Author: J.P. Knowles

The 16-year-old Texas teen who was driving in his pickup truck outside of Austin this week when he got caught in a tornado when the wind tipped the truck over slung it around then set it back up on its wheels will soon be back on the road thanks to a generous gift from Chevy.

Riley Leon was on his way home from a job interview at a Whataburger in Manor when the vicious storm hit and left his Chevy pickup in bad shape.

“So it was family. That truck helped me and my dad get to where we are at now. To see that it’s gone, it brings a lot of tears to me,” Leon said.

Leon did get the job and as it turns out he will be getting a 2022 Chevrolet Silverado pickup from Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet, which worked with Chevrolet and the Chevy Cares charitable foundation to make it happen.

The dealership’s president, Randall Shapiro said when he saw the video of what happened to Leon he immediately began making calls to track him down so he could offer him the truck.

“We are thankful Riley is safe, commend his driving skills during a frightening situation, and our hearts are with other families in Texas that have been affected by these storms,” Chevrolet said in a news release.

The new pickup is a Cherry Red Silverado 1500 All-Star edition, which has a starting price of around $50,000. That’s also the amount Chevy Cares will be donating to the American Red Cross to help those affected by the destructive storms.

The father of the 14-year-old Missouri boy who died while on an amusement park ride in Orlando, Florida, Thursday said he believes his son knew he was in danger—and he wants to make sure that no other child feels like that again.

“He was panicking when he was going up,” Yarnell Sampson, the father of Tyre Sampson, said. “He told his friend next to him, ‘I don’t know man. If I don’t make it down, please tell my Mom and Daddy I love them.’ For him to say something like that, he must have felt something.”

A witness also said that Tyre had not been secured in his seat prior to the slip.

“They didn’t secure the seatbelt on him,” she said. “He was breathing just after the fall but because he had fallen on his stomach, no one could perform CPR, his arms and legs appeared to be broken,” she said.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is investigating Tyre Sampson’s fatal fall from the 430-foot drop tower Thursday. Sampson’s father retained attorney Ben Crump, famous for his civil rights and personal injury claims, who said a fun time at a park “should not have ended in tragedy.”

Sampson said his son was a star football player and honor roll student.

“He was a team player. He was the type of young man that’d take the shirt off his back and give it to you,” Sampson said.

“This should never happen to anyone else’s child ever again,” Sampson said. “If I have anything to do with this, it will not happen ever again.”

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a confusing speech Wednesday that left everyone confused by what she’d said.

While speaking Wednesday with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness to discuss Jamaica’s COVID-19 response, Harris made little, if any sense.

“We also recognize, just as it has been in the United States for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way its impact has been the pandemic, so to that end, we are announcing today also, that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to I believe what is necessary to strengthen not only the issue of public health but also the economy,” Harris said.

Her comments immediately drew criticism from right-leaning pundits.

“She is truly one of the great orators of our time,” author Matt Walsh wrote.

Newsmax host and political commentator Benny Johnson tweeted the Vice President “says so much, yet so little.”

Radio host Buck Sexton said Harris is like “the student in college who never did the reading, but insisted on talking a lot about it in class anyway, and always thought he/she was brilliantly fooling everyone. But nobody was fooled.”

Disney cast members will no longer be using the phrase “boys and girls” or “ladies and gentlemen” when addressing guests at the company’s parks.

“Hello, everyone,” or “Hello, friends,” will be the standard greeting used by Disney, according to the company’s Diversity and Inclusion manager Vivian Ware.

“We no longer say, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls.’ We’ve provided training for all of our cast members in relation to that, so now they know it’s ‘Hello, everyone’ or ‘Hello, friends,” Ward said. Guest will also be addressed as “dreamers of all ages” by all employees during their visit.

“We don’t want to just assume because someone might be, in our interpretation, may be presenting as female, that they may not want to be called ‘princess,’” Ward continued, “So let’s think differently about how do we really engage with our guests in a meaningful and inclusive way that makes it magical and memorable for everyone.”

Perhaps in response to Florida’s parental rights legislation, the company also announced they will be including more gay content geared toward younger children.

“We know the moment requires urgency – and words are not enough, so we are taking some actions right now,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said.

“When you have companies that have made a fortune off being family-friendly and catering to families and young kids, they should understand that parents of young kids do not want this injected into their kid’s kindergarten classroom. …” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an epic video tirade against the organization, “If that’s the hill they’re (Disney) gonna die on, how do they possibly explain lining their pockets with their relationship from the Communist Party of China?”

Disney founder, Walt Disney, was an avid anti-communist.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is fining the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign a combined $113,000 due to their failure to properly report funding of the Steele Dossier through the Perkins Coie law firm.

During the 2016 presidential election, the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid a combined $1,024,407.97 to Perkins Coie, which the law firm then paid to Fusion GPS. Both the DNC and the Clinton campaign claimed all payments to Perkins Coie for legal services in filings with the FEC, thus constituting a violation of campaign finance laws requiring organizations to truthfully describe payments to vendors, the FEC ruled on March 25.

The FEC found “probable cause” to believe that the DNC and the Clinton campaign did not correctly “make the purpose of the disbursement[s] clear” in their filings. The DNC received a $105,000 fine and the Clinton campaign an $8,000 fine.

“This may well be the first time that Hillary Clinton—evidently one of the most corrupt politicians in American history—has actually been held legally accountable, and I’m proud to see the FEC do its job for once,” Coolidge Reagan attorney Dan Backer, who authored the FEC complaint, said in a statement. “The Coolidge Reagan Foundation proved that, with pluck and grit, Americans standing with integrity can stand up to the Clinton machine and other corrupt political elites. Clinton and her cronies willfully engaged in the greatest political fraud in history, destroying our nation’s faith in the electoral process, and it’s high time they were held accountable. Let’s hope this is only the beginning for accountability, not the end.”

This has not been the only legal entanglement for the Clinton campaign and its associates. Two individuals have been indicted for making false statements to federal officials as part of his investigation into the origins of a federal probe into Trump’s alleged Russia connections. Former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann, gave documents to FBI general counsel James Baker purporting to show that a computer in Trump Tower was communicating with Alfa Bank, a financial institution located in Moscow. Perkins Coie’s political division was working for the Clinton campaign, but Sussmann denied to Baker that he was working for a particular client.

Sussmann later billed the Clinton campaign for time spent disseminating the Alfa Bank allegations to the media.

Igor Danchenko, who worked as the lead researcher for the Steele Dossier was also charged with lying to investigators. Danchenko misrepresented information he received then used it in the Dossier in interviews with FBI agents, according to the indictment.

President Joe Biden is prepared to use a Cold War-era law to boost U.S. production of critical minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries and defense equipment.

Should the president move forward with the plan, he will add battery materials to a list of materials protected under the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA). The move would give mining firms access to a $750 million fund established under the DPA and used to “to carry out all of the provisions and purposes” of the act, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Use of the DPA however would not reverse current regulations and legal hurdles facing mining projects across the country.

Minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, graphite and zinc are essential for the production of electric vehicle batteries, battery storage facilities, solar panels and wind turbines. Currently, China, Russia and other hostile nations dominate the global production of such materials.

“Unless we continue to build on this action, and get serious about reshoring these supply chains and bringing new mines and mineral processing online, we risk feeding the minerals dominance of geopolitical rivals,” National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan said. “We have abundant mineral resources here. What we need is policy to ensure we can produce them and build the secure, reliable supply chains we know we must have.”

But the Biden administration has put roadblocks in the way of domestic mining production in the form of environmental regulations and permitting over the last 14 months.

The Interior Department shut down a Minnesota mining project that had been approved under the Trump administration which would have produced copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum. The agency said the project hadn’t undergone an efficient environmental review.

“It was purely a political decision,” Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Subcommittee, said. “We need to secure our critical minerals, we need energy and mining dominance in this nation.”

White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday about the potential for the reinstatement of COVID-19 restrictions in the U.S.

In an interview on the BBC’s “Sunday Morning,” Fauci said U.S. residents “need to be prepared for the possibility” of restrictions being put back into place.

Host Sophie Raworth asked if a new infectious COVID-19 variant could lead to future lockdowns and mask mandates.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘lockdowns.’ That has a charged element to it. But, I believe that we must keep our eye on the pattern of what we’re seeing with infections,” he said.

“Having said that, we need to be prepared for the possibility that we would have another variant that would come along,” Fauci noted. “And then, if things change and we do get a variant that does give us an uptick in cases and hospitalization, we should be prepared and flexible enough to pivot toward going back – at least temporarily – to a more rigid type of restrictions, such as requiring masks indoor.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the highly transmissible BA.2 omicron sub-variant that is spreading across the globe currently makes up 54.9% of cases.

Fauci warned that the “same conditions” that are driving the resurgence of cases in Europe appear to be here in the U.S.

“It’s the greater transmissibility of the BA.2, it’s the relaxation of restriction, particularly in the context of indoor masking in congregate settings, and also the fact that immunity, due to both vaccination as well as people who have been previously infected, tends to wane with SARS-CoV-2 – particularly with omicron,” he said.

Last week, Fauci said he does not expect another major COVID-19 surge.

“I would not be surprised at all, if we do see somewhat of an uptick,” Fauci said. “I don’t really see, unless something changes dramatically, that there would be a major surge.”

With the administration now out of funds for a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose, America’s pandemic future is unclear.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moved to authorize a second booster of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for people ages 50 and older.

The CDC is expected to weigh in on the decision.

Republican North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn claimed during a Sunday podcast that he was invited to an orgy by political leaders in Washington D.C. who also used cocaine in front of him.

In the clip which was posted to Twitter, Cawthorn talks about the accuracy behind the hit Netflix series “House of Cards.”

“How much, in your opinion, because you’re — you’ve been behind the veil. Is this a fictitious show, or is this more closer to, like, a documentary?” interviewer John Lovell asked Cawthorn, “is it that bad?”

“I heard a former president that we had in the 90s was asked the question about this, and he gave an answer that I thought was so true, and he said the only thing that’s not accurate in that show is that you could never get a piece of legislation about education passed that quickly,” Cawthorn answered.

Cawthorn was speaking about a quote from former President Bill Clinton. The show’s lead actor, Kevin Spacey, said that Clinton told him directly that “House of Cards” is 99% accurate.

Lovell said the series is “so dirty,” and that Spacey’s character is living a “secret life of all this corruption and power and money and perversion.”

While Cawthorn would not give a specific name he did talk about being invited to an orgy by someone older than he is.

“Aside from that, the sexual perversion that goes on in Washington, I mean it, being kind of a young guy in Washington — with the average age of probably 60 or 70 — and I look at all these people, a lot of them that I, you know, I’ve looked up to through my life. I’ve always paid attention to politics guys that, you know, then all of a sudden you get invited to like, well, ‘hey we’re going to have kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes. You should come,’” he said.

“Or the fact there’s some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country and then you watch them doing, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you,” Cawthorn added.

There were 161 people arrested and 75 illegal guns confiscated in Panama City Beach, Florida over the weekend.

“Right here, today, we stand united as not only law enforcement officials, not only as city leadership or county leadership but just as citizens of Bay County,” Beach Police Chief J.R. Talamantez said Monday. “What we saw this past weekend is absolutely unacceptable, period. These pathetic cowards who came and committed these crimes — their actions will not be tolerated.”

Talamantez said that law enforcement officials confiscated an assortment of weapons, including shotguns, pistols, and semi-automatic rifles. “These guns were taken over a period of two days. It could arm a small army,” Talamantez continued. “These are weapons brought to a resort destination. These are weapons brought to a beach.”

Chaos erupted in Panama City after Miami Beach imposed a 6 p.m. curfew during the weekends in an attempt to prevent Spring Breakers from “wreaking havoc” on the city. Nearly half of the 161 people arrested over the weekend were from Alabama, according to Panama City authorities.

Republican Nebraska state Sen. Bruce Bostelman apologized Monday for parroting a rumor about schools placing litter boxes in bathrooms for students identifying as cats.

Bostelman repeated a false claim that’s spreading across the internet claiming school administrators are providing litter boxes to children who choose to identify as cats. The state senator said he was “shocked” by the reports during a debate on introduced legislation aimed at providing for children with behavioral issues.

“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during a televised debate. “And now schools are waiting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”

The state senator referenced “furries,” which are people that identify and dress up as animals. Bostelman referenced reports of a student who identified as a cat defecating on the floor because the school district refused to provide a litter box.

“Some kids can’t wear an American flag walking through the school on their shirt? And you keep them out of school? And you kick them out of school but it’s ok if they wear a cat costume? And that’s fine and you have a litter box for them? And that’s fine?” he continued.

Bostelman later walked back his allegations after looking into reports with Democratic state Sen. Lynne Walz, the head of the Legislature’s Education Committee, and finding no truth in the rumor.

“It was just something I felt that if this is really happening, we needed to address it and address it quickly,” he said.

The litter box rumor began circulating in December after the issue was raised at the Midland Public Schools school board meeting in northwest Detroit. The rumor has continued in a private Facebook group called “Protect Nebraska Children” and surfaced in an Iowa school district, causing the superintendent to inform parents that the reports were “simply and empathetically not true.”