The third Republican presidential primary debate, hosted by NBC News, witnessed a dramatic viewership decline with just over 6 million viewers tuning in, marking the lowest audience turnout of the current campaign season and a 45% drop in viewers from the first debate. The drop in Wednesday’s debate was blamed on RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, with GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy criticizing her handling of the forums and calling for her to resign.
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“We’ve got [NBC’s] Kristen Welker here,” Ramaswamy said during the debate.
“Do you think the Democrats would actually hire [Fox News host] Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? They wouldn’t do it.”
McDaniel organized the presidential debates and reportedly offended former President Donald Trump by giving Fox News control over the first two forums. She has awarded the primary debate hosting position for the third and fourth debates to liberal media outlets, including NBC. Ramaswamy made waves challenging McDaniels during the debate.
“For that matter, Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over [and] yield my time to you,” he said.
“Think about who’s moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about.”
NBC’s debate attracted 6.8 million viewers on linear television, with 1.3 million falling within the 25-54 age demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research. Wednesday night’s audience figure was lower than the 9 million viewers who tuned in for the second GOP presidential primary debate in September, which was broadcast on Fox Business and Fox News.
The third GOP debate was also significantly lower than the nearly 12.8 million who watched the inaugural debate on Fox News back in August — as that event saw a 50% decline in ratings from the first debate of the 2016 campaign.
With then-candidate Trump attending, the Fox News 2015 prime-time GOP debate drew a record 24 million viewers.
Ramaswamy urged McDaniel to step down during this week’s GOP debate, blaming her for recent party losses.
“Let’s speak the truth,” Ramaswamy said. “Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost in 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”
Ramaswamy’s call for McDaniel’s resignation drew strong grassroots support.
“What, exactly, does Ronna McDaniel do besides lose? The only thing she SHOULD do is RESIGN. Effective immediately,” media contributor Monica Crowley wrote on social media platform X on Tuesday.
“If Matt Gaetz can vacate Kevin McCarthy, I think it’s time for President Trump to vacate Ronna McDaniel,” social media maven Rogan O’Handley wrote on his DC_Draino X account Wednesday. “Only he has the power to do it at this point.”
The fourth GOP primary debate is scheduled for Dec. 6 in Alabama, shifting from mainstream media to liberal cable.
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
“Hamas has been hit hard; it is taking blow after blow,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters on Thursday night.
“Our soldiers are progressing and succeeding in their missions. I will repeat this again tonight — there will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages. We will take any action necessary for this,” said Gallant.
“Right now, there are [Israeli] children in Gaza. Some of them saw their own parents die in front of their eyes. Savages have kidnapped them and are holding them hostage. We will not stop fighting until we bring our children home. As a father, I wish to ask the whole world — what kind of father would stop searching for his children? I see these children as my own. I will not stop fighting, and I will not stop searching for them until I reach them,” added the defense minister.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Israel had agreed to observe daily four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in its operation against Hamas terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip. Gallant noted that the Israel Defense Forces are currently operating “in the heart of Gaza City. They are on the outskirts of Shati; they are near the Shifa Hospital; they are very close to the Gaza port.
“The terrorists located in the basements of Shifa [Hospital] tonight, can hear the thundering sound of our tanks and bulldozers. They [terrorists] hear it underground; they hear it and tremble with fear,” said Gallant.
The minister revealed that the military has started employing new methods to reach Hamas terrorists located in attack tunnels, as well as to eliminate the subterranean passageways.
“This will continue and improve in the coming days,” Gallant said. “Our forces are working to find unique solutions for these missions, they are working and succeeding. I repeat: We will reach every person who has acted against the citizens of Israel — anyone who kidnapped and harmed women and children. We will get to them all, whether it takes a week, a month, a year, and if necessary, even years. We will not let anyone go. We will eliminate them [terrorists] all, they have no place under the sun.”
Gallant then pivoted to the north, where Hezbollah “tries to harm the citizens of Israel, it tries and takes blow after blow. Our forces in the northern arena are prepared, the pilots are sitting in the cockpits, ready for any command, prepared and facing the north.
“This is the most justified and righteous war that the people of Israel have experienced since the establishment of the state 75 years ago,” said Gallant. “We are fighting against evil; we are fighting against an enemy who is trying to harm us; we are fighting against those who wanted to show murder and brutality in order to deter us.”
House Republicans want President Joe Biden to “challenge Beijing” when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in San Francisco. The White House confirmed Friday that Biden and Xi will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. During their first meeting in nearly a year, they will discuss trade, Taiwan, and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations.
Republicans on the House Select Committee on China sent Biden a letter Wednesday urging the president to “challenge Beijing” to prove that it wants to improve relations with the U.S., according to multiple media reports.
The items, in the letter, that Biden should demand from Xi included:
Release all U.S. citizens deemed wrongly detained in China.
Cease all military operations in Taiwan’s air space.
Establish know-your-customer requirements on shipments of fentanyl ingredients.
Release and drop charges against Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai and others held by China.
End near-collisions between Chinese and U.S. warships.
“If Xi fails to deliver, your administration must end its pursuit of zombie engagement and shift gears to a more assertive posture in order to defend American interests and values,” committee Chair Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., wrote, NBC News reported.
“Despite repeated concessions from Washington over the past year, Beijing has made none and continues to threaten core U.S. interests,” Gallagher said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“At this week’s meeting, the administration should walk away from the table if the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] proves unwilling to address even the most basic issues in the relationship, such as immediately releasing all Americans wrongfully detained in the PRC [People’s Republic of China], ceasing dangerous and unjustifiable intercepts of American forces, and halting operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone east of the Median Line.”
GOP members on the China committee said they agree with the administration’s “desire to deter a devastating conflict” with China but expressed concerns that the U.S. has made too many concessions while not demanding enough. Republicans criticized Biden for not sanctioning Chinese officials for the “erosion of Hong Kong’s authority” or for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
Biden and Xi last met in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, at a summit of the Group of 20 economies.
Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto suggests she may have taken testosterone ahead of the March 27 shooting at the Presbyterian school in Nashville. Pictured: A screen grab captured from a video shows a heavily armed Hale, 28, a former student there, as she enters the school that day. (Photo: Metropolitan Nashville Police Department/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
The vast majority of mass shooters are male, and male biochemistry helps to explain why. Yet the person who opened fire at Nashville’s Covenant School was biologically female.
Higher amounts of the hormone testosterone give men larger muscles, more significant skeletal muscle, and a higher percentage of red blood cells. Testosterone also tends to give men unwarranted self-confidence and aggression, a dangerous cocktail for unmoored youth.
According to the Justice Department’s research, published in February 2022, 97.7% of mass shooters in the U.S. have been male. Thankfully, the Justice Department seems to have acknowledged the biological truth—at least for now—despite President Joe Biden’s radical advocacy of transgender ideology.
On March 27, however, a 28-year-old female by the name of Audrey Elizabeth Hale opened fire at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school in Nashville. Before police shot and killed her, Hale killed three children and three adults—Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9; Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61, according to Fox News.
What explains this female mass shooter? News reports give some indication, although three pages of her manifesto, recently revealed, also shine a light on the situation. Although Hale was female, she reportedly identified as male and went by the name Aiden.
Police discovered a manifesto at the scene of the shooting, but unlike in so many other mass shootings where authorities publish a shooter’s white nationalist screeds almost immediately, authorities sought to keep Hale’s manifesto secret.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake begrudgingly confirmed that the three pages published Monday by commentator Stephen Crowder did indeed come from Hale’s manifesto.
“I am greatly disturbed by today’s unauthorized release of three pages of writings from the Covenant shooter,” Drake wrote. The police chief announced an investigation into the leak, noting that the court system has control of the shooter’s journals due to pending litigation.
The three pages revealed the sick mind of a mass shooter. In them, Hale expresses hatred for white people, whom she refers to as “crackers.”
“Kill those kids!!! Those crackers. Going to private fancy schools with those fancy khakis and sports backpacks with their daddies mustangs and convertibles. F— you little shits,” she wrote. “I wish to shoot your weak ass d—s with your mop yellow hair, wanna kill all you little crackers!!! Bunch of little faggots with your white privileges. F— you faggots.”
These remarks echo the Left’s ideological talking points on “white privilege” and reveal a disdain for others based on their skin color. This hatred of white people echoes the Marxist claim that America is institutionally racist, so justice demands stripping whites of their “privilege” and elevating racial minorities rather than securing a level playing field for all races. Other statements reveal the shooter’s emotional state—a steely determination despite strong anxiety.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready … I hope my victims aren’t,” she wrote. “God let my wrath take over my anxiety.”
This anger, resolve, and hatred hint at something the coroner would not confirm—it seems likely that Audrey Hale had taken cross-sex hormones, probably testosterone, before the shooting.
Although female mass shooters are extremely rare, if a female who thinks of herself as male takes testosterone, it likely will embolden her. This drug does not excuse her evil massacre, but it can help explain why a female would commit such heinous murders.
It also should open up a debate about the wisdom of prescribing these experimental, life-altering drugs based on a person’s claimed gender identity. After all, the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved so-called puberty-blocking drugs for minors or cross-sex hormones for adults for “treating” gender dysphoria (the persistent and painful condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex), due to the lack of adequate data on their effects.
The medical industry has rushed to endorse these experimental treatments for adults and for children, who arguably cannot give informed consent to interventions that may sterilize them and will put them on a path to mutilating their bodies. Some who went under the knife to “affirm” a transgender identity later have rejected that identity, become detransitioners, and filed lawsuits against the doctors who led them to mutilate their bodies.
Many European countries have moved away from such interventions for young people. Florida has begun developing standards of care that emphasize biological sex over gender identity. Biden and much of the American medical establishment continue to advocate transgender interventions, however.
Although young men struggle to control themselves with increased testosterone during puberty (and after it, if we’re being honest), it stands to reason that young women who suddenly receive higher concentrations of the hormone would face a different kind of struggle. Does increased testosterone make women more likely to lash out violently?
It seems America’s elites want to silence any debate on these drugs before it begins. Perhaps that explains why we still don’t know, eight months after the shooting, whether Audrey Hale was on testosterone.
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The world is asking for a cease-fire. We had a cease-fire until the Palestinians slaughtered 1400 innocent Israeli citizens in a barbaric, unprovoked sneak attack.
All people, including Israel, have the right to defend themselves despite what the woke communist brainwashed left in America. How anyone can think this bloodbath of innocent men, women, and children is justified is mind-blowing to any reasonable human being.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Pressure is mounting on Democrats to sideline President Joe Biden as a candidate and bring in new blood ahead of the 2024 election. After all, confidence in the octogenarian president’s ability to lead continues to plumb new lows. A New York Times/Siena Poll published Sunday revealed that 71% of respondents agreed he is too old; 54% of 2020 Biden voters similarly indicated he should pack it in, having likely taken note of his mobility troubles, apparent difficulty completing sentences, and tendency to repeat himself.
The trouble for Democrats is that the individual widely regarded to be a viable stand-in for Biden is apparently also deeply unpopular. A new UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times revealed Tuesday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval dropped to an all-time low last month: 49% of the 6,342 California registered voters polled said they disapproved of Newsom’s performance as governor.
Newsom’s approval rating was 44%, down 11 points from February.
By way of comparison, the latest Economist/YouGov poll had Biden’s approval rating at 43% and his disapproval rating at 54%.
“He’s kind of taking on a new persona,” Mike DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley poll, told the Times. “He’s no longer just the governor of California. He’s a spokesperson for the national party and basically voters are being asked to react to that.”
Newsom has long been suspected of harboring ambitions of taking the White House in 2024 despite his public denial and rhetorical support for Biden. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) suggested this week that Newsom is running a shadow campaign, even if he doesn’t have the “guts” to admit as much. The 56-year-old Democrat has ostensibly been working to elevate his national profile in recent months. In addition to renting billboards in red states criticizing conservatives’ support for the unborn and the Second Amendment, he has been making noise about climate change and glad-handing with foreign dignitaries, including the dictatorial leader of the world’s greatest national polluter.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Newsom has seen a drop in popularity among every major voter category. Whereas 12% of Democrats disapproved of his performance in February, 25% of Democrats have now soured on him.
While Newsom may have chased away some support by flouting his own draconian pandemic restrictions during the pandemic, dining out at a fancy restaurant while masked Californians struggled to make do, Republican political consultant Rob Stutzman told the Times that concerns about the economy, crime, and homelessness are likely the major drivers of Newsom’s growing unpopularity.
Whereas FBI crime statistics for 2022 showed violent crime dropping nationwide, it spiked sharply in California, reported the Center Square. The violent crime rate per 100,000 jumped from 481.2 to 499.5 under Newsom’s watch, whereas it dropped from 387 to 380.7 nationwide.
According to Neighborhood Scout, the likelihood of becoming a victim of a property crime in Newsom’s California is 1 in 43 and the chances of falling victim to a violent crime are 1 in 227. In the cities, the outlook is far bleaker. The chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Sacramento are 1 in 148; in Los Angeles, 1 in 135; in San Francisco, 1 in 186; and in Oakland, 1 in 80.
California streets are not only dangerous, but often crowded by homeless encampments. Despite spending $17.5 billion to combat homelessness between 2018 and 2022, the state’s homeless population grew, such that there are now over 170,000 homeless people on the streets, reported CNN.
As for economic concerns, the unemployment rate in California as of July was roughly 4.6%, leaving Newsom’s state ranked 49th in the country.
“I think the real wake-up call is how dramatically Democrat voters seem to be shifting underneath him,” Stutzman told the Times. “I’m not surprised his numbers are down. I’m surprised his numbers are down that far. He’s clearly upside down.”
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School buses with children arrive at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families after a mass shooting at The Covenant School on March 27, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. According to initial reports, three students and three adults were killed by a trans-identified 28-year-old woman. The shooter was killed by police responding to the scene. | Seth Herald/Getty Images
The Nashville Police Department has suspended seven detectives amid an ongoing investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of documents written by Nashville Christian school shooter Audrey Hale in which she vowed to “kill those kids.”
Department representative Don Aaron told the outlet that the move is solely to preserve the integrity of the investigation and is not a punitive action; the names of the detectives have not been disclosed.
“Seven individuals are on administrative assignment (absolutely non-punitive) to protect the integrity of the active, progressing investigation. All seven have full police power. We are not identifying any of the seven by name. Not fair to them,” Aaron said Wednesday afternoon.
The writings have been sealed since the March 27 attack when 28-year-old Hale, a trans-identifying individual, opened fire at The Covenant School in Green Hills, killing Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61. Hale was shot and killed by police just minutes after launching her attack.
An anonymous source reportedly approached Crowder’s investigative team, offering a glimpse at Hale’s writings through a text conversation that purportedly involved a Nashville detective. After verification, Crowder released the writings.
Hale’s writings expressed a strong bias against white individuals, particularly those seen as privileged, and left a detailed schedule of the day of the shooting.
“Kill those kids!!!” a leaked page of the manifesto reads. “Those cr*ckers going to private fancy schools with those fancy khakis and sports backpacks, with their daddies [sic] Mustangs and convertibles. F*** you little sh**s. I wish to shoot you weaka** d***s w/your mop yellow hair. Wanna kill all you little cr*ckers!!! Bunch of little f***ots with your white privileges. F*** you f***ots.”
The pages also contained passages like “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready. I hope my victims aren’t” and “It’s gonna go quick … I hope I have a high death county.”
The Nashville police had previously indicated they would publish Hale’s writings post-investigation but have postponed due to legal challenges. The three leaked pages of the manifesto would only represent a tiny portion of Hale’s writings; the shooter reportedly left behind at least 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir, according to court filings, which were recovered at the crime scene and at her parents’ home.
Responses to the leak have been polarizing, with some, including presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, applauding its release.
“Crowder has done a service in breaking the Nashville shooter’s manifesto. It simply cannot be that every time a mass shooter’s manifesto boosts favored media narratives, the manifesto is released — and that when it doesn’t, as here, it gets buried,” Shapiro wrote on Twitter.
“If the shooter had targeted black children based on white supremacy, the manifesto would have leaked immediately. But the shooter targeted the school because of ‘white privilege.’ So they tried to memory-hole the whole incident, and retcon the narrative to ‘gun violence.’”
Others, including parents of Covenant School students and local politicians, criticized the move.
Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and a parent of three children who attend The Covenant School, slammed Crowder for releasing the pages.
“The community, the school, [the] families who have already suffered so much, were left yet again to deal with this terror,” he said on Monday, according NBC affiliate WSMV.
Leatherwood called the individual who leaked the pages to Crowder, someone he said was likely a law enforcement member, a “viper.”
Shortly after the pages were released, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said he directed Metro Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz “to initiate an investigation into how these images could have been released.”
“I am deeply concerned with the safety, security, and well-being of the Covenant families and all Nashvillians who are grieving,” O’Connell said in a statement.
The chair of the House Oversight Committee issued a slew of subpoenas on Wednesday, including to Hunter Biden and James Biden. Additional subpoenas, as well as requests for transcribed interviews, were served on other Biden family members and business associates. These investigative steps are solid, but the House committees charged with the Joe Biden impeachment inquiry need to issue subpoenas for the witnesses and documents Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, not-so-subtly suggested late last month.
“I’ve obtained the names of 25 DOJ and FBI personnel to interview at a future date,” Grassley wrote in a late-October letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray concerning the latest details the Iowa senator uncovered related to obstruction of the Biden-family corruption investigation. While the House Oversight Committee is understandably focused on unraveling the extent of foreign influence-peddling, the House should not ignore the second half of the scandal: the DOJ, FBI, and now the Biden administration’s cover-up of the scandal and their cover-up of the cover-up.
Grassley has been focused on that aspect of the scandal for several years, raising concerns “about political considerations infecting the decision-making process at the Justice Department and FBI.” Having heard from several whistleblowers about the scope of the obstruction, Grassley has said that if their allegations are true, it would establish the DOJ and FBI have been “institutionally corrupted to their very core.”
The House has followed several leads Grassley developed. The most significant was related to the FD-1023 summary of a “highly credible” confidential human source’s (CHS) reporting that Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes, which Grassley released earlier this year.
More recently, Grassley revealed that the Foreign Influence Task Force used an assessment opened by FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten to mine FBI field offices for derogatory information related to the Bidens. The FBI then falsely branded the derogatory information as Russian disinformation, closing out the sources. That revelation was but one of many contained in the seven-page letter the Iowa senator penned to the AG and FBI director on Oct. 24, noting he had a list of some 20-plus agents to interview.
The House committees charged with overseeing the impeachment inquiry need to dissect that letter for leads relevant to the investigation into Biden-family corruption and also to unravel the DOJ and FBI’s corruption.
Foreign Influence Task Force
Among other things, that letter revealed the complicity of the Foreign Influence Task Force in falsely branding the reporting of confidential human sources from several different field offices as Russian disinformation. As Grassley noted, it was also the Foreign Influence Task Force that “improperly briefed” him and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., about their investigation into the Biden family. That briefing served solely as a precursor to a media leak to spin the Republican senators’ investigation as contaminated by foreign disinformation.
Every member of the Foreign Influence Task Force should be questioned by the House, and every communication between the Foreign Influence Task Force, Brian Auten, and the various FBI offices involved in wrongly closing out sources should be subpoenaed. The House should likewise subpoena the materials made part of that assessment and especially any sources or reporting closed out as Russian disinformation.
FBI Field Offices
Here, Grassley helpfully highlighted in his letter several relevant field offices. In noting that the FBI tried to improperly shut down the FD-1023, Grassley emphasized that the claim that the CHS’s bribery report was Russian disinformation was “highly suspect and is contradicted by other documents my office has been told exist within the Foreign Influence Task Force, FBI Seattle Field Office, FBI Baltimore Field Office, and FBI HQ holdings.”
The House should focus its investigative efforts there first. The FBI Seattle field office is a new thread to pull, as it has not been previously raised as relevant to the Biden investigation. A review of the underlying FD-1023 also suggests the Cleveland FBI field office merits attention, as the CHS who reported on the alleged bribes to the Bidens noted that he was introduced to the Burisma executives by Alexander Ostapenko. And the FD-1023 included a notation that the CHS’s reporting on Ostapenko was maintained at the Cleveland field office.
In seeking materials from these field offices and the Foreign Influence Task Force, the House should ask for all records using the terms “Russian disinformation” or “foreign disinformation” from January 2019 to the present. Why? Because that is what Grassley asked the AG and FBI director to provide. And when the Iowa Republican asks for something, he usually knows precisely what the DOJ has secreted away.
DOJ and FBI Documents
Likewise, the House should seek the other documents Grassley identified in his October 2023 letter because the Republican-led House can follow up with subpoenas if the DOJ refuses to comply, whereas Grassley can’t. In total, the Iowa senator named 15 different categories of materials he sought from the DOJ and FBI, and the House should mirror those requests.
Of particular importance are the communications between the U.S. attorneys’ offices for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the Eastern District of New York relating to Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden, and the FD-1023, as the Eastern District of New York had apparently concluded the FD-1023 did not match any known Russian disinformation. Subpoenaing FBI reports dating to Jan. 1, 2014, and referencing Mykola Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden, James Biden, or Joe Biden will likely also turn up relevant information.
Naming Names
In addition to subpoenaing these witnesses and the related documents, Grassley’s letter provides the names of several other individuals deserving of questioning. Significantly, the letter indicates that the individuals named had knowledge of Joe Biden’s potential complicity in his son’s money-laundering scheme. But Grassley also named individuals from FBI headquarters, the Washington field office, the Baltimore field office, Delaware FBI agents, and FBI management personnel.
Finally, the House should take note of Grassley’s repeated references to Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault and the various documents he requested that connect to Thibault. Those references should give House investigators pause because Grassley’s apparent focus on Thibault strikes an odd note given the tune Thibault played in his transcribed interview: that he was new to the job and was only on the periphery of decisions to close out sources.
Why then, would Grassley seek “[a]ll records derived from reporting on derogatory information linked to Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden, and their foreign business relationships that was overseen under the approval, guidance, and purview of ASAC Thibault from January 1, 2020, to his last day at the FBI”? And why would Grassley ask for a copy of “[a]ll opened and closed cases initiated by the Washington Field Office under the purview of ASAC Thibault that were ordered closed by ASAC Thibault and/or denied for opening by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, and/or the United States Attorney Offices in the District of Columbia and Eastern District of Virginia”?
Grassley may not be able to force the DOJ and FBI to provide answers or those documents, but the House can — and it should, stat.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Tens of thousands of migrants are expected to flee south from Gaza City in the coming days as Israel continues its campaign against Hamas. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 10,300 Gazans have been killed in the fighting.
The Israeli military continues to tighten its grip on Gaza, working to root out Hamas terrorists in the maze of tunnels beneath Gaza city.
The U.S. says Israel has agreed to daily pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, but both the U.S. and Israel oppose a cease-fire.
There remain roughly 240 Hamas hostages in Gaza, and 10 of them are believed to be Americans. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 10,300 Gazans have been killed in the fighting, though they do not distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas terrorists.
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Netanyahu-addresses ‘pause’ in fighting in Israel-Hamas war
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News’ Bret Baier in a “Special Report” exclusive interview about the pauses in fighting planned to help civilians in Gaza.
When asked if he was surprised by by all the pushback happening across the world, Netanyahu did not hold back.
“Well, the river to the sea, from the river to the sea means there’s no Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, which is a tiny area, by the way, that encompasses Israel. There is no Israel. And so what this congresswoman is calling for is Palestine and genocide, the elimination of the Jewish state, the one and only Jewish state of the Jewish people,” said Netanyahu. “That’s absurd. And I salute the Congress for censuring her. But it’s beyond that. I think the protest that you’re seeing, I’m sure it includes some naive people, but there are a lot of people who know exactly what they’re saying.”
FOX News Channel’s chief political anchor Bret Baier will present an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Special Report (weekdays, 6 PM/ET) on Thursday, November 9th. The pre-taped interview will cover the latest on the Israel-Hamas war, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relationship with President Biden, the potential of ceasefire and global pressure on Israel, among other topics.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained the reasoning behind sending troops into Gaza and calls for humanitarian pauses from other world leaders in an interview with Bret Baier.
“We don’t want to seek to govern Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy, but we seek to give it and us a better future in the entire Middle East. And that requires defeating Hamas. I’ve set goals. I didn’t set a timetable because, you know, it can take more time,” said Netanyahu.
When asked about the United States and how firm the push has been by President Biden and his administration for the humanitarian pauses, Netanyahu says he has not agreed with everything.
“Well, one thing we haven’t agreed to is a cease fire. A cease fire with Hamas means surrender to Hamas, surrender to terror and the victory of Iran’s axis of terror. So there won’t be a cease fire without the release of Israeli hostages,” said Netanyahu.
Netanyahu further addressed the pause pushed by the Biden administration to allow for hostages to safely exit Gaza.
“The fighting continues against the Hamas enemy, the Hamas terrorists, but in specific locations for a given period, a few hours here, a few hours there, we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting. And we’re doing that,” said Netanyahu.
FOX News Channel’s chief political anchor Bret Baier will present an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Special Report (weekdays, 6 PM/ET) on Thursday, November 9th. The pre-taped interview will cover the latest on the Israel-Hamas war, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relationship with President Biden, the potential of ceasefire and global pressure on Israel, among other topics.
Two Ivy League students have called out their colleges and are demanding them to stop accepting the hate speech they say is running rampant on their campuses.
“The past few weeks have been incredibly difficult. It started with, you know, the usual, the chants and the terrorist sympathies,” Talia Draw, a junior at Cornell University told Fox News.
Draw says those chants have now become death threats.
“Jewish students were truly afraid to go on campus. Students began using pepper spray to defend themselves, not being able to go to classes. People started doing classes from Zoom. I mean, it’s absurd that Jewish students right now feel like they can’t be part of the campus community,” said Draw.
Gabriel Diamond, a senior at Yale University echoed Draw’s concerns on college campuses across the U.S.
“Everywhere on campus, there are signs that say Israel is committing genocide and it says ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, calling for the elimination of the Jewish state,” said Diamond. “Students are, in some cases, afraid to go to classes. And overall, there’s a really, really bad sense in the air that these campuses are not safe spaces.”
Draw added what’s even worse is that it’s not just students spear heading the hate — it’s also coming from professors.
“When you have professors using their captive audience, professors telling their students these biased narratives and shouting out all of these buzzwords without giving any of the context, they are indoctrinating their students,” says Draw. “Why are we having these professors in our Ivy League institutions? This is absurd. We are having anti-Semites in our classrooms indoctrinating our students. And not only that, we’re paying a fortune for it.”
Diamond and Draw say overall, it’s a tough time on campus, a hostile environment, and many students do not feel safe right now.
“It’s time that universities really step up to the challenge and that they take action, not just issue statements, because it’s long past time for doing that and that we restore our campuses to a sense of civility and decency,” said Diamond.
The Islamic Jihad released two hostage videos showing an elderly Israeli woman and a young boy both kidnaped and taken into Gaza on Oct. 7 where they’ve been held ever since.
Richard Hecht, the lieutenant colonel and a spokesman for the Israeli military said this is psychological terrorism.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad are trying to basically bend the arm of Israel into getting a cease fire. But we understand that it will be incredibly difficult because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they’re going to push forward with operations inside Gaza until they destroy Hamas leadership and get rid of all of the weapons inside the strip.”
On the West Bank, the Israelis were seen operating in the city of Jenin and claim they have killed ten militants in different cells that are currently fighting inside the West Bank.
When it comes to the hostages, there is some progress taking place in Doha as Qatari negotiators are meeting with the head of Mossad and also CIA director William Burns.
An official with knowledge of that visit says the talks have been progressing well toward a deal.
As the operations continue on the ground and the fighting inside Gaza escalates, Israel is facing other fronts, and that includes a drone attack and a ballistic missile attack today from Yemen.
The Israelis say the arrow defense system was able to intercept one of those missiles that was trying to target the southern city of Bin Laden.
In his recent briefing, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel will not back down.
“We will not stop the fighting until we bring the hostages back. We will do what ever it takes,” said Gallant. “As a father I want to ask the world, “I see those kids as my kids, I will not stop the fighting and I will not stop looking for them until I find them,” Gallant emphasized.
Gallant added that the IDF started using new tactics for dealing with Hamas’ tunnels and said those efforts will improve in the coming days.
“We are fighting against evil, we are fighting against an enemy who tries to harm us. We want all Palestinian out of Gaza. This is important in order for us to have freedom of action, we do not want to harm them,” said Gallant.
Gallant said that Israel shares the same goal as America: to eliminate Hamas.
“This phenomenon should stop from exist here and anywhere else. As much as the pressure on Hamas increase, the better the chances we will succeed to release hostages and bring them back home,” said Gallant.
Turkey’s Erdogan, on Israel-Hamas war, says West is ‘too weak to even call for a cease-fire’
Turkey’s Erdogan, on Israel-Hamas war, says West is ‘too weak to even call for a cease-fire’
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing the West Thursday of being “too weak to even call for a cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war, a report says.
Erdogan, who previously has called Israel a “war criminal” for its military actions against Hamas, made the comment during a meeting of the 10-member Economic Cooperation Organization in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, according to The Associated Press.
Erdogan said Western nations and organizations are observing these “massacres by Israel” from afar but are “too weak to even call for a cease-fire, let alone criticize child murderers.”
“If we, the Economic Cooperation Organization, as Muslims, are not going to raise our voices today… when will we raise our voices?” he added.
The Economic Cooperation Organization consists of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Erdogan ripped the West on the same day the White House announced the Israeli military has agreed to honor four-hour daily pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the new Israeli policy began “today.”
Pentagon confirms four new attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria following airstrike
Pentagon confirms four new attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria following airstrike
The Pentagon say U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have faced four attacks in the hours after the U.S. carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a weapons depot in Syria.
The four new incidents bring the total for attacks on U.S. forces since October 17 to 46, the U.S. military says. Three of the attacks occurred in Syria, with two involving rockets and another being a drone attack. The attack in Iraq used drones, the Pentagon says.
The U.S. reported three minor injuries in one of the Syria attacks, but the other three attacks caused no injuries and no damage to infrastructure. The three servicemembers injured have already returned to duty.
The U.S. sough to deter Iran from entering Israel’s war on Hamas, deploying considerable assets to the region. Critics argue the dozens of attacks indicate that the operation is failing, however.
Squad Dem says humanitarian pause in Gaza not enough: ‘Ethnic cleansing’ happening ‘before our eyes’
Squad Dem says humanitarian pause in Gaza not enough: ‘Ethnic cleansing’ happening ‘before our eyes’
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., held a press conference demanding a cease-fire in Gaza on Thursday, saying “humanitarian pauses” are not enough.
Bush railed against Israel for allegedly commiting “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in Gaza.
“The idea that we get a break for 4 hours, a break so that we can have food–I saw someone spoke about it and they said, “thank you for giving us raisins for a few hours.” And then do we go back to bombing?” Bush said. “I never personally called for humanitarian pause, and I’m not going to call for a humanitarian pause, and I don’t want to see even though that is what’s happening. A four hour a day humanitarian pause because what we need is to stop the bombing. What we need is what does that what is that mental anguish when you know? Well, we get a break for 4 hours, but as soon as that 4 hours is over, then what? How dare we treat humans in that way?”
The White House says Israel agreed to a 4-hour daily pause in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza on Thursday. Nevertheless, both Israel and the U.S. continue to dismiss the idea of a full cease-fire.
CNN’s Van Jones praises GOP for defending ‘Jewish kids’ on campuses, claims Dems in ‘disarray’
CNN’s Van Jones praises GOP for defending ‘Jewish kids’ on campuses, claims Dems in ‘disarray’
CNN’s Van Jones praised the Republican Party for sticking up for “Jewish kids” on college campuses amid the rash of antisemitism that cropped up after Hamas’ attack on Israel last month.
During his commentary on the third GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday night, the CNN political contributor remarked that Republicans “forcefully” defended Jewish students while claiming that Democrats found themselves in “disarray” over the issue.
Jones made the comments after complimenting former South Carolina governor and 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s performance on the debate stage that evening.
He began, “I thought Nikki Haley gave a masterclass on foreign policy. I thought she gave a masterclass on abortion. If you just took those two clips, you could teach a course on political communication, conversation. She’s a force. She’s a force.”
He began, “I thought Nikki Haley gave a masterclass on foreign policy. I thought she gave a masterclass on abortion. If you just took those two clips, you could teach a course on political communication, conversation. She’s a force. She’s a force.”
The commentator noted that members of the GOP “came very, very forcefully, saying Jewish kids shouldn’t be scared to leave their dorm rooms in this country.”
“I thought that was an important development in the conversation overall,” he added.
House Republican campaign arm accuses Dems of fueling antisemitism: ‘Cause and Effect’
House Republican campaign arm accuses Dems of fueling antisemitism: ‘Cause and Effect’
The House Republican campaign arm is accusing Democrats of fueling “Jewish hate” and antisemitism in a new ad in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent protests in the U.S.
“Extreme House Democrats’ words promoted hate,” the new ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) says.
The video includes quotes from ‘Sqaud’ Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in addition to top progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., about the Israel conflict, which began after a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas early last month.
Those Democrats, and others, have been supportive of Palestinians and critical of Israel’s military response and have called for a ceasefire. The video shows Omar standing by remarks in which she accuses Israel of committing “acts of terror.”
Meanwhile, the video references a statement by Jayapal in which she said Israel is a “racist state.” She later issued a lengthy statement clarifying those remarks, saying she doesn’t believe “the idea of Israel as a nation is racist” but that the country’s “extreme right-wing government” has engaged in racist policies.
Separately it quotes Tlaib saying that progressives cannot back Israel’s “apartheid government.”
Gen Z House Democrat says he regrets not voting to condemn Hamas support on college campuses
Gen Z House Democrat says he regrets not voting to condemn Hamas support on college campuses
Freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., admitted that he should not have voted against a resolution condemning support for Hamas on college and university campuses.
“After days of reflection, multiple conversations with my constituents and local leaders, and a difficult, but important listening session with students at UCF Hillel’s chapter — I have come to realize that I should have voted differently on H.Res. 798, to send a clear message that I stand against antisemitism,” Frost said in a statement earlier this week.
The resolution, a symbolic piece of legislation, criticized “the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty and staff.”
It overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan 396-to-23 vote last week. Only 22 Democrats, including Frost, and one Republican voted against it.
Frost said he was wary of “a few of the falsehoods” he said were in the Republican resolution and that he was hoping to be able to “vote on the Senate resolution condemning antisemitism, that passed unanimously, but didn’t include those falsehoods.”
“I truly worried that this would open the door for Republicans to infringe on the free speech of students and young people. Which is why I chose to support and co-sponsor the House version of that same Senate resolution,” Frost said.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report
Hamas adviser tells NY Times he hopes war with Israel is ‘permanent’
Hamas adviser tells NY Times he hopes war with Israel is ‘permanent’
The Hamas terror group told The New York Times that it hopes the war with Israel will “become permanent on all the borders” and the Oct. 7 massacre “succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”
A Times report headlined, “Behind Hamas’s Bloody Gambit to Create a ‘Permanent’ State of War,” featured a subhead that “Hamas leaders say they waged their Oct. 7 attack on Israel because they believed the Palestinian cause was slipping away, and that only violence could revive it.”
The terror group achieved violence, killing at least 1,400 civilians including women, children and the elderly while kidnapping hundreds of civilian hostages. Israel has responded with force, and the Times reported that “carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation” but instead a “necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel.”
The Times spoke with Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, who told the paper that the terror group “succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”
Actress Gal Gadot’s private screening of disturbing film detailing the crimes in Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack in Israel caused brawls outside the venue on Wednesday.
Pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators clashed outside the screening, which was held at Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance. The audience at Gadot’s private screening included multiple Hollywood executives.
The film, which has been shared with the press in Israel and in New York City, is roughly 47 minutes long. It is a compilation of footage from security cameras, cellphones and Hamas’ own recordings showing the brutal atrocities committed on October 7.
White House: Israel expected to begin ‘4-hour pauses’ daily in northern Gaza
White House: Israel expected to begin ‘4-hour pauses’ daily in northern Gaza
The Israeli military has agreed to honor 4-hour daily pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza, the White house said Thursday.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby announced the move on Thursday. He said the new Israeli policy began “today.”
“We understand that Israel will begin to implement 4-hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand,” Kirby said. “There will be no military operations in these areas for the duration of these pauses.”
The agreement comes after the directors of both the CIA and Mossad met in Qatar for negotiations surrounding such pauses. CIA Director William Burns and Mossad Director David Barnea were in talks with the Qataris for multiple days, an official with knowledge of the visit told Fox News.
Pentagon confirms ‘multi-rocket attack’ on US forces near Baghdad embassy
Pentagon confirms ‘multi-rocket attack’ on US forces near Baghdad embassy
Pentagon officials confirmed that a “multi-rocket attack” targeted U.S. and coalition forces near the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad, Iraq on Thursday.
Military officials say the attack occurred on Wednesday and no injuries or damage to infrastructure has been reported. It was the 42nd attack on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17.
Iran-backed terrorist groups have ramped up aggression toward U.S. forces in the region amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. The U.S. has transfered considerable assets to the region in an effort to deter Iran and its terror proxies from joining the conflict.x new
Israeli brigade kills 50 Hamas terrorists in Gaza City operation: IDF
Israeli brigade kills 50 Hamas terrorists in Gaza City operation: IDF
Israeli Defense Forces say a brigade of Israeli soldiers killed 50 Hamas terrorists during an operation in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari says the Israeli division has been operating in Gaza city for several days. The city is the both the heart of the Gaza Strip and a key command structure for Hamas.
“Division 162 has been operating in recent days in the center of Gaza City in the area of the security quarter of the Hamas organization,” Hagari said in a statement. “Givati Brigade combat team forces eliminated over 50 terrorists.”
In addition to the 50 terrorists, Israel says “intelligence documents were found and a number of significant tunnel shafts, factories for the production of anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft launchers were destroyed.”
The IDF says Gaza City played host to Hamas’ central intelligence headquarters as well as its air defense headquarters.
MI couple recounts fearful escape from Gaza during war outbreak
MI couple recounts fearful escape from Gaza during war outbreak
A Detroit-area couple trapped in Gaza like hundreds of other U.S. citizens described the roar of bombs and the fear of not making it home after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Unable to leave, Zakaria and Laila Alarayshi hunkered down.
“I was crying,” Zakaria Alarayshi, 62, told reporters Wednesday at the Arab American Civil Rights League offices in Dearborn, Michigan. “Everyone was scared. Bombs everywhere. When I go to sleep, we cannot sleep. Maybe I’ll sleep in a chair for 30 minutes a day.”
He feared the bombs eventually would find them.
“If I’m going to die, OK, I don’t care. Die, die,” he said.
The Alarayshis were among the U.S. residents who were able to evacuate from Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas militant group surprise attack on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion.
Some 500 to 600 U.S. citizens had been trapped in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the White House. President Joe Biden said 74 Americans with dual citizenship were evacuated on Nov. 2.
Iran launched waves of cyber attacks against key Israeli companies after Oct. 7 massacre: Report
Iran launched waves of cyber attacks against key Israeli companies after Oct. 7 massacre: Report
Iranian hacking groups launched cyber attacks against key Israeli companies in the wake of the October 7 massacre by Hamas last month, according to a new report.
Hackers linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted Israeli companies with ties to transporation, logistics and technology, according to a Thursday report from the Messenger. The hacks have largely taken the form of site outages, but they have also attempted to wipe data from Israeli computers.
The hacking efforts have yet to yield any major successes for Iran, but it is yet another threat posted by the Middle East power.
The U.S. has sought to deter Iran and its proxy terrorist organizations from joining Israel’s war against Hamas, deploying an array of assets to the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq and Syria.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war on “The View” Wednesday, instead throwing her support behind “humanitarian pauses.”
“Remember, there was a ceasefire on Oct. 6 that Hamas broke by their barbaric assault on peaceful civilians and their kidnapping, their killing, their beheading, their terrible, inhumane savagery,” Clinton said.
“It did not hold because Hamas chose to break it,” she added.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization,” she said, adding that Hamas has “consistently broken cease-fires over a number of years.”
Also important, Clinton emphasized, was that “Israel should conduct itself by the laws of war and do everything it can to prevent and limit civilian casualties.”
Clinton also argued that a cease-fire would not uphold the laws of war.
“But a cease-fire done prematurely benefits those who do not abide by any laws, by any rules, by any human character value about the value of life,” she said.
Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report
Germany marks 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht with pledge to protect Jews amid antisemitism surge
Germany marks 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht with pledge to protect Jews amid antisemitism surge
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Thursday, pledging to protect Jews against the current surge in antisemitism.
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was the anti-Jewish pogrom that preceeded the Holocaust in Germany. Scholz stated in a speech that the time to make good on the promise of “Never Again” is now, according to the Agence France-Presse.
“This is about keeping the promise given again and again in the decades since 1945,” Scholz said.
He then went on to address the rising antisemitism in Germany and the world, saying “It outrages and shames me deeply.”
The U.S. military says it destroyed an Iran-linked weapons depot with an airstrike in Syria on Thursday.
The Pentagon says Iran-backed terrorist organizations in the region had used the depot to carry out attacks on U.S. bases in Syria. Since October 17th, U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 42 times.
Houthi rebels in Yemen shot down a U.S. MQ-9 reaper drone in Yemen on Wednesday, the Pentagon says.
The U.S. military has carried out multiple airstrikes in Syria in retaliation against drone attacks on U.S. bases as well as attacks on Israel. The drone is believed to have been on an intelligence-gathering mission when it was shot down.
US reaper drone shot down near coast of Yemen
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have harried Israel’s war against Hamas alongside Hezbollah.
The U.S. has warned Iran and its proxy terrorist groups not to intervene in the conflict.
Israel says it has no plans to ‘reoccupy’ Gaza after Hamas war
Israel says it has no plans to ‘reoccupy’ Gaza after Hamas war
Israel says it does not plan to “reoccupy” Gaza nor control it for long following the end of its war against Hamas.
A senior Israeli official made the comments to reporters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We assess that our current operations are effective and successful, and we’ll continue to push,” the Israeli official said. “It’s not unlimited or forever.”
“It’s not Israel’s intention to reoccupy Gaza or control it for a long time. The idea behind Israel going in militarily is to destroy Hamas’ ability to threaten us,” the official added. “We understand that will take time and that, even if we complete this phase of our military operation, we’ll still have to take some action against their remaining military infrastructure.”
The statement comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised eyebrows earlier thiis week by stating that Israel would control Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period” following the war.
President Biden had previously warned that a full reoccupation of Gaza would be a “mistake.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday soldiers found a Hamas-operated weapons production and storage facility inside a residential building next to a child’s bedroom.
The facility was used to produce and store unmanned aerial vehicles and weapons, the IDF said, and was located inside a residential building near schools in the center of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza.
Explosives and operational plans were found right next to a bedroom that belonged to children, according to the force.
Fox News Digital’s Yael Rotem-Kuriel contributed to this report.
Head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit killed in Israeli fighter jet strike: IDF
Head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit killed in Israeli fighter jet strike: IDF
Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib, the head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit in the Central Camps Brigade, was killed in a fighter jet strike Thursday, Israeli officials announced.
The terrorist is accused of directing and carrying out “many anti-tank attacks” against Israeli citizens and military members, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Intelligence with the IDF and the Israel Securities Authority determined Abu-Maghsib was killed in the strike.
The Israeli Navy also struck Hamas anti-tank missile launching posts used to attack IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip as part of the assistance offered to forces on the ground.
As crude oil approaches $100 a barrel amid turmoil in the Middle East, the Biden administration continues its war on fossil fuels by hamstringing federal offshore drilling leases to the bare minimum required by law. Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and other adversarial oil producers are the only winners of such a nonsensical decision, while the biggest loser may be America’s energy security.
The Interior Department’s five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing includes a mere three auctions in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years — by far the lowest since World War II. In comparison, the Trump administration proposed a plan in 2018 for 47 lease sales, located in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Alaska. Even the Obama administration held two auctions most years.
After the plan was announced, Sen. Murkowski, R-Alaska, rightly pointed out, “The Biden administration’s long-delayed five-year plan for offshore oil and gas has no lease sales in Alaska waters – even though they acknowledge that will result in higher energy prices and higher emissions.”
This decision is not surprising given the president’s campaign promise to fully ban new oil and gas leases on public lands. President Biden has consistently bowed to radical environmental groups that want to ban all fossil fuels, and this decision was a clear signal that he’s trying his best to comply with their demands after courts rejected prior attempts.
In fact, the Biden administration was obligated by law to offer this bare minimum as a prerequisite for holding offshore wind auctions – a deal Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., negotiated before signing off on the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”). Manchin didn’t mince words in response to this newest development:
“To be clear – three lease sales is more than the zero we would have gotten had it not been for the IRA. But it makes no sense at all to actively be limiting our energy production while our adversaries are weaponizing energy around the world. This is a failure of leadership, and I will continue to do everything in my power to hold this Administration accountable.”
While Interior Secretary Haaland boasted about the plan being the “smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history,” she had nothing to say about the fate of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (“LWCF”), which is fully funded from offshore oil and gas leasing.
Since Congress created the LWCF in 1965, it has provided $5.2 billion for roughly 45,000 conservation projects across the country. It funds everything from maintaining national parks to local trails to wildlife refuges. Still, the LWCF estimates a backlog of conservation projects totaling upwards of $57 billion. A recent study estimated that if no lease sales occurred over the next five years, we’d expect LWCF funding to decrease by 28 percent by 2036. As a result, we should expect the backlogs to keep piling up.
Katmai National Park in Alaska, United States (Jean-Erick PASQUIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Draining LWCF funding will be catastrophic to our public lands, yet “environmental” organizations are adamant we cancel its funding source. I’m not surprised, frankly. Opposition groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Just Stop Oil have long proven their dogmatism toward their preferred technologies blinds them from actually caring about the planet.
Covering large swaths of the Mojave desert with solar panels is more important than the rich habitat and Indigenous sites which occupy them. But if there’s an opportunity to mine uranium or drill for oil, Biden’s Interior Department will squash it and green NGOs will applaud.
Just last year, President Biden urged oil companies to drill more. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm correctly asserted that it’s “not a binary choice” between increasing reliable energy supply to global markets and deploying new clean energy. So American oil and gas stepped up and delivered when the world needed it.
Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives had to delay another fiscal 2024 government funding bill on Thursday, as their slim majority struggled to overcome internal differences on spending levels and so-called “culture war” policies a week ahead of a possible government shutdown.
The delay on a bill to fund the White House, Treasury and other agencies poses a headache for new House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is expected to unveil over the next two days a stopgap spending measure aimed at keeping federal agencies open after current funding expires on Nov. 17.
Lawmakers said they expect the Louisiana Republican to unveil a continuing resolution or “CR” to avert a partial government shutdown as late as Saturday. A House vote is tentatively expected on Tuesday.
“I wish the House would just get to work,” President Joe Biden told reporters as he departed Washington on Thursday.
“The idea we’re playing games with a shutdown at this moment is bizarre,” Biden added. “There’s no need for any of this.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a procedural step to allow his Democrat-led chamber to pass its own stopgap measure to avert a shutdown.
Johnson can afford to lose no more than four Republican votes from his slim 221-212 House majority on legislation opposed by Democrats. But he is under pressure from staunch Republican conservatives to address spending cuts and policy riders Democrats uniformly reject.
“If there’s any kind of CR, there has to be spending reductions,” Rep. Chip Roy, a prominent conservative, told reporters.
But Rep. Tom Cole warned that Johnson may need a “clean” CR at current funding levels to steer well clear of a shutdown.
“We don’t have a lot of time to fool around with failure,” Cole said. “You may stumble into a shutdown without meaning to do it at all.”
Hardline demands for steep spending cuts and policy riders including abortion restrictions have split Republicans for much of 2023, with Republican centrists pushing for a more bipartisan approach that can win support in the Senate.
House Republicans are trying to pass a full slate of 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2024, which began on Oct. 1. They have succeeded on seven, but the remaining five have proven to be problematic.
Johnson had to pull a Thursday vote on legislation to fund the White House, Treasury, Internal Revenue Service and market regulators after as many as eight centrists objected to language denying the District of Columbia funding over a local law that bans employer discrimination against women who seek abortion or contraception.
“We’ve got a handful of members that have some concerns,” said Rep. Steve Womack, who had shepherded the bill through the House Appropriations Committee.
Republican infighting has already led the House to reject an appropriations bill for agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration in September. In recent days, Johnson also pulled a vote on legislation to fund transportation, housing and urban development after several Republican centrists objected to an absence of funding for the U.S. passenger rail service Amtrak.
Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in May set a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending budget Congress passed as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, or FRA. Hardline Republicans, who later removed McCarthy as speaker, had been pushing for an additional $120 billion in cuts.
But on Thursday, hardliners said they had abandoned their $1.47 trillion top-line number.
“That’s out the window. I would like that. It’s probably going to go to $1.52 (trillion) or $1.58 (trillion) or something like that,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
Supporters of Palestinians demonstrate near the Israeli Consulate on May 18, 2021, in Houston. Hundreds of protesters chanted slogans of “Free, free Palestine. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” (Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images)
Left-wing American Jews feel betrayed by the Left.
It’s the Left that remains anti-Israel even after the greatest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and even though most Palestinians and their supporters explicitly call for the destruction of the Jewish state: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Progressive American Jews are shocked by their fellow progressives. But the only thing that is shocking is their shock. Here’s why:
The Left has been calling for an economic boycott of Israel for decades and has labeled Israel an “apartheid” state.
The Left labels America, the most tolerant, multiethnic society in history, “systemically racist.”
The Left called for “defunding the police,” supports attorneys general who abolish bail for violent criminals, and praised demonstrations against America—including many that included vandalism and violence—for more than half a year.
The Left supports all-black dorms and all-black graduations on college campuses. The Left has almost destroyed every liberal ideal regarding race. The University of California, among many other left-wing institutions, has labeled “racist” the liberal ideal of being colorblind, and labeled “racist” the beautiful anti-racist sentiment “There is only one race, the human race.”
The Left—specifically, schools of education and teachers unions—has ruined elementary schools and high schools. And it has destroyed universities as institutions that allow open dialogue.
The Left affirms the lie that men can become women and women can become men, and it
works to crush the life and career of anyone who denies that people can become the other sex. The Left supports the demise of women’s sports by fighting to allow any man who says he is a woman to compete in women’s sports. The Left supports putting children who say they are the other sex on hormone-blocking drugs and supports allowing girls under the age of 21 (and sometimes under 18) who say they are boys to have their breasts surgically removed.
The Left has been waging the most successful war against free speech in American history. As a result, almost half of America’s young people say they believe in free speech but not for “hate speech,” which, of course, means they do not believe in free speech.
The Left asserts that the human fetus at any stage of development is, literally, worthless, certainly worth less than a dog, if the woman carrying it wants an abortion.
The Left has essentially destroyed mainstream journalism. Mainstream media no longer hold truth as an ideal. They promoted the lie for nearly two years that Russia colluded with the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. (Many still do.) They continue to promote the lie that having to present an ID when voting is “racist.”
The Left has poisoned American medicine. The American Medical Association has announced that birth certificates should no longer list the sex of a child. Medical boards threaten to suspend or even revoke the medical licenses of physicians who question the efficacy of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine or prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to patients in the early stages of COVID-19.
The Left has enthusiastically supported the America-hating and Israel-hating Black Lives Matter organization and the flag-defaming athletes who refused to stand for the national anthem.
The Left has promulgated the racist doctrine in most American schools and businesses that all whites are racist.
The Left teaches schoolchildren that they should be ashamed of their past and that their future is awful (due to carbon emissions), and that capitalism is bad and socialism good.
The Left, in short, hates the West, the most decent civilization ever created, and hates America, the most decent country ever created.
The Left, for decades, has declared Zionism racist—meaning that Israel’s existence is inherently immoral—and has charged Israel with “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Yet, now Jews on the Left are simply shocked that the people who hold all these contemptible positions either morally equate Hamas with Israel or actually support those who chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is in fact a call to genocide. Specifically, genocide of the Jews.
Unlike the liberal Jew, the left-wing Jew—the professor, the columnist, the teacher—is a destructive fool. But the liberal Jew is inexcusably naive about the Left, nearly all of whose positions have nothing in common with liberalism, not to mention with the Torah.
Top Stories • Pro-Life Groups Respond to Ohio Vote: We Will Keep Fighting to Protect Babies • Court Orders Baby’s Life Support Removed Without Her Parents’ Consent • Pro-Life Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves Wins Re-Election After Signing Pro-Life Bill That Overturned Roe • Pro-Life Advocate Mark Houck Sues Biden’s DOJ for “Malicious and Retaliatory Prosecution”
More Pro-Life News • No Matter What Happened in Ohio, We Have to Keep Fighting to Protect Babies From Abortion • Pro-Life States Sue Joe Biden to Stop Mail-Order Abortions • Even CNN Confirms Donald Trump Would Beat Joe Biden • Thousands of Pro-Life People Stand Against Abortion in Michigan • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2023 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
A teammate of the Massachusetts high school field hockey player who was hospitalized last week after a male opponent fired a high-powered shot into her face said it’s time for changes to rules that allow males to play on female teams, WFTX-TV reported.
Dighton-Rehoboth team captain Kelsey Bain wrote in a letter to the state’s lnterscholastic Athletic Association that “boys do not belong in girls’ sports,” the station said.
During Thursday’s playoff game against Swampscott High School, the male Swampscott player fired a shot toward the goal, but the ball instead hit a Dighton-Rehoboth player hard in her face. The ball ricocheted far from the point of impact, and the injured player fell to her knees and cried out — as did her teammates. A number of them turned their faces away after coming to her aid, and play was halted while the injured female player was treated.
It's reported that male player (#2 for Swampscott) knocked the teeth out of female player. Males are allowed to play on female teams in MA because of the "equal play act"
“The shrieks and screams of fear and pain that projected from her after being hit filled the stadium,” Bain added in her letter, according to WFTX. “The looks of horror and shock on the faces of the girls surrounding her were also chilling.”
Massachusetts scholastic rules allow males to play sports with females if there’s no male team for that sport available — and vice versa.
But Bain said enough is enough.
“We all witnessed the substantial damage that a male has the ability to cause against a female during a game,” she added in her letter, according to the station. “How much longer does the MIAA plan on using girls as statistical data points before they realize that boys do not belong in girls’ sports?”
The MIAA told WFTX it stands by the Equal Rights Amendment: “We respect and understand the complexity and concerns that exist regarding student safety. However, student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one gender from participating on teams of the opposite gender.”
When play resumed following the injury to the Dighton-Rehoboth player, the male Swampscott player quickly scored a goal. In fact, he scored both goals for Swampscott, giving his team a 2-0 victory and eliminating Dighton-Rehoboth from the tournament.
It won’t come as a shock that the male Swampscott player is reportedly a Northeastern Conference All-Star. He’s also a four-year varsity player and team co-captain, WCVB-TV reported, citing Swampscott Public Schools Athletic Director Kelly Wolff.
Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey said the injured female player was released from the hospital Friday but suffered “significant facial and dental injuries,” the Sun Chronicle reported.
Mark Fisher, a co-founder of a Black Lives Matter chapter in Rhode Island and founder of a new BLM-related organization, is on a media tour advocating for Donald Trump to be president in 2024.
“Everybody else sucks,” Fisher told host Kim Iversen in a recent interview.
After Iversen asked if he thought Trump was simply the best of the worst and “not that great either,” Fisher clarified his views.
“I like Trump, you know. Personally, and I think right now who we have sitting in the Oval Office is just a deep disappointment, you know? I deeply have disdain for him, and I really dislike the vice president, as well.”
Fisher was the co-founder of BLM Rhode Island but has appeared to hold the same views in his new role as the founder of Black Lives Matter, Inc. In January 2022, he told a black business association website that his vision was “to see a world where Black people are no longer subjugated to and oppressed by a white supremacist ideology in any form or facet and at any level, and wherever it may rear its ugly head that it be swiftly eradicated.”
For his new company, the about page lists a nearly identical vision. In the text, the term “black people” is simply replaced by “African American people.”
“We want to create wealth,” Fisher told Iversen. “We want to gain wealth, leave something for our children, you know.”
Being anti-capitalist wasn’t Fisher’s only reasoning for condemning Democrats. He also said their stance on abortion went “against the laws of nature” and the “laws of procreation.” Fisher also claimed that black Americans have been “mental slaves” to the Democratic Party, who have “abused” them for so long. He added that Trump is “the opposite.”
“He’s gonna tell you how it is. He’s gonna give it to you straight. He’s not gonna [be a] hypocrite and stab you in the back like the Democratic Party loves to do.”
At the same time, Fisher recently made headlines for defending those who were jailed following the events of January 6, 2021.
“They’re lambs led to slaughter to be sacrificed as an example for all who might want to dissent in the future,” Fisher told the Epoch Times. “This is what the government does to those who express independent thought and want to stand up for what they believe.”
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House Republicans on the Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for members of the Biden family and several of the family’s business associates. As part of the committee’s investigation into the family’s influence-peddling operations, GOP Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky announced subpoenas for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and the president’s brother, James, on Wednesday.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” Comer said in a statement. “Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence.”
House Republicans officially opened an impeachment inquiry into the president in September following months of controversy over the family’s corporate ventures with new evidence implicating Joe Biden in a criminal bribery scheme. In addition to Hunter and James Biden subpoenaed Wednesday, House Republicans are also seeking testimony from James Biden’s wife, Sara, Joe Biden’s widowed daughter-in-law, Hallie, and former Biden family business partners Rob Walker and Tony Bobulinski. Hallie’s older sister, Elizabeth Secundy and Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, were also asked to answer questions from House lawmakers. Only Walker, Hunter Biden, and James Biden were given formal subpoenas.
Financial records reviewed by the House Oversight Committee show the Biden family laundered money through more than 20 shell companies, most of which were established while Joe Biden was vice president.
“Unlike the many lies President Biden told the American people about his family’s business schemes, bank records don’t lie,” Comer said Wednesday. “These records reveal how the Bidens sold Joe Biden around to the world to benefit the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself, to the detriment of U.S. interests.”
House Republicans held their first impeachment hearing at the end of September, just before the lower chamber came to a weeks-long standstill to elect a new speaker.
“So far, the evidence suggests the Biden family ‘business’ is exactly what it appears to be: an influence-peddling scheme on a scale never before seen in American history,” reported Federalist Senior Editor John Davidson.
Based on what we already know, it’s hard to see how Joe Biden couldn’t have been involved or couldn’t have benefited from his son’s corrupt dealings. Consider just a few items of evidence mentioned during Thursday’s hearing. In one text exchange with his uncle in June 2017, Hunter refers to his father as his “family’s brand” and “only asset.” That echoes something Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner, said in his July testimony to the House Oversight Committee, that the value of adding Hunter to the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma was “the brand” — clearly a reference to then-Vice President Joe Biden. (Hunter had no experience in the energy sector and brought no value to the company other than access to his father.)
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot proposition Tuesday establishing a billion-dollar state-managed energy fund to bolster natural gas power plant infrastructure.
Proposition 7 to create the so-called Texas Energy Fund passed in a 65% to 35% vote with more than 2.5 million ballots cast, according to the latest data compiled by the Texas Secretary of State’s office. The ballot measure — which was supported by the energy industry, but opposed by environmentalists — sets aside $5 billion to guarantee low interest loans for new dispatchable power generation in the state.
“TXOGA is pleased to see infrastructure propositions to expand water, electricity and broadband pass with overwhelming support from voters,” Todd Staples, the president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, said in a statement Tuesday evening. “By voting to approve these propositions, Texans are ensuring that the Lone Star State continues to be the best place to live, work, play and raise a family.”
He added that Proposition 7 will help “strengthen the reliability of our electric grid by ensuring it performs no matter the weather as well as increase the supply of electricity by encouraging additional generation.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation teeing up the vote Tuesday. After the measure passed, he applauded the action, saying it will “strengthen our state power grid.” (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The measure is the final step to enact Senate Bill 2627, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in July.
Under the bill, loans financed by the Texas Energy Fund must have a 20-year term and interest rate of 3%, and can be used either to upgrade existing dispatchable power generation increasing capacity by at least 100 megawatts (MW) or to construct new power generation with a capacity of at least 100 MW. A natural gas power plant with a capacity of 100 MW can power tens of thousands of homes.
The effort to create incentives for power companies to expand natural gas power generation was designed to address growing concerns that the state’s power sector doesn’t have an adequate energy generation that can be quickly dispatched to provide electricity during emergency peak periods.
According to former Public Utility Commission Chair Peter Lake, the state’s dispatchable power supply grew only 1.5% between 2008 and 2020, while, in that same timeframe, the Texas population grew 24%, meaning demand is outpacing supply. The concern is particularly elevated because of Texas’ growing reliance on green energy sources like wind and solar, which aren’t dispatachable, and are intermittent, meaning they are reliant on weather conditions.
A power generating station near Austin, Texas, on July 11, 2022. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The urgency to move forward with meaningful electric market reforms that will incentivize the development of dispatchable generation remains extremely high,” Pablo Vegas, the current president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said earlier this year.
In 2022, Texas generated 26% of all U.S. wind-generated electricity and has led the nation in that category for 17 consecutive years, federal data showed. Natural gas, though, still produces by far the largest share of electricity generation in the state.
In addition to the Texas Oil and Gas Association, ConocoPhillips, Texas Association of Manufacturers, Texas Pipeline Association and Valero Energy Corporation supported Proposition 7. The Sierra Club, Environment Texas, Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance and Texas Consumer Association opposed it.
“We need, and Texans want, more clean energy, not less. There is strong support for more wind and solar energy, more battery storage, more energy efficiency, and more interconnection with the national grid,” said Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas. “Unfortunately, the Legislature ignored these solutions to strengthen our electric grid while protecting consumers and the environment.”
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
“I self-censored,” says 23-year-old Rikki Schlott about how she handled being a right-leaning libertarian at New York University. Pictured: People walk past NYU on Oct. 30, 2023, in New York City. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“I was not genuine in my own beliefs,” says 23-year-old Rikki Schlott in my new video. “I self-censored.”
Why? What did this college student believe that was so unacceptable that she felt she had to hide it?
The fact that she’s a right-leaning libertarian.
“I was afraid to have Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson books on my bookshelf.”
If her classmates at NYU saw that, she says, she might have been “verbally attacked on social media, maligned as whatever ‘ist’ or ‘ism’ people might attack me with.”
So Schlott kept her mouth shut, eventually dropping out of NYU.
I ask her, “If you were doing it again, you’d speak out?”
“I did speak out! Here I am!” She responds.
By “here,” she means my TV studio, where I interviewed her about a new book she co-wrote titled, “The Canceling of the American Mind.” It details how cancel culture grew into a serious problem on campuses.
Examples:
A teacher in Virginia lost his job for calling a transgender student “she.”
At Hamline University, an art history lecturer lost her job simply for showing a painting of Muhammad.
A University of Virginia med student was banished from campus for merely questioning the importance of “microaggressions.”
Then such idiocy spread beyond campuses.
A Levi Strauss executive felt she had to resign because employees objected to her tweets criticizing COVID-19 school closures and mask mandates for children.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top editor was forced to resign after approving an article titled “Buildings Matter Too,” after Black Lives Matter rioters burned down buildings. Some at the paper called his headline “extremely inappropriate” and “tone-deaf.”
And so on.
Now some want to punish people who defend Hamas. Others want to silence Israel’s defenders.
Schlott argues that America needs more free speech, even if it’s hateful. “Being a true free speech champion does require that you defend speech that even you disagree with.”
Schlott’s co-author on “The Canceling of the American Mind” works for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE argues that everything can be said, as long as it’s not direct incitement of violence, willful negligence, or defamation.
Schlott tells me, “You are well within your First Amendment rights to cancel people and to malign them on social media. But the question is, ‘Do we want to live in a culture where that is our first reaction?’”
She points out that her generation started tweeting when they were kids, and many posted stupid things.
“Young people need to be able to screw up.”
Maybe. But based on what I see on my news feeds, it’s people her age who are most eager to “cancel” people.
“It is true that younger Americans tend to be more pro-cancel culture,” she replies. “Millennials have the most positive view, and as you get older, it goes lower and lower. But Gen Z (ages 11 to 26) completely switches that around. Only 8% have a positive view of it. That’s because if you’re a young person who grows up in a graceless society, you’re always looking behind your back. You see friends torn down on social media. You’re not going to want to live in a world like that.”
I push back. “But they perpetuate a world like that!”
“It’s a tyranny of the minority,” she replies. “One squeaky wheel scares the life out of everyone else. Then we self-censor.”
She did that in college.
Students like her kept their mouths shut because they didn’t want to be reported as “biased.” NYU officials, like the secret police in East Germany, even encouraged students to report on others.
She tells me, “When I got to NYU, the first thing I had to do was go pick up my ID card. I found on the back the emergency number, in case you’re in danger, and a bias response hotline in case you’re offended. The university itself sanctioned the idea that you can snitch on your peers.”
She says it’s time for students to push back against school censorship.
“We need to say we want to live in a free speech culture. … Courage is contagious. As soon as I spoke out at NYU, people came out of the woodwork to say, ‘Thank you for saying that! I completely agree with you.’”
Top Stories • Ohio Passes Issue 1 to Allow Killing Babies in Abortions Up to Birth • Ohio Exit Poll on Abortion Way Out of Step With National Polling Data • Trump Leads Biden in Polls Despite Biden Spending Millions on TV Ads • Glenn Youngkin Slams Democrats for Promoting Abortions Up to Birth
More Pro-Life News • Mom Offered Abortion as She Went Into Labor Says No, Her Daughter is Doing Great Now • Thank You Tommy Tuberville for Standing Against Joe Biden’s Abortion Funding • Leftists Claim Christians Can Support Abortion, But the Bible Tells Us to “Choose Life” • CDC Confirms Women’s Mental Health Figures Improving After Roe Overturned • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2023 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
For the past three years, Biden has been beating the “white-supremacy-is-the-greatest-threat-to-our-Homeland” drum with virtually no evidence that it’s happening. While ignoring Black-on-Black crime and murder, and multiple threats and assaults on Jews, etc.
Though Biden tried to sound strong on the side of Israel, but in typical Biden fashion, he appears to be waffling toward a cease-fire and pushing for humanitarian aid that will eventually be spent on more weapons to be used to kill more innocent Israelis.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
More than 100 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed that popular catchwords can stunt critical thinking for 50 years or more. In his latest book, Social Justice Fallacies, revered economist and scholar Thomas Sowell confirms Holmes’ observation by examining the buzzwords that self-described “social justice” proponents commonly use today. He shows that, despite many years — and in some cases even centuries or more — of evidence revealing these words to be nonsense, our media and cultural elites continue touting them in utter defiance of facts.
Social Justice’s False Premise
Consider, for example, the very term “social justice.” It is predicated on the assumption that institutional discrimination is the primary reason for differences among groups of people, whether among races, economic classes, or even between the sexes. It assumes that were it not for such discrimination, all races, groups, and classes would be equally represented in all human endeavors. In other words, human beings are equal not only in their nature and capacities but in theirability todevelop those capacities.
As Sowell documents, however, this assumption is rarely tested empirically. In fact, both the historical record and everyday experience regularly contradict it. For example, not only have homogenous societies had unequal representation among groups of people in various endeavors, but even twin siblings who are raised under the same roof and by the same set of parents show vast differences in aptitude, performance, and cognitive ability. This is because factors beyond both our knowledge and our control — including factors that begin long before birth — heavily influence the development of human capabilities, including intelligence.
Culture and Competence
Some cultural traditions, for example, go back centuries or even millennia and thus continue to orient the developmental capacities of the people living in these cultures today. For instance, Sowell notes that the Germans have been brewing beer for thousands of years, far longer than most other cultures. It is, therefore, no surprise that they tend to be superior at making beer nowadays. Likewise, for reasons that need not concern us here, Jewish people have historically been significantly involved in matters of finance, where they continue to excel to this day.
It is simply folly, however, to believe that government decree could circumvent these longstanding cultural traditions without major catastrophe. Moreover, these “reciprocal inequalities,” as Sowell calls them, rarely amount to one group dominating all fields of human achievement. “Even highly successful groups,” he writes, “have seldom been highly successful in all endeavors. Asian Americans and Jewish Americans are seldom found among the leading athletic stars or German Americans among charismatic politicians.”
Cultural Inequalities Aren’t Fair
Of course, Sowell quickly adds that this does not mean that life is fair for all groups of people, much less to all individuals, or that there is nothing that can be done about injustices in the world. It does mean, however, that we ought to be humble about the limits of both our knowledge and our power to improve things rather than make them worse. As he points out, “We might agree that ‘equal chances for all’ would be desirable. But that in no way guarantees that we have either the knowledge or the power required to make that goal attainable, without ruinous sacrifices of other desirable goals, ranging from freedom to survival.”
Sowell spends several chapters documenting the negative consequences that have followed from decades of government policymakers ignoring the limits of their knowledge. He describes the unintended consequences of minimum wage policies, tax legislation, rent control laws, and policies related to race and sex as well as to welfare, housing, and education.
Affirmative Action and Welfare Backfire
Take, for instance, the issue of affirmative action in education. Sowell exposes the harm these policies have done first and foremost to the recipients themselves. Minority students who gain acceptance to elite schools for which they are not academically prepared often struggle to keep up with the rigorous pace and demanding workload. As a result, they end up either failing or dropping out.
On the other hand, Sowell highlights the positive results that followed from the abolition of affirmative-action policies in California (as decided by voters). “The number of black and Hispanic students graduating from the University of California system as a whole rose by more than a thousand students over a four-year span,” he observes. “There was also an increase of 63 percent in the number graduating in four years with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher.”
A similar trend followed the growth of the welfare state in the 1960s when both crime rates and out-of-wedlock birth rates exploded in minority communities. The two decades prior to the ’60s, however, saw declining crimes. Out-of-wedlock birth rates were lower among minority groups than among the majority white population. Nevertheless, laments Sowell, “intellectual elites, politicians, activists and ‘leaders’ — who took credit for the black progress that supposedly all began in the early 1960s — took no responsibility for the painful retrogressions that demonstrably did begin in the 1960s.”
Beware Man’s Ignorance
All this history and much more is packed into this short but critical book, whose single most important insight may be how little we know about the lives of others. We must, therefore, be careful when making policy decisions that have the potential to affect many people — and possibly even whole societies.
As Sowell warns, “Stupid people can create problems, but it often takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe. They have already done that enough times — and in enough different ways — for us to reconsider, before joining their latest stampedes, led by self-congratulatory elites, deaf to argument and immune to evidence.”
David Weinberger is a freelance writer and book reviewer on topics related to philosophy, culture, history and economics. Follow him on Twitter @DWeinberger03. Email him at davidweinberger916@gmail.com.
In its latest attempt to interfere in state and local elections, the Biden administration is deploying federal agents to monitor polling places in several states during Tuesday’s off-year elections.
The U.S. Constitution charges states — not the federal government — with primary oversight and administration of elections. But according to the highly politicized Department of Justice, state and local election officials can’t be trusted to uphold the law. Thus, the agency has decided to forcibly inject itself into the process.
According to a Monday press release, the DOJ is dispatching federal observers from its Civil Rights Division to “monitor for compliance with the federal voting rights laws” in numerous jurisdictions throughout the country. Among those listed are Union County, New Jersey; Pawtucket and Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Madison County and Panola County, Mississippi; and Prince William County, Virginia.
Regarding Union County, a U.S. district court approved a consent decree proposed by the DOJ earlier this year that forces local election officials to provide “a comprehensive Spanish-language election program for voters” during the state’s Nov. 7 elections. The consent decree — which also authorized federal observers to monitor polling places throughout the county — was filed in conjunction with a DOJ lawsuit, which claimed that a failure by Union County officials to provide such materials constituted a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“The Civil Rights Division enforces the federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all citizens to access the ballot,” the DOJ claimed. “The division regularly deploys its staff to monitor for compliance with the federal civil rights laws in elections in communities all across the country.”
Okay, I’ll say it. This is the closest we, as a nation, have come to pure Socialism.
In addition to New Jersey, Virginia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and several other states will decide the outcome of critically important elections on Tuesday.
This is hardly the first time the DOJ has concocted this type of election meddling. In fact, the agency carried out this same scheme during last year’s midterm elections. As Victoria Marshall wrote in these pages, most of the 64 jurisdictions the DOJ “monitored” during the 2022 elections are “Democrat strongholds or swing districts in states with key midterm contests such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.”
Much like last year, the jurisdictions being surveilled by the DOJ on Tuesday are mostly Democrat strongholds. During Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial race, for example, Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe won Prince William County by nearly 15 points over now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican. Similarly, Union, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket Counties all went to Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election.
The DOJ’s increasing efforts to “monitor” local and state elections appear to be aimed at curtailing GOP poll watchers’ legitimate right to oversee U.S. election administration. After it became clear more conservatives were going to partake in this legal form of election oversight, legacy media began running hit pieces leading up to the 2022 midterms warning that so-called “election denying” MAGA Republicans volunteering as poll watchers were plotting to disrupt elections throughout the country.
While the left’s doomsday predictions (unsurprisingly) never came true, that hasn’t stopped regime-approved media from furthering the lie that election workers are under constant threat from Republicans. Even the Biden DOJ’s own data shows that there is no widespread threat to election workers. Nonetheless, so-called “journalists” continue to parrot their Democrat allies’ falsehoods without a second thought.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis were among several prominent conservatives targeted by a federal censorship operation carried out during the 2020 election, according to a new bombshell congressional report.
Released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Monday, the interim report documents how the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Global Engagement Center (GEC), which fall within the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, respectively, colluded with Stanford University to pressure Big Tech companies into censoring what they claimed to be “disinformation” during the 2020 election.
According to the analysis, this operation aimed to censor “true information, jokes and satire, and political opinions,” with prominent conservatives such as Hemingway and Davis being among the prime targets. Other notable targets include the social media accounts of former President Donald Trump, Newsmax, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Harmeet Dhillon, and Charlie Kirk, to name a few.
As The Federalist previously reported, CISA, which is often called the “nerve center” of the federal government’s censorship operation, “facilitated meetings between Big Tech companies, and national security and law enforcement agencies to address ‘mis-, dis-, and mal-information’ on social media platforms.” Ahead of the 2020 contest, the agency ramped up its censorship efforts by flagging posts for Big Tech companies it claimed were worthy of being censored, some of which called into question the security of voting practices such as mass, unsupervised mail-in voting.
Meanwhile, as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland reported, GEC “funded the development of censorship tools and used ‘government employees to act as sales reps pitching the censorship products to Big Tech.’” One of these GEC-funded nongovernmental entities is the Global Disinformation Index, a so-called “disinformation” tracking organization “working to blacklist and defund conservative news sites,” including The Federalist.
At the heart of the federal government’s censorship apparatus, however, was the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), “a consortium of ‘disinformation’ academics led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory” that coordinated with DHS and GEC “to monitor and censor Americans’ online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election.” According to House Republicans’ Monday report, the initiative was developed “at the request” of CISA during the summer of 2020 and effectively allowed federal officials to “launder [their] censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny.”
During the 2020 election, federal agencies and government-funded entities submitted so-called “misinformation reports” to EIP. Once acquired, EIP misinformation “analysts” would take posts flagged by the aforementioned entities, find similar examples on other Big Tech platforms, compile them into reports, and forward them to these same platforms “with specific recommendations on how [they] should censor the posts.” These EIP reports, which were known as “Jira tickets,” were hidden from the public and “accessible only to select parties, including federal agencies, universities, and Big Tech,” according to the report.
Among the posts flagged by EIP is a Nov. 4, 2020, tweet from Hemingway, in which The Federalist editor-in-chief reported claims from Georgia insiders who said it was “ridiculous [the] media are refusing to admit Trump has won the state.” The tweet also included a link to an Insider Advantage article calling Georgia for Trump. Another Hemingway post classified as “misinformation” by EIP is a Nov. 8, 2020, tweet linking to a Federalist article titled, “America Won’t Trust Elections Until The Voter Fraud Is Investigated.”
Meanwhile, EIP flagged a Nov. 4, 2020, tweet thread by Davis reporting how Pennsylvania’s Democrat-controlled Supreme Court “gave Pennsylvania Democrats a license to print post-election ballots, fill them out for Biden over the next three days, and record them without a postmark.” The censors also flagged another Nov. 4, 2020, tweet, in which Davis claimed “The absolute best evidence right now that Democrats, media, and Big Tech are conspiring to steal the election is Big Tech censoring anyone and everyone who observes that Big Tech is using corrupt censorship to steal the election for Democrats.”
But it’s not just reporting and claims about the 2020 election that EIP censors were flagging as so-called “misinformation.” Several examples highlighted in House Republicans’ report demonstrate the willingness of federal officials to censor users posting other truthful or satirical information.
In one instance, EIP analysts requested that Twitter, which has since been rebranded as X, censor a Nov. 4, 2020, tweet from Tillis thanking his supporters for propelling him to victory because EIP “deemed his declaration of victory to be premature” despite Tillis winning reelection. In another case, EIP censors flagged an Oct. 24, 2020, tweet from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who jokingly claimed he filled out and submitted mail-in ballots on behalf of his deceased relatives.
“The suppression of conservative politicians and media resulting from this censorship operation deprived countless American voters from exposure to a range of perspectives on the most important political issues in the days and weeks surrounding a general election,” the report reads. “Critically, the EIP conducted its censorship operation at the direction of, in collaboration with CISA, a federal government agency actively seeking to undermine free expression and the sitting President. The significance of these facts cannot be overstated.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined “The Faulkner Focus” Tuesday to call out the State Department under the Biden administration, stressing that there is a “wing” of officials aligned with pro-Palestinian “Squad” Democrats. On Monday, a leaked memo showed State Department staffers blasting the administration’s policies toward Israel.
MIKE POMPEO: I wish I could tell you I’m surprised, but having led that organization, the State Department, this is the AOC, Rashida Tlaib wing of the State Department. These are classic appeasers who don’t understand that the Israelis are acting in self-defense. They are taking out a terror threat that killed 1,400 of their citizens. They have not only the right to do it, but an obligation to do it. And so, I saw this at the State Department during my thousand days as Secretary of State. There is a progressive element that sits inside that organization that pulls and pulls and pulls. And we’ve already seen apparently one senior person quit. You know, frankly, I hope folks who don’t understand how to act in America’s interests, I hope they’ll all decide that they no longer want to be part of an important institution, the United States diplomatic corps.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 2023 Munich Security Conference on Feb. 18, 2023 in Munich. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)
State Department staffers wrote a scathing internal memo urging the Biden administration to change its public stance toward Israel and support a ceasefire, Politico has reported. The leaked memo was submitted to the department’s Dissent Channel, where employees are invited to express policy disagreements, the outlet said. It is the latest incident showing internal strife within the department over the U.S. support for its closest ally in the Middle East.
The message reportedly demands the U.S. support a ceasefire and be willing to publicly criticize “Israeli military tactics and treatments of Palestinians,” the outlet reported.
Fox News’ Kristine Parks contributed to this report
For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media
Finger-wagging Dem voter loses it on GOP poll worker, Matthew Hurtt, in curse-laden rant where he accuses Hurtt of stealing the election, supporting lynching, and being a religious bigot. CREDIT: Matthew Hurtt
Unhinged! Who wants to bet he has a “Hate Has No Home Here” sign in his yard? 95 percent chance. https://t.co/AsRY81Wf6q
A Virginia Democrat accosted and cursed out a Republican poll greeter in an “unhinged” Election Day confrontation that has gone viral. Video footage shows a progressive voter approaching Matthew Hurtt, a poll worker and director of professional services at the Leadership Institute, in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday.
“You guys tried to overturn the election, you might as well have been walking up to my head on the way to the polling station and putting a gun to my head and try to tell me not to vote,” an unidentified man wearing an “I voted” sticker said.
Voter in Arlington curses out GOP poll greeter. (Matthew Hurtt)
The unhinged individual then accused the GOP poll worker of “trying to overthrow elections with violence” as he greeted people on their way to vote.
“You try to steal my vote next year, I’m going to f—ing remember you personally,” he said, before pulling his phone out and taking a photo of the Republican greeter.
The GOP greeter continued to film the man as he welcomed passersby, racking up over 5 million views in a viral video on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Democrat voter in Arlington confronts polling greeter. (Matthew Hurtt)
The Democrat then approached a bystander and advised him not to be “buddy, buddy with these people because they put on a face of a good neighbor” before accusing Hurtt of being racist, supporting lynching, and being ” f—ing Bible-beating bigots and freaks.”
“And they’re not good neighbors,” the man said as he finally walked away from the scene toward his Prius.
“The guy started before he went in, and I assumed he would keep it going when he came out… so I hit record,” Hurt said in response to a reply on his video.
Voters are casting ballots in Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia on Tuesday, in several key races that could make a huge impact that reverberates into next year’s presidential election cycle. Voters in Virginia will determine which political party controls its state legislature in elections experiencing record amounts of cash that could serve as a barometer for the 2024 presidential contest.
Republicans currently hold a slim 52-48 majority in Virginia’s House of Delegates, while Democrats control its Senate 22-17. Voters will decide all 40 of the state’s Senate races and all 100 delegate contests in Tuesday’s elections.
Fox News’ Matteo Cina and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.
Aubrie Spady is a Freelance Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.
Ask people why they’re leaving blue states like California, and they’ll give you a lot of answers: more freedom, a lower cost of living, a more family-friendly quality of life. But a lot of them are just tired. Tired of the lockdowns, tired of the crime, tired of the preening politicians who won’t do anything to address the real issues they’re facing.
As governor of Arkansas, I’ve had my chance to ask that question a lot of times. That’s because our state has received a steady influx of new residents for years. Today, there are thousands of California refugees – and thousands more from other states – in our state.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Getty Images)
This year alone, about 32,000 new people moved to Arkansas, about 10% of them from California. Arkansas is now one of the top five states for inbound migration. And the flow isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
That’s because my administration is focused on the reforms that will make Arkansas the best state in the country to live, work and raise a family.
Just in my first few months in office, we passed the boldest education reforms in the country, including universal school choice, cut taxes not once, but twice, and are making historic investments in outdoor recreation. We’re cracking down on crime, getting woke nonsense out of our schools, and keeping kids safe online.
I think these changes will be the icing on the cake for those who are already looking at how good we have it in Arkansas. Take our cost of living, for example. It’s nearly 40% cheaper to live in Little Rock than in Los Angeles. Housing is about 60% less expensive; health care is 15% cheaper. Imagine a family struggling to eke it out in California. For $500,000 – no small sum – they could afford a tiny fixer-upper in East LA. With that money in Little Rock, you could get a modern, 4,000-square-foot, custom-built home in one of our best neighborhoods.
Taxes are another way we beat our coastal competition. Already this year, we cut the top individual income tax rate twice and built the groundwork to phase out the state income tax entirely. Our tax rate is about a third of that in California and going down.
We’re able to slash taxes so heavily because our economy is booming, creating billion-dollar surpluses. As taxes continue to fall, our economy will continue to rise – the opposite of the Left Coast’s downward spiral.
But moving to Arkansas isn’t just a pocketbook decision – it’s about quality of life as well. As 48 million people discovered for themselves in 2022, Arkansas is, for good reason, the Natural State. From world-class duck hunting to fly-fishing, there are outdoor adventures for everyone – many of which are located just minutes from our urban centers.
Arkansas’ 52 state parks are free to residents and visitors alike and offer a host of outdoor opportunities right at your doorstep. Four of Arkansas’ state parks – Mount Nebo State Park, Hobbs State Park, Pinnacle Mountain State Park, and Devil’s Den State Park – host a collection of world-class mountain biking trails known as the Monument Trails that Outside Magazine just named the best in America.
Arkansas is God’s country. I firmly believe that you haven’t lived until you float the clear, free-flowing waters of the Buffalo River through the Ozark Mountains or watch a sunrise on a duck hunt in flooded timber.
Arkansas is also the land of opportunity, where Sam Walton grew a little five-and-dime store into the most successful business on the face of the earth.
Arkansas is the home of legends like Al Green and Johnny Cash who pioneered a new American sound. It’s where Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine struck a blow against racism and blazed a trail for civil rights.
Arkansas is my home, and we’d love to welcome you here too, as a tourist, as an investor, and even as our newest neighbor. Come and see what we have to offer. I promise you won’t regret it.
President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Monday that a three-day fighting pause could help secure the release of some hostages, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing two U.S. and Israeli officials. Citing the U.S. official, Axios reported that under a proposal being discussed between the U.S., Israel and Qatar, Hamas would release 10-15 hostages and use the pause to verify the identities of all the hostages and deliver a list of names of the people it is holding.
In a statement on Monday, the White House said Biden and Netanyahu discussed “the possibility of tactical pauses to provide civilians with opportunities to safely depart from areas of ongoing fighting, to ensure assistance is reaching civilians in need, and to enable potential hostage releases.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Axios report.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a Republican effort to win quick approval for a bill providing emergency aid to Israel that passed the House of Representatives last week, but that provides no assistance for Ukraine’s war against Russia.
Republican Senator Roger Marshall said: “Time is of the essence and it’s imperative that the Senate not delay delivering this crucial aid to Israel another day,” he said.
Democrats objected, stressing the importance of providing aid to Ukraine as well as Israel, in addition to humanitarian aid, border security funding and money to push back against China in the Indo-Pacific that was in a $106 billion funding request President Joe Biden sent to Congress last month. They also accused House Republicans of playing politics with the crisis in Israel, delaying aid for the Jewish State by tying support to cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, a favorite target for Republicans, rather than writing a bipartisan bill.
The House bill would provide $14.3 billion for Israel as it responds to a deadly Oct. 7 attack by Islamist Hamas militants, but also cut the same amount of money from the IRS. The funds would include $4 billion for procurement of Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense systems to counter short-range rocket threats as well as some transfers of equipment from U.S. stocks.
“Our allies in Ukraine can no more afford a delay than our allies in Israel,” said Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The House vote was largely along party lines. Democrats called the proposed IRS cuts a politically motivated “poison pill” that would increase the U.S. budget deficit by cutting back on tax collection. They also said it was essential to continue to support Ukraine.
To become law, legislation must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate as well as the Republican-majority House, and be signed into law by Biden, a Democrat. The White House had said Biden would veto the House bill.
Senate leaders are writing their own supplemental funding bill and hope to introduce it as soon as this week.
“The federal government, disinformation ‘experts’ at universities, Big Tech, and others worked together through the Election Integrity Partnership to monitor & censor Americans’ speech,” Rep. Jim Jordan, pictured Oct. 20, posted on X. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The federal government coordinated with an array of entities to censor Americans’ speech online, a newly released report from the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government shows. In particular, the report shows that the Department of Homeland Security worked with Stanford University and the Global Engagement Center, which works across agencies but sits under the State Department, to create a streamlined process for identifying and censoring posts.
These groups formed the Election Integrity Partnership, which the report shows worked to censor and limit certain posts going into the 2020 presidential election. The report argues the federal government was “heavy handed” with universities and social media companies and censored conservative viewpoints far more often than liberal points of view under the guise of combating disinformation.
“Created in the summer of 2020 ‘at the request’ of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the EIP provided a way for the federal government to launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny,” the report said.
The report lays out how EIP analysts searched social media sites for undesirable content.
From the report:
The EIP’s misinformation ‘analysts’ next scoured the internet for additional examples for censorship. If the submitted report flagged a Facebook post, for example, the EIP analysts searched for similar content on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and other major social media platforms. Once all of the offending links were compiled, the EIP sent the most significant ones directly to Big Tech with specific recommendations on how the social media platforms should censor the posts, such as reducing the posts’ ‘discoverability,’ ‘suspending [an account’s] ability to continue tweeting for 12 hours,’ ‘monitoring if any of the tagged influencer accounts retweet’ a particular user, and, of course, removing thousands of Americans’ posts.
This report is the latest in a series of reports, including the “Twitter Files,” which show the federal government pressured private and nonprofit organizations to quiet certain viewpoints. Much of this push for censorship was fueled by concerns that former President Donald Trump was propelled to the White House by misleading news and content on social media sites.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sparked headlines last month when he said that Twitter was an “FBI subsidiary” before billionaire Elon Musk took over. Johnson raised concerns again after this latest report.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., pointed to the report as well, pushing for his legislation, the Free Speech Protection Act. Paul said that under this legislation, which he co-wrote with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the government “will be stripped of its ability to shroud its actions in secrecy and infringe upon the First Amendment rights of the American people.”
This latest report includes documents obtained from Standard that show examples of the censorship and the coordination between federal and private entities.
“The American people deserve to know if they were targeted by their own government and so-called ‘disinformation’ experts,” Jordan, who leads the weaponization committee, wrote on X.
Top Stories • Ohio Governor Mike DeWine: Vote No on Issue 1, Abortion Up to Birth is Too “Radical” • Kentucky Abortions Drop to 0 as Abortion Ban Starts Saving Babies • Joe Biden Fights in Court to Turn Emergency Rooms Into Abortion Centers • Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Protecting Babies From Abortion is “Reasonable”
More Pro-Life News • OBGYN: I’ve Never Met a Woman Who Regretted Giving Birth, I’ve Met Many Who Regretted Abortions • Tommy Tuberville’s Pro-Life Holds Stop Promotion of Woke Military Leaders • Former Football Player Ben Watson: Oppose Issue 1, Don’t Abort Viable Babies • Pro-Life Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron Can Beat Pro-Abortion Gov. Andy Beshear • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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Cartoon – Obama is trying to play the middle in the Hamas-Israeli conflict by taking a position that seems to give leniency to Hamas in spite of their subhuman bloody attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. Obama has a lot of blood on his hand from when he gave Iran pallets of cash to Iran in an effort to get a ridiculous nuclear deal that has quite possibly been used in this attack or ones similar to this. At least when Trump eluded that there are “Very fine people on both sides,” he wasn’t referring to the Nazis or white supremacists’ part of the crowd and made that very clear. However, the media leaves that part out.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A female Massachusetts high school field hockey player was sent to the hospital Thursday for “significant facial and dental injuries” during a state tournament game after a male on the opposing team hit her in the face with a field hockey ball. In the video circulating social media, viewers can see the male player (No. 2) hit the ball, which launches up and hits his unnamed female opponent in the mouth. After the hit, the girl is heard screaming while her teammates look on with their hands laced over their mouths in shock.
The game was between the number No. 12 Swampscott Big Blue and the No. 21 Dighton-Rehoboth Falcons.
It's reported that male player (#2 for Swampscott) knocked the teeth out of female player. Males are allowed to play on female teams in MA because of the "equal play act"
According to the Media Research Center, the male player in question is Sawyer Groothuis, who plays for Swampscott and is a “Northeastern Conference All-Star in the women’s league.” The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association handbook effectively allows for men to compete in women’s sports and vice versa.
While speaking with the media, Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey called for the MIAA to take a “renewed approach” to protecting student athletes, but stopped short of saying men should be prohibited from competing in women’s sports.
Rather than highlight the unnamed female players’ injury, at least one local news outlet completely ignored the egregious nature of a man dominating Thursday’s game. In its brief “roundup” of local sporting events, for example, ItemLive ran with the headline, “Big Blue, big-time performance from Groothuis,” and didn’t even mention Groothuis sending the opposing female player to the hospital.
“Swampscott led at the break thanks to a goal from Northeastern Conference All-Star Sawyer Groothuis,” the article reads. “The Big Blue had a corner and the ball was loose in front of the goal. Groothuis was quickest to react, and poked it home for the early cushion. In the second half, it was Groothuis again finding the back of the net and sealing the game.”
You’d like to believe that a girl screaming out in agony and being sent to the hospital after getting a ball to the face would warrant at least brief mention, if not a paragraph. Especially when considering that the ItemLive write-up of the game is about Groothuis and his performance.
But at the end of the day, many local media outlets are just as bad at their jobs as their national counterparts. It doesn’t matter that the aforementioned female athlete got knocked out of a state tournament game because a male decided he wanted to impose his will on women’s athletics. All that matters is advancing the leftist agenda — no matter what.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Rolling Stone published an article over the weekend vilifying Speaker Mike Johnson for being a Christian who actively protects his teenage son from the damaging effects of porn. In the clip scrutinized by Rolling Stone, Johnson readily explains to a crowd at Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana, that he uses a subscription-based accountability software called Covenant Eyes to notify him if his son views vile imagery and sexual content online.
Johnson testified to the efficacy of Covenant Eyes by noting that Jack has “a clean slate” and does not appear to regularly view internet porn, something that can’t be said for 73 percent of his son’s teenage peers.
The speaker’s attempt to protect himself and his son from content that negatively affects sexual and mental development is admirable parenting and often hailed as best practice in evangelical circles around the country.
Rolling Stone, however, led its article by dishonestly accusing Johnson and his son of “monitor[ing] each other’s porn intake,” of which Johnson already indicated there was none. The publication then framed Johnson’s vigilance as “creepy Big Brother-ness” that matched his track record as a “faith-obsessed, election-denying, far-right Christian nationalist” with a staunch belief in traditional marriage and in the sanctity of life in the womb.
The publication tried to suggest that the scorn it directed at the Louisiana native is rooted in concerns that the third-party technology company “might ‘compromise’ Johnson’s devices.”
But Rolling Stone’s use of the word “admits” in its headline reveals the paper’s belief that Johnson’s preventative actions should be viewed as villainous and something worth hiding.
According to corporate media like Rolling Stone, faithful Christians like Johnson (or even former Vice President Mike Pence) who participating in normal Christian practices are “faith-obsessed” and “far-right Christian nationalist[s].”
Just weeks after dogpiling on the new speaker for living out his faith, leftist mouthpieces, Democrat strategists, and Biden ad writers quickly amplified the publication’s unfair framing and even used it to insinuate that Johnson is a pervert.
Rolling Stone routinely publishes articles lamenting the “Christian right” and evangelical conservatives like Johnson.
The publication’s latest attack on the speaker of the House, however, proves Rolling Stone understands nothing about the voting bloc that it blames for helping former President Donald Trump get elected.
Rolling Stone did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
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.
Conservative media personality Steven Crowder allegedly obtained three pages of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’s manifesto, revealing that the transgender-identifying killer targeted Christian school children because they are white.
“[G]oing to fancy private schools with those fancy khakis + sports backpacks w/ their daddies mustangs + convertibles,” Hale wrote in her “DEATH DAY” plan shared by Crowder. “I wish to shoot you weak-ss d-cks w/ your mop yellow hair wanna kill all you little crackers!!! Bunch of little f-ggots w/ your white privileges,” she added.
The Federalist reached out to the Nashville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), but neither would confirm or deny the validity of the manifesto. The Federalist also reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) but did not hear back.
If verified, the three pages published by Crowder are the first glimpse the public has had of Hale’s manifesto since she gunned down three children and three staff members at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, last March. For 7 months, the FBI, TBI, and Nashville Police Department have hid the manifesto from public view.
Hale’s alleged manifesto reveals that Hale’s attack was premeditated. The leaked documents include minute-by-minute details of her planned attack, such as the time Hale intended to arrive at the Covenant school and how long it would take her to park her car. Hale even predicted that she would die the day of the shooting, writing at the bottom of her “DEATH DAY” schedule, “Time 2 die.”
The manifesto includes many disturbing quotes like her enthusiastic desire to “Kill those kids!!!” and to obtain a “high death count.” She also wrote, “Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready…I hope my victims aren’t.”
Journalist Ian Miles Cheong pointed out that Hale’s stated hatred of white people and white privilege is an outgrowth of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” ideology. “[Hale] is a product of DEI,” Cheong wrote on X. “This is why the media industrial complex, the government, and the institutions refused to publish it. They are all complicit. Hale’s actions and her motive go against the narrative that ‘white supremacy’ is the greatest threat to democracy. The greatest threat to freedom and democracy is DEI. It is the woke mind virus.”
Google and Facebook have reportedly censored news of the manifesto’s leak. This censorship is reminiscent of X’s actions back in March, when the social media company mass-suppressed reports on the “Trans Day Of Vengeance,” which was originally scheduled to take place the same week as Hale’s attack. Federalist CEO Sean Davis was among the censored, and his X account was locked for simply sharing a poster about the scheduled event.
If the leaked manifesto is real, it confirms that despite the Biden Justice Department (DOJ) knowing Hale’s attack was racially motivated, the DOJ did not investigate the shooting as a hate crime.
This adds to the dismissiveness and disrespect the Biden administration has shown to the Nashville shooting victims and their families. Thus far, the Biden administration has done nothing to seriously investigate the perverse, bigoted incentives behind the murders of the six slain Christians, nor has it, at the very least, done anything to memorialize the victims.
Recall, also, that in the wake of the shooting, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre came out with statements in support of the “trans community,” and Vice President Kamala Harris met with rogue, insurrection-instigating Tennessee state representatives instead of the victims’ families.
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.
A New Hampshire court dismissed Democrat-backed lawsuits contesting the legality of the state’s voter ID law on Wednesday, marking a major win for Republicans and election integrity advocates.
Writing for the Hillsborough Superior Court, Justice Charles Temple ruled that a series of challenges filed against New Hampshire’s voter ID law lacks legal standing because plaintiffs failed to provide evidence showing their ability to vote was impeded by the law in question. In their original lawsuit against New Hampshire’s Republican secretary of state and attorney general, several state voters, along with 603 Forward and Open Democracy Action (two leftist organizations), claimed SB 418 violated provisions of the New Hampshire Constitution.
The Republican National Committee, New Hampshire Republican State Committee, and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) PAC were intervenor-defendants in the case.
Signed into law by GOP Gov. Chris Sununu last year, SB 418 altered the process by which voters verify their identity when casting their ballot. Under the law, voters who fail to present an approved form of ID would be instructed to fill out an “affidavit ballot,” at which point he or she must then fill out and submit a series of documents proving he or she is eligible to vote. If a voter does not return a copy of the required information within seven days of the election, that voter’s ballot will not be certified.
In his Wednesday ruling, Temple noted how plaintiffs were unable to document any evidence proving their rights were, “or will be,” violated by the law.
“In sum, it seems abundantly clear to the Court that the ‘rights’ at issue in this litigation are the constitutional rights of New Hampshire’s voters, which the organizational plaintiffs maintain have been (or will be) violated by SB 418,” Temple wrote. “However, under long-standing case law, the organizational plaintiffs may only challenge the constitutionality of SB 418 based on an invasion of their own rights. … For the reasons stated above, the plaintiffs have failed to identify the necessary ‘present legal or equitable right’ belonging to them ‘to which the [defendants] [are] asserting an adverse claim.’”
Temple furthermore granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ requests that SB 418 be declared unlawful and an injunction prohibiting its enactment and enforcement.
“Voter ID laws do not harm eligible voters, instead, they identify those people ineligible to vote, including non-citizens,” RITE President Derek Lyons said in a statement celebrating Wednesday’s ruling. “Every case rejecting activists’ attempts to upend state election law helps restore voters’ confidence in the ballot box.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
On a sunny, brisk weekday in Sterling, Va., state senate candidate Juan Pablo Segura is on a world tour of sorts. Andres Ruiz, a pastor who works with Segura’s campaign on Latino outreach, gestured to a block of strip-mall of restaurants with a grin. “See? You can go from Peru to Bolivia, Mexico, and around the corner is Venezuela!”
Segura, a Republican entrepreneur vying to be Virginia’s first Latin-American state senator, is courting the immigrant community in the competitive 31st Senate District, a bid to earn both new and disaffected voters in a population he says Democrats have taken for granted. Last week, it was working.
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
It could also be a chance to capitalize on President Biden’s losses among Hispanic voters, where the president’s lead has fallen from 12 points in NYT battleground polling to single digits since September. It’s part of a larger shift among all nonwhite voters since 2020, where Biden has seen almost a 20 percent drop in support. If Republicans can attempt to woo them, it would happen in swing districts like the one where Segura is pounding the pavement.
Twenty-year-old Katie Rivas, working the register at her father’s small Loudoun County market, said she was excited to cast her very first vote for Segura next week at her former high school. Edgar Martinez, an administrator at a local church, said he’s been in Virginia more than 30 years, but this will be his first vote for state senate.
“Republican principles are in a lot of ways immigrant principles,” Segura said, referencing the newly redrawn district’s 14% Latino population, along with double-digit Asian and multiracial segments. “This race is really a microcosm for what the coalition can look like.”
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is also a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
Every state seat is up for grabs, but the competitive universe is about seven Senate seats (either party must win 4 for control) and 10 Delegate seats. Republicans currently hold the House and Democrats, the Senate.
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is also a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
As Segura walked the district, he chatted in his fluent Spanish with a pair of women enjoying Peruvian chicken as a telenovela played on the restaurant TV, and a group of 20-somethings at a Mexican restaurant’s bar. These voters shared with him a mix of economic concerns, wariness of Democrats on social issues and public safety, particularly among church-going Latinos, and pride in potentially electing a member of the Latin community. Segura is a native Virginian whose family hails from Argentina.
Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin addresses the Economic Club of Washington’s luncheon event at the Marriott Marquis on September 26, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In 2022, national issue polling showed Republicans with commanding leads in what voters cared about, but the party couldn’t overcome candidate quality issues and a top-down aversion to early voting. The expected red wave never washed ashore.
This year in Virginia, “top issues for Republicans and Independents…are the economy and inflation, at 41% and 30% respectively, while Democrats said abortion is their highest concern, at 25%.”
On a recent weekend, door-knockers with Americans for Prosperity walked pumpkin-dotted porches in Northern Virginia, politely crossing paths with activists for Segura’s Democratic opponent, Russett Perry. Reaching people on the economy, education, and public safety with “policy leaders who believe in freedom and opportunity,” is what voters want, said C.J. Sailor, state director of AFP, who says the organization tallied more than 700,000 voter contacts in the cycle. “It’s so important to connect with voters about what’s at stake.”
Youngkin’s state operation has done three things to prevent a repeat of 2022 and preserve the term-limited executive’s chance at expanding his legislative agenda. They worked on candidate quality, going 10-for-10 in contested primaries where Youngkin backed a candidate.
“We really focused on finding good candidates that could run good campaigns, that could effectively communicate what they want to do in Richmond and who would be good public servants,” said Dave Rexrode, a senior adviser to Youngkin.
The state party rolled out an early-voting effort in July they say got buy-in from candidates, the state party, and local activists. The push has ruffled feathers in Segura’s district, where the area’s liberal prosecutor cease-and-desist letter over having a mariachi band and a taco truck at one of his “early-vote fiestas.” Segura said such events have been attracting hundreds of new and infrequent voters, which is what Republicans must do to win these uphill-climb districts.
“We’re certainly seeing a lot of good progress, and I think it’s gonna pay dividends for us in these targeted races where the margins are going to be incredibly close,” Rexrode said.
Finally, the party’s operation spent money early defining candidates positively while Youngkin himself staked out a “compassionate consensus” position on abortion— a 15-week limit with exceptions— that gave Republican candidates a position to embrace, making it harder for Democratic opponents to claim they want the kind of early bans that risked swing and suburban voters in 2022.
“One of the big lessons learned from 2022 is we can’t just let Democrats get way with their fear-mongering on the issue,” Rexrode said. “We have to clearly articulate where we stand on the issue but also explain where they stand on the issue,” which he said represents only a very small minority of Virginia voters.
Segura and the rest of the battleground candidates also hope to be buoyed by Youngkin’s popularity. Youngkin’s approval rating has been above 50 percent all year and goes as high as 60% with Independent voters. Notably absent from the constant attack ads on Virginia TV and radio are attacks on the governor himself. Instead, many Democrats are running on promises to work across the aisle with the governor.
Youngkin was propelled to the governor’s mansion in 2021 on his own political savvy and a normie-dad vibe, bolstered by a series of missteps by Virginia Democrats. Most notably, former Gov. Terry McAulliffe threw in with teachers’ unions to keep schools closed for more than a year during the pandemic, and pooh-poohed parents’ concerns, making parental rights an issue that still resonates in a place like Loudoun County, which became ground zero for education fights. Joshua Raimundo, strategic director with the LIBRE initiative in Virginia, said education is a top issue for Hispanic voters in the state, who favor school choice in large numbers.
“They (Democrats) have forgotten the Latino,” Martinez said as he showed Segura out of the church lobby and back into the autumn sun. “We are traditional values. I don’t see the Democrats support that anymore at all. We want to see you at the state to help Glenn Youngkin!”
Next week, we’ll find out whether new messengers, a popular governor, and a conversion on early voting can improve on the GOP’s 2022 performance and lay the groundwork for this battleground state in 2024.
Mary Katharine Ham is an OutKick columnist. She is a writer, speaker, and Georgia Bulldog who built patience and resilience waiting 41 years for a national championship and now uses those skills to parent four children. She hosts a podcast called “Getting Hammered.”
Some GOP pollsters have considered former President Donald Trump having all but won the Republican presidential primary, and now his support in the latest Rasmussen Reports poll has reached a majority 50% among likely voters.
Trump now leads the field by 38 points after having pulled 45% support in September’s edition of the Rasmussen poll.
The full GOP primary results:
Trump 50%
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 12%
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 9%
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie 5%
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 3%
Former Vice President Mike Pence 3%
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. 2%
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson 1%
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum 0%
Undecided 14%
Notably, Pence has since officially ended his campaign, saying, “it is not my time.”
When the nationwide poll expands to include Democrat and third-party voters for those with open primaries, the also-rans pick up a little bit of support against Trump.
“In states with open primaries — allowing voters to choose which primary they vote in without regard for their party registration — Trump’s advantage could be diluted by the potential ‘crossover’ vote,” according to the Rasmussen Reports analysis.
“While Trump gets 63% of the vote among self-identified Republican voters, the former president is supported by only 33% of Democrats and 46% of unaffiliated voters who say they’re likely to vote in their state’s 2024 GOP primaries.
“Several of Trump’s primary rivals — including DeSantis, Haley, and Christie — draw a significant share of their support from Democrats and unaffiliated voters.”
Rasmussen Reports surveyed 1,344 likely Republican primary voters and 2,015 likely U.S. primary voters Oct. 26-31 and Nov. 1-2, 2023. The margin of error for GOP primary voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
The Internal Revenue Service opened an audit into the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative nonprofit that has exposed the Biden administration. Pictured: Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel testifies before the Senate Finance Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 19. (Photo: Kent Nishimura, Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
The Internal Revenue Service has moved to audit a conservative group that has exposed the radicalism of some of President Joe Biden’s nominees to senior administrative posts, and in so doing, led him to withdraw their candidacies.
The American Accountability Foundation has exposed numerous Biden nominees, and it published emails showing that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had encouraged the IRS to target conservative organizations, including AAF, for extra scrutiny and investigation.
“Senator Whitehouse has repeatedly called for the IRS to investigate AAF—by name,” AAF President Tom Jones told The Daily Signal in an emailed statement Monday. “Attacking groups like ours has been a priority for Senator Whitehouse and it appears the Biden admin has heeded his calls.”
“We’re auditing your organization’s Form 990 for the tax year ended December 31, 2021,” an IRS revenue agent wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to AAF. The organization provided a copy of the letter to The Daily Signal.
The IRS insisted it does not launch audits for partisan reasons. A spokesman said he could not confirm the audit.
“Under the federal tax law, federal employees can neither confirm nor deny that a particular organization is or is not being audited,” IRS spokesman Anthony Burke told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Monday. “We’re precluded from disclosing tax return information.”
Burke directed The Daily Signal to IRS Publication 556, which explains the examination of returns.
“AAF is being attacked because it is successful,” Jones said. He mentioned a few of the Biden nominees AAF criticized whose nominations Biden later revoked.
When Biden nominated David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Jones unearthed allegations that Chipman, who had served as a special agent at ATF until 2012, had remarked that “African American agents … must have been cheating” because they passed an exam. Biden withdrew Chipman’s nomination after AAF revealed the alleged comments.
When Biden nominated Gigi Sohn to join the Federal Communications Commission, AAF purchased billboards and ran newspaper and digital ads opposing her nomination. AAF highlighted the Fraternal Order of Police’s opposition to Sohn, which noted her statements indicating “serious animus towards law enforcement officers.” Sohn withdrew her nomination following the scrutiny.
AAF also warned that Saule Omarova, then a nominee for comptroller of the currency, had apparently joined a self-declared Marxist group on Facebook in 2019. Biden also withdrew her nomination.
“Whether it is Gigi Sohn at the FCC, David Chipman at the ATF, Saule Omarova as Biden’s bank czar, there are numerous people who have been exposed because of AAF’s work,” Jones told The Daily Signal. “Apparently, the administration has decided they want to stop that by weaponizing the IRS against us.”
In 2010, conservative groups reported waiting longer than usual to receive verification for tax-exempt status from the IRS. Groups claimed the IRS had targeted them for their political and ideological stances, but the Obama administration denied any ideological discrimination. In October 2017, the Department of Justice settled two cases in the IRS targeting scandal. In a class-action lawsuit involving 428 conservative plaintiffs, the IRS agreed to pay $3.5 million.
Chief Justice John Roberts—seen here receiving the Henry J. Friendly Medal at the American Law Institute’s 2023 annual dinner in Washington on May 23—needs to rein in the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. (Photo: Sarah L. Voisin/ The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Federal courts have their own administrative state, and that’s a problem. Like many of its executive branch counterparts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts came into existence during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal push to establish supposedly expert administrators. Established in 1939 after FDR’s failed court-packing plan, the “AO” (as it has come to be known) nominally has a narrow mandate—“to provide administrative support to federal courts.”
In fact, two federal appellate courts that have examined the relationship of the AO vis-a-vis the federal judiciary have said that the AO “was created to perform, and historically has performed, a limited ministerial function.” It was not, they said, “intended to govern or make policy for the Judiciary.”
It would raise serious constitutional concerns for it to do so, since the AO itself is a not an entity under Article III of the Constitution. That job instead has been assigned to the Judicial Conference of the United States, which serves as the “Judiciary’s principal policy-making body.”
The chief justice presides over the Judicial Conference, which is “comprised of the chief judge of each judicial circuit, the Chief Judge of the Court of International Trade, and a district judge from each regional judicial circuit, who is elected for a term of not less than three nor more than five successive years as established by majority vote of all circuit and district judges of the circuit represented.” Still, the chief justice appoints the AO’s director, who is under “the supervision and direction of” the Judicial Conference.
Today, the AO maintains a sprawling portfolio and has engaged in actions that have directly injected the courts into hot-button political controversies. Worse still, the AO’s actions seem to contradict the Supreme Court’s own recent precedent in the area of racial preferences. For instance, an article published earlier this year highlighted just a few of the AO’s problematic diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, where the AO has been touting its work to promote “diversity” in the profession, particularly along “racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and sexual-orientation dimensions.”
While the Judicial Conference should rein in these problematic policy decisions, it has unfortunately allowed some of these same pernicious themes to creep into its views, too.
As part of its 2020 Strategic Plan for the Federal Judiciary, it emphasizes that “Judges must be encouraged to give special attention to diversity in their law clerk hiring process.” Of course, that diversity lies largely along racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation dimensions.
And the reports of the Judicial Conference’s various committees are rife with references to programs under consideration to increase the diversity of staff and employees and among members of the bankruptcy and magistrate benches.
At its next meeting, the Judicial Conference should engage in a serious discussion about whether these various initiatives and programs undermine confidence in the judiciary. They give the impression that the courts themselves are not being colorblind in their actions and are instead relying on something other than merit when making hiring and firing decisions.
And the Judicial Conference (again, headed by the chief justice) must grapple with whether these programs can still pass muster in light of the Supreme Court’s decision this past June (written by the chief justice) striking down Harvard’s and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action programs.
There’s some precedent at the state level for reviewing such programs being implemented in our court systems around the country.
The Florida Supreme Court, for example, exercised its administrative oversight to prohibit programming that required certain diversity quotas from qualifying for continuing legal education credit. Other state high courts should similarly exercise their oversight authority, and the Judicial Conference must do the same here.
Our Constitution is colorblind, and our courts must be colorblind, too, in all of their actions. To do otherwise undermines the very foundations of our court system—and our country.
Mark Levin skewered the media for publishing articles against him regarding his comments about the Jewish heritage of a CNN anchor.
On Thursday, far-left outlet, Media Matters, ran an hit piece castigating Levin for comments he made on his radio show earlier this week. CNN published an article on Friday echoing the sentiments of the Media Matters story. The writer of the piece, Oliver Darcy, requested a comment from the White House – which also condemned Levin and Fox News.
“Not only is Fox News aligning with those who fan the flames of hate – Fox is paying their salaries,” said Andrew Bates – deputy White House press secretary. “Lying to insult the pain that families suffered in the Holocaust has absolutely no place in America. None. Sadly, this is not the first time in recent months that a Fox News host made sickening remarks about the Holocaust.”
The media outlets ran stories from the following quote from Levin:
Wolf Blitzer, as I understand it, his parents weren’t victims in one way or another, of the Holocaust. But certainly his family comes out of that background — but you wouldn’t know it. Because the ideology of the left is very attractive. It’s very compelling, particularly if you’re in media.
Blitzer’s parents came to the United States as refugees from Poland after surviving the Nazi era and all four of his grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust.
A CNN spokesperson framed Levin’s quote as “wildly uninformed, inappropriate and shameful,” “dangerous,” and “anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
However, Levin clarified his wording on Thursday’s episode of his show and pointed out how the word “weren’t” doesn’t make sense in the context of his commentary:
Let’s stop for a second. When I take a breath, when I’m saying something and I’m passionate. I take a breath. Now you can hear that they say worth it if you’re really listening and you want it to say where it is so that you can hear it to say weren’t. I barely even remember saying it. So we’ve played it. We’ve got the audio you can twist it to say weren’t. But obviously, why would I say his parents weren’t in one way or another. Victims in the Holocaust. How can that even be logical? Why would I say somebody’s parents were or were not victims of the Holocaust? If they weren’t victims of the Holocaust, why would they say his parents weren’t victims of the Holocaust? Or why would I intentionally say that I didn’t? I didn’t. In the second sentence, but certainly as family comes out of that background. Clarifies exactly what I’m talking about. So, they take that and say Levin denies. They’re Wolf Blitzer’s parents. We’re in the Holocaust, which I’ve since looked up, and they were at Auschwitz, and it’s the grandparents were killed there. Which is a horrible, horrible thing. In fact, some of the people who’ve been taken back into Gaza. We’re Holocaust survivors in Israel. Some of the people murdered were Holocaust survivors. And of course, my point is you have a background like that. And you might and you ask Hakeem question. Hakeem Jeffries a question like this. It’s shocking to me, especially as a Jew. It is shocking to me. And so that now, ladies and gentlemen, causes CNN, which was contacted by, I think, The Daily Beast, another leftist Marxist operation. And here’s what CNN said. Quote. And by the way, it’s anonymous. We don’t even know who at CNN said it.
Levin – who is Jewish – blasted the media for citing Media Matters – the progressive outlet that targets conservatives and has received funding from George Soros.
“NEVER AGAIN, MEDIA, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT,” Levin wrote on the X social media platform. “The media CANNOT stop lying, using Soros’s Media Matters as their source and using their spin, the sickening statement from an anonymous CNN spokesman, then, of course, the Washington Post (which was silent during most of the Holocaust), and now, to top it off, a Biden regime propagandist.”
Levin continued, “It won’t work as they hang on the words ‘were’ and ‘weren’t.’ The media have been horrendous in their coverage of the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israeli Jews and their subsequent use of Hamas lies, including the notorious reporting about the Gaza hospital, which they blamed on Israel, the use of Hamas statistics, the regurgitation of Biden administration talking points, and relentless insinuations and worse about Israel and its military killing civilians.”
The host of “The Mark Levin Show” said, “The New York Times and Washington Post essentially covered up the Holocaust as it was occurring. The Times issued a quasi-apology in 2001 (the Post still has said nothing to the best of my knowledge, some 80 years later).”
The Blaze Media personality declared, “I will not allow the corporate media, and their numerous propagandists, to get away with their hate and lies. Never again will the media be free to push a hateful narrative without pushback from me and conservatives like me. They can try and use the words were’ or weren’t’ to distract from what is really happening, and ask a Biden lapdog staffer for his input, but it will not work.”
He said all the media does is “twist, spin, deceive, false narratives, and lies.”
Levin proclaimed, “I will not be intimidated, and neither should any of you!”
Washington Post reporter, Jeremy Barr, cited Media Matters when regurgitating a smear on yours truly even though he knew that the president of Media Matters is an anti-Semite and his own newspaper had reported on it in the past. And Barr works for the Washington Post Corporation even though he knows it helped cover up the Holocaust. What does that make Jeremy Barr?
Shame on the Washington Examiner for pushing this crap 3-days later. Perhaps the Examiner will link to these real stories about CNN’s grotesque anti-Semitism, including by several of its hosts, and its anti-Israel propaganda over the years. Apparently, their reporter was too lazy to provide full context, so I have included just a few of the stories about CNN’s horrendous antisemitism, including several of its hosts. Their pattern and pro-Hamas propaganda are not secrets.
You can listen to Levin’s original comments from the Nov. 1 episode below.
A Cartoon that hits Minnesota Teachers who are supporting Hamas terrorism in schools and other evil social topics when they should be teaching things like math, English, and real history in class. This is what happens when students of higher learning graduate and enter our society. They create more woke monsters turning our world upside down.
So many left-wing groups are supporting Hamas terrorists, like Gay and Lesbian groups, LGBTQ+, Transgenders, Liberal Democrat Jews, etc., but don’t seem to understand that if any of them ventured to Gaza, they would be thrown off the top of a building to their death for the lifestyle or politics they have. DEI groupthink and American universities have warped and brainwashed our kids minds to the point they can’t see who is actually on their side—the side of freedom and democracy.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Top Stories • Joe Biden Wants to Fund Abortions for Illegal Immigrants at Taxpayer Expense • Bishop Says Catholics Must Vote Pro-Life Because Abortion is a “Choice Between Good and Evil” • Issue 1 Would Allow Sex Changes on Minor Children Without Parents Even Knowing, Vote NO • Republican Senators Face Backlash After Opposing Tommy Tuberville’s Pro-Life Holds
More Pro-Life News • Catholic Bishops Slam Joe Biden’s Proposal to Force Employers to Fund Abortions • Pro-Life Daniel Cameron Tied With Pro-Abortion Andy Beshear in Kentucky Governor Race • Every State With an Abortion Ban Allows Treatment for Miscarriage and Ectopic Pregnancies • OGBYN Confirms Miscarriage is Not Abortion, Treatment for Miscarriage is Not Abortion • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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The 2024 Republican presidential front-runner is faced with 91 state and federal charges one year from Election Day. After a series of failed attempts to capture the criminal conviction of Donald Trump, Democrats have charged their primary political opponent with nearly 100 crimes to thwart the former president’s triumphant return to the Oval Office. Here’s a “who’s who” of the key players in the Democrats’ latest crusade to achieve the top item on their policy agenda.
Alvin Bragg
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was the first prosecutor to land the coveted indictment of Democrats’ Public Enemy No. 1. In April, the New York prosecutor unveiled a 34-count indictment against Trump, carrying a maximum 136-year prison sentence. The charges stem from 2016 hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a case prosecutors previously declined to pursue.
The Manhattan charges, however, marked the fulfillment of a campaign promise Bragg made two years ago to prosecute the former president. Prosecuting Trump was apparently the top issue of his platform in 2021.
“Bragg often reminded voters on the campaign trail that he helped sue the Trump administration ‘more than a hundred times’ as a deputy in the New York state attorney general’s office,” Reuters reported that year.
The 50-year-old prosecutor’s own supporters pointed to his ability to pursue Trump in court as a reason to back him. The New York Times reported on Bragg’s endorsement from a former U.S. attorney in July 2021.
“Preet Bharara, a former United States attorney in Manhattan who supervised Mr. Bragg and endorsed his candidacy, said Mr. Bragg had varied experience as a prosecutor, and that his work on white-collar crime and public corruption cases could come into play in the investigation into Mr. Trump,” the Times read.
Bragg was also promoted to his current office with financial support from left-wing billionaire financier George Soros. The super PAC backed by Soros, Color of Change, pledged to bankroll Bragg’s campaign with a seven-figure sum in the spring of 2021. Soon after the cash infusion, the committee pulled back $500,000 of the donation when Bragg faced allegations of sexual misconduct of his own.
Bragg’s record in New York, meanwhile, has been one of unleashed crime while prosecutors pursue politicized investigations against the most popular Republican in the country. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year, Soros admitted to backing candidates who promised to be soft on crime, branded as “reform prosecutors.” Bragg has held up to the pledge by prioritizing Trump instead of dangerous criminals. According to The New York Times, major crime spiked 22 percent during Bragg’s first year in office.
Letitia James
While Bragg pursues criminal charges against the former president, New York Attorney General Letitia James has Trump in civil court on allegations of fraud. In September last year, the attorney general filed a $250 million fraud suit with the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, accusing the former president of inflating corporate assets to obtain financial benefits.
“We found that Mr. Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a 10-year period,” said James at a press conference.
James, 65, won in a partial summary judgment a year later, and in October, the trial began after the judge found the Trump family, including Trump himself, liable for fraud. The judge in the case ordered the termination of Trump’s New York business license and will now examine charges by James to determine additional penalties. In October, an appeals court put a hold on the judge’s mandate to dissolve Trump’s business in the state.
The aggressive effort against the Trump family’s New York business empire marks another campaign promise fulfilled by the state attorney general. Similar to Bragg, James ran for office in 2018 on a platform to prosecute the president. When first campaigning for the statewide job five years ago, James railed against the Republican president as “illegitimate” and an “embarrassment.”
“NY Attorney General Letitia James has a long history of fighting Trump and other powerful targets,” headlined an Associated Press profile of James in September.
“Letitia James fixated on Donald Trump as she campaigned for New York attorney general, branding the then-president a ‘con man’ and ‘carnival barker’ and pledging to shine a ‘bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings,’” the AP reported. “Five years later, James is on the verge of disrupting Trump’s real estate empire.”
James was reelected last fall just more than a month after she unveiled the $250 million lawsuit against the Trump family. Now James is on the cusp of capturing Trump’s corporate exile from the Empire State.
Arthur Engoron
The state-friendly judge presiding over James’ civil lawsuit against Trump is a Democrat who held the former president in contempt last year over subpoena violations. Arthur Engoron is a judge in the New York Supreme Court’s 1st Judicial District who ran unopposed for the seat in the 2015 general election.
In September, Judge Engoron devalued the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate from between $426 million and $612 million, as estimated by the Trumps, to a mere $18 and $28 million.
The stunning devaluation stands in contrast to smaller properties at Palm Beach, which sold for far more. Rush Limbaugh’s former residence, for example, sold for $155 million despite a $51 million appraisal. Mar-a-Lago, meanwhile, is the only property at Palm Beach to face the waterfront on both the ocean and the waterway.
Last month, Engoron also implemented a gag order to prevent Trump from even speaking out against the accusations against him. Trump was fined twice over violations of the gag order for a combined $15,000.
Jack Smith
Jack Smith, 54, a veteran prosecutor with years spent at the Justice Department, was appointed last November to lead two of the federal efforts seeking Trump’s conviction. Now special counsel in a pair of cases prosecuting Democrats’ top political opponent, Smith was previously head of the DOJ public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015. Among his most notable cases was the prosecution of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell, whom the Supreme Court exonerated of a bribery conviction in 2016. Smith was also involved in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax scandal targeting conservative nonprofits.
Now Smith is spearheading the federal government’s criminal efforts against Trump regarding classified documents and the events related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In June, Trump was indicted with 37 counts of mishandling classified information, with three more charges handed down in the case about two months later. Smith indicted Trump with an additional four charges in a separate case this summer over objections to electoral certification, such as Democrats have made for decades.
Tanya Chutkan
Smith’s team at the Justice Department could not have landed a more friendly judge in the government’s Jan. 6 case against Trump than U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan. An activist judge with an obvious animus against the former president and his supporters, the Obama appointee was assigned to preside over the politically fraught Jan. 6 case after building a reputation as “a tough punisher of Capitol rioters.”
“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” the AP reported. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”
When Trump complained the federal charges against him amounted to election interference by the DOJ, Chutkan shrugged off the accusations, saying, “That’s how it has to be.” Chutkan previously condemned comparisons between the Capitol turmoil and the far-left riots that characterized the summer of 2020 in other rulings of pro-Trump demonstrators. The fiery riots, she claimed, were actually “the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights.” Chutkan said comparisons between the two “ignore[] a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”
In September, Chutkan predictably denied Trump’s request to recuse herself from the Jan. 6 trial. In October, Chutkan handed down another gag order to prevent the president from speaking publicly and openly about the case. On Nov. 1, Chutkan handed down an order allowing Smith’s team to conceal evidence from Trump’s attorneys that the DOJ has identified as “classified.”
Fani Willis
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia upset a six-term incumbent when she defeated her former boss, Paul Howard, three years ago. Willis, who beat Howard in the primary runoff, carried the general election unopposed after no Republicans qualified for the November contest.
Willis’ investigation of Trump and the former president’s campaign team was one of her first acts in office and will define her legacy. In August, the DA for Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta, charged Trump with 13 counts related to the former president’s efforts to protest aspects of the 2020 election. The Georgia prosecutor also indicted 18 Trump allies, several of whom have taken plea deals. Trump adviser Jeffrey Clark, however, filed a motion on Oct. 31 to dismiss the “massive and grotesque abuse of prosecutorial power.”
A September report from The Federalist revealed Willis possesses evidence exonerating Georgia’s alternate electors but continues to pursue criminal convictions anyway.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Black voters and activists in Milwaukee are feeling uninspired to vote for President Biden with one year to go before the election, according to a CNN report. Black voters in Milwaukee are feeling uninspired and potentially not motivated to vote for President Biden in advance of 2024, according to a CNN report Friday.
Joanna Brooks, who owns a yoga studio in Glendale, said that the Democratic Party has taken Black voters for granted.
“Black people in general, I think, tend to be pretty loyal to the Democratic Party,” Brooks said. “Sometimes I wonder, just based on how that party has performed thus far for people so far, if they should continue to be.”
Black voters in Milwaukee are feeling uninspired and potentially not motivated to vote for President Biden in advance of 2024, according to a CNN report. (CNN screenshot | Getty Images)
“I hear people saying [that] they’re not gonna vote,” Milwaukee voter Eric Jones said of the 2024 presidential election. “That’s my fear. They see [Biden and former President Donald Trump], and they’re gonna say, ‘Screw it. We’re damned anyways.'”
“When the factories and the manufacturing left, jobs left,” he told CNN. “When jobs leave and opportunities leave, then you have certain things that are domino effects.”
Jones said that the recipe for popularity as a political candidate was simple: “You bring opportunities, you bring jobs, you get votes. Plain and simple.”
When asked who he would choose between Trump and Biden, Devonta Johnson, a canvasser with Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC), admitted that would be a difficult choice to make.
When asked who he would choose between former President Donald Trump and President Biden, Devonta Johnson, a canvasser with Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, admitted that would be a difficult choice to make. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Other community and statewide organizers said that the stakes were high for winning the Black vote in Wisconsin.
“There’s no way to win a statewide election that doesn’t run through the Black community,” BLOC executive director Angela Lang said. “What happens in Milwaukee can impact the rest of the state, which ultimately can impact the rest of the country.”
“I don’t want the world the Democrats are offering.”
Based black man gives you the most real straight talk you’ll ever hear about the way Dems are wrecking big cities and how people are getting FED UPpic.twitter.com/tyiRhOg43n
Some Democrats are worried about Black male voter turnout as they campaign for 2024 and argue the party is “failing” to reach Black males and younger Black voters, The Washington Post reported.
Internal party analysis reportedly showed that Black male turnout and younger Black voter turnout were much lower in certain states in the 2022 midterms.
“The Democratic Party has been failing epically at reaching this demographic of Black men — and that’s sad to say,” W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, told the Post. “Black men are your second-most stable base overwhelmingly, and yet you can’t reach them in a way that makes your work easier.”
IM SICK OF THIS BULL Sh****
A lot of people won’t like this video but I’m tired of holding back. Yes I said what I said. Judge me all you want
WE DONT GIVE A FLYING F*** about President @realDonaldTrump being indicted.
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Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
Jeffrey Clark is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. He has previously served as a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea. Jeffrey graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a degree in English and History.
For the past five months, former President Barack Obama has discreetly advised President Joe Biden’s administration on its artificial intelligence strategy (AI), aides for both men told NBC News. At Biden’s request, his former boss has been working in the background, talking with tech companies and meeting with senior West Wing aides via Zoom, with the joint effort culminating in an executive order Biden signed on Monday that sets up some government oversight of AI.
“You have to move fast here, not at normal government pace or normal private-sector pace, because the technology is moving so fast,” White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said, recalling Biden’s words. “We have to move as fast, or ideally faster. And we need to pull every lever we can.”
Aides told NBC it’s the first time the president has asked for Obama’s input on a key policy initiative and he requested it because he and Obama think alike on the matter. The former president’s involvement could also help speed the process, they said.
According to Zients, the current and former presidents see AI as an urgent priority, given the great promise, and potentially catastrophic consequences, attached to it. During a phone call in June, Biden and Obama agreed that the goal should be to maximize the technology while limiting the risk, aides to both men said.
Biden then asked Obama to collaborate with his team to develop a policy that addresses the dangers of AI, while encouraging innovation. Over lunch at the White House, aides said, they agreed they have a “shared vision” and that the federal government should act quickly.
As summer turned into fall, Obama kept in touch regularly with Zients, deputy chief of staff Brue Reed and national security adviser Jake Sullivan to help shape the executive order, Biden and Obama aides told NBC. According to the aides, the two teams communicated about a dozen times, including as the order was finalized prior to Monday’s announcement.
Biden called AI “the most consequential technology of our time” at the executive order signing ceremony on Monday and voiced fears about AI-enabled cyberattacks and AI-formulated bioweapons. If used properly, however, the technology could help develop new pharmaceuticals and lead to breakthroughs in cancer research.
In a statementreleased earlier this week, Obama said he hopes to see more AI-related action from the Biden administration.
“If we want AI to be a force for good, we have to be able to stand for something bigger — not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the smart thing to do,” he said. “I applaud the Biden administration for taking this important step and hope it’s just the beginning.”
According to NBC, the White House is particularly concerned about the role AI could play in spreading misinformation about elections.
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
The United States urged Israel on Friday to ensure more humanitarian aid gets into Gaza and to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, as Israel’s prime minister said there would be no cease-fire in the nearly month-old war until Hamas releases hostages.
The leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group stoked fears that the conflict could widen by promising more attacks along the Lebanon border.
Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City, the focus of their campaign to crush the enclave’s ruling Hamas militants, who launched a brutal attack on Israeli communities that started the war.
But ever since that Oct. 7 assault, there have been concerns the conflict could ignite fighting on other fronts, and Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah have repeatedly traded fire along the Lebanon border.
In his first public speech since the war began, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group had “entered the battle” with the past weeks’ unprecedented cross-border fighting. “We will not be limited to this,” he said, suggesting escalation was possible. Still, Nasrallah stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah is fully engaging in the war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterated U.S. support for Israel in the war, saying it has the right to defend itself. But he said a “humanitarian pause” was needed to boost aid deliveries to Palestinian civilians amid growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
After meeting Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “refuses a temporary cease-fire that doesn’t include a return of our hostages,” referring to some 240 people Hamas abducted during its attack. He said Israel was pressing ahead with its military offensive with “all of its power.”
Blinken said there had to be a substantial and immediate increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, where “we need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.” Without that, “there are no partners for peace,” he said, adding that it was critical to restore the path toward a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, attacked Israeli military positions in northern Israel with drones, mortar fire and suicide drones on Thursday. The Israeli military said it retaliated with warplanes and helicopter gunships, and spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said civilians were wounded in the Hezbollah attacks.
“We are in a high state of readiness in the north, in a very high state of alert, to respond to any event today and in coming days,” he said.
Blinken said the U.S., which has deployed aircraft carriers and other forces in the eastern Mediterranean, was committed to ensuring that no “second or third front” opens in the conflict, referring to Hezbollah.
In his speech, Nasrallah said his militia is not deterred by U.S. warnings, saying: “Your fleets in the Mediterranean … will not scare us.”
A war with Hezbollah would be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah is much stronger than Hamas, with an arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and missiles, some believed to be precision-guided weapons capable of striking deep inside Israel.
Israel has promised to unleash vast destruction in Lebanon if all-out war erupts, accusing Hezbollah of hiding its military installation in the midst of residential areas. The two enemies fought an inconclusive monthlong war in 2006. Renewed fighting could also risk drawing Iran, which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah, into the conflict.
More than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far, mostly women and minors, and more and than 23,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters.
More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, when some 240 people were also taken hostage. Some 5,400 have also been injured.
Twenty-four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation. Since the start of the war, seven Israeli soldiers and a civilian have been killed in different incidents along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
As American officials have before, Blinken pledged unwavering support for Israel and its right to defend itself.
“We stand strongly for the proposition that Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself, and to make sure that October 7 should never happen again,” said Blinken, who also plans to visit Amman, Jordan. It follows President Joe Biden’s suggestion for a humanitarian “pause” in the fighting. The aim would be to let in aid for Palestinians and let out more Palestinians who hold foreign passports and wounded.
Around 800 people left Gaza over the past two days — the first time people departed the besieged territory other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces.
Blinken first held talks with Netanyahu behind closed doors before starting wider discussions with the leader and his War Cabinet and meeting with President Isaac Herzog.
More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed in 25 days of fighting, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Bombardment has driven more than half the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Food, water and fuel are running low under Israel’s siege, and overwhelmed hospitals warn they are on the verge of collapse.
Israel has allowed more than 260 trucks carrying food and medicine into Gaza, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough. Israeli authorities have refused to allow fuel in, saying Hamas is hoarding fuel for military use and would steal new supplies.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was not advocating for a general cease-fire but a “temporary, localized” pause.
Israel has not openly responded to Biden’s suggestion. But Netanyahu, who has previously ruled out a cease-fire, said Thursday: “We are advancing. … Nothing will stop us.” He vowed to destroy Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and the U.S. seem to have no clear plan for what would come next if Hamas rule in Gaza is brought down — a key question on Blinken’s agenda during the visit, according to the State Department.
Meanwhile, military officials said Israeli forces have now completely encircled Gaza City, a densely packed cluster of neighborhoods that Israel says is the center of Hamas military infrastructure and includes a vast network of underground tunnels, bunkers and command centers.
Israeli forces are “fighting in a built-up, dense, complex area,” said the military’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevy.
Hagari, the military spokesperson, said Israeli forces were in “face to face” battles with militants, calling in airstrikes and shelling when needed. He said they were inflicting heavy losses on Hamas fighters and destroying their infrastructure with engineering equipment.
Hamas’ military wing said early Friday that its fighters battled Israeli troops in several areas in Gaza and claimed they killed four soldiers on the northern edge of the city of Beit Lahiya. It also claimed to have destroyed several tanks with locally made anti-tank rockets.
Neither the reports from Israel nor Hamas could be independently verified.
Casualties on both sides were expected to rise as Israeli troops advance toward the dense residential neighborhoods of Gaza City. Israel has warned residents to immediately evacuate the Shati refugee camp, which borders Gaza City’s center.
But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the path of fighting in northern Gaza, despite Israel’s repeated calls for them to flee. Many have crowded into U.N. facilities, hoping for safety.
Still, four U.N. schools-turned-shelter in northern Gaza and Bureij were hit in recent days, killing 24 people, according to Philippe Lazzarini, general-secretary of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
In the occupied West Bank overnight, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in different places and arrested many more, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian health officials.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Our failing public schools don’t need more hard-earned cash from taxpayers. They need a shake-up called education choice. (Photo illustration: damircudic/Getty Images)
A few days ago, I posed two questions to my two young children.
The first question: “What would you think about the government telling us which pediatrician to go to, based on where we live?”
The second: “What if a hailstorm damaged our roof, but we had to choose from a list of government-approved roofers based on where our house is located?”
Both of my children appeared to feel strongly that such scenarios would be wrong. Those are pretty big decisions, and we should get to choose things like that for our own family, my 8-year-old said.
Then I got to the crux of the issue: “What if the government tells you where to go to school simply because of your ZIP code or neighborhood? And what if that school is a place where the students aren’t actually learning how to read, write, or do math well? Or if that school isn’t safe? What if those kids aren’t being prepared for college or employment?”
The point is, even young children innately know that is wrong.
With education reforms being implemented all over the nation, chances are strong that you’re at least somewhat aware of the debate in Texas regarding education choice. A variety of terms are used in this debate—ESAs, vouchers, school choice, and so on. But Facebook memes can’t capture the essence of this issue, and neither can the one-sided, politically motivated emails recently sent out by the Fort Worth Independent School District, one of the largest school districts in Texas.
On Oct. 17, the Fort Worth school district sent out a supposedly impartial email, “to share some insights.” Sadly, the insights were simply political activists’ talking points designed to advocate preserving this failing public school system.
Let me preface my position by sharing that I’m a mother to children who attend schools in the Fort Worth district. My husband and I mostly have been happy with our school and have no intention of removing our children regardless of the outcome of the Texas Legislature’s current special session. Although we are fortunate to be zoned for a good public elementary school, that is sadly not the reality for most Fort Worth families (see school-based student outcomes). That being said, I’m a staunch advocate of education choice and am represented among the 73% of Texas school parents who supporteducation savings accounts, or ESAs.
Although the Fort Worth district’s email proudly asserts that its public schools are held to “high standards of accountability,” the evidence for these standards is lacking. In fact, the most recent data reveals that, districtwide, only 24% of students meet grade-level standards in math, 31% in reading, and a mere 19% in science. Anyone who sees this data knows that these outcomes are unacceptable and that fundamental change is needed.
The story that we’ve been told for years is that Texas public schools simply need more funding. But a look at the data proves that increased funding hasn’t improved student outcomes. Statewide, a 166% increase in funding per student, adjusted for inflation, occurred between 1970 and 2020. However, student outcomes continue declining, and the state of our public schools worsens.
According to the Nation’s Report Card, the proficiency of students in the Fort Worth district has steadily dropped in both math and reading between 2017 and 2022, and that was with higher annual budgets. The solution can’t be to continue increasing funding for another decade or two in the hopes that things eventually will improve. What our public schools need is not an injection of even more hard-earned cash from taxpayers. They need a shake-up of this failing system to make it better. That shake-up is called education choice.
Some of the more common arguments made by opponents of education savings accounts is that ESAs will “take money away from the public schools,” “only benefit the rich,” or “hurt public school education.”
The problem with these either/or fallacies is the availability of research and data from 31 states with some form of school choice, many for 20 years or more. So, what does years’ worth of data from numerous states show happens when parents are given a choice in how to educate their child? Public schools improve and students across all socioeconomic levels achieve substantial gains in academic success, both in the short and long term.
Here are a few examples.
When Florida implemented school choice in 2002, the state ranked 33rd in the nation for outcomes among low-income students. By 2019, Florida had risen to first in the nation.
Similarly, when Indiana implemented school choice in 2002, it was No. 22 in the nation for educating low-income students. By 2019, Indiana had risen to No. 3.
In Washington, D.C., a school choice program resulted in high school graduation rates improving from 70% to 82% of students, according to a 2010 study by the Department of Education.
Other examples abound, and the research is clear: Giving parents the opportunity to choose the educational path that is the best fit for their own child has positive, meaningful, and measurable effects.
The Fort Worth school district’s email assailing education choice encouraged parents by saying that our “voice is crucial in shaping the future of our community’s education system.”
So let my voice be clear as well: Our kids deserve better. We have the opportunity to support legislation that will give children in Texas better opportunities to learn and succeed. Your voice matters, too. Now is the time to stand up and speak out on behalf of our children and for the sake of the future of the great city of Fort Worth and the great state of Texas.
Lindsay Horton, a resident of Fort Worth, Texas, is the mother of three children. Her husband, J.B. Horton, is executive vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
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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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