What Did You Say?

Tagged with:

Here’s What the IRS Whistleblower Will Tell Lawmakers About the Hunter Biden Probe Behind Closed Doors

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 26, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley will appear before the House Ways and Means Committee later Friday morning to submit to questioning from both Democrats and Republicans.

Missing, however, will be any members of the Senate Finance Committee, which refused to conduct a joint interview with the House oversight committee. While Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, held the power to authorize Senate representatives to attend the transcribed interview of the whistleblower.

Smith inexplicably ignored Shapley’s statement that he “would welcome” the participation of designated Senate staffers in the House hearing. Thus, the House hearing will proceed, but not on a bicameral basis.

According to a person familiar with the proceedings, the House Ways and Means Committee will convene at 9:30 a.m., with Shapley appearing for questioning with his two lawyers, Mark Lytle from Nixon Peabody and Tristan Leavitt of Empower Oversight. The closed-door questioning is expected to last all day.

While the Ways and Means Committee will question Shapley in a closed session, the public can guess the content of much of his testimony given the high-profile nature of the case against Hunter Biden. In fact, neither Shapley nor his attorneys have ever publicly confirmed that Hunter Biden is the target of the Internal Revenue Service investigation, yet it is uniformly agreed that the whistleblower’s testimony concerns the handling of the tax probe into the president’s son.

Shapley, a 14-year veteran at the IRS, provided some insight into his likely testimony when he sat for an exclusive interview with CBS News on Wednesday. During that interview, Shapley explained that he was first assigned to the investigation in January 2020. “When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw deviations from the normal process,” Shapley told CBS News. “It was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past,” the whistleblower stressed.

Shapley further claimed during the interview that “there were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice.” That statement coincides with the information contained in an earlier letter sent by the whistleblower’s lawyers to the oversight committees. That letter maintained that the whistleblower has detailed “examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”

“People directly familiar with the case” provided more particulars to Shapley’s claims, asserting that “specific DOJ employees placed strictures on questions, witnesses and tactics investigators may be allowed to pursue that could impact President Biden.” The unnamed sources also stressed that the improper politicization of the case came from the Justice Department and FBI headquarters.

When read together, these details raise a huge red flag because they mean the interference from the DOJ and FBI headquarters began under the Trump administration. So, who in the Trump administration was responsible for slow-walking the Hunter Biden investigation? What investigative steps were not taken?

In a letter from Shapley’s legal team to the congressional oversight committees, he spoke of irregularities beginning in the summer of 2020 in both the DOJ Tax Division and an unnamed U.S. attorney’s office, which CNN would later report is the office of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018.

Another detail from Shapley’s CBS News interview that foreshadows the content of his Friday testimony concerns his explanation of the “red line” meeting that convinced the IRS supervisory special agent his oath of office required him to come forward. According to Shapley, while he had been noticing deviations in the investigative process for a couple of years, he just couldn’t “fathom that DOJ might be acting unethically.” Then came an October 2022 meeting he had with federal prosecutors, after which Shapley told CBS News, “It just got to that point where that switch was turned on, and I just couldn’t silence my conscience anymore.”

While the CBS News interview did not air further details about the meeting, a letter from Shapley’s legal team described a “charged meetings on October 7, 2022,” during which the U.S. attorney — reportedly Weiss — “became aware that both the IRS and the FBI had longstanding concerns about the handling of the case” and that those concerns had been communicated up the chain of command. Then, after an Oct. 17, 2022, meeting at which Shapley continued to raise concerns, he and his investigative team were excluded from future meetings on the case.

Shapley seems poised to name names on Friday, and his attorney has told Just the News that “he’ll be able to talk about these meetings that he attended, that were with both agents and prosecutors.” Shapley summarized those meetings and distributed his notes to the IRS and other agents, his lawyer explained, and along with his emails, these documents will corroborate his story.

The whistleblower can also identify other IRS agents who participated in the meetings and can confirm his testimony. The DOJ’s decision earlier this month to remove Shapley’s entire investigative team from the Hunter Biden investigation may backfire, serving as a catalyst to loosen the other agents’ lips.

But in the meantime, it will be Shapley doing the talking. And while Americans won’t know at once what the IRS supervisory special agent has to say, the House Ways and Means Committee has the authority to submit the information obtained from Sharpley to both the Senate and the House of Representatives, thereby making the testimony public.

Democrats used that statutory carveout to release Trump’s tax information publicly, and Republicans should follow their lead — and soon.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Tagged with:

Corporate America Has Launched a Religious War. It’s Time to Choose Your Side

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | MAY 26, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

Bud Light enlists a trans ladyface minstrel to sell beer. Target hires a trans Satanist to design LGBT clothes for kids and starts selling “binding” and “tucking” swimwear. North Face launches a marketing campaign featuring a creepy drag performer hocking LGBT gear to children ages 2 to 7. The Los Angeles Dodgers gives an award to a demonic hate group whose sole purpose is to blaspheme and profane the Catholic faith.

All this, and June “pride month” hasn’t even begun.

What’s happening? Why did so many major corporate brands decide to go all-in on promoting an aggressive, radical LGBT agenda that just a few years ago would have been considered totally unacceptable in civil society? Is this a psy-op? Is it real? What happens next?

The short answer to these questions is that we’ve entered a new phase of the culture war, and in some ways have transcended “the culture war” completely. What we’re in now is better described as a religious war — one that’s been launched by corporate America against all of us, and therefore demands we all choose sides.

Choosing sides in a religious war means you have to choose your religion. And in this particular religious war, there are only two sides. On one side is what C.S. Lewis called the Tao, which was his ecumenical shorthand for objective moral truth. “The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value,” Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man. “It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained.”

In America and in the West generally, the side of the Tao is the side of faithful Christians and Jews, as well as those atheists who, for practical reasons, cling to Judeo-Christian morality as the survivors of a shipwreck might cling to a lifeboat. It is the side that sees Target’s transing of kids as an intolerable moral evil, affirms the givenness of our nature and the created order, and recognizes not only that man isn’t God, but that man’s destiny is communion with God in a redeemed creation.

On the other side is what the writer Paul Kingsnorth, among others, has called the Machine, which at its root is a Nietzschean rebellion against God that turns out also to be “a rebellion against everything: roots, culture, community, families, biology itself.” Like the Tao, the religion of the Machine, of progress and technology and will to power, has a very long pedigree. It goes back to the Garden of Eden, where the serpent assured Eve, “You will not surely die,” that if she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would become like God.

That was the first rebellion; we have been reenacting it ever since. It is perhaps easier to see in our own time how every rebellion against God, from the Garden to now, is also an attempt to overthrow Him, to become like God. Indeed, the desire to play God is the dark heart of both transgenderism and its close cousin, transhumanism. Like other evils of our age — abortion and euthanasia, to name the obvious ones — these are, at their roots, extremely candid manifestations of pride, the source of all sin.

The Machine is a religion that makes a claim over and against reality and the created order, which are denied and disfigured in man’s attempt to arrogate the power to recreate himself according to his own desires. In our day, he seeks to do so using new technologies, but that he would desire to do so is merely the latest iteration of the rebellion that began in the Garden. This is what J.R.R. Tolkien meant when he said, “all stories are ultimately about the fall.” Tolkien also referred to the Machine at times when discussing his legendarium, often describing it as the urge to amass power and dominate, “bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills” — a tyranny exercised over creation with the object of overcoming mortality.

This is just what we see in the twin trans movements: a desire to overcome sex and a desire to overcome death. The transhumanists are as explicit about their desire to cheat death and attain godlike immortality as transgenders are about their desire to become the opposite sex. The latter appear to believe, like rebellious pagans of past ages, that children have an important role to play in the achievement of this desire. The Machine devoured children by fire on the altars of Moloch and Baal; it devours them now in the black mirrors of the internet and social media.

The temptation here is to dismiss this reading of our situation as hyperbole. Surely it isn’t as bad as all that, we want to say. But it really is. What’s happening now isn’t about corporate brands embracing “pride month,” as The New York Times recently framed it, or even about promoting tolerance in a diverse society. If Target were just selling T-shirts that said “fabulous” in rainbow letters no one would care. This is about transing kids. Everyone knows it, but no one wants to say so out loud. Corporations are the tip of the spear, pushing this stuff out and then letting the media turn around and accuse the right of being violent bigots for objecting.

We err, too, in thinking of all this as just a really bad case of “the culture war” that breaks along the familiar lines of left and right, blue and red. It’s partly that, but at its deepest level it’s a religious war, a spiritual struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, the Tao and the Machine.

All of which is to say that as this war develops, we should try not to get too caught up in how much Target stocks plummet or how low the price of Bud Light gets ($0, as of this writing). “Go woke, go broke” is — pardon the rhyme — a cope. That’s not to say we shouldn’t boycott these companies, even if it means financial hardship or inconvenience. Boycotting them is part of what we have to do in this religious war, but it’s not sufficient.

Corporate America is not going to stop, even if some corporations do go broke. What will be required of those who resist them is a deep religious commitment, a radical new way of living in the modern, digital age. If you’re a Jew, be deeply serious about your Judaism. If you’re a Christian, make the practice of your faith the central organizing fact of your life, not just something you do on Sundays. If you’re an atheist, pray that God gives you faith.

For adherents of the Tao, fighting this religious war is going to mean not just boycotting corporate brands but reorganizing your personal and professional life. It might mean quitting your job, or moving, or giving up certain things. It will require sacrifice. Perhaps great sacrifice.

And rest assured that every person in America is going to have to pick a side. If you don’t pick a side then your side will by default be that of the Machine, which dominates the heights of our post-Christian culture and economy. Whatever your opinion of transgenderism or identity politics, the Machine will suck you in and ensnare you unless you make a conscious choice to stand against it. So choose, and choose wisely. Your country — and, more importantly, your soul — depends on it.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

Business, Political, Religion, Spiritual

FAKE PENTAGON EXPLOSION IMAGE GOES VIRAL ON TWITTER, SPARKING FURTHER AI CONCERNS

Tagged with:

5 things conservatives need to know before AI wipes out conservative thought altogether

By Dan Schneider | Fox News | Published May 26, 2023 2:00am EDT

The “Godfather of A.I.,” Geoffrey Hinton, quit Google out of fear that his former employer intends to deploy artificial intelligence in ways that will harm human beings. “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” Hinton recently told The New York Times.

But stomping out the door does nothing to atone for his own actions, and it certainly does nothing to protect conservatives – who are the primary target of A.I. programmers – from being canceled.

Here are five things to know as the battle over A.I. turns hot:

1. Google’s new monopoly on “Truth”

Elon Musk recently revealed that Google co-founder Larry Page and other Silicon Valley leaders want AI to establish a “digital god” that “would understand everything in the world. … [A]nd give you back the exact ‘right’ thing instantly.” It is hard to imagine anything more dangerous to a pluralistic, democratic Republic than a single dispenser of “truth.”

AI sign — The Biden administration has seen the potential of AI to push its political message. (JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)

That nobody has a monopoly on truth is the prerequisite for pluralism. But pluralism is what authoritarians abhor and what AI tech executives cannot tolerate. Conservatives have already seen how Big Tech censors and cancels us based on our beliefs and political viewpoints. AI is being turbocharged to do this in limitless ways.

2. Brainwashing is no longer science fiction

Americans are just beginning to understand that the dangers of AI go far beyond economic disruption. They also go beyond silencing speech. The newest gadgets being powered by AI now permit tech companies to capture our most intimate thoughts and our most sensitive data. They have already begun to map our minds, so they can manipulate our thoughts.

Duke Law professor Nita Farahany (a biologist, philosopher and human rights attorney) has been sounding the alarm, explaining how the Chinese government is using AI to analyze facial expressions and brain waves to punish those who are not faithful communists.

Using similar technology, U.S. tech companies may be able to hack into the minds of users to steal PIN codes, according to Farahany. They are also tracking brain waves via sensors embedded in watches and headphones which can determine which political messages are most persuasive to a user.

AI will soon empower lying politicians to deceive more voters than ever before. When Farahany tried to explain these dangers at the World Economic Forum, the snobs of Davos applauded enthusiastically. They see AI’s dangers as an asset.

3. The GOP is truly the Grand OLD Party

Republicans in Congress who are even talking about AI are focusing on how many nurses and truck drivers might lose their jobs, not about the serious threat AI poses to the very essence of who we are as humans. Economic disruption is most assuredly going to happen, but Republicans are missing the profound implications to liberty.

In the first AI hearing held by the House Innovation Subcommittee this year, Big Tech lobbyists admitted that self-driving car manufacturers would gobble up every imaginable bit of data “for our own safety” but assured the committee that they would endeavor not to share this data with other companies. Shockingly, nobody asked the obvious: what assurances do we have that these companies will not use this data against their own customers?

You’d think that the lessons of Big Tech censorship would draw every Republican into the AI fight. That has not happened yet.

Americans are just beginning to understand that the dangers of AI go far beyond economic disruption. They also go beyond silencing speech.

4. Democrats have us where they want us

Democrats in the Biden administration and in Congress have a much better understanding that AI is the greatest tool they’ve ever had to socialize America. Many are pretending to call for a pause to AI development while stomping on the accelerator to develop it as fast as possible.

Here’s reality: the Biden administration has already pledged to spend $140 million to establish seven AI research institutes, and it just created the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee to chart “a path for responsible and inclusive AI.” Even more telling, the Biden White House has indicated to it will direct federal agencies to “use AI tools” in their work. Nary a pause in the Dems’ use of AI can be found.

5. But failure is not an option

Communist China just released regulations mandating that AI be programmed to reflect “socialist core values” and avoid information that could undermine “state power.” The Chinese government and other authoritarians seek to harness this new technological power for control of information and the masses. They will use it extensively in warfare, too.

The trick is to lead the development of AI globally while enforcing appropriate guardrails to prevent the left from attacking our freedoms. The window to achieve both is small and shrinking.

Dan Schneider is vice president of MRC Free Speech America

Category:

Tagged with:

‘Major Issues’ Remain in Struggle Over Debt Ceiling

NEWSMAX Staff | Friday, 26 May 2023 02:17 PM EDT

Democrat and Republican negotiators struggled Friday to reach a deal to raise the U.S. government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, with a key Republican citing disagreements over work requirements for some benefit programs for low-income Americans. Time is running short for Democrat President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to reach an accord to raise the federal government’s self-imposed borrowing limit and avert a potentially disastrous default.

Negotiators appeared to be nearing a deal to lift the limit for two years and cap spending, with agreement on funding for the Internal Revenue Service and the military, years while capping spending on many government programs, according to a U.S. official. But an administration official briefed on the talks said they could easily slip into the weekend. The two sides remained at loggerheads over a Republican push for new work requirements for some anti-poverty programs.

“We have made progress,” lead Republican negotiator Garret Graves told reporters. “I said two days ago, we had some progress that was made on some key issues, but I want to be clear, we continue to have major issues that we have not bridged the gap on chief among them work requirements.”

A failure by Congress to raise its self-imposed debt ceiling in the coming week could trigger a default that would shake financial markets and send the United States into a deep recession.

“We know it’s crunch time,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Friday. “We’re not just trying to get an agreement, we’re trying to get something that’s worthy of the American people, that changes the trajectory.”

Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Friday as investors hoped for progress in the negotiations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was set to snap a five-day losing streak, while the Nasdaq touched its highest level since mid-August earlier in the session.

Even if they succeed in reaching a deal, leaders from both parties will likely have to work hard to round up enough votes for approval in Congress. Right-wing Republicans have insisted that any deal must include steep spending cuts, while Democrats have resisted the new work requirements for benefit programs. The deal under consideration would increase funding for military and veterans care while essentially holding non-defense discretionary spending at current year levels, said the official, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about internal discussions.

A two-year extension would mean Congress would not need to address the limit again until after the 2024 presidential election. The deal might also scale back funding for the IRS, the official said.

Biden paid for his signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, in part by committing $80 billion in new funding for the IRS to target wealthy Americans and generate $200 billion in new tax revenue. The money was designated mandatory spending, which, like social security, protects it from the annual appropriations process. The deal being considered would shift that money to discretionary funding, making it subject to the annual appropriations process and placing its future in jeopardy, according to a U.S. official. The White House is working on a way to preserve the effort to target wealthy taxpayers, even if the money is moved, the official said.

The deal would boost military and veterans spending to levels proposed by Biden earlier this year, a second U.S. official said.

BIPARTISAN DEAL

Each side will have to persuade enough members of their party in the narrowly divided Congress to vote for any eventual deal.

“The only way to move forward is with a bipartisan agreement. And I believe we will come to an agreement that allows us to move forward and that protects the hardworking Americans of this country,” Biden said on Thursday.

The Treasury Department has warned that it could be unable to cover all its obligations as soon as June 1, but also has made plans to sell $119 billion worth of debt that will come due on that date, suggesting to some market watchers that it was not an iron-clad deadline.

The standoff has unnerved investors, pushing the government’s borrowing costs up by $80 million so far, according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.

Several credit-rating agencies have said they have put the United States on review for a possible downgrade, which would push up borrowing costs and undercut the United States’ standing as the backbone of the global financial system. A similar 2011 standoff led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade its rating on U.S. debt.

Most lawmakers have left Washington for the Memorial Day holiday, but their leaders have warned them to be ready to return for votes when a deal is struck. House leaders have said lawmakers will get three days to ponder the deal before a vote, and any single lawmaker in the Senate has the power to tie up action for days. At least one, Republican Mike Lee, has threatened to do so.

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Bootstrappers

A.F. BRANCO | on May 26, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-bootstrappers/

Larry Elder and Tim Scott were called white supremacists by the Democrats and the MS Media like the view.

Black Faces of White Supremacy — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump

Category:

Tagged with:

Racism

Eunuch who stabbed athletics officials over questions of his eligibility to compete as a woman still holds women’s Parkrun record. Female athletes aren’t pleased.

May 25, 2023

By: JOSEPH MACKINNON | May 24, 2023

Michael Jameson, who changed his name to Lauren Jeska, attempted to murder Ralph Knibbs at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium in March 2016.

According to the Guardian, at the time of the attack, Jeska’s status as a female athlete was under review, as there were concerns he had a significant advantage over the real women with whom he was competing. The murderous transvestite had, after all, bested women in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 English Fell Running Champion and as well as in the British Championship in 2012.

Jeska, who did not “transition” or have his testicles removed until he was 26 years old, reportedly refused to provide relevant samples of his testosterone levels and other documentation to the governing body, prompting officials to void his race results in September 2015.

After questions were raised about his eligibility, Jeska packed up two large kitchen knives and traveled nearly two hours from his house in Wales to the offices of UK Athletics in Birmingham. In Birmingham, he savagely stabbed Knibbs in the head and neck, leaving a hole about an inch wide. A witness said it looked as though the transvestic eunuch was “trying to skewer meat.”

The premeditated murder attempt, which the judge presiding over Jeska’s case indicated was executed with “chilling precision,” left Knibbs with limited vision in both eyes. The BBC reported that in the “cool, calculated attack,” Jeska also grievously injured two other UK Athletics employees, Kevan Taylor and Tim Begley, who had tried to intervene during the attack.

Police indicated that “Jeska carried out a violent and unprovoked attack on a man whose sole objective was to enable [him] to compete. [He] will now have plenty of time behind bars to contemplate the devastating consequences of [his] actions.”

Jeska was ultimately given an 18-year sentence.

Mara Yamauchi, former Olympian and British elite marathon runner, was among the first to highlight the abuse of the Parkrun’s gender self-identification policy by opportunistic men, reported the Daily Mail. Yamauchi indicated earlier this week that a Parkrun female group course record had been “smashed to smithereens by a trans-identifying male” and possible put “out of female hands forever.”

The Olympian and other feminists noted that Jeska still holds the top two women’s records for the Aberystwyth Parkrun, a weekly competition held in Wales. According to the Parkrun’s official records, Jeska has a time of 17:38 in the Aberystwyth run and is also ranked first in the Bryn Bach Parkrun and third in the Heaton Parkrun, both in the women’s category.

Heather Binning, founder of the Women’s Rights Network, told the Telegraph, “I am lost for words that a male is stealing what should be women’s records first of all, and setting these records that will not be broken — these records are frozen, women won’t beat them.”

Binning added that it was “gobsmacking,” not just that the violent eunuch in jail for stabbing innocents over the question of his eligibility would still hold the title, but that he was “in a women’s prison despite politicians’ mealy-mouthed words that violent male offenders should not be in the female estate.”

“Politicians are turning their backs and sports associations are frightened and are being hung out to dry,” continued Binning. “More people take part in Parkrun than the Olympics — it does matter. The grassroots is where the elite athletes come from — girls and women will not in these circumstances want to participate.”

It appears that the actual top female in the Aberystwyth parkrun is Charlotte Morgan, who had a time of 17:55 on June 24, 2017. Jeska is eligible for parole in 2029. It is unclear whether Parkrun will permit him to resume competing against women.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Category:

Crime, Sports

Tagged with:

North Dakota school district will conceal students’ gender identities from parents despite state law prohibiting it

By: CARLOS GARCIA | May 24, 2023

Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

A school district in Fargo, North Dakota, will conceal the gender identities of students from parents in spite of a state law prohibiting the policy.

“We will not openly out any student because of one law if we know that that’s going to cause harm to that child,” said Fargo Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Rupak Gandhi, who is backed in the decision by the school board.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, signed the bill earlier in May that banned schools from withholding or concealing “information about a student’s transgender status from the student’s parent or legal guardian.”

Some parents expressed outrage at a school board meeting about the decision.

“The way I see it, the way I heard it is that you want to protect kids from their parents,” said one father. “Instead of encouraging everyone to talk more, you are suppressing talk.”

Another parent accused them of trying to take away authority from parents.

“I really urge you all to pay attention to what we’re setting as a precedent,” said the mother. “Whose kids are these? Do they belong to you as a school board? Do they belong to Fargo Public Schools? Or is each child’s parent ultimately the decision-maker in their family over what is allowed and what is safe for that child?”

Critics of the law said that revealing a student’s gender identity to the parents might lead to dangerous confrontations. Gandhi cited suicide statistics put out by an LGBTQ advocacy group to argue that hiding the gender identities from parents was protecting the students.

“You teach your kids that nobody who asks you to keep a secret is safe,” said another mother at the meeting. “Now, this is going the other way. This is an adult saying that they’ll keep a child’s secret.”

Here’s more about gender laws in North Dakota:

Governor of North Dakota Bans Transgender Pronouns in Government & Schools | EWTN News Nightly www.youtube.com

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Category:

Education, Family, Political

Tagged with:

Republicans Use House Committee Hearing To Demolish Democrats’ Bogus Election Lies

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MAY 25, 2023

Former Georgia Rep. Scot Turner testifying before Congress

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

During a House subcommittee hearing on “American Confidence in Elections,” Republicans demolished Democrats’ phony narratives regarding nonexistent “voter suppression.”

“Our hearing today will highlight how voters across the country are demanding reforms to ensure that every eligible American voter can be confident that they will have access to the ballot box and that their ballot will be counted according to established law,” said Chair and Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla.

For the past several years, Democrats have routinely slandered anyone with legitimate questions about the conduction of the 2020 election. Concerns raised about the influence of hundreds of millions of ‘Zuckbucks,’ interference by federal intel agencies, and censorship by Big Tech platforms have been met with leftist accusations of subverting “democracy” and advancing “conspiracy theories.” Legacy media have additionally used the term “election denier” to smear and silence their political opponents over such concerns.

During Wednesday’s hearing, however, Scot Turner, a former Republican state representative from Georgia, turned the tables, exposing Democrats as the party that has a history of pushing real conspiracy theories regarding the outcome of elections.

“Faith in the results of elections is vitally key for the health of our republic. But more and more, that faith is shaken by false allegations,” Turner said. “In 2016, the presidential election was marred by allegations of Russian hacking. And while evidence showed that the hacking was of email servers, by December of 2016, half of Democrat voters believed that Russians had changed vote tallies in favor of Donald Trump. That number would skyrocket to 67 percent … after a media barrage and many prominent leaders call[ed] the presidency of Donald Trump ‘illegitimate.’”

A November 2018 Economist/YouGov poll found this to be the case, showing that 67 percent of Democrats believed it was “definitely true” or “probably true” that “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected.” Meanwhile, only 17 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Independents believed such a statement to have any semblance of accuracy, according to the survey.

During his testimony, Turner also highlighted former Georgia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ repeated insistence that her 2018 election against now-Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was illegitimate due to nonexistent voter suppression. Shortly after the 2018 contest, for instance, Abrams told a crowd of supporters that “concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper” and that “as a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.” Abrams repeated similar remarks during an August 2019 interview with CBS News.

Abrams’ bogus contention ultimately went down in flames last year when an Obama-appointed judge struck down her lawsuit challenging the election. In his opinion, Judge Steve Jones wrote that the voting practices challenged by Abrams’ team “violate neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act of 1965].”

“Abrams’ refusal [to concede] in 2018 is when it became apparent to me as a state representative just how damaging misinformation and disinformation are to our country,” Turner said.

Turner additionally referenced Democrats’ slanderous attacks on Georgia’s 2021 election integrity law, saying that dishonest opposition to such measures “are a form of voter suppression in their own right.” Signed by Kemp in March 2021, SB 202 included provisions mandating voter ID for absentee voting and safeguards on giving voters gifts or money within 150 feet of a polling place. Early voting was also expanded under the law, with counties now required to “offer two Saturdays of early voting instead of just one.”

Immediately after the law’s passage, Democrats and their legacy media allies began smearing the law as a Republican-led effort to “suppress” nonwhite voters. President Joe Biden grossly referred to SB 202 as “Jim Crow on steroids” and called on Major League Baseball to relocate its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest. The MLB ultimately acquiesced, condemning the law and moving the game to Colorado. The decision ultimately cost Georgia an estimated $100 million in revenue. Coca-Cola and Delta were also among those to condemn SB 202.

Contrary to Democrats’ claims that the Republican-backed law would suppress Georgians’ ability to vote, the results from the 2022 midterms say otherwise. In addition to record early voter turnout ahead of the Nov. 8 general election, the state also experienced record turnout for in-person, early voting for its Dec. 6 Senate runoff.

A poll conducted after the midterms further revealed that 0 percent of black Georgia voters said they had a “poor” experience voting in the 2022 contest. In fact, as noted by Breitbart, “73 percent said they had an ‘excellent’ overall experience voting, 23 percent said they had a ‘good’ experience, [and] three percent said they had a ‘fair’ experience.”

“At each step of the way and with every improvement to the voting process, the Georgia General Assembly has had critics screaming at them that what they’re doing is wrong, racist, and will hurt communities of various types,” Turner said. “And just like the claims that Russia hacked the election and changed votes, or that Abrams lost because of ‘voter suppression,’ or that the election was stolen, the data and evidence don’t back up those claims.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood.

Category:

Tagged with:

Emails Show Ron Wyden’s Office Lied About IRS Whistleblower ‘Backing Out’ Of Senate Meeting

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 25, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

A spokesman for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., falsely claimed the Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower had “backed out” of an agreement to meet with the Senate Finance Committee next week, the whistleblower’s attorneys told The Federalist.

“It’s disappointing Senator Wyden’s staff is playing partisan games by releasing inaccurate information,” said the legal team representing the whistleblower, who was identified as Gary Shapley during a CBS interview Wednesday. “As emails show, our client didn’t ‘back out’ of anything because there was never anything to back out of.”

On Wednesday, CNN reported the Senate Finance Committee’s claims, quoting Wyden’s spokesman, Ryan Carey, saying, “Committee staff on both sides agreed with counsel to meet directly with the whistleblower next week, however the whistleblower has since backed out of that agreement and declined an attempt to reschedule.” Carey added that “Chairman Wyden’s staff stand ready to arrange a meeting on terms that comply with laws protecting taxpayer data and ensure a fair and rigorous investigation.”

CNN later updated the article to include a detailed denial of the staffer’s claim by Shapley’s legal team.

Emails obtained by The Federalist between Shapley’s lawyers and Wyden’s staff confirm the whistleblower’s version of events.

On Friday, May 19, 2023, Mark Lytle, Shapley’s Nixon Peabody lawyer, arranged for a conference call between the whistleblower’s legal team and Wyden’s office to discuss logistics for their client to sit for a transcribed deposition. The next email in the thread came from a Wyden staffer the day after Lytle and his co-counsel Tristan Leavitt, the president of Empower Oversight, had dispatched their May 22 letter to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, as well as Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office.

In their May 22 letter, the whistleblower’s legal team summarized their version of what had transpired. They also noted that they had informed the Senate Finance Committee’s staff that Shapley would testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, May 26, and reiterated their preference for a single joint interview or, at minimum, an interview the previous day, May 25.

“Unfortunately, the Finance Committee would not commit to a date consecutive to the House interview as an accommodation to our client’s concerns, as the staff had previously offered,” the letter stressed. Wyden’s staffers also refused to commit to an interview the Tuesday after the long Memorial Day weekend. The Senate Finance Committee’s political game-playing prompted the whistleblower’s attorneys to move forward with the House interview.

It was only then that Wyden’s office attempted to commit to an interview with the whistleblower before the Senate Finance Committee. In doing so, the staffer sent an email that both ignored Shapley’s letter and misrepresented the prior communications, the whistleblower’s legal team confirmed. The email communications back up those claims, with the whistleblower’s legal team writing that during their Friday call, Wyden’s office “would not commit to *either* Thursday or the following Tuesday after the holiday.”

“We asked you to reconsider Thursday and you offered to check on logistics for Tuesday, expressing doubt that you could get a court reporter,” the email continued. “We did not hear from you over the weekend or Monday, and thus sent the letter articulating our position and the reasons for it.”

In response, Wyden’s staffer did not dispute that sequence of events, but instead wrote that since Tuesday was represented as a “‘distant third’ option, it was an option”: “In line with that agreement, Tuesday the 30th is the date the Committee is available to meet. Please let us know how you’d like to proceed by the end of the day.”

That final email confirms there was no agreement between the Senate Finance Committee and the whistleblower, as Wyden’s spokesman had told CNN, but only continued efforts to reach an agreement.

The Federalist requested clarification from Daniel Goshorn, the Wyden staffer on the email exchanges, asking whether the senator’s spokesman had misspoken when he said there was an “agreement” for Shapley to testify. The Federalist also asked whether Wyden’s office on Friday had been unwilling to commit to either a Thursday or a Tuesday interview. Finally, The Federalist queried Wyden’s office on why they won’t agree to a joint interview.

Goshorn did not respond with a comment by press time.

However, no matter the reason Wyden and the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee have for refusing to conduct a joint interview with the House, that may be their only option at this point. The whistleblower is poised to appear on Friday before the Ways and Means Committee and indicated an unwillingness to testify again later before the Senate.

Rep. Jason Smith, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, shouldn’t leave the decision up to Wyden, though, because the Senate Democrat has proven himself to be putting politics above the public interest. Smith should sidestep the political posturing and, as I explained on Tuesday, use Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code to open the House Ways and Means’ interview of the whistleblower to the relevant Democrat and Republican members from both the House and Senate.

If Smith refuses to do so, that will be as inexplicable as Wyden refusing to participate in a joint hearing — leaving one to wonder if the House Republican is playing politics as well.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Tagged with:

Biden, McCarthy Appear Closer to Deal on Debt Ceiling

NEWSMAX Staff | Thursday, 25 May 2023 03:48 PM EDT

President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy on Thursday appeared to be nearing a deal to cut spending and raise the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, with little time to spare to head off the risk of default. The deal would specify the total amount the government could spend on discretionary programs like housing and education, according to a person familiar with the talks, but not break that down into individual categories. The two sides are just $70 billion apart on a total figure that would be well over $1 trillion, according to another source.

Biden said the two sides still disagreed where the cuts should fall.

“I don’t believe the whole burden should fall back to middle class and working class Americans,” he told reporters.

The Treasury Department has warned that the federal government could run short of money to cover all its obligations as soon as June 1 – a week away – but on Thursday it announced plans to sell $119 billion worth of debt that will settle on June 1, suggesting to some market watchers that date was not an iron-clad deadline. Any agreement will have to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate. That could be tricky, as some right-wing Republicans and many liberal Democrats said they were upset by the prospect of compromise.

“I don’t think everybody’s going to be happy at the end of the day. That’s now how the system works,” said McCarthy, who serves as House speaker.

His office did not respond to a request for comment about the possible agreement with the president. The deal would only set broad spending outlines, leaving lawmakers to fill in the blanks in the weeks and months to come. It would specify the total amount of military spending, which would a key sticking point in the talks, one of the sources said.

Biden has resisted Republican proposals to stiffen work requirements for anti-poverty programs and loosen oil and gas drilling rules, according to Democrat Rep. Mark Takano.

Rep. Kevin Hern, who leads the powerful Republican Study Committee, told Reuters a deal was likely by Friday afternoon.

Even as Republicans tout progress, McCarthy is preparing to possibly let lawmakers leave Washington on Thursday for a week-long holiday recess, with the proviso that they need to be ready to return for a vote. The Senate is currently out but on similar orders to be ready to return.

A U.S. default could upend global financial markets and push the United States into recession.

POSSIBLE DOWNGRADE

Credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar put the United States on review for a possible downgrade on Thursday, echoing similar warnings by Fitch, Moody’s and Scope Ratings. Another agency, S&P Global, downgraded U.S. debt following a similar debt-ceiling standoff in 2011. The months-long standoff has spooked Wall Street, weighing on U.S. stocks and pushing the nation’s cost of borrowing higher. The yield on U.S. Treasury bills maturing in early June climbed in early Thursday trading, in a sign of investor unease.

Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said concerns about the debt ceiling had pushed up the government’s interest costs by $80 million so far. Lawmakers regularly need to raise the self-imposed debt limit to cover the cost of spending and tax cuts they have already approved.

House lawmakers will get three days to read any debt-ceiling bill before they have to vote on it. In the Senate, Republican Mike Lee said he would block a quick vote if he did not like the deal, which could delay action for days. McCarthy has insisted that any deal must cut discretionary spending next year and cap spending growth in the years to come, to slow the growth of the U.S. debt, now equal to the annual output of the economy.

He also said he had briefly spoken about the negotiations with former President Donald Trump, who has publicly urged Republicans to allow a default if they fall short of their goals. Biden has offered to freeze spending at current levels next year and proposed several tax increases to help curb the debt.

Lawmakers on the parties’ right and left flanks are growing frustrated by signs of compromise. Republican Representative Chip Roy, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, has insisted that any deal must include the sharp spending cuts they passed last month.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, say Biden has not been vocal enough about the downsides to Republicans’ proposed spending cuts, in contrast to McCarthy who has been briefing reporters multiple times per day.

“I would urge the president to use the power of the bully pulpit of the presidency,” said Democrat Representative Steven Horsford.

Category:

Tagged with:

Rep. Cline to Newsmax: Committee Will Hear From Durham on FBI

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 25 May 2023 12:41 PM EDT

Special counsel John Durham will speak with members of the House Judiciary Committee in coming weeks, and members will hear “exactly how the FBI lied to the American people” with its investigative actions during former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, speaking at a time when Americans need to know “just how deep the rot in our intelligence agencies has gone,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., said Thursday.

“He’s going to be able to tell us exactly how the FBI lied to the American people, how they used the Steele dossier when they knew it was false and based on false premises, and how it was pushed to use the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016,” Cline said on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”

The deceptions continued, Cline said, with special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in 2018, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in 2020, and the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022.

“We would just like to have an election season without interference from our intelligence agencies,” said Cline. “Is that so much to ask?”

Meanwhile, there are several ways the House can prevent the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray from continuing such behavior, said Cline.

“We have several options ot our disposal in Congress,” he said. “We have the power of the purse, and right now the appropriations bills for the FBI. They want a new office building, a giant new office building [to be] built. These kinds of things are being looked at very skeptically by appropriators.”

Cline said there also is legislation that can be brought into play, including reauthorizing the FISA process, which expires at the end of this year.

“If they want that tool, we might have to take that tool away,” he said.

Another legislative tool was put in place when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took office and agreed to restore line-item revisions of individual bureaucrats’ salaries in appropriations bills “so we can go in and line item, whether it’s Anthony Fauci or Christopher Wray, those will be subject to debate and vote in the House of Representatives.”

Cline also on Thursday discussed the impasse between House Republicans and President Joe Biden’s administration on debt ceiling talks, saying it was Biden “from the very beginning” who has been the problem.

“It was the president from the very beginning, stomping [his] feet and crossing [his] arms and saying, My way or the highway, pass a clean debt ceiling with no reforms,” said Cline. “That’s not acceptable, and that’s what he was doing for several months while the speaker was saying, ‘Come to the table, let’s start negotiating. Let’s talk.'”

The House passed its debt ceiling bill with a GOP majority vote, Cline added.

“We’re the only body to have passed legislation that actually raised the debt ceiling with a number of conditions that are popular among 80% of the people, with work requirements for welfare, energy independence,” Cline said. “The president should be at the table negotiating and should agree to cut spending.”

About NEWSMAX TV:

NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!

Find NEWSMAX in over 100 million U.S. homes via cable/streaming – More Info Here
Watch NEWSMAX TV online – See It Here
Download the FREE NEWSMAX App on Your Smartphone to Watch Now!

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

DeSantis: I’ll Pardon Trump, Other DOJ ‘Weaponization’ Victims

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 25 May 2023 03:33 PM EDT

New GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said on Thursday that if he’s elected, he will “be aggressive” in using presidential pardons to free people charged or convicted through the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and that includes his main rival for the party’s nomination, former President Donald Trump.

“What I’m going to do is … on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons,” the Florida governor told podcasters, Buck Sexton and Clay Travis.

DeSantis added that the DOJ and FBI have been weaponized in many ways under President Joe Biden, and he acknowledged that in some of the cases where people are charged with crimes, “people may have a technical violation of the law.”

“But if there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM [Black Lives Matter] and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so we’re going to find ways where that did not happen,” said DeSantis. “And then we will use the pardon power — and I will do that at the front end.”

He said many presidents wait until the end of their administration, but he promised that his administration will “find examples where the government’s been weaponized against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate.”

However, DeSantis also explained that the pardons will be considered “case by case,” meaning that a blanket pardon wouldn’t be given to Trump, who is facing several criminal probes.

“That could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted too much all the way up to, potentially, Trump himself,” Travis said. He then asked the governor, “Is that fair to say when you analyze what the charges might have been brought on a federal level?”

“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” DeSantis responded.

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

Ann Coulter Op-ed: How Not To Be President

May 24, 2023 by Ann Coulter

Now that we know Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running for president (along with several others whose names I can’t remember), I have a helpful primer on what NOT to do as president.

I base this advice on the conduct of the most inconsequential president in U.S. history, Donald Trump. With the exception of the judiciary — something neither he nor Jared saw a way of monetizing, thank God — Trump’s entire presidency can be summarized as: obnoxious tweets, followed by immediate and complete capitulation.

The problem with the Trump diehards is that they’d read the bad-ass tweets, pump their fists, but then wander off, never bothering to find out what happened next. Here’s what happened: Trump surrendered. Over and over and over again.

There were so many surrenders that The New York Times had to keep coming up with new synonyms for “loser”: “Trump Gives Ground,” “Trump Backs Off,” “Trump Drops,” “Trump Accommodates Democrats,” “Trump Seethes,” “Trump Signals Defeat,” “Trump’s Surprise Retreat,” “Trump Confronted by a Loss,” “The Biggest Surrender of His Presidency,” and so on.

In his first two years in office, Trump had a Republican House and a Republican Senate — he could have done anything! Let’s see how he fulfilled his signature promise to build a wall, as told in tweets and headlines.

FIRST SPENDING FIGHT:

“… (if) the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be! #BuildTheWall” — Trump tweet, April 24, 2017

“Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.” — Trump tweet, April 25, 2017

New York Times Headline, April 26, 2017: “Wall ‘Will Get Built,’ Trump Insists, as He Drops Funding Demand”

SECOND SPENDING FIGHT:

“If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall … One way or the other, we’re going to get that wall.” — Trump at Phoenix rally, Aug. 22, 2017

“I think everybody knows this president isn’t somebody who backs down.” — White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, Aug. 23, 2017

Months of negotiations and studly tweets (Jan. 4, 2018: “We must BUILD THE WALL, stop illegal immigration,” etc. etc.) led to this:

New York Times headline, March 22, 2018: “Spending Plan Passed by Congress Is a Rebuke to Trump.”

“Rebuke” is putting it mildly: The bill expressly prohibited Trump from building a wall and, for good measure, also blocked the hiring of thousands of new Border Patrol agents.

But Trump bounced back with more masterful tweeting!

“I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill (because) … the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded.” — Trump tweet, March 23, 2018

Then, the very next day …

New York Times headline, March 24, 2018: “Trump Seethes, but Signs Bipartisan Spending Plan”

True, Trump had given away the store, but look at what he said while signing the Don’t Even Think About Building a Wall bill:

“I looked very seriously at the veto. I was thinking about doing the veto.”

Not only that, but he vowed, “I will never sign another bill like this again — I’m not going to do it again.”

You’ll never guess what he did again.

THIRD SPENDING FIGHT:

“I want to know, where is the money for Border Security and the WALL in this ridiculous Spending Bill, and where will it come from after the Midterms? Dems are obstructing Law Enforcement and Border Security. REPUBLICANS MUST FINALLY GET TOUGH!” — Trump tweet, Sept. 20, 2018

Months of negotiations finally ended with …

“Trump Signs Bill Reopening Government for 3 Weeks in Surprise Retreat From Wall” — The New York Times, Jan. 25, 2019

Surprise! By then, 41 newly-elected House Democrats had been sworn in and there was no hope of getting a wall or anything else through Congress.

How does a Republican president get buffaloed like this by a Republican Congress? Reagan enacted his entire radical agenda (and won the Cold War) without ever, not once, having a Republican House and Senate.

It wasn’t only Trump’s wall that followed the obnoxious tweet/face plant trajectory. It was everything. Tweeting “LAW & ORDER!” as the country went up in flames; retweeting #FireFauci while never daring to remove King Anthony from his throne; spending months tweeting about “Rocket Man,” then staging a theatrical meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — to accomplish what exactly?

I’ll need another column to even begin to capture the horror of this wasted presidency.

Gov. DeSantis, I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you this, but please don’t do any of that.

Category:

Opinion, Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Crooked 2024

A.F. BRANCO | on May 25, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-crooked-2024/

Crooked Biden, age and all is running for his 2nd term as President, actually Obama’s 4th term. Political cartoon.

Biden Running 2024 — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

Tagged with:

Here’s A Big Tell Democrats Believe The FBI Works For Them

May 24, 2023

BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 24, 2023

Author Joy Pullmann profile

JOY PULLMANN

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOYPULLMANN

Democrats are communicating loud and clear that they support law enforcement so long as it abuses police power to serve their political goals. They want to defund police who enforce the law and expand police forces that use law as a political weapon on Democrats’ behalf.

One proof is that in last week’s hearing on FBI weaponization, support for the FBI was split exactly by political party. Democrats uniformly supported the FBI in face of evidence of gross and systemic abuse of power, while Republicans uniformly criticized it. This is a clear tell that Democrats consider the FBI to be working for them — a shocking and dangerous situation.

“Every single Republican on the Judiciary Committee is committed to fundamental change in how that [FBI secret warrant] process works,” Rep. Jim Jordan told Maria Bartiromo Sunday in a post-hearing interview. “…the FISA and the appropriations process is how you rein in this agency that targeted good men, like Garret O’Boyle, Stephen Friend, and Marcus Allen, who had the courage to come forward and testify this week and tell the American people what’s going on with their tax dollars in the Justice Department.”

The last week has surfaced numerous new facts about serious ongoing and systemic FBI abuses of law enforcement powers. Special Counsel John Durham’s report showed that the FBI acted in a clearly partisan manner in multiple situations, including protecting the Hillary Clinton campaign while placing informants and electronic wiretaps on the Trump campaign based on fabricated evidence their agents didn’t check.

In Thursday’s hearing, the three whistleblowers detailed the FBI’s cruel retaliation against themselves and their families when they filed legally protected ethics complaints about: the FBI surveilling parents who complained about Democrats’ education policies at school board meetings; the FBI pursuing a SWAT-style raid against a cooperative man who attended the Jan. 6, 2021 rally; and the FBI inflating “domestic terrorism” cases to bolster Democrats’ false and horrifying claim that their political opponents are terrorists.

Allen told the committee it appears the FBI is conducting a “purge” of conservatives. Michael Shellenberger and Madeleine Rowley reported, “No mainstream media journalist interviewed the FBI whistleblowers before demonizing them.”

During that hearing, it was also revealed that the Bank of America gave the FBI private banking information about any American who used BOA credit cards near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, without any warrant, and regardless of whether those people committed any crimes or even were on the Capitol grounds that day.

“FBI leadership pressured agents to reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism (DVE), and even manufactured DVE cases where they may not otherwise exist, while manipulating its case categorization system to create the perception that DVE is organically rising around the country,” says a congressional staff report released May 18.

Saturday reporting on a secret court filing showed the FBI broke the law by spying on Americans 278,000 times, without any warrants, in 2021 alone. “For each American the FISA court permitted the FBI to target, the bureau illicitly surveilled almost 1,000 additional Americans,” reported the New York Post on Sunday. The whistleblowers noted that the FBI rewards agents for opening more warrantless surveillance and searches of Americans’ communications.

Then on Sunday a poll came out showing the majority of Americans believe the FBI covers up Democrats’ crimes — specifically those of the Biden family. It also showed that 70 percent of Americans are concerned the FBI and other intelligence agencies interfere with elections, and believe the agencies need “wide-ranging reform.”

Don’t forget, either, that the only former president’s home the FBI has ever raided was a Republican’s, while FBI officials bent over backward to avoid touching even convincing evidence of criminal behavior related to Clinton, according to Durham’s documentation. The FBI’s recent record is clearly partisan, and that’s why its support is also now partisan.

This partisanship is not just typical politics. It’s over fundamental issues, not differing ways to get to the same goal. It’s also very dangerous to our country.

When federal law enforcement becomes the shock troops of only one political party, you don’t have the rule of law anymore. Law is only legitimate if it is equally applied to all. When members of one party or set of political beliefs are above the law and use the law not for justice but as a weapon against their political enemies, that’s what we call a police state.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

Category:

NORFOLK VIRGINIA SCHOOL BOARD CONSIDERING EXPLICIT SEX-ED PROGRAM BY PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Tagged with:

Maryland county schools forcing kids into ‘extreme’ LGTBQ storybook lessons: lawsuit

By Brianna Herlihy | Fox News | Published May 24, 2023 2:46pm EDT

A group of Maryland parents filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Montgomery County Board of Education for mandating that students from grades pre-K through eight read storybooks that push “extreme ideology” regarding gender identity and sexuality.

Last fall, the school board introduced new “inclusivity” books that promote controversial ideology around transgenderism and focus excessively on children’s romantic feelings. For example, one book tasks 3- and 4-year-olds with searching for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker.

Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense”; teachers are instructed to add that doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway.

The learning guide to another book about a playground same-sex romance invites school kids to share with classmates how they feel when they “don’t just ‘like’ but… ‘like like’” someone.

cover art of "Pride Puppy!" children's book — Last fall, the Montgomery County school board introduced new “inclusivity” books that promote controversial ideology around transgenderism and focus excessively on children’s romantic feelings. (Courtesy of Becket Fund)

According to attorneys at Becket, a nonprofit public interest law firm, when the school board first went public with the “pride” storybooks, it assured hundreds of concerned parents they would be notified when the books were read and could opt their children out.

Becket says the board repeated that assurance to parents as recently as March 22, 2023. But the very next day, Becket says the board announced that the books would be mandatory for all elementary school students. One school board member, according to the legal group, told concerned parents that opting out “is just telling that kid, ‘[h]ere’s another reason to hate another person.’”

"Pride Puppy!" search-and-find word list — Children’s book tasks 3- and 4-year-olds with searching for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. (Courtesy of Becket Fund)

VIRGINIA PARENTS OUTRAGED AFTER EDUCATION BOARD NOMINEE WHO STOOD AGAINST SOCIALISM IS OUSTED

Becket represents a coalition of religious parents, including Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and others, who say that despite faith differences, they believe the new storybooks are age-inappropriate and spiritually and emotionally damaging for kids, and they want their kids to have alternative reading material.

“Children are entitled to guidance from their own parents, who know and love them best, regarding how they’ll be introduced to complex issues concerning gender identity, transgenderism, and human sexuality,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket.

art from "Born Ready" children's book — One book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense”; teachers are instructed to add that doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway. (Courtesy of Becket)

GEORGIA SCHOOL DISTRICT MAY HAVE VIOLATED STUDENTS RIGHTS BY REMOVING EXPLICIT BOOKS, EDUCATION DEPT. SAYS

“Forced, ideological discussions during story hour won’t cut it, and excluding parents will only hinder, not help, inclusivity,” he said.

Maryland law and the school board’s own governing policies require parental notice and opportunity to opt out of any instruction concerning “family life and human sexuality.”

Becket lawyers are asking the Maryland district court to immediately block the school board’s “no notice, no opt-out” policy.

The Montgomery County Board of Education did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Category:

TIM SCOTT, LONG A TARGET OF LIBERAL MEDIA OVER HIS RACE, ENTERS 2024 FRAY GETTING ‘CLARENCE THOMAS’ TREATMENT

Tagged with:

Joy Behar blasted by Black Republicans over claim Tim Scott ‘doesn’t get’ racism: ‘Sit this one out’

By Hanna Panreck | Fox News | Published May 24, 2023 11:30am EDT

‘The View’ co-host Joy Behar compared Sen. Tim Scott to Clarence Thomas on Tuesday and argued they both don’t ‘get it.’

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and others including Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., blasted “The View” co-host Joy Behar on Tuesday after she claimed Scott “doesn’t get” racism while comparing him to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“He’s one of these guys, like Clarence Thomas, Black Republican, who believes in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, rather than understanding the systemic racism that African Americans face in this country and other minorities. He doesn’t get it. Neither does Clarence. That’s why they’re Republicans,” she said Tuesday during “The View.”

Responding to a clip of Behar’s comments on Twitter, Scott said that he is the candidate the “radical Left fears the most,” echoing a statement he made during his 2024 campaign announcement.

🤷🏾‍♂️

When a Black conservative who believes in the future of this nation stands up to be counted, they lose their minds.

That’s why I’m the candidate the radical Left fears the most. https://t.co/JBAVZUjpZt
— Tim Scott (@votetimscott) May 23, 2023

“When a Black conservative who believes in the future of this nation stands up to be counted, they lose their minds,” he said.

Tim Scott announces for president — Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott delivers his speech announcing his candidacy for president of the United States on the campus of Charleston Southern University in North Charleston, S.C., on Monday. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

Congressman Donalds called out Behar over her comments as well and noted photos of “The View” host dressed up as a Black woman for Halloween, which resurfaced in 2019.

Joy, dressing up as a Black woman for Halloween with dark paint on your face doesn't magically make you Black or make you an expert on what it's like to be Black.

From one Black person to another White liberal who got a pass for wearing Black face, sit this one out. https://t.co/cz2j96SeJJ
— Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) May 23, 2023

“Joy, dressing up as a Black woman for Halloween with dark paint on your face doesn’t magically make you Black or make you an expert on what it’s like to be Black. From one Black person to another White liberal who got a pass for wearing Black face, sit this one out,” he wrote in response to a clip of Behar.

Attention black Americans: don’t even *think* about having a mind of your own or else this wealthy white lady will come for you. https://t.co/MXdXuPoTzd
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) May 24, 2023

Noted expert on black men, Joy Behar, says Tim Scott and Clarence Thomas, two actual black men, don’t know what it’s like to be black in America. pic.twitter.com/ElmFLu3TnY
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 23, 2023

The sanctimonious, condescending, and monumentally arrogant Left. https://t.co/9PgmfXG7dk
— Nile Gardiner (@NileGardiner) May 23, 2023

Joy is a joke. https://t.co/AQQ5caxXal
— Tiffany Justice (@4TiffanyJustice) May 23, 2023

Imagine how blinded by ideology and insulated by a bubble of privileges someone like Joy Behar has to be to publicly feel comfortable lecturing Clarence Thomas, who grew up in the Jim Crow south, about racism in America. https://t.co/OwIZwHU5DJ
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 23, 2023

Other conservative commentators took issue with Behar’s remarks as well.

“Attention black Americans: don’t even *think* about having a mind of your own or else this wealthy white lady will come for you,” Scott Jennings, a senior CNN commentator, wrote on Twitter in response to a clip of Behar’s remarks.

JOY BEHAR SAYS TIM SCOTT DOESN’T ‘UNDERSTAND’ THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RACIST COUNTRY, SYSTEMIC RACISM

Scott officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Monday and referenced multiple instances of criticism from the left during his announcement speech.

“I’m the candidate the far left fears the most,” Scott said. “When I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I re-funded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the n-word. I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lies!”

“The View” co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin also criticized Scott on Monday

“One of the issues that Tim Scott has is that he seems to think, ‘Because I made it, everyone can make it.’ Ignoring, again, the fact that he’s the exception and not the rule. And until he’s the rule, then he can stop talking about systemic racism,” Hostin said.

Goldberg said he had “Clarence Thomas syndrome.”

“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg suggests Sen. Tim Scott has “Clarence Thomas syndrome.” (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)

Scott told Fox News that Hostin had it backward when she claimed his story is “the exception, not the rule.”

“We have to ignore the far left by disproving their lies by our actions. Here’s the funny thing: The host, Sunny, she wants to be judged by the content of her character, not the color of her skin. The fact of the matter is America is a story of evolution — a never-told story of evolution in too many of our schools that are indoctrinating our kids instead of educating our kids,” he added.

Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.

Category:

Media, Political

Tagged with:

CNN Poll: 6 in 10 Say Cut Spending With Debt Limit Rise

By Solange Reyner | Wednesday, 24 May 2023 12:40 PM EDT

A majority 60% of Americans say spending cuts should accompany a debt ceiling increase, according to a CNN poll. Additionally, 24% said Congress should raise the debt ceiling “no matter what” while 15% said lawmakers shouldn’t raise it and “allow the U.S. to default on its debts.”

Talks between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the Biden administration have stalled as Republican negotiators say there is a “significant gap between where we are and where they are.”

“Unless and until the White House recognizes that this is a spending problem, then we’re gonna continue to have a significant gap,” Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Graves is a top proxy for McCarthy in the talks.

The White House has discussed reducing the deficit by closing tax loopholes and raising taxes on billionaires, a suggestion rejected by Republicans.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said default isn’t an option and insisted that the talks have been productive.

“We believe there is a space and an opportunity here to have a bipartisan, reasonable … budget agreement,” she said.

The CNN poll, conducted May 17-20, surveyed 1,227 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Files for 2024 GOP Primary Campaign

NEWSMAX Staff | Wednesday, 24 May 2023 02:47 PM EDT

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis entered the 2024 presidential race Wednesday, stepping into a crowded Republican primary contest that will test both his national appeal as a cultural conservative firebrand and the GOP’s willingness to move on from former President Donald Trump.

The 44-year-old Republican revealed his decision in a Federal Election Commission filing before an online conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk. It marks a new chapter in his extraordinary rise from little-known congressman to two-term governor to a leading figure in the nation’s bitter fights over race, gender, abortion, and other divisive issues. DeSantis is considered to be Trump’s strongest Republican rival even as the governor faces questions about his readiness for the national stage.

DeSantis’ audio-only announcement was to be streamed on Twitter Spaces beginning at 6 p.m. EDT. He was following up with prime-time appearances on conservative programs, including Fox News and Mark Levin’s radio show.

DeSantis’ entry into the Republican field has been rumored for months and he is considered one of the party’s strongest candidates in the quest to retake the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden. The 80-year-old incumbent, Republicans say, has pushed the nation too far left while failing to address inflation, immigration and crime. The Republican nominee will face Biden on the general election ballot in November 2024.

DeSantis begins his campaign in a top-tier of two alongside Trump based on early public polling, fundraising and campaign infrastructure. The two GOP powerhouses have much in common.

DeSantis, who likely would not have become the Florida governor without Trump’s endorsement, has adopted the former president’s fiery personality, his populist policies and even some of his rhetoric and mannerisms. Yet DeSantis has one thing Trump does not: a credible claim that he may be more electable in a general election than Trump, who faces multiple legal threats and presided over Republican losses in three consecutive national elections.

DeSantis, just six months ago, won his reelection in Florida by a stunning 19 percentage points — even as Republicans in many other states struggled. He also scored several major policy victories during the Republican-controlled Legislature’s spring session.

Aware of DeSantis’ draw, Trump has been almost singularly focused on undermining DeSantis’ political appeal for months. Trump and his team believe that DeSantis may be Trump’s only legitimate threat for the nomination. Trump’s kitchen-sink attacks and nicknames won’t be DeSantis’ only hurdle.

DeSantis may be a political heavyweight in Florida and a regular on Fox News, but allies acknowledge that most primary voters in other states don’t know him well. A Florida native with family roots in the Midwest, DeSantis studied at Yale University, where he played baseball. He would go on to Harvard Law School and become a Navy Judge Advocate General officer, a position that took him to Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He ran for Congress in 2012 and won an Orlando-area district, becoming a founding member of the far-right Freedom Caucus on Capitol Hill.

Despite his lengthy resume, friends and foes alike note that DeSantis struggles to display the campaign-trail charisma and quick-on-your-feet thinking that often defines successful candidates at the national level. He has gone to great lengths to avoid unscripted public appearances and media scrutiny while governor, which is difficult, if not impossible, as a presidential contender.

Would-be supporters also worry that DeSantis has refused to invest in relationships with party leaders or fellow elected officials, raising questions about his ability to build the coalition he will ultimately need to beat Trump. By contrast, the more personable Trump has already scooped up an army of endorsements in key states, including Florida. Beyond the primary, DeSantis’ greatest longer-term challenge may rest with the far-right policies he enacted as governor as an unapologetic leader in what he calls his war on “woke.”

The Florida governor sent dozens of immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast to draw attention to the influx of Latin American immigrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. He signed and then expanded the Parental Rights in Education bill — known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans instruction or classroom discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida public schools for all grades.

More recently, he signed a law banning abortions at six weeks, which is before most women realize they’re pregnant. And he single-handedly removed an elected prosecutor who vowed not to charge people under Florida’s new abortion restrictions or doctors who provide gender-affirming care.

DeSantis also signed a law this year allowing Florida residents to carry a concealed firearm without a permit. He pushed new measures that experts warn would weaken press freedoms. He also took control of a liberal arts college that he believed was indoctrinating students with leftist ideology.

The governor’s highest-profile political fight, however, has come against the beloved Florida-based entertainment giant Disney, which publicly opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” law. In retaliation, DeSantis seized control of Disney World’s governing body and installed loyalists who are threatening to take over park planning, among other extraordinary measures. DeSantis himself has threatened to build a state prison on park property. The dispute has drawn condemnation from business leaders and his Republican rivals, who said the moves are at odds with small-government conservatism.

DeSantis delayed his announcement until Florida’s legislative session was over. But for much of the year, he has been courting primary voters in key states and using an allied super political action committee to build out a large political organization that is essentially a campaign in waiting and already claims at least $30 million in the bank.

He joins a field that already includes: Trump; former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson; and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also considered a likely presidential candidate but has not yet announced a bid.

More than any of his opponents, except perhaps Trump, DeSantis is positioned to hit the ground running thanks to the super PAC’s months-long efforts to install campaign infrastructure across Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which will host the first four contests on the GOP’s primary calendar early next year. The super PAC also established more than 30 Students for DeSantis chapters across at least 18 states.

___

Peoples reported from New York. Izaguirre reported in Tallahassee, Florida.

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Fireside Chat

A.F. BRANCO | on May 24, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-fireside-chat/

Strong house conservatives continue to hold Speaker McCarthy’s feet to the fire on the debt ceiling fight.

Holding McCarthy’s Feet to the Fire — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

Tagged with:

Here’s How House Republicans Could Block Senate Democrats’ Efforts To Thwart IRS Whistleblower

May 23, 2023

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 23, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

The Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee is playing politics with the Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower, a letter sent Monday to the heads of the congressional oversight committees charges. But besides outing the partisan gamesmanship of the Senate committee, the whistleblower’s attorneys signal a solution to House Republicans: Use Section 6103(f)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code to sidestep Senate Democrats’ efforts to thwart the IRS whistleblower.

According to Monday’s letter, obtained by The Federalist, while attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) supervisory special agent have been working diligently for the last month to arrange for their client to testify on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, “the Senate Finance Committee leadership has been unwilling to even consider a joint interview.” Nonetheless, the whistleblower remained committed to working with the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee since it had indicated a willingness to coordinate scheduling to allow the whistleblower to testify on two consecutive days.

But then, after scheduling their client’s private testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee for Friday, May 26, the Senate Finance Committee refused to commit to interviewing the whistleblower the prior day to allow the questioning to take place on two consecutive days. Thus, on Monday, the whistleblower’s attorneys declared, in essence, enough is enough, in their dispatch to the Senate and House: “Our client intends to appear on Friday, May 26th for the scheduled testimony agreed to by the House Ways and Means Committee,” the letter declared, then stressing that the whistleblower is unlikely to agree to testify separately before the Senate on another date.

Significantly, the letter from the IRS supervisory special agent’s attorneys added that their “client would welcome appropriately designated Senate staff to join and participate” in the House hearing. This invitation is huge because Section 6103(f)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code authorizes the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee to “designate or appoint” an agent to receive confidential tax information.

Because Republicans control the House Ways and Means Committee, its chair, Jason Smith, could designate Senate staffers to “join and participate” in the whistleblower’s House-transcribed interview. If Smith is wise, he will take the hint and designate as agents under Section 6103(f)(4) multiple Senate staffers for both Democrat and Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee.

This would allow the whistleblower to achieve what he wanted: to be questioned on a bipartisan and bicameral basis. Additionally, by designating multiple Senate staffers, not merely staffers for the chair and ranking member, the House Ways and Means Committee can ensure Sen. Chuck Grassley’s top investigator participates in the transcribed interview — something Democrat Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee chair, was blocking.

As the Washington Examiner reported Monday, the IRS whistleblower had included Grassley in his various correspondence to the committees because the Iowa senator is co-chair of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus and is “more trusted than any other public official by whistleblowers.” Grassley and his investigators are also “subject matter experts on both whistleblower protections and the Biden family business controversies,” as well as “very familiar with the specific statutes protecting sensitive tax information.”

Yet Wyden, who also serves as a co-chair with Grassley on the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, has refused to allow Grassley to participate in the Senate’s probe of the whistleblower’s claims.

But now, unless the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee quickly reverses course and agrees to a joint — or, at minimum, consecutive — interview of the whistleblower, it won’t be Wyden deciding anything. It will be the Republican House Ways and Means chair.

Whether the whistleblower’s Monday letter jolts Wyden and his fellow Democrats into action remains to be seen. Either way, Smith should designate Senate staffers, including Grassley’s lead investigator, as agents for the House Ways and Means Committee to ensure the fullest exposure possible for the IRS whistleblower’s testimony.

That move might also teach Democrats not to play political games with whistleblowers who go to great lengths to ensure bipartisanship — as was done in mid-April when the IRS whistleblower’s attorneys first reached out to both Republican and Democrat leaders with their client’s offer to provide testimony of detailed “examples of preferential treatment” “improperly infecting decisions and protocols” applied during the investigation of a “high-profile,” “politically connected” individual. Unnamed sources later identified the IRS target as Hunter Biden and claimed that “specific DOJ employees placed strictures on questions, witnesses and tactics investigators may be allowed to pursue that could impact President Biden.”

The whistleblower’s bipartisan pledge was then put into action when his attorneys, Tristan Leavitt of Empower Oversight and Mark Lytle of Nixon Peabody, LLP, worked with both the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee and the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee to be designated the respective committee’s agents with authority to inspect Hunter Biden’s tax returns and related information under Section 6103(f)(4).

After learning the extent of their client’s evidence concerning the alleged misconduct involved in the Hunter Biden investigation, Leavitt and Peabody on May 5, 2023, provided separate “proffers” to both the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees. In those proffers, the attorneys summarized the substance of their client’s disclosures, paving the way for the client to testify before both committees.

But while the whistleblower remains committed to bipartisanship, Monday’s letter to the committees’ chairs and ranking members, as well as the heads of the Judiciary Committees and Grassley, exposed the delays and other disconcerting tactics undertaken by the Democrat-led Senate Finance Committee. And while the whistleblower lacks the power to force the Senate Democrats to play fair, as his attorneys highlighted in their letter, Chairman Smith of the House Ways and Means Committee is not so constrained.

Let’s hope Smith takes the hint.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

CONSUMERS CREEPED OUT BY TARGET’S ‘TUCK-FRIENDLY’ WOMEN’S SWIMWEAR: ‘SHOPPING ELSEWHERE’

Tagged with:

Target holds ’emergency’ meeting over LGBTQ merchandise in some stores to avoid ‘Bud Light situation’

By Brian Flood | Fox News | Published May 23, 2023 12:27pm EDT

FIRST ON FOX — Some southern Target stores were forced by the corporation to move LGBTQ Pride merchandise away from the front of their locations after customer “outrage” to avoid a “Bud Light situation.”

Many Target locations across the country feature massive June Pride month displays on an annual basis, with items this year ranging from “tuck friendly” bathing suits for transgender people to mugs that say “gender fluid.” But the retail juggernaut has been criticized by some conservatives for the displays, with children’s items particularly irking many customers.

A Target insider told Fox News Digital that many locations, mostly in rural areas of the South, have relocated Pride sections to avoid the kind of backlash Bud Light has received in recent weeks after using a transgender influencer in a promotional campaign.

Target in Palmdale, California — Some southern Target stores were forced by the corporation to move LGBTQ Pride merchandise away from the front of the store after customer “outrage.” (Google Maps)

A Target insider said there were “emergency” calls on Friday and that some managers and district senior directors were told to tamp down the Pride sections immediately.

“We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage,” the Target insider said.

“We call our customers ‘guests,’ there is outrage on their part. This year, it is just exponentially more than any other year,” the Target insider continued. “I think given the current situation with Bud Light, the company is terrified of a Bud Light situation.”

The insider, who has worked at the retailer for almost two decades, said Target rarely makes such hasty decisions. They said Friday’s call began with roughly 10 minutes on “how to deal with team member safety” because of the amount of backlash the Pride merchandise has generated, noting that Target Asset Protect & Corporate Security teams were present on the call.

Target Pride swimsuits boast “tuck-friendly construction” and “extra crotch coverage,” presumably to accommodate male genitalia, even if they are made in an otherwise female style. (Brian Flood/Fox News)

TARGET-PRIDE-COLLECTION-TAG — Many Target locations across the country feature massive June Pride month displays on an annual basis. (Brian Flood/Fox News)

“The call was super quick, it was 15 minutes. The first 10 minutes was about how to keep your team safe and not having to advocate for Target. The last five was, ‘Move this to the back, take down the mannequins and remove the signage,’” the insider said, noting that bathing suits have replaced Pride merchandise in front-of-store displays despite Pride month not even starting until June 1.

“It’s all under the guise of trying to increase swim sales,” the insider said. “Everyone was like, ‘Thank God,’ because we’re all on the front lines dealing with it.”

Target did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BUD LIGHT IN ‘SERIOUS TROUBLE’ OF LOSING STATUS AS TOP-SELLING BEER IN US, INDUSTRY EXPERT WARNS

Fox News Digital has confirmed rural Target stores in South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia are among the locations to move the Pride sections. Most rank-and-file employees were left in the dark, with many not knowing the Pride sections would be moved until they noticed it themselves.

Pride merchandise remains prominently displayed at other locations and on the Target website.

Target Pride merchandise includes female-style swimsuits that can be used to “tuck” male genitalia. Some products are also labeled as “Thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions.”

Pride merchandise also includes onesies and rompers for newborn babies, a variety of adult clothing with slogans such as “Super Queer,” party supplies, home decor, multiple books and a “Grow At Your Own Pace” saucer planter.

INFLUENTIAL TRANS CARE DOCTOR ONCE WARNED PUBERTY BLOCKERS COULD CAUSE PERMANENT SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION

TARGET-PRIDE-COLLECTION-KIDS — Target has been criticized by conservatives for apparently over-the-top Pride displays, with children’s items particularly irking many customers. (Brian Flood/Fox News)

TARGET-PRIDE-COLLECTION-MUGS — Target Pride merchandise includes “Gender Fluid” mugs and “Grow At Your Own Pace” saucer planters. (Brian Flood/Fox News)

Bud Light sales have plummeted since backlash to the partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney has continued to haunt the company more than a month since it came to light. The issue began when Mulvaney publicized that the beer company sent packs of Bud Light featuring the influencer’s face as a way to celebrate a full year of “girlhood.” Mulvaney is one of many social media influencers Bud Light has tapped to promote the brand.

Mulvaney said the cans were her “most prized possession” on Instagram with a post that featured “#budlightpartner.” A video then featured Mulvaney in a bathtub drinking a Bud Light beer as part of the campaign. Some consumers mistakenly thought the cans with Mulvaney’s face were being sold to the public.

“Bud Light learned an important lesson about wading into the culture wars recently. But partnering with Dylan Mulvaney is nothing compared to what Target is doing,” conservative pundit and author Bethany Mandel tweeted.

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.

Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.

Category:

Business, Media, Political

IRS WHISTLEBLOWER LETTER ACCUSES DOJ OF RETALIATION IN HUNTER BIDEN PROBE

Tagged with:

Senate Democrat cuts out GOP senator from whistleblower crying foul in Hunter Biden probe

By Brianna Herlihy | Fox News | Published May 23, 2023 3:10pm EDT

A top Senate Republican is being cut out from a congressional investigation into IRS whistleblower claims that a Justice Department and IRS probe of Hunter Biden’s alleged tax fraud is being mishandled.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and co-chairman of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, is being denied access to the investigation by committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Specifically, Grassley and his investigative team are being denied access to an interview scheduled to take place in the coming weeks with one of the whistleblowers who alleges that the whistleblower’s entire team had been removed last week from the Hunter Biden probe as retaliation for coming forward with claims the probe was being mishandled.

A spokesperson for Grassley said the IRS whistleblower’s attorneys “have specifically included Sen. Grassley in their communications with Congress, so there’s no legitimate reason to exclude Grassley’s staff from participating in this investigation.”

Hunter Biden, right with President Biden leaving Air Force One — President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“Sen. Grassley and his investigations unit are subject-matter experts on both whistleblower protections and the Biden family business controversies. They also happen to be very familiar with the specific statutes protecting sensitive tax information,” Taylor Foy, communications director for Grassley, told Fox News Digital.

An IRS criminal supervisory agent first came forward to seek whistleblower protection in an April 19 letter to Congress, claiming that the investigation into Hunter Biden is being mishandled by the Biden administration.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION BEING MISHANDLED, ‘CLEAR CONFLICTS OF INTEREST’: IRS WHISTLEBLOWER

The whistleblower’s attorney, Mark D. Lytle of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Nixon Peabody LLP, tells members of the House of Representatives and Senate that his client has been overseeing the “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020 and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”

IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS CLAIM RETALIATION IN CONNECTION TO HUNTER BIDEN COMPLAINT

Lytle also said his client has information that the investigator failed to mitigate “clear conflicts of interest,” adding that the investigator allegedly allowed preferential treatment and politics to infect decisions and protocols normally followed by law enforcement professionals if the subject was not politically connected.

Last week, the IRS removed the “entire investigative team” from its multiyear tax fraud investigation into Hunter Biden, which the whistleblower said was “clearly retaliatory,” according to a Monday report.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress,” reads a letter from a whistleblower’s lawyer that was sent to the House and Senate judiciary committees last week.

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Category:

DEMOCRATS TARGET VULNERABLE GOP LAWMAKERS FOR SUPPORTING MCCARTHY’S DEBT CEILING BILL

Tagged with:

White House ‘dug in’ on demands in debt limit talks, McCarthy told House GOP: source

By Elizabeth Elkind FOXBusiness | Published May 23, 2023 12:09pm EDT

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told his conference that the White House was still “dug in” on its stance in debt limit negotiations despite a Monday night meeting that both sides hailed as “productive,” according to a source familiar with this morning’s remarks.

“Members were told to remain flexible for next week” in case they have to return to vote for a new debt limit bill, the source said. “McCarthy said the White House is dug in on raising taxes and [increasing] spending but by a smaller amount than they would like.”

It lines up with reporting that White House negotiators have countered Republicans’ demand to cut spending to 2022 levels and cap it at 1% growth for the next decade with an offer to freeze current spending levels into the next fiscal year, with caps for one or two following years.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy talks to reporters as he returns from a House Republican conference meeting on May 23, 2023. (Getty Images)

According to the source, McCarthy told members they have to “keep negotiating” and urged House Republicans to “stick together.”

He did not, however, offer fellow lawmakers any “points of agreement” forged between the White House and House GOP negotiators despite having roughly a week until the U.S. government is likely to run out of cash to pay all of its obligations.

57 HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEMAND DEBT LIMIT TALKS INCLUDE CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Biden and McCarthy — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, left, met with President Joe Biden, right, at the White House on Monday evening to discuss the debt limit. (Getty Images)

McCarthy later told reporters when he left the closed-door meeting that “we’re not there yet” in terms of a deal. He and Biden held their first bilateral meeting on the debt limit since February on Monday evening, with teams for both getting together afterward to continue working on a compromise.

DEBT CEILING TALKS STALL BETWEEN WHITE HOUSE, GOP: ‘NOT PRODUCTIVE’ SAYS GOP NEGOTIATOR

But it appears both sides were still far apart as of Tuesday morning – though McCarthy expressed optimism that a deal could still be struck by June 1.

“They still want to spend more money next year than we spent this year. That’s a red line,” the speaker said. “We could still finish this by June … we’re trying to condense everything in a short time frame. The House passed the bill. The Senate never passed a bill. So, now it’s more difficult because of what else we have to negotiate from a lot of different perspectives. But we can still finish in time.”

Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

Category:

TED CRUZ, MIKE LEE PUSH FDA TO ‘AUTOMATICALLY’ APPROVE DRUGS USED IN ‘TRUSTED COUNTRIES’

Tagged with:

Ted Cruz reminds AOC her own Democrat Party founded KKK, wrote Jim Crow laws

By Brianna Herlihy | Fox News | Published May 23, 2023 3:48pm EDT

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., invited her colleague from across the aisle in Congress, Sen. Tex Cruz, R-Texas., to educate Twitter users on the history of America’s diametrically opposed political parties, and his answer is unlikely what she expected. The impetus for the Twitter discussion stemmed form Cruz first commenting on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issuing a travel advisory for Florida, saying the state “devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

“This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest.” Cruz stated in a tweet Sunday.

“In the 1950s & 1960s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement. Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they lost their way.”

A user responded in accusation that Cruz “would’ve been first in line to filibuster against the voting rights act, and the civil rights act,” in the 1950s and ’60s.

“Nonsense. That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats – your party. My party – the Republicans – proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems,” Cruz retorted in a tweet.

AOC inserted herself into the dialog by saying, “Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted.”

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — Sen Ted Cruz speaks to reporters on his way to the Senate weekly policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

TED CRUZ ACCUSES BIDEN OF ‘SCAREMONGERING’ ON DEBT CEILING AS BIDEN COMPLAINS OF ‘MAGA REPUBLICANS’

Cruz took her up on the offer and responded in a tweet thread saying:

“Sure. – First, the Dem party founded the KKK. – Then the Dem party wrote Jim Crow laws. – Then the Dem party filibustered the Civil Rights Act.”

“Today, the Dem part filibusters school choice – trapping millions of Black kids in failing schools. – Today, the Dem party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more Black lives murdered. – Today, every Dem senator voted against my bill to stop DC from throwing 40% of Black kids out of schools bc of vax mandate,” Cruz continued.

AOC — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Tom Williams/Getty Images)

AOC WILL NOT RUN FOR SENATE IN 2024, SPOKESPERSON SAYS

“The Republican Party was founded to oppose slavery. Our first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln, who won the Civil War and ended slavery. It was Republicans who voted for the civil Rights Act in a much higher percentage than racist Dems,” he addded.

“Today, we produced the lowest African-American unemployment EVER, under the Trump economic boom. – Today, we produced the lowest African-American poverty levels EVER, under the Trump economic boom,” Cruz continued.

“Today, (in 2017) I passed the largest expansion of federal school choice EVER (making 529 plans cover K-12), over the objection of ever single Senate Dem,” he said.

AOC and Ted Cruz — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ted Cruz

“Also, just two years ago, the Dem governor of Virginia had put the photo of A MAN DRESSED AS A KKK KLANSMAN on his personal yearbook page. – And today, the sitting Dem President – Joe Biden – gave in 2011 a flowery eulogy for an ‘Exalted Cyclops’ of the KKK,” he stated.

“And to add to all that, the Dem party aggressively supports open borders – which has led to the deaths and brutal assaults of thousands of Hispanics, and @aoc somehow can’t seem to find her White pantsuit to cry over their suffering,” Cruz concluded.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk chimed in, saying the thread is “the kind of interaction that makes this platform so unique & entertaining!”

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Category:

Tagged with:

FBI Whistleblower to Newsmax: Agency’s Upper Echelon Must Go

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Tuesday, 23 May 2023 03:07 PM EDT

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle, whose testimony last week before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government detailed the retribution he faced after speaking out against the agency’s practices, told Newsmax on Tuesday that he thinks the “lion’s share of the upper echelons of management in the FBI” need to go. O’Boyle also said on Newsmax’s “John Bachman Now” that he’s been hearing from FBI personnel on all levels who agree with him and that they “see the same things.”

“Since my testimony, I’ve heard from several other agents and FBI employees from all over the nation, different field offices and they all are telling me, ‘We are with you.’ … That’s even up to the GS14 and GS15 level, which is your first-line supervisor and mid-level management,” O’Boyle said.

But he added that it’s the “senior-executive staff level and up through the assistant director, up to the director himself, need to clean house. I think it’s the only way that the FBI hopefully someday can become a respected institution again. But it certainly isn’t that right now.”

O’Boyle’s attorney, Jesse Binnall, who appeared with his client on Newsmax, said it angers him that the media has “absolutely no interest” in getting to the heart “of the misconduct that’s been going on in the highest levels of our government, both at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

Binnall added that the media are more concerned about stopping former President Donald Trump than going after the FBI and DOJ, which will “stop at nothing to cover up people like Hillary Clinton, who have very seriously abused our system, and they’re never going to talk about people like Garret, who have courageously stood up for accountability.”

O’Boyle also said that he thinks the nation is at a “sad point” as it has a “two-tiered system” of justice.

“It’s very clear to anyone who’s paying attention,” he said. “The government will come for anybody they want, but if you’re in those upper echelons like Hillary Clinton, you can walk free and no one’s going to bat an eye.”

About NEWSMAX TV:

NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!

Find NEWSMAX in over 100 million U.S. homes via cable/streaming – More Info Here
Watch NEWSMAX TV online – See It Here
Download the FREE NEWSMAX App on Your Smartphone to Watch Now!

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

McConnell: ‘Everybody Needs to Relax’ About Default

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Tuesday, 23 May 2023 03:27 PM EDT

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said “everybody needs to relax” about the possibility of a debt default, insisting that the United States will not default on its payments.

“The last 10 times we raised the debt ceiling, there were things attached to it,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters in his home state, reported The Hill. “This is not that unusual. It is almost entirely required when you have a divided government.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the country could go into default on its debts by June 1, but McConnell insisted that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will reach an agreement.

“Regardless of what may be said about the talks … the president and the speaker will reach an agreement,” said McConnell. “It will ultimately pass on a bipartisan vote in both the House and the Senate. The country will not default.”

McConnell, who has strongly supported McCarthy, R-Calif., through the negotiations, has said repeatedly that Biden must reach a deal with McCarthy.

McConnell had been expected to play a role in the talks but instead has maintained a supporting role, saying that any deal must come between the White House and the House Republicans. As a result, the Democrat-controlled Senate has not played a large role in the discussions.

McConnell has joined McCarthy at the White House for some of the talks, but most of the discussions are now between teams; Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., and Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., lead the GOP; while Democrats are headed by White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, and White House Director of Legislative Affairs Louisa Terrell.

Republican negotiators Tuesday said the White House is showing little urgency in the discussions, considering that the House 72-hour rule means a deal much be reached by later this week so a bill can be passed before Yellen’s June 1 deadline.

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Executive Decisions

A.F. BRANCO | on May 23, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-executive-decision/

Biden chooses Attacking the 2nd Amendment and 87,000 IRS agents over securing the border and children.

Biden Anti-2nd Amendment Anti-Children — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

International Politics, Religion

Tagged with:

India’s Manipur remains tense weeks after 400 churches were burned, 60 Christians killed

May 22, 2023

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor | SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2023

An Indian army soldier (R) stands along with villagers in front of a ransacked church that was set on fire by a mob in the ethnic violence hit area of Heiroklian village in Senapati district, in India’s Manipur state on May 8, 2023. – Around 23,000 people have fled the unrest which erupted last week in the hilly northeast state bordering Myanmar. The latest clashes erupted between the majority Meitei people, who are mostly Hindu, living in and around the Manipur capital Imphal and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe of the hills. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

The northeastern Indian state of Manipur remains in a tense state of unease weeks after a devastating spate of violence led to the deaths of at least 73 individuals, most of them Christians, and the burning, damage or destruction of nearly 400 churches.

Kuldeep Singh, a security advisor to the Manipur Government, told reporters Saturday that 488 weapons and about 6,800 rounds of ammunition looted amid the strife had been retrieved, Ukhrul Times reported. The Assam Rifles additionally recovered 22 pounds (10 kg) of explosives and 2,000 BIPL detonators.

The largely Christian tribals belonging to the Kuki-Zo communities, who reside on the hills of Churachandpur district, say two groups of the predominantly Hindu Meitei community — Arambai Tengoll, also known as “black-shirts,” and Meitei Leepun — were behind the violence. Meiteis are primarily settled in the Imphal Valley.

The violence, which began on May 3, primarily engulfed the Imphal Valley and Churachandpur, causing at least four days of turmoil. The region remains fraught with tension as authorities fear possible reprisal attacks due to the significant accumulation of weapons within both involved communities.

The Indian Express earlier reported that over 1,000 weapons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen from the Manipur Police Training College, two local police stations, and an IRB battalion camp in Imphal by members of the Meitei ethnic group. The report also noted, without stating specific figures, that police stations in Churachandpur were attacked and looted by the Kuki community.

During this period of hostility, the escalating violence has not only claimed a minimum of 73 lives, out of which about 64 were Christian tribals, but also left 200 people injured. More than 1,700 residences suffered damage, complete destruction or saw their homes set ablaze. The turmoil has forced about 50,000 individuals to abandon their homes, of whom roughly 35,000 belong to Christian tribal communities.

The houses of Meiteis in the Christian tribal-majority Churachandpur have also been damaged or destroyed.

A local source informed The Christian Post that the violence and ensuing tensions have caused a complete exodus of tribal residents from the Imphal Valley. Similarly, all Meiteis previously residing or working in Churachandpur, including government and police officials, have fled the area.

According to the source, Christian organizations in the area have recorded the burning, damage, or destruction of 397 churches and six Christian institutions amid the wave of violence. Significantly, these churches primarily served as places of worship for Meitei Christians. It is alleged that these structures were primarily targeted and destroyed by Meitei Hindus.

Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal, whose jurisdiction covers the entirety of Manipur, has launched an appeal for funds to assist those impacted by the violence. He warns of a “general sense of hopelessness and desperation” throughout the region, acknowledging that all communities, regardless of their affiliation, are affected by the ongoing strife.

Fr. Varghese Velikakam, Vicar General of the Diocese of Imphal, criticized local police for their failure to prevent the attacks and questioned the lack of guards after attempted assaults. Videos of the violence show police looking on or participating in the violence on tribal people. Despite the apparent targeted nature of these attacks, Fr. Varghese advised the Church to act cautiously, maintain neutrality and promote peace and unity.

Northeast India has had long-standing ethnic tensions. In Manipur, the Meiteis and the tribal communities have long been at odds over issues such as land ownership and affirmative action policies.

After winning the 2017 state election, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, reclassified the majority of tribal settlements as reserved forests, effectively treating them as illegal immigrants. This move, along with the Meiteis’ ongoing quest for recognition as a tribal group, has significantly exacerbated tensions between the two groups.

Manipur’s highest court’s recent instruction to the government last month to consider the Meiteis’ demand for legal recognition as a tribal group has further stirred anxiety among the tribal communities. The recent outbreak of violence was triggered when a tribal student group protested against this demand.

The Hindu Meiteis and Christian tribals each constitute approximately 42% of the state’s population. Despite this balance, the Meiteis have historically held dominance in the state’s political and economic spheres.

Critics also point to Chief Minister Singh’s past orders to demolish churches in Imphal, under the allegation of illegal construction on government-owned land, as a significant strain on inter-community relations.

The widespread violence and targeted attacks against the Christian community have raised concerns about the potential escalation of religious conflict in the region.

As these communities grapple with the aftermath, Manipur remains under a dark cloud of uncertainty, its future dictated by both the government’s ability to quell tensions and the communities’ willingness to engage in peace-building efforts.

Category:

https://www.instagram.com/p/ClMekujjM0m/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Tagged with:

Target Partnered with Satan Supporter Who Wants To ‘Eradicate’ Critics of Transgenderism

BY: JORDAN BOYD | MAY 22, 2023

Target collaborates with Satanist to release new trans merch

Author Jordan Boyd profile

JORDAN BOYD

VISIT ON TWITTER@JORDANBOYDTX

This article describes disturbing products and messages.

Target furthered its commitment to advancing radical gender ideology this month when it partnered with a Satan supporter who called for the eradication of anyone who disagrees with the mutilation of children to supply transgender-themed merchandise to Target’s “pride” collection.

The recent collaboration between Target and the U.K.-based brand Abprallen and its designer “Erik,” a self-proclaimed “gay trans man,” features a sweatshirt emblazoned with a caduceus wrapped in a “cure transphobia not trans people” ribbon, a rainbow UFO tote bag that states “too queer for here,” and a pink “we belong everywhere” fanny pack.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

“Being able to transition brings with it euphoria, comfort, self-love, and perhaps most importantly – hope,” Erik wrote in one Instagram post promoting a “transitioning saves lives” image. What Erik didn’t mention is the irreversible damage gender experiments yield, such as “sexual dysfunction, infertility, cardiac event[,] endometrial cancer,” life-threatening infections, and transition regret.

Erik’s products, which are showcased on Target’s website, average just a couple of stars. One five-star review penned by the designer, however, restated excitement that one of the largest U.S. retailers would stock this type of clothing.

“These have already got the transphobes infuriated with me and I feel like quite the celebrity to think that they believe this is all some big conspiracy and I have any power to brainwash anyone when I’m just some guy drawing pictures!” the designer wrote in an Instagram post announcing the partnership.

What Erik didn’t mention in the social media defense of Abprallen products is that “just drawing pictures” includes a long history of producing and selling goods that elevate Satan and transgenderism in the same breath. One quick glance at the designer’s website and Instagram shows dozens of designs featuring satanic and sacrilegious symbols such as pentagrams, “Satan respects pronouns” T-shirts, “gay as hell” stickers, and stained glass windows covered up by “trans bodies are holy.”

“So, for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love. So, naturally, Satan respects pronouns. He loves all LGBT+ people. I went with a variation of Baphomet for this design, a deity who themself is a mixture of genders, beings, ideas, and existences. They reject binary stereotypes and expectations. Perfect,” Erik wrote.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

One particularly graphic image on the designer’s Instagram shows a naked demonic creature with a horned skull and mutilated breasts.

“Being called a demon is something I can cope with, and the idea of a trans demon is pretty damn cool, most of my work focusses on gothic or dark and satanic imagery juxtaposed with bright colours and LGBT+ positive messages,” Erik wrote in the caption.

Abprallen appears to have sold some of these products at an “Anti-Christmas Fayre Satanic Flea Market” in London in December of 2022.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

In addition to promoting explicit evil, Erik often uses violent language and imagery, with products such as a “burn down the cis-tem” lighter, a “we bash back” mace, and “time’s up for transphobes” skull pins to call for action against people who take issue with radical gender ideology and the dangerous mutilation and castration it prescribes. Erik also sells merchandise promoting the murder of babies in the womb.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgcohB-j1vz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

“In order to keep transphobes at bay we must eradicate them, it is very important to not engage in conversation with them – fascists do not listen to reason and they do not deserve the trans person’s valuable time,” Erik wrote in early March.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

Target’s embrace of someone who promotes the explicit fusion of radical gender ideology and Satanism might seem recent but it’s not. In 2021, when a man dubbed a “homophobic heckler” asked a Target employee if the company supports “satanic pride propaganda,” the red-shirted employee replied “Yeah, both, Satan and Pride” without missing a beat.

Since 2012, Target has happily stocked the front of its stores with pro-LGBT T-shirts, accessories, pet items, party supplies, and decor. In recent years, Target expanded the reach of messages like “trans people will always exist,” “queer,” and “live laugh lesbian” to the children’s section.

Even well before the scheduled commencement of “pride month” in June, Target began selling “light binding effect” tops and “tuck-friendly” shorts in the children’s clothing section.

Target isn’t the only company elevating people and products that blend transgenderism and demon worship. In recent years, Hollywood stars like Lil Nas X and Sam Smith have tried to advance the LGBT agenda using demonic shoes, music videos, and performances with clear links to Satan.

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.

Category:

Tagged with:

Merrick Garland’s J6 Juries Prove Durham’s Point: Conservatives Can’t Get A Fair Trial In D.C.

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 22, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

Special Counsel John Durham breached neither ethics nor etiquette when he highlighted the difficulty of obtaining a conviction in a politically charged case when the jury holds opposing partisan views. He merely stated the reality on the ground in D.C.-area federal courts. And by his own actions prosecuting the J6 defendants solely in the nation’s capital, Attorney General Merrick Garland has confirmed that assessment by proving the corollary: Criminal cases against individuals viewed by the local populace as political pariahs make for easy convictions.

“Did the Durham Report’s Criticism of Juries Go Too Far?” The Washington Post’s headline from last week asked rhetorically. It was quite an ironic concern coming from the legacy outlet serially guilty of publishing fake news to propagate the Russia-collusion hoax. A better question for the “democracy dies in darkness” rag would be: Did Clinton and Democrats’ Dirty Politics Go Too Far?

But no, instead of focusing on the substantive content contained in the 300-plus pages of Durham’s report detailing malfeasance by the Department of Justice and FBI and the Clinton campaign’s responsibility for the scandal, The Washington Post focused on Durham’s introductory remarks explaining the “special care” the special counsel’s office used in making criminal charging decisions — decisions Durham stressed were “based solely on the facts and evidence developed in the investigation and without fear of, or favor to, any person.”

After noting the high burden the Constitution places on the government in criminal cases, Durham explained why, in numerous instances, he did not seek criminal charges even though the conduct deserved “censure or disciplinary action.”

“In examining politically-charged and high-profile issues such as these, the Office must exercise — and has exercised — special care,” Durham explained. “First, juries can bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters,” Durham continued, “and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, separate and apart from the strength of the actual evidence and despite a court’s best efforts to empanel a fair and impartial jury.”

Those taking umbrage at Durham’s remarks, claiming they erode faith in our justice system, seem to have missed that the Justice Department’s manual, “The Principles of Federal Prosecution,” quoted in the special counsel report, makes the same point. Sometimes while “the law and the facts create a sound, prosecutable case,” the manual explained, there is still “the likelihood of an acquittal due to unpopularity of some aspect of the prosecution or because of the overwhelming popularity of the defendant or his/her cause…” It continues:

For example, in a civil rights case or a case involving an extremely popular political figure, it might be clear that the evidence of guilt viewed objectively by an unbiased factfinder would be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, yet the prosecutor might reasonably doubt, based on the circumstances, that the jury would convict.

Prosecutors in such cases, the manual explained, might assess a guilty verdict unlikely “based on factors extraneous to an objective view of the law and the facts.”

In other words, biased juries and politics, rather than an “objective view of the law and the facts,” may dictate whether a defendant is convicted or acquitted. These are not merely the sentiments of Durham or Republicans, but the Department of Justice. So it isn’t Durham’s words that erode trust in the legal system, but rather insular juries.

It also isn’t merely the unsuccessful cases Durham brought against Michael Sussmann in the D.C. federal court and Igor Danchenko in the nearby federal court in Virginia that foster Americans’ distrust of the justice system. It is also the DOJ’s insistence that the scores of J6 prosecutions remain in the nation’s capital.

D.C. Jury Pool Is Biased

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice has charged hundreds with federal crimes. Because the alleged offenses occurred in D.C., federal law provides that “venue,” meaning the physical location for the criminal proceedings, is proper in the federal D.C. district court.

Congress, however, has provided two bases to change venue. First, a federal court must transfer the criminal proceedings if the defendant requests a change of venue and “so great a prejudice against the defendant exists … that the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there.”

While many J6 defendants have moved for a change of venue based on such prejudice, the DOJ has uniformly opposed the transfers. And because the “so great prejudice” standard is nearly insurmountable, the federal D.C. district court has denied the change of venue requests, even against evidence that 90 percent of D.C. voters cast their ballots against Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Furthermore, while almost everyone in D.C. knows about the indictments, polls show more than 70 percent of them — which is 15 percent higher than the national average — have formed an opinion about guilt or innocence.

Nor have the D.C. federal courts granted a change of venue “for convenience” — a second statutory basis Congress provided — which would allow the J6 defendants to be tried in their home states for their convenience, the convenience of witnesses, and “in the interest of justice.” Given that the DOJ farmed out the J6 cases to field offices throughout the United States, tasking local agents with surveilling and arresting the defendants, and that there are U.S. attorney offices in every state, trying the defendants across the country is also no inconvenience to the federal government.

So even if the prejudice is not “so great” that it is mandatory to change the venue of the case, why does the DOJ oppose the discretionary transfer for convenience?

Because Garland — like Durham — knows D.C. juries “bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction.” In fact, so great is the concern of a pro-DOJ bias that several defendants have made the nearly unheard-of decision in a criminal case to waive their right to a jury trial and have the judge decide their fate.

Americans likewise recognize the effect biased juries have on case outcomes. The attorney general ignoring the public perception of Lady Justice peaking from behind her blindfold will further erode respect for the judicial system and likely prompt future jurors to convert the trial process to a payback system — convicting the innocent or acquitting the guilty in a misguided attempt to right the scales of justice.

What Courts and Congress Should Do

The courts and Congress can and should respond. When faced with discretionary venue changes for “convenience,” courts should weigh more the “convenience” of the defendants and “the interest of justice.” When a question of mandatory transfers based on “great prejudice” arises, the courts should stop pretending our partisan divide is passable based on jurors’ promises.

Congress has several options too. While it has authorized the Supreme Court to promulgate rules governing federal criminal procedures, it retains the power to enact its own rules. At a minimum, in high-profile criminal cases, Congress should grant both the prosecution and the defense more “peremptory challenges” — challenges to members of the jury pool that can be used for any reason (except invidious discrimination). This will eliminate some of the most concerning situations.

For instance, in Durham’s trial against Hillary Clinton’s former lawyer, Sussmann, the federal judge rejected several of Durham’s “for-cause” challenges against jurors who had contributed to the Clinton campaign. When for-cause challenges fail, attorneys must rely on a limited number of peremptory challenges, six for the special counsel’s legal team and 10 for Sussmann. Expanding the number of peremptory challenges would allow for the removal of more potentially prejudiced jurors, and without a venue change, this represents the best mechanism for ensuring an unbiased jury.

More significantly, though, Congress should amend the venue rules to give defendants a better opportunity to relocate highly politicized cases to less partisan locales. While the courts already have that power, they have proved themselves too parsimonious to date.

But what about when partisanship prejudices the prosecution? Here, the Sixth Amendment places limits on venue, providing that in “all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law…”

In other words, while a defendant may consent to a change of venue, he can also demand a trial in “the State and district wherein the crime” was committed.

However, the Constitution also gives Congress the authority to “ascertain” the districts. To counter the overwhelmingly parochial D.C. populace, redrawing the borders of the district to limit venue there to the physical Capitol buildings, and then have the rest of D.C. subsumed by the surrounding districts in Virginia and Maryland, would ensure a broader jury pool.

Only so much can be done, however, to ensure juries don’t supplant the rule of law with their political passions, acquitting the guilty because they prefer the defendant’s politics to the prosecutor’s. But that’s the reality that comes from a constitutional system that protects individual rights against government abuse and believes “that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”

That’s a good thing, especially as the current DOJ frames pro-lifers and parents as domestic terrorists. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to remind Americans that juries may not convict because of strongly held political passions rather than actual innocence. Nor is it a bad thing to push Congress to ensure the venue statutes counter bias to the largest extent possible.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Law, Political

BOMBSHELL DURHAM REPORT CONFIRMS FBI, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAD THESE RADICAL MOTIVES

Tagged with:

Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: Durham reports shows Biden and Obama knew truth of Trump collusion hoax but kept silent

Gregg Jarrett | Fox News | Published May 22, 2023 4:00am EDT

A silence kept in order to hide the truth is a lie.

By that maxim, there are plenty of liars among prominent Democrats who knew that the damning Trump-Russia collusion narrative was all a hoax. But they chose to remain mum, preferring instead to watch contentedly as an American president was vilified nonstop by a media-driven orgy of lies. It consumed the nation for years and inflicted untold harm. None of them had the decency to volunteer the truth.

This is one of the key findings in the 306-page Durham report that the special counsel filled to the brim with documented acts of deviousness, dishonesty and malice by high officials in government whom we are supposed to trust but should not.

Obama and Biden selfie — Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Joe Biden/Instagram)

In July 2016, CIA Director John Brennan rushed to the White House to brief then-President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, our current president, about alarming new evidence uncovered by American intelligence. The agency had obtained reliable information that “Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians” (page 81 of the report).

It was an outrageous and wholly invented accusation unsupported by anything except Hillary’s craven imagination. Her shrewd goal was to frame her opponent for unidentified crimes that he never committed and, thereby, damage or sink his candidacy.

As Durham noted, the despicable smear had the dual benefit of distracting from her own nagging email scandal that was dragging down her poll numbers. Given its potency, the Clinton canard ranks as the dirtiest trick ever perpetrated in American politics.

DURHAM REPORT REVEALED CORRUPTION THAT COULD MEAN THIS STUNNER FOR TRUMP IN 2024

Obama and Biden knew all about Hillary’s treachery and so did others in their orbit who were secretly briefed, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey. This is corroborated by Brennan’s handwritten notes. For the next three years all of them remained silent about the CIA’s findings.

Collectively, they concealed the truth of Trump’s innocence as he was hounded by the constant condemnation of conspiring with Moscow, even though he did no such thing. On almost a daily basis, the media pronounced him guilty in the court of public opinion. Brennan and Clapper took to the airwaves and dishonestly denounced Trump as a Russian asset, hiding what they knew.

At the outset of the hoax, Hillary’s devoted coterie of disciples plotted to spread the lie. They secretly paid a sleazy ex-foreign spy, Christopher Steele, to obtain Russian disinformation about Trump and compose a phony “dossier.” They leaked it to journalists who promptly insisted that it was true without ever bothering to verify or corroborate its contents. News organizations even published the full collection of lies that was covertly bankrolled by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Andrew McCabe at hearing — The FBI’s Andrew McCabe testifies during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on May 11, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The shameless media was emboldened by the unscrupulous maneuvers of Comey and his confederates. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok launched a dogged investigation of Trump. It commenced literally days after the FBI director learned of Hillary’s fraudulent machinations.

The bureau had no basis whatsoever to open the probe because agents lacked “any actual evidence of collusion” and traduced their own strict guidelines, according to Durham. Those in charge broke every rule in the book. In a brazen reversal of standards, they willingly exploited the Clinton lie as a pretext to persecute Trump with salacious and specious slurs. Their lawless actions were inflamed by their “prejudice against him” and their “pronounced hostile feelings,” the report explained.

The vainglorious James Comey, who refused to cooperate with the Durham investigation, now publicly claims to be suffering near total amnesia. It is a curious affliction since the special counsel’s report reveals that he demanded and received “daily briefings.” Whenever agents working the case had the temerity to complain that there was no real evidence implicating Trump in any wrongdoing, Comey stuck wads of cotton in his ears. He pushed a relentless witch hunt in a maniacal quest to destroy the man he loathed so obsessively.

The same FBI bias that worked against Trump worked in favor of Clinton. Comey commandeered authority he did not have to absolve her of the crimes she clearly committed in mishandling classified emails and destroying evidence under subpoena. He refused to pursue investigations of Hillary despite compelling evidence that she misused her charitable foundation for self-enrichment in ways eerily similar to the notorious Biden family influence peddling schemes.

Tens of millions of Russian dollars landed in Clinton’s nonprofit, which she treated as her personal piggy bank. With Comey at the helm, four ongoing probes into likely “criminal activity” magically vanished. Trump didn’t collude with Russia, but it appears his opponent did – and got away with it.

Durham minced no words in describing the FBI’s double standard and the “dual system of justice” it produced. Hillary received the courtesy of a defensive briefing about corrupt foreign actors but Trump did not. The FBI rejected a surveillance warrant on Clinton from the secret FISA court while seeking four successive spy warrants involving Trump’s campaign. To secure the intrusions, exculpatory evidence was withheld and supporting documents altered.

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton — Hillary Clinton and former President Donald Trump (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Comey deceived the judges by vouching for the credibility of the bogus dossier that his agency had already debunked. He represented that Steele was a reliable source when he knew that the shady spook was not. Indeed, Steele was fired by the FBI as a paid confidential informant because he repeatedly lied. This vital fact was deliberately concealed from the court.

The irony embedded in the great collusion con is fully exposed in the Durham report. Instead of conspiring with Putin in the bowels of the Kremlin, Trump became the victim of Clinton-induced Russian disinformation that helped fuel the fabricated dossier. Hillary’s cronies supplied much of the deceit in Steele’s work of fiction, but so did Moscow.

From the moment he took the oath of office, the Republican president was saddled with multiple investigations by the FBI, Congress and a special counsel. Demands for his indictment and impeachment reverberated through the halls of Capitol Hill, in newsrooms across America, on television airwaves, and on social media websites everywhere. All the while, those who knew the truth remained conspicuously quiet.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM GREGG JARRETT

The special counsel’s well-documented report lifts the veil on the cesspool of corruption that has infected the FBI for far too long. Beyond Clinton, there are many villains in this sordid story but none so contemptible as Obama, Biden, Brennan, Clapper and Comey. They knew it was all a cunning lie but kept silent to hide the truth. They watched as a spasm of false allegations tore the nation apart.

Such silence speaks volumes about their absence of character and integrity. They were more than willing to fan the flames of political divisiveness in America. That is not leadership. It is cowardice.

Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His upcoming book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” will be released on May 30, 2023. It is available now for pre-order online at the Simon & Schuster website. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.” Jarrett’s book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” will be published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on September 19, 2023.

Category:

Opinion, Political

Tagged with:

McCarthy: Latest Debt Ceiling Package Is ‘on the Right Path’

By: NEWSMAX STAFF | Monday, 22 May 2023 04:01 PM EDT

Top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy said talks over raising the U.S. federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling were “on the right path” ahead of a meeting with Democratic President Joe Biden. The Democratic president and Republican speaker of the House of Representatives have just 10 days to reach a deal to increase the government’s self-imposed borrowing limit or trigger an unprecedented default. Biden and McCarthy will meet at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT), the White House said, after their negotiating representatives met for more than two hours on Monday.

“I firmly believe what we’re negotiating right now, a majority of Republicans will see that it is a right place to put us on the right path,” McCarthy told reporters.

Any deal to raise the limit must pass both chambers of Congress before Biden could sign it into law. The U.S. Treasury has warned it could be unable to pay all its bills as soon as June 1.

A failure to lift the debt ceiling would trigger a default that would shake financial markets and drive interest rates higher on everything from car payments to credit cards. Ongoing uncertainty is already weighing on investors and stocks.

U.S. markets rose on Monday as investors awaited updates on the negotiations.

McCarthy’s Republicans control the House 222-213, while Biden’s Democrats hold the Senate 51-49, making it difficult to reach a bipartisan deal that would secure enough votes to pass.

It will also take several days to move legislation through Congress if and when Biden and McCarthy come to an agreement. McCarthy said that a deal must be reached this week for it to pass Congress and be signed into law by Biden in time to avoid default.

“We can get a deal tonight. We could deal tomorrow but you got to get something done this week to be able to pass it and move it to the Senate,” McCarthy told reporters.

A White House official on Monday said that Republican negotiators had proposed additional cuts to programs providing food aid to low-income Americans, adding that no deal could pass Congress without support from both parties.

CUTS AND CLAWBACKS

Republicans are pushing for discretionary spending cuts, new work requirements for some programs for low-income Americans and a clawback of COVID-19 aid approved by Congress but not yet spent in exchange for an increase, which is needed to cover the costs of lawmakers’ previously approved spending and tax cuts.

Democrats want to hold spending steady at this year’s levels, while Republicans want to return to 2022 levels. A plan passed by the House last month would cut a wide swath of government spending by 8% next year.

Biden, who has made the economy a centerpiece of his domestic agenda and is seeking re-election, has said he would consider spending cuts alongside tax adjustments but that Republicans’ latest offer was “unacceptable.”

The president tweeted that he would not back “Big Oil” subsidies and “wealthy tax cheats” while putting healthcare and food assistance at risk for millions of Americans.

Both sides must also weigh any concessions with pressure from hardline factions within their own parties.

Some far-right House Freedom Caucus members have urged a halt to talks, demanding that the Senate adopt their House-passed legislation, which has been rejected by Democrats. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican who is seeking another term after losing to Biden in the 2020 election, has urged members of his party to force a default if they do not achieve all their goals, downplaying any economic consequences.

Liberal Democrats have pushed back against any cuts that would harm families and lower-income Americans, with some urging Biden to act on his own by invoking the Constitution’s 14th Amendment — an untested move which the president said on Sunday would face constraints.

The amendment states that the “validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned,” but the clause has been largely unaddressed by the courts.

Biden is racing for a solution after refusing for months to negotiate on the debt ceiling and insisting that Republicans should pass a “clean” unconditional increase before he would agree to any spending negotiations.

In Japan on Sunday, he acknowledged the political implications, saying some far-right House Republicans “know the damage that it would do to the economy” if there was a default but hoped the blame would fall to him and thwart his re-election.

Congress three times raised the debt limit under Trump, without a similar demand from Republicans for sharp spending cuts.

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Not Your Kids!

A.F. BRANCO | on May 21, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-not-your-kids/

Governor Walz welcomes anti-parent teachers while working to exclude parental input.

Walz The Anti-Parent Governor — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – 2020 Hindsight

A.F. BRANCO | on May 22, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-2020-hindsight/

Trump focused on the 2020 election to prevent the Democrats from cheating again.

Democrat Elction Strategy — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

Tagged with:

SUMMING UP THE WEEK OF MAY 19, 2023

May 19, 2023

Category:

Tagged with:

Glenn Beck and Mark Levin lay out exactly how to make the ‘Biden Crime Family’ pay for their lawlessness: ‘The time for talk is over!’

By: CARLOS GARCIA | May 18, 2023

Image Source: Blaze TV YouTube video screenshot composite

Glenn Beck documented in detail the abject lawlessness of the “Biden Crime Family” in a livestreaming video special in which Mark Levin explained what Congress and local prosecutors can do to bring the Bidens to justice. Beck meticulously reported the monumental evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government in a special episode titled “The Reckoning: Biden Crime Family” on Thursday evening on BlazeTV.

Starting with the recent revelations in the Durham report, Beck sifted through the mounds of previous facts to weave together exactly how the members of the Biden family have manipulated the media and abused their political power to enrich themselves. He charged that the media is trying to use sleight of hand in order to push the focus off President Joe Biden and onto his son, Hunter Biden, instead.

“Democrats, and the media, want you to zoom in to this entire picture by focusing on Hunter’s potential tax and gun violations,” Beck said. “They want it very clear that Joe Biden wasn’t involved.”

Beck asked Americans to take action by visitinghttp://thereckoningguide.com and downloading his dossier on the “Biden Crime Family” to see the documents for themselves.

He also asked viewers to take additional action.

“We need you to flood the phone lines and email inboxes of every prosecutor or attorney general with the power to prosecute these crimes. The only way these officials will take action is if the pressure becomes so great they can no longer ignore us,” said Beck on the program.

“Contact them today, and if they don’t respond, send them another email. And then another,” he added. “And keep going until you are heard. And if they give you an unsatisfactory answer, keep at it. That’s what we’re doing here.”

Levin laid out two things that Congress can do to curtail Biden’s ability to cover up his crimes.

“Number one, slash the budget of the FBI and the Department of Justice. I mean slash it big-time, break it up, redistribute its power. Take some power away from it, because I can tell you now, if the framers woke up today and looked at the FBI, they’d say, ‘What the hell have you done to yourself?'” said Levin.

“Number two, they oughta drag these guys before these committees left and right and just work them over, I mean harass them,” Levin continued. “Get their documents, do whatever they have to do, make everything public to we the American people, not to the New York Times, or fools like MSNBC, but for the rest of the American people.”

He also reiterated Beck’s call for Americans to pressure their local prosecutors to investigate crimes in the same manner and with the same force as the attorneys general on the left do.

“There are seventy charges just on Hunter Biden alone that are provable! Seventy!” Glenn Beck added.

Here’s the entire video special on the “Biden Crime Family”:

THE RECKONING: Biden Crime Family www.youtube.com

Category:

Tagged with:

FBI Office Handling the Hunter Biden Investigation Failed the Russia-Hoax Test

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 19, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

The same FBI field office covering the Hunter Biden investigation lost Russian Igor Danchenko “in plain sight,” John Durham’s special counsel report revealed. Yet when Danchenko’s FBI handler pulled details of that prior espionage investigation mere days after Danchenko was opened as a confidential human source (CHS), the agent failed to document Danchenko’s suspicious history or alert the Crossfire Hurricane team to the fact that Danchenko could be a Russian spy. These facts and more add to the already outrageous details disclosed during Durham’s failed prosecution of Danchenko — such as that the FBI paid Danchenko hundreds of thousands of dollars for the fraud he helped perpetrate on the country.

While Durham failed to convict Danchenko of lying to the FBI, the October 2022 trial of the man who served as Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source exposed extensive malfeasance by both the Crossfire Hurricane team and later Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff. Among other things, the evidence and court filings revealed that agents opened Danchenko as a CHS even though the FBI had previously launched an espionage investigation into the Russian. However, the special counsel’s report added more details, greatly expanding the scandal.

For instance, after noting the previously reported fact that Danchenko had been the subject of an FBI counterespionage investigation from 2009 to 2011, Durham detailed the basis for the launch of that probe. As Durham explained, a researcher from the Brookings Institution — the D.C. think tank at which Danchenko worked at the time — informed a government contact that Danchenko had commented he “had access to people who would be willing to pay money for classified information.”

The FBI later interviewed the Brookings Institution researcher who repeated Danchenko’s apparent espionage outreach. Durham also revealed that a second Brookings employee stated he had harbored suspicions that Danchenko was connected to Russian intelligence because, notwithstanding the fact that Danchenko held multiple advanced degrees, he stayed at Brookings in a low-level research assistance position.

“The implicit assumption,” Durham concluded, was “that Brookings unwittingly provided Danchenko access to information of high value to the Russians.”

The information provided by the Brookings employees led the FBI’s Baltimore field office to launch a preliminary espionage investigation into Danchenko, with agents later converting the probe into a full investigation. While Durham did not stress the point here, the FBI’s decision to originally launch only a preliminary investigation against Danchenko furthers the special counsel’s conclusion that the immediate opening of a full investigation into the Trump campaign was unjustified and contrary to how the FBI handled other investigations.

The special counsel did, however, highlight several more aspects of the initial investigation into Danchenko, such as that agents interviewed several people at Georgetown University who knew Danchenko. One individual questioned by the FBI explained she had recently interned at an intelligence agency and that afterward, Danchenko quizzed her on her “knowledge of a specific Russian military matter.” The former intelligence agency intern also revealed that Danchenko claimed his Russian passport listed him as GRU, which is the Russian military intelligence service.

These additional details make the decision by the Crossfire Hurricane team to hire Danchenko as a CHS even more troubling.

Durham’s report also found disquieting what Danchenko’s handler, FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson, told investigators. According to Durham, the special counsel’s office determined that Helson became aware of the investigation into Danchenko shortly after he opened Danchenko as a source. Yet Helson failed to update the CHS paperwork. Here, Durham noted that data showed Helson had conducted a “Sentinel” search, querying the counterespionage case file on Danchenko. But when confronted with that fact in an interview by the special counsel’s team, Helson claimed he had no recollection as to why he had searched Danchenko’s case file.

Durham dinged Helson on several other facts related to Danchenko, suggesting the special counsel didn’t believe Helson’s version of events. But either way, Durham explained, “Helson and the Counterintelligence Division missed another opportunity to make any needed course corrections to Crossfire Hurricane and the use of Danchenko as a CHS.”

Besides his scathing summary of the FBI’s use of Danchenko as a CHS, Durham also revealed several new aspects of the initial botched investigation of Danchenko that was headed out of the FBI’s Baltimore field office. While Durham had revealed during Danchenko’s trial that the FBI had mistakenly closed out its investigation against Danchenko, wrongly believing he had left the country, Monday’s report showed how bush league that mistake was: All it took was for the special counsel’s office to review the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Person Encounter List for Igor Danchenko to determine he had not departed the U.S. on a one-way ticket to London, as the Baltimore field office believed.

But that was not the only mistake. According to Durham, in 2012, after the FBI had closed out the investigation into Danchenko, another FBI agent informed the Baltimore field office that Danchenko may not have left the United States as had been believed. Yet the investigation into Danchenko was never reopened. And when interviewed by Durham, the Baltimore field office agent admitted that “certainly a lot more investigation” of Danchenko should have occurred.

Given that the FBI’s Baltimore field office covers the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office — the office conducting the investigation into Hunter Biden — one can’t help but wonder what investigative steps were botched by agents in that case.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Tagged with:

Jason Chaffetz Op-ed: Durham report revealed corruption that could mean this stunner for Trump in 2024

By Jason Chaffetz | Fox News | Published May 19, 2023 4:00am EDT

Who is going to trust the Department of Justice now? In the wake of Special Counsel John Durham’s long-awaited report, Americans now know there was widespread political collusion and deliberate deception from the very top of the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the corporate media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), all in favor of the Democrats. Not only did they abuse their power and lie to the public, they seem to be proud of it.

With these facts now added to the long list of formerly crazy conspiracy theories come true, former president Donald Trump is essentially inoculated from any future prosecution by virtue of the public mistrust in an obviously weaponized federal government. Even if prosecutors somehow manage to get a partisan jury to convict, the public will see it as a political witch hunt predicated primarily on partisan politics.

The more they try to “get ’m” the stronger they make him.

Special Counsel John Durham has created a firestorm of controversy with his just-released report on government collusion that targeted Donald Trump. (Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)

For this reason, both Democrats and Republicans should fear what could come next if they don’t clip the wings of this rogue federal agency and institute serious systemic changes. If they can do it to Trump, and they did, then they can do it again to anyone.

One thing has become crystal clear: the Justice Department cannot and will not police itself. DOJ is unwilling and unprepared to discipline let alone prosecute its own. That’s one reason the work of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is so vital.

To restore its position as a coequal branch of government, Congress must lose its reluctance to wield the heavy tools available in the law and the Constitution. It can and must develop an independent means of enforcing congressional subpoenas.

The threat of impeachment of Senate-confirmed bureaucrats must become more feared. The House of Representatives must unite to implement what is perhaps the most powerful tool – the power of the purse. And Congress should reconsider and expand the role of independent offices of inspectors general (OIG) to ensure the Justice Department can no longer ride above the law.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM JASON CHAFFETZ

Republicans have been bafflingly reluctant to wield impeachment power. Getting support to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in 2015 was a heavy lift. It shouldn’t be. If Congress doesn’t hold administration officials accountable, who will? Under the advice-and-consent clause of the Constitution, the Senate was given a co-equal voice to confirm a bureaucrat and remove them, but they do not.

Likewise, Congress has failed to secure its own subpoena power. For too long, the body has been content to rely on the DOJ to enforce congressional subpoenas. But now that we clearly see the DOJ applying a political litmus test to such requests, the American people need a new solution. For Democrats, subpoenas are enforced in record time with guns drawn. For Republicans, the DOJ will only enforce “legitimate” subpoenas based on their own whims after months of review.

Congress can also leverage the power of the purse to play hardball by denying agency funding until the government produces requested documents and witnesses. But they don’t.

While all of those options are on the table, perhaps the most effective solution could come from empowering the government’s independent inspectors general. Most everyone in government is currently subject to review by an office of Inspector General (OIG).

One thing has become crystal clear: the Justice Department cannot and will not police itself. DOJ is unwilling and unprepared to discipline let alone prosecute its own. That’s one reason the work of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is so vital.

The ability of these investigators to subpoena documents, interview witnesses and expose wrongdoing has yielded important evidence and numerous criminal referrals. But they don’t have authority to make any prosecutorial decisions – and they probably should.

To the shock of most people, the IGs are prohibited from investigating wrongdoing by attorneys at the DOJ. Nor can they compel testimony once someone leaves federal service, and both of these need to change.

Before the Durham report, there were two IG reports on the Russia collusion hoax that combined for more than 1,000 pages. They included discipline and criminal referrals that DOJ ignored. Consequences for wrongdoing by federal law enforcement have been minimal.

Even ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to making a false statement after altering a document in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, received only probation and community service for his crime. He forged documents to effect an election and he didn’t even lose his law license!

Sadly, the American people have lost trust in some of the most important institutions, the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Justice. And this may very well propel Trump back into the White House.

Jason Chaffetz is a FOX News (FNC) contributor and the host of the Jason In The House podcast on FOX News Radio. He joined the network in 2017.

Category:

Opinion, Political

Tagged with:

Se. Roger Marshall, M.D. Op-ed: I visited Biden’s broken border and you won’t believe what I learned

By Sen. Roger Marshall, M.D. | Fox News | Published May 19, 2023 6:00am EDT

“The border is not open,” a lie repeatedly told to the American people by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. But that isn’t what I witnessed last week in Brownsville, TX, the epicenter of this crisis the night that Title 42 was lifted. The scene was bleak, morale was low, and there was no sign of this crisis ending anytime soon.

Across the Rio Grande Valley intake centers there’s room for 4,500 migrants. However, when we arrived the number of migrants at the RGV facilities had already hit 7,300 and was steadily rising. The day before the border patrol had recorded 11,000 illegal migrants crossing the southern border, with more than 3,000 “got-a-ways.”

We visited ‘Camp Monument,’ a small makeshift intake center that is completely overwhelmed. According to border patrol, the cartels know exactly how to exploit this weakness. Quickly after processing, these migrants will communicate back to those waiting across the border when to make their move. A cycle that never ends.

El Paso border crossing — Migrants stand across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, in December 2022. (Border Patrol)

To my shock, the Mexican officials, and I assume the cartels indirectly, are in communication with our border patrol and are notified when CBP has room and space for the next wave to be processed.

Brownsville is a hot spot for illegal crossings; thousands continue to pour into our country – unvetted – given shelter, supplies, food and, in many ways, freedom. There is no fear of the consequences from crossings. Our systems are so backed up that our court orders are largely a joke, and the smugglers know this. We’re telling migrants to show up for a court date five years later, in 2028, to assess their crime. By then, they will be long gone.

Border patrol officers shared with us the harsh realities of this crisis and how they feel abandoned by this administration. They have lost all operational control and are forced into an impossible situation.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. ROGER MARSHALL

Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.

The magnitude of this crisis at our border should concern every American. The data we received, and the briefings given to us by border patrol, law enforcement and CBP do not reflect a border that’s “closed” but rather a border that has been erased by failed leadership in the White House.

We heard the heartbreaking stories of repeated sexual assaults young women are enduring to come here, the massive drug smuggling operations the cartels are running with lethal fentanyl and confirmed our biggest fear – the cartels are calling the shots.

The situation in Brownsville, the Rio Grande Valley and beyond is dire. A fifth-generation rancher told us the border crisis is the worst he has ever seen. A local Marine told us he was safer fighting in Afghanistan than living in Brownsville.

Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.

Each day that this crisis continues, the national security threat grows. In the Rio Grande Valley alone, they are averaging 90 Chinese military-aged nationals crossings every day. The largest number of Chinese nationals we’ve ever seen.

As we saw this week, with the arrest of an Afghani on the terror watchlist in California and CBP announcing that 16 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist were arrested by border patrol at the southern border in April alone, these “got-aways” undoubtedly include terrorists, convicted criminals and the cartel’s drug smugglers.

At what point does President Joe Biden look in the mirror and address the mess he’s created? Biden’s policies have created a draw for people worldwide to risk their own lives and their families as they put their care and safety into the hands of the cartels. We witnessed the impacts of a 3,000-mile journey for many: dehydration, malnutrition, injuries, disease and pestilence.

Is this the America they were promised by this administration? Advertising freedom but instead living in the shadows owned by the cartel for years to come, even after they arrive?

Yuma Arizona migrants released by Border Patrol — Migrants who have been processed by U.S. Border Patrol and have been released from their center, are given assistance from the Regional Center for Border Health to relocate to areas outside of Yuma, on Friday, May 12, 2023, in Somerton, AZ. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

On the night of our visit, as the clock ran out on Title 42, across the river thousands of migrants waited for their turn to cross the Rio Grande. We heard music, laughing, singing and cheering from these campsites. To me, that’s an obvious indication of how little they think of our border security measures – these migrants thought the worst part of their journey was over, and now, they just wait for their turn to cross.

For our country to continue to be the best in the world, we must prioritize our safety, security, and restore law and order. That requires secure borders.

But there is a solution. Every time I have visited the border, I asked the border patrol officers what they needed to keep our border secure. In the past, they have said more resources. This time their tone was different; they said very deliberately they do not need more resources; they need policies that we know work reinstated by this White House. Our agents on the front lines of this crisis need the president to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy and eliminate the catch-and-release policies.

This could all be accomplished quickly. Biden created this crisis, and he could end it with a stroke of his pen.

Republican Roger Marshall, M.D., represents Kansas in the U.S. Senate. Previously he was the congressman for Kansas’ 1st District. Prior to Congress, Dr. Marshall was a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Great Bend, Kansas. He received his M.D. at the University Of Kansas School Of Medicine in 1987.

Category:

Tagged with:

Debt Limit Talks Stall as Republicans ‘Press Pause’

NEWSMAX STAFF | Friday, 19 May 2023 02:26 PM EDT

Debt limit talks came to an abrupt standstill Friday after Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it’s time to “pause” negotiations, and a White House official acknowledged there are “real differences” that are making talks difficult. McCarthy said resolution to the standoff is “easy,” if only President Joe Biden would agree to some spending cuts Republicans are demanding. It is unclear when negotiations would resume.

“We’ve got to get movement by the White House and we don’t have any movement yet,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters at the Capitol. “So, yeah, we’ve got to pause.”

A White House official who was granted anonymity Friday to discuss the private conversations said there are “real differences” between the parties on the budget issues and further “talks will be difficult.” The official added that the president’s team is working hard towards a “reasonable bipartisan solution” that can pass both the House and the Senate.

Biden’s administration is racing to strike a deal with Republicans led by McCarthy as the nation careens toward a potentially catastrophic debt default if the government fails to increase the borrowing limit, now at $31 trillion, to keep paying the nation’s bills.

Wall Street turned lower as the negotiations on raising the nation’s debt limit came to a sudden halt, raising worries that the country could edge closer to risking a highly damaging default on U.S. government debt.

The president who has been in Japan attending the Group of Seven summit had no immediate comment. Biden had already planned to cut short the rest of his trip and he is expected to return to Washington later Sunday.

Negotiators met for a third day behind closed doors at the Capitol with hopes of settling on an agreement this weekend before possible House votes next week. They face a looming deadline as soon as June 1 when the Treasury Department has said it will run out of cash to pay the government’s incurred debt. Republicans want to extract steep spending cuts that Biden has so far refused to accept. Any deal would need the support of both Republicans and Democrats to find approval in a divided Congress and be passed into law.

“Look, we can’t be spending more money next year,” McCarthy said at the Capitol. “We have to spend less than we spent the year before. It’s pretty easy.”

But McCarthy is facing a hard-right flank of Freedom Caucus and other Republican lawmakers that almost certain to oppose any deal with the White House. The internal political dynamics confronting the embattled McCarthy leaves the Democrats skeptical of giving away too much to the Republicans that drives away the Democrat support they will need to pass any compromise through the Congress.

Experts have warned that even the threat of a debt default would send shockwaves through the economy. Markets had been rising this week on hopes of a deal. But that shifted abruptly Friday after negotiators ended late morning an hour after they had begun.

Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., tapped by McCarthy to lead the talks, emerged from an hourlong session at the Capitol and said gaps remained between House Republicans and the Democrat administration.

“It’s time to press pause because it’s just not productive,” Graves told reporters.

He added that the negotiations have become “just unreasonable” and that it was unclear when talks would resume.

The S&P 500 went from a gain of 0.3% to a loss of 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went from a gain of 117 points to a loss of about 90 points.

Biden departed early from a dinner with G7 leaders in Hiroshima on Friday night. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden planned to be briefed on the negotiations by his team Friday evening.

As Republicans demand spending cuts and policy changes, Biden is facing increased pushback from Democrats, particularly progressives, not to give in to demands they argue will be harmful to Americans.

Another Republican negotiator, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, said, “There is a “serious gap” between the sides.

“We’re in a tough spot,” said McHenry, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as he left the meeting.

McCarthy faces pressures from his hard-right flank to cut the strongest deal possible for Republicans, and he risks a threat to his leadership as speaker if he fails to deliver.

A day earlier, the conservative House Freedom Caucus said there should be no further discussions until the Senate takes action on the House Republican bill that was approved last month to raise the debt limit into 2024 in exchange for spending caps and policy changes. Biden has said he would veto that Republican measure.

In the Senate, which is controlled by majority Democrats, the Republican leader Mitch McConnell has taken a backseat publicly, and is pushing Biden to strike a deal directly with McCarthy. McConnell blamed Biden for having “waited months before agreeing to negotiate” with the speaker.

“They are the only two who can reach an agreement,” McConnell said in a tweet. “It is past time for the White House to get serious. Time is of the essence.”

Democrats are wary of any deal with Republicans, and particularly refuse the Republican proposal to protect defense and veterans accounts from spending caps, arguing that the cuts will fall too heavily on other domestic programs. Republicans also want to impose stricter work requirements on government aid recipients. Biden has suggested he might be open to considering it, but Democrats in Congress have said is a nonstarter.

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Branco – Dream Busters

A.F. BRANCO | on May 19, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-branco-dream-busters/

If MLK were alive today he may be labeled a white supremacist by today’s left.

MLK Called White Supremacy — Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

Tagged with:

Racism

GOP senator embarrasses Biden nominee for federal appeals court with basic question about Constitution

May 18, 2023

By: CHRIS ENLOE | May 18, 2023

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) stumped yet another Biden judicial nominee on Wednesday with basic questions on constitutional legal doctrine.

At a hearing to consider federal District Court Judge Ana de Alba for a spot on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Kennedy asked de Alba to explain the Dormant Commerce Clause doctrine and the Commerce Clause, which is found in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.

“This has been in the news a lot lately, and you’ll probably see it if you’re confirmed to the Court of Appeal. Tell me about the Dormant Commerce Clause,” Kennedy quizzed.

De Alba responded that she is only “somewhat familiar with the Commerce Clause,” indicating where to find it in the Constitution — but said nothing about the Dormant Commerce Clause.

Kennedy responded by helping her. He explained that “there was a big Supreme Court case” dealing with the Dormant Commerce Clause that just came out of California (which came from the very appeals court to which de Alba is nominated). De Alba then apologized for not being able to answer his question, justifying her knowledge gap by explaining that she has never dealt with it as a practicing lawyer or judge. She then promised to research it.

But things got worse when Kennedy asked de Alba to discuss the Commerce Clause broadly.

“So, my understanding about the Commerce Clause, like I stated, senator, is that it is under Article 1 of the Constitution, and it allows the legislature to create laws that allow for movement and things related to commerce in the United States and anything crossing state lines, things like that,” de Alba explained.

In follow-up questions, Kennedy asked “between whom” the clause permits Congress to regulate commerce.

“Between states, for example,” de Alba said.

“Anybody else?” Kennedy asked.

“It’s not coming to mind right now, senator,” de Alba admitted.

Kennedy questions de Alba, Ramirez in Judiciary www.youtube.com

The Commerce Clause, found in Article 1, Section 8, grants to Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The Dormant Commerce Clause doctrine, on the other hand, “refers to the prohibition, implicit in the Commerce Clause, against states passing legislation that discriminates against or excessively burdens interstate commerce,” Cornell Law explains.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving California Proposition 12, a state law that says pork products important into the state must meet specific animal welfare standards. The federal government challenged the law, arguing it violated the Dormant Commerce Clause. But the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, disagreed, upholding the law.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Category:

Tagged with:

Whistleblowers Expose FBI’s Corruption And Ongoing Persecution Of Political Opponents In Damning New Testimony

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD| MAY 18, 2023

FBI Whistleblower Friend testifying before the House Judiciary Committee

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

In an explosive House committee hearing on Thursday, several whistleblowers accused the FBI of engaging in a bevy of highly corrupt and partisan activity, including manipulation of statistics, targeting political opponents, and retaliating against whistleblowers seeking to expose the agency’s corruption. The revelations come days after a report from U.S. Attorney John Durham revealed the FBI had no evidence then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with the Russians when it launched its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the former president’s 2016 campaign.

While speaking before the House Judiciary Committee, former FBI special agent Steve Friend said he filed protected whistleblower disclosures in August 2022 over concerns he had regarding investigations assigned to his office over the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. More specifically, Friend was concerned the conduction of these inquiries represented a departure from proper “case management rules established in the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide” and that such actions “could have undermined potentially righteous prosecutions and may have been part of an effort to inflate the FBI’s statistics on domestic extremism.”

“I also voiced concerns that the FBI’s use of SWAT and large-scale arrest operations to apprehend suspects who were accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors, represented by counsel, and who pledged to cooperate with the federal authorities in the event of criminal charges created an unnecessary risk to FBI personnel and public safety,” Friend said. “At each level of my chain of command, leadership cautioned that despite my exemplary work performance, whistleblowing placed my otherwise bright future with the FBI at risk.”

Despite purportedly following proper whistleblower protocol, Friend said the FBI quickly retaliated against him by weaponizing the security clearance process to remove him from active duty “within one month” of filing his disclosures. According to Friend, the agency then orchestrated a “campaign of humiliation and intimidation” designed to “punish and pressure [him] to resign,” which included leaking his private medical information to The New York Times, refusing to “furnish [his] training records for several months,” and imposing an “illegal gag order” to prevent him from “communicating with [his] family and attorneys.”

In addition to retaliation, Friend went on to accuse the FBI of weaponizing process crimes and reinterpreting laws in order to “initiate pretextual prosecutions and persecute its political enemies.” He also asserted the agency actively colludes with Big Tech platforms to censor political speech the regime disagrees with, gather intelligence on Americans, and “target citizens for malicious prosecution.”

.@RepGregSteube: "Director Wray and AG Garland have…testified that they would not retaliate against whistleblowers…You followed inside protocol for the FBI utilizing whistleblower statute protection…to make your complaints…be known?"

FRIEND: "Yes."

STEUBE: "The response… pic.twitter.com/KRtnACBznm
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 18, 2023

During his testimony, Garret O’Boyle, a U.S. Army combat veteran and former FBI special agent, chronicled his own experience with the FBI’s disdain for whistleblowers. At some point after filing a whistleblower disclosure over concerns the agency was being used to go after the regime’s political opponents, O’Boyle sought another position within the country, which the FBI approved of. According to O’Boyle, it was only after he had sold his home and moved his family “halfway across the country” did the FBI then suspend him.

“They allowed us to sell my family’s home. They ordered me to report to the new unit when our youngest daughter was only two weeks old. Then, on my first day on the new assignment, they suspended me; rendering my family homeless and refused to release our household goods, including our clothes, for weeks,” O’Boyle said.

[READ: The Durham Report Leaves No Doubt: The FBI Is A Mortal Threat To Democracy]

Marcus Allen, a former Marine and FBI staff operations specialist, also testified about his experience with the FBI’s politicization, particularly its attempts to destroy the lives and careers of those within its ranks with dissenting views. As part of his position, Allen was tasked with providing situational awareness and information regarding the Jan. 6 riot. After submitting information to his superiors and others that questioned “the narrative” of Jan. 6, however, Allen was accused of pushing “conspiratorial views” and “unreliable information.” The FBI subsequently suspended Allen in January 2022 and questioned his allegiance to the United States.

According to Allen, it wasn’t until five months later, after a congressional member “made statements indicating the FBI was conducting a purge of employees with conservative viewpoints,” did the FBI reach out seeking an interview. Much like Friend, Allen claims his security clearance was revoked after he filed his whistleblower complaint.

“It has been more than a year since the FBI took my paycheck from me. My family and I have been surviving on early withdrawals from our retirement accounts while the FBI has ignored my request for approval to obtain outside employment during the review of my security clearance,” Allen said. “We have lost our federal health insurance coverage. There is apparently no end in sight.”

.@RepMattGaetz: "Is it your belief that you were retaliated against because you shared an email that questioned the truthfulness of FBI Director Christopher Wray."

ALLEN: "Yes." pic.twitter.com/fwylf74XqM
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 18, 2023

Predictably, House Democrats used Thursday’s hearing to slander the whistleblowers to cover for the FBI’s authoritarianism. In one instance, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., attempted to equate Friend’s calls to “defund the FBI” due to its weaponized behavior with support for defunding law enforcement. The Florida Democrat also accused Friend of using Thursday’s hearing to promote his upcoming book — which Friend never mentioned — and attacked the former agent for his concerns over the FBI’s use of excessive force during certain arrests.

In his prior testimony, Friend detailed a case where the FBI planned to use a SWAT team to carry out an arrest warrant on a Jan. 6 “subject.” According to Friend, he was concerned over the use of such tactics because “the subject of the arrest warrant had been in communication with the FBI at that point and had expressed a willingness to cooperate.”

“[I]n my experience in dealing with subjects of crimes and bringing them into custody, the FBI tends to use the least amount of force necessary to do that safely, and I felt that the use of SWAT … was an unnecessary tool to use for that particular individual,” Friend said. Of course, Wasserman Schultz misconstrued Friend’s testimony to make it sound as if he sympathized with the Jan. 6 subject and other suspected criminals upon whom arrest warrants are issued.

A House Judiciary Committee report containing the whistleblowers’ aforementioned allegations and prior testimony can be found here.

If you did not know these were FBI agents, and only heard their testimony, you might conclude this was testimony of people in communist nations, or Hitler’s Germany. I don’t know about you folks, this is frightenly madding. we’ve got to vote these socialists out as soon as possible.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Category:

Tagged with:

The Unspoken Warning in the Durham Report: American Self-Government Is Collapsing

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | MAY 18, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

Yesterday in these pages Margot Cleveland rightly noted that the most damning finding in the 306-page report from Special Counsel John Durham is not necessarily the FBI’s scandalous Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016, but that the egregious abuses of power detailed in the report cannot be remedied “absent a curing of the corrupted hearts and minds of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

For all the FBI’s blatant partisanship, its disregard of exculpatory evidence, and its outright deception to secure FISA warrants on Trump campaign associates, writes Cleveland, “what should terrify the country is not the catalog of malfeasance the special counsel recited — for mistakes and even gross failures can be corrected — but that Durham warned of corrupted hearts and minds, unfaithful to the people and their Constitution.”

For his part, Durham didn’t recommend any changes to FBI guidelines or policies, because no amount of reform will be sufficient if the people in charge feel free to disregard guidelines and policies whenever they see fit to do so. As such, wrote Durham, “the answer is not the creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old. The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI’s guiding principles of ‘Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity’ are not engrained in the hearts and minds of those sworn to meet the FBI’s mission of ‘Protect[ing] the American People and uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States.’”

Durham is right, as is Cleveland. The abuse of power laid out in the report is terrifying, not just because what the FBI undertook in 2016 amounted to an attempted coup, but because it’s unclear how to prevent it from happening again. Indeed, we saw the same kind of abuse of power at play in 2020 when active and former CIA officials saw fit to interfere in the election by soliciting signatures for a letter designed to quash the Hunter Biden laptop story. There is every reason to believe that these kinds of abuses will happen again in 2024, and in every future presidential election.

As I wrote earlier this week, such abuse in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies represents a mortal threat to the republic, and we should understand the Durham report in that light.

But Durham’s damning indictment of the DOJ and FBI goes beyond those particular agencies, and indeed beyond the federal government. That people like former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, along with the entire cast of villains and liars in the Durham report, rose to positions of such power, and then proceeded to abuse that power by arrogating to themselves the right to decide who should be president — a right that belongs solely to the American people — says something about the state of our republic.

What it says is this: We have produced, and are still producing, a totally corrupt elite bereft of any sense of “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,” to say nothing of moral virtue or the common good.

Put bluntly, an elite like that makes self-government in a republic of free citizens impossible. It also means that the elite will work to corrupt ordinary Americans, eroding their respect for the rule of law and fidelity to the Constitution. As the elites go, so eventually the entire country goes.

Seen in this light, the Durham report should be understood as a dire warning about the fate of our country. John Adams issued a similar warning when he penned his famous line, that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington did the same in his farewell address when he said, “’Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

The founders knew what we seem to have forgotten: Without a virtuous people, without citizens and leaders who believe in objective moral truth and understand themselves to be bound by it, we cannot be a free people, and we cannot sustain a republic. Laws alone, to say nothing of guidelines and policies, are not enough to support and sustain self-government. You need citizens who will respect and uphold the law, and leaders who actually believe in the principle of self-government — something our current crop of leaders clearly rejects.

Without a morally virtuous citizenry, the founders also knew we would eventually become a society not of free men and women, but of slaves to a tyrannical regime. That’s the real warning embedded in the Durham report. The corruption of the FBI, the CIA, and the entire federal intelligence community, which led to the Russia-collusion hoax and almost took down Trump’s campaign, and then his presidency, cannot be fixed with new rules and policies. It’s a moral failing, moral corruption, and it can only be fixed by a spiritual renewal in America, by a return to — let’s be honest — a civic culture shaped and guided by Christian moral virtue.

It’s easy to look at the Durham report and conclude that the problem is just with a handful of bad apples in the federal intelligence agencies. But the rot goes much deeper than that. People like Comey and Brennan and the legions of corrupt agents and bureaucrats under them were produced by an American society that has lost its way, that has become unmoored from the morality that sustains our system of government and inculcates virtue in our citizenry.

New rules and regulations won’t be enough. Nor will it be enough to defund or disband the FBI. Unless we rediscover the moral virtue necessary for self-government, we will descend, bit by bit, into tyranny. And one day we will look back at the Durham report and understand that it wasn’t just an indictment of the FBI but an indictment of us all — and a harbinger of the end of our republic.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

FETTERMAN SAYS HE ‘WASN’T FUNCTIONAL’ AFTER ELECTION WIN: ‘I LITERALLY STOPPED EATING AND DRINKING’

Tagged with:

John Fetterman’s office has doctored several of his quotes to make him sound more coherent, review finds

By Joe Schoffstall , Aubrie Spady | Fox News | Published May 18, 2023 1:15pm EDT

A Fox News Digital review has found Sen. John Fetterman’s office is doctoring his quotes to make him sound more coherent as questions linger about his health following a stroke.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman suffered a stroke a year ago, and questions about his health have remained at the forefront as he has struggled through Senate hearings due to speaking and cognitive issues. The Pennsylvania senator’s office has repeatedly slammed critics for drawing attention to the issue and maintains he is fine outside of auditory processing problems. Meanwhile, they have quietly doctored his comments to make him sound more coherent as he grasps with recovery.

The issue exploded on Wednesday when Jeff Stein, a Washington Post economics reporter, admitted to amplifying a misquote Fetterman’s office provided to him, which had significantly altered Fetterman’s actual statements. Stein received backlash for tweeting that Fetterman had asked Silicon Valley Bank ex-CEO Greg Becker, “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seem to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks.”

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman — Sen. John Fetterman’s office provided a heavily altered quote to a Washington Post reporter, which sparked a correction after he had viewed the senator’s actual comments. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Fetterman, however, was much less clear in his Tuesday comments, which left the witness speechless.

“The Republicans want to give a work requirement for SNAP,” Fetterman said. “You know, for a uh, uh, uh, a hungry family has to have these, this kind of penalties, or these some kinds of word — working uh, require — Shouldn’t you have a working requirement, after we sail your bank, billions of your bank? Because you seem we were preoccupied, uh when, then SNAP requirements for works, for hungry people, but not about protecting the tax, the tax papers, you know, that will bail them out of whatever does about a bank to crash it.”

While it is common for reporters to leave out filler words like “um” and “you know” when transcribing remarks, the extreme changes to Fetterman’s actual words in the quote Stein tweeted left onlookers stunned.

Stein scrubbed his initial tweet, confessing that he received a quote from Fetterman’s office but failed to verify it with the video. “That was my fault,” Stein wrote. “Though it captured his meaning, I deleted the tweet once some of the words in the quote were inaccurate.”

Yesterday I tweeted this quote, provided to me by the Senator’s office, without checking it against the video. That was my fault. Though it captured his meaning, I deleted the tweet since some of the words in the quote were inaccurate pic.twitter.com/jkDYYr2EU2
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) May 17, 2023

However, Fetterman’s office substantially cleaning up his quotes is not a one-time incident, according to a Fox News Digital review of remarks posted on his congressional website compared to the corresponding video of the hearings. The review found that Fetterman’s office has drastically altered his comments several times after he returned to Capitol Hill in mid-April following a weeks-long absence for depression.

WATCH: FETTERMAN’S COMMENTS VS. HIS OFFICE’S TRANSCRIPT

FETTERMAN WILL CHAIR FIRST SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING DAYS AFTER RETURNING FROM WEEKS-LONG ABSENCE

Fetterman chaired his first subcommittee hearing on April 19 since returning from his treatment. During the hearing, his opening statements drew online attention. Meanwhile, his office just posted a link to his closing remarks without transcription.

John Fetterman and Barack Obama — Sen. John Fetterman’s office has doctored several of his quotes posted on the congressional website, a Fox News Digital review has found. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

In the next hearing posted on the website, from April 26, the office quoted Fetterman as saying, “I’m really excited about Whole-Home Repairs. Here in Pennsylvania, one of my friends, Nikil Saval in the Senate, shepherded it. And he got linked up with the Republicans and they actually created one of the first kinds of a program like this in the nation.

“I come from a community here, in Braddock, Pennsylvania, where your home can go bad really quickly. And I’m really excited that we can take something like that, which is happening in Pennsylvania, and take it federal.”

However, according to the linked clip, Fetterman’s words differed significantly.

“I’m really excited by it, because here in Pennsylvania one of my friends really [inaudible] it, Nikil Saval, he was one of the literally — quite literally — as hard left as a politician I’m aware of — you know — certainly in the Senate,” Fetterman says. “Um, he really helped shepherd that. And he got linked up with the Republicans, and he actually created the first kind of a program like this in the nation, you know. And one of my colleague — Mr. Vance — talked about well if there’s a leak in the ceiling, what if you don’t have the money to fix that? What can happen to that, kinda things?’

“I come from a community down in Braddock, Pennsylvania, where there’s a lot of — your home can go bad quickly if you were having those kinds — so I’m a big — you know — I’m incredibly, I think I’m excited that could take from Pennsylvania and go federal.”

In another referenced hearing on the website, from May 11, the office wrote how Fetterman “grills a witness on weed legalization” at a banking hearing.

NBC REPORTER GETTING ‘BULLIED’ BY MEDIA FOR FETTERMAN REPORT WAS ‘PATHETIC,’ ‘WRONG,’ SAY INSIDERS

John Fetterman Labor Day 2022 — Sen. John Fetterman has dealt with auditory issues since suffering a stroke a year ago. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

“We need to make it legal,” Fetterman’s website quoted him as saying. “I just believe it’s a freedom issue. I’ve given hundreds of pardons to people who have had their lives ruined by a B.S. charge.”

The quote came as Fetterman gave an example of people walking into liquor and wine stores in Pennsylvania.

“I don’t know anyone that walks in and is, ‘oh, my God I ended up with grain alcohol instead of this — you know — this bottle of red wine,'” Fetterman said. “People can understand that as well too. And it seems like it. And I don’t use marijuana. It can be made legal tomorrow in Pennsylvania, and I’m not going to. Just like I’m not going to use tobacco. And I’m just saying [inaudible] I support the Safe Act. But if we just made it legal, we don’t have the special Safe Beer Act or anything, we just need to make it legal in that. What I’m saying to you — and I’m going to save you the last minute here — is that I just believe it’s freedom. I believe it’s a freedom issue for people. And I believe it’s making the legality, and I’ve been giving hundreds of hundreds of people pardons for having their lives ruined for having a B.S. — excuse me — a B.S. charge.”

The third such example of the office altering his comments in recent weeks involved the one from Stein that drew condemnation. After spending over a month in a hospital for clinical depression treatment, Fetterman revealed his depression was “in full force” during his first few weeks in the Senate.

Fetterman suffered a stroke in May 2022 while campaigning for the Pennsylvania Senate race, resulting in auditory processing issues and depression. Fetterman described his only midterm debate against Dr. Mehmet Oz as like “trying to run a marathon with a broken ankle.” During the debate, Fetterman was granted the use of a closed captioning system so that he would be able to read the questions.

The senator’s office did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment on the altered comments by press time.

Fox News Digital’s David Rutz contributed to this report.

Joe Schoffstall is a politics producer/reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Joe.Schoffstall@Fox.com and on Twitter: @joeschoffstall

Category:

BIDEN VIEWS THE DEBT CEILING AS A STARING CONTEST WITH REPUBLICANS, NOT HIS DUTY AS PRESIDENT

Tagged with:

Speaker McCarthy’s secret weapon in the debt ceiling negotiations is paying off

By Newt Gingrich | Gingrich360.com | Published May 18, 2023 8:00am EDT

There are powerful parallels in the 1961 movie “The Hustler,” the 1913 U.S. Open, and the current debt ceiling negotiation.

Let me explain.

In each case, there is a real question of which competitor is going to succumb to the pressure and break.

In “The Hustler,” Paul Newman plays Eddie Felton, a young pool shark who takes on the greatest pool player of his time, Minnesota Fats (played brilliantly by Jackie Gleason). A great deal of money is involved, with the champion being backed by several big money guys. They are equally good pool players, but Gleason’s character is confident, and Newman’s character is insecure.

Finally, as the night wears on, the Newman character breaks under the pressure and loses – even though in the early stages he had played as well as or better than Gleason. The movie is then a portrait of a man who collapses and fails and must rebuild himself with the help of sympathetic people. At the end, he comes back to take on the champion again. The key moment in the movie is when Gleason says, “I quit, Eddie, I can’t beat you.”

WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?

Francis Ouimet’s great achievement is remarkably told in Mark Frost’s book “The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth Of Modern Golf.” While it is nonfiction, it is such a compelling story it became an entertaining movie of the same name.

In 1913, the two best golfers in the world, both British, came to the United States to prove the superiority of British golf over American golf. Harry Vardon was the first modern professional golfer and considered virtually unbeatable. They decided to prove their dominance at the U.S. Open at the Brookline Country Club in Massachusetts.

In an amazing, in some ways quintessentially American, story a 20-year-old former caddie from the club emerged as a national hero. In an 18-hole playoff, he beat the greatest golfers in the world. He won $300. More importantly, he popularized golf in America and stunned the British golfing elite.

The key moment in the match came when Vardon turned to his partner and said Ouimet is not going to break psychologically. He is as good as us, and we will not be able to beat him. Like Minnesota Fats in pool, Vardon had always relied on the pressure beating his opponents. He was a great golfer, but he was also a great student of human psychology.

I thought of these two stories as I was watching Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in a powerful discussion with the White House press corps after Tuesday’s debt ceiling meeting with President Joe Biden and the other legislative leaders. I was struck by how the two sides are approaching debt ceiling negotiations.

Speaker McCarthy pointed out that he has been advocating serious negotiations for the last 97 days. President Biden has been avoiding serious negotiations and claiming he wanted a debt ceiling increase with no amendments.

When the House Republicans passed the “Limit, Save, Grow Act” on April 26, they shocked the Washington establishment – and especially President Biden. The Democrats had been counting on the narrow Republican majority in the House to make it impossible for Republicans to pass a debt ceiling bill without Democrats helping. Since they would only help pass a bill with no amendments, they thought they would get a so-called clean debt ceiling increase (see my newsletter on why a clean debt ceiling bill is actually the dirtiest debt deal).

Up until April 26, Democrats believed they held all the cards. They thought the House Republicans would fail. The elite media would blame the Republicans. In a panic the Republicans would cave and agree to whatever President Biden wanted to do on the debt ceiling.

So, the passage of the Limit, Save, Grow Act, changed history. Suddenly, the only bill that could lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default had been passed by the House Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had been busy attacking the Republicans, but suddenly it was clear that Schumer could not pass anything – and could bring nothing to the negotiating table. Similarly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had just been defeated and could bring nothing to the table.

In a remarkable act of statesmanship, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a veteran of a number of debt ceiling showdowns, publicly stepped back and said Speaker McCarthy had earned the right to take the lead on the debt ceiling. McConnell then joined 42 of his colleagues in signing a letter Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, originated which served notice that on the debt ceiling Schumer could not get the 60 votes needed for cloture in the Senate.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM NEWT GINGRICH

Now, the Biden administration and the congressional Democrats are faced with a new and unexpected reality. A united congressional GOP was behind Speaker McCarthy in demanding spending cuts and reforms as part of any debt ceiling increase.

Having wasted 14 weeks, the Biden administration is finally facing reality and starting to negotiate.

Having watched Speaker McCarthy live through a 15-vote marathon to become speaker, I am pretty sure who is going to stay cheerful and confident – and who is going to realize they just can’t win.

Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999 and a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He is chairman of Gingrich 360.

Category:

Tagged with:

NY Times: Sen. Feinstein’s Illness More Complicated Than Disclosed

Thursday, 18 May 2023 02:42 PM EDT

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who returned to Washington in May after a months-long absence due to shingles, suffered more complications from the illness than were publicly disclosed, The New York Times reported Thursday. The shingles caused a rare complication known as encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, two people familiar with the senator’s diagnosis told the Times.

The 89-year-old Democrat had been sidelined since February as she recovered from shingles, which had led to calls from some fellow Democrats that she step aside and allow someone else to take her place. Feinstein’s absence had deadlocked the Senate Judiciary Committee she sits on, slowing Democrats’ drive to approve some of President Joe Biden’s most controversial nominees to vacant federal court positions, leading to a partial Republican blockade.

Feinstein, who will not seek re-election in 2024, said on May 10 that said she would work a lighter schedule as she returned and that she was experiencing some side effects, which included vision and balance impairments. Asked for a response, Feinstein’s office pointed to her comment in the New York Times article where she said: “I’m back in Washington, voting and attending committee meetings while I recover from complications related to a shingles diagnosis. I continue to work and get results for California.”

Category:

Whistleblower Warns: ‘The FBI Will Crush You’

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 18 May 2023 01:41 PM EDT

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle, one of three testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Thursday, had a warning for any of his former colleagues who may be thinking about testifying against the agency: Don’t do it.

“The FBI will crush you,” O’Boyle warned, when committee member Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., asked him what he’d advise. “This government will crush you and your family if you try to expose the truth about things that they are doing are wrong, and we are all examples of that.”

O’Boyle said he would tell colleagues that he would take their complaints to Congress for them or put them in touch with Congress, “but I would advise them not to do it.” He admitted that not testifying would not solve the issues the FBI has, or shine light on corruption, but based on his experience, he’d still urge them to turn away.

O’Boyle’s words came at the end of a lengthy, often-heated hearing in which he joined two other FBI whistleblowers, Stephen Friend, and Marcus Allen, to testify about the retribution they experienced for coming forward with statements on several issues. This included the investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol, the investigations of parents speaking out at school board meetings, and other instances that the Republicans on the committee say show the weaponization of the government against the American people.

In O’Boyle’s case, he told the committee that he was forced to rely on charity after the FBI moved him and his family from Kansas to Virginia, but soon ended his assignment. He claimed the bureau blocked him for six weeks from getting his family’s personal property back.

Chairman Jim Jordan asked all three men for their reactions to the FBI’s activities against them, and all insisted they followed the oaths they had taken when they went to work with the agency. They agreed with Jordan that they felt the “full weight of the federal government” come down on them, particularly when the FBI sent a letter to members of the committee to inform them that the agents’ security clearances had been revoked.

“Of course, they timed it perfectly,” said Jordan. “It’s in the letter to us yesterday. We knew they would. We knew it was going to happen that way.”

They also testified that their former colleagues have not reached out to them to support them after they found themselves put out.

“I know for a fact that my former supervisor had a meeting with my squad shortly after I was suspended, and he told them that I was going to be arrested, fired, and charged. So if that’s not chilling, I don’t know what it is,” said O’Boyle.

Friend agreed, commenting that those who have reached out to him “have used encrypted ways to do it because they fear retribution.”

Allen added that he’s been “ghosted by everybody.”

Earlier in the hearing, Allen testified that he was targeted based on “unsubstantiated accusations that I hold ‘conspiratorial views’ regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and that I allegedly sympathize with criminal conduct. I do not.”

O’Boyle said the actions against him came after his testimony in another proceeding that the FBI prioritized investigations of anti-abortion activiy after the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision on legal abortion.

He said Thursday that he was forced to accept a new position in another state and that the FBI ordered him to report when his family’s youngest child was only two weeks old.

Friend, meanwhile, said he has filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel saying he was suspended after he raised concerns about the FBI’s manipulation of crime statistics, the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants, and the agency’s use of SWAT teams.

“The FBI weaponized the security clearance processes to facilitate my removal from active duty within one month of my disclosures,” he said, also alleging the agency “initiated a campaign of humiliation and intimidation to punish and pressure me to resign” and refused his request for records so he could get another job “in an obvious attempt to deprive me of the ability to support my family.”

He also accused the FBI’s Inspection Division of having “imposed an illegal gag order in an attempt to prevent me from communicating with my family and attorneys.”

The hearing was organized by Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and comes after the release publication of Special Counsel John Durham’s report that revealed the FBI lacked evidence to open its investigation on former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The hearing also comes after the Judiciary Committee’s Republicans released a 1,000-page report with the allegations of the politicization of the FBI and Justice Department politicization.

Related Stories:

Category:

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Dressed To Kill

A.F. BRANCO | on May 18, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-dressed-to-kill/

No budget for new border agents but plenty of money for 87,000 new armed IRS Agents.

Armed IRS Agents and the Border Patrol — Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category: