Free Republic

WASHINGTON—A Chinese smartphone maker won a key legal victory against the U.S. government this spring, which is expected to embolden more Chinese companies with military ties to challenge a Trump-era ban that prohibited U.S. investors from investing in their firms. The Department of Defense in May officially removed China’s Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor, from its investment blacklist. Xiaomi was among the 44 companies labeled as “Communist Chinese military companies” (CCMCs) by the Pentagon.

The death toll from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus in Latin America and the Caribbean has now exceeded 1 million. In a statement released on May 21, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that as of May 21, nearly 89 percent of deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean occurred in Brazil (44.3 percent), Mexico (22.1 percent), Colombia (8.3 percent), Argentina (7.3 percent) and Peru (6.7 percent). Three percent of the deaths were concentrated in Central America and one percent in the Caribbean.

Arizona Republican Governor Ducey vetoed 22 bills on May 28, including measures relating to election integrity and Critical Race Theory, arguing that lawmakers need to focus on passing a budget. “Today, I vetoed 22 bills. Some are good policy, but with one month left until the end of the fiscal year, we need to focus first on passing a budget. That should be priority one. The other stuff can wait,” Ducey wrote on Twitter. The governor, a Republican, said he won’t sign any more bills until a budget is passed.

The Texas state Senate passed a sweeping election overhaul bill on May 30 that has been criticized by high-profile Democrats over provisions that they say expands restrictions and penalties. The legislation was approved largely along party lines after an overnight debate stretched into the morning of May 30, according to local media. The House had a deadline of midnight on May 30 to approve the proposal.

The Arizona Senate is mulling an expansion of the 2020 election audit taking place in Maricopa County. Senators are considering hiring a California-based nonprofit to analyze ballot images to create a third set of numbers to compare with the tabulation from Dominion Voting Systems machines and the hand recount being done by Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based firm in charge of the current audit.

More than 200 House Republicans are putting pressure on their Democrat counterparts to get down to the COVID-19 origins and hold the Chinese regime accountable for the pandemic coverup. “We request that you instruct the appropriate Democrat committee chairs to immediately join Republican calls to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its role in causing the global COVID-19 pandemic,” stated a May 28 letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Lue Elizondo, a former Pentagon official who made public UFO reports, says that the U.S. Military, including a top official, underwent a cooperated campaign to intimidate and defame him. He is the former head of the U.S. government’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which was disbanded in 2012. Five years later, Elizondo made public three UAP (unexplained aerial phenomena) videos which were later confirmed to be true by the military and were under investigation.

The Senate on Friday passed a bipartisan resolution calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to act with “extreme urgency” to investigate the origins of the CCP virus, demanding full and transparent access to records in China, which senators accused of stonewalling and a “cover-up.” The resolution, introduced by Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), calls for an immediate, comprehensive, and transparent investigation that would be mandated by the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the WHO, with access to all relevant records, samples, and personnel in China.

The virus that causes COVID-19 probably did not originate in nature, according to a former State Department contractor. “It came out of nowhere, and it was optimized for transmission between humans in a way that no bat-borne coronavirus ever had been. So what’s up? A pangolin gets mated with a bat gets mated with a furin cleavage site of a human being? How does that happen? It’s not probable,” David Asher, who worked for the department during the Trump administration, said on Fox News’s “The Story.”

The United States on Tuesday urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to start a new investigation into the source of the CCP virus, amid growing calls to investigate whether the pandemic may have stemmed from a laboratory accident. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, in remarks to the 74th World Health Assembly, a virtual event, called for the WHO to launch a “transparent” second phase to the investigation.

A member of the House didn’t cast a proxy vote for a fellow congressman on the Democrat-backed $1.9 billion Capitol security spending bill because it slipped his mind, according to a spokesperson. A spokesperson for Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) told Just the News that “Calvert had been voting by proxy” for Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) “throughout the week” before the vote was held. It came just days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) extended the COVID-19 vote-by-proxy mandate for several more weeks, which was criticized by Republicans.

An attorney representing Maricopa County sent Republican state Senate President Karen Fann a letter ordering the preservation of all documents relating to the audit of the county. Maricopa County attorney Allister Adel sent the notice (pdf) to Fann claiming that some of the auditors involved in the process made potentially false or defamatory allegations.

China’s ruling communist party has released official reports saying that the latest outbreak of COVID-19 has spread to a third province after months of reports about the country having COVID-19 cases. On May 21, a case was reported in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of China’s southern coastal province Guangdong, causing closure and lockdown of a youth center and a university. Meanwhile, more cases have occurred in Yingkou, Liaoning province, triggering the northeastern city to raise its emergency response level to three.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hinted that he has much more planned before his political career is done. There has been considerable speculation that should former President Donald Trump not run for president again, DeSantis would be a leading contender in 2024. The governor has not made any announcements about his future plans, including a potential presidential bid.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the Ranking Member on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed strong opposition on Friday to China blocking Taiwan from the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Members of the 1776 Commission, which President Joe Biden disbanded on his first day in White House, are reportedly set to meet again with a renewed focus on combating the teaching of U.S. history based on the Marxist critical race theory. The advisory commission was established by the Trump administration in November 2020 to celebrate and promote the principles enshrined in the nation’s founding documents. It is commonly seen as a response to The New York Times’ controversial 1619 Project, which argues that the United States was founded as, and remains today, a racist nation.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Thursday that it will close two migrant detention centers, both of which face allegations of abuse. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop using the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. In a report (pdf) released in December last year, the Massachusetts attorney general determined “that a series of institutional failures and poor decisions” by the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office leadership led to “disproportionate” use of force against the detainees at the center.

Four days ago, the governor of Tennessee signed into law a new “bathroom bill,” which protects access to bathrooms based on biological sex. In Arizona, during a special Senate meeting, one of the firms conducting the audit revealed that they were able to recover data that they thought was deleted.

A high-rise sends residents and bystanders packing after it begins shaking and swaying without cause. No earthquakes or strong winds are reported in the region. But a 20-year-old research report might hold the answer. Apple plans to store its Chinese customers’ data inside China and is handing over the keys to a state-owned company. But Apple claims the information will still be safe.

On May 14, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) declared at its award ceremony that the 2021 silver winner of The Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book, Nonfiction, of the Benjamin Franklin Award went to Minghui Publishing for its book Minghui Report: The 20-Year Persecution of Falun Gong in China.