Were President Joe Biden and his family involved in a foreign bribery scheme? Fifty-six percent of U.S. voters say it’s “likely.” According to a poll released Wednesday by I&I/TIPP, 56% of U.S. voters say it’s “likely” compared with 27% who said it was “unlikely.”
The survey of 1,341 adults, taken July 5-7 with a margin of error of +/- 2.7%, comes as Republicans continue to try to get their hands on an FBI record that documents an unverified tip about Biden. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., issued a subpoena to FBI Director Christopher Wray on May 3 after GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa received a whistleblower complaint. They said they were told the bureau has a document that “describes an alleged criminal scheme” involving Biden and a foreign national “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” when Biden was vice president.
“It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” Comer and Grassley wrote in a letter to Wray.
Both men have said they do not know if information is true, but insist the allegations warrant further investigation. The White House has accused Republicans of “floating anonymous innuendo.”
The document Republicans are focused on is what is known as an FD-1023 form, which is used by federal agents to record tips and information they receive from confidential human sources. The FBI says such documents can contain uncorroborated and incomplete information, and that the record of a tip does not validate the information.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that he is “absolutely not” working to protect President Joe Biden’s family, including his son Hunter, and said the agency has not been politicized by the current administration to go after former President Donald Trump and other conservatives, both public and private. His denials came during a grilling by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who displayed a text message that had been allegedly sent by Hunter Biden to a Chinese Communist Party official, in which he demanded money and said his father was sitting by his side when the message was being sent.
“You seem deeply uncurious about it — almost suspiciously uncurious,” Gaetz told Wray. “Are you protecting the Bidens?”
“Absolutely not,” Wray responded.
In other testimony, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed out that a federal judge in his state “found the FBI engaged in a massive effort to suppress disfavored conservative speech,” including threatening “adverse consequences to social media companies” to suppress stories, resulting in “millions of citizens” not being able to hear about the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 presidential election, along with other news items, including about COVID 19.
“The FBI is not in the business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor,” Wray said.
Wray also defended the FBI against claims that have been made by whistleblowers who have testified before Congress concerning actions the FBI has taken in various investigations, including on the Biden family.
“Why would the FBI offer Christopher Steele $1 million to verify a dossier about Trump and Russian collusion and then the same FBI offer $3 million to Twitter to squash a story on Hunter’s laptop?” he said.
“The dossier story and I know that wasn’t under your watch, but also the Hunter Biden laptop story, that to me, looks political to the American people,” said Moore. “It looks political, and I’m just an everyday guy … that is why you’re having trouble keeping the FBI’s reputation afloat.”
Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, laid out in his opening statement the bureau’s efforts to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story; target conservatives; and more. Jordan said he is determined to fight back against the “weaponization of the government against the American people,” and slammed the “double standard that exists now in our justice system.” Jordan also accused the FBI of supporting the suppression of conservatives on social media, retaliation against whistleblowers, and tracking parents angry with their school boards.
“I haven’t even talked about the spying that took place of a presidential campaign or the raiding of a former president’s home,” Jordan said. “Maybe what’s more frightening is what happens if you come forward and tell Congress you’re a whistleblower. Come tell the Congress what’s going on? Look out. You will be retaliated against.”
Also on Wednesday, Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told Wray that the American people are “outraged” about the actions that have “damaged the FBI’s reputation and undermined the good work of the vast majority of the men and women within your agency,” including on the Biden family investigations but also with an anti-Catholic memo that went out from the agency’s Richmond field office, and other controversial investigations that have taken place.
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.
The FBI colluded with a Russian-infiltrated intelligence agency in Ukraine to censor American speech, according to a new document out Monday. In an interim report published by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, House investigators exposed the FBI’s cooperation with foreign agents to orchestrate online censorship.
“The Committee’s analysis of these ‘disinformation’ registries revealed that the FBI, at the request of the [Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)], flagged for social media companies the authentic accounts of Americans, including a verified U.S. State Department account and those belonging to American journalists,” the report reads. “At times, the FBI would even follow up with the relevant platform to ensure that ‘these accounts were taken down.’”
The SBU was notoriously infiltrated by the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service (FSB), whose agents were instrumental in President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In March last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the head of the SBU’s Crimean branch, who is accused of being a double agent. Ivan Bakanov, who ran the entire SBU, was let go in July last year over the service’s status as a compromised agency.
The FBI, lawmakers added, “had no legal justification for facilitating the censorship of Americans’ protected speech on social media.”
House investigators compiled the report based on subpoenas to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet, which oversees Google and YouTube.
“The inclusion of American accounts on the SBU’s lists indicates that the FBI either did not properly vet the SBU’s requests or was aware of their domestic nature, and nonetheless carried them out,” lawmakers concluded.
At the heart of the operation was FBI Agent Elvis Chan in the San Francisco field office, who served as the “primary liaison” between the FBI and Silicon Valley. Chan also coordinated meetings between the FBI and social media companies during both the 2020 and 2022 elections. House investigators reported the SBU wasn’t purged of Russian agents until months after the Ukrainian security service began colluding with the FBI to censor U.S. citizens.
The FBI and SBU reportedly sent “massive spreadsheets” that contained “thousands of accounts” for censorship to Meta. The FBI also “facilitated” the SBU’s requests for censorship on Alphabet platforms. Posts flagged for removal were often supportive of Ukraine and critical of Putin.
One episode of censorship on Instagram included the suspension of a verified account run by the State Department with the username “@usaporusski.”
“Neither the FBI nor the SBU provides an explanation as to how the U.S. State Department account was ‘involved in disinformation,’” lawmakers noted.
One censorship request also included an American journalist whose name has been redacted.
The government coordination with Silicon Valley ran so deep that Meta even proposed a “24/7 channel” with foreign agents to facilitate censorship. The operation continued at least into May, even after Twitter’s Yoel Roth warned U.S. officials about the SBU’s targeting of American accounts.
“The full extent of the FBI’s collaboration with the SBU to censor American speech is unknown,” investigators wrote, but added, “To be clear, the FBI’s participation in the SBU’s censorship enterprise was a willing and intentional choice by the FBI, involving no fewer than seven agents across the Bureau.”
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.
Kay Yang (Image Source: Fox News Digital video screenshot)
A former LGBT center employee expressed regret for having been a part of the left’s gender ideology “indoctrination campaign” that is “grooming” children, she told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. Kay Yang, a former employee at a nonprofit LGBT center in New York, told the outlet that she was “exploited” and “indoctrinated” into promoting harmful gender ideology to young children. Yang explained that she started working for the center in 2011 because she wanted to advocate for same-sex couples to be able to marry.
“I was hired to conduct LGBT community outreach and education,” she told Fox News Digital. “I thought, ‘Wow, I want to help people who are being marginalized, who are being oppressed. I don’t think that anyone should be discriminated against.'”
She noted that, at the time, the center rarely had people who identified as transgender, none of whom were children.
“I had no idea that what I was doing at the time I was being used as a Trojan horse for this like huge marketing campaign [for gender ideology],” Yang continued. “I didn’t know what was going on that was normalizing these policies and these practices that are pushing irreversible medical damage on healthy children.”
Despite knowing little able transgenderism, Yang was “considered an expert on the topic,” she claimed.
“Through working there, I became indoctrinated,” Yang stated about her position. “We would go into schools or businesses, organizations, and the community. They would see us as experts.”
“I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming,” she added.
Looking back, Yang now believes that her “good intentions” were “taken advantage of” to promote a “widespread social engineering and indoctrination campaign” in her local community.
She stated, “I came to realize what we were doing… years after the fact. I looked back and [thought], ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ What have I contributed to? I actually felt devastated. It was very difficult to process and deal with. I had to really face myself and what I had done.”
Yang, now an outspoken critic of gender ideology, said she is concerned that the “sex-based rights of women and girls are also being undermined.”
“I’m very concerned that this ideology is grooming young girls to believe that they don’t need sex-based rights anymore and grooming them to promote this ideology. Because that’s what happened to me,” she added.
In June, Yang protested at a New York City Pride event when a mob of leftist activists allegedly attacked her.
“I was just kicked, hit, pushed, mobbed by dozens of people in Washington Square Park. [Male] who identify as [female] called me ‘bitch’ & assaulted me,” Yang posted on Twitter along with a video that captured part of the tense altercation.
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An everlasting truism of the political left is that when they hold an indefensible position, they pretend everything is more complicated than it actually is, and, therefore, it’s your fault for failing to understand the complexities of the world. So shut up and just let them do what they need to do!
You think crime is addressed with more policing and criminal prosecutions? How naive! It’s not so simple! This is an issue that requires time and new solutions!
There is no truer example of that reality than the way they talk about “racism.” The Supreme Court just ruled that it’s unconstitutional for institutions in higher education to discriminate against an applicant based on his race. What has been congenially known as “affirmative action” is, by definition, racial unfairness.
Knowing full well that defending the kind of discrimination America erased 50 years ago is untenable, the left has once again attempted to take a very simple concept and distort it beyond recognition so that, hopefully, everyone will be too confused to even argue about it.
Washington Post contributor Theodore Johnson wrote Tuesday that the Court’s decision didn’t eliminate yet another form of toxic discrimination but exacerbated existing racial tensions by reinforcing the idea of a supposed “model minority” — ethnic minorities who assimilate to the broader (white) population. The Court’s “portrayal of Asian Americans as model assimilators is neither a compliment, nor is it proof that structural racism is an artifact of the past,” Johnson wrote. “It serves only to exploit one minority group, to condemn others and to argue against accounting for a people’s history.”
Wow, the ruling did all that? Here I am thinking it’s a good thing that schools can no longer deny access to an applicant because he’s not a specific race. Little did we all know that, actually, the ruling perpetuated a myth for the purpose of pitting Asians against blacks in some type of Cold War.
Thanks for the lesson, Theodore!
It’s garbage. Racism means one thing — the belief that a person’s value is contingent upon his skin color. What it doesn’t mean is, “Anything that I think denies me advantages because now I’m expected to follow the same guidelines as everyone else and, by the way, model minorities are a construct of white supremacy, and the very idea advances my argument.”
Overcomplicating and distorting the very basic, straightforward concept of racism is how we all ended up paraplegics from contorting ourselves trying to understand “equity,” “unconscious bias,” and every other convoluted new term cooked up by the left.
It’s now racist to even expect that it’s enough to say racism is bad. Now you have to dwell on it, consume it, and ultimately accept that the only way to truly absolve yourself of racism is to do whatever people like Johnson say.
But no matter what they say, the word for that isn’t “racism.” It’s submission.
You might have noticed a media narrative taking shape the last few days about how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has “stalled.” A Politico Playbook item over the weekend described it as a “failure to launch,” noting that polling for DeSantis peaked in January at 40.5 percent and has since settled in the low 20s amid a barrage of attacks from former President Donald Trump.
Playbook also cited other news outlets recently casting doubt on the DeSantis operation, from fundraising struggles to lack of endorsements to difficulties distinguishing himself from Trump on policy. DeSantis super PAC official Steve Cortes added fuel to the narrative fire in an interview Sunday night, bemoaning the polls and admitting, “clearly Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner.” One could of course object that it’s only July, that polls don’t mean much this far out from the primaries, and that corporate media want nothing more than to push a DeSantis-is-stalled narrative whether it’s true or not, because they hate and fear him just as they hate and fear Trump.
But maybe there’s something else going on here. If enthusiasm for DeSantis seems lacking, maybe it has little or nothing to do with DeSantis or his campaign. Perhaps what we’re seeing is less about him and still less about 2024 or the upcoming GOP primary scrum, and more about what happened in 2020. Put bluntly, maybe what we’re seeing now is an early sign that what Democrats, Big Tech, and corporate media did in 2020 was inject poison into our political system, and the 2024 election cycle is going to show us just how deadly that poison is.
Recall that 2020 was unlike any election in American history. One need not declare that it was “stolen” to admit that it was obviously rigged. After all, the people and institutions that rigged it have freely admitted what they did. They suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story, censored what Americans could say on social media, introduced unprecedented changes to our voting system under the pretext of pandemic precautions, and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into putatively nonpartisan local election offices through Mark Zuckerberg-connected nonprofits for the sole purpose of turning out Democrat voters in swing states. Nothing like that has ever happened in American history. And it was all done for the singular purpose of ensuring that Trump would not serve a second term. What’s more, all of that came after four years of the permanent regime in Washington discarding every political norm, bending every rule, and breaking more than a few laws in a failed effort to oust Trump from office during his first term.
Now, maybe you think that’s all nonsense, or just water under the bridge. What’s done is done, we can’t go back, and even if the 2020 election wasn’t on the level, we all just need to move on and go about the 2024 primary season like its business as usual. There’ll be debates and a deluge of political ads and campaign shenanigans. There’ll be a chaotic, rambunctious primary full of zingers and debate moderator tomfoolery, and at the end of it, Republicans will have their nominee and we can all get on with the general election.
Sorry, but that’s not going to happen. It won’t happen because Trump supporters are understandably not willing to forget 2020 and just trundle along through 2024 like none of it happened. Plenty of them will always believe, not without reason, that 2020 was stolen outright. Many millions more believe, with even more reason, that it was rigged unfairly against Trump and that the same forces are at work now to rig it against whomever the GOP nominee turns out to be. Does that mean Trump is somehow entitled to the nomination, or even to another term in the White House? Not necessarily. To the extent that 2020 was stolen, it wasn’t strictly speaking stolen from Trump but from the American people, the voters who cast their ballots for Trump in good faith, trusting that our elections were free and fair.
Now that their faith has proved misplaced, do you think they’re going to line up for a GOP primary and consider each candidate on his or her merits, giving them all a fair hearing? Of course not. As far as they’re concerned, they were robbed of their votes in the last election by a corrupt cabal of powerful elites who are still in control.
Indeed, we know more today about the astounding level of corruption and election-rigging in 2020 than we did at the time. None of the problems have been fixed, and no reparations have been made. You can’t expect these voters to simply move on and act like 2024 is going to be a free and fair election, and accept whatever result the machine coughs up.
To win over GOP primary voters who supported Trump in the past two cycles, these candidates have to speak to the injustice that was done in 2020, they have to admit what happened, name who did it, and affirm that we cannot have a self-governing republic if that’s how our elections are going to be.
And therein lies the problem for a candidate like DeSantis — to say nothing of such winsome and meritorious gunners like Vivek Ramaswamy or Tim Scott. How can you decry what they did to Trump in one breath and in the next proclaim that you’re the best person to redress those grievances? That Trump should stand aside and let you, Nikki Haley, restore faith in American elections and put Democrats in their place.
Maybe it can be done, maybe they can come up with a rationale for their candidacies that will appeal to Trump supporters. It certainly would be a neat trick.
But if you’re trying to explain why an otherwise popular figure like DeSantis isn’t gaining traction among GOP primary voters, the answer has less to do with Trump and more to do with what Democrats did in 2020. No one should expect Trump voters to forgive and forget. Democrats and their accomplices might have thought they were getting rid of Trump once and for all, and maybe they will get rid of him in the end. But right now, it looks like they sowed the wind.
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.
FIRST ON FOX: A Peach State lawmaker who angered her Democrat colleagues in the Georgia state House of Representatives over her support for a recent school choice bill has announced she is officially switching parties.
Mesha Mainor – a Democrat who has represented District 56 in the Georgia House since January 2021 – announced the decision shortly before noon Tuesday that she will switch her party registration to Republican.
“When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me,” Mainor explained of her decision in a statement to Fox News Digital. “They crucified me. When I decided to stand up in support of safe communities and refused to support efforts to defund the police, they didn’t back me. They abandoned me.“
“For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community,” she added. “For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90% of the black community. And what do we have to show for it? I represent a solidly blue district in the city of Atlanta. This isn’t a political decision for me. It’s a moral one.“
Mesha Mainor is a Democrat who has represented District 56 in the Georgia state House of Representatives since January 2021. (Mesha Mainor)
Mainor made clear that her work across party lines will continue after she switches parties, saying she has “never hesitated to work across the aisle to deliver results for my community and the people I was elected to represent. And that won’t change.”
Mainor said that she has “been met with much encouragement” amid her decision to switch parties and noted that it’s “humbling to be embraced – for the first time in a long time – by individuals who don’t find fault in a black woman having a mind of her own and be willing to buck the party line.“
Asked whether she believes she will face pushback from Democrats over her decision, Mainor said, “The most dangerous thing to the Democrat Party is a black person with a mind of their own. So, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
As for her priorities after switching parties, Mainor said she will continue to focus on education and expanding the Republican majority in the House.
“Education and the importance of school choice has been – and will continue to be – a key focus of mine,” she said. “But outside of education, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Georgia General Assembly to tackle the most pressing issues facing our state and to help grow the Republican Party, helping us focus not just on preaching to the choir but growing the congregation.”
In a video shared to social media in May, Mainor accused Democrats of turning against her for being a staunch school choice advocate.
“I support school choice, parent rights and opportunities for children to thrive, especially those that are marginalized and tend to fail in school,” Mainor said at the time. “The Democrats at the [Georgia State] Capitol took a hard position and demanded every Democrat vote against children and for the teachers union. I voted yes for parents and yes for children, not failing schools.”
Mainor justified her position by noting that some schools in her district have 3% reading proficiency rates and that many kids cannot do simple math.
Mainor made clear that her work across party lines will continue after she switches parties, saying she has “never hesitated to work across the aisle to deliver results for my community and the people I was elected to represent.” (Georgia House of Representatives)
“I have a few colleagues upset with me to the point where they are giving away $1,000 checks to anyone that will run against me,” Mainor continued. “I’m not apologizing because my colleagues don’t like how I vote.”
Mainor also explained at the time that parents are upset that some politicians “put the teachers union and donors ahead of their constituents.”
Mainor’s speech took a personal turn when she accused her colleagues of being upset that she stood up for her principles.
“It’s ironic. I’ll say every election year, I hear ‘Black Lives Matter.’ But do they? I see every other minority being prioritized except Black children living in poverty that can’t read,“ Mainor argued.
“We’ll send $1,000,000 to the border for immigrant services. But Black communities, not even a shout-out. I’m sorry, I don’t agree with this,” she added. “I’m not backing down and I’m actually just getting started.”
Earlier this year, amid criticism from her Democrat counterparts in the state legislature, Mainor supported a school choice bill that would have expanded opportunities for students who attend Georgia’s lowest-rated schools. Georgia Senate Bill 233 would have created $6,500 vouchers for students at schools performing in the bottom 25% in the state to help pay for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses if they were inclined. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp pushed for it, and it appeared to have the votes to pass under the Republican-controlled Golden Dome, until 16 House Republicans voted it down.
Mainor’s decision to switch political parties while in office, which extends the Republican majority in the House, comes after former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones made the same move in 2021.
Vernon Jones (Getty Images)
In an op-ed for Fox News, Jones argued in January 2021 that he was no longer a Democrat because he “cannot stand for the defunding of the police, higher taxes on working families and job-killing socialist policies that will devastate Americans of all walks of life.”
“Now, let me make one thing clear – I haven’t changed. The Democratic Party has changed. It’s become a toxic combination of radical leftists and liberal elites in San Francisco and Hollywood have taken over my former Party,” he added at the time.
Fox News’ Andrea Vacchiano, David Rutz and Brian Flood contributed to this report.
2020 candidate Joe Biden sold himself to the fatigued American public as an empathetic, ice-cream-loving grandpa who was going to usher decency and expertise into the White House — but those carefully crafted narratives that helped propel him to the Oval Office are crumbling as the country barrels toward the 2024 election in a time of economic and global instability.
On the 2020 campaign trail, Biden and the media consistently billed him as the candidate to unify the country after four years under former President Donald Trump, who critics blasted as “divisive.” After his election win, Biden declared in a speech that it is “time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again.”
Biden took it one step further after he took office, threatening to fire anyone who didn’t share his views on decency and respect, telling nearly a thousand federal appointees and staff: “I’m not joking when I say this: If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot.”
But Biden’s inconsistency between his actions and his words are coming more to the forefront ahead of what is expected to be an explosive 2024 presidential election.
President Joe Biden’s carefully crafted narratives that helped propel him to the White House are slowly crumbling. (Fox News)
The president’s son, Hunter Biden, settled his child support case in Arkansas in June, ending a years-long paternity dispute over his 4-year-old daughter, Navy Joan Roberts, whom both Biden and first lady Jill Biden refuse to acknowledge as their seventh grandchild.
The New York Times released a damning report last week claiming Biden’s aides have been told to say publicly that he only has six grandchildren. The report said the family dispute is rooted in “money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.”
On Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked specifically about the report and whether the president considers Roberts his granddaughter, to which she responded, “I don’t have anything to share from here.”
In April, Biden listed six of his grandchildren by name during a “take your child to work day” event at the White House.
“I have six grandchildren, and I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke,” he said at the time.
US President Joe Biden lifts grandson Beau, the son of Hunter Biden, after Biden returned to Washington, DC on June 30, 2022. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden has also put up Christmas stockings at the White House for six of the grandchildren, but has repeatedly left his seventh grandchild out of the annual tradition. But as Biden seeks re-election in 2024 and as the speculation into Hunter’s foreign business dealings ramps up, the president has decided to more publicly embrace his son, Hunter, and grandson, Beau, recently bringing them to Camp David two weekends in a row.
CNN anchor Dana Bash said Monday that it’s “disturbing on so many levels” that Republicans are “using” the Roberts story to criticize Biden, but she acknowledged they’re “able to do that” because of “the brand and the kind of person that we all know and believe Joe Biden to be, because it’s who he says he is, and it’s somebody who is a family man. That’s who we see all of the time.”
Dana Bash claims that Joe Biden shunning his grandkid is "disturbing on so many levels" not because that's what the President is doing, but because "Republicans are using it." She says it goes against "the brand and the kind of person that we all know and believe Joe Biden to be" pic.twitter.com/oM8vsXzUdb
Upon taking office, Biden promised to restore the American story of “decency and dignity” and threatened to fire any staffer who didn’t share that view. However, a new report suggests that the 80-year-old president is prone to yelling at aides behind closed doors and roping them in for “angry interrogations.” Hidden from public view, Biden allegedly has such a “quick-trigger temper” that some White House aides try to avoid meeting him one-on-one, Axios reported Monday.
Biden’s dressing-down of staff often includes profane condemnation, including phrases such as “God dammit, how the f— don’t you know this?!,” “Don’t f—ing bulls— me!” and “Get the f— out of here!”
Speaking with Axios, former Biden campaign and Senate Aide Jeff Connaughton said Biden “hides his sharper edge to promote his folksy Uncle Joe image — which is why, when flashes of anger break through, it seems so out of public character.”
Biden, who is often asked softball questions from sympathetic members of the press, also has a history of responding with anger or sarcasm when faced with tougher questions. In late June, the president berated a reporter who asked if the president was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s business negotiations with a Chinese company. He also called NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell a “pain in the neck” in the Oval Office for a question about a vaccine mandate for Veterans Affairs and once called Fox News’ Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a b—-.”
“Read the polls, Jack. You guys are all the same,” Biden said in 2022 when asked by a reporter what he would say to Democrats who didn’t want him to run for a second term.
In 2021, Biden scolded CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she suggested he was confident Russian President Vladimir Putin may change his malign behavior, asking her, “What in the hell, what do you do all the time?”
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
‘I don’t discuss business with my son’
President Biden has repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of son Hunter’s business dealings, but multiple Fox News Digital analyses show that narrative is becoming more difficult to maintain.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden scolded Doocy as he jabbed his finger in his face on the campaign trail in Iowa in 2019. “You should be looking at Trump. Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum. … Everybody’s looked at it and said there’s nothing there. Ask the right question.”
“I don’t discuss business with my son,”Biden said again a month later in October 2019.
We have evidence of multiple meetings of Joe Biden w Hunter’s business partners – at least 10 in photographs. Yet Joe said: "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."pic.twitter.com/X6RreEsi1Y And the @washingtonpost, the paper of Watergate, lies for him. https://t.co/JeIV3ciws9
But records show Biden met with more than a dozen of Hunter’s business associates, and some of those associates and top staffers at Hunter’s now-defunct company Rosemont Seneca Partners visited the White House more than 90 times when Biden was vice president in the Obama administration. Further, nearly a dozen current and former officials serving in the White House and Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, have extensive ties to Hunter.
Hunter, who is accused by Republicans of selling access to his father, dating back over a decade, is expected to make his first court appearance for a tentative probation-only plea agreement on July 26 for two alleged misdemeanor tax violations and a felony gun charge.
Biden has repeatedly said his son did “nothing wrong” and that he will continue to support him.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, who led the investigation, is facing demands from Republicans probing alleged improper retaliation against whistleblowers who claimed the probe was “influenced by politics” and that Weiss was “hamstrung” when making prosecutorial decisions, which Weiss has denied.
In this handout image provided by the Irish Government, US President Joe Biden departs Dublin Airport on Air Force One with his sister Valerie and son Hunter on April 14, 2023 in Dublin, Ireland. (ulien Behal/Irish Government via Getty Images)
The foreign policy expert
“America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy,” Biden promised allies shortly after his inauguration.
Biden promoted himself as a seasoned foreign policy expert who was going to restore diplomacy on the world stage, but his administration has seen increased aggression by foreign adversaries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The Biden administration’s series of missteps during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021, which led to the death of 13 U.S. service members, marked a political turning point for the public’s perception of the president’s competency and ability to lead.
Before what turned out to be a watershed moment in his presidency, Biden was enjoying high approval ratings on issues ranging from the economy to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Biden’s decision to pull troops from Afghanistan faced widespread global backlash after Taliban insurgents retook the country in a matter of days on Aug. 15, 2021, just a month after the president assured Americans that the likelihood of a Taliban takeover was “highly unlikely.”
The military evacuation, which required thousands of additional U.S. troops on the ground and significant cooperation from the Taliban to complete, left behind hundreds of U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghan allies, despite Biden’s promise days earlier to “get them all out.” While Biden admitted that the Taliban’s takeover had caught the U.S. off guard, he has insisted he made the right decision in ending the war and has declined to fire a single official over the pullout.
Biden’s decision to act unilaterally in withdrawing troops without consulting his NATO allies sparked backlash from officials in the U.K., Germany, Italy and France, among others, with foreign officials describing it as a betrayal and damaging to America’s credibility.
President Biden rests his heads in his hands in a moment of frustration during a contentious back and forth with Fox News’ Peter Doocy during a press conference following a terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, that left 13 service members dead on Aug. 26, 2021. (Getty Images)
The president campaigned in 2020 on his decades of foreign policy experience with promises to repair the U.S. standing on the world stage after four years of the Trump administration. However, critics have often compared the withdrawal to the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War and have said Biden’s foreign policy blunders have given the green light to authoritarian leaders to act aggressively across the globe.
Two months after the Afghanistan withdrawal, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed a major buildup of troops near the Ukrainian border in October 2021. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a bloody and economically devastating war that continues today. Critics have said the Biden administration was too slow to act in imposing economic sanctions against Russia during the months-long military buildup. Experts say Chinese President Xi Jinping has been closely watching the U.S. response to Russia to determine his own potential military action regarding Taiwan. China has long claimed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the island having its own democratic government. In February, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, nine Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone.
Biden’s multiple foreign policy blunders, starting with Afghanistan, have caught up with him in the polls.
Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum, Anders Hagstrom, Brian Flood, David Rutz and Joseph A. Wulfsohn 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.
The first hearing in former President Donald Trump’s criminal case involving classified documents has been pushed to July 18. A court order Monday established the new date after a dispute in which special counsel Jack Smith implied that Trump and co-defendant Walt Nauta were seeking an “unnecessary” delay by moving the date back from this coming Friday, the Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday. Nauta had submitted a request to delay the hearing due to his main attorney, Stanley Woodward, having prior obligations this week at a bench trial in Washington, D.C.
Earlier Tuesday, the Examiner reported that Trump wants the classified documents trial postponed until after the 2024 general election. Trump, currently the leading contender to win the Republican presidential nomination, and his aide, Nauta, are scheduled to go on trial in December.
The first hearing before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon may not be conducted in public due to the sensitivity surrounding the classified materials, the Examiner reported. It will likely be the first of many proceedings before the actual trial begins.
Smith disputed Nauta’s request to delay the first hearing. The special counsel wanted to know why Florida-based lawyer Sasha Dadan couldn’t handle the hearing instead of Woodward.
“An indefinite continuance is unnecessary, will inject additional delay in this case, and is contrary to the public interest,” Smith’s team wrote in its filing, the Examiner reported.
Nauta said he had “little notice” that prosecutors would bring charges in the Southern District of Florida, where he would be required to have an attorney licensed in the state.
The Examiner said the co-defendant also raised concerns about his defense team’s lack of security clearances. Nauta wrote that it was not reasonable to expect Dadan to assume a lead role on Friday.
A later filing on Monday showed that the defense team and the special counsel team agreed that July 18 would be the date of the first hearing.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges in connection to the classified documents case, including 31 counts of willful retention of classified documents under the Espionage Act.
Nauta pleaded not guilty to charges he helped the former president hide top secret documents that Trump took when he left the White House in 2021, Reuters reported.
Despite President Joe Biden’s campaign against the idea of a border wall, his administration is filling in small gaps along the southern wall, the Washington Examiner reported.
Workers are halfway through filling in 129 gaps in border wall projects, the Examiner said. Gaps have been filled in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, where more than 450 miles of 18-and 30-foot steel wall was put up by former President Donald Trump’s administration.
But despite such efforts, much of the 2,000-mile boundary is wide open. According to the Examiner the work to fill in the gaps has been done without any fanfare.
When Biden took office, he immediately signed an executive order halting all border wall construction, but his administration has approved projects at multiple locations along the border, the Daily Mail reported in July, 2022.
“To date, DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has authorized the completion of multiple life, safety, environmental and other remediation activities which include, among other activities, the closure of 129 gates and gaps across the southwest border,” CBP [Customs and Border Protection] said. “Of the 129 approved gates and gaps, 68 have been completed to date with an additional 50 anticipated for completion by Sept. 30, 2023. The remaining 11 are anticipated to be completed in fiscal year 2024.”
And Ken Oliver, director of Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation said: “There never was any legitimate justification for waiting nearly 2 1/2 years to get around to doing construction that should have never stopped and that should have been completed by now.
“It was a highly irresponsible and unlawful action by the Biden administration to halt construction of duly appropriated border-wall funding in the first place.”
The Examiner noted that filling in the gaps is being funded with leftover money from the Trump wall projects. The Biden administration has not disclosed how many miles the gap projects total. One gap in Deming, New Mexico, was no wider than 20 feet, but had been left open for 2 1/2 years. It was finally closed up in the last two weeks, according to landowner and fourth-generation rancher Russell Johnson.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who visited the border city of Yuma in June, said the gaps are being closed.
“Significant progress has been made on construction for all the gaps, with two nearly finished and all four expected to be complete within two months,” a spokesperson for Kelly said in a statement to the Examiner. “This remains a priority for him, and he will continue pushing to have the construction finished as soon as possible.”
The news outlet pointed out that instead of installing the same type of dark steel slatted beams, CBP in Yuma constructed 30-foot-tall wire mesh panels in some of the gaps. The sections included doors that open to allow police to come and go.
Tim Ballard is the former Department of Homeland Security agent whose dogged pursuit of child traffickers across the globe is the subject of the massively successful new film “Sound of Freedom.” In a recent interview, Ballard accounted for some of the reasons the radical left might appear so desperate to attack and denigrate the movie: It illustrates the consequences of the left’s thinking and policies.
Ballard, joined by Jim Caviezel who plays him in the film, explained to the Daily Signal that wittingly or not, transgender activists and the Biden administration are both dressing the sacrificial altar whereon children may be victimized as a consequence of the policies they pursue.
When elaborating on a mission to save children in Ukraine from sex traffickers after the country’s invasion by Russia, Ballard noted that his team locked into “this pedophile ring. Now, it’s a frightening ring because it’s a political party that was out of Holland. … They were trying to legalize sex with children. They thought that a 3-year-old could consent to sex.”
Ballard said that some members of PNVD fled Holland after law enforcement finally came down on them but were ultimately arrested in Ecuador.
Thanks to the efforts of O.U.R., @freeagirl and local authorities, suspected child predators Marthijn Uittenbogaard and Lesley Luijs were arrested in Ecuador on June 22. They were a part of the recently dissolved pedophile association, Vereniging Martijn. https://t.co/GIOOgnTjJTpic.twitter.com/MAVcV8ngxM
— Operation Underground Railroad (@OURrescue) June 27, 2022
In advance of the Dutch politicians’ arrest, Ballard noted that he had to “study their literature. This was a political platform. This was a political party. And what I started recognizing is, I named them the … ‘pedophile network doctrines.'”
According to Ballard, the so-called pedophile network doctrines — not strictly specific to the PNVD — are:
“Children can consent to anything — at 12-years-old they should be able to vote, they should do anything.”
“Now, what am I seeing here?” said Ballard. “My stomach is getting sick as I’m reading this. I read this every day. It’s the woke left agenda.”
The child liberator clarified that he wasn’t alleging that trans activists and the PNVD or other such pedophiles were “colluding or talking,” but that “it doesn’t matter. It’s the same dark source. … Pedophiles are sitting back right now, going, ‘We’ve been pushing this agenda for decades and now we don’t have to push any more because the left are taking care of it for us in America.’ In America!”
For instance, Democrats in Washington state recently passed a law that reportedly enables individuals or youth/homeless shelters to avoid informing a child’s parents or law enforcement of their whereabouts if a child is seeking — without parental consent — a sex change, a tracheal shave, a mastectomy, breast implants, an abortion, puberty blockers, or “assisted reproduction” services.
In another instance where the left has ostensibly advanced the cause of those “sitting back right now,” California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who claimed that “the word groomer is categorically an anti-LGBTQ hate word,” successfully pushed a law enabling judges to keep men who prey on grade-schoolers 10 years their junior, between the ages of 14 and 17, off sex-offender registries.
Ballard stressed that both transgender activists and pedophiles argue that children can consent to destructive and sexualizing acts.
This mentality, granted legitimacy by policy decisions and laws that enable children to “consent to having their bodies filled with a chemical that will destroy their reproductive system” and “ripping apart their genitalia,” will lead to “what the pedophiles have been asking for for,” said Ballard. “If you can consent to that, guess what: What’s more fluid than gender? Age.”
'PEDOPHILE NETWORK DOCTRINES': Tim Ballard, who rescued kids from sex slavery, issues dire warning about transgender ideology. Jim Caviezel, who plays him in 'Sound of Freedom,' explains the evil mentality behind child exploitation and "pedophile laws."https://t.co/GcVfIZEM8Gpic.twitter.com/UuyFk5arS9
Extra to the left’s pursuit of greater social deregulation, Ballard suggested that its support for open borders has similarly fed the “economy of pedophilia.”
The Daily Signal highlighted how, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, over 150,000 unaccompanied minors were encountered crossing the U.S.-Mexico border last fiscal year and over 91,000 have been intercepted crossing the border so far this fiscal year.
“Thousands of them … are under 5 years old,” said Ballard. “Why is a 3-year-old showing up at the border? … Well, I can tell you why, because they show up with a name — the name of the sponsor that they’re given by the trafficker.”
“[The Department of Health and Human Services] gets the kids and they by law have to call the number. ‘Hi, we have Jose Gonzalez, Mr. George Smith.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s my kid, whatever.’ ‘Okay,'” said Ballard, dramatizing a hypothetical conversation between a prospective predator and an unwitting facilitator at the HHS.
“They used to actually fly down and have to pick the kid up. Not anymore. Our taxpayer dollars will then send the kid by plane or bus to this George, the sponsor; no background check, no DNA, nothing. And they deliver the kids. Our taxpayer dollars are literally — for the first time in American history — our taxpayer dollars are going to facilitate the last leg of a child-trafficking event,” said Ballard.
“$14 million a day are landing in the pocket of smugglers and traffickers, thanks to the Biden-Harris border policy,” continued Ballard. “The only compassionate policy is border enforcement — barriers, walls. Why? And the ‘Sound of Freedom’ talks about this. Because the walls and the barriers lead the children who are being hurt into that funnel of rescue. Trained women and men in uniform are there. Those kids want to go through the port of entry. … Those kids pray for a wall. The wall will save their lives.”
The child liberator noted that the Biden administration tore “it all down.”
Rolling Stone ran a hit piece entitled, “‘Sound of Freedom’ Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms,” with the sub-headline, “The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer.”
Miles Klee, the Los Angeles-based culture writer responsible for the Rolling Stone article, accused the movie of “fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated ‘epidemic’ of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities.”
Variety reported Sunday that the film had generated roughly $40 million after six days of release, ranking third on domestic box office charts despite playing at far fewer theaters than “Insidious” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which occupy the top two spots.
Transgender Movement and Biden Border Policy Aid and Abet Child Sex Slavery, Tim Ballard Warns youtu.be
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Columbus City Schools (CCS) shelled out more than $24,000 taxpayer dollars to a consulting firm that taught staff how to sneak radical gender ideology into classrooms without parents’ permission, a public records request made by Parents Defending Education revealed.
The two-day training in September 2022 was conducted by Q-inclusion, now known as “Hey Wes,” an organization led by a woman disguised as a man that boasts of partnering “with schools, healthcare clinics, businesses, and communities in order to support queer & trans belonging.”
Before the symposium, CCS had policies allowing students “affirming name and pronouns” to be “on all other documents, so long as this does not out them or put them in danger.” Some gender-bending students were also granted access to opposite-sex bathrooms and lockers.
During the sessions, CCS staff such as speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, school psychologists, and school counselors were schooled on methods and tools such as “gender support plan” sheets they could use to further their campaign to quietly force the LGBT agenda on children without parents’ knowledge.
CCS hires were specifically instructed what to do “when a student is out to you but not to their family” and how to handle “caregiver concerns and pushback” with conversation tactics while still hosting sexual conversations with children.
“Transgender and nonbinary students have a FERPA-protected right to privacy; this extends to students’ gender identity, birth name, sex assigned at birth and medical history. This includes privacy rights from parents/caregivers,” a Q-inclusion handout used for the training states.
Another set of slides boldly asserts that “children are not too young to talk about or know their gender” and that “gender expansiveness” should be discussed with toddlers.
Other slides used during the training included infamous imagery such as the genderbread person iteration, “the gender unicorn,” and the “wheel of power and privilege,” which argues that a mentally and financially stable, white, heterosexual, educated male in good health is the epitome of societal “privilege.”
The session hosts cited phony statistics from the Trevor Project, which not only promotes the mutation and castration of children but was recently caught hosting online, anonymous conversations about sex between adults and children.
Any religious staff who believe marriage is between a man and a woman and may have taken issue with some of the training’s content were educated on “What to do when your personal/religious beliefs don’t align with LGBTQ+ inclusion.” Q-inclusion’s suggestion for staff looking for ways to promote “LBGT inclusion” starts with displaying pride flags, wearing pronoun pins, and calling boys and girls “Friends, scholars, learners, children, mascot/community name.”
The consultants also encouraged CCS staff to fill their offices and classrooms with sexually explicit books.
“Families assume that when their children’s teachers attend professional development sessions, educators learn how to be more effective. But as these documents show, taxpayer dollars were instead spent encouraging school officials to treat pupils differently on the basis of superficial characteristics, hide information from parents, and discuss adult content with young students,” President of Parents Defending Education Nicole Neily told The Federalist. “It’s appalling that Columbus City Schools would choose to spend its finite resources on a consultant pushing such toxic content on teachers — particularly because less than half of all students in the district are proficient in reading and math.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
President Joe Biden may be the biggest serial liar ever to occupy the White House, but he wasn’t the only one lying about his track record during a CNN interview this weekend. Biden espoused several of his usual falsehoods — from fibs about traveling thousands of miles with China’s Xi Jinping to the price of oil. But it was his interviewer, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, who told the biggest whopper of them all.
“I think a lot of people do watch you and are impressed and they think you’ve been a great president,” Zakaria said with a smile. “You’ve brought the economy back. You’ve restored relations with the world.”
CNN's Fareed Zakaria to Pres. Biden:
"I think a lot of people do watch you and are impressed and they think you've been a great President. You've brought the economy back. You've restored relations with the world." pic.twitter.com/ZE6beEI4C8
Biden didn’t “restore relations with the world,” either. Americans know he botched the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which had fatal consequences. They’ve also watched him go soft on China and its transnational spy balloon, while he continues funneling money and munitions to an overseas conflict that puts the world on the brink of nuclear war.
Zakaria isn’t the only member of the propaganda press shilling for Biden despite his crisis-riddled track record.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough wrote for The Atlantic on Monday that, contrary to what he dubs the “right’s meltdown over all things woke,” “America Is Doing Just Fine.”
“Quit your whining. America is doing pretty d-mn well,” he added on Twitter.
Given the corporate media’s fawning and corruption-covering when it comes to the Bidens, it’s no surprise that Zakaria, Scarborough, and their many left-wing colleagues at CNN, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and The Atlantic feel the president is doing his best (aka exactly what they want).
Americans, on the other hand, could hardly be less “impressed” or less “fine” with how the Biden White House has handled the last two years. Seventy percent of Americans say the nation is “off on the wrong track” and a majority of the nation disapproves of the job Biden is doing as president.
A fair and independent press couldn’t and wouldn’t want to overlook Americans’ feelings about the future of the nation under Biden. But the U.S. doesn’t have a fair and independent press.
If the last two and a half years have taught us anything, it’s that no amount of media “stop being poor” moments, of which thereare many, can convince the nation that the Biden administration is leading Americans in the right direction. Yet, corporate media keep trying with the type of spin that puts the wheels on Biden’s shiny Corvette to shame.
Today’s corporate media exist for one primary purpose, and it’s to cheerlead Democrats’ wrongs and cover up Americans’ opposition to those wrongs. Biden made it this far because mouthpieces like Zakaria lie to his face and to viewers about the failures of his administration, while shills like Scarborough demand Americans stop caring about those failures.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A Delaware assistant U.S. attorney was briefed in October 2020 that a confidential human source (CHS) had reported Hunter and Joe Biden each received $5 million in bribes, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed Sunday in a letter to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. A source familiar with that briefing has now confirmed to The Federalist that the Pittsburgh office told the Delaware office the CHS’s reporting appeared credible and merited further investigation. That added detail increases the significance of Grassley’s Sunday letter and his question to Weiss about whether his deputy thwarted the investigation.
“On October 23, 2020, Justice Department and FBI Special Agents from the Pittsburgh Field Office briefed Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, one of your top prosecutors, and FBI Special Agents from the Baltimore Field Office with respect to the contents of the FBI-generated FD-1023 alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden,” Grassley’s letter said. “What steps have the Justice Department and FBI taken to investigate the allegations?” the Iowa senator asked before noting his concerns about Wolf’s involvement.
Grassley then highlighted the numerous ways Wolf appeared to have obstructed the investigation into Hunter Biden’s potentially criminal business activities. “IRS whistleblowers have affirmed that AUSA Wolf prevented investigators from seeking information about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s criminal business arrangements,” Grassley said, adding that she also “frustrated investigative efforts” by the IRS agents to question Hunter Biden’s business partner, Rob Walker, about Joe Biden.
Wolf also refused to allow agents to search Joe Biden’s guest house, even though there was “more than enough probable cause,” and she prevented investigators from searching a storage unit used by the now-president’s son, the letter said. In fact, Grassley stressed, Wolf alerted Hunter Biden’s lawyers to the investigators’ interest in the storage unit.
Given what Grassley called Wolf’s “questionable and obstructive conduct,” he asked Weiss whether Wolf had taken “similar proactive measures to frustrate any investigation into the FD-1023.” Grassley also probed Weiss’s knowledge of the accusations leveled against Wolf and how he has handled them. From Grassley’s questions, he seems to believe Wolf knows whether the DOJ buried evidence that Joe and Hunter Biden received bribes from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma.
Former Attorney General William Barr had previously confirmed that the FD-1023 summary of the CHS’s intel had been sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation, following then-Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady’s conclusion that the reporting was not Russian disinformation. Barr later also said the Delaware office had been briefed on the FD-1023 material. Until now, however, it was unclear who had received that information.
Knowing that Wolf and FBI special agents from the Baltimore field office received a briefing on the contents of the FD-1023 allows congressional oversight committees to probe precisely who investigated the CHS’s allegations and how — or if not, why. Did Wolf direct agents to disregard the FD-1023? Did anyone else? If so, why? Who was involved in the decision? Who knew of the decision?
While we do not know the answers to those questions yet, we do know from the Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers that they were not informed of the FD-1023. As Grassley noted in his letter, the IRS agents were excluded from the meeting with the Pittsburgh field office. We also know from the IRS whistleblowers’ congressional testimony and supplemental statements that they first learned of the FD-1023 when Barr publicly stated the information had been sent to Delaware for further investigation.
Who decided to exclude the IRS agents from the meeting? Who decided to keep them in the dark about the FD-1023 and the information contained in it? Was anyone from the Baltimore field office adequately skilled to investigate the CHS’s reporting? As members of the IRS’s International Tax and Financial Crimes group, both the IRS whistleblowers working with the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office were. So why were they cut out of the case?
Following the release of Grassley’s letter, a source familiar with the Delaware briefing told The Federalist that in addition to summarizing the contents of the FD-1023, the Pittsburgh office requested the FBI provide FD-1023 access to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office and the agents out of the Baltimore field office working on the case. The Pittsburgh office also told Wolf and the FBI agents present during the briefing that the information contained in the FD-1023 bore indicia of credibility and they recommended it be further investigated.
But was it investigated? Grassley asked precisely that question to Weiss.
The Iowa senator also asked Weiss when he became aware of the October 2020 briefing and why the IRS agents were excluded from that meeting. Grassley further inquired of the Delaware U.S. attorney whether the scope of the “alleged ‘ongoing investigation’ include[s] criminal bribery with respect to the alleged criminal scheme between a foreign national and then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden?”
In posing these questions, Grassley noted that from information provided to his office, “potentially hundreds of Justice Department and FBI officials have had access to the FD-1023 at issue.” This comment proves intriguing because in an earlier letter, Grassley had noted that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten had opened an assessment that FBI headquarters used in September 2020 to falsely label derogatory information about Hunter Biden as disinformation. According to Grassley’s letter, the FBI HQ team then “placed their findings with respect to whether reporting was disinformation in a restricted access sub-file reviewable only by the particular agents responsible for uncovering the specific information.”
Grassley’s recent comment suggests that contrary to the earlier assumption, it may have been other derogatory information labeled misinformation and not the FD-1023. Or possibly the FD-1023 had been at one time restricted and then made more broadly available. But if it wasn’t the FD-1023 that Auten buried, that means there was even more derogatory information about Hunter Biden that the FBI failed to investigate. What was that information?
Grassley’s letter may raise more questions than it answers, but it also establishes the senator is nearing the end of the trail that leads to the individuals responsible for deciding to — or not to — investigate the FD-1023 and the allegations that the now-president of the United States accepted a $5 million bribe from a corrupt Ukrainian.
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.
The U.S. national debt has increased by $1 trillion in the five weeks since President Biden signed a bill into law that effectively turns off the debt ceiling until 2025. According to Treasury Department data, the total national debt stood at $32.47 trillion on July 6, $1 trillion more than the $31.47 trillion level last seen on June 2. The national debt had been stuck at or near that June 2 level for months because the government had hit the debt ceiling and was legally prohibited from borrowing any more money.
On June 3, however, Biden signed legislation reflecting negotiations with House Republicans that requires a small spending cut next year and allows unlimited federal borrowing until 2025. With no debt ceiling in effect, federal borrowing jumped more than $350 billion in a single day and crossed the $32 trillion mark in less than two weeks.
That quick increase reflected pent-up demand for borrowing that the government delayed while the debt ceiling deal was being negotiated.
The national debt has jumped more than $1 trillion in the five weeks after President Biden signed a bill into law that temporarily suspends the debt ceiling. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The national debt has increased $4.7 trillion since Biden took office in January 2021, and is expected to keep rising in the face of annual budget shortfalls of at least $1 trillion per year. So far in fiscal year 2023, the government has spent $1.16 trillion more than it has collected and the Biden administration is predicting a $1.5 trillion budget deficit when the fiscal year ends in September.
Biden has continued to boast that he has shrunk the budget deficit.
“And by the way, parenthetically, I want you to hear about the deficit. I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion in two years,” he said last week. “Nobody’s ever done that – cut the debt $1.7 [trillion].”
But many mainstream news outlets have discounted that bragging point because the lower deficit mostly reflects the end of emergency spending related to COVID-19 and increased tax revenue that reflects the post-COVID economic recovery. When COVID hit in 2020, federal spending exploded by $2 trillion – the government spent a total of $6.5 trillion that year instead of the $4.4 trillion it spent a year earlier, and the budget deficit exceeded $3 trillion.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen delayed certain federal spending while the debt deal was being negotiated, and borrowing surged as soon as the ceiling was suspended. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Even though the COVID emergency has ended, federal spending has remained high. It is estimated to spent $6.3 trillion in the current fiscal year, still well above the $4.4 trillion it spent in 2019, before COVID hit.
Instead of falling back to 2019 levels, federal spending is not expected to dip below $6 trillion again. Treasury Department projections expect that the government will spend more than $7 trillion by 2025 and will exceed $8 trillion in spending by 2028, accompanied by more borrowing that is fast approaching $2 trillion per year.
As the debt ceiling deal was being negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., several conservatives argued that the GOP should be pushing for much steeper cuts to federal spending.
While Biden has boasted about reducing the budget deficit, most see that drop as a reflection of lower COVID spending and higher tax revenues, and deficits are expected to keep rising toward $2 trillion per year. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
Russ Vought, former President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, criticized Republicans for moving away from a House-passed plan that would have capped the growth in federal spending to a maximum of 1% per year over the next decade.
“They have never been in a stronger place,” Vought said in May. “They have passed a bill that this town and the country did not think was possible, they kept their team together, they have 75-25 polling to their backs, they had the Democrats in a situation where they had said you did not negotiate for months, and yet up against a deadline that’s not a real deadline… they just completely caved.”
Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.
Nearly a dozen current and former officials serving in the White House and Biden administration, including the president’s national security adviser and the secretary of state, have extensive ties to Hunter Biden, who is accused by Republicans of selling access to his father, dating back over a decade.
A Fox News Digital analysis reveals the extent of Hunter’s potential reach in the White House, while the embattled first son is expected to make his first court appearance on July 26 for two alleged misdemeanor tax violations and a felony gun charge.
The Justice Department announced last month that Hunter had entered a plea agreement in the case that will likely keep him out of jail. U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, who led the investigation, is facing demands from Republicans probing alleged improper retaliation against whistleblowers who claimed the probe was “influenced by politics” and that Weiss was “hamstrung” when making prosecutorial decisions.
The analysis includes two members of Biden’s Cabinet and one former Cabinet member, a top aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a national security adviser, five top Biden White House aides, and a top Biden campaign aide who is currently on leave from her role as a communications director for first lady Jill Biden.
Jake Sullivan
Hunter Biden and President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, served together on the board of the Truman National Security Project, a liberal foreign policy think tank, for roughly two years before Sullivan joined the president’s campaign in 2020.
President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, left, Hunter Biden, President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Getty Image)
Hunter, who started serving on the board in 2012, and Sullivan both served on the Washington-based nonprofit’s board between 2017 and early 2019, according to internet archives captured by the Wayback Machine.
During that time, Hunter was also serving on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and the Chinese private equity fund BHR Partners. The federal investigation into Hunter’s foreign business dealings, which is still ongoing, also launched during the same time frame in 2018.
Sullivan was recently accused by former White House official Mike McCormick of being a “conspirator” in the Biden family’s “kickback scheme” in Ukraine when Biden was vice president.
Sullivan denied the allegations, telling reporters that he had nothing to do with such an operation.
Jake Sullivan, left, and Hunter Biden (Getty Images)
Antony Blinken
Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting with Hunter Biden at the State Department in July 2015 when he was serving as the deputy secretary of state in the Obama-Biden administration and Hunter was on Burisma’s board, according to emails previously reviewed and verified by Fox News Digital.
The meeting was two months in the making after Hunter emailed Blinken in late May 2015, asking, “Have a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee? I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things.”
Blinken said “absolutely” and Hunter forwarded Blinken’s full email response to Devon Archer, who was also serving on the Burisma board with him. However, the initial meeting appeared to have been canceled due to the admission of Hunter’s older brother, Beau Biden, to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland because of a recurrence of brain cancer. Beau passed away on May 30, 2015.
Antony Blinken emails with Hunter Biden on May 22, 2015. (Fox News)
Less than two months later, Blinken and Hunter met, prompting Blinken to send a follow-up email saying it was “great to see” Hunter and “catch up.”
“You will love this,” Antony Blinken wrote to Hunter Biden on July 22, 2015, “after you left, Marjorie, the wonderful african american woman who sits in my outer office (and used to be Colin Powell’s assistant) said to me: ‘He sure is pleasant on the eyes.’ Tell you wife. Tony.” (Fox News)
In April of this year, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell testified to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees that Blinken, as President Biden’s then-campaign senior adviser, “played a role in the inception” of the public statement signed by intelligence officials claiming Hunter’s abandoned laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Blinken denied having any role in getting the letter signed by members of the intelligence community and claimed, “One of the great benefits of this job is that I don’t do politics and don’t engage in it. But with regard to that letter, I didn’t – it wasn’t my idea, didn’t ask for it, didn’t solicit it.”
Emails from Hunter’s infamous laptop that Blinken allegedly sought to discredit show that Hunter has ties to Blinken and his wife, Evan Ryan, dating back over a decade. Those emails also show that Hunter scheduled meetings with Blinken while he was on the board of Burisma and Blinken was deputy secretary of state.
Multiple profiles pieces over the years said Blinken has advised Biden on more than just foreign policy in his decades-long friendship with the president and serving as a confidant. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., President Biden’s re-election campaign co-chair, told CNN in 2021, “President Biden is personally close to both Tony Blinken and Evan Ryan and Tony has been an incredibly loyal, capable and effective adviser, staffer and personal friend of the sort that is rare in Washington.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Hunter Biden (Getty Images)
Evan Ryan
Evan Ryan, Blinken’s wife who is currently serving as White House cabinet secretary, communicated frequently with Hunter and his longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, when she was working at the White House during the Obama-Biden administration.
Hunter tried to connect with Blinken on June 16, 2010, when he asked Ryan for his non-government email address, according to emails. Ryan, who also worked on Biden’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, then provided Blinken’s personal email address to Hunter.
It appears that Hunter Biden tried to connect with Antony Blinken on June 16, 2010, when he asked Blinken’s wife, Evan Ryan, for his non-government email address. (Fox News)
White House visitor logs also show that Schwerin, who was the president of Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners for several years, met with Ryan at the White House’s Old Executive Office Building (OEOB) in October 2010.
She was also in communication with Hunter and Schwerin about a couple of White House events that year, including the Mexico State Dinner and the annual “Easter Egg Roll.”
“OVP has 250 tix to the Easter Egg Roll and your Mom has an additional 200. Family, etc is coming out of your Mom’s allotment,” Schwerin said in the email to Hunter, referring to Blinken’s wife. “Evan is handling your Dad’s and we can pass on names to her for outreach purposes. Let’s discuss. I don’t think we have 50 spots, but if we had 20 or so names we’d probably be fine.”
Eric Schwerin sent Hunter Biden an email about two upcoming White House events and mentioned that he talked with Evan Ryan, Blinken’s wife, about tickets to the events. (Fox News)
“More importantly, OVP has 12 spots to fill for the Mexico State Dinner in May and needs to send in their names by Monday,” he continued. “Evan is looking for any suggestions. Hispanic Americans or just any outreach related suggestions. Obviously they won’t have trouble filling this number but is still looking for suggestions.”
A couple of months later, Hunter and Ryan exchanged emails about the Mexico State dinner guest list, and she sent him the seating chart for his table.
(Fox News)
Evan Ryan and Antony Blinken have ties to Hunter Biden dating back over a decade. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital previously reported several other ties between Hunter and Ryan.
Jeff Zients
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, who led the federal COVID-19 pandemic response between early 2021 and April 2022, met Hunter multiple times in 2016, according to emails and White House visitor logs.
Zients met with Hunter Biden twice in February 2016 and on another occasion in May 2016, just months before Biden, the vice president at the time, was set to leave the White House.
Former Joe Biden aide Anne Marie Muldoon invites Hunter Biden to a meeting with Zients and his father in July 2016. (Fox News)
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Joan Mayer sends him his schedule on Feb. 12. It includes a meeting with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, Jeff Zients and David Rubenstein. (Fox News)
Biden attended the first two meetings, which both took place at the U.S. Naval Observatory, where the vice presidential residence is located.
Hunter Biden’s business partner Joan Meyer sends him his schedule on Feb. 23. (Fox News)
Additionally, Anne Marie Muldoon, who was an assistant for then-Vice President Biden between 2014-2017, sent Hunter Biden an invitation to attend a potential fourth meeting with his father, Zients, David Bradley, a Washington, D.C.-based political consultant and chairman of media group Atlantic Media, and Eric Lander at the Naval Observatory on July 12, 2016. While it is unclear whether Hunter Biden joined the meeting, Muldoon sent him a copy of the meeting agenda after it took place.
Kathy Chung
Kathy Chung, who is currently serving as the Pentagon’s deputy director of protocol, communicated frequently with Hunter when she was serving as Biden’s executive assistant during the Obama administration.
Throughout much of her five-year tenure working for Biden, Chung regularly shared information with Hunter about his father’s schedule and passed messages directly from the then-vice president, according to emails.
Chung’s relationship with Hunter also appears to date back to before she worked for his father. The emails showed that Hunter recommended Chung for the executive assistant role when the previous holder of the job, Michele Smith, departed the White House in the spring of 2012.
A month after Chung thanked Hunter for “thinking” of her and getting her to apply for a job in the vice president’s office, Chung emailed Hunter Biden informing him that she had been offered the job.
Kathy Chung informs Hunter Biden that Vice President Biden had selected her to be his executive assistant. (Fox News)
“I cannot thank you enough for thinking about me and walking me thru this,” she said. “What an incredible opportunity! Thanks, Hunter!!”
In another email exchange shortly after the Obama-Biden administration concluded, Hunter suggested that Chung come work at his company. It does not appear that she ever joined Hunter’s company.
Hunter Biden tells Kathy Chung she should work for him in February 2017, adding that he can “make everyone money.” (Fox News)
Chung made headlines in January after she was reportedly questioned by federal investigators as part of the probe into the president’s handling of classified documents.
Ron Klain
Biden’s former White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, who stepped down in February, previously served as the chief of staff for Vice President Biden until the end of January 2011. In September 2012, Klain reached out to Hunter for help in raising $20,000 for the Vice President’s Residence Foundation (VPRF), telling him to “keep this low low key” to prevent “bad PR,” according to emails Fox News Digital previously reported on.
“The tax lawyers for the VP Residence Foundation have concluded that since the Cheney folks last raised money in 2007 and not 2008, we actually have to have some incoming funds before the end of this fiscal year (i.e., before 9/30/12 – next week) to remain eligible to be a ‘public charity,'” Klain, who had left his chief of staff position in Vice President Biden’s office a year earlier but was the foundation’s chairman at the time, said in an email to Hunter.
“It’s not much – we need to raise a total of $20,000 – so I’m hitting up a few very close friends on a very confidential basis to write checks of $2,000 each,” Klain continued. “We need to keep this low low key, because raising money for the Residence now is bad PR – but it has to be done, so I’m trying to just collect the 10 checks of $2,000, get it done in a week, and then, we can do an event for the Residence Foundation after the election.”
Hunter then forwarded the email to Schwerin, who helped manage a majority of Hunter’s finances, and the two discussed donating to the foundation, though it’s not clear what was ultimately decided.
Klain’s career with Biden dates back to his failed presidential campaign in 1988 and serving as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for first lady Jill Biden who went on temporary leave in May to help lead the messaging arm of Biden’s re-election campaign, also has ties to Hunter.
In 2014, Alexander, who served as Biden’s spokesperson when he was a senator and the vice president, reached out to praise Hunter for his statement after he was kicked out of Navy Reserve for testing positive for cocaine.
“Hey Hunter – just wanted to write you a quick note to say David and I are thinking of you,” she wrote in an email. “Your statement was perfect and gracious. Sending you a virtual hug from both of us and hoping you can get some peace this weekend.”
Alexander is married to David Wade, a former State Department staffer who helped advise Hunter with rapid response as he was receiving increased public scrutiny regarding his lucrative position with Burisma.
Emails uncovered by Fox News Digital last month showed Hunter’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was paying Wade for communications consulting, and he strategized with Hunter and his partners on how to respond to inquiries by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
Wade has visited the White House at least five times during Biden’s presidency, according to visitor logs.
Annie Tomasini
Annie Tomasini, an assistant to the president and the current director of Oval Office operations, was in frequent communication with Hunter, referred to him as her “brother” and often ended her emails with “LY” for “love you,” according to emails dating from 2010 to 2016.
Biden publicly announced on Dec. 20, 2010, that Tomasini was stepping down to take a position with Harvard University, and Tomasini kept Hunter clued in on the details of that position before she took it, according to emails. The month prior, on Nov. 19, 2010, she forwarded information to Hunter about Harvard’s employee benefits and added, “Thanks.”
Annie Tomasini, director of Oval Office operations, left, follows President Biden on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One on May 17, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Hey – I looked at benefits And they look pretty amazing. Any word on comp?” Hunter responded on Nov. 23, 2010.
“I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for looking at all the background Hunt,” Tomasini replied.
Tomasini was offered the job on Nov. 30, 2010, writing to Hunter, “Director of intergovernmental relations. > 120k ish – may be a little higher.”
She later thanked him and said she was going to tell his father the news. Months later, Hunter gave a speech at Harvard, but not before running the draft by Tomasini first.
Tomasini has accompanied Biden and Hunter to Camp David twice in the past few weeks.
Michael Donilon, a current senior adviser to Biden who served as his chief campaign strategist in 2020, was on dozens of emails with Hunter and other members of Biden’s inner circle coordinating strategy meetings throughout the 2012 campaign, mulling over a 2016 presidential bid, and later plotting Biden’s endeavors post-vice presidency.
In August 2015, Schwerin shared a Politico article with Hunter that says Donilon and a few other advisers from Biden’s inner circle, including Hunter, are the only ones “involved in the real decision-making.”
An email from February 2016 showed that Hunter, Donilon and a few others were also involved in the planning stages for the Biden Foundation. And shortly after Biden left office in 2017, Hunter, Donilon and others in his inner circle were invited to a meeting at Biden’s residence in McLean, Virginia, according to emails.
Days later Hunter, Donilon and several others were invited to a meeting at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home where classified documents were recently discovered. The meeting took place on Feb. 7, 2017, the same day it was announced that the former vice president would be leading the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where classified documents were also found, and the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.
Donilon accompanied Biden a few months ago on the trip to Ireland, which included Hunter and Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens.
Steve Ricchetti
Steve Ricchetti, who currently serves as Biden’s White House counselor, was also on dozens of emails with Hunter dealing with strategy meetings and helping Biden with post-VP life.
Fox News Digital reported last year that Schwerin visited the White House at least eight times in 2016, meeting with Ricchetti at least twice when he was serving as Biden’s chief of staff.
Morell, the former CIA deputy director who testified in April, said he received a call in October 2020 from Ricchetti, who was serving as the chairman of Biden’s campaign at the time, following the final debate against then-President Donald Trump, when Biden said the Hunter laptop was a “Russian plant” and a “bunch of garbage.”
Morell said the call from Ricchetti was to thank him for spearheading the letter signed by intelligence officials that tried to debunk the laptop.
Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, gestures after playing a round of golf with President Biden at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware on April 17, 2021. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Louisa Terrell
Louisa Terrell, who is serving as assistant to the president and the director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, communicated with Hunter dozens of times during the Obama-Biden administration, with some of the correspondence including Schwerin on the emails.
In February 2014, Terrell emailed Hunter and Schwerin, saying, “So nice to catch up over lunch – thank you. Enjoy the snow day and talk soon.”
Louisa Terrell, White House legislative affairs director, walks with Steve Ricchetti to a House Democrat caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 31, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Another email chain from late 2014 through early 2015 shows that she reached out to Hunter for help in getting her daughter into Sidwell Friends School, one of the most expensive and elite PK-12 schools in the country, which includes both of former President Obama’s daughters and some of Biden’s grandchildren as alumni.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with Sidwell about Olivia’s application to next year’s 7th grade class. I recognize how busy you are and appreciate you making the time to chime in with Bryan,” Terrell said in February 2015. “Below is some logistical information and some background on why Olivia is a good fit for Sidwell. Let me know if this is helpful and/or you need some additional information.”
“[Bryan] was very cordial/ nice – sent me two emails – one saying he received my message and email and a second that was more personal acknowledging that he also spoke to Chris and others who had weighed in on behalf of Olivia and he hopes it all works out etc…” Hunter said. “Very nice – looking forward to having dinner sometime soon – but didn’t give any thing up in the way of real information.”
Less than two weeks later, Terrell emailed Hunter saying her daughter got into Sidwell and added, “Thank you so so much for your help. I hope you know how much I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you!”
Terrell has worked for Biden going back as early as 2001 and served a two-year stint as executive director at the Biden Foundation, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The White House, Biden’s campaign and Hunter Biden’s lawyer did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall and Thomas Catenacci 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.
The overwhelming feeling at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia last weekend was joyfulness, which is interesting for an organization that was started and stoked in 2021 by so much anger and outrage at our education system.
The paradox is fructive, both in that it shows us how the group so quickly became the new grassroots of the conservative movement, and why their message has been so persuasive.
On the two floors of the elegant hotel where the event took place were to be seen bright floral dresses mixed with hugs and laughter as attendees met and mingled. Many it appeared were experiencing that oh-so-modern phenomenon of meeting a social media friend for the first time in real life.
There was also something of a secretive nature to the affair as, for example, the media, for the most part, were not allowed into the breakout sessions where strategy was discussed, but can you really blame them for this?
2024 presidential candidate gives remarks at Moms for Liberty’s Joyful Warriors National Summit in Philadelphia on June 30, 2023. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)
Take an incident earlier this month when a local chapter in Florida used a quote from Adolf Hitler, disapprovingly obviously, to show the dangers of the government indoctrinating children. The left and their media allies piled on with a bizarre and ridiculous claim that Moms for Liberty supports the ideology of Hitler. At best this take is insane, at worst it is malicious and politically driven. When I asked the chair of that Florida chapter what she made of the backlash, she smiled, shook her head and said, “They just lie.”
And this really is the crux of the problem. Much of the left has decided that certain conversations touching on identity simply cannot be had, even if that conversation is central to public policy. Perfectly reasonable positions, like not exposing young children to sexually explicit images are forbidden, leaving frustrated, often furious parents powerless to have a say in their kids’ education. The members of Moms for Liberty I spoke to simply will not accept this. They do not accept that worrying about your kids is hatred.
The organization spread like wildfire all over the country to now include 285 chapters in 44 states with over 120,000 members working to unify, educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government. (Courtesy of Moms for Liberty)
This is the crucible in which Moms for Liberty was founded by Tina Descovitch, Tiffany Justice and Bridget Zeigler, who two years ago fought back, first against lockdown measures, but then also against the curriculums in public schools that push critical race theory and gender ideology.
It was a strange side effect of COVID that no expert could have predicted, a fever spreading across the moms and dads of America as in-person education was being ripped away from their kids, and as the far left cultural messages from school flowed into living rooms on Zoom calls. A phenomenon cited by several attendees I chatted with.
One woman I spoke with had been a teacher for decades but gave it up when she realized that fighting from inside wouldn’t work, that she was not able to do her job under the rules imposed by her school district. It reflected a general attitude that change had to come the education system’s top, or at least its middle management.
Many of the moms and dads I spoke with had run for their local school boards in states from Florida to Pennsylvania and Indiana to name just a few. When I asked one woman how her chapter of Moms for Liberty operates, she told me, “We mainly organize around local elections, that’s where change happens.”
2024 presidential candidate gives remarks at Moms for Liberty’s Joyful Warriors National Summit in Philadelphia on June 30, 2023. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)
This hyper-focus on the local was evident in how little talk there seemed to be about the 2024 GOP nomination, even at a conference that had impressively drawn almost all the major figures in the race, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. The general attitude I heard was that most people liked all of them. Indeed, it was telling that the candidates seemed more interested in Moms for Liberty than Moms for Liberty was about the candidates. It’s a testament to the truly remarkable amount of political power they have amassed in such short order.
As is generally the case at such conferences, the chattiest and friendliest people were to be found in the small smoking area just to the left of the Downtown Marriott’s entrance. In this instance, it had the added value of being within the din and flashing rainbows of the protesters, who made their mayhem, in modest numbers, all three days. Here among the drums and shouting, the sweating anger of young communists in love with their own voices, I asked a question I would pose to dozens of attendees, “When these people call you a Nazi, or White supremacist, or fascist, does that hurt? Does it take an emotional toll on you, especially since this is face-to-face, not disembodied Twitter?”
Many were stoic, I heard a lot of, “water off a duck’s back” or “badge of honor,” but not all. Some admitted that it did hurt, especially at first, that having such vile rhetoric hurled at them did have an impact. And why should it not? Why would an assault of slurs from the left at the right be any less emotionally harmful than the other way around? Of course, it hurt. But as one woman told me, “I know I’m not any of those things, and I just pray for the protesters.”
Speaking of those protesters, they were, for the most part, that strange kind of political activist who tries to shut down anyone covering them and their message. When you do find someone willing to be interviewed it is thwarted almost immediately by black bloc Antifa types who block your camera. On the rare occasion when you snag a minute or two with a protester, the answers as to what exactly they are protesting are an inchoate regurgitation of lies and exaggerations from the mainstream media.
“They are an official hate group!” “They hate gay and trans people!” “They are banning books!” When you ask what books they are opposed to giving to young children you get met with a blank stare.
Protesters descend on Philadelphia as former President Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis give remarks at ‘Moms for Liberty”s ‘Joyful Warriors National Summit’. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)
One older man I spoke to was a perfect embodiment of this. His sign called Moms for Liberty fascists. I said, “Why do you think they are fascists?” He said I should ask his wife, who wasn’t there, because she is a librarian. I persisted, basically saying, “If you’re calling someone a fascist shouldn’t you at least know why?” “Again,” he replied, “she knows more about it.”
This is doubtless the attitude that many in the mainstream had as they covered the conference. You could see the suspicion in their eyes as media credentials were picked up. After all, this was a real live hate group, right? The journalists were ready to expose the bigots. But a funny thing happened on the way to the hit piece. As these mainstream media journalists actually talked to the moms, had real conversations with them instead of judging them based on angry school board meeting clips and fabulism from the Southern Poverty Law Center, they didn’t have much bad to say. The progressive Media Matters went so far as to send a reporter undercover, posing as an attendee. But instead of exposing the dark underbelly of a hate group, the would-be Woodward or Bernstein spent most of her expose discussing the food. Seriously.
Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for Liberty, attends a campaign event in Vero Beach, Florida on Oct. 16, 2022. (Giorgio Viera)
This comically induced its own backlash as leftists criticized the coverage for normalizing the group. Progressive influencer George Takai reacted to one ABC News tweet calling the moms “joyful warriors,” with “WTF are you doing normalizing these fascists?” The tweet was deleted because ABC News is cowardly, but the message it sent is clear.
When Moms for Liberty is given a free and fair platform, when people actually hear them out instead of hurling insults at them, their message is effective. It resonates, even with those predisposed to oppose them, and obviously, the vociferous critics and protesters know this too.
During one protest a leader of the Young Communists took to the microphone to say, “There is no room for these conversations in Philadelphia,” and that really summed it up. These leftists aren’t afraid of the conversation because it’s harmful or legitimizing. They are afraid because their own arguments don’t stand up.
They will never tell you why a first-grader should be looking at a book with images of oral sex, because it isn’t actually defensible.
At the end of the day, and the end of the conference, this is why Moms for Liberty is winning. With charming smiles and well-kept hair they stay on target, confident that their message of protecting children can and will win the day if they get an honest fight.
The greatest contribution that Moms for Liberty has made in its brief existence is not just demanding to ask important questions, demanding that progressives answer them, but also giving millions of Americans across the nation the courage and backup to do the same. One got the sense these three days in the nation’s birthplace that this organization is just getting started, that its righteous fire is spreading fast, and that anyone trying to get between them and their kids should know they won’t stop fighting until that threat is gone.
VILNIUS, Lithuania — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to send Sweden’s NATO accession protocol to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible.” Stoltenberg made the announcement after talks with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on the eve of a NATO summit in Lithuania. Sweden’s NATO accession has been held up by objections from Turkey since last year.
Earlier Monday, Erdogan said his country might approve Sweden’s membership in NATO if European Union nations “open the way” to Turkey’s bid to join the EU. It was the first time that Erdogan linked his country’s ambition to join the EU with Sweden’s efforts to become a NATO member.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
A federal judge in Louisiana denied a request by the Biden administration to delay an order he imposed last week banning federal officials from communicating with social media companies, Bloomberg reported.
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty on Monday refused to pause his July 4 nationwide injunction blocking multiple government agencies and administration officials from meeting with or contacting social media companies for the purpose of “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
WHY WOULD THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, AND THEIR PUPPET MASTERS, WANT THE COURT TO STAY THIS ORDER? Only nefarious motivations want a stay. Is it just me, or are they no longer concerned about being blatant with their cheating?
Doughty, nominated to the federal bench by then-President Donald Trump, also denied the government’s alternative request for a seven-day pause while it petitions the appeals court to step in.
The Justice Department is expected to ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene, Bloomberg reported. DOJ had insisted that Doughty’s order was broad and unclear in defining what kind of communication with tech companies is no longer allowed.
The judge responded by saying the government isn’t entitled to a delay in enforcing his order since they were likely to lose on the merits of the case, Bloomberg reported. Doughty added that DOJ failed to identify specific examples of government activity that would be hurt in the meantime.
“[The injunction] it is not as broad as it appears,” Doughty wrote in the order. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do — contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms. It also contains numerous exceptions.”
Doughty last week ruled the government likely violated the First Amendment in its efforts to persuade tech companies to take steps to limit the spread of misinformation and fake accounts, especially during the pandemic. The Biden administration wants the ban put on hold while it challenges the judge’s 155-page opinion.
Doughty’s order bars many agencies and their employees from “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” social media companies to remove or restrict content covered by the First Amendment’s free speech protections. The judge included exceptions for communications about criminal activity, national security threats, election integrity issues, and other “permissible public government speech,” Bloomberg reported.
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.
In a preliminary injunction issued against the White House and federal agencies on Tuesday in Missouri v. Biden, Judge Terry Doughty eviscerated government actors for colluding with social media companies to censor users’ protected speech in the name of eliminating “misinformation.”
Doughty, as others have done, compares the government censorship to Orwell’s hypothetical “Ministry of Truth.” But Orwell’s satirical title gives the speech police too much credit: It assumes “truth” is still a functional part of their vocabulary. No, our censors speak in terms of “misinformation.”
The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information. Truth has a moral component; information doesn’t. Years of moral relativism have eroded our cultural understanding of “truth” as a knowable, agreed-upon concept — and in our modern world, all we’re left with is an infinite supply of information.
Truth, Discerned in Nature by Reason
For most of Western history, philosophers and laymen alike have agreed upon the existence of “truth,” as a factual concept but also as a moral one. Plato said the “true philosophers” were those “who are lovers of the vision of truth,” which he described in terms of an ideal reality that transcended the imperfect reflections of truth, goodness, and beauty in the natural world. Similarly, Cicero believed in the existence of a natural law that could be understood via man’s reason.
Christianity describes the law being written on the hearts of men in similar terms, and presents the good, true, and beautiful as originating from and perfectly fulfilled in the triune God. The Bible refers to Christ as the Logos, the Word of God — a term closely associated with wisdom, reason, and truth. Elsewhere, Christ describes himself as “the way, and the truth, and the life.”
As Christianity and Greek thought spread throughout the West, an emphasis on the comprehension of truth via reason took root. Presuppositions about rational thought and laws of nature spawned mathematic, scientific, and artistic advancements, most famously during the Renaissance. A few centuries later, Enlightenment thinkers began to break away from the theistic grounding of the Western pursuit of truth, elevating reason alone as a sufficient basis for a functioning society. Modernism rejected the Enlightenment obsession with reason, as the booming industrial world sought to overcome nature and its laws and limits. As religious foundations continued to crumble, relativism emerged and completely unmoored itself from traditional assumptions about objective and knowable truth.
Today, we see factual relativism as well as moral. Not only does our prevailing social ethic tolerate individuals’ self-determination of “what’s right for me,” we’ve gone so far as to nod along when a man says he is actually a woman, lacking the philosophical footing to explain why that simply can’t be true.
To “speak your truth,” as distinct from the truth, is a moral victory to be praised according to our prevalent irrational dogma. Our cultural rejection of reason is evident in every field: Look at the deconstructionist sculptures and poetry that pass for art, or the assault on the fixed, rational rules of mathematics.
In this cultural condition, people are no longer equipped to speak in terms of truth, grounded in the divinely appointed laws of nature, discernible by human reason. Those concepts aren’t in our contemporary vocabulary.
“What’s right for me.” “Speak your truth.” These are samples of a culture that rejects all authority except their own. Self-centered, selfish, insecure, afraid of normal society, and moral laws they create their own world with cliches, beliefs, and a language that supports their self-created world. They are a spiritual, and natural law unto themselves.
Rather than blind themselves into society, their self-centered egos demand sociaity change just for them, adapt their language and definition to theirs, and respect their decisions or else they’ll shame you, or bully you (riots and violent demonstrations) into submission.
This is what happened with the homosexual lobby in the beginning of all this mess going back to the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The bully has made a lot of progress. Now they are so bold that they don’t care we know what they are doing in indoctrinating our children recruiting them into homosexuality. With the help of Margrett Sangers disciples of birth control, they are sterilizing our children through this trans garbage getting children to sterilize themselves through sex change surgeries. Welcome to 2023 Liberalism Psychotics.
Truth Isn’t Fragile, But Regime-Approved Narratives Are
In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Doughty explains: “It is the purpose of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of the market, whether it be by government itself or private licensee.”
The essential context and goal of meaningful free speech — a world in which ideas are debated openly so that truth may triumph — is no longer feasible when ideas cease to be judged on their merits and are instead judged by the intensity with which a person feels them to be true.
When there is no longer an agreed-upon concept of “truth,” ideas are reduced to those with which you agree and those you don’t. When you can’t rely on your ideas to endure simply because they’re true, contradictory perspectives and ideas become more of a threat.
Enter the pervasive concept of “misinformation.” It’s not a new term — Noah Webster defined it in 1828 as “false account or intelligence received.” The very idea of “misinformation” as it was understood in Webster’s time was basically a photonegative of truth: One could be misinformed, but the “false account” could be understood to be false precisely because it contradicted something true.
But in a post-rational world, “misinformation” means something else. One of the government bureaucrats accused in Missouri v. Biden of working to censor Americans admitted as much, in a very un-self-aware statement: “CISA Director Easterly stated: ‘We live in a world where people talk about alternative facts, post-truth, which I think is really, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts,’” according to Doughty.
Of course, if everyone is picking his own facts, the government doing so is no different. As Doughty concluded, “The Free Speech Clause was enacted to prohibit just what Director Easterly is wanting to do: allow the government to pick what is true and what is false.” If there is no ultimate truth, then all that’s left is the prevailing narrative and information that challenges that narrative: misinformation. Government censors can make an appeal to reported facts or scientific studies, but man is ultimately fallible and those conclusions have no grounding if they are rooted in no higher law than the men who derive them.
That’s because truth is inseparable from goodness. It’s more than sterile informational accuracy — to be true is to reflect the created order that is ultimately good because its Creator is goodness Himself.
Man possesses the knowledge of good and evil, and it cost him dearly. Until we admit the language of goodness — and its opposite — back into our cultural vocabulary, we’ll be vainly squabbling over “misinformation,” and the most powerful actors will get to define it.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., introduced legislation earlier this week ensuring that only eligible U.S. citizens are able to vote in federal elections.
Titled the “NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act of 2023,” the proposed bill includes amendments to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and 2002 Help America Vote Act that seek to clarify states’ authority in maintaining federal voter registration lists and establish that federal election funding cannot be “used to support States that permit non-citizens to cast ballots in any election.”
Under the NVRA, states are required to “ensur[e] the maintenance of an accurate and current voter registration roll for elections for Federal office.” The current version of the law, however, only refers to “eligible voters” and does not include a provision about citizenship requirements.
While the Constitution and federal law stipulate that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, several Democrat-led cities in states such as Maryland and California have adopted measures in recent years permitting the practice for their respective municipal elections. In October, for instance, Washington, D.C. passed legislation granting foreign nationals the ability to vote in the district’s local elections. House Republicans’ efforts to revoke the law have been blocked by Senate Democrats.
“Since the Constitution prohibits non-citizens from voting in Federal elections, such ineligible persons must not be permitted to be placed on Federal voter registration lists,” the NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act reads.
In order to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting in federal elections, Griffith’s bill includes a provision requiring states that permit localities to allow noncitizen voting in their respective elections to place such non-citizens on a voter registration list “separate from the official list of eligible voters with respect to registrants who are citizens of the United States.” The measure further mandates “the ballot used for the casting of votes by a noncitizen in such State or local jurisdiction may only include the candidates for the elections for public office in the State or local jurisdiction for which the noncitizen is permitted to vote.”
While Congress does not possess the authority to manage state and local elections, it can control federal funding that is allocated to these jurisdictions for the purposes of election administration. Griffith’s bill seeks to utilize this authority by reducing any federal payments issued to a state or locality that permits noncitizen voting by 30 percent and prohibiting them from using funds for certain “election administration activities.”
“One of the rights and privileges granted in the U.S Constitution is an American citizen’s ability to vote in our country’s federal elections,” Griffith said in a statement. “If non-citizens are allowed to vote in our federal elections, it could invite foreign interference and dilute the voice of American citizens. The NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act upholds Americans’ right to vote, preserving our great democracy.”
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
A preliminary injunction issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty explicitly prohibits the White House and several federal agencies from violating the First Amendment by directing social media companies to censor Americans.
Up to and even after the injunction’s release, Democrats have insisted that any suggestion the federal government is colluding with Big Tech to censor conservatives (or pretty much any information inconvenient to the current administration) is a “conspiracy” theory. However, in his injunction, Judge Doughty cited shocking evidence that the deep state’s collusion with Big Tech is very much real. Here are 12 of the dozens of damning instances cited by the judge that demonstrate the severity of our government’s illegal partnership with Big Tech.
1. White House Orders RFK Tweet Removal ‘ASAP’
On Jan. 23, 2021, the White House requested Twitter remove a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that was critical of Covid-19 vaccines. “Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP,” wrote a Biden official. The White House also expressed a desire to “keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre.”
2. White House Requests ‘Immediate’ Ban On Biden Family Member Parody Account
On Feb. 6, 2021, the White House asked Twitter to ban a “parody account linked to Finnegan Biden, Hunter Biden’s daughter and President Biden’s granddaughter.”
“Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately,” the official wrote to Twitter. “Please remove this account immediately.” The account was banned within 45 minutes, Doughty noted.
3. Twitter Streamlines White House Censorship Requests
On Feb. 7, 2021, Twitter provided the White House with a “Twitter’s Partner Support Portal” that, according to the injunction, “expedited review of flagging content for censorship.” The portal was created because Twitter felt overwhelmed by the large volume of censorship requests coming from the White House and wanted to both prioritize and expedite the administration’s requests.
4. Twitter Promises White House It Will Boost Censorship
On March 1, 2021, after a meeting with White House officials about “misinformation,” Twitter sent a follow-up email promising that it would do more to suppress “misleading information.”
“Thanks again for meeting with us today. As we discussed, we are building on ‘our’ continued efforts to remove the most harmful COVID-19 ‘misleading information’ from the service,” Twitter wrote.
5. Facebook Fulfills White House’s Covid Censorship Requests
Sometime between May and July, a “senior Meta executive” sent emails to White House officials, letting them know that Meta was fulfilling White House “requests” to censor alleged Covid-19 misinformation. The email also said Meta was “expand[ing] penalties” for “Facebook accounts that share misinformation.”
“We think there is considerably more we can do in ‘partnership’ with you and your team to drive behavior,” Meta wrote.
6. Facebook Agrees to More Sweeping White House Covid Vaccine Censorship Demands
On March 21, 2021, Facebook sent an email to the White House recapping a March 19 in-person meeting during which the Biden administration apparently “demanded a consistent point of contact with Facebook, additional data from Facebook, ‘Levers for Tackling Vaccine Hesitancy Content,’ and censorship policies for Meta’s platform WhatsApp.” In response, according to Doughty, Facebook said it was “censoring, removing, and reducing the virality of” anti-vaccine content “that does not contain actionable misinformation.”
7. Facebook Shadowbans Vaccine Content on WhatsApp at Behest of White House
In the same aforementioned email, Facebook also agreed to shadowban anti-Covid vaccine content on Meta-owned WhatsApp. “As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that do not contain actionable misinformation,” the Big Tech company explained.
8. Facebook Boosts White House’s Vaccine Propaganda
On April 13, 2021, the White House asked Facebook multiple times to “amplify” pro-vaccine messaging in the wake of a “temporary halt” of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. “Re the J & J news, we’re keen to amplify any messaging you want us to project about what this means for people,” Facebook wrote back.
9. White House Demands Censorship of Tucker Carlson Post
On April 14, 2021, a White House official emailed a Facebook executive inquiring into why a Tucker Carlson post with an “anti-vax message” had not been censored. Facebook responded, stating that while the post did not violate community guidelines, it was being “demoted.” Another White House official, unsatisfied with the shadowbanning since Carlson’s post had garnered 40,000 shares, wrote an email demanding an explanation from Facebook. The official also apparently directly called a Facebook executive. Facebook subsequently assured the White House that the video was given a “50% demotion for seven days and stated that it would continue to demote the video.”
10. Twitter Deplatforms Alex Berenson After White House Calls Him ‘Epicenter of Disinfo’
On April 21, officials from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services met with Twitter for a “Twitter Vaccine Misinfo Briefing.” During the meeting, White House officials “wanted to know” why journalist Alex Berenson had not been “kicked off” Twitter, calling him “the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.” Berenson was later suspended and eventually deplatformed.
11. Facebook Appeases White House Censorship Demands to Get Back in Biden’s ‘Good Graces’
In July 2021, after intense public and internal pressure from White House officials, including Press Secretary Jen Psaki and President Joe Biden himself, Facebook waged a mass censorship campaign against the “Disinformation Dozen” and anyone connected to them. The “Disinformation Dozen” are 12 users (one of whom is RFK Jr.) who were apparently responsible for the majority of anti-vaccine content. Around that same time, a Facebook official asked one of Biden’s senior advisers for ways to “get back into the White House’s good graces,” adding that Facebook and the White House were “100% on the same team here in fighting this.”
12. White House Successfully Pressures Twitter to Remove Jill Biden Parody Video
On Nov. 30, 2021, the White House emailed Twitter to flag an edited video of First Lady Jill Biden “profanely heckling children while reading to them,” according to the injunction. In response, Twitter slapped a label on the video, warning that it had been “edited for comedic effect.” However, that wasn’t enough for the White House. After several back and forths that included the first lady’s press secretary, Twitter removed the video in December 2021.
The above list is only the tip of the iceberg. The Biden administration’s colossal war on the First Amendment includes an even wider range of targets, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, the lab-leak theory, anyone who questions the integrity of the 2020 election, anyone who questions the security of voting by mail, anyone who questions climate change, pro-lifers, people who believe in the sex binary, negative posts about the economy, and general criticism of the president. “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” wrote Judge Doughty.
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
“Sound of Freedom” follows the true story of Special Agent Tim Ballard who specialized in catching
sex criminals, particularly in regard to the exploitation of children on the internet. But Tim is challenged early in the film by the seeming futility of catching criminals when real children’s lives are at stake. Years of looking at the darkest side of humanity has broken his heart to pieces, and the only way he can see to rebuild his humanity is by liberating the lost and forgotten victims of the sex trafficking network. He goes on a quest to South America to do just that.
Jim Caviezel plays Ballard. His classic no-frills acting approach is perfect for this role. Caviezel is best known for playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s controversial “The Passion of the Christ.” He brings the same level of intensity and compassion from this role to Ballard’s story. In fact, Ballard’s mission to seek and save lost children is a distinctly Christian value based on the theological principle that each child is uniquely beloved by God.
When Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,” he was making a revolutionary claim. Children, the most vulnerable and dependent members of society, had a special place in his kingdom. They mattered to him in a way that no other religious founder has ever envisioned. The faith of a child was the type of faith Jesus wanted from his followers — one free from the pollution and cynicism of adulthood, one of total dependence on their Heavenly Father.
These values aren’t universally understood and accepted. Ballard’s story is proof of that. According to the movie, the child sex industry brings in $150 billion dollars every year. This industry is powerful and is not nearly as niche as we would like to think it is. While its visible activists are milquetoast perverts we can easily jail, the invisible perpetrators are the ones who do the real damage — the cartels, drug lords, and even our own politicians enable the child sexual slavery that is more prominent now than ever before.
At the end of the film, Caviezel addresses the viewers and makes the point that this story isn’t about a movie production or even about Ballard. It’s about the children — lost, invisible children who suffer in the depths of hell every single day. While the rich and powerful try to indoctrinate us with critical race theory and other ideological moralisms, true victims suffer in literal cages and chains.
The children are by far the best and worst part of this film. The two lead child actors are heart-wrenchingly perfect — a brother and sister who have been ripped apart by this evil industry. I’ve never seen such realistic and effective acting from children. Thankfully, the film only ever implies the atrocious things that are done to them, but in some ways that makes it even more disturbing. Our imaginations torture us, and they should torture us on this issue — more than visual depictions could.
And that is what makes the child acting simultaneously the worst thing about this film. All the children seem like genuine children. None of them look like actors — they are presented to us with complete realism. If you have anything even resembling a conscience, watching these children is an utter tragedy. It is painful to see their pain on full display.
This film might not depict anything visually distasteful, but it is not for the weak-hearted and is difficult to watch. It is honest about what this world is and does. I heard crying throughout the entire theater audience — it is beyond moving. At the end of the film, I wanted to clap, but it felt inappropriate. It was similar to watching “Schindler’s List.” What exactly are we celebrating by clapping for films like this? The heroism I suppose, but it doesn’t feel right. Silent repose seemed to be the most appropriate response.
The film itself is magnificently produced. The direction by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Monteverde is fantastic and is tonally similar to the brilliant “Sicario.” However, the best part of the production is the score. It is full of the voices of children, which gives voice both to the lament of evil and the hope in the midst of it. And despite the pain, there is much hope in this film.
Children have been freed from chains due to the efforts of people like Ballard. That hope should inspire us all to action. We cannot act out of guilt or shame that we have not done more already. Instead, we must move forward in the hope that justice will be brought to this evil. It is possible to seek and save those who are lost.
During his message in the credits, Caviezel explains that “Sound of Freedom” is supposed to call a sleeping nation to seek justice for the oppressed. The United States is actually one of the largest consumers of child sex trafficking — a large part of the responsibility is in our own backyard.
So what can we do about it? First and foremost make sure people see this film. Angel Productions has even provided free tickets online. This story can change people’s hearts and inspire them to do something about child slavery. It is a call to action.
Early on in the film, Caviezel looks at a pedophile he’s using to try to find some of the lost children, and he quotes Jesus: “If anyone causes these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung around their neck.”
The current culture war is all about children. Children are the most important thing in the world. We cannot allow our world to be dominated by child sexual abuse. We must help. To quote the film, “God’s children are not for sale.”
A.C. Gleason is a proud alumnus of Biola University and Talbot Seminary. He teaches philosophy full-time. His writing has appeared in numerous outlets including Hollywood in Toto, The Daily Wire, and The Imaginative Conservative.
Tucker Carlson says he “doesn’t know” why he was fired by Fox News but that he isn’t angry about it.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Carlson said during an appearance Friday on actor Russell Brand’s podcast, “Stay Free,” the TV host’s first public interview since being fired by Fox in April. “They didn’t agree with me, of course, I don’t think.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been fired … when you say what you think there’s an expectation you can get fired. I didn’t expect to get fired that morning at all, so I was shocked. But I wasn’t really shocked … I wasn’t mad,” he added.
“The only thing that bothers me? I’m 54. When you get a little bit older … you can lose your drive … It’s a little bit too nice,” he said of his extended vacation in Maine filled with fishing and late breakfasts. “My only fear has been … being a little bit too happy.”
Carlson during the wide-ranging interview also discussed the 2024 presidential election, electronic voting machines, the Jan. 6 Capitol incident, President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, and his new broadcasts on Twitter.
“Trump is the only person … who is saying: ‘Wait a second. You know, why are we supporting an endless war in Ukraine?'” he said of Trump’s criticism of the U.S.’s involvement.
“All I can say at this point is I’m so grateful that he has that position. He’s right. And everyone in Washington is wrong, everyone,” Carlson continued.
“Trump is right on that question … the war is reshaping the world. It’s reshaping the economy of the world. It’s reshaping populations,” he went on. “Later, Carlson said that U.S. had an unique power to force a peace in the conflict, but the powers that be refuse to do so.”
On immigration, Carlson said the Biden administration’s approach to the issue is “designed to wreck the country and make it unstable.”
“I’m not against immigrants, that’s insane. The way the U.S. is doing immigration is designed to wreck the country … and add to racial division which I hate because it’s not solvable. Our leaders not only want racial conflict but are stoking it,” he said.
He also said he was “hurt” the first time he was called a white supremacist.
The interview comes a week after Fox News paid $12 million to settle a former producer’s lawsuit claiming that Carlson’s show was an abusive place to work.
Tucker Carlson on why he chose to launch his show on Twitter: “I’m not working for Elon Musk… what he’s done is offered me is what he’s offered every other user at Twitter which is a chance to broadcast your views without a gatekeeper” pic.twitter.com/NySormlv18
Special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor behind the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the investigation into sensitive national security documents being kept at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, has spent more than $9 million since taking on the assignment late last year, according to Department of Justice figures released Friday.
Smith has spent about $5.4 million on personnel, rent, and other costs from his own budget and brought about another $3.8 million in spending by other DOJ agencies in the four months after he was picked last November to lead the investigation and other probes involving alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, reports Politico.
The report only accounts for Smith’s spending through March and does not include the period leading up to Trump’s indictment in June or the increased activity in the election investigation, as the special counsel started the process for a second Florida grand jury.
Part of the $3.8 million includes the cost for Smith’s security detail in the high-profile investigations, the report said.
When Smith was brought on, the investigations involving Trump had already been underway. He kept most of the staff that was already involved but added more prosecutors in recent months.
The report doesn’t include how much the DOJ had already spent on the probes before bringing on Smith.
The special counsel, who had headed the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, left his job in Europe, where he was prosecuting war crimes, and returned to Washington to take over the investigations on Trump.
Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed in January to examine President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents spent $615,000 through March, with the DOJ incurring another $572,000 in expenses, according to another report.
John Durham, the special counsel appointed to examine the origins of the Russian conspiracy probe involving Trump’s first election campaign spent $1.11 million in the six months before March 31 while wrapping up his investigation of the FBI, with the DOJ adding in another $59,000.
There is an epidemic in the United State military. It’s not the kind of epidemic that Anthony Fauci profits from, but an epidemic that is truly threatening our national security.
Since the days of Barack Obama’s presidency, the Pentagon has started focusing more on social experiments than on excellence. Woke liberals have made it their mission to indoctrinate cadets at our military academies with Marxist ideas, force transgender ideology on our troops, and claim that “extremism” is pervasive in our military. Their mission is simple: Transform our military into a weak, feelings-first social program that promotes leftist ideas.
We cannot let that happen. The true mission of the U.S. military remains: Win wars and act as a deterrent against potential wars.
The American military is the greatest fighting force the world has ever known – and the greatest force for freedom. While other countries try to conquer, America defends and liberates. And the men and women who compose our military represent the greatest forms of sacrifice and courage.
But the left views our military differently. Leftists put pronouns before petty officers, diversity initiatives before Devil Dogs, wokeness before warriors. In other words, they care more about programming and indoctrinating our men and women in uniform than they care about the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines themselves. It’s shameful, and America deserves better.
Potential recruits clearly agree, and it is no surprise that the Army missed its 2022 recruiting goals by 25%. The Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting targets as well.
The United States needs real leaders to stand up to this nonsense and fight back. And I don’t just mean posting a statement on Twitter. I mean real action.
First, we need leaders in Congress to defund DEI initiatives that have wormed their way into every corner of our military. The Pentagon is spending tens of millions of dollars hiring individuals whose sole job is DEI. That’s absurd. That money should be immediately repurposed to pay for next-generation equipment that will defeat America’s enemies. We need military members focused on actual warfighting – not making someone feel special.
Second, it’s time for military commanders to be courageous and push back. Wokeness is rotting our military from the inside out, distracting from the actual mission of the Unites States military. We don’t need political military leaders who are only worried about advancing their careers. We need officers to fulfill their responsibility to put the mission first and take care of the troops under their command. Commanders should find ways to minimize the nonsense on their bases, promote unifying leadership initiatives that lead to improving warfighting, and deliver blunt and direct feedback to their superiors about how the obsession with DEI is damaging our military.
Third, we need voters to make their voices heard. When the American people speak loudly, politicians are forced to listen. It’s not enough for members of Congress to just say the right thing; we must hold them accountable at the ballot box based on their actions. Ask your congressman and senator: What specific actions have you taken to stop the work nonsense in our military?
Excellence is the standard in the United State military. We should accept nothing less. But when we allow leftists to make “feelings” the standard, we are jeopardizing our national security. China, Russia, and Iran love it when America’s military is distracted with drag shows on military bases. Enough is enough. It’s time that the Pentagon refocuses on defending our country.
John Warren is a successful businessman, entrepreneur, and combat veteran who served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. Warren is the co-author of “Lead Like a Marine” and the honorary chairman of South Carolina’s Conservative Future.
We are now 2+ years into consuming reams of information showing the vaccines were devastating to humanity. What will Republicans do about it other than whine about censorship? Refusing to focus on vaccine injury and the perfidy of the government-vaccine complex is an act of self-censorship.
There is a bizarre dynamic unfolding as it relates to GOP sentiment toward the vaccine. All Republicans recognize and decry the growing evidence of the government’s collaboration with big tech to censor all information about vaccine injury. Yet they seem to be more upset about the censorship of the information than about the information itself. Why is there no push from Republicans to defund the vaccines and fix the regulatory and legal structures that allowed Operation Warp Speed to occur and that continue to gaslight the next iteration of rushed, dangerous vaccines?
In an extraordinary ruling on Independence Day itself, Louisiana federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a broad injunction against all government agencies on working with social media companies to censor politically unfavored speech. Citing “substantial evidence” of government’s “dystopian” violations of the First Amendment, Judge Doughty prohibited the federal government from “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” The injunction not only includes the HHS agencies censoring COVID information, but also the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the State Department, the DOJ, and the White House censoring all forms of protected speech.
This ruling comes a week after the House Judiciary committee produced a preliminary report showing DHS’ CISA was behind the censorship enterprise. It turns out that CISA funded a nonprofit group to work with social media on a process, known as “switchboarding,” which would “trigger content moderation” to “ensure priority treatment of misinformation reports.”
Republicans seem united in combating this censorship and plan to include provisions in the relevant appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024 to block funding for these surveillance and censorship programs. However, where is the same degree of outrage about the dangers of the vaccines themselves?
We now have over two years of information showing ubiquitous injury stemming from damage to all parts of the body, particularly cardiac and neurological. Whether it’s VAERS, European data, countless independent studies, epidemiological data, excess deaths and “died suddenly” mysteries correlating with the take-up of the vaccines, health insurance data, life insurance data, or disability data – we have enough evidence to convict this shot for murder if it were a human standing for trial. Yet not only have these vaccines not been defunded, the same framework that rushed their approval has already been used for countless other new vaccines.
The government’s new shell game is to concede the existence of these problems, but play semantics with the term “rare” when describing their risk. Science Insider published a piece acknowledging the “rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness,” including blood clotting, heart inflammation, and neurological disorders. Even Peter Marks, the man at the center of Operation Warp Speed, admitted, “We can’t rule out rare cases.”
“If a provider has somebody in front of them, they may want to take seriously the concept [of] a vaccine side effect,” admits the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, two years after emails show he ignored concerns of rushing the vaccine amidst a pileup of adverse event reporting.
However, what is rare? The CDC’s own pharmacovigilance program showed a 7.7% rate of clinical-level injury. Coupled with the underreporting rate in VAERS, there were likely millions of severe and long-term injuries, including several hundred thousand deaths in the U.S. So yes, we can suggest that 92% of people didn’t experience clinical levels of injury and 98%-99% didn’t experience long-term and deadly injuries. In that sense, I guess you can say it’s rare. But how many people are we talking about when 5.5 billion people were given at least one dose? Potentially, millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of injuries! Just consider the fact that 25% of injuries reported to VAERS and about a third reported by the European Medicines Agency are considered serious, well beyond the standard of 15%.
House Republicans can no longer ignore the problem with the vaccines. They must also stop ignoring the endless approvals of monkeypox and RSV shots based on dubious data and the same rushed framework. To that end, Speaker McCarthy should take the following actions.
Create a commission of members of Congress to examine the rationale, safety, and efficacy data of all vaccines, beginning with the new ones recently approved and in the pipeline.
Bar any involvement in a WHO pandemic treaty or expansion of the International Health Regulations.
Repeal immunity for vaccine manufacturers, including the provision in the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 that extends the immunity to vaccines offered to pregnant women.
To this day, we still can’t get Republicans to shake their support for the V-word even in red states. Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, the consummate COVID fascist governor, used his line-item veto to strike a provision from the budget ending vaccine mandates in colleges. “University and college dormitories and student housing are congregate settings where such policy may be of great importance to ensure resident safety,” said DeWine of vaccine mandates in his veto message. It takes a new level of cognitive dissonance to support mandates on those who don’t want the shot out of fear of harming those who did supposedly get the protection that evidently fails to protect unless the other person gets it!
Republicans all agree that our government engaged in an unprecedented operation to cover up the truth about vaccines. How come their curiosity stops at the degree of exposing the cover-up with no interest in delving into what exactly they are trying to cover up? After all, this is the only product that automatically goes into every arm of every baby multiple times after birth with a set schedule mandated by schools. Certainly the COVID shots are proven to be poison, but is there no interest in uncovering the broader truth?
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to note that 5.5 billion, not 5.5 million, received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
A man waves a rainbow flag while observing a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015. | Reuters/Elijah Nouvelage
It was a normal Wednesday commute, crawling across the 14th Street Bridge with thousands of other frustrated D.C. drivers — until out the corner of my eye, I saw the metro glide across the tracks next to us. There, suspended above the Potomac, were eight cars — all wrapped in transgender and rainbow flags — speeding into the most powerful city in the world.
Even now, weeks into this contrived celebration, it was a jarring picture of how insufferable the Pride movement has become. Deep into June, you can’t blame Americans for wondering: When will this train of extremism end?
Like me, Free Republic’s Kristinn Taylor was annoyed to see that even commuters can’t escape the LGBT oversaturation. “DC Metro cars [have] transformed into rolling ‘Pride’ struggle sessions,” she protested on Twitter. And according to a new poll, she’s not alone. Pride fatigue is real, The Trafalgar Group found, and it’s across the board.
In a new survey, Robert Cahaly’s group asked more than 1,000 people (who leaned Democratic by 4%) if they’re sick of the public LGBT pandering. A whopping 62% said yes, they just wished companies would stay neutral. Only 23% think corporations should continue on with their extreme political themes.
Equally as damning — at least for the CEOs still clinging to their offensive activism (think Nike, Target, Kohl’s) — are the massive swaths of consumers who are avoiding leftist brands. While 41% of all voters say they’ve “personally boycotted a company that took a public stance on a cultural or political issue they disagree with,” almost 70% are Republicans, who’ve refused to shop with “progressive” businesses. Forty percent of non-affiliated voters admitted to doing the same.
That’s a sizeable gap in pushback compared to Democrats, who are much less likely (45%) to punish “conservative or MAGA-leaning” businesses. Interestingly, 14% of Joe Biden’s party admitted to joining Republicans in abandoning overly woke companies — a surprisingly high cross-over rate that shows just how much radical CEOs have overplayed their hand on issues like transgenderism.
And the farther we get into June, the more intense the backlash has become. Shoppers everywhere have made punching bags out of Bud Light and Target — forcing several of American brands to reconsider just how much capital they’re willing to sacrifice. As the losses to those brands dip into the multi-billions, there’s a growing sense that businesses are getting the message.
According to Bloomberg, brands are dramatically toning down their Pride promotion from last year. In the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney scandal in April, “references to ‘Pride Month’ in filings, presentations and transcripts from April to June at more than 900 of the largest US companies dropped almost 40% from this time last year, the first decline in five years. Other LGBTQ terms showed similar declines, the analysis found.”
That’s a seismic shift for the U.S. market and an enormous victory for grassroots Americans who’ve finally put their dollars where their values are. As Dr. Ben Carson said on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch,” these big brands have finally been forced to reevaluate their purpose — and, just as importantly, their loyalties. “Corporate America has a very important purpose, and that is to reward their stockholders. Now, they can’t necessarily do that if they have another agenda — like being social manipulators. And I think they’re starting to recognize that. And I’m glad to see also that the people are pushing back.”
The Bud Light disaster, Target’s trans outreach, “all of these things,” Carson pointed out, “are wake-up calls for corporate America to get back to doing what they’re supposed to be doing and stop meddling. You know, one of the reasons that our country was established is because people wanted to come to a place where they could live the life that they wanted to live without it being manipulated and without all kinds of mandates. And whether those mandates come from the government or from corporate America, they still have a deleterious effect on the freedoms that people experience.”
“And the only people who can change that is we the people … We have to put our foot down and say, this is America. This is where we are free to live the way that we want to, to worship the way we want to, to say what we want to say. And we’re not going to stand for government or corporate America to try to dictate [what we think and believe].”
No one has been in that bullseye more than Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, who called the crashing and burning of his brand a “challenging few weeks” on Fox. And while he has yet to apologize for the firestorm that Bud Light started by embracing transgenderism, he does accept the blame for the devastating consequences of that decision. “We have to understand the impact that it’s had … on our employees, the impact on our consumers, and as well the impact on our partners,” he said. “One thing I’d love to make extremely clear is that impact is my responsibility and as the CEO, everything we do here I’m accountable for.”
“There’s a big social conversation taking place right now,” Whitworth acknowledged, “and big brands are right in the middle of it. And it’s not just our industry or Bud Light. It’s happening in retail, happening in fast food. And so for us, what we need to understand is — deeply understand and appreciate — is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands.”
What they expect, the polls have shownsince 2021, is neutrality. When a good 40% of your consumer base ups and walks away, there should be plenty of motivation for corporations to sit down and rethink their politics.
“Most Americans respond to relentless, preachy marketing from businesses trying to virtue signal their progressive bona fides like they respond to street preachers thumping a Bible,” Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand. “But the LGBTQ movement, like the street preacher, doesn’t care because they have simply decided anyone who rejects their message is going to hell. The LGBT movement has become what they claim to hate, but they haven’t recognized it yet.”
In the meantime, what they and everyone else can’t help but recognize is Americans’ buying power. May it continue to be the bridle that holds the woke in check.
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer for The Washington Stand. In her role, she drafts commentary on topics such as life, consumer activism, media and entertainment, sexuality, education, religious freedom, and other issues that affect the institutions of marriage and family. Over the past 20 years at FRC, her op-eds have been featured in publications ranging from the Washington Times to The Christian Post. Suzanne is a graduate of Taylor University in Upland, Ind., with majors in both English Writing and Political Science.
University professor addresses his students during a lecture. | Getty Images
An Ohio gender studies professor was formally reprimanded and ordered to complete free speech training after giving a student a failing grade on a project centered around women’s rights in sports that used the phrase “biological women.”
Melanie Nipper, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati, received an official reprimand from the school in June after she gave her student, Olivia Krolczyk, a zero out of 20 on a May final project in a Gender in Popular Culture class, stating that “biological women” is an “exclusionary” term.
A copy of the reprimand obtained by The Cincinnati Enquirer stated that Nipper’s actions violated the university’s Campus Free Speech Policy. The letter also stated that any other violations of the university’s policies may result in termination.
“To prevent any further violation of this policy, you must complete training on the requirements of the Campus Free Speech Policy,” Ashley Currier, head of the Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC, wrote in the letter. “Through the end of Academic Year 2024/2025, you must submit all syllabi to me at least two weeks prior to the beginning of classes for review and approval.”
Nipper appealed the reprimand in a June 19 letter to UC’s Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Margaret Hanson. She argued that the restriction on what she referred to as “harmful speech” was necessary to “ensure a safe learning environment.” The professor defended her actions, stating that she informed the student that her project was “inappropriate” because she believed it framed trans individuals as oppressors.
“My language in the Canvas comment informed the student that the term “biological women” was the issue; however, in follow-up emails with the student, I answered her questions and explained that the context of the topic with the phrase was the issue, rather than the isolated phrase itself,” Nipper wrote.
The adjunct instructor felt it necessary to tell the student to change her project topic or alter the language to include “all women.” Another reason the professor cited for the failing grade was that the project failed to use in-class sources, which she noted do not support “trans-exclusionary feminism.”
“Additionally, as the class has students that identify as gender non-conforming and/or trans, I felt it was necessary to educate her regarding inclusive language to ensure a safe learning environment for other students in the course discussion boards,” Nipper added.
Nipper concluded her letter by requesting that the interim dean reconsider the reprimand, expressing confidence that she can continue teaching students without violating the school’s policy on freedom of expression.
The University of Cincinnati did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
In May, Krolczyk shared her final project grade and the professor’s comments in a TikTok video. The student’s video featured a screenshot of Nipper’s remarks on her project, saying that she’d regrade the assignment if Krolczyk edited it to focus on “women’s rights (not just females).” In addition to deriding the phrase “biological women” as “exclusionary,” Nipper said that the term is not allowed in the course because it reinforces “heteronormativity.”
Krolczyk’s project focused on women’s rights in sports, from securing a spot for women in the Olympic Games to the current challenges female athletes face when biological men are allowed to compete as women. The student questioned in the video how she was supposed to complete her project if she couldn’t use the phrase “biological women.”
More evidence of the Transgender-Agenda sickness is disrupting our society, but even more, our colleges and universities. How many centuries of biology has been taught that there are TWO GENDERS. Now, these are the same people that tried to shame us when we stood our ground about all the COVID-19 propaganda, shouting, “FOLLOW THE SCIENCE”. “BELIEVE THE SCIENCE”.
In years past, the term, “mental illness” would be associated with this kind of conduct.”
Women’s sports advocates such as Riley Gaines have repeatedly addressed the impact that allowing biological men into women’s spaces has had on female athletes. Last month, Gaines testified during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans.”
Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer and University of Kentucky graduate, discussed her experience competing against Will Thomas, a biological man who identifies as a woman named Lia Thomas. Thomas previously competed as a man for three seasons at the University of Pennsylvania before he started competing on the girls’ team during the 2021-’22 season.
Besides being forced to share a locker room with Thomas, the women athletes watched Thomas beat multiple female swimmers. Gaines accused the NCAA of discriminating against women by allowing a man to compete against them and claim their awards.
Independence Day celebrations in Minneapolis descended into chaos as police and residents were attacked with fireworks, videos reveal. Independent journalist Rebecca Brannon wrote on Twitter, “Insanely chaotic night across Minneapolis as I tracked 250-500 group of mostly juveniles across the city until 3 AM. State troopers as far as Stillwater joined MPD tonight but authorities were still overwhelmed; many officers seemed very frustrated.”
Brannon posted numerous videos of people intentionally launching fireworks at buildings, residents, cars, and police officers on the night of the 4th of July. Brannon noted that several of the people firing fireworks were dressed in all black and wearing masks.
Brannon said she was attacked: “Hundreds set off a war zone of fireworks shooting at people and vehicles – behind and all around me. One person even started shooting roman candles at me while I filmed.”
There was a confrontation between police officers and several individuals near Lake Calhoun. An officer orders the group to “go home” and accuses them of “terrorizing people.”
KMSP-TV reported that commercial-grade fireworks were being launched from a vehicle at Minnehaha Regional Park.
Erin Gormley, caretaker for her condominium near Bde Maka Ska, told KMSP-TV, “They were shooting explosives at me because I was protecting the property. They had no regard for anything, they were putting fireworks, like explosive ones, under the cars.”
Gormley added, “I felt afraid. I was not going to leave my front door.”
Despite the heavy police presence, including officers from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter, the crowds seemed unwilling to disperse.
Local resident Erin Hewitt said, “There was just a complete disrespect for everybody. Once the police came, there was no leaving. They were just hanging out, they weren’t listening to the police whatsoever. It was pretty intense.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference, “The targeting of innocent people with fireworks is unlawful, dangerous, and wholly unacceptable.”
“But it was really I think after midnight, we had probably a couple of hundred young people gathered in the area of the lake around Bde Maka Ska,” O’Hara stated. “And that was where it became challenging just because there were so many kids gathered, onlookers to observe this activity, and they were parked deeply into some of the neighborhoods there. And it just took us time to clear everybody out. And just because of the volume of that, then it became, you know, trying to keep disrupting them wherever they were, then trying to go after them.”
Police said there were 16 people arrested, 11 of whom were juveniles.
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A coalition of top Republicans on Capitol Hill is demanding a federal investigation into allegations of retaliation against Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers who revealed misconduct related to the Hunter Biden investigation.
In June, the House Ways and Means Committee published the transcripts of interviews with a pair of IRS whistleblowers detailing improper interference from the Justice Department surrounding the federal tax probe of the first family. According to the whistleblowers, federal prosecutors concealed critical documents from tax investigators while officials from the Justice Department sought to undermine IRS efforts altogether.
On Wednesday, Republican House and Senate lawmakers led by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to the Office of Special Counsel urging the agency to open a probe into retaliatory conduct against the IRS whistleblowers.
“The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have reportedly engaged in unlawful whistleblower retaliation against veteran IRS employees,” lawmakers wrote. “Multiple news reports indicate that the whistleblower and investigative team were removed from the Hunter Biden investigation by the IRS at DOJ’s request as retaliation for making protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson signed the letter with Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee; Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who chairs the Oversight Committee; and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee.
“The importance of protecting whistleblowers from unlawful retaliation and informing whistleblowers about their rights under the law cannot be understated,” they wrote, without naming the whistleblowers. “After all, it is the law. Accordingly, we request that you immediately investigate all allegations of retaliation against these IRS whistleblowers…”
Transcripts of interviews between two IRS whistleblowers and Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee were made public last month after Hunter Biden struck a light plea deal with federal prosecutors. Hunter Biden pled guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes and a felony firearm violation. The latter charge will be forgiven following two years of sobriety and a forfeiture of gun ownership.
The former chief of the DOJ’s tax division published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal recommending the judge presiding over the agreement reject the deal.
According to whistleblower Gary Shapley, a veteran agent with the IRS who served on the case, “the most substantive felony charges were left off the table.”
“We weren’t allowed to ask questions about ‘dad,’” Shapley said in an interview with Fox News. “We weren’t allowed to ask about ‘the big guy.’”
Hunter Biden did not pay taxes on $1.2 million between 2017 and 2018, Shapley told Bret Baier.
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.
Corporate media mocked widespread conservative outrage over online censorship as a “baseless” and misdirected ploy to gin up controversy and votes, but Missouri v. Biden proves Big Tech and the federal government colluded to suppress “millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.”
There is hardly a lack of proof that Americans were the subject of years of government-led partisan purges on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.
Emails, documents, files, and statements show that it was often at the prompting of federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the FBI, and the Department of Justice, as well as the White House, that Big Tech effectively silenced the voices of countless Americans on Covid-19, elections, and criticism of the Biden regime.
In his 155-page memorandum ruling handed down on July 4, Judge Terry Doughty, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, asserted that the attorneys general who brought the case will likely see victory in court with their claim that “the United States Government, through the White House and numerous federal agencies, pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech.”
“Defendants used meetings and communications with social-media companies to pressure those companies to take down, reduce, and suppress the free speech of American citizens. They flagged posts and provided information on the type of posts they wanted suppressed. They also followed up with directives to the social-media companies to provide them with information as to action the company had taken with regard to the flagged post,” Doughty confirmed.
Even before lockdowns, BLM riots, and the 2020 election, corporate media outlets were smearing conservative claims of Big Tech censorship.
“Google and Facebook aren’t infringing on the right’s freedom of expression, but insisting otherwise is politically convenient,” the Atlantic asserted in 2019.
One year after the Atlantic claimed “there is no evidence” that Americans were suffering suppression of online speech, Pew Research found that “most Americans think social media sites censor political viewpoints.”
American suspicions that the government was involved in the censorship industrial complex only grew and were later confirmed by the “Twitter Files.” When corporate media weren’t ignoring the “Twitter Files” completely, outlets “repeatedly rolled eyes, dismissed, and mocked [the revelations of censorship] as a nothingburger.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration feigned innocence about its role in limiting Americans’ speech at the same time it was expanding its efforts to muzzle citizens. Corporate media proudly participated in blackouts on information like the Hunter Biden laptop, and other Democrats also joined in the smear campaign.
“It may be possible — if we can take off the tinfoil hat — that there is not a vast conspiracy,” Democrat Rep. Colin Allred of Texas said after the release of the “Twitter Files.”
Missouri v. Biden didn’t uncover a couple of instances of accidental deplatforming, as Big Tech, corporate media, and the Biden White House so often like to claim. Doughty confirmed that attorneys general provided “substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign.”
Not only that, but Doughty agreed that Big Tech’s decision to take down:
“Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines;
opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns;
opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19;
opposition to the validity of the 2020 election;
opposition to President Biden’s policies;
statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true;
and opposition to policies of the government officials in power” at the behest of the government appears blatantly partisan.
“It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,” Doughty wrote. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
The First Amendment, Doughty wrote, was designed to protect an “uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail.” Yet, for years now, the federal government and Big Tech, with cover from corporate media, have repeatedly violated Americans’ right to that “uninhibited marketplace.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made a “mathematically absurd claim” about Black newborns in her dissenting opinion in the affirmative action decision, attorney Ted Frank wrote in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Jackson argued in her dissent that diversity “saves lives” and that it was essential for “marginalized communities.”
“It saves lives. For marginalized communities in North Carolina, it is critically important that UNC and other area institutions produce highly educated professionals of color. Research shows that Black physicians are more likely to accurately assess Black patients’ pain tolerance and treat them accordingly (including, for example, prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication). For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die,”she wrote.
Frank responded to the argument in his Journal opinion piece: “A moment’s thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible. Imagine if 40% of black newborns died—thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that’s a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued in her dissenting opinion to the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling that promoting diversity “saves lives.” (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File )
Frank, a senior attorney at Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in SFFA v. Harvard, according to the WSJ.
“How could Justice Jackson make such an innumerate mistake?” he wrote.
Frank wrote that Jackson’s claim came from a 2020 study, according to a footnote in the dissent, but added that the study didn’t match Jackson’s claim.
“The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for black newborns with black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians),” he said.
The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in a landmark 6-3 ruling on June 29. (Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
The Supreme Court rejected the use of race as a factor in college admissions at the end of June, citing a violation of the 14th amendment. In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that, “A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination.”
President Biden nominated Jackson to the high court in 2022 and the first Black female Supreme Court Justice began her first term last October. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Frank said the study cited in Jackson’s dissent was “flawed.”
“So, we have a Supreme Court justice parroting a mathematically absurd claim coming from an interested party’s mischaracterization of a flawed study. Her opinion then urges ‘all of us’ to ‘do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together.’ Instead we should watch where we’re going,” Frank continued.
Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, Vermont (Jakub Porzycki/AP)
Ben & Jerry’s parent company Unilever (UL) has lost $2.5 billion in market cap amid calls to boycott the ice cream maker for its anti-American July 4 message, the New York Post reports.
The stock of the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate fell to $51 after closing $52.28 Monday, just ahead of Ben & Jerry’s July 4 entreaty for the U.S. to return “stolen Indigenous land,” starting with Mount Rushmore.
“The faces on Mount Rushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life, to deny Indigenous people their basic rights,” Ben & Jerry’s said.
Unilever’s market capitalization has lost $2.5 billion, falling from $133.5 billion on Monday to $131 billion Wednesday.
“This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the U.S. exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it,” Ben & Jerry’s said in a tweet and on its website.
The Burlington, Vermont-based company also issued a press release asking for Americans to work together to return the land on which they have lived for the past 247 years. While Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, it permitted its board to remain independent on political and social issues.
Twitter users immediately reacted to Ben & Jerry’s unpatriotic and untimely denunciation, comparing it to Bud Light’s transgender marketing fiasco and urging customers to boycott its goods.
“Make @benandjerrys Bud Light again,” one Twitter user wrote.
“Just when you think @benand jerrys couldn’t go any lower—they pull this stunt. Boycott Ben and Jerry’s,” wrote another.
A group called the Moral Rating Agency called out Unilever on Wednesday for continuing to sell its Cornetto ice cream and other products in Russia, whereas hundreds of Western companies immediately exited the nation in protest of its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The United States, Europe and Japan also imposed economic sanctions against Russia and its oligarchs.
Unilever has defended remaining in Russia, saying leaving is “not straightforward.” The multinational firm argues that its 3,000 employees and brands that remain in Russia “would be appropriated—and then operated—by the Russian state.”
“We do not think it is right to abandon our people in Russia,” Unilever said in a statement.
Neither Unilever or Ben & Jerry’s responded to a request for comment from the Post.
A pair of former prosecutors say the judge presiding over the case against Hunter Biden should toss his plea deal. Eileen O’Connor, a Washington lawyer who headed the Justice Department’s tax division from 2001-07 last week in an editorial for the The Wall Street Journal titled, “Throw Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal in the Trash,” said judges can reject plea agreements, which “would be an appropriate disposition here.”
“And Congress, in fulfillment of its oversight obligation, must learn and share with the American public what evidence the IRS gathered, what evidence its agents weren’t permitted to obtain, and what charges might have been brought if they had,” she added.
Brett Tolman, the former U.S. attorney for the district of Utah, in a tweet on June 20 suggested Hunter Biden was getting off easy.
“If DOJ treated Hunter Biden like the thousands of no-names who get prosecuted he would be looking at decades in federal prison. Yes, I said decades,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee supported in her 2017 nomination process by Democrat senators, was assigned to Biden’s case in late June after the president’s son agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges and enter into a pretrial diversion agreement. He was not expected to face jail time in his guilty plea.
The news sparked accusations of favorable treatment from conservatives whose accusations of influence-peddling in Ukraine and China prompted the investigation that led to the charges.
The younger Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.
A hearing is slated on July 26 at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware.
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.
The Los Angeles Times headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., on July 5, 2022. The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper that started publishing in 1881. | iStock/JHVEPhoto
Are legacy media outlets breaking basic rules of grammar and journalism in pursuit of a more transgender-friendly editorial approach?
A Los Angeles Times article from June 4 on Elliot Page, the trans-identified actor formerly known as Ellen Page, is the latest example in which a highly respected news outlet violated some fundamental rules of storytelling — namely, using Page’s preferred pronouns of “he/him” even when it is factually inaccurate, such as when referring to events that occurred before the transition — or when “he” was a “she.”
For example, the article recounts an episode in 2008 where Page — who still publicly identified as “she” — was in a relationship with another woman: “He was dating a woman at the time but had been urged by his manager to hide this relationship from the press, so he did not have his partner by his side.”
In context, this statement makes little sense and lacks context unless the reader already understands why Page had to hide this relationship from the press: because it was a same-sex relationship, and as such, the statement implies, would likely have stirred no small scandal and potential damage to Page’s career.
Yet because of how The LA Times article is written, the reader is forced to do the math on their own about when Page transitioned and whether “he” identified as “she” at that point.
Furthering the confusion, the next line of the story states that it “would be six more years before Page came out as queer in a speech at a Human Rights Campaign event.”
It’s just one of a number of similar statements in the article that, while acknowledging Page’s current chosen gender identity, are factually incorrect when it comes to relating Page’s identity for the time period specified in the context of the story.
LA Times managing editor Scott Kraft told The Christian Post that the newspaper’s guidelines instruct journalists and editors to “use the pronoun that the person currently uses” and “are consistent with the way they live publicly, even for past events.”
“We do try, generally, to use the person’s last name when referring to past events, to avoid confusion and be crystal clear who we’re talking about without resorting to using the person’s ‘dead’ name or pronoun,” Kraft said.
While he disagrees that using an inaccurate pronoun “alters the facts” of the story, he does acknowledge that “it can be confusing at times.”
Kraft said The Times’ editorial guidelines are based on the person’s current gender identity, regardless of how they “presented” themselves at the time of the event being described.
“Our guidelines rest on the principle that a transgender man who has always known that he was male, even when using a female name and presenting outwardly as female earlier in life, is and was a man,” said Kraft.
So is that principle accurate?
Not according to Kara Dansky, author of The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, who says she and other “radical feminists like me have just about had it with mainstream legacy news outlets like the Los Angeles Times that are simply outright lying to the American people about what is really going on here.”
“The same people who say things like [Kraft’s statement] will also tell us that a ‘transgender man’ is someone who was originally female but has ‘changed gender in order to affirm his authentic self,’ or something like that,” Dansky told CP. “It’s all internally inconsistent and none of it is logical.”
For Danksy, even the fact that a journalist would use terminology like “presenting outwardly as female” is “wildly sexist … from a feminist perspective.”
“What on earth does it mean to ‘present outwardly as female?” she added. “A woman is an adult human female regardless of how she presents. A woman who wears combat boots and cargo pants is no less female than a woman who wears dresses and makeup.
“Feminists have fought hard for decades to combat these regressive stereotypes.”
The LA Times, of course, is not alone in its use of the language preferred by transgender activists to convey factual events. The Associated Press, long considered the standard of editorial desks and newsrooms worldwide, has told its reporters to avoid using the term “transgenderism,” which the AP says “frames transgender identity as an ideology.”
In what he described as an “institutionalized betrayal of journalism and the truth,” CP’s Social Commentator and writer Brandon Showalter detailed how AP reporters, who have already been told to use “preferred pronouns” in recent years, should also avoid the terms biological sex, biological male and biological female because “opponents of transgender rights sometimes use [those terms] to refer to transgender women and transgender men, respectively.”
According to the new AP Transgender Coverage Topical Guide, reporters also should refrain from referring to “birth gender” and instead opt for “sex assigned at birth” because the guidelines state sex is usually assigned at birth “by parents or attendants, sometimes inaccurately.”
The guidelines also advocate for reporters using “they” or “them” — which have historically been used as third-person plural pronouns — instead as “a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun.”
Between grammatical misuse and ideological assertion, Showalter says the guidelines do little to help readers understand what they’re reading.
“Journalists following the new AP guidelines on this subject do the public a tremendous disservice because it forces readers to think in murky, convoluted categories and function behind an epistemological wall of distortion,” he wrote. “It posits that physical reality is not knowable and presents postmodern word salad and fantastical theories as neutral, brute facts.”
This agenda was perhaps most chillingly illustrated in March following the murder of six people — including three children — at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, when The New York Times issued a clarification on the murderer’s pronouns.
In response to a tweet about a report on the rarity of female shooters, the Times tweeted: “There was confusion later on Monday about the gender identity of the assailant in the Nashville shooting. Officials had used ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to the suspect, who, according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile, appeared to identify as a man in recent months.”
There was confusion later on Monday about the gender identity of the assailant in the Nashville shooting. Officials had used “she” and “her” to refer to the suspect, who, according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile, appeared to identify as a man in recent months.
While an original CNN report — now archived — used the word “woman,” CNN later, without any editorial acknowledgment, changed the headline to omit any reference to the shooter’s identity or the Covenant School as a Christian institution. This pattern was repeated in the days and hours following the Nashville shooting: CBS News reportedly banned the word “transgender” in the network’s coverage, while some of America’s most prominent newspapers avoided using the word “Christian” in their headlines.
While such an obsession with language — how to phrase this, what is the technically correct term for that — has always been part of the job, traditionally, this pursuit has been in the name of accuracy, not ideology.
Following Bruce Jenner’s public transition to Caitlyn Jenner in 2015, The New York Times acknowledged the potential for “pronoun confusion” and, in doing so, highlighted the potential for editorial quagmires. After Vanity Fair released its now-famous cover photo of the newly-transitioned Jenner, The New York Times reported that Vanity Fair writer Buzz Bissinger, despite spending “hundreds of hours with Jenner post- and pre-op” — language, incidentally, which now violates Associated Press guidelines — confessed to experiencing “continual pronoun confusion during the interviews.”
“I constantly used ‘he’ instead of ‘she,'” Bissinger wrote, “and at one point called Caitlyn ‘dude’ out of force of habit.”
The New York Times also noted how some journalists, including one of its own reporters, “chose to use ‘she’ in all circumstances presumably to show respect to Jenner’s preferred gender choice, resulting in the eyebrow-raising construction: ‘As Bruce Jenner, she had been on the cover of Playgirl.'”
Dansky says these sorts of grammatical and linguistic acrobatics fail to address a crucial point: simply using “preferred” language to communicate a “preferred” reality doesn’t necessarily mean that reality actually exists. Put another way, as Shakespeare famously wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“When someone uses the phrase ‘transgender man,’ the person is referring to a woman who claims to be a man. No women have ever been male and no men have ever been female,” Dansky said.
“There is simply no credible scientific evidence to support the idea that anyone can be ‘born in the wrong body’ or that it is possible to change sex.”
And while such criticism may sound familiar coming from Christians or social conservatives, Dansky wants to make clear that she speaks for neither group, regardless of whether the mainstream media wants to acknowledge it.
Dansky said she’s tired of legacy outlets failing to report honestly about what she describes as the “leftist feminist critique” of “gender identity.”
“We are not conservatives,” she said. “We are leftist feminists who think that ‘gender identity’ is a regressive, authoritarian, sexist, and homophobic ideology.”
“Outlets like the Los Angeles Times know that we exist, but they refuse to platform our voices.”
The suspect accused of gunning down five people in a mass killing on Monday is reportedly a Black Lives Matter activist and cross-dresser.
Shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Monday, the killer opened fire on a street in a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, killing five people and injuring two others. The killer allegedly used an AR-15-style weapon and a handgun, wore body armor and a ski mask, and targeted victims randomly. Police officers chased and cornered the suspect, taking the individual into custody without issue.
The suspect, a 40-year-old male, posted pictures of himself to social media wearing women’s clothing just three months ago, according to the New York Post. The individual also repeatedly posted in support of Black Lives Matter. It’s not exactly clear how the suspect “identifies,” but law enforcement is using “they/them” pronouns to refer to the suspect. CNN reported:
The Philadelphia district attorney’s office is using they/them pronouns to refer to the suspect based on “information we have at this time,” a spokesperson for the office told CNN. Philadelphia officials previously used he/him pronouns for the suspect during a Tuesday news conference.
The suspect faces more than 30 criminal charges, including five counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault, 10 counts of recklessly endangering another person, and four counts of weapons charges.
City officials, including Mayor Jim Kenney (D) and District Attorney Larry Krasner (D), decried supposedly lax gun laws the day after the mass killing. Krasner, moreover, specifically attacked Republicans, claiming they are “against” the “safety” of citizens because they support Second Amendment rights. It’s not clear what laws would have prevented Monday’s atrocity. Neither Krasner nor Kenney offered suggestions, though Krasner suggested that Pennsylvania should adopt strict gun control laws similar to those in neighboring New Jersey.
The suspect has a criminal history that includes a 2003 arrest for possession of a weapon without a license, carrying a firearm in public, and drug possession, the Post reported. The individual later pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm without a license, receiving three years’ probation, while the other charges were dropped.
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The U.S. military issued a series of social media posts commemorating LGBT-themed “diversity” on the same weekend millions of Americans came together to celebrate the nation’s founding.
The first of such incidents occurred on Sunday when the Defense Department’s official Twitter account posted a June 22 article detailing the “coming out journey” of U.S. Army Maj. Rachel Jones, a man who identifies as a “transgender female.” In a tweet accompanying the first post, the agency claimed that Jones “faced deep-rooted challenges on her path to self-acceptance” and that his “resilience shines as a hope for others facing similar struggles.”
Jones faced deep-rooted challenges on her path to self-acceptance. In a world where LGBTQ+ voices were often marginalized, she battled depression and contemplated suicide. Today, her resilience shines as a hope for others facing similar struggles.
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) July 2, 2023
You do not become a Major overnight. This confused individual has been in Army leadership for some time. Think that through. How many more of these “confused” people do we haev in our military?
You know our enemies are laughing themselves silly with this knowledge that America has sexually confused, obsessed, leaders in its forces. Does that sound prepared for war to you?
In the attached article — which was published on the Army’s official website — Jones described his process of “accept[ing] and lov[ing]” himself and further claimed it “was very risky to [his] career to be seen in public as a transwoman” during the Trump administration when transgender-identifying individuals were not permitted to openly serve in the military. Upon taking office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order reversing the policy, which allowed Jones to “come out publicly as transgender” to his colleagues.
“People here have been amazing. I know how lucky I am to work in an organization with such acceptance and everyone here has been really supportive,” Jones said. “I was initially a bit fearful of coming out as my true self and how I would be perceived, but I had nothing to worry about.”
To commemorate “pride month,” Jones also recorded a video claiming that for him, “pride” is about “celebrating that diversity is our strength, as a nation and as an Army.”
US Army Major “Rachel” Jones on diversity in the military 🤡 🌎
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) July 1, 2023
A similar incident exemplifying the military’s increased focus on so-called “diversity” occurred on Friday and Sunday, when the U.S. Navy posted two separate Instagram clips highlighting the importance of removing alleged “barriers” for LGBT service members’ “total inclusion” in the fleet.
“It’s a necessary effort to make sure that the chief of naval operation and our operational commanders are getting the very best from the 6 to 8 to 10 percent of our force that identifies as LGBTQ+,” said Rear Admiral Mike Brown in the Friday clip.
I am a Combat Marine Veteran. There is no possible way for me to trust anyone like this into combat. As adults they are confused about the way they “feel”, makes every other aspect of their lives questionable.
When asked in the second video what it means to have a “diverse force,” Brown further claimed it’s important for the Navy to be “inclusive of all parts of the American population.”
“Inclusion means recognizing that we have a diverse force and getting the most of every part of our force, every individual sailor,” Brown said. ”We will not be able to compete and win if we don’t continue to pull from the amazing talent that resides in every corner of the United States, harness that talent, respect it, and use it.”
It’s worth mentioning that both the Army and Navy are expected to miss their recruiting goals for the 2023 fiscal year.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the Defense Department has seemingly ramped up its push for military leadership to adopt discriminatory “DEI” ideology. DEI — which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion — is a divisive and poisonous ideology that dismisses merit to discriminate based on characteristics such as skin color and sexual preferences. Individuals who qualify for a certain position due to their merits but don’t meet the discriminating entity’s goal of being more “diverse” are passed over in favor of those who meet the preferred identitarian standards.
Last month, for instance, the Air Force went all out to celebrate “pride month” by authorizing the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to cover the travel costs for service members seeking to attend the branch’s June “pride” events. Several Air Force bases also held LGBT-related events on their respective grounds last month.
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
Hunter Biden’s high-priced attorneys again tried to turn the president’s son into a victim by portraying IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley as a partisan leaker and a criminal — but on Monday, Shapley responded. Shapley’s counter was a devasting blow to Hunter Biden’s legal strategy and also represented a shot across the bow of the Biden-friendly Washington Post.
On Friday, Winston and Strawn attorney Abbe David Lowell dispatched a 10-page missive to Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, regarding what Lowell called the Republican House’s “obsession with attacking the Biden family.” While the letter complained of the House’s supposed abandonment of congressional protocol and rules of conduct, Hunter Biden’s attorneys’ real focus was Shapley, whom they painted as a partisan hack, not a whistleblower — and a criminal to boot.
The June 30 letter from Hunter’s attorneys strongly implied Shapley was responsible for leaking information to The Washington Post that served as the basis for an Oct. 6, 2022 article authored by Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein. The article claimed that “federal agents investigating President Biden’s son Hunter have gathered what they believe is sufficient evidence to charge him with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase…” Biden’s lawyers then challenged the House to ask the whistleblowers if they had leaked information to the Post.
Shapley didn’t wait for the House to ask, instead submitting an affidavit to the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday in which he unequivocally swore he “was not the source for the October 6, 2022, Washington Post article.” Shapley further attested that he had never “had any contact with Barrett or Stein,” the authors of the article. He also stated under oath that he “never leaked confidential taxpayer information.”
The whistleblower then expressly authorized “the Washington Post and/or journalists Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein, or any other Washington Post reporter to release any communications directly or indirectly to or from me,” agreeing “to waive any purported journalistic privilege and/or confidentiality that would have arisen had I been a source for the Washington Post.”
At the same time, Shapley’s lawyers wrote to Washington Post authors Barrett and Stein, noting that “Biden family attorneys have falsely accused SSA Shapley of illegally leaking to you for your story, ‘Federal agents see chargeable tax, gun-purchase case against Hunter Biden.’”
“As you know, SSA Shapley was not a source for you on that story, or any other story for that matter,” the letter continued. “SSA Shapley has never communicated with either of you, either on or off the record.”
Then, after stressing that Shapley had waived any confidentiality that would have arisen, the whistleblower’s lawyers asked them “to correct Mr. Biden’s attorneys and clear SSA Shapley’s good name of these false and retaliatory charges.”
The Federalist asked both Barrett and Stein whether Shapley was a source for their article, but the reporters did not respond to the inquiries. Whether they will respond to Shapley’s entreat remains to be seen.
What is clear, however, is that Hunter Biden’s attorneys don’t care whether Shapley was the source. They are being paid to defend Hunter Biden, and beyond cutting a sweetheart deal with Joe Biden’s DOJ, that means attacking everyone else. With Shapley and his testimony representing the most serious threat to the Biden family, the attacks on the IRS whistleblower are likely to continue.
While there is little that can be done to stop Hunter Biden’s lawyers from smearing Shapley, congressional oversight committees should ensure the Biden administration’s DOJ isn’t providing an assist. A recent New York Times article suggests Hunter Biden’s attorneys are attempting to inveigle the DOJ in the attack on Shapley.
“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have told the Justice Department that Mr. Shapley has broken federal laws that keep grand jury material secret,” The New York Times reported last week. In his Monday affidavit, Shapley also refuted this point, saying he never knowingly released grand jury material. But that might not matter to a Justice Department that answers to Hunter’s father.
Thankfully, Shapley and the other whistleblowers have a strong advocate in Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who seems two steps ahead of everything the DOJ and other Biden apologists pull. It is unfortunate, though, that the left-wing press that once championed whistleblowers seems intent now to serve as scribes for Hunter Biden’s attorneys. If the Post reporters remain silent, we’ll know they intend to keep things that way.
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.
Lost in the breathless headlines over the indictment of President Trump for alleged violations of the Espionage Act is a story that deserves much more attention than it has received thus far: the allegation that a senior official at the Department of Justice attempted to shake down Trump’s co-defendant’s lawyer. It is a scandal in the making that could result in the investigation of senior DOJ officials, which should lead to public congressional hearings, and that might even result in the entire case against Trump being dismissed.
Trump’s co-defendant is Waltine “Walt” Nauta, a Navy valet who served in Trump’s White House and who remained a personal aide to Trump after he left office. Several weeks ago, Nauta’s lawyer, a distinguished, highly-regarded Washington attorney named Stanley Woodward, leveled accusations against senior members of the Department of Justice, including DOJ Counterintelligence Chief Jay Bratt, who is now a part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team of prosecutors. According to news reports, Woodward claimed in a sealed letter to D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg that, in a meeting to discuss Nauta’s case, Bratt indicated that Woodward’s application to be a D.C. Superior Court judge could be impacted if he could not get Nauta to testify against Trump.
If true, and I see no reason why Woodward would make such a threat up — and especially no reason why Woodward would risk his career by making such a representation to a federal judge — Bratt’s alleged misconduct could result in heavy sanctions, and is a potential ground for dismissal of the entire case against Nauta and Trump. Depending on what exactly was said, Bratt could even face criminal prosecution himself.
In cases of flagrant prosecutorial misconduct, courts have the discretion to dismiss indictments altogether. If Woodward’s claims are proven, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon would be well within her rights to consider a dismissal here. The conduct claimed is perhaps unprecedented and certainly flagrant, amounting to nothing less than an effort by a high-ranking DOJ official to deprive a defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel through inappropriate and potentially unlawful acts.
At the very least, Trump and Nauta deserve answers. Courts routinely allow discovery by the defense in cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct — including depositions and requests for documents and communications — in order to determine the scope, breadth, and effects of any misconduct that occurred. The defense team in this case should seek testimony from Bratt to get to the bottom of what he said and why.
As importantly, defense counsel should also seek to subpoena any communications between Bratt and others in DOJ and the White House relating to Woodward’s judgeship application and Bratt’s approach to Woodward more generally. My assumption is that these communications will be eye-opening, and may reveal even more misconduct on the part of the DOJ, the special counsel’s team, and their political masters.
The legal teams defending Trump and Nauta surely know all of this, and I am confident that they will pursue this and other lines of defense aggressively. But the American people also deserve to know the full details of misconduct by senior officials at the Department of Justice. Republicans in Congress should demand answers publicly and aggressively. The House Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction to investigate matters relating to the administration of justice in the federal court system. It has the power to subpoena Bratt, the other lawyers involved in the Trump prosecution, and senior Biden administration officials to get to the bottom of this.
Make no mistake, this is a huge deal. Bratt’s conduct may even fall within the ambit of federal criminal statutes. Depending on what exactly was said, Bratt’s conduct could constitute attempted witness tampering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(1), attempted federal bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(3), attempted extortion by a federal official in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 872, or attempted subornation of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1622.
If the Department of Justice is truly committed to the open and transparent treatment of this case, a special counsel should be empowered to investigate Bratt’s actions and any other alleged misconduct by Jack Smith’s team.
Note: This piece has been updated.
Will Scharf is a former federal prosecutor, who also worked on the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. He is currently a Republican candidate for Missouri Attorney General.
A new letter sent by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to the House Judiciary Committee suggests Attorney General Merrick Garland lied to Congress when he testified that Weiss “has full authority” to charge Hunter Biden in “other jurisdictions.” Whether Garland committed perjury will all come down to the meaning of the word “has.”
Late Friday, just as Americans unplugged for the long Independence Day weekend, Weiss confirmed he didn’t really have “ultimate authority” over the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. In his letter, Weiss gave away the deceptive word game he has been playing with Congress — and Garland has been playing with America. More significantly, the letter suggests Biden’s attorney general lied to Congress and that everything the IRS whistleblower has said is true.
What the Whistleblower Said
Weiss’s letter followed the House Ways and Means Committee’s release of IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley’s testimony and related exhibits concerning the Hunter Biden investigation headed out of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office. The transcript of Shapley’s May 26, 2023, closed-door testimony revealed the IRS agent had told the House committee that during an Oct. 7, 2022 meeting between Weiss and senior-level managers, Weiss allegedly said, “I am not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.”
According to Shapley’s testimony, Weiss then explained that the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, refused to allow Weiss to charge Hunter Biden in the D.C. district — the necessary venue for certain charges based on Hunter Biden’s residency during the relevant time. Shapley noted, “Weiss stated that he subsequently asked for special counsel authority from Main DOJ at that time and was denied that authority.” “Instead,” Shapley recounted, Weiss “was told to follow the process,” which sent Weiss through another Biden-appointed U.S. attorney, for other potential criminal charges based in California.
Without the cooperation of Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys, Shapley told the House committee, Weiss was unable to bring charges outside his Delaware district. And Weiss’s lack of authority led to the statute of limitations expiring on felony tax charges against the president’s son for the 2014 and 2015 tax years.
To corroborate his testimony, Shapley provided the House Ways and Means Committee with an email he had sent a colleague soon after the meeting summarizing the key points. That Oct. 7 email recounted the details to which Shapley had testified and, significantly, Shapley copied the special agent in charge of criminal investigations of the IRS D.C. field office, Darrell J. Waldon, who had also attended the Oct. 7 meeting. Waldon would then reply to Shapley’s email summary, “Thanks Gary. You covered it all,” indicating Shapley had accurately recounted Weiss’s representation that he is “not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.”
The release of Shapley’s testimony and the collaborating email was huge because it indicated both Weiss and Garland had deceived Congress. Weiss for his part had sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on June 7, 2023, stating:
I want to make clear that, as the Attorney General has stated, I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution, consistent with federal law, the Principles of Federal Prosecution, and Departmental regulations.
Weiss’s Friday letter was in response to questions House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan posed to the Delaware U.S. attorney about his claim “to have been granted ultimate authority” over the Hunter Biden investigation.
In his pre-Fourth of July weekend epistle, the Delaware U.S. attorney said he stood by what he wrote in the June 7, 2023 letter. He added, however, that he wished to expand on what he meant. Weiss then acknowledged that as the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, his charging authority is geographically limited to his home district.
“If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case,” the letter noted. “If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515.” Weiss concluded by stressing that he had “been assured that, if necessary after the above process,” he “would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.”
There was no reason Weiss could not have provided this explanation earlier — or at least no good reason: The Delaware U.S. attorney clearly intended to convey to Congress the false impression that he had “ultimate authority” to charge Hunter Biden, which would in turn suggest the IRS whistleblower’s claims to the contrary were false.
But Weiss’s clarification confirms he lacked “ultimate authority,” which is entirely consistent with Shapley’s testimony. In fact, had Shapley falsely summarized the statements Weiss made during the Oct. 7, 2022 meeting, Weiss could have easily said so. That he didn’t speaks volumes.
Lies, Lies, Lies
While Weiss’s clarification from late last week is technically consistent with what he told Congress in his June 7, 2022 letter, the same cannot be said for Garland’s earlier testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On March 1, 2023, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Garland whether Weiss had “independent charging authority over certain criminal allegations against the President’s son outside the District of Delaware.” After responding that Weiss “would have to bring the case in another district,” Garland added that “the U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority … to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary” (emphasis added).
But according to Weiss’s latest letter, he didn’t have“full authority” and still doesn’t. Rather he had been assured, “if necessary,” he “would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.”
Given Shapley’s testimony, there is a huge difference between Weiss having “full authority” to bring charges in other districts and being promised a grant of such authority. If Weiss had “full authority,” as Garland told Congress, that would mean that either the whistleblower lied to Congress or Weiss lied to his senior team handling the Hunter Biden investigation. It would also clear Garland, the DOJ, and FBI headquarters of interfering in the investigation — a second allegation the whistleblower leveled in his testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee.
With both Weiss and Garland playing word games with Congress, it seems likely Weiss also sought to mislead the House when he stressed that he “had been assured” he “would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.” That language suggests Weiss always had that assurance, but from the whistleblower’s testimony, it appears Weiss had previously requested such authority and been denied it. (The whistleblower and Waldon likely confused Weiss’s reference to special attorney status with special counsel status.)
A belated promise by Garland to give Weiss special attorney authority under § 515 means nothing, as the statute of limitations has already run out for the felony tax charges. So the question remains: Was Weiss denied such authority, as the whistleblower claims Weiss told him? And when did Garland assure Weiss he would have § 515 authority? For that matter, why wouldn’t Garland have immediately conferred such authority on Weiss?
It seems unlikely Congress or the American public will learn the answers to these questions any time soon. Weiss appears to be coordinating his communications with Garland, as demonstrated by his reference in Friday’s letter to the DOJ’s Department of Legislative Affairs — further proof that Weiss is no more independent from the Biden administration than the rest of the Department of Justice.
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.
A federal judge is being applauded for a surprise July 4 ruling stating the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment during the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty ordered an injunction on Independence Day to prevent White House officials and federal agencies from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing past actions likely violated the Constitution.
“I think that language reflects that this was a stunning rebuke, but also an appropriate one,” former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday.
The holiday injunction was in response to recent lawsuits from Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The suits allege that the White House coerced or “significantly encourage[d]” tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former WH press secretary Jen Psaki was named by a judge in a ruling on the Biden administration and efforts to combat COVID-19 misinformation. ((Left:REUTERS/Leah Millis, Right:REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo))
Several federal officials and agencies – including some of Biden’s Cabinet members and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre – have been barred from contacting social media companies in efforts to suppress speech. The injunction, which was obtained by Fox News, states that the government’s actions “likely violate the Free Speech Clause” and that the court “is not persuaded by Defendants’ arguments,” dealing a significant blow to the White House.
“I read this opinion yesterday, I couldn’t stop saying thank you. Finally,” OutKick founder Travis said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday. “This is going to be incredibly difficult for the Biden administration to overturn.”
“It’s unbelievable the amount of information, and the discovery that we were able to obtain through this particular case should concern all Americans, irrespective of their political ideology, their party affiliation,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry remarked earlier on the show.
“The judge basically spells it out. He does it in this great 120-page opinion. He takes things step by step. He says, look, the government went out there and censored America’s speech on COVID-19, on vaccine policies, on mask mandates, on election questions, in the Hunter Biden laptop.”
“This is a completely direct violation of the First Amendment.”
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” Doughty wrote.
“If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the injunction adds. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”
The injunction also claims that “the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech,” but that issues the case raises are “beyond party lines.”
“Viewpoint discrimination is an especially egregious form of content discrimination,” Doughty argued. “The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.”
The cases could mean that interactions between tech companies and government officials may be significantly limited in the future. Exceptions might include national security threats or criminal matters on social media.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Google, Meta and Twitter for statements, but has not heard back. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
Some critics have challenged the ruling, with a Washington Post article warning the judge’s decision could “upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.”
Ratcliffe agreed with the sentiment but argued the judge is not the one to blame.
“The problem is in this case that the years of good work have been upended by social media executives and government officials who have abused that and the examples that we’ve just talked about. It’s ironic because The Washington Post is actually a coconspirator in that. It was the mainstream media, ironically, that was complicit in this abuse of the First Amendment and suppressing Americans’ free speech. So they did it to themselves that that’s the problem.”
“My take is that this is going to hold up on appeal, because everything that the plaintiffs in this case allege has been proven largely to be true,” Ratcliffe argued. “When you think about, with respect to COVID-19, everything from the origins of the lab leak, the efficacy of certain treatments, the transmissibility. You just heard President Biden talking about pandemic of the unvaccinated. All of that was frankly, wrong, and yet Americans ability to engage in honest debate about it was suppressed. And so you have these agencies with social media working to suppress the truth and amplify lies.”
“As the judge says, I truly do believe this is the greatest infringement on our First Amendment rights that any of us have seen occur in any of our lives. It cannot be allowed. And we’re finally getting judges pushing back,” Travis said.
Fox News’ Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.
Madeline Coggins is a Digital Production Assistant on the Fox News flash team with Fox News Digital.
Cocaine discovered in the White House on Sunday was found in a cubby hole in a West Wing entry area where visitors place electronics and other belongings before taking tours, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The Secret Service is investigating the matter, the White House said. “They’re checking visitor logs and … looking at cameras. Those are the next steps. Cross-checking,” said the source.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “Where this was discovered is a heavily traveled area where many … West Wing visitors come through.”
Asked whether anyone had undergone drug testing as part of the investigation, Jean-Pierre said: “We will take any action … that is appropriate and warranted, pending the outcome of Secret Service.”
The West Wing is attached to the executive mansion where President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden live. It includes the Oval Office, cabinet room and workspace for presidential staff. Hundreds of people pass through the West Wing on a regular basis, including political staff, their guests and members of the press.
Jean-Pierre said West Wing tours took place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The substance was found during a routine Secret Service sweep on Sunday evening. A Secret Service spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. The agency has not said how much cocaine was found. The discovery led to a brief closure of the White House complex on Sunday. Biden and his family were not at the White House then.
Biden did not answer questions that reporters shouted at him about the cocaine on Wednesday. The president thinks it’s “incredibly important” to get to the bottom of it, Jean-Pierre said.
Administration officials are able to offer tours of parts of the West Wing to friends and family members. People who are not members of staff must leave electronics and other belongings in the storage cubicles before taking a tour.
“It was in one of the cubbies,” the source said about the cocaine.
Biden and his family returned to the White House early on Tuesday after spending the holiday weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. Family members who visit the Bidens traditionally enter and exit through the East Wing, the source said.
A federal judge’s order for an injunction barring President Joe Biden’s administration from contacting social media companies and requesting censorship of some users may be “the most important decision of this year,” political strategist Dick Morris told Newsmax Wednesday.
“Certainly [it is] more important than even affirmative action,” Morris, the host of Newsmax’s “Dick Morris Democracy,” said on “John Bachman Now.”
Morris explained that the administration was using rules under the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which former President Donald Trump set up in 2018 to protect the United States grid against cyber attacks.
“Biden has completely changed it and made it an instrument for domestic surveillance,” said Morris. “CISA monitors all social media posts in the country and the world, and calls social media vendors to account and says on your platform, ‘You’re now running a statement that says that the COVID vaccine doesn’t work,’ or … what they’ll say is ‘You’re running something factually wrong that we want to change, that is not the administration line.'”
As a result, CISA has become a “muscle arm for social media censorship,” as have the CDC, the FBI, and the DOJ, said Morris.
“Obviously he’ll assemble a legal team and obviously he has to say something,” said Morris. “The tax deal that he did was absolutely absurd … it completely misrepresents what Biden did.”
He also raised questions about the income the president and first lady reported in 2017 and 2018, when they reported income of $15 million and another $8 million from the sale of Biden’s book about his son who died.
“To do that, he would have had to sell 15 million books, and they sold 300,000,” said Morris. “Now there’s $10 million of income rattling around Biden’s tax return that nobody knows where it’s from. He claims it’s from the book, but it couldn’t be. And it’s not from his pension. It’s not from his vice presidential salary. It’s from unnamed sources. And that $10 million very possibly was the money that he got from Ukraine and from China that he dressed up as income from his book.”
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Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed social-media platforms to censor COVID-19 information coming from conservative voices starting in May 2021, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, the Daily Caller reported. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted an injunction barring President Joe Biden’s administration from contacting tech companies to request the censorship of some users.
The ruling came in response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Their lawsuit alleged the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections.
“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the injunction read. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the federal government, and particularly the defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”
Doughty cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.'”
The Justice Department is reviewing the injunction “and will evaluate its options in this case,” said a White House official, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” the official said. “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people but make independent choices about the information they present.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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