In 2023, the legislature amended the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) to add anti-discrimination protections for “gender identity” but failed to revise the corresponding religious exemption, effectively attempting to remove it.
This year, “gender identity” was added to a list of already protected categories of protections in the MHRA. “Sexual orientation” was already protected by the MHRA, but the term “gender identity” was added explicitly. A religious exemption that had already been in place since 1993 “prohibited the state from forcing religious organizations to comply with the anti-discrimination law provisions with respect to protected categories like sexual orientation when those provisions are inconsistent with a religious organization’s sincerely held beliefs,” said Renee Carlson, general counsel for True North Legal. However, the religious exemption was not updated to include the term “gender identity.”
“While we had hoped it was an oversight, the House Judiciary Chair stated on the record that the omission of those words was intentional,” Carlson said. “A discussion ensued during the committee where Democratic legislators not only refused to accept an amendment to protect religious organizations, but also called the amendment to protect religious organizations ‘disturbing’ and ‘disgusting’ after hearing a testimony from a diverse group of testifiers.”
By openly failing to include “gender identity” in the previously established religious exemption, the Minnesota legislation openly attacked religious freedom, but the attack does not stop there. Churches and religious institutions would be directly impacted by this exemption, but so would many unprotected groups served by religious organizations.
“A threat to religious organizations extends well beyond the churches and ministries that the statute protects. Religious organizations often serve marginalized and underserved communities, such as victims of sex trafficking, homeless families, and youth through programs that help kids graduate high school and even go to college. These religious entities in Minnesota meet individual needs and fill gaps that the government could never achieve on its own. To be sure, this was an unprecedented attack on religion and people of faith, but also on the communities that they serve,” said Carlson.
The MHRA could even threaten the existence of some religious organizations whose mission and religious beliefs are inseparable, Carlson added. “For religious organizations and its members, every decision is inextricably bound up in the tenets of its faith tradition. Removing statutory protections for religious organizations from the Minnesota Human Rights Act threatened the existence of all religious entities whose missions are inseparable from their employment practices, catechisms, and governance.”
According to Jason Adkins, general counsel at Minnesota Catholic Conference, the religious exemption was put in place in 1993 and had functioned without any problems until the bill introducing “gender identity” protections. The religious exemption was never meant to compromise anti-discrimination law but was intended to protect the freedom of religious institutions.
“The clear religious exemption provides predictability to religious organizations, potential litigants, and others about the scope of the MHRA and the pluralism of values that it protects, including the autonomy of religious institutions on matters of sexual identity. Anti-discrimination provisions related to sexual orientation and gender identity made it into law in 1993 in part because religious groups did not oppose them due to the inclusion of the exemption. This clarification of law restores the gender identity exemption and ensures that the MHRA is not used as a sword against faith communities,” said Adkins.
After public backlash, both the Minnesota House and Senate voted unanimously to restore religious protections.
While the restoration of the exemption somewhat protects religious organizations, there are many members of religions working in fields not controlled by religious institutions. Christian workers, including teachers, lawyers, and doctors, fear the need to compromise their religious beliefs in order to do their jobs in a way that respects the MHRA. “Our big concern is that doctors may be punished for declining to provide treatments they believe are unethical or harmful. This is not a tenet of a specific religion, but of natural law and universal human rights,” said a medical doctor from the Association of American Physicians.
Despite the religious exemption being restored, legal battles to defend religious freedom are constantly raging in Minnesota. Still in effect are the new standards requiring state-licensed teachers to affirm students’ gender identities. After the MHRA tried to effectively remove the religious exemption, new amendments to the Minnesota constitution intending to attack religious institutions have been proposed.
Doug Seaton, a lawyer at Upper Midwest Law, emphasized the constant need for vigilance in an environment where religious liberty is always under attack. “We have to be constantly fighting these assaults in the dark and bringing them to the light. This attempt ended in success, but it is a lesson in how eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
In a Denver suburb, the St. Vrain school district uses a “Gender Identity Guidance” form asking whether parents know their child thinks he or she is transgender. (Photo illustration: Ilkercelik/Getty Images)
A Colorado school district uses a form asking staff whether a student’s parents know their child identifies as transgender and support that decision.
St. Vrain Public Schools, in a Denver suburb, developed a so-called Gender Identity Guidance form for “counselors, interventionists, and administrators to support students dealing with issues related to gender identification.”
The document, found on the school district’s website and reviewed by The Daily Signal, includes questions about students’ preferred name, birth name, sex at birth, and gender identity. A section asks whether parents are aware of their child’s gender identity and if they support that, as well as who can advocate on behalf of the child if his or her parents won’t.
“Do I understand the parent/guardian support and am I able to identify other supports for the student?” the form asks.
Follow-up questions on the school district’s form include:
— “Do student’s parents/guardians know of the gender identity?”
— “Do parents/guardians support the gender identity?”
—”Who can advocate or support the student if not the parents/guardians?”
—”What are the communication methods/issues/challenges between school and home?”
—“Who are the adult contacts at school for support, concerns, etc.?”
Gender policies such as this one at St. Vrain Public Schools, which allows children to hide their gender identity from parents, undermine parental authority and rights, Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, told The Daily Signal.
“As parents, our priority is our children’s well-being and safety,” Gimelshteyn said. “No institution should intervene between us and our children, especially during critical times like mental health crises.”
St. Vrain Public Schools did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about whether the district conceals students’ gender transitions from parents.
Another section of the Gender Identity Guidance form inquiries about others’ awareness of a student’s gender identity. The school employee who fills out the form must indicate the status of the child, who currently knows about the child’s transition, whether the transition is public or private, and who else needs to know.
The form lays out how schools in the St. Vrain district should handle communication related to the child’s gender, including how to discuss the transition in an “age appropriate” manner with classmates.
The form also tracks a child’s preferred personal pronouns and how to refer to that student in school records.
A bill in the Colorado House of Representatives would require educators statewide to call students by their preferred name upon request. The Gender Identity Guidance form reviews a student’s use of facilities to determine whether the child is using restrooms and locker rooms in line with his or her gender identity.
The St. Vrain district also connects students with “outside resources,” such as Rocky Mountain Equality, the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ activist groups. Rocky Mountain Equality offers programs for LGBTQ youth ages 11 to 18. Only those under 12 need parental permission to participate. The group provides children with “gender-affirming clothes” such as chest binders. (“Binders are reserved for those ages 11 to 18,” the website says.)
The school district’s form considers “the social dynamics with other students/families/staff” and addresses potential challenges with extracurricular activities, such as sports and clubs. The Colorado High School Activities Association reviews students’ requests to play sports in accord with their “gender identity” if it “differs from their sex assigned at birth.”
A bill requiring student athletes to play sports in line with their biological sex failed to pass the Colorado House last year.
In my book out this week, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I write about the anti-free speech movement that has swept over higher education and how administrators and faculty hold a view of free speech as harmful. Now Harvard is again at the heart of a free speech fight after Lawrence Bobo, the Dean of Social Science, rejected views of free speech as a “blank check” and said that criticizing university leaders like himself or school policies are now viewed as “outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct.”
Bobo warns that public criticism of the school could “cross a line into sanctionable violations.”
“A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.”
The column adopts every jingoistic rationale used by anti-free speech critics today, including the invocation of the Holmes “crowded theater” analogy:
“But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy. Figures such as Raj Chetty ’00, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jill Lepore, or Steven A. Pinker have well-earned notoriety that reaches far beyond the academy.
Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.”
First and foremost, the ability of faculty to speak out on public disputes should not depend on whether you are more popular or visible. However, it is the theater analogy that is most galling.
I have an entire chapter in The Indispensable Right that addresses the fallacies surrounding this line out of the Holmes opinion. It is arguably the most damaging single line ever written by a Supreme Court justice in the area of free speech.
I have previously written about the irony of liberals adopting the analogy, which was used to crack down on socialists and dissenters on the left.
One of the most telling moments came in a congressional hearing when I warned of the dangers of repeating the abuses of prior periods like the Red Scare, when censorship and blacklisting were the norm. In response, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes’ view that free speech does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. In other words, citizens had to be silenced because their views are dangerous to others.
When I attempted to point out that the line came from a case justifying the imprisonment of socialists for their political viewpoints, Goldman cut me off and “reclaimed his time.”
Other Democrats have used the line as a mantra, despite its origins in one of our most abusive anti-free speech periods during which the government targeted political dissidents on the left.
Dean Bobo is now the latest academic to embrace the theater rationale to justify the silencing of dissent. At Harvard, he is suggesting that the entire university is now a crowded theater and criticizing the university leadership is a cry of “Fire.” It is that easy.
By punishing criticism of the school’s leadership and policies, Bobo believes that they can look “forward to calmer times” on campus. It is precisely the type of artificial silence that academics have been enforcing against conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters for years. It is the approach that reduced our schools to an academic echo chamber.
The reference to Professor Steven Pinker is particularly ironic. As we have previously discussed, Pinker was targeted for exercising free speech. In past controversies, most Harvard faculty members have been conspicuously silent as colleagues were targeted by cancel campaigns. It was the same at other universities.
As faculties effectively purged their ranks of conservative or Republican members, the silence was deafening. Others either supported such campaigns or justified them. Notably, over 75 percent of the Harvard faculty identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Then the Gaza protests began and some of these same faculty found themselves the targets of mobs. Suddenly, free speech became an urgent matter to address. Fortunately for these liberal professors, the free speech community is used to opportunistic allies. Where “fair weather friends” are often ridiculed, free speech relies on “foul-weather friends,” those who suddenly see the need to protect a diversity of opinions when they feel threatened.
Bobo’s arguments are consistent with years of rationales for silencing or investigating dissenting faculty for years. It violates the very foundation for academia in free speech and academic freedom. The university is free to punish students or faculty for unlawful conduct. However, when it comes to their viewpoints, there should be a bright line of protection.
Of course, this criticism is likely to trigger another common fallacy used to rationalize speech controls: as a private university Harvard is not subject to the First Amendment and thus this is not a true free speech issue.
As discussed previously, free speech values go beyond the First Amendment whether it is a controversy on social media or campuses. For years, anti-free-speech figures have dismissed free speech objections to social media or academic censorship by stressing that the First Amendment applies only to the government, not private companies or institutions. The distinction was always a dishonest effort to evade the implications of speech controls, whether implemented by the government or corporations.
The First Amendment was never the exclusive definition of free speech. Free speech is viewed by many of us as a human right; the First Amendment only deals with one source for limiting it. Free speech can be undermined by private corporations as well as government agencies. This threat is even greater when politicians openly use corporations and universities to achieve indirectly what they cannot achieve directly.
Dean Bobo’s desire for “calmer times” would come at too high a price for free speech as well as Harvard.
In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, a court informs the irascible character of Mr. Bumble that it assumes a level of control of his wife’s conduct. Mr. Bumble responds that “if the law supposes that, the law is a ass – a idiot.” The scene came to mind with a decision yesterday when the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 in Sojenhomer v. Village of Egg Harbor that a sidewalk is not a “pedestrian way.” Lawyers in Wisconsin are already sending around Bumble-like harrumphs to the decision, which is a testament to the ability of judges to ignore plain meaning to achieve desired results.
Where the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland asked, “why is a raven like a writing-desk?” the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked why a sidewalk is not like a pedestrian way. The result is equally maddening.
At issue was the effort of the state to create more sidewalks. Faced with resistance from homeowners, the state was using eminent domain to simply condemn the land and claim it for sidewalks. However, Wisconsin has strong protections for homeowners, including statutes expressly stating that the power of eminent domain must be “strictly construed” against the government.
Moreover, there is a statute that expressly bars the use of eminent domain to take property for “pedestrian way[s].” It defines a “pedestrian way” as “a walk designated for the use of pedestrian travel.”
To every Bumble and non-Bumble alike, that would seem to describe a sidewalk, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a usually paved walk for pedestrians at the side of a street.”
Reading the text of this section as a whole, we find several indications that the definition of pedestrian way does not include sidewalks. For starters, both § 346.02(8)(a) and (b) use the terms “sidewalk” and “pedestrian way” in ways that signify that each term has a separate, non-overlapping meaning. … Section 346.02(8)(b) states that pedestrian ways shall be treated ‘as if’ they were sidewalks for utility installation and assessment purposes. The phrase “as if” signals that one category (pedestrian ways) should receive the same treatment as a different category (sidewalks). That is the same way the legislature used “as if” in, for example, Wis. Stat. § 53.03, which states that Wisconsin courts “may treat a foreign country as if it were a state” in guardianship proceedings. Just as foreign countries are not states but should be treated as if they were for guardianship purposes, pedestrian ways are not sidewalks, but should be treated as if they were for utility-installation and assessment purposes.
The analogy is a poor one, in my view. The treatment of a foreign state like a domestic state captures the fact that both are governing units with similar inherent functions and powers. That is a far cry from saying a “pedestrian way” is NOT a “sidewalk.”
Justice Dallet then adds:
The language of § 346.02(8)(a) also suggests that sidewalks are not pedestrian ways. That paragraph makes the rules of the road pertaining to sidewalks also applicable to pedestrian ways. But if sidewalks are pedestrian ways, then the rules of the road applicable to sidewalks would already apply to pedestrian ways. The point here, to be clear, is not that reading the term “pedestrian way” to include sidewalks would result in surplusage….
However, that may indicate that “pedestrian ways” are a broader category than just sidewalks. It does not suggest that sidewalks are not pedestrian ways.
That seems to be the point of the dissent by Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler:
The plain language of the statute demonstrates that the term “pedestrian way” is broadly defined, and includes sidewalks. A sidewalk——that portion of the highway created for the travel of persons on foot——is clearly a subset of pedestrian ways——walks set apart or assigned for the use of pedestrian travel. It is a straightforward, common-sense interpretation of the statutory language that a “walk designated for the use of pedestrian travel” necessarily includes that part of the highway “constructed for the use of pedestrians…”
[I]n other words, a closer look at the plain meaning of the statutes reveals that all sidewalks are pedestrian ways, but that not all pedestrian ways are sidewalks….
What is particularly galling about the decision of the majority is that they avoid the required strict construction of the law against the government as inapplicable by simply declaring that there is no ambiguity in the language of the statutes, a preposterous claim that requires a level of willful judicial blindness.
The creative effort to ignore the obvious is reminiscent of the fictional Canadian case where a horse was declared a bird. Though sometimes cited as a real case, it appears to be an opinion written to show how legal interpretations can take on absurd dimensions to result in desired ends.
In Regina v. Ojibway (8 Criminal Law Quarterly 137 (1965-66)), a Canadian indigenous tribe member puts down a suffering horse but is then charged under a criminal provision for shooting a bird under the Small Birds Act (R.S.O.). Blue, J., delivers the opinion for the court, granting the appeal, saying:
For the purpose of the Small Birds Act, all two-legged, feather-covered animals are birds. This, of course, does not imply that only two-legged animals qualify, for the legislative intent is to make two legs merely the minimum requirement. The statute therefore contemplated multi-legged animals with feathers as well.
Counsel submits that having regard to the purpose of the statute only small animals “naturally covered” with feathers could have been contemplated. However, had this been the intention of the legislature, I am certain that the phrase “naturally covered” would have been expressly inserted just as “Long” was inserted in the Longshoreman’s Act.
Therefore, a horse with feathers on its back must be deemed for the purpose of this Act to be a bird, a fortiori, a pony with feathers on its back is a small bird.
In Wisconsin, it appears that the Supreme Court would have simply said that the pony, since a pony can be treated “as if” it is a horse, it is not a horse.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats are censoring, arresting, election interfering, opening borders, and gaslighting, all to destroy our Democratic, representative constitutional republic in an effort to hang on to power while shouting they are saving democracy.
Newest Insanity From CNN – It’s a Conspiracy Theory to Say That America is a Republic and Not a Democracy (VIDEO)
By Mike LaChance – June 14, 2024
The United States of America is a constitutional republic, but don’t say that to anyone at CNN or they might label you a conspiracy theorist. The far left network recently did an entire segment about the fact that Trump supporters and other people on the right insist (correctly) that we are not a democracy. The left has repeated their canned line about ‘our democracy’ so many times that CNN is now trying to rewrite history to suit the Democrat party. READ MORE…
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. READ MORE…
President Joe Biden announced an executive order (EO) Tuesday that awards amnesty to illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens. And while he dubbed his overreach as keeping “families together,” it is nothing more than another step in Democrats’ plan to expand their future electorate.
The EO makes it easier for illegal immigrants who married U.S. citizens — and their children — to apply for lawful permanent residence status without leaving the country, and after that, U.S. citizenship. An approximate 500,000 illegal immigrants who married a U.S. citizen will benefit from this order along with 50,000 children, according to the White House.
Without providing any explanation as to how, Biden claims this will “strengthen” the U.S. economy. Notably, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows foreign-born workers gained 637,000 jobs year-over-year while native-born workers lost roughly 299,000. The BLS acknowledges foreign-born workers likely include illegal immigrants. As economist E.J. Antoni recently explained to The Federalist, the drain illegal migrants place on the economy offsets their production value.
By federal law, “non-citizens, including permanent legal residents,” are not allowed to “vote in federal, state, and most local elections,” according to USA.gov. But lawful permanent residents are “eligible to become a U.S. citizen after five years of becoming a lawful permanent resident, or three years if you are married to a U.S. citizen,” according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Unless there are specific carveouts in Biden’s executive order prohibiting individuals who came into this country illegally before receiving amnesty from registering to vote, then Biden just gifted Democrats with hundreds of thousands of potential future voters.
Former President Donald Trump warned that under Biden’s election-year order, “a deluge of illegals will be given immediate green cards and put on the fast track to rapid citizenship so they can vote.”
“Couple this with [Biden’s] previous voter registration EO and it is clear that Biden is attempting to win the upcoming election, not by winning over legitimate American voters, but by attempting to legitimize illegal immigrants,” said Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen. “He won’t stop with this EO. He will keep attempting to dilute the power of the vote of legal Americans.”
Of course, Biden and Democrats, as my colleague Shawn Fleetwood explained, “want Americans to believe they aren’t interested in handing out U.S. citizenship and voting rights to foreign nationals like it’s candy on Halloween.” Yet their actions, including this EO, suggest otherwise.
In fact, Biden’s EO sends the same message that a trio of Democratic witnesses sent during a Senate Judiciary Hearing in March. Not a single Democrat witness could resolutely say they believe only citizens should be able to vote in a federal election. And it’s the same message being sent by Democrats nationwide who oppose legislation to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections. As of right now, anyone registering to vote in federal elections must simply check a box affirming he is a U.S. citizen. Individuals — legal or not — can simply lie on their registration forms. In other words, our elections hinge on the honor system. It’s a loophole Republicans are working to close via the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would amend current law to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Democrats have insisted the SAVE Act is unreasonable and unnecessary since, according to federal law, it’s illegal to vote in an election if you’re not a U.S. citizen. It’s also illegal to bum-rush border agents and break into the country.
Only one state, Arizona, requires voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in state elections. As a result of the federal government’s attempt to weaken Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law, individuals who cannot prove their citizenship can register as federal-only voters.
During the 2020 election in Arizona, 11,600 voters voted using a federal-only ballot, according to AZ Free News. Biden won that state by 10,457 votes.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
Bogus Russian dossier peddler and Democrat Party problem fixer Marc Elias has again injected himself into a key election integrity case to “defend the broken status quo.” Swing-state Nevada’s dirty voter rolls include hundreds of suspect addresses, at bars, strip clubs, empty parking lots, and other commercial addresses, according to an investigation by the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Doing so is clearly against the law.
“In Nevada, by the state law, you are required to be registered where you actually live, where you sleep. Not where you work, not at a P.O. Box. So we’re trying to get elections officials to enforce the law,” Lauren Bis, PILF’s director of communication and engagement, says in a video tracking bad addresses in the Las Vegas area.
To that end, the foundation has filed a petition in Washoe County, Nevada’s second-most populous county, to force elections officials to investigate and fix commercial addresses on the voter roll. PILF investigators found addresses on the rolls reported as liquor stores, empty lots, and even the Nevada Gaming Control Board, among others.
Baseless Attacks?
Elias Law Group and a band of leftists have sought to intervene in PILF’s petition for a writ of mandamus, arguing that forcing Washoe election administrators to follow the law and clean up the county’s dirty voter rolls will “threaten” voting rights.
The would-be intervenors claim that their members and constituents would be forced to “expend substantial resources to educate voters and protect them from baseless attacks on their eligibility.”
Baseless attacks?
As The Federalist recently reported, Bis was greeted with a lot of quizzical looks from employees at the casinos, fast-food restaurants, retailers, post offices, funeral homes, strip clubs, tattoo parlors, and jails where registered voters — at least according to Nevada’s dirty voter rolls — “resided.” What PILF found was equal parts sad and hilarious, foundation President J. Christian Adams told me on “The Federalist Radio Hour.”
The election integrity public interest law firm tracked data from the Nevada secretary of state’s office, which in the 2022 midterm elections reported 95,556 ballots sent to undeliverable, or “bad,” addresses. PILF investigators documented commercial addresses purported to be the residences of registered voters, confirming on video that the individuals did not live where they reported residing.
“We’ve been to all of the locations. It’s not some data exercise we see sitting at a computer in Chicago. We’ve actually got boots on the ground looking for the voters, and they don’t exist,” Adams said.
‘Disastrous Elections System’
Making matters worse, Nevada automatically mails a ballot to every active registrant on the voter rolls.
“I’m looking for Ronald or William Phelps,” Bis says in the video to a bartender wearing a “Tacos por favor” T-shirt at a local watering hole on North Nellis Boulevard in Vegas. “I don’t know who that is,” the barkeep replies.
“So, they don’t live here?” Bis asks. “Uh, at the bar? No,” the bartender says, chuckling. She’s clearly amused by the question.
It’s almost as amusing as Elias and friends’ apparent efforts to stop election officials from following the law under the absurd premise of voter rights. Their court filing offers a dire warning about what will happen if Washoe County is required to do what PILF has done: Washoe County’s job.
“If the Court grants such relief, Respondent Burgess — and other clerks and registrars across the state — will be flooded with third-party demands to investigate all manner of alleged peculiarities in the voter rolls, based on unsourced, unverified, and unsworn information,” the court filing admonishes. “Petitioners are not the only ones making such demands. Nevada is in the midst of a storm of baseless efforts by third parties to force election officials to undertake a rushed purge of registered voters before the November election.”
Adams called Elias’ latest lawfare stunt a “cry wolf exercise.”
“He does this all over the country. He spools up these progressive astroturf organizations and they file a legal brief, which they have done in our case, which we have to respond to, that says, ‘Oh, if you listen to these evil conservatives, there will be eligible people improperly removed from the rolls.’ Nonsense,” said Adams, who formerly served in the Voting Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and was appointed to President Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
“Marc Elias is in the business of defending the riches of a disastrous elections system with universal vote-by-mail that are sending ballots automatically to thousands of bogus addresses,” Adams added.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, on Wednesday warned that his group will fight with “no rules” and “no ceilings” if a broader war with Israel erupted, and that nowhere in Israel would be safe from Hezbollah’s attacks.
In a televised address, Nasrallah said that included possible targets in the Mediterranean Sea. Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time, saying Hezbollah could consider it “a part of the war” if it continued to allow Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises.
The White House reportedly canceled a meeting with Israel after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the U.S. was withholding military aid in a video message. The meeting was scheduled for Thursday to discuss Iran, but top advisers to President Joe Biden were enraged by the video, Axios reported, citing U.S. officials.
“This decision makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts,” a U.S. official told Axios.
Netanyahu said in the video it was “inconceivable that, in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.”
President Joe Biden has delayed delivering certain heavy bombs since May over concerns about Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza. Yet the administration has gone to lengths to avoid any suggestion that Israeli forces have crossed a red line in the deepening Rafah invasion, which would trigger a more sweeping ban on arms transfers.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said they have provided Israel with billions of dollars in weapons and had only paused one weapons shipment.
“We genuinely do not know what he is talking about,” she said.
Netanyahu also claimed Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a recent visit to Israel, said he was working around the clock to end the delays. However, Blinken said Tuesday the only pause was related to those heavy bombs from May.
“We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2,000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah,” Blinken said during a State Department news conference. “That remains under review. “But everything else is moving as it normally would.”
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein told Netanyahu in person that his accusations were inaccurate and out of line, Israeli officials told Axios. National security adviser Jake Sullivan will still be meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will also be visiting early next week, officials told Axios.
In March, Netanyahu canceled a meeting with U.S. officials after they declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution that mentioned a cease-fire in Gaza.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry—seen here March 18 outside the Supreme Court speaking with reporters after justices heard oral arguments in a First Amendment case—on Wednesday signed an expansive Educational Savings Accounts bill into law. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Education freedom is on the march.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday signed legislation making the Pelican State the 16th state in the nation to enact K-12 Education Savings Accounts and the 11th to offer education choice to every K-12 student, following Alabama earlier this year.
The legislation creates the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise—LA GATOR—Scholarships, which families can use to choose the learning environments that align with their values and work best for their kids. As with other ESA policies, parents can use the LA GATOR Scholarships to pay for private school tuition, textbooks, curricular materials, special-needs therapy, and more.
“The LA Gator Program puts parents in the driver’s seat and gives every child the opportunity for a great education. When parents are committed to the value of their child’s education, government should never get in the way,” said Landry, a Republican. “School choice is now a reality in the state of Louisiana!”
Most students will be eligible for scholarships worth about $5,200 annually, which is just over a third of the average per-pupil spending at Louisiana district schools. Students with special needs and children from low-income families can receive higher scholarship amounts.
The scholarships will initially be limited to students who are switching from a district or charter school, are entering kindergarten, or who are from families earning no more than 250% of the federal poverty level. In the second year, families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty line will be eligible, and in the third year, the scholarships will be open to all K-12 students in Louisiana.
More than a quarter of K-12 students nationwide are currently or soon will be eligible for a publicly funded education choice policy. Including privately funded tax-credit scholarship policies, more than 36% of students nationwide are eligible for a private education choice policy.
The new scholarship policy is an example of how the school choice movement has moved in a more free-market and family-centric direction. Instead of relying on bureaucrats to provide top-down accountability, the new policy trusts parents to provide bottom-up accountability.
The LA GATOR Scholarships will replace the state’s overregulated school voucher program, which produced the nation’s first negative results in a random-assignment study on the effects of a school choice policy on participating students’ academic performance.
“Equalitarian” regulations intended to guarantee access and quality—such as open admissions requirements, price controls, and mandating the state test—backfired by chasing away high-performing private schools.
Fortunately, Louisiana lawmakers have learned from their state’s own mistakes, as well as the success of states such as Arizona and Florida, which have shown that a free-market approach to education does a better job of providing a high degree of access and quality. The new scholarship policy eschews the harmful regulations of its predecessor.
Louisiana’s embrace of universal school choice also shows the success of efforts by conservatives to channel parents’ frustrations over “woke” ideology in traditional public schools into public support for policies that empower parents to choose schools that align with their values.
“Our people seek government that reflects their values,” said Landry during his Jan. 8 inauguration. “They demand that our children be afforded an education that reflects those wholesome principles, and not an indoctrination behind their mother’s back.”
Louisiana Governor JEFF LANDRY: "Our people seek government that reflects their values. They demand that our children be afforded an education that reflects those wholesome principles, and not an indoctrination behind their mother’s back." pic.twitter.com/x1WiJdEdSQ
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) January 10, 2024
The same week that the Louisiana Legislature gave the green light to the LA GATOR Scholarships, it also approved legislation curbing the ability of “woke” teachers to indoctrinate students in radical gender ideology behind parents’ backs.
Similar to Given Name Act policies in other states, Louisiana’s HB 121 would prohibit public school employees, including teachers, from referring to children by pronouns that are inconsistent with their sex, or any name other than the student’s legal name or common derivatives thereof.
Too often, school officials have begun the process of “socially transitioning” confused children all while keeping their parents in the dark. Going forward, Louisiana schools will no longer be able to subvert and supersede parents by making decisions concerning their children’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being without their knowledge and consent.
Another bill, HB 122, restricts discussion in government-run schools about sexual orientation and gender identity “in a manner that deviates from state content standards or curricula developed or approved by public school governing authorities.”
The bill properly recognizes that public school teachers are not free agents, but rather public employees hired by the public to perform a particular job. Parents and the public at large expect teachers to carry out the job they were hired to do without exploiting their position to indoctrinate a captive audience of children in a radical ideology.
Louisiana’s school choice win is also evidence that advocates’ short-term hyperpartisan strategy will pay bipartisan dividends in the long term. If Republicans gain an electoral advantage over Democrats by embracing school choice, eventually the Democrats will have to embrace school choice, too. We’re already seeing the signs in places like Louisiana.
When the Louisiana House of Representatives on April 8 passed the bill to create the LA GATOR Scholarships, the vote was 71-32, including six Democrats. That might not sound like a lot, but that’s one-fifth of the Democratic caucus. Moreover, whereas bipartisan efforts to advance school choice legislation typically involve bills to create small, targeted, and overregulated policies like the one the LA GATOR Scholarships are replacing, these Democrats voted for a Republican-led effort to enact education choice for all.
Louisiana Democrat Rep. Jason Hughes ON FIRE:
"As I watch children in poverty, trapped in failing schools, who can hardly read, I'd be damned if I will continue to defend the status quo."
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) April 8, 2024
There’s still a long way to go. After all, most of the Louisiana House Democrats and all the state Senate Democrats voted against school choice. But as education choice policies become the norm and not just the exception, it will be increasingly difficult for members of any political party to stand in their way.
There is a controversy in Oregon over a proposed change in the ethics rule from the Oregon Medical Board. At issue is the use of “microaggressions” to discipline doctors and to make reporting such transgressions mandatory for all doctors. It seems before you can give stitches, you have to join snitches under one of the most ambiguous categories of prescribed speech.
I have been a critic of microaggression rules on college campuses and discuss this trend in my book out this week, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. In past debates over this category of offensive speech, I have objected that it is hopelessly vague and highly controversial.
: a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)
A digital photo project run by a Fordham University student about “racial microaggressions” features minority students holding up signs with comments like “You’re really pretty … for a dark-skin girl.”—Jinnie Spiegler
There is a real and worthy conversation taking place in this country now, particularly among young people, around the idea of microaggressions—slight, often unintended discriminatory comments or behaviors.—Charles M. Blow
also: behavior or speech that is characterized by such comments or actions
… argues that the power of microaggression lies in its invisibility to the perpetrator, who typically finds it difficult to believe that he or she possesses biased attitudes.—Emily Skop
That ambiguity creates a threat to free speech through a chilling effect on speakers who are unsure of what will be considered microaggressive. Terms ranging from “melting pot” to phrases like “pulling oneself up by your own bootstraps” have been declared racist. Some of those have been identified by Columbia professor Derald Wing Sue, cited by Oregon’s state government as a “microaggressions expert.”
Professor Sue considers statements like “Everyone can succeed if they just work hard enough!” as an example of a microaggression. Sue’s work on “microassaults,” “microinsults,” and “microinvalidations” are being effectively adopted by the Board.
Notably, when I have objected to this category, advocates have insisted that they are merely voluntary and instructive, not mandatory. I have long argued that they are used in a mandatory fashion by triggering investigations of professors and would inevitably be made mandatory.
That appears to be happening in Oregon. A couple of conservative sites have covered the controversy.
Under the new ethics rule from the Oregon Medical Board, “unprofessional conduct” (over which a doctor can lose his or her license) will include microaggressions:
“In the practice of medicine, podiatry, or acupuncture, discrimination through unfair treatment characterized by implicit and explicit bias, including microaggressions, or indirect or subtle behaviors that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group.”
The new section “J” ranks microaggressions with fraud, sexual assault, and ordering unnecessary or harmful surgeries.
Oregon Medical Board states that
“The proposed rule amendments update the definition of “unprofessional conduct” to include discrimination in the practice of medicine, podiatry, and acupuncture, which would make discrimination a ground for discipline. The proposed rule may favorably impact racial equity by making discrimination a ground for discipline for OMB licensees. It is not known how the other proposed rule amendments will impact racial equity in the state.”
The incorporation of microaggressions under the new ethic rules is precisely what some of us have been warning about for years. As is often the case, activists begin by insisting that language monitoring is purely instructional and optional before codifying those rules in mandatory terms.
We have seen the same trajectory in other areas like land acknowledgments where the line between the optimal and the mandatory is hard to discern. As discussed in my book:
“What began as voluntary statements have become either expressly or implicitly mandatory…George Brown College in Toronto requires faculty and students alike to agree to a land acknowledgment statement to even gain access to virtual classrooms. While such statements are portrayed as optional, they are often enforced as compulsory. The University of Washington encouraged faculty to add a prewritten ‘Indigenous land acknowledgment’ statement to their syllabi. The recommended statement states that ‘The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.’
Computer science professor Stuart Reges decided to write his own statement. He declared…’I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.’ … He was told that, while the university statement is optional, his statement was unacceptable because it questioned the indigenous land claim of the Coast Salish people. Reges’s dissenting statement was removed, and the university emailed his students offering an apology for their professor’s ‘offensive’ opinion and advising them on ‘three ways students could file complaints against’ him.”
Federal courts have ruled in favor of academics in disputes over microaggression rules, but the movement is expanding beyond campuses, as shown in Oregon.
I have no objection to the sharing of views of others on how certain phrases are received. I have dropped certain terms or phrases even though I did not see why a term or phrase is insulting. When others have a reasoned basis for objecting to language, I err on the side of caution to avoid making others uncomfortable. Yet, this category of speech was created to encompass a broad, ill-defined range of speech that falls below outright discriminatory or harassing language. That makes for a dangerously vague standard for a mandatory reporting rule.
The free speech concern is how such microaggressive terms can be used to curtail or punish speech, including supporting complaints for formal investigations. Disciplinary actions often seem based on how language is received rather than intended. Schools need to be clear as to whether microaggressive language can be the basis for bias complaints and actions.
Consider again the language from the Oregon Medical Board. It would encompass any “indirect or subtle behaviors that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group.” The standard is heavily laden with subjectivity. (Notably, it does not include making such comments about any majority group, presumably whites or males).
The board then amplifies the standard by making it mandatory for other doctors to report colleagues. Under the proposed ruled,
“a licensee must report within 10 business days to the Board any information that appears to show that a licensee is or may be medically incompetent or is or may be guilty of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct or is or may be a licensee with a physical incapacity.”
So, doctors will have to police any “indirect or subtle behaviors” that “reflect negative attitudes or beliefs” . . . or face discipline themselves.
The Hippocratic oath is based on the pledge that doctors will “first do no harm.” Unfortunately, that pledge does not appear to apply to free speech in Oregon. Rather than merely publish opinions on phrases or practices that can be seen as microaggressive, the Oregon Medical Board is about to impose an ambiguous speech regulation that is likely viewed by some doctors as turning them into social-warrior snitches.
The Oregon Medical Board should remove the microaggressive provision. Sometimes the best treatment is the least intrusive.
When Indiana University implemented DEI standards in its law school curriculum, Professor John Lawrence Hill warned the state legislature about attempts by “extreme idealogues to indoctrinate students” that “fly in the face” of America’s legal foundations.
“This class is guaranteed to further polarize and politicize the law school environment and represents yet another attempt by the academic Left to provide a platform for extreme idealogues to indoctrinate students who are essentially academic hostages,”Hill wrote in his letter. “DEI is now ‘in’ at the McKinney school….”
In an interview with The Federalist, Hill, a professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law (IU McKinney) says that issues with the ABA’s DEI requirements are long-standing.
A New ABA Requirement
In February 2022, the ABA introduced a new standard for legal education. Standard 303(c) reads, “A law school shall provide education to law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism: (1) at the start of the program of legal education, and (2) at least once again before graduation.”
This marks the first time the ABA has mandated non-legal coursework in law school curriculum.
Hill learned of the new ABA requirement when he was serving on the law school’s academic affairs committee, which was tasked with implementing curricular reform. At the time, Hill chalked it up to an “unnecessary” addition to students’ legal education.
Once Hill departed from the committee, however, the university faculty capitalized on the new ABA instructions. Although standard 303(c) can be satisfied through orientation sessions, lectures, or “other educational experiences,” the faculty at IU McKinney opted to create a mandatory DEI course.
“[As] things developed, and I saw the way it was going … it wasn’t just unnecessary. It’s been baleful,” Hill says. “I mean, it’s really been … used as a predicate to make other changes.”
DEI at the Expense of Constitutional Law
In order to introduce new DEI coursework, the committee gave three proposals to the faculty. Two of them involved moving constitutional law to the second year, a major departure from traditional law school curriculum. Hill says this provoked a “huge faculty fight.”
“Every single one of us took constitutional law in the first year. Every single law student has taken Con Law in the first year for a century,” Hill recalls telling the faculty. “Why is it that all of a sudden our students can’t do this?”
In a memo, Hill urged the faculty to reject the abandonment of constitutional education for first-year students. Hill says he suggested a number of alternatives, including reducing the hours of one of his own classes, civil procedure.
“People freaked out at the memo,” Hill remembers. “There was a lot of anger.”
As a professor of constitutional law himself, Hill viewed the proposals to move constitutional law as particularly egregious.
“I believe that the real reason for throwing Constitutional Law out of the first year is plainly ideological,” Hill wrote in his letter to state senators. “Our Constitution enshrines and projects the values of liberty, individuality, and equality under the law. These values, which have served our nation for over 235 years, fly in the face of the DEI paradigm.”
In April, the faculty agreed to keep constitutional law in the first-year curriculum while still incorporating the “responsible lawyering” course. The new curriculum will take effect this fall.
“The law school has not considered or approved a 1-hour Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) course,” a spokeswoman for IU McKinney said in a statement to The Federalist. “A new 1L course, Responsible Lawyering, will include professional identity formation, consistent with ABA Standard 303, among other professionalism topics.”
However, “responsible lawyering” was added in direct response to the ABA’s DEI agenda. According to the ABA, this type of coursework will “reinforce the skill of cultural competency and their obligation as future lawyers to work to eliminate racism in the legal profession.” Hill describes this curriculum as a sign of more leftist change down the road.
“In law, sometimes a case is called a signal. It may be more modest in terms of what it actually rules, but it signals a change … a new way of doing things. The ABA requirement was cover, and it was a signal that … law schools can make changes, including pretty dramatic changes,” Hill says. “Many people in our faculty said this is a cover. The ABA has given us cover. That term was used specifically by other faculty members.”
According to Hill, these changes run deeper than some may think.
“What ties all this together is that there is an ideological agenda. Some people understand that consciously. They embrace it. They pursue it. A lot of other people just sort of go along, understanding the current. You know, people can sense when political currents are changing or where they’re moving, and so they sort of move with it, without really sharing the goal as such. But I think that this was something that came down from on high [that is] ideological, deeply ideological.”
In an interview with The Federalist, Raatz confirmed he is investigating the matter personally.
“We can all be sensitive to one another, but to mandate diversity, equity, inclusion … what does that really mean?” Raatz, a recipient of Hill’s letter, told The Federalist. “To just be frank about it, I’m not a proponent of DEI, honestly, and I’m going to determine just what their parameters are, and we’ll go from there.”
Fighting a DEI Agenda
Hill sent his letter to Raatz and Crane on Saturday afternoon. The senators are members of the Indiana Senate Education and Career Development Committee, and Hill hopes making them aware of the situation could lead to action.
“I have taught at McKinney for 21 years. I love this school and I love our students,” Hill wrote. “I hope that there might be something that you and your colleagues in the Indiana House and Senate might be able to do to respond to these developments.”
In the meantime, his concern is primarily for the quality of education at IU McKinney.
“When I started teaching, I was middle of the road. I wasn’t, you know, a wild-eyed progressive, but I wasn’t a libertarian or a conservative, either. I tried to kind of find the middle way, but I started to see the extent to which our textbooks, the way people teach classes, who gets tenure, who’s elevated — I mean, there’s so much of politics in it.”
Today, Hill says he still has hope for the law school — and for Americans.
“The most important thing is that you get everything accurate,” Hill told The Federalist. “I think once people know, it makes it harder for the powers that be to continue to advance these causes. I mean, everyone is aware of what’s going on. People are smart. Americans are smart. Once they’re aware of what’s going on, how it’s going on, it removes the cover for people who are trying to essentially push these values, these courses.”
Monroe Harless is a summer intern at The Federalist. She is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia with degrees in journalism and political science.
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed on Monday that it is pursuing a four-count indictment against a Texas doctor who blew the whistle on a kids’ transing scheme at the largest children’s hospital in the United States.
Dallas-based Dr. Eithan Haim first discovered Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston — which originally claimed it no longer offered body-butchering services to pediatric patients — employed physicians who continued to castrate children during his residency rotations. The 34-year-old leakedevidence of this deceptive activity along with proof that the hospital administration promoted procedures to cut off the breasts and genitals of physically healthy people to City Journal’s Christopher Rufo in May 2023. Both Haim and Rufo maintain that the information Haim passed along contained redactions that kept minor patients’ information secret.
The four-count indictment, unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas on Monday, however, alleges Haim obtained “protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization” by requesting to “re-activate his login access at TCH to access pediatric patients not under his care” shortly before the article debuted.
Prosecutors led by U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, who has already been accused of a long list of misconduct in the investigation, claim Haim acted “under false pretenses and with intent to cause malicious harm to TCH.”
The HIPPA Privacy Rule prosecutors will invoke in their case against Haim states that “covered entities” are allowed to disclose seemingly protected health information as long as “they believe [it] is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to a person or the public, when such disclosure is made to someone they believe can prevent or lessen the threat (including the target of the threat).”
According to Haim, the threat posed by medical professionals who swore to “do no harm” but continued to subject children to dangerous gender experiments was serious and imminent enough to risk his livelihood for it. He also believes the Biden administration’s sudden show of interest in an exposé from last year at the same time it continues to weaponize itself against its ideological enemies is no coincidence.
“I believe the reason they are doing this is clear. They want to send a message to any potential whistleblower — the punishment for telling the truth, for challenging the dominant political ideology, will be the heavy hand of the most powerful federal leviathan in human history,” Haim wrote on his Give Send Go page earlier this month.
If convicted, the expectant father could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and 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 X @jordanboydtx.
An ex-Obama fundraiser who once raked in millions of dollars for the Democratic Party is none too happy with the direction of the country these days, telling Fox News she is so dismayed, she’s switching her vote to Trump.
“Biden has been asleep at the wheel,” Allison Huynh said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends First.”
“He’s allowed Big Tech as well as the looters to take over Silicon Valley. San Francisco has been the science experiment that’s gone awry. I wake up in the morning, there’s no grocery stores to go to, there’s no malls to take my teenage girls shopping to. The streets are not safe, there are more fentanyl users and dealers than high school students in our once great city,” she continued.
Allison Huynh attends FORMS Opening Reception Presented by Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch at Miami Design District on December 05, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Huynh, along with her then-husband Google programmer Scott Hassan, helped raise millions of dollars for the Obama campaign in 2008, according to The New York Post. Her nature as a “hopeful” person and what she called former President Obama’s “great ideas” focused on equality for women and people of color led her to support the candidate promising “hope and change.”
She now describes herself as an independent who plans to vote for former President Trump this November. She even recently traveled to Mar-a-Lago to show support for Trump at a fundraiser.
Huynh has joined the number of people who have switched their pledged vote from President Biden to former President Trump. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
“When he [Obama] came into power, he was very scared. In his biography, he talked about being afraid of doing things because he didn’t want to ruin it for future Black leaders and Black presidents, and therefore, he let the government bureaucracy and red tape take over him whereas Trump was very specific with coming out with great ideas to allow people to grow great wealth,” she said.
“Biden is changing that. Right now, it’s very hard in this country to make money unless you work for a Big Tech company. If you’re an emerging tech company, they’re driving you offshore,” she added.
Huynh elaborated on that point a bit further, noting that the current administration exacerbates entrepreneurial challenges in a few ways, including, in her words, by “legislating and suing emerging technology companies, startup companies and just regular entrepreneurs who are funding their business.”
Huynh, a former Obama fundraiser, said Biden is “asleep at the wheel” while remarking on the current state of the nation. (Getty Images)
To further showcase her deteriorating enthusiasm for the Democratic Party, she’s selling off memorabilia tied to party history, including a rocking chair that belonged to former President John F. Kennedy, which she purchased at an auction for nearly $10,000, according to The Post. Among the other Democratic memorabilia in her house sits the iconic Shepard Fairey artwork of Obama that inspired the “Hope” posters that defined his 2008 campaign against late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
The report stated she paid more than $1 million for the piece.
She argued, however, that policies outlined by Trump today are more hopeful for fledgling businesses, including promises of lower taxes for emerging A.I. and Blockchain companies.
“They will lead the next wave of the industrial revolution, and we need specific policies to encourage that innovation,” she said.
FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden informed his business associates in late 2013 that a top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader allegedly asked him to travel to China to talk about future “business opportunities,” according to an email obtained and verified by Fox News Digital.
In December 2013, Biden accompanied his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on a six-day trip around Asia that included China, South Korea and Japan. While in Beijing, Biden introduced his father to one of his Chinese business associates, who was accompanied by another associate, in the lobby of the hotel they were staying in.
During the China leg of the trip, Biden attended multiple events with his dad, including a lunch that featured some of the most powerful CCP leaders in China. On Dec. 5, Jonathan Li, the business associate who Vice President Biden was introduced to, emailed Biden asking him how his China trip was going, prompting Biden to email later that day that everything “went very well.”
“Do you know former Governor of Hong Kong- C.H. Troung (sp?),” Hunter asked. “He wants me to come to HK to visit to discuss business opportunities. He sat next to Dad at lunch w/ Premiere and implied we knew each other- but I don’t remember him.”
Tung Chee-hwa, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. (YouTube/Screenshot)
“Very good, I can go with you to find out what he can do for us,” Li said to Hunter.
“Troung” refers to C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) between 2005 and 2023, a former business associate of Biden confirmed to Fox News Digital. The CPPCC is the “key mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation” under the leadership of the CCP, according to the CPPCC website.
In December 2013, Hunter Biden asked his business associates whether they knew C.H. Tung, or Tung Chee-hwa, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. (Fox News)
Fox News Digital could not confirm whether Biden took Tung up on his alleged offer to visit Hong Kong to discuss “business opportunities.”
Biden’s email about Tung would not be the last time that his name was mentioned in his emails. In July 2014, James Bulger, who goes by “Jimmy,” and served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC — a firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint-venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners— emailed Biden about introducing their Chinese business associates to Tung.
In July 2014, Hunter Biden said he would be “happy” to help introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and BHR committee person Andy Lu to “Mr. Tung,” who refers to Tung Chee-hwa, the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at the time. (Fox News)
In the July 2014 email, Bulger asked Biden to introduce Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR committee member, to “Mr. Tung” to discuss “BHR investment targets” and “fundraising,” alleging Biden sat next to Tung at a 2013 dinner welcoming Vice President Biden to Beijing, according to previous Fox News Digital reporting.
“It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,” Bulger wrote. “[A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung, therefore J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund.”
Corporate media organizations spent years dismissing negative information pertaining to Hunter Biden and his father, President Biden, right. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)
“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr Tung by email it is very important to our BHR initiative [sic] at this moment,” Bulger stressed.
Biden responded that he was “happy” to fulfill the request but said he could not recall the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at the dinner.
“Happy to do this,” he wrote, “but I have no email address for Mr. Tung and he very well may have sat next to me, but I don’t recall the two gentlemen’s names to my left and right. Regardless, I would suggest the team draft an email in Mandarin and English for my approval ASAP.”
“Let me reach out to Lin and J will revert ASAP,” Bulger replied later that day.
Multiple inquiries from Fox News Digital to Biden’s lawyer, Bulger, Li, Lu and Tung previously went unreturned about whether Biden ended up introducing Tung to his associates.
In addition to the 2013 dinner in Beijing, Tung was on the “expected attendees” guest list for at least two state dinners at the White House during the Obama-Biden administration. Tung’s bio on the Obama administration archives website for the January 2011 dinner says he was “Vice Chairman, CPPCC, former Hong Kong Chief Executive.”
In another press release for the September 2015 state dinner, Tung’s bio lists him as “Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with then-Vice President Joe Biden inside the Great Hall of the People on Dec. 4, 2013 in Beijing. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
According to a 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government agency, the CPPCC is a “central part” of China’s United Front system, which works to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
According to a 2021 report by The Diplomat, the CPPCC is “designed to liaise with non-Communist Party members – and ultimately see them work with the CCP to advance its interests.” While serving as vice chairman of the CPPCC, Tung also founded the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) in 2008.
Tung has many powerful contacts in Washington, D.C., including President Biden’s top climate diplomat, John Podesta. Fox News Digital previously reported that Podesta referred to Tung as his “friend” and took several phone calls from him between 2015 and 2016 while serving as the chairman for Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign.
In May 2013, Tung and Podesta spoke at a luncheon hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which included Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai.
“For the last four years though, Center for American Progress and China-U.S. Exchange Foundation have co-hosted a US.-China track II dialogue and we continue to host these dialogues on an annual basis,” Podesta said. “I have the highest regard for C.H. Tung’s tireless efforts to bring our two nations closer together. He is always looking ahead to anticipate emerging challenges in the U.S.-China relations and to figure out what he can do to make those challenges more manageable.”
John Podesta, founder and director of the Center for American Progress, speaks at The Center for American Progress CAP 2019 Ideas Conference in Washington, D.C., on May 22, 2019. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital also previously reported on Tung being instrumental in CUSEF’s targeting of Historically Black Colleges and Universities by visiting the office of a Black public relations consultant’s office across the street from the White House in 2009 to learn more about Black Americans.
“In 2009, the former chief executive of Hong Kong visited me in my office with his staff from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and they wanted to know how we got a Black president,” Julia Wilson told the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff students during a 2017 presentation. “They were saying, ‘We don’t know anything about Black people. So can you write us a white paper and share it with us. How did Black people get enough power to vote a Black man into office?’ So they really needed an overview of our history. Who are we? Who are African Americans?”
Tung’s organization would go on to pay out over $1M to Wilson’s firm, Wilson Global Communications, between 2017 and December 2023.
Biden’s attorney, Li, and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Cameron Cawthorne is a politics editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Cameron.Cawthorne@Fox.com and on Twitter: @cam_cawthorne
Vicious lawbreakers are able to enter the United States illegally because the Biden administration has a border policy by which criminal checks are done at the end of the process rather than at the beginning, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Tuesday. Lankford made the comments after a El Salvador man, who had been in prison in his own country for murder, and illegally fled to the U.S. was arrested over the weekend for the killing last year of a Maryland mother.
The White House announced Tuesday the Biden administration will soon permit certain spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually, citizenship, a move that could affect some half a million people here illegally.
Lankford called the new policy “out of touch” telling “Wake Up America,” “this is something I have said all along.
“For years I’ve said we don’t know if people are fleeing from the law or if they are fleeing from poverty: We don’t know because [this administration is] not checking it, they are not evaluating it,” Lankford added.
“Any criminal checks they are doing for individuals are actually at the end of the process, years after they have been in the country rather than at the very beginning. This is one of the things I have fought for, to have a criminal check at the very beginning and turn people around immediately rather than release them into the country.”
What makes the new Biden policy even worse is he announced recently that “he is going to close down the border,” Lankford said, “but doesn’t do it, as it was just a public show [and he] is actually not enforcing that.
“And then he announces, Oh, we are also going to allow half a million people that are in the country illegally to now get a path to citizenship, which is just a big flag to everyone internationally to say, Get into the country as fast as you can, because we are going to give you citizenship.”
Biden just get worse with every move, according to Lankford.
“This has been a challenge of Biden all along,” he continued. “He has done 94, now 95 executive orders opening the border up and inviting more people to come and then announces that he is going to close the border down and actually does not.”
“Day after day they have said [in regards to illegal immigration] that basically what [former President Donald] Trump did was mean, and so now we’re going to open the border up. What I have said over and over again to this administration is following the law is not mean.”
“We are a nation of the rule of law,” he concluded, “so as crimes increase, as murders increase, as all these problems that happen are a direct result of a president saying, Well I’m going to try to do something fair for these individuals. Instead, let’s do something fair for the American people.”
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Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday accused one of the scientists behind the assertion that the COVID-19 virus was not grown in a lab of “shameful propaganda” at an “Origins of COVID-19″ hearing.
“You should have done better, and because you didn’t, people have suffered,” the Missouri Republican said to Robert Garry.
Hawley said people have lost their jobs and social standing because of the “propaganda article” of Garry, one of the five authors of the March 2020 opinion paper on “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.
“It is wrong to censor and lie to the American public,” the Missouri lawmaker said. “It is wrong to withhold critical information from them.”
Garry is a professor of microbiology and immunology, and associate dean for biomedical sciences at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans.
“As a scientist who is supposed to follow facts, do you regret that your work was used to censor your fellow scientists and ordinary Americans who asked questions about the virus?” Hawley asked Garry.
Garry responded that scientists are not responsible for their articles after they are published.
“All we did was write a paper,” he said. “It’s been one of the most scrutinized papers in history,” he said. “It’s held up very well. It wasn’t an attempt to distort things and to mislead the American public. It was just a paper.”
The Missouri senator accused Garry of lying about the intelligence community coming to the conclusion that the virus did not originate from a lab.
“That is a lie,” Hawley said. “The intelligence community did not come to that conclusion. Multiple intelligence community agencies and components have concluded it was likely a lab leak, and they concluded at the same time you and your people were propagandizing the American public.”
“I am not going to sit here and allow you to lie any further,” he continued. “You have disgracefully participated in shameful propaganda that has been one of the worst chapters in American history with the country propagandizing its own people.”
Garry agreed that there is more to learn from the intelligence community.
“All agencies should come forth with more information,” he said.
The hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee aimed to identify the truth about where the coronavirus came from, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said. Agencies and officials withheld information about the COVID-19 virus from the American public, Paul said in his opening remarks.
“Privately, they were saying one thing,” Paul said. “Publicly, they were saying another. Media pundits parroted the narrative, while social media platforms censored discussion about the lab leak, labeling it as misinformation and stifling open discourse about the virus’s origins.”
Molecular biologist Richard Ebright called the paper “fraudulent.”
“I would tell a younger scientist that you do not state a conclusion without evidence, even in an opinion piece in a scientific journal,” Ebright said. “And you never, under any circumstances in a scientific journal, state conclusions that you know to be unsound. That represents scientific misconduct.”
A new poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) shows that only 28% of Americans have a lot of trust in higher education. Academia has continued to alienate much of the country as an orthodox echo chamber. As with media outlets, the result has been falling interest and trust in these institutions. The poll asked, “How much confidence, if any, do you have in U.S. colleges and universities?”
Only 28% said they had a “great deal of confidence in colleges and universities.” Not surprisingly, given the ideological balance at most schools, the highest levels of trust came from Democrats and liberals. However, even this group only showed a 40% high confidence rate. Among Republicans, it drops to 12% and among independents it drops to 28%.
For most businesses, such negative reactions would be viewed as catastrophic. For academia, it will not matter a whit.
It is still personally beneficial for professors and administrators to push ideological agendas and maintain the lack of intellectual diversity on campuses. These professors are not challenged in their writings or their statements. They dominate publications, awards, and associations. In the meantime, these schools still receive sufficient support from alumni and, in the case of public universities, public funding.
This could not come at a worse time as many decide that college is simply not worth the money. At the same time, falling birthrates are impacting dropping applications. Others have little interest in going to institutions where they must hide their political viewpoints or values.
We have seen the same phenomenon in the media where media outlets are collapsing in viewership or readership, but reporters are resisting every effort to return to a more neutral and objective basis for coverage. Recently, the Washington Post’s new publisher and CEO William Lewis dropped a truth bomb on his writers by telling them “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response from the media has been a campaign against Lewis and another editor tasked with saving the newspaper from itself. The New York Times, National Public Radio, and other outlets have piled on Lewis with a series of attack pieces. This is being actively and openly supported by reporters at the Post and could well work in pressuring owner Jeff Bezos. The result will be to stay the course of plunging trust and readership at a paper that is hemorrhaging money and readers.
We need great universities and great newspapers as a nation. We need Princeton and the Post. That is why this trend is so alarming. These are hardened silos that seem impenetrable to efforts to restore trust in their product.
The Kindle and audiotape versions are now immediately available. The book itself can be mailed directly from Amazon or purchased locally. We were surprised that Barnes & Noble put in on display a couple days early.
This book has been 30 years in the making for me. It is a relief to see it released at long last. While the book challenges the anti-free speech movement sweeping over our campuses, corporations, and Congress, I hope that it will also offer some common grounds on a core constitutional value that defines us as a people.
From the book:
“We are justifiably proud of our protection of free speech, particularly at a time when the right is in decline around the world. Yet our often mythic view of free speech ignores our systemic denial of this right. If we are to understand this right, we have to recognize our history through the figures and failures that shaped us. We have to ask difficult questions about the limits of our tolerance for the speech of others, including those who we view as hateful or harmful. We cannot focus on just the redemptive moments when our rage subsided and reason pre- vailed. We remain a nation grappling with what free speech means to us as a people. What follows is meant to be the unvarnished story of free speech in America. For better or worse, it is our story.”
“Jonathan Turley’s magnum opus should be required reading for everyone who cares about free speech—certainly including anyone who questions or criticizes strong free speech protection. This a unique synthesis of the historical, philosophical, artistic, and even physiological bases for protecting free speech as a right to which all human beings are inherently entitled, and Turley provides riveting accounts of the courageous individuals, throughout history, who have struggled and sacrificed in order to exercise and defend the right. The Indispensable Right is an indispensable book.” —Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union
“Brilliant and intellectually honest, Jonathan Turley has few peers as a legal scholar today. With The Indispensable Right, he has given us a robust reexamination and defense of free speech as a right. Rich with historical content and insight, this superbly-written book calls out both the left and the right for attacks on free speech while offering in the final chapter a path forward.” —William P. Barr, former Attorney General and author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller One Damn Thing After Another.
“This efficient volume is packed with indispensable information delivered with proper passion. Jonathan Turley surveys the fraught history of “the indispensable right” and today’s dismayingly broad retreat from its defense. He is especially illuminating on how the concept of “harm” from speech has been broadened to serve the interest of censors.” —George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post columnist.
“The First Amendment has consumed Jonathan Turley for more than thirty years. Lucky for us that he waited until now, amidst a climate of unprecedented rage rhetoric, to deliver a master class on the unvarnished history of free speech in America. The Indispensable Right is enlightening and engaging. It is also cautionary tale against state overcorrection of the often acrimonious, free exchange of ideas that are an essential part of the human experience.” —Michael Smerconish, host of CNN’s “Smerconish”
“During these often-bitter times, Jonathan Turley is my “go-to” commentator for smart, clear and honest analysis on any difficult legal controversy.” —Jim Webb, former Democratic U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, and bestselling author
“Jonathan Turley’s book is the rarest of accomplishments: a timely and brilliantly original yet disciplined and historically grounded treatment of free speech. He dispels the view that our current social turmoil is “uncharted waters”—from the 1790’s Whiskey Rebels to the 1920’s Wobblies to the 1950’s communists, we’ve been here before—and argues persuasively that free speech is a human need and that we must resist the urge to restrict speech as “disinformation” or “seditious” or offensive to “woke” sensibilities.” —Michael B. Mukasey, former Attorney General and U.S. District Judge
“Jonathan Turley is one of the most astute and most honest analysts of the intersection of politics and law. Thirty years in the making, this book brilliantly proposes means for preserving the most important Constitutional right: the right to free speech. Elegantly written, exhaustively researched, and passionately argued, Turley has given us a superb and necessary tract for our time.” —Stephen B. Presser, Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History Emeritus, Northwestern University School of Law
“Jonathan Turley recognizes free speech as an essential good—an activity that is central to our very nature as human beings. This is in sharp contrast with those who defend free speech as merely instrumental to some other value, like democracy or the pursuit of truth; rationales that are then used to justify limiting speech in ways that obstruct human flourishing. In this important book, he explains why free speech has historically come under threat during periods of rage and proposes policies that will protect freedom of speech from those who would today destroy this indispensable right.” —Randy E. Barnett, Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
“The Indispensable Right is a courageous, provocative case by one of America’s most prolific public intellectuals for resurrecting natural law or embracing an autonomous basis for the protection of free speech. Not all First Amendment defenders will be persuaded––but one needn’t sign on to Turley’s robust view of free speech to appreciate the unique clarity and deep historical research he brings to his argument. Read this insightful book to understand the peril of today’s broad-based assault on free speech.”
—Michael J. Glennon, Professor of Constitutional and International Law, Tufts University, author of Free Speech and Turbulent Freedom: The Dangerous Allure of Censorship in the Digital Era.
“A vigorous defense of free speech, a right enshrined but often hobbled or outright abrogated. A smart book that invites argument—civil argument, that is, with good faith and tolerance.”
—Kirkus Book Reviews
“Turley has written a learned and bracing book, rigorously detailed and unfailingly evenhanded. For all his grim recounting of the assaults on free speech, his is ultimately a buoyant book.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon—Rumors are flying that Biden will be replaced by the leaders of the Democratic party before the 2024 election. If so, who will they replace him with that will continue Obama’s Marxist-Globalist agenda?
The Look on Obama’s Face Says it All: Biden Incoherently Babbles About “Joe Jobs” as Obama Stares (VIDEO)
By Cristina Laila – June 17, 2024
The look on Obama’s face said it all. Joe Biden and Barack Obama appeared on stage together for a fundraiser in Los Angeles, California Saturday evening. Biden reportedly raised $28 million from California Hollywood elitists in Los Angeles. Out-of-touch Hollywood actors and singers like George Clooney, Barbara Streisand and Julia Roberts helped Biden raise money Saturday night at the Peacock Theater. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel interviewed Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Biden babbled incoherently about the unemployment rate and lack of jobs under his watch. SEE MORE…
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. READ MORE…
Top Stories •House Passes Military Funding Bill That Stops Biden’s Abortion Agenda •Republican Senators Pledge to Block Biden’s Leftist Judicial Nominees •SCOTUS Abortion Pill Ruling Protects Pro-Life Doctors Who Treat Women Injured by Abortions •God Created Fatherhood and We Need More Men to Step Up to Become Good Dads
More Pro-Life News •Republicans Block Biden From Using Taxpayer Dollars for Abortions in Massive Defense Bill •Pro-Life Leaders Demand Investigation into Deaths of Two Babies Found on Baltimore Bus •South Carolina Abortions Drop 80% as Heartbeat Law Saves Thousands of Babies •Thousands of People Join Wisconsin March for Life to Protest Abortion • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was blasted on social media over the weekend for a Father’s Day post, which the New York Democrat eventually deleted, showing off his backyard grill.
“Our family has lived in an apartment building for all our years, but my daughter and her wife just bought a house with a backyard and for the first time we’re having a barbeque with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!” Schumer posted on X on Sunday. “Father’s Day Heaven!”
The post was immediately criticized by conservatives accusing him of placing cheese on one of the burger patties prematurely and not knowing how to properly grill the burger.
“Chuck is making an E. coli with cheese,” Cavalry founding partner Michael Duncan posted on X.
“You put cheese on a raw patty,” Popular conservative account
“Nuance Bro” posted on X. “Y’all are so bad at pretending to be normal human beings.”
“I get that you’re playing to the masses but literally no one puts cheese on a raw beef patty,”
Donald Trump Jr. posted on X. “If you need help learning how to do basic grilling stuff let me know. Nice try relating though. Fuc$&?g communists!!!”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Schumer eventually deleted the post which had been “ratioed” by conservative accounts.
“Chuck Schumer just deleted this post where he got insanely ratioed for not knowing how to make a cheeseburger,” LibsofTikTok posted on X.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., conducts a news conference after the senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Democrats try to be relatable without being super cringe challenge: IMPOSSIBLE.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
“Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!” Schumer said in another Father’s Day post that remains on social media.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is planning to hold a vote on legislation to bar gun bump stocks after the Supreme Court invalidated a ban on them.
“The Senate can help restore this public safety rule, and next week, it will try. As majority leader, I have the ability to allow a unanimous consent vote, and we’ll see just what Republican MAGAs do: Will they allow it to go forward, or will they cower to MAGA and hurt the American people?” Schumer said Sunday.
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that sided with Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner from Austin, Texas, who challenged the ban on bump stocks. The devices enable semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly like machine guns. The court’s liberal minority dissented from the decision.
“The only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation,” Schumer said after the ruling. “Bump stocks have played a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country, but, sadly, it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out-of-touch, extreme agenda. They’re even further to the right of Donald Trump.”
Schumer has planned a series of votes in the Senate to help boost embattled incumbents and divide Republicans on key issues.
President Joe Biden, who blasted the Supreme Court ruling Friday, said he would sign a bill banning bump stocks immediately if it reached his desk.
“Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation,” Biden said.
The bump stock ban was enacted by the Trump administration in 2017 after a Las Vegas concert shooting in which 60 people were killed.
At the polls, Europeans and Africans join Americans in showing what they think of the Left’s green energy agenda, supporting politicians who say voters can keep their cars. Pictured: Robert Habeck, left, Germany’s minister of economy and climate action, meets March 8 with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres in New York City. (Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has proclaimed fossil-fuel companies “godfathers of climate chaos,” but many Europeans, Africans, and Americans clearly disagree. They’ve shown recently what they think of the green agenda of costly renewables and instead support politicians who will let them keep their cars.
In elections for the European Parliament, a good number of Europeans joined the pushback that has already begun in the U.S and South Africa against the green-energy movement. Right-wing parties in Italy, Germany, and France, all with platforms opposing the green agenda, fared strikingly well.
French President Emmanuel Macron called national elections after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party, which supports fossil fuels, gained 12 seats and won 31% of the vote: a plurality, and about twice the total achieved by Macron’s Renaissance Party.
Major losers in the European parliamentary elections included Renew Europe, the party that boasts“it has played a leading role in raising the European Union’s ambitions to reach climate neutrality by 2050,” and the European Greens Party, which seeks a green deal and wants the union to be powered 100% by renewable energy by 2040.
On June 5, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, indefinitely postponed New York City’s planned “congestion charge,” or tax, which was originally set to go in effect June 30. Had it been implemented, drivers would have been required to pay $15 per day to enter Manhattan’s central business district below 60th Street.
New York expected to raise $1 billion a year from drivers to fund public transit, although one congressional report commissioned by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., forecast revenues of over $3.4 billion.
Proponents said that the tax would improve air quality, reduce congestion, and fund public transit, but it would have disproportionately hurt small businesses, poor residents, and others who rely on personal transportation.
The tax would also have been harsh on older and handicapped people, many of whom can’t take public transit. And at a time when working from home has been hitting the economy of downtown Manhattan, it would have been an additional reason for office workers to forsake the city.
The Big Apple is fortunate to have escaped this outcome. There was vast resistance to the new tax, and Hochul was wise to cancel it. People don’t like to be without their cars, and she listened.
Virginia residents escaped a similar outcome recently, as Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin decided not to abide by California’s new Advanced Clean Cars II standards. Passed in 2022, the standards require 35% of new passenger vehicles sold in the Golden State to be electric or hydrogen-fueled by 2026 and 100%tto be electric or hydrogen-fueled by 2035. Virginia will comply with federal law rather than California law.
Virginia’s prior governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, had required that the commonwealth embrace the 2021 automobile standards of the California Air Resources Board, which would have mandated that a certain share of auto dealers’ sales in 2025 be battery-powered cars. The 2022 standards are stricter but were passed after Virginia (and 15 other states) had signed on to California’s 2021 standards.
Virginia is the first state to walk away from California’s 2022 standards, and it will encourage others to do the same. People need affordable, reliable transportation for personal and business use. Electric tractors can’t substitute for diesel-powered ones. Small businesses rely on gasoline-powered pickup trucks that can tow equipment without having to stop for an hour or two to recharge during long trips. Construction workers need inexpensive cars to get to work. And this is a global reality.
In the South African general elections last month, the African National Congress won only 40% of the popular vote, failing to secure a majority for the first time since the party’s 1994 founding. Although South Africa has vast supplies of coal and gas, blackouts have damaged the economy and contributed to the ANC government’s unpopularity. Unplanned outages rose from 176,000 in 2007 to almost 20 million in 2023. Between 2012 and 2022, South Africa’s gross domestic product per capita declined by 17%, from $8,174 to $6,766, and manufacturing output decreased by almost a third. The latest official unemployment rate is 32.9%. South Africa’s new government will need to ensure a reliable energy supply to revive the country’s manufacturing sector and reduce unemployment.
Fossil fuels are demonized by the secretary-general of the United Nations, but they enable people to heat and cool their homes, operate their vehicles, and use electrical appliances reliably. And resilient sources of fuel are essential to many countries’ manufacturing sectors.
Voters know this, and they are making themselves heard all over the world.
Below is my column in The Hill on the concerning record of Attorney General Merrick Garland on a variety of recent matters, including a frivolous privilege claim to withhold the audiotape of President Joe Biden during the Hur interview. There is a certain corruption of judgment that is evident from this and other decisions by Garland since he became Attorney General.
Here is the column:
This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland took to the pages of the Washington Post to lash out at critics who are spreading what he considers “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself.” His column, titled “Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end,” missed the point.
It is Garland himself who has become the problem. The solution is in Wilmington, Delaware, where 12 average citizens just showed a commitment to the rule of law that seems to be harder and harder for the attorney general to meet.
Since his appointment, Garland has repeated a mantra that he is apolitical and would never yield to the pressures of politics or the White House. When he was nominated, I believed that claim and enthusiastically supported Garland’s confirmation. He was, I thought, the perfect man for the job after his distinguished judicial service as a moderate judge.
I was wrong. Garland’s tenure as attorney general has shown a pronounced reluctance to take steps that would threaten President Biden. He slow-walked the appointment of a special counsel investigating any Biden, and then excluded from the counsel’s scope any investigation of the massive influence peddling operation by Hunter Biden, his uncle and others.
However, it is what has occurred in the last six months that has left some of us shaken, given our early faith in Garland.
I have long been a critic of Garland’s failure to order a special counsel to look into the extensive evidence of corruption surrounding the Bidens. As I stated in my testimony in the Biden impeachment hearing, there is ample evidence that Biden lied repeatedly about his knowledge of this corruption and his interaction with these foreign clients.
However, a more worrisome concern is the lack of consistency in these investigations. First, Special Counsel Robert Hur found that Biden knowingly retained and mishandled classified material. However, he concluded that Biden’s age and diminished faculties would make him too sympathetic to a jury. It was less sympathetic than pathetic, given that this is the same man who is running for re-election to lead the most powerful nation on Earth. More importantly, Garland has not made obvious efforts to reach a consistent approach in the two cases by dropping charges based on the same crimes by Trump in Florida. (Such action would not affect the obstruction counts).
Second, Garland has allowed Special Counsel Jack Smith to maintain positions that seem diametrically at odds with past Justice Department policies. This includes Smith’s statement that he will try Trump up to (and even through) the next election. It also includes a sweeping gag order which would have eviscerated free speech protections by gagging Trump from criticizing the Justice Department. While Garland has said that he wants to give the special counsels their independence, it falls to him to protect the consistency and values of his department.
Garland’s most brazenly political act has been the laughable executive privilege claim used to withhold the audiotape of the Hur-Biden interviews. The Justice Department has not claimed that the transcript is privileged, but only that the audiotape of Biden’s comments is privileged. This is so logically disconnected that even CNN hosts have mocked it.
The Justice Department went further in court by adding conspiracy to absurdity as part of its unhinged theory. It asserted a type of “deepfake privilege” on the basis that the release of the audiotape could allow AI systems to create fake versions of the president’s words. It ignores that there are already ample public sources now to create such fake tapes and that, by withholding the real audiotape, the Justice Department only makes such fake copies more likely to arise and ensnare the unwary.
Most importantly, the arguments of a “he-who-must-not-be-heard” privilege or a deep-fake privilege are ridiculous. Garland knows that, as would any first-year law student. Yet, he is going along with a claim that is clearly designed to protect Biden from embarrassment before the next election. It is entirely political and absurd.
After stumbling through a half-hearted defense of the audiotape decision before he was held in contempt of Congress, Garland was faced with another clear test of principle. Three House committees (Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means) this month referred for prosecution cases of perjury against Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden. Despite what appear to be open-and-shut allegations that they lied to Congress, most everyone in Washington believes that Garland and the Justice Department will slow-walk and then scuttle the referrals to protect the Bidens.
This is the same Justice Department that seemed on a hair-trigger to prosecute Trump officials for perjury and contempt after referrals from Democrat-controlled committees.
The questions at issue were not “gotcha” traps, like showing up at Michael Flynn’s office to nail him on his description of a meeting with Russian diplomats. These were some of the most-discussed questions heading into Hunter Biden’s long-delayed appearance before the committees.
Hunter is accused of lying about his position at Rosemont Seneca Bohai, a corporate entity that moved millions of dollars from foreign individuals and entities to Hunter Biden. He also allegedly lied about the identity of the recipient of his controversial message to a Chinese businessman, in which he threatened that his father was sitting “right next to me” and would join him in retaliating against the Chinese if they did not send millions. They promptly wired the money as demanded.
Hunter’s answers appear to be demonstrably untrue. Yet, there is little faith that the Justice Department will allow the matter to be presented to a grand jury. If Garland’s pledge to remain apolitical were widely accepted, there would be little question about the prosecution of such compelling claims.
Garland now appears entirely adrift in his own department. While mouthing platitudes about being beyond politics, he continues to run interference for the Biden White House. He appears to be looking to close aides for such direction.
He should instead look to those 12 people in Wilmington, Delaware.
Despite facing overwhelming evidence of Hunter Biden’s guilt, his legal team pursued a jury-nullification strategy. Wilmington is Bidentown, the hometown for the president and his family. An array of Bidens, including the first lady, lined up behind Hunter during the trial, in case anyone forgot that fact.
Yet the jury convicted Hunter on all counts without any hesitation. Despite sympathy for a recovering drug addict in a town that has overwhelmingly supported the Bidens for decades, “nobody mentioned anything about political motivations” in the jury room, as one juror noted. “I was never thinking of President Joe Biden,” said another.
Garland needs to show a modicum of that courage and principle as attorney general. He could start by dropping the farcical privilege claims over the audiotape and sending the referrals to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the same priority treatment afforded to Trump officials like Flynn.
As it stands, few believe that will happen, despite Garland’s repeated line about transcending politics. It is not the mantra that is in doubt, but the man.
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University School of Law.He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon and Schuster, 2024).
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Audit slams Walz administration for oversight failures that enabled Feeding Our Future fraud. In some cases, MDE shockingly “asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself.”
Audit slams Walz administration for oversight failures that enabled Feeding Our Future fraud
In some cases, MDE shockingly “asked Feeding Our Future to investigate complaints about itself.”
By Evan Poellinger – June 13, 2024
The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) issued a 120-page report Thursday which lambasted the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) for failing to take necessary oversight measures, enabling the multi-million dollar Feeding Our Future fraud to occur.
In the report, Legislative Auditor Judy Randall declared, “Federal regulations required MDE to monitor and enforce Feeding Our Future’s compliance with program requirements. MDE’s responsibilities under federal law ranged from providing guidance and training to Feeding Our Future staff, to terminating the organization’s participation in the programs if warranted. However, we found MDE’s oversight of Feeding Our Future to be inadequate. In fact, we believe MDE’s actions and inactions created opportunities for fraud.” READ MORE…
While Bidenomics continues with its same old, same old “bribe the young and illegal, tax the stuffing out of the middle class, and reward the corporate elites” policies, Trump is throwing out some interesting ideas to kick around in regard to the economy and how he would run his second term.
Trump’s economic plans include several fresh initiatives. You probably heard of his plan to end the taxing of tips for service workers. Tips are not wages. They are rewards from individuals. They are a nightmare to account for. And they help – very directly – people on low incomes. His suggestion is both kind and pragmatic. READ MORE…
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. READ MORE…
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told CNN that the group doesn’t know how many Israeli hostages are still alive. During the interview, filmed in Lebanon, Hamdan was asked about the hostages. “How many of those 120 are still alive?” Hamdan was asked.
“I don’t have any idea about that,” he said. “No one has any idea about this.”
Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ politburo, is based in Lebanon but maintains contact with Hamas leadership in Gaza. He spoke about the hostage release cease-fire deal, which has seen little progress since U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled the proposal last month. The Biden administration has pointed at Hamas for being a significant barrier to achieving the deal.
Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit, Biden said: “I’ve laid out an approach that has been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, by the G7, by the Israelis, and the biggest hang-up so far is Hamas refusing to sign on even though they have submitted something similar.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday claimed Hamas had not accepted the deal, but presented “numerous changes” that went beyond the group’s previous demands.
“Hamas proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table. Some of the changes are workable and some are not,” Blinken said. “As a result, the war will go on and more people will suffer.
“It’s time for the haggling to stop and the cease-fire to start. Israel accepted the proposal as it is, Hamas didn’t. It is clear what needs to happen.”
Hamdan said Israel’s position regarding the cease-fire length is unacceptable to Hamas.
“The Israelis want the cease-fire only for six weeks and then they want to go back to the fight,” Hamdan said, adding that the U.S. “did not convince the Israelis to accept” a permanent cease-fire.
In the interview, Hamdan repeatedly deflected any Hamas responsibility for the war in Gaza or the state of the hostages. Hamdan referred to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” (Hamas’ name for the Oct. 7 invasion and terror attack) as “a reaction against the occupation.”
Asked about recent messages published by The Wall Street Journal, allegedly leaked from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and stating his determination to continue fighting, Hamdan dismissed them as fake.
“It was fake messages done by someone who is not Palestinian and was sent (to the) Wall Street Journal as part of the pressure against Hamas and provoking the people against the leader,” Hamdan claimed, without providing evidence.
Hamdan also blamed Israel for the mistreatment of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Responding to the testimony of an Israeli doctor who said the hostages had suffered mental and physical abuse, Hamdan claimed, “I believe if they have a mental problem, this is because of what Israel has done in Gaza.”
Students hold flags as they protest against Texas’ Katy Independent School District’s transgender policy outside the school district’s Educational Support Complex on Aug. 30, 2023, in Katy, Texas. (Photo: Brett Coomer/ Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images)
Jennifer Nuelle is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
A federal judge in Louisiana has temporarily blocked four more states from expanding the Biden administration’s new Title IX policy to protect LGBTQ+ students. The Biden administration’s new Title IX policy outlined federal protections for LGBTQ+ students and victims of sexual assault while expanding the definition of sexual harassment for schools and universities.
The new Title IX provisions collide with Louisiana’s Women’s Safety and Protection Act, which requires individuals to use the bathroom based on their sex, prohibiting transgender people from using bathrooms and other close-quartered facilities corresponding with their gender identity, according to the court documents.
Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, the first judge to block the new Title IX rule, referred to it as an “abuse of power” and “a threat to democracy,” according to the court documents. The three supporting states are Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho, all of which joined in on the lawsuit, overstepping the Education Department’s authority.
Doughty sided with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s lawsuit, State of Louisiana et al v. U.S. Department of Education et al. The suit states that the original Title IX statute uses the language of “both sexes” or “one sex,” implying that it was referring to strictly biological men and women.
“This a victory for women and girls. When [President] Joe Biden forced his illegal and radical gender ideology on America, Louisiana said NO! Along with Idaho, Mississippi, and Montana, states are fighting back in defense of the law, the safety and prosperity of women and girls, and basic American values,” Murrill said in a statement.
🚨TITLE IX INJUNCTION: This a victory for women and girls. When @JoeBiden forced his illegal & radical gender ideology on America, Louisiana said NO! Along with Idaho, Mississippi, & Montana, states are fighting back in defense of the law, the safety and prosperity of women &… pic.twitter.com/65C8YGFkfx
— Attorney General Liz Murrill (@AGLizMurrill) June 13, 2024
The new rule wipes the changes former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made, including undoing specific sexual assault policies at U.S. colleges and universities. DeVos shared her opinions on social media, stating the new rule is a “regulation no one needed and very few wanted.”
“This regulation is an assault on women and girls. It makes it a federal requirement that men be allowed to play women’s sports, putting their safety, privacy and competitive opportunity at risk. And it makes it a federal requirement that feelings, not facts, dictate how Title IX is enforced,” DeVos said in a thread on X.
In April, the Biden administrationplanned to implement a new policy preventing schools from creating a ban on transgender athletes. This rule has been delayed, and instead, the administration shifted its focus on undoing the sexual assault rules put in place by the Trump administration, according to multiple reports.
On Monday, Bush-appointed Texas Federal Judge Reed O’Connor blocked the administration’s attempt to change Title IX to include “gender identity.” Leaders in several other red states are taking a stand, claiming that the Education Department is illegally expanding the definition of the word “sex.” In 2022, the Eastern District of Tennessee blocked Biden’s initial push to rewrite Title IX and include gender identity and sexual orientation.
The Department of Education didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Below is my column in The Hill on the renewed attacks on Justice Samuel Alito after a liberal activist secretly taped a dinner conversation with him and his wife. The feigned outrage of pundits and politicians is absurdly unconnected to anything even remotely surprising or unethical in the comments.
Here is the column:
In a world of moral relativism, Lauren Windsor may reign supreme. The Democratic activist recently lied to justices in order to record answers at a dinner.
In an interview with CNN, the filmmaker (who has been lionized by many in the media for her dishonesty) cheerfully explained that she lies to “elicit truths that serve the greater public good.” The “greater good” is to contribute to a campaign of harassment and attacks on Supreme Court justices by academics, the media and Democratic members. The chief target of these efforts lately has been the author of the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito.
For years, the left has maintained a well-funded, unrelenting campaign against the court and its conservative majority. This has included an effort by such figures as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to pack the court immediately with a liberal majority. Warren declared that the court must be packed because it is daring to oppose “widely held public opinion.”
The statement, of course, ignores that the court was designed to resist public pressure (and even members of Congress) in order to protect the constitutional rights and liberties of minority groups.
Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects have assembled again to call for resignations and impeachments after Windsor’s surreptitious taping of both Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. That includes Warren, who declared that “Alito is an extremist who is out of touch with mainstream America. His rising power on the Supreme Court is a threat to our democracy.”
It did not matter that what Windsor captured on her secret recording was neither surprising nor unethical. Pretending to be a religious conservative at a dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Windsor successfully induced the deeply religious Alito to say . . . wait for it . . . that he believes the country should return to a place of “godliness.”
It was an otherworldly moment as this notoriously anti-conservative activist asked an unsuspecting Alito why the nation was so filled with rage. In the recording, Alito laments the divisions in the country, stating, “I wish I knew. I don’t know. It’s easy to blame the media, but I do blame them because they do nothing but criticize us. And so, they have really eroded trust in the court…American citizens in general need to work on this to heal this polarization because it’s very dangerous.”
When pushed on what the court can do, Alito again answered honestly: “I don’t think it’s something we can do. We have a very defined role, and we need to do what we’re supposed to do. But this is a bigger problem. This is way above us.”
There is nothing even slightly controversial there. But the quote being repeated, often in isolation, was when Alito acknowledged that, while “there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully…it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So, it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
Warren and others already prove that very point on the left, as do many on the right. Again, this is not at all controversial. We are divided because people hold irreconcilable beliefs on which they are unwilling to compromise. Imagine the reaction of liberals if Justice Sonia Sotomayor suddenly “compromised” on abortion rights.
But pundits and politicians have since lined up, feigning vapors at the thought of a justice saying privately that he believed in “godliness” and had little hope of “compromise” on many issues.
Warren seemed beside herself with shock, acting as if Alito’s bland, obvious observation were some clear sign of political bias: “I am most concerned about the appearance that Justice Alito has prejudged cases that will come before him. That is one of the biggest sins that a judge or justice can commit.” Bear in mind, these are the words of a senator seeking to pack the court with an ideological majority to give predictable rulings on major cases.
Likewise, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) declared the tape to be proof that Alito is “a movement activist,” while Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.-Conn.) denounced Alito’s “outrageous” behavior. Of course, the lying democratic activist was not outrageous, but the justice was outrageous in sharing his observation in a private conversation that the nation is irreconcilably divided on major issues.
Warren, Whitehouse, Blumenthal and many of the same pundits were strangely silent when liberal justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg engaged in actual partisanship, as when she openly opposed the election of Donald Trump and discussed cases and controversies that might come before her. There was no demand for a resignation when Justice Sonia Sotomayor called upon students to politically oppose pro-life laws after acknowledging, “they tell me I shouldn’t.” There were no vapors at the thought of justices expressing their political sentiments from the left.
Media even cleaned up interviews for liberal justices. Katie Couric famously deleted disparaging comments made by Ginsburg about players kneeling during the National Anthem at NFL games, even though that matter could have ended up before the Supreme Court.
What is most galling is the pile-on over not just this manufactured controversy, but the earlier controversy over flags. Years ago, one of the best reporters at the Washington Post investigated a report that the Alitos had flown an upside-down American flag, to see if it was a political statement associated with Trump. Robert Barnes interviewed neighbors and concluded that it was not Justice Alito but his wife Martha-Ann who had hoisted the flag. Mrs. Alito, he learned, was responding to an ongoing spat with a neighbor.
Barnes and the Post responsibly decided not to run the story. That type of journalistic restraint is now anathema in our age of rage, with reporters denouncing the Post for failing to run a “blockbuster” story.
This was then amplified when the public was told that Mrs. Alito had also hoisted at one of their properties the Revolutionary War-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which has enjoyed something of a revival since it featured in the introductory sequence of the acclaimed 2008 miniseries on the career of President John Adams.
It is not clear how that story was a “blockbuster” — that a justice has a wife with a flag fetish, which includes flying the historic Pine Tree Flag. (Tellingly and amusingly, after the left added that flag to its list of Alito’s transgressions, Democratic politicians suddenly had to scramble to remove it from their own buildings to clear the way for the outrage.)
Of course, Windsor also targeted Mrs. Alito in her secret recordings at the dinner. The media again pounced on a line where she complained of “feminazi” critics and added, “Don’t get angry. Get even!”
That statement followed her suggestion that they may sue for defamation, and that “there’s a five-year defamation statute of limitations.” She also added that her husband had tried to keep her from flying her flags and getting into neighborhood spats, but that “he never controls me.” Indeed, she said he had prevailed on her not to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag, but that she was not giving up the ghost even on that flag.
Windsor generously allowed that a Supreme Court spouse “certainly” has a right to speak, before adding that expected “but!” Such liberty, she asserted, may not apply to Mrs. Alito “when your spouse is one of the most powerful men in the country, you know, with his fingers on the scale, literally, of justice. I mean, are we going to say that we are going to do away with impartiality, the bedrock principle of our democracy, of our jurisprudence? Is it okay?”
Well, the answer is yes, Miss Windsor. It is okay.
We do not require justices to divorce outspoken or irascible spouses. We do not punish them for speaking freely in private conversations with bottom-feeding gotcha activists who secretly record them at dinners. Justices are even allowed to have strong opinions about controversial issues in dinner conversations. Strong personal opinions do not on their own constitute conflicts of interest.
None of this will matter, of course. Democrats will continue to chase Alito around the Beltway like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. The absurd demands for meetings with justices and threats of subpoenas will continue to thrill liberal voters. It is all part of the threats made by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the steps of the Supreme Court. Schumer threatened the conservative justices, “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
It is an extension of the pledge by activists to change the court “by any means necessary.” While thankfully denouncing the attempted assassination of Justice Bret Kavanaugh, liberals have proposed “more aggressive” targeting of justices at their homes, bribing conservatives to retire, and literally cutting off the justices’ air conditioning.
As Windsor explained, it is all just for “the greater good.”
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is the author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (Simon & Schuster 2024)
We have previously discussed the view of Michigan Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade on free speech. We have strikingly different views on free speech. McQuade just published “Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America” and calls free speech our “Achilles heel.” My book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, is out in the coming days with a more robust view of free speech.
Notably, McQuade’s call to limit free speech is justified as needed to combat disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. Yet, McQuade just went public with a full-throated defense of what the U.S. government now calls a “conspiracy theory.” She maintains that the Hunter Biden laptop should still be discounted or dismissed as Russian disinformation.
In her comments, Professor McQuade joins the Post’s Philip Bump as one of the last dogs in this fight. Most media figures have long accepted the view of the U.S. government that the Hunter Biden laptop is “real” and authenticated.
I have previously disagreed with Professor McQuade on issues such as her belief that former president Donald Trump could be charged with manslaughter over the January 6th riot. Yet, those disagreements represent materially different understandings of the operative legal standards. Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe went even further in arguing that Trump could be charged with attempted murder. Academics can disagree on such matters and free speech allows us to hash out our differences.
However, I was still surprised by the effort to resurrect the Russian disinformation claim. Professor McQuade noted that the agent at the Biden trial could not say with certainty that nothing was changed to the laptop before it was obtained by agents from the computer shop. However, FBI agent Erika Jensen said that there was no evidence tampering.
That space, however, was big enough to drive a conspiracy theory through on X:
Trying again!
This week, FBI Agent Erika Jensen testified at the trial of Hunter Biden about the abandoned laptop that a repair shop owner gave to Robert Costello, attorney for Rudy Giuliani, shortly before the 2020 election. At the time, 50 former senior intelligence officers…
As noted by @emptywheel, however, questions remain about the chain of custody of the laptop, and [FBI] Agent [Erika] Jensen testified that she was unable to say whether the laptop was tampered with before the FBI obtained it.
And, as @AshaRangappa has noted, even if the content was authentic, it still may have been a Russian influence operation, just like the DNC hack-and-leak operation, designed to sow discord. If so, mission accomplished! […] Therefore, it remains unknown whether Russia was involved with the scheme, and it is still correct to say that the laptop has “all of the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”
Under this theory, any negative stories found in documents or electronic sources can have “the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation” in any given election. That same skepticism, of course, did not apply to the Steele dossier, which was secretly funded by the Clinton campaign and found by U.S. intelligence as containing possible Russian disinformation.
It is a variation on proving a negative. McQuade and others appear to be arguing that you must prove that there was no Russian involvement before giving weight to the damaging contents of the laptop.
Of course, there still has been no showing of any fake file or email. To the contrary, the most damaging emails on influence peddling and other potential criminal conduct have been verified. Yet, McQuade is repeating the claim that “even if the content was authentic, it still may have been a Russian influence operation.” There is also the more obvious explanation that Hunter abandoned his laptop at a computer shop and it was given to the FBI.
What is striking is how advocates are now abandoning the claims of false emails and files in favor of an argument that it may be true but still disinformation. This is consistent with the positions of many academics and the Biden Administration. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains this position.
CISA head Jen Easterly declared that her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure would be extended to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes not just “disinformation” and “misinformation,” but combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
The chain of custody argument continues to be used in Congress despite the federal court and federal agencies recognizing the authenticity of the laptop. The Delaware jury also did not appear persuaded by the claims of Hunter Biden’s defense counsel. It is, in my view, transparently evasive. The issue remains the files on the laptop detailing a massive influence peddling operation and a myriad of criminal acts committed by the President’s son. None of those files have been challenged by evidence of tampering or planting.
Ironically, the continued effort to keep this theory alive seems precisely the type of disinformation that Professor McQuade has cited in justifying limits on free speech.
There are obviously many media and academic figures who are heavily invested in what the government now calls a “conspiracy theory.” I previously discussed how the Bidens have succeeded in a Houdini-like trick in making this elephant of a scandal disappear from the public stage. They did so by enlisting the media in the illusion. Houdini knew the trick would work because the audience wanted the elephant to disappear.
Top Stories • Supreme Court Rejects Challenge From Pro-Life Doctors to Abortion Pill, Babies Will be Killed and Women Injured • Supreme Court Decision Means Women Will be Harmed by Dangerous Abortion Pills • Donald Trump is Looking at Several Pro-Life Advocates as His VP Running Mate • Planned Parenthood Covers Up Evidence That It Traffics Teens to Other States for Secret Abortions
More Pro-Life News • The Abortion Pill Case is Not Over, The Fight to Protect Women Continues • Democrats Try to Shut Down Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers • Our Laws Should Protect Pregnant Women and Unborn Children From Abortions • Abortionists Care More About Selling Abortions Than Women • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2024 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats and their media claim Trump will do to them what they are doing to him through their lawfare and abuse of the legal system. Those who broke the law and stepped out of the constitutional guidelines may have to worry.
NBC News Reports ‘Deep State’ Plot to Facilitate a ‘Military Coup’ Against Trump Amidst Fear for Alleged ‘Retribution’ if Re-Elected
By Jim Hoft – Jan 14, 2024
Concerns are intensifying among far-left national security “experts” and Pentagon insiders over the possibility that former President Donald Trump might leverage the U.S. military to enforce his political will if he returns to the Oval Office. In a detailed report, NBC News inadvertently admitted the existence of a “Deep State,” allegedly working to facilitate a military coup against former President Trump if he is freely and fairly elected by Americans. The NBC article paints a portrait of a left-wing plot to disrupt military allegiance to civilian control.
Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist wrote, “NBC reports the left is plotting ways to have military not be under civilian control. This dangerous and unconstitutional usurpation of power is being framed by NBC as good because it will undermine Trump if he is freely and fairly elected by Americans.” READ MORE…
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. READ MORE…
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More Pro-Life News • Chuck Schumer Makes June “Abortion Month” to Promote Killing Babies • Teacher Calls in Sick, Takes Student for Secret Abortion Without Parents Knowing • Premature Baby Born 17 Weeks Early and Weighing 8 Ounces Heads Home • Arkansas is Creating a Memorial to Honor the 65 Million Babies Killed in Abortions • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2024 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
During a virtual town hall event last week, Paula Collins, who is challenging Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., suggested that supporters of former President Trump be sent to “re-education camps,” according to audio obtained by the Post Millenial.
Collins, a marijuana tax attorney, argued that even if a majority of Democrats are elected to Congress in November, there will still be a need for re-education camps to “put[] it all back together again” after “this MAGA nightmare.”
The uncontested Democrat nominee for NY-21 said, “Even if we were to have a resounding blue wave come through, as many of us would like, putting it all back together again after we’ve gone through this MAGA nightmare and re-educating, basically — that sounds like a, rather, a re-education camp.” She told voters on the call they will need to find “another way to phrase” the concept of “re-education camps” with the general public.
New York Democrat Paula Collins suggests Trump supporters need a “reeducation camp” after the election.
Collins is running for Congress and made the comments in a town hall meeting. pic.twitter.com/6VGNmtlcY7
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 6, 2024
Her remarks have drawn comparisons to a 2016 CNN interview of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during which she said Trump supporters need “deprogramming.” Clinton said, “At some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.” On her campaign homepage, Collins notes the comparison to Clinton, saying she is honored.
Stefanik called for Democrat leadership to condemn the comments. Stefanik said in a press release, “Joe Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer must immediately condemn this statement.”
My statement calling on Joe Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer to immediately condemn NY Democrat congressional candidate's call to force Trump voters into re-education camps: pic.twitter.com/WPYEsg0Jrx
Instead of retracting and apologizing, Collins blamed the media for airing her controversial remarks. Collins claimed Stefanik is attacking her because she is “panicked.”
The left-wing candidate is using the controversy to fundraise, asking for $250 campaign donations. Asking for campaign donations, Collins writes on her website, “Help me end the MAGA mania.” “Far-right politics” is listed as one of her top issues on her campaign website.
Ratings on Ballotpedia describe Stefanik’s district as “Solid Republican,” based on data from three political analysis organizations.
Federal Election Commission filings highlight the weak chances of New York’s 21st congressional district flipping blue. Collins has just $6,337.93 cash on hand and $11,130 in campaign debt. Meanwhile, Stefanik, who is reportedly under consideration as Trump’s running-mate, boasts nearly $5 million in available funds.
Arianna Villarreal is a summer intern at The Federalist.
A Hamas spokesman accused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken of being “part of the problem” as he urged the group to accept a cease-fire deal with Israel, Breitbart reported. The spokesman was not identified in the story. Blinken has been on a diplomatic mission in the Middle East following a United Nations Security Council resolution that formalized the Biden administration’s ceasefire and hostage release proposal, which Israel had accepted under U.S. pressure while maintaining its goal to dismantle Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.
The Biden administration has been pressing Hamas to accept the deal, urging countries with influence over the group to apply pressure. However, Hamas has continued to reject the proposal, demanding additional concessions. The State Department stated last week the current proposal is “virtually identical” to past Hamas proposals. As Breitbart News pointed out, Hamas had previously rejected similar plans when President Joe Biden announced the proposal.
Hamas’s primary objection is the lack of an explicit guarantee of a permanent cessation of hostilities from Israel. For weeks, the group has insisted on a written guarantee of a permanent ceasefire from the U.S.
Earlier this week, Hamas expressed approval of the U.N. Security Council resolution but emphasized the need for ongoing negotiations. Subsequently, the group released a formal statement on Tuesday outlining additional requirements, such as gaining authority over the Gaza-Egypt border.
Additionally, they sought adjustments to the schedule for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
On Wednesday, Blinken criticized Hamas’ response during a press conference in Doha with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Times of Israel reported.
“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table. Some of the changes are workable, some are not,” Blinken said. “A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to the proposal that Hamas made on May 6 — a deal that the entire world is behind, a deal Israel has accepted.
“Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘Yes.’ Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that had previously been taken and accepted.”
On the other hand, Hamas refuted the notion that its demands were new.
Following his visit to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Qatar, Blinken is expected to return to the U.S. without securing a deal. He has vowed to continue efforts to broker an agreement.
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
Attorney General Merrick Garland—seen here returning from a break in testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on June 4—is catching heat from House Republicans. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Attorney General Merrick Garland has been held in contempt of Congress.
The vote in favor of contempt was over Garland’s refusal to hand over audio recordings related to President Joe Biden’s interview about classified documentswith Justice Departmentspecial counsel Robert Hur.
The vote was by party line with one Republican voting against, Rep. Dave Joyce of Ohio, according to Fox News’ Chad Pergum.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday before the vote that the action had to be taken because Garland is refusing to comply with a “lawful subpoena.”
This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland will be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena.
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) June 12, 2024
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 4, Republicans demanded that Garland hand over the audio recordings. The Hur interviews with the president were prompted by the charge that Biden mishandled classified documents after his time as vice president.
A transcript of Hur’s discussions with Biden has already been released. However, the president has withheld the audio recording, claiming executive privilege. Republicans argue that the full audio recordings would give the public a full picture of Biden’s mental state. That’s because the special counsel recommended not prosecuting Biden because he came off in the lengthy interview as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and saidthe president’s “diminished faculties” mean he was less likely to have willfully violated the law.
Garland also refused to hand over the audio, which is what prompted Republicans in the House to move for holding him in contempt.
Two former aides to former President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon have been sentenced to jail for being held in contempt of Congress. However, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who was held in contempt of Congress while serving under President Barack Obama, did not face prosecution. Obama’s DOJ inspector general refused to prosecute Holder.
Garland has said that the Justice Department went to great lengths to cooperate with Congress on the Hur investigation, but that the request for audio constituted a larger attack on the DOJ.
“There have been a series of unprecedented and, frankly, unfounded attacks on the Justice Department,” Garland said in a press conference in May, the Associated Press reported. “This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just the most recent.”
Republicans argued in debates on the House floor that withholding information from Congress interferes with the legislative branch’s ability to provide a check on the power of the president. Rep. Jim Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and AccountabilityCommittee, said on the House floor on Wednesday that Biden misled the American people about his handling of classified documents and that the president needs to be held accountable.
🚨Chairman Comer Speaks on House Floor in Support of Resolution to Hold Attorney General Garland in Contempt
"President Biden has lied to the American people about his mishandling of classified documents.
“President Biden’s Department of Justice appears to be taking every step to insulate him from the consequences—whether it’s hiding these audio recordings or attempting to give Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea deal to shield Joe Biden from facing any accountability for his role in his family’s influence-peddling schemes,” Comer said. “That is unacceptable.”
Congressional Democrats have opposed the attempt to retrieve the special counsel’s audio recording.
“This is what they want to do, because they don’t have the votes to impeach Joe Biden, right? That’s why they did Merrick Garland,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said, as reported by Fox News. “That’s why they went after [Hunter Biden]. It’s all trying to please their base because Congress doesn’t want to do what Donald Trump wants, which is to impeach Joe Biden, so they can have even scores.”
For months, I have been expressing disbelief that Hunter Biden and his defense team were going to take the gun case to trial. Even on the eve of the trial, I thought that the defense might snap into sanity and plead out the case. The reason was simple. A guilty plea would have materially improved the chances that Hunter could get probation and avoid jail by accepting responsibility. Conversely, a trial in a case with overwhelming evidence of guilt would make it less likely that a judge would depart from the guidelines at sentencing. Nevertheless, Hunter went forward with a nullification strategy and, in so doing, it may have nullified his best chance to reduce the risk of jail time.
After the verdict, I have been stating that jail time is a real possibility in this case despite the fact that this is a first offender. Frankly, I do not see any real need for incarceration in this type of case and many judges would be likely tempted to grant “downward departures” in sentencing or disregard any recommended prison sentence.
It is also important to note that, after the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Booker, sentencing guidelines are discretionary. Judge Maryellen Noreika could sentence him to probation in light of his struggle with his addiction and his status as a first offender (as well as the absence of other aggravating factors).
Yet, while many view this as a relatively minor offense, the sentencing guidelines do not.
Judges regularly sentence people to prison for these offenses. The sentencing guidelines put the recommendation at 15 to 21 months in prison. Moreover, over 90 percent of those convicted are sentenced to prison time.
The chances of probation are increased with guilty pleas, which generally allow for a downward departure of two levels for taking responsibility. That may not seem like a lot, but it could prove determinative for a judge on a marginal call over the need for incarceration. By pursuing the nullification strategy, Hunter lost that benefit and now would have to belatedly accept responsibility just before sentencing after putting the court and public through a trial.
If the defense reviewed Judge Noreika’s past cases, they would have seen that she takes a tough approach on gun cases. In May, she sentenced defendant Zhi Dong to a year in jail for lying about his address on a gun form. Notably, that was twice the recommended sentence of the prosecutors.
One point of distinction is that Dong purchased 19 pistols and 10 “lower receivers” rather than the single gun purchased by Biden. It is also notable that the prosecutors were only seeking six months of incarceration in that arguably more serious case.
The defense strategy also makes it more difficult for Special Counsel David Weiss, who has shown remarkable lenience at critical stages of his investigation. It was Weiss who allowed the most serious tax offenses to lapse under a statute of limitations (despite reportedly having an agreement to extend the period). It was Weiss who sought to give Hunter an obscene sweetheart deal that would have avoided any jail time and given him immunity for all crimes.
Many remain skeptical of Weiss and his actions in this case. For that reason, the failure to plead guilty puts Weiss in a box. Given the sentencing guidelines of prison time, any recommendations for probation would be read as more favoritism for the president’s son. Weiss may feel compelled to follow the recommendations to show that Hunter is being treated the same as other defendants.
Given the calculation for the three felonies, the defense had to know that they were increasing the chances of prison time by pursuing a nullification defense. The hope was that Wilmington is Bidentown and no local jury would convict the son of the favorite son of Delaware.
It didn’t work out that way. The team seemed to overplay its hand with defenses that were so implausible as to be insulting for the jury. They suggested that Hunter might not have checked the box or signed the form during a brief window where he was not using drugs. The prosecutors demolished those defenses within two days of the trial.
Accepting responsibility after a trial does not guarantee a downward departure. For example, in U.S. v. Womack, a defendant sought a departure for accepting responsibility before trial as a drug dealer. However, he still went to trial on other issues and the trial judge refused any departure on the basis of his earlier admissions of guilt. It found that he was still minimizing his responsibility for the underlying crimes. That decision was upheld on appeal.
Now, Hunter may have painted both the prosecutors and the court into a corner. In a play for a hung jury, Hunter may have hoisted himself on his own petard. Guilt was never in doubt, but his efforts also removed any question of accepting responsibility before he was facing actual sentencing for his offenses.
The book has been 30 years in the making. The book explores our struggle with free speech and why we continue to grapple with the meaning of this core, defining right. It does so in part through the stories of courageous figures who refused to yield to the demands of others to be silent, even at the risk of their own lives. The book seeks to reexamine the essence of this right and how, after a brief moment of clarity at our founding, we abandoned its true foundation as a natural or autonomous right. Many agree with Justice Louis Brandeis that free speech is indispensable but not why it is indispensable. That lack of proper foundation has left the right vulnerable to continual tradeoffs and contractions, particularly in what is now arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech period in our history.
Here is an excerpt from the book for those interested in obtaining a copy:
Free speech is a human right. It is the free expression of thought that is the essence of being human. As will be discussed in chapter 2, free speech is often justified in functionalist terms; it is protected because it is necessary for a democratic process and the protection of other rights. That is certainly true. Brandeis’s view of the right’s indispensability was due to the fact that most rights are realized through acts of expression, from the free press to association to religious exercise. However, it is more than the sum of its practical benefits. It is the natural condition of humans to speak. It is compelled silence or agreement that is unnatural. That is why it takes coercion or threats to compel silence from others.
We rarely teach the philosophy of free speech to young students. They largely learn a rote understanding of the First Amendment and a functionalist explanation on how the free speech right protects other rights. If students even receive civics lessons, there is little time or inclination to teach the relationship of speech to the essential qualities of being human. Natural and autonomous theories tie free speech to a preexistent or immutable status. As such, it is not the creation of the Constitution, but rather embodied in that document. There remains considerable debate over how natural rights theory motivated the Framers. What is clear is that these men were moved in the eighteenth century to create something that was a radical departure from what came before it.
As historian Leonard Levy observed, “liberty of expression barely existed in principle and practice in the American colonies,” let alone other nations around the world. What possessed James Madison to draft the First Amendment in absolutist terms was likely a mix of the experiential and the philosophical. The Framers had experienced the denial of free speech at the hands of the Crown, but it would have been an easy matter to expressly protect political speech. Rather than replicate what came before, the Framers spoke of protecting all speech from abridgment from the government. These were men who often spoke of the “unalienable” rights of humans in defining the role of the government. A transcendent right to free speech was consistent with the concepts of natural rights that emerged from the Enlightenment.
One of the most influential philosophers for the Framers (and a host of later philosophers like Voltaire) was John Locke. In 1689, Locke published his masterpiece, Two Treatises of Government, on the foundation for civil society and government. He described a “state of nature” and how God created the Earth with all that creation left in common for the use of mankind. Locke then presented his “labor theory” of property as a natural right that flowed from this divine gift. According to Locke, people have a right to property by removing something found in nature and mixing it with their labor. Through his labor, man becomes a creator by “join[ing] it to something that is his own.” In other words, God gave Man the ability to create and claim the creations “mixed with his labor” as his own. What was left in common for the use of all was converted into private property through individual enterprise. Yet Locke added a “proviso” that you must still leave “enough and as good” for others. Many writers have explored both the labor theory and the proviso in defining the right to property, particularly against efforts of government to distribute wealth. It also raises a question of why God would leave everything in common and then allow Man to “make it his own property.” The reason, I suggest, is that humans are themselves creators with a common need to express themselves in the world around them. Putting aside the desire to procreate as itself an act of creation, the desire to create objects or expressions is irresistible for most people, from the simple act of doodling to the construction of the Great Wall of China. It is seen from the drawings in the cave of Lascaux from 17,000 BCE to the graffiti on walls in New York City in the twenty-first century. Creation is the expression of ourselves, the projection into the world of our values and visions.
Consider the center of Michelangelo’s magnificent Sistine Chapel. People have debated for centuries of what the image of God touching Man was meant to depict. For many, the image is taken as giving life or an element of divinity. However, what is the divinity passed to Man? Perhaps that touch is not the act of creation but the power of creation. After all, the scriptures maintain that Man is both the creation of God but also made in the image of God. What is divine is the ability to change the world around us, to create. When Renaissance painter and writer Giorgio Vasari described Michelangelo, he used “the divine Michelangelo” to capture the provenance of his creations. The very terms create, and creation are semantically and conceptually tied to the ultimate “Creator.” To again bring in Locke, it is to use what is left in common to express ourselves in unique ways. Just as Man was created from clay, God left us clay to form our own creations from the state of nature.
To be human is to create, and these creations are a form of speech. Under this view, whether it is a column or a cake or a cathedral, creation is a quintessentially human act. Without such expression, we are human in form alone; realized clay, but clay alone, from the original act of creation.
What makes us human is obviously a subject heavily infused with subjectivity and religiosity. How one views the essential elements of humanity depends on how one views the potential and position of humans. Like other animals, we procreate; we experience pain and pleasure. We share chemical, muscular, and emotive impulses with other animals. There is even some evidence that other species have sentience. New studies indicate that other animals have an awareness of their existence and cognitive abilities long assumed to be uniquely human. We share 98.7 percent of our genetic sequencing with great apes like chimpanzees and bonobos. Does that make us more conversant, less hairy apes? We also share 80 percent with a cow, and 61 percent with a fruit fly. There is even a 60 percent overlap with a banana. The effort to distinguish a human from a banana is easy with comparisons from color to complexity. However, it is easier to explain why we are not a banana than it is to explain what makes us human beings.
Humans are more than talking bananas, despite our shared genetic sequencing. Whether that is due to the “divine touch” captured in the Sistine Chapel or some other element will continue to occupy philosophers and theologians for centuries to come. Yet understanding the essence of humanity is not entirely a debate over metaphysical points. There are some physical elements that distinguish humans in how we interact with the world around us. In her book The Creative Brain, neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen notes that the human brain is wired to all nonlinear thought and “when the brain/mind thinks in a free and unencumbered fashion, it uses its most human and complex parts.”
Neurological studies suggest that the human brain is hardwired for expression. The evolution of innovative capabilities offered a survival advantage, including the ability to communicate and motivate through pictures and words. These include “basic biological needs in animals such as live-or-die (dire necessity), physical energy conservation, and survival through deception.” This may have been responsible for creating the drive for innovation and expression in humans: “Given adaptive evolutionary processes, it is reasonable to assume that all of these have become interwoven into the underlying brain mechanisms of creativity in humans.”
The frontal lobe was the last part of the human brain to evolve and addresses the complex cognitive functions that are closely associated with being human. The oldest part of the brain is often called the reptilian brain containing the brain stem and the cerebellum. Much as in other animals, it controls our bodily functions, from heart rate to balance. The limbic brain added key components for creative thought and high cognitive functioning. Containing the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus, the limbic brain gives us our powerful emotions and memories. Scientists have long identified the neocortex, including the frontal lobe, as affording humans higher capacities for language, imagination, and abstract thought. Neuroscientists believe that “subcortical brain circuits” evolved late in the development of “the forebrain bundle” and are the key to our curiosity and creativity.
Our early understanding of these physiological differences often came from intentional or accidental denials of stimulus or speech. It also came from the loss of the function of brain areas. Much of this early knowledge came from tragic stories like that of Phineas Gage and his tamping iron.
In September 1848, Gage, twenty-five, was working as a railroad foreman in Cavendish, Vermont. His crew was removing rock to lay track and, as the foreman, it fell to Gage to set the charge. A hole was drilled, and explosives stuffed into the bottom. The next step was to pack sand over the TNT using a tamping iron. The iron was 43 inches long, 1.25 inches in diameter, and weighed 13.25 pounds. Gage shoved it down the hole but accidentally sparked the explosive. It was a nearly lethal mistake. Gage had built an effective cannon out of rock and was staring directly down the barrel. The rod shot straight out of the hole and entered Gage’s left cheek and passed through the top of his skull. Brain matter and blood covered Gage as he was blown a fair distance from the hole. The crew was horrified.
They assumed Gage was dead and were shocked when he regained consciousness and walked to a nearby oxcart to be taken to a doctor. In the cart, Gage was seen writing in his workbook, and he could recognize figures like Dr. John Martyn Harlow, who came to treat him. Despite Gage’s extraordinary demeanor, Harlow expected his patient to die. That prognosis was understandable given the massive wound and the bleeding, which continued for two days. Gage then developed an infection that left him semiconscious for a month. His friends prepared a coffin for him. However, Gage did not die. The rod had blown away part of his brain’s frontal lobe. Harlow recognized that this was a unique opportunity to better understand the function of that body part by observing changes after its removal. It was clearly not necessary for life, but it was necessary to being fully human. Even on the evening of the accident, Gage was conversant and could remember names and other details.
After a month, Gage was able to travel to New Hampshire to continue his convalescence at his parents’ home. Yet, more than just the loss of sight in one eye, Gage was an altogether changed man. He was more aggressive and had problems maintaining relationships. He became abusive and a heavy drinker. He had a hard time holding down a job. Despite being described as a model foreman, the mining company did not want him back. Gage would take various jobs including driving coaches in Chile and would even travel with his rod as a human curiosity with American showman P. T. Barnum. He would eventually die from what was described as epileptic seizures in 1860 at the age of thirty-six.
Some changes in Gage’s personality were clearly related to the trauma of having a metal rod blown through his head. Moreover, some of the changes in Gage dissipated over time. Yet there remained lasting changes. His friends stated that his personality was different, and some described him as more impulsive, socially inappropriate, and as possessing what were described as “animal propensities.” In his study, Dr. Harlow recounted how Gage’s supervisors:
regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman . . . considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again. . . . He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires. . . . A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. . . .His mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was “no longer Gage.”
Some of these changes have been tied to the loss of parts of the brain connected to emotional processing. The tamping iron is now believed to have destroyed roughly 11 percent of the white matter in Gage’s frontal lobe and 4 percent of his cerebral cortex. Later studies showed evidence of damage to the left and right prefrontal cortices. Studies of traumatic brain injury (TBI) show how creativity can be lost with these areas of the brain. Gage’s wound not only removed part of the frontal lobe but caused traumatic injury to much of what remained after the rod was blown through his head.
Whether by divine creation or evolutionary change, humans are creative beings. The loss of parts of the brain has been shown to have profound impacts. Even in monkeys, the removal of prefrontal lobes produced changes in personality. However, for humans, the loss of areas of the limbic and neocortex can limit those functions allowing for creative expression—the very areas that distinguish humans from other primates. Neuroscience studies have found that the “inordinate capacity for creativity [in humans] reflects the unique neurological organization of the human brain.” It was not just that Gage was viewed as having “animal propensities,” he lacked human characteristics. Creative thinking requires the ability to project images; to apply concepts to new forms of application or expression. It necessitates “fundamental cognitive processes such as working memory, attention, planning, cognitive flexibility, mentalizing, and abstract thinking.” These are functions contained in prefrontal areas of the brain. What Gage lost may have been not just part of his brain but part of his essential humanity. Without the ability to be creative and to express himself, the explosion was de-evolutionary, arguably returning Gage to an earlier state of primate. He was still physiologically human but lacked the full capacity for human expression.
That returns us to Michelangelo’s touch. Some have noted the framing over the image of God is in the shape of the human brain. God’s image appears over what can be interpreted as the limbic system, and his right arm extends to the prefrontal cortex, the areas that most distinguish human beings from other primates. Michelangelo was an anatomist who began dissecting corpses at age seventeen. In a 1990 paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Frank Meshberger showed how the depiction in The Creation of Adam in the central panel appeared to be an anatomical cross section of the human brain. The anatomical overlay raises the question of what Michelangelo was trying to convey beyond a humanistic element. For example, by literally embedding the Almighty in the human brain, it could be viewed as bestowing the divine gift of creation and transcendent thought.
To be denied the gift of creation is to leave humans in a state far from divine. The Gage story allowed science to judge what happened to creativity and other human characteristics when an actual part of the human body was removed. The loss of certain environmental elements can produce similar effects on humans. As a lawyer that began his career working with prisoners, I have long observed the rapid decline of clients in segregation where inmates are cut off from most human contact or avenues for expression for prolonged periods of time. The impact of such isolation is often immediate and pronounced. Human beings are inherently social animals and require forms of expression or avenues of interaction. In one study of segregation, researchers found dramatically heightened levels of depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and other forms of mental illness. One common complaint is “a perceived loss of identity.” It is a profound by-product of being deprived the interaction with others that we can lose our sense of ourselves, or self-identity. In a curious way, we need others to be ourselves.
Clearly, various elements are in play in segregated conditions that include sensory deprivation, monotonous routine, and strict confinement. However, studies show a need for inmates to be able to break from monotony and have exposure and interaction with different expressive elements. This is not simply psychological but physiological. One recent study looked at the impact of isolation of Antarctic expeditioners. These individuals could speak with each other and work on tasks associated with their expedition, including journals. But the range of intellectual stimulation and expression was sharply limited by the monotonous and confined conditions. Research found evidence of a shrinking hippocampus in the subjects. The seahorse-shaped region embedded in the temporal lobe of the brain is key to memory and creativity. In his work on creativity in the human brain, Dr. Roger Beaty noted that “memory, imagination, and creative thinking all activated the bilateral hippocampus.” The studies on isolation suggest that humans forced into limiting or monotonous existences can experience actual physical losses affecting the capacity for creativity. They can lose their full potential for the range of human creative thought.
Isolation studies do not prove human nature or its essential elements. Yet the question remains: What is uniquely human? There exists a driving desire in humans to create, to express, to invent, and to build. While bees and termites can create intricate structures, humans constantly break from the status quo and seek new forms and concepts. It is not merely an effort to survive. Indeed, the iconic image of the starving artist attests to how this creative drive can be the denial of every other aspect of life. It is an irresistible, even involuntary impulse. Mozart, when once asked about his music composition, admitted “whence and how they come. I know not; nor can I force them.” Nor can many deny them, from artistic to political expression—even at one’s peril. As Dr. Andreasen noted, “[A]t the neural level associations begin to form where they did not previously exist, and some of these associations are perilously novel.”
It is a drive that everyone exhibits in ways that can be grand or gross. Even neighbors who spend weeks creating elaborate Halloween or holiday displays seem to be fulfilling a deeper human impulse. As evidenced by the neurological studies, we are constructed for creative thought, for remembering and imagining, and for projecting thoughts into the future to create new realities. That process involves expression in myriad forms. It is an impulse that is irresistible for many. It is also an impulse that can threaten the status quo, which is why the earlier forms of government sought to control the expression of divergent thoughts.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the conviction of Hunter Biden in Delaware and how his nullification strategy may have backfired. As discussed below, empathy can turn into insult when jurors are given patently implausible theories by the defense. Hunter finally found a group of people who were unwilling to see him as immune from responsibility for his conduct. Hunter literally came up a donut short of a defense in Wilmington.
Here is the column:
The conviction of Hunter Biden on all of the federal gun counts created a surprising new precedent in Delaware … for Hunter Biden. In terms of the law, this was the easiest judgment since the Jussie Smollett verdict. (Actually the Biden jury took a third of the time with a verdict in just three hours.)
For Hunter Biden, though, this was the first time he’s ever been held accountable for any criminal conduct, be it drug use, or prostitution, or tax evasion, or violations of various federal laws. To have that moment come in the hometown of the Bidens likely only magnified the shock.
Last year, I described the growing legal problems of Hunter Biden as the cost of “legal gluttony.” The Bidens have always been adept at avoiding accountability, particularly for the extensive influence-peddling operation that raked in millions in foreign payments.
That appetite for special treatment proved the undoing of Hunter, much like his appetite in other areas of his life. Hunter and his team expected the same level of immunity when he worked with special counsel David Weiss to cut an astonishing deal to avoid any real punishment for these or other crimes. Even before the deal was cut, Weiss allowed major crimes to expire under the statute of limitations (despite having an agreement to extend that period). He also agreed to a deal that would have avoided any jail time and would have given Hunter an immunity bath that would have drowned the entire criminal code. Hunter and his legal team succeeded in securing this sweetheart deal, which shocked many of us.
More importantly, it shocked US District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who only had to question the immunity provision to have the entire agreement fall apart in open court. The prosecutor admitted that he had never seen a plea bargain like this in his long career. That’s when the legal gluttony became even more pronounced. Rather than fight to preserve key elements of the plea agreement, defense counsel said, “Just rip it up.” Later, the special counsel said the Hunter defense team would not agree to a compromise agreement and instead forced the matter to trial.
I wrote before the trial that the defense was insane to try the case rather than plead guilty. A plea would have virtually guaranteed that there would be no jail time in the case. Instead, the defense launched an open jury nullification effort to get the jury to simply ignore the evidence. In the hometown of the Bidens, this was the best jury pool that Hunter could hope for. However, the nullification strategy was another manifestation of a gluttonous appetite.
Hunter Biden was still demanding a pass in a case where guilt was unavoidably and undeniably obvious to everyone. Defense counsel Abbe Lowell made a series of defenses that collapsed within the first two days in spectacular fashion.
Lowell suggested that someone else checked the box on the form and that Hunter may have had a brief window of sobriety or non-drug use. Hunter’s own words played from his audiobook knocked down much of those arguments, and a store employee recounted watching Hunter fill out the form.
In the first interview with a juror, Fox News seemed to confirm that the Biden defense overplayed its hand. The juror raised the text messages showing Hunter trying to score drugs at a 7-Eleven. Lowell suggested that he might have been at the store buying a donut. However, the juror noted that Hunter stated in his book that the 7-Eleven was his favorite spot for buying drugs, just as his texts indicated. He clearly viewed the story as more hole than donut. It is an example of how an all-you-can-eat defense can fail to even get a donut from a sympathetic jury.
The problem now is that this all played out in front of the judge who will now sentence Hunter.
Noreika witnessed the attempt to secure the sweetheart deal and then the disaster in open court. She watched as a defendant not only refused to admit guilt but decided to put on an obvious jury nullification defense.
That history could weigh in favor of a short jail stint for Hunter, a risk that would have been effectively eliminated by a guilty plea.
Hunter will now face an even greater risk in Los Angeles on the more serious counts of tax evasion. It is, again, an open-and-shut case.
I expect that he will plead guilty in that case. If Delaware made any impression on Hunter, it is that there are real costs to allowing your appetite to exceed your limitations.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
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Over the weekend, thousands of pro-Hamas protesters, many of them masked and some wearing green Hamas headbands, descended on Washington, D.C., surrounding the White House amid chants calling for a victory of “jihad or martyrdom.” At one point, protesters with tents set up an encampment on the Ellipse, while others defaced and vandalized historic statues, including the Andrew Jackson and Marquis de Lafayette statues in Lafayette Square.
The day before, on the other side of the country, three teenagers in Spokane, Washington, were arrested on felony charges for driving their scooters over a painted “pride” crosswalk and leaving some tread marks on the mural.
Spokane, Wash. — 3 teens are each charged with a felony (first-degree malicious mischief) for leaving scooter skid marks on the pride trans BLM flag on the street. Prosecutors asked for a $15k bond & @limebike says it is taking action against the youths. pic.twitter.com/mSWwWSY1Xb
As tempting as it is to call out the hypocrisy here — teenagers hunted down and charged for defacing a pride mural, no punishment at all for a mob of left-wing protesters defacing national monuments — that would miss the point. This isn’t hypocrisy on display, it’s hierarchy.
When you see harsh punishments for those who dissent from the regime on the one hand, but total leniency (and tacit regime endorsement) for those who are essentially regime enforcers on the other hand, what you’re seeing is a display of power. Its purpose is to communicate to the rest of the country who has power and who doesn’t, who is protected and who isn’t.
You see this everywhere lately. Most dramatically, you see it in the lawfare against former President Donald Trump, recently convicted for invented crimes in a farcical trial that made a mockery of the rule of law. Trump’s conviction in New York has made it clear, to friend and foe alike, that the judiciary in certain parts of this country has become nothing more than an instrument to destroy the political enemies of the regime. This isn’t supposed to be a subtle message; you’re meant to understand, explicitly, that there is no equality of justice in the law now, and act accordingly.
As former Trump administration official Brooke Rollins wrote recently in The American Mind, “All this is meant to achieve a singular goal: to use the apparatus of the law and the judiciary to utterly break American opposition to the progressive regime by instilling a climate of fear so pervasive that Americans will no longer defend themselves, no longer defy leftist orthodoxy, and no longer dare to publicly disagree with the regime.”
The criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter on federal gun charges should also be understood in this light. As of this writing, the jury is still deliberating. But it hardly matters what the verdict is. If he is acquitted, the message is that the rule of law is a dead letter in America, and you’d better align yourself with the side that can protect you.
If he’s found guilty, the message is that America has a two-tiered justice system that makes only the most feeble attempt to disguise itself. Hunter Biden can run a complex, years-long foreign influence-peddling scheme to enrich his family, and all he’ll ever face are minor, unrelated gun charges — a fig leaf over the corruption that’s right at the heart of the White House. Hunter has never been charged for the many financial crimes related to his time working for Ukraine energy company Burisma, never charged for operating as an unregistered foreign agent or selling influence and government policy.
The federal prosecutor charged with investigating Hunter allowed the statute of limitations to expire on tax evasion associated with Hunter’s Burisma earnings and then simply ignored every other crime connected to the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme. The gun trial only materialized after a federal judge blew up the prosecutor’s corrupt plea deal. The entire purpose of the trial is to provide a thin veneer of justice served, while the real crimes of the Biden family go unpunished and unacknowledged.
Of course, this hypocrisy-versus-hierarchy framework extends far beyond the justice system. Corporate media this week are breathlessly reporting on remarks Justice Samuel Alito made to a left-wing documentary filmmaker who posed as a religious conservative and secretly recorded the conversation. Rolling Stone reported the story as some kind of scandal because Alito agreed that the United States should return to a place of godliness and that the battle for America “can’t be compromised.” There’s nothing scandalous about that. Indeed, he simply says what leftist radicals say among themselves all the time.
What’s notable about Alito’s remarks, though, is that he goes on to say his power as a judge is limited and defined, and that there are many problems in American life that the Supreme Court can’t address or fix.
The substance of what Alito said isn’t the point, though. The point is the timing of the hit piece, coming right before the end of the Supreme Court’s current term and close on the heels of another fake outrage news cycle centered on Alito’s wife flying a popular historic flag from the Revolutionary War outside their beach house. The media’s current fixation on Alito comes after unrelenting hysterics from the media over Justice Clarence Thomas occasionally taking vacations with wealthy friends — something nearly every Supreme Court justice does.
Why the obsessive, deranged attacks on conservative Supreme Court justices? Because the Supreme Court is one of the last institutions in America that the left doesn’t control, and it’s standing in the way of their revolution. Smearing and discrediting the conservative justices, demanding they recuse themselves for made-up offenses, is part of a longer-term strategy to delegitimatize and ultimately destroy the court.
So, remember that the next time you see a hit piece on a conservative Supreme Court justice, or the book being thrown at a group of people opposed to the regime, or when Trump is actually sent to prison later this summer. It’s not hypocrisy you’re seeing, it’s hierarchy.
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. He is the author of Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
A Republican hasn’t carried Minnesota in a presidential election since President Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide re-election, over a half-century ago. But a new poll in Minnesota shows a competitive race between President Biden and former President Trump in their 2024 election rematch.
The president stands at 45% support among likely voters in Minnesota, with Trump at 41% in a poll conducted June 3-5 for the Star Tribune, MPR News and KARE 11.
Former President Trump headlines the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner, on May 17, 2024, in St. Paul. (AP)
Democrat turned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stood at 6% support in the survey, with 2% backing “someone else” if the election were held today.
Trump was narrowly edged in Minnesota in the 2016 election by 1.5 points by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. But four years later, Biden carried the state by seven points as he defeated Trump and won the White House.
“We’re going to win this state,” Trump predicted last month in a speech as he headlined the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner in St. Paul, Minnesota’s capital city.
The poll pointed to a significant enthusiasm gap, with 63% of Trump supporters saying they were “very enthusiastic” about casting a ballot for their candidate, compared to 31% of voters backing the president.
Eight hundred registered voters in Minnesota were surveyed in the poll, with an overall sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
Seven crucial swing states that decided the 2020 election (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were narrowly won by Biden, and North Carolina, which Trump carried by a razor-thin margin) will likely once again in the 2024 rematch. But both campaigns see opportunities to expand the map.
At a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors earlier this spring at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both “Minnesota & Virginia are clearly in play.”
“In both states, Donald Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor,” the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes.
And both states have sizable populations of rural White voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.
President Biden delivers remarks at the Kempsville Recreation Center on Feb. 28, 2023, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Biden’s campaign disagrees that either Minnesota or Virginia are up for grabs.
While noting that they are “not taking any state or any vote for granted,” Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters last month that “we don’t see polls that are six or seven months out from a general election, head-to-head numbers certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six or seven months out.”
Kanninen highlighted that the campaign has teams on the ground in both states engaging voters.
“We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024,” he added.
And Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, pointing to the president’s current fundraising dominance and ground-game advantage in the key battlegrounds, argued that “Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us winning.'”
But the latest Fox News poll in Virginia indicated Biden and Trump are deadlocked in Virginia.
(Fox News)
The survey, conducted June 1-4, showed the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor in the White House each with 48% support in a head-to-head match.
In a multi-candidate race, Biden stands at 42% and Trump at 41%, with Democrat-turned-independent Kennedy at 9% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West each at 2%.
It’s been two decades since a Republican carried Virginia in the race for the White House. You have to go back to President George W. Bush, who won the commonwealth in his 2004 re-election victory.
“Let’s just begin by remembering where we were in 2020 when Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points, and the fact that we’re having this discussion is a huge turn of events,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said last week in a Fox News Digital interview in New Orleans, as he attended a Republican Governors Association (RGA) conference.
Youngkin emphasized that “we’re here in June and there’s still a lot of water to go under the bridge, but Virginia looks like it’s in play and that’s pretty exciting.”
The United States today, effectively and enduringly, is not one but three nations. There is a “Red America” a “Blue America,” and an “I don’t care” America. Rarely do those in Blue or Red America agree on matters political, or reconcile with friends and family estranged because of politics, and increasingly they do not congregate together.
What used to be differences that were accepted and understood have become breaking points among families and former friends. We are far, far from “civil war” or even 1968 levels of antipathy, but there is a separation between Blue and Red America that is deep and deepening.
This is most manifest in the struggles of the many businesses that purport to “do news.” Only 32% of Americans say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” according to Gallup in a survey from last October, a low point equaling the previous bottoming out in 2016 and a small decline since 2021 (36%) and 2022 (34%).
The legacy media’s slow motion credibility crash has led to a collapse in audience and revenue for most such platforms. The core reason seems obvious: The legacy media seethes with contempt for “Red America,” and Red America knows that legacy media is overwhelmingly staffed by Blue America. In turn, “Red America” has walked away from those platforms.
The Red America/Blue America split manifests in the polling in the presidential race, but also on almost every major issue of consequence. Support for Israel is the most salient such issue at this moment, but the same divide separates “pro-life” from “pro-abortion rights camps,” as well as with the divisions over public education’s lurch left, gender ideology and pretty much every cultural and most economic debates.
Before he became one of a handful of the great British statesmen of the 19th, Benjamin Disraeli was a successful novelist. In his “Sybil” from 1845, he wrote about a divide in language that returns to remind us of conditions not just in Victorian England but today in the United States. There existed in the United Kingdom then, Disraeli wrote, “two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy, who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings as if they were inhabitants of different planets.”
This is our condition today, and increasingly any institution that is obviously aligned with one or the other of the two Americas cannot expect the patronage of the other. This legacy media, overwhelmingly, indeed suffocatingly “Blue,” has simply walked away from Red America. Red America noticed. And they have overwhelmingly stopped watching and reading the Blue media.
The assertion that “legacy media” has simply become “Blue media,” cannot be proven because most employees of “Blue journalism” refuse to admit their POVs, but most people I speak with intuitively know the assertion that “legacy newsrooms are Blue” is true. If we gathered all the creative staff of the old networks, plus CNN, as well as the staffs of the old brands in newspapers, and got honest answers to six questions, we could get this “proven”:
For whom did you vote in 2016 and 2020? Are you “pro-life” or “pro-abortion rights”? Do you own a gun? Do you attend church more than six times a year? Are there two genders? Do you support the State of Israel’s right to exist and right to defend itself?
My guess is that more than 90% of the assembled legacy media journalists would provide “Blue America” answers to at least 5 of these 6 inquiries. Red America, by contrast, would prove the opposite answers in at least 4 of the six. If a news organization is overwhelmingly populated by “Blue America” journalists, Red America viewers, readers and listeners are going to walk away. In fact, they already have.
Now the question is: Does legacy media want to survive? If so, it will consciously change its staffing and its subject curiosity and ruthlessly throttle biased coverage. It isn’t hard to diagnose what has gone oh so wrong with legacy media generally, but it does require great resolve to fix.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign Tuesday, after a Delaware jury convicted Hunter Biden of all three felony charges in his federal gun trial, slammed the proceedings as being a “distraction” from the activities of President Joe Biden and his family members.
“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement about the conviction of the president’s son.
She added that “crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”
Hunter Biden’s charges are in connection to the purchase of a handgun in 2018. He was charged with lying on a form while buying the weapon, by saying that he was neither addicted to drugs nor illegally using them.
The verdict was returned in Wilmington, Delaware, after the jury deliberated for about three hours over a two-day time period.
He still faces a trial this September, just two months before the November general election on charges that he failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes, and Republicans in Congress have said they will continue to pursue information about him as part of their impeachment inquiry against his father.
Hamas accepts a U.N. Security Council ceasefire resolution and is ready to negotiate over the details, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that it was up to Washington to ensure that Israel abides by it.
Hamas accepts the UN security council resolution in regard to the ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli troops and swap of hostages for detainees held by Israel, he said.
“The U.S. administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the UN Security Council resolution,” Abu Zuhri said.
For years, some of us have asked why the Capitol was so poorly prepared for the January 6th riot. As part of the coverage on that day, I remarked at the start of the protests that I had never seen the Capitol so thinly protected for a major demonstration. Some paths to the Capitol were protected by a handful of bicycle officers and thin barriers. Now, a previously unreleased video taken on Jan. 6, 2021, shows then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., admitting that she was responsible for the lack of preparedness.
“We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there. And we should have. This is ridiculous. You’re going to ask me in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached…that, should we call the Capitol Police? I mean the National Guard? Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?…They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more.”
The video was never released by the J6 Committee, which was criticized for its highly choreographed and scripted hearings with little balance in the presentation of evidence. The lack of emphasis on the security issues was glaring and raised by critics throughout the hearings.
While Democrats and the media dismissed the issue and claims that Trump offered to supply the national guard, it was later confirmed that those offers were made to Congress and rejected. A report from Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton also found that Capitol police were told that they could not use critical riot materials and tactics in preparation for the Jan. 6th protests.
What was so curious about the lack of precautions that morning is that the Capitol had just experienced the violence outside of the White House in the Lafayette Park protests.
To this day, the media and many members continue to repeat false accounts of the Lafayette Park. Many still have stories posted that claim that Lafayette Park was cleared for Trump to hold a photo op in front of a church. I discussed those accounts in testimony before Congress and in columns on the clearing of the Lafayette Park area. NPR still has a story on its website entitled “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op.” More officers were injured in the Lafayette Park protests than on January 6th.
As previously discussed in repeated columns, the House Democratic leadership refused to hold a single hearing with key witnesses on what occurred before the riot. After using a “snap impeachment,” weeks went by without calling such witnesses before the Trump impeachment trial. Such evidence would have challenged the narrative and raised questions over decisions made by Congress that left the Capitol vulnerable to such an attack.
In the Lafayette Park protests, White House officials feared that the compound could be breached by violent protesters who had injured dozens of officers and engaged in arson and attacks around the White House during that weekend. They decided to clear the area to install fencing (which Congress only ordered after the Jan. 6th riot). They also deployed the National Guard and the “heavier, less lethal weapons” that the Inspector General found were denied to the Capitol Police.
Had Pelosi and others accepted National Guard support and installed fencing as was done at the White House, it is doubtful that the riot on January 6th would have occurred, or any disruption would have been far more limited in scope. The fact that the J6 Committee downplayed this major factor in the riot further undermines how the investigation was framed by the Democratic leadership. Pelosi barred the GOP members selected for the committee, hand picking two anti-Trump Republican members.
The absence of any balance on the committee was evident from the start. There was little effort to present alternative explanations or defenses to critical issues raised in hearings. No opposing witnesses were called who might contradict the narrative put forward by the Committee, including witnesses who would debunk the much-repeated, false claim that Trump wrestled with his driver to gain control of the presidential limo to drive to the Capitol.
With the Speaker admitting on tape that she bore responsibility for the lack of precautions, one would think that the J6 Committee, including then Vice Chair Liz Cheney, would consider that relevant for the public to understand the underlying facts. Instead, it was buried with much other countervailing evidence.
Many of us have expressed alarm at the politicization of the criminal justice system in New York by figures such as Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. It now appears that New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin is angling to get into the lawfare frenzy.
The conviction of Trump on 34 felonies has either thrilled or repelled citizens. For many of us, it is a sign of the degradation of our legal system. Even the chief CNN legal analyst has acknowledged that Bragg contorted the law to bring the recent case against former President Donald Trump in an unprecedented prosecution.
Yet, the use of the legal system for political purposes is clearly popular in New York where people were literally dancing in the street outside of the courthouse after the recent verdict against Trump. Now Platkin’s office has announced that it is “reviewing” whether to pull the liquor licenses for Trump golf clubs since he is now convicted of felonies in New York. It appears that lawfare is nothing if not intoxicating for Democratic politicians.
According to an article in the Hill, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is “reviewing the impact of President Trump’s conviction” on his liquor licenses for the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck, Lamington Farm Club, and Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in Pine Hill.
The latest effort is based on a vague standard governing crimes of “moral turpitude” under New Jersey law:
No license of any class shall be issued to any person under the age of 18 years or to any person who has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. A beneficiary of a trust who is not otherwise disqualified to hold an interest in a license may qualify regardless of age so long as the trustee of the trust qualifies, and the trustee shall hold the beneficiary’s interest in trust until the beneficiary is at least the age of majority.
A “crime of moral turpitude” is a familiar, though dated, standard in American law. I teach the standard in torts as one of the traditional “per se” categories for slander under the common law. It was generally used to denote conduct of immorality or serious offenses to norms of society. New Jersey defines it as including “any offense that carries the possibility of one year in jail and involves acts of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen, or to society in general.”
Even the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Control handbook notes that in “some instances, it may be unclear whether a conviction involves an element of moral turpitude.” Yet, Trump has a way to bringing clarity for his critics whenever they must choose between politics and principle.
For most of us, it is hard to see how falsifying business records would constitute “acts of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen, or to society in general.” However, for Democrats, it seems that any act by Trump is by definition base, vile, and depraved.
The piling on of investigations and charges by Democratic officials has reinforced Trump’s long narrative of a weaponization of the legal system against him and his supporters. Polling shows that most citizens view some of these cases as political prosecutions and that they are having diminishing impact on voter preferences. Yet, they remain thrilling for Democratic voters who lionize prosecutors who come up with novel or unprecedented avenues to hammer Trump or hit his businesses. It does not seem to matter that removing the liquor licenses of these clubs can endanger thousands of jobs of citizens or chill other businesses in considering investments in New York or New Jersey.
In the end, the effort is hardly surprising. Lawfare is like binge drinking: the excess is the very measure of its success.
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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