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FBI Director Accused of Hypocrisy for Monitoring Conservatives but Not Pro-Hamas Protests

By: S.A. McCarthy / @pipesmoknpapist / April 26, 2024

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Dec. 5, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The director of the FBI is being accused of hypocrisy for allowing the targeting of concerned parents, Trump supporters, and American Catholics but not “monitoring” pro-Hamas rallies and protests on college campuses.

Director Christopher Wray was asked in an interview on Tuesday about “actively monitoring” the rallies erupting across college and university campuses, which have become the subject of controversy and condemnation from even senior government officials. Wray replied, “We don’t monitor protests.” He added, “But we do share intelligence about specific threats of violence.”

Social media users reacted, accusing Wray of hypocrisy. Conservative podcast host Graham Allen quoted Wray saying, “We don’t monitor protests,” and wrote:

FBI Director Chris Wray: "We don't monitor protests"

They just monitor:
Republicans
Church
Christians
Donald Trump supporters
Parents who attend a PTA meeting

pic.twitter.com/cwKwwDfQB8
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) April 24, 2024

Author and conservative media commentator Jesse Kelly pointed out the FBI’s failure to investigate the vandalizing and firebombing of pregnancy resource centers, commenting:

“We can’t find who’s bombing pregnancy centers cause they’re doing it at night.” -Merrick Garland

“We don’t monitor protests.”-Chris Wray

The truth is the street animals are protected by the elite. The good people in the middle are attacked from top and bottom. https://t.co/2cvGOJFqxQ
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 24, 2024

Numerous social media users posted photos of known or suspected FBI agents undercover at pro-Trump rallies, alleged that the FBI embedded undercover agents at the Jan. 6, 2021 rally at the U.S. Capitol building, or noted the FBI’s designation of parents protesting school board meetings or “radical traditionalist Catholics” as potential domestic terror threats. Referring to the infamous memo from the FBI’s Richmond field office, detailing plans to infiltrate and spy on Catholic parishes, one user commented, “I guess they are too busy monitoring Catholic churches.”

The U.S. House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government previously castigated the FBI’s memo for its reliance on biased sources, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists “radical traditionalist Catholics” as a hate group, alongside neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. The controversial memo, leaked early in 2023, labeled American Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass (the form of the Mass common prior to 1969) as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” (RMVEs). The memo’s creation included communication with other FBI field offices, interviews with at least one priest and a choir director, and the approval of senior FBI lawyers. The House Committee warned, “The FBI must be held accountable for its actions. It is not enough for the FBI to investigate itself and remedy its own wrongdoings, especially when it involves law-enforcement overreach involving fundamental religious freedoms.”

But that’s what the FBI appears to have done. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz submitted a report to Congress absolving the FBI of any wrongdoing in the drafting and circulating of the memo. Horowitz wrote, “Our review did not find evidence that anyone ordered or directed Analyst 1 or 2 to find a link between RMVEs and any specific religion or political affiliation, including Church 1, or that there was any underlying policy direction concerning such a link.” The report added, “Additionally, our review of emails, instant messages, and text messages for Analysts 1 and 2 during the relevant time period did not identify any evidence of discriminatory or inappropriate comments by them about Church 1, or individuals who practiced a particular religious faith or held specific political beliefs.”

Previously, both Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland have stonewalled Congress in response to requests to interview FBI agents and analysts responsible for drafting and circulating the memo.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand, “The FBI shouldn’t be monitoring most protests, but when massive demonstrations are shutting down higher education institutions that threaten fellow students and incorporate genocidal slogans like ‘From the river to the sea,’ that all should pique the interest of federal law enforcement.”

She continued, “Wray’s comments are yet another hit to the FBI’s credibility after the Department of Justice’s inspector general held last week that the FBI did not commit any wrongdoing when it was looking into ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ that they alleged were connected to ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology.’”

Del Turco added, “The FBI’s heightened concern over traditional Catholics appears especially absurd when considering the agency’s total disinterest in protestors who are threatening Jewish students on college campuses.”

Currently, pro-Hamas rallies are taking place at schools such as Ohio State University and the Ivy League Columbia and Yale universities.

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The Constitutional Abyss: Justices Signal a Desire to Avoid Both Cliffs on Presidential Immunity

By: Jonathan Turley | April 26, 2024

Below is my column in the New York Post on yesterday’s oral arguments on presidential immunity. As expected, with the exception of the three liberal justices, the Court appears to be struggling to find a more nuanced approach that would avoid the extreme positions of both parties. Rather than take a header off either cliff, the justices seem interested in a controlled descent into the depths of Article II.

Here is the column:

Writer Ray Bradbury once said, “Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.”

In Thursday’s case before the Supreme Court on the immunity of former President Donald Trump, nine justices appear to be feverishly working with feathers and glue on a plunge into a constitutional abyss. It has been almost 50 years since the high court ruled presidents have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. The court held ex-President Richard Nixon had such immunity for acts taken “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

Yet in 1974’s United States v. Nixon, the court ruled a president is not immune from a criminal subpoena. Nixon was forced to comply with a subpoena for his White House tapes in the Watergate scandal from special counsel Leon Jaworski. Since then, the court has avoided any significant ruling on the extension of immunity to a criminal case — until now.

There are cliffs on both sides of this case. If the court were to embrace special counsel Jack Smith’s arguments, a president would have no immunity from criminal charges, even for official acts taken in his presidency. It would leave a president without protection from endless charges from politically motivated prosecutors.

If the court were to embrace Trump counsel’s arguments, a president would have complete immunity. It would leave a president largely unaccountable under the criminal code for any criminal acts.

The first cliff is made obvious by the lower-court opinion. While the media have largely focused on extreme examples of president-ordered assassinations and coups, the justices are clearly as concerned with the sweeping implications of the DC Circuit opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted the DC Circuit failed to make any “focused” analysis of the underlying acts, instead offering little more than a judicial shrug.

Roberts read its statement that “a former president can be prosecuted for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former president has acted in defiance of the laws” and noted it sounds like “a former president can be prosecuted because he is being prosecuted.”

The other cliff is more than obvious from the other proceedings occurring as these arguments were made. Trump’s best attorney proved to be Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

If the justices want insight into the implications of denying any immunity, they just need to look north to New York City.

The ongoing prosecution of Trump is legally absurd but has resulted in the leading presidential candidate not only being gagged but prevented from campaigning.

Alvin Bragg is the very personification of the danger immunity is meant to avoid.

With cliffs to the left and the right, the justices are looking at a free-fall dive into the scope of constitutional and criminal law as they apply to presidential conduct. They may be looking not for a foothold as much as a shorter drop.

Some of the justices are likely to be seeking a third option where a president has some immunity under a more limited and less tautological standard than the one the DC Circuit offered. The problem for the court is presidential privilege and immunity decisions are meant to give presidents breathing room by laying out bright lines within which they can operate. Ambiguity defeats the purpose of such immunity. So does a test that turns on the motivation of an official act.

The special counsel insists, for example, Trump was acting for his personal interest in challenging certification and raising electoral fraud since he was the other candidate. But what if he wasn’t on the ballot — would it have been an official function to raise such concerns for other candidates?

When pressed on the line between official and nonofficial conduct, the special counsel just dismissed such concerns and said Trump was clearly acting as an office-seeker not an officeholder.

Likewise, the special counsel argued the protection for presidents must rest with the good motivations and judgment of prosecutors.

It was effectively a “Trust us, we’re the government” assurance. Justice Samuel Alito and others questioned whether such reliance is well placed after decades of prosecutors’ proven abuses.

Finally, if there is no immunity, could President Barack Obama be prosecuted for ordering the killing of a citizen by drone attack and then killing his son in a second drone attack? The government insisted there is an exception for such acts from the murder statute.

In the end, neither party offers a particularly inviting path. No immunity or complete immunity each holds obvious dangers.

I have long opposed sweeping arguments of immunity from criminal charges for presidents. The devil is in the details, and many justices are struggling with how to define official versus nonofficial conduct.

The line-drawing proved maddening for the justices in the oral argument. The most they could say is similar to the story of the man who jumped off a building. As he passes an office window halfway down, another man calls out to ask how he’s doing. The jumper responds, “So far so good.”

As the justices work on a new set of legal wings, anything is possible as the nation waits for the court to hit ground zero in the middle of the 2024 presidential election.

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Thirsty for Equality

A.F. BRANCO | on April 26, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-thirsty-for-equality/

Anti-White Racism — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

DEI, Diversity Equity, is designed to suppress one group while promoting another, not based on merit but on the color of skin and sexual orientation, while showing prejudice against straight white males. There is a word for this; it’s called racism, and it is systemic.

Dr. Phil Destroys Guest’s Argument for DEI Policies in Seconds: ‘That Was Called Marxism’ (VIDEO)

By Mike LaChance – April 12, 2024

A recent guest on the Dr. Phil show was there to argue in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and things did not go well for her. Dr. Phil pointed out that what she is arguing for is equality of outcomes, which just doesn’t work. He correctly pointed out to her that what she is talking about is essentially Marxism.

Dr. Phil nailed this. Equality of outcomes is communism and it has failed everywhere it has been tried throughout history. READ MORE…

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

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

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Alito: Criminalizing Close Election Contests Would Destabilize Entire Foundation Of American Democracy

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 25, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested Thursday during oral arguments regarding presidential immunity that criminalizing individuals just because they question government-run elections would destabilize true democracy.

Special counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for questioning the administration of the 2020 election. The high court is now hearing challenges as to whether presidents have immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office that fall within the scope of their presidential duties.

“Let me end with just a question about, what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want?” Alito began. “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable, democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is the incumbent?”

“Of course,” attorney Michael Dreeben said.

Justice Alito hypothesizes what could happen if presidents don’t have criminal immunity:

“If an incumbent…knows…that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country?” pic.twitter.com/zXSJEGMNOo
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2024

“Now, if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off in a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito asked. “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail.”

“So, I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito,” Dreeben said. “There are lawful mechanisms to contest the results in an election and outside the record, but I think of public knowledge, petitioner and his allies filed dozens of electoral challenges and my understanding is lost all but one that was not outcome determinative in any respect. There were judges that said in order to sustain substantial claims of fraud that would overturn an election results that’s certified by a state, you need evidence, you need proof and none of those things were manifested. So there’s an appropriate way to challenge things through the courts with evidence, if you lose, you accept the results, that has been the nation’s experience.”

“Thank you,” Alito interjected.

Alito appears to warn Democrats that should the high court rule that certain presidential acts are not covered by presidential immunity and Smith’s lawfare case against the former president may continue — true democratic norms would be decimated as partisan politicians could weaponize the justice system to target their opponents.

Smith indicted Trump on charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. In simpler terms, Smith alleges that Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen were false and that Trump knew they were false.

To support his claims, Smith alleges that since federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which meddled in the 2020 election — told Trump the election wasn’t stolen, and he should have taken that at face value, as pointed out by Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson.

But objecting to elections is a tale as old as time. Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still claims the 2016 election was stolen while Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters — who also called the 2000 election “fraudulent” — and Jamie Raskin all objected to Congress’ certification of electoral votes in 2017 that formally declared Trump the winner, my colleague Tristan Justice details.

The 2004 election was also considered “stolen” by New York Rep. Jerry Nadler who went so far as to declare voting machines need to be investigated.

And even after the Supreme Court ended Al Gore’s attempt to overturn the outcome of the election, there were no steps taken to throw Gore in jail for challenging the contest.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

Author Brianna Lyman profile

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SCOTUS sees ‘dangerous precedent’ in Trump immunity case if presidents can prosecute rivals: experts

By Brianna Herlihy Fox News | Published April 25, 2024 3:16pm EDT

After a marathon debate over whether former President Trump should be granted presidential immunity for crimes alleged by Special Counsel Jack Smith, legal experts tell Fox News Digital that most of the Supreme Court justices appear concerned with how the ruling will impact the future functioning of the executive branch.

Legal experts told Fox News Digital that while it appeared the majority wasn’t sold on the idea of absolute immunity, they could determine that Trump, and any future former presidents, should be granted a qualified version of it.

“I think the court recognizes that it would be a dangerous precedent if future presidents can prosecute their political rivals,” Mark Brnovich, former attorney general of Arizona, told Fox News Digital.

The Supreme Court in Washington, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

“They will set a limiting principle because, under the prosecutor’s theory, future prosecutors would have a lot of power to persecute their political rivals,” Brnovich said.

Over the course of questioning, the justices seemed generally split along ideological lines.

“If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked in an exchange with Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer.

“Once we say, ‘No criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office,” Jackson said.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Conversely, Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether limiting immunity for a former president would send the country into a destabilizing cycle.

“If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possible after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail,” Alito remarked.

“We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Justice Neil Gorsuch later stated.

Former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire — Former President Trump points to supporters during a campaign rally at the Atkinson Country Club on Jan. 16, 2024, in Atkinson, New Hampshire. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

John Shu, a constitutional scholar and former official in both Bush administrations, told Fox News Digital that the justices indicated “they believe this case isn’t really about Trump per se. It’s about the Office of the President, what future presidents can do, and whether they’ll be prosecuted for their choices.”

“It’s a very important issue and the Biden administration set a very bad precedent to go after not only a former president, but one who also is challenging Biden’s re-election,” he said.

“What the Biden administration has done here gives the terrible appearance of vindictiveness, and on an international or foreign policy level, it makes us look like just another banana republic that we generally criticize for prosecuting or trying to jail their political opponents,” he stated.

Shu added that “many of the justices perhaps find what Trump did after the 2020 election distasteful.”

“But they also seem uncomfortable with either granting blanket immunity on the one hand, or no immunity at all on the other. As often happens, the middle ground is where the discussions will be,” he said.

John Yoo, a law professor at University of California at Berkeley, said Trump’s argument “had much more success than many court watchers expected.”

“Only the three liberal justices seemed to reject the idea of immunity outright. The six conservative justices recognized the need to prevent future presidents from criminalizing policy and constitutional differences with their predecessors,” Yoo said.

He added that a possible outcome could be that the justices punt the question back to the lower courts and ask them to first determine whether Trump’s actions amounted to “official” or “private” acts, before they decide whether immunity might extend to official acts.

A decision in the case is expected early this summer.

The special counsel’s office declined to comment when reached by Fox News Digital.

Fox News’ Bill Mears and Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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WHITE HOUSE STILL INSISTS ‘BIDENOMICS’ IS EFFECTIVE DESPITE DEMOCRATS ALL BUT DITCHING SLOGAN: REPORT

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Justin Haskins Op-ed: Bidenomics strikes again: Shocking number of full-time jobs lost over past 5 months

By Justin Haskins Fox News | Published April 25, 2024 5:00am EDT

As the Biden White House continues to brag about the alleged success of its economic policies, government data shows the country is hemorrhaging full-time jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Americans reporting full-time employment dropped by more than 1.7 million jobs from November 2023 to the end of March 2024, the most recent month for which data is available. That’s a decline of 1.33% over a five-month period. Excluding job losses related to the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, the recent drop in full-time employment is the largest five-month decline since the Great Recession in 2009, 15 years ago.

President Joe Biden at a coffee shop — President Biden visits Nowhere Coffee shop in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 12, 2024, as he touts his Bidenomics agenda. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Before that, the last time the number of full-time jobs declined this much over a similar period was in 1994.

Despite these remarkable figures, the Biden administration has continued to boast about its economic policies. For example, on April 11, the White House’s official X account claimed, “Under Bidenomics, our economy has created 15 million jobs and unemployment has remained under 4% for the longest stretch in 50 years.”

MAJOR CONSERVATIVE GROUP UNVEILS BIDENOMICS.COM TO TARGET PRESIDENT’S ECONOMIC POLICIES

The Biden administration has made similar claims for much of the president’s time in office. At best, they are wildly misleading.

Although it’s true that total employment has increased dramatically since Biden entered the White House, the vast majority of those jobs were recovered from the coronavirus-related government lockdowns. They are not “created” jobs.

Compared to employment figures recorded in January 2020, immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of jobs added under Biden’s tenure is just 2.98 million, an unimpressive figure compared to many of his predecessors.

DESPITE THE SPIN, AMERICANS KNOW THIS TRUTH ABOUT BIDENOMICS

During Donald Trump’s first three years in office, the U.S. economy added 6.33 million jobs, more than double the figure recorded in the Biden era. These numbers are made even more remarkable by the fact that, excluding the 2020 coronavirus lockdown, Biden’s government has spent more money in a three-year period than any other president in history.

Two of the four highest federal deficits ever recorded have occurred under Biden, and a third, the $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009, happened while Biden was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president.

Biden’s economic agenda of dramatically increasing the size and power of government programs, raising taxes, and imposing increasingly more regulations on businesses has been a complete and utter failure. Not only has it been killing full-time jobs in recent months, it also is the driving factor behind America’s lingering inflation problem.

As difficult as it is for the Biden White House to understand, when a government consistently spends far more money than it receives in tax revenue and turns to money-printing policies to pay the bills, inflation increases. And when inflation gets out of control, as it has been for years now, most people get poorer. Based on the Consumer Price Index’s inflation estimates, an American family buying $200 worth of groceries in January 2021, when Biden took office, would have to spend $238 today to purchase the same products.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JUSTIN HASKINS

Most Americans can barely afford to pay basic living expenses. The average cost of rent has increased dramatically. The average sales price of a home and the cost of mortgages have skyrocketed.

The cost of purchasing a new car has increased by thousands of dollars in just a few years.

The American people are suffering under the Biden administration’s economic agenda. And based on the recent full-time jobs data outlined earlier in this article, the situation is not likely to improve while Biden’s failing policies remain in place.

Justin Haskins is the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute and a New York Times bestselling author.

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Supreme Court Signals It Could Hand Trump Partial Win in Immunity case

By: Jason Cohen / April 25, 2024

Demonstrators participate in a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 25, 2024, in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Trump v. United States, a case about presidential immunity from prosecution on obstruction and conspiracy charges. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Supreme Court justices on Thursday appeared to signal they may hand former President Donald Trump a partial victory in his presidential immunity case by possibly sending it back to a lower court.

Trump’s attorney Dean John Sauer argued that presidents should have constitutional immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted during their presidency. Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, brought up the potential for the Supreme Court to send the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which could delay a trial on Trump’s election interference case until at least after the election, according to Politico.

A three-judge appeals court panel unanimously rejected Trump’s immunity claim in a Feb. 6 ruling in the case originating from an indictment Jack Smith secured against the former president over his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election.

Roberts pressed Department of Justice (DOJ) counselor to Smith, Michael Dreeben, asking if the appeals court and the DOJ were arguing that Trump lacked immunity by default because he had been indicted.

“They said that there is no reason to worry because the prosecutor will act in good faith and there is no reason to worry because a grand jury will have returned the indictment,” Roberts said. “Now, you know how easy it is in many cases for a prosecutor to get a grand jury to bring an indictment and reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough in some cases, I‘m not suggesting here, so if it’s tautological, if those are the only protections the court gave that is no longer your position, you are not defending that position, why shouldn’t we send it back to the court of appeals or issue an opinion making clear that that’s not the law?”

“Well, I am defending the court of appeals’ judgment and I do think there are layered safeguards the court can take into account that will ameliorate concerns about unduly chilling presidential conduct,” Dreeben responded. “That concerns us. We are not endorsing a regime that we think would expose former presidents to criminal prosecutions in bad faith, for political animus, without adequate evidence. A politically driven prosecution would violate the Constitution … It’s not something within the arsenal of prosecutors to do.”

Moreover, Justice Amy Coney Barrett indicated the possibility of establishing a test for presidential protection from prosecution, that would not quite be absolute immunity, which could also lead to delays if lower courts rule on it, according to Politico.

Justice Clarence Thomas questioned Dreeben about why no other president has faced prosecutions before Trump.

“Over the not-so-distant past … certain presidents have engaged in various activity, coups or operations like Operation Mongoose, when I was a teenager, and yet there were no prosecutions,” Thomas said. “Why? If what you’re saying is right, it would seem that would have been ripe for criminal prosecution of someone.”

“So, Justice Thomas, I think this is a central question,” Dreeben responded. “The reason why there have not been prior criminal prosecutions is that there were not crimes.”

Justice Elena Kagan characterized Sauer’s argument that a president may have criminal immunity for staging a coup after she presented him with a hypothetical as “sound[ing] bad,” which Trump’s attorney agreed with.

“It certainly sounds very bad, and that’s why the framers have a whole series of structural checks that have successfully, for the last two hundred and thirty-four years, prevented that very kind of extreme hypothetical. And that is the wisdom of the framers,” Trump’s attorney argued.

Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Justice Held Hostage

A.F. BRANCO | on April 25, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-justice-held-hostage/

Merchan Holds Trump Hostage — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

Judge Merchan and the Democrats are trying to hold Trump hostage to hinder his campaign, but the more lawfare they throw at him, the higher his poll numbers keep rising.

TX Rep. Lance Gooden Demands AG Merrick Garland and DA Alvin Bragg Turn Over Evidence Related to Hiring Radical Biden Attorney Colangelo to Run Latest Lawfare Suit Against Trump

By Jim Hoft – April 24, 2024

On Tuesday, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) sent out a letter to crooked Attorney General Merrick Garland and Soros-funded New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg demanding the two turn over evidence related to the hiring of former top Biden attorney Matthew Colangelo to run the latest lawfare case against President Trump in a New York City courtroom.

Gooden calls the hiring of Colangelo “a declaration of war against the American judicial system.” READ MORE…

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Human Trafficking Czar Ignores Democrat-Invited Human Trafficking Over U.S. Border

BY: JORDAN BOYD | APRIL 24, 2024

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The ongoing border invasion is perhaps the largest source of human trafficking inside the United States. Yet the woman President Joe Biden tasked with monitoring and combating this problem has largely neglected that nexus in her reports, speeches, and other work since assuming her role in January 2023.

On paper, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Cindy Dyer appears qualified to lead that State Department office. Her official bio boasts “three decades of experience working at the local, national, and international levels to prevent and respond to human trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence” as well as her lengthy track record as former vice president for human rights at a nongovernmental organization.

It’s safe to say Dyer is no stranger to the conditions that breed exploitation at home and abroad. That might be why the Senate unanimously confirmed her as human trafficking czar in 2022. Notably missing from her work at the TIP office, however, is a focus on what has quickly become the nation’s biggest hub for human trafficking: the southern border.

The Elephant in the Room

Human trafficking was a huge, bipartisan issue until a few years ago when corporate media started associating it with the “far-right.” That narrative shift directly coincided with Democrats’ zeal for unfettered illegal immigration. That means it’s like pulling teeth to get anyone in the regime (including the nation’s lead woman on the job) to talk about the mass human trafficking at our compromised southern border.

Still, it’s happening and, with the help of a vast nongovernmental organization system, is funded with American tax dollars and enabled by American policies.

In 2007, the majority of trafficking victims in the States were clocked as female border crossers. Even our federal government admits on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website that “border smuggling frequently involves human trafficking.” Since that report was released in 2007, the number of men, women, and unaccompanied minors indebting themselves to smugglers so they can illegally enter the United States has skyrocketed.

At least 10 million illegal border crossers have entered the United States since President Joe Biden’s presidency began. Since illegal immigrants rarely get across the U.S.-Mexico border without paying a price to cartels, those millions likely shelled out thousands of dollars to ensure their illegal passage from Mexico into California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The people demanding these payments are “coyotes,” the billion-dollar human smuggling arm of criminal organizations that control the Northern Mexico territory. The profitability and frequency of these cartels’ kidnapping and ransom schemes have increased since Biden effectively legalized illegal border crossings after taking office in 2021.

Tara Lee Rodas, who worked with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to place unaccompanied migrant children with sponsors, told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement in April 2023 that children “are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in home country, smuggled to the US border, and ends when ORR delivers a child to . . . Sponsors” who may be “criminals and traffickers and members of Transnational Criminal Organizations.”

“Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the US Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children,” Rodas said.

See Something, Say Nothing

The 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, released by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Dyer last June, acknowledges that human trafficking “often occurs transnationally” but stops short of acknowledging that the influx of illegal border crossers welcomed under President Joe Biden contributes to the nation’s modern slavery problems. Instead of addressing the root cause of U.S. trafficking problems — unfettered and incentivized access to the United States via a compromised border — Dyer said the State Department is focused on promoting “equity” that prioritizes “diverse groups and marginalized communities” in foreign countries.

“Promoting equity with respect to race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and for marginalized communities is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. When we partner to support vulnerable migrants, advocate for women’s rights, or enact legislation to protect LGBTQI+ individuals, we are creating a more just and equitable world that is also more impervious to human traffickers,” Dyer wrote in the report’s introduction.

Later in the 116-page document, Dyer also demanded foreign governments “re-double their efforts to proactively identify all victims, protect them, support survivors, prevent trafficking even in the face of new and complex challenges, and ensure that law enforcement holds traffickers accountable.” The report confirmed this by calling for U.S. security and government “assistance” for other countries deemed in need of trafficking prevention resources.

Yet Dyer failed in the report to specifically address securing the U.S. border or cracking down on the criminal trafficking that stems from it.

The United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking Annual Report 2023, released under the Dyer office’s supervision, does touch on the relationship between the border invasion and trafficking but fails to link it to the Biden administration’s open border polices or recommend any serious policies aimed at combating the problem. Instead, the report merely suggests the Department of Homeland Security increase its “oversight,” “support,” and “awareness” of the issue.

Why hasn’t Dyer directed her or her subordinates’ attention to the ongoing border chaos despite its clear connection to human trafficking?

She admitted the quiet part out loud during May 2023 testimony to the House Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations when she told Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., that her office supports the Biden administration’s goals to facilitate amnesty for illegal border crossers instead of deportation.

“Addressing the challenges of irregular migration, specifically providing protection to refugees and asylum seekers and offering lawful migration pathways are key priorities for the administration,” Dyer said.

The Federalist asked Dyer if she believes cracking down on illegal immigration and securing the border would reduce the risk of human trafficking, but she did not respond.

Emboldening crime organizations with promises of citizenship for all doesn’t simply put illegal border crossers at risk of exploitation and harm, it endangers Americans too. Simply put, failure to curb the border crisis is a direct failure to cut down on human trafficking and American suffering in the United States.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Joe Biden Just Promised America A Massive Tax Hike

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | APRIL 24, 2024

Here is our president today:

Donald Trump was very proud of his $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and biggest corporations and exploded the federal debt.

That tax cut is going to expire.

If I’m reelected, it’s going to stay expired.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 23, 2024

Well, obviously Trump should be “proud” of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire at the end of 2025. If the GOP presidential candidate had any sense, he would be running Biden’s promise to enact a $2 trillion tax hike, one of the biggest in American history, in a perpetual ad loop. Of course the rich benefited. As did everyone else. Even the New York Times and Washington Post were compelled to admit as much.

In raw terms, as with any across-the-board tax cut, Trump’s reform helped higher earners most, because high earners pay most of our federal taxes. In 2023, the top 1 percent paid eight times the rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers. The idea that the rich aren’t paying their share is a preposterous zero-sum economic myth spread by resentment-racket class warriors on left and right. If everyone actually paid his “fair share” in this country, we’d be years deep into a violent revolution.

If anything, the problem with Trump’s tax cuts was that the code became more progressive, although other downsides include the lack of any corresponding cuts or reforms of debt-driving entitlements. Quite the opposite.

As a percentage of income, though, the Trump tax cuts benefited the middle class most, as Justin Haskins explained:

A careful analysis of the IRS tax data, one that includes the effects of tax credits and other reforms to the tax code, shows that filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $15,000 to $50,000 enjoyed an average tax cut of 16 percent to 26 percent in 2018, the first year Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect and the most recent year for which data is available.

Filers who earned $50,000 to $100,000 received a tax break of about 15 percent to 17 percent, and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 in adjusted gross income saw their personal income taxes cut by around 11 percent to 13 percent.

By comparison, no income group with an AGI of at least $500,000 received an average tax cut exceeding 9 percent, and the average tax cut for brackets starting at $1 million was less than 6 percent. (For more detailed data, see my table published here.)

That means most middle-income and working-class earners enjoyed a tax cut that was at least double the size of tax cuts received by households earning $1 million or more.

Let’s not forget, as well, when “that tax cut is going to expire”—and there are no assurances anything would pass to take its place—that would slash child tax credits from $2,000 per child to $1,000 and cut additional credits for older children and dependents in half. It should also be remembered that corporate taxes—which Trump cut from 35 percent to 21 percent and Democrats raised again—are also just a tax on consumers.

You may also recall the fearmongering and performative meltdowns among Democrats over the tax reform. Larry Summers, a relatively moderate voice on the left, warned Trump’s bill was “a threat to democracy” and would lead to more than 10,000 dead Americans every year.

“Armageddon,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned, declaring Trump’s tax cut “one of the worst bills in the history of the United States Congress”— potentially, then, in a category with the Fugitive Slave Act and the Espionage Act. Unhinged progressive economist Bruce Bartlett said on MSNBC the tax cuts were “really akin to rape” of the poor, while the Washington Post ran an article from a “depression historian” who contended, “The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.”

What happened? The bill passed at the end of 2017. In 2018,

the real GDP increased 3.1 percent, compared with an increase of 2.5 percent the previous year.
The price index for GDP purchases increased 2.1 percent in 2018, compared to 1.9 percent in 2017.

Many “new right” populists don’t like defending tax cuts (Ronald Reagan talked about them a lot, so yuck). But the average American family — which is middle class, lives in the suburbs, and votes in high numbers — will surely be more concerned about a rising tax bill than about any issue animating the populist Internet influencer crowd.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Latest Job-Killing Policy Spells More Bad News for Californians

By: EJ Antoni / @RealEJAntoni / April 24, 2024

Hiking the minimum wage to $20 for California’s fast-food workers will result in job losses, higher prices, and more automation. Pictured: An employee helps a customer April 1 at a Chipotle restaurant in San Rafael, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

California’s list of public policy failures was already long but hiking its minimum wage to $20 an hour for fast-food workers may belong at the top.

The predictable fallout in lost jobs and higher prices are already being felt, and the flood of residents fleeing the state is poised to accelerate.

California is already home to some of the highest taxes and costs of living in the country, the consequences of failed government policies. A higher minimum wage is more of the same.

Consider California’s “green” energy policies, which have created the highest utility rates in the nation. Instead of rolling back those mandates, the state created a new one: surcharges on utility bills, making the middle class pay more even if they don’t use more.

The overtaxing, overspending, and overregulating by the state government in Sacramento has turned California into such a basket case that 1.2 million more people left the state than moved in over the past three years—by far the biggest loss of any state and beating New York by 35%.

Californians clearly don’t like the effects of these policies, but they just got more of them with the higher minimum wage law for fast-food workers. This particular policy provides a superb example of how disastrous economic ideas become law: wonderful rhetoric, terrible results.

The law was advertised as forcing “greedy” corporations to pay workers a “living wage.” But businesses aren’t charities and can’t pay employees more than they produce or they’ll go bankrupt. Employers pay taxes and other costs on top of an employee’s earnings; at $20 an hour, many fast-food workers don’t provide enough value to justify the highest minimum wage in the country.

Not surprisingly, California’s fast-food companies have frozen hiring. Some are already announcing mass layoffs. This is not a small cohort of workers: California is, at least for now, home to half a million fast-food workers.

That number is already dropping and is set to plunge soon. McDonald’s has been investing millions of dollars in fully automated restaurants and opened the first such restaurant last year. Jack in the Box and El Pollo Loco, the Mexican chicken chain, both announced that they’ll use robotics to fully automate cooking and cashier functions.

The machines are cheaper than employing people at artificially inflated wage rates, plus the additional costs such as training, payroll taxes, and vulnerability to lawsuits, thanks to lawyer lobbies.

Where fast-food workers can’t be replaced, their jobs effectively will be outsourced. About 1,100 Pizza Hut delivery drivers are set to lose their jobs, with more layoffs announced at another restaurant chain, Round Table Pizza.

Consumers will have to use food delivery apps (also being targeted by California’s notorious legislation, AB 40), or they’ll have to pick up their orders themselves.

Apologists claim that corporations are just posturing and won’t really lay off thousands of workers. That thinking is largely made possible by the fact that many politicians never have run a business, had to make payroll, or hired minimum-wage workers.

In short, advocates of the $20 minimum wage don’t understand the impact of the policy they’re pushing. All the politicians know is that it’s a reliable vote winner—even if it throws low-wage workers under the bus not once, but twice. Hiking the minimum wage causes job losses, but it also increases prices. Because lower-income folks disproportionately eat at fast-food restaurants, they bear the brunt of these higher costs, in addition to losing their jobs.

A minimum wage of $20 an hour is really a state ban on any job that pays less than $20. Californians in that category either must go somewhere else where such work is still legal, work illegally “under the table,” or rely on welfare.

But the insanity doesn’t end there. The law also creates a Fast-Food Council that can raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers by another 3.5% per year, every year, until no fast-food workers are left standing.

California will continue to hemorrhage residents, and that rate of outmigration likely will accelerate as politicians target low-income workers with wage mandates and inflation. Eventually, all those willing to work will leave. The only ones left will be those on the state’s bloated welfare rolls.

The Golden State is killing the goose that laid its golden eggs.

Originally published by Fox Business

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Higher Brainwashing

A.F. BRANCO | on April 24, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-higher-brainwashing/

Columbia University For Palestine – Cartoon — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

Our universities melting down seems to be part of the Democrats’ Cloward and Piven strategy of destroying the capitalist system in order to rebuild it into a utopia resembling that of the former Soviet Union or Communist China, throwing away our constitution with all power and control resting with a few wealthy elitists in the Democrat party.

Chaos at Columbia: Anti-Zionist NYC College Protest Gets Physical Last Night, “Arrest that Zionist piece of s***” (VIDEO)

By Benjamin Wetmore – April 19, 2024

Protests at Columbia University in New York City got heated Thursday night as protesters demanded charges be dropped against pro-Palestinian activists who were shutting down the college’s buildings to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. The protesters were upset that the police arrested those making a ‘tent city’ inside the college’s buildings and on campus grounds. 108 were arrested after three days of protests. The protesters wanted those arrested released without charges. READ MORE…

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FBI Won’t Say If It’s Investigating Self-Declared ‘Hamas’ Terrorists Protesting At U.S. Universities

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 23, 2024

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would not say Tuesday whether it is investigating people identifying themselves as part of a foreign terrorist organization heard chanting “We are Hamas” outside U.S. universities including Columbia.

Video footage shows masked Islamists taunting Jewish students outside of President Barack Obama’s alma mater. One woman shouted at a pro-Israel activist, “We are Hamas” while standing outside Columbia University. “We’re all Hamas.”

Shocking video captures moment protester near Columbia University yells, ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’ https://t.co/hWlgY9GnZN pic.twitter.com/FVoTH9KY78
— New York Post (@nypost) April 18, 2024

Another man who covered his face was seen on video promising more mass slaughter, rape, and kidnapping: “Remember the 7th of October! That will happen not one more time, not five more times, to 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times!”

"Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10…100…1000…10,000…The 7th of October is going to be every day for you."

Protestors screamed this at two Jewish @Columbia students right outside campus gates tonight. pic.twitter.com/VYp0tFudGj
— Jonas Du (@jonasydu) April 19, 2024

“Never forget the 7th of October,” another unidentifiable man donning the Palestinian flag outside the university screams in a video recording. “Are you ready? Seventh of October is about to be every day. Every day. Seventh of October is going to be every day for you.”

The Federalist asked the FBI whether they would investigate the self-proclaimed terrorists.

“Thank you for your inquiry. However, we decline comment on this matter,” the bureau replied.

The FBI designates Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Perhaps the FBI’s unwillingness to let the American people know it’s monitoring self-proclaimed terrorists is because the agency allegedly trained some of its personnel using material that “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists,” as former special agent Steve Friend told the Tennessee Informer.

Friend said he received the training material in 2014 but was unsure whether the agency still used it. The materials, he said, were produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a hate group whose materials inspired a gunman to shoot up the offices of a conservative DC organization in 2012, and another gunman to attempt to murder a member of Congress in 2017.

As of 2023, the FBI still uses some SPLC materials. SPLC responded to the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel by claiming that, while “all acts of hate violence” are wrong, Israel targets Palestinian civilians. That is a Hamas propaganda refrain.

The FBI also cited SPLC in a 2023 document targeting traditional Christians for opposing abortion and holding orthodox views about the sexes. It labeled them “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and even suggested cultivating FBI informants within local churches.

The FBI has also smeared Americans who support former President Donald Trump as potential terrorists by including them in their “domestic extremism” definition, a 2023 report from Newsweek found. Newsweek found “nearly two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations” focus on Trump supporters who allegedly disregarded “anti-riot” laws.

After Jan. 6, 2021, the agency also expanded its “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists-other” classification so it could monitor anyone who disagrees with any government action. A 2021 inspector general report found that several FBI officials lied to cover up agency errors and dinged the agency for its systemic lack of rapid investigation of later convicted child sex abuser Larry Nassar.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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To The Ivy League Palestine Supporters: Welcome To The ‘Eat Dirt’ Club

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | APRIL 23, 2024

A lot of congressional Republicans see a political slam dunk in thrusting their focus into the thick of anti-Israel protests raging at Ivy League campuses across the country, but to the protesters, there’s only one thing to say: This is what disappointment feels like. Get used to it.

Participants in the protests are demanding a range of things, from a simple “cease fire” in Gaza to something resembling more of what you might call a “final solution” in Israel. Republicans and Fox News are taking a special interest in the affair because of course all of the protesters are Democrat voters, and some of them are proudly allowing their anti-Jew flag to fly.

That makes things a little uncomfortable for the White House and Democrats in Congress, but so far, Joe Biden and Co. are managing to tolerate it. That’s because, with a giddy assist from Republicans, Democrats are within a baby’s breath of passing a nearly $100 billion foreign welfare package, about a quarter of which will go to Israel to continue its war campaign. Included in that portion is some “humanitarian aid” for Palestinians. (Enjoy!)

What’s not included in that handsome giveaway is anything of note that would directly improve the life of a single American on U.S. soil. There was nothing related to the collapse of the Southern border, nothing to address crime, and nothing to bring down the cost of groceries or the price of gas.

So, the anti-Israel faction of the Democrat Party feels put out by Washington? Don’t we all.

What they all need to understand is that the leaders they elected don’t care. Elected Democrats don’t share their interests. Likewise, elected Republicans just showed their priorities aren’t in sync with the desires of their voters, either.

I know it stings. Nobody likes rejection. But here we all are, as far corners of the world are taken care of by our tax dollars amid massive federal deficits and debt. Everyone here is fine, right?

Ultimately, what the protesters want is stupid anyway. After what happened on Oct. 7, Israel isn’t going to relent until it’s ready, just as any proud nation would do. That’s not to say Israelis should wage their battle at our expense, but that wasn’t my call. It was Washington’s. And Washington cares just as much about the preferences of anti-Israel activists as they do every other average American’s.

Get comfortable. Things aren’t going to change for a while.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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Prosecutors Accuse Trump Of ‘Criminal Scheme’ To ‘Corrupt’ 2016 Election While Russia Hoaxers Walk Free

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 23, 2024

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In opening statements on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors sought to convince a jury that former President Donald Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.” Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the Russia-collusion hoax — the real criminal scheme that was orchestrated to meddle in that election — walk free.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg claims Trump broke the law after he classified payments made by his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pornographer Stormy Daniels, as “legal fees” rather than campaign expenditures. (It is not illegal to purchase negative press about oneself, and Trump likely would have run afoul of campaign finance laws if he had classified such an expense, which benefitted him personally rather than just his campaign, as a campaign payment.)

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, who formerly held a top post in President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, alleged Monday during opening statements that “this was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.”

“It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo continued, according to PBS News. “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

Manhattan prosecutors seek to put Trump in jail for up to four years. Meanwhile, the operatives who invented a hoax accusing Trump of being a Russian asset in 2016, commissioned a dossier of fake oppo research, and shopped it to the FBI — which then used the shoddy “research” as a basis to illegally spy on the Trump campaign — have received a light tap on the wrist, if any punishment at all.

Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign lawyer who commissioned the discredited dossier, received no punishment. The DNC and the Clinton campaign — which together provided funds for oppo research firm Fusion GPS to hire former British spy Christopher Steele, who put his name on the so-called “Steele dossier” — were fined $105,000 and $8,000, respectively, for labeling the payments as “legal and compliance consulting” and “legal services.” Clinton herself, who personally approved the decision to leak the false accusations to the press, was still suggesting the 2016 election was “stolen” from her as recently as 2022 and has never received any repercussions for the Russia hoax.

Russian national Igor Danchenko, the “primary sub-source” whose testimony Steele relied on in creating the dossier, “fed Steele false information about the Trump campaign, which a Clinton booster had invented.” Danchenko was indicted by Special Counsel John Durham for lying to the FBI about a 2016 phone call he claimed he received from an anonymous person who he thought was Sergei Millian. Danchenko claimed the anonymous caller revealed a “conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Russians. These claims were added to the Steele dossier.

Evidence presented to the jury, as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland noted at the time, indicated that “Danchenko did not know Millian and had not received any telephone calls during the relevant time frame that might fit the description of the call Danchenko claimed he received.”

Nevertheless, a jury in a deep-blue Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. acquitted Danchenko in 2022.

Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was also acquitted, despite evidence suggesting he lied to then FBI-General Counsel James Baker in 2016. Sussman “presented Baker with data and whitepapers that supposedly showed the existence of a secret communications network between the Russian-based Alfa Bank and the Trump organization,” Cleveland explained. “According to the indictment [from Special Counsel John Durham], Sussmann was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe when he met with Baker, but falsely told his friend that he was coming on his own behalf to help the FBI.”

The only person who received any sentence was former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to forging an email to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Clinesmith, according to Federalist CEO Sean Davis’ reporting on Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings, “altered an email from a separate U.S. federal agency, believed to be the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to falsely state that [Trump campaign affiliate Carter] Page had never worked with the CIA to investigate suspected Russia agents operating within the U.S.”

“In fact,” Davis wrote, “as Clinesmith was told by the operative, Page had worked with the CIA previously, as well as with the FBI.”

Clinesmith was sentenced to 400 hours of community service and one year of probation.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS: 5 DRAMATIC MOMENTS FROM A WEEK OF CHAOS

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Hugh Hewitt Op-ed: Morning Glory: Joe Biden’s antisemitism problem

By Hugh Hewitt Fox News | Published April 23, 2024 5:00am EDT

President Joe Biden has an antisemitism problem. It is large and growing larger. It is his problem, and he can’t shed responsibility for it. In a nutshell: The people who work for him are not doing their jobs to stop discrimination against Jews in America. Anyone with eyes and ears can see and hear what has been happening in America for six months, and a climax of sorts was reached this weekend at Columbia and Yale Universities. Police have taken some action against the violent protesters at the New Haven and Upper West Side campuses of the two schools, but how did it reach this point? Why have the Biden Departments of Education and Justice been MIA?

The problem manifests immediately on the landing page of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights where any visitor finds this notice right off the bat: “The majority of OCR staff are working remotely because of the pandemic.”

Huh? The pandemic is long gone everywhere except the DOE. Everyone in the federal government should be at their desk and answering their phones or at least making it through a few emails a day. That would not be enough though. There should be task forces of DOE and DOJ personnel dispatched to every campus where these outages are occurring. Take the pictures. Make the first-hand reports. Become witnesses, not desk jockeys.

JEWISH, PRO-ISRAEL COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR SAYS HE WAS BLOCKED FROM ENTERING MAIN CAMPUS: ‘THIS IS 1938’

Even folks “working remotely” from the vast Department building at 400 Maryland Avenue SW in D.C. ought to be able to do the easy stuff of answering emails. The portion of the website titled “Race, Color, or National Origin Discrimination” includes what should be known to every DOE-OCR employee: “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.”

There is an online form for filing a complaint about unlawful discrimination —but it hardly seems necessary when every news organization and social media platform has produced coverage of the antisemitic harassment at Columbia and Yale and before that at Harvard, the University of Michigan etc.

Nevertheless, the organization “Campus Reform” has stepped up to wake up DOE-OCR by filing complaint after complaint about the rolling waves of anti-Semitism on American campuses.

Campus Reform bills itself as “America’s leading site for college news.” It also brands itself as a “conservative watchdog to the nation’s higher education system,” one which “exposes liberal bias and abuse on the nation’s college campuses.” Maybe that’s why the Biden administration seems to be ignoring its emails: Complaints from conservatives don’t count.

ANTISEMITISM ON CAMPUS SURGES AS AGITATORS TAKE OVER

“Our team of professional journalists works alongside student activists and student journalists to report on the conduct and misconduct of campus administrators, faculty, and students,” the organization adds. “Campus Reform holds itself to rigorous journalism standards and strives to present each story with accuracy, objectivity, and public accountability.”

Good for them and they have indeed been relentless in cataloging many of the antisemitic incidents and filing the complaints required by the Department of Education. To what end?

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Dr. Zachary Marschall is the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform and in January he opined that the “beginning of the end is here for unaccountable, radical campus indoctrination.” Nearly three months later, however, the hatred is metastasizing, not abating, and not for lack of notice.

Marshall and his team have filed scores of complaints against the highest profile offenders like Princeton. But nothing has happened. No funds have been cut off; no civil rights actions filed in federal court by DOE-OCR in conjunction with the Division of Civil Rights at the Department of Justice. Why not? It’s certainly not for “lack of notice.” The answer has to be in either the incompetence or the ideology of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education, or both.

The StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice has brought a private suit against MIT for the antisemitism there, but DOJ has not joined it. Finding any DOJ suit against any college or university for antisemitic acts since Oct. 7 is impossible. They aren’t in that business. Like the DOE-OCR, the feds at Justice have taken a vacation from enforcing civil rights laws when Jews are the victims.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT

In sharp contrast, the State Department appears set to sanction units in the Israeli Defense Forces that somebody at State believes are committing war crimes of some sort. Astonishing but true: Team Biden can find defendants to accuse of bad acts inside of Israel but can’t muster any response to our civil rights meltdown in the U.S.

At what point do American supporters of Israel and especially American Jews realize that the Democrat Party has reverted to the policies of the State Department throughout 1940 to 1944 —the era of Breckinridge Long? Don’t recognize the name? Read this.

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Too harsh to compare the bureaucrats of today with Long? Maybe it would have been in October or even early November. But there has been six months of growing antisemitism in the U.S. generally and creeping anti-Israel policies inside the Biden administration specifically. It will be up to voters to punish this disgusting abdication of enforcement of the country’s civil rights laws coupled with a turn against our ally Israel.

Let’s hope no student has to be killed before DOE and DOJ acts.

Hugh Hewitt is host of “The Hugh Hewitt show,” heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Brett Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/TV show today.

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California’s EV Agenda Will Require Massive and Costly Infrastructure Upgrades, Analysis Finds

By: Nick Pope / April 23, 2024

Electric vehicle chargers stand ready to power EVs on Sept. 23, 2020, in Corte Madera, California. The state will need tens of thousands more of them along with a massive increase in the required power-generating capacity to accommodate the forthcoming California ban on gas-powered cars. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images)

California’s electric vehicle agenda will require costly upgrades to the state’s electric grid infrastructure if it is to be realized, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The state, often heralded as a national leader when it comes to EVs, is set to ban the sale of purely gas-powered passenger vehicles in the state after 2035 and heavy-duty trucks that burn fossil fuels starting in 2036. The infrastructure upgrades reportedly needed to support the projected rise of EVs in the state could cost anywhere between $6 billion and $20 billion, according to the study.

The study identifies “feeders,” or transmission lines that carry electricity from the site of generation to its end user, as a key type of infrastructure that needs extensive upgrades by 2045 in order to meet targets set by California’s aggressive EV policies. There is a “substantial need” for 50% of all feeders in the state to receive upgrades by 2035, and for 67% of feeders by 2045, according to the study.

The state will also need to increase the amount of energy that it is able to distribute by about 25 gigawatts (GW) by 2045 to meet demand for public and private EV charging stations—upgrades that will cost anywhere between $6 billion and $20 billion, the study states. But it takes nearly 2.5 million solar panels or 310 utility-scale wind turbines to produce just 1 GW of power, according to the Department of Energy.

“The imminent challenges confronting California serve as a microcosm of the forthcoming obstacles anticipated worldwide due to the prevailing global trend of EV adoption,” the study states.

California is also expecting to continue its advance toward its goal of having 100% zero-emissions power generation by 2045. The state figures to rely heavily on wind and solar power to meet that target, given that the state’s sole major nuclear power plant may have to close for good after its five-year life span extension granted by state regulators expires.

While the state is changing how it sources electricity over time and adding demand with policies like those pushing EVs, the study’s authors project that electricity demand growth will actually drive down electricity costs in the state over time. California had the second-highest cost of electricity per unit of any state in the continental U.S. in January, trailing only Rhode Island, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The office of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Energy Commission did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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“Deactivated”: Columbia Reportedly Blocks Jewish Professor from Access to Campus

JonathanTurley.org | April 23, 2024

Professor Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, was reportedly denied access to the main campus on Friday as his school ID was “deactivated” during the recent protests over the Israeli-Gaza conflict. What was equally concerning is that the university did so for his own protection out of concern that, as an outspoken Jewish faculty member, he could not walk around the campus safely. It was reminiscent of the recent controversy of a man in London threatened with arrest because being “quite openly Jewish” would trigger pro-Palestinian protesters.

Davidai said that the university told him they banned him from campus because they could not ensure his safety. This followed a Columbia rabbi telling Jewish students to leave campus for their own safety.

The most basic obligation of a university is to ensure the safety of its faculty and students from physical assaults. If there is a problem on campus, it is found in those students or faculty who would threaten a Jewish professor if he were to walk on campus.

This is not part of the debate over what language is considered a threat or hateful rhetoric. This is barring a professor because his status alone makes his presence inflammatory or dangerous. I cannot imagine how the solution was barring the potential victim of religious-based bigotry and violence.

We have not heard from Columbia University on the “deactivation.” Unless Professor Davidai is lying, someone cut off his access in the university. The university owes him and the Columbia community an immediate explanation. Indeed, University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik should have issued a statement yesterday.

There are calls for Shafik to resign. That position is not helped by the silence on the barring of a faculty member. If the accounts are untrue, Shafik needs to say so. If they are true, she needs to explain the basis for this extraordinary action. I cannot imagine the basis for such a deactivation since Shafik has not been accused of any threatening conduct himself.

As major donors like Robert Kraft pull their financial support from Columbia, the school will need to respond more quickly and transparently to such controversies. That can start by reactivating the card of Professor Davidai and supplying whatever security is needed to allow him and others to walk around campus without fear of assault.

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No, It Does Not Matter Why the Man Lit Himself on Fire

By: Jonathan Turley | April 23, 2024

Below is my column in The Hill on the man who lit himself on fire outside of the New York courthouse last week. What does matter may be the reaction to such “demonstrations.”

Here is the column:

The scene outside of the New York courthouse holding the Trump trial has become a microcosm of our deep political divisions and rage this month. Images of citizens screaming at each other from across security barriers have played out nightly on news programs.

But few were prepared for what occurred Friday night, when a man threw flyers in the air, poured a flammable liquid on himself and lit himself on fire.

Some immediately rushed to use the incident to fuel their own rage. On the far left, postings and comments declared MAGA supporters were lighting themselves and “MAGA Terrorist just set himself on fire.”

For many, it seemed a fact too good to check. Even after the police and fire officials explained that the material distributed by the man did not seem to relate to the trial, journalists pushed for a connection to the pro-Trump protesters. Officials reported that the flyers concerned wacky conspiracy theories related to schools and other matters.

Max Azzarello , 37, of Florida worked briefly for Rep. Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.), but has a criminal record of property offenses that included throwing a glass of wine on a photo of Bill Clinton. We know little of his political views beyond his conspiracy obsessions. However, does it really matter?

What should be clear is that he was a deeply disturbed individual. Yet even self-immolation may no longer be treated as per se evidence of mental illness. In today’s politics, even setting yourself on fire can be rationalized.

An event was held recently at UCLA in which two psychiatrists appeared to rationalize self-immolation in the cause of people in Gaza.

Ragda Izar and Afaf Moustafa were reportedly discussing the self-immolation in front of Israel’s embassy of airman Aaron Bushnell in February to protest Israeli policies. It was referred to as a “revolutionary suicide” on the panel on “Depathologizing Resistance.”

UCLA’s Izar stated that Bushnell “carried a lot of distress…but does that mean that the actions he engaged in are any less valid?” She suggested that it is “normal to be distressed when you’re seeing this level of carnage [in Gaza].”

Moustafa is quoted as saying that “Psychiatry pathologizes non-pathological…reactions to a pathological environment or pathological society. It’s considered illness to choose to die in protest of the violence of war but perfectly sane to choose to die in service of the violence of war.”

There have been a few prominent historical self-immolations in protest, including the famous case of Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself alive to protest the Vietnam War in 1963. However, as lay persons, most of us would hazard to say that it is not “normal” or “valid” to set oneself on fire in a protest.

The dividing line between rage and reason has always been contextual. In my forthcoming book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how we have faced regular periods of rage in our history. How one views rage depends largely on the underlying viewpoint. This country was born in rage with the Boston Tea Party, where a riot with massive property damage is celebrated as a moment of liberation.

Yet even self-immolation may now be viewed as somehow valid when used to oppose Israeli policies or other “distressful” realities. If Azzarello was motivated by his view of a conspiracy among educators or Trump’s trial, would his self-immolation also be viewed as valid?

Relativism has become deeply embedded in our politics, as we see in the continuing efforts to shut down opposing views. A year ago, Stanford University was the scene of a disgraceful shout-down of a federal judge who wanted to share his jurisprudential views. The university apologized to federal appellate Judge Kyle Duncan, particularly after a dean appeared to blame him at the event for “triggering” students by sharing his opposing views. The situation did not improve after the response of the university. At the time, I criticized Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Law School Dean Jenny Martinez after they declined to punish any students. Instead, all students were required to watch a widely mocked video on free speech.

One year later, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think.” It turns out that 54 percent of Stanford students believe Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration. Seventy-five percent said that “shouting down speakers to prevent them from speaking on campus” is acceptable at least sometimes. Most chilling, almost 40 percent of the students stated that using physical violence to shut down a campus speaker can at times be acceptable.

Of course, the same students supporting violence to silence opposing views would be triggered and traumatized by others preventing them from hearing their own preferred viewpoints or speakers. For these deluded young people, violence is righteousness when used to silence others, but reprehensible if ever used to silence themselves.

This relativism is taught by many faculty who have publicly discussed “detonating white people,” abolishing white people, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and making other inflammatory statements.

Violent acts against others (or even against oneself in the case of self-immolation) can become “normal” once you accept that others have triggered a response through their conduct or speech. In recent years, we have seen journalists and lawyers throwing Molotov cocktails at police, and some justify it as a form of protest.

What we are losing is a sense of clarity or objectivity. Self-immolation is not normal whether committed by a monk or a madman. Likewise, violence against political opponents is not contextual, but wrong.

The alternative is to come up with excuses about how we must not “pathologize non-pathological…reactions to a pathological environment or pathological society.” That gobbledygook merely rationalizes the irrational and justifies the unjustifiable.

I have no familiarity with either Bushnell or Azzarello, but I know that setting yourself on fire or violently attacking others is indeed “less valid” than alternatives, such as participating in the political system. Before we stretch the spectrum of what is the new normal, we might want to consider the implications of this radical relativism that is taking hold in our political discourse. If you are heading to a rally with matches and a can of accelerant, then you have issues, and they are not political.

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

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Crime, Law, Political

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Robbin’ the Hood

A.F. BRANCO | on April 23, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-robbin-the-hood/

Uniparty Stealing From the Poor — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Uniparty stealing billions of tax dollars that could be spent on our own poor in this country and giving it to Ukraine to promote an endless war with Russia.

Billions of dollars in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan – What about US?

By Kelly McCarthy – April 23, 2024

Reuters is reporting:

Billions of dollars in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan should easily win approval in the U.S. Senate this week, after the House of Representatives abruptly ended a months-long stalemate and approved the assistance in a rare Saturday session.The Senate on Tuesday will take up the package of four bills passed by the House, one providing $61 billion for Ukraine, a second with $26 billion for Israel, a third with $8.12 billion “to counter communist China” in the Indo-Pacific and a fourth that includes a potential ban on the social media app TikTok, measures for the transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine and new sanctions on Iran. READ MORE…

The Final Sellout? Uniparty Devils Sending $95 Billion to Corrupt Foreign Governments – $300 Million Goes for Ukraine Border Security but ZERO DOLLARS for Our Own Border Security

By Jim Hoft – April 22, 2024

Guest post by Leo Hohmann

The House voted on Saturday to betray America and American interests. As sellouts go, this was a big one, even by Washington Uniparty standards, as these members of Congress basically flipped their collective middle finger at America’s working poor and its increasingly struggling middle class.
These globalist sycophants, led by the globalist Speaker Mike Johnson, passed three separate foreign-aid bills that will provide funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, transferring a total of $95 billion from the U.S. Treasury directly to foreign governments. The massive foreign-aid package now heads to the Senate, where it will be rubber-stamped and signed by Joe Biden. READ MORE…

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Traitor Traits

A.F. BRANCO | on April 21, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-traitor-traits/

Omar’s Daughter suspended — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Rep. Omar’s daughter, Barnard student Isra Hirsi, said on Thursday she had been suspended over her involvement in anti-Israel protests on campus.

Columbia suspends anti-Israel student protesters, including Ilhan Omar’s daughter

By Matthew Xiao

Rep. Omar’s daughter, Barnard student Isra Hirsi, said on Thursday she had been suspended over her involvement in anti-Israel protests on campus.
(The Washington Free Beacon) — Columbia University on Thursday arrested and suspended anti-Israel students, one of them the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), in connection to a protest encampment on the university’s lawn.

New York City police on Thursday morning arrested five student protesters demonstrating as part of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” according to videos posted on X. The encampment started at around 5 a.m. Wednesday, with hundreds of Columbia students demanding the university divest from Israel. The protesters set up tents on a campus lawn and shouted anti-Israel slogans such as “Israel bombs, Columbia pays,” “free, free Palestine,” and “death to the Zionist state.” Video taken Thursday afternoon showed police arresting more demonstrators on the campus lawn. READ MORE

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Haters with Benefits

A.F. BRANCO | on April 22, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-haters-with-benefits/

Death To America Students – Cartoon — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Students in America seem to have no idea how good they have it here. Talk about biting the hand that feeds them; many are now chanting, “Death to America!” while asking that country to pay off their student loans.

Far-Left Activists Chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” During Conference in Chicago (VIDEO)

By Anthony Scott – April 14, 2024

A frightening video that has gone viral on X shows an organizer with the Anti-War Committee Chicago teaching far-left activists how to chant “death to America” and “death to Israel” during an “anti-war” conference held at Teamster’s Union’s Headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.

The Free Press reported during a breakout session at the “anti-war” conference, Shabbir Rizvi, who serves as an organizer with Anti-War Committee Chicago, began to teach far-left activists how to chant “death to America” and “death to Israel” in the Persian language Farsi. Rizvi told the radical leftists in attendance to chant “Marg bar Israel,” which in Farsi means “death to” or “down with” Israel. READ MORE…

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SUMMING UP THE WEEK OF APRIL 19, 2024, POLITICALLY INCORRECT CARTOONS AND MEMES

April 19, 2024

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HUMOR, Political, Society, Spiritual

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Trump’s Jury Trial Will Be As ‘Fair’ As The Russia Hoax And 2020 Election

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 19, 2024

Author Brianna Lyman profile

BRIANNA LYMAN

VISIT ON TWITTER@BRIANNALYMAN2

Jury selection for 12 jurors wrapped up Thursday in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s lawfare against former President Donald Trump, with the next phase of the trial expected to begin as early as Monday. But with two selected jurors booted for potential bias and perjury and at least one juror who made clear she doesn’t like Trump’s “persona,” can he really get a fair trial?

Who Are the Jurors?

After two of the initial seven selected jurors were struck from the panel, another seven were chosen Thursday. The jurors will hear Bragg’s claim that Trump broke the law by allegedly classifying payments made by his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pornographer Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement as “legal fees” instead of campaign expenditures. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York declined to charge Trump in 2018.

The final selection of jurors is as follows:

A salesman originally from Ireland who follows MSNBC, The New York Times, the Daily Mail, and Fox News. This juror is reportedly set to serve as the case’s foreman, according to ABC News.
A corporate lawyer from Oregon who reads the NYT, Google News, and the Wall Street Journal. The juror “suggested that he could infer the former president’s intent without ‘reading his mind,’” according to ABC News.
A man who works in finance and follows Michael Cohen — a convicted liar and the prosecution’s star witness — on social media. The juror also said he believes Trump did some good for the nation, The New York Times reported.
A lawyer who told the court he has “political views as to the Trump presidency” in that he agrees with some policies but disagrees with others, according to The Times.
A product development manager who said she did not like Trump’s “persona,” according to ABC News.
A female health care worker who enjoys faith-based podcasts.
A woman who “works in an educational setting” and acknowledged that because Trump “was our president, everyone knows who he is,” according to The Times.
A businessman who likes to listen to podcasts on behavioral psychology.
A retired wealth manager who claims he has no opinions that would hinder his ability to be impartial.
An engineer who said, “No, not really,” when asked if he has strong feelings about Trump, according to the NYT.
An English teacher from Harlem who appreciated Trump speaking “his mind,” according to ABC News.
A female who works in technology and relies on the NYT, Google, Facebook and TikTok for news. According to the NYT, “she said she probably has different beliefs than Mr. Trump, but that ‘this is a free country.’”

Two jurors were struck Thursday, one who admitted her inability to be impartial and another who had a possible history of vandalizing conservative political posters. One female juror told the court “outside influences” could impact her decision-making and expressed concerns about her identity becoming public, according to the Associated Press (AP).

“Yesterday alone I had friends, colleagues and family push things to my phone regarding questioning my identity as a juror,” the woman reportedly said. “I don’t believe at this point that I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my decision making in the courtroom.”

A second juror was dismissed after the prosecution argued he may have been dishonest about his past when he claimed he had never been arrested. “Prosecutors said they found an article about a person with the same name who had been arrested in the 1990s for tearing down posters pertaining to the political right in suburban Westchester County,” the AP reported.

Will These Jurors Deliver a ‘Common Sense Judgment’?

The Supreme Court held in the 1975 case Taylor v. Louisiana that “The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power — to make available the common sense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor … or biased response of a judge.”

The Sixth Amendment is designed to protect the accused from any arbitrary and capricious trials perpetrated by a weaponized government. A jury of the accused’s peers is meant to check the power of the government, a right created in response to the British courts’ habit of permitting judges to compel juries to change their verdict if the outcome was not favored by the judge.

But from what we know of the Manhattan jury pool, it’s not clear these New Yorkers will be willing to check the government on a case that experts on both sides of the aisle have called “dubious.” New York County, which encompasses Manhattan, voted for Joe Biden over Trump 87 percent to 12 percent in 2020.

Trump’s lawyer objected to one potential juror who posted a video of a crowd of people celebrating Biden’s 2020 victory. Judge Juan Merchan decided to chastise Trump instead and refused to strike the potential juror for cause.

Another potential juror who was excused because of a job conflict told reporters outside of the courthouse that while she believes it is important for Trump to get a fair trial, she did not “approve of what he did as president.“

Meanwhile of the dozen jurors selected, a number said they get their news from corporate media like The New York Times — one of the outlets that spent years disparaging Trump and spreading false information about him.

Three NYT reporters won Pulitzer Prizes for their “reporting” on the Russia-collusion hoax, which they based on anonymous sources. But FBI official Peter Strzok, who ran the investigation into the alleged collusion, privately acknowledged the report was filled with “misleading and inaccurate” information, as pointed out by The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway.

Other jurors cited Google as a news source. Google “interfered” in elections at least 41 times over the past 16 years to harm candidates “who threatened [Google’s] left-wing candidate of choice,” a study from the Media Research Center found. In 2020, corporate media and Big Tech suppressed a bombshell report about the Biden family’s corrupt foreign business dealings mere weeks before the presidential election, adding to a pattern of burying negative press about Trump’s opponent while spreading lies about Trump.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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Biden Admin’s Title IX Rewrite Obliterates Female Spaces, Free Speech, And Due Process

BY: JORDAN BOYD | APRIL 19, 2024

Author Jordan Boyd profile

JORDAN BOYD

VISIT ON TWITTER@JORDANBOYDTX

The Biden administration’s Department of Education unveiled a sweeping set of rules on Friday that effectively erase protections for sex-based spaces by expanding the Title IX prohibition against sex discrimination to include “gender identity” — a term that’s never mentioned in the original law.

A majority of Americans agree that males who claim to identify otherwise should not be allowed to infiltrate girls’ and women’s sports teams. As of now, some 25 states have laws or regulations aimed at keeping boys and men out of female-only spaces, on and off the field. Yet, come Aug. 1, the Democrat regime’s radial redefinition of “sex-based discrimination” poses a threat to sex-based protections and welcomes males into female spaces including athletic competitions, locker rooms, and sex-specific clubs such as sororities, despite state laws.

“The final regulations will help to ensure that all students receive appropriate support when they experience sex discrimination and that recipients’ procedures for investigating and resolving complaints of sex discrimination are fair to all involved,” the rules claim.

The regulations do even more damage, however, such as by undoing Trump-era due process safeguards for those accused of sexual misconduct, which could include merely using accurate pronouns. They also encroach on parents’ rights and threaten academic free speech by incentivizing schools to censor students and teachers with traditional views on sex and marriage, so they don’t lose federal funding.

In the regulations, the Biden administration openly admits it relied on the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County decision to inform its rulemaking. In that case, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined their Democrat-nominated colleagues to expand the prohibition against employment discrimination based on “sex” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

A draft of the rules released in June 2022 received a “record number” of comments from Americans warning that enacting such extensive provisions and redefining terms like “sexual harassment” would bully schools into mandating the spread of radical gender ideology.

In response to Biden’s Department of Education ignoring some 240,000 comments, “a coalition of organizations” including the Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Law Center are suing the administration, according to an IWF press release. In 2022 and 2023, those groups sent legal and policy objections to the new rule.

“Title IX was designed to give women equal opportunities in academic settings. It forbids discrimination on the basis of ‘sex,’ which it affirms throughout the statute is binary and biological. The unlawful Omnibus Regulation re-imagines Title IX to permit the invasion of women’s spaces and the reduction of women’s rights in the name of elevating protections for ‘gender identity,’ which is contrary to the text and purpose of Title IX,” Director of Independent Women’s Law Center May Mailman said, noting the rules are illegal.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Family, Health, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political, Sports

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Ukraine, Israel Aid Back on Track as House Pushes Toward Weekend Votes

Friday, 19 April 2024 02:33 PM EDT

With rare bipartisan momentum, the House pushed ahead Friday on a foreign aid package of $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support as a robust coalition of lawmakers helped it clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend.

Friday’s vote produced a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan House, with Democrats helping Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan advance overwhelmingly 316-94. Final House approval could come this weekend, when the package would be sent to the Senate.

It was a victory for the strategy Johnson set in motion this week after he agonized for two months over the legislation. Still, Johnson has had to spend the past 24 hours making the rounds on conservative media working to salvage support for the wartime funding, particularly for Ukraine as it faces a critical moment battling Russia, but also for his own job as the effort to remove him as speaker grew.

“Ukrainians desperately need lethal aid right now. … We cannot allow Vladimir Putin to roll through another country and take it,” Johnson told the conservative host of The Mark Levin Show about the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. “These are very serious matters with global implications.”

Johnson said after the vote that while it wasn’t “perfect legislation,” it was the “best possible product” Republicans can get given their thin majority in one chamber of Congress.

After months of delay, the House worked slowly but deliberately once Johnson made up his mind this week to plough ahead with a package that matches, with a few alterations, what the Senate passed in February. President Joe Biden sent a swift endorsement of the speaker’s plan and Donald Trump, the Republican presumed presidential nominee who opposes most overseas aid for Ukraine, has not derailed the speaker’s work.

“The world is watching what the Congress does,” the White House said in a statement. “Passing this legislation would send a powerful message about the strength of American leadership at a pivotal moment.”

In an extremely rare step, the members of the House Rules Committee joined forces late Thursday in a near midnight vote, the four Democrats giving their support on a procedural step, to push past the Republican majority’s three holdouts to send the package to the House floor for debate on a 9-3 vote. It was a moment unseen in recent House memory.

Democrat leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said that he spoke with Johnson on Thursday night to ensure the bill would clear the Rules Committee.

“It’s long past time that we support our democratic allies,” Jeffries said after the vote.

“House Democrats have once again cleared the way for legislation that’s important to the American people.”

Johnson will need to rely on Democrats again Saturday to turn back amendments Republicans have offered that could kill the package. One from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would reduce spending for Ukraine to zero. Greene has filed a “motion to vacate” the speaker from office, and it drew another supporter Friday as Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, co-sponsored the motion. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, another co-sponsor, suggested that before the House breaks next week others could follow, building pressure on Johnson to step down. Rep. Eli Crane, a conservative from Arizona, also said he was “open” to joining the move to oust Johnson.

“I definitely sense that there’s a souring to Republican leadership,” he said.

Greene could launch a bid to evict Johnson from the speaker’s office, should she call it up for a vote, much the way Republicans booted Kevin McCarthy from the position last fall. Jeffries, the Democrat leader, remained noncommittal to helping Johnson keep the speaker’s gavel, though some Democrats have suggested they would be inclined help defeat the motion to vacate through procedural maneuvers.

With one of the most narrow House majorities in modern times, Johnson can only afford to lose a single vote or two from his Republican ranks to pass any bill. That dynamic has thrust him into the arms of Democrats as he searches for votes to pass the package. Without his Republican majority fully behind him, Johnson could not shape the package as the ultra-conservatives demand lest he lose Democrats’ backing. It forced him to leave behind tough security measures to clamp down on migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

At best, Johnson has been able to carve up a Senate-passed version of the bill into separate parts, as is the preference among House Republicans, and the final votes will be on distinct measures — for Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies.

The package would also include a fourth provision that includes many Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and potentially ban the video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the vote showed “the world that Democrats understand the world and our allies. That we’re going to stand by them and make sure that we give them the support and the aid that they need, that we care about humanitarian concerns.” He added that in his 26 years in the House, he had never seen one party have to help the other like Democrats did this week.

“It just shows how the Republicans cannot manage the House and the House floor to get things done,” Meeks said.

Republicans, even those who supported the process, were severely disappointed it had come to this.

“I’m concerned,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who voted for the procedural step but, was nevertheless displeased with the process. “This is reflective of the controversy in the country: How much aid?”

Passing each bill, in votes expected Saturday, will require Johnson to form complicated bipartisan coalitions on each, with Democrats for example ensuring Ukraine aid is approved, but some left-leaning progressives refusing to back military aid for Israel over the destruction of Gaza. Still, Jeffries said that a majority of Democrats would vote Saturday for the packages of aid for Ukraine, Israel and allies in Asia.

The components would then be automatically stitched back together into a single package sent to the Senate where conservatives there are also planning procedural moves to stall final approval.

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Survey: A Majority of Stanford Students Support Cancelling Conservative Speakers a Year After Duncan Controversy

JonathanTurley.org | April 19, 2024

A year ago, Stanford University was embroiled in controversy after federal appellate Judge Kyle Duncan was shouted down by law students. Now a survey by FIRE has found that a majority of students believe that Duncan should have been cancelled. Seventy-five percent believe that it is appropriate to shout down speakers. A year ago, I wrote a critical column on the ridiculous response of Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Law School Dean Jenny Martinez who declined to punish any students. Instead all students were required to watch a widely mocked video on free speech.

The Stanford Federalist Society invited Judge Duncan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to speak on campus. However, liberal students, including members from the National Lawyers Guild, decided that allowing a conservative judge to speak on campus is intolerable and set about to “deplatform” him by shouting him down. In this event, Duncan was planning to speak on the topic: “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter.”

A video showed that the students prevented Duncan from speaking from the very beginning. Many called him a racist while others hurled insults like one yelling “We hope your daughters get raped.” Duncan was unable to continue and asked for an administrator to assist him. Dean Steinbach then took the stage and criticized the judge for seeking to be heard despite such objections. Steinbach, who was put on leave, later doubled down in defending her widely criticized actions.

Given the tepid response of the university, it is hardly surprising that students believe that stopping others from speaking is a form of free speech.

Academics later supported the students in shutting down the judge.

FIRE released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.

Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shut down a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.

75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.

Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors.

The survey is consistent with other surveys and polling in higher education.

These students have been taught for years that “speech is violence” and harmful. They have also been told by figures such as Pines that silencing others is an act of free speech. Academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. In one instance, former CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek insisted that disrupting a speech on free speech is itself free speech.

Even schools that purportedly forbid such interruptions rarely punish students who engage in them. For example, students disrupted a Northwestern class due to a guest speaker from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (after the class had heard from an undocumented

immigrant). The university let the protesters into the room after they promised not to disrupt the class. They proceeded to stop the class and then gave interviews to the media proudly disclosing their names and celebrating the cancellation. Northwestern did nothing beyond express “disappointment.”

At Stanford, law students received a mixed message in the law school denouncing the silencing of opposing views but refusing to hold any students or groups accountable. These schools are enablers of the anti-free speech movement and the rising of a generation of speech phobics. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, academics and administrators continue to foster an environment of orthodoxy and viewpoint intolerance in higher education. This survey vividly demonstrates how schools like Stanford mouth commitments to free speech while sending a completely different message in the actual actions that it takes in the face of anti-free speech campaigns.

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Education, Hate, Law, Political

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Third World Justice

A.F. BRANCO | on April 19, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-third-world-justice/

Trump Biased Court Room — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Almost everyone on the planet knows that Trump can not get a fair trial in New York, including the Democrats who are launching this travesty of justice. Trump is being charged with a misnomer that is beyond its statute of limitations, transformed into a felony based on a clerical error with no victim for the purpose of interfering in the 2024 election.

Radical Lawless Judge Merchan Seated Juror Who Was Arrested for Destroying/Vandalizing Conservative Political Signs

By Jim Hoft – April 18, 2024

The search for impartial jurors continued on Thursday in the New York City lawfare case of President Donald Trump in the courtroom of conflicted far-left Judge Juan Merchan. A fresh pool of 96 Manhattan residents entered the courtroom earlier today. A significant number of these potential jurors, 48 in total, were immediately excused after admitting to biases against the former president. An additional nine were dismissed for undisclosed reasons.

FOX News reported today that Trump-hating Judge Juan Merchan seated a juror who was arrested in the 90’s for destroying/vandalizing conservative political posters. READ MORE…

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LARGEST CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY IN THE NATION ALLEGES IT’S BEING UNJUSTLY TARGETED BY FEDERAL AGENCIES

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Biden’s education secretary vows to shut down the largest Christian university in the US

By Joshua Q. Nelson Fox News | Published April 18, 2024 5:00am EDT | Updated April 18, 2024 6:58am EDT

After Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona vowed to shut down Grand Canyon University (GCU), the largest Christian university in the U.S., GCU officials are pushing back, telling Fox News Digital the crackdown stems from “deeply held bias.”

Cardona made comments during a House Appropriations Committee hearing about cracking down on GCU and other universities like it on April 10. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked Cardona how the administration is working to shut down GCU, which she called “a predatory for-profit school.” Cardona openly embraced their enforcement methods, declaring “we are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students.”

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked Cardona how the administration is working to shut down “GCU, a predatory for-profit school.” (House Appropriations Committee)

‘PREDATORY FOR-PROFIT COLLEGE’

“Last year, your department took action against Grand Canyon University, a predatory for-profit college, over the school’s failure to accurately disclose its cost to students, driving up the true cost for those students requiring for them to pay for continuation courses before they would graduate – scam courses added about $10,000 or more to the cost of education to these kids,” DeLauro said.

“Going after predatory schools preying on first generation students. They have flashy marketing materials, but the product is not worth the paper it is printed on. Increased enforcement budget to go after these folks and crack down. Levied largest fine in history against a school that lied about costs and terminated a school from Title IV. We are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message not to prey on students,” Cardona responded.

GCU appealed a $37.7 million fine imposed by the department in November on allegations that the Arizona-based higher learning institution misled students about the cost of its doctoral programs over several years.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona — Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona vowed to crack down on the largest Christian university in the U.S. (House Appropriations Committee)

The fine is much larger than what the Department of Education previously gave to schools like Penn State ($2.4 million) and Michigan State ($4.5 million) for failing to address Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar’s crimes, respectively.

The department said in an October press release that an investigation conducted by the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) found GCU “lied” to over 7,500 former and current students about the cost of its doctoral programs. The release also said GCU “falsely advertises” a lower cost for its doctoral programs, adding that about 98% of students ended up paying more than the advertised cost.

The university was given a 20-day deadline to request a hearing with the ED’s Office of Hearings and Appeals or file a response to the FSA to explain why the fine should not be imposed. The Department also imposed specific conditions on the school to continue participating in the federal student aid programs.

A GCU spokesperson told Fox News Digital that they do not expect a hearing to take place until January.

“Our next recourse after that decision would be another appeal within the Department, this time directly to the Secretary of Education,” the GCU official said.

Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona vowed to shut Grand Canyon University down.

‘HOLDING HIGHER EDUCATION ACCOUNTABLE’

“This is far from being a few rotten apples in the bunch. Predatory for-profit colleges have engaged in a range of deceptions designed to increase enrollment and student costs to drive more revenue for owners and shareholders,” DeLauro said during the April 10 hearing. “How are you and your agency committing to increased oversight of these institutions and are there any way in which we can shut these folks down?”

Cardona said that the agency employed “multiple strategies” to crack down on for-profit universities, such as “borrower defense, debt discharge, holding colleges more accountable, and holding higher education institutions more accountable.”

In regard to borrower defense, Cardona added that for-profit colleges were “preying on first-generation students.”

“You have a shiny brochure and a great commercial. But the product is not worth the paper it’s written on. We have students graduating 60K to 70K dollars in debt, only eligible for jobs making under 30K–that to me is unacceptable.”

NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY SUED FOR ‘VIEWPOINT DISCRIMINATION’ AFTER CHARGING ‘HEFTY FEE’ TO CONSERVATIVE GROUP

‘INCREASED ENFORCEMENT’

In response to Cardona’s comment about shutting down universities like GCU, a GCU spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “officials continue to make derogatory and inflammatory public statements that are legally and factually incorrect and not shared by any of the other 26 regulatory and accrediting bodies that oversee GCU.”

“The Secretary’s comments to the House Appropriations Committee were so reckless that GCU is demanding an immediate retraction, as they do not reflect the factual record in this case. He is either confused, misinformed or does not understand the actions taken by his own agency,” the spokesperson added.

The president of GCU previously expressed to Fox News Digital sentiments of being “unfairly targeted.”

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT CRIES FOUL AFTER LEAK OF DEPT OF EDUCATION REPORT ON SCHOOL’S SAFETY COMPLIANCE

‘OTHER FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS COULD BE NEXT’

Cardona’s comments came after the announcement of a petition to “protect Christian colleges,” launched by the American Principles Project (APP). The petition was launched in “light of the Biden administration’s unprecedented attacks on our nation’s largest Christian colleges” and demands that “the administration halt their crusade and let students choose the schools that fit their values.”

“The federal government’s education agenda is punishing schools that do not conform to their progressive ideology. It’s time we take a stand against this egregious abuse of power,” APP Policy Director Jon Schweppe said. “The scrutinize-and-penalize campaign against faith-based institutions is not about students’ interests or well-being. Rather, it’s part of a concerted effort to snuff out education choice and promote far-left values. It’s critical that Americans be aware of this shameful campaign and that we do all we can to put a stop to it.”

In response to APP’s efforts, GCU officials told Fox News Digital that the “American people are losing confidence in the federal government to be fair and objective in their operations.”

Split image of Biden and a building from Liberty University — President Biden with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“There are clearly no checks and balances to prevent this type of behavior from the Department of Education,” they added. “We support any organization that is willing to shed light on the federal government’s unwarranted and targeted actions taken against GCU. If they can make these claims against the largest Christian university in the country, other faith-based organizations could be next.”

Additionally, the Goldwater Institute sued ED in February in federal court for “refusing to turn over public records” related to its $37.7 million fine against GCU. They claimed that the records specifically may inform the public about coordination between various federal agencies in what appears to be the “intentional targeting of a successful university based on extraordinarily thin allegations.”

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Joshua Q. Nelson is a reporter for Fox News Digital.

Joshua focuses on politics, education policy ranging from the local to the federal level, and the parental uprising in education.

Joining Fox News Digital in 2019, he previously graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Political Science and is an alum of the National Journalism Center and the Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program.

Story tips can be sent to joshua.nelson@fox.com and Joshua can be followed on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Education, Political, Religion, Spiritual

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Lawyers Select 12 Jurors to Serve in Trump’s N.Y. Criminal Case

Thursday, 18 April 2024 04:51 PM EDT

Lawyers in Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial on Thursday selected 12 jurors who will assess his guilt or innocence over the coming weeks in a case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.

Lawyers for the defense and the prosecution still must select alternate jurors for the trial, the first ever in which a former U.S. president is the defendant. At the time of publication at least one alternate of the six needed had already been tapped. Those jurors were all sworn in, while remaining alternates are to be chosen on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the judge overseeing the trial dismissed a juror who said she felt intimidated that some personal information was made public.

Justice Juan Merchan also excused another juror after prosecutors said he may not have disclosed prior brushes with the law.

Trump’s outsized public presence created unique problems during the jury selection process, which started on Monday. Roughly half of the first 196 jurors screened in heavily Democratic Manhattan were dismissed after saying they could not impartially assess the Republican politician’s guilt or innocence.

Trump’s criticism of witnesses, prosecutors, the judge and their relatives in this case and others has also sparked concerns about harassment, prompting Merchan to impose a partial gag order.

Merchan dismissed the juror who said she felt intimidated after family, friends and colleagues had deduced that she had been selected for the trial.

“I don’t believe at this point that I can be fair and unbiased, and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom,” the juror said.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in the Nov. 5 election, also faces criminal cases in Washington, Georgia and Florida, but the New York case is the only one certain to go to trial this year. Officials involved in those cases have reported receiving death threats and harassment after being criticized by Trump.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases and has said, without evidence, that they are part of a broad-ranging effort by allies of Democratic President Joe Biden to hobble his candidacy.

A conviction would not bar him from taking office.

Newsmax contributed to this report.

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“President Biden. Are You Paying Attention?”

April 18, 2024

Black Chicago resident is furious about the city neglecting their own citizens by voting to pass Mayor Johnson's request for an additional $70 million for illegals.

“You vote for the money for these immigrants today, we are coming for them seats.” pic.twitter.com/xQ8Jwu4VQs
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) April 18, 2024

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Cornell Professor Files Disorderly Conduct Charge Against Colleague Who Disrupted Coulter Event

JonathanTurley.org | April 18, 2024

Cornell Professor Randy O. Wayne has filed a criminal complaint against Monica Cornejo, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication, for her disruption of the recent speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter. As we discussed, Cornell Provost Michael Kotlikoff extended the invitation after an earlier event was interrupted by protesters and declared that the university would not allow the exercise of free speech to be blocked by activists. In defiance of that policy, Cornejo proceeded to interrupt the event with heckling and profanities.

In an email, Professor Wayne confirmed that on Wednesday April 17, the day after the event, he filed a criminal complaint with the Cornell University Police. The listed offense was disorderly conduct. While this was filed with the university police, the state definition of disorderly conduct under § 240.20 states:

A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause
public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk
thereof:

1. He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening
behavior; or

2. He makes unreasonable noise; or

3. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an
obscene gesture; or

4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or
meeting of persons; or

5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or

6. He congregates with other persons in a public place and refuses to
comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse; or

7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act
which serves no legitimate purpose.

Disorderly conduct is a violation.

Cornejo is accused of repeatedly interrupting and making an obscene gesture at the event before being forced to leave. It is not clear if the university also filed a complaint, but none was listed. Indeed, at the time of this posting, Wayne’s complaint was not listed on the university police website.

Cornejo is described in media reports as “one of the first undocumented tenure-track faculty members at Cornell.” She was interrupting a speech by Coulter titled “Immigration: The Conspiracy to End America.”

In a 36-second video posted by The College Fix officers indicate that she is under arrest for “disorderly conduct.” According to the site, she repeatedly responded, “don’t touch me — do not touch me,” and tells them “I am a faculty member.” (I could not make out the last reported statement on the tape itself).

Putting the criminal charges aside, the question is what Cornell will do about a faculty member who openly defied the free speech policies of the university and sought to prevent others from hearing opposing views. As I discussed in the earlier column, she is just the latest faculty member to engage in such anti-free speech conduct on campuses. Why should students heed the warnings of Cornell when their own faculty show contempt for these protections?

Randy Wayne had a critical role in arranging the visit by Coulter. We have also previously discussed his challenging of universities policies and actions in the past.

A free speech panel is scheduled to be a held on campus on April 23.

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No, The President’s Uncle Was Not Eaten by Cannibals . . . Seriously

JonathanTurley.org | April 18, 2024

President Joe Biden has been long accused of false stories that have ranged from an invented arrest with Nelson Mandela to a zombie-like train conductor. Some are more serious like lying about influence peddling by his family or constitutional norms. However, as a military history nut, one new story stood out this week. President Biden suggested that his uncle Ambrose “Bozey” Finnegan may have been eaten by cannibals in World War II. What is striking about this story is the specificity of the key facts … and the fact that they are entirely false (other than his uncle dying near New Guinea).

During a stop in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Biden told the story of how Bozey may have been consumed by the natives of New Guinea.

“He was a hell of an athlete, they tell me, when he was a kid. He flew those single-engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones, and he got shot down in New Guinea. They never found the body because there used to be, there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”

The account appears in the official transcript of Biden’s remarks. He added “They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there, and they checked and found some parts of the plane.” It is not clear when that search occurred and where the additional plane parts were found given that it crashed in the ocean. However, it suggests that he later (as senator, Vice President or President) followed up on the story with the military in locating confirming wreckage).

The alternative would be to rely on a witness. Yes, there was a survivor who gave a detailed account, including how Finnegan and the others remained in the plane as it sank.

The more glaring problem is that Bozey was not flying a plane and was not shot down. It was not a single engine plane but a Douglas A-20 Havoc with two Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior 9-cylinder radial engines. He was not the pilot but a passenger on a plane. (Indeed, he was not referenced in the official report as a pilot but a staffer at the Headquarters of the Fifth Air Force). The plane had mechanical problems and crashed near New Guinea. He did not disappear in a sea of cannibals but the actual sea when he and other passengers failed to get out of the wreckage.

“On May 14, 1944, an A-20 havoc (serial number 42-86768), with a crew of three and one passenger, departed Momote Airfield, Los Negros Island, for a courier flight to Nadzab Airfield, New Guinea. For unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard. Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash. One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.”

That was not the only false claim made by the President in his remarks. However, the fake story led me to look into whether there were any accounts of pilots being eaten by cannibals. Surprisingly, there are accounts of Japanese troops engaging in such cannibalism.

One of the documented stories of Japanese cannibalism involved another president. George H.W. Bush was a combat pilot in World War II and survived being shot down over the Pacific during a raid on the island of Chichi Jima in September of 1944. He was not alone. Nine other airmen went down, but only Bush was able to evade capture because he bailed out over the sea. Nevertheless, he only survived because other pilots gave covering fire as he paddled away in a life raft.

The other eight were not so lucky. James Bradley’s book Flyboys: A Story of True Courage details the tragedy that unfolded. They were beaten and tortured and eventually beheaded. Major Sueo Matoba then had their flesh prepared for an officers’ feast and a party in his quarters. Also Captain Shizuo Yoshii hosted a similar feast and both General Yoshio Tachibana and and Rear Admiral Kunizo Mori, the army and navy commanders of the island, reportedly partook in the meals. The four airmen used for the meals were Marve Mershon, Floyd Hall, Jimmy Dye, and Warren Earl Vaughn.

Ironically, there are also stories of native cannibals rescuing downed pilots and, rather than eating them, helping them survive and make it back to their commands.

As is often the case, the White House simply refused to address the false claim and made it sound like reporters were denigrating the service of his uncle by asking about the cannibal story. White House spokesman Andrew Bates declared “President Biden is proud of his uncle’s service in uniform” and emphasized that Finnegan ”lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.”

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Farmer Joe

A.F. BRANCO | on April 18, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-farmer-joe/

Bidden Sponsored Iran Terrorism – Cartoon — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Obama and Biden both have fostered Iran, the top state sponsors of terrorism, keeping them flush with lots of cash to complete their evil deeds.

PURE EVIL: Biden Administration Reportedly Provided Guidance to Iran in Saturday’s Drone and Missile Strike on Israel

By Jim Hoft – April 15, 2024

Boy, the Biden-Obama regime really, really hates Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel!

According to reports coming from Israel and Turkey the Biden Administration provided guidance to Iran in its missile and drone strike against Israel. READ MORE…

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Report: Flyers Urging Illegals to Vote for Biden Found in Left-Wing Group’s Office in Mexico

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 17, 2024

A flyer purportedly encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for Joe Biden

Flyers reportedly posted around a Resource Center Matamoros facility in Mexico encouraged illegal immigrants — who are not eligible to vote in the United States — to vote for President Joe Biden in November, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. One of the organizations operating out of the Resource Center Matamoros (RCM) has ties to Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose articles of impeachment the U.S. House of Representatives delivered to the Senate Tuesday afternoon.

The flyers, which the Oversight Project posted photos of on X, read “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” The Heritage Foundation said the flyers were first discovered by Muckraker but also confirmed to The Federalist that their own team had obtained a copy of one of the flyers “inside the RCM office.”

“The flyer in the X thread is a direct scan of the one our folks obtained on-site inside the RCM office,” a Heritage Foundation representative said. “The flyers were also posted all over the camp in the port-a-potties.”

Nevertheless, others have raised questions about the flyer, including Fox News’ Bill Melugin.

“I am extremely skeptical of this. The flier appears to be a word for word Google Translate copy & paste of a portion of the NGO’s English website, with ‘vote for Biden’ randomly added in at the end, when it does not appear on the site,” Melugin posted on X. “The translation is bad, then you have ‘bienvenidos’ spelled wrong and ‘todos con Biden’ added onto the flier with a Biden logo.”

Another social media user associated with a left-wing immigration group claimed to have spoken with the executive director of RCM and said the posters were “Totally fake” and “Made up by two posers.”

It is unclear whether RCM authorized the posting of the flyers, but the Heritage Foundation told The Federalist that because they found flyers in the RCM office, they have “every reason to believe” the flyer is from the organization. The Federalist reached out to RCM for more information but did not receive a response.

The flyers “appear to be handed out when illegal aliens use the RCM for assistance in coming to the USA,” according to the Oversight Project.

These flyers were discovered by @realmuckraker throughout the Resource Center Matamoras (RCM) location including on the walls of port-a-potties

They also appear to be handed out when illegal aliens use the RCM for assistance in coming to the USA pic.twitter.com/hvlkwOI5Xs
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 16, 2024

RCM says it is “a humanitarian organization that provides a safe space where refugees at the southern Texas-Mexico border can access legal and social support services.” Its “6-unit office complex” hosts the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which provides “legal assistance and assistance with obtaining formal documents for job search and integration into the city of Matamoros as [migrants] wait to access the asylum process in the US.”

RCM founder and executive director Gaby Zavala previously worked with La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE)– a left-wing organization that is partnered with the Open Society Institute, as pointed out by the Oversight Project. The Open Society Institute is funded by left-wing billionaire and mega-donor George Soros.

RCM also worked alongside Team Brownsville, a left-wing organization, and Angry Tias and Abeulas, which aims to help illegal immigrants cross the border, according to the Oversight Project.

RCM has significant ties to Soros-funded non-profits operating in the United States, including Save the Children, Team Brownsville Texas, and Angry Tias and Abuelas pic.twitter.com/cydCAM4PdE
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 16, 2024

Mayorkas — whose disastrous handling of the invasion at the southern border earned him impeachment by the House — was formerly on the board of HIAS and in his current role with the Biden administration has met with members of both Angry Tias and Abuelas as well as LUPE, according to Judicial Watch.

While illegal immigrants and other noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, federal voter registration forms simply require each individual to check a box affirming he is a U.S. citizen. The lack of any requirement that new voters show documentary proof of citizenship prompted former President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday to announce Republican legislation that would demand such documentation from new registrants.

The federal government currently prohibits states from requiring potential voters to provide such proof to register to vote in federal elections. States may require proof of citizenship to register for statewide elections, as Arizona does. But even in Arizona, a voter who attempts to register to vote with the state form but fails to provide proof of citizenship must then be registered to vote on a federal-only form.

During the 2020 presidential election, 11,600 voters voted using a federal-only ballot, AZ Free News reported. President Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

Author Brianna Lyman profile

BRIANNA LYMAN

VISIT ON TWITTER@BRIANNALYMAN2

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UNC-CHAPEL HILL DELETES FELLOWSHIP CRITERIA EXCLUDING WHITE PEOPLE AFTER CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINT

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University of North Carolina committee scraps DEI goals, roles in dramatic policy shift

By Kristine Parks Fox News | Published April 17, 2024 2:57pm EDT

Another state university system is moving to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements and roles from its campuses, as part of a growing backlash to DEI ideology in schools across the country.

The University of North Carolina (UNC) board of governors committee voted in less than four minutes on Wednesday to repeal and replace the system’s existing diversity and inclusion policy and replace it with a different policy, The Associated Press reported.

Seventeen college campuses within the UNC system could be affected by the decision.

The proposed policy indicates that DEI roles held by senior administration officials would be eliminated, as they also have been at state universities in Florida and Texas.

woman sitting in classroom with laptop next to words "diversity equity inclusion" — A UNC university governance committee will vote Wednesday on whether to eliminate and replace its current DEI policy. (iStock)

Under the old policy, each school must have senior-level officials as its System Office D&I Liaison, Institutional D&I Officer, and an Institutional Inclusion Executive. These roles may go to the same person or be assigned separately. However, these roles are not included under the new policy that was voted on Wednesday.

While maintaining UNC’s commitment to nondiscrimination, the new policy emphasizes maintaining “academic freedom,” “institutional neutrality,” “free speech and expression,” and “equality of all persons and viewpoints.”

The new proposed policy states each school must give a report by September 1 certifying that it has fully complied “with the University’s commitment to institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination required by law and this policy and shall describe in substance the actions taken to achieve compliance.”

“The chancellors’ certifications shall also include a report on reductions in force and spending, along with changes to job titles and position descriptions, undertaken as a result of implementing this policy and how those savings achieved from these actions can be redirected to initiatives related to student success and well-being,” it continues.

The new policy will now go before the Republican-majority board of governors in May. If approved, the school’s DEI policy could be fully repealed.

ANOTHER TEXAS UNIVERSITY DROPS DEI OFFICE, ‘APPROXIMATELY 20 ASSOCIATED JOBS ELIMINATED’ DUE STATE LAW

Stock photos of UNC campus — The University of North Carolina took steps to ban DEI statements from its admission and hiring practices in February. (Eros Hoagland/Getty Images)

The university has already taken steps to cut DEI from its campuses.

Fox News Digital previously reported that the school voted to ban DEI statements and compelled speech from admission, hiring, promotion and tenure in February.

If the policy is fully repealed, UNC will follow the lead of Texas and Florida, where DEI positions were slashed from public universities to comply with state laws.

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In March, the University of Florida fired all employees and administrative appointments for its DEI offices. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who championed eliminating DEI from public institutions in his state, said he hoped others would follow Florida’s example.

“DEI is toxic and has no place in our public universities. I’m glad that Florida was the first state to eliminate DEI and I hope more states follow suit,” DeSantis said.

The article was updated with the vote the University of North Carolina (UNC) board of governors committee.

Fox News’ Kendall Tietz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kristine Parks is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Read more.

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Senate Dismisses House Republican Impeachment Charges Against DHS Chief Mayorkas

Wednesday, 17 April 2024 04:50 PM EDT

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday dismissed both charges of illegal conduct by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, as Democrats successfully defended President Joe Biden’s top border security official.

The partisan votes to dismiss the charges that were narrowly approved by the House of Representatives in February brought a quick end to the Senate’s impeachment process.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was charged in February by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives with failing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and lying to Congress — charges he denies. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign against Biden.

By a vote of 51-48, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski voting “present,” the Senate dismissed the House’s accusation that Mayorkas failed to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then moved to dismiss the second charge that Mayorkas lied to Congress.

Schumer’s maneuvers were aimed at avoiding a formal Senate trial, arguing that Republicans were abusing the Constitution’s impeachment mechanism to remove officials from office for high crimes, misdemeanors and treason.

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell earlier had called for a “thorough consideration” of the charges against Mayorkas. Disposing of the case without a trial, McConnell added in a Senate speech, “would mean running away both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the record-breaking crisis at our southern border.”

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This Soros-Funded DA Faces Recall Vote as Crime Ravages Blue County

By: Robert Schmad / April 17, 2024

A recall effort targeting progressive Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price as soft on crime attracts enough voter signatures to advance. Pictured: Price takes part in a march in Oakland, California, to raise awareness about human trafficking on Jan. 24, 2023. (Photo: Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times/Getty Images)

An effort to recall a progressive, George Soros-funded district attorney in California has received enough signatures from voters to advance amid an upswing in crime, officials say. Organizers seeking to oust Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price collected 74,757 verified signatures in support of their effort to hold a recall election, over 1,000 more than needed, county Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis announced Monday.

Save Alameda for Everyone, one of the primary committees campaigning for Price’s removal, argues that Price has prioritized offenders over victims, contributing to an increase in crime in the community.

Elections for Alameda County district attorney are officially nonpartisan. Price ran on a platform of reducing the number of prison inmates, reducing sentences for offenders under 25, and cracking down on police misconduct, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since Price took office in January 2023, crime has risen across Alameda County. The spike in crime was particularly pronounced in the county’s largest city, Oakland. Violent crime rose by 21% there during the first 10 months of Price’s term, according to police data.

Price’s 2018 campaign for district attorney received $700,000 from the California Justice and Public Safety PAC, which is almost entirely funded by Soros, a left-wing financier who has bankrolled what conservatives call rogue prosecutors. Price was unsuccessful in her 2018 run but won when she ran again in 2022.

Since taking office in 2022, Price has implemented reforms aimed at integrating racial and “restorative” justice in the county’s prosecutorial practices.

Employees in Price’s office were provided with training materials arguing that “the carceral state grew out of chattel slavery” and that “modern policing grew out of slave patrols.” The training also pushes a program that prioritizes “healing” and addressing root causes rather than punishment for offenders.

“Price has violated victims’ rights, ignored victim pleas, and disrespected people who have been victimized by some of the worst crimes imaginable,” the website for Save Alameda for Everyone says. “She has told mothers that the lives of their children are worth less than the lives of the offender.”

Brenda Grisham, one of the recall campaign’s leaders, is the mother of a homicide victim, according to the website.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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“Do Not Touch Me…I am a Faculty Member”: Cornell Professor Disrupts Coulter Speech

JonathanTurley.org | April 17, 2024

Monica Cornejo, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication, was forcibly removed from a Cornell University event this week after disrupting a speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter. She is only the latest faculty member to seek to prevent others from hearing opposing views. The question now is what Cornell will do about her conduct.

To its credit, Cornell resolved to reinvite Coulter to speak after a prior event was disrupted by protesters. On March 13, Cornell Provost Michael Kotlikoff stated that:

“Having been deeply troubled by an invited speaker at Cornell (any speaker) being shouted down and unable to present their views, I agreed that there could be few more powerful demonstrations of Cornell’s commitment to free expression than to have Ms. Coulter return to campus and present her views.”

Kotlikoff should be commended for taking a principled stance in favor of free speech.

The question, however, is how he will handle Cornejo. In a 36-second video posted by The College Fix officers indicate that she is under arrest for “disorderly conduct.” According to the site, she repeatedly responded“don’t touch me — do not touch me,” and tells them “I am a faculty member.” (I could not make out the last reported statement on the tape itself).

WATCH: Police forcibly remove an outraged 'undocumented' Cornell professor who repeatedly disrupted Ann Coulter's talk titled 'Immigration: The Conspiracy to End America'

'She kept objecting quite loudly, gave Ann the finger repeatedly …' @CollegeFix pic.twitter.com/xbjshmQM1m
— The College Fix (@CollegeFix) April 17, 2024

Her bio states that

“Dr. Monica Cornejo is an Assistant Professor in Interpersonal Communication in the Department of Communication at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Dr. Cornejo’s research uses qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine the structural barriers that lead to inequities among undocumented immigrants, how undocumented immigrants draw on communication identity management and advocacy strategies to challenge those barriers, and how those strategies relate to undocumented immigrants’ health and wellbeing.

…Dr. Cornejo focuses on teaching students about different ways in which interpersonal communication can reduce or create disparities and inequities in the United States (e.g., discrimination towards sexual orientation minorities and immigrant communities), as well as the strategies members of minoritized communities (and allies, co-conspirators, families) utilize to challenge the disparities and inequities that position minoritized group members in a second-class position.”

I have previously written that universities must draw a clear distinction between free speech and this type of disruptive conduct. Cornejo has every right to protest outside of the event. However, preventing others from speaking or hearing opposing views is not free speech. It is the antithesis of free speech. It will continue until universities show the courage to discipline faculty or students engaging in such conduct.

The removal of Cornejo showed a commitment to free speech by the school. Often schools remain passive or enforce a heckler’s veto in such cases.

Yet, removal alone is not sufficient. Protesters will often plan a series of disruptions to effectively shutdown an event. Moreover, the university stated publicly that it wanted to show that such an event could occur on campus without disruption. This faculty member defied that policy and elected to heckle and disrupt the event.

She is not the first.

Years ago, many of us were shocked by the conduct of University of Missouri communications professor Melissa Click who directed a mob against a student journalist covering a Black Lives Matter event. Yet, Click was hired by Gonzaga University. Since that time, we have seen a steady stream of professors joining students in shouting down, committing property damage, participating in riots, verbally attacking students, or even taking violent action in protests.

Blocking others from speaking is not the exercise of free speech. It is the very antithesis of free speech. Nevertheless, faculty have supported such claims. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned). Even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.

At Fresno State University public health professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher, recruited students to destroy pro-life messages.

At the University of California Santa Barbara, professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young, who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and received overwhelming support from the students and faculty. She was later honored as a model for women advocates.

At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez was shown trashing a pro-life display of students.
She was captured on a videotape telling the students that “you’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”

Unlike the professor, the students remained calm and respectful. One even said “sorry” to the accusation that being pro-life was triggering for her students.

Rodríguez continued to rave, stating, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So, you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.

Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez. It was only after she later chased reporters with a machete that the college fired Rodríguez. She was then hired by another college.

Another recent example comes from the State University of New York at Albany, where sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display and then resisted arrest. One student is heard screaming, “She’s a [expletive] professor.”

That of course is the point. She is a professor and was teaching these students that they do not have to allow others to speak if they oppose their viewpoints.

In watching their faculty engage in such conduct, one can understand why students believe that they have license to prevent others from speaking on campus. The only way to change that view is to suspend, fire, or expel those who seek to prevent others hearing opposing views by disrupting events. Again, the universities must show equal commitment in protecting their right to protest outside of events. Yet, disrupting a class or event from within these spaces is a denial of the essential commitment of higher education to the free exchange of ideas.

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Weaponized

A.F. BRANCO | on April 17, 2024 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-weaponized/

New York Weaponized Justice Against Trump — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 2024

A.F. Branco Cartoon – The New York Justice system is heavily weaponized against President Trump. Judge Merchan is a big donor to the democrat party, and his daughter is fund-raising for the DNC off the Trump Trial. This Judge should recuse himself immediately…

The NYC court case is descending into a Mafia farce. Instead of recusing himself, Judge Merchan is making it personal by punishing Trump for his Truth Social posts. These highlight Merchan’s daughter’s fund-raising efforts for the Left off of this case.

Anti-Trump Judge overseeing Kangaroo Court makes it personal.

By Kelly McCarthy – April 17, 2024

The NYC kangaroo court criminal case against former President Donald Trump involving accusations regarding hush money payments to Stormy Daniels should never have been convened under this judge. “Judge Merchan was required to recuse AS A MATTER OF LAW as his daughter has a pecuniary interest in the outcome of this case and may already have profited from it. That’s ONE degree of consanguinity, not six.“, says Harmeet Dhillon on X. READ MORE…

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The World Is Paying A Deadly Price For Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | APRIL 16, 2024

Author David Harsanyi profile

DAVID HARSANYI

VISIT ON TWITTER@DAVIDHARSANYI

If a belligerent state launched 186 explosive drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles from three fronts against civilian targets within the United States, would Joe Biden call it a “win”? Would the president tell us that the best thing we can do now is show “restraint”? What if that same terror state’s proxy armies had recently helped murder, rape, and kidnap more than 1,000 American men, women, and children? What if this terror state were trying to obtain nuclear weapons so it could continue to agitate without any consequences?

This is what Joe Biden and the Barack Obama acolytes, Iranian dupes, and Israel antagonists he’s surrounded himself with demand of Jewish State. And by “Iranian dupes,” I don’t only mean the Jake Sullivans and Antony Blinkens of the world, who worked to elevate the mullahs over Sunni allies and the Israelis, or even a Hamas-bestie like Rob Malley or Israel-hater like Maher Bitar. I mean assets of the Islamic State who promised the Iranian government to help out in any way possible.

Their worldview is a cancer that’s metastasized within the Democratic Party. To these people, Israel will always be the villain. And if the Iranian regime’s murder of more than 600 American servicemen couldn’t cool that bromance, 1,300 dead Jews certainly aren’t going to do the trick.

To begin with, Jared Kushner’s Middle East policy efforts were, by every measure, more successful than not only Obama’s efforts but the decades of Brookings Institute-endorsed failures the region has endured. The Trump administration undercut Palestinian terror efforts, stifled Iranian ambitions, and created space for the Gulf States and Israel to enhance ties.

Biden immediately reversed those gains, reverting to Obama-era Iranian boosterism. We’re now experiencing the consequences of pacifying Islamic ideologues. Obama might have sent the mullahs pallets of cash in the middle of the night, but the Biden administration openly subsidized the Revolutionary Guard with a $6 billion ransom payment, at least $25 billion in sanction relief, including $10 billion via a waiver, and so on.

Let’s also remember that one of Biden’s first foreign policy decisions was to overturn Trump-era policy by releasing millions to Gaza that would be sifted off by Hamas, releasing funding to Hamas-allied UNRWA, and removing the Iranian-backed Houthis from the terror list.

But to truly comprehend how demented our foreign policy has become, consider this: Iran reportedly informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, and the U.S. told Iran through Ankara that the attack should be “within certain limits.” This is a longtime ally of the United States we’re talking about — and a foe that’s murdered and kidnapped Americans for decades.

It should be mind-boggling that Biden likely knew Iran was moving forward with its attack but still gave his goofy and impotent “don’t” when asked about it by the press.

Indeed, the Biden administration’s position seems to be that Israeli military and defense forces exist to allow Iran to have a hissy fit and save face. The Iranian attack is only “symbolic” because it failed. According to officials, the attack, indiscriminately aimed at civilian centers, was designed to cause “mass casualties.”

Just because you shoot at someone, and miss doesn’t mean you’re not trying to kill them. Yes, the Iranians were embarrassed. But they almost surely view this as a win. And they also crossed a red line by firing on Israel from their own territory. Yet Israel is apparently the only nation on Earth that is permitted to fully defend itself only if its enemies succeed.

Then again, virtually every conflict against Israel unfurls the same way: Its enemies threaten or attack the country. Israel responds and heads for a victory. Only then does the world demand “restraint.” Finally, the antagonists demand Israel rewind history to a more convenient spot. (Modern Democrats demand that Israel show restraint before it even has a chance to respond. That’s a new twist.)

Those, for instance, who contend that Israel started the conflict when it hit a “diplomatic mission” in Syria last week are engaged in restarting the historical clock when it suits them. There are no Iranian diplomatic missions in Syria. There are buildings where IRGC terror leaders coordinate attacks on civilians — against Arabs as well as Jews. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the “general” Israel killed last week, helped plan the barbarism of Oct 7.

Recall that the United States atomized Qasem Soleimani at a neutral nation’s airport. Though, of course, Obamaites protested that killing as well.

Now, it is something of a cliché to contend that Israel must be right 100 percent of the time while its enemies only need to be right once. It also happens to be true. The lo-fi Hamas attack last year was a devastating failure for the Jewish state and its leadership. Israel, a country the size of New Jersey with a dense population area, relies on deterrence and preemption.

Democrats blamed their strawman, Benjamin Netanyahu, not Hamas or Iran, for trying to “drag” the world into war. The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, perhaps the wrongest person ever to tread on this planet, theorized that the prime minister wanted “a war to shore up his own crumbling political base.”

Meanwhile, Axois reports that Netanyahu was reluctant to strike back while his cabinet wanted to move immediately. Anyone who’s paid five minutes of attention to Israeli politics knows that Netanyahu is frustratingly cautious. The “war hawk” perception of him is a myth, created by the left because of the prime minister’s open opposition to Obama’s mullah bootlicking.

We have no idea what Israel will do. Maybe caution is the best policy. The notion that the Jewish state simply lashes out in revenge and doesn’t rationally consider all its options is preposterous. Whatever happens, it should be Israel’s terms, not Iran’s.

Despite what Obama’s retreads demand.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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West Virginia transgender sports ban overturned in federal appeals court

By Ryan Gaydos Fox News | Published April 16, 2024 12:12pm EDT

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a West Virginia law that prohibited transgender girls from competing against biological girls in sports. The 2-1 ruling came from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling found the law violated Title IX – in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and Lambda Legal.

Transgender pride flag — A federal appeals court struck down West Virginia’s transgender sports ban. (ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images)

The court said the law cannot be applied to Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 13-year-old girl who had been taking puberty blockers and has identified as a girl since the third grade.

“This is a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians, and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are,” ACLU West Virginia attorney Joshua Block said.

West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” was signed into law in 2021. The law ordered student-athletes to compete and play against those of their biological gender. Lawyers for the girl originally had sued the school board after Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill into law, claiming it violated the 14th Amendment and protections under Title IX.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill in 2021. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, File)

U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin ruled against the transgender girl in January 2023 and also ruled the laws did not violate Title IX protections. However, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to reinstate a preliminary injunction.

The Supreme Court ruled last April that the transgender girl could compete with biological girls on the middle school’s girls’ sports teams. Supreme Court justices refused to disturb an appeals court order that made it possible for the girl to continue playing on her school’s track and cross-country teams. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision.

West Virginia was one of at least 24 states that had laws barring transgender women and girls from competing against the gender they identify as.

“I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said. “We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.

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Education, Family, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political, Sports

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California School System Sued Over Falsified History About Israel-Hamas War

By: Tony Kinnett / @TheTonus / April 16, 2024

A student’s father sues California’s Berkeley Unified School District, accusing it of hiding pro-Hamas “history” lessons at Berkeley High School from parents. (Photo: Berkeley Unified School District)

A California public school district that attempted to hide pro-Hamas course material from parents now faces legal action. The Deborah Project, which describes itself as “a public interest law firm that defends the civil rights of Jews in education,” filed suit April 8 against the Berkeley Unified School District, accusing it of “intentionally trying to prevent parents from knowing what their kids are learning.”

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, also accuses the school system of “teaching kids mendacious and malicious lies about [Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel] that are grossly inaccurate and, on the basis of this false information, fomenting hatred against the Jewish State.”

The Deborah Project went to court on behalf of a parent in the Berkeley school district, Yossi Fendel, who says he was delayed and denied information about his child’s curriculum after a social studies teacher, Alex Day, announced at a school board meeting in November that he was going to incorporate lessons about “Palestine.” Day also stated at the school board meeting that he wouldn’t be “censored” from lecturing his students about “colonialism.” Day is a ninth-grade social studies teacher at Berkeley High School, according to the school system’s website.

*Alex Day in a photo obtained from Berkeley High School’s staff page*

Fendel repeatedly attempted to gain information about Day’s course material, but was obstructed constantly “for months” by rescheduling, cancellations, and other delays by Berkeley High School and district staff, The Deborah Project said in a press release. The lawsuit asserts that Day cast Jews as abusive, land-stealing colonizers, ignoring thousands of years of history to make a political assertion, while soft-pedaling the Hamas terrorist organization. Day explicitly refrained from describing as “terrorism” Hamas’ Oct. 7 rape and murder of over 1,200 in southern Israel and its kidnapping of over 200 civilians, according to the lawsuit.

The suit adds:

We seek as well to learn how it came to be that [Berkeley Unified School District]—in violation of California law—inexcusably but intentionally delayed access to the curriculum, ensuring that parents could not learn what was being fed their kids until after a stream of antisemitic falsehoods had already been planted not only in Mr. Fendel’s son’s mind, but in the minds of all his classmates.

According to slides for Day’s lessons obtained by The Daily Signal, the teacher used one slide and half of another to describe Hamas’ massacre of civilians in Israel, and 43 slides to describe what he called Israel’s “all out assault on Gaza.”

Hamas, which is known for using civilians as shields for its military operations, has been the elected government of the Gaza Strip since 2006.

In my analysis as a former teacher and curriculum developer, Day’s slides are absolutely riddled with leading questions and weighted comparisons, in what appears to be an attempt to paint Gazans as the victims of unwarranted colonial aggression. Day makes a comparison on slide 14, titled “Consequences of War,” that dishonestly portrays Israeli citizens as only having to postpone funerals and weddings while Gazans have “no food, no water, no electricity,” and “humanitarian aid was/is being blocked.” (The teacher doesn’t specify who blocked aid.)

The repeated rocket strikes and other horrors Israeli civilians have faced during the war, and for decades before, are not mentioned in Day’s slideshow.

Although the teacher claims in slide 29 that “we take care of each other,” his slides decidedly paint Israelis and Republicans in America as unfeeling and uncompassionate. The slides ask loaded questions such as: “Why do you think there aren’t more politicians calling for a ceasefire?” Day’s slides include quotes only from, and photos of, Democrats.

Day included several questions asking students what they thought about Israeli actions toward “Palestinians,” but didn’t ask a single question about what students thought of Hamas’ actions, media coverage, or related U.N. resolutions. For example, question 10 asks, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Do you think that Netanyahu’s directions to the Palestinians are fair? Why or why not?”

Outside of a brief reference to Oct. 7, Day’s slides don’t mention Hamas at all, nor is its leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Students aren’t asked whether Haniyeh’s actions toward Israelis “are fair.”

Both questions 6 and 7 ask students how they feel “about lives lost or damage done to Gaza’s infrastructure,” but no question asks students about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

California State Standards require history teachers to point out “bias and prejudice” in historical interpretations, but the slides in Day’s presentation don’t mention the blatant antisemitism of Hamas or other Iranian proxy groups.

Not referenced a single time: the tens of thousands of social media posts, press releases, recordings of public chants, and other blatant expressions around the world in support of Hamas that call for the death of all Jews.

The Berkeley school district didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request that it confirm the authenticity of Day’s slides by time of publication. However, hyperlinks in the slides link to electronic forms hosted by the school district’s official internet domain.

If the Berkeley Unified School District attempted to hide or delay access to this information, it wouldn’t be the first time a public school district was caught trying to keep parents from seeing disturbing or controversial curriculum or pedagogy. Hundreds of public school districts around the country have attempted to hide racially discriminatory and sexually explicit curriculum from parents, as confirmed by Freedom of Information Act requests, recorded admissions by school administrators, and dozens of whistleblowers.

Berkeley Unified wouldn’t be California’s first public school district to protect antisemitic actions within its schools.

Within weeks after the Hamas attack in Israel, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District forced a gag order on four 11-year-olds so they wouldn’t talk about the antisemitic death threats other students made against them.

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Long-Awaited Articles of Impeachment Against DHS Secretary Mayorkas Arrive in Senate

By: Virginia Allen / @Virginia_Allen5 / April 16, 2024

The House on Tuesday afternoon delivered its two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate. Meanwhile, Mayorkas is seen here testifying at a fiscal 2025 budget hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Photo: Julia Nikhinson/AFP/Getty Images)

The House delivered the two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon. The articles are expected to be acted on quickly by the Democrat-controlled Senate, but not in the manner House GOP lawmakers are seeking.

“We want to address this issue as expeditiously as possible,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech Monday discussing the articles of impeachment.

Republicans who backed the impeachment of Mayorkas are concerned that Schumer will hold a vote to dismiss the articles of impeachment altogether. Dismissal only requires a simple majority, which is not out of the question, given Democrats’ control of the upper chamber.

Schumer also has the option to refer the articles to committee, where they would likely die, or to hold a full Senate trial, which Schumer is not expected to do, given his own vocal opposition to Mayorkas’ impeachment.

“Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement,” Schumer said, adding, “That would set a horrible precedent for the Congress.”

House and Senate Republicans supporting impeachment have maintained a pressure campaign on Schumer to force a Senate trial.

“Under the Constitution, the responsibility of the Senate is simple and straightforward: The Senate must hold a trial,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“Chuck Schumer doesn’t want to do that,” Cruz added. “Instead, he wants to move to table the entire thing for three reasons. First, he does not want to allow the House managers to present evidence of Mayorkas’ willful decision to aid and abet the criminal invasion of this country. Second, he does not want the American people to see the facts. Third, he does not want Senate Democrats on the ballot in November to have to vote ‘not guilty’ because the evidence is indisputable—Alejandro Mayorkas is guilty.”

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., serves as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and led the impeachment effort against Mayorkas.

“The American people demand accountability,” Green wrote on X, in response to House Speaker Mike Johnson signing the articles of impeachment Monday.

Tomorrow I’m joining @SpeakerJohnson to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate. The American people demand accountability. https://t.co/PLkTs9yOyL
— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) April 15, 2024

The Republican-controlled House voted 214 to 213 on a party-line vote to impeach Mayorkas on Feb. 13 after a failed attempt a week prior. The House’s first article alleges that the homeland security secretary has failed to secure America’s border and enforce immigration laws, and instead has executed policies that incentivize illegal immigration.

The House’s second article of impeachment contends that Mayorkas is in breach of the public trust and knowingly has made false statements to Congress and the American people.

Like his conservative colleagues in the House, Cruz says Mayorkas bears much of the responsibility for the record high number of encounters of illegal aliens at America’s borders.

“Mayorkas has aided and abetted the criminal invasion of the United States,” Cruz said. “This is a humanitarian, public safety, and national security crisis.”

Schumer told his fellow senators in a “Dear Colleague” letter on April 5 that when the articles of impeachment arrive in the Senate, senators will be sworn in as jurors the following day and that Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, D-Wash., will preside over the chamber.

The House was originally going to deliver the two articles of impeachment to the Senate on April 10, but Johnson delayed the delivery after a group of GOP senators asked him to do so to allow more time for debate on the Senate floor before the weekend.

Schumer said Monday that his plan of action in the Senate has not changed despite the arrival of the articles being delayed six days.

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NPR Suspends Editor Who Objected to Bias and Lack of Diversity at Company

JonathanTurley.org | April 16, 2024

NPR has been faced with a torrent of criticism over its bias and intolerance for opposing views in programming, including a stinging criticism from award-winning editor Uri Berliner. In response, NPR appears eager to fulfill that narrative and has suspended Berliner for speaking with the media. It appears that Berliner’s objections to NPR’s “absence of viewpoint diversity” is a bit too much for NPR to bear.

After Berliner wrote his piece in the Free Press, NPR CEO Katherine Maher attacked Berliner and made clear that NPR had no intention to change its one-sided editorial staff or its coverage. Others at NPR also went public with their criticism of him and falsely portrayed his criticism as opposed to actual racial and other diversity of the staff.

In his article, NPR’s David Folkenflik acknowledges that the Berliner criticism “angered many of his colleagues.”

Berliner gave Folkenflik a copy of the formal rebuke, which told Berliner that the letter was a “final warning”, and Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR’s policy again. However, NPR did not cite reportedly specific appearances as violations. The letter lacks specificity on that point, but Berliner will not contest the five-day suspension.

It is clear that NPR and Maher want prior approval of any future discussions with outside media. With a whistleblower, that could present an obvious chokepoint and invite further bias.

I have criticized NPR’s editors of playing such a role in other areas. NPR announced that reporters could participate in activities that advocate for “freedom and dignity of human beings” on social media and in real life. Reporters just need approval over what are deemed freedom or dignity enhancing causes. Presumably, that does not include pro-life or gun rights rallies.

The suspension may satisfy the anger of NPR editors and reporters over Berliner’s detailed accounts of their bias. In conjunction with Maher’s attacks, it is clear that the problem is viewed as Berliner, not the underlying bias. He is one of the few remaining “old guard” journalists at NPR who want greater balance at the outlet. Even that singular voice is too much for the staff. Again, it is reminiscent of what we have seen in higher education where faculties have been purged of conservative, libertarian, or dissenting voices.

NPR obviously has a right to be slanted and bias. It does not have a right to public funding in presenting such coverage.

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Media, Political

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Supreme Court Takes Up Obstruction Case Affecting J6 Defendants

By: Jonathan Turley | April 16, 2024

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Fischer v. United States, a case that could fundamentally change many cases of January 6th defendants, including the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The case involves the interpretation of a federal statute prohibiting obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations.

The case concerns 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which provides:

“Whoever corruptly—(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

Joseph Fischer was charged with various offenses, but U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia dismissed the 1512(c)2 charges. Judge Nichols found that the statute is exclusively directed to crimes related to documents, records, or other objects.

The D.C. Circuit reversed and held that Section 1512(c)(2) is a “catch all” provision that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct. Circuit Judge Florence Pan ruled that the “natural, broad reading of the statute is consistent with prior interpretations of the words it uses and the structure it employs.” However, Judge Gregory Katsas dissented and rejected “the government’s all-encompassing reading.”

The Court will now consider the question of whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, to include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence.

The law itself was not designed for this purpose. It was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and has been described as “prompted by the exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents.”

Oral argument is today and I will be covering the arguments on X (Twitter).

Back to the oral argument, Prelogar admitted to Justice Alito that a minimal interference could potentially qualify, but questioned the likelihood of such a case. Alito hit her with how she would define minimal and said that the interruption of the Court "sounds minimal to me"…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 16, 2024

The Court just ended argument. The three liberal justices offered support for the government and Justice Barrett seemed on the fence at points. It is hard to tell where Barrett may end up. However, there was clearly a skepticism from four justices, including Chief Justice Roberts
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 16, 2024

…The oral argument favored the defendants and could result in a wider impact on dozens of cases, including the prosecution of former President Trump. The loss of the obstruction counts for Jack Smith would undermine his narrative, but he could proceed on the remaining counts.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 16, 2024

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Pam Bondi to Newsmax: Need One Juror to Follow Law

By Sam Barron | Monday, 15 April 2024 12:45 PM EDT

The outcome of President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, where he’s charged with falsifying business records to cover making hush-money payments to a porn star, could come down to one juror.

Pam Bondi, the former attorney general for Florida, told Newsmax on Monday it was very important for Trump’s defense team to get jury selection right. Jury selection in the Trump trial began Monday in a Manhattan court.

“Everyone in the world knows who President Trump is and everyone in the world has formed an opinion about him one way or the other, so it’s whether you can be a fair or impartial juror in this trial,” Bondi said on “Newsline.”

Bondi said she hopes Trump’s defense team is combing the social media posts of prospective jurors to see if they posted negatively about the former president.

“You don’t want people on the jury who are going to lie to get on the jury,” Bondi said.

If one juror follows the law and votes to acquit Trump, that could lead to a hung jury, Bondi said.

“Hopefully you will find 12 jurors who say he didn’t do anything wrong because he did not,” Bondi said.

The defense and prosecution each are allowed to strike 10 prospective jurors for any reason but have unlimited challenges to strike a juror for cause, Bondi said.

“The judge is going to have to let President Trump’s defense attorneys really delve into detailed questions with all these potential jurors,” Bondi said.

The former Florida attorney general noted both the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department declined to take the Trump case.

“[Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg took this case and created 34 felony charges,” Bondi said. “It was never even a felony to begin with. It’s really ludicrous.”

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Sam Barron ✉

Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.

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Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Fund State Department’s DEI Pseudoscience

By: Simon Hankinson / April 15, 2024

As the State Departments spends $77 million on DEI programs such as e “Intersectional Gender Analysis Training”, Americans should question the effectiveness of such taxpayer-funded initiatives. (Photo illustration: Nora Carol Photography/Getty Images)

The federal government increasingly looks like an Ivy League classroom, combining therapy for fragile souls with indoctrination into specious ideology.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at the State Department, where employees are encouraged to take courses in the name of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or DEIA, that stress their differences, trauma, and status on the victim-oppressor continuum.

As reported by The Daily Wire, the State Department spent a whopping $77 million on DEIA programs last year for its staffing shop, the Bureau of Global Talent Management. Just this past month, the State Department offered a training session called “Unveiling the Hidden Wounds: Exploring Racial Trauma and Minority Stress.” It promised a “space for empathy” where “voices are heard, wounds are acknowledged, and action is taken towards justice and equity.”

Then there was “A Conversation on Racial Equity and Social Justice” with Bryan Stevenson, who pulled in $55,000 in donations per minute for a single TED Talk.

Employees could also take the half-day course “Intersectional Gender Analysis Training,” which “explores how gender and systems of power shape an individual’s lived experience.” Alternatively, they could attend a seminar called “Embrace Equity and Inspire Change” or a series of female empowerment sessions such as “Elevating Women in Technology and Beyond.”

Anticipating resistance, the State Department offered the course “Understanding Backlash to DEIA and How to Address It,” in which psychologist Kimberly Rios claimed to “highlight evidence demonstrating that DEIA initiatives can challenge the power, values, status, belonging, and cultural identity of dominant group members, particularly White Americans whose racial identity is important to their sense of self.” Rios will do this, the announcement said with unwitting irony, “to promote intergroup harmony.”

Government employees are required to take a variety of training courses to advance in their careers. Even five years ago, most of these were about doing your job better—courses on leadership, management, and other skills. But in the “woke” era, employees are also subjected to ideological sessions such as those mentioned above. Given what all these courses and speakers cost taxpayers to provide, is there any evidence that they are based on sound information or that they improve the workforce?

Let’s examine one offering more closely.

The State Department runs a “DEIA Distinguished Scholar Speaker Series” that “highlights cutting-edge scientific research,” under which the agency recently brought in Yale professor John Dovidio to give a talk titled “Racism Among the Well-Intentioned—Challenges and Solutions.”

In a 2013 speech, Dovidio said: “About 80% of white Americans will say they are not sexist or they’re not racist … but work with the IAT will show that 60% to 75% of the population are both racist and sexist at an implicit level.”

So, what is this “IAT” that Dovidio cites?

Harvard’s Implicit Association Test is a favorite tool of social scientists who want to prove that people are inherently racist and sexist. This is a necessary premise for critical race theory, which posits that nebulous concepts such as “structural bias” and “systems of oppression” can explain all variances in performance between racial groups rather than individual factors such as education, industry, and behavior. The Implicit Association Test offers the evidence the Left needs to support this theory.

But the Implicit Association Test isn’t an accepted measure of bias. One of its own inventors said, “I and my colleagues and collaborators do not call the IAT results a measure of implicit prejudice [or] implicit racism.”

And in a 2015 review, Hart Blanton of Texas A&M wrote that “all of the meta-analyses converge on the conclusion that … IAT scores are not good predictors of ethnic or racial discrimination and explain, at most, small fractions of the variance in discriminatory behavior in controlled laboratory setting.”

In a 2021 academic paper, Ulrich Schimmack came to the same conclusion, writing that “IATs are widely used without psychometric evidence of construct or predictive validity.”

As far back as 2008, in an article for the American Psychological Association, Beth Azar wrote that a person’s scores on the Implicit Association Test “often change from one test to another.” German Lopez, writing for Vox, took the test two days apart and found that in the first, he “had a slight automatic preference for white people,” and in the second, “a slight automatic preference … in favor of black people.”

Summing up, Greg Mitchell of the University of Virginia said, “The IAT is not yet ready for prime time.”

That’s hardly a firm foundation for using taxpayers’ money to train federal staff in a worldview that will affect their careers and lives. And of course, all of the hours employees spend auto-flagellating with critical race theory is paid time they are not working on matters of national interest.

One can’t put too much blame on race merchants such as Dovidio, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Nikole Hannah-Jones for simply trying to sell their product. But the question is: Why is the government buying it with our money?

Taxpayer-funded institutions shouldn’t pay for courses and speakers whose premises are contentious and whose efforts won’t measurably improve the workforce.

Federal employees are free to explore social theory on their own time. On our dime, they should get on with their real job.

Originally published by the Washington Examiner

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Originally published by The Washington Stand

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Elementary School Denies Request to Start Prayer Club, Approves ‘Pride Club’

By: Sarah Holliday / April 15, 2024

An elementary school in the state of Washington denied an 11-year-old student’s request to start an interfaith prayer club. (Photo Illustration: Valerii Apetroaiei/Getty Images)

In 2015, religious freedom seemed compromised when a Washington high school football coach was fired for praying with his team after a game. Joe Kennedy waited roughly six years for the Supreme Court to hear the oral arguments for his case. He was represented by a Christian nonprofit legal organization, First Liberty Institute, which took the position that “no teacher or coach should lose their job for simply expressing their faith while in public.” This was a notable case in 2022, and recent events have caused the issue to resurface.

Earlier this year, Laura, an 11-year-old girl who attends Creekside Elementary in Washington state, requested to start an interfaith prayer club at her school. But her request was denied. When Laura and her mom approached the principal about the matter in February, they were informed that the school’s budget for clubs had been finalized in October. And according to a spokesperson for Issaquah School District, “[C]lubs offered are student-interest driven and meet outside of the school day. At the elementary level, participation in a club also requires parent permission. Once the school year begins, the building budget is set, and additional clubs are usually not added until the following school year.”

But the story doesn’t end here.

Laura’s group, which she hoped to start with her friend, was meant to include people of all different religious backgrounds. She shared with Fox News that she was feeling alone, and that she thought this would be a good idea to bring students together. “I think that this is something that I am very passionate about,” she added. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really want to make this happen, if I didn’t think that it would be a great opportunity for everyone.”

It was later discovered that an LGBT club was approved only a week prior to Laura’s club request being denied, which has caused spectators to raise their eyebrows. As a result of this alleged hypocrisy, Laura filed a lawsuit on the grounds of religious discrimination with the help of First Liberty Institute.

Attorneys pointed out in a letter to the school, “The First Amendment ‘doubly protects religious speech.’ These First Amendment protections extend to elementary school students expressing their sincere religious beliefs through voluntary clubs. Yet the school district flouted its First Amendment obligations when they refused to allow a student-led interfaith prayer club. Its unlawful action violates both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause.”

Kayla Toney, associate counsel at First Liberty Institute, explained, “Denying the formation of a religious student club while allowing other clubs violates the Constitution,” drawing attention to the fact that the similar case with Coach Kennedy occurred “just a short drive away” from Laura’s elementary school.

And in comments to The Washington Stand, Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Religious Liberty, said, “The fact that Creekside Elementary denied a religious club the same month that it approved a pride club reveals a lot about American culture right now.”

She continued, “Sadly, the promotion of LGBT identities is held sacred while religion is sidelined and marginalized. It’s heartbreaking that Laura, a fifth-grade student, felt alone at school as a religious believer and that she knew other students who felt the same way. She reacted in exactly the right way by making an effort to build community with religious students.”

Del Turco went on to emphasize that, “Oftentimes, when people seek to prevent religious expression in government venues, they will use the excuse that they don’t want to imply that the government favors one religion over another.” However, when it comes to Laura’s case, she pointed out that “the school doesn’t even have that flimsy excuse because the students were seeking to start a … club that would be open to students of different faiths.”

Ultimately, “Any school that allows other clubs while specifically denying religious clubs is acting in a discriminatory manner and violating the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression and the free exercise of religion.”

Del Turco concluded, “Christian fifth graders shouldn’t face viewpoint discrimination from their school leadership. It shouldn’t have had to come to this, but I fully expect this injustice to be rectified in the courts.”

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Education, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political, Religion, Spiritual

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The Trump Trial in Manhattan is an Indictment of the New York Legal System

By: Jonathan Turley | April 15, 2024

Below is my column in the New York Post on the start of the Trump trial today in New York. I have long been critical of the case as a clear example of the weaponization of the criminal justice system. No one seriously believes that Alvin Bragg would have spent this time and money to prosecute what is ordinarily a state misdemeanor if the defendant was anyone other than Trump. One does not have to like Trump to repel from the spectacle about to unfold in Manhattan.

Here is the column:

The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “The more laws, the less justice.” This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump.

After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election. This week will highlight the damage done to New York’s legal system because of this unhinged crusade. They’ve charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress.

Just a few weeks ago, another judge imposed a roughly half billion dollar penalty in a case without a single victim who lost a single cent on loans with Trump. (Indeed, bank officials testified they wanted more business with the Trump organization).

Now Bragg is bringing a case that has taken years to develop and millions of dollars in litigation costs for all parties. That is all over a crime from before the 2016 election that is a misdemeanor under state law that had already expired under the statute of limitations.

Like his predecessor, Bragg previously scoffed at the case. However, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned and started a public pressure campaign to get New Yorkers to demand prosecution.

Pomerantz shocked many of us by publishing a book on the case against Trump — who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. He did so despite objections from his former colleague that such a book was grossly improper. Nevertheless, it worked. Bragg brought a Rube Goldberg case that is so convoluted and counterintuitive that even liberal legal analysts criticized it.

Trump paid Daniels to avoid any publicity over their brief alleged affair. As a celebrity, there was ample reason to want to keep the affair quiet, and that does not even include the fact that he is a married man. It also occurred before the 2016 election and there was clearly a benefit to quash the scandal as a candidate. That political motivation is at the heart of this long-delayed case.

It is a repeat of the case involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In 2012, the Justice Department used the same theory to charge the former Democratic presidential candidate after a disclosure that he not only had an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter but also hid the fact that he had a child by her. Edwards denied the affair, and money from donors was passed to Hunter to keep the matter quiet.

The Justice Department spent a huge amount on the case to show that the third-party payments were a circumvention of campaign finance laws. However, Edwards was ultimately found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on the other five.

With Trump, the Justice Department declined a repeat of the Edwards debacle and did not bring any federal charge. But Bragg then used the alleged federal crime to bootstrap a defunct misdemeanor charge into a felony in the current case. He is arguing that Trump intentionally lied when his former lawyer Michael Cohen listed the payments as retainer costs rather than a payment — to avoid reporting it as a campaign contribution to himself. Thus, if he had simply had Cohen report the payment as “hush money,” there would be no crime.

Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims. The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The FEC later sanctioned the campaign over its hiding of the funding.). When a reporter tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Likewise, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was called before congressional investigators and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

Yet, there were no charges stemming from the hiding of the funding, though it was all part of the campaign budget.

Making this assorted business even more repellent will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand. Cohen recently was denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system. Cohen has a long record as a legal thug who has repeatedly lied when it served his interests. He has a knack for selling his curious skill set to powerful figures like Trump and now Bragg.

For those of us who have been critics of Cohen from when he was still working for Trump, it is mystifying that anyone would call him to the stand to attest to anything short of the time of day . . . and even then, most of us would check our watches.

Fortunately, witnesses are no longer required to put their hand on the bible in swearing to testify truthfully in court. Otherwise, the court would need the New York Fire Department standing by in case the book burst into flames.

So, this is the case: A serial perjurer used to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department.

They could well succeed in a city where nine out of ten potential jurors despise Trump. Trying Trump in Manhattan is about as difficult as the New York Yankees going to bat using beach balls rather than baseballs. It is hard to miss.

However, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the New York legal system. Whatever the outcome, it may prove a greater indictment of the New York court system than the defendant.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.

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