The wheels are starting to fall off the green energy bandwagon. The rose-colored glasses are clearing up and reality is sinking in.
The giant push toward a net zero utopia is not practical and has been a complete disservice to the American consumer. Components of the green movement are experiencing major setbacks, namely offshore wind, electric vehicles (EVs), and investments.
Offshore wind projects are struggling to secure financing and stay on track. The biggest blow came last month, when the world’s largest offshore wind developer Ørsted canceled two major projects off the New Jersey coastline, taking the wind right out of Gov. Phil Murphy’s green energy sails. Ørsted is also suspending work on offshore projects in Maryland and Delaware.
The EV market is also losing steam. Sales are slumping and manufacturers are scaling back on production. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool/Getty Images | Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Among the wave of cancellations are projects in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut. Several other projects are on the ropes and a host of companies are paying millions to break their contracts.
The industry hit another snag recently when Germany-based Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy pulled the plug on its wind turbine blade facility in Portsmouth, Virginia. Siemens Gamesa, one of the world’s leading suppliers, says, “development milestones to establish the facility could not be met.”
According to BloombergNEF, at least half of U.S. wind contracts have or are at risk of being terminated. The causes are typically due to skyrocketing inflation, high interest rates, choked supply chains and financial troubles.
Ford Motor Company stands to lose $4.5 billion on its EV business for 2023 and will be delaying many of their EV investments.
General Motors said it was restructuring EV goals, Honda shelved plans to develop affordable EVs with GM, and Hertz said it will slow their rate of purchasing them due to high repair costs. Elon Musk is even considering putting off plans for a $1 billion plant in Mexico.
Most, if not all, manufacturers are reporting major losses per EV sold. Ford lost $62,000 per vehicle in the third quarter; one luxury electric vehicle company lost an astounding $430,000. Countless others are losing tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle, quarter after quarter.
Car dealers are slashing EV prices. EVs sit on lots nearly twice as long as internal combustion engines. Even industry-leader Tesla has been shaving thousands off their retail prices due to unmet sales expectations.
This kind of loss is not sustainable for any company.
The EV market is niche. Those who want one have one. But the rest of America is not convinced they would be better off with an EV on account of a multitude of reliability factors. Nor can they afford the steep price tag.
Consequently, the last few months have seen stock prices drastically dropping in companies across the green spectrum. From wind to solar to EVs to fuel cells, investors are abandoning the “green” energy ship in droves. It might be sinking.
Siemens Energy stock is down 45%; Ørsted, 67%; Power Inc., a hydrogen fuel cell producer, 71%; Charge Point Holdings Inc., an EV charging company, 70%; Blink Charging Co., another EV charging company, 72%; and Nikola Corp., maker of heavy-duty EVs, has gone from $65 a share in mid-2020 to the current price of less than $1 per share.
A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that such companies are “finding it more difficult to secure financing than at any time in the past decade.”
We need to read between the lines here. The green energy revolution is not working, nor is central planning. You cannot force Americans to buy cars they don’t want any more than you can force energy transitions that aren’t viable.
Green energy is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of all Americans, and turns out, is insanely expensive.
The World Economic Forum says that getting to net zero by 2050 will cost an extra $3.5 trillion a year. The U.S. has already poured hundreds of billions into the effort and continues to keep shoveling. All on the backs of the American taxpayer, to save a mere fraction of temperature. Maybe.
Heritage Foundation’s chief statistician estimates that even if all fossil fuels were eliminated from the United States, not even 0.2 degrees Celsius would be salvaged.
Kristen Walker is a policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.theamericanconsumer.org or follow us on Twitter @ConsumerPal.
Democrats’ opposition to voter identification requirements was called out Tuesday by former President Donald Trump as “the biggest giveaway” of their alleged intention to stuff ballot boxes.
“No radical left Democrat politician has ever been able to explain why their party is so rabidly opposed to Voter ID — and that’s the biggest giveaway of all that they are cheating on a monumental scale,” Trump said Tuesday in one in a series of video statements posted to Truth Social. “They don’t want voter ID, because they want to cheat.”
Trump denounced Democrats’ past arguments that “voter ID is racist,” calling it “offensive” that Democrats attempted to suggest voters are incapable of getting a photo ID.
“What century are these radical Democrats living in?” Trump said. “Americans of all colors and creeds are fully capable of obtaining identification, which is required to drive a car, buy a beer, see an R-rated movie, get on an airplane, get a bank account, check into a hotel, and even to get cold medicine at a pharmacy.”
Trump cited polls showing “over 80% of Americans” supporting voter ID requirements.
“Yet in the last Congress every single Democrat in the House of Representatives voted to ban voter ID nationwide,” Trump said. “That because they cheat, and their policies which are so bad and so destructive — especially to our cities or inner-cities — no wonder they have to cheat, because nobody could get elected with those policies.”
Trump added only “two things are scared” in the anti-democracy party: “Open borders and no voter ID,” two policies he said are tied to stuff ballots for Democrats’ agenda.
“When I am reelected we will secure our borders and we will launch a nationwide campaign to get voter ID in every federal, state, and local election,” Trump’s video statement concluded. “What we really want to do is get down to paper ballots, one-day voting, and voter ID, and we’re going to have safe elections again.”
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
Ensuring fair elections should be a top priority for federal, state, and local lawmakers. Pictured: An employee at the Utah County election office puts mail-in ballots into a container to register the vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 6, 2018, in Provo, Utah. (Photo: George Frey/Getty Images)
The American public wants and deserves an election system in which the candidates who get the most legitimate votes of eligible voters are declared the winners, and elections are not marred by errors, fraud, and other serious issues and misbehavior that make voters and candidates question the legitimacy of election outcomes.
Anyone who doubts the need for reform should take a look at The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database, which is constantly being updated with new cases of and convictions for fraud from across the country.
In an era of razor-thin elections, guarding against this type of illegal behavior, as well as errors made by election officials, is especially important. In 2024, it could prove critical.
The good news is that there is still time to implement the kind of reforms needed to help secure elections and maintain the public’s confidence in them. Although most states have part-time legislatures, most of those legislative sessions occur in the first quarter of each year, giving state legislators the ability to make final improvements—at least for the general election in November—starting in January.
States with full-time legislatures, such as California and Michigan, can pass such improvements immediately.
So, what can be done? For starters, states should ensure that election officials maintain current, accurate voter rolls. They should require photo identification to vote, both in person and absentee. For registered voters who don’t already have a photo ID, states should provide one free of charge.
States should also ban funding of state and local election offices by partisan private donors and organizations. This sort of shady funding occurred in the 2020 election and created clear and obvious conflicts of interest.
States should also prohibit ballot trafficking. Allowing third-party strangers such as candidates, campaign staffers, party activists, and political guns-for-hire, all of whom have a stake in the outcome of an election, to handle a voter’s ballot is an invitation to fraud and coercion.
Finally, transparency is fundamental for states seeking to conduct honest elections and maintain public confidence in their credibility. With that in mind, states should reject calls to restrict the access of election observers and ensure that observers have complete and unfettered access to every aspect of our elections, from the processing of voter-registration applications to the casting of votes and the counting of ballots.
The best and easiest toolkit that legislators and citizens can use to determine how to improve their elections is the Election Integrity Scorecard, which The Heritage Foundation launched in December 2021. The scorecard analyzes the election laws, regulations, and procedures of all 50 states and the District of Columbia by comparing them with a list of 47 best-practices recommendations. These recommendations outline the best ways for election officials to ensure the integrity of their state elections.
Each state is scored based on its implementation of these best practices. No state in the country has a perfect score of 100, which means everyone has some work to do. Tennessee and Georgia are at the top of the ranking, with scores of 84 and 83, respectively. Nevada and Hawaii find themselves at the bottom, with abysmally failing marks of only 28 and 26, respectively.
Heritage’s scorecard also includes a detailed analysis for each state (plus the District), informing legislators and election officials what they need to fix. The scorecard even offers model legislation on absentee ballots, accurate voter rolls, election observers, private funding of election offices, vote trafficking, and other important reforms.
Less than one year away from Election Day 2024, the time for the public, local, and state election officials and state legislators to ensure the integrity of our elections and protect the franchise for voters is now.
Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, and former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the board of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
Gender dysphoria is a disability that requires accommodation, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services says, based on one court ruling. (Photo illustration: SB Arts Media/Getty Images)
The Biden administration has been known to stretch the law beyond a plain reading to support a desired policy outcome. Take the longstanding federal law that criminalizes the shipment of abortion drugs, for example. The Justice Department argues that the law doesn’t mean what it says. Wrong.
Or how about Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—crafted to guarantee sex equality in education—which the Department of Education argues permits biological boys to compete on female athletic teams? Wrong again.
Now, the Department of Health and Human Services is arguing that gender dysphoria is a disability under federal law. And that disability, HHS argues, requires accommodation. How does HHS reach that conclusion? By relying on one decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, a decision not followed by any other federal appellate court. It’s also a decision about which certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court expressed significant concern.
On Sept. 14, the Department of Health and Human Services published a proposed rule to amend section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which is the federal law that prohibits disability discrimination in any program conducted by federal agencies or receiving federal funding.
There is much good in the proposed rule to be sure, including updates on obligations concerning web and mobile accessibility, service animals, facilities, and medical care. But the proposed rule also adopts the rationale of the 4th Circuit in Williams v. Kincaid to justify extending the definition of disability to include gender dysphoria.
The Department agrees that restrictions that prevent, limit, or interfere with otherwise qualified individuals’ access to care due to their gender dysphoria, gender dysphoria diagnosis, or perception of gender dysphoria may violate section 504.
There’s just one problem: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act excludes the exact disorder HHS is trying to shoehorn into its interpretation. That law reads:
For the purposes of sections 791, 793, and 794 of this title, the term ‘individual with a disability’ does not include an individual on the basis of—(i) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders.
Happily for the Biden administration, the appeals court in Williams held (inexplicably) that “gender dysphoria” and “gender identity disorder” were two different things.
In the case, inmate Kesha Williams, who was born a male but “identifies” as a transgender woman, sued Sheriff Stacey Kincaid of Fairfax County, Virginia, based on alleged mistreatment at the county jail.
Williams sued under both the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act (or ADA), a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and places open to the general public. The Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act contain identical, exclusionary language on “gender identity disorders.” The two laws often appear together when a claimant alleges discrimination based on disability.
Williams’ contention was that as Fairfax County sheriff, Kincaid violated both laws by refusing to accommodate Williams’ “gender dysphoria.” Williams argued that the sheriff did so by assigning the inmate to men’s housing, failing to offer hormone therapy, and permitting “persistent and intentional misgendering and harassment.”
Because the ADA clearly doesn’t provide disability protections for “gender identity disorder,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, writing for the 2-1 majority, engaged in a contorted legal analysis before concluding that gender dysphoria wasn’t actually a gender identity disorder. To reach that conclusion, Motz didn’t look to the statute’s plain language at the time of its enactment. Instead, she focused on a much more recent change by the American Psychiatric Association on gender-related psychiatric diagnoses—one not envisioned, anticipated, or incorporated by the original drafters of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990.
This change first appeared in 2013 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). This manual is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States. At that time, the American Psychiatric Association replaced the term “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria.” The change focused the diagnosis on the distress that some people who consider themselves transgender experience (and for which they may seek psychiatric, medical, and surgical treatments) instead of on an individual’s desire to be a gender other than the one he or she was born as. Motz determined that this change was good enough to stretch the Americans With Disabilities Act well beyond the limits of what Congress determined the law ought to bear originally.
In sum, the APA’s removal of the ‘gender identity disorder’ diagnosis and the addition of the ‘gender dysphoria’ diagnosis to the DSM-5 reflected a significant shift in medical understanding. The obsolete diagnosis focused solely on cross-gender identification; the modern one on clinically significant distress … Put simply, while the older DSM pathologized the very existence of transgender people, the recent DSM-5’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria takes as a given that being transgender is not a disability and affirms that a transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.
Motz and the other judge in the majority argued that the concept of “gender identity disorder” as used in the statute encompassed all “cross-gender identification,” but the current American Psychiatric Association-defined concept of “gender dysphoria” is defined by stress that goes beyond “being trans alone.” So, Motz concluded in her opinion, “gender identity disorder” as a category “no longer exists,” thereby rendering the statutory exclusion without any effect.
In his dissent, Judge Marvin Quattlebaum argued that the majority’s focus on this linguistic change ignored the plain text of the Americans With Disabilities Act at the time of its enactment in 1990. And that plain text explicitly excluded “gender identity disorders.” In Quattlebaum’s view, Motz was incorrect to focus on an apparent shift in medical understanding, something she argued had rendered the exclusion of “gender identity disorder” as obsolete.
The Supreme Court denied review in Williams on June 30, but Justice Samuel Alito was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas in strenuously dissenting from this denial. Alito wrote that the case presented a question of “great national importance” that required prompt review. He added:
The Fourth Circuit’s decision makes an important provision of a federal law inoperative and, given the broad reach of the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, will have far-reaching and important effects across much of civil society in that Circuit. Voters in the affected States and the legislators they elect will lose the authority to decide how best to address the needs of transgender persons in single-sex facilities, dormitory housing, college sports, and the like.
As seems typical for the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services relied on a single, problematic ruling—one based on faulty reasoning and subject to withering criticism—for the purpose of advancing its preferred social policy interests. HHS intends that all entities covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act now must make accommodations for any feelings of stress or discomfort that result from a person’s “assigned” (i.e., birth) sex.
If the proposed HHS rule is finalized, it would open the door for those who consider themselves transgender and feel clinically distressed to receive requested accommodations in bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, prisons, same-sex housing, preferred pronouns, and more.
The public comment period on the proposed HHS rule closed Nov. 13, and the Biden administration now must wade through over 5,200 comments received before drafting and issuing a final rule.
The administration shouldn’t rely on another faulty interpretation of federal law. Instead, it should rescind the proposed HHS rule immediately.
Today, as I’m drawing this cartoon (November 20th, 2023), Joe Biden is celebrating his 81st birthday, so obviously, many are bringing up the question, “How old is too old to be president? But is age really the issue? There are many his age and older, much more mentally fit to be President than he is.
Trump, 77, is still cognitively vibrant, shows no sign of letting up, and is a stark contrast to stumbling bumbling Joe. In my opinion, Joe Biden has never been mentally fit to be president. So, I don’t think age is the issue, but instead of judging by age, maybe a mental test of some sort that I’m sure Biden wouldn’t be able to pass today.
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.
More footage from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, further contradicts the left-wing narrative that the day’s events constituted a “violent insurrection” wherein democracy itself was placed in jeopardy at the hands of virulent demonstrators.
Last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana began releasing tapes containing more than 40,000 hours of footage from the Capitol, which were buried for three years while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers on the partisan Jan. 6 Committee worked to dramatize the riot with prime-time show trials.
“When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a statement. “This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”
With a bulk of the footage made available by Friday, the rest of the tapes will be made public on a rolling basis. Cameras captured demonstrators peacefully marching through the halls of the Capitol while police officers stood by.
Jan 6 defendants have long argued that the initial entrants were peaceably escorted into the building by Capitol Police, and therefore had no reasonable expectation that their conduct was unlawful
In another clip, a Capitol police officer is seen removing restraints on one demonstrator after walking him down a hallway out of sight from the crowd — before another officer bizarrely congratulates him with a fist bump.
I don’t think Capitol Police would take restraints off of a protester, FIST BUMP him, and then let him go if this were an actual “insurrection”
The footage corroborates what was shared by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in March before his abrupt exit from the network. Johnson’s Republican predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, gave Carlson’s producers access to the footage that had been kept under seal by the Democrat majority.
“That video,” Carlson said, “tells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6.”
The tapes aired by Carlson showed Jacob Chansley, the infamous “QAnon Shaman,” being escorted by police around the complex; revealed deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick “healthy and vigorous” after allegedly being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher; and unearthed new contradictions in Ray Epps’ testimony. The tapes also exposed outright fabrications by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which was established by House Speaker Pelosi ostensibly to probe the Capitol turmoil while concealing her own failures.
Democrat Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the partisan Select Committee, bizarrely conceded that over the course of the panel’s two-year investigation, lawmakers never reviewed the blockbuster footage that was later published by Fox News.
“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”
Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, meanwhile, who was vice chair of the Select Committee before an overwhelming primary defeat by Rep. Harriet Hageman, tried to downplay Friday’s release by resharing some of the panel’s carefully selected footage of the mob.
“Here’s some January 6th video for you,” she wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, whom Cheney’s Soviet-style committee sought to frame as a collaborator in an apparent insurrection, pushed back on Cheney’s narrative.
“Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that — and nothing else,” Lee wrote on X. “It’s the other stuff — what you deliberately hid from us — that we find so upsetting.”
Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times.
You made sure we saw that—and nothing else.
It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Corporate media have gotten every single major story of the last decade wrong, in big and little ways. Whether it’s the 2016 election, the Russia-collusion scam, the threats posed by Covid and response to the same, the effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s life and family, accurate discussion of the Biden family business, immigration, abortion, crime, racism, guns, hate crime hoaxes, the economy, inflation, education, the relationship between the sexes, the radical trans agenda, or a thousand other stories, the media haven’t just been bad. They have been absolutely irredeemably awful.
A record-high percentage of Americans (39 percent) have literally no — as in none, zilch, nada — trust in corporate media to “report the news in a full, fair and accurate way,” according to Gallup. Another large percentage (29 percent) has “not very much” trust in the media to get the story right. Only 11 percent of Republicans trust the media, compared to nearly 60 percent of Democrats. The gap between the parties is because corporate media overwhelmingly shape news and information to support Democrats and their policy goals.
If The Washington Post were doing journalism instead of propaganda, its reporter who covers the news media might be focused nonstop on the fact that trust in the media is extremely low. But Paul Farhi thinks there are more important problems. Namely, he’s worried that some unwashed masses might be practicing their First Amendment right to do journalism without a license.
“Someone invented the phrase ‘citizen journalism’ a few years ago to describe amateurs doing the work of pros. Yes, it occasionally works, but probably no more often than ‘citizen cop,’ ‘citizen attorney’ or ‘citizen soldier,’” he wrote on social media.
First off, and definitely most importantly, someone needs to take Farhi aside and gently explain to him the meaning of “citizen soldier.” Our armed services were created around the idea of a broad swath of citizens working together to defend the nation’s values. The notion is fundamental to Western civilization and has routinely been shown to achieve better results than armies made up of professionals.
Even now, “citizen soldier” is how military reserve and National Guard members throughout the country think of themselves. In fact, the National Guard’s publication is called “Citizen-Soldier.” There is no need for Farhi to disparage these citizen soldiers or the many successful citizen-soldier armies throughout time and history.
Heck, while we’re at it, let’s go ahead and note that it was a “citizen attorney” with an eighth-grade education who wrote a handwritten appeal to the United States Supreme Court in the case that found that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires states to provide attorneys for criminal defendants who are impoverished. But of the three groups he mentions, attorneys are the best for his case for professionalism on account of the intense education top lawyers receive.
But journalism? Journalism needs credentialing? Really? Farhi has been on this kick about the need to keep the lower castes out of journalism for a while now. Seven years ago he wrote, “Is there any other profession in which more people think they can do the job better than the pros than journalism? Medicine? Teaching?”
Again, one of these things is not like the others. There is a reason why people generally respect surgeons and don’t try to do their jobs. And there is a reason why people have taken to reporting real news and information since those at corporate media outlets such as The Washington Post are so bad at doing actual journalism.
The Washington Post, we might recall, launched the Russia-collusion scam by having one of its longtime journalists launder an information operation against the American people. The criminal leak against the Trump administration remains one of the great uninvestigated and unsolved crimes of recent memory. That the Post gleefully and willingly took part in an information operation against the country is reprehensible. The paper perpetuated the Russia-collusion hoax with hundreds of stories based on anonymous sources from the intelligence bureaucracy. This scam was no minor thing. It was the lie that Donald Trump was a traitor who had stolen the 2016 presidential election by colluding with Russia. It caused massive amounts of damage to the republic.
Farhi, for his part, seemed to think that many things in the invented “Steele dossier” were true. Falling for a completely false and unsubstantiated claim from fellow Russia hoax outlet McClatchy, Farhi wrote, “If this is accurate, put another check mark next to the Steele Dossier.” Another? ANOTHER? Way to showcase the bare minimum of skepticism and do real professional journalism there, guy.
After finding out the absolutely jaw-dropping news that the Steele dossier was an information operation, bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, Farhi wrote, “Most surprising thing abt Clinton’s involvemnt w/Steele Dossier (aside from paying for it) is why her campaign didn’t make more of it.” Citizen journalists knew enough to be even more suspicious about the quality of the shoddy product after realizing its provenance, but not the “professionals” at The Washington Post! In fact, Farhi seemed to be bitterly clinging to the Russia-collusion scam as of a month ago, even after the Post begrudgingly corrected some of its fake news on the matter.
One citizen on social media replied to Farhi’s smug arrogance about the superiority of professional journalists, “The media’s track record in the last 5 years is like a prostitute’s track record on being a virgin.” A bit too kind, but the point is made.
As one of the exceedingly few “professionals” — to use Farhi’s parlance — to do actual journalism on this story and thereby debunk the information operation the Post pushed relentlessly for years, I have nothing but respect for the many “citizen journalists” who did the work corporate media refused to do. I frequently relied on them and their detailed research in the Herculean task of taking on the Post, The New York Times, CNN, and every other media outlet that participated in the intelligence agencies’ information operation against Americans.
In addition to the many articles the full-time professional team at The Federalist researched, reported, and published, we also published many articles from some of these citizen journalists who researched details far better than the entire “professional” journalism class combined.
The Federalist and citizen journalists may not have the corporate sponsorship that Farhi and his cohorts have, but we are wealthy in something few if any at The Washington Post have: a desire to find the truth and share it with others.
Pure Propaganda
The same goes for another information operation run by The Washington Post. In 2018, that paper ran the effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s family and life by publishing an absolutely disgusting and unsubstantiated series of stories alleging he was secretly a serial gang rapist roaming the streets of suburban Maryland. This was a redo of a playbook The Washington Post and other Democrats had used in 1991 in an attempt to derail Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ nomination.
While the Post carefully edited out exonerating details, shaded information to help the Democrat operation, and amplified some of the flimsiest claims on record, The Federalist got to work reporting the real story. We were aided in this effort by tips from community members who were aghast at what The Washington Post was willing to do in pursuit of its political goals. Some of them gave us information they said they tried to share with The Washington Post but were shut down over.
Farhi, for his part, wrote a tendentious article asserting that the obvious collusion between Democrats in and out of the media was a “conspiracy theory.” Quoting — and I’m not joking here — Jane Mayer (yes, really, Jane Mayer), he said there was absolutely no coordinated effort to run the smear operation everyone witnessed against Kavanaugh. (For an alternate fact-based and fact-filled perspective, feel free to read the best-selling book I co-authored with Carrie Severino on the matter.)
A few years later, when The Washington Post was brutally deriding Sen. Tom Cotton for suggesting the U.S. government should look into the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential source of the Covid-19 pandemic (the Post called it a “debunked conspiracy theory”), The Federalist was publishing citizen experts who were arguing that maybe the paper owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos didn’t have the story right.
At every step of the way, the Post didn’t do journalism so much as uncritically regurgitate claims from “experts,” about the pandemic and the response to it. Because we at The Federalist published truthful information and hosted debates from citizen experts about the proper response to a global pandemic, we were throttled by the Censorship-Industrial Complex. Those who misled the public as The Washington Post did on the Wuhan Institute of Virology were rewarded with awards and algorithmic amplification.
The “professionals” of The Washington Post continue to republish every unsubstantiated claim coming out of the Censorship-Industrial Complex. For example, a disinformation group called “Center for Countering Digital Hate,” which attempts to get governments and Big Tech to shut down political speech it dislikes, is routinely quoted by the “professionals” over at The Washington Post. So are many other groups that work to censor political speech. Few “citizen journalists” are as gullible as the average Washington Post reporter when it comes to such mindless participation in disinformation operations.
Real Journalism
We could go on and on and on. Who did better on the stories involving Jussie Smollett, Covington’s Nick Sandmann (for which the Post settled a $250 million defamation lawsuit), or the Biden family business? No, citizen journalists probably wouldn’t describe Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an “austere religious scholar,” as The Washington Post did.
The Washington Post and other media outlets aren’t “failing” to get the story right. They are doing exactly what they set out to do: frame news and information in a way that advantages their political allies.
They have massive corporate backing and establishment support in their efforts. Stop thinking that they’re salvageable. That was silly thinking decades ago. By now, it’s suicidal. Start shunning them for their propaganda and thinking instead about how to support and amplify journalism that cares about the truth.
Vice President Harris reacted to a number of polls showing Donald Trump was ahead of President Biden in hypothetical election match-ups, as well as in battleground states during an interview with CNN and said that they were going to have to earn their re-election.
“We’re going to have to earn our re-elect, there’s no doubt about it,” she said to CNN in a phone interview Sunday, replying to a question about the recent surveys.
Multiple recent polls have shown Biden trailing Trump in hypothetical 2024 match-ups, including a new NBC News poll that showed Trump with a slight advantage, although within the margin of error.
“It is absolutely right in a democracy with free and fair elections that the candidates, the people who want to continue in leadership have to make their case, and have to make it effectively,”Harris told CNN. “And that means communicating in such a way that the message is received about the accomplishments and what we care about.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said on “60 Minutes” that she had no doubt the Biden-Harris ticket would win in 2024. (Screenshot/CBS/60Minutes)
“I have a great sense of duty and responsibility to do as much as I can, to be where the people are and to not only speak with them but listen to them and let them know what we’ve accomplished,” she added.
After noting Harris’ plans to engage with TikTok influencers and pick up the slack on the campaign trail, CNN reported that Harris has struggled with communication and messaging.
“This is a politician, after all, whose staff the night before a scheduled speech to the most core party members at the Democratic National Committee meeting last month in St. Louis replaced it with a ‘fireside chat’ moderated by her outside adviser and former DNC chair Donna Brazile, worried that otherwise she would struggle to come across,” the report said, citing people involved in the decision.
Harris, citing the campaign’s effort to reach Black voters, suggested their list of accomplishments was “too long.”
President Joe Biden speaks during a press conference after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Woodside, California on November 15, 2023. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
“Actually, probably there’s a hindrance, in that the list is really long, and we have to triage around what we repeat over and over again to make sure that it resonates, and it’s actually heard,” she said.
CNN also asked Harris why younger people should “see themselves in a president who is old enough to be older than many of their grandparents.”
“It is they,” Harris said, “who are going to either benefit from or pay the price.”
Former President Donald Trump leaves the courtroom for a lunch break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on November 06, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Harris said in early November that she and Biden had a lot of work to do.
“The president and I obviously have a lot of work to do to earn our re-election. But I am confident we’re going to win,” she said.
The Hamas tunnel that the Israeli army revealed under Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital is one of many in the terrorist organization’s vast network, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an IDF spokesman.
“This is just one of the many, many long kilometers of tunnels that Hamas has invested in over the course of the last 16 years,” Lerner said on Newmax’s“National Report.”
Lerner said that in the very poor conditions in which the Palestinians live, the terror tunnels built by Hamas, which is the ruling authority there, are the “most expensive construction project ever to exist in the Gaza Strip, all at the expense of the people of Gaza.”
BREAKING:
The Israeli Army took control of the Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza & found a secret tunnel leading 20 m below ground to a Hamas command & control center.
Weapons, baby bottles & motorcycles in the tunnel indicate hostages were held there pic.twitter.com/ArFWOqfkgl
After describing the details of the sophisticated tunnel, including that it is some 10 meters deep under ground, Lerner said “this is how they have built extensively their tools of death and terror throughout the Gaza Strip, and we have been finding it everywhere we proceed, everywhere we advance.”
Lerner also noted the reality that the Israeli army faces is that hospitals are “being used as a base of operations for terrorist activities.”
Lerner said the Israeli army found weapons and other military equipment in the tunnel, even though Hamas knew the IDF was on its way and almost assuredly tried to cover its tracks, leading the army to believe that as it presses its attack forward it will discover more evidence of weapons in other tunnels.
Lerner also said that while negotiations over the fate of the hostages are being handled on the diplomatic front, Israel remains steadfast.
EXPOSED: In the Shifa Hospital complex, IDF troops found a hidden booby-trapped vehicle containing a large number of weapons, including: · AK-47s · RPGs · sniper rifles · grenades · other explosives
“The army is very, very much focused on advancing our military activities in order to achieve our objectives of dismantling and destroying Hamas to make sure that they can never do this again,” he said.
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
In a potential foreshadowing of blocking responses to House Oversight Committee subpoenas, Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., took to X to call out President Joe Biden’s vow to be the most “transparent” president.
“The White House is withholding over 82,000 pages of Joe Biden’s pseudonym emails, refuses to provide proof that Joe loaned his brother money, and now seeks to block the Bidens and former staff from testifying before Congress,” Comer wrote Monday on X, sharing a video from his Newsmax appearance last week.
“@POTUS’s pledge to be transparent was just hot air.”
In that “Wake Up America” appearance, Comer announced Hunter Biden is expected to testify before House investigators before Dec. 4 under the orders of the subpoena. Though Hunter Biden’s lawyers had expressed an eagerness for Hunter Biden to testify, Comer said he has not gotten a reply on his subpoena.
“If President Biden has nothing to hide, then he should make his current and former staff available to testify before Congress about his mishandling of classified documents,” Comer wrote in a statement Friday after receiving a letter from the special counsel to the president that told the committee, in its words: “The White House intends to continue obstructing our investigation.”
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
Regulations created in a time of energy scarcity aren’t applicable to a time of energy abundance and decrease innovation in energy efficiency, yet the Biden administration is abusing those regulations to fight so-called climate change. Pictured: President Joe Biden speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Week on Nov. 16 in San Francisco, California. (Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Americans have experienced appliance inflation over the past few years, and it could be about to get worse as the Biden administration continues its onslaught of appliance regulations. While blaming Washington bureaucrats is always a reasonable response, in this case, any problems that they are causing is a result of them exercising the authority granted to them by legislation passed at the height of the 1970’s energy crisis—the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act.
The act gives the Department of Energy authority to regulate nearly everything in a household that uses energy. While it doesn’t require the Department of Energy to continuously impose ever stricter standards, the reality is this is precisely what it does. Worse, this trend has worsened in recent years as the Biden administration freely uses the act to advance its extreme agenda with ever stricter government standards, using climate change as a primary justification.
While the Energy Policy and Conservation Act does grant the secretary of energy broad authority, current law also requires that certain factors, like the effect on cost and competition, the amount of energy saved, and the need for energy conservation in general be taken into account. Unfortunately, Washington bureaucrats not only routinely ignore these requirements in any meaningful way but choose instead to focus on extraneous alleged benefits like climate change.
This could be expected, perhaps, because the underlying justification for the efficiency regime established by the act has largely dissipated over time. The act was born out of a time of perceived energy scarcity. But today, America has hundreds of years of known energy reserves, and new technology is allowing for new discoveries and more efficient use of existing reserves all the time. In justifying the policies that act ultimately set in place, President Gerald Ford laid out three broad policy objectives. These included reducing oil imports, ending American vulnerability to economic disruption by foreign suppliers, and developing energy technology and resources to supply a significant share of the free world’s energy needs.
In each case, America has achieved Ford’s objectives.
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act Has Lost Relevancy
In 1975, net imports of crude oil were close to 6 million barrels per day. By 2020, the United States had become a net exporter. Geopolitical shocks and cartels, specifically the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, which produces about 40% of the world’s crude oil, can still have a near-term impact on American energy prices. However, due to the large amount of energy on global markets, energy disruptions do not present the sort of systemic threat that policymakers feared in the 1970’s.
The extent to which the United States economy remains vulnerable is purely a function of energy restriction policies—like Biden’s recent decision to ban energy development in parts of Alaska—and have nothing to do with energy efficiency. Further, American technologies like fracking, the nation’s vast coal resources, and commercial nuclear reactors not only can keep America energy independent but also grow its role as a global supplier of energy.
Further, appliances of all sorts are becoming more efficient because that is what people want. While the consuming public considers many attributes of the purchases they make, including capability and upfront cost, efficiency is clearly something Americans value. The government does not need to compel efficiency; the market demands it.
America Is in an Era of Energy Abundance, Not Scarcity
America has ample energy reserves. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2020, the United States held over 373 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude oil reserves, which would provide the U.S. with over 50 years of supply. The same is true for natural gas. The agency estimated in 2020 that the U.S. held 2,925.8 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas. At current consumption levels, that equates to nearly 100 years of supply.
Further, new discoveries are always occurring that would expand this supply over time, which is demonstrated by the growing availability of unconventional sources like oil shale. According to Energy Information Agency, the U.S. currently holds 195.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 1,712.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in unconventional reserves.
According to the Institute for Energy Research, conventional and unconventional reserves combine to provide nearly 300 years of energy supply at current consumption levels. These energy resources do not even account for uranium deposits, which are widely spread throughout the U.S., nor for advancements in other energy generating technologies.
Any regulatory regime promulgated out of fears regarding energy scarcity simply can no longer be justified.
Compelled Efficiency Standards Reduce Competition
Energy efficiency regulations do not simply alter standards; they can effectively remove products and technology from the marketplace and reduce competition. This is antithetical to Congress’ wishes as evidenced by Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which makes clear that maintaining a competitive market for the covered products is an essential element of the cost-benefit calculation. Yet ultimately, most rules have a tremendous effect on the market. Whether it’s gasoline engines, light bulbs, furnaces, or showerheads, every American will ultimately experience less choice in terms of price, availability, and capability. In some cases, such as with incandescent light bulbs and some refrigerants, this is already the case.
What DOE does not appreciate is the positive benefit that technological competition and product variation has on long-term market health, something even the White House has acknowledged. According to a White House memo published on July 9, 2021, “Healthy market competition is fundamental to a well-functioning U.S. economy.” It goes on to point out that insufficient competition will lead to higher prices and lower quality.
By removing entire classes of technology and product lines from the market, efficiency standards limit incentives to lower prices, or even to increase efficiency further, because the regulation will have captured a substantial portion of the market for the preferred technology. Further, the efficiency standards eliminate opportunities for firms to specialize in specific offerings to gain market share. While some firms may retool to compete, it is unlikely that the market will support the same number of firms when they all must adhere to strict regulatory standards. This will almost necessarily lead to fewer firms offering fewer choices.
Fewer firms and less technological competition will be bad for consumers and is antithetical to Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Having a lower-priced option that may be less efficient competing against a more efficient higher-priced option will engender competition to develop technologies that move prices lower and efficiency higher overall. By eliminating half of the equation, these compelled standards eliminate an essential force to move technology forward.
Congress, right or wrong, sought to improve consumer product efficiency when it passed the act, but it was not seeking to empower the DOE to, in effect, ban products.
Empower Americans, Not Washington
None of this is to argue that energy efficiency does not have value. It obviously does. However, that value is best determined by American consumers and businesses calculating the value of long-term savings against the near-term costs.
The flexibility to assess economic tradeoffs is even more important to low-income Americans. According to the United States Office of Management and Budget, “some research indicates that energy efficiency regulations adversely affect lower-income consumers more than those who earn a higher income.” Scholarly research shows further that energy efficiency regulation hits lower-income Americans harder than energy taxes, which are recognized as being generally regressive.
Indeed, marketplace choice provides the precise sort of flexibility that American consumers depend on to manage home economic challenges.
The DOE often attempts to justify increased near-term costs with alleged savings. Unfortunately, these savings are generally averages for an entire market and often do not account for variability for costs like installation fees and retrofits. The fact is that some families will necessarily incur much greater costs than others, and DOE rarely reflects this reality.
This is a critical point when assessing how a proposed standard will affect individual Americans—especially those facing economic challenges. Each individual American is perfectly capable of weighing for himself the value of additional efficiency against the additional costs associated with most compelled efficiency upgrades. Indeed, Americans are making those decisions, and many are opting for greater efficiency, which makes imposing these costs on everyone even less rational and justified.
Conclusion
Given America’s energy abundance, the value of efficiency to consumers, and the importance of consumer choice, the president, be it President Joe Biden or a future president, should direct the secretary of energy to cease all efficiency-related actions pending a review and certification that those actions are consistent with the word and spirit of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Simultaneously, Congress should begin work to significantly curtail, if not completely repeal, the act’s energy efficiency provisions.
The conditions that gave rise to the act in 1975 are clearly no longer in place. Further, like most regulations, federal bureaucrats have taken the authorities granted them by Congress to expand their power far beyond what anyone intended. The time has come for policymakers to stop complaining about ridiculous efficiency regulations and finally do something about it.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to supporters after the Thanksgiving Family Forum on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
DES MOINES, IOWA—National standards, including requiring an ID to vote and making Election Day a national holiday, are needed to ensure free and fair elections, says Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. While states typically run elections, the federal government has set minimum standards under the Help America Vote Act of 2001, and prior to that, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to ensure election integrity.
“The federal government should set minimal standards. You have historical precedents for that, dating back 20 years. The federal government can set minimal standards,” Ramaswamy told The Daily Signal Friday after participating in the Thanksgiving Family Forum, an event hosting three Republican presidential contenders and staged by the Iowa-based Family Leader. The Daily Signal was the media sponsor.
The other GOP presidential contenders at the forum were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Former President Donald Trump did not accept an invitation to joint the forum.
“Making an election a national holiday is important, single-day voting on Election Day as a national holiday, with paper ballots and government-issued ID to match the voter file—that’s the standards I want to be done in national elections,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy, who founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, also staked out positions on abortion, Big Tech and border security.
Although voters in his home state of Ohio approved a state constitutional amendment for abortion without restrictions through the ninth month of pregnancy, he said that’s no reason for pro-lifers to back down.
He said if pro-life advocates had offered an alternative amendment, Ohio voters would have “flocked to it.”
“We need to offer an alternative of our own. I think that’s part of what was missing,” Ramaswamy said. “If there was a different amendment that was on the table in my home state of Ohio, people would have gone for it, flocked for it. The reality is that that didn’t exist. That’s why we lost.”
He added that should be seen as lessons learned for the movement.
“I don’t think the right answer is to compromise on our principles,” he said. “So, I think, stand for principles, but in a way that unites the country.”
During the forum, Ramaswamy, Haley and DeSantis all expressed their strong support for protecting life.
On the illegal immigration border crisis, Ramaswamy said the federal government should take a more aggressive approach.
“Use our military to secure the border,” Ramaswamy said. “Use aquatic barriers on the southern border. End federal funding for sanctuary cities and end any funding or foreign aid to Central American countries until they’ve dealt with their end of the problem. End birthright citizenship for illegal migrants, for whom the Constitution was never intended to apply.”
Sanctuary cities are jurisdictions that refuse, as a matter of public policy, to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Birthright citizenship occurs when illegal immigrants enter the United States and have children, who automatically become citizens under current law by virtue of being born in the country. The Supreme Court determined in an 1898 case that the 14th Amendment applied to anyone born on U.S. soil even though the language of the amendment doesn’t specify this.
Ramaswamy says the way to hold Big Tech companies accountable for censorship is to amend existing federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. which protects social media platforms from being held liable for the content users posts.
“My answer is, Section 230 should be an opt-in statute,” he said.
Social media platforms have favored some political and social content over others, acting as a publisher. Companies that opt in to the liability protections should be prohibited from censoring content, he said.
“If you opt in to it, then you are bound by the same constraints as the government itself, including the First Amendment,” If not, there is the free market. You’re free, and you don’t get special liability protection. If you want special liability protection, you are bound by the same standards as the government. That’s the First Amendment.”
In partnership withGood morning. It’s Monday, Nov. 20, and we’re covering a potential deal for Hamas to release some hostages, the passing of a former US first lady, and much more. First time reading? Sign up here. You share. We listen. As always, send us feedback at hello@join1440.com.
Need To Know Hostage Negotiations Israel and Hamas appear to be nearing an international-brokered deal for the release of some of the roughly 240 hostages the militant group captured from Israel and hid in Gaza after an Oct. 7 surprise attack. According to reports, under the latest proposal—led by Egypt, Qatar, and the US—Hamas would release a number of women and children hostages in exchange for the release of roughly the same number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons. A short pause in fighting is expected to be part of the deal, though the length of the potential pause is reportedly a sticking point in negotiations. Meanwhile, at least 31 premature babies and 2,500 civilians, patients, and staff were evacuated from northern Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, which Israeli forces raided last week and said they discovered the presence of a Hamas command center inside (see previous write-up). Separately, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels (see overview) seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Red Sea, taking 25 crew members hostage. The militant group warned it will continue to target Israeli-linked ships until the Israel-Hamas war ends. See updates on the war here. Rosalynn Carter Dies Former US first lady Rosalynn Carter died Sunday at the age of 96 at her home in Plains, Georgia, due to complications from dementia. Her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, survives Rosalynn at the age of 99. The Georgia-born future first lady ran the office of her husband’s family peanut business before actively assisting him with campaigns for state senate, governor, and president. As first lady, Carter championed women’s rights and became the first to establish a policy office in the West Wing. Amid her broad advocacy, Carter took a special focus on mental health (see efforts) and later established the philanthropic Carter Center alongside her husband. In 1999, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2001. She became the second-longest living former first lady after Bess Truman (97), but the two Carters hold the record for the longest presidential marriage in US history. See her life in photos here. Starship Makes Progress SpaceX’s second test flight of its massive 400-feet-tall Starship vehicle hit new milestones Saturday before ending in a pair of unscheduled explosions after launching from Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. Starship, designed to carry NASA astronauts to the moon and Mars, is the world’s tallest and most powerful launch system. The uncrewed vehicle crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. See the video here. The test flight was considered a success by SpaceX as the vehicle traveled farther than and exhibited improvements from an initial attempt in April, which also ended in an explosion. The latest attempt lasted roughly eight minutes rather than four minutes. Unlike in the first flight, all of the 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines on the Super Heavy first-stage booster ignited, and the spacecraft successfully separated from the booster, achieving a goal for the second attempt and reaching an altitude of 92 miles. SpaceX said the booster and spacecraft likely self-destructed due to a midflight issue and it hopes to use data for future improvements. The Federal Aviation Administration will conduct a review before SpaceX can proceed with another launch. See a Starship overview here.
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In The Know Sports, Entertainment, & Culture >Australia tops India to win a record sixth Cricket World Cup (More) | Max Verstappen wins 18th Formula One race of the season at Las Vegas Grand Prix (More) >Suzanne Shepherd, actress known for roles in “The Sopranos” and “Goodfellas,” dies at 89 (More) | Taylor Swift postpones concert in Brazil one day after a 23-year-old fan dies at Swift’s Friday performance (More) >Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios crowned 2023 Miss Universe; Miss Thailand Anntonia Porsild named runner-up (More)
Science & Technology >Scientists 3D print robotic hand for the first time with human-like bones, ligaments, and tendons made with elastic properties using new laser scanning technique (More) >MIT researchers design wearable ultrasound monitor that can image organs within the body; study shows monitor accurately images the bladder and determines how full it is, potentially aiding patients with bladder or kidney issues (More) >White House taps Vanderbilt oncologist W. Kimryn Rathmell to become the National Cancer Institute’s next director (More)
Business & Markets In partnership with The Ascent>US stock markets close up Friday (S&P 500 +0.1%, Dow +0.0%, Nasdaq +0.1%); S&P 500, Dow clinch first three-week win streak since July (More) | Short seller Jim Chanos, known for betting against Enron before its 2001 bankruptcy, shutting down hedge fund after 38 years (More) >Apple, Disney, IBM among major advertisers suspending ads from X (formerly Twitter) after owner Elon Musk backs an antisemitic post on the platform (More) >OpenAI investors reportedly planning for Sam Altman’s possible return after the board ousted him as CEO Friday, citing a lack of confidence in his leadership (More) From our partners: 0% intro APR. 21 months. 100% insane offer. This card offers 0% intro APR for 21 months on balance transfers, giving you almost two years to save big on interest. Enjoy that, and no annual fee.
Politics & World Affairs >Argentina’s Libertarian candidate Javier Milei edges Peronist economic minister Sergio Massa in presidential runoff Sunday (More) | See background on Milei (More) >House Republicans begin publicly releasing security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol storming (More) | See videos (More) | Colorado judge rules the 14th Amendment does not disqualify former President Donald Trump from running for office (More) >Kaitlin Armstrong, 35-year-old Texas woman convicted of May 2022 murder of pro cyclist Moriah Wilson, sentenced to 90 years in prison Friday (More) | Read deep dive on incident (More) | Police release images of person of interest in Los Angeles’ I-10 arson fire; road expected to open today (More)
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Cartoon on the documentary that features more than a dozen interviews with the people directly involved, including exclusive interviews with former officers Derek Chauvin and Alexander Kueng who spoke to Liz Collin from prison.
The film is based on Liz Collin’s Amazon bestseller, “They’re Lying: The Media, The Left, and The Death of George Floyd,” which exposes the holes in the prevailing narrative surrounding George Floyd’s death, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and the fallout the city of Minneapolis has suffered ever since.
The documentary features more than a dozen interviews with the people directly involved, including exclusive interviews with former officers Derek Chauvin and Alexander Kueng who spoke to Liz Collin from prison. The families of Chauvin and Kueng also speak out publicly for the first time.
The film also features current and former Minneapolis police officers who tell their harrowing stories from the riots, recount the planned surrender of the Third Precinct, and explain why so many of them left the job. READ MORE….
Barbara Streisand is among the many celebrities who claim they are leaving America if Donald Tromp is elected again. May I recommend they move to the GAZA strip war zone that her party, the Democrats, helped to create with all the money sent to the number one State sponsor of terrorism, Iran, by Obama and Biden?
It shows how little those celebrities care about the middle-class everyday folks whose life was much better under Trump with low fuel prices, lower food cost, cost of living, inflation, and no new wars. Some experts say that a dollar under Trump is now worth less than .85 cents under Biden exercising Democrat policies. But rich celebrities could care less about that; they rather bitterly cling to their fantasy land politics to the detriment of the rest of us Americans.
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.
Democrats are finally facing their day of reckoning with black voters, and their waning support for President Joe Biden is only half the story. A recent New York Times/Sienna poll reveals that Biden barely leads among nonwhite voters under 45 in a 2024 election matchup against former President Donald Trump. The same nonwhite voters reported backing Biden by almost 40 points in the 2020 election.
The hidden story is that Trump is capturing more than 22 percent support among black voters. The NYT article said a Republican winning over so many black voters “would be unprecedented in the post-Civil Rights Act era.”
Why Are Blacks Finally Breaking Ranks?
Black Americans are beginning to understand that the years of promises of better days have resulted in decades of broken promises. A recent Wall Street Journal article tells the story of Michelle Smith, who lives in North Philadelphia. She works two jobs as a black single mother with three teenage boys. She describes her disappointment in Biden, whom she supported strongly in 2020. Despite efforts by the Democrats to spend more money on advertising, voter canvassing, and educating voters in black communities, Smith said the Democrats might not be able to convince her to vote. “I think I’m not going to vote, period,” she said.
Smith is not alone. There is a growing recognition that Democrats have duped black Americans. And as they increasingly realize it, Democrats will be left saying, “Katy, bar the door,” because their party will begin to implode.
Ironically, the modern-day Democrat Party has essentially achieved the same objectives as the Civil War-era Democrat Party. It has unfortunately taken 60 years for black Americans to realize what has happened to them and their culture. It’s hard to keep blaming Republicans when Democrats run major cities, school systems, and police departments. In many cases, black Democrats run these institutions.
Black Decline After Civil Rights
The status of black Americans today in Democrat-controlled cities and states is essentially the worst it has been since before the Civil Rights era. For example, during slavery, Democrats restricted access to opportunities that allowed slaves to obtain an education. Today, in nearly every major city controlled by Democrats, literacy rates are abysmal. Local and national Democrat Party leaders have severely restricted access to private or charter schools.
Proponents of apartheid used segregation as a cruel psychological tool. Democrats, however, are bringing segregation back in style. In Democrat Party strongholds, such as American universities, the country is witnessing the practice of segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies.
One of the most devastating changes that the Democrat Party facilitated involves the destruction of the nuclear family in black communities. During the era of slavery, masters would break up families after wives bore children. After the Civil War and for 100 years afterward, most black children grew up in traditional two-parent families.
It wasn’t until Democrats introduced and heavily marketed social welfare programs to black Americans in the 1960s that two-parent families began to erode drastically. Those programs ushered in a cultural transformation. Over 50 years, black families fell from having two parents in 80 percent of homes. Today, approximately 80 percent of black children grow up in fatherless homes.
Democrats Harm Black Americans
For the Democrats, family disruption and government dependency were the objectives from the beginning. If that wasn’t their intention, then why hasn’t there been one national initiative to reverse the trend?
In 1957, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, then the pro-segregationist Senate majority leader, knew blacks would eventually get the right to vote. When speaking to then-Sen. Richard Russell Jr., D-Ga., regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Johnson said, “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”
Democrat Party leaders and their left-wing friends in academia and the media convinced blacks (and the general public) that Republicans were the racists. They were, according to the effective narrative, indifferent to poor people. They wanted to keep blacks as second-class citizens. Ironically, Republicans voted to support the Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Democrats.
Their goal was to have black Americans switch their votes from Republicans to Democrats.
Black Americans Coming Home to the GOP
As we look forward to the 2024 election season, the NYT/Sienna poll is not the only one raising the alarm. A recent Fox News poll revealed that 26 percent of black Americans support Trump for president in 2024 over Biden. In the past 12 months, black elected officials switched from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in southern states such as Georgia and Texas. For the first time in 140 years, Alabama voters elected a black man to the state House of Representatives as a Republican.
In statewide elections, voters in Virginia and North Carolina elected black Americans to the No. 2 leadership position as lieutenant governors. Although Daniel Cameron did not win his bid for Kentucky governor, we should expect to see more black Republicans running for statewide and federal offices.
Even the legacy media won’t be able to spin and hide this major political shift.
Kendall Qualls is an Executive Faculty-in-Residence at the Crown College School of Business and Founder/President of the non-profit foundation TakeCharge. Qualls was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Minnesota in the 2022 election cycle.
Seattle residents have once again voted to raise the cost of housing to lower housing costs. If it sounds contradictory, you must be new to the Emerald City. Here, a liberal ethos prevails, with a penchant for endorsing any proposal cloaked in the mantle of progressivism.
Consider the Seattle Housing Levy as a case in point: a colossal program nearing $1 billion, earmarked for the construction of affordable housing. This levy did not simply extend a pre-existing tax from 2016; it more than tripled the tax rate from 14 cents to 45 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Predictably, the levy passed with early voting results showing a commanding 66% support. The only firm number the levy commits to is a mere 3,200 new rental home constructions.
While it helps build some affordable housing, it also increases the cost of housing. Homeowners will see their property tax bills surge by roughly $400 annually. Tenants won’t be spared either, as these tax hikes are passed along via increased rents.
Andrea Suarez, executive director of We Heart Seattle, a non-profit that stages trash cleanups across the city, dismantles a tent as garbage lies piled at a homeless encampment in Seattle on March 13, 2022. The accumulation of garbage at such sites has become a major issue as the city tries to move the unhoused out of shared public spaces. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Adding insult to injury, the levy allocates $30 million for rental assistance to 4,500 tenants, yet the administrative costs to implement it are twice as much. This is in a city where the median house price has soared to $800,000, and where record-high fatal overdoses and a surge in homicides have marred the previous year’s statistics.
This trend mirrors the distressing trajectory of other Democrat-run cities, where residents pay a premium to live in areas that are deteriorating thanks to extreme leftist policies.
Despite the clear evidence that increased regulations and taxes have propelled the cost of living to exorbitant heights, the radical left remains steadfast in their dogma demanding higher taxes, conveniently sidestepping the fact that all of us are already contributing more than our “fair share.”
Landlords, often misperceived as affluent, are merely striving to earn a respectable living while providing affordable housing. Yet, they find themselves beleaguered by a system that disproportionately favors tenants, including those who are clearly gaming the system.
Seattle Grassroots Landlords is a local group of about 600 that connect on social media “to support each other and to prevent the ongoing degradation of rental housing options in Seattle.” Independent landlord Charlotte Thistle told me on my Seattle-based radio show that 17 new laws implemented citywide and statewide over the last three years have made the job nearly impossible. She highlighted the bureaucratic labyrinth that can result in a yearlong process and $20,000 in legal fees to remove a disruptive occupant.
Jason Roth, another landlord, learned this the hard way. After his tenant allegedly stopped paying rent, sublet the property on Airbnb and flaunted his exploits on social media, Roth found himself homeless, with his court case to evict postponed for months due to the tenant invoking the claim of being low-income. It triggered the system to offer him even more benefits.
Thistle and Roth’s experiences have prompted them, along with many others, to pull their properties from the market. This landlord exodus, in a state that penalizes property ownership, only serves to inflate rental costs further.
Seattle continues to battle homelessness and crime as liberal solutions to its problems fail. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Democrats’ response is to pour tax dollars into affordable housing, but there’s a problem with relying on the wealthy to “pay their fair share” (whatever that is). They leave.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced this month that he’s leaving the Seattle area for Miami, to be closer to his parents and partner. It’s hard to ignore a striking difference between Washington and Florida.
Washington Democrats passed a statewide capital gains tax, managing to convince an eager state Supreme Court to redefine income taxes, which are unconstitutional here, so that they could get more tax dollars from the wealthy.
They bizarrely claimed it’s an excise tax, before justifying their position by arguing their new definition is necessary because the state’s “upside-down tax system perpetuates systemic racism by placing a disproportionate tax burden on BIPOC residents.”
This trend mirrors the distressing trajectory of other Democrat-run cities, where residents pay a premium to live in areas that are deteriorating thanks to extreme leftist policies.
Before the tax took effect, Bezos sold more than 1.3 million Amazon shares, sparing him about $1.1 billion in taxes. He won’t have to worry about this in Florida. Moreover, Seattle wants to implement an additional capital gains tax and Democrats in the legislature are eyeing a wealth tax.
Democrats believe the homelessness crisis is due to the high costs of homes. But they also believe housing developers and landlords are wealthy, privileged and greedy. This perspective has led to punitive regulations and a reliance on government agencies to manage housing “the right way.” Yet, there is scant evidence to suggest that these measures are making the housing market more accessible. On the contrary, the situation continues to deteriorate.
Maybe if they stopped “helping” so much, let the market operate with fewer impediments, we’d have housing for everyone. But Seattle voters seem eager to keep getting in the way of progress with more taxes.
Pictured: Mourners gather Oct. 29 at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul for a remembrance ceremony for the 18 slain by a gunman in in Lewiston, Maine. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The tragic mass shooting last month in Lewiston, Maine, sent gun control activists into their typical attacks on the right to keep and bear arms. Many defaulted to their standard narrative that the real “bad guy” wasn’t the murderer, but the Second Amendment and its supporters. Instead of demanding accountability from the government officials who failed to enforce existing criminal and mental health laws, they immediately demanded additional gun control measures that punish ordinary, peaceable Americans.
Even worse, some derided millions of law-abiding gun owners by asserting that the murderer was just another “good guy with a gun” up until the moment he started killing innocent people. Others mocked gun owners by asking where all the “good guys with guns” were to stop the slaughter.
Comments like these, of course, ignore reality. As is the case in so many mass public shootings, the Lewiston gunman was anything but a “good guy,” and he targeted victims in places where he was least likely to be met with armed resistance.
Meanwhile, the fact that the Lewiston shooter wasn’t stopped by an armed civilian doesn’t negate the many other instances last month in which Americans successfully used their firearms to defend themselves, their loved ones, and even complete strangers from criminal violence.
Such defensive gun uses are far from uncommon. Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.
For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from past months and years. You also may follow @DailyDGU on Twitter for daily highlights of defensive gun uses.)
The 12 examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in October. You may explore more using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news organization.)
Oct. 3, Chicago: In the aftermath of a multi-vehicle crash involving a city bus, police said, a gunman opened fire in the direction of bystanders, striking and wounding a Chicago Transit Authority bus supervisor. A tow truck driver with a concealed carry permit returned fire at the gunman, who fled.
Oct. 5, Phoenix: Police said an armed resident fatally shot a man who broke into a residence through a window while the family, including two young daughters, was home.
Oct. 6, Bismark, North Dakota: A couple woke up when a highly intoxicated and naked intruder broke into their home, police said. The man claimed he was there to “retrieve his clothing.” The husband held the intruder—a complete stranger—at gunpoint until police arrived.
Oct.11, Shreveport, Louisiana: After a woman’s ex-boyfriend broke into her home while armed with a knife and a bat, police said, a man inside shot him. The intruder, whose wounds weren’t life-threatening, was taken into police custody.
Oct. 13, Virginia Beach, Virginia: Police said a contractor for a flooring company was justified in shooting and wounding a man who, during a dispute over construction noise, brandished a gun and physically assaulted the contractor’s co-worker.
Oct. 15, Hollywood Hills, California: An award-winning Hollywood hair stylist fatally shot an intruder as he tried to force his way into her home through a window in the middle of the night, police said. The woman’s neighbors told reporters that this was not the first time she’d been the victim of burglars.
Oct. 16, Bellaire, Ohio: Police said a man shot and wounded an ax-wielding assailant who attacked him and another woman during a domestic dispute. The assailant was taken to jail on active warrants. Both his victims were hospitalized and treated for injuries.
Oct. 19, Auburn, Washington: During an attempted home invasion, police said, three armed and masked men tried to force their way inside while shouting, “Seattle police!” The homeowner fired several shots through the door, sending all three men fleeing.
Oct. 21, Wake Forest, North Carolina: An armed bystander with a concealed carry permit intervened during an altercation in a grocery store parking lot that was related to domestic violence, police said. The bystander returned fire when a man began shooting, causing him to flee. Police caught the assailant, who is charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, among other offenses.
Oct.22, Skokie, Illinois: A man attending a pro-Israel rally got out of his car, which was covered in Israeli flags, only to be surrounded by pro-Palestine demonstrators, some of whom physically attacked him, police said. The man, a concealed carry permit holder, drew his gun and fired into the air. Police later determined it was an act of lawful self-defense.
Oct.25, Philadelphia: A convenience store employee fatally shot an armed robber who threatened him with a gun and started taking cash from the register, police said. Other employees told reporters that their armed co-worker had gotten his concealed carry permit and sought out firearms training after surviving an earlier armed robbery at the store.
Oct.28, Atlanta: A man was doing construction work at a residence when he saw a juvenile breaking into his utility vehicle and confronted him, police said. The juvenile drew a gun and fired. The construction worker, also armed, returned fire, striking and wounding the would-be thief.
As these examples demonstrate, far more “good guys with guns” live in the United States than gun control advocates often care to admit. And they successfully protect themselves and others on a regular basis.
Don’t be misled: None of the gun control measures proposed in the wake of last month’s Lewiston shooting likely would have saved a single life. Those measures certainly wouldn’t have been more effective than merely using existing laws to disarm those who, like that mass killer, are mentally ill and dangerous.
The right to keep and bear arms won’t protect every innocent person from every evil, any more than seatbelts will protect every passenger in every car crash.
The Second Amendment does, however, give them a fighting chance.
These days, you’re not allowed to criticize George Soros for any of his evil anti-humanitarian deeds, or you’re automatically labeled as anti-semitic because he is supposably of Jewish descent. Many of my good Jewish friends say he’s done more harm to the Jewish community than anyone in America. He’s donated millions of dollars that have funneled their way into anti-semitic leftist groups such as BLM, Defund Police, and prosecutors that ignore actual crime while targeting political adversaries (conservatives), Making all communities less safe. He’s also supported left-wing groups and politicians that push for open borders, allowing Fentanyl, murder, child labor, and human trafficking.
Maybe Elon Musk was right. He “hates humanity,” and that has nothing to do with his Jewish heritage.
President Joe Biden met Chinese dictator Xi Jinping for high-level talks in California on Wednesday, marking the first time the two leaders have spoken face-to-face in a year. While specific details of the conversation will assuredly remain under wraps, a White House readout of the discussion indicates that Biden and Xi covered a variety of hot-button issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s defense against Hamas terrorists in the Middle East, and Taiwan. The two leaders also agreed to revive communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.
Given Biden and his administration’s history of getting humiliated in talks with their Chinese counterparts, it wasn’t surprising that Wednesday’s meeting didn’t produce any headway on holding China accountable for its human rights violations, military aggression, or cover-up of Covid-19’s origins. But aside from Biden’s incompetence at juggling U.S. foreign policy, Wednesday’s U.S.-China talks raised a far more concerning question. How can Biden be trusted to manage U.S. relations with China when he and his family have received millions of dollars from Chinese entities connected to the Chinese Communist Party?
The Paper Trail
Despite Joe Biden claiming on national television that his son, Hunter, “has not made money” from Chinese entities, the New York Post published a bombshell story in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, sourced to Hunter’s laptop, which called Biden’s assurances into question. Emails from the laptop showed Hunter had “pursued lucrative deals” with CEFC China Energy Co., a Chinese energy giant that operates as “an arm of the Chinese Government.”
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, one email obtained by the Post showed Hunter describing a business transaction as “interesting for me and my family.” Another listed the younger Biden as “‘Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC’ with pay at ‘850’ and could offer monetary compensation for six people.”
“Those involved in the email from James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR, including Hunter, were allegedly part of the four people who created a ‘provisional agreement’ to split 80 percent of the ‘equity’ of the company equally with ’10 for Jim’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy,’” Boyd wrote. While “Jim” is in reference to Joe’s older brother James Biden, a highly credible confidential human source has since corroborated that “big guy” was a moniker used to refer to Joe Biden.
Hunter’s dealings with CEFC often involved Ye Jianming, the since-arrestedhead of CEFC who has ties to China’s military. In early 2017, Hunter worked for Ye “as a counselor and adviser” and was later hired by CEFC in September 2017 to serve as defense counsel for Chinese businessman Patrick Ho, “despite his little experience in criminal defense.” Ho — who served as Ye’s “top lieutenant” and whom Hunter referred to as “the f-cking spy chief of China” — was arrested and later convicted by the Justice Department for bribing the presidents of several African countries.
Bank records obtained by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office indicate that Hunter was paid $1 million for representing Ho. According to Yahoo News, however, “it is not clear what work, if any, [Hunter] did for Ho,” with court records of Ho’s case “show[ing] no indication that Biden or his law firm at the time … participated in Ho’s legal defense.”
A bevy of communication records released by the House Ways and Means Committee in September included a December 2018 WhatsApp text exchange between Hunter and Hallie Biden — who was the widow of Joe’s other son, Beau, and dated Hunter after Beau’s passing — lamenting Ho’s arrest and Ye’s disappearance. The records also showed how Hunter sold the Biden “brand” to overseas business associates to increase the family’s fortunes.
But as additional evidence released by House Republicans has shown, the Bidens’ financial connections with CEFC and its associates run deeper than previously known, and in several cases, further implicate Joe Biden. Despite the elder Biden repeatedly denying involvement in his family’s foreign business ventures, Hunter’s communication records indicate that Joe was keenly aware of his son’s overseas financial interests and served as a primary force behind the operation.
A series of July 2017 WhatsApp messages sent by Hunter to Chinese businessman Raymond Zhao show the younger Biden leveraging “his father’s name and threaten[ing] CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with Ye.” In his messages, Hunter explicitly stated, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.” He further threatened to leverage “the man sitting next to me and every person he knows” to punish Zhao should he fail to follow through on the arrangement.
Within 10 days of that conversation, a CEFC subsidiary poured roughly $5 million into a Biden-linked bank account. Bank records recently obtained by House Republicans show that on the same day, Hunter “transferred $400,000 out of [that account] and into his corporation, Owasco P.C.,” before wiring $150,000 of these CEFC-tied funds to a company owned by James and his wife, Sara, who withdrew $50,000 from said company and deposited the money into their personal checking account. Less than a month later, on Sept. 3, 2017, Sara signed a $40,000 check to Joe, claiming it represented a “loan repayment.”
As noted by The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland, “the $40,000 Joe ‘the Big Guy’ Biden received was exactly 10 percent of the $400,000 Hunter Biden received from CEFC.”
At a time when China is becoming increasingly aggressive towards the U.S. and its allies, Americans need leaders doing everything in their power to stand up for U.S. interests and limit threats to their security. But with Biden at the helm, that’s no longer a guarantee.
Lunch Bucket Joe and his family’s financial ties to individuals and entities connected to Beijing’s communist government make him a liability for the United States. Americans can’t — and shouldn’t — trust that Biden’s judgment over anything having to do with U.S.-China relations is fully within their best interests.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Democrats have one huge, unavoidable problem. And his name is Joe Biden.
According to recent polls, GOP front-runner and former President Donald Trump would beat Biden if the 2024 election were held today. A Quinnipiac poll out Wednesday shows Biden with 46 percent and Trump with 48 percent among registered voters, still within the margin of error and too close to call. However, a new Fox News poll, also out Wednesday, shows that in a head-to-head, the former president would prevail with 50 percent to Biden’s 46 — a number Trump has never garnered in a Fox poll going back to October 2015.
Do these numbers and thin margins mean anything? Maybe not. We are still a year from the election. And if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that polls are traditionally garbage and are used far more often as tools to shape public opinion than to reflect it. But there are deeper and far more meaningful insights to mine from the survey, and they don’t spell good things for the Democrat Party.
For instance, it’s worth noting that not only does Biden appear to be losing generally to Trump, but the incumbent is losing his own dependable voters to his rival. Polls show Biden is hemorrhaging black, Hispanic, suburban, and young voters — all demographics that reliably vote Democrat. It could have something to do with how Biden has handled major crises he’s either caused or exacerbated. According to Quinnipiac, voters disapprove of his response to the Hamas attack and subsequent fallout (54 percent disapproval to 37 percent approval), his economy (59 to 37 percent), his foreign policy (61 to 34 percent), his border crisis (65 to 26 percent), and his response to the Russia-Ukraine war (49 to 47 percent).
The implications are simple. Voters are confronting a rare moment in U.S. history in which they can actually compare what it’s like to live under the leadership, or lack thereof, of the two major presidential candidates. Do they want Bidenomics or the affordable grocery and gas prices of the Trump era? Do they want war in the Middle East — or Eastern Europe or the South China Sea — or peace? Do they want an open border or national security? The Trump-Biden decision is an increasingly easy calculation for voters to make.
So, Democrats are stuck. And they did this to themselves, largely by closing off the possibility of a primary and instead committing to dragging Joe’s corpse across the finish line.
And yes, that really is the strategy. It’s not that Biden is a strong candidate by any measure, save for maybe his incumbency, but again, even that’s in doubt after his disastrous first term. He’s a demonstrably weak candidate, especially compared to Trump — another reality easily extrapolated from the polls.
On the Republican side — which, in contrast to Democrats, is still choosing to slog through primary election theatrics — the second-tier candidates are a notable governor and former governor, both beloved by their states and beyond. And Trump is still leading them by some 50 points. He’s got 48 points on Ron DeSantis and 51 on Nikki Haley. If prominent leftist governors such as Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer were to challenge Biden for the Democrat nomination, there’s no way he’d have that kind of lead.
This week there have been murmurs of a potential challenger — just maybe not who you would have expected. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was on Capitol Hill hobnobbing with Sen. Chuck Schumer on Wednesday and refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he’ll run for president. This after he divulged last week that the parties did approach him last year. And you can see the twinkle in Democrats’ eyes at the thought of dumping weak, old Biden for his antithesis. Here’s Schumer flirting with The Rock on X after their meeting, posting cutesy little lyrics from one of the actor’s Disney roles.
But while Democrats might view The Rock as an exit strategy, they still have a monumental problem to overcome: Voters aren’t just fed up with Biden, they’re fed up with Democrat policies both foreign and domestic.
There’s no denying Democrats have become the party of mass illegal immigration. Every town is a border town, and even urbanites are done with the Democrat policies overrunning their cities with aliens who suck resources dry. Speaking of cities, left-wing policies have destroyed them, from Portland and Seattle to Washington, D.C. Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies have caused violence in these places to skyrocket, with carjackings up more than 100 percent since last year and violent crime up 40 percent in our nation’s capitol. In fact, just this week D.C.’s disaster of a mayor declared a state of emergency because youth violent crime has gotten so bad. Meanwhile, Democrats have also become the party of inflation, war, no-limits abortion, transing kids, weaponizing the federal government, terrorist sympathizing, and every other anti-America policy position you can imagine.
That takes a strong leader to overcome. Sure, The Rock does a magnificent job at the role he plays in every movie, but he’s not that leader. And besides, would today’s Democrat Party really vote for a candidate who’s a Joe Rogan bro and friends with Trump supporters?
So, Democrats are left to lie with sleepy Joe in the bed they made for themselves. It’s hard to feel sorry for them.
Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley weighs in on President Biden’s upcoming visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., not running for re-election.
A new national poll released Wednesday showed President Biden trailing all three lead GOP presidential candidates: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
According to the survey, conducted this month by Marquette Law School, Trump has an advantage of 52% to 48% over Biden among registered voters, while DeSantis holds a 51% to 49% advantage in a head-to-head matchup with the president. And Haley, who also previously served as governor of South Carolina, holds a 55% to 45% edge over Biden, the largest lead among Republican candidates.
The survey showed that Trump’s edge over Biden has grown considerably since July, when Marquette’s poll showed the pair tied at 50%. It further showed DeSantis’ lead over Biden has remained consistent in that same time span.
And while all three of the top Republican candidates lead Biden, Trump is the only one who leads among Independent voters. Haley, meanwhile, has the largest support among Democrat voters compared to Trump and DeSantis.
At the same time, Haley draws the support of 15% of Democrat voters, while Trump gets 11% and DeSantis gets 8%.
In addition, the Marquette poll showed Trump, for the first time this year, has taken a lead among registered voters who report being reluctant to choose either him or Biden. Trump leads Biden in that category by a margin of 53% to 47%, a big shift from Biden’s 55% to 42% lead as recently as September.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley holds a 10-point lead over President Biden, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a two-point lead over the president, the Marquette poll showed. (Getty Images)
The most recent poll comes as the White House continues to claim it is not concerned about polling, which continues to show Biden’s approval rating falling and his 2024 prospects waning.
“I mean, look, I spoke to this yesterday,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this month. “And what I said is you have to take these polls… with a grain of salt, right? And I talked about 2020… and what we saw in 2020 and what was being reported then. And what we saw is a president that was… able to bring an incredibly strong, diverse coalition to win in 2020. We saw the same thing in 2022.”
“So, look, we don’t put much stock in… polls,” she continued. “The president is going to focus on delivering for the American people. He has an agenda that is incredibly popular, and that matters. And that’s going to be what the president is going to focus on: How do we continue to deliver for the American people? And that’s the focus.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month that the White House doesn’t “put much stock” in polls. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)
“I want [Biden] to consider what is best in terms of the goal that I know he is committed to, which is defeating Donald Trump,” David Axelrod, a former senior Obama campaign adviser, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Nov. 6.
“And if he believes, based on not just what [is] in his heart but what’s in the data and what he’s being told, that he has the best chance to do it, then he should run. But you know, the thing that irritates me a little bit, Wolf, is this notion that people who are concerned are ‘bedwetters.'”
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Pro-Palestinian protesters are acting more violently than Israel’s supporters due to “cultural Marxism,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Newsmax Thursday.
Cruz appeared on “Newsline” while pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the Bay Bridge leading into San Francisco during the APEC summit, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. That followed U.S. Capitol Police officers in riot gear clashing with roughly 200 demonstrators who gathered outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night to demand a cease-fire.
“This week we had a peaceful protest on the mall, 300,000 people came out to stand for Israel,” Cruz told host Bianca de la Garza. “I took part in the March for Israel, and it was peaceful and calm and united.
“You contrast that to these violent protests and it is … these are dangerous, and we’re seeing them. We’ve seen violent attacks on the White House. We’ve seen violent protests at universities, and these are viciously antisemitic protests. We’re seeing Jewish students at universities across the country harassed and all of this is a manifestation of the cultural Marxism that has infused the institutions of our country.”
Supporters of Israel rallied by the tens of thousands on the National Mall under heavy security Tuesday, voicing bipartisan solidarity in the fight against Hamas and crying “never again.”
Cruz, while promoting his new book, “Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America,” was also asked about a standalone Israeli aid bill that passed in the House but failed to pass in the Senate.
“Unfortunately, today’s Democrat Party has been radicalized,” Cruz told de la Garza. “And so what happened this week in the Senate is, I and several other Republican senators forced a vote on Israel military aid on the Senate.
“We used a procedural tool called a rogue closure petition, where basically we took control of the floor from the Senate majority leader and forced that vote. And Democrats were furious. But then, sadly, they … every single Democrat … all of them voted against providing emergency military aid to Israel.
“Israel is at war right now. They’re in a war for their very existence. They are fighting to eliminate Hamas. It is a battle between civilization and terror, and the Democrats, their view, they put partisan politics above everything. And so all of them voted no. I thought it was disgraceful.”
Cruz said Democrats can do what they want because the mainstream media provides them cover.
“Our corporate media has abandoned the role of actually reporting on news, and it is now simply a propagandist,” Cruz said. “And so the Democrats can all vote against military aid to Israel. Why? Because they all know it will not end up on the six o’clock news. They know that CNN will not report on it. They know The New York Times will not report on it, so their voters will never hear about it.
“And it’s why instead they’re more afraid of the radical antisemites on the left. They’re more afraid of the ‘Squad,’ and they also want to use Israel aid to leverage their other partisan objectives. And so it was a really sad moment to see every single Senate Democrat vote against Israel military aid.”
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The parental rights group Moms for Liberty reported more than 500% revenue growth in 2022, according to its form 990. Pictured: Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, speaks at the Florida Freedom Summit at the Gaylord Palms Resort on Nov. 4, in Kissimmee, Florida. (Photo: Paul Hennessy, Anadolu/Getty Images)
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The parental rights group Moms for Liberty’s revenue has grown by more than 500% in its second year, according to the Form 990 it filed with the IRS.
According to the Form 990, exclusively provided first to The Daily Signal, Moms for Liberty brought in $2.14 million in total revenue in 2022, while it brought in $370,029 in total revenue the year before. A significant majority of that money (92.3%) came from donations—contributions and grants. Expenses for 2021 totaled a mere $163,647, while in 2022 they rose to $1.7 million.
This represents a 579% growth in revenue and a 1,040% growth in expenses, a massive expansion.
🚨🚨🚨BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: @Moms4Liberty revenue skyrocketed📈 by more than 500% between 2021 and 2022 according to the IRS 990. Moms for Liberty exposed woke in schools & helped 365 parents and advocates take seats on school boards. Its leaders only take $50K and $44K salaries. pic.twitter.com/hzxl5dyzPn
The parental rights group held its first Joyful Warrior Summit in Tampa in 2022. It also formally adopted governance and financial policies, conducting its first audit. The group began a coordinated fundraising campaign, increasing its charitable solicitation filings to more than 30 states.
Moms for Liberty lists three officers on payroll: Tina Descovich, the executive director and co-founder, who made $50,140; Marie Rogerson, executive director of program development, who made $50,251; and Tiffany Justice, the director and co-founder, who made $44,250.
According to the form, Moms for Liberty’s mission is “to empower members through education, support, outreach, and advocacy to defend parental and constitutionally protected rights within their communities and throughout all levels of government.”
The mission statement continues, saying Moms for Liberty aims to “raise awareness of parental rights in the community and provide its members with the data and tools to protect their rights as parents to make important decisions and take actions on behalf of their children.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools started teaching kids remotely, parents could watch over the shoulders of their children, seeing what they were learning in school. This access, along with disagreements over COVID-19 restrictions such as the use of face masks, spurred parents to engage with local school boards, demanding answers about COVID-19 restrictions, critical race theory, and lessons with sexual or gender themes.
When parents raised their voices, teachers unions and school boards dismissed them, even occasionally demonizing them as equivalent to domestic terrorists.
Descovich and Justice founded Moms for Liberty to advocate for parents who felt disenfranchised in this way and to empower them to effect change.
Moms for Liberty trains parents to run for school board, and in the 2022 and 2023 elections, 365 of the candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed won their races.
“Moms for Liberty didn’t exist three years ago,” Justice told The Daily Signal last week. “For us to have now been able to elect in 2022 and 2023 365 school board members who are liberty-minded individuals standing up for parental rights, putting the focus back on the basics in American public education, stopping this woke indoctrination that we’ve been seeing—it’s very exciting.”
Want an example of the teachers some of our children find in their classrooms? Check out an example below.
LGBTQ education organization encourages teachers to be trans activists in their classrooms by using pronouns and removing gendered language pic.twitter.com/s7RcH54ul1
Critics have accused Moms for Liberty of aiming to ban books, when the group only opposes sexually explicit materials in school libraries. Similarly, some critics have accused Moms for Liberty leaders of harassment, though a Daily Signal analysis found the claims it reviewed were baseless.
In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center put Moms for Liberty, along with other parental rights groups such as Parents Defending Education, on its “hate map,” placing them alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC claims that Moms for Liberty is part of an “anti-student inclusion” movement, which it compares to “uptown Klans” of white southerners who supported segregation after the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education said that racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional.
As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC took the program it has used to bankrupt organizations associated with the Klan and weaponized it against conservative groups, partially to scare its donors into ponying up cash and partially to silence ideological opponents.
In 2019, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its co-founder, a former employee came forward to call the organization’s “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”
Seven years earlier, in 2012, a terrorist with a gun used the “hate map” to target a Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C. Although the SPLC condemned the attack, it kept the organization targeted by the gunman on its map.
Hillary and the left are calling Trump Hitler, saying that he is going to arrest his opponents if elected President again like the dictator, (although he could have done this while he was president but didn’t). You know, just exactly what they are doing to him right now, using law-fare to try and keep him off the 2024 ballot. The left are being anti-democratic while claiming to save democracy. This is a prime example of the left accusing their opposition of exactly what they are doing, right out of the Saul Alinsky/Stalin/Mao handbook.
Trump is the one who has been working within and abiding by the legal system under the Constitution while they weaponize the legal system and disregard all reasonable legal protocols to destroy him.
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.
When regimes capture power, it’s often not in the dramatic fashion of the storming of the Bastille. Instead, it’s a bureaucratic takeover, hidden in jargon and filled with clichés, for the greater good. The Federal Communications Commission is poised to vote today on a sweeping set of new rules called the “Preventing Digital Discrimination Order.”
The 200-page report recommends implementing an exhaustive array of new restrictions that will alter the internet forever. It springs from section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2021. This legislation was meant to infuse some federal dollars into America’s sagging internet infrastructure. Unfortunately, this vote will grant the FCC the power to control nearly every aspect of internet infrastructure in the name of our secular gods of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The TL;DR of the obtuse rules is the ability to censor, control, and regulate internet service providers based on vague laws around equity. Most disturbing is that it doesn’t have to be “discrimination” as it’s generally understood but rather “disparate outcomes,” meaning all internet infrastructure must produce perfect equity or face the wrath of the United States government.
The agency’s unelected officials will convene to deliberate on regulations to integrate the latest progressive ideals regarding race and identity into the internet landscape. It’s expected to pass 3-2. It will stifle innovation and impede internet access opportunities, all in pursuit of achieving equity.
If approved, this would mark the first time the FCC would gain the authority to oversee various aspects of every ISP’s service termination policies, including customer credit usage, account history, credit checks, and account termination, among other related matters.
Experts have been sounding the alarm about what this could mean for internet freedom.
The @FCC is claiming the power to control every aspect of broadband infrastructure and the industry itself.
To call it "extreme" or "radical" doesn't do this proposal justice.
It includes price controls, forced buildout of broadband regardless of ROI, and more. https://t.co/b7HMYW1sDD
Even FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has blasted the power-grab, calling it a free pass giving the “administrative state effective control of all internet services and infrastructure.”
“President Biden has called on the FCC to adopt new rules of breathtaking scope,” Carr noted on X, formerly Twitter. “Those rules would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions — from how ISPs allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive.”
“The FCC reserves the right under this plan to regulate both ‘actions and omissions, whether recurring or a single instance.’ In other words, if you take any action, you may be liable, and if you do nothing, you may be liable. There is no path to complying with this standardless regime. It reads like a planning document drawn up in the faculty lounge of a university’s Soviet Studies Department.”
Next week, the FCC will vote on President Biden’s plan to give the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure.
These regulators have established a framework that could penalize any organization seeking to enhance internet accessibility or provide internet services if the agency determines that it did so in a manner that facilitates discrimination. Whatever the regulators decide that means.
Congressional pushback
Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, along with 27 fellow senators, is urging the Federal Communications Commission to withdraw its preliminary proposal regarding “Digital Discrimination.” This proposal would grant the federal government significant influence over virtually every facet of the internet, potentially subjecting broadband providers to extensive, vague, and detrimental liability under a “disparate impact” standard.
In a letter to FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel, the senators wrote:
“Your Draft Order, which largely follows a Biden administration diktat, will create crippling uncertainty for the U.S. broadband industry, chill broadband investment, and undermine Congress’s objective of promoting broadband access for all Americans. We urge you to adhere to the will of Congress and conform to the plain meaning of [the bipartisan infrastructure bill] to avoid causing serious damage to the competitive and innovative U.S. broadband industry.”
Net neutrality back door
This power-grab is also a de facto attempt to bring back net neutrality. Net neutrality, with its burdensome and intrusive regulations, hinders the internet’s natural evolution. The internet has thrived remarkably well without the heavy hand of net neutrality oversight. Moreover, these regulations prevent internet service providers from rightfully charging substantial fees to content giants like video streaming platforms, which are voraciously consuming bandwidth. By prohibiting these fees, net neutrality shifts the responsibility of expanding network capacity entirely onto individuals and away from giant tech platforms.
This, in turn, is expected to result in higher costs for consumers, as they will be forced to bear the burden of more expensive internet packages, even if they don’t use these data-intensive streaming services. As it stands, net neutrality stifles innovation, undermines market forces, and ultimately harms consumers and the internet ecosystem. The idea that they would resurrect these onerous rules through the back door is no less worrying just because it isn’t surprising.
The one silver lining to this is that the disparate impact rules they cite to justify the power-grab have been struck down by the Supreme Court. There will no doubt be immediate lawsuits to try to fight these rules. Across varying industries and government entities, a concerted effort exists to curtail your freedom. From COVID lockdowns to tech censorship, expansive regulations, gun laws, and the jailing of political dissidents, the underlying result is curtailing your freedoms. The regime knows a free internet is one of the last tools the American people have left, which is why it tries to control it at every turn.
In the United States, global financial speculator George Soros has been the single-biggest financier of overtly political causes for decades. In 2022, he poured $178.8 million into federal campaigns, making him by far the biggest campaign contributor in that cycle. Then there are his hidden and comingled political contributions — a vast web of dark money — that are intentionally designed to influence elections and avoid public scrutiny.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a research organization that tracks money in politics (coincidentally funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations), Soros Fund Management was by far the largest single political contributor going into the 2022 midterm elections. The fund ranked first out of 31,955 contributor organizations with a known war chest of approximately $180 million. Not a single dollar went to a Republican candidate.
The political research group noted that organizations like Soros Fund Management cannot legally contribute directly to candidates or party committees. Instead, the fund funneled cash to political affiliates, the largest being an entity innocuously titled Democracy PAC II. The super PAC’s Federal Election Commission filing lists Michael Vachon as its treasurer. Vachon has served on boards of left-wing organizations tied to Soros’ Open Society Foundations, such as NYC Partners, Democracy Alliance, and Catalist. George Soros’ son, Alexander, runs the super PAC.
Notably, the first iteration of Democracy PAC funneled more than $80 million to Democratic groups and candidates in the 2020 election cycle. In a statement to Politico, Soros said the massive spend was necessary for “strengthening the infrastructure of American democracy: voting rights and civic participation, civil rights and liberties, and the rule of law.” Incidentally, the Soros-linked America Coming Together political action committee was slapped with what was, at the time, the third-largest fine in the Federal Election Commission’s history following the unsuccessful bid to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004 and install Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in the White House.
The group’s $137 million election effort spanned 90 offices in 17 states and employed more than 25,000 neighborhood canvassers and election staff. The FEC unanimously approved a $775,000 fine for using unregulated “soft money” to elect Democrats. The penalty was a pittance of accountability compared to the amount spent, though America Coming Together shuttered operations in 2005.
Soros had also given millions to the leftist MoveOn.org Voter Fund, which the FEC fined $150,000, to run television ads attacking President Bush. The progressive megadonor was an early supporter of Barack Obama. In 2004, he held a fundraiser in New York City for the community organizer from Chicago and his successful U.S. Senate bid in Illinois. Soros — the so-called “smart money” in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary — would go on to back Obama over Hillary Clinton.
Ironically, Soros would later say that Obama (whose 2012 opponent, Mitt Romney, suggested was the most anti-American president in the nation’s history) was his “greatest disappointment.” Not because Obama’s leftward lurch didn’t go far enough, but because Obama, in Soros’ view, stabbed him in the back, politically, and left him to operate outside the inner White House circle.
In 2016, Soros threw his full weight behind Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump by pouring millions into her presidential election run. FEC filings in the summer of 2016 showed Soros had committed or personally donated more than $25 million — mostly for her benefit.
Upon Trump’s election, the Soros mission turned to getting rid of the 45th duly elected president of the United States. How that jibed with any honest notion of democracy is anyone’s guess.
Framing President Trump as a Russian agent guilty of colluding with Vladimir Putin to cheat Hillary Clinton out of the White House was always a Clinton campaign smear. The associated Steele dossier, named for the former British intelligence officer and Fusion GPS opposition research operative Christopher Steele, was laundered through the law firm Perkins Coie.
According to The Washington Post, Perkins Coie represented “the national Democratic Party, its governors, almost all of its members of Congress, and its campaign and fundraising apparatus.” The firm’s “Democratic superlawyer,” Marc Elias, was the Clinton campaign’s general counsel. Elias was not only involved in the Steele dossier fiasco, which the FBI used to obtain a surveillance warrant to spy on the Trump campaign — and led to subsequent FISA warrant renewals to spy on the Trump presidency — but Elias was simultaneously paid by George Soros to knock down election integrity laws in swing states.
Flash-forward to the 2019 impeachment of President Trump, and Soros surfaced again through his Open Society Foundations’ ties to Ukraine and the so-called whistleblower at the center of the controversy, identified by independent media reports as Eric Ciaramella. Breitbart journalist Aaron Klein found that Ciaramella was reportedly receiving email communications from a top director at Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Klein also noted that the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity was fueling the impeachment narrative that President Trump acted improperly with respect to the purported temporary withholding of military aid to Ukraine in exchange for evidence of former Vice President Joe Biden’s alleged corruption.
Corporate media outlets with a collective loathing for President Trump used the Soros-backed group’s assertions to substantiate Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment effort. Trump was indeed impeached and acquitted by the Senate. Just as in previous elections, Soros reportedly told a group at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the 2020 election would determine the “fate of the world.” He said Trump was “a con man and a narcissist, who wants the world to revolve around him.” Previously at the World Economic Forum, Soros claimed Trump was “doing the work of ISIS.”
Soros spent $52 million in the 2020 presidential election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. But there is no way to know how much money and influence originated from the billionaire activist, whether directly or indirectly via his Open Society Foundations.
One thing is certain: The 2020 presidential election, amid unprecedented Covid-era election changes and summer riots destabilizing dozens of American cities and the nation’s capital, was unlike any in American history. Soros-backed prosecutors are already swaying the 2024 presidential election via lawfare. Soros grant recipients are attempting to remove the leading opposition candidate from the ballot.
And George and Alex Soros are only just getting started.
In May 2021, L. Gordon Crovitz, a media executive turned start-up investor, pitched Twitter executives on a powerful censorship tool.
In an exchange that came to light in the “Twitter Files” revelations about media censorship, Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, touted his product, NewsGuard, as a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” His written pitch highlighted a “separate product” — beyond an extension already on the Microsoft Edge browser — “for internal use by content-moderation teams.” Crovitz promised an out-of-the-box tool that would use artificial intelligence powered by NewsGuard algorithms to rapidly screen content based on hashtags and search terms the company associated with dangerous content.
How would the company determine the truth? For issues such as Covid-19, NewsGuard would steer readers to official government sources only, like the federal Centers for Disease Control. Other content-moderation allies, Crovitz’s pitch noted, include “intelligence and national security officials,” “reputation management providers,” and “government agencies,” which contract with the firm to identify misinformation trends. Instead of only fact-checking individual forms of incorrect information, NewsGuard, in its proposal, touted the ability to rate the “overall reliability of websites” and “’prebunk’ COVID-19 misinformation from hundreds of popular websites.”
NewsGuard’s ultimately unsuccessful pitch sheds light on one aspect of a growing effort by governments around the world to police speech ranging from genuine disinformation to dissent from officially sanctioned narratives. In the United States, as the “Twitter Files” revealed, the effort often takes the form of direct government appeals to social media platforms and news outlets. More commonly the government works through seemingly benign non-governmental organizations — such as the Stanford Internet Observatory — to quell speech it disapproves of.
Or it pays to coerce speech through government contracts with outfits such as NewsGuard, a for-profit company of especially wide influence. Founded in 2018 by Crovitz and his co-CEO Steven Brill, a lawyer, journalist, and entrepreneur, NewsGuard seeks to monetize the work of reshaping the internet. The potential market for such speech policing, NewsGuard’s pitch to Twitter noted, was $1.74 billion, an industry it hoped to capture.
Instead of merely suggesting rebuttals to untrustworthy information, as many other existing anti-misinformation groups provide, NewsGuard has built a business model out of broad labels that classify entire news sites as safe or untrustworthy, using an individual grading system producing what it calls “nutrition labels.” The ratings — which appear next to a website’s name on the Microsoft Edge browser and other systems that deploy the plug-in — use a scale of zero to 100 based on what NewsGuard calls “nine apolitical criteria,” including “gathers and presents information responsibly” (worth 18 points), “avoids deceptive headlines” (10 points), and “does not repeatedly publish false or egregiously misleading content” (22 points), etc.
IMAGE CREDITNEWSGUARD
Critics note that such ratings are entirely subjective — The New York Times, for example, which repeatedly carried false and partisan information from anonymous sources during the Russiagate hoax, gets a 100 percent rating. RealClearInvestigations, which took heat in 2019 for unmasking the “whistleblower” of the first Trump impeachment (while many other outlets including the Times still have not), has an 80 percent rating. (Verbatim: the NewsGuard-RCI exchange over the whistleblower.) Independent news outlets with an anti-establishment bent receive particularly low ratings from NewsGuard, such as the libertarian news site Antiwar.com, with a 49.5 percent rating, and conservative site The Federalist, with a 12.5 percent rating.
As it stakes a claim to being the internet’s arbiter of trust, the company’s site says it has conducted reviews of some 95 percent of news sources across the English, French, German, and Italian web. It has also published reports about disinformation involving China and the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars. The model has received glowing profiles in CNN and The New York Times, among other outlets, as a viable solution for fighting fake news.
IMAGE CREDITNEWSGUARD
NewsGuard is pushing to apply its browser screening process to libraries, academic centers, news aggregation portals, and internet service providers. Its reach, however, is far greater because of other products it aims to sell to social media and other content moderation firms and advertisers. “An advertiser’s worst nightmare is having an ad placement damage even one customer’s trust in a brand,” said Crovitz in a press release touting NewsGuard’s “BrandGuard” service for advertisers. “We’re asking them to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem,” Crovitz told reporters.
How NewsGuard Starves Disfavored Sites Of Ad Clients
NewsGuard’s BrandGuard tool provides an “exclusion list” that deters advertisers from buying space on sites NewsGuard deems problematic. But that warning service creates inherent conflicts of interest with NewsGuard’s financial model: The buyers of the service can be problematic entities too, with an interest in protecting and buffing their image.
A case in point: Publicis Groupe, NewsGuard’s largest investor and the biggest conglomerate of marketing agencies in the world, which has integrated NewsGuard’s technology into its fleet of subsidiaries that place online advertising. The question of conflicts arises because Publicis represents a range of corporate and government clients, including Pfizer — whose Covid vaccine has been questioned by some news outlets that have received low scores. Other investors include Bruce Mehlman, a D.C. lobbyist with a lengthy list of clients, including United Airlines and ByteDance, the parent company of much-criticized Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.
NewsGuard has faced mounting criticism that rather than serving as a neutral public service against online propaganda, it instead acts as an opaque proxy for its government and corporate clients to stifle views that simply run counter to their own interests. The criticism finds support in internal documents, such as the NewsGuard proposal to Twitter, which this reporter obtained during “Twitter Files” reporting last year, as well as in government records and discussions with independent media sites targeted by the startup.
Beginning last year, users scanning the headlines on certain browsers that include NewsGuard were warned against visiting Consortium News. A scarlet-red NewsGuard warning pop-up said, “Proceed With Caution” and claimed that the investigative news site “has published false claims about the Ukraine-Russia war.” The warning also notifies a network of advertisers, news aggregation portals, and social media platforms that Consortium News cannot be trusted.
But Consortium News, founded by late Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Robert Parry and known for its strident criticism of U.S. foreign policy, is far from a fake news publisher. And NewsGuard, the entity attempting to suppress it, Consortium claims, is hardly a disinterested fact-checker because of federal influence over it. NewsGuard attached the label after pressing Consortium for retractions or corrections to six articles published on the site. Those news articles dealt with widely reported claims about neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian military and U.S. influence over the country — issues substantiated by other credible media outlets. After Consortium editors refused to remove the reporting and offered a detailed rebuttal, the entire site received a misinformation label, encompassing over 20,000 articles and videos published by the outlet since it was founded in 1995.
The left-wing news site believes the label was part of a pay-for-censorship scheme. It notes that Consortium News was targeted after NewsGuard received a $749,387 Defense Department contract in 2021 to identify “false narratives” relating to the war between Ukraine and Russia, as well as other forms of foreign influence.
Bruce Afran, an attorney for Consortium News, disagrees. “What’s really happening here is that NewsGuard is trying to target those who take a different view from the government line,” said Afran. He filed an amended complaint last month claiming that NewsGuard not only defamed his client, but also acts as a front for the military to suppress critical reporting.
“There’s a great danger in being maligned this way,” Afran continued. “The government cannot evade the Constitution by hiring a private party.”
Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News, observed that in previous years, anonymous social media accounts had also targeted his site, falsely claiming a connection to the Russian government in a bid to discredit his outlet.
“NewsGuard has got to be the worst,” said Lauria. “They’re labeling us in a way that stays with us. Every news article we publish is defamed with that label of misinformation.”
Both Lauria and Afran said that they worry that NewsGuard is continuing to collaborate with the government or with intelligence services. In previous years, NewsGuard had worked with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. It’s not clear to what extent NewsGuard is still working with the Pentagon. But earlier this year, Crovitz wrote an email to journalist Matt Taibbi, defending its work with the government, describing it in the present tense, suggesting that it is ongoing:
For example, as is public, our work for the Pentagon’s Cyber Command is focused on the identification and analysis of information operations targeting the U.S. and its allies conducted by hostile governments, including Russia and China. Our analysts alert officials in the U.S. and in other democracies, including Ukraine, about new false narratives targeting America and its allies, and we provide an understanding of how this disinformation spreads online. We are proud of our work countering Russian and Chinese disinformation on behalf of Western democracies.
The company has not yet responded to the Consortium News lawsuit, filed in the New York federal court. In May of this year, the Air Force Research Lab responded to a records request from journalist Erin Marie Miller about the NewsGuard contract. The contents of the work proposal were entirely redacted.
Asked about the company’s continued work with the intelligence sector, Skibinski replied, “We license our data about false claims made by state media sources and state-sponsored disinformation efforts from China, Russia and Iran to the defense and intelligence sector, as we describe on our website.”
Punishing An Outlet That Criticized A NewsGuard Backer’s Pharma Clients
Other websites that have sought to challenge their NewsGuard rating say it has shown little interest in a back-and-forth exchange regarding unsettled matters. Take the case of The Daily Sceptic, a small publication founded and edited by conservative English commentator Toby Young. As a forum for journalists and academics to challenge a variety of strongly held public-policy orthodoxies, even those on Covid-19 vaccines and climate change, The Daily Sceptic is a genuine dissenter. Last year, Young reached out to NewsGuard, hoping to improve his site’s 74.5 rating.
In a series of emails from 2022 and 2023 that were later forwarded to RealClearInvestigations, NewsGuard responded to Young by listing articles that it claimed represent forms of misinformation, such as reports that Pfizer’s vaccine carried potential side effects. The site, notably, has been a strident critic of Covid-19 policies, such as coercive mandates. Anicka Slachta, an analyst with NewsGuard, highlighted articles that questioned the efficacy of the vaccines and lockdowns. The Daily Sceptic, for example, reported a piece casting Covid-19 lockdowns as “unnecessary, ineffective and harmful,” citing academic literature from Johns Hopkins University.
Rather than refute this claim, Slachta simply offered an opposing view from another academic, who criticized the arguments put forth by lockdown critics. And the Hopkins study, Slachta noted, was not peer-reviewed. The topic is still, of course, under serious debate. Sweden rejected the draconian lockdowns on schools and businesses implemented by most countries in North American and Europe, yet had one of the lowest “all-cause excess mortality” rates in either region.
Young and others said that the issue highlighted by NewsGuard is not an instance of misinformation, but rather an ongoing debate, with scientists and public health experts continuing to explore the moral, economic, and health-related questions raised by such policies. In its response to NewsGuard’s questions about the lockdown piece, Young further added that his site made no claim that the Hopkins paper was peer-reviewed and added that its findings had been backed up by a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Yet to NewsGuard, Young’s site evidently posed a misinformation danger by simply reporting on the subject and refusing to back down. Emails between NewsGuard and the Daily Sceptic show Young patiently responding to the company’s questions; he also added postscripts to the articles flagged by NewsGuard with a link to the fact checks of them and rebuttals of those fact checks. Young also took the extra step of adding updates to other articles challenged by fact-checking non-governmental organizations. “I have also added postscripts to other articles not flagged by you but which have been fact checked by other organisations, such as Full Fact and Reuters,” Young wrote to Slachta.
That wasn’t enough. After a series of back-and-forth emails, NewsGuard said it would be satisfied only with a retraction of the articles, many of which, like the lockdown piece, contained no falsehoods. After the interaction, NewsGuard lowered The Daily Sceptic’s rating to 37.5/100.
“I’m afraid you left me no choice but to conclude that NewsGuard is a partisan site that is trying to demonetise news publishing sites whose politics it disapproves of under the guise of supposedly protecting potential advertisers from being associated with ‘mis-’ and ‘disinformation,’” wrote Young in response. “Why bother to keep up the pretence of fair-mindedness John? Just half my rating again, which you’re going to do whatever I say.”
NewsGuard’s Skibinski, in a response to a query about The Daily Sceptic’s downgrade, denied that his company makes any “demands” of publishers. “We simply call them for comment and ask questions about their editorial practices,” he wrote. “This is known as journalism.”
The experience mirrored that of Consortium. Afran, the attorney for the site, noted that NewsGuard uses an arbitrary process to punish opponents, citing the recent study from the company on misinformation on the Israel-Hamas war. “They cherry-picked 250 posts among tweets they knew were incorrect, and they attempt to create the impression that all of X is unreliable,” the lawyer noted. “And so, what they’re doing, and this is picked up by mainstream media, that’s actually causing X, formerly Twitter, to now lose ad revenue, based literally on 250 posts out of the billions of posts on Twitter.”
The push to demonize and delist The Daily Sceptic, a journalist critic of pharmaceutical products and policies, reflects an inherent conflict with the biggest backer of NewsGuard: Publicis Groupe.
Publicis client Pfizer awarded Publicis a major deal to help manage its global media and advertising operations, a small reflection of which is the $2.3 billion the pharmaceutical giant spent on advertising last year.
The NewsGuard-Publicis relationship extends to the Paris-based marketing conglomerate’s full client list, including LVHM, PepsiCo, Glaxo Smith Kline, Burger King, ConAgra, Kellogg Company, General Mills, and McDonalds. “NewsGuard will be able to publish and license ‘white lists’ of news sites our clients can use to support legitimate publishers while still protecting their brand reputations,” said Maurice Lévy, chairman of the Publicis Groupe, upon its launch of NewsGuard.
Put another way, when corporate watchdogs like The Daily Sceptic or Consortium News are penalized by NewsGuard, the ranking system amounts to a blacklist to guide advertisers where not to spend their money.
“NewsGuard is clearly in the business of censoring the truth,” noted Dr. Joseph Mercola, a gadfly voice whose website was ranked as misinformation by NewsGuard after it published reports about Covid-19’s potential origin from a lab in Wuhan, China.
“Seeing how Publicis represents most of the major pharmaceutical companies in the world and funded the creation of NewsGuard, it’s not far-fetched to assume Publicis might influence NewsGuard’s ratings of drug industry competitors,” Mercola added, in a statement online.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations.
Lee Fang is an investigative reporter. Find his Substack here.
Consider this – over the past year, the national debt increased by $2.5 trillion, which amounts to an eye-popping $78,401 every second. U.S. federal borrowing for Fiscal Year 2023 neared 9% of the entire economy. These numbers should terrify every American.
As vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, I feel compelled to address the alarming growth of our national debt. If we fail to confront this issue head-on, future generations will face the crushing prospect of a combined top marginal tax rate of 100% just to pay for existing government services.
We have an opportunity to come together to save our Republic by forming a bipartisan debt commission focused on finding innovative solutions to address this perilous threat and ensure our children and grandchildren have the same opportunities that we had. I commend Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for pledging to establish a debt commission in one of his first acts since his election.
Our primary fiscal challenges stem from demographics. The number of workers-to-retirees ratio has fallen from over 5-to-1 to under 3-to-1. At the same time, 1-in-9 prime age men are not showing up in the workforce. These trends put an immense strain on Social Security and Medicare, programs that American retirees rightfully rely upon. Simply put, we must fulfill our promises to them. At the same time, it is morally indefensible to ask Americans to incur a massive tax increase to keep these programs afloat.
So instead of focusing on the question of who should pay, I believe we should focus on why health care costs have grown so rapidly. Consider obesity, a key driver of health care spending that fuels a multitude of conditions from diabetes to heart disease. The 2023 Joint Economic Report put a price tag of $4.1 trillion on the cost of untreated obesity to taxpayers over the next decade.
There is hope in the emerging role of medications targeting severe obesity and its complications. By ensuring access to effective treatments, we can tackle the underlying causes of these health issues, easing the financial pressures on federal health care spending.
Investing in research and development is vital for continued medical breakthroughs that enhance quality of life, reduce costs and improve outcomes. Yet, even with a forward-looking approach to health care, we cannot disregard the imminent fiscal challenges facing Social Security and Medicare. Without legislative intervention, these programs face automatic, draconian cuts that no American wants.
In just a decade, the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money. When that happens, federal law mandates an automatic 25% cut in Social Security benefits along with a reduction in Medicare spending.
It is incumbent upon us, as a nation, to find a bipartisan solution that solidifies their financial stability. Another pressing concern is the historically low liquidity in the U.S. Treasury market. As the country prepares to issue $1.8 trillion in new debt in Fiscal Year 2024, we must recognize the risks posed by this illiquidity.
A slight drop in demand for U.S. debt can cause a significant increase in interest rates, as evidenced by the yield on the 10-year Treasury currently standing at 4.6%—nearly a full percentage point higher than the Congressional Budget Office’s projection at the year’s outset. Escalating interest rates have the potential to set off a perilous cycle of slower economic growth and higher federal budget deficits, which, taken together will exacerbate our debt crisis.
We must consider innovative approaches to financing our debt while addressing liquidity. One approach is for Treasury to issue perpetuities, as suggested by Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane. These instruments would be both highly liquid and lock in the government’s long-term financing costs, providing stability and predictability to the market.
The Federal Reserve could also improve Treasury market liquidity by adopting a rules-based monetary policy, thereby reducing interest rate volatility.
The dramatic rise in America’s national debt is a crisis that can no longer be ignored. It is a challenge that threatens our future prosperity, and one that Congress must rise to before it’s too late. By forming a bipartisan debt commission, we have a unique opportunity to come together and tackle this issue directly. It doesn’t matter what party one belongs to, we should all want a healthier population, strong and secure social safety net programs, and a strong and flourishing economy.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was shut down Wednesday on pressing FBI Director Christopher Wray on purported evidence of “ghost buses” filled with alleged federal operatives before the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.
“These buses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters and deployed onto our Capitol on Jan. 6,” Higgins said in closing of his five-minute questioning. “Your day is coming, Mr. Wray.”
Democrats sought to shut down Higgins’ line of questioning that had turned a bit contentious as Higgins asked Wray if the FBI had operatives “embedded” in the crowd on Jan. 6.
“Can you confirm that the FBI had that sort of engagement with your own agents embedded within to the crowd on Jan. 6,” Higgins asked.
Instead of a direct answer to that question, Wray deflected to suggest the Republican was asking whether the FBI was stoking violence, something Higgins did not ask, nor allude to.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and or agents, the answer is emphatically not,” Wray shot back.
“You’re saying no?” Higgins asked again.
“No!” Wray said.
“Do you know what a ghost vehicle is, director?” Higgins continued. “You’re the director of the FBI, you certainly should. Do you know what a ghost bus is?”
“A ghost bus?” Wray replied. “I’m not sure I’ve used that term before.”
Higgins, a former Military Police Corps staff sergeant in the Louisiana National Guard said ghost buses are “common in law enforcement.”
“It’s a vehicle that’s used for secret purposes,” Higgins said. “It’s painted over.
“These two buses in the middle here, they were the first to arrive at Union Station on Jan. 6,” Higgins said, pointing to a photo. “I have all this evidence. I’m showing you a tip of this iceberg.”
That is when a Democrat in the hearing sought to stop Higgins’ questioning and the chairman forced him to yield. The chair did permit Higgins to briefly close with the “nefarious in nature” and “your day is coming, Mr. Wray” remarks.
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been working to destroy the United States from within for DECADES, this is their secret written plan exposed. pic.twitter.com/2bodbC4vcg
An American mom whose child is being held hostage in Gaza by Palestinian terrorists delivered the most caustic speech. It hurts but you need to put yourself through it.pic.twitter.com/NqWWSiHKAB
I’ve never in my life been in such a huge crowd. The #MarchForIsrael rally today was incredible. Singing. Dancing. Prayers. Inspiration. There was no violence. No vandalism. No destruction. Just a real, raw, peaceful, gathering. #BringThemHome ❤️🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/CiL36UDpZ2
🔥🚨HIDDEN HISTORY: On December 1, 1963 Malcolm X gave a speech called “God’s Judgement of White America.” where he identified the ‘White Liberal’ as the most ‘dangerous’ and ‘deceitful’ thing in the Western Hemisphere.
Just more of the same upon Capitol Hill, a Continuing Resolution (CR) passes the House and on to the Senate, leaving many to ask the question, when are Republicans going to stand up and be the opposition party to the Marxist Democrats party hell-bent on destroying America?
It may be too early to tell if Speaker Johnson is going to be the Conservative savior, we were hoping for but so far, it’s not looking real good. We still remain hopeful.
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.
Secret Service reportedly opened fire Sunday night on three suspects attempting to break into an unmarked government vehicle parked in front of the Georgetown home of Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter. Reports allege that the three offenders fled the scene after the gunfire started.
These types of scenarios are exactly why Americans advocate for the Second Amendment, but unfortunately, not all citizens have the same protection the Biden family is afforded.
The average DC resident does not have protection from the Secret Service, as Naomi Biden does:
– 760 carjackings occurred in 2023
– 65% of those arrested for carjacking are juveniles
Residents of Washington, D.C., are forced to navigate an onslaught of regulation and red tape before they can use firearms for self-preservation. According to D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, residents have the “authority to carry firearm[s]” only in “certain places and for certain purposes.” Concealed carry requires a variety of applications and training, while “open carry is prohibited.”
Meanwhile, crime in the District of Columbia is out of control. So far, violent crime is up almost 40 percent in 2023 over 2022, according to D.C.’s preliminary reports. Homicide and robbery are up 32 and 68 percent, respectively, while motor vehicle theft is up nearly 100 percent over last year. On Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency over the juvenile crime crisis.
Yet stringent gun laws are especially common in high-crime areas, making it even more difficult for citizens to protect themselves. And in the face of rampant crime, many law-abiding citizens are left defenseless at the direction of lawmakers and an executive branch that enjoys the protection of armed security details. The Council on Criminal Justice reports that across 37 U.S. cities, violent crime is up since 2019, with “24% more homicides during the first half of 2023” compared to the first half of 2019, and “motor vehicle thefts more than doubled (+104%).”
Naomi Biden isn’t the only one getting special treatment when it comes to firearms, however. Her dad, Hunter Biden allegedly lied about his drug use on a federal form to purchase a revolver in 2018 — a bombshell the public didn’t learn about until a few months after his father was safely installed in the White House in 2021. Later, Joe Biden’s DOJ struck a sweetheart plea deal with Hunter, which posited that if the Biden son pled guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges, he would get broad immunity for other crimes, including no prosecution for his illegal possession of a firearm. Luckily, that deal fell apart thanks to an astute federal judge.
Then last month, Hunter Biden pled not guilty to three federal firearms charges. And while his lawyers claim the underlying law is unconstitutional, even Politico recognizes that argument “stands in stark contrast to President Joe Biden’s advocacy for stricter gun laws.”
The double standard is clear: gun rights for the Biden family and their elite friends, not for everyone else. As Biden said of the Second Amendment last year, it’s “not absolute” — for you, at least.
Jesse Watters EXPOSES how Deep State is really PROTECTING Biden by charging Hunter with gun crime… pic.twitter.com/oQo3pECqG9
The firearm hierarchy is not unique to the Bidens. Political and cultural elites alike have benefitted from guns while simultaneously pushing anti-gun legislation. Along with the Bidens, other Democrat politicians are some of the worst offenders. For instance, the notoriously anti-gun former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had her own armed security detail to protect her home and office. Former New York City Mayor and Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg also demanded gun control while being protected by armed guards. Both lived comfortably under the protection of firearms while the citizens of their crime-ridden cities were left facing unmanageable gun regulations — and these politicos are just the tip of the iceberg.
This blatant hierarchy reveals the truth that Biden and other Democrats refuse to acknowledge: Guns can preserve life. And though Biden claims gun control is “about protecting children. It’s about protecting families. It’s about protecting whole communities,” his family’s own security details are proof that guns are actually the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Since before its founding, our country has been blessed with extraordinary leaders who steeled our resolve for independence. They invented a new form of government by the people and for the people. Each brought different skills and talents to the cause of freedom. Those who followed guided us ably through more than two centuries of often treacherous challenges and grave threats. It is a story best told through the lens of historic documents that have been honored and preserved for our national heritage.
In this unique collector’s edition, the writings, speeches, and letters of our founders and their successors are carefully selected and explained. The important promises and navigating principles that shaped our great nation can be read in full. Over time, others helped transform public sentiment to advance equality and opportunity, empowering generations that followed. Their eloquent beliefs and convictions are also included.
The American experiment had its genesis in the power of words and ideas. We owe our unparalleled success to the exemplary statesmen – and women – who expressed them. Bold and transcendent figures defined what it is to be an American and to control our own destinies. Their dynamic opinions, steadfast faith, and inspiring arguments are revisited in this volume as a salute to our nation’s enduring triumph.
The durability of our constitutional republic and the rights we enjoy today also serve as a shining testimonial to the moral courage and intellectual brilliance of our forebearers. We are their grateful beneficiaries. Absorbing their wisdom enriches our appreciation for the lives we enjoy and our love of country.
Among the essential patriotic documents contained in the book, we revisit seminal moments in the American journey. For example…
*As Patrick Henry stirred the nation with his passionate vow, “Give me liberty or give me death,” it was the inexorable logic and “common sense” of Thomas Paine that galvanized Americans to declare their independence when he wrote, “Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never forsaken us.”
*John Adams cautioned that only the ballot box in a representative democracy would prevent men in power from becoming “ravenous beasts of prey.” He argued that “The happiness of society is the end (goal) of government.”
*While Ben Franklin expressed sober misgivings about the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison penned a brilliant set of essays known as The Federalist Papers that led to its adoption. Madison acknowledged the flaws of our system when he wrote, “That which is the least imperfect is therefore the best government.”
A statue of Benjamin Franklin, founder of the University of Pennsylvania, on the school’s campus in Philadelphia, March 15, 2007. (Mike Mergen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
*As he left office, a prescient George Washingtonwarned that divisive political parties would become “potent engines of unprincipled men” who would “undermine freedom and enfeeble good governance.” He vigorously counseled against them, to no avail.
*Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, abolitionist icon, and confidant of Lincoln delivered a powerful lament on the hypocrisy of American slavery by arguing that “We, the people” does not mean “We, the white people.” In plain language he deplored the cruelty and depravation that rendered “four million of our fellow countrymen in chains…and sold on the auction-block with horses, sheep, and swine.”
*In one of the greatest acts of moral courage Abraham Lincoln proclaimed “that all persons held as slaves shall be forever free.” At Gettysburg, he reminded Americans that “all men are created equal.” In his Second Inaugural he sought to salve the wounds of war by uttering the words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”
Abraham Lincoln (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs)
*As the suffrage movement gained momentum, Elizabeth Cady Stanton condemned the tyranny of sexism, leaving “women to feel aggrieved, oppressed, and deprived of their most sacred rights.” Victoria C. Woodhull correctly argued that “the Constitution makes no distinction of sex” and “women are the equals of men.” In a much acclaimed speech, Susan B. Anthony, who was indicted for casting a ballot, posed the vexing question, “Is it a crime for a citizen of the United States to vote?”
*At the dawn of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt shattered the Gilded Age of ruthless monopolists and robber barons with his promise of a “square deal for every man, big or small, rich or poor.” Drawing from the principles of Lincoln, Roosevelt moved aggressively and successfully against corporate corruption and what he called “the sinister influence or control of special interests” in government.
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States (The Associated Press)
*His relative, Franklin Roosevelt, saw the nation through immense suffering in the Great Depression by reassuring Americans, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” His innovative fireside chats buoyed the spirits of a nation in despair. When the U.S. was attacked by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, Roosevelt delivered his famous “a date which will live in infamy” address before Congress. He vowed that “The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”
*As Germany initiated World War II in Europe, the renowned theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein, sent a secret letter to Roosevelt warning him that the Nazis were attempting to develop a new and frighteningly powerful weapon —an atomic bomb. Einstein’s alarming missive triggered the covert operation by the U.S. to build its own weapon in the highly classified Manhattan Project.
Albert Einstein takes his oath of allegiance upon becoming a U.S. citizen in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1940, alongside his daughter Margot, right, and his secretary, Helene Dukas. (Getty Images)
*When Harry S. Truman ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan he revealed to the nation that “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”
*In the face of Soviet aggression, Dwight D. Eisenhower sought peace through strength by urging a halt to nuclear proliferation as he warned, “Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
*Ronald Reagan became the unabashed voice of conservatism and opened his presidency with a masterful address declaring, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” He precipitated the end of the Cold War when he challenged the Soviets to remove the physical barrier in Berlin. “Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall,” Reagan demanded. Two years later, the wall came tumbling down. And so did the communist empire.
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1981-1989) and 33rd governor of California (1967-1975). (Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The common denominator among all these exceptional men and women was their abiding faith in our country’s greatness fortified by a devotion to patriotism. In their memorable words, Americans found both solace and inspiration. We still can.
The virtues, aspirations, and ideals they so elegantly expressed are rediscovered in my new book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents.” It is a living testimonial for American patriots who are immensely proud of our foundational desire for a unified nation dedicated to freedom, prosperity, and justice for all. We continue to seek ways to improve the human experience and strive for “a more perfect union.”
In an era when too many have forgotten our country’s remarkable past, the noble ideas and uplifting words of these exceptional leaders are needed now more than ever to rekindle the indomitable American spirit.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His recent book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” is available in bookstores nationwide or can be ordered online at the Simon & Schuster website. Jarrett’s latest book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on November 14, 2023. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.”
Migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border on Nov. 12, 2023, in Jacumba, California. (Photo: Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Federal authorities recorded 240,988 migrant encounters at the southern border in October, sustaining record highs seen under the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection data released Tuesday. The number of encounters along the southern border in September totaled 269,735, marking the highest month on record. CBP recorded 232,963 and 183,479 encounters in August and July, respectively, according to agency data.
“In conjunction with our resumption of removal flights to Venezuela consistent with delivering consequences for those who cross the border unlawfully, CBP saw a 65 percent decrease in southwest border encounters of Venezuelans in the second half of October, compared to the second half of September,” Troy A. Miller, senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement regarding the new data.
“In October, CBP also saw an overall decrease of 14 percent between ports of entry, as well as an overall decrease of family units. We continue to enhance our border security posture and remain vigilant,” Miller added.
The number of encounters of illegal migrants exceeded 188,000 at the southern border in October, while the number of migrants encountered at ports of entry surpassed 52,000, according to CBP data. Of those processed at ports of entry, 44,000 used CBP One, a phone application the Biden administration allows migrants to use to book appointments to enter the U.S.
“CBP’s narcotics seizures in October highlight our work on the frontline in the fight against fentanyl and other dangerous substances entering the United States—but we need more resources to sustain and increase these efforts. The President’s supplemental budget request is critical to funding the frontline, and would provide much-needed personnel, resources, and technology to go after transnational criminal organizations, enhance border security—including the enforcement of consequences for those who break the law—and support state and local partners, all to keep Americans safe,” Miller added.
After years of California taxpayers begging, Gavin Newsom has finally put his foot down and decided to clean up San Francisco of the Human Facies, needles, and the homeless, but not for the local communities’ benefit. He’s doing this to appease the communist dictator Xi of China.
It seems like it was only a few days ago Newsom was in China licking that genocidal regime’s boots. Oh wait, it was only a few days ago. They must have a lot in common in how to move forward in how to lead their countries.
As a Transplant from California, it breaks my heart to see what Governor Newsom and the Democrats have done to that beautiful state.
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.
For the last seven months, many wondered why the Covenant School shooter’s manifesto remained hidden. On March 27, a trans shooter massacred six people at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, including three 9-year-old children.
After several pages from the manifesto were leaked on Monday, those who suggested that politics were at play are feeling vindicated. The shooter ranted and raved about the “white privilege” of the students and referred to them as “crackers,” a racist term used to describe whites. It would be a miraculous coincidence if these details were unrelated to the Herculean effort to hide the manifesto from the public.
Although we only have a few pages, it doesn’t really matter what else the shooter wrote. Even if the shooter went on a racist rant against another demographic, she ultimately targeted white children for execution and did so based on their skin color.
War on ‘Whiteness’
This is yet another example of violence originating from the demonization of what the left calls “whiteness.” The Democratic Party suffers from a case of tunnel vision that causes them to deduce all the world’s problems from a single premise: “Whiteness” is evil. What was once an obscure social theory has proliferated into a belief system that has consumed all positions of authority on the left, including in politics, media, corporate America, and the academy. Everyone who voted for President Joe Biden doesn’t hate white people, obviously, but attacks on so-called “whiteness” are working well with a growing percentage of the left’s voters.
Hatred of “whiteness” has helped Democrats form unlikely alliances among their constituents. Consider the recent anti-Israel protests that were well attended by trans and abortion activists. By supporting abortion, transgenderism, and Palestine, they are embracing diametrically opposed worldviews. The left’s cultural agenda is deeply unpopular in the Muslim world.
Trans activists aren’t going to cozy up with militant Muslims because of shared views on the capital gains tax rate, and the left knows this. Uniting what should be warring political sects requires a powerful narrative. The left found the common enemy it needed in “whiteness.” Israel is considered whiter than Palestine, and Israelis are “colonizers.” Therefore, Israel is bad, and Palestine is good. It’s that simple for these people.
Some will suggest that anti-capitalist attitudes, radical gender ideology, abortion, or perhaps climate change are the issues that unite the left today. But that’s true only on the surface. Those issues are now inextricably linked to the supposed oppression of nonwhites at the behest of whites. To illustrate, let’s consider a handful of issues that galvanize the left.
Abortion and White Supremacy
According to the ACLU, pro-life attitudes are “rooted in white supremacy.” Media outlets allege that pro-life policies are racist because of the high rate of abortion among black women. They claim, therefore, that white men wish to exert control over black women through abortion restrictions. It never occurred to the legacy press that perhaps actual racists might instead prefer to limit the size of the black population through abortion.
Climate Racism
This issue is now discussed almost exclusively in terms of “climate justice,” “climate reparations” and “climate racism.” Not much else needs to be said here other than giving due consideration to the breakneck speed with which the left racialized this issue.
Capitalism and White Oppressors
Overthrowing meritocratic systems of “whiteness,” especially capitalism, is the linchpin of critical race theory and other offshoots of Marxism. Having failed to topple capitalism through class warfare, the left has intertwined its anti-capitalist attitude with its hatred of whites. Racial groups are innately more tribal than income brackets. Socioeconomic status is often transient, but skin color is not. The temptation to engage in race-based resentment is more alluring than class-based resentment. By combining the two, the left stands to gain at the expense of our social fabric as race relations rapidly deteriorate.
In discussing the state of black Americans under capitalism, Vox expresses a widely held belief on the left. It claims that “no amount of money can insulate them from marginalization or the everyday exhaustion of navigating America as a Black person.” This claim amounts to an unfalsifiable theory more absurd than any conspiracy ever embraced by anyone on the right.
Even black billionaires are “victims” who are “marginalized” through the vast conspiracy perpetrated by their “white oppressors.” The left ultimately uses these arguments as justification for ditching merit-based market economies in exchange for race-based transfers of wealth and other centrally planned economic hierarchies. In the new economic system, fashionable in-groups are rewarded through punitive taxes levied on unfashionable out-groups.
Replacing Whites Through Immigration
The intent behind the left’s policies on illegal and legal immigration is to dilute the power of undesirable voters who are most likely to elect Republicans, especially white men and married white women. This is so obvious it’s stunning that anyone could question it. For decades, the left has openly bragged about using demographic change as an electoral strategy. For some strange reason, however, the Southern Poverty Law Center thinks you’re racist if you’ve noticed their explicitly stated goal.
White Racism in Health Care
Virtually all differences in health outcomes are now blamed on white racism. The CDC echoes this sentiment on its website with long-winded and incoherent diatribes about “racism and health.” Cringeworthy banalities such as “health equity” represent the left’s latest rehashing of tired buzz phrases as they blame everyone’s health issues on white Americans and “structural racism.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is on board with this initiative, as you might imagine.
Gender Ideology and Oppressive Whites
Do a search for any variation of “transphobia and white supremacy.” You’ll lose a few IQ points by reading the articles, but the results speak for themselves. The male-female binary is being attributed not to one of the most basic facts of human biology but to “oppressive structures created by whites.”
Transwomen become angry and wish D_eath on Transphobic people. They need to up the dose of hormones on this one. 😱 🔉 pic.twitter.com/Uos14nLgHc
These sophomoric theories masquerading as insights might be amusing if only the attitudes weren’t incredibly dangerous. The left now uses “white supremacy,” a term once used to describe the ideology of small neo-Nazi groups, to describe what it sees as a vast network of oppressive systems in which all white people are complicit.
Laying the world’s problems at the feet of one group of people is how genocidal urges originate. For anyone suggesting that this is hyperbole, consider that climate change is described as an existential threat to the very existence of human beings. We are told that our physical and mental health are subject to the racist structures built by whites. In other words, according to the left, your survival, and the very survival of humanity itself, is largely dependent on “correcting whiteness.” There could be no characterization of a race more damning than this.
Historically Unparalleled Racism
The scope of this anti-white sentiment surpasses that of previous theories that gave rise to wholesale discrimination and violence throughout history. After all, has any race of people ever been blamed for making Earth uninhabitable? Has any race of people ever been blamed for everything from heat waves to heart attacks?
There’s another strange characteristic that sets this movement apart. Whites are participating in their own indictment in proportions previously unseen. In fact, whites themselves are largely responsible for creating these attitudes — both because self-loathing personalities are prevalent on the left and because white Democrats believe this strategy will secure the nonwhite vote in perpetuity. Suffice it to say that they haven’t given much thought to the long-term consequences.
Escalating Toward Violence
The left claims all of this is a “racist conspiracy theory.” They’ll continue to blame white Americans for every problem under the sun, then cry foul when you notice. If this environment is not a catalyst for future violence, then please tell me what is. There are no problems left to blame on whites — the left cannot escalate the accusations. Future escalations can come only by way of penalties for these imaginary misdeeds, and we know how that story goes.
Rank-and-file voters of the Democratic Party will determine whether this anti-white sentiment continues to thrive. If they continue to reward politicians for this repulsive and incendiary behavior, widespread violence is inevitable. It’s just a matter of time.
B.L Hahn is a freelance writer covering topics including culture, politics and economics.
The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) is helping tech developers build artificial intelligence programs that suppress digital speech by starving online companies of ad revenue and isolating them from the financial system.
As part of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program’s second phase, the Massachusetts-based Automated Controversy Detection, Inc. (AuCoDe) received just over $940,000 for a project titled “A Controversy Detection Signal for Finance.” The company received $225,000 during the first phase of the program for the same project, for a total just under $1.2 million. AuCoDe received this money over a span of four years, from 2018 to 2022.
According to LinkedIn, AuCoDe is an “NSF backed company that aims to make online communication more productive and less dangerous.” Its now-defunct website states that AuCoDe “use[d] state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to stop the spread of misinformation online.”
Let’s all say it together. “Who is responsible to determining what is, and is not, misinformation, or disinformation?” The wrong answer is Socialism.
The company developed artificial intelligence programs to identify “opposing sentiment,” “misinformation and disinformation,” “fairness and bias issues,” and “bot activity and its correlation with disinformation campaigns.” It used similar methods to “gain insight into sentiment and beliefs.”
Along these lines, the NSF-funded project’s goal was to develop technology that can “automatically detect controversy and disinformation, providing a means for financial institutions to reduce risk exposure” amid the increase of “public attention and political concern” being paid to disinformation.
Second phase SBIR grant money funded the “development of novel algorithms that automatically detect controversy in social media, news, and other outlets.” AuCoDe’s used this money to attempt the creation of “artificial intelligence and machine learning” programs that combat “the growing noise of controversy, mis- and dis-information, and toxic speech.”
According to the grant’s project outcomes report, AuCoDe developed several such “technologies.” The company created the “Squint,” controversy detection dashboard, and “Squabble, a proprietary controversy detection model.”
Squint and Squabble, “enable users to learn the controversy and toxicity levels of social media content, together with the stance score of an individual or company.” AuCoDe also created a free Chrome extension called “DETOXIFY” that enables users to blacklist and blur topics from their social media feeds.
Squint and Squabble are unavailable for public use.
AuCoDe also used this grant money to launch a YouTube channel where company members discuss “current controversies.” The channel boasts three total subscribers, and the most recent of its nine videos was uploaded eight months ago.
A paper, co-authored by AuCoDe staff members Shiri Dori-Hacohen, Keen Sung, Jengyu Chou, and Julian Lustig-Gonzalez, produced as a result of this grant detailed how “detecting information disorders and deploying novel, real-world content moderation tools is crucial in promoting empathy in social networks” like Parler and Reddit.
A supplemental video provided by the authors discussed the “cost of disinformation” both before and after Covid — partially AI-generated results “conservatively” estimated to be upward of $230 billion — and relied upon a report from the Global Disinformation Index to substantiate that brands like Amazon, Petco, and UPS “inadvertently funded disinformation stories leading up to the 2020 election.”
Below is a teacher (yes, a schoolteacher, teaching children as we speak). It is safe to assume that a person this him would be used to determine what is, and is not, misinformation, disinformation, et., al.
Ontario parents, this man says you’re a snowflake if you don’t want him teaching Marxism, queer theory, intersectionality, anti-racism, etc.
He says it’s all curriculum-related and he can teach whatever he wants.
The Global Disinformation Index, of course, is a formerly State Department-backed British organization that provided advertising companies with blacklists to starve companies accused that were accused spreading disinformation of revenue. AuCoDe’s research was aimed at helping the federal government further this goal through the algorithmic curation of digital speech.
In January 2021, using research gathered from these grants, the company published a piece titled “Misinformation drives calls for action on Parler: preliminary insights into 672k comments from 291k Parler users.” The company said it was “investigating the nature of accounts on alt-tech networks, with an eye toward who is spreading misinformation” and suggested that the platform’s very nature enabled users to circulate and engage with “mis- and dis-information.”
“In conclusion, our first look at our collection of Parler data finds a plethora of misinformation driving a desire for action,” the company wrote. “We also discovered that in addition to highly permissive content moderation, there is a lack of moderation around bots, leaving enormous potential for disinformation campaigns to be carried out on these networks — something we will be keenly exploring in the coming weeks.”
The reality is that AuCoDe interfered with Americans’ right to free speech because it didn’t align with the left-wing consensus and used federal tax dollars to run cover for Big Tech oligarchs. If the company was actually dogmatically concerned with “misinformation,” it would have gone after Facebook, which played a much larger role in hosting Jan. 6 discourse.
A source close to the company told The Federalist that AuCoDe closed in May 2023. More than $1 million in taxpayer money went to a government-backed start-up specifically focused on attacking the First Amendment rights of Americans and sabotaging businesses that deviate from left-wing orthodoxy.
Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.
Politics absolutely, positively had no bearing on the Hunter Biden investigation, Delaware U.S. Attorney-turned-Special Counsel David Weiss assured the House Judiciary Committee last week. Yet Weiss also acknowledged it would be a “problem” if someone had warned Joe Biden’s transition team of FBI agents’ impending plan to interview the president-elect’s son, as whistleblowers say occurred. Weiss just didn’t bother to ask anyone about the leak or any other concerns of political favoritism, showing the federal prosecutor has opted for willful blindness over oversight of the Hunter Biden criminal probe — even after his appointment as special counsel.
On Tuesday, Weiss sat for an interview before the House Judiciary Committee. A transcript of Weiss’s testimony, which The Federalist has reviewed, shows the special counsel faced several questions about claims that political favoritism infected the Hunter Biden investigation.
But even before the questioning began, in a brief opening statement, Weiss declared that “political considerations played no part in our decision making.” Rather, the Delaware U.S. attorney, doing double duty as special counsel, assured the committee that “throughout this investigation, career prosecutors on my team and I have made decisions based on the facts and the law.”
Weiss repeated that mantra several times during questioning about specific steps his team took — or didn’t take — in the Hunter Biden investigation. “Again, I’m not going to comment on any aspect of the investigation or a prosecution, and from my perspective, the prosecutors who participated in this case followed the law and the facts. That was the motivation.”
Of course, that was Weiss’s “perspective” because, even after the IRS whistleblowers provided concrete examples of the politicization of the Hunter Biden investigation, the U.S. attorney buried his head in the sand rather than inquire about the veracity of the claims. The totality of Weiss’s testimony confirms this reality, but it is best exemplified in an exchange about the warning given to President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team that agents intended to interview Hunter Biden.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley had previously testified that the day before their Dec. 8, 2020 “day of action,” when agents planned to interview a host of relevant witnesses, he learned someone had tipped off Joe Biden’s transition team of the plans to interview Hunter Biden and another 10-plus witnesses. “This essentially tipped off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses,” Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee.
The House Judiciary Committee asked Weiss if he knew “who made the decision to tip off the presidential transition team about the day of action, and that the investigators wanted to try to speak with Hunter Biden.” Weiss initially responded that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to comment on the matter but that he would address the question in his special counsel report.
A Concerning Connection
However, additional questioning soon reviewed a concerning connection between the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office and the Biden transition team, in the person of Alexander Mackler, whom Weiss acknowledged had been one of his assistant U.S. attorneys from 2016 through about mid-2019. According to the committee’s questioning, Mackler had at one point served as Joe Biden’s press secretary, had been Beau Biden’s campaign manager during his reelection campaign, and from 2014-2016 served as deputy counsel to then-Vice President Biden. While Weiss testified, he knew Mackler had worked for Biden, he said he didn’t know many of those specifics. However, Weiss acknowledged learning that Mackler had been named to Biden’s transition team, although he said he couldn’t remember when or how he had learned of that fact.
The House Judiciary Committee then pushed Weiss on whether he or anyone else from his office had any communications with Mackler while he was working with the transition team. While Weiss stated he was “very confident” he “had no conversations” with Mackler about the latter’s work on the transition team or about the Hunter Biden case, Weiss said he had “no idea whether anyone else has spoken to Alex Mackler period or about the case.”
Weiss further testified that he was actually unaware of whether the transition team had been tipped off, as IRS whistleblowers claimed. But if so, Weiss confirmed it would be “a concern” and “a problem” and that “it shouldn’t happen.” Yet when pushed on what he would do to address the problem if he “found out that something like that did occur,” Weiss refused to answer the question, saying it was “a hypothetical” that he would not “speculate on” other than saying that “as a general matter, it’s problematic.”
Willful Blindness
On first blush, Weiss’s non-answers about the tip-off to the transition team seem like inconsequential, unhelpful responses that merely lead to a dead end. But Weiss’s acknowledged ignorance is explosive news: The man that Attorney General Merrick Garland named as special counsel to supposedly ensure independence in the investigation and prosecution of the president’s son failed to inquire of his team about whether someone had leaked to the transition team details about the impending questioning of Hunter Biden. In fact, according to Weiss, he didn’t even bother to confirm the tip-off had occurred — much less seek to determine who bore responsibility for the leak — even though he knew that a former Delaware assistant U.S. attorney served on the Biden transition team.
Weiss’s failure in this regard was not an aberration. Rather, throughout his House Judiciary Committee testimony last week, Weiss confirmed he has ignored the whistleblowers’ claims of politicization. For instance, when asked whether “any of the attorneys on your team, whether it’s a Special Counsel team or before the Special Counsel team was stood up, have any ties which you would consider close to the Biden family,” Weiss said he doesn’t “delve into those kinds of things,” but that he is “unaware of any such thing.”
Weiss’s failure to inquire about his staff’s relationship with the Biden family may have made sense initially but given the two whistleblowers’ detailed allegations of political favoritism, not asking some basic questions to ensure an unbiased staff is inexcusable.
Weiss’s failures extend much further, however, with his Tuesday testimony confirming he has not reviewed his staff’s handling of the investigation in light of the whistleblowers’ testimony that there were “politically-motivated decisions made in the Hunter Biden case.” Specifically, while Weiss acknowledged the whistleblowers’ claims, his responses to questions show he disregarded the claims without any inquiry. For instance, when asked, “If an investigator or prosecutor makes what is believed to be a politically-motivated statement or decision, how is that reviewed in your office?” Weiss responded that he was “not aware of such a situation.”
The House committee pushed the special counsel more on this point, asking: “For example, on the Hunter Biden case, if one of your assistant United States attorneys was exhibiting favoritism towards the Biden family or towards Hunter Biden, and that was brought to your attention, what would be the process to sort that out?”
“My office has no process or protocol for dealing with something like that. It’s not something we have engaged in, participated in, or that I have experienced,” Weiss countered. Weiss held firm under additional questioning, stating he was “not aware of any such reviews.”
“I’ve told you. I have no such process. We haven’t experienced it in our office,” Weiss insisted.
Head in the Sand
This testimony establishes that Weiss has done nothing to review his team’s handling of the Hunter Biden investigation for possible political bias, notwithstanding the whistleblowers’ detailed claims of such favoritism. No wonder then that Weiss can say he has confidence in his prosecutors and believes they acted “in a professional and unbiased manner without partisan or political considerations.”
Ironically, if this were a criminal case in which federal prosecutors needed to establish the defendant’s knowledge of some sort of “shady dealings,” the U.S. attorney’s office would seek what is collegially called the “ostrich instruction.” The “ostrich instruction” informs the jury that a deliberate effort “to avoid guilty knowledge is all the guilty knowledge the law requires,” and that a defendant who knows or strongly suspects “he is involved in shady dealings” cannot avoid criminal liability by making sure “he does not acquire full or exact knowledge of the nature and extent of those dealings.”
While there is no suggestion that Weiss is a co-conspirator in some criminal enterprise, he is similarly burying his head in the sand when it comes to the politicization of the Biden investigation exposed by the IRS whistleblowers and congressional oversight committees. Thus, his assurances that “political considerations played no part in our decision making” are meaningless.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
California Democrats hastily cleaned up San Francisco last week ahead of the upcoming state visit between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Friday, The New York Times described the scene in the city as one of “teenagers frantically cleaning up after a house party with their parents on the way home.”
“On Market Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, maintenance workers resurfaced uneven sidewalks and installed plywood over empty tree wells,” the Times reported. “Nearby, a crew gave a long-derelict plaza a makeover by turning it into a skateboard park and outdoor cafe with pingpong tables, chess boards and scores of potted plants. Elsewhere, workers painted decorative crosswalks and new murals, wiped away graffiti, picked up piles of trash and removed scaffolding to show off a refurbished clock tower at the Ferry Building.”
Why the sudden clean up after years of decay? Xi will be arriving Wednesday. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, which began Saturday, will draw 21 world leaders from Pacific nations along with 30,000 people to the Golden City. Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted last week the quick cleanup effort was provoked by “fancy leaders” who are “coming to town.”
“That’s true,” Newsom said.
Gavin Newsom just admitted that they only cleaned up the streets of San Fran because "fancy leaders" were coming to town.
The reality: They were always capable of this but they don’t care about your safety. They care about the safety of the elite. You’re expendable to them. pic.twitter.com/BPedyEjn3q
As government officials work to power wash transit stations and clear homeless encampments in major areas, residents openly wondered what took leaders so long to clean up one of California’s largest cities.
“What about the people who are here year-round?” Marc Savino asked a local Fox affiliate.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed pledged cleanup efforts will continue even after the conference closes.
“We will continue to do everything we can to maintain cleanliness in our streets,” Breed said at a press conference.
There is not enough discussion about this.
They managed to clean up San Francisco using existing budgets in just a matter of days to prepare for Xi’s visit. No one can explain why they couldn’t have done this a long time ago.
For years, deteriorating health and safety conditions in California’s fourth-largest city have made San Francisco an emblem of American decline. Rampant crime and homelessness have left residents exposed to safety hazards while the jewel city of the West Coast remains prohibitively expensive to live in. Instead of implementing aggressive efforts to clean up, as residents saw last week ahead of visits from foreign leaders, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors prioritized leftist activism. In March, San Francisco leadership moved forward with a plan to hand out slavery reparations for $5 million per person to people who never were slaves, paid for by residents who never owned slaves.
In August, The Wall Street Journal published a feature on San Francisco’s downward spiral, openly wondering in the headline, “Can San Francisco Save Itself From the Doom Loop?”
“Downtown San Francisco now trails nearly every other major urban center in economic health,” the paper reported. “Retailers like Nordstrom and Banana Republic have announced in the past few months that they are closing their downtown San Francisco stores. The owner of the city’s biggest mall, located downtown, is handing it back to the lender rather than continue to make debt payments.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued a new “Code of Conduct” following months of heightened scrutiny from Senate Judiciary Democrats pushing for new ethics laws for the high court.
“The undersigned Justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court,” the announcement Monday read.
“For the most part these rules and principles are not new: The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules, that is, a body of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, ethics advisory opinions issued by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, and historic practice,” the statement reads.
“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct,” it says.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued a new “Code of Conduct” following months of heightened scrutiny from Senate Judiciary Democrats. (Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
The Code is a set of five “canons,” including two new canons that appear to be in response to reports over travel arrangements for private trips taken by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas paid by others, and use of Court staff for book promotion — referring to a recent report on that staff of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staff urged colleges and libraries to buy her latest book.
“A Justice should not to any substantial degree use judicial chambers, resources, or staff to engage in activities that do not materially support official functions or other activities permitted under these Canons,” the code states.
The Surpeme Court on Monday adopted a new Code of Ethics amid pressure from Senate Democrats (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
“A Justice may accept reasonable compensation and reimbursement of expenses for permitted activities if the source of the payments does not give the appearance of influencing the Justice’s official duties or otherwise appear improper,” the rules say.
To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct,” the statement from the justices’ said. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“Expense reimbursement should be limited to the actual or reasonably estimated costs of travel, food, and lodging reasonably incurred by the Justice and, where appropriate to the occasion, by the Justice’s spouse or relative,” the new code says.
The Code also states that, “For some time, all Justices have agreed to comply with the statute governing financial disclosure, and the undersigned Members of the Court each individually reaffirm that commitment.”
Fox News has learned that the Court has been meeting privately for months on how to structure a new ethics code, one that would address public concerns over ethics without abdicating what the Chief Justice in particular had said was the court’s independence on such matters from congressional oversight.
Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in recent weeks had all publicly voiced support for a new ethics code. Chief Justice Roberts in May issued a statement signed by all nine members of the court saying there was more work for the court to do to “adhere to the highest ethical standards.”
Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group photo following the recent addition of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, at the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill on Friday, Oct 07, 2022 in Washington, DC. Bottom row, from left, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee had mounted relentless pressure on the high court after reports that Justices Thomas and Alito went on luxury vacations paid for by friends. Ranking Member Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. accused his Democratic counterparts of launching “a concentrated effort” to delegitimize the conservative majority Supreme Court.
“This is not about trying to update the ability of the court to be more transparent, it’s about an effort to destroy the legitimacy of this conservative court,” Graham said in May.
Republican Senator John Kennedy, R-La., called the Democrat-sponsored legislation – the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act – a “court-killing machine” that was both “dangerous” and “unserious.”
It’s unclear whether Committee Democrats will continue to push for their reforms in light of the Supreme Court’s announcement Monday.
Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
The attempts to blame former President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 protest is a function of “corrupt DOJ talking points” and “neuro linguistic programming” for “critical factor bypass” by anti-Trump “mockingbird media,” the infamous Jan. 6 “Shaman” Jacob Chansley told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Monday.
“No, I do not” blame Trump, Chansley told “National Report.” “And I think that any attempt to try to paint anything that happened on that day onto the president or try to paint him with that broad brush is just mockingbird media and corrupt DOJ talking points, because the fact of the matter is the man said peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Chansley was giving his first national TV interview since his imprisonment for having taken part in the Capitol protest that had him convicted for the obstruction of an official congressional proceeding. He spent the time researching, studying, and even teaching inmates as he prepares for a 2024 libertarian campaign in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.
“What we’re talking about here is optics, and based on the mockingbird media and neuro linguistic programming, based on critical factor bypass, and all that kind of psychological warfare, basically, you can paint anybody to be anything,” Chansley said.
“So you could choose to look at me as a felon. I’ve heard people call me a traitor that’s a threat to democracy. Or you could choose to look at me as I am a person that was maligned and skewered by a corrupt system — as so many hundreds of thousands of people have been in the United States, as so many Jan. 6ers have been in the United States, and as Donald Trump has been in the United States of America.”
Chansley turned his attention back to the question on Trump, convinced Trump bears no responsibility for the Jan. 6 protest.
“I don’t see the former president as responsible at all,” Chansley said. “Nobody can make me do anything, and that’s why I should go to D.C., because I’m not going to be beholden to the NGOs [non-governmental organizations]. I’m not going to be beholden to lobbyists. I’m not going to be beholden to the deep-state puppet strings.
“I will represent the American people the way they deserve to be represented.”
Chansley says he won’t accept campaign donations, because it would be hypocritical to be against the establishment in politics and then participate in it.
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Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Monday that the recently opened investigation into alleged terrorist group contributions by American Muslims for Palestine, while also donating to Democrats, including members of the “Squad,” show just how “embedded” the left is with antisemitic organizations.
“I think what it really shows is how embedded on the left anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations have become,” Steil said on “Newsline.” “I’m incredibly concerned about the funding structure that Hamas has. This administration has not done enough to limit the funds that are going, in particular, from Iran into Hamas.
“We have legislation that we’re going to be working on to move forward this week, in particular, as it relates to that, but broadly speaking, I think it really shows how the radicalized left his really driven forward an agenda that’s anti-Israel. It’s not surprising to me that those individuals are funding Democratic members of Congress.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares’ office announced Oct. 31 that it was investigating the AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., which is also known as American Muslims for Palestine, for possibly violating Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws by asking for contributions without being registered with the state and using those contributions “for impermissible purpose” like funding terrorists.
The organization put out a statement denying the allegations and accused Miyares of “smearing” them and inciting hate.
“Instead of working to protect the people of Virginia from the wave of Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian hate sweeping across our nation, Jason Miyares is contributing to the hate with tired Islamophobic tropes and promises of a witch hunt straight from the McCarthy-era,” the organization’s statement read. “American Muslims for Palestine is a duly registered non-profit organization that has stood up for justice here and abroad for over a decade in compliance with the law.”
Newsmax reported that the organization donated money to all four Democratic Squad members: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., but Steil said he is more concerned about President Joe Biden’s administration not clamping down on overall terrorist funding.
“This administration needs to do far more than they currently are to limit the access to funds to Hamas and other terrorist organizations across the globe,” Steil said. “The fact that this administration allowed millions and billions of dollars to be transferred from South Korea to a bank account in Qatar shows you the lack of concern this administration has as it relates to funding for terrorists.”
Minnesota Teachers Alliance candidates are getting big wins over Teachers Union candidates because MTA is focused on children’s education over teachers’ benefits. Minnesota Parents Alliance touts wins in key school board races.
Despite going up against one of the most powerful political organizations in the state, Minnesota Parents Alliance-backed school board candidates still claimed key victories in Tuesday night’s elections.
Minnesota Parents Alliance (MPA) caught Education Minnesota off guard last election cycle, according to Cristine Trooien, executive director of MPA. MPA-backed candidates won 49 school board seats statewide in 2022.
“They were ready for us this time, and we still won seats in key districts,” she said.
Systemic Racism is something you hear thrown around a lot lately, used mainly to bully society into subverting the Constitution and attacking meritocracy without little evidence that it actually exists.
A Black president elected twice, countless Black police officers and state and local Black officials hired across America beg to differ with that hypothesis.
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.
Last week in Denver, several hundred people gathered in person for the Genspect conference, “The Bigger Picture,” while many more from all over the world joined online. Genspect’s founder, Stella O’Malley, has the intentional strategy of hosting their annual conference at the same time and in the same location as the annual World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) meeting.
Last year they gathered in Killarney, Ireland, when WPATH met there, and next year they will host their gathering in Lisbon, Portugal, piggybacking off of the WPATH dates and location. It’s an interesting strategy offering WPATH attendees to come to Genspect’s sessions for free whereby they can engage with a different perspective, as well as putting WPATH on notice that there is a growing movement of those who want to offer a “healthy approach to sex and gender.”
I was unable to attend their gathering last year in Ireland, but when O’Malley invited me to speak at the Denver conference, I was happy to accept. The speaker’s list was a who’s who of those fighting gender ideology, some for many years.
On the Front Lines of the Gender Wars
Michael Shellenberger opened the conference with a bold claim that time is up for WPATH and that soon he would release his “WPATH files” on his Substack, where he will show the receipts he has on the pseudoscientific standards of care and practices of WPATH. Amid robust applauses, attendees were encouraged to post on X using #TimesUpWPATH. A lifelong member of the Democrat Party, he lamented how far the left has fallen from the principles that drew him to that party.
Highlights for me were hearing from the brilliant Leor Sapir on “Institutional Capture (How gender ideology has been embedded within America).” Sapir chronicled Obama’s 2010 anti-bullying initiative, which was at first sex-based directed, and then expanded in 2011 to include gender language in the antibullying initiative.
Following this was the 2015 letter from James Ferg Cadima in the Office of Civil Rights, stating, “The Department’s Title IX regulations permit schools to provide sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, housing, athletic teams, and single-sex classes under certain circumstances. When a school elects to separate or treat students differently on the basis of sex in those situations, a school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.”
Wonder how America got to this place? Perhaps a well-intentioned initiative to combat bullying quickly led us down the path where boys can have access to spaces that were once protected for girls.
Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright and scientist Heather Heying did an excellent job, patiently and thoroughly stating the obvious, that there remain only two sexes no matter what others assert. They marveled at the fact that even once-trusted scientific journals are now claiming that “The idea of two sexes is overly simplistic.”
Two mothers, January Littlejohn and Erin Friday, gave impassioned speeches about their daughters who believed the lie that they were born in the wrong body. Littlejohn spoke about her daughter’s middle school working behind their back to encourage this idea and talked about her decision to bring forth a lawsuit, restoring rights and protections to parents over their own children.
Friday, an attorney by training who works with Our Duty, had many in tears using Hans Christian Anderson’s story of “The Snow Queen” to parallel her own efforts to save her daughter from the evils of gender ideology. She is a force in the state of California, fighting laws passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom while trying to raise funds to get initiatives on the ballot to put before voters which will protect children and parental rights. She appealed to the audience that if the transing of children can be stopped in California this will have an enormous positive effect across the whole country.
Stories of Destransitioning and Whistleblowers
Any conference like the one hosted by Genspect naturally needs to include the voices of those most harmed by “gender affirmation therapy,” those who transitioned and have now detransitioned once they realized their decision to transition didn’t fix any of their mental health issues, and as is often the case, made things worse. Chloe Cole and Prisha Mosley both spoke about their deeply personal experiences. Many other detransitioners attended the conference as well. It was wonderful to see how their tragic stories have brought them together in the spirit of camaraderie.
And who doesn’t love a good whistleblower story like Jamie Reed? Reed blew up the internet back in February with her expose, “I thought I was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle.”
Since 2018, Reed served as a case manager at Washington University, in their Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, until she came to the realization that she could no longer condone the treatment children were receiving. Her remarks at Genspect were a rallying cry for the political left to wake up and stop harming children. As a lifelong leftist, she implored the audience not to give up on the left, but to help them return to principles.
The title of my own talk — “Transgender Assisted Reproduction: where is this going?” — was a convergence on my years of work in assisted reproductive technology and how this technology will most likely be needed by trans-identifying people, especially children who are fast-tracked to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
When I first found out that children were being offered fertility preservation procedures, knowing
that “gender affirmation care” harms natural and normal fertility, I began speaking up and producing documentary films about the lack of medical ethics and evidence-based medicine supporting these practices. Pre-puberty, children are offered to cryopreserve their ovarian or testicular tissue because their gametes, (ova and sperm) are not yet mature. Post-puberty, the child will have mature ova and sperm, so they are offered to freeze and bank their gametes.
The data is clear. Most assisted reproductive technology cycles fail. Data is coming out about the harms and risks to children being created by these technologies. The maxim, “First, Do No Harm” is being ignored in offering hope of future children, when in fact this is considered an experimental procedure with no data on this population. From the audience’s reactions and comments, it was clear that this is a whole new level of doubling down on harming children to advance an ideology that ignores biological reality, evidence-based medicine, and medical ethics.
Times up, WPATH.
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is a filmmaker and founder of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. She is on X @JenniferLahl
Harvard Law professor emeritus and author Alan Dershowitz harshly criticizes former President Barack Obama and college students for their anti-Israel comments and sentiments. Expressing outrage over former President Barack Obama’s call for an end to Israeli “occupation,” Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz expanded on why he’s never talking to the Democratic president again.
“I think he always had a deep hatred of Israel in his heart. He hid it very well. He called me to the Oval Office and he said to me, ‘Alan, you’ve known me for a long time. You know I have Israel’s back.’ I didn’t realize he meant to paint a target on it,” Dershowitz said Friday on “Mornings with Maria.”
“He’s never been supportive of Israel. And finally, his true feelings have come out now that he’s no longer president and doesn’t have to be elected,” the professor continued. “He has contributed enormously to the problem because he is respected among young people. And if he says the occupation is unbearable and that anything can be done to stop it, he is encouraging people to engage in their antisemitic, anti-Israel and anti-American attitudes. He should be ashamed of himself. He should apologize, but he won’t.”
Dershowitz’s commentary comes after he claimed Thursday that any relationship with Obama is “over” following the 44th president’s onstage statements about the Israel-Hamas war.
Obama spoke at the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum last Thursday, where he called for a two-state solution and an end to the “occupation,” while not clarifying what occupation he meant.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, left, called for former President Barack Obama to apologize for his Israeli occupation comments on “Mornings with Maria.” (Fox News)
“All of this is taking place against the backdrop of decades of failure to achieve a durable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians,” the former president told the forum audience.
He continued: “One that is based on genuine security for Israel, a recognition of its right to exist, and a peace that is based on an end of the occupation and the creation of a viable state and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and political activist Cornel West join ‘Hannity’ to sound off on major disagreements.
The Harvard professor on Friday accused Obama of lying “through his teeth” about what the former president called an “unbearable” occupation of Gaza.
“To compare those disputed claims with the rapes, beheadings, burnings, kidnappings, it’s just obscene and despicable,” Dershowitz said. “And what it does is it lends support to those students basically, who are saying, ‘Well, what Hamas really did was not so bad… It was in response to the occupation.’”
“Although he said that the attacks by Hamas are not justifiable,” Dershowitz added, “he made them justifiable because if life really is unbearable, as it’s not, then you can do anything you want.”
Harvard University graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum calls for a ‘moral reckoning’ across college campuses and the U.S.
Obama is further “pouring gas on the fire” of a serious matter, the Harvard professor argued, which could fuel more antisemitic sentiment nationwide.
“What he did was contribute to the risks to not only Israelis, but Americans, because it’s coming to a theater near you,” Dershowitz told host Maria Bartiromo. “If Hamas is not stopped in its tracks from doing the terrorist acts, they will bring them to the United States.”
The Obama Foundation did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The No. 3 House Republican leader is wading into the dramatic New York civil trial of former President Donald Trump, accusing the judge involved of exhibiting “bias” and “bizarre behavior” in the courtroom. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., filed an ethics complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday morning in a letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
“I write today to express my serious concerns about the inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance shown by Judge Arthur F. Engoron in New York’s lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Stefanik said in her letter.
“This judge’s bizarre behavior has no place in our judicial system, where Judge Engoron is not honoring the defendant’s rights to due process and a fair trial,” the letter continued.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is going after New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron via an ethics complaint.
“These serious concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the defendant is the leading candidate for President of the United States, and it appears the judicial system is being politicized to affect the outcome of the campaign,” Stefanik wrote.
This historic trial over whether the Trump Organization and its top officials knowingly misrepresented the value of multiple real estate holdings over the years has seen Trump and his three adult children all testify in a downtown New York City courtroom this month.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James brought the civil case, which is now in non-jury trial in Engoron’s court. Trump allies have accused Engoron of acting with bias from the beginning of the trial, when cameras caught him smiling when they were allowed into the courtroom in those initial moments.
New York Attorney General Letitia James brought a civil case against the Trump Organization. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Stefanik cited that and other reported incidents in her Friday letter, as well as a limited gag order Engoron imposed on Trump and his lawyers, citing a deluge of threats to himself and his staff since the trial started.
“Judge Engoron has gone on to gag and fine President Trump for merely criticizing Judge Engoron’s law clerk, which is core political speech protected by the First Amendment,” Stefanik said. “If anyone in America must have the constitutional right to speak out against the judge, his staff, the witnesses, or the process, it’s a defendant going through a process he believes is politicized and weaponized against him.”
She also lashed out at him for valuing Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida “between $18 and 27.6 million,” a number Stefanik and the ex-president’s allies have called implausibly low.
Former President Donald Trump was in court in downtown Manhattan earlier this month.
“This is yet another example why Judge Engoron demonstrated bad judgment by keeping this case, instead of sending it to the expert judges in the Commercial Division where it belongs,” she said. “Judge Engoron’s bizarre and biased behavior is making New York’s judicial system a laughingstock.”
Trump himself has attacked Engoron on his social media app Truth Social, most recently accusing him of colluding with James against him.
When asked for comment on Stefanik’s letter, Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian said: “All matters before the Commission on Judicial Conduct are confidential according to law, unless and until a judge is found to have committed ethical misconduct, and a decision to that effect is issued.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to the New York State Unified Court System for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Elizabeth Elkind is a reporter for Fox News Digital focused on Congress as well as the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and politics. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
The third Republican presidential primary debate, hosted by NBC News, witnessed a dramatic viewership decline with just over 6 million viewers tuning in, marking the lowest audience turnout of the current campaign season and a 45% drop in viewers from the first debate. The drop in Wednesday’s debate was blamed on RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, with GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy criticizing her handling of the forums and calling for her to resign.
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“We’ve got [NBC’s] Kristen Welker here,” Ramaswamy said during the debate.
“Do you think the Democrats would actually hire [Fox News host] Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? They wouldn’t do it.”
McDaniel organized the presidential debates and reportedly offended former President Donald Trump by giving Fox News control over the first two forums. She has awarded the primary debate hosting position for the third and fourth debates to liberal media outlets, including NBC. Ramaswamy made waves challenging McDaniels during the debate.
“For that matter, Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over [and] yield my time to you,” he said.
“Think about who’s moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about.”
NBC’s debate attracted 6.8 million viewers on linear television, with 1.3 million falling within the 25-54 age demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research. Wednesday night’s audience figure was lower than the 9 million viewers who tuned in for the second GOP presidential primary debate in September, which was broadcast on Fox Business and Fox News.
The third GOP debate was also significantly lower than the nearly 12.8 million who watched the inaugural debate on Fox News back in August — as that event saw a 50% decline in ratings from the first debate of the 2016 campaign.
With then-candidate Trump attending, the Fox News 2015 prime-time GOP debate drew a record 24 million viewers.
Ramaswamy urged McDaniel to step down during this week’s GOP debate, blaming her for recent party losses.
“Let’s speak the truth,” Ramaswamy said. “Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost in 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”
Ramaswamy’s call for McDaniel’s resignation drew strong grassroots support.
“What, exactly, does Ronna McDaniel do besides lose? The only thing she SHOULD do is RESIGN. Effective immediately,” media contributor Monica Crowley wrote on social media platform X on Tuesday.
“If Matt Gaetz can vacate Kevin McCarthy, I think it’s time for President Trump to vacate Ronna McDaniel,” social media maven Rogan O’Handley wrote on his DC_Draino X account Wednesday. “Only he has the power to do it at this point.”
The fourth GOP primary debate is scheduled for Dec. 6 in Alabama, shifting from mainstream media to liberal cable.
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
The world is asking for a cease-fire. We had a cease-fire until the Palestinians slaughtered 1400 innocent Israeli citizens in a barbaric, unprovoked sneak attack.
All people, including Israel, have the right to defend themselves despite what the woke communist brainwashed left in America. How anyone can think this bloodbath of innocent men, women, and children is justified is mind-blowing to any reasonable human being.
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.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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