Daily News Brief for Friday, January 19th, 2024

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, January 19th, 2024. 
 
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https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/18/gop-led-house-approves-bill-to-avoid-shutdown-without-border-spending-deals/
 
GOP-Led House Approves Bill to Avoid Shutdown Without Border, Spending Deals
 
The U.S. House of Representatives voted late Thursday afternoon to extend government funding into early March and avoid a temporary partial government shutdown, sending the continuing resolution to President Biden to sign into law. 
 
The measure, which passed by a vote of 314 to 108, angered conservative Republicans who opposed any continuing resolution to fund the government without concessions by the Democrats on border security and spending. The House Freedom Caucus made an eleventh-hour plea to House Speaker Mike Johnson to permit an amendment to the House’s border security package, which Johnson rejected.
 
Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good slammed his fellow Republicans who supported the continuing resolution ahead of the vote. “The more things change, the more things stay the same,” he said in a floor speech. “We’re not even willing to risk a temporary pause in the 15 percent of the non-essential part of the government in order to force change in Washington,” he said. “No, we’re going to continue the status quo.” Good’s statements echoed an official position on the measure released by the Freedom Caucus hours before the vote. “Americans did not give Republicans a majority in the House to continue Nancy Pelosi’s inflationary spending and Joe Biden’s failed policies,” the group wrote in a statement. “This is not what we promised the American people.” 
 
The vote is also likely to be unpopular with the Republican base, which consistently ranks immigration as one of the top issues facing the country. Over 80 percent of Republican voters agree with President Donald Trump that the ongoing border crisis is “poisoning the blood” of America.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/17/blue-state-officials-pay-thousands-barring-church-preschool-lunch-program-beliefs-gender/
 
Blue State Officials Agree To Pay Thousands After Barring Church From Preschool Lunch Program For Beliefs On Gender
 
California state officials agreed to settle with the Church of Compassion and Dayspring Christian Learning Center Tuesday for nearly $200,000 after trying to exclude the church from the state’s preschool lunch program.
 
The church and the center, alongside Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), filed a lawsuit in June last year alleging that officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Social Services barred them from participating in the “Child and Adult Food Care Program” because of their religious beliefs on gender and sex. ADF and state officials filed a settlement agreement this week requiring the defendants to pay $30,000 for meals paid out of pocket in the absence of state funding and $160,000 for attorney’s fees.
 
“In the name of combatting discrimination, government officials excluded the church and preschool from serving the El Cajon community based solely on their religious beliefs and exercise,” Jeremiah Galus, senior counsel for ADF, said in a press release. “While it shouldn’t have taken a lawsuit to resolve this, at least now Church of Compassion can continue its vital outreach to needy children and families.”
 
The center had been a part of the USDA’s program for nearly two decades when the department changed its rules in 2021 requiring all participants to commit to not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In May 2023, the department also required state directors of USDA’s food and nutrition service programs to prohibit “discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.”
 
Church of Compassion and Dayspring Christian Learning Center failed to meet these new requirements for the 2022-2023 school year because of their beliefs on “human sexuality” and their refusal to “use any child or employee’s ‘preferred’ pronouns that do not correspond to biological sex,” according to the lawsuit. ADF argued that the department and state officials were deliberately discriminating against the church and the learning center because of its faith in violation of the First Amendment.
 
“The government can’t withhold food from families in need simply because their children attend a Christian preschool. The Constitution protects the right of Church of Compassion and its preschool to operate according to the dictates of their faith,” Galus said in the press release.
 
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2024/01/17/lgbt-activist-arrested-child-predator-sting-n2633750
 
Director of LGBTQ+ Organization That Helps Minors Arrested in Child Sex Sting
 
The executive director of the pro-LGBTQ+ organization Rainbow Research Center was apprehended on suspicion of attempting to engage in sexual activities with a minor, according to The Modesto Bee.
 
Reportedly, a total of 17 men were arrested on suspicion of eliciting sex with a minor after an undercover sting conducted by the Turlock Police Department in California. Gerard Slayton, 42, was one of them (via the Bee):
 
Slayton recently was appointed executive director of the Rainbow Center, a local nonprofit organization that provides resources to LGBTQ+ members of all ages. It particularly offers resources related to mental and physical health.
 
In a statement shared on Facebook, the Rainbow Resource Center said that Slayton’s actions occurred “outside working hours and off-premises.” 
 
“Mr. Slayton’s actions do not represent our organization’s values or mission. In accordance with our unwavering commitment to upholding the highest standards of conduct and integrity, we are addressing the issue within the Rainbow Resource Center,” the statement read. 
 
“We are dedicated to rebuilding any trust that may have been affected by the situation. As an organization that is at the forefront of advocacy and support for the LGBTQ+ community, our actions must reflect our dedication to these principles,” it continued.
 
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/17/beijing-china-wuhan-covid-19-100-percent-death-mice-study-full-paper/
 
Mutant COVID-19 Strain With 100% Kill Rate Developed In China
 
A pre-peer-reviewed study published in early January described how mice were exposed to a human-based “lethal infection” of COVID-19 with a 100% mortality rate.
 
The Beijing-based research paper was submitted to the scientific preprint site BioRXiv and published prior to peer review, but the data held within the pages is significant. Two SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronaviruses (GD/2019, GX/2017) were identified prior to the major COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019 through early 2020, according to the study’s authors.
The researchers then isolated “mutant” strains, which were cultured in labs between 2017 and 2020. When the infectivity and pathogenicity of the isolates were tested, it was found to easily infect golden hamsters and mice. The first isolate pCoV-GD01 had a higher homology than COVID-19, whereas GX_P2V didn’t seem to cause any disease in the animals despite infection.
 
But an early passaged GX_P2V isolate, named GX_P2v(short_3UTR) not only infected mice with extremely high viral loads into their lung and brain tissue, but eventually killed 100% of the mice within the study. Even those mice who were given an inoculation (i.e., vaccinated) succumbed to the disease.
 
Autopsy of the mice showed viral RNA in the brain, lung, turbinate, eye and trachea, killing all of the mice within eight days of infection. All of the mice’s eyes also went white the day before they died.
 
The authors argued this is the first report that COVID-19-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality rates in mice, suggesting a significant risk of the disease spilling over into humans.
 
But since the study is not peer-reviewed, there are huge questions about the efficacy of the results. “I had a look at the preprint. It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless. I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanised mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how such stuff might go wrong …” University College London genetics director Francois Balloux wrote on Twitter. “The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research.”
 
Balloux’s statements were reiterated by Rutgers University chemistry professor Richard H. Ebright, who wrote “concur” under the comment.
 
It appears the biggest concern is related to why scientists feel the need to develop these horrific diseases. “The absence of this information raises the concerning possibility that part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with potential pandemic pathogens,” Balloux concluded. And it’s pretty hard to argue with his stance.
 
China is already inching back toward lockdowns as mysterious viruses spread throughout the country. Most of these illnesses are being blamed on influenza strains and other respiratory diseases, but no single culprit has been identified to date.