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Exclusive: Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Voter ID, Limited Mail-in Voting


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | JULY 31, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/31/exclusive-poll-shows-majority-of-americans-support-voter-id-limited-mail-in-voting/

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New polling provided exclusively to The Federalist shows a vast majority of U.S. voters support election integrity initiatives such as voter ID requirements and limitations on the use of mail-in voting.

Conducted by the Honest Elections Project (HEP) from July 13-16, the survey reveals widespread support among the American electorate for common-sense election integrity policies. According to the poll, 88 percent of Americans support laws mandating voters show a form of ID in order to cast their ballot, including the vast majority of black (82 percent) and Hispanic voters (83 percent). Only 9 percent of those polled opposed ID requirements.

The survey’s findings paint a vastly different picture than the one crafted by legacy media and Democrat politicians, who for years have maliciously smeared voter ID laws as Republican-sponsored tools designed to “suppress” the votes of racial minorities. Two years ago, for example, Democrats and their propaganda press allies used this tactic to smear Georgia’s passage of an election integrity law that contained a provision mandating voter ID for absentee voting. President Joe Biden went so far as to label the bill “Jim Crow on steroids.”

Not only did Georgia experience record early voter turnout ahead of its Nov. 8 general election and Dec. 6 Senate runoff, but a poll conducted after the 2022 midterms revealed zero percent of black Georgia voters said they had a “poor” experience voting in the elections.

The HEP survey also found overwhelming opposition to noncitizens and minors voting in U.S. elections. In recent years, Democrat-controlled cities such as Washington, D.C., have passed measures permitting foreign nationals to vote in their respective municipal elections. Meanwhile, blue localities in states such as Maryland and California have passed measures allowing kids as young as 16 to vote in local elections.

According to HEP’s polling data, 89 percent of voters “think that American elections should only be for American citizens, including 82% of Democrats, 80% of Black voters, and 78% of Hispanic voters.” The survey also found 72 percent of voters oppose dropping the voting age to 16.

But it’s not just voter ID and eligibility where Democrats are out of touch with voters. Among the poll’s notable findings is support for limiting the use of mail-in voting.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, numerous states used the Covid lockdowns as a pretext for expanding the use of vote-by-mail and other nonsecure election practices. Attempts by GOP-led states to return their respective elections to pre-Covid election rules have predictably been met with pushback from Democrats, who have falsely accused Republicans of “rolling back” so-called voting rights.

Contrary to Democrat claims, HEP’s survey shows over three-fourths (76 percent) of voters believe “voting in person is better than voting by mail.” The data also reveals that 73 percent of Americans “reject automatically sending ballots without a voter’s request,” and 74 percent think practices such as ballot harvesting “should be illegal.” Meanwhile, 89 percent think “every ballot should be received by Election Day.”

The data also indicates two-thirds of voters (66 percent) support terminating no-excuse mail voting “as long as states offer two weeks of early in-person voting, including weekends.” This includes 69 percent of Hispanic voters and 55 percent of black voters, who support limiting the use of mail-in voting to groups such as people with disabilities, elderly citizens, people serving in the military, and those who “will be absent on Election Day.”

The poll additionally found widespread opposition to foreign nationals influencing U.S. elections and support for transparency in the elections process.

“Despite what the far left and many in the mainstream media would have you believe, election integrity measures continue to boast wide support among the American public,” HEP Executive Director Jason Snead said in a statement. “When it comes down to it, election integrity measures that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat are just common sense.”

The HEP survey was conducted among 1,600 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2.45 percent.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Are The DOJ And Hunter Biden Attempting to Commit Fraud in Federal Court?


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 31, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/31/are-the-doj-and-hunter-biden-attempting-to-commit-fraud-in-federal-court/

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One sentence — 13 words — out of the thousands spoken last Wednesday over the course of the three hours that federal prosecutors, defense attorneys, Hunter Biden, and Judge Maryellen Noreika discussed the president’s son’s plea agreement suggests the Department of Justice and Hunter Biden are attempting to commit fraud on a federal court. 

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden appeared before a federal court in Delaware prepared to enter a guilty plea on two misdemeanor tax counts. The hearing, however, did not go as planned when Judge Noreika, rather than rubberstamping the sweetheart deal the Biden administration had entered into with the president’s son, quizzed the attorneys and Hunter Biden on the terms of the agreement and their respective understanding of the government’s promise not to further prosecute Hunter. 

When Noreika questioned Hunter Biden about the $1 million Patrick Ho paid Owasco LLC on March 22, 2018, purportedly for legal representation, the president’s son was cornered. With the government and the defendant both telling the court that money represented fees for legal services, Hunter Biden had to explain how: “I think Owasco PC acted as a law firm entity, yeah.” That’s how Hunter replied initially, but then immediately equivocated: “I believe that’s the case, but I don’t know that for a fact.” 

Hunter’s hedge was a tell that what he had just told the court was not the truth. But it was imperative that the president’s son caveat his prior statement that his law firm entity was retained to provide legal services for Ho because the judge had made clear that Hunter Biden was under oath and that “any false answers may be used against [him] in a separate prosecution for perjury.”

While Hunter’s backtracking may have saved his backside from a perjury conviction, it may well blow up his plea deal because it highlighted that the “Statement of Facts” the government incorporated into the plea agreement contained a near-certain false representation: that the $1 million Patrick Ho transferred to Hunter Biden was “payment for legal fees.”

Statement of Facts?

While the government did not file the plea agreement or the exhibits incorporated into that deal on the public docket, during last week’s hearing the prosecutor and the court read excerpts on the record. Among other things, in the plea agreement, Hunter Biden “admits to the information contained in the Statement of Facts,” which was attached as Exhibit 1. And the Statement of Facts, as read by the prosecution, declared: 

On or about March 22, 2018, Biden received a $1 million payment into his Owasco, LLC bank account as payment for legal fees for Patrick Ho, and $939,000 remained available as of tax day. Over the next six months Biden would spend almost the entirety of this balance on personal expenses, including large cash withdrawals, transfers to his personal account, travel, and entertainment.

After commenting that having the U.S. attorney’s office read the Statement of Facts “into the record” “is not common in my experience,” Judge Noreika proceeded to question Hunter Biden on the facts to which he was admitting, engaging in this colloquy: 

COURT: All right. In the third paragraph, which is actually the second full paragraph, it says on or about March 22, 2018, you received a million-dollar payment into your Owasco bank account as payment for legal fees for Patrick Ho.

DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor. 

COURT: Who is that payment received from, was that the law firm? 

DEFENDANT: Received from Patrick Ho, Your Honor. 

COURT: Mr. Ho himself? 

DEFENDANT: Yes. 

COURT: Were you doing legal work for him separate and apart from the law firm? 

DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor. Well — 

MR. CLARK: That wasn’t through Boies Schiller, Your Honor, Mr. Biden was engaged as an attorney. 

COURT: Right. So that’s why I asked. You were doing work for him — 

DEFENDANT: My own law firm, not as counsel. 

COURT: So you had your own law firm as well? 

DEFENDANT: I think Owasco PC acted as a law firm entity, yeah. 

COURT: OK. 

DEFENDANT: I believe that’s the case, but I don’t know that for a fact.

The court then moved on to the next section of the Statement of Facts, and the hearing continued. It shouldn’t have, however. Rather, Judge Noreika should have questioned Hunter Biden more fully to ensure the representation attested to by both the government and the defendant and incorporated into the plea agreement — that Ho paid Hunter $1 million as payments for legal fees — was true. For the overwhelming evidence indicates that was a lie and that the money, at best, represented payment for influence peddling and, at worst, was a bribe.

Doesn’t Add Up

Of course, President Biden’s DOJ didn’t tell that to Judge Noreika nor provide her any evidence related to the $1 million payment. Instead, the DOJ declared the payment was for “legal fees,” and Hunter’s legal team enthusiastically nodded. But that’s not what the evidence indicates.

First, there’s the problem that the $1 million payment on March 22, 2018, was made not to Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco PC, but to Owasco LLC. And if you are going to pay $1 million for legal representation, you kinda want to pay the law firm supposedly providing those services. 

Second, not only did Ho not pay Hunter’s law firm, Owasco PC, Ho didn’t even pay Owasco LLC. Rather, Ho paid Hudson West III LLC $1 million on Nov. 2, 2017 — mere weeks before federal prosecutors charged Ho with bribing foreign officials to advantage the Chinese communist energy company CEFC. Then on March 22, 2018, Hudson West III LLC transferred that $1 million to Owasco LLC with a notation that it was for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping Representation.” 

According to a U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs finance report, Hunter “Biden stated that the incoming wire amounting to $1MM on 11/2/2017 from CEFC Limited foundation should have gone to Owasco LLC, however, he provided the wrong wire instructions, and due to the large amount the transaction was not corrected until 3/22/2018, which consisted of an outgoing wire for the same amount benefiting Owasco LLC.” 

The Senate report further explained that Biden had stated that “Boies Schiller Flexner is co-counsel for Dr. Patrick Ho’s case. Hudson West III LLC has no involvement with Patrick Ho Chi Ping[’s] case and won[’t] expect further transaction related to Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping trail [sic] for Hudson West III LLC. Owasco LLC and co-Counsel Boies Schiller Flexner will represent Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping [at] trial.”

But again, Owasco LLC was not Hunter Biden’s law firm; Owasco PC was. And even in hedging to the court last week, Hunter Biden claimed, “Owasco PC acted as a law firm entity.”

Saying he made a mistake during last week’s plea hearing and that it was actually Owasco LLC that acted as the law firm, however, won’t extricate Hunter Biden from the mess. As the president’s son stated in response to the court’s question of whether he was “doing work for [Ho]”: “My own law firm, not as counsel.” 

So, who was part of Hunter Biden’s Owasco LLC law firm at the time, if Hunter did not serve as counsel? And how did Owasco LLC pay its lawyers given that the government said over the next six months Biden would spend almost the entirety of the $1 million “on personal expenses, including large cash withdrawals, transfers to his personal account, travel, and entertainment?”

Then there is the Attorney Engagement Letter reportedly recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop, dated September 2017, between Patrick Ho and Hunter Biden, which provided for a $1 million retainer for legal representation. Significantly, this agreement was not entered into between Ho and any of the Owasco entities, but with Hunter Biden personally. Yet on Wednesday, Biden told Judge Noreika his law firm was doing the work for Ho. But what law firm that was, Biden seemed not to know.

Of course, Hunter didn’t know because no “legal” representation was provided to Ho and none was expected. Yet that’s precisely what the government and Hunter Biden represent as true in the Statement of Facts, and they may have gotten away with the deception had Judge Noreika accepted the plea agreement without question. But she didn’t.

Instead, the judge asked the parties to brief the issue of whether the government could include its promise not to prosecute Hunter Biden for other crimes in a side diversion agreement, stressing she needed to make sure the plea agreement got Hunter Biden what he believed it got him, but also to make “sure that I do justice as I’m required to do in this court.”

There will be no justice, however, if the court allows the government and Hunter Biden to pretend the $1 million payment from Ho was for legal representation. At the next hearing, Judge Noreika must question both Hunter Biden and the government on this representation — because if it is false, as the overwhelming evidence indicates, it would be a fraud on the court and the country to accept the plea agreement.

In advance of that hearing, the House of Representatives should consider filing a supplemental brief detailing the above evidence because the U.S. attorney’s office has proven itself unwilling to provide an honest assessment of the evidence to the court. While neither the legislative nor the judicial branch has the power to force the executive branch to charge Hunter Biden with any specific crimes, the executive branch also lacks the power to force the judicial branch to blindly accept a false plea agreement.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated since publication

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Italy’s Meloni reacts to NYT opinion piece blasting her right-wing policies: ‘Respond with … results’


By Taylor Penley FOXBusiness | Published July 31, 2023 12:32pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/italys-giorgia-meloni-reacts-nyt-op-ed-blasting-right-wing-policies-scary-respond-results

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sits down for part two of an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss her country’s success and speculations that conservatism is growing in Europe.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she prefers to let her actions speak louder than words when asked how she responds to a New York Times opinion piece that blasted her policies, particularly what’s happening in Italy overall.

“There is nothing I want to tell to those who criticize me. I think it is a right they have,” she told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview. “The only way I like to respond is with results, so I react. I do what I think is right for my nation, for the interests of my nation, and I think that what is happening in Italy is the only thing that really can give an answer or not.”

She cited Italy’s economic success, her vow to Italian companies that “we [the government] will not disturb you” and her hope that she can make the people of her nation believe that they can do better without the state “creating problems” for them.

ITALY’S MELONI DRAWS COMPARISON TO LEGENDARY EUROPEAN LEADER AHEAD OF VISIT WITH BIDEN

Giorgia Meloni Italian Prime Minister
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni releases statements to the press at the end of the meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on June 8, 2023, in Rome. (Simona Granati / Corbis via / Getty Images)

She said government should work with the people to allow the country to thrive.

“We want to create richness,” she said. “You will have a state, you will have institutions able to work with you, near you. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have rules. We have it, and we are quite strict on it, but we want them to believe there is nothing the institutions can do if the people do not answer. So, we have to go all in the same direction. We have to do it together, and that was my first message.”

Meloni, since taking power last year, has amassed criticism from more left-wing voices across the media, some of which openly compared her to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

In the New York Times guest essay, about which Bartiromo asked Meloni during the interview, author David Broder expressed concern that Meloni’s Italy is taking too many steps in the wrong direction – calling out accusations that minorities are “undermining the triad of God, nation and family,” adding that the implication has “dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents.”

MSNBC HOST BLASTS ‘LIBERAL MEDIA’ ‘PLAYING DOWN’ ITALIAN PM’S ‘FASCISM’

Giorgia Meloni Biden meeting
President Biden meets Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, in the Oval Office on July 27, 2023. (Yuri Gripas / Abaca/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)

“Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven,” he wrote.

Among other grievances laid out in the essay, Broder mentioned “efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power …”

“Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too,” he said.

Among other concerns, he said, is that the ideology is spreading.

But not everyone agrees that Meloni’s approach is alarming – at least concerning the economy. Weighing in after the segment, Fox News contributor Liz Peek praised the Italian prime minister for offering a different solution to economic problems in European nations. 

MELONI, MACRON TALK MIGRANT CRISIS, UKRAINE AT FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

Kevin McCarthy and Giorgia Meloni
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speak to reporters after a meeting at the Capitol on July 27, 2023. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

“Italy is the third-largest economy in Europe. If she can show the EU that lower taxes, less regulation and inspiring people to work can cause growth in your economy, can begin to solve some of the problems that are endemic in European countries, bully for her,” she said. “They are going to oppose it just like the New York Times is opposing it. They hate capitalism. It interferes with their creeping socialism in Europe, where politicians and bureaucrats take more and more power. I say bully for her and long live the republic.”

Michael Lee, founder of Michael Lee Strategy, also sat down with Peek and FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone, who sat in as guest host for “Mornings with Maria” on Monday.

“Italy’s got real problems, and there are some advantages to the EU, but this is why I was in favor of Brexit,” he said. “Like, once you have the ‘death harness,’ I call it, of the EU weighing down upon you and telling you how you can again run your country, it becomes very, very difficult. So, I wish Italy the best, but I’m skeptical.”

video

Human traffickers are becoming more powerful: Meloni

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni discusses Italy’s relations with China and the conservative movement’s growing influence in Europe. While speaking with Bartiromo, Meloni touted Italy’s accomplishments, including that its economy is growing more than others in Europe, higher job rates and workforce optimism.

“Things are going well,” she said. “I think I see also in the Italian economy that people now believe that things can change, that things can get better, so they do more, and that’s what, in my opinion, can make the difference.”

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Devon Archer interview ‘very productive’ in Biden family probe, Jordan says


By Jessica Chasmar , Houston Keene , Elizabeth Elkind | Fox News | Published July 31, 2023 2:11pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/devon-archer-interview-very-productive-biden-family-probe-jordan-says

Devon Archer arrived Monday morning for a closed-door, transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee, where he was expected to expose details about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and then-Vice President Biden’s alleged involvement. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters Monday that the House Oversight Committee’s hearing with Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s longtime friend and fellow Burisma board member, was “very productive.” Jordan said during a lunch recess that he looked forward to discussing the revelations of the hearing with the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.

The congressman also said, “Yep,” when asked if he heard any new information from Archer.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, arrives for closed-door testimony with Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, before the House Oversight Committee at the O’Neill House Office Building on July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, arrives for closed-door testimony
Devon Archer, center, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, arrives for closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee at the O’Neill House Office Building on July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Archer, who co-founded Hunter Biden’s now-dissolved investment firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, ignored questions from reporters upon entering the hearing Monday morning. Archer smiled as he was peppered with several questions upon entering the O’Neill House Office Building, where he was expected to sit down for an interview before the House Oversight Committee on President Biden’s involvement with Hunter Biden’s business deals, including that he sat in on more than two dozen business calls with his son as vice president.

Devon Archer gets into an elevator
Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, gets into an elevator as he arrives for closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee at the O’Neill House Office Building on July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, recently reported that Archer is expected to tell committee members that Hunter Biden would routinely introduce his father to foreign business partners and prospective investors.

The Republican-led committee invited Archer to attend the interview – he was sentenced last year to one year in prison for his role in a $60 million bond fraud involving various clients.

At least three previously planned appearances before the committee were canceled by Archer for personal reasons.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Saturday wrote to U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, requesting her to schedule a date for Archer to report to prison. However, a DOJ letter says Archer’s counsel argued it was “premature” to set a sentencing date, citing Archer mulling further appeals.

Archer was sentenced in 2022 to one year behind bars, but the sentence has been repeatedly postponed amid a series of appeals.

Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.

Jessica Chasmar is a digital writer on the politics team for Fox News and Fox Business. Story tips can be sent to Jessica.Chasmar@fox.com.

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Jay P. Greene Op-ed: Supreme Court Justice Jackson’s second error reveals another industry gone woke


 Jay P. Greene | Fox News | Published July 31, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/supreme-court-justice-jacksons-second-error-reveals-another-industry-gone-woke

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s defense of racial discrimination is falling apart. It’s now well known that Jackson repeated an embarrassing falsehood while defending affirmative action in college admissions. In her Students for Fair Admissions dissent, she asserted that matching Black physicians with Black patients doubles survival rates for newborns, a claim that’s equally unbelievable and factually unsupported.  

But this is not the only mistake Jackson made. Her second error shows the diversity-industrial complex’s deep corruption of medicine – and its threat to Americans’ health.   

RESEARCHERS HORRIFIED, DECRY RISE OF ‘FASCISM’ AS STUDENTS SEND MOCKING RESPONSES TO WOKE SURVEY

Jackson wrote, “research shows that Black physicians are more likely to accurately assess Black patients’ pain tolerance and treat them accordingly,” for instance, “prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication.” A footnote refers to an amicus brief from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the same source that led to Jackson’s first mistake.   

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was unable to define the word “woman” when asked at her confirmation hearing last year, made a telling error during her affirmation action decision. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The AAMC brief refers to four studies in support of this claim.  Yet none of them examine whether Black doctors are better at treating the pain of Black patients. All four document Black patients’ problems with pain management, but crucially, not one examines the efficacy of doctors of different races. The AAMC either failed to read the research or deliberately created this claim out of whole cloth.   

It’s unfortunate that Jackson and her elite-trained clerks were led astray by yet another falsehood. But it’s unconscionable that the Association of American Medical Colleges got the facts so wrong in such a high-stakes case. Most concerning of all, it’s unsurprising for this once prestigious yet still powerful organization.  The AAMC, which represents every accredited medical school in the U.S. and Canada, has elevated diversity to an absurd level. It holds, as an article of faith, that medical schools must recruit more Black students, even if that means discriminating against students of other races and lowering standards for admission.   

Video

Not only does the AAMC brook no arguments to the contrary, but it also misreads research and perhaps manufactures evidence to support its position.  These are the actions of a radicalized organization – one that puts political demands above its stated goal of improving medical education. The AAMC’s faulty justification of race-based admissions, seen in its amicus brief, is bad enough. Yet the association’s extremist turn doesn’t end there.   

The AAMC has quietly graded its member schools’ commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Through freedom of information reports, we have found reports from 34 medical schools, detailing their implementation of 89 AAMC-approved DEI initiatives.  The list includes hiring and promoting professors based on DEI metrics, creating a permanent DEI bureaucracy, lobbying for DEI policies at every level of government and making DEI a “key learning outcome.” The average medical school has complied with 85% of the AAMC’s wishes.   

It’s unfortunate that Jackson and her elite-trained clerks were led astray by yet another falsehood. But it’s unconscionable that the Association of American Medical Colleges got the facts so wrong in such a high-stakes case. Most concerning of all, it’s unsurprising for this once prestigious yet still powerful organization.   

The corruption of curriculum is especially concerning. Last summer, the AAMC released new “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies,” which effectively dictate what medical schools teach. Future physicians must now master “intersectionality,” describing “how each identity may result in varied and multiple forms of oppression or privilege related to clinical decisions and practice.”   Other mandatory topics include “colonization, white supremacy, acculturation, [and] assimilation.” The AAMC sponsors medical schools’ accrediting body, so institutions that don’t teach these medical divisive concepts risk losing their ability to issue degrees.   

The AAMC’s actions are lowering, not raising, the quality of medical education, which in turn lowers the quality of future medical care. By repeating the organization’s false claims about racial preferences in college admissions, Justice Jackson has shined a light on the deeper danger that DEI poses to Americans’ health and well-being. 

Jay P. Greene is a Senior Fellow at Do No Harm.

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Sarah Palin to Newsmax: House Must Act on Archer Testimony


By Charlie McCarthy    |   Monday, 31 July 2023 02:14 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/sarah-palin-devon-archer-house/2023/07/31/id/1129122/

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Newsmax that the importance of whistleblower Devon Archer’s testimony about the Bidens will be superseded by lawmakers’ response.

Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, appeared Monday before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door session. Sources close to the whistleblower said Archer will tell Congress that on at least two dozen occasions, Hunter Biden had then-Vice President Joe Biden on speakerphone at his meetings with foreign potential business partners, including from Ukraine and Romania, implying Joe Biden’s alleged involvement in his son’s deals.

“The real game changer will be any kind of commitment from Congress, from those who hold the strings of what happens next in terms of holding anybody accountable,” Palin told co-host Bianca de la Garza on “John Bachman Now.”

“When there’s action taken that shows that people are serious about this and that there are consequences for the misdeeds that I believe are going to be very, very apparent, very clear.

“The game changer is going to be what happens after this testimony. Where’s the commitment to hold those accountable.”

Palin was asked about Joe Biden on Friday joking about getting impeached while touting falling inflation and “Bidenomics.”

“I think any reasonable and responsible American is beyond patient when it comes to the flippant comments and the flippant attitudes coming from the Biden family and from those in his circle of influence because we know that there is corruption, there is misdeeds,” Palin told de la Garza.

“The FBI has had Hunter’s laptop for four years now and sat on it with clear evidence of criminality, Hunter’s. And then we have his father, Joe, saying he has nothing to do with, say, the unethical business practices of Hunter’s. And yet, go to the tape. There’s photos of President Biden with Hunter and those business partners.”

After saying it has been “lie after lie” with the Bidens, Palin added that the president’s reputation has been known since he was in the U.S. Senate.

“He’s been known for the plagiarism, for the lies, for the exaggerations and yet the left and the media, they let him get away with it,” Palin said.

The former Alaska governor, who was Sen. John McCain’s running mate in 2008, also was asked about Biden and the first lady acknowledging their seventh grandchild, who was at the center of a paternity dispute between Hunter Biden and mother Lunden Roberts.

“They’re missing out on their seventh grandchild not having the involvement that hopefully, henceforth, they will start having,” Palin said.

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Democrat Lawmaker: Joe Biden Took Part in Hunter’s Calls


By Charlie McCarthy    |   Monday, 31 July 2023 02:35 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/joe-biden-hunter-biden-devon-archer/2023/07/31/id/1129125/

Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., who served as lead majority counsel in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, says President Joe Biden took part in phone calls involving Hunter Biden and foreign business partners. Goldman spoke after whistleblower Devon Archer’s appearance Monday before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door session. Archer is Hunter Biden’s former business partner.

“Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman says Hunter Biden did, in fact, frequently put his dad on speakerphone for his business partners — but they were only talking about the weather,” RNC Research posted on X.

“Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman says Joe Biden spoke with Hunter’s business partners, but they spoke about stuff like the weather not business deals,” The Post Millennial posted on X.

Goldman conceded that Archer had testified that Joe Biden was placed on phone calls with Hunter Biden’s associates perhaps twice a year over the 10 years that Archer was associated with the first son. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a member of the House panel, took to social media after Archer’s early testimony.

“Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former best friend and business associate, asked Hunter why appointees from the Obama/Biden Admin arrested him,” Greene posted on X.

“Hunter explained, ‘It’s democracy … every presidents family is held to a higher standard … it’s the price of being the most powerful group of people in the world … the unfairness to us allows for the greater good.'”

“Hunter continued, ‘Every great family is persecuted prosecuted in the us — you are part of a great family — not a side show not deserted by them even in your darkest moments. Thats the way Bidens are different and you are a Biden. Its the price of power. and the people questioning you truly have none whereas you do through perseverance and poise.’

“Archer’s arrest was just par for the course for Hunter,” Greene posted. “Hunter didn’t just peddle his family’s influence to secure business deals that would otherwise be unattainable, he knew he and his associates would largely be shielded from the scales of justice because of his last name: Biden.”

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House Spending Bills Have Welcome Cuts but Still Leave Billions in Potential Savings on the Table


By: David Ditch / @davidaditch / July 31, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/31/house-spending-bills-have-welcome-cuts-still-leave-billions-potential-savings-table/

House Freedom Caucus Members Speak To The Press outside US Capitol
The U.S. House has 12 spending bills to fund the government for the upcoming fiscal year. With the national debt at $32 trillion, interest rates at a 22-year high, and ongoing inflation, Congress must pass some serious cuts. Pictured: Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., speaks at a House Freedom Caucus-held the news conference with other members of the caucus outside the U.S. Capitol Building on July 25, 2023. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The U.S. House of Representatives left Washington July 27 for its lengthy summer recess having only passed 1 of 12 spending bills required to fund the government for the upcoming fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. While all 12 bills have welcome reductions, they lack the more substantial cuts necessary to trim the deficit and stop the rampant inflation being caused by excessive government spending.

While funding for the Veterans Administration passed on party lines, House leadership canceled an expected vote on funding for the Department of Agriculture due to a lack of consensus within the GOP caucus. This same dynamic affects the other 10 spending bills as well. The debate over spending levels will likely be the central legislative battleground for the next few months, and it’s vital for Americans to understand what’s at stake.

There has been an ongoing back-and-forth between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus over where to set spending levels for fiscal year 2024. The Freedom Caucus has pushed for a reduction to 2022 levels, which Republicans agreed to in passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act this spring. Unfortunately, the flawed bipartisan debt limit deal supplanted Limit, Save, Grow, and in the process, set up tens of billions of dollars in budget gimmicks. This meant that not only would there not be the type of spending cuts needed to help fight inflationary deficit spending, but there could very well be a spending increase when all is said and done.

The House Appropriations Committee has now produced initial versions of all 12 of the annual spending bills. In response, members of the Freedom Caucus have demanded lower spending levels through a combination of dumping fraudulent gimmicks and imposing stronger spending cuts on the swampy federal bureaucracy. There’s no agreement yet between House leadership and the conservatives, meaning it’s unclear what will happen in the fall when Congress resumes work on the spending bills.

The spending bills as they currently stand provide plenty of details to inform congressional negotiators and the public about the worthwhile spending reductions already in the bills and the vital opportunities for further cuts that remain on the table.

Praiseworthy spending reductions in the House bills include:

  • A 15% cut to the Department of Education, which is irredeemably captured by the Left.
  • A 12% cut to housing programs, which are an often-overlooked part of the welfare state.
  • An over 40% cut to Environmental Protection Agency grants to states, many of which are done in service to the Green New Deal.
  • An over 30% reduction for U.S. Agency for International Development “development assistance,” recognizing that handouts from the U.S. to poor countries are neither effective nor affordable.
  • Eliminating wasteful spending by entirely defunding programs such as the Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the duplicative Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the long-failed Job Corps.

However, there are many areas where the Appropriations Committee either increased funding or gave minor haircuts rather than doing the cutting that’s necessary for the sake of responsible budgeting. Examples include:

  • Cutting less than 10% of the National Institutes of Health budget, which has been badly discredited as the public learns more about the corruption surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the agency’s funding has exploded in recent decades, and it has suffered from a variety of dysfunctions even before the pandemic.
  • Retaining the vast majority of funding for the Community Development Fund, a slush fund that Congress uses to dole out pork spending.
  • Increasing spending on the National Science Foundation, which is part of the Big Science/Big Education complex that helps fund the infrastructure of the Left.
  • Placing tens of billions into the Disaster Relief Fund. While there is understandable sympathy for people suffering from disasters such as hurricanes, a handful of states receive the vast majority of disaster funds. This means adding to the federal debt to give handouts to these states at a time when Uncle Sam is going broke and states are passing tax cuts.
  • Retaining almost all Department of Energy spending on “efficiency and renewable energy” and the Office of Science. The Department of Energy provides a handful of worthwhile services but spends far too much in support of the Left’s environmental agenda.
  • Failing to account for faster-than-inflation spending hikes that dozens of nondefense bureaus and programs have received since the end of the Obama administration.

All told, there are tens of billions of dollars in potential savings still on the table.

A complicating factor in spending discussions is that the House Appropriations Committee is touting cuts to things passed by Democrats in recent years, such as the hiring spree for the IRS, in an attempt to “balance” the lack of meaningful reduction to overall spending levels. On one hand, such cuts would be an excellent idea in isolation. On the other hand, the committee is using this approach to shield much of the federal bureaucracy from the sort of dramatic cuts that would actually drain the swamp.

The bottom line: With the national debt at $32.6 trillion, the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to a 22-year high as inflation remains above pre-pandemic levels, and the Biden administration pushing a radical agenda thanks in part to the excessive size and scope of the government, it’s long past time for Congress to pass serious deficit reduction and combat federal bloat.

While the House Appropriations Committee has done some good work, conservatives are right to push for more.

COMMENTARY BY David Ditch@davidaditch

David Ditch is a policy analyst specializing in budget and transportation policy in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.

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Today’s THREE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Light Em’ Up

A.F. BRANCO | on July 29, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-catoon-light-em-up/

Jason Aldean makes the left’s woke mind explode with his hit that goes number one, “Small Town”.

Try That in A Small Town
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Schooling Schools

A.F. BRANCO | on July 30, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-schooling-schools/

Minnesota parents outraged at school board meetings about porn in school libraries.

Get Porn Out Of Schools
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Dress Code

A.F. BRANCO | on July 31, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-dress-code/

The U.S. woke Military is becoming all that our enemies could hope for, weak and stupid.

Woke Military
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

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SUMMING UP THE WEEK OF JULY 29, 2023


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Democratic Leaders Tell Biden NYC at ‘Breaking Point’ After Receiving More Than 90,000 Illegal Aliens


By: Virginia Allen / @Virginia_Allen5 / July 28, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/28/democratic-leaders-tell-biden-nyc-breaking-point-receiving-90000-illegal-aliens/

Illegal Aliens sleep on the streets of New York City.
New York City is “at a breaking point” after more than 90,000 illegal aliens have arrived in the city since last spring, according to city leadership. Pictured: Venezuelan migrants sleep on the streets of New York City, Jan. 30. (Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images)

New York City is “at a breaking point” after more than 90,000 illegal aliens have arrived in the city since last spring, according to city leadership.  A group of 54 NYC Democratic elected officials, including state senators and assembly members, sent a letter to President Joe Biden Wednesday asking him for “help.”  

“Our City is experiencing an unprecedented migrant influx, with a surge of asylum seekers arriving here in numbers never seen before in history,” the letter reads.  

 “We take pride in New York being a beacon of hope for immigrants, but the influx of migrants is so great that the city is running out of resources,” the Democrats told Biden. “New York City is being forced to reduce services to its people.”  

You make a big deal in the media about being a “Sanctuary City” and now that they’ve been taken up on that on that claim, they’re screaming, “no fair”. Maybe the other so-called sanctuary cities will follow suit.

The New York City officials ask Biden to declare a federal state of emergency in response to the influx of migrants, expedite work authorization for migrants, “distribute migrants fairly” across the country, and provide the city with more federal funding to “manage the tens of thousands of asylum seekers we are hosting.”  

The state officials told the president they “take pride in welcoming immigrants” but added that “the current unstructured state of immigration policy and response needs to end.” 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas Thursday to discuss the city’s immigrant crisis. The New York Post reports the meeting resulted in an agreement from Mayorkas to provide NYC with a liaison to “strengthen ‘communication’ between City Hall and the Biden administration.”  

NOW THAT OUGHT TO CUT DOWN ON THE PROBLEMS OF HOUSING, FEEDING, AND CARING FOR THESE PEOPLE WHO BIDEN LET INTO AMERICA ILLEGALLY. BETTER COMMUNICATION. That should do the job.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries were present for the meeting, which is reported to have lasted about an hour.  

After the meeting, Adams said he appreciated “Secretary Mayorkas’ commitment to visiting the city and designating someone at DHS to serve as a point-person on our asylum seeker needs. We look forward to his visit and learning more about DHS’ plans for how this role will operate.”  

According to Adams, NYC continues to “do more than any other city in the nation, but we need additional support from our federal and state partners.”  

Adams’ meeting with Mayorkas comes about a week after the mayor announced that NYC will begin distributing flyers at the U.S. southern border asking illegal aliens to “consider another city” besides the Big Apple.  

The bright yellow flyers, which are also written in Spanish, tell illegal aliens “Housing in NYC is very expensive,” and “There is no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services to new arrivals.” 

In an effort to create shelter space for families with children, Adams announced last week that the city will give “60 days’ notice to adult asylum seekers already in our care to find alternative housing.”  

The Center for Immigration Studies released a report in April claiming that the Biden administration has released 2,020,522 illegal aliens into the U.S. The report added that an additional “1.3 million known got-aways” have entered the U.S. interior during the Biden presidency.   

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Political

Today’s Politically INCORRCT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Ignorance Is Bliss

A.F. BRANCO |  on July 28, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-ignorance-is-bliss-2/

Hard-core Biden fans are willing to ignore the obvious pay-to-play bribing scandals to continue supporting him.

Bitter Biden Clinger
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

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Human trafficking investigation results in arrest of 62 smugglers exploiting ‘vulnerable Cubans’


By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter |

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/62-arrested-in-human-trafficking-operation-of-cuban-migrants.html/

iStock/mmg1design

An international law enforcement investigation has led to the arrest of over 60 people involved in an intercontinental criminal network that, in some cases, transferred female Cuban migrants to criminal groups for sexual exploitation. 

According to Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, the criminal network smuggled over 5,000 Cuban nationals into the EU, earning a profit of the equivalent of nearly $50 million. The migrant smuggling network advertised its services to Cubans via a messaging application, organizing their journey to Europe and giving them false documentation. The smugglers flew the migrants from Cuba to Serbia and then Greece before flying them to Spain or Italy.

The network focused on Cubans in “vulnerable situations,” charging them the equivalent of nearly $10,000 for its services. By working with authorities in Germany, Greece, North Macedonia, Spain and Serbia, Europol’s investigation led to the arrest of 62 smugglers, 25 of which were Cuban nationals.

In its statement published Monday, Europol outlined its role in organizing operational meetings and deploying its analysts and a specialist to Spain, Greece and Serbia to offer support on the ground. Europol also provided guidance to the deployed personnel on the day of action in June. The investigation uncovered a “complex criminal infrastructure” set up in major cities across Spain, Greece and Serbia. 

“On the action day in June 2023, police officers from all three countries seized a variety of criminal assets including hundreds of forged documents and forgery equipment,” Europol’s statement reads. “In total, 18 pieces of real estate, 33 vehicles and 144 bank accounts, alongside vast sums of cash in various currencies, were seized.” 

The investigation began in October 2021 after authorities from Serbia, Greece, North Macedonia and Finland noticed an increase in the number of Cuban migrants seeking to enter Europe with false documentation, according to Europol. In January 2023, Europol, the European Union Agency for Asylum and Frontex issued a joint intelligence notification, which had a subject reading “Cuban nationals smuggled into the EU: shifting routes and modi operandi in a changed geo-political landscape.” 

The report noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, has impacted Cuban smuggling routes. While Cuban nationals were previously flown to Russia, they are now flown to Serbia through an airport in Germany, where smugglers arrange for them to enter North Macedonia and Greece. 

“Using a variety of routes, the smugglers would direct large groups of migrants and make them walk in the dark without supplies for hours,” Europol explained. “In addition to these arduous conditions, the criminals would take advantage of the most vulnerable migrants, including minors, and subject them to scams, robberies, and extortion. In some cases, women were transferred to other criminal groups for sexual exploitation.”

Migrants would apply for asylum in Greece, or the smugglers would arrange their travel to other EU counties by providing them with forged documents, according to the agency. Sometimes, members of the criminal network used the “lookalike” method to make it possible for migrants to travel in the EU. The method involves stealing documents and giving them to a migrant who resembles the victim of the theft. 

Investigations into the smuggling of human beings have become increasingly relevant following the summer release of the film “The Sound of Freedom.” The movie, which has surpassed $100 million at the box office at the time of reporting, depicts a real-life operation to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. The film follows Tim Ballard, a former government agent who left his job and successfully helped facilitate the rescue of 123 individuals, including 55 children.

Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman

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Benevolent Tyranny: US Senator Announces New Epidemic, Nanny State Solution


By Norman Leahy | July 26, 2023

Read more at https://americanliberty.news/commentary/benevolent-tyranny-us-senator-announces-new-epidemic-nanny-state-solution/nleahy/2023/07/

The federal government has a long, expensive habit of trying to be our national nanny.  From dictates on how much water flows through our showers, toilets and dishwashers, to how much meat we should eat and steps we should take, there are few areas of life where government doesn’t butt-in to make matters worse for everyone.

Which brings us to Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy‘s proposal to do something about the “loneliness epidemic.”

Yes, the government believes loneliness is a public health crisis in need of attention. But at least the Surgeon General’s office doesn’t call for legislation and spending to addressing the problem. Instead, it suggests a series of cost-free (to taxpayers)  options for individuals:

  • Make time to share a meal. Listen without the distraction of your phone. Perform an act of service. Express yourself authentically.

Setting aside what, exactly, that last item means, Sen. Murphy is determined to side steps the warm fuzzies, and make this a government matter:

  • The National Strategy for Social Connection Act would create an Office of Social Connection Policy within the White House to work across federal agencies to develop effective strategies for improved social infrastructure and issue national guidelines for social connection similar to existing guidelines on sleep, nutrition, and physical activity. It would also provide funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to better understand the epidemic of social isolation and loneliness.

Considering government’s track record for making sure we all eat, sleep and exercise right, the only possible outcome of a loneliness czar will be…a loneliness plague.

Underlying Murphy’s thesis for state action, however, is a disturbing embrace of collectivism over individual achievement. As Murphy and Harvard’s Richard Weissbourd wrote in Time Magazine, the big bad behind the loneliness epidemic is…too much individualism:

  • Much has been written about why we tipped toward ourselves over the last several decades. The villains in this story include declines in religious participation and social outings and clubs, fueled in part by television, which keeps us at home. Workplaces also became more focused on profit than on employee well-being and solidarity, and we started lionizing those who stepped over others to get ahead. While those people always existed in society, they were usually identified and treated as outliers that needed to be constrained, not as examples of American greatness.

“Outliers that needed to be constrained…” Sorry, Og: this so-called “wheel” you’ve invented is just too dangerous to the health and well-being of our cozy cave dwelling community. Into the pit with you…

And as for what government power can do to reknit the fabric of American life, Murphy and Weissbourd wrote that the state should, once it’s finished roughing-up the social media companies, dragoon the young into service:

  • Expand..national service programs…bringing young people together from various backgrounds to work on common causes, creating ties across the usual divides and strengthening young people’s commitment to their country.

In other words, bring back a version of the old military draft. Because noting says “togetherness” like sacrificing your time and talent to government. On pain of fines and imprisonment for not cheerfully agreeing to do so.

I would suggest Murphy and his fellow nannies stick to their knitting: addressing the federal budget, finding ways to deal with the debt and deficit, and keeping a close eye on world events.  And leave the rest of us alone to sort out friendship, family and community on our own terms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Norman Leahy

Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

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Kentucky nurses ‘required’ to complete ‘implicit bias’ class on ‘history of racism in healthcare’ or they may not be able to renew license: Report


By: CANDACE HATHAWAY | July 27, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/kentucky-nurses-required-to-complete-implicit-bias-class-on-history-of-racism-in-healthcare-or-they-may-not-be-able-to-renew-license-report/

Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Nurses in Kentucky were “required” to complete a “mandatory” “implicit bias” class on the “history of racism in healthcare” or risk facing possible loss of license, the Washington Examiner recently reported.

According to the outlet, the Kentucky Board of Nursing, a government agency, threatened to “discipline” health care workers who failed to complete the “mandatory continuing education” training course by July 1.

The class, created by the Kentucky Nurses Association, was presented by KNA Board of Directors Treasurer Arica Brandford and KNA CEO Delanor Manson. In a comment to the Washington Examiner, Manson stated, “Perhaps it would be of value to research the effects of implicit bias in healthcare and the definition of implicit bias.”

“I recommend you take [an] implicit bias class as required by the KBN and then ask questions,” she added. “All of your efforts could be enlightening.”

Nurses were told that “best intentions will not solve implicit bias in healthcare” and “in order to lead to meaningful change,” they must explore “much larger conversations on racism and bias,” the presentation stated.

The outlet reported that one of the presentation’s slides included a picture of Ku Klux Klan members burning a cross. Nurses were shown a diagram of “overt racism” and “covert racism.”

“Overt racism” included examples such as lynching, swastikas, and “public harassment of [persons of color] speaking other than English.” The presentation provided a long list of examples of “covert racism,” including “white silence,” “denying institutional racism,” denying white privilege, “claiming ‘reverse racism,'” and ‘excusing/’white-splaining’ racism.”

The outlet reported that medical professionals were told that racism could lead to many health risks, such as hypertension, low birth weight and prematurity, heart disease, diabetes, increased body mass index, depression, anxiety, and stress.

Laura Morgan, the program manager for the medical advocacy group Do No Harm and former nurse, told the Washington Examiner, “In states that require continuing education hours to maintain licensure, the nurse who fails to do so will not have his or her license renewed.”

“Kentucky is no exception to this. The words ‘mandatory’ and ‘required’ are very well defined,” Morgan added.

The KBN told the Washington Examiner that nurses would not have their licenses revoked if they failed to complete the class. However, it also noted that “failure to do it could result in a civil sanction or discipline.” The license renewal period coincided with the training course, which by Kentucky law, was “a prerequisite for license renewal.”

“No licensee will be denied licensure for failing to meet mandatory CE requirements. Most failures to meet CE requirements result in a non-disciplinary settlement. However, failing to obtain CEs may result in a written reprimand,” KBN told the outlet. The agency refused to explain further what the reprimand could entail.

This does NOT sound like training. It sounds more like INDOCRINATION.

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Health, Political

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Christian Coach Fired for Stating Views on Obvious Sex Differences


BY: KIYAN KASSAM | JULY 27, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/27/christian-coach-fired-for-stating-views-on-obvious-sex-differences/

Snowboarder walking up a snowy hill holding snowboard behind his back.

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A former high school snowboarding coach filed a federal lawsuit last week alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was fired for expressing his views on transgender-identifying athletes. The 31-page complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — a faith-based legal advocacy group — on behalf of David Bloch, along with a motion for preliminary injunction seeking Bloch’s immediate reinstatement.

“On February 8, 2023, Coach Bloch and his team were waiting in the lodge for a competition to start. That day, his team was to compete against a team that had a male snowboarder who identifies as a female and competes against females,” the lawsuit states. While in the lodge, Bloch says he overheard a conversation between two of his student-athletes and briefly joined in.

Bloch “affirmed that as a matter of biology, males and females have different DNA, which causes males to develop differently from females and have different physical characteristics.” He added that “biological differences generally give males competitive advantages in athletic events” — something you must pretend is deeply controversial, despite the fact that a large majority of Americans agree.

According to a new Gallup survey released in June, nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults believe transgender-identifying athletes “should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender” as opposed to their “current gender identity.” Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center study from last year found that 6 in 10 Americans “say a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth.”

“The conversation was respectful among all parties and lasted no more than three minutes. It took place entirely outside the presence of the transgender-identifying snowboarder,” the lawsuit states. “Coach Bloch’s team and the team with the male who identifies as a female competed without incident. After the competition, the two teams and their coaches, including Coach Bloch, shared a bus home.”

But it didn’t matter. Bloch had committed wrong-think.

The coach was allegedly handed a notice of termination the very next day by Windsor Central Supervisory Union Superintendent Sherry Sousa. He was accused of violating the school district’s harassment, hazing, and bullying (HHB) policy as well as a related policy of the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA), which oversees high school sports in the state. Bloch was also “barred from future employment” with the district.

“No one should lose their job for speaking the truth. The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to peacefully share their beliefs without fear of government punishment. This means that government officials cannot terminate an employee simply because he expresses a belief that they do not like,” ADF said in a statement.

Specifically, the lawsuit argues that the HBB and VPA policies, as well as a Vermont statute requiring school boards to adopt such policies, “contain content and viewpoint discriminatory, overbroad, and unconstitutionally vague definitions of harassment that … censor protected speech.”

The complaint notes that Bloch is “a practicing Roman Catholic who believes that God creates males and females with immutable sex. His understanding of science complements his religious beliefs. Coach Bloch believes, based on scientific evidence, that there are only two sexes, which are male and female, and that sex is determined by a person’s chromosomes.”

Views like these terrify elites and the corporate press. In a May article, The Washington Post bemoaned that “Most Americans don’t believe it’s even possible to be a gender that differs from that assigned at birth” and worried that (God forbid) some in the country “have become more conservative on these questions.”

It’s worth highlighting the irony that those requiring you to deny the reality of sex today are often the very same people who spent the past three years demanding you “follow the science!”

Suffice to say, these are not good-faith actors; they’re liars and propagandists interested only in advancing a political agenda. Regard them as such.

Kiyan Kassam is a conservative writer. Follow him on Twitter at @kiyankassam.

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Education, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political, Sports

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Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Wasn’t Supposed to Protect Him, It Was Supposed to Protect Joe


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JULY 27, 2023

Rad more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/27/hunter-bidens-plea-deal-wasnt-supposed-to-protect-him-it-was-supposed-to-protect-joe/

Joe Biden wearing aviators

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JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

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The twists and turns of Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal have been hard to follow, but it’s been clear from the outset that, like his business ventures in Ukraine, the deal was thoroughly corrupt. It’s now clear that the agreement was never meant primarily to shield Hunter from future prosecution, but to protect President Joe Biden.

In a Delaware federal court on Wednesday, Hunter’s lawyers ended up rejecting a plea deal once it became clear the deal would not confer broad immunity on the president’s son. Although the language of the plea deal has not been released, it was supposed to have Hunter plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as well as enter a pretrial diversion agreement for illegal possession of a firearm. The deal fell apart, however, once the federal judge overseeing the case, Maryellen Noreika, started asking questions. Here’s how The New York Times reported it:

The hearing appeared to be going smoothly before Judge Noreika questioned whether the agreement meant that Mr. Biden would be immune from prosecution for other possible crimes — including violations related to representing foreign governments — in perpetuity. When a top prosecutor in the case said it would not, Chris Clark, Mr. Biden’s lead lawyer, initially hesitated and then said the government’s position would make the agreement “null and void.”

After a recess during which the lawyers for both sides scrambled to hash out an agreement, Judge Noreika, who earlier had said she felt she was being asked to “rubber stamp” the agreement, said she could not accept the plea deal. Hunter Biden then pled not guilty to the tax charges and the hearing was over. 

What to make of this? The most obvious explanation is that Hunter’s lawyers know what most Americans know: He was involved in complex foreign bribery schemes that implicate his father, President Biden. They were hoping to strike a plea agreement with the Justice Department that would protect him from future prosecution related to corrupt foreign business deals in Ukraine and China that involved trading on his family name, but once it became clear that the judge was not going to sign off on such an agreement, they backed out of the deal.

Why would they want such a deal in the first place? Maybe because they know the Republicans in Congress continue to amass evidence that Joe Biden and his son took millions in bribe money from Ukrainian oligarchs for protection against prosecution. Hunter’s plea deal, in other words, wasn’t meant to shield Hunter from future prosecution, it was meant to protect Joe. A plea agreement granting Hunter broad immunity would make it harder to dig into his murky overseas business deals — deals which increasingly appear to have involved his father. 

As we have detailed here in recent days, the Biden bribery scheme in Ukraine is shaping up to be the great political scandal in American history. If it’s true, it would mean the end of Biden’s presidency, either by impeachment and conviction or by abandonment by the Democrat Party establishment ahead of the 2024 election. 

Consider what’s come out just recently. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, last week released an unclassified FBI document detailing reports from a “highly credible” informant who says the founder and CEO of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, bragged about paying the Bidens $10 million to make the oil and gas company’s legal problems disappear. Specifically, Zlochevsky wanted Ukrainian authorities to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

And of course, that’s just what happened — after then-Vice President Joe Biden, by his own admission, threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired.

This same informant says top Burisma executives admitted that the only reason they hired Hunter to sit on their board (for a jaw-dropping $83,000 a month) was “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

The FBI, for its part, tried to hide this document from IRS investigators and Congress, and the corporate media have done their best to ignore the story altogether. But ignoring it won’t make it go away. Indeed, the story keeps growing. As Margot Cleveland reported in these pages earlier this week, the Pittsburgh FBI office told the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office it had corroborated multiple aspects of the informant’s claims, including travel records confirming the informant had indeed traveled to the locales detailed in the document during the relevant time period.

We also know the FBI and Justice Department not only prevented a pair of IRS whistleblowers from learning of the document but also kept hidden portions of the materials found on Hunter’s laptop. That’s no small thing. One of those whistleblowers suggested the FBI informant’s claims could corroborate other evidence the IRS special agents had gathered during their investigation.

As this story develops, it’s becoming obvious that the point of the FBI and DOJ’s obstruction is to protect the president and suppress further evidence of the Biden bribery scheme. That’s why a special counsel won’t cut it. The deep state isn’t going to get to the bottom of this, and the corporate press is going to keep aggressively ignoring it. If the federal courtroom circus on Wednesday demonstrated anything, it’s that we’re going to need an impeachment inquiry to find out the truth about President Biden’s corruption.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Supreme Court reinstates major gas pipeline in blow to environmental groups


‘This decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one,’ Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said

Thomas Catenacci

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News | Published July 27, 2023 11:36am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-reinstates-major-gas-pipeline-blow-environmental-groups

The Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling from earlier this month that blocked construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from proceeding. In a short, unsigned order issued Thursday morning, the Supreme Court vacated the July 10 stay orders from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the lower court sided with plaintiffs — environmental groups Wilderness Society and Appalachian Voices, which had sued to stop the pipeline construction. The 4th Circuit ruling was opposed by the Biden administration, bipartisan lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry.

“Whatever benefit respondents or the court of appeals might believe would be gained by having the agencies again reconsider the challenged actions, Congress has determined that further reconsideration is unwarranted and has prioritized MVP’s ‘timely’ completion over interests addressed by any other federal statutes,” the Department of Justice wrote in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court last week. 

“That judgment is for Congress alone,” the brief continued.

SUPREME COURT FACES INCREASED PRESSURE FROM CONGRESS TO REINSTATE MASSIVE PIPELINE

BENT MOUNTAIN, VIRGINIA - AUGUST 31: Sections of 42 diameter sections of steel pipe of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, MVP, lie on wooden blocks, August 31, 2022 in Bent Mountain, Virginia. The MVP will transport natural gas through 303 miles of West Virginia and Virginia. Public opposition has centered on challenging MVPs permitting through wetlands and national forests. The original budget of $3.5 billion is now estimated to be $6.2 billion. The Federal Energy Regulatory Control agency, FERC, has recently granted MVP another 4-years to complete. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

In June, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which fast-tracked federal permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and shifted judicial review jurisdiction away from the 4th Circuit. Eco groups have loudly opposed the project. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

The Department of Justice brief was one of numerous briefs filed in the case. Opponents of the 4th Circuit ruling pointed to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the recent bipartisan debt limit bill President Biden signed in early June, which green-lighted all permits for the MVP project. The debt limit bill also shifted judicial review jurisdiction from the 4th Circuit, which has a lengthy track record of siding with environmental groups, to the U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Days after the lower court ruling, on July 14, the pipeline’s developer asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay. The high court gave plaintiffs until Tuesday to file a response.

JOE MANCHIN CALLS ‘BULLS—‘ ON GOP TAKING CREDIT FOR GAS PIPELINE IN DEBT CEILING DEAL

“The Fourth Circuit judges are not supreme rulers and lawful orders issued by the legislative and executive branches must be followed,” GOP Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital on July 19. “Congress was well within its power to restart the Mountain Valley Pipeline construction and usher in a new era of energy independence for the region.”

“Instead of halting the pipeline, I urge the Supreme Court to plug up the ludicrous activism seeping out of the lower court so American families can enjoy lower energy costs, substantial land royalties, and most importantly — law and order in America,” he added.

Joe Biden looks to his right with an American flag behind him

The Biden administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of the pipeline’s developer last week. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Reschenthaler led a group of seven fellow representatives and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va, in filing a brief in support of the MVP project’s permits. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who played a role in securing the pipeline in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, filed his own amicus brief in the case on July 18.

“The Supreme Court has spoken and this decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one. I am relieved that the highest court in the land has upheld the law Congress passed and the President signed,” Manchin said in a statement Thursday.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America, a large labor union; GOP West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice; American Gas Association; American Petroleum Institute; Chamber of Commerce; and counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives all filed briefs in support of the pipeline.

According to Equitrans Midstream, the pipeline’s developer, MVP will transport about 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from West Virginia to consumers in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic. The pipeline is projected to generate $40 million in new tax revenue for West Virginia, $10 million in new tax revenue for Virginia and up to $250 million in royalties for West Virginia landowners.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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Law

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‘Smoking-gun documents’ prove Facebook censored Americans on behalf of White House, Jim Jordan says


Jordan shared documents that ‘prove’ Facebook changed content after ‘unconstitutional pressure’ from White House

Brian Flood

By Brian Flood | Fox News | Published July 27, 2023 2:28pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/media/smoking-gun-documents-prove-facebook-censored-americans-behalf-white-house-jim-jordan-says

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Thursday shared what he called “smoking-gun documents” proving Facebook censored Americans on behalf of the Biden administration in a lengthy social media thread.

Jordan wrote the all-caps message, “THE FACEBOOK FILES, PART 1: SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE,” before diving into the lengthy thread reminiscent of the so-called “Twitter Files” used earlier this year to disclose once-internal documents given to journalists once Elon Musk bought the social media platform. 

“Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House,” Jordan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

“During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged ‘misinformation,’” he continued. “In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: ‘We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House’ to remove posts.”

‘FACEBOOK RECEIPTS’ PROJECT AIMS TO REVEAL META’S ABILITY TO INFLUENCE CONGRESS THROUGH HIGH-POWERED LOBBYISTS

Jim Jordan questions FBI Director Wray

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, shared what he calls “smoking-gun documents” proving Facebook censored Americans on behalf of the White House.  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Jordan then wrote that an April 2021 email revealed that a Facebook executive informed his team that a Biden administration senior advisor was “outraged” that Facebook did not remove a particular post. The post, according to Jordan, was a meme of actor Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV with the caption, “10 years from now you will be watching TV and hear… Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled to…”

AOC SAYS FACEBOOK ‘SHOULD BE BROKEN UP,’ ‘SUBJECT TO ANTITRUST ACTIVITY’

Facebook noted that “removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,” but Andy Slavitt, the Biden senior advisor who was worked up over the meme, “disregarded the warning and the First Amendment,” according to Jordan. 

“What happened next? Facebook panicked,” Jordan wrote. “In another April 2021 email, Brian Rice, Facebook’s VP of public policy, raised the concern that Slavitt’s challenge felt ‘very much like a crossroads for us with the [Biden] White House in these early days.’”

Jordan noted that “Facebook wanted to repair its relationship with the White House to avoid adverse action,” and provided a document in which someone who appears to be a Facebook staffer wrote, “Given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the [White House], and our internal methods too,” in an internal document. 

“This wasn’t the first time that the Biden White House was angry that Facebook didn’t censor more,” Jordan wrote before listing other examples. 

“In July 2021, President Biden publicly denounced Facebook and other social media platforms, claiming they were ‘killing people’ by not censoring alleged ‘misinformation,’” Jordan wrote. “On August 2, 2021, Facebook admitted it was going to change its policies because of pressure from the Biden White House.”

BIG TECH BACKLASH: APPLE, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, AMAZON CEOS GRILLED ON CAPITOL HILL

A Facebook logo on a phone

Facebook is accused of censoring Americans on behalf of the White House.  ((Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudencio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images))

Jordan then wrote that “it wasn’t just the White House,” because “Facebook also changed its policies in direct response to pressure from Biden’s Surgeon General, censoring members of the ‘disinformation dozen'” for sharing claims about COVID. 

“These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance,” Jordan wrote. 

TOP BIDEN OFFICIAL RAISES EYEBROWS BY ‘LOBBYING’ FORMER AGENCY AFTER LEAVING GOVERNMENT, WATCHDOG SAYS

“Only after the Committee announced its intention to hold Mark Zuckerberg in contempt did Facebook produce ANY internal documents to the Committee, including these documents, which PROVE that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship on Facebook,” he continued. “Based on Facebook’s newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, the Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now. To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL.”

Jordan ended his thread with, “To be continued…”

Facebook and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Video

For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media

Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood. 

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censorship

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Ted Cruz: Trump Indictment Is Election Tampering for 2024


By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Thursday, 27 July 2023 08:59 AM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ted-cruz-donald-trump-indictments/2023/07/27/id/1128683/

Democrats “hate democracy” and are “deathly afraid” that voters will elect former President Donald Trump to return to the White House, so they are pushing for him to be indicted on various charges to keep that from happening, Sen. Ted Cruz tells Newsmax.

“They are trying to use the machinery of law enforcement to prosecute him,” the Texas Republican said on Newsmax’s “Eric Bolling The Balance” on Wednesday night. “I think these indictments are a disgrace.”

Trump last week said he got a letter from special counsel Jack Smith to inform him that he is the target of the federal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 events at the Capitol. The letter comes after Trump was charged and pleaded not guilty in June to a 37-count federal indictment in connection with his handling of presidential documents. Trump also pleaded not guilty in April to a 34-count indictment filed in New York through Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The former president, now a front-runner in the campaign for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, is also under investigation in Georgia concerning allegations that he tried to overturn the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election.

Cruz told Bolling that he not only believes indicting Trump in connection with the Jan. 6 protests would be an “abuse of power,” but he thinks “each of the Trump indictments we’ve seen so far are abuses of power.”

“They are politicizing the Justice Department,” the senator said. “This Department of Justice, this attorney general, this FBI is the most politicized and weaponized we’ve ever seen.”

Further, Cruz called for Attorney Merrick Garland’s impeachment and removal from office “for allowing the Department of Justice to be turned into a partisan hammer to attack the political enemies of the White House.”

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White House Says There Is No Possibility Biden Would Pardon His Son


NEWSMAX : Thursday, 27 July 2023 03:00 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/hunter/2023/07/27/id/1128737/

The White House said on Thursday there was no possibility President Joe Biden would pardon his son Hunter, who is facing charges of failing to pay taxes on more than $1.5 million in income in 2017 and 2018.

Asked whether Biden might issue such a pardon, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing, “No.” 

The younger Biden was supposed to plead guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor charges for failing to pay taxes. But U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika in Delaware put the brakes on the guilty plea after raising concerns during an hours long hearing about the structure and terms of the agreement and another deal that allow him to avoid prosecution on a gun charge if he meets certain conditions.

Plea deals are carefully negotiated between defense lawyers and prosecutors over the course of weeks or months and it’s unusual — especially in high-profile cases — for judges to not sign off on them. But Wednesday’s hearing revealed that the two sides apparently did not see eye to eye on the scope of the agreement around a non-prosecution clause for crimes outside of the gun charge.

Here’s a look at what happens now in the criminal case and what’s next for the Biden investigations in Congress:

Noreika — an appointee of former President Donald Trump — told both sides to file written briefs addressing her concerns within 30 days. Among other things, Noreika took issue with a provision in the agreement on the gun charge that she said would have created a role for her where she would determine if he violated the terms. The lawyers said they wanted her to serve as a neutral fact finder in determining if a violation happened, but Noreika said that is the Justice Department’s job — not the judge’s.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers and the Justice Department also disagreed on the extent to which the agreement gave him immunity from future prosecution. A prosecutor said Wednesday their investigation was ongoing, and that the agreement protecting him from other potential charges was limited only to certain offenses over a certain time frame. Hunter Biden’s lawyers said it was broader than that. After intense courtroom negotiations, the two sides appeared to agree to a more narrow non-prosecution clause.

Biden’s lawyers and prosecutors will now continue negotiations to see if they can salvage the agreement in a way that satisfies the judge.

“They are going to have to go back and figure out how they can come to an agreement terms of the plea and they have to come to a meeting of the minds, which is clear they don’t have here,” said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School. “So I think what you’ll see is a renewed effort — or it’s just going to collapse.”

The judge may ultimately accept the deal that was proposed or reject it. If the deal totally falls apart, Hunter Biden could eventually face a trial.

Even if the judge ultimately accepts the plea agreement, she will have the final say on whether he serves any time behind bars. Prosecutors have said that they will recommend probation, but the judge can decide not to follow that. The two tax charges carry up to a year in prison. And the judge suggested on Wednesday that it was too soon to say whether she’s willing to sign off on probation.

“I can’t predict for you today whether that is an appropriate sentence or not,” Noreika said. “I can’t say that I will accept the sentence recommendation or whether a different sentence would be more appropriate.”

The collapse of the younger Biden’s plea deal Wednesday came as joyful news to House Republicans vying to connect him and his questionable business dealings to his father. Republicans had already slammed the agreement as a “sweetheart deal.”

“The judge did the obvious thing, they put a pause on the plea deal, so I think that was progress,” Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Wednesday. “I think it adds credibility to what we’re doing.” He added that this will only propel their investigation to get answers “as to what the family did, and what level of involvement the president had.”

Comer has been investigating Hunter Biden’s financial ties and transactions since gaining the gavel in January. The Kentucky lawmaker has obtained thousands of pages of financial records from various members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the Treasury Department and various financial institutions.

Last month, shortly after Hunter Biden reached an agreement with the government, Comer joined forces with two chairmen of powerful committees to launch a larger investigation into claims by two IRS agents who claimed the Justice Department improperly interfered in the yearslong case.

IRS supervisory special agent Greg Shapley and a second agent, Joe Ziegler, testified before Congress last week that there was a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into Hunter Biden, including during the Trump administration in the months before the 2020 election that Biden won.

One of the most detailed claims was that U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware, the federal prosecutor who led the investigation, asked for special counsel status in order to bring the tax cases against Hunter Biden in jurisdictions outside Delaware, including the District of Columbia and California, but was denied.

Weiss and the Justice Department have denied that, saying he had “full authority” and never sought to bring charges in other states. Despite the denials, Republicans are moving forward with their probes, asking Weiss to come in and testify about the case directly. The Justice Department has offered to have the prosecutor come before lawmakers after the August recess.

The Associated Presss contributed to this story.

© 2023 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Sexual Assault Survivor Describes Trauma of Sharing Locker Room With Lia Thomas


Daily Signal Staff / July 27, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/27/lia-thomas-teammate-paula-scanlan-talks-trauma-sharing-locker-room/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UEb4ktIh9k0%3Frel%3D0%26enablejsapi%3D1

COMMENTARY BY Daily Signal Staff

Paula Scanlan, who swam on the University of Pennsylvania’s women swimming team with transgender athlete Lia Thomas, testified before a House subcommittee Thursday about her experience. Watch the video above or read a lightly edited transcript of her remarks below:

Good morning, Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Scanlon and members of the subcommittee. I am Paula Scanlan, a spokeswoman and advisor for the Independent Women’s Forum, and a former NCAA athlete. I am here today to share my personal story. I started swimming at a very young age, and by age eight I was swimming competitively, and by late middle school I was devoting at least 20 hours per week to swimming.

I gave up countless Christmas holidays, weekends, and social events to work towards my goal of swimming Division I. A dream that came true when I began swimming for the University of Pennsylvania. While I am not an NCAA champion, I hold the New England Independent School League record in the 400 yard freestyle relay, a record that has stood since March of 2017.

In September of 2021, Lia Thomas began participating as a member of the Penn women’s team. Lia, formerly Will, had personal best times in every freestyle event that were faster than the women’s world records. Once the season began, Thomas was leading the country in multiple events, while only placing in the top 500 in those events on the men’s team.

Thomas later became an NCAA champion in the 500 yard freestyle. The first NCAA champion in our women’s team history program. While many of you already know this, what you do not know is the experiences of the women on the University of Pennsylvania swim team. My teammates and I were forced to undress in the presence of Lia, a 6’4 tall biological male, fully intact with male genitalia, eighteen times per week.

Some girls opted to change in bathroom stalls and others used the family bathroom to avoid this. When we tried to voice our concerns to the Athletic Department, we were told that Lia’s swimming and being in our locker room was a nonnegotiable and we were offered psychological services to attempt to reeducate us to become comfortable with the idea of undressing in front of a male.

To sum up the university’s response, we, the women, were the problem, not the victims. We were expected to conform, to move over, and shut up. Our feelings didn’t matter. The university was gaslighting and fearmongering women to validate the feelings and identity of a male. As an attempt to voice my concern about the situation we were forced into, revealing the unjust and unfair treatment, I wrote an op-ed for the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student run newspaper.

I approached this from a scientific— scientific, statistical perspective where I use my engineering background to discuss how Y chromosomes cannot be changed by any surgical procedure or systemic therapy. This biological fact lends itself to athletic advantages that cannot be mitigated by lowering testosterone levels, which are readily apparent in sports competitions and locker rooms.

The Daily Pennsylvanian published my article on the evening of February 10th, 2022. Only a few hours later, my piece was retracted. I was given no notice nor reasoning. Again, I was silenced for my dissenting viewpoint and felt my First Amendment rights were denied by my university. This is representative of a greater issue, the destruction of free speech.

Today, any discussion maintaining the sanctity of women’s faces is labeled transphobic, bigoted, and hateful. What’s bigoted and hateful is the discrimination against women and the efforts to erase women and our equal opportunities, dignity, and safe spaces. One might ask, why do I speak so passionately about issues that seem hypothetical?

Or some may perceive as only impacting a small number of women? This is not hypothetical. This is real. I know women who have lost roster spots and spots on the podium. I know of women with sexual trauma who are adversely impacted by having biological males in their locker room without their consent. I know this because I am one of these women.

I was sexually assaulted on June 3rd of 2016. I was only 16 years old. I was able to forgive my attacker, but violence against women still exists. Let us not forget the viral Me Too movement that empowered female victims to speak up. It casts a spotlight on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and abuse, including in scholarly and educational institutions.

Individuals on this committee have previously stated, violence against women is all too common. I am grateful for those members who have brought awareness to the violence against women in the past, but unfortunately, there’s still much to be done. As a sexual assault survivor, many policies pushed today completely ignore my experiences, and many women like me.

I ask the members of this committee, please consider this issue outside the lens of political affiliations, and understand the true impact of ignoring the realities of womanhood. Future generations depend on us. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

This is a breaking news article and will be updated.

Category:

LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political

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Detransitioner Pleads With Lawmakers: ‘Please Let Me Be Your Final Warning’


By: Mary Margaret Olohan / @MaryMargOlohan / July 27, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/27/detransitioner-pleads-with-lawmakers-please-let-me-be-your-final-warning/

Detransitioner Chloe Cole speaks on Capitol Hill to lawmakers about the dangers of so-called “gender affirming care.” (Photo: Screenshot, YouTube)

Detransitioner Chloe Cole pleaded with lawmakers Thursday on Capitol Hill to pay heed to the traumatic struggles she has already endured as a young person who sought to transition to become another gender. Cole spoke before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the “Dangers and Due Process Violations of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Children,” a hearing pushed by Republicans and denounced by Democrats, who decried the need for such a hearing.

But Cole, who underwent an irreversible double mastectomy when she was only 15 years old, emphasized that her story of attempted transition, and then detransition, should serve as a warning to everyone who hears it.

WATCH:

She is now suing Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Permanente Medical Group, and the doctors who pushed her along the path to hormonal and surgical transgender procedures, alleging that her mental health issues were not properly taken into consideration, that she was not fully able to consent to such irreversible procedures, and that as a young teen, she had no concept of whether she might one day want to become a mother.

“This needs to stop,” she emotionally told the lawmakers on Thursday. “You alone can stop it. Enough children have already been victimized by this barbaric pseudoscience. Please let me be your final warning.”

WATCH:

Later on during the hearing, Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy pointed out that his Democratic colleagues had repeatedly emphasized the importance of protecting trans-identifying youth.

“I just want to make sure that you know, from our standpoint, that your life is worth it,” Roy said. “And that the people have gone through this, that your lives are worth it. I wonder if you would like to comment on the worth of your life, and the social pressures and the pressure placed on you to pursue a path that you now believe is the correct path.”

Cole emphasized that everyone has a right to happiness and that everyone’s life is worthy. She then asked to address another witness — Myriam Reynolds, the mother of a biologically female young person who identifies as a transgender male.

During the hearing, Reynolds had testified that her child was unhappy before receiving so-called “gender-affirming care,” but happier after receiving the treatment (it is not immediately clear what treatment her biologically female child underwent). Reynolds also claimed that this treatment was “life-saving” for her child, and pushed lawmakers to support parents who wish to transition their children.

“I understood that Mrs. Reynolds is scared for her child,” Cole said. “And I just want to set the record straight that I don’t hate her. I don’t think anyone in this room hates her.”

WATCH:

“In fact,” Cole said, as she began to cry, “I see my own mother and my own father in her. And that clearly, she dearly loves her child. And she’s doing the best with what she’s been given. And unfortunately, its not much. And for that I’m sorry.”

Cole remained emotional as she continued: “I think every parent deserves the utmost grace and guidance with how to help their child. That being said, I don’t wish for her child to have the same result as I did. I don’t wish for anyone to regret transition or detransition, because it’s incredibly difficult. It comes with its own difficulties, and it’s not easy. I hope that her child gets to have a happy and fulfilling adulthood, whatever that may look like.”

WATCH:

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – By the Book

A.F. BRANCO | on July 27, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-by-the-book-3/

Biden and the Democrats always accuse their opponents of what they are doing.

Biden Deflection
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

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Republican Lawmakers Call on SCOTUS To ‘Rein In’ The Administrative State


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JULY 26, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/26/republican-lawmakers-call-on-scotus-to-rein-in-the-administrative-state/

SCOTUS

Dozens of congressional GOP lawmakers led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., are calling on the Supreme Court to curtail the administrative state’s power through a rollback of the 1984 Chevron decision.

On Monday, McCarthy filed an amicus brief by the House general counsel on behalf of the lower chamber supporting a legal challenge to the nearly 40-year precedent that gives federal agencies wide latitude to interpret congressional statutes.

“As part of our Commitment to America, House Republicans pledged to hold Washington accountable,” McCarthy said in a statement. “The Chevron framework makes it easier for unelected bureaucrats to weaponize federal regulations against the American people. The Court should rein in the power of unelected bureaucrats and restore the separation of powers.”

In May, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, setting the stage for a landmark decision that could narrow the scope of bureaucratic agencies to unilaterally impose burdensome rules and regulations. The conservative majority on the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts already signaled its willingness to “rein in” the administrative state last summer with its decision in EPA v. West Virginia. In that case, justices struck down the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, ruling the Constitution did not allow federal agencies to circumvent Congress by implementing broad regulations to wide effect.

In 1984, the Supreme Court established “Chevron deference” in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, broadly defined as allowing administrative agencies to substitute their own interpretation of congressional statutes when a particular issue is implicit. Justices on the current court have debated whether the 1984 case law has been properly interpreted. Regardless, Republicans say its application has been abused by a burgeoning administrative state run by unelected bureaucrats.

Three dozen lawmakers, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., filed another brief on Monday in support of a challenge to the Chevron ruling. The brief includes 18 total signatories from the upper chamber, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and 18 from the House.

“Decades of application of Chevron deference have facilitated the exercise of functions by the executive branch that more properly belong to the legislative and judicial branches,” the brief reads. “Agencies exploit general or broad terms in statutes to engage in policymaking functions of questionable legality with the assumption that courts will grant deference and not independently evaluate the lawfulness of those agency interpretations.”

The court will revisit the nearly four-decade-old doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, with New Jersey fishermen objecting to rules from the Commerce Department that would force commercial fishing vessels to pay federal observers. Such on-board monitoring could cost more than $700 a day and about a fifth of fishermen’s profits, according to the Cause of Action Institute, which is representing the plaintiffs.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Biden Family Scandals Are So Much Bigger Than Hunter’s Hookers And Burisma Bribery


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 26, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/26/biden-family-scandals-are-so-much-bigger-than-hunters-hookers-and-burisma-bribery/

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When the New York Post broke the news that documents recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop implicated Joe Biden in a pay-to-play scandal, the corporate media — to the extent they didn’t frame the story as Russian disinformation — pretended the reporting solely concerned Hunter Biden’s personal life. The scandal, however, was never about Hunter’s sordid sex life and history of drug abuse. Rather, it concerned Joe Biden’s abuse of power as vice president for financial gain. But now it reaches much further — including 10 distinct scandals.

Saturated in Scandal

1. The Many (Uncharged) Crimes of Hunter Biden

While the current scandals swirling around the laptop are unrelated to Hunter Biden’s sex life or drug abuse, the president’s son features in the first scandal: Evidence indicates Hunter Biden committed numerous crimes, including felonies. Evidence suggests Hunter Biden acted as an unregistered foreign agent for, at a minimum, Ukraine and China in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The confidential human source’s (CHS) reporting suggests Hunter also accepted bribes from Burisma or alternatively helped extort $10 million from the Ukrainian oil and gas company for himself and his father. 

IRS whistleblowers and federal prosecutors also believed the evidence supported multiple felony tax counts. Lying on a federal firearm application is a serious felony as well.

The evidence that the president’s son likely engaged in extensive criminal conduct for over a decade is a huge scandal, but it also bred a separate scandal: the DOJ and FBI’s efforts to protect him, No. 7 below. 

2. Joe Biden’s Business Lie

Hunter Biden’s laptop also exposed the reality that Joe Biden lied to the American public, dating back to September 2019. During a campaign stop, the then-Democrat presidential candidate snapped at Fox News’ Peter Doocy, claiming: “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”  

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1175486006348460032?s=20

More than two years later, after The Washington Post and New York Times belatedly confirmed the authenticity of the emails recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, Doocy asked then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki whether “President Biden still maintains he never discussed overseas business deals with his son Hunter,” to which Psaki replied, “Yes.”

While Biden and his team stuck with that lie for two-plus years, his current press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is attempting to snuff out that scandal by reframing Biden’s denial. “I’ve been asked this question a million times. The answer is not going to change. The answer remains the same: The president was never in business with his son,” Jean-Pierre said on Monday.

Moving the goalposts won’t erase the lie. 

3. Joe Biden’s Corruption

The much more serious scandal, however, concerns extensive evidence of Joe Biden’s widespread corruption. Bank and corporate records, suspicious activity reports, emails and text messages recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop, travel records, reporting from a “highly credible” CHS, and testimony and expected testimony from Hunter Biden’s business partners indicate that Joe Biden, while vice president, exchanged political favors for payments to his family members — with a cut of the cash coming to the “Big Guy.” 

People and/or organizations from Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and China, among others, all paid Biden-related business entities millions of dollars, with evidence indicating the now-president received a cut of the bribes. The evidence indicates that in exchange, the individuals received access to the then-vice president. In the case of Ukraine, Biden forced the firing of the prosecutor general who was investigating Burisma, the company where Hunter held a board seat and which allegedly paid Joe and Hunter Biden each $5 million in bribes.

The evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption is bad enough, but the scandal deepens when one considers the president has supplied Ukraine with cluster bombs and billions in American tax dollars.

Cover-Ups

While the first three scandals involve misconduct and likely criminality by Hunter and Joe Biden, there are at least twice as many distinct scandals that flow from cover-up efforts to protect the Bidens.

4. FBI’s Interference in the 2020 Election

By December 2019, the FBI had authenticated the laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. Yet, knowing the laptop was real and contained spectacularly damaging details implicating Joe Biden in corruption, the FBI spent the months leading up to the November 2020 election grooming tech giants to believe a “hack-and-leak operation” was imminent. The FBI also pushed social media companies to change their terms of service to prohibit the posting of so-called hacked materials.

These combined efforts prompted social media companies to censor the New York Post’s Oct. 14, 2020 blockbuster article, “Smoking-Gun Email Reveals How Hunter Biden Introduced Ukrainian Businessman to VP Dad.” After the story broke and after initially confirming its authenticity to Twitter, the FBI refused to comment on whether the material had been hacked or was Russian disinformation, leading to its continued widespread censorship. Not only did the FBI improperly protect Joe Biden and prompt the censorship of true political speech, it interfered in the 2020 election and likely handed Biden the White House. 

5. Intelligence Agencies’ Interference in the 2020 Election

Former and current members of intelligence agencies soon joined the FBI in interfering in the 2020 election. The House Intelligence and Weaponization Committees previously detailed evidence of that interference in their report titled, “How Senior Intelligence Community Officials and the Biden Campaign Worked to Mislead American Voters.” 

That report established that the infamous October 2020 letter, which was signed by 51 former intelligence officials and falsely framed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, was concocted by Biden-campaign officials, including now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who served as a senior adviser to the Biden campaign. Then-candidate Joe Biden would cite that letter in his final debate with Donald Trump to lie to the American people (again), telling the country the laptop was Russian disinformation.

It is scandalous that scores of former intelligence officials would use their prior positions and reputations to deceive Americans in a way that likely affected the 2020 election. That any of those individuals retained security clearances adds to the scandal, as does the role of the Biden campaign and the involvement of at least one CIA employee in soliciting signatories for the statement. 

6. Intel Agencies’ Failure to Protect America Against Foreign Influence

Not only did intelligence agencies interfere in the 2020 election, but in their efforts to protect Joe Biden, they likely also failed to provide necessary defensive briefings, putting Americans at risk.

To protect our country, intelligence officials must have frank discussions with leaders (and candidates) about the risks of foreign malign influence. Given how hard the FBI and intelligence agencies tried to bury the news of the laptop, it seems likely they omitted any reference to the laptop and details contained on it in briefings to then-President Trump, then-candidate Biden, and the Biden campaign. 

To date, this scandal has been overlooked and merits further inquiry to determine whether the intelligence apparatus fulfilled its duty to the country or omitted inconvenient facts in briefings to protect Joe Biden. Of particular concern is whether intelligence agencies assessed and warned about the risk that the Russians had stolen a second Hunter Biden laptop that contain materials the Biden son believed rendered him susceptible to blackmail.

7. DOJ and FBI’s Handling of Biden Investigations

When it comes to how the DOJ and FBI handled investigations into Biden family corruption, the evidence of potential misconduct is overwhelming.

Broadly, this scandal includes conflicts of interest between Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys — including the Pennsylvania U.S. attorney handling an investigation into the Jim Biden-connected company Americorp, and the California and D.C. U.S. attorneys who reportedly refused to bring felony charges against Hunter Biden. Likewise, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s conflict of interest proves scandalous given the numerous efforts by the DOJ and FBI headquarters to interfere in the investigations.

Beyond conflicts of interest, the IRS whistleblowers and another whistleblower who’s provided information to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have revealed numerous instances of DOJ and FBI procedural violations, the burying of evidence such as the FD-1023, the false labeling of derogatory evidence as disinformation, and limits on the investigative steps agents could take. Consequently, the DOJ charged Hunter Biden only with misdemeanors and one firearm felony that could be dropped, and to date it appears no investigation has occurred into Joe Biden or his brother, Jim Biden, on allegations of bribery and money laundering.

While Democrats counter the growing evidence of corruption by wrongly claiming it has not been corroborated, that fact does not vindicate the Bidens: It implicates the DOJ and FBI in a separate scandal. 

Cover-Ups of the Cover-Ups

8. DOJ and FBI’s Cover-Up of Failure to Investigate Bidens

Once whistleblowers began exposing the Biden administration’s interference in the family’s pay-to-play investigation, the DOJ and FBI began to cover-up the cover-up. We saw this most clearly when Garland professed that there was no political interference in U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden. Garland stressed that, as a Trump holdover, Americans could trust Weiss’s independence.

Garland’s testimony cannot be squared with the extensive interference coming from FBI headquarters and the limitations the DOJ placed on investigative techniques. When Grassley pushed on the point, Garland maintained that Weiss had ultimate charging authority. According to an IRS whistleblower, however, Weiss said otherwise, claiming he wasn’t the ultimate decision-maker. 

Here, the cover-up of the cover-up began in earnest, with Garland and Weiss writing a series of letters and making public statements that attempted to obscure the ultimate question of whether Weiss had ultimate authority to charge Hunter Biden and whether DOJ or FBI headquarters interfered in the investigation. This scandal has yet to be unraveled. But on Monday, the DOJ sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee offering up Weiss to testify — indicating Biden’s Justice Department might be preparing to throw Weiss under the bus.

9. Democrats Lying to Protect Joe Biden 

Many Democrats are also wrapped up in lying to protect Joe Biden. Some of these lies predate the election when they spun the laptop as Russian disinformation. But more recently, we saw Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin lying to the American public about the FD-1023 form. Had former Attorney General William Barr not gone on the record to correct Raskin’s falsehood, the public would have been none the wiser.

Seeking to protect Joe Biden from damning bribery claims, Raskin falsely claimed that Trump appointees Barr and U.S. Attorney Scott Brady had reviewed the CHS’s reporting contained in a June 2020 FD-1023 form and closed out the investigation. Raskin also portrayed the CHS’s reporting as connected to Rudy Giuliani.

But as The Federalist first reported, Barr unequivocally said that Raskin’s claim was “not true.” The investigation into the FD-1023 “wasn’t closed down.” “On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.” Likewise, Barr explained the CHS’s reporting was unrelated to Giuliani.

10. Press Acting as Biden-Run Media

When the Post broke the laptop story, the legacy media either silenced it or framed it as Russian disinformation. Even two years later, after belatedly authenticating the material recovered from Hunter Biden’s computer, the corporate media refused to cover the implications — that the emails, documents, and texts indicated Joe Biden was involved in a massive corruption scandal. The corrupt press still refuses to cover the news fairly, opting instead to brand the evidence as a conspiracy theory. 

The media’s refusal to seek and report the truth proves the most dire of all the scandals because without a free press checking government corruption, the corruption will only grow.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Top Democrat Jeffries Refuses To Defend Right Of Congress To Pass Laws After Environmental Activists Take Other Side


BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | JULY 21, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/21/top-democrat-jeffries-refuses-to-defend-right-of-congress-to-pass-laws-after-environmental-activists-take-other-side/

Hakeem Jeffries
Democratic leadership refused to defend the legitimacy of the lower chamber at the behest of the environmental lobby.

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The top two Democrats in the House of Representatives quietly voted last week against defending the right of Congress to pass laws. The sanctity of democracy and Congress itself has been a major political talking point for Democrat leaders in recent years. But the vote showed the difficulty Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats have standing up to the intense pressure they face from left-wing billionaires and the environmental activist groups they run.

The vote dealt with litigation from left-wing environmental groups trying to stop provisions in the recently passed Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which raised the debt limit. That bill, signed into law on June 5, 2023, contained provisions to ensure the completion of a 303-mile pipeline from natural gas fields in West Virginia to an existing pipeline in Southwest Virginia. Left-wing environmental groups funded by major Democrat donors and a foreign oligarch who finances much of the left’s “dark money” behemoth have fought the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years. While most of the pipeline has been constructed, the FRA directed expedited approval of the remaining permits, removal from any court the jurisdiction to review agency actions, and directing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to oversee any claims challenging the pipeline.

Both Jeffries and Democrat Whip Katherine Clark voted for the legislation. Jeffries publicly stated he did so “without hesitation, reservation, or trepidation.” President Biden, the top Democrat in the country, signed it into law. His Department of Justice began implementing the law. But when the time came to defend both that legislation and the very right of Congress to pass laws, Jeffries and Clark refused.

The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), comprising the Speaker of the House and the leader and whip of each party, “speaks for, and articulates the institutional position of, the House in all litigation matters,” according to House rules. While it has at times been used in a partisan matter, most notably and aggressively under former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it also routinely sees unanimous votes on key issues about the rights and powers of Congress.

Earlier this year, for example, all five members voted to intervene in an ongoing legal battle between the Department of Justice and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., over the department’s aggressive efforts to access the conservative member’s phone.

The vote last week was divided on party lines, even though it dealt with an issue that the BLAG had previously worked on twice before and involved a law that both Democrat members had voted for only weeks prior.

Back Story

Blocking an energy pipeline in the region has been a top priority of left-wing activist groups for years. They had successfully asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to block and delay permits and approvals for the pipeline.

Once the debt limit bill passed, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss those cases. It argued that the bill had mooted the controversy by explicitly ratifying and approving all necessary permits and by changing the law governing the pipeline in such a way that it rendered meritless the claims put forth by the environmentalist groups.

The Wilderness Society and an array of other left-wing environmentalist groups opposed what the DOJ was doing and asked the Fourth Circuit to issue a stay. Left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss “has been a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats,” according to an analysis from The New York Times. He serves on the board of governors of the Wilderness Society. That group argued the bill violated the separation of powers and that the Fourth Circuit remained the right court to hear their objections to the previous legislation. Without explaining its reasoning, a trio of judges on the Fourth Circuit that had previously ruled in favor of the environmental groups’ petitions issued a stay.

The pipeline company filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court to vacate the stays and have the Fourth Circuit dismiss the claims so the pipeline could be completed as directed by June’s legislation.

That’s why the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted on an amicus brief backing Congress’ own legislation and the right of Congress to pass legislation.

The amicus brief argues that the Fourth Circuit stays are at odds with Congress’s declaration that “the timely completion” of the pipeline “is required in the national interest.” It also notes that the House has twice prior defended the power of Congress to enact changes in law that affect the outcome of pending court cases, and the court upheld the constitutionality of doing so both times. Finally, it argues that the stays are erroneous; that nothing precludes Congress from changing laws simply because they end legal challenges to agency actions.

Jeffries and Clark are refusing to defend Congress, but their vote aligns them with the billionaire environmentalists. It does put them at odds with at least one Democrat lawmaker and the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the country’s “most progressive” union of construction workers.

“The jobs at stake are the exact type of jobs – blue collar jobs for skilled workers that provide good wages, health coverage, retirement security, and funding for training of current workers and new entrants to the industry – that are so badly needed in today’s economy,” the union wrote in its brief.

When Clark whipped for the bill she now refuses to defend, she praised Biden for “standing with our veterans, seniors, and working families” during the negotiations.

Neither Jeffries nor Clark responded to The Federalist’s request for comment.

Tristan Justice contributed to this reporting.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com

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‘Alarming evidence’ links China’s Communist Party to American K-12 schools, anti-indoctrination group claims


Parents Defending Education says ‘Little Red Classrooms’ report should concern Americans

Brian Flood

By Brian Flood | Fox News | Published July 26, 2023 10:28am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/media/alarming-evidence-links-chinas-communist-party-american-k-12-schools-anti-indoctrination-group-claims

FIRST ON FOX — Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. The findings are detailed in a new report dubbed “Little Red Classrooms,” which was sent to 34 governors, key lawmakers and committee chairs on Wednesday. 

“The alarming evidence uncovered by our investigation should concern parents, educators, and policymakers alike. Families deserve to know who is influencing the American education system so that they can make informed choices about what their children are learning behind closed doors,” PDE president Nicole Neily told Fox News Digital. 

“The Trump administration took steps to rein in Confucius Institutes at colleges and universities. It is frightening, however, that no such transparency mandate exists at the K-12 level,” Neily continued. “Accordingly, it is imperative that elected officials at both the federal and state levels take immediate action to gauge the extent of these programs in order to ensure that American schoolchildren receive a high-quality education free from undue foreign interference.”

REP JIM BANKS DEMANDS ANSWERS ON ‘INADEQUATE’ DOD CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE WAIVER GUIDANCE: ‘AGENTS’ OF THE CCP

chinausflags
Parents Defending Education, a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. (Getty)

Parents Defending Education bills itself as “a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas. PDE’s sister organization, PDE Action, sent the “alarming” results of its lengthy “Little Red Classrooms” investigation to House Education & Workforce Committee Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas. 

According to the letters, which have been obtained by Fox News Digital, the investigation exposed how millions of dollars of China-linked funding has flowed into America’s K-12 classrooms. PDE believes American students are subject to CCP propaganda under the guise of Chinese language and culture programming. 

“The fact the Chinese government had so much access to American classrooms, students, and curriculums should worry families,” PDE senior adviser Michele P. Exner wrote to McCaul. 

The committee chairs were informed that through “records requests and publicly available information, it was discovered that 143 school districts across the United States have engaged in contracts to establish Confucius Institutes and Classrooms,” including in three of the nation’s top science and technology high schools, and several that are near 20 U.S. military bases. “Considering China’s adversarial relationship with the United States, this poses significant security risks that warrant immediate attention from your committee,” Exner wrote to Foxx. 

“The Chinese government has long touted their Confucius programming as a way to advance their strategic goals around the world. In 2009, former Chinese Communist Party Senior Chairman Li Changchun admitted that Confucius Institutes were an ‘important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up’ and in 2017 Chinese government officials lauded the programs as a way to push China’s Belt and Road initiative,” the Foxx letter continued. “Security concerns with these China-led courses in America’s schools are well documented.”

BILL LIMITING CHINA-BACKED CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES PASSED UNANIMOUSLY BY SENATE

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) arrives to a caucus meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, was notified of Parents Defending Education’s findings. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

PDE also listed “examples of the alarming relationships China’s government has established with American K-12 classrooms,” such as the Simpson County Board of Education in Kentucky entering into an agreement with the North China Electric Power University to develop the Confucius Institute of Western Kentucky.

“The North China Electric Power University works directly with the Chinese government’s energy sector to push China’s global energy initiatives. The Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) tasked the university with selecting more than 34 Chinese teachers to send to Simpson County Public Schools for the 2020-2021 school year,” Exner wrote. 

PDE also pointed to a pair of Chinese nationals who taught Mandarin at Appoquinimink School District in Delaware during the 2012-2013 school year. “According to a district webpage, these teachers underwent a ‘rigorous selection process’ in China. This includes interviews with Chinese government officials ‘at the national level,’” according to Exner, who also serves as PDE Action’s director of federal affairs. 

The letter to McCaul noted that “34 states and the District of Columbia have had schools that have engaged in financial exchanges with the Chinese government or affiliated entities ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than a million dollars per contract,” according to PDE findings. 

“Since 2009, the Chinese government has used Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms to push their agenda in schools around the globe. Chinese Communist Party officials have openly stated how they are using these educational partnerships established under the guise of ‘cultural and language immersion programs’ to expand China’s overseas propaganda campaign,” Exner wrote. 

“In a Chinese state media article from 2016, the Chinese Communist Party ‘lauded’ Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms for promoting its Belt and Road Initiative. Security concerns with these China-linked programs became so problematic that the State Department declared them a ‘foreign mission’ during the summer of 2020,” Exner continued. “These programs have created significant security vulnerabilities for the United States and gave the CCP unfettered access to curriculums and America’s classrooms. PDE uncovered at least two connections between U.S. and China schools tied to the Chinese military and energy operations.”

UNIVERSITY TO CUT TIES WITH CHINESE CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE AFTER GOP SCRUTINY ON $17M DOD GRANT

PDE also accused the CCP of openly using deceptive tactics to influence the next generation of Americans to advance their own self-serving agenda. 

“We cannot allow this to happen. We urge the committee to take immediate action to investigate, expose, and hold hearings on the Chinese government’s involvement in America’s schools. PDE looks forward to working with you in protecting our students from the threats of the CCP,” Exner wrote to McCaul. 

PDE informed Rogers that Confucius Institutes and Classrooms were operating in schools in the vicinity of the following U.S. military bases including U.S. Naval Academy, Buckley Air Force Base and Space Force, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Dover Air Force Base, Fort Bliss, Fort Liberty, Fort Knox, Naval Station Great Lakes, Hanscom Air Force Base, Hill Air Force Base, Lackland Air Force Base, Langley Air Force Base, Los Angeles Air Force Base, MacDill Air Force Base, McGuire Air Force Base, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Nellis Air Force Base, Naval Station Norfolk, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Naval Base San Diego. 

“Allowing China to have unfettered access to America’s schools poses significant security risks to students and their families. It becomes even more dangerous when this is happening near sensitive locations containing information critical to our national security,” Exner wrote. 

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs
PDE sent a letter to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs urging an investigation between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

WHAT CHINA IS DOING IN CUBA IS A BIG THREAT TO ALL OF US

PDE Action also wrote to several other influential lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. The House China Select Committee, the Senate HELP Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are expected to be notified of “Little Red Classrooms” findings, too. 

PDE Action political director Alex Nester also sent a letter, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs. 

“Documents uncovered via online searches and public records requests show that three schools in Arizona — Catalina Foothills School District and Tucson Unified School District, as well as the International School of Tucson — forged ties with Chinese government backed programs over the course of a decade,” Nester wrote.  

“PDE Action respectfully requests the Office of the Governor of Arizona to investigate ties between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs, such as Confucius Classrooms,” Nester continued. “While it’s vital for American students to have opportunities to learn world languages and cultures, public school districts should not give the Chinese government unfettered access to K-12 classrooms. This has the potential of posing significant security risks to students, families, and our national interests.”

A similar letter was sent to 33 additional governors on Wednesday morning, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

PDE’s “Little Red Classrooms” report details more examples that the group finds deeply concerning, breaking down the $17,967,565 spent across 143 school districts in 34 states plus the District of Columbia. 

Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood. 

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International Politics

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MSNBC guest mocked for floating 9/11-style response to right wing threats: ‘Utterly oblivious’


By Andrew Mark Miller | Fox News | Published July 26, 2023 10:32am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/msnbc-guest-mocked-floating-9-11-style-response-right-wing-threats-utterly-oblivious

A guest on an MSNBC panel Tuesday night drew criticism on social media for suggesting a 9/11-type response to right wing extremists, on the scale of things like the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security.

“We’re in a battle for hearts and minds, and there are people who are on the fence, we’ve got to have leaders and messages and messengers and programs that get to those people, that bring them over to community organizing, into non-profit organizations and away from the Patriot Front and the Oath Keepers,” Army veteran and author Paul Rieckhoff told Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC Tuesday night.

“After 9/11, we created the Department of Homeland Security,” Rieckhoff said. “There was the Patriot Act. There was massive change in our entire society to face the number one threat, at least what was communicated as the number one threat.”

“I think we need the same kind of tectonic shift,” he said about how to deal with right wing extremists. “It’s got to be much more than ‘see something’ but maybe our laws need to change to respond to the fact that someone like Mike Flynn, the former national security director, is openly calling for violence consistently.”

Paul Rieckhoff
Army veteran and author Paul Rieckhoff, left, and an Oath Keeper demonstrator. (Getty Images)

Rieckhoff ’s call for a bigger government response to conservative groups drew criticism from people who accused MSNBC of promoting a government crackdown on opinions that are not shared by liberal Democrats.

“Nicolle Wallace has been running segments like this virtually on a daily basis since 1/6; every day they’re complaining about how our terrorism laws need to be revamped to make it easier to orient our entire national security apparatus against enemies of the liberal establishment,” Grabien founder and journalist Tom Elliot posted on social media. He said the segment is an example of “ripping apart American society.”

“As they claim to be targeting extremism, they’re utterly oblivious to just how radicalized they themselves have become,” he said. “Every day I watch as they push each other a little further, constantly reminding each other how important they are & how dangerous are those who think differently.”

Protesters outside of the Capitol
Then-President Trump supporters occupy the West Front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“In the battle to win hearts and minds, he wants a new PATRIOT Act and DHS,” Center for Renewing America fellow and author Steve Friend tweeted. “Grow government to shut down alternative political views.”

“Notice what he says about the aftermath of 9/11 and ‘what was communicated as the number one threat,’” columnist and author Derek Hunter tweeted. “That’s very telling about this guy…”

A demonstrator wears an Oath Keepers anti-government organization badge on a protective vest during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S. (Getty Images)

President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law in October 2001 which gave the government sweeping authority to investigate and prosecute terrorists which includes broad surveillance powers that many have argued amounts to a violation of personal freedoms.

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.

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Media

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Hunter Biden pleads ‘not guilty’ as plea deal falls apart during Delaware court appearance


DOJ prosecutors said Hunter Biden is currently under investigation

Brooke Singman

By Brooke Singman , Jake Gibson | Fox News | Published July 26, 2023 1:25pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-plea-deal-appears-fall-apart-first-court-appearance

Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart during his first court appearance Wednesday morning as he pleaded “not guilty” and federal prosecutors confirmed the president’s son is still under federal investigation. The president’s son was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge.

Hunter Biden walks into Federal court dressed in a suit
Hunter Biden arrives to a Federal Courthouse at the Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington, Delaware, Wednesday, July 26, 2023. President Joe Biden’s son is reportedly expected to plead guilty during the hearing to two federal crimes for not paying taxes on time. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)

But Judge Maryellen Noreika did not accept the plea agreement, questioning the constitutionality–specifically the diversion clause and the immunity Hunter Biden would receive. Hunter Biden had been expected to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

The judge pressed federal prosecutors on the investigation and questioned whether there was the possibility for future charges, and asked prosecutors if Hunter Biden was currently under active investigation. Prosecutors said he was but would not answer specifically what the president’s son is under investigation for.  

Prosecutors on Wednesday, though, said Hunter Biden pleading guilty to the two misdemeanor tax offenses would not immunize him from future charges. At one point, Noreika asked Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise whether there is an “ongoing investigation here.” 

“There is,” Wise said, adding that he could not tell the judge what the investigation was. 

Noreika asked if the government could potentially bring a charge related to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), to which Wise replied: “Yes.” 

At that point, the original plea deal broke down. Defense attorney Chris Clark said he did not agree with that. 

“Then there’s no deal,” Wise said. 

Clark countered, “As far as I’m concerned the plea deal is null and void.”

After that, both sides asked the judge for time to negotiate. Noreika left the courtroom for 20 minutes or so and allowed both sides to continue negotiations. Ultimately, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty because Noreika could not accept the plea deal as it was constructed. She repeatedly expressed her concerns about the constitutionality of the diversion deal related to the felony gun charge, specifying that the main issue with the agreement was that if Hunter breached the deal, the judge would need to make a finding of fact on the matter before the government could bring charges. 

Judge Noreika said she saw that as being “outside of my lane,” noting that if the diversion agreement might be unconstitutional, then the entire plea deal would be unconstitutional, meaning that Hunter Biden would not be getting the immunity he thought. 

The judge apologized to Hunter Biden near the end of the hearing. 

“Mr. Biden, I know you want to get this over with, and I’m sorry,” Noreika said. “But I need to get more information to do Justice as I’m required to do.”

The judge asked for briefings from both sides, but did not set a firm date. 

Noreika questioned Hunter Biden on his sobriety and on his business dealings–specifically money that he received from foreign business partners, like Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and his joint-venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC. 

As Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre delivered a statement at the beginning of the daily briefing.

“Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter for him. As we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life,” Jean-Pierre said. “This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump.” 

She added: “So for anything further, as you know, and we’ve been very consistent from here, I’d refer you to the Department of Justice and to Hunter’s representatives who is his legal team, obviously, who can address any of your questions.” 

The developments in the case Wednesday come after IRS whistleblower testimony revealed allegations of DOJ misconduct throughout the years-long investigation into the president’s son. IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler said politics influenced prosecutorial decisions throughout the investigation. 

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith filed an amicus brief to the court, requesting that testimony be considered ahead of accepting the planned plea deal, saying Hunter Biden “appears to have benefited from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.” 

“In the interest of full transparency and fairness for all citizens, it is critical for the Court to have this relevant information when evaluating the Plea Agreement,” Smith wrote in the brief. 

Meanwhile, on the eve of the court appearance, the judge threatened to sanction Hunter Biden’s legal team after one of his attorneys allegedly lied about who she was while asking to remove IRS whistleblower testimony from the court docket. 

The defense, though, denied the allegations and called the incident “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication.” 

Fox News’ Griff Jenkins and Alexandra Rego contributed to this report. 

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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corruption, Crime, Law

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Put You ‘IN THE GROUND’: Grad Student Threatens State Senator Over Vote to Protect Kids From Trans Drugs


By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / July 26, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/26/put-you-ground-grad-student-threatens-senator-vote-protect-kids-trans-drugs/

Protester holds sign reading
A graduate student left a voicemail threatening a Louisiana state senator after he voted to override Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto of a bill protecting minors from experimental “transgender” medical interventions. Pictured: A protester holds a sign reading “protect black trans women at all f—ing cost” at the Queer Liberation March in Manhattan, June 25. (Photo: Erik McGregor, LightRocket/Getty Images)

A Louisiana state senator says he is undeterred despite receiving a death threat after he voted to override a governor’s veto on a bill protecting children from experimental “transgender” medical interventions.

“No type of threat would ever stop me from trying to save children and keep them from being mutilated or from facing any other harm,” Sen. Michael “Big Mike” Fesi, a Republican representing southern Louisiana, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday.

Fesi voted to override Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ June veto of House Bill 648, the “Stop Harming Our Kids Act.” The state House voted 76-23 on July 18 to override the veto, and the Senate voted 28-11 to override the veto the following day. After the vote, Fesi received a voicemail message expressing joy at the prospect of putting him “in the ground.”

“I can’t wait to read your name in the f—ing obituary,” a man, whom police later identified as Louisiana State University graduate student Marcus Venable, said in the message. “I will make a g–d–n martini made from the tears of butthurt conservatives when we put your f—ing a– in the ground.”

In the audio, which political commentator Greg Price posted to Twitter, Venable claimed that Fesi did not produce “any g–d–n evidence to support the claims you made about people being harmed by transgender care,” and he cited what he described as “tons of empirical evidence” about an “increased suicide risk” in the absence of such interventions.

Fesi told The Daily Signal that he called the police to report the threat. “When they talk about ‘put you in the ground,’ you absolutely call the police,” he said.

The senator has not received any apology from Venable. He said the police told him they directed the graduate student to refrain from contacting him.

Michael Fesi in a blue suit with a red tie and an American flag
Sen. Michael “Big Mike” Fesi, the Louisiana state senator who received a death threat for voting to protect children from so-called transgender procedures.

Louisiana State University condemned Venable’s actions and will bar him from teaching, local TV station KCBY reported.

“As a university, we foster open and respectful dialogue,” LSU spokeswoman Abbi Rocha Laymoun said. “Like everyone, graduate students with teaching assignments have the right to express their opinions, but this profanity-filled, threatening call crossed the line.”

“This does not exhibit the character we expect of someone given the privilege of teaching as part of their graduate assistantship,” she added. “The student will be allowed to continue their studies but will not be extended the opportunity to teach in the future.”

LSU did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

House Bill 648, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, forbids health care professionals from engaging in specific acts “that attempt to alter a minor’s appearance in an attempt to validate a minor’s perception of the minor’s sex, if the minor’s perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”

It bans various experimental medical interventions that transgender advocates euphemistically refer to as “gender-affirming care,” such as the off-label use of drugs like Lupron to forestall puberty, cross-sex hormones, sterilizing surgery, surgeries to construct facsimiles of organs belonging to the opposite sex, the removal of “any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue,” and other procedures to alter secondary sex characteristics.

When the Louisiana Legislature overrode Edwards’ veto, the governor predicted that the courts would “throw out this unconstitutional bill,” which he said “needlessly harms a very small population of vulnerable children, their families, and their health care professionals.”

Fesi disputed Venable’s claim that the senator did not present any evidence to support his position.

“If you have to continue these drugs, you become a lifetime patient,” he said, warning that “the suicide rate after doing this thing really goes up.”

“You need to at least wait until you’re of age to make that decision,” Fesi said. “Children, they can’t drink alcohol until 21, they can’t drive until they’re 16.”

The state senator also urged people to focus on being “a good person.”

“As far as the threats and stuff go, you need to agree to disagree,” he said. “No one needs to cause hardship on anyone else just because of a disagreement. We need to learn to love one another no matter what.”

He pledged to continue to support legislation aimed at protecting children.

Fesi noted Senate Bill 64, “Ezekiel’s Law,” which unanimously passed the state Legislature and which Edwards signed on June 1. The law requires closer communication between law enforcement and child protection agencies after the death of 2-year-old Ezekiel J’sai Harry, whose body was found in a trash can.

“Two-year-old Ezekiel was [allegedly] beat to death by his mother’s boyfriend,” Fesi recalled. “He was supposed to be moved to his dad’s possession prior to his death.” Closer communication between law enforcement and child agencies will prevent such tragedies in the future, the senator said.

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LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political

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T0day’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – A Father’s Love

A.F. BRANCO |  on July 26, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-a-fatherss-love/

The Democrat media continues to play defense for President Biden’s bribery scandal with his son Hunter as the bagman.

Biden Loves His Son
A.F. Branco Cartoon ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

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Political

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Video: Pro-life activists physically attacked outside yet another Planned Parenthood


By: DAVE URBANSKI | July 24, 2023

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/video-pro-life-activists-physically-attacked-outside-yet-another-planned-parenthood-2662332314.html/

In May, TheBlaze reported on a vicious attack outside a Baltimore Planned Parenthood that resulted in an elderly pro-life advocate being severely beaten.

Over the weekend, yet another physical attack against pro-life activists outside a Planned Parenthood took place — this time in Washington, D.C. It was caught on video.

According to the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, two D.C.-area pro-life activists — Terrisa Bukovinac, founder and executive director of PAAU, and Michael Gribbin — were assaulted Saturday morning outside the D.C. Planned Parenthood. Bukovinac said the incident began when a woman approached her and threw coffee in her face and hair, adding that when Gribbin tried to grab the woman’s coffee cup, the woman’s male partner assaulted him.

Video shows the man throwing Gribbin to the street surface and repeatedly punching him as well as the woman slapping Bukovinac in the face.

Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @Terrisalin

Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @Terrisalin

Here’s the clip. Content warning: Language:

The PAAU said that despite video of the assault, D.C. police have refused to press charges.

“Even as a progressive anti-abortion atheist, I understand that the abortion industrial complex is responsible for a mass genocide which will require immense bravery to dismantle,” Bukovinac said. “Pro-lifers must be committed to total non-violence to effectively challenge the institution of legal child killing around the globe.”

The PAAU said Michael New — a Catholic University of America professor who helps coordinate pro-life efforts outside the D.C. Planned Parenthood — issued a statement that said, in part: “It is sad but unsurprising that the D.C. police have refused to press charges on two individuals who assaulted two pro-life sidewalk counselors outside the DC Planned Parenthood. Pro-lifers have First Amendment rights, and no one should have to fear for their safety while sidewalk counseling. … If Terrisa and Michael wish to file civil charges against their assailants, they would have my enthusiastic support.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation, as part of its report, said D.C. police didn’t immediately respond to its request for comment on the matter.

In regard to the Baltimore attack, police have released surveillance images of a man believed to be in his twenties still wanted for brutally punching and kicking the face of the elderly pro-lifer outside that city’s Planned Parenthood.

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Crime, Political

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Senator Rand Paul, M.D., Op-ed: Congress Must Stop The Executive Branch’s Heinous Attempts To Censor Americans


BY: RAND PAUL | JULY 25, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/25/congress-must-stop-the-executive-branchs-heinous-attempts-to-censor-americans/

person holding phone and on laptop

Author Rand Paul profile

RAND PAUL

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The First Amendment’s mandate that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” is a guarantee that, no matter how inconvenient to those temporarily holding high office, the people have an absolute right to express their thoughts and opinions. Despite this constitutional requirement, over 200 years ago, President John Adams and the Federalists in Congress used the threat of war with France as a pretext to enact into law the Sedition Act of 1798, which made it a crime for Americans to “print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the government.

The debate surrounding the Sedition Act was about the nature of freedom of speech. One supporter of the law, Alexander Addison, believed that some opinions were so dangerous that it was in the public interest to suppress them, stating, “Truth has but one side: and listening to error and falsehood is indeed a strange way to discover truth.”

An opponent, Thomas Cooper, presciently argued that the purpose of the Sedition Act was to empower one party to “suppress the opinions of those who differ from them.” Unsurprisingly, all the defendants prosecuted under the Sedition Act would be Republicans.

Sound familiar?

On Independence Day this year, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting the Biden Administration from collaborating with social media companies to censor and suppress constitutionally protected speech. In his opinion, Judge Terry Doughty stated that the Biden Administration’s efforts to suppress opinions it opposes “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in the United States’ history.” It is difficult to disagree with Judge Doughty’s description.

For years, the Biden Administration demanded social media suppress and censor conservatives who dared question the origins of Covid, the effectiveness of masks and lockdowns, and election integrity, among other issues. The Biden Administration was so zealous in its enforcement of censorship, even parody content did not escape its anti-free speech campaign.

And the Biden administration didn’t ask nicely. When then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki publicly called on social media companies to censor speech relating to Covid, she mentioned Biden’s support for a “robust anti-trust program,” all but threatening to break up tech giants if they failed to adopt the administration’s censorship policies. Later, the White House announced that it was reviewing policies relating to whether social media should be held legally liable for spreading so-called misinformation. In other words, the Biden administration effectively told social media “Do our bidding, or else.”

The White House was so aggressive that a Twitter representative stated the site was “bombarded” with censorship requests from the executive branch. But that bombardment was not really directed at Twitter — it was a monstrous attack on the free speech rights guaranteed to every American by the First Amendment.

In addition to countless numbers of Americans, I was targeted by the censorship regime. When I posted a video on YouTube to educate the public on the potentially harmful consequences of relying on ineffective cloth masks to prevent transmission of Covid, YouTube took my video down and suspended me for a week.

Americans are a free people and we do not take infringements upon our liberties lightly. The time has come for resistance and to reclaim our God-given right to free expression. Permit me, as a member of the resistance, to present a solution that that restores and protects the First Amendment.

I introduced legislation called the Free Speech Protection Act, which will prohibit federal employees and contractors from using their positions to censor and otherwise attack speech protected by the First Amendment. My legislation will impose penalties for those that violate this rule, as well as empower private citizens to sue the government and executive branch officials for violating their First Amendment rights. Additionally, the bill will mandate frequent publicly accessible reports detailing the communications between an executive branch agency and media organizations, ensure that federal grant money is not used to label media organizations as sources of misinformation or disinformation, and terminates authorities that threaten free speech.

Under my Free Speech Protection Act, the government will no longer be able to cloak itself in secrecy to undermine the First Amendment rights of conservatives, libertarians, liberals, socialists, and all others who wish to exercise their right to free speech and engage in public discourse.

My legislation will make it difficult to hide efforts to censor constitutionally protected speech. Those officials who censor Americans are on notice: if you infringe upon First Amendment rights, under my bill, you will face severe penalties, such as potential debarment from employment by the United States, a civil penalty of no less than $10,000, and revocation of a security clearance. Any administration employee who prizes his livelihood would not dare threaten free speech after my bill becomes law.

Looking back upon his defeat of John Adams for the presidency, Thomas Jefferson wrote, the “revolution of 1800 . . . was a real revolution in the principles of our government as that of [17]76.” Jefferson’s victory was a vindication of the First Amendment as he allowed the Sedition Act to expire and pardoned those convicted for expressing their views.

Once again, the American people are called upon to defend the founding principles over which our forebears fought a revolution. To protect free speech, Congress must prohibit the government’s collusion with Big Tech and other media organizations. Congress must pass the Free Speech Protection Act.

Rand Paul, MD, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky.

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Political

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Mounting Evidence Doesn’t Matter, Corporate Media Will Never Cover the Biden Corruption Scandal


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JULY 25, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/25/mounting-evidence-doesnt-matter-corporate-media-will-never-cover-the-biden-corruption-scandal/

Joe Biden

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

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As evidence mounts that President Joe Biden took millions in bribe money from Ukrainian oligarchs when he was vice president as part of an elaborate influence-peddling scheme headed up by his son, Hunter Biden, let’s check in on how the corporate press is handling what looks like the biggest political scandal in American history.

Nothing to see here, apparently. The New York Times has carried no coverage of the shocking allegations contained in an unclassified FBI document Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released last week. The document, called an FD-1023, details the reporting of a highly credible FBI informant who says the top executive of Ukrainian oil and gas firm Burisma told him he paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each to protect the company from a corruption investigation (that’s in addition to the millions it paid Hunter to sit on its board).

Instead, the “paper of record” ran an article attacking a group called Empower Oversight for helping a pair of IRS whistleblowers at the heart of the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation who say the FBI and Justice Department hid the informant’s reporting from them, as well as relevant material on Hunter’s laptop. The Times wasn’t interested in the substance of what these whistleblowers had to say, but rather focused on the fact that Empower Oversight helped them follow the proper procedures and whistleblower statutes for bringing their claims to Congress. 

Over at The Washington Post, there was likewise zero coverage of the FBI informant’s reporting, even after portions of it were corroborated this week as reported by Margot Cleveland in these pages. Nor was there any mention of Tuesday’s news that Hunter’s former business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, will testify before Congress that Hunter would regularly call his father and put him on speakerphone with overseas business associates when Joe Biden was vice president.

 None of that seems to interest the editors at the Post. The only mention of any of this comes from media columnist Philip Bump, who devoted an entire column Monday to a tortured explanation of why we should ignore it all. Just because a trusted FBI informant is credible, writes Bump, doesn’t mean that what the informant was told is true: “I trust my wife, but if she tells me that our 6-year-old claims to have seen a dragon on the roof, I don’t suddenly believe that there was a dragon on the roof.”

Indeed not. But what Bump seems to be suggesting is that if his wife ran up to him terrified that there’s a dragon on the roof because his 6-year-old claims to have seen one, he would just shrug it off until further evidence emerged. And maybe he actually would. After all, this is the same guy who once seemed terribly confused about where babies come from. 

But of course Bump, like the rest of the corporate press, is faking it. A normal person, confronted by his hysterical wife claiming the boy saw a dragon on the roof, would take a second to step outside and look at the roof. Bump and his colleagues refuse to do even this, insisting rather that this is all just political theater, the GOP desperately grasping at straws to damage Biden.

In a healthy society with a functioning free press, the Biden corruption scandal — and the rank obstruction of the DOJ and FBI on Biden’s behalf — would dominate the headlines. Instead of merely reporting that the Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy yesterday floated the prospect of impeachment proceedings against Biden, the press would be reporting on the mounting evidence underlying the drive for impeachment.

But no. Instead, the corporate media are twisting themselves into pretzels to explain away every new development in this story. As David Marcus noted on Twitter, “We are precipitously close to, ‘Maybe Joe Biden did take money from Burisma, but here’s why that’s actually a good thing.’”

Or as one Twitter account put it:

We can see the goalposts shifting in real time. Asked Monday about the corruption allegations and the claims that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with foreign business associates when Biden was vice president, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden “was never in business with his son.”

That’s a far cry from Biden’s past statements that he has “never spoken” to Hunter about his overseas business dealings. (Never mind the hundreds of meetings Biden has reportedly had with Hunter’s business partners.) But at this rate the laughable White House line will become the media’s fallback position: Biden wasn’t in business with his son! He was just collecting “dividends,” not bribe money! 

The upshot of all this is simple: no matter what evidence emerges, no matter how damning, the corporate media will not cover it. To the extent they mention the story at all, it will be in the context of bashing Republican lawmakers for trying to “dig up dirt” on Biden. If the GOP-controlled House opens an impeachment proceeding, which is the only way we’re ever going to get to the bottom of the Biden corruption scheme, the coverage will be about how Republican lawmakers are conducting a “witch hunt” to get back at Democrats for impeaching Trump.

Everywhere, we’ll hear the same line that CBS’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan tossed to Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie recently, in reference to the outrageous plea deal offered to Hunter Biden for a couple of tax charges: “I wonder after this plea happens if you would advise your party to move on?”

Of course, the whole point of the plea deal was to give the corporate media this line in hopes that the American people would “move on” and forget about the scandal. But no one, it seems, is “moving on” except Democrats and their courtesans in the press. The rest of us are going to take a second to step outside and see if there’s really a dragon on the roof. We’ll make sure to let Philip Bump know.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Media, Political

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Dennis Prager Op-ed: Pew Research: Democrats Value Free Speech Far Less Than Republicans


Dennis Prager / @DennisPrager / July 25, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/25/pew-research-democrats-value-free-speech-far-less-than-republicans/

Lorie Smith, a Christian graphic artist and website designer in Colorado, center in pink, speaks to supporters outside the Supreme Court on Dec. 5, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY Dennis Prager@DennisPrager

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU.

In case you were in doubt—and if you were in doubt, that means you aren’t following what is happening in America to the most important freedom of all—Pew Research has confirmed that Democrats value free speech far less than Republicans do.

Read the following statistics and conclusions and weep for our country:

  • “The share of U.S. adults who say the federal government should restrict false information has risen from 39% in 2018 to 55% in 2023.”
  • “Just over half of Americans (55%) support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits people from freely publishing or accessing information.”
  • “Support for government intervention has steadily risen since the first time we asked this question in 2018. In fact, the balance of opinion has tilted: Five years ago, Americans were more inclined to prioritize freedom of information over restricting false information (58% vs. 39%).”
  • “The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018.”
  • “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%). There was virtually no difference between the parties in 2018, but the share of Democrats who support government intervention has grown from 40% in 2018 to 70% in 2023.”
  • “A large majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (81%) support technology companies taking such steps, while about half of Republicans (48%) say the same.”

But, no one is asking, “Who is the main arbiter of what is, or is NOT, misinformation? There’s the rub.

Here are 10 conclusions:

No. 1: The most important human freedom is freedom of speech. Free speech is what

makes the pursuit of truth possible. It is what makes the advancement of science possible. It constitutes the very definition of a free society. And free speech is what makes human dignity possible. People who cannot say what they believe are dehumanized. They ultimately become robotic beings exemplified by North Koreans.

No. 2: America has been the freest country in the world for all of its history. That is why the French gave America the Statue of Liberty. It is rapidly relinquishing that title.

No. 3: Free speech is seriously threatened for the first time in American history.

No. 4: The threat to free speech comes entirely from the Left.

No. 5: There is no example in history of the Left attaining power and allowing free speech. From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution to the Maoist takeover of China to almost any university in America today, wherever the Left comes to power, it suppresses speech.

No. 6: The Left must suppress speech in order to retain power. If it were to allow dissent, it would lose its hold on power.

No. 7: That is why conservative speakers are rarely allowed to speak on college campuses. Left-wing professors, deans, and administrators know—consciously or subconsciously—that an effective conservative speaker can undo years of left-wing indoctrination in just 90 minutes.

No. 8: Given that “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%),” the often-stated claim that “there is little difference between the two parties” is false.

No. 9: All tyrannies label dissent “misinformation.” That is what Vladimir Putin’s government labels all dissent in Russia today.

The communist regime in the Soviet Union named its official newspaper “Pravda”—the Russian word for “truth”—because in a left-wing tyranny, the left-wing regime determines truth. Anything else is “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

That Western societies are moving toward Soviet-like suppression of speech is obvious in America and was made particularly clear in 2020, when the then-prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, told her country: “We will continue to be your single source of truth” and “If you do not hear it from the government, it is not true.”

Fittingly, Ardern was awarded with two teaching fellowships at Harvard University—one of them at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, based at Harvard Law School, where she “will study ways to improve content standards and platform accountability for extremist content online.”

No. 10: Liberals are abandoning liberal values—in particular, their storied commitment to free speech. There are far more liberals than leftists, but over the past few years the liberals’ unswerving commitment to the Democratic Party, unswerving commitment to The New York Times, The Washington Post, or virtually any other mainstream news source, and their unswerving opposition to conservatives and the Republican Party has led them to embrace and unswervingly vote for left-wing values.

As for the future, this is what Pew reported regarding young Americans: “The shares of younger adults who say they support tech companies and the government restricting false information online have increased substantially since 2018 (by 14 and 19 percentage points, respectively).”

But there is a better reaction than to weep.

Fight.

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Political

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Pro-LGBTQ Radicals Threaten to Kill, ‘Dismember’ School Board Chief Over Parental Rights Policy


By: Ben Johnson / @TheRightsWriter / July 25, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/25/radicals-threaten-kill-dismember-school-board-president-adopting-parental-rights-policy/

Chino Valley Unified School District President Sonja Shaw tells a woman who disrupted the school board meeting to leave the room at Don Lugo High School in Chino, California, on Thursday night. The CVUSD board voted 4-1 on a parental notification policy requiring schools to notify parents if their child changes his or her pronouns. Death threats from left-wing extremists have ensued. (Photo: Will Lester/Media News Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/Getty Images)

A local school board president in California has been inundated with threats that left-wing activists will dismember her, kill her children, and slaughter her pets. Her crime? Saying that teachers should not keep parents in the dark if their children begin to “identify” as transgender.

The new Chino Valley (California) Unified School District Board of Education policy states that school officials will notify parents in writing within three days if a child seeks to “identify” as a gender “other than the student’s biological sex,” use different pronouns, adopt a different name, or use the restroom or join a sports team of the opposite sex. The board adopted the resolution Thursday by a 4-1 vote, with member Donald Bridge casting the lone dissenting vote.

“The next morning, our district got a phone call” from an anonymous caller threatening “to kill me, and they said that they were going to dismember” school board president Sonja Shaw, the official revealed on “Washington Watch With Tony Perkins” on Monday. Police alerted Shaw to the threat shortly before a previous interview on the show last Friday.

Then Shaw looked at her district email account, where she said she saw messages stating, “You’re going to die,” with a series of profane epithets. “Your children are going to die, and your animals are going to die.” For a “point of reference, they would name what kind of animals I had,” Shaw added.

“I also got notification that people who identify as being in the terrorist organization Antifa posted on their website, ‘We declare war on Sonja Shaw,’” Shaw told Perkins, adding that the group posted her address. “They said, ‘We know where you sleep,’” the same message an angry mob screamed outside the home of then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2018. “They said things like, ‘Use all force possible to stop her.’”

“I’m not going to lie. I was shaking,” Shaw confided on Monday. Police had beefed up patrols around her home to ensure security, she said.

While she had been “hesitant” to share the details of her ordeal, “God reminded me that these are the people that are after our children.”

“Sacramento has waged a war on parental rights, and a lot of it has to do with the perversion of our children,” Shaw told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice, a former Georgia congressman, on Friday.

“We have to put up safeguards. That’s why I was put here,” Shaw told the school board meeting on Thursday.

After being alarmed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s top-down imposition of radical education policy as a parent, Shaw ran for school board, and “God opened the doors” to implement the new policy, she told Hice. When the Newsom administration learned of the impending policy, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond arrived at the district meeting Thursday night.

“It was a political stunt. He was trying to scare us,” assessed Shaw.

Thurmond requested a private meeting with Shaw prior to the meeting, but declined to follow through when he learned she would not withdraw the policy, Shaw has said. He instead addressed the board meeting, speaking as the first of 83 Californians to make their voices heard. Video footage shows the attendees booed when Thurmond concluded, as Shaw asked everyone to “be respectful” toward the official. Thurmond exceeded his one-minute speaking slot, then returned to the podium demanding a “point of order,” although he is not a board member. Police eventually escorted him out of the building.

Thurmond later claimed he “stayed within the one-minute limit,” and tweeted, “When done speaking, the board president verbally attacked me an [sic] instructed police to remove me.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who authored a bill allowing out-of-state children who identify as transgender to flee to California and be injected with cross-sex hormones against their parents’ wishes, alleged, “The QAnon school board president cut him off.” But his former colleague, ex-state Sen. Melissa Melendez pointed out that “Thurmond militantly enforced the rules for speakers when he was in the legislature.”

The district’s newly enacted policy has won the support of parental rights advocates and education experts nationwide. “The school board in Chino Valley is making parental involvement and inclusion a priority. State level officials interested in a healthy school system should follow their lead,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.

But the policy drew instant backlash from the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, which announced its members are already “actively working on new approaches” to override the democratically enacted resolution. The liberal caucus added that parents who represented the near-unanimous consensus of the Chino Valley school board “will not stop us.”

“It appears some state legislators are scheming to make the newly passed CVUSD policy illegal with a future bill,” said Jonathan Zachreson, a member of the Roseville City School District school board and the founder of Reopen California Schools.

Parents in the district have expressed enthusiastic approval. “I think it’s crucial that we keep parents in this conversation. I think that the worst thing you can do to a child is to ostracize their parents from such an important conversation,” Amy Davlin, a parent in the district, told Newsmax on Tuesday morning.

“Groomers and pedophiles are the ones who attempt to gain the trust of children and encourage them to keep secrets” from their parents, said Davlin. A school district should “not encourage children to deceive and lie to their parents.”

More than two-thirds (68%) of Californians agree that parents should be notified if their minor children change their gender identity, according to a poll taken by Protect Kids California.

“I believe there is an all-out agenda against our children,” said Davlin, adding the new policy sends a message to activists who have weaponized education against parents: “You have crossed a red line. The red line is our children.”

Democrats have indicated a legal fight will ensue. California State Attorney General Rob Bonta threatened that the pro-parental rights policy “may violate California’s anti-discrimination law” in a letter to the Chino Valley school board seeking to sway Thursday’s vote. Disclosing a child’s transgender identification to his or her parents “is very likely to result in significant emotional, mental, and even physical harm,” Bonta asserted.

Parents and board members reject that talking point. “Why are you assuming that parents are dangerous?” asked Shaw.

“If you want a lower suicide rate, bring the parents into the conversation,” said Davlin. “We are the ones who love the kids the most. We are the ones who have their best interests at heart, not their teacher who is with them a few hours a day.”

As Newsom and Thurmond focus on social issues, California students fall further behind. California ranks 38th nationwide in K-12 education, according to U.S. News and World Report—behind such Republican strongholds as Florida (14), Virginia (13), Indiana (7), Utah (9), Nebraska (11), and South Dakota (24). Education levels may improve if teachers focused on fundamentals rather than indoctrination, said Kilgannon. “We’re just trying to get the crazy out: To not have children taught wrong history, not have children taught that they could be born in the wrong body, not have children shown sexually explicit images,” she told Perkins on Monday.

Meanwhile, a potential 2024 Democratic presidential hopeful, Newsom, “plays the biggest part” in fueling the vitriol, hatred, and potential violence directed toward the Chino Valley school board, said Shaw. “But I’m glad that they’re exposing themselves,” she continued.

“My daily prayer is for those to be revealed, exposed, and removed that don’t have the best intentions and that have ill-intent for children,” Shaw told Perkins. Thanks to their voluble radicalism, “More people are starting to realize what we’re up against.”

“They’re literally driving a wedge between parent and child,” said Perkins on Monday. “This is evil. It’s just pure evil.”

A version of this article was oirignally published at WashingtonStand.com.

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Education, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER

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Pastor ‘Exiles’ Family to Kenya to Escape Canadian Persecution of Christians


BY: JOY PULLMANN | JULY 24, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/24/pastor-exiles-family-to-kenya-to-escape-canadian-persecution-of-christians/

Harold and Elise Ristau

Author Joy Pullmann profile

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A Canadian pastor has “exiled” his family to Kenya after his government invoked emergency war measures to punish citizens who attended a protest where he prayed and sang the national anthem. Harold Ristau, a decorated veteran and seminary professor, participated in the “trucker convoy” against lockdowns last February, when The Federalist interviewed him last. He is now party to a lawsuit arguing the government’s response to Covid that included treating dissent as terrorism violated Canadians’ fundamental rights.

“The fight is far from over,” said Marty Moore, a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which is litigating Ristau’s case. More than 14 months after the protest, police arrested another convoy leader this May. Lockdown litigation will likely continue for several more years, Moore said. The same is true across the West.

For peaceably assembling to petition his government for one day last year, Ristau says, he was threatened with the removal of his security clearance and government confiscation of his retirement nest egg, kids’ college funds, and other life savings. Ristau says he’s also experienced serious damage to his reputation, career, and friendships after the government used anti-terrorism measures against peaceful protesters.

“There’s no protection, if a pandemic started tomorrow, from future mandates. So that’s why I was really open to coming here,” his wife, Elise Ristau, said, sitting beside her husband in a recent video interview from Kenya.

Besides dealing with overbearing health restrictions, their children were mocked at school for their family’s religious and political views, Elise Ristau told The Federalist. After enduring more than two years of severe social and government repression, the Ristaus moved outside Nairobi with their five children last August.

“I don’t know that I can go back and be a Christian in Canada. So that’s why we’re here in Kenya,” Harold Ristau said. There, the former chaplain with a Ph.D. in philosophy trains Kenyan pastors at the Lutheran School of Theology.

Confiscating Dissenters’ Life Savings

Government use of “debanking” to punish dissent is growing in the West. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government used it on essentially every convoy participant authorities could identify, said Moore.

“As soon as they knew your name if you were on the ground [protesting] in Ottawa, they froze your bank account,” Moore told The Federalist. “…The federal government met with the banks, they gave the [protesters’] names to the banks, and the banks were then pushed to freeze the bank accounts of anyone with that name in their banks. It was a fascist collaboration.”

Right-leaning British politicians including Brexit leader Nigel Farage recently told the public banks have closed their accounts over their political views.

In May, American whistleblowers disclosed the FBI obtained, without any warrants, “a huge list” of citizens’ private banking data in its Jan. 6, 2021 capitol riot investigation. Investigators targeted any American who legally bought a firearm using a Bank of America account all the way back to the 1990s, the whistleblower testified.

Treating a Veteran Like a Terrorist

After the Canadian government announced it would freeze the bank accounts of convoy protesters and their mostly small-dollar donors without legal due process, rumors of bank runs spread. Multiple large Canadian banks appeared to shut down online operations soon after the announcement. Elise withdrew their family’s savings that Friday, too, she and Harold said. Like thousands of Canadians, they had donated to the convoy. Yet Ristau was the only one of the four plaintiffs in his lawsuit whose accounts were not frozen. He thinks it’s because of his military record.

“Some of the measures that were at least attempted to be invoked are the kind of measures you find to freeze terrorist financing,” Moore noted. “So peaceful protesters were the equivalent of terrorists and the government leaned on banks in the guise of a national emergency to freeze their bank accounts.”

Leftist activists also filed a class-action lawsuit against every Canadian who donated to the convoy. It seeks $300 million in damages. When before the convoy Canada experienced multiple race protests that included violence against stores and police, no class action was filed.

Christians Assisting Government Persecution

Canadian lockdowns kept gyms, restaurants, and liquor stores open but closed churches. Leftist protesters were allowed to yell and sing without masks, and the prime minister kneeled to them, all while provinces banned Christians from singing and chanting in church for years.

Rev. Johannes Nieminen wasn’t allowed to cross provincial borders to perform his pastoral duties, while other Canadians could do so for work, he told The Federalist. After he was denied border entry several times, he said, police finally let him through — but told him he wasn’t allowed to meet with parishioners or hold church services.

“If I’m going to go to the grocery store for physical food, I’m going to the church for spiritual food. If I’m going to the doctor’s office for physical medicine, I’m going to church for the medicine of immortality,” Nieminen said. His denomination believes Jesus Christ’s body and blood are physically present in the wine and bread of communion, and that Christians are commanded to physically eat these — impossible without gathering in person.

Until moving to pastor in New Mexico this summer, Nieminen was clergy in the same denomination as Ristau, the Lutheran Church Canada. He said lockdowns sharply divided many churches, and even though most Covid measures are now lifted, church leaders have largely failed to seek reconciliation and repentance, as commanded in the Bible.

“We need to repent. There’s been crazy division here, and we need to actually talk about it,” he said.

State-Run Western Churches

Nieminen said pastors who obeyed the government to treat churches worse than liquor stores and gyms taught lay people church is non-essential or can be conducted online. The Bible commands keeping a day of worship, meeting in person, singing hymns and psalms, and physically receiving the bread and wine of communion. Christians have done all these every week since the time of Christ.

Communion is a “sacrament,” an action God commands that produces faith and eternal salvation. Only pastors can deliver it, a tradition going back to Christ’s commissioning of His apostles. In all the great pandemics of history, priests and pastors knowingly braved death to bring the sacrament to the dying desperate for the peace and unity with God it promises.

Nieminen said he saw Canadian Christians publicly plead for the sacrament amid lockdowns that nearly lasted three years. They received no response from their pastors, who told Nieminen the pleading parishioners didn’t use the “proper channels.”

“There’s that lack of trust in pastors and a church that they see as giving up on them and basically persecuting them,” Nieminen said. “…They’re being coerced by tyrants to do something against their conscience, and then they go to church and then they’re hearing the same thing from the church.”

Within days of him praying at the protest, says Harold Ristau’s sworn affidavit, fellow clergy began refusing to let him preach and to take communion with him. Some checked with superiors on whether to commune him. Refusing communion to a church member is tantamount to excommunication.

Praying at the protest “demonstrated I was this political insurrectionist” to some clergy whose beliefs about Covid were shaped by state-funded, anti-Christian media, Harold Ristau said: “Prior to Covid, everyone recognized the media were a bunch of liars who hated Christians, but with Covid suddenly we trust them entirely.”

A Political Decision, Not a Health Decision

So far, “none of the [legal] challenges to worship restrictions on church services have succeeded” in Canada, said John Sikkema, a lawyer at the nonprofit firm ARPA Canada.

“Culturally, people find going to the gym very important and less so going to church,” Sikkema noted. “Especially when some churches don’t seem to care and don’t think it’s necessary.”

To secular authorities, keeping the economy going easily trumps the church’s work of caring for human souls, Sikkema noted. That’s why they opened restaurants while restricting churches despite similar health risks: “That’s not really a health decision, it’s a political decision about what’s important to the health of your society.”

Police regularly showed up at churches on Sunday mornings and fined pastors whose parking lots had too many cars, he said. ARPA Canada and JCCF litigated a number of those cases and were often able to get pastors’ fines negotiated down to charitable donations.

Most churches that capitulated to government discrimination against Christians were already declining before lockdowns, and disproportionate percentages of their members didn’t go back to church afterward. Churches that kept to historic orthodoxy, on the other hand, tend to have recovered better from post-lockdown membership losses and many have even grown, Nieminen and Sikkema noted.

Religious Freedom Better in Africa

The difficulty of raising their children in rapidly apostatizing Western culture also affected the Ristaus’ decision to move across the globe.

“Things are normal here, people have traditional values,” Elise Ristau said of Kenya. “It’s inconceivable to think of transgender mutilation. As a mother and father, we do our very best to keep our kids Christian.”

In Canada, Christians are often required to lie or betray their faith to access government grants and licensing credentials, and avoid punishment in many professions, Sikkema said. Many Canadian doctors, lawyers, and teachers, for example, are required to endorse abortion and LGBT sexual acts. Canadian doctors and many other health care workers must help patients obtain an abortion or doctor-assisted suicide.

In 2018, Canada’s Supreme Court banned a Christian law school from opening over Christian sexual standards. The Canadian military is also working to eject chaplains over Christian sexual ethics. Just about every Canadian business sports a government-provided pride flag, Nieminen said. Churches that object to transgender mutilation of children have faced naked protesters as families arrive to worship, Sikkema said.

“Canadians are very aware that we don’t have freedom of religion, we don’t have freedom of speech, we don’t have the right to assemble if that’s in disagreement with the regime,” Nieminen said. “Pastors and teachers cannot speak about the morality of human sexuality. That is a reality Canadians live in, and I think that’s partly why they’re afraid to speak out.”

Christians Welcome in Kenya

The Ristaus had been invited to their current post before lockdowns, but Elise hadn’t wanted to uproot after moving the family so many times for Harold’s military career. They had bought land in Canada for their dream home and planted more than 1,000 trees on it.

“I had dreamed of this perfect life for myself in Canada,” Elise said. But then “there was a kind of turning point where I said, ‘We can go. Nothing is holding us here.’ It was a ‘shake the dust off our boots’ moment.”

From Toronto to Nairobi is approximately 7,500 miles. Flying commercially between the two takes 16 hours or more.

“In Kenya, I know it’s poor, and there’s corruption, but we’re not getting arrested for praying silently outside abortion clinics,” Elise said. “For a Christian in Canada, it’s pretty bleak.”

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her latest ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her several books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.

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Political, Religion, Spiritual

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FBI Told Delaware U.S. Attorney It Had Already Partially Corroborated Biden Bribery Claims, Source Says


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 24, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/24/fbi-told-delaware-u-s-attorney-it-had-already-partially-corroborated-biden-bribery-claims-source-says/

Joe Biden in aviators

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When the Pittsburgh FBI office briefed the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office on evidence implicating Hunter and Joe Biden in a bribery scheme, the agents also told the Delaware team they had already corroborated several aspects of the confidential human source’s claims, an individual familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. 

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released the FD-1023 summary of a confidential human source’s reporting that the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes so the then-Vice President would “protect” Burisma “from all kinds of problems.” Those bribes were in addition to the more than $4 million in total paid to Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer for sitting on Burisma’s board of directors. 

The Federalist has now learned that the Pittsburgh FBI office had corroborated several details contained in the FD-1023 as part of the intake process that former Attorney General William Barr established before the election under the leadership of the Western District of Pennsylvania’s then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady. Significantly, in briefing the Delaware U.S. attorney on the results of their office’s screening of evidence related to Ukraine, the Pittsburgh FBI agents told the Delaware office they had corroborated multiple facts included in the FD-1023, an individual with knowledge of the briefing told The Federalist.

Following the late June 2020 interview with the CHS, the Pittsburgh FBI office obtained travel records for the CHS, and those records confirmed the CHS had traveled to the locales detailed in the FD-1023 during the relevant time period. The trips included a late 2015 or early 2016 visit to Kiev, Ukraine; a trip a couple of months later to Vienna, Austria; and travel to London in 2019. 

As The Federalist previously reported, during their briefing of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, the Pittsburgh FBI agents said the FD-1023 bore indicia of credibility and that it merited further investigation. The person familiar with that briefing now confirms the agents also informed the Delaware office that the Pittsburgh FBI had corroborated the CHS’s presence in the various cities at the times claimed.

The Federalist has also learned that the CHS’s handler corroborated the CHS’s claim that he had met with Oleksandr Ostapenko. According to the source with knowledge of the matter, the CHS’s handler told Pittsburgh’s FBI agents that the CHS told his handler he had an upcoming meeting with Ostapenko. The CHS’s contemporaneous claim of the planned rendezvous with Ostapenko tracked the timing of one of the visits the CHS claimed in the FD-1023 to have had with Ostapenko. Significantly, the Pittsburgh office briefed the Delaware office on that piece of corroborating evidence that came from the CHS’s handler.

Open-source reporting of Burisma’s purchase of an interest in a North American oil and gas company likewise lined up with the discussions the CHS relayed to the FBI, as summarized in the FD-1023, the individual familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. That the Pittsburgh FBI office not only provided the Delaware office with a summary of the damning FD-1023 and its conclusion that it bore indicia of credibility but also identified several pieces of corroborating evidence is huge because, to date, it appears the Delaware office did nothing to investigate the allegations contained in the FD-1023. 

As Barr previously made clear, the role of the Pittsburgh office was limited to providing a “clearing-house function” for information related to Ukraine to weed out “any potential disinformation.” The purpose of the intake process, Barr stressed, was to “check[] out the source and credibility of evidence before assigning it to one of the ongoing investigations already pending in the Department,” such as the Delaware investigation into Hunter Biden. As such, the Pittsburgh office lacked the authority to subpoena witnesses or records or to use grand jury proceedings to further corroborate the FD-1023. That responsibility fell with the Delaware office.

But not only did the Delaware office apparently ignore the allegations contained in the FD-1023, as well as the corroborating evidence already allegedly accumulated by the Pittsburgh FBI office, but U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s office allegedly secreted the very existence of the FD-1023 from the whistleblowers. Both IRS whistleblowers testified last week that they did not even learn of the existence of the FD-1023 until Barr publicly confirmed he had sent the information to Delaware for further investigation. 

Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf also excluded the IRS agents working the Hunter Biden investigation from the meeting at which the Pittsburgh FBI agents briefed the office on the FD-1023 and the corroborating evidence they had already uncovered. The IRS whistleblowers further testified that portions of Hunter Biden’s laptop were withheld from them and they were explicitly prohibited from taking any investigative steps connected to Joe Biden — or questioning anyone by using Joe Biden’s name, “Dad,” or “the Big Guy.”

Under these circumstances, even if the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office comes forward now to say it did investigate the FD-1023, its belated claim would be meaningless because the individuals with the knowledge and skill necessary to investigate a complex, international money laundering, bribery, and tax fraud scheme were cut out of the process and barred from interviewing the necessary witnesses. 

The Delaware office remains mum, however, not even pretending to have investigated the FD-1023’s allegations. That failure is even more scandalous now that we know Pittsburgh had already corroborated several aspects of the CHS’s reporting and briefed Weiss’s office on the corroborating evidence. 

Yet the Biden White House continues to falsely claim the FD-1023 charges “have been debunked for years.” On the contrary, the only thing debunked to date has been the lies of Biden’s Democrat apologists, such as Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Jamie Raskin, who doubled down on his claim that Barr had found the FD-1023 not credible and not meriting further investigation.

Americans now know not only that Raskin and his Democrat colleagues lied, but that President Joe Biden lied — both when he said he knew nothing of his son’s business ventures and in claiming now that the FD-1023 has been debunked.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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corruption, Political

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Hunter Biden’s friend to tell Congress then-VP Joe joined dozens of son’s business meetings via phone: report


By Lawrence Richard | Fox News | Published July 24, 2023 12:45pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-bidens-friend-tell-congress-then-vp-joe-joined-dozens-sons-business-meetings-phone-report

Devon Archer, a former best friend and business associate of Hunter Biden in Ukraine, is expected to testify under oath to Congress this week that President Biden met with dozens of Hunter’s business associates while he was serving as vice president between 2009 and 2017.

Fox News Digital has confirmed that Archer has been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and could testify as early as Thursday, July 27. The expected testimony could cast further doubt on President Biden’s repeated claims that he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign business dealings or of having any influence on them.

Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, reported Monday that Archer, 48, is expected to tell the House Oversight Committee about meetings he witnessed attended by both Bidens — Hunter and Joe — either in person or via telephone. During the meetings, Hunter would specifically introduce his father to foreign business partners or prospective investors, Archer is expected to testify.

The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Archer to speak as House Republicans continue to investigate whether the Bidens used the influence then-Vice President Biden had in the White House to elicit these deals and other alleged Biden family corruption. The committee told Fox News it believes the president communicated in some form with Hunter Biden’s business associates. 

TIMELINE OF BIDEN ADVISER’S COMMUNICATIONS WITH HUNTER, MEETINGS WITH VP ABOUT BURISMA RAISES QUESTIONS

Hunter Biden gets off plane with president
President Biden has snapped at reporters who have asked him about alleged corruption involving him and his son, Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“We are looking forward very much to hearing from Devon Archer about all the times he has witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s overseas business partners when he was vice president, including on speakerphone,” the committee said in a statement.

The committee invited Archer to testify as he was sentenced last year to one year in prison for his role in a $60 million bond fraud involving various clients. At least three previously planned dispositions were canceled by Archer for personal reasons.

“Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings,” committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement on Monday. “Evidence continues to be revealed that Joe Biden was very much involved in his family’s corrupt influence peddling schemes and he likely benefited financially. This includes deals with a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch and a CCP-linked energy company that generated millions for the Bidens and undermined American interests.”

Comer added, “It certainly appears that Joe Biden and his family put themselves first and Americans last, but corporate media and the Justice Department continue to cover up for the Bidens. The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the facts to provide the transparency and accountability that the American people demand and deserve. We look forward to speaking soon with Devon Archer about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business affairs.”

Devine, also the author of “Laptop from Hell,” reported Archer is expected to testify on specific examples of the elder Biden getting involved in his son’s business deals, including an evening meeting in Dubai on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, which ultimately saw Hunter Biden meeting with Ukrainian energy company Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and calling his dad during their conversation. At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter $83,000 a month to serve as a director, Devine reported.

GOP RIPS HUNTER’S ‘SWEETHEART’ PLEA DEAL ON TAX AND GUN CRIMES, ZERO IN ON JOE BIDEN

According to Devine, Archer, who was also a director, is expected to testify that the call between Joe, Hunter and Hunter’s business partners came after he and Hunter had dinner with the Burisma board at the Burj Al Arab Hotel. Archer and Hunter reportedly left the meeting and traveled to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach when Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive, called them and said Zlochevsky needed to urgently speak with Hunter. The two Ukrainians then reportedly joined Hunter and Archer at the Four Seasons, where Pozharskyi specifically asked Hunter, “Can you ring your dad?”

According to Devine, Archer is expected to testify that Hunter called his father, who was in Washington, D.C., at the time, and introduced the Ukrainians by their first names. Then the younger Biden emphasized that the Burisma executives “need our support.” Then-Vice President Biden acknowledged the Ukrainians, as he did in other calls with Hunter’s business partners, but kept the conversation brief, Archer is expected to testify.

Joe Biden
President Biden gives remarks on AI in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on July 21, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Devine reported that committee members are likely to ask Archer about the context surrounding that meeting as three days after that conversation, on Dec. 9, 2015, then-Vice President Biden, who was former President Obama’s point man for Ukrainian issues, flew to Kyiv to address the Ukrainian parliament. At the time, Zlochevsky was being investigated by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin for corruption and, just two months later, Shokin seized four of Zlochevsky’s houses in Kyiv, two plots of land and a Rolls-Royce, Devine reported.

A month after the seizure, then-Vice President Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired. Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promptly fired Shokin.

OBAMA-ERA EMAILS REVEAL HUNTER’S EXTENSIVE TIES TO NEARLY A DOZEN SENIOR-LEVEL BIDEN ADMIN AIDES

Biden later bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations during an event in January 2018, saying, “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, he got fired.”

Members of the House Oversight Committee are expected to ask Archer about the timing of the firing as Shokin was also investigating Burisma at the time.

The New York Post previously reported an email sent on Nov. 2, 2015 that shows Pozharskyi was ratcheting up pressure on Hunter and Archer to use their influence to “close down” Shokin’s investigation into Burisma.

President Biden has repeatedly defended the firing as pointing back to Poroshenko, who said Shokin was corrupt and was slow walking efforts to clear corruption in the prosecutor’s office. Biden and the U.S. were also not the only entities advocating for Shokin to be removed. According to a Congressional Research Service report published in Jan. 2017, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde threatened to withhold $40 billion unless Ukraine undertook “a substantial new effort” to clear corruption in the government. The CRS report said Shokin submitted his resignation in February 2016 and was subsequently removed.

Viktor Shokin
Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma before he resigned in Feb. 2016. (GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)

However, Just last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released an FBI document describing an allegation that Zlochevsky told an FBI informant he paid a $10 million bribe to Joe and Hunter Biden in 2016 “to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.” The FBI document, known as an FD-1023, shows Zlochevsky calling Joe Biden “the big guy.” Archer is expected to testify the “big guy” was a title other people in Biden’s circle used to refer to the elder Biden.

According to Devine, Hunter Biden’s former business partner in Los Angeles, Tony Bobulinski, also met with Hunter and Joe. In an email sent to Hunter, Bobulinski refers to then-Vice President Biden as “the big guy.”

Archer also is expected to tell the committee about other instances — as many as two dozen times in Archer’s presence — where Hunter called his father and put him on speaker to impress prospective investors, Devine reported.

REPUBLICAN CALLS TO IMPEACH BIDEN GROW FOLLOWING RELEASE OF FBI DOCUMENT DETAILING BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS

His testimony is expected to include information about dinners Hunter organized, so his father could meet his foreign business partners, Devine wrote. A Fox News Digital review found that Biden personally met with several of Hunter’s business associates from the U.S., Mexico, Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan over the course of his vice presidency. Joe Biden met with two of Hunter’s since-dissolved investment fund partners, former Colombia President Andrés Pastrana Arango and Eric Schwerin, at the Naval Observatory — the official residence of the vice president — on March 2, 2012, the New York Post reported.

Biden, Poroshenko
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, hosted then-Vice President Joe Biden for official talks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 16, 2017. (Vitaliy Holovin/Corbis via Getty images)

According to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital, the elder Biden also met with two of Hunter’s Mexican business associates, Miguel Aleman Velasco and Miguel Aleman Magnani, when they visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014. Joe and Hunter Biden also gave Velasco and Magnani a tour of the White House Brady Press Briefing room.

Emails reviewed by Fox News Digital, also showed Hunter arranged a video conference with his father and Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire with whom Hunter was seeking to do business with at the time, on Oct. 30, 2015.

Joe, Hunter, and Hunter’s business partner Jeff Cooper hosted another meeting at the Naval Observatory, located at Number One Observatory Circle in Washington D.C., for Slim, Velasco and Magnani on Nov. 19, 2015. At the time, Hunter and Cooper were interested in investing in a Mexican energy company with the business executives, the Daily Mail reported.

SEAN HANNITY: THIS IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST ABUSE OF POWER SCANDAL IN MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY

In February 2016, Hunter and Cooper flew on Air Force 2 to Mexico City, where Hunter wrote an email to Magnani that he would be personally attending a meeting between Joe and then-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. In the same email, Hunter said Magnani had not spoken to him “for months” despite Hunter delivering “on every single thing you’ve ever asked,” which included bringing guests to meet his father.

“I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent,” Hunter wrote in the email. “I don’t know what it is that I did but I’d like to know why I’ve delivered on every single thing you’ve ever asked – and you make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.”

Hunter, Joe Biden
Hunter Biden’s business associates thanked him for introducing them to his father Vice President Joe Biden in emails found on the younger Biden’s laptop. (Kris Connor/WireImage)

Joe Biden also attended a dinner with Hunter’s business associates from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia at the Georgetown restaurant Café Milano in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2015, emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show. One such email from Hunter to Archer shared a guest list for the dinner, which included Burisma’s Pozharskyi, late Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his wife, Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, who was in business with Hunter’s Rosemont firm. It is not clear if these individuals ultimately attended the dinner.

The day after the 2015 meeting, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter thanking him for introducing him to his father.

Devine reported that Archer is expected to answer questions from the committee about these Café Milano meetings.

A close associate of Archer’s said he believes it is his “civic duty” to testify before the committee, Devine reported.

According to Devine, the associate said Archer has “nothing to hide, no revenge to enact nor anyone to protect other than his family and he feels he has been handcuffed by the absurdly bogus [fraud] case into remaining silent. In a forum where he has immunity he can at least start to speak truth.”

Fox News’ Gillian Turner, Chad Pergram and Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report. 

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Texas Gov. Abbott to Biden: ‘See You in Court’


By Nicole Wells    |   Monday, 24 July 2023 02:12 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/greg-abbott-joe-biden-texas/2023/07/24/id/1128285/

Defying a request from the Department of Justice, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told President Joe Biden on Monday that he will not be ordering the removal of floating barriers from the Rio Grande River.

“To end the risk that migrants will be harmed crossing the border illegally, you must fully enforce the laws of the United States that prohibit illegal immigration between ports of entry,” Abbott wrote in a letter to Biden after the Justice Department requested last week that he remove the barriers. “In the meantime, Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused.”

“Texas will see you in court, Mr. President,” he added.

On Thursday, the DOJ said it plans to file a lawsuit against Texas for the placement of the floating barriers in the Rio Grande, according to a letter obtained by CNN and sources familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet. According to the letter sent to Abbott, the Justice Department set a deadline of 2 p.m. ET on Monday for Texas to commit to removing the floating barriers before legal action would be taken.

Addressing Biden, the Republican governor said he had “asserted Texas’ sovereign interest” in protecting the state’s borders with the marine barriers in his “role as the commander-in-chief of our State’s militia under Article IV, § 7 of the Texas Constitution.”

In response, the White House decried Abbott’s actions as “dangerous and unlawful.”

“Gov. Abbott’s dangerous and unlawful actions are undermining that effective plan and making it hard for the men and women of Border Patrol to do their jobs of securing the border,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan told CNN. “The governor’s actions are cruel and putting both migrants and border agents in danger.‘

“If Gov. Abbott truly wanted to drive toward real solutions, he’d be asking his Republican colleagues in Congress, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, why they voted against President Biden’s request for record funding for the Department of Homeland Security and why they’re blocking comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures to finally fix our broken immigration system,” he said.

The DOJ’s threat of legal action is based on a clause in the Rivers and Harbors Act that “prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States, and further prohibits building any structure in such waters without authorization from the United States Army Corps of Engineers.”

Texas is already facing a lawsuit brought by the owner of a Texas canoe and kayaking company. That suit was filed the same day that Texas began deploying buoys for the floating barrier. It lists the state of Texas and Abbott, as well as the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety, according to CNN.

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‘NEVER WHAT FOUNDERS INTENDED’: Supreme Court Should Strike Down Chevron Deference, Conservatives Say


By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / July 24, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/24/exclusive-conservatives-urge-supreme-court-tie-hands-unelected-bureaucrats-fleecing-fishermen/

A bearded man holds a lobster on a fishing vessel
Eleven conservative groups filed an amicus brief supporting fishermen who are challenging Chevron deference in a Supreme Court case. Pictured: Joe Dean, an Iraq war combat veteran, works on his family’s lobster boat on Aug. 7, 2021, outside the fishing village of Stonington, Conn. (Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images)

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A conservative nonprofit launched by former Vice President Mike Pence is representing 11 conservative groups in supporting fishermen challenging the extensive power of the federal bureaucracy.

Advancing American Freedom, which plays no role in Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which the court will revisit the longstanding precedent of Chevron deference. The group exclusively gave The Daily Signal a copy of the brief.

In Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council (1984), the Supreme Court held that whenever a law is ambiguous, a federal agency has the authority to interpret the scope and content of that ambiguity to achieve its ends, so long as the interpretation is “reasonable.” This precedent granted executive agencies tremendous power to effectively rewrite the law, critics like Advancing American Freedom claim.

“The Left has used Chevron Deference to grow the administrative state and circumvent the approval of Congress to push their own agenda,” J. Marc Wheat, Advancing American Freedom’s general counsel, told The Daily Signal. “This is never what the Founders intended; unelected bureaucrats at various agencies do not have the power to legislate and we hope that the Supreme Court checks the Chevron Deference once and for all.”

In Loper Bright, fishermen are challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service—represented by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Federal law forces fishermen to carry inspectors aboard their vessels. A new Fisheries Service rule forces the fishermen to pay the salaries of these federal inspectors. The federal law requiring the inspections does not stipulate that fishermen must pay inspectors’ salaries, but the Fisheries Service insists that it has the power to demand payment under Chevron.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the Fisheries Service in August 2022, noting that the statute leaves “room for agency discretion.” Yet Judge Justin Walker dissented.

“Did Congress authorize the National Marine Fisheries Service to make herring fishermen in the Atlantic pay the wages of federal monitors who inspect them at sea?” he asks in his dissent. “Congress unambiguously did not.”

“Fishing is a hard way to earn a living,” he notes. While “Congress can make profitable fishing even harder by forcing fishermen to spend a fifth of their revenue on the wages of federal monitors embedded by regulation onto their ships,” it has not done so. “Until Congress does that, the Fisheries Service cannot.”

Advancing American Freedom filed the amicus brief on Monday, representing itself and ten other conservative organizations. Eagle Forum, the National Center for Public Policy Research, Project 21 Black Leadership Network, Students for Life of America, and Young America’s Foundation joined the brief. The brief begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence, noting that the Founders faulted King George III for erecting “New Offices… to harass” them “and eat out their substance.”

“Here, a New England fishing business is threatened with insolvency because a Federal agency seeks to swarm the industry with bureaucrats to consume the proceeds of some 20% of the daily catch,” the petitioners write. “Bureaucracies that have grown smug and fat through Chevron deference should reacquaint themselves with their country’s history.”

“This case presents the question of Chevron deference dead on without any need to tack, offering an excellent opportunity to abandon this sinking ship and to offer lower courts a more seaworthy vessel for judicial review,” the petitioners write.

Conservative Supreme Court justices have criticized Chevron deference in recent years. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurrence in Michigan v. EPA (2015) that Chevron “wrests from Courts the ultimate interpretative authority ‘to say what the law is,’ and hands it over to” the executive branch. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote last fall that the court should acknowledge “that Chevron did not undo, and could not have undone, the judicial duty to provide an independent judgment of the law’s meaning.”

Federal agencies have used Chevron deference to justify many controversial policies.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, President Joe Biden directed his administration to “protect and expand access to abortion care.” Following the prompting of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance claiming to find an abortion mandate in a law that had never been interpreted as mandating abortion.

The federal agency interpreted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires health care providers to provide “stabilizing treatment” in certain circumstances, as mandating abortion. If a health care provider determines that abortion is necessary to protect the mother’s life, he or she must either perform the abortion or refer the woman to a medical facility that would perform it, regardless of the relevant state law.

Advancing American Freedom, representing 25 other conservative and pro-life groups, filed an amicus brief challenging this interpretation of the law. The brief argues that this interpretation “would expand the meaning of the 1986 statute to include abortions as a form of treatment and would illegally overwrite legitimate state laws designed to protect women and the unborn.”

As in Loper Bright, Advancing American Freedom urges the Supreme Court to overturn Chevron.

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Tyler O’Neil @Tyler2ONeil

Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

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SUMMING UP THE WEEK OF JULY 21, 2023


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Top Democrat Jeffries Refuses to Defend Right of Congress to Pass Laws After Environmental Activists Take Other Side


BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | JULY 21, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/21/top-democrat-jeffries-refuses-to-defend-right-of-congress-to-pass-laws-after-environmental-activists-take-other-side/

Hakeem Jeffries

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The top two Democrats in the House of Representatives quietly voted last week against defending the right of Congress to pass laws. The sanctity of democracy and Congress itself has been a major political talking point for Democrat leaders in recent years. But the vote showed the difficulty Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats have standing up to the intense pressure they face from left-wing billionaires and the environmental activist groups they run.

The vote dealt with litigation from left-wing environmental groups trying to stop provisions in the recently passed Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which raised the debt limit. That bill, signed into law on June 5, 2023, contained provisions to ensure the completion of a 303-mile pipeline from natural gas fields in West Virginia to an existing pipeline in Southwest Virginia. Left-wing environmental groups funded by major Democrat donors and a foreign oligarch who finances much of the left’s “dark money” behemoth have fought the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years. While most of the pipeline has been constructed, the FRA directed expedited approval of the remaining permits, removal from any court the jurisdiction to review agency actions, and directing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to oversee any claims challenging the pipeline.

Both Jeffries and Democrat Whip Katherine Clark voted for the legislation. Jeffries publicly stated he did so “without hesitation, reservation, or trepidation.” President Biden, the top Democrat in the country, signed it into law. His Department of Justice began implementing the law. But when the time came to defend both that legislation and the very right of Congress to pass laws, Jeffries and Clark refused.

The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), comprising the Speaker of the House and the leader and whip of each party, “speaks for, and articulates the institutional position of, the House in all litigation matters,” according to House rules. While it has at times been used in a partisan matter, most notably and aggressively under former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it also routinely sees unanimous votes on key issues about the rights and powers of Congress.

Earlier this year, for example, all five members voted to intervene in an ongoing legal battle between the Department of Justice and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., over the department’s aggressive efforts to access the conservative member’s phone.

The vote last week was divided on party lines, even though it dealt with an issue that the BLAG had previously worked on twice before and involved a law that both Democrat members had voted for only weeks prior.

Back Story

Blocking an energy pipeline in the region has been a top priority of left-wing activist groups for years. They had successfully asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to block and delay permits and approvals for the pipeline.

Once the debt limit bill passed, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss those cases. It argued that the bill had mooted the controversy by explicitly ratifying and approving all necessary permits and by changing the law governing the pipeline in such a way that it rendered meritless the claims put forth by the environmentalist groups.

The Wilderness Society and an array of other left-wing environmentalist groups opposed what the DOJ was doing and asked the Fourth Circuit to issue a stay. Left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss “has been a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats,” according to an analysis from The New York Times. He serves on the board of governors of the Wilderness Society. That group argued the bill violated the separation of powers and that the Fourth Circuit remained the right court to hear their objections to the previous legislation. Without explaining its reasoning, a trio of judges on the Fourth Circuit that had previously ruled in favor of the environmental groups’ petitions issued a stay.

The pipeline company filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court to vacate the stays and have the Fourth Circuit dismiss the claims so the pipeline could be completed as directed by June’s legislation.

That’s why the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted on an amicus brief backing Congress’ own legislation and the right of Congress to pass legislation.

The amicus brief argues that the Fourth Circuit stays are at odds with Congress’s declaration that “the timely completion” of the pipeline “is required in the national interest.” It also notes that the House has twice prior defended the power of Congress to enact changes in law that affect the outcome of pending court cases, and the court upheld the constitutionality of doing so both times. Finally, it argues that the stays are erroneous; that nothing precludes Congress from changing laws simply because they end legal challenges to agency actions.

Jeffries and Clark are refusing to defend Congress, but their vote aligns them with the billionaire environmentalists. It does put them at odds with at least one Democrat lawmaker and the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the country’s “most progressive” union of construction workers.

“The jobs at stake are the exact type of jobs – blue collar jobs for skilled workers that provide good wages, health coverage, retirement security, and funding for training of current workers and new entrants to the industry – that are so badly needed in today’s economy,” the union wrote in its brief.

When Clark whipped for the bill she now refuses to defend, she praised Biden for “standing with our veterans, seniors, and working families” during the negotiations.

Neither Jeffries nor Clark responded to The Federalist’s request for comment.

Tristan Justice contributed to this reporting.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com

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DOJ to sue Texas over floating border barrier; Abbott says ‘see you in court’


Construction of the barrier in the Rio Grande began this month

Adam Shaw

By Adam Shaw | Fox News | Published July 21, 2023 2:53pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-sue-texas-floating-border-barrier-abbott-says-see-you-in-court

The Department of Justice says it intends to sue Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the use of a floating buoy border barrier to stop illegal immigration into the state — a move that immediately drew a fiery response from the Republican governor.

“The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the DOJ said in a letter to Abbott, first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

Abbott announced the barrier, consisting of orange buoys and intended to discourage migrants from crossing the Rio Grande, in June and began installing it this month. It is part of Operation Lone Star, a multifaceted operation to tackle the border crisis amid what Republicans say is a vacuum of leadership from the federal government.

MEXICO’S AMLO INTENSIFIES ANTI-GOP MEDDLING WITH NEW ATTACK ON TEXAS GOV ABBOTT

But the move had angered Mexico and the U.S. federal government, as well as immigration activists, who had said the move to defend Texas’ sovereignty was illegal and inhumane.

Texas officials had said that the latest plan will discourage people from attempting to cross the treacherous river. It is expected to take about two weeks to set up the buoys.

“Anytime they get in that water, it’s a risk to the migrants. This is the deterrent from even coming in the water,” Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw said last month.

But the DOJ also cited humanitarian concerns in opposing it, as well as other risks.

Texas floating border barrier
Migrants approach the site where workers are assembling large buoys used as a border barrier along the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP/Eric Gay)

“This floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns,” the DOJ letter said, according to the Chronicle. “Thus, we intend to seek appropriate legal remedies, which may include seeking injunctive relief requiring the removal of obstructions or other structures in the Rio Grande River.”

The letter sets a July 24 deadline for a response from Abbott.

ABBOTT MOVES AHEAD WITH FLOATING BORDER BARRIERS ON RIO GRANDE DESPITE LIBERAL OUTRAGE

Abbott responded on Twitter to the letter, saying that Texas “has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution. We have sent the Biden Administration numerous letters detailing our authority, including the one I hand-delivered to President Biden earlier this year.”

Abbott has feuded with the Biden administration repeatedly about the border, with the administration accusing him of inhumane actions and with Abbott accusing the administration of exacerbating the migrant crisis.

“The tragic humanitarian crisis on the border was created because of Biden’s refusal to secure the border. His open border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives crossing illegally through the Rio Grande, instead of safely and legally over a bridge,” Abbott said Friday.

OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SAY BORDER IS IN CRISIS OR ‘MAJOR PROBLEM’: POLL

“Texas is stepping up to address this crisis. We will continue to deploy every strategy to protect Texans and Americans — and the migrants risking their lives,” he said. “We will see you in court, Mr. President.”

The administration has slammed Abbott’s unilateral efforts to tackle the border crisis now into its third year. Abbott has restarted border wall construction, set up razor wire and has bussed migrants to “sanctuary” cities like Washington, D.C., and New York City. 

Video

An administration official told Fox on Friday that Abbott is endangering the lives of migrants and agents with his actions — pointing to reports of drownings and broken limbs, as well as injuries from razor wire.

“The Governor’s actions are preventing Border Patrol agents from accessing the river, patrolling the area, and arresting individuals who attempt to enter the country unlawfully,” the official said. “They are forcing agents to cut through multiple layers of concertina wire when responding to medical emergencies.”

The official also pointed to June’s border numbers, which show a sharp drop in encounters at the border overall to numbers not seen since February 2021. 

“Gov. Abbott is undermining the President’s effective border enforcement plan, which has brought unlawful border crossings down to the lowest levels in over two years,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the border barrier also brought rebuke from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Mexico has issued a complaint over the barrier, and Lopez Obrador used the barriers to meddle in U.S. elections and tell Hispanics not to vote for Abbott or Republicans who support stronger border measures.

“We don’t have to do much, just tell our compatriots not to vote for the governor of Texas or for lawmakers of the Republican Party who support these measures,” he said.

Tell Compatriots not to vote for Republicans??????? They’re not suppose to vote AT ALL! So, let me get this straight. The President of Mexico is instructing his own people to not only enter our country illegally, but also to VOTE? What’s wrong with this picture?

Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.

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Andrew McCarthy Op-ed: IRS whistleblowers reveal who’s really to blame for shocking Biden corruption


Biden corruption case relies on veteran IRS agents whose testimony holds up against Hill Democrats

Andrew McCarthy

 Andrew McCarthy | Fox News | Published July 21, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/irs-whistleblowers-reveal-whos-blame-shocking-biden-corruption

In Wednesday’s marathon House hearing, Oversight Committee Democrats ran into a buzzsaw: two IRS whistleblower agents — Gary Shapley, the supervisor on the investigation who went public a few weeks ago, and Joseph Ziegler, the lead investigator on the case, who was publicly identified for the first time at the hearing. 

In gory detail, the agents outlined how President Biden’s Justice Department quashed the Biden corruption investigation from within while publicly pretending that it was being conducted with independence and integrity.  

When committee Democrats tried to poke holes in the testimony, they ended up on the receiving end of what they hadn’t bargained for: fusillades of fact — damning data about the millions raked in by the president’s son and family members from apparatchiks of corrupt and anti-American regimes. 

WHITE HOUSE MOCKS HUNTER BIDEN HEARINGS AS ‘WASTE OF TIME,’ SPARS WITH HOUSE GOP ON TWITTER

The agents’ stellar performance did not surprise anyone who has ever participated in a criminal tax investigation. In nearly 20 years as a prosecutor, I was — as the lawyer on my cases — better versed in the criminal law applicable to, say, racketeering, international terrorism, money-laundering, admissibility of evidence, and standards of proof, than the agents from the FBI and other agencies with whom I worked, a sizable majority of whom were non-lawyers. Tax enforcement was an exception.  

IRS whistleblowers Congress
Supervisory IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley, left, and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler are sworn in as they testify during a House Oversight Committee hearing related to the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The tax code is an esoteric area of the law. Experienced investigators know a lot more about it than most prosecutors — I learned a lot more from my IRS agents than they learned from me. In fact, tax enforcement is sufficiently abstruse that prosecutors from around the country need approval from the Justice Department’s Tax Division in Washington to file charges. In almost all other cases, they may indict without main Justice’s supervision. 

In this very specialized area, it turns out that the very best tax-enforcement agents were assigned to the Biden case. Shapley and Ziegler have combined decades of education and experience in tax law and financial bookkeeping practices.  They have been involved in some of the most significant tax investigations, including international schemes, ever conducted in the U.S. They held critical positions and were trusted to run big cases because they knew their stuff. And because they’ve been investigators for such a long time, they know how to testify — how not to get intimidated (especially when you know much more than the people asking the questions do) and how not to accept the premise of questions loaded with inaccuracies and misimpressions. 

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It showed. The ranking Democrat on the panel, and thus the first in the minority to ask questions was Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, a tireless progressive partisan and former law professor who never tires of posing as a legal titan. But his questions were rife with disinformation and the witnesses called him on it.  

He began, for example, trying to make the point that prosecutors and agents often disagree on whether felony charges ought to be brought. Rather than simply accept that proposition, which is true, Shapley explained why it is irrelevant — in this instance, the case agents and line prosecutors agreed that felony charges were appropriate; it was higher-ups in the Justice Department who slammed the brakes on the case. 

On this point, it is vital that committee Republicans keep their eye on the ball.  

Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, who besides being on yesterday’s panel is chairman of the Judiciary Committee with oversight over DOJ, took pains at the hearing to point out that, while the whistleblowers have been completely consistent, Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss has repeatedly changed his story. 

Joe Ziegler
Joe Ziegler, Internal Revenue Service Whistleblower X, testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

The agents stress that they were being ordered by prosecutors not to follow leads that could have garnered evidence against Joe Biden. Despite all the obstacles, they managed to make a strong case against Hunter Biden, but they couldn’t get it charged because Weiss told them he was not the ultimate decisionmaker — he was being stymied by the Biden Justice Department. But Attorney General Merrick Garland has publicly claimed that Weiss was in charge and was assured that he would have all the authority he needed to bring any charges in any jurisdiction — all he needed to do was ask.  

Initially, Weiss backed that story. But then, when Shapley became the first of the whistleblowers to go public, Weiss changed his tune, struggling to back Garland while not contradicting Shapley, whose account is richly corroborated.  

First Weiss said he had the authority. Then he conceded that he lacked authority to file charges outside his district of Delaware (i.e., in districts where Hunter had allegedy committed tax crimes), but vaporously added that he had consulted with the Justice Department about that problem. Then he claimed that he had not asked to be designated a special counsel, which would have given him authority to file charges anywhere.  

Meantime, Shapley’s account was never shaken: Weiss had told a room full of agents that the Justice Department had refused to grant him special counsel authority, and that he was being blocked from filing felony tax charges against Hunter by Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in Washington, D.C., and California. 

Jordan is right that Weiss is a weasel. But Weiss is the wrong target here. He is just the fall-guy for Garland. Contrary to what the attorney general would have the country to believe, it was not Weiss’s job to ask for special counsel authority. It was Garland’s duty to appoint a special counsel the moment he realized there was a conflict of interest that prevented DOJ from investigating in the normal course. There could be no more profound conflict than the Biden Justice Department’s being in the position of investigating President Biden’s son and other family members in an international corruption probe in which the president himself is deeply implicated. 

Biden’s attorney general did not appoint a special counsel because he made protecting his boss, the president, his highest priority. That is why the case the whistleblowers so compellingly described at the hearing was sabotaged. The culprit here is not Weiss. It’s Garland.  

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review. Follow him on Twitter @andrewcmccarthy

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‘You’re Going to See More of Tucker’: Biographer, Executive Producer Tease What’s Next for Carlson


By: Rob Bluey / @RobertBluey / July 21, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/21/tuckers-no-b-s-guy-executive-producer-explains-carlsons-questioning-gop-candidates-iowa/

Tucker Carlson speaks to guests at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa. Carlson interviewed six Republican presidential candidates at the July 14 event. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The swanky Metropolitan Club in downtown Washington, D.C., might be the last place you’d expect to find Tucker Carlson’s biggest fans. But that’s exactly where they gathered Wednesday night for a party celebrating the forthcoming Carlson biography, “Tucker,” by Chadwick Moore.

Carlson was a regular at the club when he ran the Daily Caller with longtime friend and business partner Neil Patel. Although the former Fox News star wasn’t present at the party, it featured a who’s who of conservatives, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. Attendees were treated to a candid conversation between author Moore and Carlson’s longtime executive producer, Justin Wells.

Moore, who appeared on the final episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on April 21, began working on the Carlson biography long before Fox News shocked the world by canceling its top-rated show April 24. The author spent hundreds of hours interviewing Carlson and others who have influenced Carlson’s life. The timing of the “Tucker” biography is fortuitous: It’s set to publish Aug. 1.

Wednesday’s party celebrated not only Carlson’s accomplishments, but also offered some hints about what he is planning next. Wells wouldn’t speculate on reasons for the show’s cancellation and his own firing, preferring instead to focus on the future and what Carlson has planned for his “Tucker on Twitter” show.

“You’re going to see more of Tucker, and you’re going to see many different formats,” Wells said.

He added that “there is a very, very big interview” coming soon, but didn’t reveal any details when asked by Moore to tease what to expect.

Wells, who joined Carlson in Iowa for last week’s Family Leadership Summit, explained how the moderator approached his interviews with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson; former Vice President Mike Pence; former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“He listens to people, and he talks to them,” Wells said. “He’s very big on words. There’s nobody who has a better mastery of words than Tucker. And when the candidates are up on stage, and they say things that don’t make sense, he zeros in on that. There are very few people who can do that. That was demonstrated in Iowa.”

Wells added, “Being away for a little bit, he has more clarity than ever. … I think they were a little nervous because Tucker’s a no B.S. guy.”

Of the six candidates, Carlson sparred most with Hutchinson and Pence. “I don’t think they knew that they were going to struggle that badly,” said Wells, who noted that Pence and Carlson spoke afterward.

When Moore asked about Carlson’s outlook on life after 14 years at Fox News, including the last seven as host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Wells said, “He’s having too much fun. He’s hunting and fishing and doing all the things that he wants to do. But he’s also had a lot of time to think.”

Shortly after Fox News canceled his show, Carlson announced he would distribute his monologues and interviews on Twitter. Elon Musk bought the social media company for $44 billion in 2022, radically transforming Twitter from a platform that routinely censored conservatives in the past to one that champions free speech today. Musk recently hired media executive Linda Yaccarino to be its CEO.

Wells acknowledged that “Twitter and all platforms have a long way to go,” but it was moving in the right direction as a platform committed to free speech.

“It’s not just Elon, but Linda and others there who oversee the future of Twitter. They all believe in that,” Wells said. “Any time we’ve run into an issue in our very short period of distributing from Twitter, we’ve worked with Twitter on the problem. I would hope over time that we blaze that trail so that others can be heard by as many people as possible.”

With the “Tucker” biography debuting Aug. 1, Americans are about to get a behind-the-scenes look at Carlson. Moore was granted unprecedented access to him, interviewing Carlson as well as his family, co-workers, and adversaries. Wells was among those who contributed to Moore’s book.

Wells said Carlson remains as motivated—and cheerful—today as he’s ever seen him.

“There’s nobody sticking up for average Americans, and that’s what’s driving him,” Wells said. “He brings something to the American public that’s different.”

@RobertBluey
Rob Bluey
Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob.

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Victor Davis Hanson Op-ed: The Biden Family Caricatures


Victor Davis Hanson / @VDHanson / July 21, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/21/biden-family-caricatures/

From “nibbling” on a young girl in Helsinki, Finland, to this awkward hug exchange June 15 with actress and film director Eva Longoria on the South Lawn of the White House, President Joe Biden has earned a bad reputation for his behavior with girls and women. (Photo: Alex Wong/ Getty Images)

The Biden first family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior — to the point of dysfunctionality. During the 2020 campaign, at least eight women alleged that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade, alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge. Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.” He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm. But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces. On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness. On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance — enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway … .”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children — if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.” And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop — regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland, airport. In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter. Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form, and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media. Not in Biden’s case. The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness — a newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the president’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House. All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden — despite his being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict. Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found. The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance. Requests for clarity were understandable, not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction. He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use. Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop that contained evidence of his own felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the president and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too-public bad habits. Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep the president from even getting near small children and young women. And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House. Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family, one that is utterly dysfunctional — and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

COMMENTARY BY Victor Davis Hanson@VDHanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

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Pentagon memo reveals host of mutilations ‘transgender’ soldiers can undergo at taxpayers’ expense; notes they can dodge deployments, receive indefinite physical fitness waivers


By: JOSEPH MACKINNON | July 19, 2023

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/pentagon-memo-reveals-host-of-mutilations-transgender-soldiers-can-undergo-at-taxpayers-expense-notes-they-can-dodge-deployments-receive-indefinite-physical-fitness-waivers-2662304097.html/

Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images

A Department of Defense memo has recently been brought to light that reveals the special treatment that transvestites are to receive from and in the U.S. military — an organization historically entrusted with maintaining a robust fighting force to win America’s wars and protect U.S. national interests.

Transvestite privileges in the military have come a long way since President Joe Biden signed an executive order in January 2021 overturning the Trump administration’s ban on the service of “transgender” individuals in the armed forces. Now, service members who deny the reality of their biological sex will not only receive a host of sex-change and cosmetic surgeries at taxpayers’ expense — if so desired — but can also receive exemptions from uniform and fitness standards as well sit out deployments.

These and other perks are detailed in a Feb. 1 document obtained by independent journalist Jordan Schachtel of the Dossier, entitled “Care of Service Members Who Identify as Transgender.” The “proponent” of this document appears to have been U.S. Army Colonel David R. Zinnante, commander of the Womack Army Medical Center.

The stated objectives of the document are to ensure uniform guidelines accommodate transvestites; ensure that transvestites seeking hormone injections or sex-change mutilations are tended to by clinicians “who are qualified to deliver safe healthcare that is culturally sensitive”; and to “emphasize appropriate communication with unit commanders.” America’s gender-dysphoric warfighters must be provided “a safe and effective pathway to achieve lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves,” according to the memo.

To ensure and maximize this personal comfort, the Pentagon will pay for transvestites’ so-called care, including but not limited to, “speech/voice therapy, cross-sex hormone therapy, laser hair removal, voice feminization surgery, facial contouring, body contouring, breast/chest surgery (colloquially referred to as ‘upper’ surgery), and genital reassignment/confirmation surgery (‘lower’ surgery).”

In order to receive this “care,” service members need to undergo psychological assessment. Whereas mentally ill recruits, those found to be on medications, women with abnormal uterine bleeding, men with mangled genitals, those with chronic anxiety, those who have committed self-harm, and those who have met in the past with psychiatrists are routinely barred from joining the armed forces, it appears such prohibitions do not apply to those who claim to be “transgender,” although transvestites still apparently have to “demonstrate evidence of resilience and adaptability in both military training and non-training environments” and undergo various evaluations.

The Biden White House has stated that “America is stronger, at home and around the world, when it is inclusive. … The military is no exception.”

One of the memo’s appendices appears to suggest otherwise, noting that cross-sex hormone treatments have a number of deleterious effects, such as:

  • “High risk of adverse outcome with erythrocytosis“;
  • “Moderate risk for liver dysfunction, coronary artery disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and breast or uterine cancer”;
  • “Possible increased risk for irreversible infertility, low bone mineral density, increased insulin resistance and diabetes”;
  • Increased risk of venous thromboembolic disease, gallstones, weight gain, and hypertriglyceridemia”; and
  • “Prolactinoma and hepatoxicity.”

While National Security Council spokesman John Kirby and Democrats have suggested that recent Republican efforts to scrap LGBT programming and other woke initiatives in the military adversely impact combat readiness, the memo also acknowledges that transvestites are non-deployable when undergoing hormone therapies for anywhere from six to nine months and can be sidelined even longer by sex-change procedures.

The guidelines apply to active-duty service members currently assigned to and serving with the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, or Coast Guard “who receive their care at Womack Army Medical Center and affiliated health clinics.”

A Feb. 22, 2018, Pentagon memo indicated that based on “the Department’s best military judgment, the Department of Defense concludes that there are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dyphoria and require or have already undertake, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

The memo, penned by then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, added, “The Department also finds that exempting such persons from well-established mental health, physical health, and sex-based standards, which apply to all Service members, including transgender Service members without gender dysphoria, could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military that is not conducive to military effectiveness and lethality.”

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6 Ridiculous Narratives Democrats Tried In Response To IRS Whistleblowers’ Damning Biden Testimony


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 20, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/20/6-ridiculous-narratives-democrats-tried-in-response-to-irs-whistleblowers-damning-biden-testimony/

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IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler’s testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee about the political interference in the Biden investigation proved so unimpeachable that Democrats resorted to a shotgun attack on everything except the facts. Here are the top six themes the left hammered during the hearing. 

1. Orange Man — and His Family And Associates — Bad

Wednesday’s hearing began promptly at 1:00 with opening statements by Republican Chair James Comer and Democrat Ranking Member Jamie Raskin. From the get-go Raskin set one theme Democrats would continue to peddle over the course of the next six hours: Donald Trump is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad man. 

Trump was impeached and is under indictment. His daughter was under investigation, and her husband sold out to the Saudis. Trump’s cronies — Manafort, Stone, Flynn, and Cohen — committed crimes, and Trump pardoned them. On and on they went, pointing to Trump to turn the focus from the whistleblowers’ testimony: that the evidence indicates Hunter Biden committed felonies and now-President Joe Biden may have been complicit in the illegality. Democrats likewise used this misdirection to avoid confronting the overwhelming evidence that the DOJ and FBI interfered in the investigation and protected the Biden family.

2. How Dare Republicans Say ‘Two-Tier Justice System’

A second prevalent tactic on display during Wednesday’s hearing was Democrats feigning outrage over Republicans’ complaints of a “two-tier justice system.” 

According to Democrats on the committee, that phrase belongs to the civil rights movement and may only be invoked to condemn systemic racism. Some representatives ran so hard with this theme that they spent their allocated time highlighting decades-old hate crimes rather than asking the IRS whistleblowers questions concerning their testimony. 

One representative even quizzed Shapley on his knowledge of the racial disparity seen in the prosecution of tax cases. Shapley said he was unaware of the statistic. The Democrat lawmaker then cited the relative percentages for the IRS agent, while remaining oblivious to the fact that Shapley was complaining of favoritism bestowed on the white, privileged Hunter Biden. 

3. Never Mind the Whistleblowers, Let’s Talk About Rudy and the Arms Dealer

Democrats also sought to distract from the whistleblowers’ testimony by framing the evidence detailed by the two experienced and well-credentialed IRS agents as flowing from Rudy Giuliani. But as Ziegler testified, he launched the investigation into Hunter Biden after evidence implicating him was discovered pursuant to a separate criminal investigation. None of the evidence Ziegler and Shapley developed came from Giuliani. 

Nor did the allegations that Joe and Hunter Biden each received $5 million in bribes from Burisma, as reported by an FBI confidential human source and summarized in the FD-1023, come from Giuliani. The IRS agents never saw the FD-1023 in any event. 

House Democrats likewise attempted to minimize the whistleblowers’ testimony by pretending that, beside Giuliani, the only evidence of misconduct came from a witness charged with being an arms dealer, namely Gal Luft. Whether Luft has credible evidence of Biden-family corruption, however, has nothing to do with Ziegler and Shapley’s claims.

4. Merely a Misunderstanding

In their less hysterical moments, the Democrats offered a gentler spin, framing the House’s hearing as much ado about a misunderstanding. It also came down to the whistleblowers not grasping the difference between a special counsel and a special attorney, several Biden apologists suggested. 

But as Shapley made clear, he had documented U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s statement — that the DOJ had denied Weiss special counsel authority — soon after Weiss made that representation, and thus while Shapley’s memory was clear. In any event, according to Shapley, Weiss had also said during that meeting on Oct. 7, 2022, that he was not the final decision maker on whether to bring charges against Hunter Biden. That fact makes the distinction between a special counsel and a special attorney irrelevant.

Raskin also suggested Shapley was confused about Weiss’s authority, claiming the Delaware U.S. Attorney made clear in his letters to Congress he had ultimate authority to charge Hunter Biden. 

Both whistleblowers decimated that line of argument by highlighting what Weiss actually said, which was that he lacked charging authority outside of Delaware. In fact, if anything, Raskin hurt his cause by highlighting the contradictions between Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s statements, establishing the necessity for both DOJ bigwigs to testify before Congress to resolve the inconsistencies.

5. Just a Difference of Opinion 

A related theme Democrats peddled during Wednesday’s hearing centered on prosecutorial discretion. The left side of the aisle painted the whistleblowers’ testimony as merely a professional disagreement between the IRS agents and Weiss. 

But there was no disagreement in opinion, Shapley and Ziegler stressed: Both the IRS and Weiss agreed that Hunter Biden should be charged with multiple felony counts. Weiss, however, lacked the ability to bring charges in D.C., and it was the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney there, as well as in California, that kept the Delaware U.S. attorney from filing criminal felony charges against the president’s son.

Further, that the D.C. and California U.S. attorneys thwarted efforts to bring felony charges against Hunter Biden proved especially rich given the Democrats continued references throughout the hearing to Weiss being Trump’s “hand-picked U.S. attorney.” Beyond the obvious point that being a Trump appointee establishes nothing, under the Democrats’ standard, the involvement of the Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys removes this case from the “difference of opinion” scenario. 

6. There’s No Evidence, I Tell You, No Evidence

A sixth narrative Democrats pushed during the Oversight hearing was that there’s no evidence of misconduct or favoritism. But to paraphrase Shapley’s line, just repeating the same lie multiple times doesn’t make it true. And to say there’s no evidence of misconduct or favoritism is a whopper of a lie. 

The evidence of misconduct by the Bidens exists in the form of texts, emails, chat messages, bank records, suspicious activity reports, the FD-1023 report, and statements made by former business partners such as Tony Bobulinski. The public record is also replete with evidence of DOJ and FBI favoritism, including the extensive testimony of these two whistleblowers, parts of which a third whistleblower has already corroborated.

The Democrats may not like the evidence or want to talk about it, but to say none exists is about as believable as the Secret Service’s claim that they cannot determine whose cocaine was recovered in the White House. 

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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