It’s been a banner week for authoritarians in Europe, and it’s only Wednesday.
On Monday, a French court banned Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Rally party and the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential election, from seeking public office for the next five years. The same day, The Telegraph reported that a toddler had been booted from a U.K. preschool for being insufficiently supportive of LGBT politics. Over the weekend, a British couple revealed they had been arrested based on complaints they expressed in a WhatsApp chat about their daughter’s public school.
This is exactly the kind of crackdown on free expression that Vice President J.D. Vance chastised complicit European leaders about in February, in an address at the Munich Security Conference. This week’s insanity further proves Vance’s dire warnings were right.
Vance called out the U.K., Germany, Sweden, and the European Union for censoring and criminalizing the free expression of their citizens, citing police raids against Germans for comments posted online and the prosecution of a British man who dared to pray in silence outside of an abortion facility.
“[A]cross Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” he said. That may have been an understatement.
France isn’t the first country to bar political opposition candidates from its elections. In December, Romania’s highest court suspended its presidential election, blaming Russian interference. (Where have we heard that one before?) Calin Georgescu, who cast himself as a Trumpy “Romania first” candidate, took the lead in the country’s first round of voting before the court canceled the election and then barred Georgescu from running again.
Meanwhile, leftists in the German parliament have been threatening a ban on Germany’s prominent right-wing party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In January, lawmakers considered asking the country’s highest court to “examine whether the AfD is an anti-constitutional party,” which Politico characterized as the “first step toward legally banning it under German law.” Leftist lawmaker Carmen Wegge, one of the partisans behind the effort, claimed AfD posed “dangers to democracy” as she tried to ban the party from the democratic process.
Now, France is the latest in what Vance described as a disturbing trend of “European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others.”
In addition to her five-year ban on seeking office, Le Pen, who held a double-digit lead over the next closest candidate in France’s presidential election, was also slapped with a fine and a prison sentence for which she’ll likely be subject to two years of house arrest. Like U.S. President Donald Trump, Le Pen was accused of complex financial crimes that were alleged to have taken place years ago, with her opponents eagerly invoking the “rule of law” to defend their prosecution of political opponents. The similarities weren’t lost on Trump himself.
After the verdict was disclosed, Le Pen told reporters, “I am eliminated, but in reality, it’s millions of French people whose voices have been eliminated.”
She’s right, the voices of European citizens are being silenced — and not just by courts disenfranchising them by booting their preferred candidates from elections. From parents to preschoolers, Europeans are no longer free to express their views without fear of retribution from the government.
Since Britain’s “Online Safety Act” went into effect in October 2023, authorities have charged 292 people and convicted 67 under the anti-speech law. Among other things, the law criminalizes“false information intended to cause non-trivial harm” and targets “mis- and disinformation.” Months before the law went into effect, a mother posted footage of police arresting her autistic daughter for commenting that a female police officer looked like her lesbian grandmother. A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Police confirmed to the BBC that “a 16-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence.”
On Sunday, the U.S. State Department’s Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau issued a statement expressing concern “about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.” The State Department drew attention to the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, a 62-year-old woman who stood trial last month for holding a sign near an abortion facility with the words “here to talk, if you want.”
As U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer tries — so far, unsuccessfully — to escape imminent tariffs from the Trump administration, Britain’s authoritarian speech codes undermine Starmer’s case for special treatment from the United States. According to The Telegraph, someone “familiar with trade negotiations” said the U.K. deserves “no free trade without free speech.”
Things are no better in Germany, where 16 separate “online hate task forces” are tasked with tracking down online commenters who are accused of publishing false or “hateful” speech. Just one of those 16 units “works on around 3,500 cases a year,” according to a report from CBS.
German prosecutors readily admitted to CBS that in their country it is a “crime to insult somebody in public” or even to repost false information online. Germans whose speech lands on the wrong side of the statute may have their homes raided by armed police, be slapped with fines or imprisoned, and/or have their phones and laptops confiscated.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which took effect last year, ensures speech that authorities deem “hateful” can be punished across the continent. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr blasted the law as “incompatible” with the “free speech tradition.”
Jailing citizens for the expression of ideas and barring political candidates from elections are two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Neither is compatible with self-government.
“[S]hutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process,” as Vance told European leaders in February, “is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.”
He was right. Unfortunately, European leaders appear to have taken his statement as an instruction manual instead of an urgent warning.
Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.
The Pravda press has asked former President Donald Trump over and over again whether he’ll accept the results of the election if his Democrat opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has heard the question ad nauseam as well.
CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns peppered the former president with the question in late August, as the Democratic National Committee was installing Harris as the party’s nominee following President Joe Biden’s forced exit from his reelection campaign.
“Will you accept the results of this election?” the reporter asked.
“Absolutely. I assume it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s going to be a fair and free election the answer is absolutely I will,” Trump said.
Burns pressed with this ridiculous question. “What does fair mean to you?”
“It means the votes are counted. It means that votes are fair,” Trump said. “It means they don’t cheat on the election, they don’t drop ballots, install new rules and regulations that they don’t have the power to do.”
In other words, if leftist activists and Trump-hating elections officials don’t rig this election like they did the last one.
“They don’t use 51 intelligence agents to give phony reports, which had an effect on the election. They don’t do many of the things that they did in the last election,” he added, referring to the former intelligence officials who signed a letter insisting the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by the New York Post days before the 2020 presidential election was “Russian disinformation.” It was not. It was very real. And the Deep State, assisted by a complicit corporate media, silenced a story that many Americans say could have changed the results of the election.
Do Tell
But the Pravda press has been generally loath to ask Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the same question. The Federalist is asking. We sent email requests to both the Harris campaign and the vice president’s office asking if she will accept the results of the election if she loses next month to Trump. As of publication, crickets.
The Federalist also asked the National Security Leaders for America whether their members will accept the results of the election if the former president wins. NSL4A made headlines and garnered lots of airtime last month when its 700-plus former government, military and national security leaders signed an open letter endorsing Harris. Former CIA Director John Brennan is one of the endorsers. He’s also one of the 51 signers of the letter falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
Again, no response.
A good question voters should be asking is, why aren’t the accomplice media asking whether Harris, the Democrats, the intelligence community and other swamp creatures will be patriotic enough to accept the results of the election if Trump wins?
They Do Not Accept
They’ve been far too busy publishing all kinds of stories asking all kinds of conservatives whether they’ll accept the results of the election if their guy loses — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), even Republican voters at large via variouspolls. They’re the same “journalists” who like to gloss over the fact that leading Democrats refused to accept the election results of 2016, when Trump surprised the world and beat bitter shrew Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state and the Pravda press’ presidential chosen one.
“I do not see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., told NBC News as Trump was taking office amid Democrats’ cries of “Russian interference.”
“I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others that helped him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open democratic process,” he added.
Sour Grapes Hillary said the same and has kept on saying since.
“I believe [Trump] understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did,” she complained in a 2019 CBS News interview.
During the vice presidential debate between Vance and Walz, moderator Norah O’Donnell demanded Vance answer whether he would “seek to challenge this year’s election results.” She didn’t press Walz on whether he would accept the results of a Trump-Vance win.
Walz was given a moment to deliver a “can’t we all get along” speech, insisting that questioning the results of elections must end.
“When this is over, we need to shake hands, this election, and the winner needs to be the winner,” the leftist said. “This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
Vance rightly reminded Walz about the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party.
“…[W]e have to remember that for years in this country Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought like $500,000 of Facebook ads,” Vance said. “This has been going on for a long time. And if we want to say we need to respect the results of the election, I’m on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had, I don’t buy that.”
Voters shouldn’t buy it, either. That’s why it’s important to know where the Democrat Party presidential nominee stands less than two weeks before Election Day. So, The Federalist is asking.
Vice President Harris, will you accept the results of the election if you lose?
An official with National Security Leaders for America has provided a comment following the publication of this story. The official, who asked to be identified as an NSL4A “spokesperson” said the following:
“Unlike Mr. Trump, who led a violent insurrection to try to overturn an election he lost, our members–who fought for this nation’s democratic and pluralistic ideals–will respect America’s democratic decision. We hope Mr. Trump, whose own Chief of Staff said Mr.Trump wants to be a dictator, will do the same.”
As has been well documented, Trump’s former chief of staff’s incendiary comments have been debunked by multiple sources, and the assertion that Trump “led a violent insurrection” is widely disputed.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Chinese hackers who tapped into Verizon’s system were targeting phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The newspaper said investigators were working to determine what communications, if any, were taken.
The Trump campaign was made aware this week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside of government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems, it added. The campaign did not confirm that Trump’s and Vance’s phones were targeted. Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, said the former president’s Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris has emboldened China and Iran to attack U.S. infrastructure to prevent Trump from returning to office.
The Harris campaign could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this year. The U.S. Justice Department charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with the hack, accusing them of trying to disrupt the Nov. 5 election.
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday they were investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by people associated with China. The joint statement by the agencies did not name the targets of the incident.
Verizon said it was aware of a sophisticated attempt to reportedly target U.S. telecoms and gather intelligence.
The largest U.S. telecom company added it was working with law enforcement.
Trump’s pick for Vice President, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wis. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Two Christian college students who were mocked by Vice President Kamala Harris at a recent campaign rally have a warning for Christians: get ready for more of the same.
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights.
In an interview Sunday with “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Beth said the pair’s shouted phrases drew the ire of those around them.
“I was pushed by an elderly woman. We were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked,” Beth said. “In reflection of the event, Jesus was mocked. His disciples were mocked, and that’s OK.
“We did God’s work, and we were there for the right reasons.”
Grant Beth and Luke Polaske attended the Harris-Walz rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse last week when they shouted phrases like “Christ is King!” as Harris spoke about abortion rights. | Screenshot/YouTube/Fox News
Polaske, who said he and Beth were approximately 20 to 30 yards away from Harris, said he can confirm the vice president addressed them specifically.
“There’s a lot of controversy that says she wasn’t talking to us or [that] we left. We didn’t get kicked out. Well, I can speak on Grant and I’s behalf,” he said.
“On video, Grant’s getting pushed and shoved, and there’s about five seconds before she tells us to go to a small rally down the street. You can see on the video, she waves. She was actually waving to me,” Polaske added.
At that point, he said he removed his cross necklace, held it up in the air, and “pointed at” Harris.
“She looked [me] directly in the eye, kind of gave me an evil smirk,” he said.
Harris paused her speech to address the students, quipping, “You guys are at the wrong rally,” which drew loud applause from the audience. The moment quickly went viral on social media.
While Harris focused on the economy and her vision for the 2024 campaign, she also criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. “When Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as president, I will proudly sign it into law,” she pledged.
Beth warned that a Harris presidency could lead to tensions with the Christian community.
“You’re going to get the Kamala Harris that alienates over 50 percent of the U.S. population that is Christian,” he argued, referencing her decision to skip the Al Smith Memorial Dinner, a long-standing charity event attended by presidential candidates.
Polaske made similar predictions in a social media post Sunday in which he warned about the “spiritual warfare” involved in the 2024 election.
He wrote: “Christianity is the most hated and persecuted religion in the world. I have seen this firsthand when my faith was mocked and insulted by the Vice President of the United States. I hope as Christians we do not compromise our morals to vote for a woman who does not care about our faith.‘
“We are in the midst of a spiritual warfare this election cycle. With that being said, let’s not forget what we are taught to do as Christians.”
After quoting Christ’s command for His followers to love their neighbor, Polaske added, “He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In Jesus’ name, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because in the end, WE WIN.”
U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, appeared to reference the exchange during his own rally in Wisconsin Sunday afternoon while speaking about his Catholic faith. During his speech, an attendee shouted “Jesus is King,” to which Vance responded, “That’s right. Jesus is King.” He described Harris’ rhetoric as “anti-Christian” and suggested it reflects a broader issue in modern politics.
After sharing about his return to faith as a Catholic and being baptized in 2019, Vance referenced what he described as VP Harris’ “anti-Christian rhetoric.”
“I say this as a Christian, as a person who was baptized for the first time just a few years ago. There is something really bizarre with Kamala Harris’ anti-Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian approach to public policy,” he said.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Vance demolished Walz in the last debate, and all he used was the truth, while Walz fumbled under the weight of his lies.
Tim Walz melts down at debate when pressed to explain his China trip, admits he ‘misspoke’
By Mariane Angela – Oct 2, 2024
When confronted with the discrepancy by the host, Walz responded with a lengthy discourse on his background and various accomplishments. (Daily Caller News Foundation) — Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faltered when pressed to clarify his previous claims that he was present in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 during the vice presidential debate against Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. Despite earlier claims of being in the region during the pivotal events of spring 1989, credible reports from Minnesota Public Radio and other outlets have shown that Walz did not travel to Asia until several months later, as pointed out by the debate host. When confronted with the discrepancy by the host, Walz responded with a lengthy discourse on his background and various… (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco Cartoon – After Kamala’s Administration blew all the FEMA money on illegals, she’s offering $750.00 to the victims of Helene. Billions have gone to Ukraine, and now millions are going to Lebanon.
Smash-Mouth Marxism: Kamala Harris Brags Online About Sending $157 Million to Lebanon As Southeast US Suffers Through Historic Flooding and FEMA Admits It Blew Money on Illegals
By Jim Hoft – Oct. 6, 2024
This is what you call smash-mouth Marxism. They mock you in your suffering because they know they can. As long as elections can be stolen this is what you can expect from your ‘representative’ government. On Saturday, Kamala Harris bragged online about the Biden regime sending $157 million to war-ravaged Lebanon. She then added that over $385 million has gone to assist Hezbollah-ruled Lebanon over the past year. (READ MORE)
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
The vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night was staggeringly one-sided.
Sen. JD Vance was poised, calm, friendly, likable, and in control of the facts and himself.
By contrast, Gov. Tim Walz began the debate so nervous it was painful to watch. Then he made a series of mistakes which were cumulatively disqualifying. It was hard to believe he is on a national ticket.
Callista and I went to bed on Tuesday night convinced that Sen. Vance had won a substantial triumph. In that victory, he also vindicated President Donald J. Trump’s gamble in selecting a running mate so early in his career. At 40, with only two years in the U.S. Senate, Vance is only a few months older than Richard Nixon when President Dwight Eisenhower picked him to be the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1952. Nixon would remain a major part of the political scene for 42 years. That would give Sen. Vance a potential role in American government and politics until 2066.
When I got up on Wednesday morning, virtually all the commentaries validated the sense that the debate was something extraordinary.
This new reality was best summarized by Mark Halperin in the Wide World of News newsletter:
“1. One can pretend, as most of the Dominant Media does, that Tim Walz was not ‘clobbered’ by JD Vance, but, as honest Joe Klein (fully credentialed as second-to-none in contempt for Donald Trump and Vance) told the world, Walz was indeed clobbered, so badly that it ‘wasn’t as bad as Biden’s debilitated performance in June, but it was close.’ Remember: Biden’s perf[romance] was so bad it ended his candidacy and career.”
Pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that his focus group voted 12 to 2 that Vance had won.
Glenn Greenwald posted on X: “The most bizarre part of that debate was how Tim Walz repeatedly and flagrantly undercut Dems’ core attack on Trump/Vance: that they’re “weird,” freakish dangers wildly out of the mainstream.
“Everything Walz said treated Vance as a totally normal, reasonable, likable colleague.”
The most bizarre part of that debate was how Tim Walz repeatedly and flagrantly undercut Dems' core attack on Trump/Vance: that they're "weird," freakish dangers wildly out of the mainstream.
Everything Walz said treated Vance as a totally normal, reasonable, likable colleague.
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat posted:“I would rate that the most successful Republican debate performance of this century, eclipsing Romney in the first debate with Obama in 2012.”
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume had no regard for the performances of moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, saying they were “obnoxious” and made the debate a three-on-one proposition against Vance.
These were just a few. The Trump-Vance campaign collected no fewer than 22 journalists and public figures who agreed that Vance trounced Walz. Donald Trump Jr. was the third big winner in this debate. He had strongly backed Sen. Vance as a running mate and worked to get his father to pick him. That choice certainly seemed to work out brilliantly.
As Caitlin Doornbos in the NY Post wrote, Gov. Walz’s problems started at the beginning. “Tim Walz got one chance to make a first impression at Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, and blew it before his opponent, JD Vance, even got the chance to speak.”
His nerves clearly kept him from meeting the challenge.
Finally, Gov. Walz said a couple of things that were just weird. In a clear moment of confusion, he said he’d become “friends with school shooters.” When asked why he had lied about being at Tiananmen Square during the 1989 suppression and killing of students demonstrating for democracy, Walz ultimately called himself a “knucklehead”for simply saying something that was false. Being the “knucklehead candidate” is not a good way to campaign for the last five weeks before the election.
After last night, Sen. Vance is a huge national figure among Republicans and conservatives. He will have much more impact campaigning than he did before the debate.
After Tuesday night, Gov. Walz will be seen by most Americans as someone who is clearly not ready to be president or vice president.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s comment that she was exhausted and sleepless when she picked him will now look like a first step toward minimizing his role – and her ability to make decisions under pressure.
A vindicated President Trump will campaign with more enthusiasm and a greater sense of certainty that he has built a winning ticket.
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.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Putting the VP debate in simple terms. Vance spoke from a put-America-first perspective to solve America’s problems, while Walz came from a big-government Marxist viewpoint when looking at the disaster Kamala’s policies have created.
Here We Go… CBS Hacks “Fact-Check” JD Vance — Then Won’t Let Him Speak — Then CUT HIS MIC …Update: Vance was Right!
By Jim Hoft – Oct 01, 2024 – The Gateway Pundit
The far-left CBS hacks moderating the debate on Tuesday took time to “fact-check” JD Vance on the 20,000 Haitian migrants that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris flew into Springfield, Ohio in the past three years. Senator Vance then interrupted and corrected Margaret Brennan about the Biden plan to fly in illegals to American cities. That’s when CBS cut his mic! READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and his wife Usha Vance attend the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)
Harold Hutchison is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Usha Vance said during an interview that aired Monday that critics of Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio focused on a “quip” about childless women to avoid discussing issues and policies that result in parents having a “really hard” time raising children.
Democrats attacked Vance over comments about “childless cat ladies” in a Fox News interview and remarks in a July 2021 speech about women who didn’t have children that have resurfaced since former President Donald Trumpchose the “Hillbilly Elegy” author to be his running mate. Vance told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt that the then-Senate candidate had been explaining the difficulties of being a parent.
“I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was and all that, which is something I really wish people would do a little bit more often. And the reality is, he made a quip in service of making a point he wanted to the make that was substantive and it had actual meaning,” Usha Vance told Earhardt.
“And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase because what he was really saying it can be really hard to be a parent in this country and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder,” Vance continued. “And we should be asking ourselves why is that true? What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it hard sometimes for parents? That’s the conversation that I really think we should have, and I understand why he was saying that.”
Vance also pushed back on those who claimed the Republican vice-presidential nominee was trying to offend people with the comments.
“JD absolutely at the time and today would never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family who really, you know, was struggling with that he made that clear at the time,” Vance said. “He has made that clear today and we have lots of friends who have been in that position. It is challenging and never, ever anything that anyone would want to mock or make fun of.”
JD Vance made clear he excluded couples struggling with infertility from his criticism of the “childless left” in his 2021 speech, according to Snopes.com.
“And I also understand there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families and many of those reasons are very good,” Usha Vance continued. “I think what I would say is let’s try to look at the real conversation he is trying to have and engage with it and understand for those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families and for whom it’s really hard, what can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it easier to live in 2024?”
Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.8% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from July 22 to Aug. 2, with Harris taking a slight lead of 0.2% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included in surveys.
MILWAUKEE — The man who would be vice president formally introduced himself to a jubilant Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening in Wisconsin — and to voters nationwide. And he had a very compelling story to tell.
Sen. James David “J.D.” Vance, R-Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s freshly minted running mate, accepted the nomination and addressed his fellow Republicans, his fellow Americans. What many heard was a guy who, despite being a millennial millionaire, shares an all-too-common upbringing in impoverished rural America. Vance, the author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, literally wrote the book on it.
At 39, Vance is one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in American history, nearly 40 years Trump’s junior. The significant age spread is by design in an election year where, once again, two elderly men — at least at the moment — are the major party standard bearers on the ballot.
From Humble Beginnings
By many measures, Vance is the epitome of the American Dream. He grew up in poverty, a “family tradition” in rust-belt Middletown, Ohio, and in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. The son of a drug-addicted mother and a father who left him, Vance, as they say, rose above his circumstances. He went to college on the G.I. Bill after serving in the Marines and the Iraq War. He earned his law degree from Yale and made a very comfortable living in venture capital. Vance’s bleak memoir was made into a movie in 2020, a couple of years before his successful Senate run.
“Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I would be standing here tonight,” Vance told the thousands of conventiongoers assembled at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and the millions more watching across the country.
God and Mamaw
While his parents were absent from much of his childhood, Vance said he had God.
And Mamaw.
The senator’s “guardian angel” grandmother raised him. She was tough as nails, Vance said, a Christian woman who loved the Lord nearly as much as she loved the “F word.” Mamaw once told her grandson that if she ever caught him again hanging out with a kid who was a notorious drug dealer in town, she’d run the boy over with her car.
“And she said, J.D., no one would ever find out about it,” Vance recalled. The convention hall erupted in laughter, then echoed with a chant of “Mamaw.” The GOPers love them some Mamaw. They seemed pretty taken by her successful grandson too.
The Republican vice-presidential candidate said he made it out of the generational poverty that has trapped so many of his family and friends. He escaped through hard work, with the help of his guardian angel, and by the grace of God, Vance said. Every now and then, he said, he’ll get a call from a relative back home asking if he remembered this person or that. As a face in time fills his mind, Vance said he’s often told that the old neighbor or schoolmate has died of a drug overdose.
‘Failed and Failed’
“As usual, America’s ruling class wrote the check. Communities like mine paid the price,” he said. He then took aim at the members of said ruling class — Democrats and Republicans — who have over the last generation-plus enriched themselves while average Americans have suffered. The people on the list of D.C. elites include Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. None more, Vance stressed, than career politician Biden, hungry for another term in a rematch with Trump.
“For decades, that divide between the few — with their power and comfort in Washington — and the rest of us only widened. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who governed this country have failed and failed again,” he said.
There is, of course, according to Vance, one exception to the governing class rule: businessman Donald Trump, who in 2016 ran on nothing short of a revolution to “drain the swamp.” Vance wasn’t on board the Trump train then, blasting Trump as “reprehensible” during his first run. Vance has had a change of heart since those early days, becoming one of the more ardent defenders of Trump’s vision of “making America Great Again.” Biden’s curious victory in 2020 put the MAGA agenda on hold. Trump’s new running mate sounds like he is champing at the bit to help the former president bring it back and make the case, particularly in the critical swing states, for a return to Trumpenomics and homeland sanity.
“It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying your jobs,” Vance said. “It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.”
“It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country,” Vance hammered.
Trump’s running mate wasn’t simply speaking to the party; he was attempting to connect with what he called the “cast aside and forgotten.” In the tradition of Trump.
The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway, also covering the convention with wife and Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway, told me in a “Federalist Radio Hour” podcast that the GOP establishment types aren’t happy with the Vance VP pick, a good sign Trump made the right call.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their corporate media public-relations firms have spent the past couple of days trying to diminish Trump’s lieutenant, as the corporate media are wont to do. The Atlantic’s Stuart Stevens lamented Ohio transforming from a swing state to a dependable red. He decried the Buckeye State’s abandonment of weak-kneed RINOs for Trumpicans like Vance.
“But don’t make the mistake of thinking this transformation was the result of a hostile takeover; that implies there was a fight. The truth is that the old guard surrendered to forces contrary to what it had espoused as lifelong values,” Stevens whined.
The old guard, Vance tried to convey to voters, is part of why this republic is in so much trouble.
‘The American Story’
David Arredondo, former chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party, part of the Cleveland metropolitan area, told me Vance brings pluses and minuses to the ticket, but a lot more positives than negatives.
“He checks all the boxes,” Arredondo said. Vance is young and a veteran. And Vance’s experience with poverty and family drug addiction, Arredondo said, makes him relatable to voters billionaire Trump needs to win the election.
“It’s the American story of the person who started from nothing and became great,” he said.
David Arredondo, former chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party
As the former county GOP chairman noted, Vance won a lot of Ohio hearts and minds following the devastating train derailment in East Palestine in early 2023. He was there. So was Trump, handing out bottled water and standing with a broken community as Biden and his competence-challenged transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, were slow to show up to the conservative-leaning community near the border of Pennsylvania. Biden waited a year. He was not well received.
“Vance’s quick response to the train derailment and advocacy for local residents landed him in the spotlight and earned him a front row seat in the news for months. Trump joined Vance and other Ohio lawmakers on Feb. 22, 2023, to shake the hands of local residents and distribute water, food and other supplies to those desperately in need of necessities,” Fox News reported shortly after Trump announced Vance as his second-in-command.
Vance closed with a vow to the “cast aside and forgotten.”
“To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Donald Trump has chosen JD Vance as his running mate. A Man that could propel MAGA well into the future. I’m sure the media is gearing up right now for an all-out assault to try and destroy him.
Trump Announces JD Vance as His Choice For Vice President
By Cristina Laila – July 15, 2024
President Trump on Monday announced his choice for Vice President: 40-year-old Ohio Senator JD VANCE!
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social. “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio. J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association. J.D.’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a Major Best Seller and Movie… READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — President Joe Biden plans to visit Baltimore this week following the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. While the loss of life and devastation of crucial infrastructure certainly warrants a presidential visit, one can’t help but wonder why Biden lacked similar urgency when it came to East Palestine, Ohio.
In February 2023, 38 cars — several containing hazardous materials, notably vinyl chloride monomer — on a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in the heart of East Palestine. Fearing these tankers might explode, representatives from Norfolk Southern, along with individuals from the village fire department and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, opted to “vent and burn” the vinyl chloride. The burn released hazardous chemicals into the community’s air, waterways, and soil. Village residents experienced a slew of concerning health symptoms as a result of the now-unbreathable air and toxified environment. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes, and local employers had no other option but to close their doors.
This past September, more than eight months after the derailment, President Biden issued an executive order mobilizing federal agencies to oversee cleanup efforts, monitor environmental and public health consequences, and provide additional resources to members of the affected communities. Biden also called for Norfolk Southern to be held accountable for any wrongdoing it may have committed during the incident. Village residents remain unconvinced, however, that any of this will have a positive effect.
We are now a little over a year removed from the incident. While signs of progress bring cautious optimism for the village’s prospects, numerous questions and concerns remain. Chief among these is how the community continues to cope with the circumstances thrust upon it and, crucially, what preventative measures are being implemented to prevent a similar tragedy from recurring.
“We’re still on the path to recovery,” East Palestine Village Manager Chad Edwards told The Federalist. “Some people are still reporting symptoms from the chemicals, but it’s not a large number, which doesn’t make it any less concerning.”
The village draws its drinking water from an aquifer, so there was never any major concern about contamination, but air quality remains an area of focus. “It’s very important the people who were here at the time of the derailment aren’t forgotten about in 20 years,” Edwards said, continuing the conversation about health effects. “What I’m hearing from the experts at the EPA is that we don’t know if there will be long-term side effects from the air quality.”
But there are people in the village who are currently facing serious medical issues related to pollution from the controlled burn. Residents still experience health issues from airborne pollution, some people still have physical reactions when they enter homes exposed to chemicals from the burn, and the nearby Beavercreek Watershed has an abundance of signage warning people to “keep out.”
Chris Albright, an East Palestine resident, began experiencing “really bad headaches” about two weeks after village residents were allowed to move back into their homes following the controlled burn. “Anytime I got close to home, I would just get a horrible headache, and I never get headaches,” he told The Federalist.
Alongside these headaches, Albright was experiencing random bouts of vomiting and persistent fatigue. Ultimately, his physicians determined he was suffering from rapid-onset congestive heart failure. The chemicals released by the burn are believed to have greatly exacerbated Albright’s condition and contributed to his deteriorating health.
“I’m not an obese guy; I’m very active,” said Albright, who has little faith in the “experts” from the government upon whom the community relies for information about air quality. “Because of this, I’ve been unable to work. I actually lost my health benefits at the end of [2023].”
Despite having a “Family Resource Center” in the village, Norfolk Southern, the entity responsible for the burn, has not provided Albright any assistance beyond hotel reimbursement. “I have not heard a word from Norfolk Southern,” he said. “I’ve never had anybody reach out and never received any correspondence other than how to get reimbursed for our hotel when we had to leave our house [because of the burn].”
When speaking with The Federalist, Village Manager Edwards noted that Norfolk Southern was “revamping” the community’s park, a project estimated to cost around $25 million. “I think they’ve done above and beyond what they’ve really had to do,” he said.
Experiences like Albright’s, life-altering circumstances with no assistance, inspired community members to act.
Chris Neifer, the superintendent of East Palestine City Schools, told The Federalist that shortly after the derailment and controlled burn, school leadership delivered various products to people throughout the village, set up community game nights, and “different things to keep kids’ minds off of not having to deal with the adult problems.”
“We had determined as a team that we were not going to be victims of this,” Neifer said.
Jami Wallace, a lifelong resident of East Palestine who said she has 47 family members living within one mile of the train derailment sight, turned to community organizing when she was told by a toxicologist that her family could become exposed to contaminated creek water through a basement leak. Structuring the East Palestine Unity Council (EPUC) after her union, Wallace created the organization so people invested in the community could raise awareness of specific issues they continue to struggle with and fill in the gaps where the government falls short.
The EPUC is a self-declared “oversight board” committed to ensuring “the right of the people to maintain clean air, water, and soil” that aims to represent “all members of the [East Paletine] community[] and surrounding areas affected by the derailment.”
Documents viewed by The Federalist that were sent to the Biden administration by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of the EPUC further detail village residents’ grievances. According to these organizations’ substantiated claims, the EPA refused to test residents’ property for contamination, only tested the polluted area for a small amount of “more than 100 other dangerous compounds that were formed by the burning,” misled the public about the levels of harmful chemicals in the area, and more.
The organization has already met with several federal officials, including members of the Biden administration. However, perhaps the village’s most committed advocate in government remains Ohio’s junior U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, who visited the area almost immediately after the incident occurred and championed bipartisan rail safety legislation.
During a full committee hearing on the National Transporation Safety Board’s (NTSB) Investigations Report last month, Vance got NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy to state on the record that the controlled burn was entirely unnecessary and that Norfolk Southern contractors lacked sufficient evidence justifying the operation.
During Vance and Homendy’s exchange, it was further established, based on previous reports, that following derailment, the vinyl polymers were decreasing in temperature (thus reducing the risk of an uncontrolled explosion); Norfolk Southern was not of the mentality that a chemical reaction resulting in an explosion was imminent, and on-site representatives of the company were properly informed that a controlled burn lacked sufficient scientific basis; and Norfolk Southern representatives disregarded available data and contradicted this expert feedback.
Norfolk Southern, in turn, relayed inaccurate information to the governor of Ohio, who was one of the people responsible for authorizing the controlled burn. Had the company’s representatives relayed accurate information, this whole ordeal could have been avoided. In March 2023, the state of Ohio and the Department of Justice filed separate suits against Norfolk Southern.
“The fallout from this highly preventable incident may continue for years to come, and there’s still so much we don’t know about the long-term effects on our air, water and soil,” Ohio AG Dave Yost told The Washington Post.
Norfolk Southern did not respond to The Federalist’s multiple requests for comment.
Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.
Twenty-eight Republicans publicly vowed on Thursday to oppose the use of billions of American tax dollars to fund a proxy war in Ukraine. The rejection, sent in a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, is a direct response to the Biden administration’s recent demand that Congress send $24 billion more in American taxpayer-funded resources to Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to curb Vladimir Putin and his regime.
Sen. J.D. Vance, who spearheaded the letter, said Congress should not keep funding “an indefinite conflict” without more fact-based information about the war.
“Yesterday at a classified briefing over Ukraine, it became clear that America is being asked to fund an indefinite conflict with unlimited resources,” Vance wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Enough is enough. To these and future requests, my colleagues and I say: NO.”
More than half of the nation says Congress should stop financing Ukraine, a country plagued by corruption. Yet, President Joe Biden, his cabinet members, and even establishment Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have repeatedlypledged to support the war “for as long as it takes.”
President Biden in Vilnius, Lithuania as he departs NATO Summit: "We will not waver. Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes." pic.twitter.com/eTQWSlQ2bA
Retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley reportedly received a “standing ovation” on Wednesday after he also swore that “the United States will continue to provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
“My tenure may be ending but the mission for this group continues until the end state of a free and sovereign Ukraine is attained,” Milley said.
Gen. Mark Milley on sending aid to Ukraine:
"As President Biden and Secretary Austin have said many, many times over, we, the United States, will continue to provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes." pic.twitter.com/4aNRcWutBJ
“These statements imply an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress,” the signees wrote.
The statements also lack any transparency about how the nation’s previous aid was used.
In their letter, the Republicans note the whopping $114 billion total often used to measure U.S. funding for Ukraine “does not reflect the full picture, which includes transferred and reprogrammed funds.” They add that in all five of its “supplemental requests” for Ukraine funding to Congress, the Biden administration “requested additional authority to transfer and reprogram funds.”
“The vast majority of Congress remains unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power,” the Republicans warn.
The ignorance is not due to a lack of curiosity from the Republicans behind the letter, who have made multiple inquiries over the last two years demanding more information. In January, Vance and three dozen other Republicans in Congress signed a letter to Young demanding a “full accounting” of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Their requests went largely unaddressed.
“It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity,” the Republicans state.
As prime examples of the executive branch’s reckless Ukraine spending spree, the GOPers highlighted the Department of Defense’s recent $6.2 billion Ukraine aid accounting error and the Biden administration’s $5 billion request for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a number which exceeded 15 times what Congress allotted in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine?” the GOPers ask.
To grant another round of Ukraine funding requests by the Biden administration without “answers to these questions,” the GOP members declared, would be “an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility.”
The 28 Republicans pledge to keep their purse strings closed until the Biden administration explains its funding frenzy to Congress and taxpayers.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
NEWSMAX
News, Opinion, Interviews, Research and discussion
Opinion
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
You Version
Bible Translations, Devotional Tools and Plans, BLOG, free mobile application; notes and more
Political
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
NEWSMAX
News, Opinion, Interviews, Research and discussion
Spiritual
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
Bible Gateway
The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online — all in the language or translation of your choice! It provides advanced searching capabilities, which allow readers to find and compare particular passages in scripture based on
What Did You Say? 
You must be logged in to post a comment.