States Ban Ranked-Choice Voting as Others Push for It in November Ballot Measures

As the number of states banning ranked-choice voting (RCV) is increasing, some are facing ballot measures this November that would implement the voting system.

While 10 states have banned RCV and more may join them this November if voters vote for the ballot measures, six other states will have ballot measures to switch their elections to RCV.

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Trump Expands Push for GOP Embrace of Early and Mail-In Voting

Mail in Ballot

The 2020 presidential election witnessed a nationwide surge in the prevalence of early voting and vote-by-mail practices, which featured heavily in former President Donald Trump’s claims that mass election fraud influenced the outcome. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of voters in the 2020 race voted by absentee or mail-in ballot, and 27% reported having voted early.

Republicans were subsequently reluctant to embrace such practices, though a lackluster midterm performance and the about-face of the presumptive GOP nominee on the matter appears to have the Republicans rethinking their approach.

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Second Texas Court Rules That Texas Bar Has No Evidence Sidney Powell Violated Ethics Rules with 2020 Election Lawsuits

Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, who brought four lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election, was cleared of charges from the State Bar of Texas by the Texas Court of Appeals this month. The court ruled in a 24-page opinion upholding the trial court that the Texas Bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline failed to show how she engaged in “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” in lawsuits she filed challenging Donald Trump’s presidential loss.

The lower trial court found that the evidence against Powell was so lacking that it granted no-evidence summary judgment for her against the Texas bar, which the Texas bar appealed. The higher court criticized the Texas bar, “The Bar employed a ‘scattershot’ approach to the case, which left this court and the trial court ‘with the task of sorting through the argument to determine what issue ha[d] actually been raised.’”

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Pro-Palestinian Protesters Vandalize Statues Outside White House During Massive Protest

Pro-Palestinian Protesters

Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized statues and threw items at a National Park Service ranger near the White House during a Saturday protest calling for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to multiple videos.

“Surround the White House for Gaza” was held Saturday afternoon and deemed a “national mobilization” to call for an “immediate ceasefire, an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners, and an end to the occupation of Palestine,” according to a description of the event. Videos posted on social media appeared to show protesters vandalized statues, harassed a National Park Service ranger and set off smoke bombs.

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More Fentanyl Crossing Border as Fake Prescription Pills, Study Finds

More fentanyl is coming across the southern border disguised as prescription pills, according to a new study that notes the “number and size of fentanyl seizures is increasing in the U.S.” 

A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy suggests the shift in distribution trends puts “a wider population at risk for unintentional exposure to fentanyl.”

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Commentary: Facebook Post Sparks Debate Over Possible Mistrial in Trump Case

Donald Trump

I think that it was the great Miranda Devine, she of the “laptop from hell” fame, who first called the world’s attention to the latest wrinkle in the long-running “Get Trump” extravaganza in New York.  Anyway, I first heard about it from her post on X Friday. “If this is legit,” she wrote, commenting on a letter purportedly from Acting Justice Juan Merchan to Donald Trump’s Counsel and the Manhattan DA’s office,  “it should wipe out Trump’s conviction.”

Eh, what?

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Memo Sounds Alarm Over Massive ‘Unconstitutional’ Database of Americans’ Info Pushed by Biden Admin

Rep. Barry Loudermilk

Advancing American Freedom, a conservative group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, is sounding the alarm about a Biden administration effort to collect Americans’ private financial information, according to a memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2012 authorized a program to make it easier for financial regulators to track transactions in U.S. markets by creating a “consolidated audit trail,” or CAT. This would require brokerages and exchanges to collect and report certain financial information to regulators and other financial organizations. Under the Biden administration, the SEC approved a new funding model for CAT in September 2023.

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Republican Lawmakers Urge Biden Admin to Blacklist Major Chinese Battery Companies with U.S. Interests

A group of Republican lawmakers is urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to effectively ban imports from two Chinese battery companies with business interests in the U.S.

Five Republicans — including Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) John Moolenaar, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — wrote letters to DHS Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans Robert Silvers requesting that the agency bar battery manufacturers CATL and Gotion High-Tech from shipping goods to the U.S. because of connections to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.

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