Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the owner of Fox News to prevent network host Tucker Carlson from releasing any more footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that House Democrats hid from the public for two years. Carlson’s team reviewed more than 40,000 hours of video from that day and on Monday aired previously unseen footage that contradicts numerous falsehoods peddled by Democrat politicos and corporate media.
On Tuesday, Schumer melodramatically told reporters that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch “has a special obligation” to bar Carlson from airing more unedited footage from Jan. 6 “because our democracy depends on it.”
Schumer: "Rupert Murdoch has a special obligation to stop Tucker Carlson from going on tonight [and] from letting him go on again and again and again [because] our democracy depends on it." pic.twitter.com/uld6eaCl3C
The comments echo remarks Schumer gave during a temper tantrum on the Senate floor earlier in the day, in which he accused Carlson’s Monday night program of being “one of the most shameful hours … ever seen on cable television” and similarly called on Murdoch to prohibit the release of more Jan. 6 footage.
They're Freaking Out Big Time
Senator Schumer Went Down To The Senate Floor This Morning To
-Condemn Tucker Carlson's January 6th Tapes Segment Last Night -Call For Fox News And Rupert Murdoch To Stop Tucker Carlson From Releasing Another Report On The January 6th Tapes… pic.twitter.com/e3z3YBwTFR
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) March 7, 2023
Why the demand for censorship? According to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Jan. 6 was supposedly“the worst attack on [American] democracy since the Civil War.” If the country were as close to forfeiting democracy as Democrats often claim, don’t the American people deserve to see as much footage as possible from that day? Not according to Democrats. That’s because the footage Carlson released shows their J6 narrative was not only overblown but in some instances completely false.
Within the footage Carlson released on Monday night were clips showing Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of natural causes the day following the J6 riot, walking around the complex “after Democrats and the media claimed he was brutally murdered” by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. The New York Times, for example, claimed in its original report on Sicknick’s death that he died — right there, big and bold in its headline — “From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.”
As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported, Democrats’ House select committee, which was used as a political show trial to their benefit, also helped fuel such conspiracies over Sicknick’s death.
In addition to surveillance footage of Sicknick, Carlson also released clips showing Capitol law enforcement giving VIP treatment to Jacob Chansley, known as the “Q-Anon Shaman.” As The Federalist separately reported, the footage shows Chansley being escorted by Capitol Police officers “to multiple entrances throughout the building,” with some clips appearing to show officers checking “for unlocked doors.”
“They helped him. They acted as his tour guides,” Carlson said. “We counted at least nine officers who were within touching distance of unarmed Jacob Chansley. Not one of them tried to slow him down.”
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
What if I told you that Officer Brian Sicknick, the cop supposedly murdered during the J6 “insurrection” at the Capitol, actually died months later from completely different causes?
Prepare to have your mind blown, because according to Tucker Carlsen, that’s exactly what happened.
The autopsy found no evidence of external or internal injuries and Sicknick did not have an allergic reaction to any chemical irritants.
The mainstream media, with The New York Times leading the charge, lied about Sicknick’s death and falsely claimed he died from injuries suffered after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol riot on January 6.
I’m guessing this determination will make it pretty difficult to prosecute Julian Khater and George Tanios for homicide, although the two still face charges for assaulting Officer Sicknick.
GP adds:
The DC Chief Medical Examiner earlier this month announced the cause and manner of death of the four people who died during January 6 riot at US Capitol.
Two men died of natural causes and one woman’s death was ruled an accident.
Ashli Babbitt’s death was ruled a homicide.
Video Proves Sicknick was actually walking around AFTER the insurrection.
BREAKING: Tucker Carlson has obtained footage of Brian Sicknick walking around the Capitol healthy after the media claimed he had been killed by Trump supporters pic.twitter.com/Vd5sEu6oqS
However, Biden and his regime continue to hammer down the lies of Sicknick’s death. I can’t help but wonder why Sicknick’s family was part of this lie. I recall an article in which their refusal to shake hands with GOP leaders was the focus.
“We got together and said we’re not going to shake their hands,” Gladys Sicknick, mother of the late officer, told NBC News.
She called out congressional Republicans who continue to support former President Trump, “go down to Mar-a-Lago and you know, kiss his ring or whatever the hell they do down there, you know.” She met with Republican lawmakers last year asking for them to vote in support of creating a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the Capitol attack. McConnell and McCarthy were opposed to the commission. The legislation passed the House, but it was blocked in the Senate due to a Republican opposition led by McConnell.
Ken Sicknick, brother of the late officer, told NBC News that their refusal to shake GOP leaders’ hands at the ceremony is “kind of self-explanatory.”
“They continue to perpetrate the big lie, or at least not denounce it, which is basically the same thing, and they refuse to condemn Donald Trump,” he said, referring to the former president’s false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election.
Craig Sicknick, another brother of the late officer, also called McCarthy out for his initial condemnation of Trump after the Capitol attack, but ultimately remained a staunch supporter of the former president.
“I mean, they’re speaking here today in honor of the officers and what happened but at the same token out of the other side of their mouth, … they’re doing a lot to support what caused the events of January 6, instead of denouncing them,” Craig Sicknick said.
It’s not really surprising to see the brothers divided. That’s what leftism continues to do to this country. It brings a whole new meaning to the old adage “divide and conquer”.
Why Lie?
That’s the question that pretty much sums up the last three years. What’s the point of all this dishonestly?
Tucker also reported that this bit of video had been bookmarked. So those who had access to all the video but denied access to others were aware that this evidence disproved their “Sicknick was murdered” narrative, but hid it to enable their propaganda and false charges.
Let’s get real. If the chemicals sprayed in Officer Sicknick’s face caused his stroke, why not say that from the very beginning? If there existed a mix of both peaceful and violent protesters, why hide it?
You conspiracy theorist, you never heard of someone dying and still walk around afterwards???
You can apply that question across the board. Why lie about covid’s origin? Or Biden’s many crimes against America? It seems as though the lying is part of the scam. While leftists distract us by constantly forcing us to “prove” the truth, what else are they trying to pull off?
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defended on Tuesday his decision to give Tucker Carlson the Jan. 6 tapes, fiercely responding to a CNN reporter who questioned him. CNN reporter Manu Raju asked McCarthy whether he regrets giving Carlson the tapes, accusing the Fox News host of using the footage to “whitewash” what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. McCarthy was clear that he does not.
“No,” the California Republican responded.
“I said at the very beginning, ‘Transparency.’ And so what I wanted to produce for everybody is exactly what I said, people can actually look at it and see what’s gone on that day,” he explained.
When the reporter asked McCarthy if he agrees with Carlson’s reporting, McCarthy responded, “Each person can come up with their own conclusion.”
That’s when McCarthy zeroed in on CNN for allegedly exposing the secret location where congressional leadership fled on Jan. 6.
“I just wanted to make sure I had transparency, because I know on CNN, I mean, I had here where you guys actually wrote where we were,” McCarthy said. “This was a secret location: Fort McNair. I don’t know if you got concerned by that. I don’t even know from a point of view of security if we could ever be taken there again.
“But when you broke that at CNN, that was a real concern to a lot of people,” he added, referring to transparency in media.
Interestingly, McCarthy also revealed that he consulted the Capitol Police before releasing the tapes to ensure sensitive material was not released. He said the Capitol Police only raised concern about one piece of footage, which was protected before its release. On the other hand, the Capitol Police told McCarthy that the Jan. 6 committee did not consult with the agency before it released footage.
Last October, CNN exclusively reported that congressional leadership had established a command center at Fort McNair in Washington, publishing additional footage not shown by the Jan. 6 committee.
The committee had shown footage of lawmakers gathering there, but the committee did not disclose the exact location. Instead, it labeled the footage as having taken place at an “undisclosed location,” according to CNN.
Most committee hearings flounder because politicians waste time grandstanding, but lawmakers shouldn’t squander the chance to ask insightful questions of the ‘Twitter Files’ witnesses.
Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testify on Thursday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Little they say will be new, yet because corporate media have refused to cover the story, many Americans remain ignorant about the massive scandals Taibbi, Shellenberger, and the other independent journalists have revealed over the last three months in the “Twitter Files.”
Here’s what the House committee must do to break the cone of silence.
Introduce Taibbi and Shellenberger to Americans
Most Americans know little about Taibbi and Shellenberger, allowing the left to execute its go-to play when faced with inconvenient facts: call the messengers members of a right-wing conspiracy. The House’s weaponization committee should thus ensure the public knows neither Taibbi nor Shellenberger can be written off as conservative conspirators, much less “ultra MAGA.”
Hopefully, the two witnesses for the majority party will ensure their opening statements detail their non-conservative “credentials” — something Taibbi has attempted to do on Twitter, writing: “I’m pro-choice and didn’t vote for Trump,” and noting he is an independent.
Taibbi’s work covering politics for Rolling Stone and his “incisive, bilious takedowns of Wall Street,” as well as past appearances on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, and his work with Keith Olbermann, are the non-conservative credentials Americans need to hear.
Shellenberger’s biography likewise confirms he is no right-winger or Trump surrogate. Time Magazine named him “Hero of the Environment.” “In the 1990s, Shellenberger helped save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, inspire Nike to improve factory conditions, and advocate for decriminalization and harm reduction policies,” his webpage reads — details helpful to highlight for the listening public.
If Taibbi and Shellenberger’s prepared testimony omits these and other details, Chair Jim Jordan should open the hearing by asking the witnesses to share with the country their political and policy perspectives and then push them on why all Americans should care about the “Twitter Files.”
Here, the committee and its witnesses need to remind Americans of the importance of free speech and that the silencing of speech harms the country, even when it is not the government acting as the censor. (In fact, I would argue it is precisely because our country has lost a sense of the importance of free speech that the government successfully outsourced censorship to Twitter.)
Guide Them So They Tell a Coherent Story
Next, the questioning will begin. Unfortunately, here’s where most committee hearings flounder because politicians prefer to pontificate than pose insightful questions to their witnesses. But in the case of the “Twitter Files,” Republicans can do both because the witnesses have already provided detailed answers to much of what the country needs to know in the nearly 20 installments they published over the last several months.
Thus the goal of the committee should be to provide a platform that allows the witnesses to tell the story of the scandals uncovered. Ideally, then, committee members will lead the witnesses through their testimony as if each question represents the opening paragraph of a chapter, with Taibbi and Shellenberger given the floor to provide the details.
Start at the Beginning, the Best Place to Start
Committee members will all want to focus on the most shocking discoveries, such as the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the government’s demands to silence unapproved Covid messages. But those events merely represent symptoms of the diseased state of free speech Taibbi and Shellenberger uncovered, and the latter represents the real threat to our country.
Democrats, independents, and apolitical Americans will also be inclined to immediately write off the hearings as political theater if Republicans immediately flip to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and Covid messaging. Both are important parts of the story, but Americans first need to understand the context.
Begin there: After Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he provided Taibbi, Shellenberger, and other independent journalists access to internal communications. What communications were accessible? What types of emails did the journalists review? How many? What else remains to explore?
Buckets of Scandals
The story will quickly progress from there, but how?
While the committee could walk Taibbi and Shellenberger through each of their individual “Twitter Files” reports, the better approach would be to bucket the scandals because each thread the journalists wrote included details that overlapped with earlier (and later) revelations.
Remember: The scandals are not merely the “events,” such as the blocking of the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Rather, they go back to first principles — in this case, the value of free speech.
Twitter’s Huge Censorship Toolbox
Moving next to what Taibbi called Twitter’s “huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user,” the House committee should ask the witnesses to expand on those tools, which include “Search Blacklist,” “Trends Blacklist,” “Do Not Amplify” settings, limits on hashtag searches, and more.
What were those tools? How often were they used and why? Did complaints from the government or other organizations ever prompt Twitter to use those visibility filters? Were official government accounts ever subjected to the filters? If so, why?
Twitter-Government Coordination
The natural next chapter will focus on any coordination between Twitter and the government. Again, the “Twitter Files” exposed the breadth and depth of government interaction with the tech giant — from FBI offices all over the country contacting Twitter about problematic accounts to, as Taibbi wrote, Twitter “taking requests from every conceivable government agency, from state officials in Wyoming, Georgia, Minnesota, Connecticut, California, and others to the NSA, FBI, DHS, DOD, DOJ, and many others.”
Internal communications also showed the CIA — referred to under the euphemism “Other Government Agencies” in the emails — working closely with Twitter as well. Other emails showed Twitter allowed the Department of Defense to run covert propaganda operations, “whitelisting” Pentagon accounts to prevent the covert accounts from being banned. The multi-agency Global Engagement Center, housed in the Department of State, also played a large part in the government’s efforts to prompt the censorship of speech.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations reached out to Twitter as well, seeking the removal of various posts, as did other individual politicians, such as Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
To keep the conversation coherent, the committee should catalog the various government agencies, centers, and individuals revealed in the “Twitter Files” and ask the witnesses how these government-connected individuals or organizations communicated with Twitter, how they pressured Twitter, the types of requests they made, and their success.
The “Twitter Files” detailed censorship requests numbering in the tens of thousands from the government. Asking the witnesses to expand on those requests and how individual Americans responded when they learned they were supposedly Russian bots or Indian trolls will make the scandal more personal.
Non-Governmental Organizations
Questioning should then proceed to the non-governmental organizations connected to Twitter’s censorship efforts. Again, the committee should first provide a quick synopsis of the revelations from the “Twitter Files,” highlighting the involvement of various nonprofits and academic institutions in the “disinformation” project, including the Election Integrity Partnership, Alliance Securing Democracy (which hosted the Hamilton 68 platform), the Atlantic Council’s Center for Internet Security, and Clemson University.
What role did these organizations play? Have you reviewed all of the communications related to these groups? Were there other non-governmental organizations communicating with Twitter? How much influence did these groups have?
Disinformation About Disinformation
The story should continue next with testimony about the validity of the various disinformation claims peddled to Twitter. Internal communications showed Twitter insiders knew the Hamilton 68 dashboard’s methodology was flawed. Other emails indicated Twitter experts found the claims of Russian disinformation coming from Clemson, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, and the Global Engagement Center questionable.
Highlighting these facts and then asking the witnesses to elaborate on the revelations, organization by organization, will advance the story for the public.
Funding Sources
Next up should be the funding of those organizations, which came from government grants and often the same few private organizations. Here the Committee should ask Taibbi the status of his research on the financing of these organizations — something the journalist indicated last month he is delving into.
Taibbi also suggested the Global Engagement Center’s funding should be looked at in the next budget. Why? What should the House know before it makes future budget decisions?
Connecting the Censorship Complex Dots
After these details have been discussed, the committee should connect the dots as Taibbi did when he wrote: “What most people think of as the ‘deep state’ is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless.”
Read that quote — and other powerful ones from either the emails or the journalists covering the story — to the witnesses. Hopefully, staffers already have the best quotes blown up and ready for tomorrow.
Can you explain what you mean, here, Mr. Taibbi? What “state agencies”? What NGOs? Mr. Shellenberger, do you agree? What governmental or non-governmental players did you see involved?
What Was the Media’s Role?
Asking the witnesses about the media’s involvement will then close the circle on the big picture, which is ironic given the press’s role in circular reporting — something even Twitter recognized. Hamilton 68 or the Global Engagement Center would announce Russian disinformation and peddle it to the press, Twitter, and politicians. Then when Twitter’s review found the accounts not concerning, politicians would rely on the press’s coverage to bolster the claims of disinformation and pressure Twitter to respond. And even when Twitter told the reporters (and politicians) the disinformation methodologies were lacking, the media persisted in regurgitating claims of Russian disinformation.
Can you explain how the press responded when Twitter told reporters to be cautious of the Hamilton 68 database? What precisely did Twitter say? Did you find similar warnings to the media about the Global Engagement Center’s data?
Specific Instances of Censorship
Then the committee should focus on specific instances of censorship, with the Hunter Biden laptop story and Covid debates deserving top billing.
While Republicans care most about the censorship of the laptop story, this committee hearing is not the place to put the Biden family’s pay-to-play scandals on trial. Rather, Americans need to understand four key takeaways: The laptop was real, the FBI knew it was real, the FBI’s warnings to Twitter and other tech giants prompted censorship of the Post’s reporting, and the legacy media were complicit in silencing the story. Having the witnesses explain why Twitter censored the story with the goal of conveying those points will be key.
However, highlighting the censorship of Covid debates offers a better opportunity to cross the political divide of the country and to convince Americans that the hand-in-glove relationship between media and government threatens everyone’s speech. Stressing that both the Trump and Biden administrations pushed Twitter to censor Covid-related speech will also bolster that point.
The committee should start by summarizing the various Covid topics considered verboten — the virus’ origins, vaccines, natural immunity, masking, school closings — and then stress that the science now indicates the speech silenced was correct. Highlighting specific tweets that were blocked and medical professionals who were axed from the platform, while asking the witnesses to explain how this happened, will show the public the real-world implications of a Censorship Complex governing debate in America.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The committee should close by giving Taibbi and Shellenberger the floor, asking: “Where do we go from here?”
The “Twitter Files” revealed that the government and its allies did not limit their efforts to Twitter but pushed censorship at other platforms, and also that a new “cottage industry” in disinformation has already launched. How do Americans know they are hearing the truth? How do we know the government is not manipulating or censoring the truth?
Furthermore, if the same Censorship Complex that limits speech on social media succeeds in canceling alternative news outlets, and if the legacy media won’t provide a check on the government, how do we preserve our constitutional republic?
That last question is not for tomorrow’s witnesses, however. It is for every American.
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.
Can we trust Congress to set politics aside and do the right thing?
I get that question from a lot of veterans and military family members.
I will testify on Wednesday as one of the initial witnesses for the long-awaited House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that will re-visit the botched Afghan withdrawal by discussing the Afghanistan collapse and the impact it’s had on our nation, the Afghan people, and our veterans.
The U. S. government may not have had the backs of our Afghan Allies, but our veterans did.
For as long as we’ve been a nation, our veterans have been a moral compass for doing the right thing, especially in hard times. When Kabul collapsed on August 15, 2021, thousands of veterans across the country watched the Taliban take back Afghanistan. Most of these men and women veterans had paid their dues and moved on with their lives. Jumping back into the quagmire of Afghanistan was certainly not part of their military retirement plans. Yet they did just that, and in a big way. Because they weren’t willing to break a promise that every warrior lives by: “I have your back.”
This hearing on Wednesday will be the first time that the voices of these volunteer veterans will be heard in this kind of public forum. It’s possible that the whole thing might quickly spiral into the polarized political grandstanding most of us have come to expect.
Even so, a few of us are going to walk in there, take that oath, and speak our truth on the off chance that our political system still honors its social contract with its veterans. Veterans know something about the impact of the Afghan withdrawal that our country seems oblivious to: we might be done with Afghanistan, but it’s not done with us.
For my part, I intend to drive home the fact that right now, veterans are still holding the line for our Afghan Allies. We are banding together, pooling our resources, and sharing information about best practices on safe passage and resettlement issues. We’re advocating for our Afghan partners.
Why?
Because veterans know something about the impact of the Afghan withdrawal that our country seems oblivious to: we might be done with Afghanistan, but it’s not done with us.
As Afghanistan re-emerges as a terrorist safe haven, our national security risk is higher than even pre-911 levels. And no one is talking about it.
Formerly, one of the most-trusted institutions in our civil society, public trust in the military was crushed by the Afghanistan abandonment, dropping from the mid-70s to 56 percent.
Consequently, this has impacted military recruiting and retention. Many recruits come from military families and many veterans. I’ve spoken with dozens of iconic veterans across America, who are advising their loved ones to think twice about joining up.
Humanitarian atrocities that go against every American value of human decency are happening against Afghan women, children, ethnic minorities, and at-risk members of Afghan society in broad daylight, while our government claims to stand for women and other under-represented voices. Our government left our allies on the side of the road to be killed and then turned the page like it never happened. There have been no efforts to take responsibility for this abandonment or to evacuate the most at-risk Afghans, such as the commandos who fought side-by-side with American troops.
As a result of this moral injury, a violation of what one knows to be right, veteran mental health is plummeting, with an 81% spike in calls to the VA suicide line one year after the withdrawal.
This is not a Democrat issue. It’s not a Republican issue. It’s an American issue. There is deep responsibility on both sides of the Congressional aisle to set politics aside and act responsibly for accountability and change.
Testimony by a few veterans won’t be enough. If you care about this issue, please contact the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and demand action. If Congress doesn’t step up in this hearing, this war will follow us home and haunt our society for decades.
Congress, your veterans are watching. Do what’s right.
A U.S. Marine Corps sniper was moved to tears as he recounted how his warnings about a potential suicide bomber were ignored by leaders just minutes before the deadly blast at Kabul airport during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine sniper who served in Afghanistan during the American withdrawal, recounted the ordeal in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday, telling members about the moment he and a friend were hit with a “flash and massive wave of pressure” after a suicide bomb detonated at Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
“I’m thrown 12 feet onto the ground but instantly knew what happened. I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious and lying around me. A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me and my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it,” Vargas-Andrews told the committee through tears.
Moments before the blast, he and his fellow Marines were providing security from a tower near the gate where the blast occurred. Armed with intelligence about a potential suicide bomber, Vargas-Andrews and those with him spotted an individual matching the suicide bomber’s description. The Marines observed as the man engaged in suspicious behavior and sent urgent warnings to leaders asking for permission to engage the suspected bomber.
Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews breaks down while testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Fox News)
“Over the communication network we passed that there was a potential threat and that there an IED attack imminent, this was as serious as it could get. I request engagement authority while my team leader was ready on the M110 semi-automatic sniper system. The response, leadership did not have engagement authority for us, do not engage,” Vargas-Andrews recounted.
The Marines asked for their battalion commandeer to come to the tower as psychological operations confirmed the individual met the description of the suspected bomber. They presented the commander their evidence while assuring him of the “ease of fire” on the suspect and asked for authority to shoot, but were never given permission.
“Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded, no one was held accountable for our safety,” Vargas-Andrews said.
The team soon left their position on a mission to find allies on the ground among the crowd when they were hit with the suicide blast, which led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members.
A U.S. Air Force aircraft takes off from the airport in Kabul on Aug. 30, 2021. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images)
Vargas-Andrews, who was appearing in front of the committee in a personal capacity and not as a representative of the U.S. Marine Corps or the Department of Defense, is one of several individuals testifying about the chaotic final days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
“Nobody wanted my report post-blast. Even NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me.”
The hearings are the first on the subject since Republicans took control of Congress earlier this year, with Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., telling Fox News Digital Tuesday that the proceedings will be aimed at providing the “transparency and accountability the American people deserve.”
Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews recounted how his warnings about a potential suicide bomber were ignored by leaders just minutes before the deadly blast at Kabul airport. (Fox News)
“I think these 13 Gold Star families deserve to know who was responsible for the loss of life. I think that the Americans who are left behind to perish without our own U.S. government’s obligated duties to provide safety and security to them need to have transparency,” Mills said. “We need to know where the decisions were being made, whether it was ignoring military strategy by the president. Whether it was failed strategies by both the DOD and the Department of State, whether it was not being properly carried out by the ground commanders… we get the necessary information to be able to take further steps and lessons learned.”
Vargas-Andrews said he personally observed some of those failures, including slow processing speed by State Department personnel.
A U.S. Marine grabs an infant over a fence topped with concertina wire during the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)
“The troops on the ground had to tirelessly work to control the crowds, day and night. The Department of State staff at HKIA (Hamid Karzai International Airport) would completely shut down processing Afghans every evening and into the morning, leaving ground forces with a nightmare,” he said. “State was not prepared to be in HKIA.”
Despite the disastrous events, the Marine testified that he was not asked to provide his report after the blast and stressed the need for accountability in the aftermath.
“Nobody wanted my report post-blast. Even NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me,” Vargas-Andrews said.
“Our military members and our veterans deserve our best because that is what we give to America,” he continued. “The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence. The 11 Marines, one sailor, and one solider who were murdered that day have not been answered for.”
Michael Lee is a writer at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @UAMichaelLee
Last night, we aired video from surveillance cameras on Capitol Hill. That video was recorded 26 months to the day before January 6, 2021, and for 26 months, that footage was held from the American public. The January 6 Committee made certain. Now, the Justice Department also kept a lid on that video footage and in fact, in some cases, DOJ did not share it with criminal defendants who had been charged on January 6 in violation of their constitutional rights.
We felt it was a public service to bring what we could to you. There was no justification for keeping the secret any longer and a powerful argument to be made that sunlight is always and everywhere the best disinfectant and in fact, because it was video evidence, it is to some extent self-explanatory.
Anyone could look at the tape and decide what he or she thinks of it. The tape we showed last night indicated very clearly that Capitol Hill police in some cases escorted protesters through the Capitol as if they were giving a tour. They did that with Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman. At one point, they even tried to open locked doors on Chansley’s behalf.
Chansley was sentenced to four years in prison for his crimes in the Capitol on January 6 and the video we showed you last night raises the obvious question: Why? On what grounds? The video we showed you last night also showed that Officer Brian Sicknick was not beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by protesters on January 6 as the media and Liz Cheney so often claimed. The video shows Sicknick walking around the building, apparently in good health, after he was supposedly killed. We showed you that video. You can make of it what you will. We also showed you video that proves Ray Epps, the mysterious protester who encouraged others to breach the Capitol, lied to the January 6 Committee about where he was on that day, but for some reason, the committee protected him anyway. He was not considered an insurrectionist. He was their ally.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, speaks during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
So, once again, you can draw whatever conclusions you like from that video. We have ours and we shared them with you, but it’s really beyond debate that it is good for this country for Americans to be able to see it. The media and politicians, the people in charge, have talked about January 6 every day since it happened for 26 months and so at some point, the evidence should be presented to the public. In free countries, governments do not lie about protests as a pretext to gain more power for themselves. They don’t selectively edit videos for propaganda services and then lie about them and fake hearings and show trials, but that’s exactly what happened and every member of Congress should ask why that happened, but Democrats in the Senate, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is not asking why. Instead, Chuck Schumer went on the Senate floor today to explode and to say that showing that video evidence of wrongdoing by the federal government, including the security forces, the police department, that Nancy Pelosi personally controlled, letting the public see any of that is a threat to democracy.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Last night, millions of Americans tuned in to one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television. Fox News host Tucker Carlson ran a lengthy segment last night arguing the January 6 Capitol attack was not a violent insurrection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a primetime cable news anchor manipulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anchor treat the American people and American democracy with such disdain.
“There’s nothing that shameful that has ever appeared on American television in the history of the media,” and so on the basis of that, the self-evident outrage of showing the public video that it paid for and has a right to see, Chuck Schumer called for the censorship of that video — any information, and he did not dispute that it was accurate — the damage is a storyline his party constructed and used must be squelched. And Schumer’s explicit on that point. Because that video contradicted lies told by the Democratic Party — Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Chuck Schumer demanded that our bosses pull this show off the air.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., walks on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 15, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
SCHUMER: He’s going to come back tonight with another segment. Fox News should tell him not to. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch — tell Carlson not to run a second segment of lies. I urge Fox News to order Carlson to cease propagating the big lie on his network and to level with their viewers about the truth — the truth behind the efforts to mislead the public. Conduct like theirs is just asking for another January 6 to happen.
“It’s a threat to democracy. Pull him off the air.” A couple of obvious observations: You don’t often see the Senate majority leader openly call for censorship on the floor of the Senate as if that was totally normal and didn’t contradict the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment, but of course it does, but what’s really happening here? What you’re seeing is hysteria, the overstatement, the crazed hyperbole, the red-in-the-face anger. What is that? Well, it’s not outrage, of course. It’s fear. It’s panic.
Those videos, which we did not retouch, which we brought to you after running everyone by the Capitol Police to make certain that we didn’t imperil anybody, and we told you that last night, those videos touch a nerve because they’re a threat to the lies that Chuck Schumer has been telling for the last 26 months, and not just Chuck Schumer. We should also tell you that Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was joined in this outrage by the Senate minority leader and that would be a Republican, Mitch McConnell, and they were joined by a cascade of other Republicans — Thom Tillis from North Carolina, Mitt Romney from Utah — all sharing the same outrage, and from this, we learn two things.
One: You’re getting close to what they really care about, and you have to ask yourself why? Why is it so important that they would degrade themselves by telling such obvious lies and calling for censorship? Why? What are they trying to protect? That might be worth exploring, and we plan to, and the second thing that we learn from this is that they’re on the same side. The Senate majority leader joins the Senate minority leader — Thom Tillis, Mitt Romney. They’re all on the same side. So, it’s actually not about left and right. It’s not about Republican and Democrat. Here you have people with shared interests, the open borders people, the people like Mitch McConnell, who are living in splendor on Chinese money, the people who underneath it all have everything in common are all aligned against everyone else, and that would include almost all news organizations in this country as well.
So, if you’re watching, this might be kind of interesting to keep a list, because one thing we learned today is that they’re all in agreement with each other. They kind of outed themselves. They sort of showed their membership cards and whatever club this is to the public, so keep a list. If you want to know who’s actually aligned, despite the illusion of partisanship, we found out today. We have a little more tape for you tonight. If you take three steps back, you may notice that the one person really who was never blamed for anything that happened on January 6 was the very same person who was in charge of the police force, the Capitol Hill police, that was charged with securing safety on January 6, and that person was Nancy Pelosi.
If there was a security failure on January 6, and demonstrably there was, it was probably Nancy Pelosi’s fault, and after looking at thousands of hours of footage, we came to the conclusion that many others have reached, which is the Capitol Police were not prepared for what happened, and that’s fascinating when you think about it, because there was ample warning. The federal intel and law enforcement agencies knew perfectly well there could be a massive disturbance at the Capitol, but the frontline officers on duty that day didn’t know and yet the people who kept that information from the frontline officers were overwhelmed by thousands of people milling around the Capitol building? The people who fell down on the job, who didn’t do their job, they were not punished. They were rewarded, and you have to ask yourself, why is that?
Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied the number one tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, entry to America and his chance to compete in two renowned tournaments this month because he did not get the Covid-19 jab. Djokovic, who acquired natural immunity, something even the corporate media admits protects against virus severity and death, multiple times since lockdowns began in 2020, applied for a vaccine exemption through DHS with hopes of playing in the Miami Open and Indian Wells Masters in the U.S. this March and April. Even though he has natural immunity and the Biden administration plans to end its “emergency” pandemic requirements like covid shots for air travelers on May 11, the Serbian was barred by the U.S. government from pleading his case for exemption anyway.
THIS IS SOOOOO REDICULOUS. This is more proof of how stupid these Leftist “mental patients” think we are. They quibble over Djokovic, yet care nothing about the hordes coming over our Southern Border, bringing in diseases of how knows what.
This isn’t the first time Djokovic was forced to forfeit his chance to win elite competitions based on his Covid shot status.
Not only could he not participate in the 2022 U.S. Open, but Djokovic was also expelled from the 2022 Australian Open because the pro-jab Australian government canceled his visa and deported him. Djokovic didn’t regain his status as the world’s top tennis player until he was permitted into Australia under the country’s relaxed mandates, where he won the 2023 Australian Open.
Even though it’s abundantly clear that the jab does nothing to stop the spread of the virus, the U.S. is one of the only countries and is the only major Western nation still requiring foreign visitors to get the shot before entering. As Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio noted in a letter calling for the repeal of covid vaccine requirements for travelers, there’s no good reason for these senseless rules to live on.
Especially as other legislators have noted since even President Joe Biden admitted the pandemic is “over.”
The Biden administration tried to force the jab on illegal border crossers at the end of March last year. Of the 476,921 migrants that border agents took into custody in April and May of 2022, only 20,000 were given the shot. That means hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers who were caught and thousands more “gotaways,” migrants who evaded arrest from overwhelmed patrol units, entered the U.S. without the same stringent requirements DHS enforces for legal travelers.
In contrast, air travelers like Djokovic have to offer verified proof of vaccination upon their arrival to the U.S. or risk getting turned away.
Keeping an unvaxxed professional athlete and star out of the U.S. while border crossers of all kinds pour into the southern U.S. without the same scrutiny proves vaccine mandates were always a political pawn to strong-arm Americans, not a means to control a virus.
From very early on in the pandemic, it was clear that, contrary to leftwing SCOTUS justices and the president’s insistence, the jab doesn’t prevent the spread of the virus. Even if it did, most Americans haven’t cared about the pervasiveness of covid since 2021. Those who do care should understand that natural immunity is a better indicator of protection than shots like the ones DHS currently requires.
Barring legal travelers from entering the U.S. over their covid vaccination status has never been about reducing illness. Neither was forcing nurses, teachers, contractors, children, and many others to follow arbitrary pandemic protocols. Since the beginning of the bureaucracy’s pandemic panic, vaccine mandates have been about forcing conformity on people who felt like they had no other choice but to comply.
For three years now, Djokovic sacrificed his career so he wouldn’t have to bend a knee. Other countries like Australia have recognized their mistake in keeping him away, but the Biden administration, which knowingly lets millions of unvaccinated illegal border crossers into the country each year, wants to teach him a lesson by barring him from the country for just a couple months more. Until Djokovic’s entry is on their terms, when they say being unvaccinated is socially acceptable, the U.S. will sentence him to the sidelines.
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.
House Democrats lied when they said an investigation into an FBI whistleblower’s claim of retaliation had been dismissed, according to a letter obtained exclusively by The Federalist. On the contrary, an investigation into Special Agent Steve Friend’s claims is ongoing.
Last week, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee leaked a “staff report” that contained numerous misrepresentations to The New York Times, Monday’s letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz said. The letter — signed by Tristan Leavitt, the president of Empower Oversight, the legal services firm representing Friend — began by condemning the “Forward” from committee ranking member Jerry Nadler and subcommittee ranking member Stacey Plaskett that declared by fiat and without evidence: “[T]he three individuals we have met [including Friend] are not, in fact, ‘whistleblowers.’”
Friend is indeed a whistleblower, the letter said. Not only that, but throughout the report that Democrats crafted and peddled to multiple media outlets, they falsely and repeatedly claimed the Office of Inspector General (OIG) had rejected Friend’s whistleblower retaliation claims, Leavitt stressed. “These mischaracterizations in the Democrat staff report were subsequently parroted by multiple media outlets,” including CNN and The Washington Post.
Contrary to the Democrats’ claims, echoed by friendly media outlets, Leavitt’s letter says that Friend’s whistleblower retaliation complaint, originally filed in September 2022, remains pending with the DOJ’s inspector general. While Friend had also alleged “systematic abuses of the Constitution, laws, and policy by the FBI,” in December of 2022, those allegations were referred to the FBI’s Inspection Division. But in follow-up inquiries, the OIG made clear, according to Empower Oversight, that the referral did not apply to Friend’s whistleblower retaliation claims.
In fact, since then, “Special Agent Friend and Empower Oversight continued to furnish additional information” to the OIG, and the inspector general continues to receive and evaluate information, the letter said, explaining the attorneys’ understanding of the investigation’s status. Friend’s attorneys said they understood the OIG intended “to interview Friend in order to obtain a more complete understanding of his allegations and fully assess both his underlying disclosures as well as his retaliation claims.”
Yet some media, without seeking comment from the OIG, “uncritically repeated” Democrats’ false narrative that the inspector general had rejected Friend’s claims. Conversely, when other outlets sought comment and clarification on the status of Friend’s case, Horowitz remained silent.
“This suggests a disturbing situation in which your office’s silence is allowing its reputation for neutrality and objectivity to be hijacked by partisans and their media allies to leave a false impression with the public — all in the service of undermining a whistleblower for political purposes,” Leavitt wrote.
Given the inspector general’s silence, Empower Oversight requested an update on the status of his office’s investigation into Friend’s whistleblower retaliation complaint — something his attorneys should not have to request. But given the Democrats’ lies, apparently it’s necessary to correct the record.
Monday’s letter also chastised House Democrats for leaking excerpts of Friend’s deposition transcripts, “without authorization of the Committee.” This was in violation of the committee’s representation to Friend that it would treat the transcripts “confidentially,” the letter added.
The leaks will likely continue, however; and sadly, so will the blatant lies.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
The FBI’s D.C. field office directed the Boston office to open investigations into more than 100 Americans who had attended the Jan. 6 rally despite having no evidence those individuals had committed any crime, according to whistleblower testimony reviewed by The Federalist. This represents the second attempt by the D.C. field office to sic the FBI on innocent Americans — in this case, people who were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
The D.C. field office pressured Boston’s FBI office to open criminal investigations into some 140 people who took buses from Massachusetts to D.C. on Jan. 6, according to testimony from George Hill, a whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst, reviewed by The Federalist. The D.C. field office applied this pressure, Hill said, even though it had no evidence that any of those travelers had entered restricted areas of the Capitol.
Hill, a military veteran and former longtime FBI and NSA analyst, had previously identified himself as one of several whistleblowers cooperating with House Judiciary Committee investigators when he spoke with Just the News’ John Solomon last month. The Federalist’s review of Hill’s testimony confirmed the details he told Solomon and exposed more troubling information.
According to Hill’s testimony, after rioters entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the D.C. field office, which was leading the investigation, presented the Boston office “definitive evidence” that two individuals within its jurisdiction had entered restricted areas of the Capitol. Boston opened investigations into those two individuals.
In his deposition testimony to congressional investigators, Hill explained that because those two people had arranged for buses to take rally-goers to Washington, the D.C. field office told the Boston office to open investigations into all 140 of the passengers.
According to the whistleblower, a Boston supervisory special agent, or SSA, told the D.C. field office, “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it.”
But the D.C. field office said it couldn’t do that unless it knew the exact time and location in the Capitol where the individuals were located, according to Hill’s testimony. Then when Boston asked for access to the 11,000 hours of video to allow its own agents to review the footage themselves to assess whether to launch an investigation into any of the rally-goers, the D.C. field office refused to share the video, Hill’s testimony revealed. The bureau claimed the footage might reveal undercover agents or confidential human sources, according to the whistleblower.
Yet the D.C. field office persisted in its demand for Boston to open investigations into everyone on the bus, threatening to call the special agent in charge of the field office if the lower-level agent refused. The supervisory special agent remained firm, however. As Hill explained, the SSA told the D.C. field office that those 140 people “were going to a political rally, which is First Amendment protected activity.”
This move by the bureau represents its second such attempt — just from Hill’s testimony — to target innocent Americans. As The Federalist reported on Monday, Hill also told the House Judiciary Committee that the D.C. field office pressured local FBI field offices to open investigations on innocent, gun-owning Americans based on data mining that Bank of America voluntarily provided to the bureau.
According to The Federalist’s review of the testimony, Hill said the Bank of America list included people who used its credit or debit cards in D.C., or the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas, on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021. Furthermore, people who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm were elevated to the top of the list.
In both instances, Boston’s special agent in charge, Joseph Bonavolonta, withstood the outside pressure — something Hill commended in his testimony.
While Bonavolonta and the Boston office refused to investigate Americans based solely on their First Amendment activities or credit card receipts placing them in the greater-D.C. area, it is unclear whether other field offices launched investigations based on the D.C. office’s pressure. A source familiar with Hill’s testimony confirmed that Hill did not know the answer to that question either.
Open-source reporting, however, reveals that in at least one instance, the FBI questioned an individual who organized buses for rally-goers — apparently without any evidence of potentially illegal conduct. In January of 2021, FBI agents appeared at Jim Worthington’s suburban Philadelphia home to quiz him about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Worthington was not home at the time but later spoke with investigators over the course of two hours, confirming he had been in D.C. for the rally and had “helped bring busloads of people to the event,” but had “never went to the Capitol.”
Given that Worthington, who also led the People4Trump PAC, never entered the Capitol, one must wonder what legitimate basis the FBI claimed it had to target him.
Or had the D.C. field office pressured the Philadelphia field office to open an investigation into Worthington? And what about the some-200 people who traveled to D.C. on the buses Worthington arranged? Did the local field office open investigations into those people? And what about the other 50-plus field offices? Did they also target individuals based on their First Amendment-protected activities? With stories of buses from acrossAmericatraveling to D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally, it is a definite possibility.
While it’s long been known that the House’s Jan. 6 Committee and the legacy media pushed a narrative that conflated the rally-goers and the rioters, the whistleblower’s allegations now suggest the FBI’s D.C. field office also treated Americans exercising their right to free speech as suspected criminals, without any evidentiary basis to do so.
Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.
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.
When Disney began lobbying against a parental-rights bill in Florida that would prohibit public school teachers from discussing sex, sexual orientation, or so-called gender identity with prepubescent kids in kindergarten through third grade, Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a special session of the legislature to review Disney World’s 50-year-old “independent special district” status to see if it was “appropriately serving the public interest.”
The popular bill — which Democrats and the media dishonestly renamed “Don’t Say Gay” despite the bill never mentioning the word gay or stopping anyone from saying it — passed both houses and was signed by DeSantis. Disney was handily beaten. Nevertheless, DeSantis ended up signing legislation that effectively stripped Disney of control of over 25,000 acres surrounding its theme park and created a new tax district.
Democrats like Jonathan Chait claimed the threat alone was “What Post-Trump Authoritarianism Looks Like,” and MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones noted that the threats showed the GOP had gone “full authoritarian,” and so on. By full authoritarian, he meant that the Florida legislature passed the bill and then the governor signed the bill. Disney, of course, has no constitutional or divine right to be a special tax district. But the notion of “democracy” is highly malleable these days.
It is probably unpopular to say I believe it’s a terribly short-sighted idea to normalize state retribution against speech. Disney should be able to stake any political position it wants without worrying about repercussions from the government — in the same way that Jack Phillips or Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A shouldn’t have to worry about the government punishing them for their beliefs. If Disney’s position is that state-run schools should teach kindergarteners about oral sex and celebrate gender dysphoria despite the wishes of parents, it would almost surely pay a steep economic price.
It is also true, however, that one can understand why DeSantis’ move is popular with conservatives. The entire feigned anger over the incident from leftists is laughable and transparently insincere. Contemporary Democrats have never been reluctant to punish and single out corporations that do not share their political values. Virtually the entire technocratic economic agenda of the contemporary left exists to subsidize industries that produce things they like, mandate consumers buy those things, and punish those who do not. Democrats have never been reluctant to target disfavored companies over their profit margins, to use corporations to compel vaccinations and unions, or to threaten Big Tech companies into accepting government speech codes. The committee chair in the Senate is an open Marxist. Who are they kidding?
This week we learned that Walgreens wouldn’t sell the abortifacient mifepristone in 20 red states that have laws curbing unfettered abortion. Gavin Newsom, the man who presides over a state whose economic controls are beginning to resemble an Eastern European “republic” circa 1975, promised the pharmaceutical company would face consequences and that California would no longer do any business with the chain because it “cowers to the extremists” and “puts women’s lives at risk.”
Walgreens, of course, is not standing in opposition to any California law, much less putting any women’s lives in danger. It’s not lobbying the state to overturn laws that legalize abortion into the ninth month of pregnancy nor staking a position that is at odds with most of the state’s voters — though it has every right to do all those things if it desires. Walgreens has decided not to sell abortion drugs, ones it has never sold in the past, in other states. It is not doing so for any moral reasons. It is trying to avoid legal conflict.
Many Democrats celebrated Newsom’s threat, as they’ve celebrated threats before, because they have zero qualms about compelling or hurting companies. They don’t believe it’s authoritarian. They’re just angry they no longer have a monopoly on the practice.
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.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson says Democrats used Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick’s death for their political agenda on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’
Tucker Carlson released never-before-seen footage from the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at Capitol Hill that appear to dispel several narratives pushed by the Democrat-controlled House Select Committee and the legacy media. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted “Tucker Carlson Tonight” an exclusive first look to over 40,000 hours of security camera footage from the Capitol Building that were hidden from the public for over two years. On Monday, Carlson offered the first glimpses of footage involving key figures from that day.
Carlson concluded the footage proves that lawmakers and the media were “lying” about the events that took place on Jan. 6.
Footage from Jan. 6 released exclusively by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” dispel multiple narratives pushed by politicians and the media about the events that occurred that day. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The first batch of footage showed Trump supporters peacefully touring the building, “sightseers” as Carlson put it, but the footage of the rioters overwhelmingly consumed the news coverage of Jan. 6, which many in D.C. have compared to 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Capitol police officers were seen escorting Jacob Chansley, a Navy veteran widely referred to in the liberal media as the “QAnon Shaman,” around the building without incident. Carlson reported that officers were seen showing Chansley around, even trying to open locked doors for him. At one point, at least nine police officers were seen in close proximity to Chansley, and none of them slowed him down, as Carlson noted.
Chansley was later arrested and federally charged for “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.” He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
“If he was in fact committing such a grave crime, why didn’t the officers who were standing right next to him place him under arrest?” Carlson asked.
Jacob Chansley, who became the face of the Jan. 6 riot in the media, was seen in Capitol footage being guided around by police officers without incident. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine called the charges against Chansley “very sad,” saying that the footage proves that he was “harmless.”
“You can see the way those people were walking through the Capitol… they are walking meekly, politely queuing, very peaceable. They don’t mean any harm. They are treating the Capitol with reverence,” Devine told Carlson. “That doesn’t excuse the others, the minority of the protesters who did break windows and fight police and injure police and cause mayhem. But the people who are now being picked up and some of them have been jailed without trial for months, even years on end, did not commit violence. They walked through open doors, they were escorted by police, they felt that this was okay. And I think Jacob Chansley is a classic example of that.”
The second batch of footage addressed the widely promoted narrative by Democrats and the media that the events of Jan. 6 was a “deadly insurrection,” often citing the death of police officers, most of whom who died by suicide after the riot, while others died of natural causes. Only one person, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer.
However, the one person who became a household name was Officer Brian Sicknick, whom the media alleged was “attacked” by the mob and once falsely claimed was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. Sicknick was seen walking normally while guiding Trump supporters out of the building as he wore a helmet, which appears to contradict the media narrative that he died of a head injury.
“This tape overturns the single most powerful and politically useful lie that Democrats told us about January 6th,” Carlson told viewers.
As Carlson noted, the footage of Sicknick had an electronic bookmark in the Capitol archives, alleging the Jan. 6 House Select Committee had reviewed it and chose not to include it in its widely publicized hearings and the final report.
“They lied about the police officer they claimed to revere,” Carlson said. “If they were willing to do that, then their dishonesty knew no limits.”
Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was widely portrayed by the media as being the victim of an assault on Jan. 6. (US Capitol Police)
Washington Times opinion editor Charlie Hurt called the politicians and the press who peddled the Sicknick narrative “very sick.”
The third batch of footage showed Ray Epps, the man caught urging Trump supporters to go into the Capitol the night before the Jan. 6 riot, seen on the grounds at least 30 minutes after the time he told House Select Committee regarding a text he sent to his nephew, claiming he was already heading back in his hotel. As Carlson noted, that false claim to congressional investigators is itself a crime.
The lack of any criminal charges against Epps has fueled suspicion from critics that he had coordinated with the FBI leading up to the riot.
Democratic lawmakers pushed the narrative that some of their GOP colleagues aided rioters ahead of Jan. 6, singling out Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., of leading a “reconnaissance mission” through the Capitol building the day before. In reality, Loudermilk was seen in footage giving a tour in a congressional building down the street to constituents, none of whom were linked to the so-called “insurrection.”
Carlson also refuted the viral footage singling out Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who the House Select Committee claimed “fled” from the mob in a cowardly manner when in reality the full footage shows he was among several lawmakers who were rushed away from the Capitol by police with him on the tail end of the group.
“The clip was propaganda, not evidence,” Carlson said.
The Jan. 6 House Select Committee targeted Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who it accused of cowardly fleeing the mob based on a short clip Tucker Carlson concluded was “propaganda.” (January 6 Committee/Youtube)
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said the footage shown by Carlson has changed his perception of Jan. 6, noting that he was at the Capitol that day.
Massie cited a poll showing an overwhelming majority of Americans, including most Democrats, want all the Jan. 6 footage released. He also called for a “complete catalog of all the feds who were there” in order to get to the bottom of their involvement in the riot.
Carlson teased that more footage from Jan. 6 will be shared Tuesday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
‘Off the Press’ senior editor Rob Smith argues ‘leftist sympathizers’ have infiltrated mainstream media after some outlets referred to Atlanta rioters as ‘environmentalists.’ He also discusses the Army’s latest ad campaign to boost recruitment.
Several individuals who were arrested Sunday on domestic terrorism charges in connection with the “Cop City” attack in Georgia have ties to high-profile far-left movements and organizations.
On Monday, the Atlanta Police Department named the 23 activists it arrested for domestic terrorism after a protest of a proposed 85-acre police training center, labeled by opponents as “Cop City,” turned into a violent assault on law enforcement. Those arrested conducted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers at the construction site east of Atlanta, using large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks.
“Actions such as this will not be tolerated,” Atlanta Police Department Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters during a press briefing Sunday evening. “You attack law enforcement officers, you damage equipment, you are breaking the law. This was a very violent attack. This wasn’t about a public safety training center. This was about anarchy and this was about an attempt to destabilize.”
Among those arrested, Fox News Digital identified several individuals connected to environmental and left-wing groups or broader activist movements.
Protesters set construction equipment on fire at the site of a proposed police training facility in Atlanta. (Sean Keenan/Twitter/Screenshot)
For example, Tom Jurgens, a staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), was among those arrested during the attack.
The SPLC identifies itself as a watchdog of extremist groups, and its research has been cited by Democratic lawmakers. The NLG is a radical group that provides legal support and training to activists involved in and arrested for protest actions.
“This is part of a months-long escalation of policing tactics against protesters and observers who oppose the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest to build a police training facility,” the SPLC said in a statement. “The SPLC has and will continue to urge de-escalation of violence and police use of force against Black, Brown and Indigenous communities — working in partnership with these communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.”
The group added that Jurgens’ arrest was not evidence that a crime had been committed, but of “heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.”
The NLG said the arrest was “part of ongoing state repression and violence against racial and environmental justice protesters, who are fighting to defend their communities from the harms of militarized policing and environmental degradation.” The group also stated its legal observers, including Jurgens, serve important roles supporting protesters.
Booking photos for those arrested by police in connection with the “Cop City” attack on Sunday. (DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office)
“Many of these activists and the groups they belong to, like the National Lawyers Guild, claim to defend democracy, yet they love thuggish violence, the opposite of the democratic rule of law,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, told Fox News Digital.
“They feel they have a right to parachute into a city from out of town and rule by force, outside any law. Their arrogance only makes the rule of law more appealing—and necessary.”
Of the 23 individuals arrested in the attack, only two are from Georgia and some traveled from other countries, according to police.
Alex Papali — a former green justice organizer at the group Clean Water Action, according to liberal nonprofit Barr Foundation — was also among those arrested for domestic terrorism. Clean Water Action declined to comment, noting that Papali has not been employed by the group since July 2020.
In a 2019 blog post, Papali argued everyone has “a role to play in putting equity at the center of climate action.”
Another activist arrested was Bo Bogush, a former environmental educator at Common Ground, an eco-focused progressive school in Connecticut. Common Ground Executive Director Monica Maccera-Filppu told Fox News Digital that Bogush has not been employed at the school since August and declined to comment.
A sign is pictured near the construction site of a police training facility that activists have nicknamed “Cop City” near Atlanta Feb. 6. (CHENEY ORR/AFP via Getty Images)
Two other individuals arrested, Maggie June Gates of Indiana and Ehret Nottingham of Colorado, were also active in the environmental movement. Family and friends interviewed by Indiana local outlet WTHR-TV said Gates was “dedicated to preserving the environment,” and Nottingham made headlines in 2019 for leading a youth climate protest in Fort Collins, Colorado.
“My favorite critique we got was ‘stay in school,’” Nottingham said at the time, according to Communication Ministries. “If we wait until we’re more educated and have credentials, then it will be too late to make the changes our climate needs.”
Additionally, North Carolina resident James Marsicano, an outspoken advocate of defunding the police, was also arrested in the attack on Sunday. According to The Funambulist, a platform for activists, Marsicano goes by “Jamie” and is a “White trans femme organizer in Charlotte who is fiercely committed to supporting Black trans femmes, prison abolition, and destabilizing all forms of oppression.”
“She/they was a core organizer during the Charlotte Uprising where she led direct action trainings, established a legal infrastructure so freedom fighters could get out of jail and obtain legal aid, and worked with communities in charlotte to build strong, lasting relationships,” the description continues. “Her interested include prison abolition, gender justice, and uplifting POC trans/non-binary femme leadership.”
Marsicano was arrested for assaulting a police officer in June 2020 during a violent protest in Charlotte, North Carolina, in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time. Marsicano’s father was the president and CEO of the left-wing Foundation for the Carolinas, one of the nation’s largest foundations, from 1999 until this year.
In this aerial view, law enforcement vehicles block the entrance to the planned site of a police training facility near Atlanta. (CHENEY ORR/AFP via Getty Images)
Finally, Priscilla Grim, another activist arrested, was a lead organizer of Occupy Wall Street, a two-month protest movement against inequality that took place in New York City in 2011. A blog site that appears to belong to Grim shows support for Black Lives Matter, an Indigenous collective and a group that backs undocumented people and states “no borders on stolen land.”
“I am choosing hope and solidarity. Tonight, as the United States remains mired in sexism, climate change, a pandemic, and the greed of the 1%, I choose hope and solidarity,” Grim wrote in a 2021 blog post commemorating the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. “Together we are strong, and together we can win a new future for each other. I have to believe that we can win. It is our duty to win.”
“The experiment of what could happen in a society created by settler colonialism is over. The land is destroyed. Humanity is pushed forward with the threat of a cage at the tip of a gun,” she continued. “These fools in elected office don’t represent us. Power is conceding nothing in the face of a global pandemic and the fires and floods of climate disasters. The time is now to shut down everything until we can see a path forward.”
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Less than one month after Texas Tech University was busted for using race-based ideology as a litmus test for hiring candidates in the school’s biology department, the four-year university suspended head men’s basketball coach Mark Adams for quoting the Bible to a student-athlete.
TTU Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt suspended Adams on Sunday after learning that the coach encouraged one of his basketball players “to be more receptive to coaching and referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents, and slaves serving their masters.”
The comment, according to the university, was “inappropriate, unacceptable, and racially insensitive” and deserved a formal written reprimand from Hocutt, suspension, and an investigation into Adams’ previous “interactions with his players and staff.”
TTU claimed that when confronted with offense over the comments, Adams “immediately addressed this with the team and apologized.” Adams, however, said that was not the case.
“One of my coaches said it bothered the player,” Adams told Stadium. “I explained to them. I didn’t apologize.”
The controversial exchange, Adams said, was supposed to be “a private conversation about coaching and when you have a job, and being coachable.”
“I said that in the Bible that Jesus talks about how we all have bosses, and we all are servants,” Adams added. “I was quoting the Bible about that.”
TTU first hired Adams as head coach in April of 2021 to replace Chris Beard. In Adams’ first year leading the team, he secured the most wins, 27, of any first-year head coach in TTU basketball history. He also led the Red Raiders to the Big 12 finals and the Sweet 16.
Adams’ impressive debut record, however, quickly dwindled earlier this year. One week before the 2023 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, TTU’s men’s team is only 5-13 in the Big 12 and 16-15 overall.
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 call for reparations attracts more supporters every day. Even Disney has joined the cause, weaving the issue of monetary payments to the descendants of slaves into a storyline on the “The Proud Family” series on the company’s streaming service. But what generated the most controversy was one episode in which the show’s protagonists perform a song entitled “Slaves Built This Country” after they discover the founder of their town was a slaveholder.
Setting their frustrations over racial injustice and hardship to music, the cartoon children sing that slaves “made your families rich from the southern plantation, to the northern bankers, to the New England ship owners, the Founding Fathers, former presidents, current senators.” Catchy though the song may be, the children leave out one prominent beneficiary of slavery, one in the best position to provide the reparations called for: the Democratic Party.
One may argue for or against reparations on many different grounds. At its heart, supporters for reparations say that freed slaves never received any kind of compensation for their hardship from their owners. Thus, the descendants of slaveowners owe financial restitution to the descendants of their slaves, which would alleviate income inequality and atone for slavery, America’s “original sin.” Opponents of reparations argue one group of people, who did not commit the original wrong, should not be forced to make restitution to a group who indirectly received the wrong. From this angle, reparations seem more like “legal plunder,” a term coined by the French economist Frédéric Bastiat. Such an act “takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong.”
But if the supporters of reparations are right and that some restitution must be made, it becomes obvious who should do it: the Democratic Party. Indeed, it is an objective fact that the Democratic Party is intimately tied to slavery and segregation. The Democratic Party was founded by Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, himself a slaveowner, and Martin Van Buren, a New Yorker who owned at least one slave and exploited enslaved labor. More importantly, Van Buren’s plan gained the support of southern politicians for his policies in exchange for his support of the “peculiar institution” of plantation slavery. Such politicians became so numerous they had a name: doughfaces, since their characters lacked all substance.
This pattern continued through the end of the Civil War and the early 20th century. After the Civil War, Democratic politicians in the southern U.S. supported segregationist policies that brutally infringed upon the rights and dignity of African-Americans.
As a result of this history, the Democratic Party should provide reparations, not the descendants of one class deemed politically expendable. Still, you may say, “that was the Democratic Party of the mid-19th century. So much has changed since then that the current officeholders and politicians could not possibly bear any blame for what their forebears did.” This is true, but it is also true of the American people.
Today, the American people are not directly responsible for slavery, segregation, Indian removal (also Van Buren), and a host of other injustices for which prominent Democrats ask for reparations. Moreover, the American people are being forced to pay for more spending programs, up to and including reparations. How is it any fairer to ask the American people to accept another raise in their taxes to fix a problem the progenitors of the Democratic Party started? Shouldn’t that be at least acknowledged?
They acknowledge institutionalized racism, but they entirely ignore the fact that they were the ones who institutionalized it. The Democratic Party, as a private institution, is in the best position to provide reparations for the evils of slavery and segregation they did so much to perpetuate. If the Democratic Party admitted its wrongdoing and offered financial compensation to the descendants of slaves, it would immediately remove reparations as a possible unwise and unreasonable expansion of government. Moreover, the Democratic Party, with its expansive network of donors and connections that includes local community and civic leaders, could far more effectively handle the distribution of reparations itself.
If the Democratic Party really wants to move the country past the legacies of slavery and segregation, it should acknowledge its role in promoting them. If there are any groups in the U.S. that should provide material assistance to black Americans to make amends for the injustices committed against them, it should be the institutions that committed those injustices. The Democrats, the self-proclaimed “party of the people,” and not the people of the United States themselves, should bear that cultural and financial responsibility.
Winston Brady is the Director of Curriculum and Thales Press at Thales Academy, a network of classical schools with campuses in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and South Carolina. A graduate of the College of William & Mary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Winston writes on the intersection of history, politics, and culture, as seen through the lens of classical wisdom and virtue. He lives in Wake Forest with his wife Rachel of ten years and his three boys, Hunter, Jack, and Samuel, all of whom will one day learn Latin.
Should American employees be forced to choose between making a living and freely exercising their religious beliefs? That is the question the Supreme Court is considering in Groff v. DeJoy.
On Tuesday, a diverse group submitted amicus briefs urging the court to answer that question with a resounding “no.” More than 30 briefs were filed on behalf of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Sikhs, Zionists, religious liberty and employment law scholars, medical professionals, nonprofit organizations, states, and members of Congress, among others.
Groff involves United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier Gerald Groff, a Christian, who holds uncontested sincere religious beliefs about resting, worshiping, and not working on his Sunday Sabbath. After he joined USPS in 2012, USPS contracted with Amazon in 2013 to provide mail deliveries on Sundays. Initially, USPS accommodated Groff’s Sunday Sabbath observance but later required him to work Sundays.
In accordance with his religious beliefs, Groff refused to work when he was scheduled on his Sunday Sabbath, resulting in progressive disciplinary actions by USPS. Realizing his termination was imminent, Groff resigned in 2019, leading to this religious discrimination lawsuit.
This case places the future of workplace religious accommodation rights in the hands of the Supreme Court.
Religious Accommodations in the Workplace
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Recognizing that we live in a pluralistic and religiously diverse society and that it is important for employees not to have to hide or give up their religious identities in the workplace, Congress amended Title VII in 1972 to affirmatively require employers to “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s religious observances and practices unless doing so would pose an “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”
The necessity for a religious accommodation in the workplace arises when a job duty, rule, or policy violates an employee’s sincerely held religious belief — such as working on one’s Sabbath. In practice, Title VII’s religious accommodation right has the biggest benefit for employees of minority religions and those who have less common religious practices — from a Muslim’s hijab and daily prayers, to a Jew’s yarmulke or Friday Sabbath observance, to a Seventh-day Adventist’s Saturday Sabbath observance, and a Sikh’s kirpan (small sword), metal bracelet, unshorn hair, and beard.
In 2015, the Supreme Court held that under Title VII the clothing store Abercrombie & Fitch could not refuse to hire a female Muslim applicant because she wore a hijab in violation of the store’s “no cap” policy. As the Supreme Court explained: “Title VII does not demand mere neutrality with regard to religious practices — that they be treated no worse than other practices. Rather, it gives them favored treatment,” creating an affirmative obligation on employers.
What Does ‘Undue Hardship’ Mean?
The central issue in Groff is what the phrase “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business” entails. In a 1977 case called Trans World Airlines, Inc.v. Hardison, the Supreme Court, interpreting similar language from an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline in effect during the events at issue, summarily stated that “undue hardship” meant merely “more than a de minimis cost.” This formulation has been adopted as the standard for Title VII by lower court judges across the country, effectively gutting the workplace religious accommodation right Congress provided employees.
Justices, judges, legal scholars, and religious leaders, among others, have criticized the Hardison court’s undue hardship formulation. As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained in his dissent in Hardison, the decision “effectively nullifie[s]” employees’ religious accommodation rights and “makes a mockery” of Title VII.
To put it simply: Hardison’s more than de minimis standard is absurd. De minimis means “very small or trifling,” and more than de minimis means merely a smidge more than “very small or trifling.” “Undue,” in contrast, means “exceeding what is appropriate or normal” or “excessive,” which is significantly more than “very small or trifling.”
Since Hardison, and to avoid application of Hardison’s non-textual standard, Congress has explicitly defined “undue hardship” in multiple statutes as “an action requiring significant difficulty or expense.” This is true for laws requiring other types of workplace accommodations, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), which provides employees accommodations for disability, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (2022), which provides employees accommodations for the known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
A secondary issue in Hardison is whether undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business can be met by merely showing a burden on the employee’s coworkers rather than on the business itself. In Groff, the court of appeals held that USPS satisfied its burden to demonstrate undue hardship because accommodating Groff would burden the employee’s coworkers. This standard would minimize Title VII’s religious accommodation protections, subjecting them to a “heckler’s veto by disgruntled employees,” as Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote in his dissent.
Poised to Protect Religious Accommodations
The Supreme Court has had several chances in recent years to revisit Hardison, but the court finally decided it should do so in Groff. This has led many to speculate that the court will reject Hardison’s more than de minimis formulation and clarify that undue means, well, just that — undue.
Indeed, this case should be a no-brainer. It is a simple exercise in statutory interpretation and textual definitions.
An interesting wrinkle in this case, however, is that since the USPS is an arm of the federal government, it is represented in court by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
In December 2019, the DOJ, joined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the federal agency tasked with enforcing Title VII), told the court that Hardison’s formulation is “incorrect.” Indeed, in USPS’s brief urging the court not to hear Groff, DOJ merely argued the case was a “poor vehicle” to revisit Hardison and that the issue of a religious accommodation’s burden on coworkers “does not merit review.” The court clearly disagreed.
It would go against DOJ custom for the United States to change its position on Hardison. But it is unclear if the Biden administration will willingly support religious liberty, especially when it involves a Christian employee. We’ll find out when USPS files its response brief.
As evidenced by the number of amicus briefs filed by different faith traditions in support of Groff, religious accommodation rights in the workplace is an issue that all Americans, regardless of religion, can and should support. No one should be forced to choose between his religion and earning a paycheck.
Without action by the Supreme Court, employers will continue to feel safe denying religious accommodation requests because they can easily demonstrate a cost that is slightly more than de minimis. It is high time the Supreme Court remedies Hardison’s error.
Oral argument in Groff is scheduled for April 18, and a decision is expected by the end of June.
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.
An FBI whistleblower told congressional investigators that the D.C. field office pushed local offices to open criminal investigations into Americans based solely on financial transactions Bank of America tracked and voluntarily provided to the bureau, according to testimony reviewed by The Federalist.
“Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, datamined its customer base,” whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst George Hill told investigators for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Hill’s testimony.
Hill had identified himself last month as one of the whistleblowers cooperating with congressional investigators when speaking with Just the News’ John Solomon about the disclosures he made to the House Judiciary Committee during a transcribed deposition. A review of Hill’s testimony confirms the details the military veteran and former longtime FBI and NSA analyst told Solomon. It also reveals more troubling details.
According to the material reviewed, Hill testified that on either Jan. 7 or 8, 2021, Bank of America provided the FBI’s D.C. field office a “huge list” of individuals who used Bank of America credit or debit cards in D.C., or the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas, on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021. Bank of America then elevated to the top of the list anyone who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm.
There was no geographic or date-range limit to the search for firearm purchases, Hill stressed, meaning the individual would be flagged at the top of the list had he “purchased a shotgun in 1999” in Iowa, and used a Bank of America credit card to check out of a hotel on Jan. 5, 2021, in the Northern Virginia area, following a trip that could be completely unrelated to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
The D.C. field office, which oversaw the Jan. 6 investigation, distributed the Bank of America list internally to field offices throughout the country, Hill testified in his deposition. Hill further explained that his supervisor at the Boston field office refused to open an investigation on the individuals flagged on the list because there was “no predication.” “There’s no crime that was committed by using a [Bank of America] product in the District or around the District,” Hill testified, explaining his supervisor’s reasoning for why no “further action” was required.
But the D.C. field office pushed back, according to Hill. The D.C. field office told Boston’s supervisory special agent, or SSA, he needed to open up the cases. When the local office’s SSA refused, the D.C. field office threatened to call the assistant special agent in charge, or ASAC, of the local office, Hill told the congressional committee. The SSA stood firm in his refusal, as did the local ASAC, Hill said, even though the D.C. field office then threatened the ASAC that it would escalate the matter to the office’s special agent in charge, or SAC.
The D.C. field office then pushed the office’s SAC to open investigations into the targeted Americans. But to the SAC’s credit, he refused, Hill noted, saying the Boston SAC countered, “No, we’re not going to open up cases based on credit card or debit card activity that took place.”
While Boston’s FBI office refused to open the requested cases, Hill stressed that “what I don’t know and could not give accurate testimony to,” was whether the D.C. field office “took it upon themselves to open cases.”
Hill’s deposition testimony raises another troubling possibility: that one or more of the other 54 local FBI field offices either complied with the D.C. field office’s initial request to open investigations into innocent Americans, or later capitulated when the D.C. office escalated the request up the chain of command to the ASAC and then the SAC.
The only reason the Boston FBI office did not launch investigations into the Bank of America customers flagged by the D.C. field office is that the Boston office’s leadership stood firm against the pressure. And the only reason we know about the D.C. field office’s attempt to target innocent Americans based on Bank of America’s data mining gun owners who happened to be in the greater D.C. area on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021, is that a whistleblower came forward.
What the FBI’s other 54 field offices did in response to the D.C. field office’s pressure is unknown. According to a person familiar with Hill’s testimony, Hill had no information on that question either. Also unknown is whether any other private businesses mined the financial information of their customers, as Bank of America had, and then handed that private information over to the feds.
Congressional investigations and more whistleblowers will be needed to uncover the extent of the FBI’s political targeting of innocent Americans.
Bank of America did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.
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.
“Outnumbered” panelists sound off after rioters launched an all-out assault against the Atlanta police training facility dubbed “Cop City”
Atlanta police identified 23 suspects charged with domestic terrorism after allegedly launching an attack against the construction site for a police and fire training facility dubbed “Cop City.”
The Atlanta Police Department revealed that all but two of the arrestees are from out of state. Another two are from out of the country. Dimitri LeNy is from France and Fredrique Robert-Paul is from Canada. Three suspects – Ayla King, Alexis Paplai and Timothy Bilodeau – are from Massachusetts.
There are two from Arizona: Samuel Ward and Max Biederman. From New York, there are Mattia Luini and Priscilla Grim.
Atlanta police released video of fires set to equipment at the construction site of a police and fire training facility dubbed “Cop City.” (Atlanta Police Department)
Another pair – Kayley Meissner and Grace Martin – are from Wisconsin.
Kamryn Pipes is from Louisiana. Maggie Gates is from Indiana. Ehret Nottingham is from Colorado. Victor Puertas is from Utah. Amin Chaoui is from Virginia. James Marsicano is from North Carolina. Emma Bogush is from Connecticut. Luke Harper is from Florida. Colin Dorsey is from Maine. And Zoe Larmey is from Tennessee.
The only suspects with Georgia addresses are Thomas Jurgens and Jack Beaman.
The group is accused of leaving a nearby music festival Sunday evening and heading to the construction site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center “to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.”
Authorities noted how the group changed into black clothing and allegedly threw commercial-grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, large rocks and bricks at police officers.
“What happened last night was not peaceful protest – it was violence. Plain and simple,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement Monday. “We will not tolerate this destruction of property, and we will seek to ensure that those who have engaged in this criminal behavior are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Police say at least 35 “agitators” were arrested in attack on “Cop City” in Atlanta. (Atlanta Police Department)
“This state-of-the-art Public Training Safety Center will benefit not only police officers, firefighters and EMTs, but the entire community,” Carr said. “We strongly support its construction and operation, and we will not back down from violent extremists from Georgia, Maine, Oregon or elsewhere who seek to stop us.”
Though Carr cited Oregon, it does not appear any of the 23 charged in Sunday’s incident are from that state. Police did initially say 35 “agitators” had been detained.
On an appearance on Fox News earlier Monday, Carr described those arrested as part of a “national network, an international group of people that are organized to come to our state to undermine a public safety training center.”
Atlanta police say demonstrators set fire to equipment and threw explosives at officers. (Atlanta Police Department)
“This wasn’t about a public safety training center. This was about anarchy, and this was about an attempt to destabilize,” Atlanta Chief of Police Darin Schierbaumsaid Sunday night, telling reporters at the scene that both the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have joined the probe into the incident.
Though demonstrations at the 85-acre property in DeKalb County, which was secured for a $90 million police and fire training facility, have been ongoing, Schierbaum said Sunday’s incident marked a “significant escalation” both in the level of violence and the number of individuals involved in the attack.
Before Sunday, at least 19 people had been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism since December in connection to demonstrations at the “Cop City” site. Six of the 19 arrests came out of a violent riot in downtown Atlanta on Jan. 21 that was sparked by the deadly shooting of 26-year-old environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran by Georgia State Patrol.
State patrol had responded to the construction site to clear out demonstrators. Authorities said Teran, who reportedly went by the name Tortuguita and identified as non-binary, shot a trooper in the abdomen before law enforcement officials returned fire and killed Teran.
Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
Image courtesy Ad Inception / YouTube (screenshot)
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A recent commercial for the Always brand of women’s pads features someone who appears to be a man, leaving viewers confused about the advertisement for the menstruation product. A 15-second promotion for Always Infinity Pads with Flexfoam features either a man or a transgender man in its commercial in support of “all bodies.”
“No two bodies are the same. Some pads never got that message,” the commercial begins, before promoting that the product “fits all bodies.”
But audiences are unable to pinpoint whether the actor in question is indeed a man or a biological woman posing as a man.
A Reddit thread titled “Always FlexFoam – do men use these?” asks, “[W]hy would a man ever be part of this demographic?
“This isn’t an inclusivity thing, this is a ‘you’re a biological man and have no need for this product’ thing,” the caption adds.
“Are you referring to the person in the purple shirt? Is that just a tall, gangly female?” the top comment asks.
“It’s pretty clear that a biological woman who identifies as a man was cast in this commercial for the sake of inclusion,” says Natasha Biase, a reporter and writer on women’s issues.
“Interestingly, this casting choice admits that only women can get their period,” she adds.
A Twitter user took a different perspective, however, criticizing the ad because the company hasn’t “gotten the f***ing message that not everyone who menstruates is a woman.”
“Maybe take the ‘you go girl!’ s**t off your pads & then get back to me,” it continues.
The next day, a different viewer claimed that the actor was indeed a man, saying, “OMG, I just saw a tv ad for Always Flexfoam pads that had a man in it! Well let’s say a male cuz I wouldn’t call him a man!”
A different company called L, which specializes in organic tampons, is currently running an ad campaign featuring a male content creator named Jeffrey Marsh.
You gotta wonder if brands run campaigns like this knowing how stupid they are in an effort to go viral.
Because literally no woman is going to buy tampons that are being promoted by a man. https://t.co/102tkAqFtr
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Actor-turned-podcast host Russell Brand pummeled MSNBC, big pharma, and the military-industrial complex during his appearance on the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Brand tussled with fellow guest and liberal MSNBC analyst John Heilemann during a debate about media bias. Brand contended that all of the corporate cable news networks have an inherent bias because of pressure from their controllers. Heilemann claimed that Fox News was far worse in regards to disinformation than MSNBC – the network that signs his checks.
Brand declared, “But I have to say that it’s, it’s disingenuous to claim that the biases exhibited on Fox News are any different from the biases exhibited on MSNBC.”
“It’s difficult to suggest that’s because these corporations operate as anything other than mouthpieces for their affiliate owners in Blackrock and Vanguard,” Brand continued. “We’ve have to take responsibility for our own perspective.”
Brand said, “I’ve been on that MSNBC. Man, it was a propagandist nut-crackery over there.”
Brand spoke about previously appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, “It was absurd the way they carried on.”
“No one could concentrate, they didn’t understand the basic tenets of journalism,” the comedian stated.
“No one was willing to stick up for genuine American heroes like Edward Snowden,” Brand proclaimed. “No one was willing to talk about Julian Assange and what he’s suffered – trying to bring real journalism to the American people.”
“I think to sit within the castle of MSNBC throwing rocks at Fox News is ludicrous. Make MSNBC better. Make MSNBC great again,” Brand said.
A perturbed Heilemann lashed out, “You don’t actually know anything about any of these organizations you’re talking about. You’ve been on MSNBC once – big f***ing deal! You don’t have a single actual fact.”
Heilemann challenged Brand to provide one example of an MSNBC correspondent or anchor saying something they knew was false on TV.
Brand gladly accepted the challenge.
“The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around ivermectin,” Brand retorted. “Deliberately referring to this as a horse medicine when they know this an effective medicine.”
Brand raised another example, “What about Rachel Maddow turning up on the TV saying, ‘If you take this vaccine you’re not gonna get it.”
Heilemann simply dismissed Brand’s examples without explaining why.
The “Stay Free” podcast host then questioned the MSNBC analyst, “Do you think you can improve America by avowedly condemning Fox News without acknowledging that you’re participating in the same game?”
Brand called for systemic changes, and taking money out of politics.
“We need new political systems that genuinely represent ordinary Americans so that we can overcome cultural differences,” Brand told Bill Maher. “And bickering about which propagandist network is the worst is not going to save a single American life, not improve the life of a single American child, not going to improve America’s standing in the world, and the world needs a strong America. I’ll tell you that.”
Brand told Heilemann, “So you have an obligation, a duty, not to condemn these people.”
(WARNING: Explicit language)
Russell Brand Calls Out MSNBC's Hypocrisy on COVID
"Do you want an example? The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around Ivermectin deliberately referring to it as a horse medicine when they know it's an effective medicine!"@rustyrockets@billmaher@joeroganpic.twitter.com/5J0e0hkpSh
Maher said the pandemic dissenters are “looking better these days.”
Brand delivered a comedic take on the origin of COVID-19. He suggested that COVID came from a Wuhan lab leak and not the wet market that was touted as the origin of the deadly outbreak.
Maher sarcastically joked, “How could it not be a possibility? It’s a lab in Wuhan where the virus started that studied the virus and was doing gain of function research on the virus. How could it not be?”
Heilemann blamed the politicization of the COVID-19 origin debate on former President Donald Trump.
“If you go back to that time, why do people seize on the notion that they’ll reject the lab-leak theory? Because like everything else in COVID, Donald Trump politicized it from day one,” Heilemann theorized.
Brand pushed back by saying, “It seems that it’s not solely the responsibility of Donald Trump that this issue has become politicized. When we take the issue of natural immunity, the efficacy of masks, it’s difficult not to posit that perhaps increasingly a centralized authority becomes subject to inquiry that it has never before faced because of the advancement of technology, because of our media ability to communicate, they are doubling down on authoritarianism.”
Bill Maher & Russell Brand on the Suppression of the COVID Lab Leak Theory
Brand also delivered a warning about big pharma and the military-industrial complex.
“If you have an economic system in which pharmaceutical companies benefit hugely from medical emergencies, where a military-industrial complex benefits from war, where energy companies benefit from energy crisis, you are going to get states of perpetual crisis where the interests of ordinary people, separate from the interests of the elite,” Brand asserted.
Russell Brand Calls Out MSNBC's Hypocrisy on COVID
"Do you want an example? The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around Ivermectin deliberately referring to it as a horse medicine when they know it's an effective medicine!"@rustyrockets@billmaher@joeroganpic.twitter.com/5J0e0hkpSh
Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out “professional Christians” Thursday, saying they did not speak up for religious freedom when “Christians are arrested for being Christians.”
“You have to wonder when you see a tape like that where are so-called Christian leaders?” Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and honorary board member of the Daily Caller News Foundation, said after discussing the legal ordeal of Mark Houck, who was charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 2022 before being acquitted in January. “Where is Russell Moore and all the other breastfeeding Christians as that happens, as the U.S. government cracks down on Christianity and prayer? Silent.”
WATCH:
Carlson noted that the Biden administration dropped charges against some rioters in Portland, while others were sentenced to community service in contrast to the prosecutions of Houck and Paul Vaughn, who was one of 11 pro-life activists arrested over a March 2021 protest at an abortion clinic. Video showed heavily armed FBI agents taking Vaughn into custody in October.
Carlson also mocked Attorney General Merrick Garland over his explanation during a Wednesday hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee about why more pro-life protesters were arrested than alleged perpetrators of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers.
Carlson then discussed the ordeal of Canadian pastor Derek Reimer, who was arrested by Calgary police Thursday on charges of “mischief” and “causing a disturbance,” after he was forcibly removed while protesting an “all ages” drag show, the Post-Millennial reported.
“Where all the professional Christians? You have to wonder that again,” Carlson said. “Where’s David French and Beth Moore and Tim Keller and all these people who were defending Christianity when actual Christians are being arrested for being Christians? Not a word.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee attends The Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C., on March 2, 2023. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Speaking Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., highlighted the connection between the Chinese Communist Party and the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.
In a panel discussion at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center titled “No Chinese Balloons over Tennesse,” the 70-year-old Blackburn discussed the border crisis and national security with Fox News contributor Sara Carter serving as the moderator.
Blackburn, who recently led an all-female delegation to the border in January alongside Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss. and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., shared how she has spoken with individuals crossing the border who have been taken advantage of by human traffickers and drug cartels.
As the Tennessee senator noted, Homeland Security Investigations reported that the smuggling of migrants across the border went from being a $500 million industry in 2018 to a $13 billion in 2022.
At one point, Carter revealed that she frequently receives pictures from the Texas Department of Public Safety showing children, some as young as 2, found in the backs of trunks. The Fox News contributor also shared stories of young girls being brought across the border and sold to “the worst of mankind.”
“Shouldn’t this be a bipartisan issue?” she asked the Republican senator.
Blackburn responded that she finds the lack of bipartisan support for legislation to secure the border “astounding.” She stated that there is nothing “compassionate” about having an “open-border policy,” which she argued the Biden administration has adopted, pointing to victims who have “been raped thousands of times” or harmed by fentanyl.
“We should be able to stop this,” Blackburn said, highlighting two pieces of legislation she has proposed to combat the issue.
The first would require an adult that comes to the border with a child that does not have documentation proving a relation to take a DNA test. The other piece of legislation would prevent anyone charged with drug or human trafficking-related crimes at the country’s international border or territorial waters from receiving government benefits.
“There is no trafficker that should be getting government benefits,” she said.
In addition to the exploitation of human beings, Blackburn also talked about the rising number of fentanyl-related deaths. Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that opioid overdose deaths increased from over 70,000 in 2020 to over 80,000 in 2021, with over 71,000 of those 2021 deaths coming from synthetic fentanyl.
“Our children are being harmed by fentanyl that is coming across the border,” she said, emphasizing how the drug has become the leading cause of death for U.S. adults ages 18-45.
The senator discussed how the chemicals used in the fentanyl trafficked at the border are coming from China, an issue the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raised in December. The fentanyl is then disguised to look like ordinary medications, such as Xanax or OxyContin, and is trafficked by drug cartels.
“Our children are the victims of this. It’s up to us to protect our precious children,” Blackburn said. “It’s up to us to protect these future generations; it’s up to us to protect our freedom and our liberty that is going to let our children dream big dreams and make those dreams come true.”
In October, the DEA announced that it had seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder from May 23 through Sept. 8 as part of its One Pill Can Kill initiative. Fifty-one of the 390 cases investigated were linked to overdose poisonings, and 35 were connected to one or both Mexican cartels.
The DEA also issued a warning in August, alerting people that disguising fentanyl pills to look like candy, calling it “a new method used by drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people.”
Pro-life activist Abby Johnson addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2023, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A women-centered panel at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference focused on defending human dignity and how the panelists believe the culture has lost sight of God’s intended vision for humankind.
The panel, “Some Tuff Mutha,” featured pro-life advocate Abby Johnson, founder of And Then There Were None; Penny Nance, CEO and president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America; and Kimberly Fletcher of Moms for America. Radio host Sandy Rios served as the moderator for the panel.
One of the ways the panelists believe human dignity has been lost is through the practice of abortion, which has killed 63.5 million Americans since it was legalized in 1973.
Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director (read more about her here and here), drew attention to the Food and Drug Administration modifying restrictions on abortion pills and enabling women to obtain prescriptions for the drugs at major retail pharmacies. Under the Biden administration, the FDA “greenlit abortion into the home of every woman across the country,” she said.
“We have created abortion facilities in every woman’s home across the country,” Johnson added, lamenting the risk this imposes on women.
The former abortion clinic director noted that the full extent of the ramifications of the FDA’s decision is still unknown, highlighting the lack of medical supervision surrounding at-home chemical abortions. According to a 2009 study, the complication rate for chemical abortions is four times higher than for surgical abortions.
Johnson cited several concerns she has with the modified regulations, such as women potentially hemorrhaging to death in their bathroom. She also emphasized that women will be looking into the toilet to see the remains of their “fully-formed baby.”
“And then they’re going to have to make a decision,” she said. “‘What do I do with this fully-formed baby? What do I do with this child? Do I scoop the child out of the toilet? Do I take the child to be buried? Do I flush my child down the toilet?’”
The pro-life advocate raised further concerns about the psychological impact of seeing their child’s remains.
Nance added that abortion is the “ultimate disrespect of human dignity,” but stressed that God still loves and can redeem women who have had abortions.
The conservative leader pointed to another loss of human dignity, criticizing the Biden administration’s treatment of women. She asserted that the Administration seemingly believes “men can do everything better than women, including being women,” highlighting the appointment of Rachel (Richard) Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, to the position of U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health. In 2022, USA Today listed Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, as its Woman of the Year.
Nance said CWA intends to “stand up for the unique dignity of American women” and encourages other Americans to do the same.
“We are fearfully and wonderfully made as male and female,” she said. “That is the ultimate disrespect, to deny who we are and how God created us in that unique, dignified position as American women.”
Speaking about public education, Fletcher shared how, when she talks to mothers, she tells them how “parental rights are fundamental and supreme.”
“We as parents have got to stand up,” she said. “First of all, we have to know what’s coming our way.”
Fletcher noted that mothers are attending school board meetings, reading the sexual content in books made accessible to their children, and being lectured for sharing such things out loud. She also pointed to incidents involving comprehensive sex education being taught to early elementary school students or schools instructing young children about changing their sex.
The parental advocate asserted that conservative Christian women haven’t been voting or paying enough attention to what’s happening at their school boards. This demographic of women, she added, can “repair” what’s wrong in the education system.
In terms of fixing what they see as negatively impacting the culture, Johnson said God wants His people to participate in “daily victories,” imploring those gathered to use their “voice” and “speak boldly” on these issues.
Nance seconded Johnson’s challenge, adding that the “Holy Spirit is alive and well,” and whether it be at school board meetings or outside abortion facilities, she called on everyone to speak the “truth” and fulfill God’s command to “care for the least of these.”
FIRST ON FOX: The Biden administration acknowledged in a memo, accidentally leaked on Friday, that charging fossil fuel companies less to drill would provide “greater energy security” despite its plans to hike royalty fees.
Former Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Amanda Lefton recommended late last year that, as part of its climate agenda, the Department of the Interior (DOI) move forward with higher royalty fees for an oil and gas lease sale spanning 958,202 acres in the Cook Inlet off the coast of Alaska, according to the memo obtained by Fox News Digital. DOI Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis ultimately signed off on the recommendation.
“If a Cook Inlet prospect would be developed, there would be additional government revenues and greater energy security for the State of Alaska, especially if development of natural gas resources in the Cook Inlet ameliorated the long-term supply challenges facing the Anchorage area,” Lefton wrote in the memo.
“Nevertheless, because of the serious challenges facing the Nation from climate change and the impact of [greenhouse gasses] from fossil fuels, BOEM is not recommending this option since it would not include an appropriate surcharge to account for those impacts,” she continued.
The internal Biden administration memo noted that charging fossil fuel drilling companies less would increase energy security, but said climate considerations were more important. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Lefton’s specifically recommended the federal government charge drillers with a royalty fee of 18.75% as opposed to an alternative of 16.67% which she said would attract more bids and “be more likely to facilitate expeditious and orderly development of [offshore] resources.”
Daniel-Davis stated in her record of decision — published in November after she signed off on Lefton’s recommendation — that she selected a fee of 18.75% “because this rate constitutes the most reasonable balancing of environmental and economic factors for the American public.” She didn’t mention the alternative would produce greater energy security as highlighted in the memo.
BOEM ultimately held the auction, known as Lease Sale 258, on Dec. 30. The sale garnered just one bid worth $63,983 for a single 2,304-acre tract, according to federal records.
In May, the White House canceled Lease Sale 258, which had been proposed under the Trump administration, in an unexpected decision that was promptly criticized by the fossil fuel industry and Republican lawmakers. However, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) mandated that the administration reverse the decision and hold the sale by the end of 2022.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks during a hearing on May 4, 2022. Manchin blasted the Biden administration after the oil and gas document was leaked Friday. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“The Department of the Interior mistakenly posted an internal memo making recommendations to Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, Laura Daniel Davis, on the Cook Inlet Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258 mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who helped author the IRA, said in a statement Friday.
“I am appalled by its contents, which make crystal clear that this administration is literally putting their radical climate agenda ahead of the needs of the people of Alaska and the United States,” he continued.
Manchin blasted the administration for ignoring Congress’ intent and seemingly pandering to environmental groups “at the expense of shoring up American energy security and keeping Americans safe.”
“The contents of this memo speak volumes – if this is what this Administration truly believes and is how they are going to make decisions, it is unacceptable,” the West Virginia senator continued. “It’s a clear and intentional threat to energy security and the all-of-the above energy policy Congress has consistently reinforced.”
“I will not support anyone who agrees with this type of misguided reasoning.”
BOEM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Democrats lashed out at President Joe Biden on Thursday after he announced he would sign a bill overruling a radical overhaul of the Washington, D.C., criminal code. Mayor Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed the bill, but the D.C. City Council overruled her veto. But because of the nature of the law, which significantly reduces penalties for certain felonies and violent crimes, Congress acted to use its constitutionally vested power to prevent the crime bill from taking effect.
Last month, the House passed a resolution blocking the law. A sizable number of House Democrats, 31, supported the resolution, while most House Democrats, 173, opposed it.
On Thursday, Biden told Senate Democrats that he would not veto the bill if and when the Senate approves it. Furious House Democrats blasted Biden for reneging on his support of D.C.’s crime law overhaul.
Indeed, on Feb. 6, the Office of Management and Budget released a Statement of Administration Policy voicing opposition to the House bill overruling D.C.’s law. The effort to overturn to the law, the statement claimed, is an example of “how the District of Columbia continues to be denied true self-governance and why it deserves statehood.”
“While we work towards making Washington, D.C. the 51st state of our Union, Congress should respect the District of Columbia’s autonomy to govern its own local affairs,” the statement added.
Thus, by reversing its position, one House Democrat told The Hill, “The White House f***** this up royally.”
“So a lot of us who are allies voted no in order to support what the White House wanted. And now we are being hung out to dry,” the lawmaker said in a text message. “F****** AMATEUR HOUR. HEADS SHOULD ROLL OVER AT THE WHITE HOUSE OVER THIS.”
That lawmaker added that other Democrats are “EXTREMELY pissed” at Biden.
When the Senate finally does hold a vote, it will likely pass the bill because moderate Democrats, especially those up for re-election, have already said they would support it or are leaning toward supporting it.
Image Source: Yahoo Finance YouTube video screenshot composite
The head of a major railroad union confronted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday with allegations that some Norfolk Southern railroad workers have taken ill at the site of the railway’s catastrophic toxic spill in East Palestine, Ohio.
Jonathon Long, the general chairman of the American Rail System Federation, accused Norfolk Southern of putting workers’ health at risk at least in part due to its “cost-cutting business model.” He suggested further that the company “and other railroads alike must be held accountable in their operations, through rule-making and regulatory reform that establishes minimum safety standards in their operations.”
In his March 1 letter to Buttigieg, entitled “Norfolk Southern Is Dangerous to America,” Long, whose union represents workers on the Norfolk Southern Railroad, noted that while “the world was learning about the horrors occurring in East Palestine on television, NS officials assessed the damages and carried out their plans for rebuilding their track structure so that they could get trains moving again.”
According to Long, the railroad’s alleged prioritization of resuming business, as opposed to first adequately addressing safety and health concerns after the derailment, reflected the interests of shareholders and Wall Street, contra the well-being of those in the disaster area.
While East Palestine residents were ordered to evacuate amid the release of trench warfare gas — the result of the railroad’s combustion of its toxic cargo — Long noted that the approximately 40 Norfolk Southern maintenance-of-way employees tasked with cleaning up the wreckage were neither offered nor provided with “appropriate personal protective equipment.”
Among the items of PPE the workers had allegedly done without but needed were: “respirators that are designed to permit safely working around vinyl chloride, eye protection and protective clothing such as chemical restraint suits, rubber overboots and rubber gloves rated for safely working around the spilled chemicals that prevent direct contact with such substances.”
Workers allegedly replaced cabin filters on the derailment site and conducted deep cleanings of machinery used by outside contractors in cleanup, efforts all without appropriate protective equipment.
One worker reportedly told Long that the chemicals released in the derailment caused him to suffer nausea and migraines. Upon expressing this and other health concerns to his supervisor, he was allegedly ghosted.
“Many other Employees reported that they continue to experience migraines and nausea, days after the derailment,” wrote Long. “They all suspect that they were willingly exposed to these chemicals at the direction of NS. This lack of concern for the Workers’ safety and well-being is, again, a basic tenet of NS’ cost-cutting business model.”
TheBlaze previously reported that independent analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data concerning the fallout of the derailment has revealed that, contrary to previous claims made by EPA officials, there continue to be abnormally high levels of airborne toxins that could jeopardize the long-term health of residents in the area.
In a nearly identical letter to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Long emphasized that action needs to be taken “before more trains go off the rails in communities like East Palestine and endure the sorrows that follow such senseless, preventable disasters.”
“[Norfolk Southern] has pierced itself, but it has somehow left communities like East Palestine and the NS Workers with the many sorrows,” said the letter. “This is immoral, and it is all because of the railroad’s cost-cutting business model that disregards the sanctity of human life for the sake of more record profits.”
Norfolk Southern, which reportedly has greased politicians’ hands to the tune of nearly $100 million since 1990, told Axios that the company was “on-scene immediately after the derailment and coordinated our response with hazardous material professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and the required PPE was utilized, all in addition to air monitoring that was established within an hour.”
Buttigieg, who didn’t make a public statement about the disaster until 10 days after the derailment and didn’t make it to East Palestine for another 10 days, met with railroad union heads and Amit Bose, the top official at the Federal Railroad Administration, on Wednesday to discuss the disaster and potential safety improvements.
Having ostensibly dropped the ball on East Palestine, the FRA and Buttigieg announced a national initiative “for focused inspections on routes that carry high-hazard flammable trains (HHFTs) and other trains carrying large volumes of hazmat commodities.”
“Safety is always our number one priority, and the Norfolk Southern derailment reminds us of the importance of ensuring no industry can put its profits over the safety of its workers and the communities it serve,” said Buttigieg.
Bose said, “FRA is vigorously responding to the concerns expressed by residents of East Palestine and the surrounding areas, and as a result of the recent derailment, we are ramping up our safety efforts across the country.”
The DOT will also purportedly seek to implement a rule requiring two-person train crews as well as target legacy tank cars, particularly those carrying hazmat, for inspections and safety reviews.
WEWS-TV reported that Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw is expected to testify before the Republican-controlled Congress next week over the derailment and the company’s hand in recovery efforts.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
It made news this week when The Lancet, a once-respected medical journal, finally admitted that there’s such a thing as “natural immunity” with COVID. (Is it too much to hope that, in another three years, The Lancet will cease referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”?)
Several months into “15 days to flatten the curve,” actual experts, like the Great Barrington Declaration scientists, began screaming from the rooftops about natural immunity. They argued — correctly, as it turns out — that we should protect the vulnerable while allowing those not at risk to go about their lives, get COVID and acquire immunity.
Millions upon millions of wrecked lives later (including 170,000 excess non-COVID deaths), the people who lied to us for their own selfish motives — getting on TV, high ratings for their panic porn, the joys of bossing other people around — are quietly admitting the truth.
Contrary to hysterical warnings in 2020 that “people you know” will die from COVID and “it’s definitely not just the flu,” I still don’t know anyone who knows anyone who died from COVID. For most people, it was “just the flu.”
How could the truth about natural immunity be suppressed for so long? At least there weren’t repeated studies during our COVID hell proving the strength and durability of immunity from a prior COVID infection.
Oh, except these:
May 2021: Washington University School of Medicine study finds “robust” antibodies still present at least 11 months after infection.
June 2021: Cleveland Clinic study finds no benefit from vaccination to those with natural immunity.
July 2021: Emory University Vaccine Center study finds “durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
August 2021: Israel study finds natural immunity “confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization” than two shots of the vaccine.
But medical journals, the mainstream media and “public health authorities” dismissed the notion that a prior COVID infection served any useful purpose. Those who mentioned it were treated like flat-earthers.
Days after the Great Barrington Declaration was released, the man chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the country’s response to COVID, Anthony Fauci, and Trump’s director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, colluded to ensure there would be a “quick and devastating published takedown” of the declaration.
As we now know, Twitter dutifully shadow-banned at least one of the signatories, Jay Bhattacharya.
Governors who followed the science — as opposed to Anthony THE SCIENCE Fauci — and opened their states were ripped in deranged headlines.
— “God Save the Florida Governor From His Stupidity” — The New Republic
“Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice” — The Atlantic. (President Trump also criticized the state, after a careful examination of the scientific evidence, no doubt.)
The final score on age-adjusted COVID deaths by state proves that the shutdowns accomplished absolutely nothing. Florida, for example, did way better than New York, New Jersey, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. — all top 10 “most aggressive” lockdown states. New Jersey did a lot worse than Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri, three of the least locked-down states. Whatever the explanation for the death rates — ethnicity, wealth, education, population density — it’s clearly not about how masked and locked-down a state was.
The Lancet’s long-delayed admission sent me to Nexis to review the important medical advice I’d been getting from MSNBC’s TV doctors.
— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” June 7, 2020
Dr. Murtaza Akhter, clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine: “Natural immunity is fine for a little bit. But that is not the way to protect yourself. The way to protect yourself from COVID is by being vaccinated and by just not getting it.”
— “All In With Chris Hayes,” Oct. 18, 2021
Dr. Syra Madad, an infectious disease epidemiologist and senior director of the Special Pathogens Program at New York Health and Hospitals system: “With natural infection … it’s like playing a game of Russian roulette. … You know, through natural infection, you’re risking a whole lot, not just yourself, but you know, for the community.”
— “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Oct. 27, 2021
Dr. Vin Gupta, NBC News medical contributor (in one of hundreds of appearances on MSNBC, I’m sure to the delight of his overworked colleagues): “People relying on natural protection, those antibodies are just not where they need to be to prevent an infection.”
— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” Nov. 18, 2021
Gupta: “Natural immunity is 20% as effective at keeping you out of the hospital, in preventing serious illness. … It’s not nearly as effective as vaccine-induced immunity.”
— “The ReidOut With Joy Reid,” Jan. 10, 2022
Dr. Kavita Patel, MSNBC medical contributor: “Here’s the problem with natural immunity. It doesn’t last at the same levels forever.”
You couldn’t get the truth about a worldwide pandemic that led to catastrophic responses from public health authorities, but at least MSNBC’s doctors were “diverse”!
In a plot line that seems ripped right out of the hit Paramount series “Yellowstone,” some 65 Wisconsin families are currently being held hostage by the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The tribe has erected illegal barricades on the only roads that lead to their homes, preventing residents from entering and leaving. The only way out of the reservation is over frozen lakes that are quickly melting with the coming spring.
The yellow barricades and chained-together concrete blocks were set up 31 days ago over a bitter land dispute among two non-tribal title companies, the town of Lac du Flambeau, and the tribe. Meanwhile, racial tensions are rising, and many fear violence in a standoff that’s also shining a long-needed spotlight on the dysfunctional arrangement between Indian tribes and the U.S. federal government.
To open the roads for only 15 years, Tribal President John Johnson is demanding $20 million. It’s an amount Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany describes as tantamount to “extortion.” Tiffany also says it’s unlawful since all four roads in question receive federal funding through the Tribal Transportation Program. According to Tiffany, the tribe has received a total of $218 million in federal funds since 2013.
“I’m paying taxes to be illegally blockaded on my private land,” said Marsha Panfil. Panfil and her partner Mike Hornbostel own and run Hornwinkels Bear Stube, a historic bar and restaurant in the area. The pair has been considering closing their doors ever since they were blockaded because the only way in and out of their home is by crossing a frozen lake.
“I have to rent another house now so that I can continue to run my business,” said Hornbostel. “Crossing a [frozen] lake with the hours that we keep just isn’t conducive to sanity,” added Panfil.
Many of the blockaded homes are over 20 miles from the nearest grocery store and their residents’ jobs. Denny Pearson, another blockaded resident, crosses Ross Allen Lake every day to get to work, but he won’t be able to for much longer. “When the ice goes out, there’ll be no way to get to and from work,” Pearson told The Federalist. According to Pearson, it will likely only be safe to cross the lake for another two weeks before the ice becomes too thin. That’s when locals fear tensions will reach a breaking point.
The Dispute
When developers built homes for non-members of the tribe, they obtained right-of-way easements for parts of the roads that pass tribal land, but the easements expired more than a decade ago.
No one is denying that the tribe owns portions of the roads it’s barricading. “I think that the tribe has a legitimate position. They want to be compensated,” said Jeff Lang, a blockaded resident.
The question is whether the easements are worth $20 million. Interestingly, the tribe has barred anyone from viewing the roads’ rights-of-way appraisals. Tribal President Johnson claims the title companies could have paid much less had they “negotiate[d] in good faith” years ago. The attorney representing the non-tribal residents, however, says the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) were slow in responding and negotiating for years.
According to the residents’ attorney, “the Landowners have made two good faith settlement offers and two good faith requests to meet to resolve these road issues,” but have received no “substantive response from the Tribe.” The Federalist reached out to Johnson but did not hear back.
Law Enforcement Refuses to Act
Some of the residents knew that the easement to their property was expiring, while others had no idea there even was an easement. All the residents, however, were guaranteed by the town and the title companies that they would have access to and from their homes.
Hornbostel told The Federalist it’s the duty of the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Chief TJ Bill to remove the unlawful barricades. Bill has refused, though, and Hornbostel believes the chief is taking orders from Johnson. The Federalist reached out to Bill and asked why he hasn’t removed the illegal barriers but did not hear back.
“I’ve worked my entire life to buy a beautiful home on a lake, and now it’s worth zero,” said Hornbostel. “I can’t live there. I can’t sell it. It’s worth nothing. And that’s because the government won’t do anything, law enforcement will not enforce the laws, and our town is inept.”
Pawns on a Chessboard
The residents behind the barricades are, as Lang says, “pawns on a chessboard,” and they’re suffering. Don Pollard and his wife, who are both 88 years old, along with the other residents were given less than 24-hour notice that the roads were closing. The couple’s son had fallen through the ice a couple of years ago, and though he survived, they did not want to rely on crossing the frozen lake. The Pollards have consequently had to move in with their daughter in southern Wisconsin. Other elderly residents do not have anywhere else to go and remain behind the barricades.
Residents can’t work, buy groceries, receive mail, or vote unless they cross the lake. The tribe agreed to remove the barricades for doctor appointments and ambulances only. Residents say it can sometimes take the police department almost an hour to open the roads, which has become a major safety concern.
“There are people up here that are living with high degrees of stress and emotional stress,” said blockaded resident Dave Kievet. “I talked to one gentleman yesterday who’s a Vietnam veteran, [and] he said, ‘Dave, my stress level in Vietnam was at a 10. I’m at a 9.9 right now.’”
Nicole Beer, a trapped resident, says that once the ice melts, she and her husband will have no choice but to remove the barricades themselves. “We have lives and businesses,” she said. “I should have the freedom and the liberty to drive and get my own groceries and to have the garbage service that I pay for come in and pick up my garbage.”
Racial tensions are also growing. “It’s escalating very, very quickly to violence,” said Panhil. “Somebody threatened to burn all the [blockaded] houses down yesterday,” she revealed. “I sleep with a 95-pound lab and a 12 gauge shotgun now,” stated Hornbostel. “They threaten to burn our houses. They threatened our business. What am I supposed to do? I’m going to protect what’s mine.”
The situation is so combustible that The New York Times covered the story, but its reporting has only made things worse. The Times said the tribe is “on solid legal ground” but failed to mention that the barricades were illegally erected on publicly funded roads. The Times also reported that the tribe has “promised to allow ambulances and other emergency services to pass through if needed” but did not report how slow the process has been for law enforcement to remove the barricades when needed.
“With all due respect to The New York Times, I’m not sure they really understand the situation,” said Lang. “It’s a local problem,” he continued, warning against “extreme voices” inhibiting resolution.
Is It Stolen Land?
Non-tribal residents live on the reservation thanks to the 1887 Dawes Act, which broke up communally run reservations, allotting plots of land to each head of an Indian family. Since then, parts of the reservation have fallen into non-tribal ownership via sale, foreclosure, or enforcement of tax liens.
Many residents said they believe the tribe’s barricades are part of the native “#LandBack Movement,” in which natives try to recapture reservation land owned by whites to reassert their sovereignty.
Tribal member Melissa Christensen told The Federalist that while she sympathizes with the residents behind the barricades, they “shouldn’t have been able to buy [reservation] property to begin with.” But is the Lac du Flambeau reservation really the tribe’s land? After all, the Sioux Indians occupied the area until the Chippewa Indian ancestors of the Lac du Flambeau tribe fought a bloody war against the Sioux and forced them off their land.
“If they don’t want us on their roads, are they entitled to our roads?” asked Pollard. “They’re supposed to be another country, but doggonit, are they really another country? And if they are, do they want us to treat them like another country?” asked Pollard, referencing the millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that flow into the tribe each year.
The System Is Broken
Blame for everything can ultimately be placed on the U.S. federal government and the defective, paternalistic tribal system it created. In the 1831 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia ruling, Chief Justice John Marshall stated that Native “relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian.” As a result, the U.S. government holds tribal lands in trust, managing them allegedly for the well-being of American Indians.
In reality, the regulations and bureaucracy inflicted on the reservations stifle American Indian innovation and prosperity. According to Tribal President Johnson, part of why the negotiations have taken so long is that the BIA ignored tribal leader questions and showed an “utter lack of recognition” of the tribe’s sovereignty.
But as Pollard suggested, the tribe isn’t really sovereign. Natives born on the reservations are born with American citizenship (and are eligible for Social Security, Medicare, welfare, and other benefits) because they are born on United States soil.
If the tribe were truly independent, tribal members would not be U.S. citizens, the reservations would receive no federal funding, the BIA wouldn’t exist, and the Lac du Flambeau tribe’s blockades would not be illegal. Since the tribe does receive federal funds and is demanding more and more every year, it is not sovereign and its decision to blockade its non-tribal neighbors is unlawful.
For the residents behind the barricades, their predicament is deeply complicated because the trust system is broken. The problems they face are not unique. More easements are set to expire in the area. As racial tensions and talk of reparations in America heat up, this combustible land-rights issue will also affect other reservations and non-Native Americans who live on tribal lands.
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.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday laughed and appeared to trivialize the deaths of two men who died of fentanyl overdoses, all in an effort to bash Republicans. Speaking at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference, Biden bashed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying that if the Republican Party elects a few more lawmakers like her, then the majority of Republicans will be “running” to embrace the Democratic Party.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Biden mocked. “Oof.”
The president immediately followed up by invoking Michigan mother Rebecca Kiessling, whose two sons — Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18 — died of fentanyl overdoses. Kiessling testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, where she pleaded with lawmakers to increase border security and narcotics interception.
In his speech, Biden emphasized that Kiessling’s sons died when Donald Trump was president.
“I’ve read she was very specific recently, saying that a mom — a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” Biden said, letting out a laugh.
Yesterday, a mom who lost her two sons to fentanyl poisoning told her story.
That is one interpretation of Greene’s remarks about Kiessling’s testimony. Another interpretation, however, is that Greene was making a larger rhetorical point — the same that Kiessling made, in fact — that weak border security is driving the fentanyl crisis and that the government must increase border security to stop the influx of lethal narcotics into America.
It’s true that Kiessling’s sons died in 2020 when Trump was president. But Biden’s reaction — laughter — to a fact that absolved him of direct responsibility is what drew criticism.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), for instance, demanded that Biden “apologize for this immediately.”
“No person, let alone the president of the United States, laughs when speaking about a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl poisoning,” Lee said. “What, President Biden, do you find amusing about this?”
President Biden Delivers Remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
They called it a “night of rage.” But outside the charred walls of Buffalo’s CompassCare, pro-lifers could barely get the national media to call it anything. Like the string of domestic firebombings across Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, and Washington, the blown-out windows, graffiti, and trashed offices were barely a blip on network news. It’s been quite a contrast to the extensive coverage a single burned flag in New York is getting. But then, that’s the power of the Pride.
The incident that’s grabbing headlines happened in the wee hours of Monday morning. According to security footage, a woman parked her SUV, walked over to a rainbow flag hanging outside SoHo’s Little Prince restaurant, pulled out a lighter, and set the flag on fire. An employee working late inside saw the flames and called 911. Although the residents on higher floors had to be evacuated, no one was injured. There were, however, cracked windows and “external damage,” especially to the outside landscaping.
“It’s disgusting,” restaurant owner Cobi Levy said. His staff, he told the press, is shaken and scared. “These kinds of acts are desperate acts committed by people who are consumed with hate and filled with hate,” thundered Eric Bottcher, a local councilmember. The New York Times and other major newspapers descended on the scene, interviewing sympathetic neighbors and calling for the suspect to face the harshest penalties.
Within 24 hours, an investigation had been launched by NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force and a replacement flag — larger than the one that proclaimed “Make America Gay Again” — had already been hung.
The all-hands-on-deck response was quite a contradiction to what more than 100 churches and pro-life groups have experienced over the last seven months from the FBI, which waited six of those months just to list the attackers on its Most Wanted website. Not a single arrest has been made in CompassCare’s case. In fact, the federal government has been so indifferent to the crimes that several pro-life groups have resorted to launching their own private investigation.
Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, Bottcher celebrated the LGBT movement’s resilience. “Our resolve is only strengthened when acts like this happen,” Bottcher told the community at a special ceremony to replace the colors on Tuesday. “We are standing up in the face of this hate and reasserting our pride in ourselves and our community. That’s why we hung the flag again.” Little Prince posted a photo of the new flag with one word: “Defiant.”
I want to be clear right off the bat: While there’s an obvious discrepancy in how the two sides have been treated by the media and law enforcement, no one is defending this woman’s actions. Respect for other people’s property — whether it’s a ministry or a drag bar — ought to be a reasonable expectation of every American. There’s no excuse for lawlessness in any form or against any person. That said, the hysteria over what happened in SoHo is a powerful illustration of where we are as a nation, and ignoring it only primes the pump for more hypocrisy.
There are plenty of double standards at play here, not the least of which is the excessive significance the legacy media assigns to victims of their pet political causes, while more than 100 pro-life ministries, churches, and pregnancy care centers sit smoldering in the ashes of a similar hatred, virtually ignored. Imagine if this woman had set fire to an America flag. Would the press race to the scene and mourn the lack of national pride across their platforms? Of course not, because in this age of identity politics, we’ve gotten to the point where setting fire to a rainbow flag is a “hate crime” and burning Old Glory is self-expression.
Frankly, the fact that a single act of arson can make national news is astonishing in an age when mobs can burn down entire cities with the ruling class’s blessing. During the George Floyd riots of 2020, torching federal buildings, courts, city property, and private businesses wasn’t violence, the Left said. It was “justice” — the kind that major Democratic figures publicly embraced.
It wasn’t even two years ago that Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told the masses that if there wasn’t a guilty verdict in the Floyd murder case, then “… we got to not only stay in the street, but we have got to fight for justice.” Party leaders, like then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, defended Waters’ call to arms, saying she should not have to apologize for inciting violence. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., flat-out called for “unrest,” while liberal city leaders from Portland to Chicago linked arms with anarchists, even going so far as to sue federal officials who tried to restore law and order.
At the time, the soon-to-be vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, also endorsed the mobs, telling Stephen Colbert, “They’re not going to stop … This is a movement … And everyone, beware … They’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”
Protestors, emboldened by Democrats, went on an anti-American rampage, toppling statues, defacing monuments, spraypainted historic buildings, and destroying private property, racking up more than $1 billion in damage across the country — the most expensive riot spree in U.S. history. And yet this, the burning of a single LGBT flag, is “war in America.”
The irony is hard to miss. At a time when liberal ideologues argue against prosecuting anyone for anything, a woman destroying a rainbow flag faces double the punishment under New York’s hate crimes statute, which not only penalizes crimes but motives too. But what about the motives of the arsons in Buffalo? Where was the demand for “hate crimes” in cities where “ABORT THE CHURCH” and “DEATH TO CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM” were spraypainted across houses of worship?
If you’re starting to believe double standards are America’s only standards, you’re not alone. When burning our flag is “protected speech,” and a banner of sexual fanaticism is untouchable, we’ve passed the point of absurdity as a nation. And yet, these are the lessons our children have been taught: you can kneel for the national anthem but not refuse to wear a rainbow.
Now the bitter fruits of that indoctrination are everywhere. Today, more of Generation Z identifies as LGBT (20%) than feels proud to call America home (16%). Is it any wonder that society treats the Pride flag with a reverence it used to reserve for the country that gave activists the right to fly it in the first place?
In 1989, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the criminal penalties for burning a U.S. flag, Justice John Paul Stevens lamented in his dissent, “[The American flag] is more than a proud symbol of the courage, the determination, and the gifts of nature that transformed 13 fledgling Colonies into a world power. It is a symbol of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of goodwill for other peoples who share our aspirations.”
It does not “represent the views of any particular party, and it does not represent any political philosophy,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist insisted. “The flag is not simply another idea or point of view competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas.” The value of its unifying power, the four dissenting justices argued, cannot be measured.
Thirty-four years later, that unity is being tested as never before. We’ve become a people determined to wave our own flags, so comfortable in our factions that we’re trampling our country’s ideals — the same ideals that laid the foundations of self-expression the Left worships today. But if America has any hope of healing these deep divides, of ending these uncivil wars, the solution is returning — not to what divides us, but to what connects us. A national identity found, not in a spectrum of colors, but in three: red, white, and blue. PLEASE SEE BELOW)
Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council.
Matthew 24:3-14 (NIV) 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. 9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Romans 1:18-32 (NIV) 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
In its latest attempt to interfere in the electoral process, the Biden administration announced on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning to award millions of taxpayer dollars to local governments throughout the country for so-called “election security” purposes.
In an agency press release, the department revealed its plans to provide “more than $2 billion in funding for eight fiscal year 2023 preparedness grant programs,” which it claims are designed to “help state, local, tribal, and territorial officials prepare for, prevent, protect against, and respond to” so-called “acts of terrorism.” Under Joe Biden’s presidency, DHS has routinely identified targeting “domestic violent extremism” as its top priority. Of course, such proclamations are never in reference to violence carried out by leftist groups such as Antifa or Black Lives Matter, but rather right-of-center people and organizations that threaten the regime’s narratives and policy goals.
Included in the new DHS press release are six “national priority areas” for the 2023 grants, with one of the priorities being what the department calls “election security.” Under the directive, grant recipients such as the agency’s “Urban Area Security Initiative” are required to spend at least 3 percent of their total grant money on so-called “election security” efforts. As even the left-wing Bipartisan Policy Centeradmitted, federal funding for elections has never been conducted this way.
While the press release doesn’t specify what the agency means by “election security,” a separate report detailing the specifics of the 2023 grant program lists several vague “core capabilities” of election security, including “cybersecurity,” “operational coordination,” and “long-term vulnerability reduction.” The document also lists numerous examples of potential projects local election offices could invest their grant money in, such as “online harassment and targeting prevention services” and “physical/site security measures — e.g., locks, shatter proof glass, alarms, access controls, etc.”
Furthermore, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has indicated these grants will be directed toward primarily urban areas, where voters routinely favor Democrat candidates over Republican ones. Recall how private funding from partisan actors such as Mark Zuckerberg was injected into government election offices primarily in the blue, urban areas of swing states, creating what amounted to a Democrat get-out-the-vote effort. As Mayorkas said:
This year, we are therefore expanding the reach of our more than $2 billion in funding by adding four additional urban areas as grant recipients: Austin, Texas; Honolulu, Hawaii; Jacksonville, Florida; and Nashville, Tennessee. This is in addition to the thirty-six urban areas we continue to support, bringing the total number of funded urban areas to 40.
The new directive is hardly the first example of Biden or his administration attempting to insert themselves into state and local election administration. In March 2021, Biden signed an executive order mandating that all federal agencies, and thus the partisan bureaucrats who staff them, “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” If past is prologue, these efforts will be concentrated in Democrat hubs, but the plans have been obscured.
Efforts by government watchdog groups to obtain documents related to the order have been met with resistance by federal agencies, which worked relentlessly in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms to cover up how they intended to follow the president’s directive.
Further attempts to insert the federal government into the electoral process continued into Election Day, when the Department of Justice (DOJ) deployed attorneys from its Civil Rights Division to mostly blue and swing counties to monitor polling locations “for compliance with the federal voting rights laws.” Among the localities the agency surveilled were Democrat strongholds such as Fulton County, Georgia, and Wayne County, Michigan.
The DOJ’s sensationalized pledge to “prohibit [the] intimidation of voters” came at the same time legacy media outlets were publishing story after story warning that GOP poll watchers were plotting to disrupt local election precincts on Election Day. Like most other media-manufactured narratives, the tale never came true.
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
The project creates video game-like avatars with which people can envision specific body parts they want to target with surgery to make themselves look more masculine or feminine.
The National Institutes of Health is funding a study to create 3D avatars for transgender-identifying people to envision the body they imagine they should have and then medically alter their figure accordingly. Another NIH-funded project aims to allow trans folks to adopt a voice congruent with their sex-denying identity. Multiple taxpayer-funded studies on transgender issues focus on “intersectionality,” disparity, and HIV.
The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 75 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually.
The NIH is wasting taxpayer dollars on a project titled “Personalized 3D avatar tool development for measurement of body perception across gender identities,” which purports to help people with gender dysphoria by mapping the difference between their actual physical embodiment and what they believe their body to be. But instead, it indulges their illness by defying science and denying the immutability of sex.
The tool (a prototype is pictured here) would scan individuals to create personalized 3D visualizations with which they can interact on mobile and desktop devices. Those behind the project say they are trying to create technology that “can potentially improve clinical outcomes by identifying specific sets of body parts as targets for treatments to improve body congruence.” In other words, the research project will create video game-like avatars with which people can envision specific body parts they want to target with surgery — which includes removing healthy organs, shaving facial bones, and more — to make themselves look more masculine or feminine.
The study is at the University of Toronto, Canada, and has received $288,000 so far. It began in 2021 and is scheduled to run through 2024.
Other Taxpayer-Funded Research on Ideal Voice, Acne, and Sex Ed
Another taxpayer-funded study addresses how transgender-identifying people experience challenges in adopting a voice characteristic of their so-called identity. Trans individuals “report that producing a voice congruent with their gender identity is crucial to affirming their gender identity. There are a variety of gender affirming services available, but medical interventions, such as surgery or hormones do not … ensure satisfaction with vocal gender.”
A third NIH-funded study looks at acne in the trans-identifying population. “Little is known about the interplay of endogenous and exogenous hormones on acne incidence, severity, impact, treatment, and experience,” the summary says.
NIH is also funding “A fully functional online interactive sexual education tool” for “transgender and gender expansive (TGE) youth.” Such children “are at high risk of several sexual health outcomes that have life-long impacts including sexually transmitted infections, early, unwanted pregnancies, and unwanted sexual contact/intimate partner violence. … [C]urrent educational and clinical structures largely ignore their experiences,” according to the project summary. The tool will clarify “that gender-affirming medical interventions do not prevent unintended pregnancies.” It will also address what it calls “difficulties navigating partner consent because it is often described in heteronormative, binary terms in sexual education classes.”
The bluehead wrasse, a small fish and sequential hermaphrodite, meaning it contains both types of reproductive organs, will be the subject of another taxpayer-funded transgender study: “Organisms that naturally undergo sex transformations in response to changes in their social environment provide excellent systems in which to investigate mechanisms of behavioral sex specification.” Adult female bluehead wrasses can rapidly switch sex in response to changes in social structure, according to the project.
Four ongoing NIH-funded studies related to transgenderism mention “disparities” in their project titles and three mention “stigma.” NIH even issued a Notice of Special Interest in understanding how so-called “intersectional stigmas” harm health. About half of all NIH-funded transgender research, including that which has been completed, relates to higher rates of HIV among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.
Despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executiveorders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.”
Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states.
Woke Waste
House Budget Committee Republicans have announced “woke waste” is among the spending cuts they want in a debt limit deal. According to the House Budget Committee:
The recent omnibus included millions of dollars in funding for woke policies that American taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for, including $1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers,” $1 million for a space for “gender-expansive people of color” … and $750,000 for “Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles.”
Under the Republican plan, billions of dollars in savings would also come from ending the Environmental Protection Agency’s “environmental justice” programs, enacting new work requirements for welfare, halting Biden’s student loan forgiveness, and getting back unspent Covid-19 pandemic funds.
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @VigilantFox
A Harvard University professor of medicine delivered a stinging — and very funny — takedown of “vaccine fanatics” during a House select subcommittee roundtable on examining COVID-19 policy decisions Tuesday. The professor in question — Dr. Martin Kulldorff — is on leave from Harvard but is a biostatistician and epidemiologist and possesses “expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations,” according to the Great Barrington Declaration, a document he co-authored that questions COVID policies.
Toward the end of the roundtable, Kulldorff engaged in a discussion about COVID vaccines and natural immunity with Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa.
Kulldorff said, “By forcing children to have a vaccine that they don’t need because they already had the disease, that undermines the trust in other vaccines like the measles vaccine or the polio vaccine, and that’s very, very serious. I think during the last several decades … the never-vaccinate people, the anti-vaccine people had tried to undermine the trust in vaccines but with very little success. But the vaccine fanatics who want to vaccinate every person in this country … even though they’ve already had COVID, that has undermined the trust in other vaccines … creating enormous vaccine hesitancy.”
Miller-Meeks replied, “So not allowing their provider or physician to determine the risk and the benefit?”
Kulldorff continued, “Yeah, and also people themselves, because people know about immunity. We learned that in school. People know that if you’ve had a disease —”
Miller-Meeks — who’s also a physician — interrupted Kulldorff with a smiling, good-natured quip: “It wasn’t until I came to Congress that I found out infection-acquired immunity was a novel concept.”
“Yeah,” Kulldorff replied before proceeding to raise the trolling ante considerably. “I guess we knew about it since 430 B.C. — the Athenian plague — until 2020. And then we didn’t know about it for three years, and now we know about it again …”
Here’s the clip:
Dr. @millermeeks: Infection-Acquired Immunity Was a Never a Novel Concept Until I Came to Congress
Dr. @MartinKulldorff: "Yeah, I guess we knew about it since 430 BC, the Athenian plague, until 2020. And we didn't know about it for three years. And now we know about it again." pic.twitter.com/qm5NkW5oG8
“Actually not surprising considering for the first time in human civilization marriage is not just between man and woman,” another commenter wrote. “We are in full-blown post-rationalism, and the slippy slope is vertical.”
“Martin just pouring out molten satire is a beautiful thing to see,” another user observed.
The idea of acquiring natural immunity to COVID for the young and healthy became an almost taboo subject in the early stages of the pandemic — but recently has found its way back into the list of subjects you’re allowed to discuss without getting canceled list.
Mainstream Media have egg on their faces as more right-wing conspiracies come true, like the Wuhan lab leak. CNN, NPR, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, WaPo, etc., shame on you.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
While federal funding is not solely responsible for the rapid expansion of the Censorship Complex, it is the most troubling because our government is using our money to censor our speech.
While the “Twitter Files” and the Washington Examiner’s coverage of the Global Disinformation Index have revealed an expansive Censorship Complex that seeks to silence Americans for money, politics, ideology, and power, much still needs to be unraveled.
A search of government contracts and grants for the eight fiscal years from 2016 through today for the keywords “misinformation” or “disinformation” reveals 538 federal government grants and 36 contracts were awarded to a wide range of academic institutions and non-governmental organizations.
Mapping out the connections among the various award recipients, the government, and the pro-censorship left will require more work. But this simple snapshot confirms taxpayers’ money is funding the expansion of the Censorship Complex, as the prior eight fiscal years, from 2008 to 2015, reveal the federal government awarded only two federal contracts and seven federal grants for “disinformation” or “misinformation” research.
Likewise, an initial investigation into the nonprofits and academic institutions mentioned in the “Twitter Files” reveals government grants, donations from other liberal nonprofits, and money from leftist billionaires funded the expansion of the Censorship Complex. Research also shows the non-governmental organizations pushing the disinformation narrative are uniformly directed and run by former government employees, left-wing media types, and left-leaning or anti-Trump individuals.
Alliance Securing Democracy
Of the think tanks identified in Twitter communications, Alliance Securing Democracy (ASD) might be the most notorious thanks to Matt Taibbi’s exposé on ASD’s Hamilton 68 dashboard.
Devised by former FBI agent Clint Watts and launched in August of 2017, Hamilton 68 proclaimed its digital dashboard an aid to “help ordinary people, journalists, and other analysts identify Russian messaging themes and detect active disinformation or attack campaigns as soon as they begin.” Based on some 644 accounts that Hamilton 68 claimed it had “selected for their relationship to Russian-sponsored influence and disinformation campaigns,” ASD maintained its dashboard allowed users to track online Russian influence.
The problem is, as Taibbi wrote: “The Twitter Files expose Hamilton 68 as a sham.”
Apparently unbeknownst to ASD, Twitter had reverse-engineered how Hamilton 68 supposedly tracked online Russian influence and found “No evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops.” The entire methodology was flawed.
Yet ASD played a key role in the push to censor speech as supposed “disinformation,” with the dashboard serving as “the source of hundreds if not thousands of mainstream print and TV news stories in the Trump years” by “virtually every major news organization.” In addition to the media spreading disinformation about disinformation, Watts testified before Congress, telling senators that the Hamilton 68 dashboard provided the means for the U.S. government “to have an understanding of what Russia is doing in social media.”
Watts further revealed in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, that he “tried to provide to the U.S. government directly through multiple agencies” the Hamilton 68 information, telling the lawmakers they should “want to equip our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Defense with just an understanding … of what Russian active measures are doing around the world.”
Whether any of those “multiple agencies” relied on the inaccurate information included on the Hamilton 68 dashboard is unclear.
Members of the House and Senate did rely on Hamilton 68, however. As I reported earlier this month: “Rep. Adam Schiff and Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal, and Sheldon Whitehouse, among others, not only pushed the unfounded claims that Russian bots were behind the trending hashtags, but they also demanded that Twitter and other tech companies investigate and stop such supposed interference.” Democrats pushed this false narrative even when Twitter executives warned staffers that the Russian-interference story didn’t stand.
In addition to Watts, the ASD advisory council includes a cornucopia of former government bigwigs from Democrat administrations: Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration; Michael Morell, former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama; John Podesta, former chair of Hillary for America and an official in the Clinton and Obama White Houses; and Jake Sullivan, former deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key adviser for both Clinton and Obama during their general elections.
Laura Thornton, who previously worked at the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit loosely affiliated with the Democrat Party, currently oversees ASD. And Rachael Dean Wilson serves as the managing director for ASD. Wilson previously worked for the late Sen. John McCain for six years, serving as his communications director and adviser to his 2016 re-election campaign.
German Marshall Fund
According to its website, ASD is a project of the German Marshall Fund, which “is heavily funded by the American, German, and Swedish governments.” The fund has also received grants from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The ASD likewise receives financing from left-leaning foundations, such as the Craigslist founder’s Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
The Election Integrity Partnership
Another prominent organization the “Twitter Files” revealed as pushing for censorship — including multiple censorship requests flowing through that group to the tech giant — is the Election Integrity Partnership, which is run out of Stanford’s Internet Observatory.
Stanford’s Internet Observatory launched on June 6, 2019, to “focus on the misuse of social media,” and within two years, the project grew from an initial team of three to a full-time team of 10 assisted by some 76 student research assistants. In 2020, Stanford announced the creation of the Election Integrity Partnership, which “brought together misinformation researchers” from across four organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
As a private institution, Stanford University is not funded directly with tax dollars, but it receives millions in government grants. Private grants also flow into the California university and directly fund the Election Integrity Partnership, including money from the same foundations that funded the nonprofit behind Hamilton 68, such as money from the Craigslist and eBay founders.
Atlantic Council Project
Further research on the other members of the Election Integrity Partnership reveals the Atlantic Council receives donations and federal grants, including from Facebook, Google, and the U.S. Department of State. And as will be shown shortly, the Atlantic Council is also connected to the Global Disinformation Index.
Graphika
Another member of the Election Integrity Partnership, Graphika, describes itself as a “network analysis company that examines how ideas and influence spread online.” Graphika’s chief innovation officer, Camille Francois “leads the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment.” Francois was previously the principal researcher at Google’s Jigsaw unit.
According to CNBC, one of Francois’ first projects at Graphika was a “secretive” assignment for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Working with a team of researchers from Oxford University, Graphika analyzed data provided by social media firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee to assess Russia’s exploitation of “the tools and platform of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to impact U.S. users” and influence elections.
As a private organization, Graphika’s funding details remain obscure, but in congressional testimony, Dr. Vlad Barash he “oversee[s] our work with DARPA and with our colleagues from leading academic institutions on developing and applying cutting edge methods and algorithms for detecting the manipulation of 21st Century networked communications.”
According to government data, Graphika — also known as Octant Data, LLC and Morningside Analytics — received numerous Department of Defense contracts. Additionally, Graphika received a $3 million grant from the DOD for a 2021-2022 research project related to “Research on Cross-Platform Detection to Counter Malign Influence.”
Graphika received a second nearly $2 million grant from the DOD for “research on Co-Citation Network Mapping.” The organization had previously researched “network mapping,” or the tracking of how Covid “disinformation” spreads through social media.
The Center for Internet Security
The “Twitter Files” also made mention of the Center for Internet Security. In 2018, that nonprofit launched the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), which “it claims supports the cybersecurity needs of election offices.” As part of those efforts, the Center for Internet Security crafted a one-page document for election officials, with directions for reporting misinformation or disinformation to the EI-ISAC. The federal U.S. Elections Commission would link to the CIS flyer on its government webpage.
The CIS flyer directed election workers to submit supposed “misinformation or disinformation” to the EI-ISAC, stating it would then “forward it to our partners at The Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).” CISA would then “submit it to the relevant social media platform(s) for review,” including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, TikTok, Nextdoor, and Snapchat.
CIS further said it would share reports of misinformation or disinformation with the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University. And from the “Twitter Files,” we see examples of the Election Integrity Partnership providing the Twitter team CIS’s reports of misinformation or disinformation, prompting the censorship of speech.
The Center for Internet Security is heavily funded by government grants. According to Influence Watch, the nonprofit “provides cyber-security consulting services to local, state, and federal governments,” and has been awarded $115 million in federal grants by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense since 2010. It has received $3.6 million in cybersecurity contracts from numerous federal agencies, according to its webpage, and a $290,000 grant from the eBay founder’s left-leaning Democracy Fund.
The president and CEO of the Center for Internet Security is another former high-level government adviser, John Gilligan. Gilligan “previously served in senior advisory positions in intelligence and security for the United States Airforce, Department of Energy, and White House Cyber Security Commission under the Obama administration.”
Clemson University
Other emails released as part of the “Twitter Files” reveal Clemson University’s role in the push for censorship at Twitter. And as was the case with Hamilton 68’s dashboard, Twitter’s team had concerns about Clemson’s disinformation research.
In one email, Twitter noted that Clemson’s center had asked the tech company to review its “findings regarding the latest list of accounts.” Internal communications show the Twitter team noting that while they saw “some inauthentic behaviors,” they “were unable to attribute the accounts to the IRA,” the Russian “troll” farm.
After noting that Twitter had already shared information with Clemson researchers, the tech giant’s head of safety, Yoel Roth, sent another email. “There is nothing new we’ll learn here, analytically,” Roth said. “We’re not going to attribute these accounts to Russia … absent some solid technical intel (which Clemson have not ever been able to provide).”
Defending Democracy Together
Clemson’s research was used by another group joining the “disinformation” trend, Defending Democracy Together (DDT). In 2018, DDT launched the RussiaTweets.com project to supposedly provide “the evidence of Russian interference in American politics.”
This evidence, according to DDT, came from a list of tweets “compiled and published by Professors Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren,” which purportedly all came from the Russian troll factory, Internet Research Agency (IRA). Both Linvill and Warren hail from Clemson University, raising the question of whether it was the list they provided to Defending Democracy Together that Twitter executives “were unable to attribute” to the IRA.
Defending Democracy Together was founded in 2018, and its leadership consists of Never Trumpers, William “Bill” Kristol, Mona Charen, and Charlie Sykes, as well as DDT’s co-founder and director Sarah Longwell, who has promoted advertisements “to advocate against the policies of the Trump administration and to weaken public support for the Trump presidency.”
Funding for DDT, according to Influence Watch, includes money from left-wing mega-donor and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar through Democracy Fund Voice and from the Hopewell Fund, which is “part of a $600 million network of left-wing funding nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors in Washington, D.C.” Additionally, OpenSecretsreported that DDT was “the biggest ‘dark money’ spender of 2020,” with DDT spending “$15.4 million in ‘dark money’ during the 2020 election cycle on supporting presidential candidate Joe Biden and opposing former President Donald Trump for reelection.”
The University of Buffalo, Lehigh University, and Northeastern University are likewise involved in the disinformation project, with a Clemson News release revealing that faculty at those universities, along with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, launched a project titled “Disinformation Range to Improve User Awareness and Resilience to Online Disinformation.” The government, through a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is supporting those efforts.
The Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is also entwined in the Censorship Complex, having hosted in the fall of 2020 “a series of off-the-record briefings to help prepare every major US newsroom and tech platform for potential hack-and-leak operations and a contested post-election environment.” One of the briefings involved a tabletop exercise facilitated by Aspen’s Garrett Graff that posed a hack-and-leak October surprise involving Hunter Biden.
Twitter’s Yoel Roth attended that event just two weeks before the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story. And soon after that story broke, Graff and his Aspen Institute colleague Vivian Schiller took to Twitter to frame the story as “crap” and “nonsense.” Schiller’s former jobs include CEO at NPR, head of news at Twitter, general manager at The New York Times, and chief digital officer at NBC News.
Soon after Graff and Schiller pushed the Hunter Biden story as misinformation, Twitter blocked the Post’s story and froze the conservative outlet’s account, even though internal communications revealed the Post had not violated Twitter’s terms of service. Despite its extensive coordination with the FBI to prepare to combat foreign election interference, Twitter didn’t ask the bureau if the scandal was Russian disinformation. Instead, Twitter representatives testified to Congress that the company “relied on the tweets of supposed experts, making the tech giant’s decision to censor the Post’s story even more outrageous.”
After the Post broke the Biden family pay-to-play scandal, several left-leaning “journalists” spent the day speaking of “misinformation,” while uniformly ignoring the substance of the story. One must wonder how many of those so-called journalists had attended Aspen’s training session.
Since then, Aspen has expanded its focus on disinformation and misinformation, launching a “Commission on Information Disorder” to develop what the institute calls “actionable public-private responses to the disinformation crisis.”
The Global Disinformation Index
Another nonprofit, the Global Disinformation Index, has already begun pushing an “actionable response to the disinformation crisis,” by pressuring advertisers to dump news outlets based on GDI’s view of their “disinformation risk.” However, as the Washington Examiner revealed in Gabe Kaminsky’s investigative series, the GDI’s December 2022 report, prepared in partnership with the University of Texas-Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab, brands only conservative outlets as the top “riskiest.” Conversely, the “least risky” outlets all lean left, other than The Wall Street Journal, and are also the same outlets that got the most significant news stories of the last decade wrong.
Like the “disinformation” nonprofits named in the “Twitter Files,” GDI has received federal grants and is connected to other left-leaning nonprofits and individuals seeking to censor speech. Its advisers likewise hew left, such as “journalist” Anne Applebaum, who said Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings were not interesting, and Finn Heinrich of the leftist George Soros’ Open Society group.
The composition of GDI’s “advisory panel” is also noteworthy because the same individuals guiding GDI’s mission to starve conservative sites of advertising dollars are connected to three of the organizations behind the Election Integrity Partnership’s push for censorship at Twitter. That fact would be difficult to discover today, though, as GDI scrubbed its “advisory panel” section of its homepage after the blacklist scandal broke.
According to the archived GDI homepage, advisory panel members include Ben Nimmo, the global lead at Meta; Franziska Roesner, a University of Washington professor; and Camille Francois of Niantic. Nimmo was a founding member of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) and a senior fellow for that lab. He was also “the first director of investigations at Graphika.” Francois also serves as the chair of Graphika’s advisory board and is identified on Graphika’s webpage as its chief innovation officer. Roesner is a faculty member at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.
Together then, three of the four organizations that partnered with Stanford to run the Election Integrity Partnership, which pushed Twitter to censor speech in advance of the 2020 election, were also connected to the Global Disinformation Index.
Global Engagement Center
A strong connection also exists between GDI and the U.S. government through an arm of the State Department, the Global Engagement Center, which has also made several appearances in the “Twitter Files.”
The Global Engagement Center, which proclaims itself “a data-driven body leading U.S. interagency efforts in proactively addressing foreign adversaries’ attempts to undermine U.S. interests using disinformation and propaganda,” awarded the Global Disinformation Index a $100,000 grant as part of the U.S-Paris Tech Challenge. The State Department sponsored that “Tech Challenge” in “collaboration” with, among others, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, Park Advisors, and Disinfo Cloud. According to a State Department spokesman, the Global Engagement Center began funding Disinfo Cloud in 2018 and also awarded approximately $300,000 to Park Advisors to manage Disinfo Coud to fight “disinformation, terrorism, violent extremism, hate speech.”
The “Twitter Files” revealed that, in addition to funding private organizations pushing for censorship, the State Department’s Global Disinformation Center attempted to insert itself into Twitter’s review and censorship process. When those efforts failed, the Global Disinformation Center pressed its unsupported claims of disinformation to the media.
Additional research is needed to understand the full scope of the Global Engagement Center’s role in the Censorship Complex, but what little is known now suggests the State Department provides load-bearing support for the project. A recent report from the Foundation for Freedom Online also exposes the National Science Foundation as a key funder in “the science of censorship.”
While federal funding is not solely responsible for the rapid expansion of the Censorship Complex, it is the most troubling because our government is using our money to censor our speech.
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.
NIH is funding many studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones. Yet HHS is pushing for more transgender ‘care.’
As the Biden administration pushes the Department of Health and Human Services to make “gender-affirming health care” more widely available, HHS’s own National Institutes of Health is funding multiple studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term risks of taking cross-sex hormones and whether they improve mental health. The NIH research on transgender issues also emphasizes intersectionality and about half has been on HIV prevention.
The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 74 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually. Several NIH-funded studies examine specific health risks of cross-sex hormone treatment — such as associated bone loss and possible increased risk of thrombosis, drug overdose, heart attack, and stroke.
Onlyafew studies evaluate the risk of infertility, even though “the impact of long-term cross-sex hormone therapy on reproductive health is largely unknown,” as one such project states and experts have warned. In contrast, seven studies examine stigma and disparities in health care for transgender people, in response to NIH’s Notice of Special Interest in understanding the role of alleged intersectional stigmas and how they harm health.
Manystudiesaddresshigherincidence of sexually transmitted infections in transgender people, and whether hormone therapy might increase that risk. About half of all NIH-funded research on transgender health, including that which has been completed, relates to HIV prevention among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.
Transgender males “have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world, with a pooled global prevalence of 19% and a 49-fold higher odds ratio of acquiring HIV than non-transgender adults,” according to one project summary. Behavioral factors contribute, another project says, but the role of sex hormones needs further study, since they “are known to modulate the immune response, resulting in changes in host susceptibility to pathogens, vaccine efficacy and drug metabolism.”
Many Ongoing Projects Highlight Lack of Research
While suicide prevention is often cited as a major reason to give dysphoric children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, only one of the current studies is focused specifically on suicide risk, although several emphasize the lack of long-term studies of cross-sex hormones administered to children and their relation to mental health.
Medical professionals “say more specific research is needed to determine whether medically transitioning as a minor reduces suicidal thoughts and suicides compared with those who socially transition or wait before starting treatment,” according to Reuters.
One NIH-funded project summary acknowledges that the long-term effect of puberty suppression on mental health needs further study and will evaluate children already taking puberty blockers.
During puberty, hormones change the structure and organization of the brain. Puberty blockers “may also disrupt puberty-signaled neural maturation in ways that can undermine mental health gains over time and impact quality of life in other ways,” the Nationwide Children’s Hospital project summary says. “The overall impacts” of puberty blockers “have not been systematically studied,” the summary says.
One of the larger NIH-funded transgender studies, funded at $743,000 annually, is at Boston Children’s Hospital. It notes, “Little is known [emphasis added] about how pubertal blockade, the first step in the medical management of a young transgender adolescent, affects bone health and psychological well-being. … In an exploratory aim, we will also consider the effect of pubertal blockade on anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life.”
Another research project, “Psychological consequences of medical transition in transgender youth,” begun last year at Princeton University and anticipated to end in 2025, notes the lack of quality research in this area:
Five studies to date have longitudinally examined the relationship between one or both of these interventions [puberty suppression and hormone therapy] and mental health in transgender youth. However, these studies have had relatively small samples, none have been able to isolate the effects of endocrine interventions, none have included a cisgender [non-transgender] comparison group, and none have examined the mechanisms by which endocrine interventions might improve mental health.
A longitudinal study that began in 2015 and will run through at least 2026 acknowledges, “Transgender children and adolescents are a poorly understood and a distinctly understudied population in the United States. … Continuing our current research is imperative to expand the scant evidence-base currently guiding the clinical care of TGD [transgender and gender diverse] youth and thus, is of considerable public health significance.”
As the summary of one ongoing NIH-funded research project on sex hormones’ effects on the developing brain says, “There is little to no empirical data guiding clinical practices” of cross-sex hormone therapy in early pubertal adolescents, “highlighting the need for further research to address the critical knowledge gap.” The research, funded at $3 million so far to Stanford University, “will provide a much-needed foundation for understanding the longitudinal impact of treatments that are already being used [emphasis added] in clinical settings.”
The project will elucidate “how sex hormone therapy alters sex-specific risk for disease … and [its] impact on neural networks implicated in psychiatric disorders.” The research proposed “has never been conducted in early pubertal adolescents,” the summary reads.
NIH Acknowledges Limited Evidence, FDA Hasn’t Approved
The NIH, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, told Reuters that “the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.” Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved puberty blockers and sex hormones for children’s transgender medical interventions. As Reuters reported:
No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs’ long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear. And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs’ label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them. More broadly, no large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning.
Countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have begun to limit children’s access to transgender health interventions. Early, foundational research from 2011 on transgender medical interventions has been criticized as failing to meet basic research standards.
Before 2012, “there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all,” according to Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage.” Studies show most children grow out of gender dysphoria, Shrier says.“There are no good long-term studies indicating that either gender dysphoria or suicidality diminishes after medical transition,” according to Shrier.
Meanwhile, despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executiveorders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.” The administration also opposes “conversion therapy — efforts to suppress or change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states.
I’ll ask again. WHY ARE THESE MENTAL PATIENT LEFTEST SO HYPER ABOUT MUTILATING AMERICA’S CONFUSED CHILDREN? WHAT IS THEIR END GAME?
HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which is overseen by transgender Dr. Rachel Levine, states there’s no debate: “Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.” Other proponents acknowledge a lack of research on these hormones’ effect on brain development, but say the pros outweigh the cons.
Growing Transgender Identification
The number of transgender adults in the U.S. is estimated at 1.4 million to 2 million, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 transgender children. The number of American children who started on puberty blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 from 2017 to 2021 and has been increasing, according to Reuters.
From 2019 to 2021, at least 56 patients ages 13 to 17 had genital surgeries, and from 2019 to 2021, at least 776 children that age had mastectomies, not including procedures that weren’t covered by insurance, according to Reuters.
The transgender surgery industry grosses more than $2 billion annually and expects to double that by 2030.
Debate Among Medication Providers
“Puberty delay medications are safe and effective,”according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a pro-transgender organization that sets standards for trans medical interventions. “Every person, including every TGD person, deserves an opportunity to be their true selves and has the right to access medically-necessary affirming care to enable this opportunity,” WPATH says.
When WPATH recently updated its guidance, authors “were acutely aware that any unknowns that the working group acknowledged — any uncertainties in the research — could be read as undermining the field’s credibility and feed the right-wing effort to outlaw gender-related care,” The New York Times reported. The newspaper is in the midst of an internal fight about its coverage of transgender issues, with some saying it has been too critical of transgender medical interventions.
A draft of the WPATH chapter for adolescents included minimum recommended ages for hormone treatments and breast removal or augmentation, but after criticism from providers and transgender activists, “it was determined that the specific ages would be removed to ensure greater access to care for more people,” WPATH said.
The final guidelines also walked back a recommendation that preteens and teenagers should provide evidence of several years of persistently identifying as transgender, to differentiate from kids whose change in identification is recent, and changed it to a vaguer “sustained” gender incongruence. “In the end, the chapter sided with the trans advocates who didn’t want kids to have to wait through potentially painful years of physical development,” according to the Times.
The final guidelines acknowledged that because of the limited long-term research, treatment without a comprehensive diagnostic assessment “has no empirical support and therefore carries the risk that the decision to start gender-affirming medical interventions may not be in the long-term best interest of the young person at that time.”
Reuters found that gender facilities across the country are not conducting recommended months-long assessments before administering hormones to children. Parents of 28 of 39 minors who had sought transgender interventions told Reuters they “felt pressured or rushed to proceed with treatment.” Gender-care professionals also said some of their peers are “pushing too many families to pursue treatment for their children before they undergo the comprehensive assessments recommended in professional guidelines.”
Studying Causes of Gender Dysphoria
Some of the taxpayer-funded studies may bring clarity to the issue of gender dysphoria by examining its causes. One study will examine social media’s influence on children becoming transgender. A second will study “the life history calendar to examine young transgender women’s trajectories of violence, mental health, and protective processes.”
Another government-funded study will help determine how chromosomes, sexual organs, and hormones combine to create sex differences. Another will “uncover genetic underpinnings of female sexual orientation.”
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
The House Judiciary GOP launched an investigation into the gruesome rape and murder of a 20-year-old Maryland woman by an alleged MS-13 gang member who crossed the border as an unaccompanied minor.
In a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra Tuesday, Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., noted how the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is charged with the care and placement of unaccompanied children referred by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
On Jan. 15, as the letter notes, Aberdeen, Maryland, police arrested a 17-year-old “illegal alien” and known MS-13 gang member from El Salvador for the violent assault and murder of 20-year-old Maryland resident Kayla Hamilton. Press reports say the suspect entered the U.S. in Rio Grande City, Texas, as an unaccompanied alien child and identified a woman living in Frederick, Maryland, as his aunt.
“The Biden administration’s open border policies have created vulnerabilities that criminal aliens and gang members exploit to the detriment of American citizens,” Jordan and McClintock said.
Kayla Hamilton was found raped and strangled to death in a mobile home. (Aberdeen Police Dept. )
Hamilton was found raped and strangled to death in a mobile home she recently moved to with her boyfriend, according to local news reports. Her mother, Tammy Nobles, told FOX 45 Baltimore that her daughter has autism but was “working really hard on being independent.”
“He was arrested at the border. They let his aunt come and pick him up and take him back to Fredericksburg Maryland. He shouldn’t be here,” Nobles reportedly said last month.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan launched a probe into the murder of 20-year-old Maryland woman Kayla Hamilton, allegedly by an MS-13 gang member. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Pursuant to the Rules of the House Representatives, the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to conduct oversight of the Biden Administration’s enforcement of federal immigration laws,” Jordan and McClintock wrote. They requested that Becerra provide all case information, including but not limited to the teen’s case file, family reunification packet, as well as any materials provided to HHS ORR by federal agencies such as Customs and Border Patrol upon the 17-year-old’s referral and any information provided to HHS ORR “pursuant to its request for information from the referring agency.”
They also requested “a detailed description of, and related documents regarding, what steps HHS took to establish and verify” the suspect’s age. They want Becerra to explain how HHS officials learned of, or were notified of, the suspect’s status as a known MS-13 gang member, what the source of that information was and when HHS first learned of that information.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, center, leads the agency charged with the care and placement of unaccompanied children referred by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and McClintock, chairman of the subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security and Enforcement, also seek how HHS established and verified, if at all, the familial relationship between the now murder suspect and the woman he identified as his aunt. They want Becerra to provide all case materials referring or relating to the vetting of the teen’s sponsor – the woman identified as his aunt. The letter lists the deadline for the materials as March 13 by 5 p.m.
Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment on Tuesday.
Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
Screenshot taken from video posted on the Libs of TikTok Twitter account
Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the Libs of TikTok Twitter account, has authored a children’s book meant to help teach kids to trust their parents and not keep secrets from them.
“If an adult tells a child to keep a secret from their parents, that’s a huge red flag. I wrote a kid’s book which will give parents and children a tool they can use to spot predatory behavior. My goal is to get this book into as many homes, schools, and libraries in this country as possible!” she tweeted on the Libs of TikTok Twitter account.
The forthcoming book, titled “No More Secrets: The Candy Cavern,” targets 4- to 8-year-old kids.
“My book is a colorful, modern-day take on the classic, Little Red Riding Hood,” Raichik wrote. “It is a fun, beautifully illustrated and age-appropriate story about a sheep named Rose who starts second grade with a new teacher, Mr. Wooly. He suspiciously convinces his students to eat candy and treats everyday at school while telling them to keep it a secret from their parents. Mr. Wooly uses phrases like, ‘don’t worry about what your parents said,’ ‘you can trust me,’ and ‘my class is a safe space.’ These are the very phrases that predators in authority positions use on children. Without a strong foundation of trust in her family, Rose may not have felt that twinge of uncertainty alarming her that something was off.”
Raichik uses the Libs of TikTok Twitter account to expose the activity and musings of radical leftists, often by reposting the videos that leftists themselves have shared online.
Seth Dillon, who is the CEO of the popular satire site the Babylon Bee, announced last year that he made a deal with Raichik that would “turn her heroic, high-risk work into a career” — he noted that he “personally” made the deal, and the Bee was not involved.
Dillon recently noted that Slack had permanently suspended service for Libs of TikTok: “If your business is defending kids, Slack doesn’t want your money,” he tweeted.
Raichik is scheduled to speak at the upcoming CPAC conference.
President Joe Biden made a bizarre race-related comment on Monday at a Black History Month event hosted at the White House. Speaking about the “Divine Nine” — the nine black Greek fraternities and sororities — Biden told the crowd that he is “not stupid,” despite being white, because he knows where the “power is.”
“I know real power when I see it: the Divine Nine,” he said, thanking the presidents of the Greek letter organizations for their attendance.
“And, by the way, you know I’m not — I may be a white boy, but I’m not stupid,” he added, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I know where the power is.”
“You think I’m joking,” he continued. “I learned a long time ago about the Divine Nine. And that’s why I spent so much time at Delaware State, campaigning and organizing my campaign in Delaware.”
The full context, however, suggests that Biden admitted to spending “so much time” campaigning at Delaware State University — a historically black college — because he believed that currying favor with black voters would help him win elections.
For decades, Democrats have been accused of assuming that certain demographics of voters — black, Hispanic, women, etc. — are guaranteed to vote for them. Biden infamously embodied that twisted idea when, while campaigning for president in 2020, he said that black voters aren’t really black if they vote for Donald Trump.
“I’ll tell you what: If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden said.
That level of entitlement is behind Democrats’ slipping control on black voters, as demonstrated by 2020 exit polls showing that, for example, just 79% of black men voted for Biden, a percentage that has been dropping since 2012. The reality has become a five-alarm fire for Democrats, which is not surprising, according to Delano Squires.
“When a party assumes it is entitled to every vote within a certain demographic, it will treat even the slightest sign of defection as an emergency, and that’s what you’re seeing in Democratic circles when it comes to black men defecting to the right,” Squires wrote last fall.
President Biden and Vice President Harris Deliver Remarks at a Black History Month Reception
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a Chinese lab leak, the U.S. Department of Energy has reportedly concluded. According to a classified intelligence report recently supplied to the White House and key members of Congress, a leak from a Chinese laboratory is the likely origin of the COVID pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal reported, “The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory.”
The WSJ stated, “The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.”
The report – which is reportedly less than five pages – noted that the Department of Energy made the determination with “low confidence.” In 2021, the FBI reportedly concluded that COVID escaped to the public through a lab leak. The FBI made its judgment with “moderate confidence.” The U.S. agencies allegedly clarified that COVID-19 escaped from a lab, and was not part of a Chinese biological weapons program.
Meanwhile, four other U.S. government agencies suspect that the coronavirus pandemic was most likely the result of natural transmission. Two other agencies – including the CIA – have yet to establish where the deadly pandemic originated.
David Relman – a Stanford University microbiologist – told the WSJ, “Kudos to those who are willing to set aside their preconceptions and objectively re-examine what we know and don’t know about COVID origins. My plea is that we not accept an incomplete answer or give up because of political expediency.”
A spokesperson for the Energy Department spokesman did not confirm or deny the report, but said the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”
The initial explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic was that the virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan, China. Many believe that the virus mutated and was able to jump from animals to humans. However, the animal source was never actually identified. Since the pandemic began, there have been many who suspect that COVID-19 may have possibly escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China – a Chinese laboratory that studies coronaviruses and has the highest biosafety risk level.
The WSJ highlighted, “Wuhan is home to an array of laboratories, many of which were built or expanded as a result of China’s traumatic experience with the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic beginning in 2002. They include campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, which produces vaccines.”
The lab leak theory has been dismissed by top health officials, major media outlets, and influential politicians. The idea that COVID came from a lab has been disregarded as a conspiracy theory. Some even claimed that just proposing the lab leak theory is racist.
In early 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci – the government’s top infectious diseases expert – along with other top health officials pushed messaging that a “laboratory-based scenario” is not plausible, and anyone suggesting otherwise is likely a conspiracy theorist.
If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.
In May 2021, Fauci admitted that he wasn’t “convinced” that COVID was caused by natural transmission.
Los Angeles County, California confirmed it had removed 1.2 million ineligible voters from its rolls thanks to a settlement with the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch, the group announced Friday. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in 2017 on behalf of itself and four registered voters in Los Angeles County. Election Integrity Project California, Inc., another public interest group, was also a part of the lawsuit.
Under the agreement, Los Angeles had to send 1.6 million address confirmation notices to voters listed “inactive” on its voter rolls. According to the National Voter Registration Act — which requires states to maintain accurate voter rolls — states and counties must remove from their voting rolls voters who do not respond to such mailers and do not vote in the next two federal elections.
In its most recent progress report for complying with the settlement, Los Angeles told Judicial Watch it had removed a total of 1.2 million ineligible voters from its rolls. Last year, the county revealed that 634,000 of its inactive voters hadn’t voted in the past 10 years.
Back in 2017 when Judicial Watch first filed its lawsuit, it argued Los Angeles County had more registered voters than residents eligible to register and the “highest number of inactive registrations of any single county in the country.” According to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission at that time, voter registration for the county was 112 percent of its adult citizen population.
“This long overdue voter roll clean-up of 1.2 million registrations in Los Angeles County is a historic victory and means California elections are less at risk for fraud,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. “Building on this success, Judicial Watch will continue its lawsuits and activism to clean up voter rolls and to promote and protect cleaner elections.”
This isn’t the first lawsuit of its kind by Judicial Watch. New York City recently removed 441,083 ineligible voters from its voter rolls after reaching a settlement with the conservative advocacy group. North Carolina also removed more than 430,000 ineligible registrants from its rolls due to a similar lawsuit, and Kentucky agreed to do the same in response to a lawsuit.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation is another good government group that has filed lawsuits to compel states including Michigan and Pennsylvania to clean their voter rolls to guard against potential election fraud.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
YUMA, Ariz. — GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee met with the leadership of the Yuma Regional Medical Center on Thursday to hear how medical services have been impacted over the significant influx of illegal immigrants into the region.
Dr. Robert Trenschel, president and CEO of the medical center, told the delegation that his hospital has around $26 million in unpaid bills for services rendered to illegal immigrants. Trenschel said the priority of who gets seen depends on how severe their illness or injuries are, no matter what their legal status is. This has caused medical services to be prioritized towards the illegal immigrants, as their illnesses and injuries are significant following their journey across the border.
Yuma’s population is just under 100,000, with several nearby towns adding roughly 38,000 people. The medical center was built up to accommodate that population size. Since the surge of illegal immigration that started in their area in December of 2021, over 300,000 people have illegally crossed into the region.
“We have to see them. Any one of those that needs a hospital visit and we’ve done that. We do it with pride…But what we need is a payer source for those individuals because we have nobody to bill. They have no resources and they’ve just continued to come in,” Trenschel explained.
“We’ve had people in our ICUs for over 60 days…They’ve needed dialysis, heart surgery, cardiac catheterization, I mean, they’re sick when they come over. Not all of them but many and some come in with minor bumps and bruises, things like that…and we have no payer source for that care and that’s our biggest issue. For a hospital like us, it prevents us from doing other things we normally do for our community,” he continued.
Though it is not on the brink of collapse, Trenschel said the hospital system losing out on $26 million in a such a short amount of time has made a severe impact on its operations.
“Really, the community is the one that suffers,” he added.
One of the biggest examples of their services being strained is the hospital’s maternity ward having to care for the mothers and newborn babies for much longer than U.S. citizens because the staff has to ensure they are healthy enough to be discharged since most of the time it was unknown when the next time they would see a doctor.
Trenschel said the hospital has had to postpone planned inductions for mothers who were U.S. citizens “and we had to say, ‘Sorry, we’re just full in our maternity unit.'”
Dorie Rush, the director of women and children services, told GOP lawmakers that the hospital staff has plenty of Spanish speakers. But, many of the illegal immigrants coming in for treatment do not speak Spanish, as they came from other countries, like Haiti. Due to this, the hospital system has purchased multiple translation tablets in order to communicate with the patients.
“We had our walls lined with Border Patrol and Customs agents because when they first were bringing the patients in, they would stay with the patients…There was one day when we had five agents from five different locations bring five different patients at the same time into our triage area, and it’s only seven beds,” Rush recalled.
“So as you can imagine, our general population of patients that were here sitting in the waiting room, lined up, backed up, not being able to get everybody, obviously at the same time, caused a lot of
frustration with our communities,” she added.
Rush said even after people were technically discharged, they still had to keep them there because the hospital is required to ensure they have access to follow up care, which many of the patients had no such guarantee, and to ensure they are able to get to their next location.
“We became a hotel. We did. Up on our pediatric unit, we have a set amount of rooms that we set aside for these patients when they are discharged so that we could keep them here until they could get to the appropriate location,” she said, noting staff still had to check up on the patients in the “hotel” since they were still in the hospital’s care. Rush also had to go out into town to buy every single carseat for babies in order to give to the migrant mothers once they were discharged since they are required by law to not allow babies to leave their care unless there is a carseat.
“Weird question, did they seem grateful? Did they seem overwhelmed from where the world they came from?” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) asked.
“I would say a lot of them were grateful. Some of them expected us, I had one tell me, ‘You will help me get to Florida. You will pay for this.’ I explained nicely that we will work with your family, but that will come from your family, not from us,” a hospital staff answered.
Rush revealed actual hotels in the area stopped accepting the illegal immigrants because of “issues” pertaining to their behavior while staying at their locations.
Google reviews left on Yuma Regional Medical Center’s page within the past few months frequently say the long wait times are a major factor for giving the low ratings.
None of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were in Yuma to take part of the tours or the hearing that later took place at city hall. Border Patrol agents in the Yuma Sector voiced their displeasure to Townhall over Democrats not bothering to show up to an official hearing.
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich torched the “frustrating” response by the Biden administration to the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Brockovich appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Friday, where she accused the government of hiding ominous details from the American people following the disastrous train derailment in East Palestine.
Tucker Carlson asked Brockovich if government officials are hiding information about the environmental impacts of the train derailment.
“Yeah, there is. And I mean, it’s like, Oh my gosh, come on,” Brockovich replied, according to Mediaite. “Oh, we’re out here. What, 44,000 fish are dead? We’ve seen them. We’ve seen them out here today aerating the creeks. They’re removing stuff. That, the wellheads are locked. What’s up?”
Brockovich compared dead animals in East Palestine to miners bringing canaries into coal mines to detect dangerous and toxic conditions.
“Look, you don’t have to go any further, in my opinion, than a hundred-year study that we all know the miners did for us,” she explained. “It’s called the canary in the mine shaft. Send the canary down there, it dies: Might not be good for humans.”
“You have dead fish: might not be good for humans. You have dead animals: might not be good for humans,” Brockovich continued. “You’ve sent a horrible mixed message to this community. Drink the water. Don’t drink the water. Safe. Not safe.”
Brockovich said the mixed messaging has been “horribly confusing and extremely frustrating” to the residents of East Palestine.
“And something actually has gone wrong here,” she added. “And there’s information that has yet to come forward, and the story will continue to unfold.”
Brockovich told Carlson that schools have shut off drinking fountains and some private wells have locks on them.
“So, in the schools, so the children can’t drink the fountains, and then on private wells around here, they’ve got locks on them,” Brockovich revealed. “So they obviously — aw, come on. Wha– if there’s no problem, you don’t need to lock up a drinking fountain. You don’t need to be aerating the system. And you can explain away all day long to me that nothing’s wrong. But I, I see what’s going on here.”
Brockovich declared, “You’re not gonna gaslight me.”
Erin Brockovich demands government officials stop ‘gaslighting’ East Palestine, Ohio
President Joe Biden has not visited East Palestine.
On Friday, Biden was asked by a reporter if he would visit East Palestine.
Biden replied, “This time, I’m not. I was — I did a whole video — I mean — you know, the — what the hell — on…”
A reporter chimed in and suggested the word Biden was looking for was “Zoom.”
Biden said, “Zoom! Zoom.”
Biden then went off on a tangent, “All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, ‘Who’s Zoomin’ Who?'”
“The answer is that I — I had a long meeting with my team as to what they’re doing,” Biden said. “You know, we were there two hours after the train went down. Two hours. I’ve spoken with every single major figure in both the Uni- — in both Pennsylvania and in O- — and in Ohio.”
"Are you planning on traveling to East Palestine?"
BIDEN: "At this moment not. I was, I did a whole video, I mean, uh, you know, the uh, what the hell? On…"
"Zoom?"
BIDEN: "Zoom. All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, 'Who's Zoomin' Who?'" pic.twitter.com/fBWAVar7Gm
Woody Harrelson’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue garnered instant backlash and praise over commentary hinting at government’s collusion with media and the medical industry to require COVID vaccines.
“So, the movie goes like this,” 61-year-old Harrelson begins. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.”
Harrelson set up the bit by joking about a script he was reading in 2019 in Central Park while smoking marijuana. He concluded the joke with, “I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk was quick to add his thoughts as social media approached meltdown over Harrelson’s routine.
Musk used a bullseye target emoji to respond to a post by @KanekoaTheGreat. @KanekoaTheGreat had joked about media’s apparent hypocrisy in its own response to Harrelson’s joke.
Musk also responded to users @EndWokeness and @ImMeme0 who commented on the media’s instant, negative response to Harrelson suggesting media had colluded with government and the medical industry.
“Maybe they don’t realize that their propaganda is wrong?” Musk tweeted.
Maybe they don’t realize that their propaganda is wrong?
Rolling Stone was out at 12:37 a.m. Sunday morning with a piece blasting Harrelson’s monologue as “bizarre.” In the piece, the author says Harrelson has a “history of strange anti-science remarks during the COVID pandemic.”
The outlet tweeted about Harrelson’s joke, saying it amounted to spreading “conspiracy theories.”
Woody Harrelson spreads Covid conspiracy theories during SNL monologue: "The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes…" https://t.co/QxCZSxLSvE
Rolling Stone was joined by multiple left-leaning outlets in panning Harrelson’s monologue. Others included Variety, the Daily Beast, and HuffPost. The tenor of the pieces was negative, and cast Harrelson’s jokes as “anti-vax.”
A native Texan and long time advocate of marijuana decriminalization, 61-year-old Harrelson was cast as character Woody on “Cheers” in 1982. He later starred in many hit films including “Doc Hollywood,” “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Indecent Proposal,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “The Hunger Games.”
Harrelson’s latest film, “Champions,” is coming to theaters on March 10, Movie Insider reports.
Watch Harrelson’s Saturday Night Live monologue below.
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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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