A progressive media host is doubling down after she enraged liberals by insisting women should not be referred to as “birthing persons” or “persons with uteruses.” “The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian laughed at the backlash she received after calling transgender “inclusive” language “degrading” to women last month. Progressive journalists and transgender activists accused her of being “right-wing.”
“[Laughing out loud]! The meltdowns over wanting be referred to as a woman rather than a ‘birthing person’ is pretty wild,” she responded on Twitter on Monday.
The far-left host insisted she’d never apologize for taking this stance.
“I’ll never apologize for that, especially as biological woman who has had a f—ing lifetime of being told I’m less than,” she added.
“The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian (The Young Turks)
“I’m a woman. No apologies,” Kasparian fired back.
Many of the same progressives who criticized her original tweet also took offense at this unapologetic statement. Several on the left pleaded for Kasparian to stop tweeting about the issue or accused her of bigotry.
“You’ll be on J.K. Rowling’s level of TERFyness within 2 years at this rate,” Mississippi Free Press news editor Ashton Pittman tweeted.
You'll be on J.K. Rowling's level of TERFyness within 2 years at this rate.
The founder of “Race 2 Dinner,” an organization that invites White women to be lectured about their privilege and racism, mocked Kasparian. “You win the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy for Most Toxic White of the Weekend. Bravo for you,” Saira Rao said.
You win the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy for Most Toxic White of the Weekend.
Transgender activists insisted no one was referring to a woman as a “birthing person.”
“That’s not what’s happening,” Charlotte Clymer, an activist formerly with the Human Rights Campaign, retorted. “When referring to the whole community of people who are capable of pregnancy in the context of pregnancy, repro advocates use ‘birthing person’ to include trans men + nonbinary people. No one is arbitrarily calling individual women ‘birthing person,'” Clymer tweeted.
A transgender drag queen running for Congress in 2024 told Kasparian she was wrong and warned transgenders were under attack.
“I really don’t understand why you’re still tweeting about this. How many times a day are you being referred to as “birthing person” in real life? Knowing the intense scrutiny & hate trans people are facing rn, along w/the hundreds of anti-trans bills, couldn’t you just not?” the candidate tweeted.
I really don’t understand why you’re still tweeting about this. How many times a day are you being referred to as “birthing person” in real life?
Knowing the intense scrutiny & hate trans people are facing rn, along w/the hundreds of anti-trans bills, couldn’t you just not?
— Maebe for Congress (she/they) 🏳️⚧️ (@Maebe_A_Girl) April 10, 2023
Transgender attorney and activist Alejandro Carabello warned Kasparian that not using inclusive language could lead to “dire” results, linking to a 2019 report where a transgender man, a biological woman, was not given proper medical care and delivered a stillborn baby.
“No one is using that term to describe you personally, it’s in reference to the population. When language isn’t inclusive in medicine, the consequences can be dire. These are the real issues instead of making yourself the victim,” Carabello wrote.
Fox News reported last year how the Biden administration, congressional Democrats and liberal groups across the country had repeatedly dropped words like “mother” and “woman” from their language in order to appease the transgender community.
More recently, major companies like Nike have turned off customers by paying transgender activists like Dylan Mulvaney to model women’s clothing.
Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.
The FBI recently sought to develop sources inside Christian churches and Catholic dioceses as part of an effort to combat domestic terrorism, according to internal documents released by House Judiciary Committee on Monday. The internal documents — obtained last month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., who are also members of the so-called Weaponization Subcommittee — showed the FBI planned to use churches as “new avenues for tripwire and source development.” The federal law enforcement agency also aimed to specifically target “mainline Catholic parishes” as part of its efforts.
In addition, according to Jordan, the FBI expressed interest in “leverag[ing] existing sources and/or initiat[ing] Type 5 Assessments to develop new sources with the placement and access.” And, in another example, the agency cited a desire to to sensitize religious congregations “to the warning signs of radicalization and enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, conducts a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on March 9. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith,” Jordan wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday.
Jordan also issued a subpoena for a series of related documents the committee previously requested from the FBI, but which the FBI has failed to provide.
“This information is outrageous and only reinforces the Committee’s need for all FBI material responsive to our request,” Jordan wrote to Wray. “The documents produced to date show how the FBI sought to enlist Catholic houses of worship as potential sources to monitor and report on their parishioners.”
“Americans attend church to worship and congregate for their spiritual and personal betterment,” the letter continued. “They must be free to exercise their fundamental First Amendment rights without worrying that the FBI may have planted so-called “tripwire” sources or other informants in their houses of worship.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray listens during a news conference at the Department of Justice on Jan. 27. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Jordan and Johnson first requested related documents from the FBI on Feb. 16, days after former FBI agent and whistleblower Kyle Seraphin published an internal document originating from the FBI’s Richmond Field Office that appeared to outline a plan to “mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics.”
The leaked document generated widespread condemnation from Republican lawmakers who said the FBI’s efforts may violate the Constitution. However, the original letter from Jordan and Johnson went unanswered prompting a follow-up request on March 20. Three days later, the FBI produced the 18-page document Jordan announced on Monday.
“The FBI received the subpoena,” the FBI told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The FBI recognizes the importance of congressional oversight and remains fully committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests consistent with its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. The FBI is actively working to respond to congressional requests for information –including voluntary production of documents.”
The agency also referred Fox News Digital to recent comments Wray made during congressional testimony in which he said he was “aghast” when he saw reports about the FBI targeting Catholics.
“We took steps immediately to withdraw it and remove it from FBI systems. It does not reflect FBI standards,” Wray added. “We do not conduct investigations based on religious affiliation or practices, full stop. We have also now ordered our inspection division to take a look at how this happened and try to figure out how we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
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 Presiden
It is clear that state-sponsored SEL violates the U.S. Constitution in its attempt to infuse the religious science of ‘right human relations’ into education while cloaking it in secular language.
Social-emotional learning will soon become spiritual-ethical learning, and the public school systems will decide whose spiritual and ethical beliefs to teach.
For families that care about raising their children with the moral and religious values of their own faith tradition, questions about which spiritual and ethical teachings should be taught prompt even more speculation about whether so-called social-emotional learning (SEL) should be taught in public education at all.
As the theory adopts spiritual and ethical dimensions, it will amount to state-sanctioned religion.
What Is SEL, and How Has It Changed?
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a mental-health framework that has woven itself into the very fabric of our education system. Standards, assessments, curricula, and even college and career readiness standards have been altered to teach, measure, and track students’ adoption of SEL’s five core competencies — put forth by its standard-bearer, the Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL).
Since its birth in 1994 at the Fetzer Institute and up until 2020, CASEL’s definition of social-emotional learning and its competencies have relatively stayed the same. It described SEL as “the process through which children acquire the skills to recognize and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, and handle challenging situations effectively.”
In 2020, amid the chaos of the global pandemic and racial riots, CASEL quietly updated that definition and its five core competencies. Its new definition of Transformative SEL and adjusted competencies reflect the view that so-called social and emotional learning needs to be taught through a racial and “equity” lens.
SEL lessons and the subjects addressed through them act as both a springboard and smokescreen for activist teachers to have discussions about race, sex, and class that aim to create a critical consciousness in children. Once they are led to believe the systems of society have been set up to oppress specific groups of people, students can be coached to become social-justice activists who show their empathy and compassion by tearing down the systems of society in order to build ones that are more “equitable.”
In this vision, “equitable” means equal outcomes through the redistribution of resources, not equal opportunity under the law. The whole purpose of social-emotional learning has therefore been changed to explicitly “address issues such as power, privilege, prejudice, discrimination, social justice, empowerment, and self-determination” with the goal of developing “justice-oriented, global citizens.”
Spirituality Through SEL
As if this departure from its original purpose were not destructive enough, social-emotional learning is undergoing another revision — one that will seek to address the spiritual needs of students as a part of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), WSCC claims to create a comprehensive school health approach by fostering collaboration among the public health and education sectors through the integration and alignment of their services, far beyond hearing and vision screenings.
These public-private partnerships will take other medical and mental health services that are generally rendered out of school and facilitated by parents and caregivers and instead allow them to be offered as aid provided by the school so the needs of the “whole child” can be met. Spirituality will soon be seen as one of those needs.
🧵The CDC expands into education via the WSCC model of Community/Healthy Schools. They want children accessing psycho-social-emotional, medical, sexual, reproductive, dental, and eye services at school. They are collecting data, expanding Medicaid, and removing parental consent. pic.twitter.com/mDaXv5Nd4U
Recently, there has been an influx of SEL programs in the market that incorporate spirituality into their lessons. The Fetzer Institute, along with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Dr. Lisa Miller from Columbia’s Teachers College, launched the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education. Fetzer’s support of research on the spiritual aspects of childhood development led to the social-emotional learning program, “What Makes Me: Core Capacities for Living and Learning.”
Released in collaboration with UNICEF and the Learning for Well-being Foundation — a “Whole Child Partner” committed to advancing the WSCC model worldwide — it addresses nine core capacities that are believed to protect and improve the lives of children based on the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Both children’s ‘evolving capacities’ and ‘children’s spiritual well-being’ are key parts of achieving multiple children’s rights, as outlined in the UNCRC. The evolving capacities of the child are mentioned in both Article 5 and Article 14.1 in regard to children being able to exercise their own rights (Article 5), and their freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 14.1). Moreover, Articles 17, 23.3, 27 and 32 … recognize spiritual well-being as a goal of these rights alongside physical, mental and moral well-being, among others.
“What Makes Me” seeks to teach spirituality through SEL as “a more active and engaged process in which some persons choose to shape and create a way of knowing and living that may or may not draw on religion” and as something that involves the conscious choice to explore life’s “big questions.”
The UNCRC also states that children have sexual rights from birth and should be able to learn about sexual behaviors as young as age 5 through Comprehensive Sexuality Education, including the idea that sex is not binary or immutable. One must wonder if the “spirituality” they intend to impart to children as a fundamental “right” is a wide acceptance of sexual variance and the offering of an alternative belief system that differs from their familial, cultural, and religious beliefs.
“What Makes Me” is not the only SEL program incorporating spirituality that Fetzer invests in. It recently pledged $1 million to the QUESTion Project, started by mentalist and owner of The Open Future Institute, Gerard Senehi. It asks students questions such as: “Who am I?” “What is my purpose?” “What does a good life look like?” If administered in a public school using taxpayer money, these questions violate the separation of church and state and cross the line into the government using education to institute an unconstitutional state-sanctioned religion. SEL programs such as these meet the federal government’s definition of a religion, which is a “comprehensive belief system that addresses the fundamental questions of human existence, such as the meaning of life and death, man’s role in the universe, and the nature of good and evil, and that gives rise to duties of conscience.”
The First Amendment commands that the government can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Considering the esoteric and mystical religious roots of social-emotional learning and CASEL through the Fetzer Institute, and its broadening into explicitly teaching “spirituality,” it is clear that state-sponsored SEL violates the U.S. Constitution in its attempt to infuse the religious science of “right human relations” into education while cloaking it in secular language.
The role and responsibility of molding and shaping a child’s moral character does not belong in public classrooms backed by organizations with political or societal agendas.
It should remain in the loving arms of the family, where it has been since the dawn of time.
Lisa Logan is the host of the YouTube Channel Parents of Patriots and author of the Substack Education Manifesto. As a wife, mother and patriot, she has made it her mission to expose the sinister agenda behind social-emotional learning programs to save our children and the future of our country.
The Biden administration was heavily criticized Thursday after it made a series of announcements on various hot-button topics ahead of the holiday weekend.
On Thursday afternoon, the White House released a long-awaited after-action report on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal overseen by President Biden in August 2021. Then, hours later, the Department of Education rolled out new Title IX rules expanding the definition of sexual discrimination in an effort to prevent schools from banning transgender athletes.
Also on Thursday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published a 150-page plan on how it would deploy new resources from the Inflation Reduction Act. Buried in the document, which the Treasury Department originally said would come no later than Feb. 17, the IRS acknowledged that it would spend a staggering $45.6 billion on increased enforcement and tax audits.
“I think I speak on behalf of my colleagues in this room when we want the record to reflect that this was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began with little notice, and it’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump,” CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe said to White House spokesperson John Kirby on Thursday in a question about the Afghanistan report.
White House spokesperson John Kirby defended the timing of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan report on Thursday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“You’re releasing this at the beginning of the High Holidays [sic] and after months of requests from Republicans and the broader public,” O’Keefe continued.
Kirby responded that the White House believed the report, which is a summary of classified reports assembled by individual defense agencies, was timed in a “responsible” fashion, adding that it was the “culmination of an awful lot of work.”
The White House was later criticized for the contents of the report, which largely cast the blame of the 2021 withdrawal on the Trump administration. During the operation, 13 American service members were killed in a suicide bombing while manning the perimeter of the airport where evacuations were taking place.
“John Kirby’s comments during today’s White House press briefing were disgraceful and insulting. President Biden made the decision to withdraw and even picked the exact date; he is responsible for the massive failures in planning and execution,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement.
The Department of Education moved to review federal funding for schools that implement “sex-related criteria that would limit or deny a student’s eligibility to participate on a male or female athletic team consistent with their gender identity.” (Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The administration was also blasted for its subsequent Title IX revisions opening the door to force schools and colleges that receive federal funds to allow transgender students to play on sports teams.
Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem threatened to sue the administration over the rule, saying “only girls will play girls’ sports.”
“What an Easter weekend news dump by the Biden Administration,” Noem’s spokesperson Ian Fury tweeted. “One wonders why they wanted to hide this? Probably because they know that public sentiment is not on their side.”
And the IRS was similarly criticized for announcing its massive $45.6 billion tax and audit enforcement funding. The Inflation Reduction Act bolstered the IRS’ budget by $80 billion, allowing the agency to hire tens of thousands of new agents. The House passed legislation in early January to rescind $70 billion of that funding.
“New IRS spending plan allocates $45.6 billion on ramping up audits, more than 14x the spending for improving taxpayer services,” tweeted Mike Palicz, the federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform. “Nice Easter news dump.”
A White House official noted that the White House took more than 90 minutes of questions, including some about the Afghanistan report, from reporters Thursday. The press briefing also occurred after the IRS announcement.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
The House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to banks asking for the Biden family’s financial records.
Fox News has confirmed that the Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC USA N.A., as well as former Hunter Biden business associate Mervyn Yan asking for financial records.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, complained that Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., was trying to hide information regarding the investigation from Democrats on the committee.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., leads an organizational meeting for the 118th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
In a statement to Fox News, Comer said “Ranking Member Raskin has again disclosed Committee’s subpoenas in a cheap attempt to thwart cooperation from other witnesses. Given his antics with the first bank subpoena, the American people and media should be asking what information Ranking Member Raskin is trying to hide this time. No one should be fooled by Ranking Member Raskin’s games. We have the bank records, and the facts are not good for the Biden family.“
President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The Oversight Committee Democratic staff sent a memo to members on Thursday which accuses Republicans of conducting their investigation behind a “veil of secrecy.”
“Despite this massive investment of time and resources, Republican efforts on this and other congressional committees have failed to yield any evidence of misconduct by President Biden. Nevertheless, Chairman Comer has issued six document subpoenas for financial records as part of this renewed investigation, several of which have been based on information Committee Republicans know to be false,” the memo states.
The Democratic memo alleges that Republicans haven’t been publicizing their subpoenas or notifying Democrats, which has purportedly resulted in some targets of subpoenas being unaware that the committee is seeking their records.
President Biden speaks during the annual House Democrats Issues Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Baltimore on March 1, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“On February 27, 2023, Chairman Comer secretly issued the Committee’s first document subpoena as part of Committee Republicans’ ongoing investigation into the Biden family to Bank of America. This subpoena sought, among other information, “all financial records” from January 20, 2009, to the present — a staggering 14-year period — for John R. Walker, a private U.S. citizen… Yet, because of Chairman Comer’s use of a secret subpoena, Mr. Walker was never notified that the Committee had subpoenaed his financial records from Bank of America, he was never notified that Bank of America turned over his records to the Committee, and he was never notified that the Committee was publicly releasing information from these records,” the memo states.
Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.
Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines has been subject to verbal and written abuse in recent weeks after she took a stand against the inclusion of men in women’s sports. On Thursday night, however, her attackers turned to physical violence.
A man in a dress reportedly struck Gaines at least twice Thursday night after the 23-year-old swim star gave a speech about keeping women’s spaces female-only. Her attacker was part of a hysterical mob of transsexual extremists and LGBT activists that descended on the Turning Point USA and Leadership Institute event at San Francisco State University.
Gaines posted a video to Twitter documenting some of the chaos that reached a fever pitch as audience members were being let out of the classroom, noting, “The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.”
The 12-time All-American swimmer underscored that the vicious attack “only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder.”
The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.
Still only further assures me I'm doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder. 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/uJW3x9RERf
Kim Shasby Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, tweeted, “These people are UNHINGED and dangerous. It is 2023 and a young women is physically assaulted simply for speaking up for her rights!”
The Independent Women’s Forum, for which Gaines is a spokeswoman, issued a statement strongly condemning the violence, adding, “Riley was violently accosted, ambushed, and physically assaulted during a speech on sex discrimination women face in their own single-sex sports category.”
The IWF noted that “Riley is courageous in speaking up for truth, science and common sense. She has experienced firsthand the injustice female athletes face across America in their own sport.”
“The effort to silence, threaten & harm women for standing up for #WomensRights is absolutely ludicrous. The Biden administration @POTUS & governing bodies of sport @ncaa @iocmedia pushing for biological males in women’s sport for the sake of inclusion are responsible for this,” continued the statement.
Gaines had dared to tell her story to SFSU students about competing in the women’s NCAA swimming championships against male athlete Lia Thomas, whom she claimed in a February interview had exposed his male genitalia in a women’s locker room after a meet.
Her agent, Eli Bremer, told Fox News Digital, “Her goal in speaking at universities has been to educate her peers about her experience and what the impact of the growing number of biological males in women’s sports will do to the integrity of Title IX. She has been questioned in civil and somewhat uncivil manners about her views many times, and she thoroughly encourages diverse viewpoints and debate on this issue.”
Concerning Gaines’ attack by a transsexual extremist, Bremer said, “This will not stop Riley from boldly educating people of the dangers of biological males in women’s sports. She will continue to speak the truth against the radical left that no longer understands the difference between men and women.”
Footage taken by the student-run news outfit Golden Gate Xpress shows police escorting Gaines down a hallway and away from the angry mob. When the officers reach the end of one corridor, they appear to find the door to a safe room locked, at which point Gaines turns to calmly face the extremists, who held signs that read, “Go the f*** home,” “trans lives matter,” and “trans women are women.”
One LGBT activist can be heard screaming, “transphobic b****.”
Riley Gaines has been escorted out of the event into a side hallway in the HSS Building. Students were following through “trans women are women” 8:31 p.m pic.twitter.com/rGaTvrje17
Gaines was ultimately barricaded in a room with police protection for roughly three hours, during which time some transsexual activists attempted to extort her, saying they would disperse if paid off.
The All-American athlete did not leave campus until 11:38 p.m., 20 minutes after police announced that those who stuck around to protest would be arrested.
Upon learning that Gaines had been attacked, her husband, Louis Barker, said, “I was shaking. It made me that mad. It makes me sick to feel so helpless about it. … She was under police protection and was still hit by a man wearing a dress.”
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 Presiden
In a surreal moment at the Country Music Awards last week, co-host Kelsea Ballerini joined with several drag performers to belt out a campy version of her single, “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” an anthem taking aim at Tennessee laws denying wrongly named “gender-affirming care” for children.
The performance was steeped in queerness, both in the pretend “oppression” of performers literally center stage at a nationally-broadcast awards show and in the academic sense, where drag serves as a kind of postmodern harlequin dance. Choreographed to confront its audience, the unspoken subtext of the number was that it’s time for you to pick a side, and you had better be careful which side you pick.
This was a brazen show of strength. Think “shock and awe,” only with lots of bedazzling.
A Vicious Activist Cult
The left picked their side. And the side they picked was the side of a school shooter who became for them an emblem of their cultural movement: Cast as a victim of “hateful” traditional religious values, a tragic figure broken by her desire to “be seen,” the shooter was sainted, her death a kind of religious redemption play. The narrative coalesced around her supposed suffering because the left was never going to surrender its stranglehold on politicized victimhood. That’s where all the power is.
At the tip of the cultural Marxist spear today is the trans cult. Just a year ago, it was the racialist cult of Black Lives Matter. Their presence is smothering in cultural spaces by design. In fact, their defiance of norms is predictable. After all, over the last seven years or so we’ve seen veneers of civil comradery peeled back, or else worn so thin as to become transparent.
A public pause to mouth the platitudes of togetherness is no longer required in a society so clearly divided along ideological lines. Indeed, such niceties are ridiculed as a sign of weakness or inauthenticity. “Where was your Christian god that day?” the left sneered. “Guess your church can’t protect you, after all.”
In glib taunts that displayed their misunderstanding of God’s earthly role in traditional religions, they laid their ideology raw before the bodies of three 9-year-olds were even cold. And that ideology, like the martyr it created when it embraced the killing of Christians as a blasé bump on the road to their utopia, now wants to be seen. The devil wants his due. There can be no other explanation for the leftist urge to celebrate the “visibility” of a vicious activist cult, or to claim“transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul,” especially in the immediate wake of the slaughter of Christians by a trans person. Their ostentatious obeisance to these damaged people was a liturgy performed with rapturous audacity on the American stage. It, too, was meant to “be seen.”
Whether it’s a country music drag act, a trans-identified light beer, a trans-allied wizard, or a march by college students demanding the surrender of natural rights to the state, the memetics of cultural Marxism is performative, phony Maoist struggle sessions delivered in swarms to project strength and to dispirit opponents by displaying the inevitability of the mob and its power. It’s a cultural troll. It’s their way of telling you that they are in charge and that you are helpless. You will conform. You must. What else is there?
It was in response to this attempted coup against Western liberal culture and the Enlightenment itself that I’ve written what I believe to be a clarion call for the individualist; but it, too, was something of a performance: It proclaimed, but it didn’t explain.
Cultural Marxism Demands Cultural Hegemony
Briefly, we must reject the premises of the cultural Marxist because cultural Marxism itself cannot live peaceably with federal republicanism or individual autonomy. In fact, it demands the opposite: All things are constrained by the state and its desires. Rule must be universal. Governing individuals is like herding cats, whereas ruling over a collective molded by both state pressures (law, force) and social forces (shame, shunning) is a more gratifying task, especially because the molding, if done well, creates a populace that reflects back the will of the state to itself. The state is now God, and its citizens, made in the state’s image, are its supplicants.
The whole of the cultural Marxist project is to create and maintain cultural hegemony. It’s that sameness we saw in the uniformed Maoists with identical haircuts, and the sameness we see in our own social justice Red Guard with their ubiquitous cotton-candy hair and tribal piercings. There can be no deviation from the new standards, built atop the rubble of old traditions the Marxists seek to destroy. To create the New Man, you must kill off the Olds. To arrive at Year Zero, you must erase all those years that came before it. To save the culture, you must first destroy it completely.
Cultural Marxism is dystopia peddling utopia through grievance narratives and rank emotionalism. It grants the self-styled dispossessed enormous power over those it casts as oppressors, which is itself determined by an intersectional calculus among victim groups.
Yet this power is temporary. Because what its authors seek, ultimately, is authoritarian. The useful idiots will soon be replaced by a ministerial elite, who will guide the filthies during The Great Reset. With policed conformity. Asceticism. Sameness. Every thought you think, every word you utter, and every move you make, must be approved by the state. And you’ll beg them for that privilege.
Blinded By ‘Being Seen’
The useful idiots enjoy wielding power, but they never seem to recognize that once they’ve ground down all opposition and extirpated all difference, once they’ve rooted out every intolerance they can conjure, there are no more battles to fight, no more ideas to be born, no more purpose left to live. To speak in a language they understand, their project reduces us to the means of production, slaves to the most successful oligarchs, earthly deities who delight in our serfdom, providing us safety and sustenance in exchange for conformity, and a surrender of self to a greater good they determine. Enlightened feudalism, in short. And we’re tilling their fields.
But that’s the endgame, and those who’ve embraced the cultural Marxist paradigm can’t see it coming. Their identity politics and the power their “oppression” yields appeal to their egos. They are blinded by the narcissism of “being seen,” and by the thrill of cultural control, however temporary. They revel in bullying.
All of our major institutions have taken up the trans cause for the same reasons they took up the cause of BLM: to gather power, destroy norms, attack traditions, and create the conditions of tribalism that must exist before the collective comes together out of the ruins of universal cancellation. The last man standing is the New Man, the perfect servant to a benevolent master.
Where we once were conceived of statist authoritarianism as an iron boot forever pressing on our necks, today it’s a Christian Louboutin red-bottomed pump, worn by a dude in a lace dress and zebra thong, stomping on our faces forever. Only we’re compelled to dig the kink.
The revolution will be accessorized, and you’ll learn to like it, or else.
Jeff Goldstein is a lapsed academic and writer living in Colorado. He likes tacos, ’79 Cabernets, and his favorite color is magenta.
Protesters at The State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany) worked to shut down conservative pundit Ian Haworth at an event Tuesday in defiance of the Turning Point USA speaker’s discussion on free speech on college campuses.
The conservative pundit labeled a snippet of the campus catastrophe “the most socialist thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Trans rights are human rights!” the group shouted at one point.
Protesters at SUNY at Albany voiced their dissent against TPUSA guest speaker Ian Haworth on April 4, 2023. (Twitter @ighaworth/TPUSA Upstate)
The Turning Point USA-sponsored talk titled “Free Speech on Campus” was sent into a tailspin as students hit Haworth with insults and expressions of “queer rage” filled the room.
“F— Ian!” protesters shouted in one video he posted to Twitter. “F— you, fascists!” rang out in another. Haworth laughed it off as “irony.”
“Last night, I was at the University of Albany to speak with @TPUSA. My argument: free speech is being destroyed on college campuses. And like clockwork, some deranged protesters showed up and used the heckler’s veto to try and shut down the even,” he tweeted Wednesday.
“When the chapter tried to settle the protesters down so we could start the event, they responded with ‘f— you @TPUSA’ The tolerant left, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued in the thread.
Haworth made several posts in the thread, pointing out the protesters who stormed the room who were eating the free pizza provided by the organization they were protesting.
A view of the Delaware & Hudson Building and administrative center of the State University of New York (SUNY) on April 22, 2020, in Albany, New York. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
“The most socialist thing I’ve ever seen is a bunch of deranged students screaming ‘no cops, no KKK, no @TPUSA’ at a Jewish immigrant while also happily shoveling free pizza down their throats paid for by…@TPUSA!,” he wrote.
Jokingly, he added, “Sure, they’re Nazis, but who doesn’t love a free slice?”
One demonstrator, according to another tweet in the thread, even went as far as destroying an event attendee’s Bible for “no reason whatsoever.”
And, as Haworth noted, things got even weirder when protesters decided to form a conga line in the room, flipping off the camera as they passed by.
“Not one person seemed concerned that this is a traditional Cuban carnival dance, and is therefore an act of cultural appropriation,” Haworth wrote on a video tweet.
Other students kicked off their Crocs and danced and screamed, before eventually taking over the room.
Haworth’s event was eventually moved to another location, complete with a police escort and police presence surrounding the new venue.
“College is now where free speech goes to die, and we need to push back against this bulls— with everything we have. Don’t let the angry minority bully people into silence,” Haworth said.
Fox News Digital reached out to both Haworth and SUNY at Albany for comment, with SUNY at Albany providing the following statement:
“Consistent with the mission of an institution of higher learning, we expect members of our community to be able to voice their views in a manner that promotes constructive dialogue and honors UAlbany’s commitment to freedom of expression,” the school said. “This is especially important when it involves speech that members of our community find offensive or objectionable.”
“Our constitutional obligation to protect speech, even when that speech fundamentally conflicts with our core values, is a pillar of our democratic system. We are equally committed to fostering an environment in which all students feel safe and included – and that the right to protest is also protected,” it added.
SUNY at Albany pledged to help its community members understand their “rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment” and said all student organizations are entitled to reserve space and invite guest speakers “without interference.”
The institution further detailed that university staff and the university police department worked with the hosting organization to relocate the event to ensure it could continue but to also provide protesters a space to voice their concerns, adding that two students were ticketed for trying to gain access to a restricted area reserved for the event.
Haworth responded with the following statement:
“The protesters who stormed the Turning Point USA event on free speech at University at Albany proved my point: college campuses are where free speech goes to die. The protesters disrupted the event, abusing and insulting the TPUSA chapter, college staff, law enforcement and their fellow students, with one goal: to shut down speech. While I fully support their right to protest (even if their accusations of me being an infamous Jewish immigrant transphobic misogynistic KKK member are laughably inaccurate), the heckler’s veto is not free speech…and neither is destroying the property of TPUSA members!…
“Ultimately, this isn’t about me. I doubt these protesters even knew who I was prior to this event. In reality, it’s about any ideas that threaten the fascist ideology of leftism on campus. This unfortunate event proves the threat conservatives face every day on campus, and reinforces the truth that colleges have a duty to allow free speech and debate to flourish on campus,” he concluded.
Haworth also thanked TPUSA, university faculty and law enforcement for making sure the event could proceed at the new venue.
Taylor Penley is a production assistant with Fox News.
A survivor of the Chinese Cultural Revolution issued a chilling warning on the heels of the Trump indictment, arguing the tumultuous past of communist China is “repeating itself” in the U.S.
Xi Van Fleet, a Maoist survivor, joined “Fox & Friends First” to discuss why Tuesday, the day former President Donald Trump was arraigned in Manhattan, will be remembered as one of the “darkest” days in history.
“You are cheering for your own demise, because… April 4th, 2023, would be remembered as one of the darkest day[s] in America when the Democrats made our country… a banana republic of communism,” Fleet told Todd Piro on Thursday.
The former president was formally charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. The indictment was predicated on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s years-long investigation into alleged hush money payments prior to the 2016 election.
He has faced rampant bipartisan criticism surrounding the strength of the charges, and some have even tabled the move as “political persecution.”
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in New York on Monday for his expected booking and arraignment the following day on charges arising from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Fleet noted that when she was growing up in China, Mao weaponized the law to target his political enemies, and that is now happening in the U.S., she warned.
“When the totalitarian wins, no one is safe, we will all become victim[s],” Fleet said. “After the cultural revolution, what happened is China was brought to ruins and 20 some million lives lost. American people need to learn the history of the communism and to see that it is repeating right here in America.”
Hung Cao, who is a retired Navy captain, fled Vietnam decades ago, just before the fall of Saigon. He echoed Fleet’s sentiment on Thursday, saying Americans are falling “prey” to totalitarian leadership in wake of the indictment.
“My grandfather was hauled away in the middle night. He was a magistrate and murdered in front of my mom, and so it’s just one of those things where if this can happen in the United States, that it can happen anywhere,” Cao said.
“This is why I fought for this country for so many years. I wore uniform for 30 years and fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, for things like this, and here we are,” he continued. “We’ve fallen prey to all of this.”
Meanwhile, some critics worry China is celebrating the unprecedented indictment, in an effort to derail the significance of American democracy on the world stage. This could, in turn, have an impact on heightening bilateral tensions over Taiwan as relations between Washington and Beijing remain icy at best.
The South China Morning Post, a media organization funded by the pro-China e-commerce firm Alibaba, published an op-ed saying China is “chuckling at the irony” of Trump’s arrest.
“Chinese didn’t always feel the need, nor have the ammunition, to lampoon the U.S. political system,” the article says. “However, the generation of young people who shouted ‘Long live President Wilson’ at the end of World War I, and the idealistic generation who endorsed a ‘fight for freedom and democracy’ in Tiananmen Square in 1989, have little in common with young Chinese people today who see no upside to emulating American democracy.”
A delegation of U.S. lawmakers traveled to Taiwan to meet with the island’s leaders, despite clear warnings from Chinese officials that came on the heels of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Simi Valley, California, on Wednesday.
“We have to show them that we’re going to stand with them and have the Seventh Fleet standing by to support them in case something happens,” Cao said.
The Chinese military had a fleet surrounding the island during the lawmakers’ visit, according to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. Despite the “intimidation” tactics, he insisted the delegation would not succumb to the threats.
Democrats are playing Republicans like a fiddle. The left’s sole objective is to make Trump the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nominee. He’s already lost three election cycles for the GOP — why not make it four?
A month ago, things were looking bad for the Democrats.
Immediately after Trump announced for president last November, he may as well have gone into the witness protection program. Even Fox News cut away from his announcement speech. He had to have dinner with a noted Hitler enthusiast to get any attention, and, when he spoke at CPAC in February, the room was half-empty.
Looming before them was the threat from Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis. He was beating Trump in the presidential polls without even announcing. He’d scored victory after victory against Democrats and won his reelection bid — in a purple state! — by 20 points, despite attacks from Trump.
Against DeSantis’ smarts and energy, the Democrats would be running President Senile Dementia and a vice president whose sole credentials are that she is black and a woman.
They had only one hope: Get Trump the nomination. Liberals: HE’S A DANGER TO THE NATION! NEVER HAVE WE FACED SUCH PERIL! Now let’s do everything we can to make sure he gets the nomination.
And that’s why Democrats indicted Trump on absurd charges this week, with the media covering the event like it was the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Today, the party mandarins are sitting around laughing as Republicans trip over themselves to defend Trump.
This was the whole point of my book, “Resistance Is Futile: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind.” Instead of attacking Trump for the things he’d actually done, liberals would run off and make wild charges, forcing normal people to say, I don’t like the guy, but he’s not a Russian agent.
The endless stream of preposterous charges against Trump only helped him.
So why not launch another ridiculous accusation to help him get the nomination? That’s exactly what they did in last year’s GOP primaries, supporting Trump’s nut-bar candidates, knowing they would go on to lose the general election. By boosting Trump’s candidates, Democrats managed to pull out a historic midterm victory for Biden.
And now, they’re doing it again, trying to trick Republicans into choosing the worst possible presidential nominee. Guess what? It’s working! New GOP motto: Unable to learn from the third kick of a mule.
In response to Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday, all conservative media swept aside news of out-of-control crime, chaos at the border, fentanyl overdoses and the looming recession. Their No. 1 job became: SAVE TRUMP! A major conservative talk radio host even suggested DeSantis stand down and endorse Trump.
True, everyone at MSNBC is a Trump-hating zealot. But this helps obscure the real objective. Half the Democrats genuinely hate Trump, and the other half are saying, This is fantastic. We’re going to win him the nomination.
Politico reports that Biden’s senior advisers reacted to Trump’s recent surge in the polls with unmitigated joy. “We beat Trump once, they say, and will again.”
They’re absolutely right. After voters reject you once, they almost never change their minds. In all of U.S. history, losing presidential candidates have run again about a dozen times. Only three of those renominations were successful — and only one since 1892. (Nixon was the only one to do it in the past 131 years. Of course, that first election probably was stolen from him, but Nixon graciously conceded, instead of running around making a complete ass of himself.)
Everyone acts as if Trump’s 2016 win was a gigantic, stupendous victory, when in reality he barely squeaked by. Don’t confuse “startling” with “big.”
He was running against the most hated woman in politics.
Moreover, the country had been incessantly told that Hillary had it in the bag. On Election Day, The New York Times put her chances of winning at 85%. Princeton professor Sam Wang — who’d correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states in 2012! — said Clinton was more than 99% likely to be the next president. How many Clinton voters saw those polls and thought, I’ll just say I voted for her and go get my nails done.
Yet and still, out of 139 million votes cast in 2016, Trump won with a mere 80,000 votes across three states. Flip those votes, and Hillary wins.
Trump’s winning was a shock, but it wasn’t an amazing, spectacular victory, indicative of some sort of electoral magic.
And then, of course, Trump went on turn his presidency over to Jared and Ivanka, betray his voters (But he moved the embassy!) and lose the next three election cycles.
Republicans: No matter how angry you are at Democrats for politicizing the law, please remember: Trump. Will. Lose. To. Biden. There is absolutely no scenario in which he wins. The good news is there’s virtually no scenario where Biden wins — unless Trump is his opponent.
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 Presiden
For weeks now, former President Donald Trump and legal experts on the right predicted that the prosecution Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought against Trump was pathetic and partisan. Not long after Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records during his arraignment on Tuesday, some of his most outspoken political enemies also began casting doubt on Bragg’s attempts to send the former president to jail.
Here are the notorious anti-Trumpers who willingly admitted that Bragg’s case against the leader of the Republican Party is a weak attempt to keep him from winning the White House in 2024.
Andrew McCabe
Former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe expressed disappointment on CNN on Tuesday after he realized that Bragg’s justification for elevating Trump’s charges to felonies “simply isn’t there.”
“I think everyone was hoping we would see more,” McCabe said.
He later added that “It’s hard to imagine convincing a jury that they should get there.”
"Disappointment," says Andrew McCabe on CNN regarding the indictment. "Everyone was hoping we would see more."
McCabe says the justification to try these misdemeanors as felonies "simply isn't there": "It's hard to imagine convincing a jury that they should get there." pic.twitter.com/PafSwiY2nZ
Jonathan Chait, a political columnist at New York Magazine, wrote in the Intelligencer that Bragg’s case against Trump is littered with “legal deficiencies” and kicks off “the criminalization of politics.”
“Trump is being prosecuted charged because he paid hush money to a mistress, something it’s inconcievable he would have been charged over if he were never a candidate for office,” Chait tweeted.
Alan Dershowitz
Attorney Alan Dershowitz called Bragg’s case against Trump a “politicization of the criminal justice system” and “very, very dangerous for America.”
“This is a scandalous misuse of the criminal justice system,” Dershowitz told Sky News Australia. “It will create a terrible precedent in which other prosecutors will go after people of the opposing party.”
Carrie Cordero
CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero said she expected Bragg’s charges against Trump to be connected to the payments Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels but said the case itself is “a little underwhelming.”
“There’s not more to it. There are not more violations, tax violations. There’s not an incredible new set of facts that we didn’t know about publicly. It’s really the facts of this case, as they have existed for basically almost seven years,” Cordero said.
It’s a little underwhelming – – my reaction w/ @jaketapper & team @CNN in the moment the first ever indictment against a former president was unsealed. pic.twitter.com/USCc2LFCbM
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney’s distaste for the former president is no secret but even his strong anti-Trump bias didn’t stop him from calling out the Manhattan D.A. for having “stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda.”
John Bolton
Trump-era National Security Adviser John Bolton says Bragg is “wrong on the applicability of the New York statute” that he charged Trump under.
“Speaking as someone who very strongly does not want Donald Trump to get the Republican presidential nomination, I’m extraordinarily distressed by this document. I think this is even weaker than I feared it would be and I think it’s easily subject to being dismissed or a quick acquittal for Trump,” Bolton explained on a CNN panel on Tuesday.
Even John Bolton thinks the indictment is a joke. "I'm extraordinarily distressed by this document … This is even weaker than I feared it would be." He predicts a "quick acquittal" because the case suggests everything a candidate pays for can be construed as campaign-related. pic.twitter.com/KTyBa72gLo
Bolton warned that “there is no basis in the statutory language to say that Trump’s behavior forms either a [campaign] contribution or an expenditure under federal law” which effectively renders Bragg’s case vulnerable to challenge.
“If you can construe the statute to cover this behavior then I think it violates the First Amendment,” Bolton said.
Ian Millhiser
Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox, called Bragg’s case against Trump “painfully anticlimactic” and said it was built on an “uncertain legal theory.”
In the second paragraph of the Vox analysis he penned on Tuesday, Millhiser acknowledges that “there’s a very real risk that this indictment will end in an even bigger anticlimax” because “it is unclear that the felony statute that Trump is accused of violating actually applies to him.”
“Bragg, in other words, has built one of the most controversial and high-profile criminal cases in American history upon the most uncertain of foundations. And that foundation could crumble into dust if the courts reject his legal arguments on a genuinely ambiguous question of law,” Millhiser reaffirms later in the article.
Noah Feldman
Bloomberg opinion columnist and Harvard law professor Noah Feldman wrote in The Washington Post on Tuesday that indicting Trump is a “Risky Bet for New York and the Nation.”
Feldman opens by invoking Democrats’ favorite Trump talking point — “no one is above the law”– but quickly criticized Bragg’s case against the former president as “poorly timed,” “legally weak,” and one that could easily result in a mistrial or acquittal.
“And not only may Trump potentially beat the charges, at trial or on appeal,” Feldman wrote. “He may be able to use those charges to create the impression among his supporters that he is a victim of politically motivated vendetta. In turn, that may make it harder for Georgia or federal prosecutors to bring and sustain much more serious charges against him.”
Mark Joseph Stern
“The Trump Indictment Is Not the Slam-Dunk Case Democrats Wanted,” Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern’s latest headline blared.
According to Stern, Bragg fails to disclose the specific election law that he believes Trump violated even though the “entire prosecution hinges on that question.”
“These charges will be difficult to prove,” Stern warned. “There can be no doubt that the district attorney faces an uphill climb.”
“They tell the story of a complex conspiracy to illicitly alter the course of the 2016 election—potentially, a powerful tale of corruption that persuades both the jury and the public of this prosecution’s necessity,” he continued. “But Bragg’s legal theory is, if not convoluted, a fairly confusing effort to patch together disparate offenses into one alleged crime, carried out over 34 illegal payments. This is not at all the slam-dunk case that so many Democrats wanted.”
Michael Avenatti
Even the lawyer who previously represented on-screen prostitute Stormy Daniels apparently cast doubt on Bragg’s ability to bring a successful case against Trump based on testimony from his former client.
“You can’t build a case on the testimony of Cohen and Daniels,” Michael Avenatti reportedly said.
Jonathan Lemire’s Democrat Sources
MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire told his fellow “Morning Joe” panelists last week that he and other Democrats are concerned Bragg’s case isn’t strong.
“Democrats I’ve spoken to, including some senior members of the White House, who do fear that because this case is weakest, that if it is brought first, that it will be potential — allow Trump to then paint this one as illegitimate, that it’s weak, and suggest that all of the other cases against him are as well. And that is something they’re worried about,” he warned.
Sarah Isgur
Harvard law grad and senior editor of the anti-Trump publication The Dispatch Sarah Isgur admitted on Twitter shortly after Trump’s arraignment that Bragg’s charges don’t make sense.
“He’s tying felony falsification of business records to another state crime that requires unlawful means…so now we need a third crime in order for this ‘felony turtles all the way down’ charge to work. The two state crimes can’t point back to each other!” she wrote.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
The increasing prominence and leadership of Republicans on education has been a great development for American students and parents. This trend has really picked up speed. Take for example, Glenn Youngkin – running for governor at the time in previously blue Virginia – who recognized this unrest. He was elected in November 2021 when he earned the support of frustrated suburban parents whose children had floundered in prolonged COVID classroom lockouts.
Now comes Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former governor’s daughter and a president’s spokesperson. Elected as Arkansas’ first female governor and with her own young children at home, it was natural for Gov. Sanders to run on an education platform. She fulfilled that promise within her first months after taking office, describing her new education reform law as “the largest overhaul of the state’s education system in Arkansas history.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders attends an America First Policy Institute event in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2022. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
First, the bill is a huge win for teachers. Yes, you read that right. This new Republican governor scored a major win for teachers.
Arkansas teachers presently have a $36,000 minimum salary with the national average a bit less than $42,000. Gov. Sanders destroyed that low bar; raising the minimum nearly 40% to $50,000. That is huge. As a late night TV advertisement might say, “But there’s more.” It’s not only new teachers or those under $50,000 who will see an increase; any teacher above that amount will see a $2,000 raise and could earn a $10,000 bonus. Ask any teacher and they will tell you: This is real money.
Still more benefits include 12 weeks of paid maternity leave and a scholarship for prospective teachers valued at up to $6,000. At the same time, the new law also empowers local school districts by ending an antiquated rule that made it harder to fire bad teachers and base pay on experience alone. I expect broad swaths of new applicants will be attracted to scholarship funds, a significant raise, time off for maternity, and eliminating the union rules that protected bad teachers.
Second, the law codifies Gov. Sanders’ earlier executive order banning classroom indoctrination. Progressive critics are forever up in arms about protecting rights, but this new governor’s law ensures that all educators “are in compliance with Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
If you refuse to believe a Republican governor affirms the 1964 Civil Rights Act, then Section 16(c) removes all doubt, noting the law “does not prohibit the discussion of: (1) Ideas and the history of the concepts described in subsection (b) of this section; or (2) Public policy issues of the day and related ideas that individuals may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.” Put more simply, go ahead educators and teach REAL history.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders unveils her education bill at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock on Feb. 8, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Third, the law provides funding for parents to send their children to private schools under a tiered system that begins with students enrolled in an F- or D-rated public schools. Who wants to argue that kids forced to attend terrible schools have a fair chance? Or that parents who want to see their children thrive shouldn’t have an opportunity to send them elsewhere? Eventually, the law allows for all kids to have the same opportunity.
Fourth and finally, the new law doubles down on literacy and the proven science of reading approach, with funding for more reading coaches and grants for parents to hire tutors. It also ensures that kids don’t move through the system unprepared for their future. Now children unable to demonstrate second-grade reading skills will be retained so they get the foundation they desperately need.
Arkansas is one of the smallest states in the country, but with Gov. Huckabee Sanders upending the status quo, it’s about to become a national model. Politicians and education policy wonks, take note.
The presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 bid says it has brought in over $10 million in donations since an indictment against him was announced a week ago. Trump was indicted March 30 as part of a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for hush money payments.
A source within the Trump campaign told Fox News Digital that the campaign raised $4 million in the first 24 hours following the indictment news, and an additional $6 million in the ensuing days.
In the days after the indictment, the Trump campaign sent out an abundance of fundraising emails.
Former President Donald Trump sits with his defense team in a Manhattan court on April 4, 2023, in New York City. (Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
“The American people know that whenever I’m viciously and unfairly attacked, it’s really an attack on YOU,” a fundraising email from the Trump campaign on Wednesday afternoon reads.
His campaign is also selling T-shirts that show a photoshopped mugshot of Trump.
“Not guilty,” the text below the photoshopped mugshot states.
The former president’s campaign is also selling T-shirts that show a photoshopped mugshot of Trump. (Trump Campaign)
On Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree on Tuesday. Falsifying records is typically considered a misdemeanor charge, but rises to a felony when a defendant’s “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
During a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was asked why the second alleged concealed crime wasn’t specified in the indictment.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks on Donald Trump arraignment April 4, 2023. (Fox News)
“Let me say as an initial matter that the indictment doesn’t specify it because the law does not so require. In my remarks, I mentioned a couple of laws which I will highlight again now,” Bragg said. “The first is New York state election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. I further indicated a number of unlawful means, including additional false statements, including statements that were planned to be made to tax authorities. I also noted the federal election law cap on contribution limits.”
Bragg is also accusing Trump and his associates of using a “catch and kill” scheme to possibly bury potentially damaging information that came ahead of the election in 2016.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower, Monday, April 3, 2023, in New York, the day before his arraignment. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
“Trump then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws,” Bragg alleged. “In total, 34 false entries were made in New York business records to conceal the initial covert $130,000 payment.”
Fox News’ Paul Best, Danielle Wallace and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
New York Times reporter Michael Shear confronted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday over the Biden administration’s unwillingness to comment on the Donald Trump indictment. At the beginning of the briefing, Jean-Pierre said the White House is not commenting on Trump’s case because “it’s an ongoing case.”
When it was Shear’s turn to question Jean-Pierre, he noted that Biden “has spoken repeatedly” about January 6. Referring to two speeches he delivered involving Jan. 6, Shear pointed out that “there were more than 500 active legal cases going on during the time that he made those speeches” and that Biden’s comments could have impacted the cases.
“What is the White House’s reticence?” Shear asked, referring to the refusal to address Trump’s case. “And what’s the difference between [Jan. 6] and [Trump’s case]?”
The press secretary responded with her usual talking points, claiming Jan. 6 “was an attack on our democracy” and that Biden “will never shy away when it comes to our democracy.” But Shear had no patience for Jean-Pierre’s spin and question-dodging.
“There were 500 cases involving Americans whose freedom was at risk!” he told Jean-Pierre.
04/04/23: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre www.youtube.com
Jean-Pierre responded by noting that “people died” on Jan. 6, to which Shear fired back, “I don’t need a lecture on the fact that people died!”
After Jean-Pierre then accused Shear of lecturing her, he exposed yet another double standard in the White House’s position. Officials were willing to comment on Jan. 6 despite the ongoing criminal cases because of its historic nature, but Trump’s indictment is also historic, so why are they unwilling to talk about it?
“Why isn’t that, why isn’t there a similar kind of assessment about how the world is watching us now?” he asked.
The press secretary said Jan. 6 was “a different moment” and vowed the White House would be “consistent on not commenting on any criminal ongoing investigation.”
She never, however, addressed the core of Shear’s question, which highlighted the double standard about which historic criminal incidents the Biden administration publicly discusses.
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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 Presiden
A new report reveals that gender dysphoria has the highest prevalence among youth of European descent, with discomfort with one’s gender most common among children, especially girls with “exceptionally high intelligence” and a history of mental health issues.
A website called Parents of ROGD kids.com, which has formed a support group for families with gender dysphoric children, surveyed parents who believed they had children experiencing rapid onset gender dysphoria. The survey results, which collected responses over nearly four years, were compiled into a report by website creator Suzanna Diaz and J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University’s Department of Psychology on Wednesday. The 1,774 responses to the survey were collected from Dec. 1, 2017, through Oct. 22, 2021.
Examining the demographics of youth who developed rapid onset gender dysphoria reveals that three-quarters of the children (75%) were female, while just 25% were male. Additionally, the overwhelming majority (78.9%) were of European descent, while much smaller shares were ethnically mixed (16.2%), Asian (2.8%), Indigenous (0.8%), African American (0.6%), Middle Eastern and East Indian (0.4%).
The results of the survey measured the average age when children first experience gender dysphoria as 14.8 years old. The report details how, on average, girls began to develop gender dysphoria at 14.1 years, while boys were an average of 16 years old when they first began to experience discomfort with their sex.
The survey asked parents to evaluate their child’s “social adjustment” before they began to experience gender dysphoria. A majority of both males (57.6%) and females (56.7%) had “a few good friends” before they developed gender dysphoria. Responses from parents showed that similar percentages of boys (33.7%) and girls (33.9%) “got along with other kids” before they began to question their sex.
While one-third of parents (33.3%) of sons experiencing gender dysphoria indicated their child was bullied before becoming gender dysphoric, just 26.3% of parents with daughters experiencing gender dysphoria said the same. According to parents of girls with gender dysphoria, 27.3% said their child was “well-liked,” in contrast to 22.7% of parents of boys.
As nearly 10% of parents who believe their daughters have gender dysphoria reported that their child had “many good friends,” just 3.9% of parents whose sons have gender dysphoria said the same. Parents of boys (16.8%) were slightly more likely than their female counterparts (14.3%) to report that their child was “not well liked by peers,” as similar percentages of parents with daughters (17.4%) and sons (15.8%) recalled that their child had “one good friend.”
Extremely small shares of parents with girls answered in the affirmative when asked if their daughters had others fight or instigate arguments with them (4.7%), instigated fights with others (2.3%) or bullied others (2.2%), while 5.4% of parents with boys reported that their son found themselves in fights or arguments instigated by others. Less than 1% of parents with sons maintained that their child “bullied others.”
When asked to evaluate their child’s level of intelligence, 35.6% of parents reported their child had “exceptionally high intelligence,” while just 15.5% characterized their child’s level of intelligence as “average or below average.”
A majority of parents (57%) said their gender dysphoric children had a history of “mental health issues,” while 42.5% insisted otherwise. Parents of girls (59.4%) were slightly more likely to report a mental health history in their children than parents of boys (51%). On average, mental health issues first began to arise 3.8 years before gender dysphoria.
The most common mental health issues experienced by females with gender dysphoria were anxiety (47.3%), depression (33.2%), difficulty socializing with peers (26.5%) and difficulty coping with stressful situations in general (23.2%). Among males, the most frequently reported mental health issues included anxiety (35.2%), difficulty socializing with peers (28.1%), depression (25.1%) and difficulty coping with stressful situations in general (19.2%).
A majority of the 390 parents (51.8%) who answered a question asking whether they felt pressure from a “gender clinic or specialist” to transition their child socially or medically reported experiencing pressure. By contrast, just 24.6% said that they did not feel any pressure to “transition” their child and an additional 23.6% responded that they were “unsure” if they felt pressured to transition their child.
When asked if their children were friends with others who “came out as transgender around the same time,” 55.4% of the 917 respondents who answered the question responded in the affirmative. Among parents of girls, that figure increased to 60.9%.
Respondents reported that their children spent an average of 4 ½ hours a day “on the Internet and social media.” However, it was determined that the number of hours per day on the internet and social media “was not significantly related to the likelihood of social transition.”
The report’s publication takes place as the medical establishment and popular culture continue to embrace the “Affirmative Approach,” which touts puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and body-mutilating sex-change surgeries as solutions for gender dysphoria. Parents of ROGD Kids condemn the Affirmative Approach as a “lie.”
The release of the survey comes as states across the U.S. are working to sex-change procedures from being performed on minors. Currently, 12 states have implemented prohibitions on some or all forms of sex-change procedures in light of concerns about their long-term impacts: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
The American College of Pediatricians has identified some of the potential side effects of puberty blockers as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.” Potential longterm impacts of cross-sex hormones include “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan.”
Sex-change surgeries include chemical and surgical castration, double mastectomies on girls, orchiectomy (removing testicles) for boys, the construction of a fake vagina (vaginoplasty) for boys, and removal of skin and tissue from girls’ forearms or thighs to create a fake, flaccid penis that doesn’t function.
Several detransitioners have come forward to discuss their trauma and regret from having these life-altering medical procedures, with 18-year-old Chloe Cole among the most prominent.
Cole, whose gender dysphoria has since subsided, has announced her intention to sue the medical professionals who treated her for gender dysphoria. As a letter announcing her intent to sue explains, although doctors advised Cole that “the distress she experienced because of her gender dysphoria would resolve as she transitioned,” she discovered that her “distress always came back worse” after a burst of “initial relief” following “each phase of transition.”
She has also maintained that the double mastectomy she underwent at the age of 15 caused her mental health to deteriorate and led to suicidal thoughts.
In the House Oversight Committee’s (HOC) latest update on its investigation into the corruption of President Joe Biden, Chairman James Comer announced several former Biden family associates have eagerly agreed to speak with Republicans about how they were “left out to dry” by the Bidens.
“It doesn’t look good for @POTUS,” Comer warned during a Fox News segment on Monday.
I now have access to the Biden family's suspicious activity reports from @USTreasury.
I have also subpoenaed Biden family band records.
And Biden family associates connected to the schemes are talking to @GOPoversight.
Comer said that the HOC is in discussions with four associates who have inside knowledge about the foreign dealings the Bidens made with several of America’s political enemies. This, combined with potential testimony from two other associates who are currently tied up in litigation concerning their roles in Biden family businesses, could give the committee proof that the White House is compromised.
“If you look at everyone who’s ever been in business with Biden, whether it be Hunter Biden or Joe Biden, none of them ended well, none of the businesses ended well. Most of the businesses never got started off the ground,” Comer said. “Any money that was transferred in from China or adversaries around the world ended up in the Bidens’ back pockets.”
Now, Comer said, the HOC also has possession of the Biden family’s “suspicious activity” reports from the Treasury Department and subpoenaed the family’s bank records which will expedite Republicans’ investigation significantly.
The HOC confirmed in March that several Biden family members, including Hunter Biden, James Biden, Hallie Biden, an unknown “Biden,” and companies linked to the family “collectively received $1.3 million in payments from accounts related to Rob Walker, a Biden family associate.” Within six months of Vice President Joe Biden leaving the White House and after several bank transfers, the Bidens received the money.
Comer said the HOC still did not know who the unnamed Biden was in the China transaction because the Biden family holds so many bank accounts and LLCs.
“That right there is a red flag,” Comer said. “That’s one reason they got so many bank violations. If they’re in a legitimate business, why do you have to have so many different LLCs, and why, when China sends you a wire, do you have to send it through one, two, or even three LLCs to launder it before then hits a Biden bank account? This whole thing stinks to high heaven.”
Despite this, Comer said that once the HOC gains access to the LLCs, it can assess the Biden family’s bookkeeping habits.
“It’ll be interesting to see how and if they paid any taxes on this revenue that was coming in from our adversaries around the world,” Comer said. “What all did they write off?”
He also expressed optimism about the speed of the HOC’s investigation thus far.
“This investigation is moving along at a lot faster pace, I think, than most people would have predicted,” Comer said.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Lock Donald Trump up, or don’t lock him up, but don’t tell me that “no one is above the law.” It’s one of the most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the left.
Plenty of people are “above the law.” James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.
Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also above the law. The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation. She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained “top secret” information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.
We learned all of this from James Comey, then FBI director, who noted that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business. Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed. Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.
When Hillary’s husband, also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over “sex.” Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ “hush money” are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.
Don’t worry, though; former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, “Everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.” By “everyone,” she means Republicans. And if you think this authoritarian formulation is an accident, you haven’t been paying attention. When Democrats were smearing Brett Kavanaugh as a (gang) rapist a few years back, Mazie Hirono was asked whether the then-nominee deserved the “same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?” After all, this wasn’t about any judicial disagreement but about alleged criminal behavior. The Hawaii senator responded, “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.”
In other words, if you’re a conservative, your politics are evil; and if your politics are evil, you’re probably evil. I imagine that was the rationalization used by Kamala Harris when reading obvious fabrications about Kavanaugh into the Congressional Record. It is likely the rationalization of Lois Lerner or Merrick Garland — both above the law — when they weaponized government agencies against political opponents. It is almost surely the rationalization of Alvin Bragg. This is what justifies the contemporary left’s increasing comfort with deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn’t merely a tool for criminal justice (if that) but a way to exact poetic political justice.
(Though it should probably be mentioned that Alvin Bragg promised to use the DA’s office to enact social justice, not any kind of impartial or neutral justice. People who don’t pay for public transportation, those who trespass, those who resist arrest, those who obstruct governmental administration, or those involved in prostitution, are all above the law in New York City.)
Despite there being perfectly sound political arguments against Trump, we have been on a hysterical journey that has taken us from accusing Trump of being a seditious actor working on the orders of an antagonistic foreign government — the most successful conspiracy theory ever spun in American politics — to indicting him on some rickety seven-year-old campaign finance violation charge. Giving a porn star “hush money” is an immorality, not an illegality. Are DAs now going to be in the business of indicting political opponents who put $130,000 on the wrong side of the ledger during a race that cost hundreds of millions of dollars? I look forward to this kind of justice being meted out equally.
Everyone knows, of course, what’s going to happen when (or if) Republicans return the favor. Cries of fascism, that’s what. When Harry Reid blew up the judicial filibuster, it was to preserve the republic. When Republicans use that very precedent for themselves, they are power-hungry partisans. When Democrats throw congressmen off subcommittees, they do it for democracy. When Republicans follow suit, they are bigots. When a Republican governor retaliates against Disney for involving itself in educational issues, it’s 1933 all over again. But when a Democrat governor punishes companies like Walgreens for their stand on abortion drugs, it is a blow against injustice. This goes on and on and on.
Not that anyone cares about double standards anymore. I’m not naïve. And no one is innocent in politics. But the contemporary left’s utter and growing disdain for any semblance of limiting principles — the kind of abuse that helped Trump win the presidency in the first place — continues to do profound damage to the system. Trump is an easy target. The next target, I assure you, will be a Republican who is even “worse than Trump.” And the justifications for throwing out norms to stop them will be exactly the same.
Conservatives who contend that Democrats won’t like where the Trump arraignment leads are probably engaged in some wish-casting. Those who hold the upper hand in our major institutions aren’t too worried about short-term threats of retribution. And, anyway, progressives love Calvinball, a “system” of constantly shifting norms that rewards those most willing to use power. That’s the point.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.
Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in New York City court Tuesday after being charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges, which are related to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign, came out of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s years-long investigation.
Bragg alleged that Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
In 2019, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump sits at the defense table with his defense team in a Manhattan court during his arraignment on April 4, 2023, in New York City. (Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
Trump surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and was arraigned in court Tuesday afternoon after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury last week.
The indictment was unsealed in court during Trump’s arraignment Tuesday before Judge Juan Merchan, the trial judge presiding over the case. Trump was charged in a New York Supreme Court indictment with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree.
Bragg is alleging that Trump falsified New York business records in order to “conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.”
“During the election, TRUMP and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects,” Bragg alleged. “TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”
Former US President Donald Trump makes his way inside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York on April 4, 2023. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)
According to New York state law, a charge of falsifying business records in the first degree alleges that the defendant committed a crime of falsifying business records with the intent to defraud. The intent to defraud would be an intent to commit another crime.
Trump pleaded not guilty. The judge did not impose a gag order. The judge said he would like to move ahead as expeditiously as possible with the case. The next hearing in the case is Dec. 4, 2023 in the same Lower Manhattan court.
The prosecution wants a trial in January 2024—the height of the GOP presidential primary season. Trump’s defense wants to delay that as long as possible.
Bragg alleged former Trump attorney Michael Cohen orchestrated the hush money payments on behalf of Trump. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
According to the indictment, Bragg alleged that Trump, from August 2015 to December 2017, “orchestrated a ‘catch and kill’ scheme through a series of payments that he then concealed through months of false business entries.”
Bragg alleges that American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock.
Stormy Daniels reacted to former President Donald Trump’s arraignment with an X-rated tweet. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images/Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
Bragg also alleges American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to a woman who alleged a sexual relationship with Trump. It appears Bragg is referring to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Trump “explicitly directed a lawyer,” an apparent reference to Michael Cohen, to “reimburse” American Media Inc. in cash, Bragg charges. He alleged that Cohen, “12 days before the presidential general election,” wired $130,000 to an attorney for an adult film actress—an apparent reference to Stormy Daniels.
Cohen pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison for violating campaign finance laws related to the payments, among other federal charges. Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging the payments but maintains that Trump directed them.
Former US President Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City Tuesday, April 4, 2023. Mandatory Credit: (Thomas P. Costello – USA Today Network)
Bragg alleged that after the election, Trump reimbursed Cohen through a series of monthly checks— “first from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust – created in New York to hold the Trump Organization’s assets during TRUMP’s presidency – and later from TRUMP’s bank account. In total, 11 checks were issued for a phony purpose.”
“Nine of those checks were signed by TRUMP,” Bragg charges. “Each check was processed by the Trump Organization and illegally disguised as a payment for legal services rendered pursuant to a non-existent retainer agreement.
“In total, 34 false entries were made in New York business records to conceal the initial covert $130,000 payment . . . Further, participants in the scheme took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the reimbursements.”
Opponents of former US president Donald Trump protest outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York on April 4, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP/ Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
The former President of the United States, and the leading Republican presidential candidate for 2024, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which began in 2019.
Trump was not handcuffed, as some are during an arraignment, after making arrangements with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Detectives within the office handled the arrest of the former president.
The payments to Daniels and McDougal had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks on Donald Trump arraignment April 4, 2023. (Fox News)
The charges against the former president come after federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019.
Also, the Federal Election Commission, in 2021, dropped its case on the same issue— examining whether Trump violated election law with the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, after it “failed by a vote of 2-2 to…find reason to believe that Donald J. Trump knowingly and willfully violated” federal election law.”
“The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” Bragg said in a statement after the arraignment.
“As the Statement of Facts describes, the trail of money and lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York’s basic and fundamental business laws,” Bragg said. “As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law.”
Trump has slammed the DA’s investigation and the indictment as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
Fox News’ Bill Mears contributed to this report.
Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.
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CNN boasted on Monday about its poll showing that a majority of Americans approve of the indictment of former President Donald Trump. The day after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed that a grand jury indicted Trump, CNN conducted a poll and found that 60% of Americans purportedly “approve” of the indictment while 40% do not.
But there is a significant problem with the poll and its result indicating widespread support for the indictment: It was conducted before the indictment was unsealed. How, then, can anyone form a reasonable opinion about the indictment and whether or not they support it? The charges against Trump — reportedly 34 counts of a Class E felony for allegedly falsifying business records — will not be made public until the former president is arraigned, which is expected to take place on Tuesday.
Even more bewildering, only 51% of respondents said they’ve heard “a lot” about the case. Setting aside the fact that no one yet even knows the exact charges against Trump, the figure raises another question: How can you “support” something you’re only vaguely aware of?
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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 Presiden
The devolution of American society began when moral relativism supplanted biblical truth in education, government, and the family. Beginning in the late 1940s with the Supreme Court’s Everson v. Board of Education ruling and onward, our government and educational system have turned their backs on absolute truth to embrace Marxism, which aims to remove Christianity from all spheres of society.
The moral erosion proves obvious in a recent Barna poll that found, “Millennials are significantly less likely to believe in the existence of absolute moral truth or that God is the basis of all truth.”
The study also noted that “Millennials have less respect for life, in general,” and that “they are less than half as likely as other adults to say that life is sacred. They are twice as likely to diminish the value of human life by describing human beings as either ‘material substance only’ or their very existence as ‘an illusion.’”
Millennials’ disregard for life or morality should not come as a surprise. The decreasing number of young Americans who attend church regularly hear from pastors who may not preach biblical truth. A study by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that only 51 percent of America’s evangelical church pastors hold a biblical worldview.
Armed with this data, I am thankful that recent shootings like those at The Covenant School in Nashville and the school shooting in Uvalde do not occur more frequently.
Gun-control advocates, the media, politicians, and my friends on social media urge increased gun restrictions as the solution to the problem, pointing to Europe and Australia as the golden standard for gun control. Yet, a 2018 New Zealand Herald article showed that despite tighter gun restrictions in these countries, shootings have occurred more frequently than Americans realize.
In 2022, for example, a gunman killed two and wounded seven people in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe, before authorities apprehended him and held him for psychological testing. The article, along with anti-firearm advocates, suggests increased psychological testing as the next solution now that radical gun-control policies have failed.
Not many in Western society honestly address the origin behind increased psychological problems. Western countries increasingly lean on modern mental health mantras rather than dealing with the heart of the matter.
For centuries, firearms have been a standard tool for hunting and home defense in America and Europe. So why the escalation of gun-related massacres throughout the United States and the West over recent decades? Again, I pose the heart of the issue: Moral relativism has replaced the truth of God’s Word.
As a college writing professor, I read and hear the anti-American and anti-Christian propaganda to which my students have been exposed their entire lives. Basic biblical truths such as “treat others how you wish to be treated” and “love your neighbor” have been replaced with mantras like “treat others with kindness unless they offend you” and “love yourself.”
How can a society that raises children devoid of the Christ-centered teachings of Christianity expect anything besides massacres at the hands of miserable, self-centered, and horribly confused individuals like the Uvalde and Highland Park shooters?
Gun Control to Mask Moral Decline
Seven years ago, I attended an active-shooter training hosted by the campus safety department at the community college where I taught in Portland, Oregon. I will never forget the cautionary advice shared by one of the presenters.
“In the event of an active shooter situation, don’t bother calling campus police. Instead, call 911,” he advised. “Campus police at this college are unarmed, so we won’t be able to ensure your safety. Although it will take the local police department much longer to respond to a campus shooting, they will eventually be able to take down a shooter if the need arises.”
Baffled, I asked why campus police are expected to perform their duties unarmed. He explained that several years prior, a college board member felt distressed about campus police carrying firearms. After a swift vote by the board, my safety as well as the safety of my students and colleagues would be jeopardized henceforth.
After the training, I stayed behind to ask the officer his opinion regarding faculty arming themselves on campus. He encouraged me — off the record, of course — to carry concealed for my own safety and for the safety of my students. That college, like most academic institutions across the country, proclaims itself to be a gun-free zone.
A 2019 CNN article documented 10 years of school shootings, and the majority occurred in gun-free zones. A 2019 study conducted by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that in schools across the U.S. that reportedly allow teachers to carry guns on campus, no deaths occurred as a result of shootings between 2000 and 2018.
Neither the problem nor the solution to school shootings has any correlation with guns or mental health problems that can be treated with medication and therapy, as many scholars and pundits contend. Rather, the problem stems from our nation’s replacement of biblical truth with moral relativism.
A Symptom, Not the Cause
As a writing instructor for 16 years, I examined thousands of essays, gaining an unusual window into the lives and experiences of my Millennial and Gen Z students. Like an airline passenger who shares intimate details with a stranger, knowing he will never see that passenger again, many of my students confide personal musings and revelations in their writing.
A surprising number of essays I read unwrap students’ deep suffering related to childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Some of my students suffer the scars of drug- or alcohol-addicted, neglectful parents. Some students are only a few months clean and sober themselves. Several are homeless. And over the past decade, they write increasingly about gender confusion.
I have detected a common theme throughout their stories. Each of these unique souls is in search of something specific, a need inherent in every human. The agonizing part is that an ancient moral and religious tradition understands their needs, but they do not.
Instead of the moral relativism they have been fed from kindergarten through college, they need to hear truth. Not the “find your own truth” nonsense propagated by educators, Hollywood, and hosts on “The View,” but rather the age-old truth found solely in the Word of God.
The solution is clear: Churches must put away social justice-centered and seeker-friendly sermons and return to expository teaching. Parents must roll up their sleeves and remove the responsibility of parenting from educators and the media by doing the hard work themselves. And voters must stop expecting the government to fix a problem created by sinful humanity.
Instead, we must repent and ask God to point our nation to truth.
Kathleen Bustamante is a freelance writer and former college writing instructor. Her writing has appeared in the American Spectator, the American Conservative, the American Thinker, Real Clear Religion, and James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
Idaho scored a major win for election integrity last month by banning the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in elections, with North Dakota and Arizona potentially following suit. On March 24, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed HB 179, which prohibits county election offices from using “ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting to conduct an election or nomination of any candidate in this state for any local government, statewide, or federal elective office.” The bill passed the Idaho House of Representatives (56-12) and Senate (28-7) earlier last month.
Under RCV, which critics often refer to as “rigged-choice voting,” voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. Such a process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
In addition to Idaho, South Dakota banned the use of ranked-choice voting last month. Florida and Tennessee also passed similar bans last year.
Meanwhile, North Dakota Republicans put their state one step closer to banning the confusing system following the state Senate’s passage (33-13) of HB 1273 on Friday. The measure had previously cleared the House of Representatives (74-19) earlier this month and will soon head to Republican Gov. Doug Burgum’s desk for approval. When pressed on whether Burgum intends to sign the bill, Burgum spokesman Mike Nowatzki declined to answer, saying “We have not received HB 1273 from the Legislature yet, and the governor generally does not comment on legislation before it reaches his desk.”
In addition to Idaho and North Dakota, Arizona Republicans are also working to outlaw the use of ranked-choice voting in their state’s elections. The legislature is attempting to pass a ban on ranked-choice voting in the form of HB 2552, which passed the House last month and is now being considered by the Senate.
While Maine and Alaska are the only two states to employ RCV so far, their respective elections since implementing the system have produced outcomes that clearly contradict the desires of voters. In Maine, then-incumbent GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin lost to Democrat Jared Golden during the 2018 midterms, despite Poliquin winning the most votes in the first round of voting. That outcome was due to the state’s ranked-choice voting system.
Similarly, in Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola won the state’s at-large congressional seat last year even though “nearly 60 percent of voters [cast] their ballots for a Republican.” RCV also played a major role in helping Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski fend off a challenge from Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka during the 2022 midterms. The system allowed her to win due to being listed second on Alaska Democrats’ ranked-choice ballots.
Other states considering bans on ranked-choice voting include Alaska, Texas, and Montana.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long, crooked political careers have been marked by multiple well-established high crimes and misdemeanors. Not the least of these was Hillary’s decision to commit what amounts to multiple felonies by using an insecure private email system to conduct top-secret public business while U.S. secretary of state under Barack Obama.
This criminal behavior that so-called U.S. justice systems openly and repeatedly refused to punish was undertaken to hide treasonous actions. Those include selling political access and favors to foreign adversaries, as journalist Peter Schweizer and others, including The Federalist and members of Congress, have repeatedly and thoroughly documented.
Selling political favors to foreign opponents, including communist China and authoritarian Russia, is clearly treason. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “treason” as: “The betrayal of allegiance toward one’s own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.” The Clintons got filthy rich from it.
Clinton then compounded that with more treasonous conduct when she lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump.
It is by now well-established that Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid various actors to lie to U.S. intelligence agencies about Trump in an operation that eventually essentially negated the 2016 election — including encouraging federal employees’ treasonous behavior and two falsely predicated impeachments — and helped lose Republicans the 2020 election. Her campaign even tacitly confirmed this by paying a slap-on-the-wrist Federal Election Commission fine while still refusing to admit guilt for it a few weeks ago, seven years after the fact.
BREAKING: Last year Hillary Clinton quietly settled a campaign finance violation over reporting the *Steele Dossier* funding as legal services
Did FBI agents ever show up at Hillary Clinton’s house over her clearly criminal and treasonous “documents dispute”? Nope. The FBI’s director instead essentially confirmed she had committed multiple felonies but decided not to investigate or prosecute her for it because she was a presidential candidate for a major political party.
Hillary paid to have Trump falsely smeared as a traitor, laundering the slander through U.S. agencies that are supposed to provide equal justice under the law but now function as weapons to damage Democrats’ political opposition. In conjunction with others in the Obama administration that likely include Obama himself, she colluded with multiple security-state agencies to slander, undermine, hamper, and now threaten with jail time Democrats’ top political opponent.
That’s treason. It’s election erasure. It’s ongoing. And these traitors are all running about totally scot-free, while they jail their political opponents for what at best are misdemeanors, and for which they refuse to prosecute anyone on the left who perpetrates them — from street rioters all the way up to their presidential candidates.
My colleague Elle Purnell pointed out that when Trump countenanced chants of “lock her up” at his rallies over Clinton’s never-penalized repeat criminal behavior, Democrats lost their minds, and insisted this was the stuff of dictatorships, tyranny, and political repression.
“Dictatorships lock up the opposition, not democracies,”said Spygate intelligence official Michael McFaul. “Since when do Americans advocate jailing political opponents?” said top Spygate propagandist Julia Ioffe, then at Politico.
“In a democracy, you can’t threaten to jail your opponents,” Obama said in 2016. “We have fought against those kinds of things.” “In America, we don’t send our political opponents to jail,”tweeted an official Democratic National Committee Twitter account.
REMINDER In 2016 Trump got huge laughs for telling Hillary Clinton she'd be in jail if he was in charge of the law Then there was four years of agitprop about how this proved that Trump was "a dictator who wanted to imprison his political opponents."https://t.co/jJADWmsMSjpic.twitter.com/hNgTVnmI5W
The Clintons are clearly traitors willing to endanger their nation for profit, and it would be fully just to prosecute them as such. Yet as president when he had the chance, Trump decided not to pursue it. According to Trump Attorney General Bill Barr’s recently published memoir, “Trump brought up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and surprised Barr by saying that he had wanted the matter to be dropped after the 2016 election,” according to a review of Barr’s memoir in the fall 2022 Claremont Review of Books.
“‘Even if she were guilty,’ he told Barr, “for the election winner to seek prosecution of the loser would make the country look like a ‘banana republic.’”
Ever since riding down his golden escalator, Trump has been ceaselessly vilified as a tinpot dictator, an evil supervillain, an authoritarian, the second coming of Adolf Hitler. But Democrats cannot change the facts, which include that Trump had fully legitimate justification to prosecute his horribly corrupt political opponent and refused to do so. They can make no such argument for themselves.
So, if it is indeed the stuff of banana republics and ending democracies to jail one’s political opponents, let’s all be clear about which political party is dragging the nation down that route. And let all in authority who care about equal justice under the law begin fiercely applying Democrats’ standards to them until they stop perverting justice to destroy our country.
The no-holds-barred legal shutdown and prosecution of leftist insurrectionists filling state capitols in support of a transgender child murderer would be one such proportionate response.
On Tuesday, Wisconsinites will once again head to the polls in a race that has garnered national attention and set national spending records for a judicial race. According to the most recent Wispolitics.com tally, the two Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates and outside groups have combined for over $45 million in spending. What’s at stake? All of the reforms of the Gov. Scott Walker era, and more.
Home to Walker, former Speaker Paul Ryan, former RNC Chairman and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and conservative star Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin has enjoyed an outsized role in national politics since 2010. Instead of cautiously governing like so many administrations in purple states, Walker and his allies advanced some of the boldest reforms in the nation. Starting with the historic Act 10 that resulted in a siege of the Capitol (and over $15 billion in taxpayer savings), conservatives advanced bold reforms like Right to Work, voter ID, concealed carry, castle doctrine, and a dramatic expansion of school choice.
Now, Wisconsin’s growing leftist base sees an opportunity to overturn all of the hard-fought reforms by flipping the state’s high court. Politico recently proclaimed the race “could be the beginning of the end for GOP dominance.” This would obviously be bad news for conservatives nationally since Wisconsin will undoubtedly play a huge role in who is president in 2025.
The two candidates running to replace the former conservative Chief Justice on the current 4-3 conservative court could not be any more different, and whoever wins will determine the ideological control of the court for years. Running as the progressive is Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz. Instead of articulating a coherent judicial philosophy, she has consistently emphasized her “values” and how they will influence her decisions. She has also troublingly declared that Wisconsin’s legislative maps are rigged – announcing her thoughts on an issue that is likely to come before the court if liberals gain the majority. She has stated that she disagrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that returned abortion law to the states. She is also the candidate that the left apparently sees as showing they “are done pretending that judges are merely legal umpires.”
Contrast Protasiewicz’s activism with the originalist approach of former Justice Dan Kelly, appointed to the court by Gov. Scott Walker, who authored historic decisions during his four years on the court and consistently quotes from the Federalist Papers on the campaign trail. His lead opinion in Tetra Tech upended decades of deference to administrative agencies.
While Kelly has been supported by the Republicans and Protasiewicz by the Democrats, it is clear that Protasiewicz views the job of a judge as a super partisan legislator, supplanting the legislature’s authority with that of her own. Forecasting what a liberal majority would do Wisconsin’s duly-enacted reform regime, liberal Justice Jill Karofsky herself has declared specifically that “everything that Wisconsinites care about is on the line in this election, from abortion rights to fair maps to the 2024 election to democracy itself, all of those things are going to be on the ballot on April 4th…” These are all issues that have been settled by the democratically elected legislature but are apparently all on the table for a liberal majority of the court.
While abortion, crime, and redistricting have been the main focus of the media and outside groups during the campaign, several other cases could be brought which would fundamentally transform the landscape in Wisconsin. Even cases that have already been addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court are at risk of novel interpretations under the Wisconsin constitution by a new progressive majority.
An issue impacting tens of thousands of Wisconsin families that could be dramatically affected by the balance of the state Supreme Court is school choice. In 1998, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the choice program for religious schools in Jackson v. Benson. There, the court reversed the lower court, holding that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was valid under both the Establishment Clause and Article I, Section 18 of the Wisconsin Constitution, which prohibits the use of money from the public treasury to be used for the benefit of religious societies, religious schools, or seminaries. The holding was based in large part on the fact that students in the program were not compelled to attend sectarian schools nor forced to participate in religious activities. The Court further held that public funds may be given to third parties as long as the program on its face is neutral between sectarian and nonsectarian alternatives and that the transmission of funds is guided by the decisions of independent third parties.
While the decision in Jackson has been in place for a generation, a court viewing itself as a super-legislature could undo the decision in part, or in whole, based on a narrowed view of the constitutional provisions reviewed in that case, particularly relative to monies “drawn from the treasury” that are used in the choice program. A court decision holding a strict view of the provision could decimate a program that provides alternatives to families desperately looking for an alternative to failing public schools.
Another issue likely to surface in the event the ideological makeup of the court shifts, as it has recently in other states, is the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s voter ID law. In League of Women Voters v. Walker and Milwaukee Branch of NAACP v. Walker, leftist groups challenged Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law, claiming the legislature lacked authority to enact a voting qualification under the Wisconsin constitution and that the law was an undue burden on the right to vote. Upholding the law, the Court noted that requiring an ID was within the legislature’s authority to provide for laws relating to elector registration under Article III, Section 2, that the law was a reasonable regulation that “could improve and modernize election procedures, safeguard voter confidence in the outcome of elections and deter voter fraud,” and that the burdens of gathering the required documents, traveling, and obtaining a photograph ID were not a substantial burden.
In a challenge to the voter ID law under the state constitution’s right to vote, an activist court could hold that a record demonstrating that numerous individuals claiming to have been deterred from voting because of the burden of obtaining an ID is evidence of a “substantial burden” that outweighs the threat of voter fraud and could strike down the law. The left will undoubtedly come after this important law ahead of the 2024 election as it has recently in other states. In a state with razor-thin margins of victory for conservative super-stars like Sen. Ron Johnson, opening the gate to fraudulent votes in the absence of a voter ID law could have major consequences in 2024 and beyond.
Finally, and least covered by the media, are the ramifications the court race might have on the shift of power back to the deep state. In the 2018 case Tetra Tech EC, Inc. v. Wis. Dep’t of Revenue, the court departed from its practice of “deferring to administrative agencies’ conclusions of law.” In a case where a citizen may be challenging an agency’s interpretation of law or administrative rule, the court would no longer review the agency’s action with a “bias” toward the agency’s own interpretation. Agency interpretation is an issue that arises in courts every day across the country, measuring the amount of authority an agency wields on virtually any issue, ranging from taxation to education to election administration – many times involving an agency seizing authority the legislature never gave it. A restoration of agency deference by an activist court could result in an immediate shift of authority from the legislative branch to the unelected officials in the executive branch.
During the final days of the race, former Justice Dan Kelly is sprinting across to the state with a final closing message: saving the court. But the race is about more than just the court. It could impact policies duly enacted by the legislature that conservatives have worked for a generation to obtain. It will make a difference in securing elections and electing strong conservatives like Ron Johnson, who has demanded Covid transparency and has taken on the deep state, or electing central planners like Tammy Baldwin who want to strip us of our freedoms. The election on Tuesday presents a fundamental choice to voters.
Do they want Wisconsin to lurch backward with a progressive court that will undo so many of the reforms the legislature and Gov. Walker worked to implement over the last decade, or are they going to vote to save the court by elevating a former justice that will ensure a conservative majority that respects the law as written by the legislature? The choice is obvious. Save the court and save the state.
Dave Craig is a Waukesha attorney and served in the Wisconsin Legislature from 2011 to 2021. Prior to his election, he worked as an aide to Congressman Paul Ryan. Jake Curtis is an Ozaukee attorney who previously served as an agency Chief Legal Counsel in the Walker Administration.
Screenshot of Wyoming government website (Featured: Karlee Provenza, House Minority Whip)
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Just days after a woman who identified as transgender gunned down six people at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, a state representative in Wyoming has implicitly called for more gun violence against those who oppose the agenda of “trans folks.”
Over the weekend, Wyoming state Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie), the state House’s 33-year-old Democrat minority whip, posted a controversial graphic to her Facebook account, @Provenza4Wyoming. The image depicts an elderly woman named “Auntie Fa” carrying a rifle in the name of protecting “trans folks against fascists & bigots.”
This was posted on Facebook yesterday by the Democrat Minority Whip in the Wyoming House of Representatives @Provenza4Wyomin.
Less than a week after a trans person killed three Christian children in Nashville. pic.twitter.com/2I25iXN8Ij
“Auntie Fa” is a coded reference to Antifa, the far-left activist group known for using violence to intimidate others in cities like Portland and Seattle and now even Atlanta. The Auntie Fa image that Provenza posted is taken from Off Color Decals, a company that sells “Merch and Firearms Accessories for the Left,” according to its website.
Though Provenza has apparently since deleted the post, Republicans in Wyoming and across the country have condemned its content as well as its timing. It was posted less than a week after the horrific shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, where three children and three adults were murdered by a woman who identified as a transgender man.
“Not even one week after a radical transgender activist slaughtered 6 Christians, including 3 children, a Wyoming Legislator for HD45 shares a disgusting call for further violence,” the Wyoming Freedom Caucus tweeted on Sunday. “The Wyoming Legislature’s House Minority Whip should be ashamed of herself.”
Provenza, who was first elected to the state House in 2020, initially ran as a moderate. She was reportedly first approached to run for public office as a Republican, and in a post on her Facebook account from October 2020, she promised to protect gun rights. “Guns are part of our heritage and lifestyle in Wyoming,” Provenza wrote, claiming that gun violence “won’t be solved by letting the government take people’s guns away without due process.”
Since she was elected, Provenza has governed as an extremist, repeatedly advocating against abortion restrictions and condemning a local church leader for exercising his First Amendment rights at the University of Wyoming.
According to Fox News and the Cowboy State Daily, Provenza did not respond to requests for comment on the Auntie Fa post.
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Human beings are not ready for a powerful AI under present conditions or even in the “foreseeable future,” stated a foremost expert in the field, adding that the recent open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on developing advanced artificial intelligence is “understating the seriousness of the situation.” Read more…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and Presiden
Vice President Kamala Harris sidestepped a question on Friday regarding the indictment of former President Donald Trump, but the president of Zambia chose to address the issue. Harris and Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema held a joint press conference on Friday as the vice president begins wrapping up her travel on the African continent. The pair were asked for their reactions to news that the 2024 Republican presidential candidate was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday said she would not comment on the indictment of former President Donald Trump. (Pool/Fox News)
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrive at Kenneth Kuanda International Airport in Lusaka, Zambia, on Friday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“I am not going to comment on an ongoing criminal case as it relates to the former president,” Harris told the reporter.
However, Hichilema took the question and attempted to explain his feelings on the matter from the perspective of the Zambian government.
“The indictment of President Trump — what does that mean to the rule of law? Let’s remove names from your question,” Hichilema told the reporter. “Let’s put what we decided we would do to govern ourselves in an orderly manner. [We] passed our constitutions — bedrock law. Then, secondary laws, other regulations create a platform or framework around which we agreed either as Americans or as Zambians to govern ourselves and so to live within those confines.”
Zambia President Hakainde Hichilema on Friday reacted to former President Donald Trump’s indictment, saying, “When there’s transgression against law, it does not matter who is involved.” (Pool/Fox News)
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema cuts the ribbon when attending the commissioning ceremony for the fifth generator at the Kafue Gorge Lower Hydropower Station in Southern Province, Zambia, on March 24, 2023. (Peng Lijun/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“And when there’s transgression against law, it does not matter who is involved. I think that is what the rule of law means. This is universal,” he continued.
Hichilema went on to compare the Trump indictment and partisan tensions to corruption in his own nation.
“And here, Vice President, we have a scenario now when we fight against corruption which has taken away resources from children and the sick — sometimes names are thrown into it and perceptions are created that are totally inappropriate,” he said. “Because transgressions against the law, if you take what belongs to the public, you have offended the law and the name does not matter.”
Vice President Kamala Harris shakes hand with Tanzania’s Vice President, Dr. Philip Mpango, upon her arrival at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam to depart to Lusaka, Zambia, at the end of her visit to Tanzania on Friday. (ERICKY BONIPHACE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump was indicted as part of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s years-long investigation, possibly for hush money payments. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating Trump for hush money payments made leading up to the 2016 presidential election. These include the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Fox News Digital has learned.
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff disembark from Air Force Two at Kenneth Kuanda International Airport in Lusaka, Zambia, on Friday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Hush money payments made to both McDougal and Daniels were revealed and reported by Fox News in 2018. Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019, even as former Trump attorney Michael Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal to federal charges, including tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations. The FEC also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.
Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at timothy.nerozzi@fox.com
America’s two-tiered justice system status was solidified on Thursday after a Manhattan grand jury voted to hit former President Donald Trump with a felony indictment and the threat of imprisonment. Cue the chorus of Democrats and corporate media mouthpieces who spent all of Thursday night on Twitter condescendingly warning: “no one is above the law, not even the former president.”
In addition to suggesting that Trump is not “above the law,” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that the former president has the opportunity to “prove innocence” in court. Of course, the law, smugly touted by Pelosi, dictates that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty- not the other way around.
Whether Pelosi’s “innocence” comment was a Freudian slip or a genuine assertion, we may never know. What we do know is that for years, Democrats have operated under the belief that their party members and their partisan allies are above the law.
1. The Criminals Alvin Bragg Refused To Prosecute
While Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was busy searching for ways to indict Trump, violent criminals were taking over New York City streets.
During Bragg’s first year in office, major crime in New York City increased by 22 percent. Since then, the DA has made a career out of reducing charges for armed robbers, freeing cop-beaters, relaxing bail, and letting violent antisemites off.
Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies may have earned him left-wing billionaire financier George Soros’ favor and dollars, but even Democrat-voting New Yorkers know that he’s no stranger to giving better treatment to convicts than law-abiding people like this bodega owner who defended himself against a murderous criminal.
If Democrats truly cared about campaign finance law violations, they would have already prosecuted several members of their party, including Hillary Clinton.
In 2022, the Federal Elections Commission fined Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign for falsely attributing the money that the Democrat used to orchestrate the Russian collusion hoax. If Trump is guilty of intent to conceal a campaign finance crime, a motivated prosecutor might look at the DNC and Clinton campaign’s efforts to hide their involvement in the so-called Steele “dossier” and find they were guilty of the same crime.
In addition to her election meddling, Clinton and her staff mishandled highly classified information, which resulted in at least 91 security violations. Instead of raiding her house and asking the DOJ to prosecute her, the FBI “inexplicably agreed to destroy [Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s] laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.”
Clinton also played a central role in the decision to abandon four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, where they were murdered by terrorists.
3. Barack Obama
Before Clinton was forced to pay for her scheming, President Barack Obama faced “one of the largest fees ever levied against a presidential campaign,” $375,000, for “campaign reporting violations.” Instead of facing calls for prison time, Obama received years of protection from the corporate media and fake fact-checkers who repeatedly downplayed his violation as a proportionally small infraction compared to the billion dollars he raised on the campaign trail.
4. Election Law-Breakers Like Marc Elias
Marc Elias has repeatedly tried to undermine U.S. elections. He has such a reputation for meddling and manipulating elections that even a federal judge reprimanded him for it. Unlike Douglass Mackey, who was charged by the DOJ for posting a meme encouraging Hillary voters to “text” their votes, however, Elias has not faced any charges or unannounced raids.
The president’s son isn’t just a walking liability for the Biden family name, he’s a glaring national security threat with a long, infamous history of using illicit drugs, engaging in possibly criminal sexual escapades with foreign women, and selling access to his dad under the guise of doing business with foreign oligarchs from places like China.
Speaking of communist China, Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell canoodling with a known spy for the nation’s No. 1 enemy seems like a pretty serious offense. Instead of a member of the House Intelligence Committee facing consequences for giving foreign spies access to key U.S. government offices and information, Swalwell is still comfortably rage-tweeting about Trump and MAGA supporters and appearing as a guest on corrupt corporate media programs.
8. Eric Holder
Former Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during its investigation of the Obama-era “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, which used taxpayer dollars to put guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords. Holder was held in contempt, but that’s pretty much the only punishment he received for intentionally dodging subpoenas and hiding documents from congressional oversight.
9. Susan Rice
President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, unmasked members of the Trump transition team and then lied about it. Unmasking may be a legitimate and legal process for those with the authority, but covering up an attempt to target the political enemies of the regime is an abuse of power that deserves examination.
Instead, it was yet another action taken by the U.S. intelligence apparatus to justify spying on American citizens.
10. The Pelosi Family
Suspected insider trading deserves at least a second glance by federal investigators, but it looks like, so far, Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have gotten away with conveniently timing their stock purchases and sales to massively grow their wealth.
The same people who love lording “no one is above the law” over Americans are the ones who think they are above any semblance of oversight or law, or constitutionality. If Democrats truly valued rule of law, illegal border crossers, Russia hoaxers, Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, pro-abortion vandals, rioters, and the people who run corrupt government agencies like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the NSA, and the Manhattan DA’s office would be the ones standing in court next week, not Trump.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A Manhattan grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office confirmed following late-Thursday media leaks. While the indictment remains under seal, one thing seems certain: America has now entered the era of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” politics.
The Democrat district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, breathed new life into the infamous boast of Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, when the Manhattan prosecutor targeted the former president in connection to a 2016 payment made to Stormy Daniels. Bragg’s decision to push for an indictment against Trump, presumably for falsifying business records, promises to herald in a new political age — one in which local prosecutors will target partisan enemies, big and small, making a mockery of the criminal justice system in the process.
The fact that news of the charges leaked to the left’s favorite scribes at The New York Times, while the indictment remained still under seal, punctuates perfectly the Sovietesque times in which we live: The legacy media may not be state-run, but they peddle propaganda, nonetheless.
Guesswork
Until the indictment is unsealed, any discussion of the charges requires some guesswork, and with sources late Thursday reportedly telling CNN the grand jury charged Trump with more than 30 counts, the prognostication is much more difficult. But from earlier reports, it appears the D.A.’s criminal case against Trump revolves around Sections 175.05 and 175.10 of the New York penal code.
Both sections define the state crime of “falsifying business records,” with Section 175.05 providing “a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with the intent to defraud, he makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.” Section 175.10 converts the “second degree” misdemeanor to a felony if the person falsified business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission” of another crime.
The factual theory for charging the former president with falsifying business records seems to rest on “Trump allegedly causing the Trump Organization to falsely report payments made to Michael Cohen in 2017 as ‘legal expenses,’ when the money instead reimbursed (and then some) Cohen for the $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep the porn star from publicly claiming she had sex a decade earlier.” The Trump Organization then reportedly paid Cohen $35,000 a month for “legal services” in 2017, while Cohen never provided any legal work for the business.
Legal pundits believe the indictment will ratchet up the alleged falsifying of “legal expenses” offense to a felony by charging Trump with lying about the payments to Cohen to conceal a violation of federal election law. Cohen has already admitted to paying off Daniels to advance Trump’s electoral chances, and he appears poised to be a star witness against Trump. Another possibility, however, is that the Manhattan D.A.’s indictment accuses Trump of falsifying the organization’s “legal expenses” to aid in tax fraud.
The U.S. attorney has already declined to charge Trump with federal election law violations, making any attempt by Bragg to tie the federal offense to the state charge of falsifying business records reek of political payback.
Bragg’s expected use of Trump’s physical absence from New York — ironically because he was serving as commander-in-chief in D.C. — to sidestep the five-year statute of limitations that applies to a felony of falsifying business records, will also add to the stench of the case. And a public that watched Trump hounded since he first announced his candidacy for president isn’t likely to focus on the legal technicalities of the statute of limitations. Rather, the average American will consider the delayed charging of Trump to be a desperate ploy to concoct a crime.
Trump himself was quick to advance this theory, opening his press release by calling the indictment “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.” “From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower,” the former president continued, the “Radical Left Democrats … have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”
“You remember it just like I do,” Trump stressed, ticking off the attacks: “Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the illegal and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this.”
30-Count Craziness
Trump will reportedly appear in a Manhattan court on Tuesday for his arraignment. Whether the indictment is unsealed before then is unknown. But the leaks continue, including, as noted above, news that the grand jury reportedly charged Trump with more than 30 criminal counts.
Unless Bragg has uncovered something much beyond the details already reported about the Daniels payment, the Manhattan prosecutor will have only made matters worse by pushing for an indictment of the former president on more than 30 criminal counts. Given the lack of leaks about anything new, the most likely scenario is that the grand jury got to 30-plus counts by charging Trump with separate counts for each of the monthly payments made to Cohen in 2017. Then, the grand jury could add additional counts for each month Trump allegedly made the payment to “aid or conceal the commission” of another crime.
With this approach, it isn’t hard to see how easily the grand jury could convert one hush-money payment into some 30 crimes. And while the left and the Never Trump right might see a lengthy indictment as further proof of Trump’s malfeasance, if the indictment contains no new details, the piling on to reach the reported 33 counts against the former president doesn’t make Trump look more guilty — it makes Bragg look more like Beria.
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.
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“Justice is indiscriminately due to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.” ~John Jay, in Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794
The die is cast. The political persecutions have been happening against average conservative citizens for several years, but it took the indictment of Trump to finally get people’s attention. We no longer have equality under the law. It’s quite evident that a conservative living in a blue state or being prosecuted by the feds in D.C. will never get a fair shake from the prosecutor, judge, or jury. Nothing will change that. The question is whether red states will make their states sanctuaries for liberty and as unhospitable to their political enemies as blue states are to our people.
It wasn’t always this way. We’ve been an extremely divided and polarized nation for quite some time. Sure, in the realm of court decisions or the legal process affecting broad political issues, the political bias of the judges was always quite apparent. But when it came to an individual criminal case, it was always the law that governed. As recently as 2016, a unanimous Supreme Court vacated the conviction of former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell for bribery because they all clearly understood that the governor’s hosting of a company he benefited from, while reeking of sleaze, is endemic of both sides of the political divide and clearly did not meet the definition of bribery under the Hobbs Act.
We no longer live in a world of equal justice under the law. We’ve witnessed how in the same capitol city where violent criminals are released or not prosecuted, Army veterans with clean records were held pretrial and denied due process up and down the legal system on what was, at most, non-violent misdemeanors, and at worst government provocation and entrapment. All of this is taking place while the worst Antifa rioters can take over city streets for weeks with brutal violence. Aside from Elizabeth Warren’s isolated moment of intellectual honesty decrying solitary confinement for J6 defendants, we’ve seen no such outcry for equal treatment. Those perpetrating this believe we are subhuman and not afforded equal protection under the law.
Some countries are open and anarchic like places in the Third World; others are very authoritarian like Singapore, where everyone is punished pretty severely for relatively minor infractions. But what we have here is a two-tiered justice system that is tantamount to targeted and systemic persecution. This is how we wind up with D.C. U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves refusing to prosecute 67% of all arrests, including 52% of all felonies, but announcing 1,200 new prosecutions of J6 protesters, many of individuals who didn’t even violate minor trespassing laws. This is how you have endless Antifa and BLM riots where the most violent people who beat, maimed, looted, and burned police stations to the ground got less punishment than the most innocuous J6 suspects.
We cannot share a country with people who don’t fundamentally believe in equality under the law. This was self-evident before the Trump indictment, and frankly, it’s shameful that so many conservative voices didn’t respond emphatically to this emergency until it affected their man. Nonetheless, if this is what it takes to unite behind a forward-looking agenda, we’ll be better for it. Thus, the only answer is to militarize the legal system of red states just as emphatically as blue states. To that end, red state governors and legislatures should do the following:
1) Fund legal defense of persecuted individuals: The first step is defense. Obviously, Trump has a war chest, but most of his supporters being persecuted or pro-life activists being targeted for praying outside abortion clinics don’t have money. It’s also extremely hard to even get a lawyer willing to fight the system. I personally had trouble finding people lawyers when fighting January 6 charges or businessmen being prosecuted for the “crime” of opening their stores during COVID. Red states should set up a legal defense fund to contribute to the legal defense of those the state AG determines are being targeted with unequal treatment based on political, religious, or social beliefs. The AG’s office can also marshal pro bono lawyers willing to help who know that they will get moral support from the state rather than being targeted as pariahs in their profession for representing such clients.
2) Refuse to extradite: Gov. DeSantis just set a precedent that Florida will not assist with extradition of those politically targeted. Other red-state governors should refuse to extradite people being accused of non-violent crimes when there is compelling evidence that other people accused of similar actions are not targeted with the same level prosecution. In the case of Trump, because he is protected by the Secret Service, there was never a chance that the NYPD would somehow be able to nab him in Florida. But for ordinary citizens, it’s important for red states to make the statement that they will serve as constitutional sanctuaries for equality under the law. This will be harder to pull off in the face of a federal prosecution, but the time has clearly come to tell the blue states to shove it. Every red-state legislature should empower its state AG to block extradition if he determines it is for political reasons.
3) Slash the ABA monopoly: Connected to the previous point, it’s time for state legislatures to require their state judiciaries to recognize alternatives to the American Bar Association, which has unlawfully claimed a monopoly on the entire legal profession to the point where people cannot obtain legal representation over the ABA’s veto. The ABA is sanctioning people like Rudy Giuliani and Professor John Eastman for simply offering their view on constitutional questions.
4) Refuse cooperation with rogue federal agencies: Red states need to pull out of all joint training, sharing of information, and help with logistics or intel to any federal law enforcement agency that continues to target people for their political beliefs.
5) Prosecute the left more zealously: It’s time to fight fire with fire. Just this week, there was a left-wing insurrection at the Tennessee Capitol. We’re not asking red-state prosecutors to take minor misdemeanors and hold people pretrial for two years as the left has done with J6 defendants. However, they should more aggressively use catch-all felony statutes to throw the book at people who legitimately act violent or Democrat politicians and outside groups that legitimately violate laws.
Even though they don’t control the federal government, Republicans control half the states and can easily make these changes today. That’s why the primary focus should be interposing on behalf of the people’s liberties at the state level. However, given the federal tyranny, there is a need to at least push for legal reforms against political targeting with legislation in the House.
6) Pass the “Political Targeting Prosecution Act”: Defendants can theoretically assert an Equal Protection Clause violation; however, practically, the courts have made it almost impossible to succeed in a claim of a selective prosecution defense under the Equal Protection Clause. As such, Congress should pass the Political Targeting Prosecution Act, which would accord defendants the opportunity to present evidence of political targeting based on animus for the individual’s religious or political beliefs. For example, if defendants could show how no BLM rioter who was much more violent was charged with obstructing law enforcement during a public disturbance (18 USC 231(a)(3)), it would trigger a motion to dismiss based on unequal treatment.
7) Fair jury pools: With a country more divided than during the Civil War, it’s self-evident that conservatives cannot get a fair trial in liberal jurisdictions. This has rendered the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee to a trial by a jury of one’s peers irrelevant. In order to restore the spirit of that right in this era, Congress must demand that a conservative defendant charged in D.C. can move the trial to the federal jurisdiction where the defendant resides. There should also be a federal right to request an expanded jury pool 20-30 miles outside a major city to obtain a more “equitable” share of like-minded people composing the jury in criminal cases. So for example, whenever Democrats control the Justice Department, by definition, any political opponent will be charged in D.C. with a 95% Democrat jury pool. The new law would prescribe that the individual is tried either in his home state or, if he resides in D.C., he could request a jury pool to rope in parts of Maryland, Virginia, and the West Virginia panhandle to achieve more balance.Trump fans are absolutely correct in asserting that this is about much more than Trump. Indeed, the political persecutions have been going on for quite some time before this indictment. So let’s make our response about more than Trump and more than just promoting talking points. It’s time for action. Let’s systemically combat the weaponization of the justice system against those who have no voice, money, or legal help.
Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz explained why he believes the indictment against former President Donald Trump will be quickly tossed from court. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed on Thursday that a grand jury has indicted Trump over allegations related to an alleged hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. The indictment, however, remains under seal, and the exact charges will not be publicized until Trump is arraigned, which is expected to take place next week.
Reacting to the unprecedented news, the Harvard Law School emeritus professor predicted a judge will toss the case on statute of limitations grounds.
“I think the most important thing is they indicted him when he was out of New York, and that means they could have indicted him within the statute of limitations when he was out of New York. The statute of limitations is way expired,” Dershowitz explained on Newsmax. “They claimed they couldn’t have indicted him because he was outside of New York, but now they’ve indicted him when he’s not in New York.”
Dershowitz added that Bragg made a “foolish, foolish decision, which will cause the case to be thrown out, I think, on statute of limitations grounds.”
A scholar of American criminal law, Dershowitz predicted Trump’s attorneys will file an immediate motion to dismiss the case based on statute of limitations grounds.
.@AlanDersh on Trump indictment: "They've made a foolish, foolish decision which will cause the case to be thrown out, I think, on statute of limitations grounds." pic.twitter.com/Cipbv3DBnV
Bragg reportedly investigated Trump for falsifying business records over allegations that money he claimed went to Michael Cohen for legal services actually went to Daniels. In New York, the crime of falsifying business records is generally a misdemeanor — for which the statute of limitations is two years — but it can be a Class E felony if the crime occurred “to conceal another crime.” The statute of limitations in that case is five years. It is not yet known what second crime prosecutors allege Trump committed to elevate the charge to a felony, though it is believed that prosecutors will argue the hush-money payment constituted a violation of campaign finance laws.
At the center of the statute of limitations concern is whether they were triggered in 2017 — when the payments to Cohen were allegedly made — or in 2018 on the basis of bookkeeping implications.
As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy explained:
Assuming the statute of limitations was thus triggered in 2018, the five-year period would lapse sometime this year. That, at least in part, explains the frenetic investigative activity that has gone on the last few weeks: If the state doesn’t indict soon, the case would be time-barred. Or . . . it could be time-barred already.
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 Presiden
Image composite of Twitter videos, @ReduxxMag and @icons_women
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Ann Andres is a biological male who claims to be a woman. He has placed first in multiple women’s weightlifting competitions in Canada and holds the record for women’s bench in the province of Alberta. He has gone so far in recent months as to ridicule the real women who compete against him.
Team Canada’s male powerlifting coach Avi Silverberg has evidently had enough of noncompetitive men migrating to women’s sports and gender self-identification policies in powerlifting. Over the weekend, he temporarily identified as a transgender and demolished Andres’ record. Andres is technically Alberta’s powerlift record holder for bench and deadlifts in the women’s category.
According to Open Powerlifting, Andres’ personal bests are 440.9 pounds for squat; 275.5 pounds for bench; and 545.6 pounds for deadlift. The transsexual athlete has won eight out of the nine female competitions he has entered since 2019.
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports, an advocacy group seeking to protect women’s sports from male infiltrators, indicated that outrage mounted after Andres added insult to injury, having denigrated his competitors and claiming women’s bench is “so bad.” Andres said in a video posted to Instagram, “Why is women’s bench so bad? I mean, not compared to me, we all know that I’m a tranny freak so that doesn’t count. And no, we’re not talking about Mackenzie Lee, she’s got little T-rex arms and she’s like 400 pounds of chest muscle apparently.”
“Standard bench in powerlifting competition for women, I literally don’t know why it’s so bad,” Andres reiterated. “My son, he weighs 45 pounds. His max bench is like 33, I’m legit seeing some women in competition who are doing something like 50 pounds, and I just don’t understand it.”
🏋️Trans identifying male, Anne Andres is Alberta Canada's women's powerlifting record holder in bench 🚨competes next month in women's category at the 2023 CPU National Championships
🚩Recognizes no understanding of upper body strength differences btw males & females 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DYEyEWZTLr
Avi Silverberg serves as head coach for Team Canada Powerlifting, beginning in 2012. He has since coached over 4,500 attempts in international competitions. On March 25, Silverberg decided to temporarily identify as a woman — not to remedy possible dysphoria but as a means of protest. The newly minted transgender then attended the Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet in Lethbridge, Alberta. The meet reportedly adhered to the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s gender self-identification policy, announced earlier this year.
The policy states, “Individuals participating in development and recreational sport … should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify and not be subject to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of cisgender athletes. Nor should there be any requirement for hormonal therapy or surgery.”
“Hormone therapy should not be required for an individual to participate in high-performance sport,” added the document. “Individuals should not be required to disclose their trans identity or history to the sport organization in order to participate in high-performance sport.”
Silverberg exploited this gender policy as Andres had, then tested the transsexual athlete’s record with him watching. Not only did the male coach beat Andres’ record, he cleared it by nearly 100 pounds. Andres had previously lifted 275 pounds. Silverberg casually pressed 370 pounds. The Independent Council on Women’s Sports noted on Twitter that “Avi Silverberg just broke the Alberta WOMEN’s bench press record in the 84+ kg category at the ‘Heroes Classic.'”
ICONS told the feminist publication Reduxx, “What Avi so obviously points out is that policies allowing men access to women’s sports completely remove any integrity in women’s competitions.”
“It doesn’t matter how Avi expresses himself or perceives himself. He clearly does not belong in women’s sport, and neither does any other male regardless of their motivation for wanting to participate,” added the women’s advocacy group.
A male powerlifting coach self-identified as a woman and broke a women's benchpress record in protest of gender self-identification in sport.
Avi Silverberg performed the defiant act while the current record holder, a transgender male, watched.
Canadian weightlifter and YouTuber Greg Doucette lauded Silverberg’s weighty protest, stating, “How long before the powers that be suddenly wake up and smell the coffee and understand that if you’re born a female, you’re not going to be as powerful, as strong, as tall, as big … as if you were born a male.”
“To me, the answer is simple: We add a separate category, a new category, the trans category,” said Doucette.
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Composite screenshot of Fox News YouTube video (Featured: Jacob Chansley, aka the QAnon Shaman)
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Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman, who entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021, wearing patriot-themed face paint and horns but no shirt, has been released from prison early.
As of Thursday, reports from the Bureau of Prisons indicate that Chansley, 35, has been moved from federal prison to a halfway house in Phoenix, Arizona. In September 2021, Chansley pled guilty to civil disorder and violent entry to the Capitol. He and his attorney even signed a statement claiming that he entered the building through a broken door, that he “was not lawfully authorized to enter or remain in the building,” and that he “entered the Gallery of the Senate alone.”
However, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy recently released tens of thousands of hours of unedited footage of the events of January 6 to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In turn, Carlson aired just a brief portion of that footage a few weeks ago. That footage contradicted the claim that Chansley violently entered the Capitol and that he entered the gallery alone. Rather, Capitol police appeared to escort the unarmed Chansley throughout his time in the Capitol. When Chansley eventually entered the Gallery of the Senate, he prayed for the police who “allowed” them into “this building.”
Now, just weeks after that footage was released to the public through Tucker Carlson’s program, Chansley has been released from federal prison after serving 27 months in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement. His attorney, Albert S. Watkins, praised the decision to release Chansley, who had been sentenced to serve three and a half years behind bars.
“After serving eleven months in solitary prior to his sentence being imposed, and only 16 months of his sentence thereafter, it is appropriate this gentle and intelligent young man be permitted to move forward with the next stage of what undoubtedly will be a law abiding and enriching life,” Watkins said in a statement.
Though the announcement of Chansley’s release to a halfway house came just weeks after Carlson aired what he described as “clearly exculpatory” footage of Chansley in the Capitol, others claim that the timing is merely coincidental.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with media [or] public pressure,” said former federal prosecutor Neama Ramani, who is not affiliated with the case. “Despite the violent nature of the Capitol riots, most of the rioters had little to no criminal history.”
According to the Daily Mail, federal inmates may be given a 15% reduction in their sentences at the discretion of the BOP. They can also be transferred to a halfway house for the final 12 months of their sentence. The BOP did not respond to requests for comment from several outlets.
Chansley, who is from Arizona, is scheduled to be released from the halfway house on May 25.
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Suppose a troubled teen girl “identifies” as a boy and wants to change her body to match it. Most people balk at the thought of pumping her with testosterone or cutting off her healthy breasts. But many of these same people think using puberty blockers isn’t so bad for even younger kids. In fact, activist groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest drugs like Lupron can “pause” puberty without harm.
Even some conservative lawmakers, such as Georgia state Sen. Carden Summers, have bought this claim. As a result, the bill he sponsored, just signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, partially restricts “gender-affirming” hormones and surgeries for minors but says nothing about puberty blockers.
Is it really safe to give these drugs to kids? Mounting evidence says “no.” And even some on the left are starting to sound the alarm.
Last month, a stunning report in the British Medical Journal, written by a former editor of Ms. Magazine, argued that only a contrived medical consensus, not scientific evidence, props up wrongly named “gender-affirming care” for minors. That’s the protocol that starts with social transition, moves on to puberty blockers, then wrong-sex hormones, and finally surgery. The article pointed to disagreement within the medical community about how to best treat kids with gender dysphoria. Indeed, the publication of such an article, in a major medical journal, is itself evidence of such disagreement.
Two weeks earlier, Jamie Reed, a self-identified “queer socialist” married to a “transman,” blew the whistle on the work of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She confirmed what critics have long been saying: These treatments are uncontrolled experiments with children as subjects.
“These treatments are uncontrolled experiments with children as subjects. “
Lupron
Consider Lupron. First approved by the FDA to treat prostate cancer, doctors later used the drug to chemically castrate sex offenders and stop early-onset puberty.
Today, it’s the primary “off-label” drug used to “block” puberty. Lupron stops the body’s normal hormonal process, including the development of ovaries and testes, by “blocking” the brain’s ability to communicate with the pituitary gland. The pituitary controls the release of hormones. Without it, the sex hormones can’t direct puberty as they otherwise would.
Lupron’s side effects are so severe that doctors tend not to prescribe it for even mild (non-metastatic) cases of prostate cancer. Would you be shocked to learn it might not be great for young girls, either? In fact, after taking the drug, girls may develop osteoporosis and osteopenia, problems that mostly afflict older women. Many doctors found that Lupron decreased minors’ bone density so much that they could no longer recommend it.
Not Reversible
Some gender-activist doctors will admit their guidance is not based on long-term studies. Rather, they claim it’s based on expert consensus.
But that consensus is highly stage-managed. Because of the known dangers and lack of long-term data, the Finnish, French, and Swedish governments have either banned or limited Lupron’s use for minors. Similarly, the British National Health Service now urges caution, and argues most gender-confused minors are going through a “transient phase.”
The report in the British Medical Journal shows this regimen for minors is not based on sound science. The Endocrine Society found that little evidence supports its own guidance regarding Lupron. The Swedish government confirms Lupron does not help these minors. In fact, it “may lead to a deteriorating of health and quality of life,” and can cause irreversible harm.
When used for minors with gender distress, over 95 percent will move on to cross-sex hormones and never go through natural puberty. Even when puberty blockers are discontinued, their dangers to a child’s development don’t disappear. After all, no one can reverse time. It’s no surprise New Zealand’s ministry of health recently scrubbed the words “reversible” from its online discussion of puberty blockers.
Jamie Reed’s firsthand testimony is damning. Patients in Reed’s clinic could access hormone blockers after only one meeting with a therapist. Some of these minors had severe mental illnesses that went untreated. Instead, they were fast-tracked with transgender drugs toward transition surgeries.
States Start to Respond
Fortunately, the word is getting out. Some states are now restricting these weapons in the “gender-affirming” arsenal. Since 2022, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Iowa have passed legislation to restrict Lupron as a puberty blocker. (Alabama and Arkansas’ bans are on hold in federal district court.) Several more states will likely do so in the coming weeks.
Florida followed another path to ban this use of Lupron. The state’s medical boards reviewed the literature and found these transition procedures lacked a solid scientific basis. The legislature is now working to secure their boards’ judgment in law.
Other states should follow Florida’s lead and pass health policies and laws that follow scientific evidence, not the activists’ spin. Until this happens, troubled children will continue to be sacrificed on the altar of toxic ideology.
Samuel Silvestro is a member of The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leadership Program. Jay W. Richards is the director of Heritage’s DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family.
Mere days after a shooter killed three 9-year-old students and three staff members at a private Christian school in Nashville, Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee introduced a new bill that would funnel $900 million worth of taxpayer dollars to both public and private schools to hire armed security and “harden” classrooms with enhanced physical defenses.
The Securing Aid for Every (SAFE) School Act, if passed, will give states financial leverage to establish training and licensing programs for veterans and former law enforcement officers to protect private and public schoolchildren from threats like shooters. It will also offer grants to schools to install surveillance cameras, metal detectors, alarm systems, and locks in hallways and classrooms.
“Schools should be places where children are safe to learn, play, and be children. And every parent should have the confidence that when they send their children off to school, they will return home safely. We must work together to protect our children at school and that means increasing security,” Blackburn said.
Unlike government schools which already receive taxpayer dollars to harden their buildings, private schools are often left to find and fund school resource officers (SROs) on their own. Historically speaking, that means schools like Covenant, which did not have an armed security guard at the time of the tragedy, are the kinds of soft targets murderous shooters seek.
Yet, both public and private Christian schools have difficulty affording and retaining school resource officers.
More and more states including Tennessee want to mandate that schools hire armed guards to patrol campus during educational hours but Democrats have repeatedlyrejectedlegislation designed to sponsor and codify security overhauls that would keep American students from being sitting ducks. Their activist allies, similarly, say no one including teachers should carry in the classroom.
Proponents of hardening schools say Congress should act swiftly to pass this legislation so that lives across the nation will be saved from future tragedies.
“We can’t predict where or when the next school shooting will happen, but we know how it will be stopped: by a security officer with a gun,” Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland victim Meadow Pollack, said. “The police reacted bravely in Nashville, but in a shooting every second matters and the SAFE School Act will save lives by ensuring that more schools are guarded by armed security officers.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Following the Twitter censorship of Federalist CEO Sean Davis, several journalists, and a sitting member of Congress who all reported on the “Trans Day Of Vengeance” after the Nashville Shooting, the Media Research Center (MRC) published a shocking study about “free speech” on Twitter. Despite many claims to the contrary, the MRC found the company has become moreoppressive since Elon Musk acquired the platform.
According to data from the MRC’s Free Speech America’s CensorTrack.org database, there have been 293 cases of documented censorship since Musk took over from Nov. 4, 2022, through Mar. 4, 2023. This is 67 more cases than the 226 instances reported by CensorTrack.org from pre-Musk Twitter during the same time last year.
The Media Research Center also found Twitter’s methods of censorship recently became more severe. “In 245 of the 293 (84%) documented cases of censorship on CensorTrack.org, Twitter locked users’ accounts, and in nearly all cases users were required to delete the content to regain access to their accounts,” reports the MRC. “Under the old Twitter regime, by contrast, only 136 of the 226 (60%) documented cases of censorship consisted of locked accounts.”
An astounding 62 percent of the censorship cases under Musk’s leadership involved tweets critical of transgenderism. “At least 182 of the 293 (62%) documented cases of censorship recorded in the CensorTrack.org database for Twitter under Musk involved users being censored for speech critical of the left’s woke ‘transgender’ narrative,” writes the MRC.
On Tuesday, Federalist CEO Sean Davis, other journalists, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene were locked out of Twitter for reporting on the “Trans Day Of Vengeance” following the deaths of three children and three staff members at a Christian school in Tennessee at the hands of a transgender shooter.
Twitter claimed Davis’ objectively true tweet reporting on the panned “Trans Day Of Vengeance” violated the app’s rules “against violent speech.” Not only did Twitter lock Davis out of his account, but it also defamed him by falsely claiming he had “threatened, incited, glorified, or expressed a desire for violence.” “Twitter has a right to ban me for whatever reason it wants, but it doesn’t have a right to viciously lie about me,” Davis wrote, addressing the ban.
Davis has also been subjected to Twitter’s insidious shadow banning that carried over from the platform’s previous regime. And Federalist Senior Editor John Davidson has been locked out of his account for a full year because he tweeted the biological fact that Rachel Levine, the Biden administration’s transgender assistant secretary for health, is a man. Both Davis and Davidson have made appeals since Musk purchased the company over, but both remain censored on Twitter.
A year ago, Musk claimed he saw Twitter as the “de facto town square” and that “failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.” Unfortunately, as the anecdotal evidence and data from MRC show, Musk’s “free speech absolutist” Twitter rebrand has failed to live up to the hype.
“No amount of lofty rhetoric or grandiose plans from Musk about his love of free speech and facts can compete with the cold, hard reality that the service he owns doesn’t just oppose free speech; Twitter detests it,” wrote Davis.
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.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., stormed off after being accused of lying by Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik in the Capitol on Thursday, calling her “super transphobic” for good measure. Raichik had just filed an ethics complaint at the congresswoman’s office, saying the “Squad” member had defamed her during a Feb. 8 House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.
The Libs of TikTok creator then spotted the Democrat walking through the Capitol and seized the opportunity to confront her. Raichik apparently had not yet revealed her identity. After cozying up to take an apparent picture, Raichik told Ocasio-Cortez who she was.
BREAKING: I served @AOC with an ethics complaint after she lied about me in a committee hearing. AOC wasn’t in her office but then I bumped into her as I was leaving the Capitol!
“I just delivered an ethics complaint to your office because you lied about me in a committee hearing,” Raichik said.
Ocasio-Cortez immediately backed away and said, “I actually didn’t, because you’re actually super transphobic and I never want to share a space with you. Thank you!”
She then walked away.
The Democrat claimed that Raichik lied in a 2022 tweet when she said Boston Children’s Hospital was “now offering ‘gender-affirming hysterectomies’ for young girls.” Raichik had shared videos from the children’s hospital where doctors said they offered “gender-affirming hysterectomies.”
“Are you aware… that from August 11th to August 16th that account posted false information about Boston Children’s Hospital claiming that they were providing hysterectomies to children?” Ocasio-Cortez asked a former Twitter executive about that tweet.
Libs of TikTok Twitter account creator Chaya Raichik visits the office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. (Heritage Foundation Twitter/Screenshot)
Last week, Raichik was unsuccessful at finding the Democrat at her Capitol Hill office to confront her.
The Heritage Foundation asked the Office of Congressional Ethics this week to open an investigation into the Democrat on Raichik’s behalf for “falsely accusing” and “defaming” the creator of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account. The nine-page complaint defends Raichik’s view that Boston Children’s Hospital performs gender-affirming hysterectomies on young girls.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Samuel Corum/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Former President Donald Trump founded and funded the U.S. Space Force as the sixth arm of the military in 2019, noting that “American superiority in space is absolutely vital.” The current administration evidently agrees with Trump on at least this: To deter aggression in this present age, America will need to “control the ultimate high ground.”
Earlier this month, the Biden administration submitted to Congress a 2024 budget request of $842 billion for the Department of Defense, representing a $26 billion increase over the fiscal year 2023 budget and $100 billion more than in FY 2022. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin noted in a March 13 statement that the “FY 2024 budget is the most strategy-driven request we’ve ever produced from the Department of Defense.”
“As our National Defense Strategy makes clear, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is our pacing challenge,” said Austin.
“This budget seeks to meet this critical challenge today, tomorrow, and into the future by providing the resources today to continue to implement our National Defense Strategy and keep our nation safe while delivering a combat credible Joint Force that is the most lethal, resilient, agile, and responsive in the world,” added Austin.
With the nearly $842 billion, the DOD hopes to defend the homeland and keep up with the “multi-domain threat” posed by communist China; deter strategic attacks against the U.S., its allies, and its partners; deter aggression, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region; and build a resilient joint force and defense ecosystem.
Extra to modernizing military equipment, locking down a full complement of hypersonic missiles, and ensuring traditional forces are ready for a showdown with a possible Sino-Russo military alliance, the DOD wants over $30 billion for Space Force — roughly $3.9 billion over what it received in FY 2023. According to Austin, this is will cover “vital space capabilities, resilient architectures, and enhanced space command and control.”
The Pentagon wants an additional $3.3 billion (an 11% increase of FY 2023) to ensure Space Force core readiness. To this end, the spending request includes plans to train the Space Force’s Guardians, ensuring they are ready for battle, reported the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal noted “training will be critical. The physics and the mechanics of steering objects through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour give attackers the advantage they lack on the ground.”
$350 million has been requested for simulators and other facilities so that Guardians can hone their skills waging cosmic battles remotely. Readiness will ultimately mean the capacity to handle both threats from space and threats to space assets.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 15, “Both China and Russia continue to develop, field, and deploy a range of weapons aimed at U.S. space capabilities.”
“The spectrum of threats to U.S. space capabilities includes cyber warfare activities, electronic attack platforms, directed energy lasers designed to blind or damage satellite sensors, ground-to-orbit missiles to destroy satellites, and space-to-space orbital engagement systems that can attack U.S. satellites in space,” Saltzman added.
China has launched dozens of spacecraft to target U.S. forces in recent years, reported the New York Post.
The DOD’s budget overview notes that the U.S. also faces a threat from the anti-satellite weapon capabilities that “have made a resurgence in the past decade, with a number of different Russian military ‘Cosmos’ satellites believed to be designed to kinetically kill satellites in low Earth orbit.” To provide American forces and equipment protection on Earth and beyond, Saltzman said, “we are accelerating the pivot towards resilient satellite constellations, ground stations, networks and data links.”
While the U.S. presently has the advantage in space, its superiority is not guaranteed. According to a 2022 Defense Intelligence Agency report entitled, “Challenges to Security in Space,” the combined operational space fleets of China and Russia grew by roughly 70% between 2019 and 2021.
“China and Russia … are developing various means to exploit the perceived U.S. reliance on space-based systems and challenge the U.S. position in the space domain,” said the report. “Beijing and Moscow seek to position themselves as leading space powers., intent on creating new global space norms. Through the use of space and counterspace capabilities, they aspire to undercut U.S. global leadership.”
China’s 2020 “Science of Military Strategy” document from the country’s National Defense University stated, “Space has already become a new domain of modern military struggle; it is a critical factor for deciding military transformation; and it has an extremely important influence on the evolution of future form-states, modes, and rules of war. Therefore, following with interest the military struggle circumstance of space and strengthening the study of the space military struggle problem is a very important topic we are currently facing.”
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Talk about bad luck! What are the odds of the Nashville school shooter being a transgendered person who is ALSO mentally ill?
Arguably, there were hints.
In a form of modern Lysenkoism, young transgenders overwhelmingly come from homes with signs that say: “In This House, We Believe: Black Lives Matter, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, No Human Is Illegal, Science Is Real, Love Is Love, Kindness Is Everything.”
Specifically, a study of adolescent and young adult transgenders found that the adults in the home who identify as “parents” were 91.4% white; 70.9% had a bachelor’s degree or higher and 85.9% favored gay marriage. Parent respondents were 91.7% female.
This is a weirdly specific profile. Only about a third of Americans have B.A.s; a third of the population is white and female, and about a third supported gay marriage (until it was made a capital offense to oppose it — changing even Barack Obama’s mind!)
How many other biological conditions are correlated with political ideology?
I guess there’s “long-haulCOVID.” So there are two biological FACTS where the main vector is: Liberal White Women. And of course, innumerable studies have shown that mental illness is far more prevalent in liberals than conservatives, which may be the umbrella condition.
On the other hand, counterfactual self-identifications are popping up all over. For example, the media are currently self-identifying as purveyors of information, and Trump is self-identifying as a bad-ass tough guy who can get the job done.
For nearly two weeks now, the media have produced wall-to-wall coverage of … a rumor started by Trump himself. On March 18, he posted on his social media site: “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
Tuesday came and went without his supposed antagonist, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, making any arrest, but the media can’t stop talking about Trump. (You ever get the impression that Trump and the media are working together?)
In response to the press’s flood-the-zone coverage of a rumor started by someone they call a liar, Trump has been self-identifying as a total stud, the hero who built the wall and kept the country open while others quaked in the face of COVID!
Last week, he posted a picture of himself — carefully selected for its bad-assedness — swinging a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg.
What justifies this tough-guy image?
I agree 100% with the issues Trump ran on in 2016, but this is the guy who claimed to have a bone spur in his foot to avoid actual military service.
The complete opposite of his image on “The Apprentice,” barking “You’re fired!” at hapless employees, the real Trump couldn’t fire anyone. He asked former campaign aide-turned-lobbyist Corey Lewandowski to fire his attorney general, Jeff Sessions.
A slew of other Trump administration employees were fired by tweet — just the way George Patton did! These include: White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. He fired his FBI director, James Comey, by handing the dismissal letter to the White House press corps before telling Comey, who found out by watching TV (in this one case, style points to Trump).
Sitting with Democrats and Republicans at the White House, Trump wimped out on the Second Amendment, announcing that he supported a whole laundry list of anti-gun proposals, including taking arms away without due process. He even mocked Republicans for being “afraid of the NRA” — unlike him, the tough guy willing to swing a baseball bat at a photo. The NRA, he said, has “power over you people, but they have less power with me.”
A few days later, the NRA stopped by the Oval Office — and Trump retracted it all, tweeting out his unwavering support for the Second Amendment.
He released prisoners because Kim Kardashian told him to, bombed Syria because his daughter told him to, and shut down the country because a scaredy-cat cable news host told him to.
This is the guy who sells superhero NFTs of himself? Where does he get the idea that people see him as a macho fighter, as opposed to a spaghetti-spined nitwit who couldn’t stand up to girls like Ivanka and Paul Ryan? (Hey, whatever happened to that wall?)
As soon as there was blowback on the ridiculous baseball bat meme, here was Trump, backpedaling as fast as his bone-spurred feet would let him. He told some cockamamie story about how he never even noticed the picture! (Because Trump isn’t at all obsessed with his own image.)
I’m not allowed to offer a professional opinion without conducting an examination, but based on the symptoms, there’s a good chance that Trump is a liberal white woman.
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 Presiden
If we’ve learned anything from all the various impacts that COVID-19 brought to our shores, it’s that America must secure our critical supply chains. Instead, we continue to be reliant on hostile nations, and especially our biggest adversary, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Perhaps most disturbing is our self-imposed continued reliance on Chinese minerals needed for infrastructure, national security, and everyday life.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration, as part of their war on American energy, has moved to limit domestic mining and increase our reliance on the CCP for critical minerals.
This same administration is forcing a radical energy transition which will both increase the demand for minerals, making the United States even more reliant on the CCP, and increase the threat to our energy and national security. However, our House Republican majority’s top priority is to pass meaningful permitting reform to secure our domestic critical mineral supply chains and regain our energy dominance.
Minerals such as copper, nickel and cobalt are used in everyday life by Americans and are key components for our defense and energy industries. Cobalt, for example, is used in batteries for smartphones and electric vehicles. Other minerals are used in fighter jets, weapons, and other instruments vital for our national defense.
The Chinese Communist Party controls the minerals market needed for American fighter jets, lifesaving medical devices and for so many items we use daily to live and work. What happens when our biggest foreign adversary turns that faucet off?
Critical minerals power wind turbines, electric vehicles, and solar panels, all three of which are cornerstones of Biden’s contradictory energy policy. Global demand for critical minerals is skyrocketing, including cobalt demand which is expected to double this decade and increase nearly 500% by 2050.
Americans want to use our own, vast domestic reserves to secure our mineral future. In northern Minnesota alone, we are blessed with 95% of America’s nickel, nearly 90% of our cobalt, 51% of our platinum, and more than a third of our copper. However, President Biden and his cabinet have chosen politics over production, and continue to stymie domestic mineral development, and therefore our national security.
The list of anti-domestic mining actions taken by this administration is long. From Arizona and Alaska to Minnesota and South Dakota, the Biden administration is siding with radical activists to slow and kill domestic mining projects, keeping our much-needed resources in the ground.
Perhaps most egregious is the Biden administration making a purely political decision to cancel two long-held mineral leases and declare a moratorium on mining in part of the Duluth Complex in northern Minnesota. Furthermore, another project in northern Minnesota, is currently stuck in over 20 years of permitting due to activist politicians and frivolous lawsuits.
It should be alarming that the CCP controls the global supply chain for the development, processing, and manufacturing of minerals. Specifically, the Democratic Republic of the Congo currently supplies around 70% of the global cobalt supply, and China controls 15 of the 19 industrial mines in the country.
Further, conditions at these mines are abysmal, immoral, and inhumane as environmental standards lack enforcement and child labor remains rampant. Overall, the United States is over 50% reliant on foreign sources for 51 nonfuel mineral commodities, with 26 of these coming from China and 6 from Russia.
And, despite the clear, documented evidence of child forced slave labor, the Biden administration elected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Congo that will further expand our reliance on Chinese-derived cobalt. This administration has chosen to prioritize supply chains in the Congo, while working to curb domestic mining at every turn here in America. It is insulting to every hardworking American out there.
Consider this: the CCP controls the minerals market needed for American fighter jets, lifesaving medical devices and for so many items we use daily to live and work. What happens when our biggest foreign adversary turns that faucet off?
Instead, we need a smart, pro-development domestic energy policy to access the minerals we currently have underfoot for those needs.
We have an abundance of mineral reserves that we can tap into which can create American jobs, increase American competitiveness, end our mineral reliance on Communist China, and produce resources using American technology under strict labor and environmental standards.
The good news is Republicans have a solution. H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, provides a wholesale update to our broken permitting process, including domestic mining. By creating certainty with provisions like implementing review timelines and limiting frivolous lawsuits, this legislation will remove barriers to get shovels in the ground, invest in American energy technology, and shore up our supply chains to strengthen our energy and national security.
The United States has the best workforce, the best technology, and the best environmental and labor standards in the world. Let’s get politics out of the way, pass H.R. 1, start domestic mining, and unleash the full potential of American resources. Only then can we hold the CCP accountable and secure our future.
Republican Pete Stauber represents Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives where he serves as chairman of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.
Republican Mike Gallagher represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives where he serves as chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.
Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) proposed expanding Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill as the legislation approaches the first anniversary of its signing, National Review reported.
“Parents have the right and God-given responsibility to guide their children’s upbringing,” Florida Sen. Clay Yarborough (R-Jacksonville) said during a committee hearing Monday.
“They should not have to worry their students are receiving classroom instruction on topics and materials parents feel are not age-appropriate,” Yarborough also said.
If successful, the legislation that now prohibits teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade would be expanded to cover students through twelfth grade.
In addition to the curriculum-based prohibitions, the bill’s prescriptive component requires school districts to notify parents if there is a change in their child’s mental, emotional, or physical health. A child suddenly claiming to be the opposite of his or her biological sex — a girl saying she is now a boy, for example — could be among the changes schools would be required to report to parents. In addition, GOP lawmakers want to prohibit school employees from using pronouns for students that differ from the student’s biological sex, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The text of the proposed rule in the Florida Administrative Register states that Florida educators “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction in grades 4 through 12 on sexual orientation or gender identity unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards … or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student’s parent has the option to have his or her student not attend.”
Pinellas teachers’ union president Nancy Velardi, quoted by the Tampa Bay Times, predicated that “children are going to die. … It is not a question. It’s a definite.”
Velardi was among the people who wrongly called the original bill the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The word “gay” does not appear in the legislation, and the preposterous claim has been rightly and thoroughly debunked.
“As far as the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill,’ that is predominantly focused on the younger grades. And again, those things were not happening in classrooms,” Velardi said on WMNF’s Tuesday Cafe in August 2022.
“Parents’ rights have been increasingly under assault around the nation, but in Florida we stand up for the rights of parents and the fundamental role they play in the education of their children,” DeSantis said as he signed House Bill 1557.
“Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school, and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old.” he also said.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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