The day his son Hunter avoided punishment for breaking a slew of firearm laws, Joe Biden gave another speech on gun control. Well, not exactly another one. The president delivered the same ludicrous speech he’s been giving for at least a decade. And it contained one of my favorite arguments:
And so, we have to change — there’s a lot of things we can change, because the American people by and large agree you don’t need a weapon of war. I’m a Second Amendment guy. I taught it for four years, six years in law school. And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own. Even during when it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon. You can’t own a machine gun. (Laughter.) No, I’m serious.
So, what’s the deal with the idea that it’s an absolute — you know, I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is — you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15. Anyway.
Virtually every word of this garbled nonsense is untrue.
The quote Biden keeps mangling originated with Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Stephens Smith, the son-in-law of John Adams: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (Biden leaves off that last part.) Jefferson’s support of sporadic revolutionary bloodletting (not his own) wasn’t shared by most of the founding generation, whose initial sympathy for the French Revolution quickly diminished with the news of violent mobs and mass executions.
Anyway, I feel relatively well-informed on the gun debate, and I have literally never heard anyone say, “The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots.” I’m not saying that a cosplay militant hasn’t uttered those words at some point. And I’m not saying Biden didn’t read about it in 1975 or 1992 or 2002. What I’m saying is that it’s a strawman and smear meant to insinuate that most gun owners are looking for violence.
Moreover, contending, as the president does, that your weapon is basically useless because the state can simply scramble F-16s and murder you and everyone you love doesn’t really convey the message he thinks it does. What it tells me is that Biden might be a sociopath and we all need tanks. The president could just as easily have said: “The First Amendment? Let’s see how your television station holds up when the government pulls the plug on the electrical grid!” or “You think the Fifth Amendment is going to save you when we torture you into a confession?” We all know the state is capable of abusing power. That’s the point.
None of this is even to mention that modern armies struggle to contain insurgencies equipped with little more than small arms. There have been countless such fights, including against Americans in places like Afghanistan. I guess we should be happy Biden didn’t threaten to nuke Kansas.
Also, AR-15s are not, and have never been, “weapons of war.” He keeps saying it. It’s not true.
ArmaLite, and its parent company Colt, began selling civilian versions of the semi-automatic AR in the early 1960s — before the more powerful M16 version was officially adopted for use by the U.S. Army. The AR-15 has been in “common use” by law-abiding civilians for a long time. Then again, muskets, rifles, revolvers, and semi-automatic handguns were once used as, or developed into, “weapons of war.” Guns are designed to kill, otherwise they would be worthless. John Browning designed his famous 1911 handgun before World War I, and it was subsequently used by the U.S. military until 1986. But you can buy as many 1911s as you like.
That said, the founders wanted the citizenry to own “weapons of war,” because they believed an armed population was a bulwark against those who would strip them of inalienable liberties. So, for instance, you could definitely own a cannon. You still can. There are numerous accounts of the American military buying cannons from private citizens. Then there are the privateers, which as the name suggests were private citizens. And they had lots of cannons. Americans were never barred from purchasing or constructing any type of weapon they desired without any hassle until the 20th century.
No, the Second Amendment also definitely doesn’t say “there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.”
Indeed, it is quite alarming that someone who claims to have taught constitutional law says something so obviously untrue. The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right of individuals to “keep and bear Brown Bess muskets” any more than the First Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to “write with feather quill” or religious freedom to “members of the Anglican church.” It guarantees the right to bear arms. And it is foolish to believe that the founders, who saw tremendous technological advances in their own lifetimes, were too stupid to comprehend change.
Finally, Biden is not, in fact, a “Second Amendment guy.” He’s either voted for or supported every gun restriction legislation since the 1990s.
Though, there is one bit of good news. Biden has never taught anyone constitutional law, not for four or six years, or even one. He was given an honorary-professor position at Penn after his vice presidency, which the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2019 was “a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.”
The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who said the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered with the investigation of the tax evasion case against Hunter Biden. According to Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., that testimony “outlines misconduct and government abuse at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the investigation of Hunter Biden.”
“The allegations point to a steady campaign of: unequal treatment of enforcing tax law; Department of Justice interference in the form of delays, divulgences, and denials, into the investigation of tax crimes that may have been committed by the President’s son; and finally, retaliation against IRS employees who blew the whistle on the misconduct,” the committee said Thursday.
“Whistleblowers describe how theBiden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden by delaying, divulging, and denying an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes,” Smith said.
Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, arrives with wife Melissa Cohen Biden prior to President Biden awarding the Presidential Medals of Freedom during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 2022. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
According to testimony released by the committee, one whistleblower, IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley Jr., said decisions in the case seemed to be “influenced by politics.”
“Whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation,” Shapley said.
“These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, now allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples,” he added.
Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Shapley, who oversaw the IRS probe into the president’s son, said the IRS obtained a WhatsApp message dated July 30th, 2017, from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, who the New York Post previously reported is a Chinese Communist Party official and CEO of Harvest Fund Management.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight” Biden wrote. “And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Shapley testified that communications like that message “made it clear we needed to search the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time.”
However, Shapley testified that Assistant United States Attorney in Delaware, Lesley Wolf, told him “optics were a driving factor in the decision on whether to execute a search warrant.”
President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
“She said a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, but said there is no way we will get that approved,” Shapley testified.
The news comes days after the Justice Department announced that Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of a deal that is expected to keep him out of prison. The younger Biden also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
In response to the committee’s release, the Justice Department said in a statement on Biden’s case:
“As both the Attorney General and U.S. Attorney David Weiss have said, U.S. Attorney Weiss has full authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges as he deems appropriate. He needs no further approval to do so. Questions about his investigation should be directed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Delaware.”
This is a breaking news report, check back for updates.
Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
House Republicans voted Wednesday to censure Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, who was previously a media darling during the height of Russiagate. On a party-line vote, Schiff was formally censured on Wednesday for “misleading the American public” when he repeatedly claimed he had seen “evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
However, Special Counsel John Durham concluded last month that the original probe looking into alleged collusion, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, was based on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence,” and the FBI was wrong in fast-tracking a full investigation as then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe ordered in July 2016.
Throughout the Mueller probe that plagued the Trump presidency, TV networks rolled out the red carpet for Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who had unprecedented access to the nation’s top secrets, particularly when it comes to foreign adversaries. When he repeatedly claimed that he had seen “evidence” of collusion, many in the media had reason to believe what he said was credible.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was censured by his GOP colleagues for “misleading the American public” after countless TV appearances alleging he had seen evidence of Russian collusion. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Both the Mueller probe in 2019 and the Durham probe in 2023 concluded that there was no evidence that such collusion between Trump and Russia ever transpired.
What “evidence” did Schiff see that neither Mueller nor Durham apparently came across in their years-long investigations? That remains unclear, but his repeated unsubstantiated claims that such evidence existed led to him being censured by his GOP colleagues this week. Schiff even said there was evidence of “conspiracy” at one point.
On March 20, 2017, Schiff attempted to push back on former DNI Director James Clapper’s public assertion he saw no evidence of collusion, telling “Meet The Press” moderator Chuck Todd on NBC there was “circumstantial evidence of collusion” as well as “direct evidence… of deception.”
However, just three days later, Schiff noticeably ratcheted up his rhetoric in another interview with Todd on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily.”
“Reviewing the evidence that I have, I don’t think you can conclude that at all, far from it,” Schiff said about Clapper’s comments.
When Todd pressed whether Schiff was solely relying on a “circumstantial case,” Schiff replied “no,” insisting the case “is more than that.”
“So you have seen direct evidence of collusion?” Todd asked.
“I don’t want to go into specifics, but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial, and it’s very much worthy of investigation,” Schiff responded.
The following Sunday, on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Schiff was asked whether he had seen any intelligence showing collusion regarding an effort to spread misinformation about Hillary Clinton. Schiff sidestepped the question but defended the foundation of the FBI’s investigation as “justified” and it had a “sufficient basis” to begin and continue, something Durham concluded otherwise in his report. He went on to say that he disagreed with his GOP colleagues asserting there was no evidence of collusion, telling CBS anchor John Dickerson, “I don’t think that’s accurate, and I have an obligation to say so.”
John Durham testified before the House Judiciary Committee to discuss his findings from his investigation looking into the origins of the Russia probe. (Screenshot/House Judiciary Committee)
In October 2017, Schiff touted the now-discredited Steele dossier, the Clinton campaign-funded memo put together by ex-British spy Christopher Steele that laid out salacious and unfounded accusations about then-candidate Trump and his alleged ties to Russia, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that “a lot of that has been corroborated” and Steele “may have found out even before our own intelligence agencies that the Russians were in fact aiming to help Donald Trump in the election.”
Earlier that year, Schiff read some of the dossier into the congressional record.
In November 2017, Schiff teased to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who noted that “collusion” is not a legal term, that they are “very close to a prosecutable case” against the Trump campaign regarding the conspiracy statute but added that “they’re still pieces that we need to find.”
In December 2017, after former Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about his communications with Russians during the transition, Schiff called it the “most palpable evidence of collusion in terms of violating the Logan Act,” though he conceded it would “likely not be prosecuted.”
The following week, CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out how there hasn’t been an “actual connection” or “proof” of collusion. Schiff pointed to what he called the “pattern and the chronology” of the various interactions between members of Trump’s circle and Russians.
“We do know this: the Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help, the Russians gave help and the president made full use of that help. And that is pretty damning whether it is proof beyond reasonable doubt of a conspiracy or not,” Schiff told Tapper, who later tweeted out the interview writing “On #CNNSOTU @RepAdamSchiff says evidence of Russian collusion is ‘damning.'”
When asked by Tapper in a March 2018 interview whether Democrats have seen evidence of collusion, Schiff replied, “Yes, we have.”
Adam Schiff appeared on cable news (Screenshot/CNN)
It wasn’t until halfway through 2018 when Schiff’s talking points shifted from saying he had seen evidence of collusion to asserting there’s evidence “in plain sight,” a linguistic sleight of hand indicating there was nothing else hidden and that any alleged proof was already in the public domain.
Even after the conclusion of the Mueller report, which found no evidence of collusion, Schiff remained defiant. In late March 2019, after then-Attorney General William Barr released a summary of the Mueller report that declared there was no collusion, Schiff doubled down, saying there was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight,” stressing that’s “not the same thing as” proving a conspiracy, which is the crime.
“I distinguished between the two probably dozens of times,” Schiff asserted to then-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
The next month, when asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” whether he was wrong to say there was “direct evidence” of collusion, he replied “no,” saying what’s been in the “public record” is direct evidence of collusion. Days later, Schiff sidestepped a question from Tapper over whether he regrets “anything” he said in recent years about collusion. He offered the same sentiment in July 2019 while being grilled by then co-host of “The View” Meghan McCain, who demanded to know what his evidence was. He told her “I’ve also been saying… the evidence is in plain sight, not hidden anywhere.”
In November 2021, Schiff was similarly confronted by “The View” guest host Morgan Ortagus over whether he had any reflections for his promotion of the now-debunked Steele dossier, but he called the premise of the question a “smokescreen” to “shield Donald Trump’s culpability for inviting Russia to help him in the election.”
Schiff shifted his rhetoric towards his Russian collusion claims to saying the evidence was “in plain sight.” (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Following the release of the Durham report, Schiff called the investigation a “big bust” and that any attacks by the GOP towards him are retaliatory over his roles in leading Trump’s impeachment as well as the Jan. 6 committee.
Just hours before being censured, Schiff attempted to undermine Durham’s credibility during the special counsel’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, suggesting Durham didn’t have knowledge of “very basic facts” surrounding the Russia probe.
Ahead of the vote to censure him, Schiff said“I take it as a badge of honor because this says that I’m effective.”
The California Democrat is now running for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
Tucker Carlson might privately know why his leading Fox News program was canceled, but he is not being told officially, leaving “offended” viewers left to guess and go elsewhere, “Tucker” biographer Chadwick Moore told Newsmax.
“No, they have not told anyone, and it’s looking like they’re just happy to keep it a mystery,” Moore told Wednesday’s “Eric Bolling The Balance.” “The closest they came was somebody from Fox told The New York Times it was because of a racist text message he sent to one of his colleagues, which, of course, wasn’t racist at all. It was actually quite a heartwarming text message.
“That’s the closest they’ve given to an explanation. They still have not told Tucker, which is sort of amazing. They’ve still left him to guess.
“Tucker suspects he knows what’s going on. Of course, there are people at Fox who do know why, and people on the board. I’m sure that they have spoken to Tucker about it privately, but he has not gotten an official explanation from Fox News.
“Just like the rest of us.”
It’s just one more reason why viewers are tuning out of Fox News, as former President Donald Trump got in a “dig” during his Brett Baier interview this week, Moore noted, saying, “I don’t really see how they can” get the disenchanted viewers back.
“I think the whole network kind of outstayed its welcome,” Moore said. “They’ve continually offended their core audience, and they seem to not care.”
The move away from Trump is not unlike the dismissal of Carlson, as a top-down directive, according to Moore, who details Tucker Carlson in his biography “Tucker,” to be released next month, which is available now for preorder.
“They really didn’t like Donald Trump in 2016 — I’m not speaking of the rank and file; plenty of them are wonderful people who certainly like Donald Trump — but it seems that the head honchos really didn’t like him, and then they kind of sucked up to him when he got into power, and now it looks like they want someone else in that role, and they’re being hostile to him,” Moore said.
But Trump “got some good digs in at Fox during that Brett Baier interview.”
“Tucker was bringing so many people to that whole network and propping up the entire prime-time lineup,” Moore said. “They’re not coming back with him gone. It’s been long enough.”
Also, with employees at Fox News rumored to be disenchanted and fearing for their jobs, FoxNation might go the way of CNN’s now-defunct streaming service, Moore said.
“That wouldn’t surprise me one bit because Tucker was really the only reason anyone signed up for that,” Moore said. “I can’t think of any other reason that they would have signed up. … Fox did sort of victory lap when CNN-plus went out of business, and now it looks like that same thing might happen to FoxNation.”
For now, as Moore writes in “Tucker,” Carlson will be exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Twitter, while shackled to a Fox News contract but silenced under it through the 2024 presidential election.
“Twitter is launching a new video platform that is supposed to be a rival to YouTube, and that’s eventually where these longer shows are going to live,” Moore said. “I don’t think the show is always going to be these 10-minute things. I believe that’s probably contractual.
“I think he’s probably doing what he can get away with in his contract because, of course, Fox doesn’t want him speaking right now, which is incredible. The network that built its reputation on defending free speech is trying to shut him up and now threatening legal action.”
This is ostensibly “corporate censorship” as Fox News has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Carlson, according to Moore.
“Fox would be the first one to talk about corporations compelling or restricting speech and the fear, the chill that would have in our national discourse when private companies silence people, and now look what’s happened to Tucker,” Moore said.
“And their cease-and-desist seemed pretty hollow. I don’t really think they have much of a case.
“In fact, it seems like in many ways Fox could be one in violation of their agreement with Tucker, especially if they tried to disparage him during this process.”
The disparagement and Carlson’s disappointment in how he has been attacked is all detailed in Moore’s upcoming book “Tucker.”
People want everyone to have “equal access, equal opportunity, and equal justice under the law,” but that isn’t happening with federal agencies showing one approach to “the elites” and another to conservatives, Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Thursday on Newsmax.
“Two tiers of justice, that is what Tennesseans are saying,” the Tennessee Republican said on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “I’m hearing it every single day, whether it’s the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS, the EPA, OSHA, or any of the other agencies, they feel as if there is one approach that is shown to the elites to the Bidens, the Clintons, and their cronies.”
Blackburn added: “There is another that is shown to conservatives and other individuals who are not part of the privileged or the elite, and people are really frustrated with this. … They want our country to be a nation known for abiding by the rule of law.”
Blackburn said the way President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and their family are being treated is “of tremendous frustration because they see the way President [Donald] Trump is treated. They see the way people who are not part of the elite are treated, and they know it is not equal.”
Meanwhile, Biden defended his son in a recent MSNBC interview, and Blackburn said on Newsmax that “everybody knows that Hunter Biden has been treated differently,” including with his plea deal to tax charges.
“The FBI has slow-walked this investigation,” Blackburn said. “We’re hearing that they just never even looked at the laptop. And isn’t it interesting that even with the IRS charges, the tax charges that are there, there is no question about where this money came from? How did you end up with this money that you did not pay taxes on? It’s very interesting how they have approached this.”
Blackburn said she’s being asked how President Biden couldn’t be aware of what his son or his brother were doing, and “how they are influence-peddling or trading on his name.”
“How could he not have been aware of that?” asked Blackburn. “These individuals came to his office. He is shown in pictures with them. But yet you have a DOJ that is chosen not to investigate this.”
Blackburn also discussed special counsel John Durham’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, including his comments about the political weaponization of the FBI and the DOJ, saying she agrees that there are “good men and women” who work in the federal law enforcement community.
“They desperately want to see the political cabal inside the DOJ and the FBI dealt with,” said Blackburn. “They want to see this defunded and, hopefully, we’ll see some changes.”
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
Image Source: Tucker Carlson Twitter video screenshot
Tucker Carlson released another scathing episode of his Twitter show and took aim straight at Hunter Biden after he agreed to a plea deal and got a slap on the wrist.
The president’s son reportedly agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and will receive probation and have to pay the taxes he owes. He will also enter into a diversion program over charges related to lying on a federal form when applying for a gun license.
“As in most of the developing world, it’s safer to be the president’s son than his opponent,” wrote Carlson in the description of his latest Twitter episode.
“This morning Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to pretty much nothing. Biden pled to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges then entered a diversion on a federal gun charge. That’s it. As far as Merrick Garland’s Justice Department is concerned Hunter Biden is done,” said Carlson on the show.
“There was no pre-dawn raid carried out live simultaneously on CNN, there was no perp walk, no handcuffs, no press conference. Above all there was no felony. Hunter Biden who broke federal gun laws can still carry a gun. It’s like it all never happened,” he added.
“In fact the Justice Department just baptized Hunter Biden. A lifetime of sins washed away in an instant,” Carlson said. “It was a secular miracle!”
He went on to emphasize that Hunter Biden got special treatment because he’s a son of President Joe Biden and mocked the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Carlson left Fox News in April and began publishing his own version of his very popular show on Twitter. He received tens of millions of views while Fox News has struggled to fill his time slot and has suffered in ratings without him.
He later accused Fox News of fraud and breach of contract over the circumstances surrounding his exit from the cable news network.
Hunter Biden is expected in federal court in the next few days over the plea deal.
Here’s the video from Tucker Carlson:
Ep. 5 As in most of the developing world, it's safer to be the president's son than his opponent. pic.twitter.com/AtRRaxYSjs
U.S. District Judge Jay Moody struck down a law passed in Arkansas to ban transgender surgeries and other treatments for minors. The law was passed by the Arkansas legislature in April 2021 after the state Senate overturned a veto by then-Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican. It was the first of such laws passed in several states. Moody said that the law was contrary to the due process clause and equal protection rights of transgender people. He also ruled that a provision in the law forbidding medical professionals from referring patients for treatment elsewhere was in violation of free speech rights.
“Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the State undermined the interests it claims to be advancing,” wrote Moody in the ruling.
The law would have banned puberty blockers and surgery for children.
Transgender activists were closely watching the legal battle over the law in Arkansas as a bellwether for other efforts to ban child transgender treatments in conservative leaning states. Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said the state would be appealing the ruling to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I am disappointed in the decision that prevents our state from protecting our children against dangerous medical experimentation under the moniker of ‘gender transition,’” said Griffin in a statement.
“Unfortunately, Judge Moody misses what is widely understood across the United States and in the United Kingdom and European countries: There is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent,” he added. “I will continue fighting as long as it takes to stop providers from sterilizing children.”
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also criticized the ruling.
“Only in the far-Left’s woke vision of America is it not appropriate to protect children,” she tweeted. “We will fight this and the Attorney General plans to appeal Judge Moody’s decision to the Eighth Circuit.”
The issue is likely to grow in prominence as the 2024 election approaches. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has issued statements unapologetically in support of transgender rights while most Republicans support legal restrictions on transgender operations and treatments for children.
Here’s more about the judgement against the law:
Arkansas judge overturns ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors www.youtube.com
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The corporate media has added a new face to their exhaustive list of “threats to Democracy.” “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to your health — and our democracy,” reads the headline of a recent Los Angeles Times column. According to disgraced L.A. Times journalist Michael Hiltzik, there are many “dangers” posed by RFK Jr. conducting a lawful and democratic campaign for president.
Hiltzik writes that Kennedy’s candidacy “will increase the political credibility of anti-vax claptrap,” and “could cut into the vote in 2024 for a responsible Democrat,” allowing “Trump or a Trump clone” to take office and deploy “thuggish attacks on diversity, inclusion and voting rights that have become the alpha and omega of GOP politics.”
Ah yes, curbing racist, culturally Marxist “diversity and inclusion” policies and enacting measures to protect the integrity of American elections is a serious threat to America. Do not be fooled. The media attacks on RFK Jr. have nothing to do with vaccine acceptance.
As I wrote Tuesday, asking questions, whether they be about vaccines or literally anything else, is a defining feature of a free society. RFK Jr. has every right to discuss vaccines, particularly when the medical establishment thinks they are above debate.
However, Hiltzik and his colleagues in the propaganda press aren’t really afraid of vaccine “misinformation.” The corporate media is primarily drumming up hysteria around RFK Jr.’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast because, as Hiltzik wrote, they perceive him as a threat to Biden’s 2024 presidential bid. In other words, RFK Jr.’s legitimate presidential campaign is a “threat to democracy” because it could help the opposition party win the upcoming presidential election and, ironically, throttle Democrats’ plan to erode the liberties prescribed in the Constitution.
The Media Is the Real Threat
Using the phrase “threat to democracy” as a way of protecting Democrats ahead of a presidential election is a media tradition at this point. Recall how the press promulgated the FBI-contrived Russia-collusion hoax, claiming former President Donald Trump was a “threat to democracy” in order to interfere in the 2016 election and discredit the Trump presidency after he was elected. Today, the media is still trying to thwart a Trump presidency by praising Biden for prosecuting his most probable 2024 opponent in, of course, the name of “democracy.”
Ahead of the 2020 election, the media again interfered in a presidential election when they claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” and a “threat to democracy” The laptop contained damning evidence that Hunter was engaging in sketchy foreign business dealings and that his father, presumably referred to as “the big guy,” was part of it.
Fast forward to today, congressional Republicans have uncovered significant evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter received multimillion-dollar payouts from a Ukrainian Burisma executive in exchange for influence over American foreign policy. If the allegations are true, they mean the sitting president of the United States sold out America and may still be compromised by foreign nationals.
Yet the institution so preoccupied with preserving democracy has done nothing to cover the Biden bribery scandal. Instead, the media has been obsessing over the deeply flawed Trump indictment and parroting White House talking points that Hunter was “held accountable” this week after he was charged with tax and firearm offenses.
Hunter was not “held accountable.” He received an excessively lenient plea deal for crimes many Americans are thrown behind bars for committing. More importantly, none of the charges have anything to do with the bribery scandal — rather, they appear to be a transparent ploy by the Department of Justice to cosplay as fair actors and distract the American people from the real Biden crimes.
The media could have done their job in 2020 and reported — or at the very least not lied about — the Hunter Biden laptop. Then maybe we wouldn’t have a president who appears to be compromised by foreign nationals and American adversaries. But the media didn’t want to report on it because they didn’t want Biden to lose in 2020.
For the propaganda press, “democracy” no longer means a form of government. It means the suppression of anything that threatens the left’s agenda or their candidates. Just a few examples of what the media considered a “threat to democracy” include Trump, half of the U.S. population, Ron DeSantis, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, lawfully conducted elections, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, poll watchers, Elon Musk, parents at school board meetings, pro-lifers, our bicameral legislature, free speech, and democracy itself.
Supposed “threat to democracy” are used by the left to actively call for the censorship of those who are willingto speak the truth. The legacy press encouraged Big Tech to censor the New York Post when the Hunter Biden laptop scandal broke, and they encouraged Big Tech to censor Joe Rogan’s RFK Jr. podcast.
The media feel justified in launching full-on assaults against the First Amendment because they’re entitled, believing they should be the sole arbiters of truth. In order to maintain a monopoly on information, they call for the annihilation of smaller media outlets or even random social media users who dare challenge their carefully curated narratives — all in the name of protecting “democracy.”
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
Former college championship swimmer Riley Gaines challenged Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Wednesday after he accused Republicans of promoting “hateful rhetoric” by questioning the rights of transgender youth.
Gaines was on Capitol Hill as a witness for the Senate’s hearing on LGBTQ civil rights, where Durbin said lawmakers need to be careful when talking about this issue.
“At this point, I’d like to remind our colleagues, our children are listening, and they are in danger,” Durbin said. “In fact, today, transgender youth are among the most at risk of homelessness, depression and death by suicide. So, when these young people who are already struggling hear politicians amplify hateful rhetoric that denies their very existence, what message does it send?”
Riley Gaines challenged Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin during a hearing on Wednesday. (CSPAN)
Later in the hearing, Gaines pushed back and told Durbin he needs to think about biological women and girls who she said are at a disadvantage competing against trans people.
“Sen. Durbin, in your opening statement, you had mentioned this rhetoric,” she said. “You had mentioned that, what message does it send to trans individuals? And my comeback to that is, what message does this send to women, to young girls, who are denied of these opportunities?”
“So easily, their rights to privacy and safety thrown out of the window to protect a small population, protect one group as long as they’re happy,” she said. “What about us? That is the overall general consensus of how we all felt in that locker room.”
Rather than answering directly, Durbin argued that there was “no evidence” transgender women perform better than those born that way.
Lia Thomas, left, and Riley Gaines look on from the podium after finishing tied for fifth in the 200 freestyle at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship at the McAuley Aquatic Center, March 18, 2022, in Atlanta. (Mike Comer/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
“Since reference was made to my earlier statement, I would just like to add something for the record: There is no evidence that transgender athletes are an issue in certain levels of sports. No transgender female athlete has ever won an Olympic medal in women’s sports, though the International Olympic Committee has allowed transgender athletes to compete since 2004,” Durbin said.
“But one non-binary athlete who was assigned female at birth won a medal in women’s soccer in 2021,” he added.
Protesters supporting trans-identifying minors during a rally in Minnesota. (Getty)
Gaines was on Capitol Hill as a witness for the Senate’s hearing on LGBTQ civil rights, where she pushed back on allowing transgender students to participate in the school sport of their chosen gender. Gaines has become an activist on behalf of biological female athletes after graduating from the University of Kentucky, where she competed against trans swimmer Lia Thomas in championship-level events.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital.
Former Special Counsel John Durham shut down a line of questioning from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that sought to assert Donald Trump Jr. had committed a crime during a meeting in Trump Tower. The exchange came during Durham’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Schiff referenced a Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr. and Russian individuals prior to the 2016 election that the lawmaker claimed constituted a crime.
“Are you aware, Mr. Durham, that [Robert] Mueller’s and Congressional investigations also revealed that Don Jr. was informed that a Russian official was offering the Trump campaign ‘very high-level and sensitive information” that would be incriminating of Hillary Clinton…?” Schiff asked.
“Sure, people get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that,” Durham responded.
Former Special Counsel John Durham shut down a line of questioning from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that sought to assert Donald Trump Jr. had committed a crime during a meeting in Trump Tower. (Screenshot/HouseJudiciaryCommittee)
“Really? The son of a presidential candidate gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt on their opponent. Is that what you’re saying?” Schiff replied.
“I don’t think this is unique in your experience,” Durham responded.
“So you have other instances of the Russian government offering dirt on a presidential candidate to the presidential candidate’s son. Is that what you’re saying?” Schiff continued.
Durham then asked Schiff to repeat the question, and subsequently responded, “I’m saying that people can make phone calls making claims all the time. Of that, you may have experience.”
“Are you really trying to diminish the significance of what happened here, and the secret meeting that the president’s son set up in Trump Tower receiving that incriminating information?” Schiff pressed.
“I’m not trying to diminish it at all, but I think the more complete story is that they met, it was a ruse, and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton,” Durham stated. “I don’t think that was a well-advised thing to do.”
“Oh, not well advised. That’s the understatement of the year. So, you think it’s perfectly appropriate, or maybe just ill-advised, for a presidential campaign to secretly meet with a Russian delegation to get dirt on their opponent?” Schiff asked.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., failed to pin down former Special Counsel John Durham during his questioning before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
“If you’re asking would I do it, I hope I wouldn’t do it. But it’s not illegal. It was stupid, foolish, ill-advised,” Durham replied.
“Well, it is illegal to conspire to get incriminating opposition research from a hostile government that is of financial value to a campaign. Wouldn’t that violate campaign laws?” Schiff asked.
“I don’t know all those facts to be true,” Durham concluded.
So, if we go with shifty Schiff’s definitions, THE HILLARY Campaign was the one who sought a dossier from a foreign contact, and foreign governments.
Democrats argued that the Durham investigation was an effort to cover up the wrongdoings of former President Donald Trump. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The Wednesday exchange came just hours before the House was expected to move forward with the process of censuring Schiff for his actions during the Trump-Russia investigation. Republicans argue he made “false accusations” against former President Donald Trump throughout the investigation.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is expected to lead the final vote on Schiff’s censure Friday. The move requires only a simple majority.
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events. Send tips to Anders.Hagstrom@Fox.com, or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
That lofty ideal chiseled on the pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court was blown to shreds with the indefensible plea deal for Hunter Biden that allows him to skate on severe criminal charges that would have landed anyone else in America behind bars. The preferential treatment for the president’s son makes a mockery of the law. We knew it was coming. The government’s investigation had stretched for more than five long years. By itself, that was absurd. The evidence against Hunter was clear and convincing.
He evaded taxes on millions of dollars that he pocketed from overseas sources — part of his elaborate influence-peddling schemes that leveraged access to his powerful father. He obviously lied on a gun form and broke the law when he purchased a firearm.
Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden. Hunter’s new plea agreement still won’t protect him from investigation by the House of Representatives. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)
But President Joe Biden and his consigliere at the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland, have rewritten the criminal codes with a special exemption. A Biden can defy the law with impunity. Everyone else must abide.
There is no justifying this demolition of justice. Unequal application of the statutes is now the law of the land. Our legal system is as corrupt as the Bidens. They made it so.
The privileged plea also calls into question the integrity of David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, who negotiated a slap on the wrist instead of pursuing other, more serious, felony charges. In a public statement he insisted that his investigation into further acts of potential wrongdoing continues. There is reason to be skeptical. His announcement of an ongoing probe smacks of a charade designed to prevent him from answering uncomfortable questions by a congressional committee that is digging deep into Biden family corruption.
Whistleblowers warned that Garland’s DOJ, the FBI, and the IRS were running a protection racket for the Bidens by exerting undue influence and political favoritism to cover up brazen criminality. Tuesday’s plea fortifies their credibility. Hunter Biden’s laptop alone is a treasure trove of incriminating evidence that implicates his father as complicit in secret deals to profit from his public office. The sheer magnitude of the schemes is staggering. Who knew that selling out your country could be so lucrative?
The House Oversight Committee may be the last refuge for anything resembling justice. It cannot prosecute, but it can expose. In the last five months committee members have combed through many of the 170 Suspicious Activity Reports, wire transfers and banking transactions showing that nine members of the Biden family received an astonishing amount of money from America’s adversaries.
Hunter Biden exits at the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville, Arkansas on Monday, May 1, 2023. Biden, who is with attorney Abbe Lowell, was ordered to appear in court regarding the paternity case of his unacknowledged 4-year-old-daughter. (Mega for Fox News Digital)
The payments were disguised through a complex web of shell companies and limited liability corporations that appear to have no legitimate business purpose other than to serve as receptacles for hiding cash, according to Chairman James Comer, R-KY. In Washington, where influence-peddling and graft are endemic, the Bidens have taken them to dizzying heights. It is no coincidence that the money sources came from the very countries over which Joe Biden exerted control in foreign policy decisions as vice president.
What was being bought? More to the point, what were the Bidens selling? In the process, did they sacrifice America’s national security to get rich? Did they conspire with malign foreign actors to betray our nation for self-enrichment?
One answer may be found in the mining of an unclassified FBI document that allegedly depicts a “criminal scheme” involving the Bidens and a top executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that was paying millions of dollars to Hunter to sit on its board.
A trusted and “highly credible” confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI reported that the elder Biden accepted $5 million in exchange for “policy decisions” benefiting the company, while Hunter banked another $5 million. The money, according to the CHS, was secreted in a multitude of hidden accounts. This seems to be the same suspected “pay-to-play” scheme reflected in Joe Biden’s famous on-camera brag that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired. Within hours, Viktor Shokin was canned, and his investigation vanished overnight. Mission accomplished.
The Ukraine caper is similar to other Biden grifts in roughly a dozen foreign countries where Hunter negotiated “deals” that were dependent on his father, even setting up meetings between the vice president and overseas clients that are documented in his laptop and other records. The younger Biden never registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as the law demands, which makes his transactions illegal. Others who have failed to do so have been criminally prosecuted, but not the president’s son. Hunter’s laptop alone is a treasure trove of incriminating evidence that implicates his father as complicit in secret deals to profit from his public office. The sheer magnitude of the schemes is staggering. Who knew that selling out your country could be so lucrative?
Nor have any charges been leveled under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is a crime for a public officeholder to confer a benefit to a foreign actor in exchange for personal financial gain. But given the partisan interference by our government institutions for the benefit of the Bidens, don’t expect that charges will ever be brought. The fix is in.
Where the Department of Justice refuses to act, Congress must. It has the backing of the American people who recognize corruption when they see it. A recent Harvard Harris poll found that 63% of voters believe that Hunter Biden engaged in illegal influence peddling, and a majority think Joe Biden was involved.
In an upcoming election where the incumbent president’s DOJ is prosecuting his likely opponent on dubious charges while simultaneously protecting Biden, it is imperative that any evidence of criminality be exposed for all to see. The money trail uncovered so far is a damning indictment of corruption at the highest level of government — the current occupant of the White House.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His upcoming book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” will be released on May 30, 2023. It is available now for pre-order online at the Simon & Schuster website. 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.” Jarrett’s book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” will be published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on September 19, 2023.
Special Counsel John Durham, testifying before members of the House Judiciary Committee, described his findings in a report concerning the origins of the FBI’s investigation into claims of Russian collusion in former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, called his findings “sobering.”
“Many of the most significant issues documented in the report that we have written, including those relating to a lack of investigative discipline, failure to take logistical, logical investigative steps, and bias are relevant to important national security interests that this committee and the American people are concerned about,” said Durham in his opening remarks.
Such issues, left unaddressed, “could result in significant national security risks and further erode the public’s faith and confidence in our justice system,” said Durham. “As we said in the report, our findings were sobering, and I tell you, having spent 40 years-plus as a federal prosecutor, they were particularly sobering to me and a number of my colleagues who present decades in the FBI themselves.”
However, he said that the problems identified in the report are not easily fixed “overnight” and “cannot be addressed solely by enhancing training or additional policy requirements,” but “what is required is accountability, both in terms of the standards to which our law enforcement personnel hold themselves and in the consequences they face for violation of laws and policies of relevance.”
He also insisted that he and his colleagues carried out their work in good faith “with integrity and in the spirit of following the facts, wherever they led, without fear or favor.”
Durham also denied that he and his investigators acted in a partisan way, and to suggest otherwise is “simply untrue and offensive.”
Further, he said the findings in the report are “serious and deserve attention” from the American public and its representatives.
“We found troubling violations of law and policy in the conduct of highly consequential investigations directed at members of the presidential campaign, and ultimately a presidential administration,” said Durham. “It matters, not whether it was a Republican campaign or Democrat campaign; it was the presidential campaign.”
And the facts “should be of concern to any American who cares about our civil liberties,” he said. “Our report details the FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research such as the Steele dossier. The FBI relied on the dossier in FISA applications, knowing there was likely material originating from a political campaign, a political opponent.”
Durham also stressed that even though the investigation exposed deep concerns about the conduct of the investigators, it should not be read to suggest that Russian election interference wasn’t a significant threat or that the investigative authorities no longer serve an important law enforcement function or to benefit national security interests.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump
In our increasingly secular society, Christianity gets a bad rap. Religion in general is less and less welcome in the town square. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, you can’t ever truly vacuum religion out of society. We were made to worship, and worship we will. Laws enforce a moral vision, and so they will enforce someone’s moral vision, good or bad.
Historically, it’s been understood that America had what was called a “civil religion.” This is a term used to refer to the implicit religious values of a nation, as often expressed in national ceremonies and civil customs. And, historically, America’s civil religion has been built on Christianity. These days, it seems like more and more it’s built on “LGBTQ-anity.”
What I want to consider, however, is whether or not our historic American civil religion is compatible with Christianity. Are they friends or foes?
My argument here is that American civil religion is not necessarily at odds with Christianity, emphasis, mind you, on “necessarily.”
At its best, civil religion can serve as a transcendent, unifying element of a nation’s culture and civic life. As theologian and historian Dr. John Wilsey has defined it, civil religion is “A set of practices, symbols, and beliefs — distinct from traditional religion — that provide a transcendent paradigm around which the citizenry can unite.”
According to Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, civil religion was a part of the social contract, a part of the general will. Civil religion was a key piece for embodying the people as a national organism, for forming the majority, and those within it (as well as the “outlaws”). Alexis de Tocqueville also saw civil religion as necessary for liberty. And in America, he saw conditions for a vibrant civil religion, made up of symbols, sources, traditions, and even sacred scriptures.
In America, those “sacred scriptures” of our civil religion trace back to the foundation of the country, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution (and preamble), and particularly the Bill of Rights. These are aspirational as well as procedural documents. The corpus of civil religion has been built out over time, arguably including other items such as George Washington’s farewell address, the Monroe Doctrine, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, the Emancipation Proclamation, and so forth.
In the American civil religion, our symbols include the flag, the Capitol, our monuments, and even our land, especially the National Parks. And, largely, the ideas from our American civil religion draw from virtuous wells, including historic Protestant Christianity. Again, all of these elements, and the celebration of what they are and how they contribute to our nation, are not necessarily at odds with Christianity.
However, Wilsey also provides a five-fold test for the practice of civil religion (or American exceptionalism) to ensure that it doesn’t ever rise to the level of replacing Christianity or threatening the Gospel. He writes:
“Exceptionalism does not necessarily come into conflict with the Christian gospel. But when expressed and understood in strongly providential terms, it involves at least five theological themes imported from Protestant Christian theology and applied to America: 1. chosen nation, 2. divine commission, 3. innocence, 4. sacred land, and 5. glory.
When exceptionalism relies on these themes, then the idea is in conflict with the Christian Gospel. This kind of exceptionalism should be rejected because it potentially makes America an object of worship, bestowing a transcendent status upon it. And it sets America up as a necessary player in redemption history. From a Biblical standpoint, this soteriological form of American exceptionalism paves the way toward heterodoxy at best, heresy and idolatry at worst.”
Where might we see these wrong views of civil religion in practice? Consider the first one: Claiming that America is a particularly chosen nation or that we are under a special election of God.
Historian Conrad Cherry argues that “the history of the American civil religion is a history of the conviction that the American people are God’s New Israel, his newly chosen people … elected by God for a special destiny” and that this belief has been evident in “the focus of American sacred ceremonies, the inaugural addresses of our presidents, the sacred scriptures of our civil religion.”
This is going too far; America is not the “new Israel” — the Church is.
One good example of making civil religion sound almost salvific is President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. He references God in such a way as to not contradict Christian notions of God, weaving the transcendent nature of a “God blessing America” into his address in such a way as to appeal to Jews and Protestants along with Catholics. If you try to find a passage that is ‘anti-Biblical’ in his address it will be hard to do, but he never clearly explains the Gospel or calls the American people to the greatest religious good — repenting of their sins and believing in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, from a theological perspective, in order for American civil religion to operate in peaceable cooperation with— and not at odds with — Christianity, two standards must be met.
First, the content and practice of the civil religion — that which it honors, reveres, and holds out as unifying and praiseworthy, and then the manner in which it calls citizens to participate — must fall within the bounds of Christian ethics and values.
Put differently, it must meet the Philippians 4:8 test: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”
For example, if “gay pride” becomes a core value of American civil religion (as it seems to have become already), and the nation is called to celebrate homosexuality with perverse displays, then it sets itself at odds with Christianity.
The second standard for the Christian, along with the content and the manner of celebration, is that at no point does participation in American civil religion rise to an idolatrous level. For example, our civil religion encourages us to sing the National Anthem (a good thing) in a respectful manner (also appropriate). But if we are told that by singing the National Anthem, we are pledging our loyalty to the nation above all else, even God, then the civil religion has become idolatrous.
In Exodus 20:2-3, God gives His people the first commandment, telling them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” And in Deuteronomy 6:4, God reminds the Israelites to “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
In conclusion, I stand in the same place in which I started: No, American civil religion and Christianity are not necessarily at odds with each other. However, like patriotism or nationalism, civil religion for the Christian must take its rightful, assigned place on the list of our priorities, beneath our allegiance to God, the practice of our one true religion, Christianity, and the exercise of our Christian duties to God and man.
William Wolfe is a visiting fellow with the Center for Renewing America. He served as a senior official in the Trump administration, both as a deputy assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon and a director of legislative affairs at the State Department. Prior to his service in the administration, Wolfe worked for Heritage Action for America, and as a congressional staffer for three different members of Congress, including the former Rep. Dave Brat. He has a B.A. in history from Covenant College, and is finishing his Masters of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Follow William on Twitter at @William_E_Wolfe
Hundreds of members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) march to the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in the mining company Warrior Met Coal on November 04, 2021 in New York City. The miners and their supporters held a rally outside of BlackRock in support of over 1,100 UMWA members have been on strike for seven months at Warrior Met Coal over demands for better pay and benefits. | Getty Images/Spencer Platt
I do not for a moment downplay the danger of the radical, rightwing ideologies of White supremacists in America. Nor do I deny the existence of a dominionist, takeover mentality in some Christian circles, the most extreme of which were put on display in the days leading up to January 6, 2021. But the real danger, the ever-present danger, the more pressing danger, is that of a radical dominionist takeover from the left. The evidence is all around us.
Consider for a moment what is currently happening in America today (as opposed to predicting what is to come). Which group is currently asserting its power over others in an intimidating, even life-threatening way?
The Daily Wire reported on June 13 that, “Multiple Target stores across the U.S. received bomb threats over the weekend for allegedly ‘betraying the LGBTQ+ community’ by tamping down on some of the Pride Month products sold in its stores due to massive backlash the company has faced.”
Yes, “The FBI is now investigating the bomb threats that have been made in stores located in Oklahoma, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah, and Pennsylvania.”
More ominously, a June 11 headline in Daily Mail announced, “The new face of extremism unmasked: The UN and Republicans are watching ‘Trantifa‘ — the hard-left transgender activists who flirt with violence to promote their radical agenda.”
Trantifa! Enough said. Even the UN is on the alert.
On the economic side, a 2017 video has emerged of Larry Fink, CEO of the investment firm BlackRock, which directs tens of billions of dollars to different businesses and organizations. Without apology — to the contrary, with a clear sense of moral imperative — Fink said, “Behaviors are gonna have to change and this is one thing we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock we are forcing behaviors.”
He continued, “It’s just, you have to force behaviors and if you don’t force behaviors, whether it’s gender or race or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you’re gonna be impacted and that’s not just not recruiting it is development.”
Does this help to explain the increasingly illogical, pro-trans, business decisions made by companies like Target and Anheuser Busch?
So, it goes from Trantifa terrorism to an economic superpower “forcing behaviors.” Are you getting the picture? (According to Fox Business, BlackRock “owns shares in everyday companies such as Amazon, Apple, MasterCard, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart and Walt Disney Co.”)
Not only so, but Breitbart reported on June 11 that, “Billionaire left-wing Democrat donor George Soros is handing control of his $25 billion financial empire to his younger son Alex who has vowed to pursue even more ultra-liberal causes.’
“The newly crowned 37-year-old heir told the Wall Street Journal he will broaden his father’s famously woke interests to include issues like voting and abortion rights as well as ‘gender equality.’”
Looks like a few more arms are about to be twisted (or even bribed or coerced) through money.
In California, legislation is advancing that would remove children from parental care if the parents refused to affirm their child’s perceived gender identity.Talk about an Orwellian nightmare.
Deeply alarmed after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8-1 to advance the legislation (Assembly Bill 957), Republican Senator Scott Wilk said, “In the past, when we’ve had these discussions, and I’ve seen parental rights atrophy, I’ve encouraged people to keep fighting. I’ve changed my mind on that — if you love your children, you need to flee California. You need to flee.”
Flee! This is how extreme the radical left is becoming. This is the dominionist takeover that should be feared. For those who would argue that the right is doing this very thing by passing legislation outlawing the chemical castration and genital mutilation of trans-identified children, the comparison breaks down immediately. California would remove children from parental care if the parents refuse to affirm the non-verifiable, often quite malleable, totally subjective, feelings of a child. (In point of fact, upwards of 80% of such children will outgrow those feelings after puberty.)
The laws being passed in conservative states outlaw performing lifelong, irreversible treatments on vulnerable children, tests which have not been fully tested regarding the long-term negative effects (in particular, the long-term, negative effects of puberty-blocking hormones and the like; we already know about the long-term effects of genital mutilation; that is self-evident).
The California law would punish parents for being good parents; the other laws would prohibit doctors from being bad doctors.
In that same spirit of dominionist takeover, President Biden, in the context of trans-identified children, recently reaffirmed a comment he had previously made in April, saying, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.”
It’s one thing to say, “We want to work together as a country to care for all our children.” It’s another thing to say, “Your children are also our children.” But that is what leftist dominionism looks like in action. Your kids belong to us!
As for dissenting speech, that too must be punished swiftly.
As reported on MSN.com on June 13, “Not even video games are safe from the all-encompassing and increasingly unhinged culture war over LGBT issues. Recently, a streamer and gaming personality known as ‘Nickmercs’ faced widespread backlash online and even had his merchandise deleted from “Call of Duty” in response to some seemingly innocuous comments about LGBT-related issues.”
Just how innocuous were the comments?
In short, “violence erupted between activists on opposing sides of a controversy over a Glendale, California, school board and its decision to embrace Pride Month celebrations. Another prominent gaming personality, ‘Puckett,’ commented on this news on Twitter and said, ‘Americans are in a sad place right now. Let people love who they love and live your own life.’”
To this Nickmercs replied, “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue.”
And that was it. Away with you! Banned! Canceled! Deleted!
That’s because, for more than two decades now, radical LGBTQ+ activists who came out of the closet have been determined to put those who oppose their agenda into the closet. You shall not dissent!
In that same spirit, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass was dropped by his organization, in part because of an Instagram post “that called for anti-LGBTQ boycotts of Target and Bud Light over their support for the LGBTQ community and referred to the support as ‘evil’ and ‘demonic.’”
Although he deleted the post and apologized for any hurt he had caused, he did say he stood by his personal beliefs. That, of course, was unacceptable. Conform or be gone is often the rule, as the legendary pitcher Curt Schilling can tell you (he was fired by ESPN in 2016 for his “transphobic” posts).
And, once more, in that same dominionist spirit, Lamda Legal tweeted on June 11 (quite boldly and clearly), “PRONOUNS AREN’T PREFERRED. THEY’RE REQUIRED.”
Did I say already it’s a matter of “conform or be gone”?
That’s why, as reported by the ADF, 12-year-old Liam, a student at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, “was punished by the school for wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘There are only two genders.’”
How dare he!
Of course, other students can wear all kinds of “Pride” affirming clothes. But the moment someone pushes back with simple biological reality, a forbidden line is crossed. Little children, who belong to the state, you shall not dissent!
All this, of course, is the tiniest tip of a massive, decades-old, ever-growing iceberg, in response to which more and more Americans are saying, “Enough is enough.”
But let the truth be told clearly: we don’t have to wonder about an alleged, dominionist takeover coming from the radical right. It’s already here, in force. And it’s coming from the radical left.
YouTube has removed Dr. Jordan Peterson’s recent interview with Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from its platform, claiming the conversation was in violation of its “general vaccine misinformation policy.”
The duo — whose dialogue the Google-owned platform determined should not be heard by prospective voters — have been joined by countless critics in denouncing the move. In the 95-minute interview published on June 5, entitled “Rekindling the Spirit of the Classic Democrat,” Peterson, a clinical psychologist, broached various topics with the presidential candidate, including Kennedy’s candidacy, COVID-19 vaccines, the collapse of the mainstream media, woke ideological capture, the environment, and the possibility of salvaging the Democratic Party.
— The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (@JBPpod) June 5, 2023
Some in the liberal media have taken issue in particular with Kennedy’s suggestion that the “soup of toxic chemicals,” including “endocrine disruptors,” that children are allegedly being exposed to may be linked to “a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing.”
The Independent highlighted Kennedy’s suggestion that “There’s atrazine throughout our water supply. … Atrazine, by the way, if you in a lab put atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will chemically castrate and forcefully feminize every frog in there. And 10% of the frogs, the male frogs will turn into fully viable females able to produce viable eggs. If it’s doing that to frogs, it could, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing to human beings as well.”
YouTube said in a statement Monday, “We removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel for violating YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities.”
The platform’s vaccine misinformation policy states, “Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes harmful misinformation about currently approved and administered vaccines.” Discussions of vaccine safety, particularly “content alleging that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities,” along with remarks about the efficacy and ingredients of vaccines are verboten.
For instance, YouTube forbids the suggestion that vaccines can cause cancer or diabetes; do not reduce the risk of contracting illness; “contain substances that are not on the vaccine ingredient list, such as biological matter from fetuses”; and that vaccines can cause chronic side effects such as infertility.
Kennedy, the 69-year-old son of assassinated former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of assassinated former President John F. Kennedy, stressed that this censorship amounts to “blatant interference in the electoral process” and further evidence that YouTube is a “propaganda outlet.” He also thanked Elon Musk, noting that Twitter continues to host the video.
In a Sunday Twitter thread, the Democratic presidential candidate wrote, “Maybe you can help me figure out what ‘misinformation’ was in this interview. … Do you really need Big Tech censors to decide what you would hear? Or would you prefer to be treated as a competent adult who can listen to various viewpoints and come to his or her own conclusions?”
Peterson denounced the “commissars” at YouTube for what he similarly regarded as election interference, adding, “If there were any real journalists left among the legacy media they’d be up in arms about this.”
Extra to chastising the mainstream media for its apparent indifference to the silencing of a presidential candidate by a corporate behemoth, Peterson called out Democrats, stating, “The slippery slope is now headed your way and you richly deserve it.”
Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and former Democratic state representative in South Carolina, recently told The Hill that Kennedy “is probably the best example of an apple falling from the tree and rolling into a whole other orchard — parroting Putin talking points and so on. He is not John, he is not Robert, and he is more associated with the likes of [podcaster] Joe Rogan and Elon Musk than he is with James Clyburn or Hakeem Jeffries.”
“You can’t let cancers metastasize,” added Sellers.
YouTube’s excision of Kennedy’s interview from its platform is not the first time Silicon Valley has attempted to squelch the speech of Biden’s rival. In February 2021, Instagram shut down his account, claiming Kennedy repeatedly shared “debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.” That ban was reversed after Kennedy announced his presidential bid in April.
Last summer, Instagram and its parent company Facebook removed the accounts for Kennedy’s nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, from their platforms, again claiming they had advanced “misinformation” during the COVID-19 pandemic, reported the New York Times.
Kennedy has invited the American public to “make a video and post it to @YouTube telling them what you think” as it pertains to the platform’s apparent decision to remain a “propaganda outlet” rather than “a modern-day public square.”
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Not too long ago, radical environmentalists in Congress attempted to pass an extreme climate change agreement they dubbed the “Green New Deal.” Though this legislation did not pass and is widely unpopular with the American populace, that has not stopped Democrats from trying to implement portions of the legislation at the state and local levels.
The hyper-fixation by Democrats, or as I like to call them, Spendorcrats, on alternative energy is a dangerous precedent by leadership in this country. Earlier this month, our country was on the brink of default because Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress neglected to negotiate a budget until the last minute, despite ongoing attempts by Republicans for nearly half a year.
Instead of focusing on these long-term ideas, leaders in Washington need to focus on the issues impacting Americans now; kitchen table issues. As a financial adviser, when clients ask whether investing in energy-efficient windows or appliances is a good idea, I first make sure they’re prepared to meet their current obligations if something goes wrong. In other words, our team ensures they have enough savings to pay their bills if they lose their job.
People hold signs calling for President Joe Biden to support a Green New Deal and end his support of pipelines and the fossil fuel industry. St. Paul, Minnesota, Jan. 29, 2021. (Tim Evans/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
I ask these questions because, like the federal government, we make sure our clients focus on long-term issues, not short-term desires. Before our government starts to regulate energy production and alternative energy resources, we must ensure our finances are in order to pay our bills. As we saw earlier this month, that is easier said than done.
Last month, I graduated from Harvard with my master’s. There, I spent much of my research on the impacts of alternative energy and progressive environmental policies. From banning livestock farming to gas stoves, progressive lawmakers are trying to implement the Green New Deal one step at a time because they cannot pass it all at once. It is sort of like what my wife and I did with our children to get them to eat vegetables. Each night at dinner, we would get them to eat the healthy foods they hated little by little, knowing they’d begin to eat them on their own without protesting over time.
Among Democrats’ proposals, the biggest losers are lower- and middle-class Americans who cannot afford the proposed alternatives. For example, a consumption tax on animal-based proteins will effectively force farmers and agricultural companies out of business, and lower- and middle-class Americans will not be able to purchase plant-based alternatives retailing for significantly higher prices.
Equally as important, even if prices do come down due to economies of scale, it doesn’t negate the fact that study after study shows most consumers do not enjoy the product. Like many things in life, merely saying something is what it isn’t doesn’t change reality. Fake meat is, well… fake.
Aside from chasing a progressive fairy tale to outlaw animal-based farming in the name of climate justice, these policies will bankrupt one of our country’s most significant economic sectors. If there’s anything we must be self-sufficient in, it is meeting agricultural demands to fully feed our country.
Through malicious agricultural policies, progressives are funneling resources and handing land to the Chinese Communist Party to build EV battery plants on American soil, using American labor.
Just an hour north of where my family and I live in western Michigan, the Chinese Communist Party is building an EV battery plant stretching over 523 acres, consuming some of Michigan’s most precious resources: land and water. The issue with the Gotion plant is not necessarily that they are building EV batteries; it is that the federal government, and Michigan’s state government, are handing over tax breaks and billions of dollars in government subsidies to a Chinese company that requires their employees to pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party; it is in their handbook!
The United States has always been regarded as a global innovator that values intellectual property. On the other hand, China has always been regarded as a replicator that steals from its adversaries and manipulates products for its own profit.
The Green New Deal and progressive environmental policies are detrimental to the fabric of our republic. Not only will they force everyday Americans to undergo unnecessary financial burdens, but they are also putting our national security at risk. We need leaders in Washington who will stand up and disrupt the status quo. We cannot let our leaders simply sell our trade secrets and land to the highest bidder, the bidder who happens to be our greatest geopolitical adversary.
Our country must focus on the issues driving historic inflation and worsening economic conditions before we can even consider addressing alternative energy and new environmental policies. The American people cannot afford these policies, and from what the federal government has shown us, neither can they.
Michael Markey, a financial adviser, is a Republican candidate for Congress in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District.
Sen. Ron Johnson to Newsmax: Hunter Plea Deal Attempt to Keep Truth From Public
By Brian Freeman | Tuesday, 20 June 2023 02:46 PM EDT
The Hunter Biden plea deal for failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon is highly suspicious and appears to be an attempt to keep the truth from the American public, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Tuesday.
“The timing is more than interesting — just as we find out about a credible source claiming a $5 million to $10 million bribery scheme and [Hunter’s business associate] Devon Archer poised to testify before the House committee,” Johnson told “National Report.”
“Is this the Justice Department’s attempt to try and seal this all up and keep the truth from the American public? This is what I fear.”……………..
To hear President Joe Biden’s supporters tell it, Hunter Biden was finally held accountable Tuesday, and the long national nightmare of him facing any scrutiny at all can finally end.
This accountability for the president’s son, however, was little more than a chiding for offenses that have virtually nothing to do with the serious allegations the Department of Justice should actually be pursuing — like giving a speeding ticket to “the getaway driver after a bank robbery,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley remarked.
Over the past two weeks alone, congressional Republicans have revealed a paid, “highly credible” FBI informant’s report that $10 million was paid in bribes to Hunter and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Ukrainian oligarch and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.
Zlochevsky called the then-vice president “the big guy,” a nickname also used in the Biden family’s allegedly corrupt China dealings. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the existence of two audio recordings Zlochevsky reportedly made of Joe Biden (and another 15 he made of Hunter) discussing their dealings, which Zlochevsky reportedly kept as a sort of “insurance policy” that he’d get what he was paying for.
What was he paying for? Emails from the chairman of Burisma (revealed three years ago) show “the ultimate purpose” of “the deliverables” was “to close down for any cases/pursuits against [Burisma’s president] in Ukraine.” That case was indeed closed down, when Vice President Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor pursuing Burisma.
Congressional investigators also revealed that Hunter helped Burisma executives open an account for their transactions at Satabank,……….
President Joe Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice is so desperate to distract from Republicans’ exposé of the Biden family bribery scandal that it finally brought a handful of weak charges against Hunter Biden for his tax and gun crimes.
Under the guise of serving equal justice, the DOJ announced on Tuesday that it would charge the president’s youngest son with two federal misdemeanor counts for failing to pay his taxes and one federal felony charge for possessing a gun while being an illegal drug user and addict.
Hunter’s lawyers are scrambling to declare “the five-year investigation” into their client as “resolved.” Corporate media like NBC News, similarly, claimed the DOJ’s “resolution suggests that prosecutors did not find cause to file charges related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign entities or other wrongdoing.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like when it strategically timed its political arrest of a Republican congressman to coincide with a GOP press conference detailing evidence of Biden corruption, the DOJ is working overtime to ensure that Hunter serves as a distraction from the bigger Biden problem.
Since at least 2021 when Politico exposed records and receipts, the public has known that Hunter, who has an extensive and public history of illicit drug use, appeared to lie about this drug use on the Firearms Transaction Record he filled out during a revolver purchase in 2018.
Government officials such as local police, the Secret Service, FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, likely knew about the lie earlier than 2021 since the .38 revolver soon became the center of a missing gun investigation, in which the Secret Service reportedly tried to interfere on behalf of the Biden family.
Similarly, most of the preliminary federal investigation into Hunter’s 2017 and 2018 financial wrongdoings was completed by 2020.
Yet, U.S. Attorney David Weiss delayed bringing charges against Hunter because, as Politico described, “the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue” that would hurt Biden’s presidential chances. It wasn’t until Republicans’ increasingly evidenced probe into the Biden bribery scheme, which the Biden administration continues to hamper, that Weiss finally decided to target the president’s son.
What a breathtaking and damaging act of misdirection. After five years of investigation into a host of criminal acts by Hunter Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finally brought charges against the president’s wayward son. But while the DOJ hopes the public focuses on words like “charges” and “guilty” to form an image of accountability for all, it’s letting Hunter walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist most defendants can only dream about from inside a prison cell.
In the same breath in which DOJ announced it was filing charges against Hunter Biden, it also stated that the case had already been resolved. Hunter will plead guilty to and serve probation for two tax fraud misdemeanors while a felony firearm possession charge will disappear after he completes pretrial diversion. It’s a resolution that if the defendant’s last name weren’t Biden would sound almost too good to be true.
The feds are notoriously tough on firearms. Nationally, for example, 94.2 percent of federal firearms convictions in 2022 involved some prison time, and the median sentence was 39 months.
Of course, Hunter won’t even have to end up with a conviction. This is an even rarer event. In 2021, fewer than 1 percent of cases filed by U.S. attorneys in federal court resulted in the kind of pretrial diversion offered to Hunter.
It’s that disparity between Hunter’s case and everybody else’s that’s the true problem, not necessarily the sentence itself. After all, the law in question, which prohibits individuals suffering from an illegal drug addiction from possessing a firearm, likely violates the Second Amendment. Plus, diversion programs across the country have improved public safety at lower cost to taxpayers than prison alternatives.
But that’s clearly not how things are shaking out in practice at DOJ, and President Biden has expressed an ongoing willingness to harshly punish firearms offenses. His DOJ is defending this law in court, and he signed a law in 2021 to increase maximum penalties from 10 years to 15 years in prison. Apparently, President Biden does not believe offenders should be treated with kid gloves — at least when it’s not his kid.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday that investigations into alleged influence-peddling schemes by President Joe Biden and his family will not be deterred after Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, reached a plea deal with the Department of Justice on tax-related charges to avoid jail time on a gun offense.
“This does nothing to our investigation,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday, according to The Hill. “It actually should enhance our investigation because the DOJ should not be able to withhold any information now saying that there’s a pending investigation. They should be able to provide [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [James] Comer with any information that he requires.”
As part of the agreement, Hunter Biden, 53, will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and admit to illegally possessing a weapon after his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he would enter a diversion program, and if he meets the conditions of the program, the gun charge would be removed from his record.
Christopher Clark, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said he considers the case against his client to be resolved, The Hill reported. But the Delaware office of U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the investigation is still ongoing.
McCarthy said he hopes that is not a ploy by the DOJ to withhold information and avoid complying with House Republicans.
“How can Hunter Biden plead guilty, no jail time, and the DOJ say there’s still an investigation, try to withhold information to the House?” McCarthy said. “That’s unacceptable and will not stand.”
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.
Image source: Instagram video screenshot via @the_typical_liberal
A Huntington Beach, California, city council member and some parents took time during a local school board meeting earlier this week to blast a Pride video recently shown to students. A clip that’s been circulating on social media shows students purportedly in an Edison High School math class watching the Pride video and reacting with jeers and boos.
The teacher gives an initial warning for unruly students to “stop!” But when the negative reactions continue, the teacher adds, “Hey, I’m warning you guys now, if you’re gonna be inappropriate, I will have supervision down and give all of you a Saturday school for next year. So knock it off.”
“At no time was the teacher concerned with the student’s visceral reactions as they watched the video clips of couples in intimate positions and poses,” Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark said during Tuesday’s Huntington Beach Union High School District board meeting, according to Voice of OC. “In my opinion, it was not the students who were being inappropriate in that video.”
Van Der Mark added that she’s received emails demanding that she apologize for calling on parents to speak out against the teacher and the video shown in the class, the outlet noted.
“I will never apologize for encouraging parents to express their concerns any time they are worried about their child’s safety or well-being. Never,” she said, according to Voice of OC.
The outlet said some parents spoke out, too.
The Daily Pilot reported that one parent described the Pride video as “indoctrination,” which drew cheers from some in the crowd. The parent also accused “activist teachers” of trying to push their values on his children, the Pilot added.
While many have reacted harshly toward the teacher in question as if airing the clip was her idea, conservative commentator Robby Starbuck — who posted the clip on Twitter — noted in a subsequent tweet that “some 10th grade students came forward to tell me that this video was played in ALL classes that day, not just math class. They’re upset about it and want the school to refrain from playing videos like this.”
Another Twitter user — @inminivanhell — made a similar claim on Twitter, saying the clip was shown in all classes and actually is from the student news channel. The Daily Pilot added that it was from an episode of a student-produced show called “Bolt TV.”
That Twitter user added, “In an effort to control the class, the teacher can be heard warning the students if they can’t behave they will receive Saturday school. This teacher is now dealing with her picture & name being posted all over the Internet — because she asked them to behave in class.”
That same Twitter user also noted the following: “Further context: the student news video was 10 mins long, it shared graduation information, interviews with students, sports recap, and videos reflecting on their school year. This video clip about Pride was a 1-min segment during the episode.”
Another Twitter account posted what it claimed is the Pride clip shown at Edison High School:
Here is the video that was shown at Edison High. It’s a simple explanation of #Pride month and does not show two women kissing, just their heads together. The message of this video is to love and accept everyone on campus. That is all. #BoltTV@EdisonChargerspic.twitter.com/EcWN5YofM9
— Exposing_Huntington_Beach (@exposing_hb) June 12, 2023
The Huntington Beach Union High School District on Monday didn’t immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment on the initial story.
The Daily Pilot also reported that residents about a mile away from Edison High School found anti-LGBTQ, anti-Jewish flyers the morning after the school board meeting.
Councilwoman Natalie Moser told Voice of OC that a resident sent her a photo of the flyer.
The flyers feature a pentagram, star of David, and the words “The LGBTQ+ movement is Jewish” in a rainbow-colored font, the Daily Pilot said, adding that Mayor Tony Strickland said their distribution was limited to a small, “isolated” area.
Van Der Mark told the Voice of OC that the flyers don’t have anything to do with the Pride video, and she also issued a statement against the flyers.
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Reddit, a link-aggregating website that claims to be the “front page of the internet,” has turned into a hotbed for radicalization. Reddit’s fundamental reliance on upvotes over an algorithm produces an unstable equilibrium in the hands of bad-faith moderators. This creates an incredible echo chamber made up of subreddits, which create groups of individuals who will gladly throw away their empathy as long as they view themselves as a “bastion of good” fighting those who are ontologically evil. In some rare cases, these individuals reach beyond the keyboard and manifest this radicalization into action.
This article is meant to shed some light onto the unseen world of Reddit, where left-wing users are routinely goaded into increasingly concerning rhetoric and, sometimes, even violence.
How Reddit Works
To understand why Reddit is uniquely suited for this type of radicalization, you will need a basic understanding of how Reddit operates. Unlike most social media platforms that utilize complex faceless algorithms to curate content for individuals, Reddit is far simpler. Users are given the ability to “upvote” and “downvote” content, which directly affects what other users see. Theoretically, this system produces a true marketplace of ideas, but there’s a catch.
Reddit relies heavily on more than 40,000 volunteer moderators to act as guide rails for subreddits, allowing good faith and positive discourse to flourish. However, Reddit’s moderators wield remarkable power and go largely unchecked, likely because the value these unpaid moderators bring to the platform makes them indispensable, no matter how Orwellian and drunk on power these moderators become. The free reign that moderators have over the site gives them inordinate power over the system. Often moderators are not selected based on their ability to moderate but rather on their desire to moderate. Since these mods are volunteers, one of the biggest rewards for becoming a Reddit moderator is the power the mods wield.
The problem Reddit faces today is that many Reddit moderators are no longer interested in moderating speech. Instead, these activist moderators use their power to suppress the speech of dissenters, tumbling subreddits into radicalizing echo chambers. They achieve this by censoring and banning anyone who goes against the narrative. Want proof of the assertion Donald Trump hates black people? You’re banned. You refute the claim “genital Surgery is not performed on minors in the states”? You’re banned. Post a link to an Associated Press story about how “South Africa begins seizing white-owned farms“? You’re banned from ever posting in that subreddit again.
Who Uses Reddit?
In terms of user demographics, 74 percent of Redditors are men, and nearly 64 percent are between the ages of 18 and 29. Research has demonstrated that this demographic is uniquely vulnerable to radicalization, and the radicalization of these individuals is becoming increasingly common due, in large part, to the internet and social media. Most headline news stories about the dangers of social media spotlight right-wing radicalization, but this often belies the fact that left-wing radicalization is similarly common on sites like Reddit. Left or right, Reddit is an especially unique social media site that can foster political radicalization among its users.
Discourse on Reddit often quickly devolves into the kind of language that can encourage radicalization. Redditors can often be found using extreme language to attack and belittle their opponents. However, the most vile rhetoric often manifests itself in “safe-space” subreddits where their opponents are either unable or unwilling to retort. The pattern of comments often becomes detrimentally self-reinforcing, where Redditors are praised for doubling down and repeating increasingly radical ideas.
The lack of disagreement radicalized individuals on Reddit encounter means they often come to believe they are a bastion of virtue fighting against the predations of an ontologically evil opponent. This manifests itself in the wholesale hatred of entire groups such as the GOP, where accusations like “All Republicans are Fascists” are repeated dozens if not hundreds of times per day. These baseless accusations often receive hundreds or thousands of approving upvotes, boosting the message to the top of comment threads.
Another common result of residing in radicalizing echo chambers is that Redditors consistently perceive threats that are not actually there. For instance, claims of a “trans genocide” never hold up to academic scrutiny or official definitions of “genocide.” And Redditors are constantly concerned that Republicans, due to their religious nature, are “fundamentally theocratic” or worse, they are “Christofascists.” To say that Redditors frequently demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of Republicans and conservatives would be a monumental understatement. And in an environment where extremism is unchallenged, misinformation is the bread and butter of the so-called “free-thinking, high IQ” individuals on Reddit. Redditors will frequently misconstrue the truth in order to conflate individuals and ideologies that are not actually linked. It then becomes a game of tenuously tying those two ideologies together via mental gymnastics and repeated lies.
Along these lines, another common tactic is amplifying the actions of a small portion of a group to demonize the entire group. For example, when one individual does something heinous, such as one lawmaker in Florida making a ridiculous bill “outlawing Democrats” — technically, the bill outlawed any party that had formerly supported slavery — many Redditors condemned Ron DeSantis for it, despite DeSantis publicly disavowing it.
A License to Hate
Redditors are, just like most social media users, highly motivated to oppose things they see as evil. This motivation, coupled with moderators permitting ontological hatred of an entire group of people, is what gives Redditors an excuse to go on the offensive without pesky restrictions such as “empathy” and “respect.” Once this “license to hate” takes hold of a subreddit, it will begin to spiral into ever-increasing hateful discourse.
This process is initiated when moderators, rather than moderating the speech of a subreddit, decide that hateful rhetoric against certain “out groups” is acceptable and even praiseworthy. This suggestion of ontological evil is often the core foundation of radicalization on Reddit. The manifestation of this can be seen in subreddits such as r/WhitePeopleTwitter, r/196, r/MurderedByWords, and many other “non-political” subreddits that have become highly politicized as their moderators have decided that speech against “fascism” (which is merely speech against any conservative) is wholly justified.
Users of these subreddits will often get showered with upvotes for making absurd claims like “The GOP are all fascist traitors” that quickly devolve into people advocating for violence against any and all individuals on the political right. In that situation, moderators are often the only thing capable of preventing a politicized subreddit from spiraling into insanity.
Unfortunately, moderators willing to hold the line on civil discourse are few and far between on Reddit. When moderators release restrictions on speech based on the aforementioned ontological evils projected onto enemies (e.g., “kill all fascists”), the community begins its descent into chaotic vitriol:
This often comes along with crackdowns against dissenting opinions. Often mods will put their foot down and make broad sweeping statements about “not tolerating nazis” and then ban individuals who, for instance, have any activity in r/Conservative because “All Conservatives are Nazis.”
This intolerance of opposing views, driven by the agenda of moderators, is resulting in the death of subreddits and a cooling of speech on the platform. One such example of this is the subreddit r/JusticeServed. Activist mods of the subreddit used an automated tool to systematically ban users who had any participation in subreddits like r/Conservative. The result of these ban waves was the rapid stagnation of a multimillion-subscriber subreddit.
What’s more, the administrators of Reddit apparently support this insane automatic banning process. Recently, when a few confused members of r/Conservative posted the messages they received showing they had been banned from participating in r/JusticeServed, the moderators of r/Conservative got a stern warning from Reddit administrators warning them against “ban showboating.” Needless to say, left-wing subreddits have not been given the same warnings.
Mods that use mass-banning systems are creating giant rifts in user overlap that both hurt communities on Reddit and damage the site’s retention of users and reputation as a whole.
Herman Cain Award
Redditors are champing at the proverbial bit to have a justification to become engulfed in hatred. One of the most prominent examples of how enticing this “license to hate” is for Redditors can most clearly be seen in the meteoric rise of the hate subreddit r/HermanCainAward.
Herman Cain was a 2012 presidential candidate. During the beginning of the pandemic, he publicly denied the severity of Covid-19, which would ultimately take his life in July. In August 2020, a month after his death, his Twitter account posted this: “It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.”
This quickly entrenched Herman Cain as the poster child for individuals who denied the severity of Covid or refused the vaccine and eventually succumbed to the disease.
The subreddit r/HermanCainAward was launched just three weeks later, but it would rise in popularity in the fall and winter of 2021. What resulted was one of the most grotesque displays of widespread hatred for humanity ever orchestrated on Reddit.
The format of the subreddit was simple. Find an individual (usually from Facebook) who had succumbed to the virus and then find posts from that same person downplaying the danger of the pandemic or refusing a vaccine. You then post a timeline of their death to Reddit and, like roaches to a sewer, the worst of Reddit crawled into the comments to jeer and laugh at the demise of these individuals.
r/HermanCainAward is a subreddit dedicated to celebrating the deaths of people who are unvaccinated. Recently, this "reminder" reached the front page in an attempt to justify their behavior.
Comments on various threads show the true meaning of the subreddit: Rejoicing in death. pic.twitter.com/YtKUhr94Kl
While reveling in the death of people is egregious in itself, some users would regularly take this one step further. In the early days of the subreddit, before it was a requirement to censor names and faces, Redditors would often track down the Facebook account itself and harass the grieving family members.
The #HermanCainAward subreddit is a community dedicated to mocking the dead. Recently they tightened their rules on doxxable content despite many redditors claiming "HCA doesn't #doxx anyone."
More than 500,000 Redditors would eventually subscribe to the subreddit that gave them a license to hate. The subreddit was so bad that even liberal corporate media outlets felt they had to condemn it.
Fomenting Violence and Terror Recruitment
When these Reddit echo chambers encourage extremism and allow misinformation to flourish, the threats perceived by the individual members of these Reddit communities are portrayed as imminent and dire. This means these threats demand quick, decisive action. After steeping themselves in rhetoric like this, there is only one conclusion that can logically be drawn by many of the Reddit radicals — violence is justified. Indeed, if you truly believed there was an active genocide going on against trans people perpetrated by “Literal Nazis,” wouldn’t you do anything you could to stop it?
Nothing special, just a Redditor on r/196 sharing the home addresses of Supreme Court Justices and Molotov Cocktail recipes. pic.twitter.com/ex0CPhF3DB
In one notable case, a Redditor was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security for threats he or she had made on Reddit toward SCOTUS. And Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin, a man by the name of Nicholas Roske, was actively looking for affirmation as he suggested assassinating the justice on a subreddit known as r/TwoXChromosomes. He laid out his initial intention on Reddit before he was arrested near Kavanaugh’s house with a Glock, zip ties, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, a screwdriver, a nail punch, a crowbar, and duct tape.
"There is a way he could be removed" -Nicholas Roske's Reddit account before attempting to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh. pic.twitter.com/Gl6LztoS0c
Naturally, Antifa has found Reddit instrumental in rallying radicalized individuals to its cause. Reddit has thoroughly spread Antifa’s violent ideology, which, again, effectively states that there is no middle ground: Everyone that disagrees with Antifa is a fascist who doesn’t deserve rights or basic protections such as free speech, and any violence committed against these literal Nazis is self-defense, even if you’re the aggressor.
After a user has been successfully steeped in such rhetoric, Reddit provides a gateway for Redditors to turn their anger into violent activism. Subreddits like r/AntifascistsOfReddit give users explicit guides for how users can cover their tracks and hide from scrutiny. (This is often referred to as OPSEC, or “operational security.”)
Antifa’s OPSEC and non-hierarchical organizing structure often make it hard to directly connect violence to the influence of the organization. It should come as no surprise then that Redditors are being arrested for violence connected to Antifa causes. Samuel Fowlkes, one of the Antifa members arrested in April for attacking protesters at a drag show in Texas, had an extensive history on Reddit. His posts and comments demonstrate just how instrumental Reddit was in his radicalization. Kyle Tornow, a man who threatened to blow up a Portland police station during the civil unrest in 2020, also had a history on Reddit.
And while perhaps he wasn’t as far-left as Antifa, it’s worth noting the account of the man behind the recent mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, was also found on Reddit. His account regularly espoused left-wing views.
The Louisville Kentucky shooter used the Instagram handle CSturg41.
A Reddit user with the same name (u/csturg41) hated Trump, posted to r/ChapoTrapHouse (a banned far-left subreddit), and was generally a shut-in. pic.twitter.com/gaBBJTwHiC
For the most part, Redditors don’t expand their hate beyond the reach of their keyboards. However, it should also come as no surprise that some Redditors decide to take the logical conclusions of the narratives they’re spoon-fed into real life. By now, Reddit has a well-established history of being used by these violent activists to attempt to get advice, suggestions, or praise for carrying out violent acts against other individuals.
That history is as extensive or more extensive than many other social media sites that have been relentlessly called out for violence and disinformation. And yet, the media and the rapidly increasing number of “disinformation” groups have given Reddit radicalization hardly any attention. It appears they only regard violent rhetoric as a problem when it can be connected to right-leaning politics. If concern about violent rhetoric were applied fairly, there would be a deafening chorus from the media and Big Disinformation demanding accountability at Reddit.
Reddit has taken action in the past. Just a few weeks after the Jan. 6 riot, Reddit banned the “The Donald” subreddit for harassment and targeting at the same time it also banned the raucous left-wing “ChapoTrapHouse” subreddit for similar reasons. However, Jan. 6 produced a censorious hysteria among media companies and Big Tech and given the rhetoric and out-of-control subreddits that have flourished on the site since then, there’s little evidence Reddit management still cares about these issues.
Fixing Reddit would mean some pretty fundamental changes to how the site operates, particularly holding moderators accountable. Moderators are the only individuals who really have the power to break this cycle of escalating rhetoric and violence. Redditors as a group have demonstrated they’re incapable of self-moderation. Activist moderators need to be scrutinized and potentially have their privileges revoked. There should be increased moderator transparency.
Moderators, not the site’s owners and administrators, are who ultimately control the platform, and Reddit is going to pay for it dearly. Reddit is subject to the whims of unpaid moderators who have extreme control over the speech on the platform. Until that’s fixed, Reddit will remain a hotbed of radicalization and is likely to be associated with more violence in the future.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. support of the “One China” policy on Monday, saying that the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We do not support Taiwan independence,” Blinken said in a press conference on Monday. “We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. We continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross strait differences. We remain committed to continuing our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act including making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself.”
“At the same time, we and many others have deep concerns about some of the provocative actions that China has taken in recent years going back to 2016,” Blinken added. “And the reason that this is a concern for so many countries, not just the United States, is that were there to be a crisis over Taiwan, the likelihood is that could produce an economic crisis that could affect quite literally the entire world.”
“Fifty percent of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day. Seventy percent of semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan. If as a result of a crisis that was taken offline, it would have dramatic consequences for virtually every country around the world,” he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pose for photographers in Beijing Monday June 19, 2023. (AP)
Blinken’s comment comes amid increased tensions between China and the United States related to Taiwan. Last week, Taiwan’s air force scrambled fighter jets after a group of 10 Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait for the second time in a matter of days.
This month, the U.S. military released video of a close encounter between a Chinese navy ship and an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, and there have been several close calls between Chinese and U.S. military aircraft recently, including an air intercept by a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea in late May.
China considers self-ruling Taiwan its own territory and has raised the prospect of annexing it by force. The U.S. maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan even as it recognizes Beijing as the government of China.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference with Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at the State Department, Friday, June 16, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
“We have no illusions about the challenges of this relationship. There are many issues on which we profoundly and even vehemently disagree,” Blinken added. “The United States has a long history of successfully managing complicated relationships through diplomacy.”
Blinken told reporters that the relationship between China and the U.S. took a “positive step” during his trip over the last two days and said his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, agreed to visit Washington D.C., in the future at a “suitable time.”
Blinken acknowledged that China did not agree to set up a crisis military-to-military communications channel which had been one of the goals of the U.S. heading into the meeting.
Chinese President Xi Jinping discussing the country’s economic and social development at a political gathering in Beijing. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Over the last year, the U.S. and China saw more than $700 billion in trade which according to Blinken constituted the highest level between the two countries on record. He reiterated U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s testimony before Congress last week that it would be “disastrous” for the U.S. to decouple and stop all trade and investment with China.
“We are for de-risking and diversifying. That means investing in our own capacities and in secure, resilient supply chains, pushing for level playing fields for our workers in our companies. Defending against harmful trade practices and protecting our critical technologies so that they aren’t used against us. I made clear that we’ll continue to take targeted actions that are necessary to protect U.S. national security,” Blinken said.
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
FIRST ON FOX — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is facing two lawsuits for his failure to comply with state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests for information about his office’s possible communication with the Justice Department, White House and Democrat lawmakers with regard to Bragg’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
In March, Bragg indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree after a months-long investigation into the former president related to hush-money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign. Bragg is alleging that Trump falsified New York business records to “conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.”
The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank, has sued Bragg under suspicions that he and his office coordinated or communicated with the Justice Department, the White House and Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., about the prosecution. In its lawsuit, Heritage claims that such actions eventually led to investigations by several U.S. House committees into Bragg’s conduct.
“Regrettably, these questions have not been met with answers. These reports have raised concerns in many circles based in large part upon the longstanding history of President Trump’s political opponents coordinating their activities to systematically weaponize the criminal justice system against him and thereby pervert the course of Justice,” a filing for the first lawsuit reads.
New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg, right, is facing two lawsuits for his failure to comply with state Freedom of Information Law requests for information about his office’s possible communication with the Justice Department, White House and Democrat lawmakers in relation to Bragg’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump, left. (Shane Bevel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images | Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A separate lawsuit filed by Heritage alleges that Bragg and his team retained pro bono assistance from major law firms that specialize in white-collar litigation. They are now asking the court to declare requested documents as “subject to release under the New York Freedom of Information Law,” declare that Bragg and his team provide said documents, and bar his team from “seeking costs and fees for the request at issue in this case.”
According to Heritage, Bragg and his team have largely stonewalled the group’s requests for communications between the suspected parties, which the group says they have a right to see under New York’s FOIL laws.
A separate lawsuit filed by the group alleges that Bragg and his team retained pro bono assistance from major law firms that specialize in white-collar litigation. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Mike Howell, director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, which serves as the group’s government watchdog arm, said they believe Bragg was “coordinating, or otherwise communicating” with Trump’s political opposition and that “there’s reason to believe Bragg was a “prolific communicator” via cellphone.
“The fact we have to file a lawsuit against Bragg who says he can’t produce these records and says he doesn’t have the systems to do so, is proof-positive of another dual standard of justice at play in this country,” Howell said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“You have a weaponized actor who’s going after the former president on a loony theory about his document retention, whereas the DA can’t even keep his own documents, and it’s in violation of the information laws he is bound by,” Mike Howell, director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, told Fox News Digital. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“You have a weaponized actor who’s going after the former president on a loony theory about his document retention, whereas the DA can’t even keep his own documents, and it’s in violation of the information laws he is bound by,” he continued.
“He’s a hypocrite. He’s wasting an exorbitant amount of New York’s taxpayer’s dollars to defend this now and delay it and obstruct it when he could’ve just turned it over,” he said.
Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
House Republican leaders return to Capitol Hill this week, struggling to control anger within the party that might derail their legislative agenda over the summer, The Hill reported on Monday.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the former head of the Freedom Caucus, said talks with Speaker Kevin McCarthy were initiated by the anger of his handling of the debt ceiling negotiations, that “I haven’t been overly pleased or participatory … but I’ll just say that I don’t think we’re moving in the right direction as far as solving this massive growth in national debt.”
Biggs continued that “my biggest concern is, What’s the coalition that the speaker has built? We want to know who his coalition partners are. Is it the Democrats, or is it going to be the conservative voices and the other Republicans in the conference?”
When Biggs was asked if the conservatives would resort to their successful strategy of blocking floor action, the representative immediately responded, “Oh, I think it’s always on the table. I’m an ‘all-tools’ guy.”
Threats such as this illustrate the delicate balancing act McCarthy and other Republican leaders face as try to cut deals with President Joe Biden in order to enact must-pass bills like raising the debt ceiling and funding the government without angering the conservative wing of the GOP that view deficits as a greater threat than a default or a shutdown.
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., voiced the concern of the conservative wing, saying: “I’m not worried about a shutdown. The country’s going to be permanently shut down if we don’t get our spending under control. And I’m tired of hearing, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ “
After conservative rebels backed off of their revolt last Monday, announcing they would let legislative business resume, at least for the time being, McCarthy has sought the aid of top deputy, Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., to help in the attempt to further mitigate the concerns of the conservatives, according to those familiar with the talks.
But Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., last week suggested that if there’s no progress by the time the House is ready to vote on another rule — which could happen as soon as Wednesday — conservatives might block floor activity once again.
However, Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., another one of the Republican rebels, was more optimistic about the direction of talks with McCarthy, saying “there have continued to be constructive, healthy conversations on how we’re gonna work together this entire conference to cut spending.”
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
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer of Kentucky dropped a bombshell subpoena last month demanding the FBI hand over a document alleging a bribery scheme between President Joe Biden and a “foreign national.”
On May 3, the pair of GOP lawmakers requested congressional access to an unclassified FD-1023 form, a document used by the bureau to catalog information from a confidential human source. The FBI record suggests President Biden took a foreign bribe during his time in the Obama administration.
After more than a month-long back-and-forth between agency leadership and Capitol Hill wherein House Republicans even prepared contempt proceedings for FBI Director Christopher Wray, members of Congress were finally able to review the document Thursday. Here’s everything we know about the record in question.
Confidential Human Source Is ‘Highly Credible’
The confidential human source (CHS) behind the FD-1023 is reportedly a “highly credible” informant with an agency tenure stretching back more than a decade. According to Fox News, the whistleblower informant has collaborated “in multiple investigative matters” with the FBI since the Obama administration, with consistent reviews for credibility.
“The confidential human source who provided information about then Vice President Biden being involved in a criminal bribery scheme is a trusted, highly credible informant who has been used by the FBI for over 10 years and has been paid over six figures,” Chairman Comer told reporters last week.
Contrary to MSNBC’s claim that “All roads lead to [Rudy] Giuliani” in the sourcing for the document, individuals familiar with the investigation told The Federalist the FD-1023 document came independent of information provided by the former New York City mayor.
Allegations Date Back to 2017
In addition to researching the cache of incriminating intelligence on the Biden family Giuliani sent to the FBI, agents searched the FBI’s databases and discovered a related FD-1023 from 2017. That prompted agents to re-interview the CHS and uncover details about the Burisma bribery scandal, resulting in the FD-1023 dated June 30, 2020.
Bidens Allegedly Took $10 Million From Burisma Executive
Grassley spoke in a Monday floor speech about the “foreign national” who allegedly bribed the Biden family, and who has since been identified by people familiar with the matter as Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma. The Ukrainian energy firm showered Hunter Biden in excess compensation on its corporate board while his father served as the “public face” of White House policy towards Ukraine.
The CHS summarized earlier meetings with Zlochevsky in the FD-1023, claiming the Bidens “coerced” the foreign businessman to pay the multimillion-dollar bribes. Zlochevsky had been trying to shut down government investigations into his Ukrainian energy firm. The energy tycoon allegedly paid $5 million to then-Vice President Joe Biden, referred to as the “Big Guy” by Zlochevsky in the FD-1023, and $5 million to Hunter.
According to a report from Grassley and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in September 2020, Zlochevsky had separately paid a $7 million bribe to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office to shut down another probe.
In 2018, Biden bragged about his lead role in the termination of Ukraine’s top prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
Grassley: There Are Tapes
While the DOJ appeared to try to drown out coverage of the Biden bribery scheme with the unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump, Grassley reinjected the White House scandal into the news by disclosing the existence of audio recordings on Monday.
“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. Another two recordings are reportedly calls between Zlochevsky and then-Vice President Biden, for 17 recordings in “total.”
Grassley said Zlochevsky kept the tapes “as a sort of insurance policy,” and noted that the form also suggested “then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.”
House Republicans who reviewed the document also say Hunter Biden pressed Burisma to purchase an American oil company. In 2016, the Ukrainian firm ultimately took over a Canadian firm’s shares to buy into a joint venture with the American company Cub Energy.
AG Barr Referred Investigation To Delaware
Shortly after FBI Director Wray allowed members of the House Oversight Committee access to the FD-1023, Democrat Ranking Member Jamie Raskin sought to dismiss Republican allegations of corruption with a statement. An investigation into Biden bribery, Raskin said, had previously been shut down under Attorney General Bill Barr during the Trump administration.
“In August 2020, Attorney General Barr and his hand-picked U.S. Attorney signed off on closing the assessment,” Raskin said.
In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, however, the former attorney general debunked Raskin’s assertion.
“On the contrary,” Barr said, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”
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.
High school volleyball player Payton McNabb called out the hypocrisy of the Biden administration’s position on transgender students participating in girls’ sports. McNabb accused White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre of changing the narrative in order to play the victim.
The Murphy, North Carolina, student began speaking out against biological males competing in women’s sports after she suffered a concussion and a neck injury in September when a transgender player spiked the ball and it hit her in the face. She has since urged lawmakers to take action, saying in an April speech at the Independent Women’s Forum that “allowing biological males to compete against biological females is dangerous.”
“That is a dangerous thing to say that essentially transgender kids, we’re talking about, are dangerous,” Jean-Pierre responded.
On “America’s Newsroom” on Friday, McNabb called Jean-Pierre’s comment hypocritical but said she’d expect nothing else from the administration.
Watch the clip of Payton McNabb getting spiked in the face by a male competing with the women. Then watch her testimony she gave today for the first time publicly. I was honored to stand alongside her in NC to continue the fight to protect women's sports. pic.twitter.com/mvJmwprkaX
“She’s taken what others have said about how this is dangerous for us, and she’s essentially switched it around and played the victim from the situation, which I expect nothing less from that whole administration,” McNabb said.
McNabb said her own experience being injured by a transgender athlete was traumatizing and her recovery has been difficult and slow.
She told co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino that her team was aware of the opposing team’s transgender player before the game.
Payton McNabb speaks on “America’s Newsroom” with Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer. (Fox News)
“But we couldn’t just refuse the game since it was a conference game. So we had to continue to play them, even though none of us wanted to,” she said.
“I just remember seeing the fear in especially our younger players on the team who’ve never played against them before. So just seeing how scared they were, it was really heartbreaking.”
The North Carolina state legislature has taken up the issue, and a bill banning transgender girls from competing in women’s sports needs to pass one final Senate committee before being sent to the floor for a vote.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to oppose the bill.
But McNabb said the issue is important to prevent other female athletes from experiencing what she went through.
“The thought of it happening to my younger sister, who’s going into high school, or my other family members, my teammates, if that happened to any of them, it would just infuriate me,” she said.
“I just don’t think this is something that we should even have to be talking about.”
The financial toll of the Pride backlash by conservatives against Anheuser-Busch, Kohl’s, and Target has resulted in a collective $28.7 billion loss in market value since the beginning of April, according to Axios. Reactions to “woke” policies and sales pitches mean companies could find themselves targeted at any time with the fallout being unpredictable, the news outlet said.
Anheuser-Busch, fighting to recover from the backlash over a social media Bud Light promotion with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, told its customers, “We hear you.” In a statement posted on the company website, Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO, offered no apology for the controversy. According to Axios, the controversy resulted in a loss of billions of dollars off its market capitalization and shaved a 20% loss in its stock, which has since recovered, but is below its 52-week high.
Axios said Target has faced its own controversy for selling LGBTQ-themed clothing. Target opted to remove some of its Pride Month collection after the retailer’s promotion resulted in threats to the safety of its employees. It had also been revealed that the retailer had lost $10.15 billion in market capitalization due to the public backlash over its LGBTQ line of kids clothing, as well as one-piece swimsuits with “tuck-friendly construction” and “extra crotch coverage.”
The outcry over merchandising aimed at Pride Month and Bank of America downgrades, were responsible for a $15 billion loss from Target’s market cap, Axios noted. It has now recovered and stands at about $63 billion — down from about $74 billion in May.
“Many companies celebrate Pride by changing their logos, sponsoring celebrations, and offering themed products. While these corporate statements have been broadly accepted for years, the intensifying culture war may make companies more vulnerable to backlash,” Eurasia Group analysts Kylie Milliken and Noah Daponte-Smith wrote in a client note last month.
Axios said Kohl’s shares are underperforming. However, the stock, which had seen a drop of over 20% amid the controversy, has since rebounded. The retailer had experienced public backlash and calls for a boycott. This, after Kohl’s released its latest Pride Month merchandise, including a “Baby Sonoma Community Pride Bodysuit set” for 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month-old kids. The onesie, sports an illustration of what appears to be a lesbian couple with a dog and three children, including a young boy in a wheelchair. One adult in the illustration is carrying a multicolored flag. Other Kohl’s Pride merchandise under scrutiny included a “Love Is Love” banner, towels, bibs, candles, shorts, and pillows, as well as shirts that say “Be Proud” and “Ask Me My Pronouns.”
Is it just me, or is anyone else just tired of all this LGBTQHSGSYUASKJSUHP(YO{A(*^)+}AKKMN being shoved down our throats? I wish some polling outfit would run that poll. I think there are a lot of people who really don’t care about someone’s life choices. They aren’t mine, I love them just as they are, while not approving of those choices. Isn’t that being civil, and loving my neighbor?
Here is an utterly un-American quote from President Joe Biden:
These are our kids. These are our neighbors, not someone else’s kids; they’re all our kids. And our children are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft. It matters a great deal how we treat everyone in this country. LGBTQI+ Americans, especially children: You are loved. You are heard. And this administration has your back.
Now, perhaps the phrase “they’re all our kids” sounds like an innocuous platitude to some woke White House speechwriter, but to me it sounds like a totalitarian notion.
Years ago, P.J. O’Rourke correctly described the purpose of Hillary Clinton’s detestable book on the same subject: “It takes a village to raise a child. The village is Washington. You are the child.” It’s no accident the head of the nation’s largest and most powerful teachers union praises op-eds with headlines like, “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” That’s also the position of the institutional left, including the president, who argues that American values are at risk if parents dare demand kids’ libraries exclude books describing incestual rape, celebrating gender dysphoria, and depicting 10-year-old boys having oral sex.
Marx also saw the traditional family as an antiquated unit. The first Soviet welfare ministers complained about the “narrow and petty” idea of the nuclear family in which reactionary bourgeois parents, selfishly wrapped up in their trivial anxieties, were “not capable of educating the ‘new person.’”
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe Joe Biden is going to ship parents to Siberia. Nor am I suggesting that the president’s handlers are sitting around thinking about the Frankfurt School. (They arrived at a similar philosophical destination organically, I suspect.) What I’m saying is that the White House is teeming with wannabe authoritarians who believe the state would do a better job raising kids by filling their impressionable heads with corrosive, immoral ideas. And that the institutions to achieve that goal already exist.
Public schools, some of them excellent and many of them disastrous, are not voluntary, communal places. In most municipalities, parents have little choice, and their kids are in a captive audience. State-run schools, conceived to educate and forge patriotic, civic cohesion, have often become places of left-wing indoctrination — from “universal pre-k” until they go off to college, where credentialed halfwits and leftist ideologues who detest the “national ambitions” of a constitutional republic run the place. You pay for all of it. But you also get to shut up.
It’s important to remember that totalitarian states do not stop citizens from participating in political life, they demand it. Everything one does in these societies is drenched in ideology. Sports. Movies. Academia. Books. Commerce. Morality. Family. Sex. Schools. Which very much sounds like the goal of contemporary leftism.
It’s none of our business who you sleep with or what sex you cosplay as, but it is our business that government-run elementary school kids are running around waving flags celebrating sexual identification and gender dysphoria like little soldiers in history’s dumbest Cultural Revolution.
Why wouldn’t they? Elizabeth Warren says things like, “Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy…” At the White House the other day, the self-anointed pontifex maximus of true Americanism raised the pride flag to the same level of reverence as the Stars and Stripes, a flag that exists to represent all of us. Though, to be fair, most contemporary leftists seem a lot more comfortable standing under a rainbow flag than an American one.
Let’s start by pointing out that there is absolutely nothing uplifting or patriotic about allowing doctors, operating under the patina of (pseudo)science, to forever mutilate confused kids. The state’s duty to your children is to protect them from violence and abuse. Those who allow that cruelty, even celebrate it, do not, in fact, have “your back.”
Yet, the White House hangs a flag that implicitly endorses this barbarity, and then demands you do too. Indeed, reactionary parents, believers, traditionalists, normies, contrarians — culture warriors — unwilling to salute an ideology that grates against their religious, moral, and/or scientific beliefs are smeared as “cruel” enemies of “democracy” and “diversity.” As the great Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (what a name) argued decades ago, despite all its rhetoric about inclusivity, the left is the “enemy of diversity and the fantastical promoter of identity. Uniformity is stressed in all leftist utopias, paradises in which everybody is the same, envy is dead, and the enemy is either dead, lives outside the gates, or is utterly humiliated.”
Of course, even if pride flags were completely unobjectionable, your kids are not “kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft.” They are human beings with rights, parents, and unique ambitions, not platitude-spouting automatons who should be categorized by skin color or gender “identification.” In a truly diverse and free nation, we have an array of aspirations and very different ideas about what constitutes “national ambition.” That’s why politics exists. That’s why neutral principles of governance and inherent rights (are supposed to) exist.
The Bidens allegedly “coerced” a foreign national to pay them $10 million in bribes, according to individuals familiar with the investigation into the FBI’s handling of the FD-1023 confidential human source report. What, if anything, agents did to investigate these explosive claims remains unknown, however, with sources telling The Federalist the FBI continues to stonewall.
On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.
The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting.
In the FD-1023 from June 30, 2020, the confidential human source summarized earlier meetings he had with Zlochevsky. According to the CHS, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS, who was providing advice to Zlochevsky, told the Burisma owner to stay away from the Bidens. Then, after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest, the CHS asked Zlochevsky if he was upset Trump won.
Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family, which included a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden and a $5 million payment to Joe Biden. According to the CHS, the Burisma executive bemoaned the situation, claiming the Bidens had “coerced” him into paying the bribes.
The CHS responded that he hoped Zlochevsky had taken precautions to protect himself. Zlochevsky then allegedly detailed the steps he had taken to avoid detection, stressing he had never paid the “Big Guy” directly and that it would take some 10 years to unravel the various money trails. It was only then that Zlochevsky mentioned the audio recordings he had made of the conversations he had with Hunter and Joe Biden, according to the CHS.
The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source.
Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine.
Sources told The Federalist that investigators out of the Pittsburgh office, in addition to reviewing Giuliani’s information, searched internal FBI databases and came across an earlier FD-1023 related to the CHS. That earlier FD-1023 then led to agents questioning the CHS on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details concerning Burisma’s alleged bribery of the Bidens.
What the FBI did to investigate the allegations is unknown, with sources telling The Federalist the bureau refused to either confirm or deny that the DOJ under Barr sent the FD-1023 to Delaware for further investigation. On the contrary, the FBI allowed Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, to falsely represent to Americans that Barr and Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady had closed the investigation. Raskin’s deceit, tolerated by the FBI, forced Barr to publicly correct the record.
The FBI is also refusing to provide any information on what, if any, steps it took to investigate the detailed claims contained in the FD-1023. But sources familiar with investigative procedures maintain there was insufficient time between the June 30, 2020, interview of the CHS and the FBI headquarters’ closing of an assessment related to the FD-1023 in August 2020 to properly probe the matter. “They couldn’t have done much,” one source said.
There is also no independent confirmation from Delaware indicating any investigative steps were taken regarding the FD-1023. Agents in Delaware “could have sat on it,” according to one individual familiar with the investigation.
While the FBI’s efforts to unwind the pay-to-play scheme seem to have been nonexistent, banking records released in May by the House Oversight Committee show congressional investigators are unraveling the complex web behind the Biden family business. Those records provide concrete evidence of a pattern of public corruption involving foreign nationals, with Joe Biden at the helm. There are still more banking records to review, along with the many details recently discovered when the whistleblower came forward with the FD-1023.
Apparently, Zlochevsky wasn’t far from the mark when he said it would take 10 years to unravel the complex payment path that led to Joe Biden.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
The House voted Thursday to overturn a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that Republicans say gave the executive branch too much power to impose regulations that cost Americans trillions of dollars each year. Lawmakers approved the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, or SOPRA, in a mostly party-line 220-211 vote.
Republicans have argued for the last several years that the Supreme Court precedent set in the Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. case effectively told courts that they should defer to federal agencies when they interpret laws passed by Congress as they write regulations. Republicans say that since that ruling, courts have failed to do their due diligence in assessing whether those regulations can be fairly justified under the law.
The lawmaker who sponsored SOPRA, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), argued on the House floor Thursday that the Supreme Court ruling has given the executive branch vast authority to regulate as it pleases, and often in ways that contradict the intent of Congress.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans voted Thursday to overturn a Supreme Court precedent that the GOP says makes it too easy to impose costly regulations on Americans. (Getty)
“Since 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute rather than what Congress intended, the executive branch has begun usurping the legislative branch to issue regulations with the force of law,” Fitzgerald said. “It is certainly not what our founders intended.”
He added that the cost of these regulations have piled up on Americans over the last several decades.
“The total annual cost of regulation is almost $2 trillion, or about 8% of the U.S. GDP,” he said. “If it were a country, for comparison, U.S. regulation would be the world’s eighth largest economy.”
A bill introduced by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald to overturn a Supreme Court precedent was passed in the House on Thursday. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Another Republican, Rep. Thomas McClintock of California, said the Supreme Court ruling goes against the intent of the Constitution, which sets out that Congress writes the laws while the executive branch carries them out.
“One brother makes law but cannot enforce it, the other brother enforces law but cannot make it,” he said.
Democrats said overturning the Supreme Court decision would force the courts to take on considerable work as they try to interpret federal law. Rep. Jerry Nadler, of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the bill would “completely upend the administrative process by eliminating judicial deference to agencies and require federal courts to review all agency rulemakings and interpretations of statute on a de novo basis.”
Nadler also said Congress defers to agencies to do the work of deciding specific regulatory policies because it does not have the expertise to do that job.
Rep. Jerry Nadler argued against the bill and voted against it with most other Democrats. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“While Congress sets broad policies, we delegate authorities to executive agencies because we do not have the expertise to craft the technical regulations ourselves, and we rely on these agencies to carry out the policies we enact,” he said.
The bill is unlikely to move in the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House has said President Biden would veto it. But the issue could be decided by the Supreme Court itself. In the fall, the Supreme Court is expected to hear a dispute between fishermen in New Jersey and the federal government over whether federal rules on fishermen are vastly exceeding what was allowed by Congress.
In that case, lower courts have leaned on the 1984 Chevron precedent to say they are giving deference to federal regulators. But the case is now at the Supreme Court, which could decide to overturn the precedent.
Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.
Former President Donald Trump was unwilling to negotiate with Justice Department investigators last fall, firm in his belief his documents were protected under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), according to The Washington Post. Christopher Kise, one of Trump’s new attorneys, reportedly sought to approach the investigators before special counsel Jack Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking to “take the temperature down” and make a deal that would avoid a federal indictment. But Trump reportedly rejected that route, preferring to take a legal stance that was ruled on in the “Clinton socks case” against Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton.
Trump has been taking advice from Fitton — at times against the advice of his own hired legal counsel — about the Clinton socks case, the PRA precedent, and his legal right to retain items he did not want to surrender to the National Archives, according to the Post. Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, declined to comment to The Washington Post.
“President Trump has consistently been in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which is the only law that applies to Presidents and their records,” a Trump spokesman wrote in a statement to Newsmax.
“In the course of negotiations over the return of the documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know.’ Sadly, the weaponized DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted an unnecessary and unconstitutional raid on the President’s home in order to inflict maximum political damage on the leading presidential candidate.
“The Biden regime’s despicable efforts are failing. President Trump maintains a commanding lead in the polls and is poised to reclaim the White House for the American people and make our country great again.”
The National Archives has long rejected Trump’s claims.
“The PRA requires that all records created by presidents (and vice presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations,” it wrote in a June 9 statement as Smith unsealed the 37-count indictment against Trump.
“The PRA treats the records of the president and those of the vice president in almost the same manner such that, in most cases below, president and vice president can be used interchangeably.”
Instead of using the PRA as the basis for the indictment, Smith’s charges reference the Espionage Act of 1917.
Fitton has made the case that the charges against Trump allege no crime and “won’t survive scrutiny.”
“I testified before the grand jury for four hours, and there were a few questions, I guess, they needed to check off in terms of potential criminal activity related to classified information and such, but most of the time was spent arguing with obviously partisan lawyers about policy debates,” Fitton said on Newsmax’s “Eric Bolling The Balance” on Monday before Trump’s arrest and arraignment. “And after four hours, I thought, ‘Why am I being questioned on this First Amendment activity?’
“I saw firsthand that this was a politicized process.
“They set it up so they could concoct and manufacture obstruction when, in fact, there was no obstruction. They left out the fact that [Trump] cooperated and told the senior Justice Department official in his home, ‘You can have whatever you want.’ And he directed his attorneys, right in front of him, ‘Give them anything they want.’ That didn’t make it into the indictment. This indictment is evidence of corruption by the Justice Department.”
Fitton told the Post that he dined with Trump on Monday, telling the paper he was giving Trump advice but declined to elaborate.
“I think what is lacking is the lawyers saying, ‘I took this to be obstruction,'” Fitton told the Post. “Where is the conspiracy? I don’t understand any of it. I think this is a trap. They had no business asking for the records … and they’ve manufactured an obstruction charge out of that. There are core constitutional issues that the indictment avoids, and the obstruction charge seems weak to me.”
Smith’s grand jury heard from a number of witnesses who were asked about Fitton’s role in advising Trump, according to the Post. Fitton has been publicly active in seeking to get Biden’s Senate records made public, which could include documents related to Tara Reade’s allegations of sexual misconduct when Biden was a senator.
Reade, fearing for her life, fled to Russia seeking asylum. Reade, who worked as a staff assistant in 1992-1993 for then-Sen. Biden, D-Del., has alleged Biden sexually assaulted her and had filed a Senate personnel complaint, which alleged Biden actively withheld from being released from the University of Delaware.
The Clinton socks case Trump has repeatedly mentioned as precedent for the retention of records was originally related to Fitton’s Judicial Watch in 2012, which former President Barack Obama-appointed Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled NARA could not force former President Bill Clinton to turn over audio tapes he kept in his sock drawer. Jackson has been frequently used by the Justice Department against Trump-related officials, lending credence to House Republican arguments there is a weaponization of justice and the government against Trump and conservatives.
Fitton told the Post he remains convinced Trump lawyers “should have been more aggressive in fighting the subpoenas and fighting for Trump.”
Marriage, once the most child-friendly institution in the world, has now been redefined in the name of equality. It was argued same-sex couples just wanted to visit one another in the hospital, have access to the same inheritance laws, and get the same tax breaks as heterosexuals. We were told ad nauseam that marriage had nothing to do with children.
Eight years post-Obergefell and it is clear we were lied to. As we have seen in every country that has redefined marriage, the redefinition of parenthood follows quickly on its heels. Court decisions mandating the state-sanctioned falsification that children have “two moms” at birth; deeming the term “mother” and “father” unconstitutional; Andrew Cuomo supporting commercial surrogacy in the name of “fairness and equality” for “LGBTQ+ New Yorkers” — in all of this, it is clear that children are the permanent victims of gay marriage.
California’s Senate Bill 729 offers one of the clearest connections between adult “equality” and child victimization. Take it from the child-violating bill’s co-author Sen. Caroline Menjivar who notes that this legislation “is critical to achieving full-lived equality for LGBTQ+ people.” The bill has passed in the Senate and advanced to the Assembly. As of June 1, it’s been referred to the Committee on Health and is awaiting a hearing date. But how does this bill provide full-lived “equality” for LGBT couples?
First, SB 729 redefines infertility. For the purpose of insurance coverage, infertility is typically defined as 12 months of unprotected heterosexual sex without pregnancy or birth. But what about gay couples? Twelve months — or 12 years — of unprotected homosexual sex will never produce a baby. Thus, California’s more “equitable” definition of infertility will include “a person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.”
Never mind that every adult operating under this expanded infertility definition will be creating a child who is intentionally motherless or fatherless — a child who will experience the inevitable mother-hunger or father-hunger as they are deprived of their natural right to both. True “equality” seems to require that children lose a parent (or two).
Next, because same-sex couples cannot create children organically, synthetic baby-making is required. SB 729 will force insurance companies to cover in-vitro fertilization (IVF) for the medically and relationally infertile. Never mind that children created in-vitro (in glass) experience higher rates of physical and developmental struggles. “Equality” demands that a child’s conception be directed by a technician rather than in the loving embrace of his or her own mother and father.
Third, while two female bodies have double the eggs, and two male bodies have double the sperm, bigoted biology requires one sperm and one egg for every new life to begin. Therefore, SB 729 will require insurance companies to fund the participation of reproductive third parties — someone else’s, sperm, egg, womb, and/or embryo — to make sure single men, lesbians, or gay couples are not disadvantaged. Never mind that this will subject children to the identity struggles often experienced by children created via sperm or egg donation. Never mind that womb-rental infants suffer intentional severing of the maternal bond — largely regarded as a foundation for life-long trust and attachment. (And no, surrogacy is not just like adoption.) “Equality” must be achieved, even at the expense of denying children a relationship with a biological parent and/or their birth mother.
Finally, biology puts no limit on a heterosexual couple’s pregnancy attempts, while single and same-sex couples are limited by the high cost of IVF. That’s why SB 729 will grant everyone unlimited embryo transfers. Once you’ve selected your child’s genetic parent from that sperm or egg catalog, created your dozens of embryos, discarded or donated the undesirables, sex-selected to your preference, and frozen the majority for later — or possibly for never — then the sky’s the limit! You can implant however many tiny humans you want in your womb, or that of a hired stranger.
Never mind that only 7 percent of lab-created babies will be born alive due to the high-risk nature of IVF pregnancies, eugenic screenings, and the abortionselective reduction to which they’re subjected. We already have 1 million babies on ice in this country, many of whom have been functionally abandoned — but at least the 93 percent of lab-created babies who die in California will do so at the hands of a truly diverse population.
California’s proposed bill is not unlike other recent attempts in Minnesota, Washington, and nationally to treat children as items to be cut and pasted into any and every adult relationship. But this is the inevitable result of equating two things that can never be equal: opposite-sex and same-sex relationships. There is only one kind of marital relationship capable of producing children and thus only one coupling that deserves to be incentivized and institutionalized.
In the marriage and family world, the pursuit of “Equality” based on adult emotions and preferences will always result in true inequality for children. And unfortunately for America’s children, our highest court insists that there is no distinction between these two types of parental pairings, even though one leads to wholeness for children, and the other to lifelong loss.
The shameless corporate media are so desperate for a narrative about LGBT victimhood, they’re pretending threats of violence from angry pro-“pride” perpetrators are instead threats against them. The latest examples are pure propaganda from The Hill and The Washington Post on Monday, which led with scaremongering — “bomb threats over Pride items” — while completely burying the lede: The bomb threats against culturally embroiled retail giant Target came from pro-LGBT activists.
“Target stores in at least five states receive bomb threats over Pride items,” read The Hill’s headline — the only part most people see.
The few readers who actually bothered to click the link were met with this deceptive framing in the first paragraph: “Target stores in at least five U.S. states had to be evacuated over the weekend after receiving bomb threats, the latest example of backlash the U.S.-based retail chain has received for its Pride month merchandise.”
Not until paragraph six, however, did the author reveal that these bomb threats that were emailed to news outlets in multiple states “accused the retail chain of betraying the LGBTQ+ community.”
The Washington Post ran an almost identical headline, burying the real news a full eight paragraphs down and leading instead with: “Target stores in at least five states were evacuated this weekend after receiving bomb threats. Though no explosives were discovered, the incidents tie into the backlash over the retail chain’s Pride Month merchandise.”
This media horsepucky is the latest attempt to push a fake narrative about conservative extremists assaulting the pro-trans department store. That’s why the outlets used words like “latest example,” “backlash,” and “for its Pride month merchandise.” As far as we know, the bomb threats had nothing to do with rainbow merchandise, nor were they related to any other “examples” of “backlash,” such as peaceful conservative boycotts. Instead, they appear to be a direct result of LGBT lunatics not getting their way. The framing is intentional.
This lede-burying exercise from The Hill is just the next page from the same “pride month” playbook the left has been running since May. Before the calendar even flipped to June, Target unveiled its aggressive rainbow merchandise, complete with pro-trans items for children and “tuck-friendly” swimwear. In no time, the company had moved many of its rainbow displays to the back of the store, citing nonspecific “threats.” When Target failed to produce any evidence for these allegations, its plummeting stock suggested the real “threat” was to its bottom line.
That didn’t stop media propagandists from parroting Target’s unsubstantiated claims. PBS, for instance, declared without evidence that Target had endured “intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers.” NPR editorialized that the outrage resulted in “threats against employees” — a claim Target didn’t even make in its vague statement.
“Bomb threats” are a new low. But pro-transgender activists, especially those occupying America’s newsrooms, habitually spin their own victimization as victimhood.
For example, when radical LGBT ideologues manipulate impressionable children, activist “journalists” frame concerned parents as “transphobic” and dangerous. When lawmakers take compassionate steps to protect these minors from the clutches of predatory adults or seek to eradicate porn from taxpayer-funded schools, corporate media frame their noble efforts as attacks on “trans rights” and “book bans.” When conservatives plead for dysphoric girls to get mental health help instead of mastectomies, the propaganda press employs emotional blackmail by claiming these girls will commit suicide if they’re prevented from amputating their healthy body parts. When a deranged transgender shooter murders six Christians in cold blood, media activists frame the shooter as the victim.
Public opinion about transgender radicalism is rapidly changing. Based on a Gallup poll out just this week, a majority of Americans (55 percent) believe it’s “morally wrong to change one’s gender.” That’s up four points from 2021, despite poll results also showing more Americans now know a transgender-identifying person. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of respondents said athletes should only be allowed to play on teams that match their sex, up a full seven points from 2021.
As the cultural tide turns, “pride” activists, with the help of their media allies, have shown they’ll do whatever it takes to maintain their clutch on the narrative — including spinning their own bomb threats against themselves.
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.
A radical bill being hotly debated in the Golden State threatens to label parents as child abusers if they decline to “affirm” their son or daughter’s sexual confusion.
AB 957, which has already passed California’s State Assembly, would require judges who are overseeing custody disputes with transgender children involved to favor the mother or father who supports the child’s so-called new gender identity. Parents who choose to affirm their son or daughter’s biological sex are considered out of bounds and out of luck.
At the root of this dangerous legislation is a foundational belief that the constructive and compassionate thing to do when it comes to gender confusion is to go along with whatever the child is feeling at the moment. This premise is not only destructive but also shortsighted and foolish, and on several levels. Cases of gender dysphoria or gender identity disorders have skyrocketed in recent years. Why is this happening? Sociologists report that much like teen suicide, gender-confused children run in clusters. In essence, if one child begins to question or act out, others soon follow. In some cases it’s become trendy and exotic to experiment with drugs and surgeries.
In reality, it’s terribly sad, and also a direct affront to God’s beautiful design for humanity. My heart breaks for children struggling and for those parents struggling alongside them. The organization I lead, Focus on the Family, exists to help moms and dads guide and provide the critical help needed when children are in this type of crisis.
Culture, though, is leading and encouraging children down a dangerous pathway by affirming their sexual confusion. In fact, some medical practitioners and activists have even coined the deceptive term “gender-affirming care” to describe the dark deed of irreversibly mutilating and altering children’s bodies.
What makes this even more tragic is that sociologists tell us that a significant majority (upwards of 80 percent) of children who experience this confusion will eventually psychologically revert back to their biological gender. In other words, they grow out of it.
Mark Yarhouse, professor psychology at Wheaton College, suggests, “Most children who meet criteria for gender dysphoria do not continue to meet criteria as they grow up and enter adolescence.” Yet, for some who take drugs and have surgery, the act of fully “de-transitioning” is impossible.
Despite the explosion of this confusion and abuse here in the United States, traditionally more progressive countries in Europe appear to be waking up to reality. The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board recently recommended that so-called sex-change operations and puberty blockers be used in research settings but not on children. They’re finally acknowledging that there’s no science to justify these abusive acts.
“The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known,” the UKOM, an independent government watchdog over Norway’s healthcare system, stated. “This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known.”
Norway’s not alone. Officials in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have made similar decisions. The controversial Tavistock Gender Clinic in the U.K. was shut down last year and just this past Friday, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service announced they were banning puberty blockers for children.
Whether in business or family life, leadership is knowing reality and suggesting solutions to problems. Affirming confusion and out right falsehoods does children no favors and, in fact, enslaves them to a lifetime of regret. We owe our children both truth and compassion, as well as situational clarity. California legislators are serving up only lies and confusion.
Jim Daly is president of Focus on the Family and author of “The Good Dad: Becoming the Father You Were Meant to Be.”
Republican support for former President Trump, who was arraigned in a Florida federal court Tuesday, remains steady, according to a new poll. A Quinnipiac University poll Wednesday showed Trump’s favorability rating at 37% among registered voters, largely unchanged from the group’s previous polls. The poll was conducted June 8-12, while Trump’s charges and scheduled court hearing dominated the news. The indictment against Trump was unsealed June 9.
Trump pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges that he illegally retained national security records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, following the end of his term in office, and that he obstructed federal efforts to recover the documents. In total, Trump faces 37 felony charges.
“A federal indictment. A court date on a litany of charges. A blizzard of critical media coverage. The negative impact on the former president’s standing with voters? Not much at all,” said Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy.
Biden, according to the Quinnipiac University poll, holds a slight lead over Trump, 48% to 44%, among all registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup. (Rachel Jessen/Bloomberg, Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Given a list of 10 candidates seeking the GOP nomination for president, 53% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said they support Trump, and 23% support Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for the nomination. Other Republicans running to represent the GOP in 2024 — former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — each received 4% support. Vivek Ramaswamy received 3% support, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson received 1% support.
Thirty-three percent of all registered voters who responded to the survey said they hold a favorable view of DeSantis, while 48% said the opposite. However, 18% said they haven’t heard enough about DeSantis, compared to 3% who said the same for Trump.
Among the Republicans who hold low ratings from registered voters, 40% of voters said they haven’t heard enough about Haley, 55% said they haven’t heard enough about Scott, 27% said they haven’t heard enough about Christie, 70% said they haven’t heard enough about Larry Elder, 75% haven’t heard enough about Ramaswamy and 72% haven’t heard enough about Hutchinson.
A handful of 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls, from left to right: South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, radio host Larry Elder and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. (Getty Images/Reuters Photos)
As for Biden, 42% of the survey respondents said they hold a favorable view of the president, and 54% said the opposite. Thirty-eight percent said they approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared to 57% who said they do not approve. On foreign policy, 39% said they approve of Biden’s handling and 53% disapprove.
Despite the low favorability rating, Biden, according to the poll, holds a slight lead over Trump, 48% to 44%, among all registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup. A previous national poll from Quinnipiac University in May showed Biden with 48% support from all registered voters while Trump garnered 46%.
Among Democrats challenging Biden for the party’s nomination for president, attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. received 17% support from Democratic and Democrat-leaning voters who were surveyed, and self-help author Marianne Williamson received 8% support. Thirty-one percent of registered voters said they hold a favorable view of Kennedy compared to 7% who said the same for Williamson.
Democratic presidential contenders Marianne Williamson, President Biden and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Scott Olson/Ting Shen/Joseph Prezioso)
Asked about the most important issue for the upcoming presidential election, 30% of respondents marked the economy, followed by 27% who said preserving democracy in the U.S. was paramount. Other issues — like abortion, gun violence, immigration, health care, racial inequality and climate change — failed to reach 10% support from respondents who weighed the most important issues ahead of the 2024 election.
Among independents, 35% said the economy was the most important issue, followed by 27% who said the same for preserving democracy in the United States.
“A rare show of unanimity in a country rattled by discord. There is a substantial amount of concern among Republicans, Democrats and independents over the preservation of the nation’s very bedrock: democracy. The older the respondent, the deeper the concern,” Malloy said.
The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,929 U.S. adults nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Bestselling author David Horowitz told Newsmax on Wednesday that the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump is an example of how “unprincipled” and gangster-like the Democrats have become.
“The Democrats are a totalitarian party,” Horowitz said on Newsmax’s“National Report.” “Their mentality is that of gangsters. Just for example, the idea of taking out your chief political opponent, who is leading the field of Republicans by 30 points and leading [President] Joe Biden by almost 10, that is so un-American.
“That is such a travesty, attack on our system, election interference, partisanship run wild. It’s a very sad day for America, but I think Trump will benefit from this, the way he has every time.”
Horowitz said sales of his book, “Final Battle: The Next Election Could be the Last,” spike along with Trump’s poll numbers when the former president gets indicted.
“I can tell from my book: every time Trump gets indicted, my book sales go up,” Horowitz said. “And every time he gets indicted, his poll numbers go up.”
Horowitz argues in his book that Democrats are wielding wokeism, racism, the FBI, and white supremacy as weapons to accomplish their goals of establishing a one-party political state controlled by the far left.
“This has been played out in front of the American people,” he said. “It’s not a mystery anymore. To see how unprincipled the Democrats are, they have the mentality of gangsters. They have no respect for the Constitution or the traditions of this country.”
Horowitz then pointed to the restraint Trump exercised as president when it came to his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton.
“When Trump was president, even though his crowds were chanting, ‘Lock her up!’ about Hillary, he didn’t do it,” Horowitz said. “He could have done it and he didn’t do it out of respect for the American tradition, which is you can’t have a democracy unless you have some respect for your opposition.
“And the Democrats have nothing but contempt for the 74 million people who voted for Trump in the last election.”
In February, Trump praisedHorowitz’s “Final Battle,” calling it “great” and urged his followers to pick up a copy.
“My great friend and author of ‘Dark Agenda,’ David Horowitz, is out with a new book, ‘Final Battle: The Next Election Could Be the Last,'” Trump said. “It is great! Get your copy!”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in a letter sent Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requested the Department of Justice preserve and produce all records pertaining to the office of special counsel Jack Smith, calling Smith’s investigation of former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified information “highly irregular and of extraordinary public concern.”
“This information is not only of public interest in the abstract but is highly critical to the ongoing oversight work of the federal Congress,” Gaetz wrote. “While there are innumerable valid legislative purposes for this request, it should be obvious that doing due diligence in vetting an office that has apparently done no vetting of its own personnel, or worse, might affirmatively be seeking to staff with sanctioned lawyers and partisan hatchet-men (and women), is an entirely appropriate purpose and one small reason I am requesting this information.”
Trump was indicted last week on 37 felony charges of willfully retaining classified documents and obstructing justice. Smith framed the indictment as an important step for protecting democracy.
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” Smith said Friday. “Adhering to and applying the laws is what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Gaetz in the letter claimed that Karen Gilbert, one of the prosecutors on Smith’s team, resigned in 2009 as head of the narcotics section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida after misconduct “which DOJ stated it ‘deeply regrets’ and which cost the American taxpayer over $600,000 in a settlement.”
Gaetz added: “This misconduct was both referred to the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility and the Florida Bar. Furthermore, Federal Election Commission records indicate that Ms. Gilbert has made thousands of dollars in donations to ‘Biden for President,’ ‘Obama for America,’ the ‘DNC Victory Fund,’ ‘Obama Victory Fund 2012,’ and associated partisan organizations.”
Gaetz also said the request should be met considering “at least 27 devices used in the Mueller probe were unlawfully wiped clean of records.”
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
This article includes graphic quotes from books that are being marketed to children.
On Thursday, Joe Biden will host a pride month event for families with LGBT kids on the White House South Lawn. It’s during this event that he’ll appoint a “banned-book” czar, whose job it will be to try to compel local communities to stock their libraries with race-obsessed pseudo-histories and books depicting oral sex, rape, violence, and gender dysphoria.
Now, if that sounds like an unfair description, there’s an easy way for the president to debunk his critics: He can read selected outtakes from some of these innocuous books to the prepubescent kids who show up to the event. Even better, he can do it on TV. After all, “[b]ook banning erodes our democracy,” says White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden, and “removes vital resources for student learning, and can contribute to stigma and isolation.”
Hey! That’s a GREAT idea. Have President Biden, with Jill beside him, gather all his children, and grandchildren, all the children of the people who work in his cabinet and White House, along with all the children, and grandchildren of every democrat Congress Person, and Senators. Make sure the Mainstream Media cameras are broadcasting LIVE. Then have President Biden and his wife Jill, alternate books as they read them out loud to their guests, and the nation. EVERY WORD!
You’re right. The networks could not like that content be broadcasted live over the airwaves. So, why is it okay for impressionable children to read such smut?
As Biden says: “There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.” So, perhaps the White House could set up a themed reading circle on the South Lawn where the president can recite selections from Lawn Boy, which describes 10-year-old boys performing oral sex on each other. It is, after all, on PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans.
The School Library Journal praisesLawn Boy as an exploration of “race, sexual identity, and the crushing weight of American capitalism.” (Incidentally, do you know how many books celebrating traditional families or the Second Amendment or Western civilization or the wonders of capitalism are stocked in school libraries? Speaking from experience, I’d say maybe a handful — and that’s probably an exaggeration. They aren’t “banned,” schools just refuse to carry them.)
Or, better yet, First Lady Jill Biden — who, you may not have heard, earned a doctorate in education — should recite these words for the kids: “‘What if I told you I touched another guy’s d-ck?’ I said. … ‘I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d-ck in my mouth…’” and so on. This is a vital resource for kids, says the administration.
Though it doesn’t have to be Lawn Boy. It could be the graphic “novel” Gender Queer, banned by the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado, according to PEN. Dr. Jill — mom, educator — owes it to democracy to read the words, “I got off once while driving just by rubbing the front of my jeans and imagining getting a blow job.”
Some “banned books,” like It Feels So Good To Be Yourself, are meant to normalize trendy pseudoscientific jargon and ideas among kindergarteners and first graders, filling their heads with words like “non-binary,” “gender fluid,” and “gender expansive.” If reactionary parents won’t teach kids these ideas, someone’s got to. And that’s bad enough. But maybe Biden can explain why middle schoolers need to have access to the vulgar, graphic sexual scenes of incest and child rape featured in Sapphire’s “banned” novel Push.
I’m certainly not arguing that every book removed from libraries is porn or badly written or useless. Perhaps Push tells the story of an abused girl using appropriately realistic and horrifying words. Even so, the topic of brutal sexual violence isn’t morally or educationally tantamount to a math lesson. It’s up to parents, not teachers nor Joe Biden, to decide when, how, or if their kids read about it.
PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans claims there are nearly 1,500 “instances of book banning in schools, affecting 874 different titles in the first half of this school year.” The preponderance of the books on the list feature sexually explicit scenes — and many have minority and gay characters, because regrettably, so-called progressives have decided to teach kids that their immutable physical characteristics or sexuality or “gender expression” define them, rather than their achievements and deeds.
One of the ideas behind public schools was that they would break down ethnic and class barriers and build shared patriotic virtues and civic understanding. Instead, they are often used to trap kids and then indoctrinate them with leftist culture attitudes. That’s what Biden means when he says your kids are also his kids.
And if parents get involved, they’re accused of standing against “democracy.” Because in contemporary left-wing vernacular, “democracy” has been stripped of any useful meaning. Sometimes democracy means majoritarianism denying individuals their rights for the common good, sometimes “democracy” means courts unilaterally dictating policy, and sometimes it means parents having zero say in what their children read or learn.
Of course, we shouldn’t forget that “banned books” are a partisan myth. These days, a “book ban” is a euphemism for curating a library in a way that upsets left-wing activists. Not one book on PEN’s list is even difficult to obtain, much less banned. Parents don’t even need to leave their homes to buy any of these books. They can order any of the titles in mere minutes and have them delivered to their front door in days. There are no “banned books.” There are just cultural imperialists, ideologues, and cowardly politicians trying to force their ideas on all children.
The White House condemned trans activist Rose Montoya for going topless at a President Biden’s Pride Month event on Saturday, after video went viral on social media. Montoya and others featured in the video posted by the trans model will not be invited to future events, a White House spokesperson said in a statement.
“This behavior is inappropriate and disrespectful for any event at the White House. It is not reflective of the event we hosted to celebrate LGBTQI+ families or the other hundreds of guests who were in attendance. Individuals in the video will not be invited to future events,” the statement read.
Montoya, a TikTok influencer and biological male who is transgender, originally posted the video from Saturday’s event. It shows Montoya and another unnamed transgender activist, a biological female, baring their breasts on the South Lawn with the White House in view behind them.
NSFW: Trans activists post video of themselves topless at White House Pride event
Montoya also captured an interaction with Biden himself in the video. The influencer smiles next to the President and says, “It’s an honor, Mr. President. Trans rights are human rights.”
Biden is then seen holding the camera in an attempt to take a selfie with Montoya and other attendees, but the camera was set to video mode. The video caused widespread outcry on social media, with many users saying Montoya and the group had disgraced the White House.
President Biden’s massive Pride Month celebration at the White House ended in controversy after a pair of trans activists flaunted their breasts on the South Lawn.
The White House has not released specific names of those who are barred from future events, but there were at least two individuals who were filmed removing their clothing on the South Lawn.
Montoya doubled down on the display of nudity in a follow-up video on TikTok, arguing that going topless is “legal” in Washington, D.C.
“I fully support the movement and freeing the nipple,” Montoya said. “My trans masculine friends were showing off their top surgery scars and living in joy, and I wanted to join them. And because it is perfectly within the law of Washington, D.C. I decided to join them and cover my nipples just to play it safe.”
American flags and a pride flag hang from the White House before a Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn, Saturday, June 10, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“I had zero intention of trying to be vulgar or be profane in any way. I was simply living my joy, and my truth, and existing in my body” Montoya said.
This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events. Send tips to Anders.Hagstrom@Fox.com, or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made a stunning claim Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid $5 million in a Biden bribery scheme maintained audio recordings of calls with the family as an “insurance policy.” On “Fox & Friends First” Tuesday, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker discussed the “explosive” developments days after the FBI turned over a document to Congress that allegedly detailed a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden.
MATT WHITAKER:This is explosive. There’s so many issues surrounding this, but remember what my home state senator, Chuck Grassley, said. This was redacted from the document they looked at, the 1023 that Chris Wray finally provided to the House and the Senate. This information, that there were recordings of the president of United States talking to a foreign national about bribes, was redacted from that 1023. That’s extraordinary in and of itself. Now, the contents, if true, I mean, obviously this is a cataclysmic event because you just don’t have these types of recordings usually available. And… it will prove essentially what Joe Biden knew and what his scheme was to abuse his power as vice president.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO). (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them, citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on.
Grassley revealed from the Senate floor Monday what was said to be a redacted reference in the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.
Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the contents of the form last week. The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, which is redacted, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Watch House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer discuss this topic and more on “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday, June 13 at 10 pm ET.
For the past year, the House Oversight Committee, where I serve as chairman, has been investigating the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes that generated millions of dollars for the Biden family. We are following the facts. We need to know whether these deals threaten national security and if President Joe Biden is compromised.
The Oversight Committee has already obtained thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family and has traced millions of dollars from China and Romania to the Biden family and their associates. Americans are asking: What is the Biden family business? They don’t sell anything, they don’t have lucrative assets generating income, yet they receive millions from around the globe. What are they selling? Influence and access.
President Biden has repeatedly lied to the American people about his family’s business dealings. Now, Americans are left wondering if Joe Biden was involved with them.
A highly credible whistleblower provided disclosures to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that the FBI has an unclassified, FBI-generated record known as an FD-1023 form. The document memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden in exchange for certain actions.
Last month, Sen. Grassley and I demanded the FBI produce this unclassified record and I issued a subpoena to obtain it. We need to know what, if anything, the FBI did to verify the serious allegations contained within this record. The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States to make money for himself.
President Joe Biden departs the White House on Jan. 19, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, the premier agency that is supposed to investigate crimes appears to have run defense for the Bidens. FBI Director Christopher Wray refused for weeks to acknowledge the existence of the FD-1023 form and failed to produce it.
Once Director Wray finally confirmed the record’s existence, the FBI still failed to comply with a congressional subpoena.
We made it clear: If the FBI didn’t hand over this form, the House Oversight Committee would begin contempt of Congress proceedings. The FBI was finally forced to cooperate and is allowing all members of the House Oversight Committee to review the record in person and producing additional documents.
Allowing all Oversight Committee members to review this record is a big victory and an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people.
The FBI confirmed multiple times during our briefing that the information contained within the record is currently being used in an ongoing investigation.
The confidential human source who provided information about then-Vice President Biden being involved in a criminal bribery scheme is a trusted, highly credible informant who has been used by the FBI for years and paid six figures.
The allegations contained within the record track closely with the thousands of pages of financial records obtained by the Oversight Committee. The Bidens have a pattern of using their network of over 20 limited liability companies and complicated financial transactions to hide the sources of the money and evade detection.
Disinformation from the left reinforces the need for the FBI to produce this unclassified FD-1023 record to the House Oversight Committee.
Despite growing evidence, the White House and Democrats are lying to the American people about the allegations contained within this record and what was done with it. Let me set the record straight:
First, Democrats are peddling conspiracy theories and alleging the FD-1023 record is based on secondhand hearsay. The FD-1023 record was generated by a trusted confidential source who was working with the FBI for over ten years.
Second, Democrats claim that the record is part of the documents Rudy Giuliani provided the FBI in January 2020. That’s not true. The FD-1023 document stands on its own and contains information from the FBI’s confidential human source dating back to another FD-1023 generated in 2017.
Third, the FD-1023 was generated by the FBI in June 2020 based on other FBI records dating back to 2017. The Department of Justice conducted an assessment on separate material provided to the Department in January 2020, and this assessment was closed in August 2020. Democrats are claiming the DOJ investigated the FD-1023 and then took no action, but the FBI has refused to answer what information was part of their assessment. How could the DOJ have conducted a credible, thorough investigation in four weeks? It’s not possible.
And last, let’s be very clear: The allegations in the record are not closed. FBI officials and former Attorney General William Barr have refuted Democrats’ lies that the Biden bribery investigation was closed. “On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation,” former Attorney General Barr said this week on the record.
Republicans are going to follow the facts and ensure accountability for the American people.
Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand answers, transparency, and accountability.
The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the facts and ensure accountability for the American people. Democrats’ lies and deterrents will not distract us from this goal.
Republican James Comer represents Kentucky’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives where he is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Republican senators had heated exchanges with FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday over the existence of an FBI document with allegations that President Joe Biden and his family took $5 million in bribes during his time as vice president, The Columbia Bugle reported. When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked if it is true that the FBI has a report making those allegations, Abbate responded that “I’m not going to comment on that, Senator.”
When pressed further on the matter about why he won’t answer the question, Abbate insisted that “this is an area that I’m not going to get into with you.”
Cruz responded by stating that “I understand you don’t want to, and that’s why people are mad at the FBI. Because you are stonewalling and covering up serious allegations of evidence of corruption from the president.”
The frustrated senator said, “You’re not going to say whether you did your job” when Abbate refused to answer if the FBI investigated in any way the allegations against the Bidens.
After the FBI deputy director replied that “we do our job to the very best of our ability,” Cruz answered, “Well not here! You’re not answering a single question to the American people. And you may think this is esoteric, I promise you millions of Americans are concerned.’
“You know who isn’t concerned? Not a single Senate Democrat. We’re going to go through this whole hearing, not one Democrat will ask a question about this. You know who else isn’t concerned? The corporate media who is joining with the Democrats in covering up the evidence.”
When Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn grilled Abbate over reported recordings of Joe and Hunter Biden with a Ukrainian executive who allegedly paid $5 million in bribes, the FBI deputy director said that “we often redact documents to protect sources and methods … the document was redacted.”
Blackburn said that “there is only one conclusion that any serious person could draw: There is a two-tiered system of justice under this administration. The American people know that, if they aren’t loyal to Washington’s liberal political elite or if their last name doesn’t happen to be Biden or Clinton, they are at risk of being targeted.”
Former President Donald Trump was arrested, processed, and plead “not guilty” on 37 charges related to retaining national-defense information under the Espionage Act of 1917.
“We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche told the U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman in a federal court Tuesday in Miami.
The hearing was closed to cameras and live broadcasts. Trump’s former aide Walt Nauta, also charged in the case, appeared in court but was not arraigned because he does not have local counsel.
“Defiant,” Trump legal spokeswoman Alina Habba told Newsmax outside the courthouse, when asked how Trump was feeling.
“We are at a turning point in our nation’s history,” she said, reading prepared remarks outside the courthouse. “The targeted, political prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela.
“It is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted, and put into jail. What is being done to President Trump should terrify all citizens of this country. These are not the ideals that our democracy is founded upon.
“This is not our America.”
CNN reported Trump was allowed to leave court without conditions or travel restrictions and no cash bond was required. Goodman ruled Trump was not allowed to communicate with potential witnesses in the case, the network said.
The indictment is the first in U.S. history of a former president and sets up a legal battle likely to play out over coming months as he campaigns to win back the presidency in a November 2024 election. Experts say it could be a year or more before a trial takes place.
Trump was to be digitally fingerprinted and have his birthdate and Social Security number taken as part of the booking process, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service told The Associated Press. Trump is appearing in court to answer special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment, which alleges violation of the Espionage Age and other process crimes.
The spokesman said the former president will forgo a mugshot because enough photos of him already exist in the system — confirming what a person familiar with negotiations around the proceedings said earlier. The spokesman said that booking could take place before Trump appears in court or afterward, depending on when he arrives. He said authorities did not plan to immediately alert the media once Trump had arrived. Trump reportedly did not get a mug shot taken during his processing for his Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment earlier this spring.
Security was tight outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson federal courthouse Tuesday ahead of the former president’s court appearance. Trump supporters were gathering hours before the appearance — far outnumbered by the hundreds of journalists from the U.S. and around the world who have converged on downtown Miami.
The case against him is historic but does not prohibit Trump from continuing his 2024 presidential campaign.
After the court appearance, where he could be arraigned and file his not guilty plea, Trump planned to fly to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to give an address and host a Trump campaign fundraiser.
The Trump campaign has set a $2 million goal for the fundraiser, which intends to line up big-dollar bundlers for his presidential run, Axios reported Monday. Trump’s campaign has intensified his fundraising efforts in the meantime, including an email Tuesday morning with the subject line: “My last email before my arraignment.”
Information from the AP was used as background for this report.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
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