A.F. Branco Cartoon – Kamala cast the deciding vote to sic 87,000 IRS agents on people who earn Tips, but now she has copied (Stolen)Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” promise as though it’s her own, and the media is playing along.
Shameless Kamala Harris Rips Off Trump’s Idea for No Taxes on Tips at Las Vegas Rally — Trump Fires Back with Scathing Rebuke (VIDEO)
By Mike LaChance – Aug 10, 2024
Kamala Harris is proving once again that she has never had an original idea in her life. During her rally in Las Vegas tonight, she plugged the idea of no taxes on tips for people who work in the service industry. Her supporters cheered for the idea, many of them probably not even realizing that they were cheering for an idea that came from Trump. This is especially ironic because Kamala Harris’s campaign has been extremely short on policy proposals. Now, she finally puts one forth, and it’s a Trump proposal.
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.
A Venezuelan migrant, Daniel Hernandez-Martinez, who is suspected to be a member of the “Tren de Aragua” gang, was released into the United States by the Biden-Harris administration in the early months of 2021. However, the House Judiciary Committee revealed in a report on Wednesday that within a span of only six months, Hernandez-Martinez allegedly committed at least 22 criminal offenses. This includes charges such as petit larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, and multiple assaults, two of which were against police officers.
The report states that despite his repeated run-ins with the New York Police Department, Hernandez-Martinez was not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) until his seventh offense. The House Judiciary Committee concludes that his release into the country was without any legal justification, and his subsequent actions have had real-world consequences for American citizens.
The report reads, “Mere months after his release, Hernandez-Martinez began terrorizing New York City, committing at least 22 criminal offenses within a span of just six months.”
The House Judiciary Committee also notes that it remains unclear whether ICE has deported Hernandez-Martinez. However, an investigation by the New York Post claims that he is being held in Buffalo, New York. Despite the severity of his crimes, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially attempted to withhold Hernandez-Martinez’s background file from the committee.
It took a follow-up request from the committee for the documents to be produced, even though they were complete six months prior.
In six months since President Joe Biden took office, Border Patrol agents have encountered over 7 million foreign nationals attempting to enter the country illegally. This is a significant increase compared to the previous year, under the Trump administration. However, Vice President Kamala Harris’s stance on immigration has proven to be inconsistent.
While in the Senate, Harris co-sponsored three bills in 2019 that aimed to block Trump’s efforts to build a border wall. However, her campaign is now claiming she supports Biden’s executive order to crack down on illegal crossings.
The House Judiciary Committee emphasizes that the disastrous immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration have had severe consequences for the American people. They state, “Hernandez-Martinez’s victims will never be the same because the Biden-Harris Administration allowed him to enter the country. Tragically, Hernandez-Martinez’s victims are not alone.” Despite requests for comment, ICE and DHS have not yet responded to these revelations.
New report and documents detail the 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐒 of Daniel Hernandez-Martinez, an illegal alien and suspected Tren de Aragua gang member, who… pic.twitter.com/cXUpXayWcv
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 7, 2024
In conclusion, the release of an illegal migrant into the country by the Biden-Harris administration has resulted in at least 22 criminal offenses within a span of six months, including assaulting police officers.
Kamala’s stance on immigration and her actions (lack-of) have had grave consequences for American citizens. The House Judiciary Committee is calling for accountability and effective policies to ensure the safety of American communities.
There are few things more important to our country than ensuring the integrity of our elections. The people rightfully demand it, and Congress has a duty to act. Yet, when given the opportunity to eliminate one of the most glaring threats to fair elections, 198 House Democrats voted instead to keep the door open to fraud.
The threat is very real. In nearly all 50 states today — including every major electoral battleground state — a noncitizen can walk into a DMV or welfare office, fill out a federal voter registration form, claim they are a U.S. citizen, and be registered to vote. That noncitizen can then cast a ballot and help decide the direction of America.
This is not a hypothetical problem. I was recently in San Diego, CA to tour the new epicenter of the Biden-Harris border catastrophe where brave, overworked Customs and Border Protection agents have encountered millions of illegals. The agents told me the Biden-Harris Executive Order isn’t working the way the administration says it is. In some ways, it’s made the crisis worse.
Noncitizen voting jeopardizes the rights of all Americans. FILE: ‘Vote Here’ sign is seen at a voting precinct. (REUTERS/Emily Elconin)
Instead of carrying out their mission of protecting our borders, they have become processing agents, forced by the administration to send illegals throughout the country with little paperwork or record of their location. Many of them end up at local DMVs.
While it is illegal and clearly wrong for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election, and thus engage in foreign election interference, a current loophole in the National Voter Registration Act actually prevents states from requesting proof of citizenship when the registration form is signed. To close that dangerous loophole and help ensure that only Americans decide American elections, House Republicans drafted and passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Our legislation makes several critically important reforms. It requires state election officials to request proof of citizenship for every person registering to vote and gives the state officials easy access to federal databases so they can confirm citizenship status.
The SAVE Act also requires those state officials to clean up their voter rolls and directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to determine whether to conduct removal proceedings of any illegal alien who has registered unlawfully.
To ensure actual citizens can continue to easily register to vote, the bill allows state officials to accept a wide variety of documents for registrants to prove citizenship and requires states to establish an alternative process for Americans who have misplaced their documentation.
Finally, the SAVE Act requires DHS to notify a state chief election official whenever an individual has been naturalized to ensure our newest citizens can exercise their right to vote. These commonsense provisions are not only right, but they are also in high demand. Polling has shown that 89% of Americans believe only Americans should decide elections — including 82% of Democrats, 80% of Black voters, and 78% of Hispanic voters.
In light of all this, one would expect overwhelmingly bipartisan support for the SAVE Act in Congress. But Democrat leaders put on a full-court press to discourage their members from supporting our bill, and the White House issued a veto threat.
The Democrats’ opposition to this simple election integrity bill is indefensible and exposes their intention to allow illegal aliens to vote.
Earlier this year, most of these same Democrats voted to count illegal aliens in the 2030 Census. They also voted to let noncitizens vote in local elections in Washington, D.C. Some may also remember, how, in 2019, then-presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris relied on a study that touted the “electoral implications” of widespread amnesty, including “sizable contributions to the margin of victory in swing states.” Perhaps that’s why Border Czar Harris has done such a pitiful job securing the border.
Those who have illegally entered our country have no regard for our laws and have no right to interfere in our lawful election processes. Virtually all Americans agree — except for the Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats, who are so desperate to hang on to power that they will sacrifice the integrity of our election system.
While it is illegal and clearly wrong for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election, and thus engage in foreign election interference, a current loophole in the National Voter Registration Act actually prevents states from requesting proof of citizenship when the registration form is signed.
In a study of the 2008 election, researchers estimated that 6.4% of noncitizens in the U.S. had voted in the general election. If a similar portion of the 7.2 million illegal aliens Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have welcomed into the country were to vote this year, those 460,800 votes would be more than enough to change the election outcome in a few key battleground states.
In an era of divided government where every single ballot matters immensely, we must have zero tolerance for fraud. One of our Republican colleagues won her first race in 2020 by only six votes. And for many weeks during this Congress, our majority in the House was held by just a one vote margin.
As the sanctity of our elections now hangs in the balance, the SAVE Act is urgently needed. It is smart policy and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Everyone who shares this common concern should insist that Senator Schumer bring this bill forward to pass in the Senate, and that President Biden then sign it into law. The stakes could not be any higher.
Republican Mike Johnson is the 56th speaker of the United States House of Representatives and represents Louisiana’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Below is my column in The Hill on why a Harris-Walz Administration would be a nightmare for free speech. A long-standing advocate for censorship and other speech controls, Vice President Kamala Harris just added an equally menacing candidate to her ticket for 2024.
Here is the column:
The selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as the running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris has led to intense debates over crime policy, war claims, gender identity policies and other issues. Some attacks have, in my view, been inaccurate or overwrought. However, the greatest danger from this ticket is neither speculative nor sensational. A Harris-Walz administration would be a nightmare for free speech.
For over three years, the Biden-Harris administration has sustained an unrelenting attack on the freedom of speech, from supporting a massive censorship system (described by a federal court as an “Orwellian Ministry of Truth“) to funding blacklisting operations targeting groups and individuals with opposing views.
President Biden made censorship a central part of his legacy, even accusing social media companies of “killing people” for failing to increase levels of censorship. Democrats in Congress pushed that agenda by demanding censorship on subjects ranging from climate change to gender identity — even to banking policy — in the name of combatting “disinformation.”
The administration also created offices like the Disinformation Governance Board before it was shut down after public outcry. But it quickly shifted this censorship work to other offices and groups.
As vice president, Harris has long supported these anti-free speech policies. The addition of Walz completes a perfect nightmare for free speech advocates. Walz has shown not only a shocking disregard for free speech values but an equally shocking lack of understanding of the First Amendment.
Walz went on MSNBC to support censoring disinformation and declared, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” Ironically, this false claim, repeated by many Democrats, constitutes one of the most dangerous forms of disinformation. It is being used to convince a free people to give up some of their freedom with a “nothing to see here” pitch.
In prior testimony before Congress on the censorship system under the Biden administration, I was taken aback when the committee’s ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), declared, “I hope that [all members] recognize that there is speech that is not constitutionally protected,” and then referenced hate speech as an example.
That false claim has been echoed by others such as Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is a lawyer. “If you espouse hate,” he said, “…you’re not protected under the First Amendment.” Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean declared the identical position: “Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Even some dictionaries now espouse this false premise, defining “hate speech” as “Speech not protected by the First Amendment, because it is intended to foster hatred against individuals or groups based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, place of national origin, or other improper classification.”
The Supreme Court has consistently rejected the claim of Gov. Walz. For example, in the 2016 Matal v. Tam decision, the court stressed that this precise position “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’”
As the new Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Walz is running alongside one of the most enthusiastic supporters of censorship and blacklisting systems. In her failed 2020 presidential bid, Harris ran on censorship and pledged that her administration “will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms, because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.”
In October 2019, Harris dramatically spoke directly to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, insisting“This is not a matter of free speech….This is a matter of holding corporate America and these Big Tech companies responsible and accountable for what they are facilitating.” She asked voters to join her in the effort.
They didn’t, but Harris ultimately succeeded in the Biden-Harris administration to an unprecedented degree with a comprehensive federal effort to target and silence individuals and groups on social media.
In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,”I detailed how President Biden is the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. Unlike Adams, I have never viewed Biden as the driving force behind the massive censorship and blacklisting operations supported by his subordinates, including Harris. That is not to say that Biden does not share the shame in these measures. He was willing to sacrifice not only free speech but also institutions like the Supreme Court in a desperate effort to rescue his failing nomination.
The substitution of Harris for Biden makes this the second election in which free speech is the key issue for voters. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams, in large part based on his pledge to reverse the anti-free speech policies of the prior administration, including the use of the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest his opponents.
With the addition of Walz, Democrats now have arguably the most anti-free speech ticket of a major party in more than two centuries. Both candidates are committed to using disinformation, misinformation and malinformation as justifications for speech controls. The third category has been emphasized by the Biden-Harris administration, which explained that it is information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
Walz has the advantage in joining this anti-free speech ticket without the burden of knowledge of what is protected under the First Amendment.
With the Harris-Walz ticket, we have come full circle to the very debate at the start of this republic. The warnings of the Founders to reject the siren’s call of censorship remain tragically relevant today. Free speech was and remains our “indispensable right.”
As Benjamin Franklin warned, “In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech….Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man.”
With her selection of Walz, Harris has decided to put free speech on the ballot in this election. It is a debate that our nation should welcome, as it did in 1800. The Biden-Harris administration has notably toned down its anti-free speech efforts as the election approaches. Leading censorship advocates have also gone mostly silent. If successful, a Harris-Walz administration is expected to bring back those policies and personalities with a vengeance. That could be radically enhanced if the Democrats take both houses of Congress and once again block investigations into their censorship programs.
The media has worked very hard to present Harris and Walz as the “happy warriors.” Indeed, they may be that and much more. The question is what they are happy about in their war against free speech.
We have previously discussed controversial sentences handed down in cases involving rioters on January 6th, including sentencing orders that, in my view, violate First Amendment rights. That included the case of Daniel Goodwyn, who pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. That crime would ordinarily not involve any jail time for a first offender. However, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia decided that he would use the case to regulate what Goodwyn was reading and communicating with a chilling probation order. After the case was sent back by the D.C. Circuit, Walton doubled down on his extraordinary order. Now the D.C. Circuit has refused to hear an emergency appeal.
Judge Walton has attracted controversy and criticism over his public comments about former President Donald Trump and the other issues. He caused a stir in Washington after doing an interview with CNN in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump for his criticism of judges and their family members. Walton previously called Trump a “charlatan,” and said that “I don’t think he cares about democracy, only power.”
Critics charged that Walton’s public statements ran afoul of Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states: “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.”
Walton then triggered criticism over his handling of the Goodwin case. The case involved Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas, who pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. That is a relatively minor offense, but Walton imposed a 60-day jail sentence in June 2023 with these ongoing conditions on his online reading and speech.
Walton reportedly noted that Goodwyn spread “disinformation” during a broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on March 14, 2023, and ordered that Mr. Goodwyn’s computer be subject to “monitoring and inspection” by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.
After accepting the plea to a single misdemeanor, Walton expressed scorn for Goodwyn appearing “gleeful” on Jan. 6 and his “egging on” other rioters. He asked his defense counsel “why I should feel that he doesn’t pose a risk to our democracy?”
As a condition for supervised release, DOJ pushed the monitoring conditions and found a judge who seemed eager to impose it.
The order reflects the utter impunity shown by the Justice Department in its pursuit of January 6th defendants. Justice Department official Michael Sherwin proudly declared in a television interview that “our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.”
Sherwin was celebrated for his pledge to use such draconian means to send a message to others in the country. (Sherwin has left the Justice Department and is now a partner at Kobre & Kim).
Walton was rebuked by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a surveillance order of Goodwin to detect any spreading of “disinformation” or “misinformation.”
In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discussed concerns over the cases like Goodwyn’s and their implications for free speech. I participated in the coverage on January 6th and criticized President Trump’s speech while he was giving it. I disagreed with the legal claims made to oppose certification. However, the “shock and awe” campaign of the Justice Department, in my view, has trampled on free speech rights in cases that range from Goodwyn to the prosecutions of Trump himself.
Many of us were relieved when appellate judges (Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Bradley Garcia) rebuked Walton and held that “[t]he district court plainly erred in imposing the computer-monitoring condition without considering whether it was ‘reasonably related’ to the relevant sentencing factors and involved ‘no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’ to achieve the purposes behind the sentencing.”
They sent the case back but, to the surprise of few, Judge Walton proceeded to double down on the monitoring while implausibly declaring “I don’t want to chill anyone’s First Amendment rights.”
For some reason, Walton believes that barring an individual from reviewing and engaging in political speech does not “chill” his First Amendment rights.
Most of us were appalled by the riot and the underlying views of figures like Goodwyn, who is a self-proclaimed member of the Proud Boys. He was rightfully arrested and should be punished for his conduct. The question is not the legitimacy of punishment, but the scope of that punishment.
Prosecutor Brian Brady detailed how the Justice Department has in place a new system using artificial intelligence to monitor the reading and statements of citizens like Goodwyn. The Justice Department brushed aside the free speech concerns since Goodwyn remains under court supervision, even though he pleaded guilty to only a single misdemeanor.
Brady described a virtual AI driven thought program. The justification was that Goodwyn refused to abandon his extreme political views:
“Throughout the pendency of Goodwyn’s case, he has made untruthful statements regarding his conduct and the events of the day, he has used websites and social media to place targets on police officers who defended the Capitol, and he has used these platforms to publish and view extremist media. Imposing the requested [monitoring] conditions would protect the public from further dissemination of misinformation… [and] provide specific deterrence from him committing similar crimes.”
So now federal courts can use a single misdemeanor for unlawful entry in a federal building for less than 40 seconds to “protect the public from … dissemination of misinformation” on the government.
That was all Walton needed to hear. Relying on a record supplied by the Justice Department, Walton said in the hearing that Goodwyn is still engaging “in the same type of rhetoric” that fomented the Jan. 6 violence. He added that he was concerned about Goodwyn spreading “false narratives” when we are “on the heels of another election.”
Walton merely added the DOJ record to his renewed sentencing conditions.
Defense counsel then returned to the D.C. Circuit to seek an emergency stay but Judges Florence Pan and Bradley Garcia denied the motion, holding that “Appellant has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal” to prevent further “false narratives.”
That drew a pointed dissent from Judge Gregory Katsas who stated:
Daniel Goodwyn pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1). Goodwyn entered the Capitol and remained inside for a total of 36 seconds. He did not use force to enter, did not assault police officers, and neither took nor damaged any government property. When police instructed Goodwyn to leave the building, he did so.
…
On appeal, this Court vacated the condition … We further instructed the district court, if it wished to impose a new computer- monitoring condition on remand, to “explain its reasoning,” to “develop the record in support of its decision,” and to ensure that the condition complies with section 3583(d) and with the Constitution.
The district court reimposed the same condition on remand. In an oral hearing, the court said that Goodwyn had made statements on social media that “can be, it seems to me, construed as” urging a repeat of January 6, particularly “on the heels of another election.” In its written order, the court elaborated on what it called Goodwyn’s “concerning online activity.”This included posting exhortations to “#StopTheSteal!” and “#FightForTrump,” soliciting donations to fund his travel to Washington, posing for a livestream while inside the Capitol, confirming his presence there by text, and tweeting opinions such as: “They WANT a revolution. They’re proving our point. They don’t represent us. They hate us.” Id. at 3–4. In addressing what the court described as Goodwyn pushing “false narratives” about January 6 after-the-fact, the court, quoting from the government’s brief, led with the fact Goodwyn “sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Channel.” Id. at 4. Finally, in concluding that computer monitoring was reasonably related to Goodwyn’s offense, the court reasoned that monitoring would prevent Goodwyn from raising funds to support potential future crimes and would separate him “from extremist media, rehabilitating him.”
Judge Katsas stated that Goodwyn was likely to prevail on the merits and that his colleagues allowed the denial of First Amendment rights to continue in the interim.
The Walton order reflects the erosion of support for the First Amendment, even on our courts. It is reminiscent of our previous discussion of how courts have criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of the crackdown on free speech in the United Kingdom.
A.F. Branco Cartoon— Walz has earned his nickname “Tampon Tim” for ordering tampon dispensers in all public school boys’ bathrooms throughout Minnesota and now possibly across the Nation if they win in 2024.
Hillary Clinton Defends “Tampon Tim” Nickname for Tim Walz and It Doesn’t Go Well
Twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton jumped in to defend Tim Walz for providing menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms in schools. Trump supporters trolled Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz with a new nickname: “Tampon Tim.” READ MORE…
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Kamala saying, “we can be unburdened by what by what has been” sounds awfully close to Mao’s forget the 4 olds: old ideas’, ‘old culture,’ ‘old customs,’ and ‘old habits’ from the Chinese cultural revolution.
Victor Reacts: Kamala Unburdened By What Has Been? (VIDEO)
By Victor Nieves – July 25, 2024
Is this what Kamala Harris means when she says, “what can be unburdened by what has been?” It looks like dirt on Kamala Harris is being mysteriously erased.
The Gateway Pundit reported, GovTrack, which purports to track “the U.S. Congress to make our government more open and accessible,” has apparently ‘disappeared’ Kamala Harris’s 2019 page, which ranked her as the most liberal senator out of 100.
The now-missing page shows data from Harris’s time in the Senate and compared to other senators. The analysis shows in 2019, Harris was the least likely to cosign on bipartisan legislation, missed 61.9% of votes, held the fewest committee positions, and ranked second from last in getting sponsored bills out of committee. 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.
On Saturday, the team will face off against Brazil in the gold medal match at the Olympics, after scoring wins over Zambia, Germany (twice), Australia, and Japan.
For years, the U.S. women’s soccer team has been seen as a bastion of wokeness, perhaps most famously when Megan Rapinoe feuded with then-President Donald Trump.
But one new player suggests the team finally might be getting some ideological diversity.
Korbin Albert, a 20-year-old picked to be a midfielder for the women’s team for the Paris Olympics, is no Rapinoe, who was infamous for publicizing her woke views.
She’s already proved herself in the Olympics, successfully scoring a goal during the Olympics match between the U.S. and Australian women’s soccer teams July 31. The final score was 2-1, the winning goal scored by Albert, who previously played for the University of Notre Dame and now plays for a Paris-based soccer team.
But Albert’s admission to the Olympics seemingly came at quite a high cost. To use the language of the woke, she wasn’t allowed to speak her truth.
When Albert scored her winning goal, NBC commentator Jon Champion highlighted the “controversy” surrounding her. “For the all the pre-tournament controversy that surrounded her, teammates rush to her to share a memorable moment,” Champion intoned. He’s not the only media figure to slap the “controversial” label on Albert.
The Associated Press reported in April about “a controversy over midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media posts,” while the New York Post headlined a June article, “Controversial USWNT star Korbin Albert named to Olympic team.” USA Today dutifully noted, “Albert became the center of controversy in March …”
So, what exactly did this young woman do? Well, the word “controversy” became glued to her when it emerged that Albert … held Christian beliefs. The athlete reportedly liked a politically incorrect social media post and shared another one.
Albert also posted a video during the 2023 Fourth of July weekend on TikTok “showing her family taking turns stating that ‘their pronouns are U.S.A.’” according to The Athletic, a sports news site owned by The New York Times.
The soccer star reportedly also shared a video on social media of a person, seemingly in a church and wearing a “Jesus wins” shirt, discussing with regret how he had pursued same-sex attractions and a transgender life.
Soccer player Korbin Albert is under fire for reposting the video below in which a teen discusses hardships he faced which led him to thinking he was trans. He started believing in God, found faith, and detransitioned.
An X user claimed that Albert had liked a meme taking aim at Rapinoe, who had been injured early in her final game before retirement. “I’m not a religious person or anything, and if there was a God, like, this is proof that there isn’t,” a disappointed Rapinoe said about her injury at a press conference last year, according to Fox News. “This is f—ed up.”
The meme Albert allegedly liked said, “God taking time off performing miracles to make sure Megan Rapinoe sprains her ankle in her final ever game.” (If you’re keeping score, note it was Rapinoe who first decided to make her injury a chance to share her religious views.)
Albert’s social media activity drew notice, and a social media post from Rapinoe ranting about “the people who want to hide behind ‘my beliefs.’” Subsequently, Albert deleted some content and posted an apology that read in part, “Liking and sharing posts that are offensive, insensitive, and hurtful was immature and disrespectful, which was never my intent.”
But the apology didn’t appear to satisfy her critics. Which says a lot about where we’re at in 2024.
For years, players in the U.S. women’s soccer team have been openly political. Just to recap: Rapinoe refused to stand for the playing of the national anthem, citing solidarity with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick; said she would never go to the White House and feuded with Trump; and argued for the inclusion of trans players in women’s sports—a curious stance, given that the U.S. women’s soccer team lost to high school boys in a 2017 scrimmage. She is gay and open about it, and when she was required to stand in later years for the national anthem, she refused to sing along or put her hand on her heart.
Nor was Rapinoe alone in her advocacy. In a 2022 game in Texas, about the time Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was taking action to protect kids from experimental medical treatment, “several USWNT players wore athletic tape around their wrists with the message ‘Protect Trans Kids,’” The Athletic reported.
Later in Florida, another state that has worked to protect kids, The Athletic reported that “[t]he players wore tape on their wrists again, this time with the words ‘Defend Trans Joy.’” In 2023, Becky Sauerbrunn, another player on the team, wrote a passionate opinion column for the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri advocating against a state bill that aimed to ensure only girls and women were playing in women’s sports. Yet it is Albert whose apology tour has never really ended.
Fresh off her winning goal, Albert dutifully praised coach Emma Hayes’ “tough love” in remarks. Hayes in turn told the media, “We all know that she’s been through a lot with her actions, and she’s someone who is truly sorry for what she’s done … She’s had to do a fair bit of growing up.”
— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) August 1, 2024
The message is clear: There’s no room on the U.S. women’s national soccer team for anyone who espouses different views on LGBTQ+ matters.
So, just to be clear, aside from the alleged liking of a social media post making fun of Rapinoe (whose comments about God also had arguably been offensive), Albert has never been accused of targeting any teammate or saying something to any individual deemed offensive. There’s no suggestion she was ever less than professional and polite to her fellow soccer players.
But she dared to think for herself. And that can’t be allowed, apparently.
Korbin Albert warms up prior to the match between Australia and the United States during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 July 31, 2024, in Marseille, France. (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
More than half of Americans think it’s morally wrong to “change” your gender, according to a June Gallup poll. A third of Americans believe that gay and lesbian relationships are morally wrong, according to a May Gallup poll.
Albert’s views, if indeed the social media videos did reflect her views, might not be popular among female soccer players, but they’re well within the mainstream of American thought. Soccer is the third-most popular sport for female high school athletes, behind track and field and volleyball, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In the 2022-2023 high school year, more than 375,000 high school girls played soccer. Do they all have to become leftists, or at least take a vow of silence on their politically incorrect beliefs, if they want to play in the Olympics some day?
That’s absurd.
How many Americans regularly work with colleagues, love family members, and cherish friends who don’t agree with us on every aspect of morality? Why should the U.S. women’s soccer team players not be asked to do the same?
I hope Albert scores the winning goal, again, on Saturday. And I hope that when she has proved herself to be invaluable to the team, she can finally be free to be honest about what she believes.
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
En route to a recent vacation to New England, I stopped in my old hometown of Princeton, New Jersey, for coffee and picked up a copy of the Town Topics, the local paper where I found my first car and my first job back in the ’80s.
The front-page story was about an attempt on July 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations agents to arrest two illegal immigrants from Guatemala. Both men were high risks for hurting someone in future and any sane community would welcome their removal from the streets.
The ICE report was as follows: “ERO arrests twice-removed noncitizen in Princeton while second absconds due to civilian interference.” (Now steeped in Biden-era woke language, ICE calls such men “unlawfully present noncitizens.” Conflating this with another euphemism, I have coined the acronym UNJIP—“Undocumented NoncitizenJustice Involved Person”—for use henceforth. You saw it on the BorderLine first).
One of the Guatemalans, 29, had been deported from the U.S. twice already when he was charged with assault and robbery—in Princeton, so presumably his victims were locals.
What about their safety and their rights? Not surprisingly, the guy didn’t show up for his hearing at municipal court, which issued a warrant for his arrest. So, when ICE picked him up, he not only had entered the U.S. illegally three times (twice after being deported, which is a crime), but he was wanted for a violent crime.
ICE agents spotted the second Guatemalan, a 27-year-old who had been convicted of drunken driving in 2023. But in running after him, they “were blocked by people whose stated goal was to stop the arrest.”
ICE said that the “unfortunate and unacceptable interference from outside actors not only created a dangerous situation for the public and our officers, but also impeded ERO Newark from the performance of our duties.”
ICE is hardly going rogue under the anti-enforcement Biden administration. In its own words, “ERO uses targeted, intelligence-driven leads to prioritize enforcement actions against the most egregious noncitizen criminals who pose the greatest threat to national security, public safety and border security.” They are practically begging to be allowed to do their jobs.
But Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said, “I was horrified to learn of the ICE raid carried out in Princeton today,” claiming that ICE agents “stopped Hispanic/Latinx residents seemingly at random to interrogate them and demand documentation.”
Coleman said, “This kind of conduct has no place in our community or our country.” Presumably by “this conduct,” she means enforcement of our nation’s laws?
Meanwhile, Princeton Mayor Mark Freda wrote that “ICE activities in Princeton have left our community deeply troubled. We believe that such federal actions, conducted without prior explanation, starkly contradict our core values of respect and dignity for all.”
Really? What about respect for this pair’s next victims? As for “prior explanation,” if ICE had tipped off a town government that opposes everything they do, what are the chances those two guys would still have been there?
And what “core values” is the mayor talking about? Why is it more important to him that no UNJIP ever be subject to the due process of United States immigration law, than that offenders who put their neighbors at risk should have to answer for their actions?
Every other American citizen and legal immigrant charged with assault or drunken driving has to face the music. Why are illegal immigrants allowed to evade responsibility?
This two-tiered justice in “sanctuary” jurisdictions places the ideology of open borders ahead of both local and national interest. It places the shielding of illegal aliens from lawful arrest and due process over the security of the community.
Freda tried to reassure his voters on this point. “We have no involvement with ICE,” he said. “Our police department does not help them. None of our departments help them.”
Well, why not?
Freda was intent on noting “extensive human services and health department programs to help recent immigrants, whether they are documented or undocumented.” This mayor prizes providing services to people here illegally over ensuring safety for everyone (including other illegal immigrants).
“We have to change our mindset about how we deal with ICE,” said Freda at a town meeting on July 16, hinting that not only would town authorities not cooperate with federal agents, but could hinder them.
It is not surprising that one of the Guatemalans had a drunken driving record, which is a common offense among noncitizens. ICE logged more than 43,000 arrests for DUI offenses from 2018 to 2023. Not all caused fatalities, but drunken driving by illegal aliens kills people regularly.
On July 21, a Honduran 18-year-old drunken driver called Axel Flores-Cordova killed teens Rylan Oncale and Taliyah Crochet in Louisiana. The police didn’t report his status, but Flores-Cordova was seven times over the legal alcohol limit and had no driver’s license, so it’s a fair chance he’s an UNJIP.
In Virginia, another 18-year old Honduran, Elvis Jamir Cruz-Ferrera, was charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing college student Lauryn Ni’Kole Leonard, 19, back in February while driving. He was ordered deported in 2018 but didn’t show up for his court date.
Prior to killing Leonard, Cruz-Ferrera had already been caught once speeding and twice driving without a license.
Leonard would be alive but for Cruz-Ferrera’s illegal presence in the U.S. and continued ability to drive a car in spite of his many offenses.
It’s not just drunken driving that’s a risk, it’s uninsured, unlicensed, or criminal use of vehicles by people who should not be here at all, let alone in charge of a car.
On July 31, Jose Aguilar-Martinez, an El Salvadoran here illegally, was charged with carjacking a grandmother in Virginia, then running her over and killing her. ICE has put a detainer on him, meaning they want local authorities to tell them when he’s being released so they can arrest him. But many sanctuary jurisdictions ignore such requests and send these offenders back out on to the streets, despite their being clear, preventable dangers to their own citizens.
Prizing the imaginary rights of UNJIPs to remain in the U.S. over the actual rights of Americans to be safe in their own hometowns makes no sense.
I’m saddened, but not surprised, to see Princeton put ideology ahead of public safety, as do so many leftist-run towns, cities, and states. But instead of rushing to coddle and protect illegal immigrants from the due process that would apply to any American, they should help ICE do the hard work of interior enforcement—or at the very least stop vilifying them for doing their jobs.
Special Counsel David Weiss appears to have finally made the long-awaited case exposing years of concealment and political corruption. No, it is not the case against Hunter Biden. The allegations of tax fraud in California are obvious and unavoidable. Weiss just made the case against the Justice Department and himself in protecting Hunter Biden from the most damaging charges of being an unregistered foreign agent. In a new filing, Weiss released evidence on Hunter seeking money to advance the interests of a Romanian on United States policy.
I have previously testified on the Foreign Agents Registration Act and have previously written about the disturbing disconnect in the treatment of the President’s son as opposed to figures like Paul Manafort. The charge was always one of the greatest fears of the White House. If Hunter Biden was a foreign agent, it would magnify the influence peddling scandal and further link his conduct to work of his father as vice president and later president.
What was previously known about millions received from China, Russia, and other countries made such a charge obvious. In the past, the Justice Department has used the charge early and often in high-profile cases to pressure defendants and force cooperation or plea agreements. During the Trump Administration, an official could not go to Epcot without drawing a FARA charge from DOJ.
This charge has been a favorite of the DOJ before the President’s son was implicated in a massive influence peddling scheme with foreign figures.
Here is the definition used in such cases:
A “foreign agent” is defined as “(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person— (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or (iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States; and (2) any person who agrees, consents, assumes or purports to act as, or who is or holds himself out to be, whether or not pursuant to contractual relationship, an agent of a foreign principal as defined in clause (1) of this subsection.”
For years, I have expressed alarm at the special treatment afforded to Hunter Biden on the charges. Many of us have also criticized Weiss for allowing the most serious tax charges to expire despite being able to extend the statute of limitations. He has yet to offer a compelling reason why prosecutors would ever allow viable felony charges to expire when they could have extended that period.
Now, Biden is seeking to avoid conviction under the tax charges in California. He is repeating the claims that failed in his recent gun violation. He is claiming that he was an addict and not responsible for his criminal conduct, even though he was flying around the world collecting millions from foreign sources.
To rebut that claim, Weiss’ team said they plan to introduce evidence showing his sophisticated scheme to tap foreign sources interested in influencing the government and federal policy.
In the filing below, Weiss opposes the Biden team effort to exclude the evidence of his working for the Romanians. Senior assistant special counsel Derek Hines writes in the filing that “[t]he evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for [the businessman] demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars pursuant to an oral agreement.”
That sounds a lot like seeking the work of a foreign agent. Here is the language from FARA:
“The first category of evidence the defendant seeks to exclude is any “reference to allegations that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion . . .” Motion at 3 (emphasis added). The government does not intend to reference allegations at trial. Rather, the government will introduce the evidence described above, including that the defendant and Business Associate 1 received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion and cause the United States to investigate the Romanian investigation of G.P in Romania.” (emphasis added)
It is a curious argument. It is akin to saying that we know that he stole the car because he used it in the kidnapping. It leaves most people wondering why you did not charge on the kidnapping crime.
The fact is that this is only one of an array of such contracts that have been detailed by the House Oversight Committee and other House committees. The other foreign dealings reportedly involved Hunter reaching out to government officials while his father was vice president. That includes the controversy over Joe Biden’s sudden decision to issue an ultimatum to the Ukrainian government.
In a 2018 interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged that he unilaterally withheld a billion dollars in US aid from the Ukrainians to force them to fire prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.
The Ukrainians balked, but Biden gave them an ultimatum: “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
However, a State Department memo is shedding disturbing light on that account and shredding aspects of Biden’s justification for the action. It directly contradicts Biden’s insistence that he took this extraordinary stand because there was little hope for the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine if Shokin remained prosecutor.
The Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizes the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee that was handling the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine: “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee.” One senior official even complimented Shokin on his progress in fighting corruption. So, Biden was told to deliver on the federal aid but elected to unilaterally demand Shokin be fired.
In testimony from Devon Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden, we learned that Burisma executives made the removal of Shokin a top priority and raised it with Hunter. He described how the need to neutralize Shokin was raised with Hunter and how “a call to Washington” was made in response. While Archer also said that “the narrative spun to me was that Shokin was under control,” he and others also heard concerns over Shokin and the risks of the investigation.
Other transactions directly requested intervention on matters being addressed by the Obama-Biden Administration.
So, now, the Justice Department is citing some of these dealings to show a conscious and premeditated effort to shake down foreigners to influence U.S. policy. Weiss now maintains that “The defendant did receive compensation from a foreign principal to attempt to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, as alleged in the indictment, and this evidence is relevant.”
They have made more than the case against Hunter Biden. They have made a conclusive and overwhelming case against themselves in slow walking and minimizing charges against the President’s son.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Governor Tim of Minnesota allowed his city to burn and didn’t lift a finger to stop it, and many say he actually encouraged it. Now, he wants to spread the lunacy of illegals having driver’s licenses, tampons in boys’ bathrooms, gun confiscation, and no parental rights across the nation.
HOW FITTING: Democratic Socialists of America Take Credit for Harris Picking Tim Walz as Running Mate
By Mike LaChance – Aug 7, 2024
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are pretty excited about the prospect of Tim Walz as a running mate for Kamala Harris. In fact, they’re taking credit for the choice. Walz’s comments about socialism just being a form of ‘neighborliness’ make a lot more sense now, don’t they? The radical left clearly sees a fellow traveler in Walz. They expect him to advance their agenda. The propaganda campaign, heavily aided by the leftist press, is well underway to paint Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as a normal, folksy Democrat after Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her 2024 running mate Tuesday. But the organziation taking credit for the Walz choice is telling and bolsters his far left record in Minnesota. It also explains why Harris didn’t choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro 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.
The wife of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate set social media ablaze Tuesday after an unearthed clip of her describing her actions during the 2020 Minneapolis riots went viral. Gwen Walz is Minnesota’s first lady and the wife of Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was picked by Vice President Harris to be her running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket.
A pivotal part of Walz’s gubernatorial record was his handling of the death of George Floyd in the state in 2020. Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests about race and police brutality.
Gwen Walz and the 2020 riots in Minnesota. (Getty Images)
“Again, we had more sleepless nights during the riots,” Walz’s wife told KSTP in July 2020. “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing. And I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
Conservative commentators expressed astonishment at Gwen Walz’s remarks after the clip started going viral on social media.
“What might you call this? Bizarre? Abnormal? Peculiar? Eccentric? Offbeat? Quirky?” Noah Rothman, a senior writer at the National Review Online, said. “Gotta be a word that describes reveling in the catharsis represented by the torching of other people’s property.”
“Profoundly disturbing,” journalist Abigail Shrier said. “We’re going to need to learn a lot more about the Walzes.”
Dustin Grage, the president of a conservative Minnesota-based consulting firm, said the comments were “bizarre,” adding, “Her daughter also coordinated with rioters to let them know that the National Guard would not be activated one night.”
“Everything you need to know about leftist elites can be found in this short clip,” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said on X. “Tim Walz’s wife sat by the window enjoying the smell of poor neighborhoods burning during the Floyd riots. She did everything but pull out a fiddle.”
Gov. Walz was criticized for his handling of the riots. Conservatives accused him of sitting on his hands as the state was engulfed by riots.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, applauds her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as he speaks at Temple University’s Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 2024, on the first day of their Battleground State Tour. (Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images)
As a result of the delayed action, hundreds of businesses across Minneapolis and St. Paul were devastated by the destruction and had to ask their local government for help recovering on top of what they lost during pandemic-related closures. First lady Walz said she was aware Minnesota was under national scrutiny at the time.
“With COVID-19, the entire state was watching what Tim did,” Ms. Walz said. “But with Mr. Floyd’s death, it was the entire country and the whole world looking at and watching what we did here in Minnesota in response to that.”
That record is now again under scrutiny as Walz is catapulted into the national spotlight, with Republican critics taking aim at how both Walz and Harris handled the 2020 crisis.
“Minnesota was ground zero for the BLM riots of 2020,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “Harris egged it on, and Walz sat by and let Minneapolis burn.”
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate and running mate of former President Trump, poked at Walz’s 2020 record Tuesday, calling his addition to the Democratic ticket “an interesting tag team.”
“If we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis,” he said of the riots that began in Minnesota in response to the death of Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis. “And then Kamala Harris was the one who bailed the rioters out of jail.”
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
Rioters set fire to a multi-story affordable housing complex under construction near the Third Precinct police station on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis. (Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune/Getty Images)
When rioters took to the streets of Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd, setting fire to a police station, a Japanese restaurant, and a low-income tenement building (among others), then-Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., raised money for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which posted bail on behalf of the rioters.
Now that Harris, Joe Biden’s vice president and the presumptive Democratic nominee, has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Americans may wonder about his position on the Minnesota Freedom Fund. As it turns out, Walz tapped the fund’s executive director for the state’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission.
Unfortunately, Walz’s office did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the matter. The Minnesota Freedom Fund also did not respond to The Daily Signal’s questions about whether Walz supported the fund to bail out rioters.
Harris infamously urged followers to contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, urging them to “help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” after rioters ravaged Minneapolis following Floyd’s death in police custody.
Fact-checkers later established that Harris didn’t personally donate to the Freedom Fund, although at the time she and others helped direct more than $40 million to the organization.
Walz, first elected governor in 2018, doesn’t appear to have made any such public call for donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. However, he did grant one of the organization’s leaders a position in his administration.
In May 2019, Tonja Honsey, executive director of the fund, joined Minnesota’s Sentencing Guildelines Commission. The sentencing commission’s 13 members represent both the criminal justice system and the general public. They include judges, a public defender, a county attorney, a peace officer, an academic, and three members of the public.
The governor appoints all commissioners except the judicial representatives. Honsey, a public member who spent time in jail for possessing controlled substances, served on the commission from 2019 to 2023.
“I say that I’m an incarceration survivor,” Honsey told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2019. “The shift needs to turn from people who have gone to school to learn about reentry, to where people who are directly impacted need to be the ones leading,” Honsey added. “And not just brought in for a focus group. We actually need to be leading the charge.”
In June 2020, the Minnesota Freedom Fund fired Honsey after she admitted that she had lied about her ancestry. She falsely had described herself as indigenous, and later faced condemnation for misappropriating a Native American heritage and bloodline.
“The Minnesota Freedom Fund’s work is part of a larger movement to end the harms of money bail and jailing people for poverty,” the organization said in a public statement that since has been deleted from the website (but preserved on the Internet Archive here).
“As a collective effort, our mission has never relied on a single person and calls us to step up around issues of equity and truth,” the fund said, adding: “We know we must do better to address systemic racism, both internally in our work and with the community.”
According to the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, Honsey’s nonprofit, We Rise!, disbanded. The American Indian Prison Project put out a statement repudiating her.
In 2019, the Open Society Foundations awarded Honsey a Soros Justice Fellowship. Open Society did not respond to a request for comment.
A LinkedIn profile bearing Honsey’s name and history mentions Ladies of Hope Ministries as her current employer. Ladies of Hope Ministries did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The Daily Signal was unable to reach Honsey for comment.
Who Does the Fund Help?
The Minnesota Freedom Fund opposes cash bail and pays to secure the freedom of those charged with various crimes.
“Right now, the cash bail and immigration detention systems jail legally innocent people simply because they can’t afford their freedom, while wealthy people go free,” the organization’s website states. “Until we abolish wealth-based pre-trial and immigration detention in our state, Minnesota Freedom Fund will be here to level the playing field.”
The Minnesota Freedom Fund has paid $21.2 million in cash bail, freed 2,537 people from being jailed before trial, paid $4.8 million for immigration bonds, and freed another 463 people from immigration detention, according to the website. The organization faces criticism for bailing out potentially violent defendants who pose a threat to the community. It bailed out Timothy Wayne Columbus, who faced 30 years in prison for allegedly sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl in July 2020, the Daily Caller reported.
It also bailed out six men facing allegations that they committed violence against women between June and August 2020. Five of them previously were convicted of charges related to domestic abuse.
The Tides Center, a liberal dark money group, funneled more than $100,000 into the Minnesota Freedom Fund between 2019 and 2021, according to IRS filings. The Tides Foundation, the Tides Center’s sister organization, represents anti-Israel rioters through its fiscally sponsored project, Palestine Legal. Tides did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Walz did not respond to questions from The Daily Signal about whether he took any actions against the Minnesota Freedom Fund to ensure that it didn’t bail out criminal defendants who could pose a threat in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Flanagan, his lieutenant governor, didn’t respond to requests for comment about the letter of recommendation she wrote for Honsey.
Erin Schniederjan is a research assistant for homeland security and Asian studies at the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
Federal Air Marshal Service whistleblowers have exposed the Transportation Security Administration’s weaponized Quiet Skies program.
The whistleblowers have come forward to the Air Marshal National Council, an advocacy council for air marshals. The whistleblowers have reported that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii—a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate—has been a target under the program, resulting in her being added to the TSA’s suspected-terrorist watchlist.
The Quiet Skies program’s purpose is to protect Americans on domestic flights from those who may present an elevated security risk. Since the TSA identified Gabbard as a “security risk,” she unknowingly had “two explosive-detection canine teams, one Transportation Security specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA supervisor, and three federal air marshals on every flight she boards.”
While the TSA claims that race and religion are not considered when enrolling someone in Quiet Skies, political affiliation is excluded from that policy. In 2022, Gabbard left the Democratic Party and became an independent, and she has been critical of both the party and the military-industrial complex.
Gabbard recently criticized the Biden-Harris administration and denounced unnecessary and endless wars. Soon after shemade her remarks, she was unknowingly assigned federal air marshals to acoompany her on her flights.
Kamala Harris is not knowledgeable or strong enough to stand up to potential adversaries, or just as importantly the unelected warmongers — i.e. the Military Industrial Complex which profits from war, and the National Security State which uses these wars as a pretext to further… pic.twitter.com/1uUS6CtGii
Biden’s out, Kamala is in. Don’t be fooled: policies won’t change. Just like Biden wasn’t the one calling the shots, Kamala Harris won’t be either. She is the new figurehead for the deep state and the maidservant of Hillary Clinton, queen of the cabal of warmongers. They will… pic.twitter.com/pdwLQwJzR8
In the Biden-Harris administration, the government has weaponized its powers to intimidate and silence political opponents. For example, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency surveilled and censored Americans on social media by colluding with Big Tech.
The House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government concluded in a report that “CISA expanded its unconstitutional practice by developing an elaborate social media censorship apparatus spanning multiple organizations, in order to facilitate the censorship of Americans’ political speech, both directly and by proxy.‘
“There is no constitutionally viable legal authority that allows CISA to engage in this or any other kind of censorship.”
Federal agencies colluding with the private sector to carry out their efforts to censor Americans who question the Establishment is a fascistic tactic. The Biden-Harris administration has also weaponized the IRS by making unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes to harass and intimidate them.
The committees listed some of the abuses committed by the IRS: “The IRS conducted an unannounced field visit to the home of journalist Matt Taibbi the same day he testified before Congress about government abuse … [and] an IRS agent gave a fake name and used deception to gain entry into the home of an Ohio taxpayer and then threatened her when asked to leave.”
Since such abuses by the IRS were exposed by Congress, it has stopped making unannounced visits to the homes of taxpayers.
A third example of the weaponization of government by the Biden-Harris administration occurred when the FBI targeted traditional Catholics and categorized them as domestic terrorists. The committees found that “the FBI abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists … . [T]he FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to develop its assessment, and the FBI even proposed developing sources among the Catholic clergy and church leadership.”
The administrative state finds virtuous Americans who want what is good for their families, communities, and country to be the ultimate threat.
The Biden-Harris administration is no stranger to weaponizing government agencies against Americans who want to live peaceful and prosperous lives. Federal agencies, under the aegis of the Left, have targeted Americans for opposing the administrative state.
The Federal Air Marshal Service whistleblowers have exposed the latest instance of a weaponized agency targeting Americans, and there are more targeted individuals to be announced, the Air Marshal National Council promised Sunday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has introduced the “No Kings Act” with great fanfare and the support of most of his Democratic colleagues. Liberal groups have heralded the measure to legislatively reverse the ruling in Trump v. United States. It is obviously popular with the press and pundits. It is also entirely unconstitutional in my view. The “No Kings Act” is not just a cynical abdication of responsibility by Democrats but would constitute the virtual decapitation of the Constitution.
I have previously written about the false claims made about the Supreme Court’s decision by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other leading democrats. The press and pundits have reached a new level of sensationalism and hysteria in the coverage with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even claiming that it was a “death squad ruling.”
The Trump Decision
The Court actually rejected the most extreme positions of both the Trump team and the lower courts.
As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.
In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress.
In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.
Where the coverage has been wildly inaccurate, the No Kings Act is cynically dishonest.
To his credit, President Joe Biden was at least honest in proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision in Trump. However, that was dead on arrival in Congress since under Article V it would require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses and then ratification by three-fourths of the states.
The Democrats are seeking to circumvent that process with simple majority votes with the No Kings Act. The bill is being presented as a jurisdiction-stripping measure, not an effort to dictate outcomes.
Congress does have authority to change the jurisdiction of the federal courts. That authority was recognized by the Court itself in Ex parte McCardle (1869). Chief Justice Salmon Chase ruled that it did have the authority “to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court.” However, Chase also emphasized that the law did “not affect the jurisdiction which was previously exercised” so that prior decisions would remain fully enforceable.
Moreover, shortly after McCardle, the Court ruled in United States v. Klein (1871), that Congress may not use its authority of court jurisdiction to lay out a “rule of decision” for the Supreme Court, or effectively dictate results in court cases.
The No Kings Act
The No Kings Act does more than just strip jurisdiction and makes no secret of its purpose in dictating the outcome of future cases.
It purports in Section 2 to “clarify that a President or Vice President is not entitled to any form of immunity from criminal prosecution for violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”
That is a rather Orwellian view of “clarification” since it directly contradicts the opinion in declaring in the very next section that “[a] President, former President, Vice President, or former Vice President shall not be entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”
Schumer and most of the Democratic senators actually believe that they can simply instruct lower courts to ignore a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of the Constitution. It would undermine the basis of Marbury v. Madison after 221 years.
To be sure, it is stated in strictly jurisdictional terms. Yet, it crafts the jurisdictional changes to mirror the decision and future immunity claims.
The bill declares that federal courts “may not consider whether an alleged violation of any criminal laws of the United States committed by a President or Vice President was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President unless directed by Congress.”
But the Democrats are not done yet. Section 4 actually removes the Supreme Court from such questions and makes appellate courts the effective highest courts of the land when it comes to presidential immunity:
“The Supreme Court of the United States shall have no appellate jurisdiction, on the basis that an alleged criminal act was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or on the basis that an alleged criminal act was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President.”
Notably, this is one of the wacky ideas put forward by the President’s Supreme Court Commission. After all, why pack the Court if you can just gut it?
Of course, some sponsors like Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) want to both pack the Court and strip it of authority. Presumably, once packed, the authority to act as a court would be at least restored with the liberal majority.
By making the D.C. Circuit (where most of these cases are likely to be litigated) the highest court of the land on the question, the Democrats are engaging in the rawest form of forum shopping. The D.C. Circuit is expected to remain in the control of Democratic appointees for years. (The Act expressly makes the D.C. courts the only place to bring a civil action in this area and states that “a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shall be final and not appealable to the Supreme Court of the United States.”)
The Supreme Court of the United States shall have no appellate jurisdiction to declare any provision of this Act (including this section) unconstitutional or to bar or restrain the enforcement or application of any provision of this Act (including this section) on the ground of its unconstitutionality.
But wait there is more.
The No Kings Act reads like a fairy tale read by Democratic senators to their grandchildren at night. Not only would the evil conservative justices be vanquished by a lower court controlled by Democratic appointees, but the bill is filled with other wish list items from the far left. It would strip the Court of the ability to take other cases, to dismiss a criminal proceeding, to suppress evidence, and to grant a writ of habeas corpus, or “the Great Writ” that is the foundation of Anglo-American law for centuries.
The Democrats even legislatively dictate that any review of the law must meet a standard of its choosing. They dictate that “[a] court of the United States shall presume that a provision of this Act (including this section) or the enforcement or application of any such provision is constitutional unless it is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that such provision or its enforcement or application is unconstitutional.” Thus, even the clear and convincing provision of the Act must be subject to a clear and convincing evidence review.
The Death of Marbury?
Again, Democrats are insisting that they are merely changing the jurisdiction of the Court and not ordering outcomes. However, the sponsors make clear that this is meant to “reaffirm that the President is not immune to legal accountability.” Sponsors like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) declared that “Congress has the power to undo the damage of this decision” by a “captured Court.”
The greatest irony is that the Democrats are practically reverting to the position of critics of Marbury v. Madison, who argued that the Framers never intended the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter of what the law means. That principle has been the touchstone of American law since 1803, but the Democrats would now effectively revert to the English approach under the guise of jurisdiction stripping legislation. Before the Revolution, the Parliament could dictate what the law meant on such cases, overriding the courts. On a practical level, the Democrats would regress to that pre-Marbury approach.
Marbury introduced a critical stabilizing element in our system that contributed greatly to the oldest and most successful constitutional system in history. Democrats would now toss much of that aside in a spasm of partisan anger. Calling the No Kings Act a jurisdiction stripping bill does not conceal its intent or its implications for our system.
It is all a rather curious position for the party that claims to be defending the rule of law. The No Kings Act would constitute a radical change in our constitutional system to allow popular justice to be meted out through legislative fiat.
Sponsors like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., previously promised a “revolution” if the conservatives did not rule as the Democrats demanded. They have now fulfilled those threats, though few expected that they would undo the work following our own Revolution.
Just to be sure that the sponsorship of this infamous legislation is not soon forgotten, here are the senators willing to adopt this Constitution-destroying measure:
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Jack Reed (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Peter Welch (D-VT), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Bob Casey (D-PA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Angus King (I-ME), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Raphael Warnock (D-GA).
A.F. Branco Cartoon—Governor Walz of Minnesota is Kamala’s pick for her vice presidential running mate for 2024. Walz is further to the left than Harris, which has many people scratching their heads. He’s for no parental consent for child transgender surgery, open borders, divers licenses, free medical care for illegals, pro-Palestine, etc. Walz also mandated Tampon dispensers in boys’ bathrooms.
Flashback: VP Pick Tim Walz Smiles for Cameras as He Signs Bill That Gives Illegal Immigrants Drivers Licenses
By Michael Austin – The Western Journal – Aug 6, 2024
On Tuesday, a leak revealed who Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen as her running mate for the November presidential election. Many were shocked to learn Harris opted not to pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a more moderate-appearing candidate who could have helped Democrats carry Pennsylvania and other key swing states. Instead, Harris opted to go with Minnesota’s radical Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. That pick is already coming back to haunt her as Walz’s radical policies are brought to light. 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.
Following weeks of speculation, Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Tuesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be her 2024 running mate, creating the most radically left presidential ticket in modern history.
“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate,” Harris wrote on X. “It’s great to have him on the team.”
Tuesday’s pick surprised many political analysts, who viewed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as the likely candidate to run alongside Harris. While governor of a key battleground state, Shapiro’s Jewish heritage and prior support for Israel prompted America’s corrupt media to speculate that his presence on the 2024 ticket would discourage the antisemitic wing of the Democrat Party from voting in the November contest.
Much like their bid to sanitize Harris’ extreme record, left-wing activists masquerading as journalists will undoubtedly work to whitewash Walz’s radical tenure as Minnesota’s governor.
In 2020, Walz reportedly delayed sending the National Guard to Minneapolis to stop riots that broke out in response to the death of George Floyd. According to the Star Tribune, “dozens of buildings had been looted and torched” by the time Walz’s government deployed the Guard to quell the violence.
Gov. Tim Walz's reaction the BLM riots:
"A society that does not put equity and inclusion first will come to this result"
Walz displayed his affinity for authoritarian policies that same year when instituting draconian Covid restrictions. In March 2020, he unliterally implemented a statewide stay-at-home order for all Minnesotans, closing schools, restaurants, and churches in the process.
During the state’s reopening phase a few months later, the Democrat governor allowed venues such as bars and tattoo parlors to open their doors for business, while still demanding places of worship remain closed. Residents who defied the state’s overreaching edicts were subsequently charged and jailed.
Walz also instituted statewide mask mandates, presided over a $250 million fraud scheme involving the misuse of Covid funds, and kept children — the least at-risk demographic for Covid mortality — out of school for months.
But the Democrat governor’s radical track record doesn’t stop there. Walz has signed virtually every piece of extreme legislation sent to his desk after state Democrats took unified control of the Minnesota Legislature during the 2022 midterms.
In recent years, he’s signed bills allowing abortions up until the moment of birth; banning“private conversations between therapists and patients struggling with their sex and sexuality;” making Minnesota “carbon-free” by 2040; permitting women from other states to travel to Minnesota to obtain abortions; granting 55,000 felons “voting rights;” allowing “trans” surgeries for minors; and allowing minors from other states to receive harmful “trans” procedures in Minnesota.
On immigration, Walz has been a major supporter of sanctuary cities and states. He also previously signed legislation allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and reportedly backed efforts to provide aliens in the state with taxpayer-funded health care and college tuition. During a previous CNN interview, he promoted the idea of investing in a “ladder factory” to help illegals scale President Trump’s border wall.
FLASHBACK: Kamala’s VP pick, Tim Walz, says he should invest in a "ladder factory" to help illegal aliens climb the border wall
To put the cherry on top, Walz previously downplayed the dangers of socialism — a state-run economic policy responsible for the deaths of millions worldwide.
“Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” Walz said. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
Top Kamala VP contender Tim Walz: "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/DHVSo37jsZ
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on August 2, 2024, shows US Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, DC on July 22, 2024, and Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz in Washington, DC, July 3, 2024. Harris picked Walz as her running mate on August 6, 2024, US media reported, as the vice president prepares to take on Republican Donald Trump in November’s US election. (Photo by Jim WATSON and Chris Kleponis / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSONCHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP via Getty Images)
As Democrats and media outlets accuse former President Donald Trump of dramatizing the Democratic abortion agenda, data from the Minnesota Department of Health shows that at least eight babies who survived abortions in the state were left to die. Under a 2015 Minnesota law, the state formerly was required to report whether abortions resulted in the live birth of a baby, what actions were taken to preserve the life of that baby, and whether the baby survived.
Those reporting requirements exposed that between Jan. 1, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2021, physicians performed five abortions that resulted in a baby’s live birth.
No measures were taken to help the first baby, who reportedly had “fetal anomalies” that resulted “in death shortly after delivery.” Two of the babies were given “comfort care measures” as they died. No measures were taken to “preserve life” of the last two babies, who were previable.
Previous data from the Minnesota Department of Health reveals that physicians have been leaving babies to die after failed abortions for years. In 2020, no babies were reported born alive through botched abortions, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
But between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2019, three abortions resulted in born-alive babies who were then allowed to die. The first baby reportedly had “fetal anomalies” but also had “residual cardiac activity” for two minutes, yet no efforts were taken to preserve that baby’s life, and “the infant did not survive.”
The second baby died while “comfort care measures” were provided. The third baby was previable and did not receive any attempts to preserve his or her life. It does not appear that any of the babies born alive in botched abortions survived.
Due to efforts by the state’s Democratic governor, who served from 2019 until the present, Minnesota will no longer even keep track of born-alive babies. Tim Walz, the new Democratic vice presidential nominee, repealed the bipartisan measure in May 2023, stripping the state’s requirement that measure be taken to preserve the baby’s “life and health” and merely replacing it with a nebulous requirement for “care.”
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has refused to specify any limitations on abortion or protections for unborn babies that she would support, indicating that her campaign does not, in fact, support any restrictions on abortion.
When Trump has pointed out that some states leave babies to die after birth, stating, “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth,” outlets like CNN rate such claims as “false,” writing: “No state has passed or is passing a law that allows the execution of a baby after it is born.”
Trump was 💯% correct. Post-birth abortion is real and Harris-Walz support it. At least 5 babies were born alive after botched abortions and left to die under Walz’s watch. Two of these struggling babies were given “comfort care” instead of medical care allegedly in violation of… pic.twitter.com/OMrwWaK0NU
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Post-birth abortion is real and Harris-Walz support it,”tweeted The Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino. “At least 5 babies were born alive after botched abortions and left to die under Walz’s watch. Two of these struggling babies were given ‘comfort care’ instead of medical care allegedly in violation of state law.”
“How did Walz respond?” he continued. “By repealing the very law exposing and outlawing this horror and replacing it with abortion-on-demand on the front end, and infanticide on the back end.”
Gov. Tim Walz is so extreme on abortion that Nancy Pelosi once told him that he needs to “tone it down” & be more moderate.
Don’t vote for the ticket that will allow babies to die up until the moment of birth, and in some cases, even after birth. pic.twitter.com/FjtlEepfPg
In January 2023, Walz signed a broad abortion law that included no limitations on how late during pregnancy a mother may end the life of her unborn baby.
“To Minnesotans, know that your access to reproductive health, and your right to make your own health care decisions, are preserved and protected,” Walz said then of the Protect Reproductive Options Act. “And because of this law, that won’t change with the political winds and the makeup of the Supreme Court.”
The legislation reads: “Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care.”
“Reproductive health care” is a euphemism for abortion.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, tapped Tuesday by Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris as her running mate, speaks Jan. 24 at Earth Rider Brewery in Superior, Wisconsin. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Democrats’ new running mate for presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris signed a bill last year allowing illegal immigrants to receive Minnesota driver’s licenses. In March 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation allowing Minnesota residents to apply for and attain standard state driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status.
“Ensuring drivers in our state are licensed and carry insurance makes the roads safer for all Minnesotans,” Walz said in a written statement at the time. “As a longtime supporter of this bill, I am proud to finally sign it into law, making our roads safer and moving us toward our goal of making Minnesota the best state to raise a family for everyone.”
Harris announced Tuesday that Walz is her pick for vice president going into the Democratic National Convention, which opens Aug. 19. Minnesota is home to at least 81,000 illegal immigrants, according to the governor’s office, which touted the bill as a means to “increase safety across Minnesota by ensuring that all drivers are licensed, insured, and have taken driver’s education courses.” Minnesota driver’s licenses don’t note immigration status on the physical card, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
Veena Iyer, executive director of the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota, celebrated Walz’s support for the legislation as “a major victory” after it passed the Minnesota House and Senate.
“Access to driver’s licenses is important for public safety, economic growth, and the dignity of our community members,” Iyer said in a public statement March 6, 2023, a day before Walz signed the bill into law.
In 2003, then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, took action to block illegal aliens from receiving driver’s licenses in Minnesota. Now, though, under the Driver’s License for All law, there is no need “to show proof of legal presence in the United States to get a standard Minnesota class D driver’s license, instruction permit or standard identification (ID) card,” according to the website for the state’s Driver and Vehicle Services.
During a recent interview on CNN, Walz discussed his opposition to what he called the “Trump border wall,” saying: “If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory.”
Donald Trump sunk the bipartisan border security bill so he could run on the issue. He’d rather play politics for his benefit than secure our border. Kamala Harris will make sure we pass the damn thing. pic.twitter.com/bKLWUyyFWa
Also last year, Walz backed state legislation to allow illegal aliens to receive free college tuition at Minnesota public colleges. The governor also supported legislation allowing illegal immigrants to enroll in MinnesotaCare, the state’s subsidized health care program. Walz signed the bill into law, and it will take effect in January.
We have been discussing media rating systems being used to target advertisers and revenue sources for certain cites and companies. NewsGuard and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) have been criticized as the most sophisticated components of a modern blacklisting system targeting conservative or dissenting voices. I recently had a series of exchanges with NewsGuard after a critical column. Now, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is moving forward in demanding documents and records from leading companies utilizing the GARM system, a company that I have previously criticized. It is a welcomed effort for anyone who is concerned over the use of these blacklisting systems to curtail free speech. However, time is of the essence.
The demand to preserve evidence went to various companies, including Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors.
In my new book, I discuss the rating systems as a new and insidious form of blacklisting. Notably, Elon Musk has now filed a lawsuit against GARM and may be able to get more evidence out in discovery on the operations of this outfit.
It is an effort to strangle the financial life out of sites by targeting their donors and advertisers. This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.
Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
Once GDI’s work and bias was disclosed, government officials quickly disavowed the funding. It was a familiar pattern. Within a few years, we found that the work had been shifted instead to groups like the GARM, which is the same thing on steroids. It is the creation of a powerful and largely unknown group called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which has huge sway over the advertising industry and was quickly used by liberal activists to silence opposing views and sites by cutting off their revenue streams.
Notably, Rob Rakowitz, head of GARM, pushed GDI and embraced its work. In an email to GARM members obtained by the committee last month, Rakowitz wrote that he wanted to “ensure you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI — both partners to GARM and many of our members.”
GARM is being used by WFA to achieve what GDI failed to accomplish. The WFA site refers to Rakowitz as “a career change agent” who will “remove harmful content from ad-supported digital media.”
Rakowitz’s views on free speech are chilling and his work shows how these systems can be used to conceal bias in targeting the revenue of sites with opposing views.
Rakowitz has denounced the “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and how civil libertarians cite “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).”
He appears to be referring to free speech. If so, it is deeply troubling. Some of us believe that free speech is a human right, not just an American right. Those “white men” include philosophers from the Enlightenment whose ideas were incorporated in the Framer’s view of inalienable rights like free speech.
The threat against free speech today is being led by private groups seeking to exercise an unprecedented level of control over what people can read and discuss.
Pundits and politicians, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, have justified their calls for censorship (or “content moderation” for polite company) by stressing that the First Amendment only applies to the government, not private companies. That distinction allows Obama to declare himself to be “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist.” He did not call himself a “free speech absolutist” because he favors censorship for views that he considers to be “lies,” “disinformation,” or “quackery.”
The distinction has always been a disingenuous evasion. The First Amendment is not the sole or exclusive definition of free speech. Censorship on social media is equally, if not more, damaging for free speech. Those who value free speech should oppose blacklisting systems, as was the case during the McCarthy period. Now that conservatives and libertarians are being blacklisted, it is suddenly less troubling for many on the left.
Rakowitz now wields massive influence over public discourse in this collaboration with corporations and groups like GDI. As was done to the left during the McCarthy period, blacklisting systems are now being used to control public access to information by choking off the revenue of sites.
The current anti-free speech movement is the most dangerous in history due precisely to this sophistication and the unprecedented alliance of corporate, media, academic, and government interests.
GARM and other media rating systems have been embraced by many who would prefer to silence opposing voices than respond to them. Rakowitz was wildly popular at Davos in calling for a “safer” Internet that would target dangerous sites much like GDI: “GARM has been officially recognized as a key project for 2020 within the WEF’s platform on Shaping the Future of Media Entertainment and Culture.”
The House committees are pushing forward with a sense of urgency. It is clear that the investigations in government-supported censorship and these blacklisting operations will end if the Democrats retake the house. It is expected that these companies will seek to delay any disclosures in the hope that the House will change hands and this system will again be allowed to recede back into the darkness.
A.F. Branco Cartoons – Showing the best of Governor Tim Walz lampooned in cartoons. Be sure to check out more Walz toons in the archives. Kamala and Walz are two of the most radical leftist politicians in America today. Feel free to post any of these at will on social media. Let’s get the word out!
Mayors in Arizona and Texas said every section of the border has different needs, making it imperative that the next president visit the U.S.-Mexico border.
EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 100 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list have been released into the United States during the Biden administration, while Border Patrol agents have encountered migrants on the watch list from dozens of different countries, a new House report is revealing.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, of the more than 250 illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist who were encountered by Border Patrol at the southwest border between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, DHS has released into American communities at least 99, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the United States,” the report by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, a copy of which was first obtained by Fox News Digital, says.
The staff interim report also found that immigration judges granted bond to at least 27 migrants on the watchlist who entered illegally, and that Border Patrol has encountered tens of thousands of migrants from countries that could present national security risks – including 2,134 Afghan nationals, 33,347 Chinese nationals, 541 Iranian nationals, 520 Syrian nationals, and 3,104 Uzbek nationals.
The report was written by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“That does not include the untold numbers of potential terrorists that evaded Border Patrol to enter the United States as part of nearly 2 million ‘gotaways’ since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration,” the report says.
The report, citing information provided to committee staff in June, also found that Border Patrol had encountered migrants on the terror watchlist from 36 different countries — including places with active terror presences. Those countries include Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan and Yemen.
The Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) contains sensitive information on terrorist identities. It initially contained only known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but now also includes additional individuals who represent a “potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”
The concern about potential terrorists has grown amid the ongoing crisis at the southern border, where record numbers of migrants have been encountered since the Biden administration took office in 2021. The number of encounters on the watchlist has grown significantly as well, with the committee report finding a more than 3,000% increase of encounters.
SAN DIEGO, CA – JUNE 13: Migrants are processed by the U.S. Border Patrol near the Jacumba Hot Springs after crossing the US-Mexico border on June 13, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has accused Republicans of not providing enough funding and reforms to a “broken” system, while Republicans have put the crisis down to the rolling back of Trump-era policies by the Democratic administration. But officials have warned about the risk that terrorists may seek to enter in through the southern border. That was on display when DHS identified over 400 individuals brought to the U.S. from Eastern European and Central Asian countries by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network in the past several months.
That came after eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to ISIS were busted by federal authorities in New York City, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All eight came in via the southern border illegally, but no derogatory information was flagged during processing, sources told Fox.
The Judiciary Committee report revealed that of those eight Tajikistan nationals, three were released after using the CBP One phone application to schedule an appointment and four were encountered by Border Patrol.
“Although American communities already feel the disastrous effects of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration policies, the worst could still be yet to come,” the staff interim report alleges.
“With national security experts and immigration officials increasingly concerned about the threat of terrorism originating from the border, it is clear that policymakers must take all necessary steps to secure the border and stop the flow of illegal aliens. However, the Biden-Harris Administration has refused to address the national security nightmare created by its radical, open-borders agenda,” it said.
Fox News Digital reached out to DHS
Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
Louisiana’s attorney general announced Monday that she is asking a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the state’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public-school classroom by Jan. 1.
The suit was filed in June by parents of Louisiana public school children with various religious backgrounds who contend the law violates First Amendment language forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty. Proponents of the law argue that it is not solely religious but that the Ten Commandments have historical significance to the foundation of U.S. law.
As kids in Louisiana prepare to return to school this month, state officials presented large examples of posters featuring the Ten Commandments that Attorney General Liz Murrill argues “constitutionally comply with the law.” The Republican said she is not aware of any school districts that have begun to implement the mandate, as the posters “haven’t been produced yet.”
Murrill said the court brief being filed, which was not immediately available, argues that “the lawsuit is premature and the plaintiffs cannot prove that they have any actual injury.”
“That’s because they don’t allege to have seen any displays yet and they certainly can’t allege that they have seen any display of the Ten Commandments that violates their constitutional rights,” she added.
Murrill pointed to more than a dozen posters on display during Monday’s press conference to support her argument that the displays can be done constitutionally. Some of the posters featured quotes or images of famous figures — late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Martin Luther King Jr., Moses and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.
No matter what the poster looked like, the main focal point was the Ten Commandments. Additionally, each display, at the bottom in small print, included a “context statement” that describes how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the legislation in June — making Louisiana the only state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in the classrooms of all public schools and state-funded universities. The measure was part of a slew of conservative priorities that became law this year in Louisiana.
When asked what he would say to parents who are upset about the Ten Commandments being displayed in their child’s classroom, the governor replied: “If those posters are in school and they (parents) find them so vulgar, just tell the child not to look at it.”
In an agreement reached by the court and state last month, the five schools specifically listed in the lawsuit will not post the commandments in classrooms before Nov. 15 and won’t make rules governing the law’s implementation before then. The deadline to comply, Jan. 1, 2025, remains in place for schools across the state.
Louisiana’s new law does not require school systems to spend public money on Ten Commandments posters. It allows the systems to accept donated posters or money to pay for the displays. Questions still linger about how the requirement will be enforced and what happens if there are not enough donations to fund the mandate.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and his wife Usha Vance attend the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)
Harold Hutchison is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Usha Vance said during an interview that aired Monday that critics of Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio focused on a “quip” about childless women to avoid discussing issues and policies that result in parents having a “really hard” time raising children.
Democrats attacked Vance over comments about “childless cat ladies” in a Fox News interview and remarks in a July 2021 speech about women who didn’t have children that have resurfaced since former President Donald Trumpchose the “Hillbilly Elegy” author to be his running mate. Vance told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt that the then-Senate candidate had been explaining the difficulties of being a parent.
“I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was and all that, which is something I really wish people would do a little bit more often. And the reality is, he made a quip in service of making a point he wanted to the make that was substantive and it had actual meaning,” Usha Vance told Earhardt.
“And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase because what he was really saying it can be really hard to be a parent in this country and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder,” Vance continued. “And we should be asking ourselves why is that true? What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it hard sometimes for parents? That’s the conversation that I really think we should have, and I understand why he was saying that.”
Vance also pushed back on those who claimed the Republican vice-presidential nominee was trying to offend people with the comments.
“JD absolutely at the time and today would never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family who really, you know, was struggling with that he made that clear at the time,” Vance said. “He has made that clear today and we have lots of friends who have been in that position. It is challenging and never, ever anything that anyone would want to mock or make fun of.”
JD Vance made clear he excluded couples struggling with infertility from his criticism of the “childless left” in his 2021 speech, according to Snopes.com.
“And I also understand there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families and many of those reasons are very good,” Usha Vance continued. “I think what I would say is let’s try to look at the real conversation he is trying to have and engage with it and understand for those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families and for whom it’s really hard, what can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it easier to live in 2024?”
Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.8% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from July 22 to Aug. 2, with Harris taking a slight lead of 0.2% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included in surveys.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Governor Walz says, “One person’s socialism is another is another person’s neighborliness.” In his effort to support Kamala, who is to the left of Bernie Sanders. Walz is a contender for her V.P. running mate.
REPORT: Kamala Harris Narrows Down VP List to Three Candidates – All Straight White Males!
By Ben Kew – July 28, 2024
Presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has reportedly narrowed down her list of vice-presidential picks to three candidates. According to Bloomberg, Harris is now coming up with a shortlist and will make a decision by August 7th. The Report states Vice President Kamala Harris is zeroing in on a group of potential running mates, as she faces a two-week dash to make the biggest decision of her nascent presidential bid.
Harris is considering a wide range of vice presidential candidates from the Democratic Party’s bench, though people familiar with the process say a short list has emerged including three elected officials with nationwide appeal: Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Biden’s agenda is now Kamala’s agenda, but worse. Her 30-year record in politics is a disaster, and her plans are to the left of Bernie Sanders no matter how the media tries to reinvent her.
Tulsi Gabbard Exposes MSNBC as a Propaganda Machine for Democrat Elite — Deceptively Edits Joe Rogan Clip to Fabricate Support for Kamala Harris
By Jim Hoft – Aug 4th, 2024
On Friday, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard launched a scathing attack on MSNBC, accusing the network of manipulating media narratives to serve the interests of the Democratic elite. In a video posted on social media, Gabbard alleged that MSNBC had deceptively edited a clip featuring podcast host Joe Rogan, misrepresenting his comments to create the illusion that he was endorsing Kamala Harris. 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.
The New Tolerance Campaign’s Hate Map plots violent and extreme left-wing groups, to balance out the anti-conservative bias of the Southern Poverty Law Center. (New Tolerance Campaign website screenshot)
A new nonprofit organization has released a map revealing leftist groups spewing hate and inspiring violence, countering the narrative that all animus and political violence comes from the Right. The map aims to balance the notorious far-left bias of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy and creating a map to monitor Klan groups and others it claimed were fellow travelers.
The SPLC’s “hate map” has since grown to include many mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits that have nothing to do with hate, much less white supremacy, yet the SPLC continues to claim the map shows the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”
The New Tolerance Campaign, a nonprofit dedicated to applying equal standards of tolerance to balance the Left’s cancel culture, launched its own hate map to counter that narrative.
“I can forgive the general public for thinking that hate and violence are exclusively the domain of the far Right—that’s the message they’ve been receiving for years from much of the mass media and the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Gregory Angelo, president of the New Tolerance Campaign, told The Daily Signal. “The NTC Hate Map is designed to counter that narrative by showing the volume of hate promoted and perpetuated on the American Left. If we’re truly going to address all hate in the United States, we need to be honest about it.”
“All of the organizations and individuals listed have promoted, inspired, or directly engaged in physical violence against those with whom they disagree,” the campaign’s webpage states. “This list was compiled through an extensive review of extremist group publications and materials, and reports by the public, law enforcement, field sources and the news media.”
By giving the veneer of objectivity but focusing only on one side of the equation, the @splcenter allows hate on the left to go unmonitored and unchecked.
— New Tolerance Campaign (@New_Tolerance) July 31, 2024
Angelo said he intends to build up the list, but the New Tolerance Campaign also maintains far more stringent rules than the SPLC. The SPLC’s 2023 “hate map” includes 1,430 organizations branded “hate groups” or “antigovernment groups.” The SPLC has faced criticism for employing a sticky definition of hate:
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization or collection of individuals that —based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. An organization does not need to have engaged in criminal conduct or have followed their speech with actual unlawful action to be labeled a hate group. We do not list individuals as hate groups, only organizations.
As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC applies this definition overly broadly against conservatives and far too narrowly for any group on the Left. Among other things, the SPLC has cited as “hate” a Roman Catholic leader’s decision to cite the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This suggests the SPLC should brand the entire Catholic Church a “hate group” if it were to be consistent. The SPLC branded an openly gay group an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” earlier this year because the gay group opposes the sexualization of children.
Although the SPLC does include the antisemitic Nation of Islam on its “hate map,” the rioters with Antifa and Black Lives Matter or pro-abortion agitators with Jane’s Revenge don’t make an appearance. Students for Justice in Palestine, a notorious anti-Israel group that often engages in harassment of Jewish students on college campuses, is also conspicuously absent from the SPLC map.
The NTC Hate Map may include less than a fifth of the number of groups as the SPLC’s map, but it manages to correct SPLC’s most egregious oversights. The map includes Black Lives Matter and Jane’s Revenge, along with 12 chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and 12 Antifa groups (including Portland’s infamous “Rose City Antifa”). Students for Justice in Palestine has over 250 chapters, so NTC chose which chapters to include by examining evidence of direct antisemitic attacks and violence.
The campaign’s map also includes Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the organizations behind the anti-Israel riots on college campuses earlier this year, and the John Brown Gun Club, a leftist pro-gun group that frequently associates with Antifa, the anti-police movement, and other leftist causes.
Perhaps most notably, the NTC Hate Map includes the Southern Poverty Law Center itself. A terrorist used the SPLC’s “hate map” to target a conservative Christian nonprofit for an attempted mass shooting in 2012. The man, convicted on terrorism charges, confessed to using SPLC’s map to target the Family Research Council.
Amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal in 2019, a former SPLC employee said the organization’s “hate” accusations were a “highly profitable scam” to bilk donors. The SPLC has faced many defamation lawsuits over its accusations, and one of those lawsuits—brought by the Dustin Inman Society—has made it to the discovery process, heading toward trial.
The NTC Hate Map may be new, but it already shows signs of beating the SPLC at its own game.
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during the Sigma Gamma Rho’s 60th International Biennial Boule in Houston, July 31, 2024. (Brandon Bell via Getty Images)
A conservative legal organization has launched seven investigations into Vice President Kamala Harris’ record of service in California state government.
“The American people deserve to know the facts about Kamala Harris’ time in California government,” a spokesperson for America First Legal told The Daily Signal.
Harris, now the presumed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, served in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in the 1990s. In 2004, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco before being elected attorney general of California in 2010, a role she served in until being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2017.
Over her more than 25 years in California government, “America First Legal’s research and information, based on public reporting, reveals evidence of alleged malfeasance and misconduct,” according to the Washington, D.C.-based legal group.
“Each step up the ladder of her career appears marked by improprieties or scandal,” Dan Epstein, America First Legal vice president, said of Harris in a statement.
With a pledge to “fight for transparency,” America First Legal has filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information on Harris’ record with the California Office of the Attorney General; the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office; the Oakland, California, Board of Supervisors; the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board; the California Department of Health Care Services; and the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
“Should the government fail to turn over these records, we will be left with no choice but to consider pursuing legal action to obtain them,” the group’s spokesperson told The Daily Signal.
Each of the seven investigations examine a “failure” of Harris’ during her long service in California government.
‘Failure to Comply With Federal Law Protecting Donor Privacy’
During Harris’ tenure as attorney general, California required organizations receiving donations to “file copies of their federal IRS Form 990 tax forms,” according to an America First Legal news release announcing the seven investigations.
“These forms include a list of all donors who contributed at least $5,000 to the charity in a given year,” the legal group explains. But, in 2021, the Supreme Court held in the case of Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta that mandatory disclosures were a violation of the First Amendment.
America First Legal says it believes that Harris may have “sought donor information about her political enemies without complying with federal law designed to protect donor privacy.”
‘Failure to Enforce Federal Immigration Laws’
In 2012, while serving as attorney general, Harris issued a bulletin to law enforcement in California regarding an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program called Secure Communities that enables ICE to detain and deport criminal illegal aliens. In the bulletin, Harris told law enforcement that they were not required to fulfill individual ICE immigration detainers but could instead “make their own decisions” about detainer requests.
“As California attorney general, Kamala Harris interfered with the enforcement of federal immigration laws,” according to America First Legal, adding that “as California’s top cop,” Harris may have “failed to enforce immigration laws and used her office to push a political agenda paid for by taxpayers.”
‘Failure to Pursue Equal Justice Under the Law’
In 2004, black gang member David Hill shot and killed San Francisco police officer Isaac Espinoza. Harris, who was the district attorney of San Francisco at the time, did not pursue the death penalty.
America First Legal says it is concerned that “Kamala Harris failed to do justice when cop killers and gang members were members of minority groups.”
‘Failure to Disclose Conflicts of Interest’
While Harris was serving as a prosecuting attorney in Alameda County in the 1990s, she was in a romantic relationship with California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. America First Legal holds that the relationship was a “conflict of interest.”
The group “is concerned that Kamala Harris benefited from political favoritism and is investigating whether Harris properly recused herself or otherwise disclosed conflicts of interest to the appropriate ethical authorities.”
‘Failure to Address Evidence of Misconduct’
In 2015, Harris began a criminal investigation into corruption inside Orange County’s jails.
“Clear evidence existed that deputy sheriffs in the county had misused informants in a manner that violated the rights of criminal defendants,” according to America First Legal. “Four years later, no charges were filed.”
The legal group believes Harris may have “ignored clear evidence of misconduct over a penal entity under her jurisdiction.”
‘Nature of Probes by California Fair Political Practices Commission’
The California Fair Political Practices Commission determined in 2015 that Harris had not violated state law when she received “gifts from a company owned by San Francisco interior designer Ken Fulk,” according to America First Legal.
But the legal group is “concerned that former Attorney General Harris may have been subject to numerous probes by the California Fair [Political] Practices Commission and is committed to ensuring the public is educated about such investigations.”
‘Failure to Address, and Potential Cover-up of, Evidence of Misconduct’
While Harris was serving as California attorney general, it came to light that state prosecutors had committed “outrageous government misconduct” in the case The People (of California) v. Efrain Velasco-Palacios, according to the California appeals court.
Prosecuting attorney Robert Murray falsified a confession from the defendant. After it was revealed that the confession was fake, the judge dismissed the charges against the defendant. Harris, however, appealed the case, arguing that the insertion of the false confession was not prosecutorial misconduct because it did not involve physical brutality.
Harris’ handling of the Velasco-Palacios case and others has led America First Legal to be “concerned that Kamala Harris intentionally ignored or covered up misconduct by prosecutors under her watch as well as her own close political aides.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Men, claiming to be women, are now allowed to box against real women in the 2024 Olympics, causing injuries. This is the real “war on women.”
“This is Unjust!” – ‘Biological Male’ Boxer Viciously Beats Female Opponent and Forces Her to Quit in Tears Within Seconds at Woke Olympics (VIDEO)
By Cullen Linebarger – Aug 01. 2024
This is the future Democrats led by Kamala Harris want for all female sports in America.
The Paris Olympics erupted in controversy again on Thursday after a “biological man” easily “prevailed” in an Olympic boxing match after smacking around a much smaller and weaker woman for just under a minute. This follows the Olympic organizers cruelly insulting Christians during the opening ceremonies with a Last Supper reenactment involving drag queens. 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.
A watchdog group has uncovered close to 300,000 voters registered in two or more states, including thousands of double voters.
“Registrars aren’t doing their jobs,” Linda Szynkowicz, CEO of the nonprofit Fight Voter Fraud, told The Federalist. “Stop telling me the voter rolls are fine. They’re not.”
Fight Voter Fraud found 297,856 voters registered in two or more states, according to a report released last week. Nearly all of these voters only registered in two states, but 3,112 registered in three states and 24 registered in four or more.
The report also found 3,170 people who voted at least twice in elections from 2016 to 2022. While most only double voted once, 248 double voted twice, 194 double voted three times, and 180 double voted four times.
Fight Voter Fraud’s report included data for all 50 states, of which Florida had the most double registrations — more than 37,000 — along with 312 who voted multiple times in elections. California had similar numbers, with more than 36,000 double registered, and 732 who voted multiple times. States including Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, and Texas also had over 10,000 double registrations.
Fight Voter Fraud found one individual who voted twice in North Carolina and once in Florida in 2020, according to Szynkowicz.
“This is the lowest hanging fruit,” she said.
If someone was registered for an absentee ballot in one state, but moved and registered in a new state, officials might still send the absentee ballot and someone could potentially vote in their name, according to Szynkowicz.
Fight Voter Fraud announced July 30 that more than 500 dead voters were still registered in Connecticut.
“Even with the dead people voting, whether it’s someone impersonating or someone who gets the absentee ballot request form,” Szynkowicz said, “it’s all over the place.”
Voting more than once is a violation of federal law with a penalty of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $10,000. Anyone who “knowingly or willfully” provides false information about “name, address or period of residence” in a voting district is subject to similar penalties.
The group compared the National Change of Address system with state voter rolls to find the dual registrations, then verified the results with “commercial data,” according to Szynkowicz.
“We don’t just take things and throw it against the wall to see what sticks. All of our stuff is going to stick,” she said, noting that election integrity advocates may have removed some dual registrants since the report first included them five months ago.
Because the data excludes those who did not file with the NCOA system, the report said, the “actual numbers could be significantly higher.”
“People don’t understand, you can’t be registered in more than one location,” Szynkowicz said. “They assume that if they register somewhere else — the ones who unknowingly are double registered — that they’ll automatically be removed. That’s not the case.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is originally from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
An Italian boxer’s decision to abandon her Olympic match against an Algerian fighter who was deemed to have male chromosomes has reinvigorated controversy around gender fairness.
A former Olympic boxing champion called out organizers for allowing the fight to even take place on “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday.
“It is very hard to qualify for the Olympics,” two-time Team USA Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields said.
“You have to go through so many different international tournaments, country tournaments to even make it to the Olympics. So, for me, I can understand her devastation. But it shouldn’t be ruined due to a man. And I think that the Olympics definitely dropped the ball.”
Angela Carini of Team Italy reacts after abandoning the Women’s 66kg preliminary round match against Imane Khelif of Team Algeria in the first round on day six of the 2024 Summer Olympics at North Paris Arena in Paris on Thursday. (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in Paris on Thursday after Carini abandoned the match 46 seconds after it began, saying afterward that one punch from Khelif “hurt too much” to continue.
“[At] my first Olympics, I was 17 years old, so I hadn’t even fully developed as a woman, so I couldn’t imagine getting inside the ring with a biological man,” Shields said.
“I don’t even see how the Olympics done something like this.”
Khelif fought under a firestorm of controversy regarding a failed gender eligibility test in 2023. DNA tests showed Khelif tested positive for having high levels of testosterone.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif, left, fights Italy’s Angela Carini in their women’s 66kg preliminary boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on Thursday. (AP Photo/John Locher)
“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women. According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition,” International Boxing Association president Umar Kremlev said.
Khelif and the Algerian Olympic Committee (COA) both denied the claims. The International Olympic Committee also cleared Khelif to compete in the Games.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting was also cleared to compete despite failing to meet gender eligibility standards alongside Khelif in 2023.
“It’s just unfair. I just can’t believe that it’s being done, and I just couldn’t imagine it happening to me,” Shields said.
Italy’s ANSA quoted Rosario Coco, the president of Gaynet Communications in Italy, as saying that he learned Khelif was intersex and not transgender.
“In contrast to the reports that have been circulating, the Algerian athlete Imane Khelif is not a trans woman,” Coco told the news agency.
“From the information we have about her, she is an intersex person, who has always socialized as a woman and has a sporting history in women’s competitions.”
Claressa Shields celebrates after defeating Savannah Marshall during their undisputed middleweight championship fight at The 02 Arena in London on Oct. 15, 2022. (Mark Robinson/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images)
Shields has vocalized her outrage against the decision to allow Khelif and Yu-Ting to compete in the Olympics, arguing athletes should compete against opponents of the same sex.
“I don’t have anything against transgender women or transgender men. All I’m saying is men should fight against men, women should fight against women and transgenders should fight against transgenders,” Shields stated.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
Madeline Coggins is a Digital Production Assistant on the Fox News flash team with Fox News Digital.
And now, apparently, Harris has reversed herself on many of these issues. But we haven’t actually heard her explain these flip-flops, of course. Instead, these reversals are being leaked to the press from her campaign via “unnamed sources.”
Which begs another question: It’s been more than 10 days since Harris secured enough delegates for the Democratic Party’s nomination, so why exactly hasn’t she taken one question from an actual journalist yet about any of her past positions on policy? She did “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” as her first interview as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, and her handlers continue to give her the Biden treatment… where basically the strategy is to plead the Fifth all the way to Nov. 5th.
This strategy is unsustainable, of course. Team Kamala believes they can simply ride the current sugar high for the next 95 days or so without doing one single press conference or real interview. But here’s the thing: She still trails Trump on average nationally and in almost every swing state. The Harris team is allowing Trump to define her, which is quite easy to do, given her own comments in the past.
The Republican nominee was treated with outright hostility by Rachel Scott of ABC News straight out of the gate, but Trump hammered home his points around illegal immigration impacting minorities through social services being drastically cut regarding sanitation, education and police to help pay to support those in the country illegally. Trump also underscored the cruel tax that inflation is to all communities, regardless of color.
Meanwhile, Harris decided to blow off the event and instead will do it by Zoom instead.
Why? Because her people know that if she ever had to take questions from an objective, prepared moderator, someone for example, like Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, it would be utterly disastrous to her campaign. She simply does not have the ability to think or speak extemporaneously. And her policy positions are almost indefensible.
Ultimately, this race will come down to any debates Trump and Harris have. But here’s a prediction: Trump is arguing, rightly so, that he agreed to debate Biden, not Harris, on ABC in September. But now Harris is saying the debate agreement still stands.
No, it does not. Trump and Harris are supposed to debate now, making the prior agreement with Biden null and void.
Harris says she’ll still show up to the ABC debate regardless if Trump is there. I predict the former president will hold his ground, and the vice president will declare he chickened out while also declaring that there will be no more debates because Trump is “afraid” of her, with the media cheering her on every step of the way.
And that’s the goal: Avoid Trump, and any substantive questions, at all costs. And try to eke out a win without ever being held to account.
So, who is Kamala Harris?
We may never truly know. At least not until after Election Day.
Former President Donald Trump’s outreach to minority voters and willingness to take tough questions is starting to pay off, according to Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley on Newsmax.
“I think it’s terribly important that we have a former president who has done events in the Bronx, in downtown Philadelphia,” Whatley told “Newsline.” “He has been to Detroit, then he goes to this [National Association of Black Journalists] event in Chicago and takes the tough questions. You have to ask yourself, where was Kamala Harris? If there was ever an event for her, this would have been it and she was not there.’
“She will not talk to the press. She will not take any tough questions. Donald Trump is communicating directly to every American. He’s reaching out to every single community. And I think it’s going to pay off.‘
“We are starting to see already massive shifts in Hispanic voters and Black voters and Asian American voters that are coming from the Democratic Party and supporting Donald Trump 20 points higher than they did back in 2020, because he is listening to them and cares about the issues that they care about,” he added.
When asked why the national conversation pivots so often to the topic of race, Whatley said it is because “that’s what the Democratic Party wants to talk about” and “that’s what Kamala Harris wants to talk about.”
“What Donald Trump wants to talk about is how to make America better for every American family,” Whatley said. “How are we going to lift this economy up so that it can lift every family up? How are we going to protect our southern border? How are we going to shut down this immigrant invasion that we have seen coming across into Texas and Arizona?‘
“What is it that we’re going to do on the world stage? Under Donald Trump, China was in check, Russia was in check, and we didn’t have the attacks in the Middle East that we’re watching right now. The whole Middle East is really on fire. So, we want to get back to a strong America. I think the entire country does and those are the issues that the voters care about. So, that’s what we’re going to continue to talk about.”
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
Katelynn Richardson covers courts as a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill on Thursday intended to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. The New York Democrat’s “No Kings Act” bill has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors and comes as a direct response to the Supreme Court’s Trump v. United States ruling, which found that presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts taken in office, according to ABC News. The bill would clarify that it is Congress’ responsibility to determine who federal criminal law applies to, not the Supreme Court, according to NBC News.
President Joe Biden unveiled multiple proposals on Monday to reshape the Supreme Court, including a constitutional amendment to make it clear “no president is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.”
He also proposed placing term limits on Supreme Court justices and called on Congress to pass a code of conduct for the justices.
Schumer said in a statement to NBC News that the Supreme Court’s ruling “threw out centuries of precedent and anointed Trump and subsequent presidents as kings above the law.”
“Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the Court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” Schumer said, according to NBC News. “With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation—and a constitutional authority—to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch.”
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the July 1 decision.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the majority’s decision meant “the president is now a king above the law.”
Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, we discussed the free speech case of Matthew Garrett, formerly a tenured history professor at Bakersfield College who was investigated and disciplined after he questioned the use of grant money to fund social justice initiatives. Bakersfield College has one of the worst records on free speech in higher education and has been repeatedly sued by faculty. It will now pay another $2.4 million in a settlement to subsidize the anti-free speech actions of its administration. The question is why California taxpayers continue to allow faculty and administrators to burn through millions in these efforts to punish divergent or dissenting viewpoints. Matthew Garrett will reportedly receive $2,245,480 over the next 20 years as well as an immediate one-time payment of $154,520 as “compensation for back wages and medical benefits since [his] dismissal.” Unfortunately, the college got its way in insisting that he resign from the Kern Community College District. So, it achieved greater uniformity and orthodoxy in viewpoints at the cost of millions in damages.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression supported his case and detailed in 2023 how his criticism of DEI programs made him a target of faculty and administrators:
Animosity toward Garrett by some faculty and administrators increased over the past couple years as Garrett and several other faculty members associated with the Renegade Institute for Liberty — a Bakersfield College think tank Garrett founded — joined the faculty diversity committee. Other committee members say that the Renegade faculty have made it difficult for the group to get anything done by stalling campus diversity initiatives. But it was Garrett’s comments regarding a proposed racial climate task force during a diversity committee meeting last fall that led Bakersfield to recommend Garrett’s termination.
At the October 2022 meeting of the Bakersfield Equal Opportunity and Diversity Advisory Committee, Garrett criticized a proposal by professor Paula Parks to create a racial climate task force he felt might usurp the jurisdiction of the diversity committee. He also contested the student survey data cited as justification for the proposed task force and questioned the survey’s objectivity and the lack of evidence connecting the data presented and the proposed solutions. Several other faculty members in the meeting also challenged the veracity of the survey data. But ultimately, the committee voted to approve the creation of the task force.
On Nov. 15, Parks published an op-ed in Kern Sol News accusing Garrett and other Renegade Institute-affiliated faculty of a “disturbing pattern of actions” that “created negativity and division in the name of free speech.”
We previously also discussed the case of History Professor Daymon Johnson who was put under investigation after he commented on the extremist comments of another professor. Professor Andrew Bond denounced the United States as a “sh*t nation” and then invited conservatives to quote him. In August 2019, Bond posted a statement on Facebook that:
“Maybe Trump’s comment about sh*thole countries was a statement of projection because honestly, the US is a f**king piece of sh*t nation. Go ahead and quote me, conservatives. This country has yet to live up to the ideals of its founding documents.”
[Text changes added to profanity from the original]
Johnson proceeded to do exactly what Bond suggested and quoted him on the Facebook page for the Renegade Institute for Liberty. He asked others “Do you agree with this radical SJW from BC’s English Department? Thoughts?” He then posted on his own Facebook account the following statement according to his complaint:
“Johnson then used his personal Facebook account to comment on what he had reposted: ‘Maybe he should move to China, and post this about the PRC in general or the Chinese Communist Party and see how much mileage it gets him. I wonder, do they still send the family the bill for the spent round?’”
Johnson said that the college would not allow him to read the complaint but subjected him to months of investigation.
After the investigation was finally concluded with no action by the Kern Community College District (which oversees the college), it stated that it would “investigate any further complaints of harassment and bullying and, if applicable, [taking] appropriate remedial action including but not limited to any discipline determined to be appropriate.”
That threat took on a more menacing meaning given the controversy involving John Corkins, vice president of the Board of Trustees of the Kern Community College District Board. Corkins declared in an open meeting that critics of Critical Race Theory should be “culled” from the faculty and “taken to the slaughterhouse.”
As shown by Corkins, it remains popular in California to pledge to wipe out conservatives and dissenters from faculty. There are comparably few left. Conservatives and libertarians have been gradually purged from many institutions.
A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Likewise, a study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. Another study found that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university. So, the views of roughly half of the judiciary and half of the country are treated as legitimately excluded as intellectually invalid.
We have also seen administrators and faculty treat public or private funds as a subsidy for radical policies. For example, Oberlin College abused a small family grocery store for years and racked up millions in costs and damages that it expected alumni to cover. There was no blowback for its president or administrators.
These cases continue unabated despite a long litany of losses for universities and colleges over free speech limits and faculty discipline. The reason is that it is still personally and professionally beneficial for these professors and administrators to attack those with dissenting viewpoints. While faith in higher education is at an all-time low and these schools are gushing money in litigation, there are few remaining dissenting voices on faculties and even fewer willing to resist retaliation by speaking up.
Settlements are now just a cost of doing business for the anti-free speech movement in higher education. The costs are born by taxpayers or donors who are expected to foot the bill for intellectual intolerance.
Texas won a big victory in the United States Court of Appeals in the long struggle over floating buoy barriers in the Rio Grande River to help block unlawful migration. In United States v. Abbott, the court ruled 11-7 in an en banc decision against the Biden Administration over the barrier. It is an interesting decision that included a sharp disagreement over the claim that the large numbers of migrants across the border constitute an “invasion” under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 (“[n]o state shall, without the Consent of Congress, . . . engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay”).
In its challenge, the Biden Administration claimed the placement of the buoys violated the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. The appellate panel and trial court previously ruled in favor of the federal government. However, both were overturned. The majority found that the specific stretch of the Rio Grande that was chosen by the state is not covered by the Rivers and Harbors Act because it is not “navigable.” The definition of navigable waters has long been a matter of dispute in the courts.
Yet, it was the invasion issue that had many of us watching for this decision. I have previously expressed doubts over this theory. I agree with Texas on its criticism of the Biden Administration’s disastrous handling of the border. The impact on Texas is devastating. However, I do not believe that it qualifies as an invasion under Article I.
The opinions deal with this issue in dicta rather than the central holding. Some judges felt that the court should have addressed the issue.
What is interesting is the concurring opinion of Judge James Ho that the meaning of “invasion” is a “political question.” As such, he believes that courts must defer to the Texas governor’s assertion that there is an invasion, at least so long as the governor is acting in “good faith.”
In his concurring opinion, Judge Andrew Oldham maintains that Ho is wrong about the necessity of the court in taking up the issue.
In her dissenting opinion, Judge Dana Douglas objects that this approach would have sweeping and destabilizing effects and “would enable Governor Abbott to engage in acts of war in perpetuity.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon—Biden is to pass the Democratic torch of destruction to Kamala, a woman to the left of Burnie Sanders. The country is on the verge of collapse with the Democrats’ policies of open borders, high crime, high inflation, and disastrous foreign policy.
Don’t Let Them Rewrite History: Kamala Harris Remains A Deeply Flawed Candidate With A Terrible Record
By Paul Ingrassia – July 31, 2024
Kamala Harris has always been a weak candidate, and it is imperative Republican voters never lose sight of that fact, even as the mainstream media enters overdrive and hypes her to the moon. At first blush her candidacy, which in recent weeks has been buoyed by fake news and inflated polls combined with contrived optics – make it appear as if a groundswell of support exists in the real world. But that could not be further from the truth.
That is not to dismiss the powerful forces of propaganda and the malleability – particularly of the current body politic – to readily adopt the opinions spoon-fed to them by regime agitprop outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and Google. And it is oftentimes true that in politics perception is reality – but facts are also stubborn things. 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.
It’s no wonder Leftists and other Democrats have tried to whitewash Kamala Harris record on the border from history. It’s abysmal.
Democrats apparently have short memories. They spent the last four years trying to cover for Joe Biden’s senility. And while it worked for a short time, ultimately Biden bit the dust; politically. Now Biden’s record of failure become Harris’ record of failure. And how much have these two ass clowns invested in Bidenflation?
Harris became the side-chick of Bidenflation, stupid enough to hit the road and vouch for it. Her ramblings on the virtue of massive inflation are legendary.
Below is her response to a reporter from Bloomberg, when asked about the untenable inflation caused by the Biden administration. Listen until around 1:20.
In this video, Harris promises to deal with the inflation crisis created by her and Captain Demento by “lowering the cost of prescription drugs”.
So, you may not eat or be able to afford to gas up your vehicle to get to work, but drug prices are low! I get the feeling that Biden-Harris doesn’t understand that people need some things every day, and not necessarily meds.
Grocery bills have doubled, and we are told that inflation is 12 percent. During the Biden years, the average family spent almost $11,000 per year more than under Trump. But help is on the way in the form of prescription drugs. So, hang in there America!
But what of Harris’ other failures. For example, look at her failures with electric vehicles (EV): The Biden Administration’s $7.5 billion effort to jump-start the electric-vehicle charging landscape is moving very, very slowly. Now more than two years after the program was signed into law in late 2021, only eight chargers have been put in place.
In April, with some fanfare, cars plugged into a station in Bradford, Vermont. Defenders encourage patience, saying the pace will quicken rapidly later this year. The allocated dollars are $5 billion through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and $2.5 billion in Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) discretionary grant funding via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In the video below, Harris appears giddy to announce this new bill that delivered 8 charging stations!
Did Biden forget and accidentally build the rest in Ukraine?
How can one even account for the waste and mismanagement that would have to occur to build only 8 charging stations two years?
But there’s more. Biden-Harris were to save the poor. Considering that the Biden administration put many more people into poverty, why not “help” them more. But not with food or shelter; instead, the help comes in the form of fast internet.
Largest Internet Funding Announcement in History Kicks Off Administration-Wide Investing in America Tour
High-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school, access health care, and to stay connected with family and friends. Yet, more than 8.5 million households and small businesses are in areas where there is no high-speed internet infrastructure, and millions more struggle with limited or unreliable internet options. Just like Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering on their historic commitment to connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.
The results so far? The FCC Chairman tweeted: In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans. Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.
In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans.
Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.
And adding insult to injury, the Biden Admin has been layering a partisan political agenda on top of this $42.45B program that has nothing to do with the original project. Now the initiative has been loaded with climate change mandates, DEI requirements, and other nonsense that favors government-controlled entities.
Now all these problems belong exclusively to Harris. And as I stated years ago, she wanted this job and plotted against Biden. I explain here, what most missed:
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Let’s see how long Harris can keep hers; particularly as people continue to showcase her long list of failures.
U.S. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Following Kamala Harris’ week of honeymoon media coverage, our latest poll shows she has failed to move the needle.
The new national survey ending July 29 shows former-President Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris 47% to 45% — as a historic number of Americans say the nation is on the wrong track.
The poll shows Trump is up +2% — just as he was in our national poll detailing the Trump vs. Biden race.
In that June 26 poll President Trump led Joe Biden 46% to 44%.
Since then, much happened in this unprecedented election. Let’s recap:
June 27: President Trump so soundly defeated Joe Biden in the earliest presidential general election debate that the liberal media and Democratic party bosses began the drumbeat to have Joe Biden withdraw as their candidate.
July 13: An assassin’s bullet misses its mark by less than an inch, and Pres. Trump miraculously survives.
July 15-19: Trump unites the Republican Party in a well watched and seamlessly successful Republican National Convention.
July 21: After unrelenting pressure from Democratic Party bosses and Obama acolytes, Joe Biden withdraws from the campaign and hand picks Kamala Harris to replace him. Now, after a week of the media re-inventing Kamala, we are back to square one: Trump still leads.
On June 26 we had President Trump leading Kamala 47% to 42%, Harris has merely moved the Biden vote into her column. There are some differences in the different voter segment in the two-way ballot from Trump vs. Biden in June to Trump vs. Harris in July.
Here are some:
Among African Americans Trump received 28% to Biden’s 64%. Among Blacks it’s now Trump 18% to Harris’ 74%.
Among Hispanics Trump received 42% to Biden’s 45%. Among Latinos it’s now Trump 37% to Harris’ 53%.
Among white voters, Trump was leading 51% to Biden’s 40%. It’s now Trump 56% to Harris 38%.
Among married voters Trump was leading 52% to Biden’s 38%. It’s now Trump 56% to Harris 37%.
Among rural voters Trump’s lead over Biden has increased from +14%, going from 52%-38% to now Trump up +29%, with Trump at 62% and Harris 33%.
With Robert Kennedy, Jr. and others on the ballot, it’s Trump 42%, Harris 41%, Kennedy 8%.
Last month President Trump was leading 39%, Biden 37% and Kennedy 10%.
Harris appears to have taken Democrats back from Kennedy.
However, the majority of all voters believes Trump will win 51%-39%.
The biggest positive change is for Kamala Harris is that her net favorability increased by 8%.
Last month Harris had a favorable to unfavorable rating of 40% to 54%, that’s a minus 14%.
Now her favorable to unfavorable rating has improved to 45%-51%, for a minus 6%, for a total net increase of +8%.
Still 75% say the country is on the wrong track. Only 18% say it’s in the right direction.
This is an all-time high wrong track in our national polling.
Among the undecided presidential voters, 79% say we are on the wrong track.
After his withdrawal Joe Biden’s job approval got worse, going in June from 41% approve, 57% disapprove — moving now to 38% approve and 60% disapprove.
Among the undecided presidential voters, 68% disapprove of Joe Biden’s job as president.
No wonder Kamala Harris is trying to rewrite her role as Vice President where she was a cheerleader for Joe Biden failed policies.
Economic issues remain the top concerns 45% (specifically inflation 29%), 22% social issues (specifically abortion only 6%), 17% security issues (specifically border 10%).
Most voters, 64%-29%, say that the economy is getting worse versus better.
And 84% have been negatively impacted by inflation- including 50% who are struggling to afford basic necessities.
And the Republicans maintain a lead in the generic ballot for Congress over the Democrats 46%-44%.
With less than 100 days to go, it seems that not much has changed — other than the Democratic candidate is now younger, more foolish and more radical than Joe Biden.
Note: The findings of our just completed national poll of 1,000 likely voters +/-3.1% at the 95% confidence interval was taken between July 23 and July 29.
Our latest national poll results may be found here.
John McLaughlin has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for over 40 years. Jim McLaughlin is a nationally recognized public opinion expert, strategic consultant and political strategist who has helped to elect a U.S. president, prime ministers, a Senate majority leader, and a speaker of the House. Read John and Jim McLaughlin’s Reports — More Here.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the South Lawn of the White House on July 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
So, Kamala Harris is the new Democratic candidate for president.
And, we’ve been told, she is incredible.
Not merely serviceable, a middle innings relief pitcher brought in when your starter suddenly implodes in the third inning. She is the Mariano Rivera of politics. She’s lights-out. She’s charismatic, fascinating, quick on her feet, charming. She is, in the words of the legacy media, a historic candidate—not just because she’s a black woman, a fact that explains her lightning-fast political ascent but that only Democrats are allowed to mention, and only then in the context of explaining why America requires a black female president—but because she is, apparently, so good at this.
Apparently, Harris was the candidate America needed all along. As in a bad romcom, all we needed to do was remove her glasses, brush out her hair, and put her in a better outfit—and she would transform from high school weirdo nerd into prom queen.
The media’s shift in position regarding Harris has been whiplash-inducing. After all, we were told in 2020 that she had run one of the worst campaigns in modern presidential history—mechanical, off-putting, unpleasant, incompetent, and arrogant. Then we were told that she was one of the worst vice presidents in modern history—free of accomplishment, running a completely dysfunctional office with extraordinary rates of staff turnover, so wildly unpopular that even a senile Joe Biden worried about whether Harris could compete with Donald Trump.
But now all is forgiven. All her oddities—coconut trees and electric school buses, Venn diagrams, and the significance of the passage of time—are delightful TikTok memes. Her strangely incoherent word salads, topped off with a heavy helping of smugness, are now evidence of her rhetorical brilliance. Her wild hand motions, so reminiscent of a drunken tarmac operator attempting unsuccessfully to usher a jumbo jet toward the gateway, are actually enchanting symptoms of her enthusiasm. And her positional dishonesty—the fact that she has now shifted virtually every position she ever held—is not evidence that she is a liar, but that she is astute and clever.
So, precisely what happened to turn Kamala Harris from a deeply disliked politician (35% approval rating) into an Obama-esque talent (44% approval rating)?
Joe Biden dropped out.
That’s it.
That’s the whole thing.
When Biden dropped out, the legacy media could finally end the rock-in-the-shoe discomfort of cognitive dissonance from which they had been suffering since Biden’s brain-dead debate with Trump. They had been forced by circumstance into doing something they despise: objective journalism, in which Democrats are treated as normal figures subject to cross-examination.
Since Barack Obama’s ascent nearly 20 years ago, the media have avoided just this sort of thing. Biden’s collapse onstage compelled them to do some journalism, just to cover their asses—otherwise, they would have been implicated in his health cover-up.
So, they did.
But they didn’t like it.
Now, Biden is gone. They can declare victory. And they can go right back to bathing in the warm, urine-filled kiddie pool of Democrat-media coordination they so enjoy. They’ve eaten their vegetables. Now it’s time for dessert: a heavy helping of Kamala cake. And they’re going to enjoy it.
The only question is whether the American people will fall for this quite obvious and heavy-handed routine. So far, some have. But presidential campaigns have a way of sanding off the varnish lacquered on by the friendly media. After all, at one point, the legacy media gave Hillary Clinton the same treatment. It didn’t work out well.
In the end, politicians tend to stand or fall on their own merit. Which is terrible news for Kamala Harris, since she has none.
Barbara Butch, the LGBTQ activist who was the center figure in the controversial “Last Supper” Paris Olympic scene is threatening to sue those criticizing her. Butch played the role (wearing a Christ-like halo) viewed by many as a spoof on Christ in the Last Supper. The creators insist that they were going for a type of “pagan party” of Olympic gods and sent a message of tolerance. Art experts have supported the creators and pointed to paintings that inspired the pagan motif. That is not exactly what was seen by millions of Christians who were deeply insulted by the parody.
The question is not the intent of the creators, but the intent of critics in denouncing the display and its participants.
The threat of legal action would not be especially serious in the United States where opinion is given robust protection in both criminal and civil cases. In France, however, free speech is in a free fall with the left pushing for the censorship and criminalization of an ever-expanding range of political and religious speech.
The ceremony itself had some truly powerful and stunning elements. I enjoyed the mix of music and imagery as well as the effort to show the diversity of France. However, other elements were more divisive or excessive. For example, the producers decided to use the ceremony to feature such elements as three young people hooking up for a “ménage à trois.” With many families watching with kids, many of us thought the scene was inappropriate for such an event. However, it was the supper scene that led to protests from clerics and critics. While claiming a message of “tolerance,” the scene was taken as yet another slap at religious elements in society. That is a debate that has continued to rage, particularly on the Internet.
Audrey Msellati, Butch’s attorney, posted a statement on Butch’s Instagram account that the DJ and activist will seek legal action after being “the target of an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation.” She is promising to file “several complaints against these acts.”
Clearly, any direct and intentional threats of violence against Butch should be prosecuted, as they can be prosecuted in the United States. However, the French laws sweep far more broadly in criminalizing opinion and what I have called “rage rhetoric.”
Once the cradle of individual liberty, France long ago became a global leader in the crackdown on free speech.
These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar. At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism.
In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”
That is why the homage in the Olympics to Liberté rang hollow for many of us in the free speech community. The French leaders have long been hypocritical in claiming to support free speech, such as marching in support of the Charles Hebdo magazine after the massacre after cracking down on its editors and writers.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director for the opening ceremony of the Olympics, clearly wanted to be provocative in these scenes. He succeeded. Clearly, such provocative elements will spur debate and discussion, including heated opinions. Use of criminal sanctions for those expressing opinion would make a mockery of the display of fealty to French liberties that Jolly features in his ceremony.
A.F. Branco Cartoon—We now know that Biden hasn’t been mentally fit to run the country since he took office, so who has been running the country, and who is running it now? Obama? Kamala? Dr Jill? Hunter? The CIA? WHO?!
Majority of Americans Question Biden’s Mental Fitness – Who’s Running This Country?
By Joe Hoft – July 6, 2022
Old and senile Joe Biden has a difficult time saying mental fitness so it’s no surprise that most Americans question Biden’s mental fitness in a new poll. Back in December, Joe Biden had a difficult time saying “mental fitness”. This did not bode well for a guy who shows a lack of mental fitness daily in front of the whole world. At a recent speech, Biden ended by turning to his right and attempting to shake hands with someone who wasn’t there. His handlers know of his senility and often attempt to hide his mental fitness even if they have to dress up as the Easter Bunny to do so.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – The left has nothing to attack J.D. Vance with, so they send out a memo to their media to say he’s “weird,” as though their radial agenda of Late-Term Abortion, Trans Surgery for Kids, and Drag Queen story hour isn’t.
LIBERAL NARRATIVE FAIL: WSJ Poll Finds JD Vance is More Popular Than Kamala Harris
By Mike LaChance – July 29, 2024
Democrats and the media are in a mad dash to define Trump’s running mate JD Vance. For days now, they have been pushing a dumb narrative that Vance is ‘weird’ but it’s clearly not working. According to a new poll from the Wall Street Journal, Vance is more popular than Kamala Harris. Harris has never been popular as Biden’s VP, so why do Democrats think her likability would change just because she’s no running for president? Polling shows that Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (OH) is more popular than presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris, shattering the establishment media’s narrative.
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.
There is “absolutely no doubt” in the FBI that former President Donald Trump was hit with a would-be assassin’s bullet on July 13 during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate testified Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“There is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former President Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear,” Abbate said in the hearing, after he was asked by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., if the FBI had doubts that the Republican presidential nominee had been shot in the ear with a bullet.
“There is no doubt and there never has been,” Abbate stressed. “I’ve been part of this investigation from the very beginning. That has never been raised.”
“You are sure?” Kennedy asked him. “It wasn’t a space laser?”
“No,” Abbate replied.
“It wasn’t a murder hornet?” Kennedy asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Abbate.
“It wasn’t Sasquatch?” said the senator.
“No, senator,” the witness replied. “It was a bullet, senator.”
“Fired by [Thomas] Crooks at President Trump in the air and almost killed him?” Kennedy further pressed Abbate, who replied “100%, senator.”
Tuesday’s hearing is being held one day after the FBI released further details about its probe of the shooting, including information that Crooks had sought information online about power plants, improvised explosive devices, mass shootings, and an assassination attempt in May of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as a crime victim, the agency said, after reporting last week that he had been hit in the ear either by a bullet or a fragment.
The former president said he expects the interview to be held Thursday.
Below is my column in the New York Post on President Joe Biden’s call to reform the Supreme Court by ending lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices.
Here is the column:
President (and Supreme Court Chief Justice) William Howard Taft once said, “presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.” But not if Joe Biden has his way. Indeed, both the president and Court as we know it could be gone.
In a failed attempt to save his nomination, Biden offered to “reform” the Court by imposing an 18-year term limit that would jettison the three most senior conservative justices. ith only six months left in his presidency, Biden’s efforts are likely to fail, but, unfortunately, could set the stage for activists under a Harris Administration in seeking to change the Court forever.
For more than 50 years, Biden staunchly refused to play politics with the Supreme Court and support calls for “reforms” from the left of his party.
For a politician who has long been criticized for changing positions with the polls on issues from abortion to criminal justice to gun rights, the Court was one of the few areas of true principle for Biden. Even though he refused to answer questions on packing the Court in the 2020 election, he ultimately rejected the call as president.
Yet Biden’s final principle fell this month when facing the premature and involuntary end of his candidacy. Faced with being a one-term president, the Supreme Court would have to be sacrificed. Biden opted for the least of the evils in pushing for term limits rather than court packing. It was the more popular option for Biden to yield on. Voters have always loved term limits.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 67% of Americans, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans, support a proposal to set finite terms for justices. But there were few law professors and even fewer Democratic members clamoring for term limits until conservatives secured a stable majority on the Court. Then, suddenly, the Court had to be “reformed” without delay.
It is no accident that the first three justices who would be term limited off the Court are conservatives: Clarence Thomas (after 33 years on the Court), Chief Justice John Roberts (after 19 years), and Justice Samuel Alito (after 18 years).
Think, however, about the iconic decisions we would have lost with term limits in place. Liberal Justice Williams Douglas’s 36 years on the Court would have literally been cut in half. He would have been kicked off in 1957. His famous opinions like Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), striking down bans on contraceptives, would not have been written — an ironic result for those seeking limits after the Court’s ruling in Dobbs.
Likewise, liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s tenure would have ended in 2011 before she wrote her famous dissent Shelby County v. Holder (2013), defending voting rights.
Anthony Kennedy’s term would have ended in 2011 rather than 2018, before he wrote opinions such as United States v. Windsor, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
Obviously, other justices could have written opinions in these cases, but the point is that many justices wrote their best opinions after 18 years on the Court. Moreover, the Framers clearly wanted these positions as lifetime appointments as an added protection against political pressure or influence.
For more than two centuries, presidents have struggled with the Supreme Court, but none (until now) have attempted to end life tenure on the Court. Presidents have served as the firewall for the anger and radicalism that has periodically engulfed the Court. Now President Biden is leading the mob for changing this institution for the first time since its founding.
It is a testament to what I call “an age of rage” in my new book. After years of supporting the Court when it was setting aside conservative precedent, liberals now want the Court changed to dump or dilute the majority. It is unlikely to end there. After sending Thomas, Roberts, and Alito packing, many want to go further and pack the Court itself.
Democratic leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have called for outright court packing — a proposal that Vice President Kamala Harris has suggested that she might support. Where Biden is a political opportunist in belatedly joining this movement, Harris is a true believer from the far left. If she is elected, the Congress is still likely to be closely divided. That will only increase pressure to convert the Court into an alternative avenue for social and political reform.
Harvard professor Michael Klarman warned that all of the plans to change the country were ultimately dependent on packing the court. With the 2020 election, he stated that Democrats could change the election system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.”
Notably, if Biden were to seek this change as a legislative matter without a constitutional amendment, future Congresses could short terms further from 18 to 8 years or even less.
In his speech, Biden declared that he wanted the membership of the Court changed with greater “regularity.” If Congress has this authority, it could change the occupants of the Court faster than a South Beach timeshare condo. That is clearly the opposite of what the Framers intended, but Biden insists that these times are different, and democracy will only be safeguarded by attacking one of our core stabilizing institutions.
According to the Washington Post, the president made his pledge in a Zoom call to the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus, chaired by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and co-chaired by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). It did not succeed in resuscitating his candidacy.
The pledge will be dead on arrival with Congress. What is left is a King Lear-like tragedy of a president, betrayed by those closest to him, and wandering the land for continued relevance. History will show a pitiful figure who offered up the Court as the cost of staying in power, only to lose his candidacy and his legacy.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
BUTLER, Pa. – Text messages revealed that law enforcement responsible for monitoring former President Trump’s Pennsylvania rally spotted his would-be assassin and flagged him to colleagues as suspicious at least 90 minutes before he opened fire.
The messages, obtained by Fox News Digital from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who obtained them from Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, showed that officers flagged 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks after he was spotted using a range finder – but did not approach him.
The first screenshot is a group chat of Beaver ESU officers, while the second is from one Beaver County sniper departing his shift at around 4:30 – approximately an hour-and-a-half before Trump took the stage. The New York Times first reported the text screenshots.
Undated file photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks is alleged to be the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
Texts messages reveal local snipers saw gunman earlier than previously known. (Fox News)
In a group chat, around 4:36 p.m., when one of the officers texted that his shift was ending, he warned that a man, later identified as Crooks, had parked nearby their vehicle.
“Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know,” the text from an officer read.
The messages, obtained by Fox News Digital from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who obtained them from Beaver ESU, provided an updated timeline of when law enforcement first spotted Thomas Matthew Crooks. The texts included a picture of Crooks. (Fox News)
A follow-up message said that Crooks was about 50 yards from the rally’s exit, sitting at a picnic table. Two other counter-snipers responded with a thumbs up emoji and responded, writing, “Roger that.”
Approximately 45 minutes later, at 5:10 p.m., officers flagged that Crooks was on the move and had positioned himself near the American Glass International (AGR) building. Crooks would later perch himself on top of the AGR building to target the former president.
Law enforcement circulated a picture of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the texts showed. (Fox News)
Screenshots of text messages between local law enforcement officers. (Fox News)
While Crooks waited, an officer snapped a picture of the 20-year-old suspect. The picture showed Crooks leaning against the AGR building with his signature greasy shoulder-length hair and gray t-shirt.
“Kid learning around building we are in,” an officer wrote in a text message, along with an image of Crooks. “AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out.”
“I lost sight of him,” the officer added.
A follow-up message said: “Call it in to command and have a uniform check it out.”
Law enforcement officers stand over the body of would-be Trump assassin, Thomas Crooks on Saturday, July 13, 2024. The gunman killed at least one person and injured the former president in his attempt. (Todd the Driller)
The newly surfaced texts show that authorities knew about the suspicious person, later identified as Crooks, close to 90 minutes before the shooting – updating the previous known time of about 60 minutes.
By 6:11 p.m., approximately 1 hour after the last text message was sent, the “kid” would be killed by a counter-sniper after he opened fired on the rally goers.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump kisses the helmet of Corey Comperatore during the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
James Copenhaver and David Dutch were shot and injured at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally. (Allegheny Health Network)
Trump was grazed by a bullet on his ear, while three rallygoers were also shot, including Corey Comperatore, 50, who was killed protecting his family from danger. David Dutch and James Copenhaver were injured after being shot at the rally. Copenhaver was recently released from the hospital on Friday.
Dutch was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, July 24.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Secret Service for comment.
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.
She is a native of Massachusetts and is based in Orlando, Florida.
Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.
I hope that our readers have read the response of NewsGuard’s Gordon Crovitz to my recent criticism of the company’s rating system for news sites. He makes important points, including the fact that the company has given high ratings to conservative sites and low ratings to some liberal sites. I have mutual friends of both Gordon and his co-founder Steve Brill, who have always sworn by their integrity and motivations. I do not question Gordon’s account of past ratings for sites.
However, I also welcome the opportunity to further this discussion over media rating systems and to explain why I remain unconvinced by his defense. It is a long overdue debate on the use and potential misuse of such systems.
As a threshold matter, I want to note that I am aware of conservative sites reviewed by NewsGuard that have been given favorable ratings. That is a valid distinction from past rating sites like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).
Moreover, while I noted that NewsGuard has been accused of bias by conservatives and is being investigated in Congress, my primary objections are to rating systems as a concept for media sites. Before addressing that opposition, I should note that I still have concerns over bias from the email that was sent me, particularly just after a column criticizing the company.
Now to the main concern.
A Shield or a Sword?
In his response to me, Gordon argues that “I would have thought, including based on your recent book, that you’d especially welcome an accountable market alternative to censorship.”
I disagree with Gordon’s suggested dichotomy. As I argue in the column, rating systems are arguably the most effective means to silence opposing voices or sites. These systems are used to target revenue sources and have been weaponized by the current anti-free speech movement. They are used more as a sword than a shield by those who want to marginalize or demonetize a site.
We have seen such campaigns targeting various sites and individuals, led by political groups opposed to their viewpoints, including figures such as Joe Rogan. This includes Elon Musk and X after the reduction of censorship systems and the release of the “Twitter Files.” After being targeted by these campaigns for years, rating systems have been denounced by Musk as part of an “online censorship racket.”
Moreover, the use of private entities like NewsGuard is precisely what makes the current movement so insidious and dangerous. Whether by design or by default, rating systems are effective components of what I have described as a system of “censorship by surrogate.”
What NewsGuard is attempting is potentially far more impactful for the funding and viability of websites. Rather than an alternative, it can be an avenue for censorship.
I have also written about my concerns with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and its use of rating systems to deter advertisers for targeted sites. The group states that it “unites marketers, media agencies, media platforms, industry associations, and advertising technology solutions providers to safeguard the potential of digital media by reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online.”
As the column discusses, NewsGuard seeks to position itself as a type of Standard & Poor’s rating system for media. The role would give the company unprecedented influence over the journalistic and political speech in America. The rating can be used to discourage advertisers and revenue sources for targeted sites. Just as S&P scores can kill a business, a media rating could kill a blog or website.
That is an enormous amount of power to be wielded by any organization, let alone a for-profit enterprise started by two self-appointed monitors of media. That is not meant to disparage Gordon and Steve, but to acknowledge that this is not just a hugely profitable but a hugely powerful enterprise.
It is also not a criticism of the founding principles. We have seen many organizations that began as faithful to principles of neutrality only to see those principles corrupted with time. Indeed, as we have previously discussed, the very principles of objectivity and neutrality are now rejected in many journalism schools.
The Criteria
While NewsGuard insists that its criteria is completely objective and neutral, that does not appear to be the case. The site’s standards include key determinations on whether some sites run statements that NewsGuard considers “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading.” (That appears part of the most heavily weighted criteria for credibility at 22 points).
The staff will determine if it believes that a site shows a tendency to “egregiously distort or misrepresent information.”
The staff decides if information is false and, if it is considered false by NewsGuard, whether the site “identifies errors and publishes clarifications and corrections, transparently acknowledges errors, and does not regularly leave significant false content uncorrected.” Thus, if you disagree with the claims of falsity or view the statement as opinion, the failure to correct the statement will result in additional penalties.
The site will also determine if it finds the sources used by a site to be “credible” and whether “they … egregiously distort or misrepresent information to make an argument or report on a subject.”
If the site decides that there are errors, it will lower ratings if the site does not “transparently acknowledges errors, and does not regularly leave significant false content uncorrected.”
The company pledges to combat “misinformation” and “false narratives.”
We have seen mainstream media use these very terms to engage in highly biased coverages, including labeling true stories or viewpoints “disinformation.”
Given these terms and the history of their use in the media, NewsGuards assurances boil down to “trust us we’re NewsGuard.” GDI made the same assurances.
This is not to say that some of these criteria cannot be helpful for sites. However, the overall rating of media sites is different from Standard & Poor’s. Financial ratings are based on hard figures of assets, earnings, and liabilities. “Liquidity” is far more concrete and objective than “credibility.” What NewsGuard does is fraught with subjectivity regardless of the motivations or intentions of individual raters.
The Res Ipsa Review
The inquiry sent to this blog reflects those concerns. The timing of the inquiry was itself chilling. I had just criticized NewsGuard roughly a week earlier. It is not known if this played any role in the sudden notice of a review of Res Ipsa.
One inquiry particularly stood out for me. The reviewer informed me:
“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
The effort of NewsGuard to label sites can have an impact on its ratings on credibility and transparency. Yet, sites may disagree with the conclusions of NewsGuard on their view of the content. What may seem conservative to a NewsGuard reviewer may be less clearly ideological to the host or blog.
Moreover, despite noting that it asked MSNBC to state its liberal bias, it is not clear if the company has suggested such a notice from many other sites from NPR to the New Republic. For example, is Above the Law supposed to warn readers that it takes a liberal perspective and regularly attacks conservatives? What about other academic blogs like Balkinization?
The point is not to say that they should be required to label their own views (though some sites choose to do so) but to ask whether all sites are asked to do so. If not, when is this demand made for sites? For some reviewers, a liberal perspective may simply seem like stating the obvious or unassailable truth.
Labeling
In fairness to NewsGuard, we all often engage in labeling as part of our discussions — both labeling ourselves and others. For example, I often acknowledge that I hold many libertarian views. However, I continue to write columns that run across the ideological spectrum and I continue to be attacked from both the right and the left for those columns.
Identifying yourself as a libertarian does not convey much information for readers. Many readers have erroneous views of libertarians as a monolithic group. (The public high school teacher of one of my kids told the class that libertarians were just conservatives who did not want to call themselves Republicans). In actuality, it is a group that runs from liberal to conservative figures who maximize individual rights. Labeling your site as libertarian is about as helpful as saying that it is utilitarian.
The suggestion in the email is that readers should be informed that anything they read is coming from a libertarian or conservative on the site. Yet, most law professor blogs are very liberal, but do not make the same type of warning.
We often discuss these labels in judging the diversity of faculties. Yet, that is based largely on surveys of professors self-identifying or the political registration of academics. It is admittedly a blunt tool, but there is little debate that faculties around the country are overwhelmingly liberal. Indeed, even sites like Above the Law have strived to defend “predominantly liberal faculties” as just reflecting the fact that most conservatives are simply wrong on the law.
There is always an overgeneralization in the use of such labels, but we try to take that into consideration in discussing the overall lack of diversity of viewpoints on campuses today.
Conclusion
Rating media sites is vastly different. You are often relying on the views of the reviewers that may be challenged by the site. Postings that challenge popular narratives are often denounced as false or disinformation by critics.
I am particularly concerned over the reported government contracts given to NewsGuard by the Biden Administration as well as agreements with teacher unions to help filter or rate sites. The Twitter Files have shown an extensive system of funding and coordination between agencies and these companies. The funding of such private rating or targeting operations is precisely what I have warned about in congressional testimony as a type of “censorship by surrogate.” The government has been attempting to achieve forms of censorship indirectly that it is barred from achieving directly under the First Amendment.
Consider those bloggers and scientists who were censored and denounced for voicing support for the lab theory on Covid 19 and other subjects from the efficacy of masks to the need to shutdown schools. They spent years having mainstream media figures denouncing them for refusing to admit that they were spreading disinformation or conforming to general views on these issues.
Political and legal commentary are rife with contested opinion over the facts and their implications. Having a company sit in judgment on what is fact and what is opinion is a troubling role, particularly when the rating is used to influence advertisers and financial supporters.
Once again, there are many people on the other side of this debate who have good-faith reasons for wanting a standardized set of criteria for news sources and commentary sites. I simply believe that this is a degree of influence that is dangerously concentrated in a small number of groups like NewsGuard.
N.B.: After this response ran, NewsGuard wrote me that Above The Law actually was marked down for failing to clearly delineate between news and opinion. It further said that the New Republic acknowledges its liberal take, so there is no issue on labeling. What is not clear is whether every site, including academic blogs, are asked to label themselves and who makes that decision on what label should apply.
Below is my column in The Hill on the recent notice that this blog is now being formally “reviewed” by NewsGuard, a company that I just criticized in a prior Hill column as a threat to free speech. The questions from NewsGuard were revealing and concerning. Today, I have posted the response of NewsGuard’s co-founder Gordon Crovitz as well as my response to his arguments.
Here are is the column:
Recently, I wrote a Hill column criticizing NewsGuard, a rating operation being used to warn users, advertisers, educators and funders away from media outlets based on how it views the outlets’ “credibility and transparency.” Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door. My blog, Res Ipsa (jonathanturley.org), is now being reviewed and the questions sent by NewsGuard were alarming, but not surprising.
I do not know whether the sudden interest in my site was prompted by my column. I have previously criticized NewsGuard as one of the most sophisticated operations being used to “white list” and “black list” sites. My new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” details how such sites fit into a massive censorship system that one federal court called “Orwellian.”
For any site criticizing the media or the Biden administration, the most chilling words today are “I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you.”
Conservatives have long accused the company of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.
Brill and his co-founder, L. Gordon Crovitz, want their company to be the media version of the Standard & Poor’s rating for financial institutions. However, unlike the S&P, which looks at financial reports, NewsGuard rates highly subjective judgments like “credibility” based on whether they publish “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading” information. They even offer a “Nutrition Label” for consumers of information.
Of course, what Brill considers nutritious may not be the preferred diet of many in the country. But they might not get a choice since the goal is to allow other companies and carriers to use the ratings to disfavor or censor non-nutritious sites.
The rating of sites is arguably the most effective way of silencing or marginalizing opposing views. I previously wrote about other sites supported by the Biden administration that performed a similar function, including the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). GDI then released a list of the 10 most dangerous sites, all of which are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. GDI warned advertisers that they were accepting “reputational and brand risk” by “financially supporting disinformation online.” The blacklisted sites included Reason, a respected libertarian-oriented source of news and commentary about the government. However, HuffPost, a far left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
When NewsGuard came looking for Res Ipsa, the questions sounded like they came directly from CGI. I was first asked for information on the financial or revenue sources used to support my blog, on which I republish my opinion pieces from various newspapers and publish original blog columns.
Given NewsGuard’s reputation, the email would ordinarily trigger panic on many sites. But I pay not to have advertising, and the closest I come to financial support would be my wife, since we live in a community property state. If NewsGuard wants to blacklist me with my wife, it is a bit late. Trust me, she knows.
NewsGuard also claimed that it could not find a single correction on my site. In fact, there is a location for readers marked “corrections” to register objections and corrections to postings on the site. I also occasionally post corrections,changes and clarifications.
NewsGuard also made bizarre inquiries, including about why I called my blog “Res Ipsa Liquitur [sic] – the thing itself speaks. Could you explain the reason to this non-lawyer?” Res ipsa loquitur is defined in the header as “The thing itself speaks,” which I think speaks for itself.
But one concern was particularly illuminating:
“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
I have historically been criticized as a liberal, conservative or a libertarian depending on the particular op-eds. I certainly admit to libertarian viewpoints, though I hold many traditional liberal views. For example, I have been outspoken for decades in favor same-sex marriage, environmental protection, free speech and other individual rights. I am a registered Democrat who has defended reporters, activists and academics on the left for years in both courts and columns.
The blog has thousands of postings that cut across the ideological spectrum. What I have not done is suspend my legal judgment when cases touch on the interests of conservatives or Donald Trump. While I have criticized Trump in the past, I have also objected to some of the efforts to impeach or convict him on dubious legal theories.
Yet, NewsGuard appears to believe that I should label myself as conservative or libertarian as a warning or notice to any innocent strays who may wander on to my blog. It does not appear that NewsGuard makes the same objection to HuffPost or the New Republic, which run overwhelmingly liberal posts. Yet, alleged conservative or libertarian sites are expected to post a warning as if they were porn sites.
NewsGuard is not alone in employing this technique. Mainstream media outlets often label me as a “conservative professor” in reporting my viewpoints. They do not ordinarily label professors with pronounced liberal views or anti-Trump writings as “liberal.”
Studies show that the vast majority of law professors run from the left to the far left. A study found that only 9 percent of law school professors at the top 50 law schools identify as conservative. A 2017 study found only 15 percent of faculties overall were conservative.
It is rare for the media to identify those professors as “liberal,” including many professors on the far left who regularly denounce conservatives or Republicans. It is simply treated as not worth mentioning. Yet, anyone libertarian or right of center gets the moniker as a warning that their viewpoint should considered in weighing their conclusions. Yet, NewsGuard is in the business of labeling people . . . and warning advertisers. It considers my writings to be conservative or libertarian and wants to know “Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”
It does not matter that my views cut across the ideological spectrum or that I do not agree with NewsGuard’s label. Indeed, while I clearly hold libertarian views, libertarians run a spectrum from liberal to conservative. The common article of faith is the maximization of individual rights, while there is considerable disagreement on many policies. Steven Brill is considered a diehard liberal. Would it be fair to add a notice or qualifier of “liberal” to any of his columns or opinions?
It does not matter. Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others.
It is a system that includes what Elon Musk correctly called “the advertising boycott racket.” Musk was responding to another such group pushing a rating system as an euphemism for blacklisting. For targeted sites, NewsGuard is now the leading racketeer in that system. It makes millions of dollars by rating sites — a new and profitable enterprise with dozens of other academic and for-profit groups. They have commoditized free speech in blacklisting and potentially silencing others. If you are the Standard & Poor’s of political discourse, you can rate sites out of existence by making them a type of junk bond blog.
Yet, the fact that I have no advertisers or sponsors to scare off does not mean that NewsGuard cannot undermine the site. The company has reportedly received federal contracts, which some in Congress have sought to block. It is also allied with organizations like Turnitin to control what teachers and students will read or use in schools. The powerful American Federation of Teachers, which has been criticized for its far left political alliances with Democratic candidates, has also pushed NewsGuard for schools.
This is why my book calls for a number of reforms, including barring federal funds for groups engaged in censoring, rating or blacklisting sites. NewsGuard shows that such legislation cannot come soon enough.
N.B.: The original version of this column included MSNBC as an example of liberal sites that do not post their own ideological bent or label. I later heard from NewsGuard that they did indeed mark down MSNBC for failing to make such a disclosure, so I removed it from this blog column. I posted a response today on why I continue to oppose rating systems such as NewsGuard.
On the weekend, I ran a column critical of NewsGuard and its recent notification of this blog that it was being “rated.” NewsGuard co-founder Gordon Crovitz responded to that column the next day. We have previously exchanged emails on my concerns over rating systems generally, including the Global Disinformation Index (which is not related to NewsGuard). I noted the concerns over bias from conservatives and members of Congress, but my primary concern remains with the concept of a rating system for media sites and blogs. While NewsGuard has given high ratings to some conservative sites, I generally oppose media rating systems due to free speech concerns and the use of these systems by the current anti-free speech movement.
I have always found Gordon to be open and frank about these subjects and I wanted readers on the blog to hear the opposing view from him directly. He was kind enough to consent to my posting the following. I will be posting a response to Gordon separately in the hopes that we can use this controversy as a foundation for a much needed discussion of rating systems and their impact on free speech.
Here is his response:
Jonathan:
We welcome the publicity, but your complaints in your July 27 commentary in the Hill about NewsGuard seem based on some misunderstandings.
First, we launched NewsGuard in 2018 as an alternative either to the Silicon Valley platforms secretly putting their thumbs on the scale for news and information sites or for calls to have the government censor social media and other online speech. Digital platforms were (and are) secretly rating news and information websites, with no disclosure about their criteria and no way for the people running the websites even to find out how they were rated. The only other entity rating news and information sites at the time we launched was GDI, which as you have written is a left-wing advocacy group–which like the digital platforms does not disclose its criteria or let publishers know how they are rated (except when information escapes such as the top 10 list of “risky” sites, which as you noted are all conservative or libertarian sites).
As I have written as a (libertarian-leaning) conservative former publisher, including in this recent Washington Examiner article https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3091369/advertisers-fear-supporting-journalism-heres-how-to-fix-that/, I wouldn’t trust the platforms or a left-wing advocacy group either. We launched NewsGuard as the transparent and apolitical alternative, with the goal of giving news consumers basic information about websites they encounter online.
We reach out to the people running news and information websites for several purposes. We want to be sure we correctly assess sites based on our nine criteria. We’re a journalistic enterprise, so would always reach out for comment before concluding a site fails any of our criteria. We often quote the people running websites to provide more context about their site, whether they fail any criteria or not. More than a quarter of the websites we’ve rated have taken steps, usually relating to greater transparency, to get higher ratings.
In your column, you asserted that NewsGuard treats liberal sites preferentially compared with how we treat conservative or libertarian sites. This is false, as the many high scores for conservative and libertarian sites–and low scores for liberal sites–makes clear. You’ll see examples in the Washington Examiner article I linked to above. (There are right-wing sites like OAN that get low ratings such as for its Dominion Voting Systems claims, and there are left-wing sites that get low ratings for false claims such as about Donald Trump.)
In your Hill article, you claimed that “it does not appear” that we expect left-wing sites to disclose their point of view to readers. You gave the example of MSNBC. I am attaching our publicly available rating for this website. You will see it fails our criterion relating to news/opinion for failing to disclose its orientation. The MSNBC website scores lower than Fox News using our criteria because MSNBC fails to disclose its orientation whereas the website for Fox News does disclose its. (MSNBC also fails our criterion for gathering and presenting responsibly due to claims it made about Trump, Ron DeSantis, Steve Bannon and others.)
We also anticipated even back when we launched that there would be calls for government censorship if secret and partisan ratings were the only ones available in the market. I would have thought, including based on your recent book, that you’d especially welcome an accountable market alternative to censorship.
Finally, I appreciated your obituary for Bob Zimmer and your calls for the Chicago Principles to be widely adopted. (Whether our UChicago fully lives up to them is a topic for another day–I prefer the more energetic approach of Ed Levi to today’s more appeasing practices.) More information about websites is an exercise of free speech, and when done with transparent apolitical criteria equally applied seems to me a market solution you should support, not criticize or fear.
Kamala Harris hasn’t been the presumptive Democrat nominee for even a week, and already the press is desperately trying to insist perfectly valid criticisms of her are illegitimate. If you think the media were complicit in attempting and failing to hide Joe Biden’s senility, the attempt to retcon her political career into something that resembles respectable and competent is even more brazen.
“She was never the border czar.”
“She was never considered the most liberal senator.”
“She was never a DEI hire.”
“She doesn’t owe her political career to her powerful boyfriend.”
The dishonesty surrounding all of these issues is worth highlighting, but let’s focus on that last point involving Harris’ relationship with California’s powerful political boss Wille Brown, for no other reason than The New York Times has provided a terrific example of how the lies are coming in hot.
The Times’ “On Politics” newsletter Wednesday — think of it as political talking points for affluent wine moms, a.k.a. the Democrats’ base — was dedicated to combatting “the sexist and racist rumors that have followed Harris for years” with “the facts behind several conspiracy theories and misleading claims about Harris that have spread widely in recent days.”
Nearly the whole thing is an orgiastic recitation of errant nonsense, starting with the fact that the Times is quoting disgraced “disinformation expert” Nina Jankowicz to make the case that Harris is the victim of a disproportionate amount of online attacks. (Harris’ competitor in the presidential race was shot in the head less than two weeks ago, and, unsurprisingly, there’s been a dearth of media handwringing about the rhetorical climate that may have enabled an actual assassination attempt. That’s because an honest discussion about hateful rhetoric would involve asking basic questions such as, “Why did The New York Times win a Pulitzer for stories based on the false premise that Donald Trump stole an election by treasonously colluding with Russia?”)
But I digress. Again, the real lowlight of the Times article is its discussion of Kamala Harris’ relationship with Willie Brown. One of my favorite things “fact checkers” do is introduce a proposition as false and then try to confirm that falsity by desperately spinning a bunch of inconvenient facts that confirm the proposition is actually true. The entire section on Harris and Willie Brown is a textbook example:
The sexist insinuations point in part to her brief relationship in the 1990s with Willie Brown, who was 60 and the speaker of the California Assembly when Harris was 29 and rising in the Bay Area legal scene. He appointed Harris to two well-paid state board positions and introduced her to his political connections.
When she was campaigning to be San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003, her opponents repeatedly commented on her link to Brown — references that she told The New York Times in 2019 were “frustrating” and “designed to degrade, frankly, the conversation about why we needed a new D.A.”
During the 2003 race, which she won, she told SF Weekly that there was nothing improper about benefiting from her ties to Brown, although she described the relationship as an “albatross hanging around my neck.” She said she “brought a level of life knowledge and common sense” to the board roles, adding that “whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work.”
She said that she had “no doubt that I am independent of him” and that “I do not owe him a thing.”
Just so we’re clear, The New York Times is confirming Harris did in fact have a relationship with Willie Brown, who was 31 years older (and, for what it’s worth, still married at the time). Harris herself admits her career benefited significantly from said relationship. Other Democrats shared the perception she did not earn her positions. And Harris, a lawyer who initially failed the bar exam, can only say that she “brought a level of life knowledge and common sense” rather than actual qualifications to the jobs Brown appointed her to. But it’s a sexist insinuation to insist these facts are rather unflattering to Kamala!
And this is just what The New York Times is admitting. In actuality, the details are far worse than the Times is letting on. Peter Schweizer, an investigative journalist who has worked with The New York Times in the past, details quite a bit on the corrupt nature of the Harris/Brown relationship in his book, Profiles in Corruption, which has been out for four and a half years. And the facts as he lays them out are damning.
Brown, who was repeatedly investigated by the FBI for corruption, was far more involved in Harris’ career ascent than appointing her to two board positions. He was a kingmaker in California, and he was heavily involved in helping Harris get elected as San Francisco district attorney. Brown didn’t do this entirely out of the goodness of his heart. Harris was working for the previous district attorney, Terence Hallinan, and quit when she got passed over for the No. 2 position in the DA’s office.
Hallinan found himself as the subject of criticism from other city officials, but others suggested the controversy was manufactured. “This whole thing is about Kamala Harris,” a source close to Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Cross one of Willie’s friends and there will be hell to pay.” Eventually, Harris ran for DA with Brown’s powerful backing — a former Brown aide managed her campaign, and Brown played a key role in her fundraising, which was incredibly successful. After starting the race polling a distant third, she won the election.
Once in office, Harris then dropped or pled out corruption charges against friends of Willie Brown that Hallinan had been pursuing. There were a number of Brown’s friends let off the hook, but most notably this included a sweetheart plea deal for a notorious city contractor caught defrauding the city by using inferior recycled concrete in sensitive projects such as parking garages and the Bay Bridge. This compromised the structural integrity of those projects and endangered lives. But Harris dropped all the fraud charges and accepted a guilty plea on a single count involving an environmental violation.
“Harris’ office had no explanation for why it dropped the concrete case,” reported the Chronicle. A better explanation is that the contractor in question was generous with campaign donations and had previously been popped for making an illegal $2,000 donation to, yup, Willie Brown.
Anyway, there’s a lot more alarming reporting in Schweizer’s book that’s worth revisiting, and it’s not a stretch to say Kamala Harris has engaged in outright corruption in her career. Suffice to say, when The New York Times takes Kamala Harris at her word that her relationship with Willie Brown was not “improper,” they’re erasing the functional difference between lying and profound ignorance. And when she’s credulously quoted saying, “I do not owe him a thing,” it’s journalistic malpractice to believe her.
To say that Kamala Harris had an affair with a man more than twice her age, leveraged his fundraising prowess and connections to launch her political career, and once in office did his corrupt bidding isn’t sexist. It’s well-grounded in fact.
But facts aren’t something The New York Times is much interested in. Kamala Harris’ late entry into the presidential race means they don’t have much time to use what’s left of their institutional clout to try to dishonestly sway a presidential race.
Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @heminator
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