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House Republicans Seek Access to Biden’s Classified Documents

By Fran Beyer | Friday, 09 February 2024 02:52 PM EST

House Republicans on Friday demanded access to classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s home amid the Oversight panel’s probe of the Biden family. In a social media post by the GOP-majority House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, chaired by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the panel demanded the Department of Justice Department provide Congress with access “to Joe Biden’s stashed classified documents to determine if they were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling schemes.”

The move follows Comer’s request that “Special Counsel Robert Hur provide our committee with information about whether President Biden retained classified materials related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business schemes that brought in millions for the Biden family,” the panel wrote — and that the DOJ “refused to provide this information under the guise of ‘an ongoing investigation.'”

The committee said that since the probe is now over “and the Special Counsel’s report reveals Joe Biden kept classified materials related to Ukraine and China, two countries where the Bidens made millions,” the DOJ “must provide Congress with unfettered access to these documents.”

Hur released his report to the public on Thursday, but didn’t recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents — and stated he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office.

The records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

They also included documents related to Ukraine and China.

Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in June 2014 and also had joint business ventures with Chinese energy firms.

According to the full special counsel report, a “VP Personal” file folder contained a telephone call sheet from Dec. 12, 2015, talking points for a call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, and a handwritten note attached addressed to Biden’s executive assistant that states: “Get copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” The note is signed “Joe.” That document was marked as “Secret.”

Attached to that document was another, dated Dec. 11, 2015. The report describes that document as “a transcript documenting the substance of a Dec. 11, 2015 call between Mr. Biden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.” The document is marked “CONFIDENTIAL” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.”

Biden gave a speech on Dec. 9, 2015 in which he discussed corruption in Ukraine.

“And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption,” Biden said in the speech. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.”

At the time, Burisma Holdings was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and Hunter Biden had a highly lucrative role on the board.

Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

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Democrat Lawyer Admits At Supreme Court That Only One Party Can Be Allowed To Rig Elections

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | FEBRUARY 08, 2024

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

There was never a purer demonstration of how traitorous Democrats are about “defending democracy,” or whatever corny phrase they like to use, than what just happened at the Supreme Court.

At the very end of oral arguments in the Colorado case determining whether the state had the right to remove former President Donald Trump’s name from the 2024 ballot, Justice Samuel Alito asked the state’s solicitor general, Shannon Stevenson, what’s going to happen if other states “retaliate” by, say, removing Joe Biden from theirs. Elected officials in at least six states have suggested it as a course of action.

It’s an obvious question that Stevenson either wasn’t prepared for or knew it would expose her state’s case as a tragic joke. “Your honor, I think we have to have faith in our system that people will follow their election processes appropriately, that they will take realistic views of what insurrection is under the 14th Amendment,” she said. “Courts will review those decisions, this court may review some of them.”

What she said next should have resulted in her being laughed out of the room. “But,” she said, “I don’t think that this court should take those threats too seriously in its resolution of this case.”

Alito challenged Stevenson on whether she thought the suggestion of retaliation, coming from places like Florida, Arizona, and Georgia, all potentially swing states in the next election, was truly unfounded.

“Um, I think we have processes—” she said, before being interrupted.

“We should proceed on the assumption that it’s not a serious threat?” said Alito.

Stevenson said there are “institutions in place” that should “handle” such matters. Asked to specify which institutions, she said, “Our states, their own electoral rules, the administrators who enforce those rules.” She also said voters would have to rely on “courts.”

In essence, to believe this entire case by Democrats is an effort to safeguard democracy, rather than rig an election, is to trust that Republicans would never dare try doing the same. If they did, it would ruin Democrats’ plot. Alternatively, if such threats were made good, we should expect enough opposition to render them neutral.

In fairness, a lot of Republicans are naive morons who time and time again respond to Democrats politically kicking their teeth in by saying, “Well, if we do anything back, we’re no better than them.” So, Stevenson’s is not a terrible gamble.

But there’s a long way to go before the election. Attitudes change, and they will rapidly if Colorado is successful and other Democrat states decide to follow the example of unilaterally determining Trump is ineligible to run for a second term, all because he rejected the accuracy of election results (as Democrats do on a routine basis).

The media’s fixation on the Colorado case has focused solely on the legal merits of the case, when the more urgent matter has always been not what happens if it’s ruled legal to keep Trump off a ballot, but what it means for future democratic elections if he is.

There’s a reason until recently it was not only abnormal but unthinkable in America for one political party to use the justice system to exterminate its opponent. The reason is self-evident— mutually assured destruction. If they can do it to us, we can do it to them. It’s what they do in the Congo and every other war-torn state across the globe.

Alito intentionally invoked that perilous likelihood. Stevenson’s response — “I don’t think that this court should take those threats too seriously” — showed just how seriously Democrats take “defending democracy.”

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

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Biden ‘did not remember when he was vice president,’ when his son Beau died, during special counsel interviews

By Joe Schoffstall , Brooke Singman Fox News | Published February 8, 2024 4:24pm EST

According to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents released Thursday, Biden could not remember key details, such as when he was vice president, during interviews with investigators.

Hur has been investigating Biden’s improper retention of classified records since last year. The papers included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other national security and foreign policy records, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” He announced he would not seek criminal charges against Biden.

The report, however, also contains an eye-opening portion on how Biden struggled to remember when he served as vice president in the Obama administration while being interviewed for the investigation. Additionally, Hur’s office believed Biden’s lawyers would use those “limitations” in his recall if it went to trial.

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” the report states. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).”

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report continued. “And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”

“In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,” the report said.

GARLAND SAYS SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBING BIDEN CLASSIFIED RECORDS HAS SUBMITTED REPORT, UNDER WHITE HOUSE REVIEW

While Biden will not face charges, Hur said his investigation “uncovered evidence that Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

The materials included “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

Hur said FBI agents recovered the materials from “the garages, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilimington, Delaware home.”

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He added that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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

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EJ Antoni Op-ed: Caught in Crosshairs of a Cost-of-Living Crisis

EJ Antoni / @RealEJAntoni / February 06, 2024

President Joe Biden stands behind a podium wearing a bright blue jacket. — Americans’ main concern today isn’t internet speed, as Preisdent Joe Biden seems to think, but their inability to afford necessities such as food and housing. Pictured: Biden speaks Jan. 24 about his economic agenda and recent infrastructure funding in Superior, Wisconsin. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden recently took to a stage in North Carolina to tout his economic agenda, which includes bringing high-speed internet to rural America. But that’s hardly what Americans struggling with a cost-of-living crisis need to hear.

Millions of Americans have been terribly frustrated with the economy over the last three years, as witnessed by countless economic polls. While several aggregate numbers like gross domestic product and its largest component, consumer spending, may paint a rosy picture, millions of Americans are economically worse off than they were three years ago.

After annual inflation outpaced earnings growth for a record 26 consecutive months, real (inflation-adjusted) incomes are down about 4.5% compared to January 2021. Yet Biden claims “we’re doin’ pretty damn well economically.”

While Biden claims that real earnings have risen for the bottom half of workers, data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics mere hours before Biden spoke show real earnings have fallen 1% for the bottom half of workers during his tenure.

People are struggling to make ends meet, with credit card debt at a record $1.1 trillion while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. This is despite a record number of Americans having multiple jobs as they try to boost their lagging real incomes.

Having maxed out their credit cards, Americans turned to alternative financing options, like buy-now-pay-later plans, to cover their holiday spending. Meanwhile, a quarter of Americans still haven’t even paid off their holiday debt from 2022.

It’s no wonder that defaults and delinquencies on consumer debt like credit cards are rising at the fastest pace since the Global Financial Crisis.

However, official inflation metrics like the consumer price index are understating the cost-of-living crisis by underestimating inflation, mostly because of methodological changes over the years. This is especially true for housing, which has seen affordability plummet over the past three years.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the median-priced home is affordable with the median income in only one metropolitan area (population of at least 500,000) in the whole country. Families are maxing out credit cards just to pay their rent.

This debt-fueled consumer spending binge of the past three years mirrors federal government spending. The national debt has breached $34 trillion, with another $1 trillion being added every 100 days or so. Interest on the debt is now $1 trillion annually, the third-largest budget item behind only the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The explosions in government and consumer debt are related. Runaway federal spending prompted the Federal Reserve to create trillions of dollars for the Treasury Department to pay its bills. That drove inflation to 40-year highs, which robbed workers of their purchasing power, prompting them to take on debt to maintain their standard of living.

Ironically, Biden cited his American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure bill he signed as two critical components of Bidenomics that have aided in his quest to expand high-speed internet access. Of course, these multitrillion-dollar spending packages also supercharged inflation.

From his podium, Biden predicted that everyone in North Carolina would have high-speed internet access by the end of the decade. Unfortunately, because of the explosion in government spending, the federal debt will exceed $52 trillion by that time.

The never-ending flood of government debt will bring more rounds of inflation and only worsen American families’ financial situations as prices and interest rates fluctuate violently.

Americans’ main concern today is not their internet speed but their inability to afford necessities such as food and housing. The only way to reverse this cost-of-living crisis is to reverse what got us here: runaway government spending.

This commentary, distributed by Tribune News Service, originally was published by msn.com

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Senate Border Bill Is Nothing but a Democrat Propaganda Op

BY: KYLEE GRISWOLD | FEBRUARY 06, 2024

Author Kylee Griswold profile

KYLEE GRISWOLD

VISIT ON TWITTER@KYLEEZEMPEL

After the much-anticipated “bipartisan” Ukraine and border bill finally dropped on Sunday, it took little time to confirm that all 370 pages are worse than intelligent observers predicted. The $118 billion boondoggle is dead on arrival in the House. For Democrats and their accomplice media, however, the legislation and House Republicans’ response to it are going exactly as planned.

Not only did national disgrace Sen. Mitch McConnell (feat. useful idiot James Lankford) work tirelessly with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on this bill to keep America’s borders open, give out amnesty Oprah-style, and write more blank checks to Ukraine and Hamas sympathizers in the Middle East, they also helped the corrupt corporate media run a propaganda operation against House Republicans and the rest of the GOP. Worse, they’re deliberately running it during an election year to boost Joe Biden on the border issue — which the near-dead incumbent has aided and abetted, and voters say is top of mind next to Bidenomics.

The Republican-majority House predictably isn’t going for the bill. Why would they? It would allow nearly 2 million illegal aliens into the country in one year — as long as the numbers stay below 5,000 entries per day for seven consecutive days, or below 8,500 border encounters in a single day — before triggering “emergency authority” for the Department of Homeland Security and closing the border. Even then there are exceptions.

Worse, if Biden decides it’s in the “national interest” to beckon some more Democrat representation padding and likely future voters across the Rio Grande, he can unilaterally suspend the border closure for 45 days per year. There’s more where that came from.

If GOP members of Congress had taken the bait, Democrats would have come out on top, having

convinced their political foes not only to continue funding a no-win forever war in Eastern Europe but also to keep letting illegal aliens into the country virtually unrestricted. Bonus: A codified open border could hamstring “the fixer” Donald Trump if he wins the general election later this year, zapping his political power to rehabilitate U.S. security and sovereignty.

Yet even without the House conceding to the bill, Democrats win anyway. Now Biden and his accomplice media can simply blame Republicans for not solving the crisis this administration caused. That’s exactly what’s happening, starting with Biden pointing fingers at Republicans:

Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?

Biden’s media lapdogs dutifully advanced the narrative, which they’d already been spinning before the text of the bill was even released.

“GOP Blames Biden for Border Crisis That GOP Refuses to Solve,” blared one Daily Beast headline. “Republicans are yelling about a crisis at the border. But they’re also unwilling to do anything to address it for fear that it’d give Joe Biden a political win,” the subheading continued, taking its talking points straight from the president and Senate Democrats like Chris Murphy.

“Why Republicans Don’t Want To Solve the Border Problem — But do want to make deals to cut taxes,” read another headline in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer by Jonathan Chait.

“Republicans Who Screamed About A Crisis On The Border Now Oppose A Plan To Fix It,” said HuffPost, claiming Republicans oppose the border bill not because it’s nightmarish but because they want to hurt Biden. “Border Patrol Supports ‘Strong’ Immigration Deal. Republicans Don’t Care,” wrote Rolling Stone.

Vanity Fair claimed, “Republicans Don’t Want to Lose Their Favorite 2024 Talking Point,” with Bloomberg opting for a simple, “House Republicans Don’t Want to Fix the Border.”

Cable television has been as bad. A host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said the “bipartisan border deal is doomed to fail … because Republicans have turned on it.” The “Today” show framed the gridlock as Republicans “threaten[ing] to block the border bill they negotiated,” as if McConnell and his sidekick colluding with Democrats behind closed doors amounts to a good-faith bipartisan negotiation.

This run-of-the-mill propaganda is to be expected from the corporate media, but it’s just so brazen considering Republicans’ efforts to secure the border earlier in Biden’s term and Democrats’ subsequent refusal to cooperate.

We’re all old enough to remember less than a year ago when the House passed a stronger border bill that would have restarted Trump-era border wall construction, required aliens to remain in Mexico while waiting out their usually fraudulent asylum claims, restricted asylum eligibility to legal ports of entry, enacted harsher punishments for overstaying expired visas, kept Title 42-esque “expulsion authority” in place, and supplied border authorities with additional grant funding. Senate Democrats wouldn’t lift a finger.

But sure. It’s Republicans “playing politics.”

Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.

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Read the author’s full testimony on the border security crisis delivered to the U.S. Congressional Border Security Caucus on Feb. 6.

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The Border Crisis Is The Definition Of A Foreign ‘Invasion’

BY: JOSHUA S. TREVIÑO | FEBRUARY 06, 2024

On Monday, February 25, 2019, a group of illegal aliens were apprehended by Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents near Yuma, AZ. The Yuma Sector continues to see a large number of Central Americans per day crossing illegally and surrendering to agents. CBP photo by Jerry Glaser.

When the Rev. Al Sharpton used the word “invasion” to describe the onslaught of migrants at the southern U.S. border on Monday, his MSNBC guest suddenly stopped nodding along. And then the fast blinking began — he was triggered. Because to the American left, the word “invasion” is off-limits and even “violence-inciting.”

But the word — and the concept — are at the heart of what’s happening in Texas, as Gov. Greg Abbott stands up to the Biden administration and its open border policies. He rightly contends that according to the U.S. Constitution, Texas does not merely have the Constitutional power to defend itself — it has a constitutional and moral responsibility to do so.

To qualify as an invader in the constitutional framework requires two qualities: entry into a sovereign territory, and enmity toward the sovereign. An immigrant without enmity is not an invader, nor is an enemy that stays outside our borders.

Consider some examples of what the Founders did consider invaders: foreign powers, pirates, and hostile tribes. In today’s context, a vast multinational criminal cartel whose activities and personnel enter America, harm Americans, destroy or commandeer property, defend routes on private and public lands, coerce American officials through extortion or bribery, and do so with the collaboration and collusion of a foreign state power is absolutely an invader, and would have been immediately recognized as such by the American Founders.

Sharpton wasn’t siding with Abbott, however; he was pushing the new Senate border bill.

But that bill misses the mark almost entirely on all these points. With its stupefying allowance of several million illegal entries per year, its comically constricted “border emergency” framework, its loosening of the asylum process, its billions in funding for the human-trafficking complex, and its wildly permissive structure for allowing the executive branch to override even its own minor strictures, the bill is right now Exhibit A in the contention that the border crisis is a choice made by Washington, D.C.

The border-security crisis is also a choice by Mexico’s own powerholders, stemming from two major motivations. The first motivation is simple: money. We must understand this very clearly: The Mexican state and the Mexican cartels are the same — including the president of Mexico himself.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has repeatedly sided with the criminal cartels, particularly the Sinaloa cartel. This includes his rhetorical generosity toward it, his public visits to honor the aged mother of the jailed drug lord El Chapo, and his political party’s use of its sicario enforcers to kill opposition candidates and rig elections.

AMLO’s policy of “abrazos no balazos” (hugs, not bullets), effectively prevents the use of force against cartel violence; he has handed over civil powers to his own army apparatus, which itself is a major trafficking organization and uses violence against Mexican civilians who defend themselves against cartels; and he has vowed to use the Mexican armed forces to defend Mexican cartels against the Americans.

The second motivation for Mexico City is leverage: leverage versus the United States, which is the only power capable of arresting and disincentivizing Mexico’s slide into narco-state status.

Mexico City understands two things very well: It makes billions off the border-security crisis, especially in human trafficking, and the crisis gives it leverage over U.S. officeholders, especially as the latter come under pressure from the American people to secure the border and defend our communities.

Texas has undertaken a variety of efforts in defense of itself and its citizenry that the federal government has refused to do:

Texas has illuminated the national scope of the border crisis, and invoked the principle of equity within it, by its transportation of migrants to leftist-run localities across the country.
Texas has used its military forces for their proper and primary purpose, in the defense of its own territory and citizenry, with the use of the Texas Military Department, including the personnel of the Texas Army National Guard, in Operation Lone Star.
Texas has built effective border-barrier infrastructure not once, but twice — with its innovative buoy barriers in the Rio Grande, and its barriers on the river’s north bank.
Texas has a new law that allows Texas law enforcement to intercept and de facto deport illegal entrants into Texas.

The federal government ought to be doing all these things — but it is not, and therefore Texas must see to its own self-defense. As Abbott has noted, in failing to do so, the federal government has abdicated its own Constitutional responsibility to the states.

Make no mistake, Texas is faithfully executing the law — both its own, and the Constitution’s, which provides in Article I, Section 10, for a state to defend itself against invasion.

Joshua S. Treviño is the Chief of Intelligence and Research and the Director for Texas Identity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

JOSHUA S. TREVIÑO

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Musk says Biden wants to transform US into ‘a one-party state’ by legalizing flood of illegal immigrants

By: ALEX NITZBERG | FEBRUARY 02, 2024

Business tycoon Elon Musk is accusing President Joe Biden seeking to establish one-party rule by legalizing illegal immigrants.

“Biden’s strategy is very simple: 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state. That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective,” Musk tweeted.

In another post he added, “This explains why there are so few deportations, as every deportation is a lost vote. As happened this week, you can literally assault police officers in broad daylight in New York, be released with no bail, give everyone the finger and *still* not be deported!! Outrageous.”

Biden’s strategy is very simple:

1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible.

2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state.

That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective. pic.twitter.com/B9M5ypUOQB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2024

Someone responded to Musk by writing, “Yup. Biden has the power to stop it, he chooses not to. This was intentional. This was by design. It’s promisingly annoying to see people finally catching up to what has been said regarding the Democrats plans for the past 3 years.”

“I was embarrassingly slow to figure it out,” Musk replied.

Yup.
Biden has the power to stop it, he chooses not to.

This was intentional.
This was by design.

It’s promisingly annoying to see people finally catching up to what has been said regarding the Democrats plans for the past 3 years. https://t.co/V9ON3rCUeS
— ZNO 🇺🇸 (@therealZNO) February 3, 2024

The number of southwest land border encounters has dramatically increased since Biden took office. The figure rose from 101,099 in February 2021, which was the first full month of Biden’s White House tenure, to the staggering sum of 302,034 in December 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection

“In December 2023, the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 249,785 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border. CBP’s total encounters along the southwest border in December were 302,034,” CBP reported.

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Under The Senate’s Atrocious Border Bill, Everybody Gets Asylum

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | FEBRUARY 05, 2024

immigration protester carry signs that say "asylum is a right"

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

The Senate’s emergency appropriations bill released on Sunday won’t address the border crisis, and contrary to the accomplice media’s spin, the spending bill won’t “severely curtail asylum at the US southern border.”

The bill could have had the Senate reclaim the reins of lawmaking from the executive and judicial branches and clarify that widespread criminality in another country is not a basis for asylum in America. Instead, the 370-page bill, the “Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024,” includes funding for both Israel and Ukraine, plus decidedly insufficient provisions for addressing aliens and immigration.

The backers of the Senate bill seek to portray its provisions as, in the words of Joe Biden, the “toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades.” There is little that is “tough” in the bill, however, and what is can easily be sidestepped — either by the Biden administration or the throngs of illegal aliens invading from the south.

Consider, for instance, the “emergency authority” the bill would grant to the secretary of homeland security to “summarily remove” aliens. But that authority only arises if the number of encounters with aliens at the border averages 4,000 for seven consecutive days or more than 8,500 in any one day.

Beyond the flood of aliens allowed to enter the United States without triggering the emergency authority, the statutory exemptions gut the secretary’s authority. Specifically, the bill provides that the border emergency authority cannot be used against “an unaccompanied alien child,” so every illegal alien who is under 18 — or can pass as someone who is under 18 — will be allowed in.

Likewise, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can exempt aliens from the “border emergency authority” based on supposed “operational considerations.” An immigration officer can exempt other aliens for public health, humanitarian, and a smattering of other reasons. The president also has the power under the Senate bill to unilaterally suspend the secretary’s border emergency authority, meaning Biden can stop summary removals at will — at least temporarily.

The country has seen these types of exceptions swallow the rule since the Biden administration supplanted President Trump’s border policies, and there is no reason to believe things will be any different after nearly four years of an open border.

Empty Asylum Reform

The Senate bill’s claimed toughening of asylum procedures is similarly impotent. Most glaring is its provision stating that individuals seeking asylum will be “released from physical custody.” The sections and subsections that follow then detail the process for handling asylum claims.

The supposed improvement here is that asylum decisions are to be completed expeditiously, within 90 days. But the Senate includes the squishy “to the maximum extent practicable” to that 90-day timetable. That’s assuming the alien, who recall is “noncustodial,” does not abscond. The bill also allows for aliens to seek review of negative decisions, meaning they’ll have a second opportunity to flee even if they appear for the first hearing.

That the Senate bill provides for the release of aliens pending a hearing renders any other tightening of the asylum process meaningless. What would have sent a message, however, would have been for the Senate to clarify that facing general violence, including gang violence, in a country of origin, is not a basis for asylum.

Congress previously defined the grounds for asylum as limited to those who are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion…” The statutory “membership in a particular social group” language has led to claims for asylum premised on spousal abuse, threats by gang members, and individuals targeted because of their occupation.

Attempts at Reform

Under the Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sought to “return some semblance of meaning to the ‘membership in a particular social group’ category by holding that an applicant ‘must demonstrate: (1) membership in a group, which is composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, is defined with particularity, and is socially distinct within the society in question; and (2) that membership in the group is a central reason for her persecution.’”

As Sessions explained in his decision interpreting the statutory language, “nothing in the text of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] supports the suggestion that Congress intended ‘membership in a particular social group’ to be ‘some omnibus catch-all’ for solving every ‘heart-rending situation.’” The former AG’s opinion further indicated that “victims of private criminal activity” will generally not qualify for asylum, absent “exceptional circumstances.”

Following Joe Biden’s election, his DOJ issued an opinion vacating Sessions’ opinion, suggesting asylum was more readily available for victims of private criminal activity. But rather than explain, Merrick Garland noted he would leave the question to rule-making. Such a fundamental question should not be left to unelected bureaucrats, however, especially given the unsustainable levels of asylum applications seen in the last few years.

Asylum for All

Maybe Congress wants to open America to every citizen of the world who heralds from a country where the government cannot control crime — which is the conclusion that follows from the Biden administration’s all-inclusive reading of the statutory “membership in a particular social group” language. If so, Congress should say so. But if not, Congress should make clear that asylum provides a safe haven for those persecuted by their government because of their race, religion, sex, political views, or whatever other specific classifications our elected officials believe appropriate.

The irony here is that the Biden administration’s reversal of the Trump policies has fortified the funding of cartels, gangs, and traffickers — so much so that those flooding our shores will now be able to honestly say their government cannot protect them. And if “non-gang members” qualifies as a “social group,” it will be asylum for all.

Is that what Congress believes is appropriate? We don’t know because the cowards prefer to leave it to the administrative state. The Senate bill proves that.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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FCC COMMISSIONER BLASTS BIDEN’S ‘DIGITAL EQUITY’ PLAN AS ‘UNLAWFUL POWER GRAB’

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House Republicans to file resolution disapproving of Biden admin’s ‘totalitarian’ digital equity rules

By Jessica Chasmar Fox News | Published January 30, 2024 9:00am EST

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are introducing a joint resolution disapproving of the Biden administration’s new “digital discrimination” rules package, which they describe as a power grab by the federal government over the internet.

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval, which is led by Republican Reps. Andrew Clyde and Buddy Carter of Georgia and co-sponsored by 65 House Republicans, aims to nullify the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) new digital equity rules package that went into effect this month as part of President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

“Under the guise of ‘equity,’ the Biden Administration is attempting to radically expand the federal government’s control of all internet services and infrastructure,” Clyde said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The FCC’s so-called ‘digital discrimination’ rule hands bureaucrats unmitigated regulatory authority that will undoubtedly impede innovation, burden consumers, and generate censorship concerns. Given the Biden Administration’s long history of weaponizing agencies against the American people, Congress should not let this unconstitutional power grab go unchecked.”

Clyde, Biden and Carter split image — Rep. Andrew Clyde, left, President Biden and Rep. Buddy Carter (Getty Images)

A resolution of disapproval under the CRA allows lawmakers to object to rules being put forward by the administration. The FCC rules package the Republicans are targeting, which was ratified by the commission on Nov. 15 and went into effect Jan. 15, implements a section of Biden’s 2021 infrastructure bill that aims to prevent digital discrimination of access to broadband services based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion or national origin.

“These rules will protect civil rights, lower costs, and increase Internet access for Americans across the country,” Vice President Harris said in a Nov. 15 statement.

According to the FCC, the new rules allow it to “protect consumers by directly addressing companies’ policies and practices if they differentially impact consumers’ access to broadband internet access service or are intended to do so” and to apply those protections “to ensure communities see equitable broadband deployment, network upgrades, and maintenance.”

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seal — The Federal Communications Commission seal (Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

However, critics of the package argue it could have the opposite effect by widening the so-called “digital divide,” which refers to unequal access to digital technology.

“Yet again, the Biden administration is attempting to push its ideology through heavy-handed government controls,” Carter, who is co-leading the resolution, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “This time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to enact widespread regulations on every aspect of our internet’s functionality. This FCC ‘Digital Discrimination’ rule will undoubtedly widen the digital divide by stifling future investment in broadband deployments. Not only is it unconstitutional, but it goes against the very core of free market capitalism. Congress must block the FCC’s totalitarian overreach.”

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel (Kevin Dietsch)

Multiple outside groups have also endorsed the GOP resolution, including Heritage Action for America, Americans for Tax Reform, Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) and Americans for Prosperity, among others.

“TPA is happy to support Rep. Carter’s CRA of the FCC’s order on digital discrimination. The order represents a massive extension of government power into broadband networks and is a solution in search of a problem,” TPA President David Williams said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “Notably, embracing a disparate impact standard, which ignores a vast number of economic factors that shape market decisions, will inevitably result in regulators telling companies to alter their policies based on the race of their customers. We encourage all members to support Rep. Carter’s CRA and hold the FCC accountable for this unnecessary proposal.”

Biden speaks after drone attack — President Biden (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Brendan Carr, one of the FCC’s commissioners, previously blasted the digital discrimination rules as a “breathtaking” government power grab.

Carr said in November, prior to their ratification, that the rules give the “Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure.”

“President Biden has called on the FCC to adopt new rules of breathtaking scope,” Carr said. “Those rules would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions — from how ISPs allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive.”

“Talk about central planning,” he added. “I oppose President Biden’s plan.”

White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson previously defended the president’s plan in a statement to Fox News Digital when asked about Carr’s comments in November.

“President Biden believes no parent should have to drive to a McDonald’s parking lot so their kid can do their homework online,” Patterson wrote. “That’s why he worked with Democrats and Republicans alike to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to ensure every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet.”

The House Republicans’ CRA resolution, which is expected to be filed Tuesday, would have to pass the House and Democrat-controlled Senate before making it to Biden’s desk.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

The FCC declined to comment on the resolution but pointed Fox News Digital to a Nov. 15 statement by FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who said, “The language is broad. But Congress was explicit —these rules have to ‘facilitate equal access to broadband.’ As part of this goal, Congress also told us we need to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination of access. That means our rules would miss the mark if they cover just discriminatory intent because we would fall short of meeting our statutory obligation to ‘facilitate equal access’ to broadband. As a result, we define digital discrimination to include disparate treatment and disparate impact. I believe this approach puts us both on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”

Jessica Chasmar is an editor on the politics team for Fox News and Fox Business. Story tips can be sent to Jessica.Chasmar@fox.com.

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EX-FBI OFFICIALS WARN CONGRESS OF ‘NEW AND IMMINENT’ BORDER DANGER: ‘THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN INVADED’

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Betsy McCaughey Op-ed: Democrats are so pro-migrant that it’s now Russian roulette with Americans’ safety

By Betsy McCaughey Creators Syndicate | Published January 30, 2024 3:30pm EST

If you’re rushing to the airport and forget your photo ID, good luck being allowed on the plane. But many migrants without “an acceptable form of identification,” according to airport signs, don’t need a photo. They get special treatment.

Migrants who have entered the country using President Joe Biden’s new CBP (Customs and Border Protection) One app — about 422,000 of them — can fly domestically without photo ID.

A sign posted at the Miami International Airport tells migrants: “1. Notify the TSA officer that you are a migrant. 2. The TSA officer will take a photo (optional). 3. If requested, provide your alien identification number or biographic information.”

Taking a photo would allow the TSA officer to confirm that the person boarding matches the person pictured in the CBP One app. But the airport sign repeats, “Photo capture is voluntary.” The migrant trying to board could be anybody.

DID BIDEN INTENTIONALLY CAUSE THE BORDER CRISIS?

An American without photo ID will likely be grilled for more than an hour and patted down, and their luggage will be gone over inch by inch while their plane takes off without them.

Allowing migrants — or anyone — to board airplanes without photo ID, and promoting ID cards that blur that lines between legal and illegal, sabotage us.

Businessman Connor Esraelian, who was flying from San Francisco to his home in Chicago, forgot his wallet with his photo ID. He filmed the 75-minute ordeal to get on the plane, posting it on TikTok. He called it “a nightmare.” He didn’t get an E-Z Pass, but migrants do.

This is our government kowtowing to the immigration lobby and putting Americans second, safety be damned.

Even worse is the 16-year delay in implementing the Real ID Act, passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks to prevent people from using lax forms of ID to illegally get on planes.

Most of the hijackers used state driver licenses issued by states with lax requirements to get on the planes. They weren’t in the country illegally.

Following the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation, Congress enacted Real ID, barring TSA from accepting state driver licenses or other IDs that don’t require proof of being in the U.S. legally. Real ID was supposed to go into effect in 2008, but it’s been repeatedly delayed. Now the official start date is May 2025. Don’t hold your breath.

All 50 states now provide Real ID licenses to legal residents who request them. But blue states such as New York and Illinois are normalizing being illegal.

Illinois used to issue a license for illegals with a purple stripe across the top and the words “Not Valid for Identification.” But last June, Illinois discontinued it, in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s words, “decreasing stigma and creating more equitable systems for all.”

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said the purple stripe had become “the ‘Scarlet Letter’ of someone’s immigration status.” Now legal and illegal residents of Illinois will qualify for the same “standard license” that says “Federal Limits Apply,” a fuzzy reference to the May 2025 deadline. In the meantime, illegals are boarding planes.

The same is true in New York state, which issues a “standard” license available to everyone, including illegals. It carries a vague notation, “Not for Federal Purposes,” which applies only after May 2025. The state Department of Motor Vehicles is barred from even asking a customer about their citizenship status.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM BETSY McCAUGHEY

New York City’s ID program also blurs the distinction between legals and illegals. It’s advertised as one ID for all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status. The card looks like a state driver license, and nothing — not one word — alerts the viewer otherwise. It’s unlikely to work on a plane, but likely to allow anybody to get past security and into the elevator in an office tower.

An open southern border flooded with millions of migrants from over 100 countries, some hostile to America, puts our nation at risk. Most migrants are just desperately seeking economic opportunity. But it only took a handful of sinister actors with misleading ID to bring down the World Trade Center and cost nearly 3,000 Americans their lives.

Twin Towers burning on 9/11/2001 — FILE – Smoke rises from the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center after hijacked planes crashed into the towers on September 11, 2001 in New York City. Associated Press photographer Richard Drew talks about AP’s coverage of 9/11 and the events that followed. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Allowing migrants — or anyone — to board airplanes without photo ID, and promoting ID cards that blur that lines between legal and illegal, sabotage us. Don’t let Biden and the hard left play Russian roulette with our lives. Remember 9/11.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.

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Texas AG Paxton to Newsmax: Border Patrol Agents ‘Do Not Like’ Biden Orders

By Nicole Wells | Tuesday, 30 January 2024 01:39 PM EST

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Newsmax on Tuesday that the Border Patrol agents in Texas who are taking down the razor wire that the state put up to keep out illegal migrants “do not like” what the Biden administration is ordering them to do.

“I don’t think there’s tension between the actual people on the ground,” Paxton said on Newsmax’s “National Report.” “The Border Patrol do not like what they’re being forced to do. They do it because they’re forced by [President] Joe Biden and his administration. On day one of his administration, he said that he was not going to deport people anymore and ever since then, we’ve been in litigation with them over immigration, and he’s continued to let people in. But that’s not what law enforcement wants. I can tell you nobody wants what he wants.‘

“Basically, he’s decided, to the detriment of the American public, that he’s going to bring these people in, work with the cartels every day, because the cartels make money off every person coming through and he’s making it easier for them because they don’t have to hide anymore. They just turn themselves in. It also allows the cartels to import more drugs, so it’s been very profitable and good for the cartels. It has not been good for Americans because of the increased crime, the risk of terrorism and the cost that every state is going to bear as a result of this.”

Texas has continued to install razor wire at the U.S.-Mexico border, even as federal agents were given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court last week to cut it down. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the razor wire an “effective deterrent against the illegal border crossings” and vowed to “continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration.”

Paxton on Tuesday also commented on the state’s fight with the federal government over Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, which the Biden administration has sought unsuccessfully to enter since Texas cordoned it off.

“This is property owned by the government in Texas,” Paxton said. “The federal government has no right to come and take over that property — which is used for recreational purposes, that’s being funded by tax dollars in Texas — and use it as a way to increase the number of people crossing the border and potentially, as we know, increasing crime in the area, and so, absolutely we’re going to keep them out. They have no right to take it over.

“It’s only a 2.5-mile area. It’s interesting to me that there’s 1,260 something miles of border and they’re mad about 2.5 miles when they’re letting people in all over the place. So, it’s an interesting fight that doesn’t seem, in my opinion, to have a lot of purpose for them. It has a lot of purpose for us because this is a park that residents use for recreational purposes.”

Nicole Wells | editorial.wells@newsmax.com

Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.

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WHITE HOUSE HALTS ENORMOUS NATURAL GAS PROJECTS IN VICTORY FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS

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Biden’s natural gas decision is nuts. Climate extremists don’t know the facts

By Neil Chatterjee | FOXBusiness

Some confused climate activists are asking President Biden to hurt the climate. Protesters are planning a sit-in at the Department of Energy next month, calling for the White House to not permit any new liquefied natural gas (L.N.G.) export terminals. But examining the facts shows that surrendering to this pressure would actually raise global greenhouse gas emissions — as well as hinder our allies’ energy security and our economy.

Those on the left who oppose L.N.G. exports cite concerns about emissions. They also argue that natural gas exports are sabotaging the deployment of renewable energy. These objections are off the mark for two main reasons. First, American L.N.G. exports have a carbon advantage over more carbon-intensive sources of power generation overseas that they displace. Focusing on natural gas, Russian exports to Europe produce over 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than U.S. exports to Europe.

Second, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that global demand for natural gas will increase by 2050. Advanced energy technologies that affordably harness solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal power are promising and the United States should lead the world in building them. But even with rapidly improving economics from innovation, and even if permitting reform slashes red tape and facilitates accelerated deployment, it still takes a long time to replace natural gas.

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Natural gas will be needed for the foreseeable future, since there’s no such thing as an overnight transition to all renewables. Denying this reality will not decrease emissions. It will just allow higher-polluting exports from other countries, like Russia, to fill the void and raise global emissions.

US LED THE WORLD IN LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS (LNG) EXPORTS IN 2023

The energy transition will take time — but less time if the government chooses innovation, competition, and regulatory reform over bans, mandates, and subsidies. Because of Texas’ competitive electricity market, for example, the Lone Star State is easily the country’s biggest wind energy producer. And Texas recently eclipsed California (with its command-and-control policies) for the lead in grid-scale solar deployment.

Natural gas will be needed for the foreseeable future, since there’s no such thing as an overnight transition to all renewables. Denying this reality will not decrease emissions. It will just allow higher-polluting exports from other countries, like Russia, to fill the void and raise global emissions.

Natural gas can be the backbone that allows renewables to flourish. Gas provides firm power, complementing the variable nature of solar and wind as new battery storage technology scales.

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Diversified Energy Company co-founder and CEO Rusty Hutson Jr. breaks down the impact of methane emission rules on ‘The Claman Countdown.’

The U.S. has already significantly lowered emissions in the power sector without compromising reliability and affordability. That happened because of innovative natural gas extraction, relicensing nuclear power plants, and increasingly cheap renewables.

The future is even brighter: U.S. trailblazers developing and deploying inexpensive energy technologies — everything from solar-plus-storage and carbon capture for natural gas to nuclear fusion — and exporting them.

In the meantime, American L.N.G. exports have a crucial role in not just reducing global emissions, but also in strengthening our allies’ energy security and our economy.

In early 2019, during my time as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), I visited Poland and witnessed the importance of American gas exports to our friends’ energy security. My Polish counterparts were deeply concerned about regional dependence on Russian gas. Even then, long before the war in Ukraine, they were asking the U.S. to undercut Russia’s weaponization of energy.

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Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 turned those fears into reality. Russia’s economic power comes from oil exports, but its political power over Europe at that time came from natural gas exports. And Russia bet that starving European countries of natural gas would weaken their support for Ukraine.

But American L.N.G. helped our allies wean off of Russian gas. Stopping or limiting the supply of this crucial resource to the global market would be as disruptive as economic sanctions. Our friends and allies, in Asia as well as Europe, are relying on us to continue exporting this fuel.

L.N.G. exports also benefit our economy. These exports have the capacity to create tens of thousands of jobs along the entire economic supply chain — including jobs in Wisconsin and Ohio, not just in Texas or Louisiana.

As FERC chairman, I pushed for bipartisan action to streamline L.N.G. export terminal approvals without sacrificing safety or environmental quality. It’s now time for President Biden to do likewise. He should ignore the activists staging a sit-in. They’re wrong on the facts and should sit this one out.

Neil Chatterjee served as chairman and a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He has decades of experience working on the most important energy policy initiatives for Republican leadership in Congress.

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Texas Isn’t ‘Ignoring’ The Supreme Court, It’s Upholding the Law

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JANUARY 25, 2024

A talking point cropping up on social media and press contends that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is “ignoring” or “defying” the Supreme Court by continuing to erect fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border. This is wrong.

Abbott can’t ignore the Supreme Court because Texas wasn’t ordered to do anything. SCOTUS vacated an order against the Department of Homeland Security [sic] that stopped the Feds from cutting down razor fencing along the border. Nothing says that Texas can’t erect the fencing.

Though, you must marvel at the breathtaking audacity of Democrats suddenly treating the court’s (non-existent) words as if they were sacred text. This very week, President Joe Biden again ignored the court, rolling out yet another iteration of his unconstitutional student “loan forgiveness” program. Biden habitually circumvents, ignores, defies, attacks, and demeans SCOTUS — and Democrats cheer him on along the way. Senate leaders and “dark money” fake media organizations like ProPublica have poured millions into delegitimizing and smearing the court to undermine its authority.

Now, it is true that Biden has the power to ratchet up the fight, take federal control of the border, and implement any policy he desires — or, more specifically, any non-policy he desires. The Biden administration is standing in the way of Texas’ efforts to enforce state and federal law. Once that happens, we can have our constitutional crisis.

As a political matter, the case tells us that the border mayhem is not only a matter of historic incompetence but is also driven by ideology. Many Democrats believe limiting illegal immigration is immoral. They believe anyone who wants to walk over the border should be able to do so without any incumbrances.

This week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that razor wire at the southern border is ineffective and gets “in the way” of law enforcement. I’m no expert on border control, admittedly, but I am relatively certain that any fence is better than what is happening now.

A few years back, Nancy Pelosi distilled the left’s view on physical barriers when she called them an “immorality,” the “least effective way to protect the border,” and too expensive. “I can’t think of any reason why anyone would think it’s a good idea — unless this has something to do with something else,” the then House Speaker said. None of that is true, either. The idea that real fences and walls can’t mitigate the movement of people is undermined by looking at the entirety of history. The least effective way is probably what we’re doing now.

The “something else,” of course, is meant to call you a racist. The reality is that Mexico is the top origin country for legal immigrants. Most Americans still see immigration as a net positive. The lawlessness at the border, and now in major cities, is helping undermine that sentiment.

One of the vital jobs of the federal government is to protect the sovereignty, borders, and citizens of the nation — even more important than creating “book ban” czars or banning Zyn packets. But not only has Biden abdicated his responsibility on that front, he wants to stop others from doing their duty, as well. But sometimes, it seems like the lawlessness is the point.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Dictatorship Won’t Kill America, The Rot Of Partisan Abuse Will

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JANUARY 24, 2024

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DAVID HARSANYI

VISIT ON TWITTER@DAVIDHARSANYI

The other day Rachel Maddow, one of the most unhinged conspiracy theorists in major media, described Donald Trump’s alleged pitch to Republicans:

If you pick me, that’ll be the end of politics, and you won’t have to deal with politics anymore. You won’t have to deal with contested elections, you won’t have to deal with contests or divisions when it comes to power, you’ll have a strongman leader and I’ll just do what I want. And won’t that be a lot simpler? That’s what he’s offering. That strongman model is what the Republican base is enthused about.

Funny, because this also happens to be what Maddow is enthused about. It’s what the officials taking leading presidential candidates off ballots are enthused about. So is Joe Biden, who gives angry speeches demonizing opposition voters and demanding one-party rule. Everyone wants his own dictator. Every president wants to be one. Politics can turn normally rational people into raging authoritarians.

The thing about wanna-be dictators, though, is that they have no real way of pulling it off. Don’t get me wrong: the consequences of an imperial presidency are bad enough. But there will be no military coups in America. There will be no Hitler. No political riot is going to overthrow “democracy.” That’s all paranoia. The reality is much more mundane. It’s what we have now — a slow-motion, tedious corrosion of basic standards.

And both sides aren’t equally at fault. The things progressives detest most about our system—a deliberative Senate, federalism, counter-majoritarian institutions, various inconvenient liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, for starters—compel Trump to deal with “politics.”

Here, for instance, is something I think most Democrats probably know but would never say: If a President Trump blatantly exceeded his constitutional authority, it is highly likely that “conservative” justices would stop him. Yet every time the court renders a decision undercutting the political agenda of the GOP, which is often, the media acts like it’s some big surprise. It’s not. And Trump, for all his bluster last term, didn’t ignore the courts.

Now, if Biden blatantly exceeded his executive authority, as he already often does, what are the chances that a “liberal” majority court would bless his actions? When you have no limiting principles, it all comes down to justifying the morality of the underlying issue. Considering the modern left’s collective superiority complex, that is never a difficult task.

We don’t really need to theorize about how this works, either. Many left-wing politicians and intellectuals — self-styled defenders of “democracy” — not only implore Biden to ignore courts, they press him to declare national emergencies empowering the president to run virtually the entire economy through a massive administrative state. If Trump threatened to take similar power, the media would be convulsing with horror.

Indeed, the contemporary left isn’t working to delegitimize the court because it harbors ethical concerns (the people leading the charge are corrupt), it’s because they want to circumvent a court that still occasionally limits state power and preserves American “democracy.”

Won’t that be a lot simpler? Maybe if Trump wins in 2024, he’ll figure out that the Federalist Society’s principled jurists make no political sense for him and nominate lightweight partisans like Sonia Sotomayor to uphold whatever crackpot theory he wants. Why not?

When the Supreme Court upheld the Civil Rights Act, eliminating racist preferences in schools, Biden said, “We cannot let this decision be the last word. I want to emphasize: We cannot let this decision be the last word.” That is something of a mantra for him.

A few years ago, Biden admitted he didn’t have the constitutional authority to extend (Trump’s) eviction moratorium. An extension would not “pass constitutional muster,” he said. The president, the administration noted, had “not only kicked the tires, he has double, triple, quadruple checked.”

It was illegal, and Biden did it anyway. Congressional Democrats, tasked to protect the interests of their institution, cheered him on. The same goes for the obviously unconstitutional student loan bailout Biden keeps proposing. High-ranking Democrats, in fact, demand that Biden ignores the Constitution and separation of powers.

If Biden feels like he can dismiss SCOTUS on student loans, or anything else, why shouldn’t Texas ignore SCOTUS on protecting its borders? Maybe Texas should think about taking up the Biden method, which would entail erecting a new, slightly different fence every time the court shoots down the idea.

All of it is reminiscent of Barack Obama telling Americans he couldn’t pass the DREAM Act because he was not a “king” or an “emperor,” and then doing it anyway. Indeed, the premise of the Obama presidency was the circumvention of “politics,” summed up neatly in the illiberal notion of political “unity.”

Once Obama lost control of Congress in 2010, he not only acted like a person who didn’t “have to deal with politics anymore,” he became the first president in memory to openly champion working around the law-making branch of government. “If Congress won’t act, I will,” he liked to say. People cheered.

Since then, every time Democrats can’t get their way, we are inundated with stories about how the system isn’t working correctly, rather than stories about how the contemporary left is destroying the system to fix the problem.

Now, I’m not naïve. Most voters couldn’t care less about these idealistic arguments. I don’t know “what time it is,” apparently. That said, protecting the system is not only a high-minded pursuit, but also the most practical way to preserve your own policy achievements and freedoms.

But you can’t expect the opposition to play by rules when you refuse to honor them. You can’t lecture everyone about accepting elections when you won’t. And you can’t keep acting like you’re saving “democracy” when you’re murdering it.

I mean, you can. It seems like the more norm-busting degradation of the system you promise, the more popular you become these days. But that does not bode well for our future.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Report: 6 Million Migrants Released Via Law Loophole

By Jim Morley | Tuesday, 23 January 2024 03:38 PM EST

According to data released by a new report by the Congressional Budget Office and delineated by RedState.com, the Biden administration has used a parole loophole in immigration law to release over 6 million illegal immigrants into the U.S. since Joe Biden took office in January 2021. The number of illegal aliens entering the U.S. under Biden, equivalent to about the population of Tennessee, has increased each year of the Biden presidency.

“CBO estimates that, on net, the number of people immigrating to the United States was 1.2 million in 2021 and 2.7 million in 2022,” the report stated.

Biden and Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas have repeatedly stated that the U.S. southern border is secure. Yet, the newly released statement by the CBO documents the perpetual increase in illegal boarding crossing and the government’s catch-and-release protocol.

But the CBO report read: “Customs and Border Protection officials are encountering more people attempting to enter the United States and are releasing more of them into the country with humanitarian parole or with a notice to appear before an immigration judge, and more people are illegally entering the country without encountering Customs and Boarder Protection officials.”

The CBO report said that the U.S. population “will increase from 342 million people in 2024 to 383 million people in 2054, growing by 0.4 percent per year,” with the overwhelming contributor to the increase coming from immigration of any kind and not domestic births.

“Over the next decade, net immigration accounts for about 70 percent of the overall increase in the size of the population, and the greater number of births than deaths accounts for the remaining 30 percent. After 2034, net immigration increasingly drives population growth, accounting for all population growth beginning in 2040,” the CBO report stated.

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Hunter’s Painting Foray Had All the Classic Earmarks of a Biden Family Influence-Peddling Operation

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 19, 2024

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Hunter Biden’s “Sugar Bro,” Kevin Morris, testified before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Wednesday. A readout of Morris’ testimony, when considered in tandem with the testimony provided last week by Hunter Biden’s gallerist, suggests Hunter was setting up another front for the family influence-peddling racket when the plan collapsed due to public scrutiny.

On Thursday, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer issued a statement following the committee’s transcribed interview of Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris. In his press release, Comer revealed that Hollywood producer Lanette Phillips introduced Morris to Hunter Biden during a campaign event at her Los Angeles home for Joe Biden in the winter of 2019. One week later, Phillips called Morris to discuss what Morris apparently framed as an “entertainment” issue. Morris later visited Hunter at his home in L.A., according to the press release.

According to Comer, Morris testified he began providing money to Hunter Biden in January 2020. Then on Feb. 7, 2020, Morris emailed Hunter’s advisers and tax accountants, writing, “We are under considerable risk personally and politically to get the returns in.” Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden filed his long-overdue 2017 and 2018 tax returns, although he didn’t pay his hefty tax bill at the time. Around Oct. 18, 2021, Morris paid some $2 million in overdue taxes for the president’s son.

In addition to paying Hunter’s taxes, Morris also paid for many of his living expenses and bought 13 of Hunter Biden’s paintings — two from before Hunter retained a gallerist and 11 after, with Morris paying $875,000 for the set purchased from the gallerist.

The Gallerist

That gallerist, George Berges, testified before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees last Tuesday concerning his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s profiteering from his newfound career as a painter. Berges, the owner of the Soho-based George Berges Gallery, told the committee that he served as the “gallerist” for Hunter Biden beginning in December 2020. As Hunter’s gallerist, Berges acted as the exclusive agent, selling Hunter’s paintings. In that role, Berges had firsthand knowledge of the money flowing into Hunter’s bank account from his newest business venture.

Berges’ testimony pales in comparison to some earlier witnesses who revealed details of Hunter Biden’s dealing with Burisma and Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings. Yet, when studied in its entirety, the gallery owner’s testimony paints a picture of an attempt to launch a new enterprise to provide cover for a continuation of the Biden family’s pay-to-play scheme. Morris’ testimony this week adds further definition.

First, we have the gallerist’s testimony that Lanette Phillips also introduced him to Hunter in 2019, telling Berges that Hunter was an artist. Next, there is the fact that in December 2020, Hunter and Berges executed a contract appointing the gallery owner as his exclusive representative, with Berges receiving a commission of 40 percent on sales. That contract, Berges testified, included a provision that required the gallerist to disclose to Hunter the identity of the purchasers of his paintings.

As Berges explained, that was not a typical contract term; he had never included a similar clause in any of his other contracts. “Normally, the gallerist does not let the artist know who the collectors are,” Berges confirmed, adding that of the 15 or so artists he currently works with, none ask to know who purchased their artwork. Berges elaborated, stating, “It’s my collector base,” and you don’t want “your artists to circumvent you if they know your collectors.”

While the contract required Berges to tell Hunter the names of the purchasers, Berges explained during the interview that he never did, and because Hunter didn’t push for their identities, his instinct was not to share the information. Nonetheless, Hunter learned the names of several of the purchasers — for instance, Elizabeth Naftali.

Again, Lanette, the same Hollywood producer and Biden-booster who introduced Hunter to Morris and Berges, introduced Berges to Naftali. Naftali purchased two of Hunter’s paintings, the first in February 2021, shortly after his father’s inauguration. She later purchased another painting, spending a total of $94,000 for the pair.

During the committees’ questioning of Berges, they noted that on July 1, 2022, President Biden appointed Naftali to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. A committee lawyer added that while Joe Biden was vice president he had also arranged for Hunter Biden’s then-business partner Eric Schwerin to be appointed to the same board.

In addition to Naftali, Hunter Biden also knew the identity of Morris, who on Jan. 19, 2023, purchased, in the name of his LLC, Kuliaky Art, 11 paintings for $875,000. Berges explained that Morris had seen the paintings at Hunter’s exhibit in California in October 2021 and then negotiated the January 2023 sale with him by telephone.

Berges further explained that Morris did not pay the galley for the paintings, but instead paid Berges his 40 percent commission and then paid Hunter (or reduced his loan balance) separately.

Comer notes in his readout from the interview of Morris that it was only after he purchased those paintings from Hunter that he scored a visit to the White House. But there is a bigger smoke cloud surrounding those purchases than Joe Biden welcoming his son’s benefactor to the White House.

Something Doesn’t Add Up

Why would Morris purchase paintings from Berges at all? As Berges testified, the reason gallerists don’t share the names of their buyers with the artists is so they aren’t cut out of the deal. Morris, however, likely didn’t want to ruin Hunter’s relationship with Berges, Berges reasoned. But that doesn’t explain why Morris wouldn’t have purchased art from Hunter before he had a gallerist.

Here we run into an interesting detail: Morris testified he had purchased two pieces of art from Hunter Biden before he had a gallerist. Why then wait for Hunter to enter a contract with Berges before purchasing more art? And why wait until January 2023, when he saw the art during an October 2021 exhibit? (It is also noteworthy that Berges got the impression from Hunter that he had never sold any artwork before retaining him as a gallerist.)

Morris’ $875,000 represented a huge chunk of Hunter Biden’s total sales of $1.5 million. In fact, Morris’ purchase represented such an “outlier,” as Berges put it, that the Soho gallery owner hasn’t renewed his contract with Hunter and is considering dropping him as a client.

“I look at the totality,” Berges explained. “If I look at the whole picture of this artist objectively, I would say, okay, this is great that we got someone to do a major acquisition, but let’s look at the general response and what the value is.”

“It’s not that impressive,” he concluded.

Morris negotiating with Berges over the price of the pictures, however, sidesteps questions of whether he overpaid for the art to make a then-taxable gift to Hunter Biden. Morris’ purchase also creates the impression that his friend’s art is worth the high price Berges was asking, even though “the general response,” without Morris, was “not that impressive.”

One must wonder, though, if the lack of interest in Hunter’s high-priced paintings stemmed from the spotlight on what appeared to be the latest pay-to-play scam scaring off the target audience for the artist: those seeking favors or access to the now-president.

A Plan Foiled?

Without media coverage, it was a perfect plan: Hunter Biden reemerges as an artist and sends those he or his family want to shake down to Soho to buy his paintings from a gallerist who has independently set the prices of the paintings. Berges’ testimony indicates he is truly independent, for while he explained he has become friends with Hunter, much to his chagrin, he was forced to acknowledge donating multiple times to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. Berges even hinted that he had voted for Trump and not his client’s father in 2020.

Hunter, in fact, even ensured he could learn the identity of the purchaser to confirm the transaction, although it soon became clear that wasn’t necessary; the buyer could just tell him or show him the artwork. But then the press got ahold of the story and, unlike the laptop scandal, this time they didn’t bury it. By the summer of 2021, the White House was forced to do damage control, claiming it was working on a deal with Hunter’s gallerist to ensure the identity of purchasers of his paintings remained anonymous.

Berges testified he was surprised to hear that from the White House since he had never spoken with anyone there about his contract with Hunter Biden. Nonetheless, at Hunter’s request, Berges removed the disclosure requirement and replaced it with a provision prohibiting the gallery owner from disclosing the identity of the purchasers. They then entered a new contract on Sept. 1, 2021.

Other than Morris’ large purchase last January, there seems to be little demand now for the paintings — leaving one to wonder if, without his target audience, Hunter’s art is as worthless as his board member skills.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Democrats Promise To Save ‘Democracy’ By Destroying It

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JANUARY 18, 2024

Philipp Foltz: Pericles famous funeral oration in front of the Assembly.

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Granted, I’m not a professional political consultant, but I’m starting to get the sense that the Democrats’ 2024 focus on “saving democracy” suffers somewhat from their constant efforts to demolish every basic norm of constitutional governance.

Then again, maybe we just need to define our terms, since “democracy” has been stripped of any useful meaning. The word certainly doesn’t signify adherence to the Constitution — a document barely, if ever, mentioned by the contemporary left for obvious reasons.

Indeed, for the past eight or so years, many legal and traditional institutions of American governance — the Electoral College, the filibuster, two senators in every state, states, open discourse, the Supreme Court, and so on — have been framed as nemeses of “democracy” if they happen to temporarily benefit Republicans. Virtually every political setback, in fact, has been transformed into an existential threat to the foundations of “democracy.” Anyone with conventional conservative views, especially social ones, has been reimagined as MAGA extremists or “semi-fascists” or “Christofascists.”

Even when originalist justices, the most scrupulous devotees of American “democracy” in the country, strengthen majoritarianism, as they did handing the abortion issue back to voters where it belonged, Democrats have a collective fainting spell over the future of “democracy.”

Democrats are positive that asking someone to prove an ID before voting portends the rise of the Fourth Reich, but they have no problem pressuring private companies to censor political speech, ignoring the Supreme Court, unilaterally breaking millions of private contracts to buy votes, using executive power to circumvent the will of voters, and throwing the leading opposition candidate off ballots.

If you’re convinced that George W. Bush stole an election or that Donald Trump was “selected” by a foreign dictator, your griping about “denialism” holds no weight.

Do you know what’s definitely authoritarian, though? Plotting to undermine civilian control of the military. It’s one of the big ones.

NBC News reports this week that “a network of public interest groups and lawmakers, nervous about former President Trump’s potential return to power, is quietly devising plans to foil any effort on his part to pressure the U.S. military to carry out his political agenda.”

Dear lord, voters elect the commander-in-chief because of a political agenda. It is literally the military’s job to implement the democratic will of the people. It’s right there in the Constitution. It’s the point.

Invading Iraq was a political decision, not one made by a Star Chamber, but by the president and senators like Joe Biden. Leaving Afghanistan was a political decision, made by a president who promised the public he would do so if elected. The decision to take the Houthis off the global terror list was a political decision. As was the decision to grant Iran access to billions and to send Palestinian terror groups hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, if voters are unhappy with these decisions, they are free to support someone else the next time around. But if a bunch of unelected right-wing “public interest groups” and lawmakers, nervous about Biden’s failed — but completely legal — foreign policy decisions, formed a cabal within the government to “foil” him, it would not be strengthening “democracy.”

Then again, you remember when Gen. Mark Milley made two phone calls to our top geopolitical foes in China and promised to give them a heads-up should the United States attack? That was another clear-cut subversion of civilian authority over the military. Nothing about those calls comports with “democracy.” The opposite. Yet Milley is regarded as a hero of the resistance.

And you probably remember “Anonymous,” as well. The “senior Trump administration official” who published that overwrought op-ed in The New York Times contending that senior staffers secretly schemed to undercut Trump to protect the American people. “I work for the president,” wrote Miles Taylor, “but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

Political appointees who join a shadow government to “thwart” the president’s decisions — not because he’s been engaged in any unconstitutional or illegal acts, but because they disagreed with him — are definitely not the heroes of “democracy” they imagine themselves. (Taylor is on TV these days warning that Trump might “turn off” the internet if he’s elected for a second term. Joke’s on him, though, since Trump already did so when he overturned net neutrality.)

David Axelrod, who worked for a president who acted as if he were a sovereign, contends that if Republican primary voters select Trump as the nominee, it “would be a stunning rebuke of the rules, norms, laws and institutions upon which our democracy is founded and would have profound implications for the future.”

Now, a lot of that sounds like projection to me. Sometimes, you get the sense that just maybe all this “democracy” talk is a cynical strategy to hold onto power.

But let’s say it’s true. Every illiberal precedent Democrats set in their own alleged efforts to save our “democracy” from Trump will also have profound implications for the future. Trump will leave us one day. Democrats’ constant attacks on governing norms won’t.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Emperor Biden Wants to Nationalize Patents

By: Deroy Murdock / January 16, 2024

Then-Sens. Bob Dole, R-Kansas (left), and Birch Bayh, D-Ind., confer at a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 21, 1980. That same year, the two lawmakers, now both deceased, co-authored a patent law that the Biden administration is now seeking to subvert. (Photo: Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

If it ain’t broke, break it.

That’s Joe Biden’s guiding principle. He took President Donald Trump’s much-tighter southern border and ripped it as wide open as a gutted trout’s belly.

Biden turned Trump’s energy independence into begging Iran and Venezuela to pump more oil. And Biden devolved Trump’s peace in the Middle East into a five-front Arab war on Israel, even as the ayatollahs’ Houthi pals ignited the Red Sea with anti-ship missiles and anti-American drones.

And for his next trick, Biden wants to impersonate a Latin autocrat.

On December 7, a date that shall live in infamy, Biden’s Commerce Department proposed a mechanism to invoke the so-called “march-in” clause of the 1980s-era bipartisan Bayh-Dole Act. This would empower Uncle Sam to capture and control patents that fully or partially were funded with federal research grants if Washington bureaucrats disliked the market prices or rollout speeds of their ensuing technologies.

“March-in” authority. What a perfect image: Jackbooted thugs stomping on private property and seizing it for Big Government.

As usual, Biden hopes to capsize the efficient, productive status quo. Since then-Sens. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., and Bob Dole, R-Kan., secured this legislation, universities and other institutions have owned the patents that emerged from federally funded research. Many then license those patents to companies and entrepreneurs who nurture them into goods and services. (Officially, the law is the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980.)

“Since its passage more than 40 years ago, the Act has spurred nearly 300 new drugs and discoveries that have driven the innovation economy—contributing $1.7 trillion to the U.S. gross industrial output and adding more than 5.9 million jobs,” according to Laura Savatski, former chair of AUTM, an intellectual-property licensing group.

Before Bayh-Dole, under 5% of federally supported patents were licensed. By 2022, AUTM data show, 9,884 licenses and options arose among that year’s 16,857 U.S. patent applications. By that measure, 58.6% of patents typically are licensed each year, nearly 12 times the pre-Bayh-Dole pace.

The resulting embarrassment of riches has improved lives from Kansas to Kazakhstan:

Google’s pioneering search algorithm
Firefighting drones
HDTVs
Honeycrisp apples
Nicotine patches
Rotavirus vaccines
Taxol cancer therapy
Touch screens
Windows software
Zerit anti-AIDS treatments

Now, imagine life with few new amusements, business tools or medical cures. The ever-meddlesome Biden now wants new powers to reassign or simply nationalize patent licenses if his pests decide that these items are not marketed quickly or cheaply enough.

“Bayh-Dole did not intend that government set prices on resulting products,” its authors explained in The Washington Post. “The law makes no reference to a reasonable price that should be dictated by the government. This omission was intentional.”

Such Big Government caprice would karate-chop private investment. Why would venture capitalists license new patents if federal busybodies could march in, expropriate and award them to politically connected competitors?

Even worse, anti-capitalist bureaucrats could snatch licenses and sit on them while chanting “Equity!” “Social justice!” or “Climate!”

As it happens, no administration—Democrat or Republican—has marched in on a patent since Bayh-Dole blossomed. While screaming “Democracy!” Biden lusts for a nightstick to bash to bits this 44-year-old precedent.

Biden & Co. argue that when the state goes marching in, cheaper medicines will flow like the mighty Mississippi. This will prove to be yet another Marxist mirage, as drug companies avoid licensing patents for fear of being fleeced by the Everything for All crowd.

Taxpayers also will suffer if these patents cannot be harnessed. They never will taste the fruits of scientific developments that stay theoretical. They also will not collect the corporate taxes that commercialization now yields. In that sense, taxpayers’ return on federal research investment would dwindle, potentially to zero.

While America faces a $34 trillion national debt, and $875.5 billion in annual debt service, the marginal corporate taxes from these new products represent federal revenues generated by economic growth, rather than higher tax rates. Even the late, great Milton Friedman would bless such tax receipts. Assuming today’s 21% corporate tax, Bayh-Dole’s $1.7 trillion in blessings already would have rendered unto Ceasar up to $357 billion.

Bayh-Dole was “possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the past half-century,” The Economist swooned in 2002. It “unlocked all the inventions and discoveries that had been made in laboratories throughout the United States with the help of taxpayers’ money. More than anything, this single policy measure helped to reverse America’s precipitous slide into industrial irrelevance.”

But 22 years later, Biden is not amused. As he bans gas stoves and incandescent bulbs, mandates electric vehicles, censors his critics, and labors to imprison the leader of the opposition, he increasingly resembles the late, but not-so-great Latin dictator Hugo Chavez. Giving Biden and his comrades the power to smash patents and grab them for “better uses” would imperil property rights and endanger innovation. It could cripple the conveyor belt that speeds modern marvels from university labs to Best Buys, Walgreens and Whole Foods across America.

Biden should peel his sticky fingers off Bayh-Dole.

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ABC Poll: Biden Has Lowest Approval in 15 Years, 71% Say Economy ‘Bad’

By Charlie McCarthy | Monday, 15 January 2024 10:17 AM EST

President Joe Biden has the lowest job approval rating of any chief executive in the past 15 years, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll found. Biden’s approval rating is 33%, the lowest since then-President George W. Bush in 2006-2008, ABC News reported. Biden also has a 58% disapproval rating. Such negative approval/disapproval numbers could suggest support of the current House GOP’s investigation of Biden’s alleged influence peddling and potential impeachment.

The ABC/Ipsos poll also focused on election comparisons

Trump Dominates in Party Vote, ABC Poll: ‘Satisfactory as Party Nominee’

The poll shows that 72% of Republicans support former President Donald Trump as their nominee.

By comparison, just 57% of Democrats said they would be satisfied with him as their party’s nominee.

Younger Blacks Abandon Biden, ABC Poll: Black Approval

Biden’s job approval rating is 21 points below average among Blacks, compared with 15 points below average among Hispanic people, compared with 6 points among white people.

Black voters, once a lock to back Democrats, shows that the demographic no longer guaranteed to support the party’s candidates. Biden’s support among Blacks falls sharply, the poll shows, with younger Blacks:

32% of Blacks under 50 approve of Biden
65% of Blacks 50 and over approve of the president.

Trump More Fit for Job, ABC Poll: Biden vs. Trump

Asked about the candidates’ mental fitess for the presidency, 47% supported Trump, 77, versus 28% for Biden, 81.

On the question of physical fitness, 57% supported Trump, while 28% backed Biden.

Economy Under Biden, ABC Poll: US Rejects Handling

With the economy always a top issue, if not the No. 1 issue for voters in a presidential election, Biden’s standing is poor. More than half of the respondents (56%) said they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 31% approved. The poll also indicates that 71% said the economy is in bad shape, while 24% said he economy was good.

The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted Jan. 4-8 among a random national sample of 2,228 adults.

Charlie McCarthy | editorial.mccarthy@newsmax.com

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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Battle-Tested Trump Brings A New And Improved Ground Game To Iowa

BY: M.D. KITTLE | JANUARY 12, 2024

M.D. KITTLE

URBANDALE, Iowa — With four days and a few hours to go before the starting gun of the presidential nominating season, Donald Trump Jr. rallied the troops in suburban Des Moines on behalf of his frontrunner father.

Motivation was a hard commodity to come by on a cold and gray January day, with the remnants of the first heavy snowstorm of the season mucking up the streets with dirty slush. But the troops — warriors for former President Donald Trump — are hearty stock, like Hawkeye Cauci veterans around the state. After all, some of these folks have been showing up to this curious exhibition of representative democracy for more than 50 years, and they take their role as first-in-the-nation ambassadors of the presidential nomination chase very seriously.

We’ll see just how serious Iowa’s Republican voters are come Monday, caucus day, when the high is expected to drop below zero. By 7 p.m. Iowa time, when this internationally watched political pageant gets underway, temperatures could plummet to as low as minus-15 degrees with a wind chill of Ouch!

But if the 2024 presidential campaign and the past eight years have taught us anything, it’s that there are people in this deeply divided republic who would crawl through broken glass, barbed wire, and solid ice to vote for the former president. Still, Trump, rolling into the caucuses with a 50-point lead over his nearest challengers nationally and up by at least 35 points in Iowa, isn’t taking anything for granted.

“That’s why this Monday is so critical. We’ve got to send a message,” Don Jr. told the gathering of some 80 Trump supporters and reporters gathered at Urbandale’s Machine Shed restaurant. The event was organized by the Des Moines Bull Moose Conservative Club.

“I understand it’s going to be minus-4, but if I can get my Florida butt back up here … everyone can get back up here,” the president’s eldest child said.

The Trump campaign, unlike eight years ago, is taking nothing for granted. Forget the polls, turnout is the thing, campaign officials say.

“We’ve got to treat Monday as if we’re 10 points back,” Trump Jr. admonished. He said the left, establishment Republicans, and the Trump-hating corporate media are counting on caucus-goer apathy to diminish expected big numbers for the former president. A smaller margin of victory, perhaps driven by Trump supporters believing the win is in the bag, is a narrative Trump’s opponents would pounce on heading into next week’s New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, the thinking goes.

In short, Trump is beatable.

His opponents point to Iowa 2016, when Trump took the political world by storm, but finished tied for second with Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas won the caucuses in a much more crowded field of candidates.

‘Night and Day’

But much has changed in eight years. Trump may be the same Trump in many ways, but he’s a much different candidate coming in. The Iowa surprise for Cruz ultimately meant little. Trump went on to claim the GOP nomination, win the presidency, and become the subject of the left’s unrelenting loathing. He’s battle-tested, with arguably more political scars than any presidential candidate in the republic’s history.

Moreover, the Trump ground game in Iowa is significantly improved, more nimble, and much better organized than it was during his first presidential run. It’s so good, in fact, Trump can’t even seem to believe it.

“I was with the president all last week and he asked me that exact question [about whether the ground game has improved since 2016], and I told him it’s the difference between night and day,” said Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun, a Des Moines-area Republican who was the first state elected official to endorse Trump in 2016 and again this year.

Zaun may be a bit biased, but the Trump ally was a frequent witness to the campaign’s Iowa operations in 2016, as he has been this campaign cycle. The senator said there’s a professionalism and an organizational focus this go-round that wasn’t there eight years ago.

The campaign’s suburban Des Moines headquarters has been hopping for months, with an army of volunteers working extended shifts seven days a week. There’s a greater emphasis on data, and an almost manic drive to connect with grassroots conservatives in every corner of the kick-off caucus state.

“It’s vastly improved,” said John Humeston, a caucus captain for the Trump campaign in Ankeny. “They’ve got a great staff that started early.”

Trump caucus captains are charged with turning out the voters. They’re given a list of Iowans that have shown support, or even a passing interest, in the former president. Humeston said his list is six pages long. He and his fellow volunteers place plenty of calls in the evenings.

At the headquarters, it’s a little like the Frank Capra Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life”: Instead of angels getting their wings, Trump volunteers ring a call bell every time an Iowa voter commits to caucusing for the frontrunner.

“Caucus captains have to find 10 new ones to bring to the caucus,” Humeston said. “It gives everyone more of a goal.”

There’s a lot more money involved, too.

Big Money, Bigger Stakes

In 2023, Republican presidential candidates and outside groups spent nearly $105 million on ads in Iowa, NBC News reported. It’s a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to the $10.2 billion in total political advertisement expenditures that AdImpact projects for the 2023-24 election cycle.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and the super PACs backing her presidential quest lead the money chase, spending a combined $30 million according to the NBC News report. Haley, who served as Trump’s United Nation’s ambassador, has helped turn Iowa’s airwaves into a blanket of campaign ads.

The campaign for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent $2.3 million on ads in Iowa, while pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down has kicked in at least $17.6 million, according to the AdImpact figures. Trump’s campaign has spent north of $4 million, while super PAC MAGA Inc. has dropped $11.4 million in its Iowa ad campaign.

The former president has spent comparatively less time in the Hawkeye State than most of his rivals, focusing on periodic large-scale rallies and foregoing the small retail politics events at the core of the long caucus campaign season. A New York Post article recently quipped that “Trump is outsourcing his Iowa campaign to surrogates.” Prominent supporters including Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and cancel culture target Roseanne Barr have been barnstorming Iowa on behalf of their candidate in recent days.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has made campaign stops in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, fulfilling his promise to do the “Full Grassley.” Chuck Grassley, Iowa’s senior U.S. senator, has for decades made it his annual mission to pay a call on Iowans in every county.

Haley, too, has made scores of campaign stops in Iowa, and fellow GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy last month celebrated the “double Grassley.” The Ohio entrepreneur, who has essentially made Iowa a second home since entering the race nearly a year ago, has held at least two campaign events in each of the 99 counties. Ramaswamy is running a distant fourth in Iowa, at south of 7 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.

DeSantis has bet heavily on Iowa, devoting a significant share of his campaign’s staff and volunteers to his Hawkeye State operations. Despite the investment and time, DeSantis is polling at 15.5 percent to Trump’s 53 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of Iowa Republicans. The popular Florida governor is running third in Iowa, just behind Haley, who is polling at 17.8 percent. After being seen as the strongest Republican challenger to Trump, DeSantis shook up his campaign in August as he lost traction in the polls.

‘Double Forms of Justice’

As the New York Post notes, Trump’s supporters get why he’s not been as present on the campaign trail as his rivals. The former president has had his share of distractions this campaign season, with a host of legal problems tying up much of his time. He’s been busy fending off a long list of charges across four indictments that threaten to send him to prison for the rest of his life — charges brought by Democrat President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and his leftist prosecutor allies in a naked political quest to dispose of Biden’s No. 1 political opponent.

It’s the attack on Trump and the rule of law that has so many of his Iowa supporters ready to brave a brutally cold winter’s evening in Iowa to caucus for their candidate. Beyond their concerns about the economy, inflation, and the debacle at the Southwest border, Trump backers at the Machine Shed Thursday afternoon said they’re tired of what they see as a two-tiered system of justice under Biden.

“The politics of this current administration, the double forms of justice that are just so obvious, it just doesn’t seem like America,” said Suzanne Spooner of nearby Granger when asked about her greatest concerns this election year. “I think our country is a mess. I think President Trump did a good job of getting us in a better space than we’ve ever been in before, and I support getting things back on track again.”

Members of the Trump army, particularly the caucus captains, say they’re ready to help bring home a big victory Monday night for the former president in his latest pursuit of the White House. Trump’s son reminded them that there’s not a moment to lose.

“We have an opportunity to do something, but we have to do it now,” Trump Jr. said. “Let’s get out there on Monday. Let’s make sure everyone shows up. Let’s decide this thing early. Let’s finish this thing strong.”

M.D. Kittle is an award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism.

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The DNC Is Engaged In ‘Unlawful Voter Suppression’ Ahead Of Primaries, New Hampshire AG Says

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | JANUARY 10, 2024

The office of New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella issued a cease-and-desist order to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Monday after the committee purportedly violated the state’s voter suppression laws.

On Jan. 5, the co-chairs of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee submitted a letter to the New Hampshire Democratic Party (NHDP) demanding the state party comply with DNC guidance to “take steps to educate the public that January 23rd” — the date set for the jurisdiction’s Democrat presidential primary — “is a non-binding presidential preference event and is meaningless and the NHDP and presidential candidates should take all steps possible not to participate.”

The memo came nearly a year after the DNC passed a new early presidential primary calendar for 2024. The updated calendar, supported by President Biden, sought to make South Carolina the first state on the Democrat presidential primary schedule. While Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, have historically marked the first electoral contests in the presidential primary process for both major political parties, the DNC’s decision to schedule South Carolina first was, as NBC News described, due to Iowa’s caucuses being viewed as “too white and too undemocratic.”

Someone needs to press the DNC for some definitions, like their definition of “democracy.” They through around the term so much, and the context of what they’re saying does not match the 200 plus years definition of democracy. And while you’re at it, what in the world does, “too white and too undemocratic” mean?

Despite state law mandating New Hampshire host a presidential primary “7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election,” the DNC told the NHDP that the Jan. 23 primary scheduled by the New Hampshire secretary of state “cannot be used as the first determining stage of the state’s delegate selection process and is considered detrimental.” The guidance further informed the state party that no “delegates or alternates shall be apportioned” and no “scheduling of events related to the selection of delegates or alternates in New Hampshire may be” based on the Jan. 23 election.

In his cease-and-desist order to the DNC, Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell underscored how “[f]alsely telling New Hampshire voters that a New Hampshire election is ‘meaningless’ violates New Hampshire voter suppression laws,” and further ordered the organization to stop engaging in such “unlawful” conduct.

“Regardless of whether the DNC refuses to award delegates to the party’s national convention based on the results of the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire [D]emocratic Presidential Primary Election, that election is not ‘meaningless.’ Your statements to the contrary are false, deceptive, and misleading,” O’Donnell wrote. “Telling the public or any person qualified to register to vote or vote in New Hampshire that the [aforementioned election] is ‘meaningless,’ or soliciting NHDP or any other party to make such statements, constitutes an attempt to prevent or deter another person from voting or registering to vote based on fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, or spurious grounds or information.”

O’Donnell further warned the DNC that he reserved the right to pursue further legal action.

It’s worth mentioning that the DNC’s decision to hold South Carolina’s primary before the party’s Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary is designed to benefit Biden. During the 2020 Democrat presidential primary cycle, the Delaware Democrat lost both Iowa and New Hampshire, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively. It was his dominating victory in South Carolina’s primary that put Biden on track to become Democrats’ 2020 presidential nominee.

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

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Biden’s Campaign Doesn’t ‘Brief’ The Media, It Colludes with Them

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | JANUARY 09, 2024

President Joe Biden meets with senior advisers to discuss the budget and debt ceiling, Monday, May 15, 2023, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

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A short item this week on the news site Semafor had an interesting way of describing the existing dynamic between the national news media and Joe Biden’s angry reelection campaign. It said Biden’s team has “begun organizing a series of off-the-record trips for top political reporters and editors” to meet up at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, for the purpose of “background briefings on campaign strategy.”

I’d like to think that the person who authored the article is just hopelessly naive, but it’s Ben Smith, who has been running in these circles for what feels like three lifetimes. So, he certainly knows that contrary to his depiction, these aren’t boring scenes where curious reporters show up to get a rundown of Biden’s campaign schedule and themes. That’s not what happens.

What happens is the nation’s most influential media outlets send representatives to a Democrat candidate’s facilities — in this case, Biden’s campaign headquarters — to coordinate what their coming “news coverage” should look like, according to the Democrat’s needs and preferences. Thusly, Smith wrote that in these recent meetings, “Campaign officials have chafed at some of the coverage of former President Donald Trump, feeling that outlets are too focused on his legal troubles and haven’t paid enough attention to some of his incendiary recent statements on the campaign trail.” In other words, CNN and MSNBC are about to start showing a lot more clips from Trump rallies wherein he says something that’s supposed to offend the audience. And if it doesn’t, no problem. Jake Tapper and Joe Scarborough will be on hand to helpfully explain why it should. Over and over and over again.

We’ve already seen a version of this play out in recent days. Not even a month ago, in perfect unison, the media reupped their Trump-is-Hitler routine.

Associated Press, Dec. 18: “Senate border security talks grind on as Trump invokes Nazi-era ‘blood’ rhetoric against immigrants.”

The Washington Post, Dec. 18: “That language has caused alarm among some civil rights advocates and immigrant groups, who have compared it to the writings of Adolf Hitler.”

The New York Times, Dec. 17: “In New Hampshire on Saturday, he told the crowd that immigrants were ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ a comment that previously drew condemnation because of echoes to [sic] language used by white supremacists and Adolf Hitler.”

Reuters, Dec. 16: “Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, said on Saturday that undocumented immigrants were ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ repeating language that has previously drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing of Nazi rhetoric.”

Unable to help themselves, Biden campaign officials then rushed to Politico to brag that it was all their idea. That article explicitly quoted Biden’s campaign communications director claiming that Trump is “going to echo the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini, and we’re going to make sure that people understand just how serious that is every single time.” (The “rhetoric” in question was Trump’s perfectly innocuous mantra that the unmanageable hordes of impoverished migrants unlawfully dumping themselves over the southern border are “poisoning” the country by chipping away at its social and legal fabric.)

It’s never a hard sell for a Democrat to get the media to pick up its preferred storyline. Biden slurs through those “Trump is a threat to democracy!” speeches with mind-numbing repetition, and the accomplice media take the cue.

“A second Trump term ‘poses a threat to the existence of America as we know it,’ says The Atlantic’s top editor”— CNN.com, Dec. 5.

“IF TRUMP WINS: The staff of The Atlantic on the threat a second term poses to American democracy”— The Atlantic, Dec. 4.

“Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First”— The New York Times, Dec. 4.

“A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending”— The Washington Post, Nov. 30.

So, no, these gatherings with Democrat media aren’t dry informational sessions. They’re all-hands meetings for reporters to receive instruction as to how the next week, month, and season should go. If the Biden campaign wants more hype over whatever it is Trump is saying at his rallies, trust that it will be done.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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Speaker Johnson, GOP Members Visit Southern Border

By Charlie McCarthy | Wednesday, 03 January 2024 09:09 AM EST

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and more than 60 House Republicans are visiting the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday in an attempt to raise awareness of the ongoing migrant crisis under President Joe Biden. Johnson and his fellow conference members will visit Eagle Pass, Texas, and are expected to demand that Biden and the Democrats agree to strict new immigration policies to stop the flow of migrants into the country, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics show that in November there were 242,418 migrant encounters. That’s the third-highest official number since the crisis began in late January 2021. A CBP source told Newsmax on Monday that in December there were about 302,000 encounters at the southern border, surpassing the monthly record of 269,735 set in September.

The lawmakers’ visit to the border comes as Senate Republicans and Democrats struggle to reach an agreement on an emergency spending bill that would send more than $50 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.

House Republicans and some GOP Senate members have demanded sweeping immigration changes in exchange for their support of the supplemental legislation.

“This situation requires significant policy changes and House Republicans will continue advocating for real solutions that actually secure our border,” Johnson said Tuesday in a post on X.

A spokesperson for the speaker said Biden has been “derelict in his duty to protect” the border.

“While the president requests more funds — not to stop illegal immigration — but to process more illegal immigrants through their ‘catch and release’ policy, he has undermined security at every turn,” spokesperson Raj Shah said, Politico reported.

“From his decision to rescind the Remain in Mexico policy to the widespread abuse of the parole and asylum systems, there is a direct line between this administration’s reckless policies and the record 300,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern border last month.”

The White House, meanwhile, is placing blame for the migrant surge on the GOP. Biden’s team has argued that Republicans have rejected a supplemental funding package that included money to hire new border agents, asylum officers, and immigration judges, as well as technology to combat the flow of fentanyl, Politico reported.

“On Day One, President Biden proposed a comprehensive immigration reform plan and followed up by delivering record border security funding every single year of his term,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

“House Republicans have obstructed his reform proposal and consistently voted against his unprecedented border security funding year after year, hamstringing our border security in the name of extreme, partisan demands.”

However, a Pew Research Center survey late last year found that only 32% of U.S. adults were confident in the president’s ability to make “wise decisions about immigration policy.”

Charlie McCarthy | editorial.mccarthy@newsmax.com

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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BIDEN HAS ANOTHER CALAMITOUS YEAR AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER IN 2023 AS RECORDS SHATTER

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Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) Op-ed: Biden aiding illegal immigrants instead of veterans is un-American

By Tommy Tuberville Fox News | Published December 27, 2023 5:00am EST

The Biden border crisis is the worst in American history — and it’s not even close. Since President Biden took office, there have been at least 7 million illegal border crossings and nearly 2 million known gotaways.

It isn’t just the southern border — illegal encounters along one sector of the northern border are up 700%. Hundreds of people on the terror watch list have been caught trying to get into our country, and more than 300,000 Americans have died of overdoses from drugs brought over the border. We’ve never seen anything like this.

Unreal, they are destroying our country right in front of us https://t.co/WOyer1ypCr
— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) December 27, 2023

Make no mistake — Democrats created this problem. Biden and Democrats are only feigning interest in securing the border now because it is an election year. If Biden actually wanted to secure our border, then he could have simply left the Trump border policies in place or reversed his own extreme policies by now. He has done neither.

It should be obvious that Biden’s sudden interest in the border is a political stunt to look like action is being taken, get good press and write campaign ads about how tough he is on illegal immigration.

In an aerial view, thousands of illegal immigrants, most wearing thermal blankets, await processing at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Dec. 19. Major surges of migrants illegally crossing the Rio Grande have overwhelmed U.S. border authorities in recent weeks. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Now Biden is adding insult to injury. Media reports indicate that the border is in such chaos that the Biden administration is using resources from the VA to facilitate healthcare for illegal aliens. This is a slap in the face to our veterans and to the taxpayer.

That’s why, last week, I introduced the No VA Resources for Illegal Aliens Act in the Senate. My bill does just what it says. It prohibits VA resources, whether healthcare or claims processing for healthcare, from being used for illegal aliens. The bill already has the support of the Chairman of the House VA Committee Mike Bost, and I’m hopeful that Congress can pass it soon.

Biden flacks argue that since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reimburses the VA for these services, there is no issue. But this is wrong. In reality, DHS is leveraging healthcare providers in the VA’s Community Care Network, which was established to ensure veterans could access doctors in their own town, for the care of illegal aliens.

As a result, veterans are forced to travel to VA facilities instead of relying on doctors in their communities. That means the administration is prioritizing the needs of illegal immigrants over the needs of our nation’s veterans. It’s hard to think of something more un-American than that.

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There was a similar scandal at the VA the last time Biden was in the White House. In President Barack Obama’s second term, dozens of veterans died while waiting for care. The VA then lied about it to cover it up. Some of those folks are being hired back by the Biden administration. VA leadership in the Obama years didn’t fire the offenders because of job protections for federal employees.

It’s no wonder we have such a massive crisis at the border. People around the world know that they can simply waltz into our country, go to a blue state, and get free healthcare, free education, drivers’ licenses and even cash benefits. Meanwhile, the people of this country work hard, pay taxes and face rising prices for just about everything. Securing our border will require shutting off the magnet that is drawing illegals into this country.

Our veterans earned their healthcare serving in uniform for the United States. Illegals haven’t earned a dime from the taxpayer — they shouldn’t even be in the country. The contrast couldn’t be clearer.

There’s no reason this legislation should not become law. Following the law — whether at the VA or at the border — shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and neither should caring for our veterans. If Biden is serious about securing the border, he should urge Democrats to pass this common-sense legislation and sign it into law.

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Republican Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate.

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Washington Post Shedding Hundreds of Staff from Payroll After Trump Presidency and Covid Is the Reason for the Season

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | DECEMBER 22, 2023

One of the most unintentionally hilarious quotes from the media of 2023 appeared in Thursday’s edition of the Politico Playbook newsletter.

“The first reaction was shock,” an anonymous Washington Post reporter said, referring to a recent round of forced buyouts for nearly 250 staff writers and editors at the paper. “The Washington Post had done so well — was so profitable in the years of Trump, of Covid, and was owned by one of the richest people in the world … We’re talking about a ‘baby and the bath water,’ sort of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach that left people really confused.”

Shorter version: Life was pretty great at the Post when we could run non-stop hysterical coverage of Donald Trump and an uncontrollable virus that scared everyone just in time for the election! Plus, we had a billionaire backer who gave it all his blessing! Those were the days…

To be sure, nobody should celebrate when a person loses their income. And that’s why I’m just as sorry for all of them as they would be for me if I lost my job. (It’s okay to laugh.)

It turns out that fomenting racial divisions, hyping up a worrisome pandemic, and perpetuating the Russia-collusion fake out was just a short-term business strategy. Who could’ve known?!

Now the Post is trying to recapture the magic with ridiculous stories like the one this week headlined, “Trump reprises dehumanizing language on undocumented immigrants, warns of ‘invasion.’” It had all the greatest hits.

Think of the children!: “During a campaign event in Reno, Nev.,” the article said, “the clear polling leader in the Republican race blamed President Biden for what he portrayed as a dangerous incursion on the homeland — although many migrants detained at the southern border are parents and children seeking protection, and studies show that undocumented immigrants are less likely than U.S. citizens to commit crimes.”

That’s a classic. Rather than acknowledge that, at minimum, Americans say in large majorities that the open Southern border is a serious problem that Biden and Democrats refuse to address, the Post, just as before, is fixated on reminding its readers that ackshully, many of the world’s destitute dumping themselves into our care are women and children, so have a heart, will ya?

Trump is Hitler!: Trump “accused them in a speech and in a social media post of ‘poisoning the blood’ of the country,” the story continued. “That language has caused alarm among some civil rights advocates and immigrant groups, who have compared it to the writings of Adolf Hitler.”

If at first you don’t succeed, heil, heil again. Perhaps there’s still some mileage in the Nazi charge. Biden’s campaign instructions for the media suggest there is.

The tried and true “claimed without evidence”!: “He is the first former U.S. president to be indicted on criminal charges and has been indicted in four cases,” the Post said. “Trump has denied wrongdoing and alleged without evidence that his four indictments and 91 charges are politically motivated.”

What made the Trump-era “claimed without evidence” so annoying before is that it was always used in reference to an expression of opinion, for which evidence isn’t needed to hold. That’s why it’s an opinion. But to use the grating, childish line in reference to a matter literally involving a political opposition’s prosecution of a former president for the supposed crimes of exercising his First Amendment rights and retaining government documents — which every president before him has done — is truly a work of art. Trump doesn’t need “evidence.” There’s extensively documented proof that it’s politically motivated. It’s on video!

It seems The Washington Post doesn’t have the income coming in anymore. Maybe a few more articles like that will do the trick.

🇺🇸Good Morning America🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/qTNnY7t93g
— Brenden Dilley (@WarlordDilley) December 23, 2023

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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Trump: ‘Crooked Joe’ Is Insurrectionist, Not Me

By Michael Katz | Thursday, 21 December 2023 03:35 PM EST

Former President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at President Joe Biden, calling him an insurrectionist. This, after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is ineligible for the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot because of his alleged involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

“He certainly supported an insurrection,” Biden told reporters Wednesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on his way to a campaign event. “No question about it. None. Zero.”

Colorado’s high court ruled Trump ineligible Tuesday based on Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment that disqualifies from office those who engaged in insurrection against the Constitution after taking an oath to support it. Trump has never been charged with insurrection and he is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I’m not an Insurrectionist (‘PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY’),” Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to his speech Jan. 6 in which he encouraged supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” march to the Capitol building. “Crooked Joe Biden is!!!”

Biden did not share his opinion on the Colorado court ruling but said it was “self-evident” Trump supported an insurrection.

“Certain things are self-evident,” Biden said. “You saw it all. Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision.”

Michael Katz | editorial.katz@newsmax.com

Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.

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Here’s How Much Money Biden’s ‘Anti-Fossil Fuel’ Regulatory Agenda Sucks from the US Economy Each Year

By: Nick Pope / December 20, 2023

President Joe Biden speaks on renewable energy at the Philly Shipyard on July 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Biden administration’s energy regulations may cost the U.S. economy $100 billion in gross domestic product each year, according to a new report published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

The administration has unleashed a bevy of regulations from several agencies that have distorted energy markets and disincentivized long-term investment in fossil fuel production, which in turn has increased the costs of energy production and consumption to the detriment of the overall American economy, according to the report.

These policies and their ramifications play to the advantage of major oil producers in Asia and the Middle East, some of which are known to use oil revenues to bankroll terrorist organizations, while American consumers and businesses navigate higher costs.

“This study examines what has happened with oil and gas production when we adjust for the large increase in the world price since [President Joe] Biden entered office, and the upward supply trends that had widely been expected to continue,” the report’s executive summary states. “Coincident with Biden’s new anti-energy policies, vigorous ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’ (ESG) investing and rising business tax rates, U.S. oil production has fallen 1-5 million daily barrels short of previous trends. Increased costs of oil and gas extraction are reducing annual GDP by about $100 billion.”

Further, the administration’s approach to regulating energy markets has chilled incentives for technological innovation in extracting fuels, and the natural gas industry has also underperformed relative to how it was trending when former President Donald Trump was in office, according to the report.

Notably, oil production in the U.S. is hovering at or above record levels, even as the industry deals with the regulatory barrage. While the Biden administration has suggested that this fact demonstrates that it is not cracking down on fossil fuel production, Daniel Turner, an energy sector expert and the executive director for Power The Future, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that this narrative is misleading because “the lifetime of an oil well is years in the making, and so all of the production that is online now is from wells that started well before Biden came into office.”

The Committee To Unleash Prosperity’s report also rejects the notion that “Biden’s anti-fossil fuels policies—ranging from taking hundreds of thousands of acres off-line for drilling, to canceling pipelines, to restrictive environmental regulations that make drilling more expensive—are not the reason for the energy crisis and high gas prices at the pump.”

The administration has taken dozens of executive and regulatory actions designed to make oil and gas activity more difficult and expensive since it assumed power in 2021, according to research conducted by the Institute for Energy Research.

The Biden administration has engaged in a broad effort to reduce new oil and gas activity on federally controlled lands, which has resulted in millions of acres being removed from consideration for oil drilling activity. Biden pledged to fully stop oil and gas activity on federal lands as a candidate and issued a moratorium on oil and gas leasing on federal lands in 2021, later saying in August that he would have been able to fulfill that promise if not for the court system.

The administration finalized the most restrictive offshore oil and gas leasing schedule in American history on Friday, has leased the fewest acres for oil and gas drilling of any administration in the last 80 years, and has moved to increase the costs of oil and gas activities on public lands that it has not excluded from such uses altogether.

The administration has also retroactively nixed leases in Alaska and attempted to remove huge swaths of the state’s land from eligibility for oil and gas activity, but the administration’s approach has not satisfied hard-line environmentalists, a key electoral and fundraising constituency for Biden.

The Biden administration’s energy policies are not only holding back the American economy, but also empowering foreign countries to whom the U.S. has ceded control of the marginal price of oil, according to the report.

“Anti-energy policies in the United States enrich the major oil producers in Asia and the Middle East, some of whom use their wealth to fund terrorism. Indeed, they are enriched twice by our policies,” the report states. “One benefit they get is that subtractions from U.S. production are subtractions from world production that contribute to higher world oil prices. The second benefit is that undermining shale activity in the U.S. gives OPEC more pricing power, because we are no longer as able to respond to OPEC production cuts with production increases of our own.”

The White House did not respond immediately to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Testimony: James Biden Used Family Name To Trade $600K Loan For Promise Of Foreign Funding To Health Firm

BY: JORDAN BOYD | DECEMBER 19, 2023

check showing payment from James to Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s younger brother James Biden took a quiet personal loan from one of his now-bankrupt investment companies on the condition that he would leverage his family’s political influence to increase their funding from the Middle East, testimony collected by the House Oversight Committee states. He then used those funds to line his elder brother’s pockets.

Shortly after the FBI raided Americore’s offices in January 2020, the health care company’s former CEO Grant White prepared a lawsuit accusing James of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and committing fraud. As Mark Hemingway reported at the time, documents prepared as part of the legal proceedings specifically alleged that James used company cash to stuff his pocketbook via a six-figure personal loan but did not deliver on his promise to use the Biden family name to bring the company investments from the Middle East.

“[Biden told me] there’s not a single door in the country that we can’t open. So if I wanted to meet, you know, the head of Google, it’s a phone call,” White said. “He always represented himself as the fundraiser for his brother’s campaigns. … He was the guy raising the money and so he knew everybody.”

Corporate media like Politico acknowledged that James “introduced Americore’s founder to his older brother” but never paid back the loan in full. James eventually paid Americore a $350,000 settlement over the loan dispute.

Americore Chapter 11 Trustee Carol Fox confirmed to the House Oversight Committee on Monday that the company quietly loaned $600,000 to James on the condition that his political connections would bring the company funding from the Middle East.

Americore handed over $200,000 of the loan to James in March 2018, a decision that Fox said the company deliberately decided to do without documentation. Shortly after he received the wire, James wrote a check for the same amount to his elder brother Joe that he painted as a personal loan repayment.

When House investigators showed Fox the check on Monday, she commented that $200,000 is a hefty sum. She also said that the money that eventually lined Joe’s pockets came from either “predatory loans or senior citizens’ money fraudulently invested by James Biden’s business partner, Michael Lewitt.”

The House Oversight Committee warned in October that the Biden brothers’ 2018 financial exchange warranted more scrutiny.

The $200,000 transfer is even more suspect in light of news that Joe received a $40,000 “loan repayment” in the form of a check from Sara and James Biden’s personal checking account in September 2017. That transfer followed shortly after a handful of transactions that were part of a deal Hunter Biden, Joe’s son and James’ nephew, struck with businessmen linked to communist China.

Just a few months prior in June 2017, Hunter had written in a WhatsApp message to his uncle and to other Biden business associates that he was hesitant to “sign over” the family “brand” to another associate. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith identified the “brand” as Joe.

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.

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BIDEN APPROVAL RATING SINKS TO ALL-TIME LOW IN NEW NATIONAL POLL

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Liz Peek Op-ed: Biden’s 2024 election insurance policy might surprise you

By Liz Peek Fox News | Published December 19, 2023 5:00am EST

Democrats are marching through various stages of grief as they contemplate President Joe Biden running for reelection in 2024. They have variously been hopeful, worried, frantic … and now they’re getting downright angry.

Far-left columnist Harold Meyerson, editor of the liberal magazine American Prospect, is furious that more Democrats have not jumped into the race. His latest piece asks, “Are the Democrats sleepwalking to disaster?” Disaster, of course, being the election of Donald Trump, who will bring the U.S. – according to Meyerson – to the “brink of authoritarian rule.”

The former Washington Post writer says Biden has been an “excellent president,” but is concerned that he is “the candidate least able to defeat Donald Trump.” Meyerson is certainly not alone; a rising chorus of Democrat voices are urging Biden to step aside, including now, apparently, Barack Obama. The New York Post reports that the former president “knows this is going to be a close race” and “feels that Democrats very well could lose.”

The question is: who might replace Biden? Meyerson lofts Gavin Newsom as a possibility but notes that the California governor “lacks appeal to working-class voters (California has the lowest share of white working-class residents of any state save Hawaii).”

biden democrats white house midterm republicans maga laura ingraham — Polls look bad for President Joe Biden’s chances of keeping the White House in 2024. But the Democrat alternatives aren’t much better. FILE: A flag flies atop the White House November 15, 2000. (Photo by Alex Wong/Newsmakers) (Getty Images)

He also throws Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer into the mix but supposes she would “face misogynistic hurdles,” deploying one of Hillary Clinton’s many excuses for losing in 2016. He totally ignores Vice President Kamala Harris, as do most commentators, even though tossing her aside could be risky for Democrats.

Here is the truth: the Democrat bench is terrible.

For months, Newsom has been the favored candidate of elite liberals. He’s reliably progressive, telegenic and has been running a stealth campaign to introduce himself to American voters. Unfortunately for Newsom backers, the governor is slip-sliding towards oblivion. First, he surprisingly performed a major face-plant in his debate with Republican Ron DeSantis on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Most commentators, including myself, expected the glib Newsom to run rings around the supposedly wooden and inarticulate DeSantis.

Instead, Florida’s governor came armed with facts and figures showing his state beating out California on every major metric important to voters – cost of living, taxes, employment, homelessness and crime. Not only did DeSantis win on points, he also won on style. Newsom was smug, condescending and unlikeable. It was a wipeout.

Second, California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently projected the state would run a 2024-25 budget deficit of $68 billion next year, twice as large as recorded in 2023-24. The projected gap is an all-time record, as is the state’s $310 billion spending plan. Commentators in California pounced on the news, with the Mercury News declaring “Newsom owns this mess.” The editorial board reminded Californians that at the beginning of last year, Newsom “was bragging about the state’s $98 billion budget surplus.” Oops.

Newsom was first elected governor in 2019; his proposed budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year called for spending of $209 billion. So, in five years, the budget has skyrocketed nearly 50%; on a per-person basis, it has jumped 56%, because more than one million residents have fled the state’s high taxes and impossible business regulations.

Where has the money gone? More than 50 billion was allocated in the past two budgets for climate change, enormous funds handed to unions like the childcare workers group that is demanding a 25% pay hike and teachers who were given an 8.2% cost-of-living raise; taxpayer money has also funded a 10% increase in welfare payments, and numerous other progressive priorities.

Vice President Kamala Harris would be a logical choice to replace her boss, President Joe Biden. But she’s even less popular than he is. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Newsom’s mismanagement of California’s finances is a blueprint, as DeSantis charged in their debate, for how Democrats will crush the U.S. economy.

If Newsom falls appropriately by the wayside, could Governor Gretchen Whitmer be next up? Unlike Newsom, she represents an important swing state, and her favorability ratings in Michigan are better than the president’s. In addition, she has a following with Black voters, which Newsom lacks. Politico reports that Democrats outside of Michigan have encouraged her to run, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Also, a female candidate could help Democrats next year keep the focus on abortion. Polling shows Whitmer competing against Donald Trump more successfully than Biden, Harris or Newsom. In a month-old Fox News poll, all four Democrats lose to Trump, but Whitmer is down by only 2 points.

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Still, the Michigan governor is remembered as the author of ludicrous COVID-19 mandates, such as allowing state residents to shop at hardware stores, but outlawing purchases of seeds or other gardening supplies.

In addition, her state is losing population, like California, though less rapidly. Michigan has also acquired a large Muslim population, which could complicate Whitmer or Biden’s prospects in the state if Democrats continue to support Israel. Further, rivals could go after Michigan’s governor for enacting tougher gun laws but failing to drive down crime in what some have called “America’s most dangerous state.” The state harbors eight of the most crime-ridden cities in the U.S.

Unfortunately for Newsom backers, the governor is slip-sliding towards oblivion. First, he surprisingly performed a major face-plant in his debate with Republican Ron DeSantis on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Most commentators, including myself, expected the glib Newsom to run rings around the supposedly wooden and inarticulate DeSantis.

Whitmer’s main handicap, however, is that she is not well known nationally. In a recent Economist/YouGov poll, 31% of respondents said they would like to see the governor run for president, but a whopping 45% were “unsure.” If the selection of a candidate falls to the Democrat convention next summer, Whitmer would have little time to introduce herself.

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Harris is the obvious replacement should Biden bow out. But her approval ratings are even worse than the president’s, despite numerous efforts by her team and the White House to gin up support. The Real Clear Politics average approval shows her underwater by 20 points; her boss scores a negative 15 points. She also has worse favorable/unfavorable ratings than Donald Trump.

Newsom, Whitmer and Harris are all likely contenders should Biden withdraw from the race. Given their likely electability, Joe may be forgiven for staying put.

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Liz Peek is a Fox News contributor and former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. A former columnist for the Fiscal Times, she writes for The Hill and contributes frequently to Fox News, the New York Sun and other publications. For more visit LizPeek.com. Follow her on Twitter @LizPeek.

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Axios: Biden’s Age Denialism Sparks Internal Tension

By Charlie McCarthy | Tuesday, 19 December 2023 10:12 AM EST

Some White House staffers say President Joe Biden doesn’t realize how old he can come across to others, Axios reported. Biden likes to tell friends and family, “I feel so much younger than my age.”

A former official, however, told Axios: “His age is clearly something voters are worried about, fairly or not, and yelling, ‘Nuh-uh’ isn’t cutting it.”

With polls showing that more than 70% of voters have concerns about Biden, 81, serving a second term, his reluctance to acknowledge his physical limitations is causing tension on his team, Axios reported Tuesday. Current and former aides to Biden say he often pushes to do more travel and events than they recommend. Pushing up against his limits sometimes “creates a cycle” in which he wears out himself and then appears fatigued during public events, Axios reported.

“He is his own worst enemy when it comes to his schedule,” a former Biden aide said, according to Axios.

Biden has shown frustration with the perception that he’s too old to be president.

“With regard to age, I can’t even say, I guess, how old I am, I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t register with me,” he said in April.

Despite his sensitivity about his age, Biden in recent months has accepted changes to help him stay healthy and avoid tripping. He’s using the shorter stairs on Air Force One and wearing tennis shoes more often, Axios reported.

Reuters reported last month that Biden’s age has become a defining part of the 2024 campaign. Even some Democrats have questions about his age. Biden entered office as the oldest president and would be 86 at the end of a second term.

Former President Donald Trump, the clear front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, frequently says Biden is too old for the job.

“We have a man that – he can’t even walk off a stage,” Trump, 77, said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire in October, Spectrum News reported. “He walks off the stage, just finishes his speech – he has no idea.”

First lady Jill Biden and her staff are involved in forming the president’s schedule.

A White House official told Axios that the Bidens keep “an eye on one another’s schedules for the sake of balance — and they are far from the only couple in the administration who does that.”

In his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” Joe Biden wrote that Jill Biden would tell her husband’s then-chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, “Joe’s working too hard. He’s exhausted. He’s not sleeping. It’s going to kill him.”

Charlie McCarthy | editorial.mccarthy@newsmax.com

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? Biden Admin Refuses to Hand Over Docs Showing How It Altered the Definition of a Recession

By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / December 19, 2023

President Joe Biden in a black suit with an American flag pin and a blue tie. — The Heritage Foundation is suing the Treasury Department under President Joe Biden, seen here on Dec. 13, for communications about redefining the term “recession.” (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Treasury Department under President Joe Biden has refused to hand over documents showing how officials decided to alter the definition of a recession after the first two quarters of 2022 saw declines in gross domestic product, the traditional definition of a recession.

The Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request on July 6, asking Treasury for internal communications containing the terms “recession,” “alternative definition of recession” and “alternative recession measurements.” (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)

The Treasury Department first asked Heritage to narrow the scope of its request, which Heritage did. Yet Treasury failed to hand over the documents, so Heritage filed a lawsuit on Dec. 1, claiming the department violated the Freedom of Information Act.

“The Treasury’s job is to collect taxes and allocate revenue per the dictates of Congress, not engage in Orwellian word games to distract from the economic failures of the leftist agenda,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow with Heritage’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday.

The lawsuit quotes the International Monetary Fund, which notes that while “there is no official definition of recession … most commentators and analysts use, as a practical definition of recession, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product.”

In the first quarter of 2022, U.S. inflation-adjusted GDP declined by 1.6%, and it declined by an additional 0.6% in the second quarter of last year.

In July 2022, however, the White House stated that “it is unlikely that the decline of the GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”

“This position is in extreme tension with conventional wisdom and the position of the Board of the Federal Reserve,” the lawsuit states.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit that aims to determine America’s business cycles, defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” The bureau claimed that the decline in 2022 did not fit its definition.

The White House has repeatedly claimed that the economy is improving due to Biden’s economic policies it brands “Bidenomics.” President Joe Biden has touted declines in the rate of inflation—which in this case do not mean that prices have declined, but that they are rising at a slower pace—as if they meant inflation is no longer a factor affecting Americans.

“The Biden administration clearly isn’t too proud of their destructive ‘Bidenomics’ if they are hiding documents related to the most basic questions,” Mike Howell, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and a signatory on the lawsuit, told The Daily Signal. “If ‘Bidenomics’ was so great, why do we have to sue them for this?”

Since Biden took office in 2021, inflation has outpaced wage increases in 27 of the past 31 months. According to Antoni, the Heritage researcher, the average American worker pays $4.97 per hour under Biden in the hidden tax of inflation, effectively doubling how much he or she pays in federal income tax. The typical American family with two parents working has lost more than $5,000 in annual income.

A Monmouth University poll surveying 803 U.S. adults between Nov. 30 and Dec. 4 found that 68% of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of inflation.

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Joe Biden Said Subpoena Defiers Should Be Charged. Will His DOJ Arrest Hunter Biden?

By: Katelynn Richardson / @katesrichardson / December 15, 2023

Hunter Biden gives a statement to media outlets regarding the House Oversight and Accountability Committee investigation into his business interests outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2023. (Photo: Craig Hudson/The Washington Post/Getty Images)

Hunter Biden defied a congressional subpoena on Wednesday, an action his father has previously said should be prosecuted. President Joe Biden said in October 2021 that individuals who defy subpoenas from the January 6 House Select Committee should be prosecuted, and the Justice Department indicted Steve Bannon for doing so in November 2021. Legal experts said the president’s son could be, but for various reasons may not be, likewise prosecuted by the Biden Justice Department for his choice to hold a press conference on Capitol Hill instead of sitting his deposition before the House Oversight Committee.

Criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the law “must be applied equally or it has no meaning.”

“Hunter Biden needs to be held to the same standard as other recent people who have thumbed their noses at congressional subpoenas,” Holloway said. “In this case, however, Hunter went so far as to show up on Capitol grounds and hold a press conference, thereby figuratively giving the middle finger to the House of Representatives. It is imperative that he be cited for contempt and that he be prosecuted by the U.S. attorney just as was the case recently with Bannon.”

Holloway called dodging a valid subpoena “just stupid,” noting Hunter could have “invoked the Fifth Amendment” at his deposition.

“I scratch my head wondering why Hunter’s lawyer—who stood with him at the presser—would subject his client to additional criminal charges,” he said. “I would never have advised someone to dodge a subpoena.”

George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley made a similar point Thursday, writing that Republicans initiating contempt of Congress proceedings could “force the hand of Attorney General Merrick Garland” and calling Hunter’s refusal to appear an “unenforced error.” Garland said in 2021 that the prosecution of Bannon was in pursuit of “equal justice under the law.”

“Since my first day in office, I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law,” said Garland in a statement at the time. “Today’s charges reflect the department’s steadfast commitment to these principles.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said in a statement Wednesday that they intend to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings.

Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy wrote Wednesday that the younger Biden knows he won’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

“Similarly, Hunter Biden knows that, while the House could hold him in contempt, the Biden Justice Department is not going to prosecute him for criminal contempt for [sic] three reasons,” he wrote. “(1) he’s the president’s son; (2) there’s already tension with the White House because prosecutors botched the sweetheart plea deal and have now indicted Hunter twice (putting the president in the politically compromising position of having to pardon him at some point); and (3) the Justice Department is part of an administration whose story is that the impeachment inquiry is an illegitimate political hit job forced by MAGA Republicans so they can orchestrate proceedings hyped as ‘Biden impeachment’ in parallel with the criminal proceedings Trump faces in court, which Democrats are hyping.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – I Am Here

A.F. BRANCO | on December 15, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-i-am-here/

Hunter; I Am Here Address Cartoon — A.F. Branco Cartoon 2023

Hunter Biden parses his words unwisely, trying to avoid connecting his father to any of his business dealings.

One Word Hunter Biden Used During Statement at DC Presser Tore Up Joe Biden’s Defense of Corruption Allegations (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila

Hunter Biden on Wednesday arrived in DC and gave a press conference on Capitol Hill where he revealed he will only answer questions under his own rules despite a congressional subpoena.

Congressional Republicans subpoenaed Hunter Biden for a closed-door deposition related to his influence-peddling and family corruption.

Hunter Biden on Wednesday said he will only testify “at a public hearing.”

The first son also made a damning statement that tore up Joe Biden’s corruption defense. One word Hunter Biden used caught the attention of Republican lawmakers and reporters. READ MORE…

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https://twitter.com/JoeyMannarinoUS/status/1720969911760048573?s=20

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10 Naughty Bureaucrats, Brands, And Buffoons Who Deserve Coal In Their Stockings This Year

BY: JORDAN BOYD AND SHAWN FLEETWOOD | DECEMBER 14, 2023

JORDAN BOYD AND SHAWN FLEETWOOD

Christmas is supposed to be a season for love, comfort, and joy, but the arrival of the holidays means the grinches, scrooges, and corrupt politicians of the world are lurking. This year, unfortunately, yielded an abundance of bureaucrats, brands, and buffoons who blew their shot to make the nice list when they sacrificed common sense and dignity for partisanship and radicalism.

Merry Christmas to everyone except these naughty no-gooders!

1. Jack Smith

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s association with the corrupt Department of Justice alone was enough to land him in Santa’s bad graces. Smith further solidified his place on the naughty list when he brought two “legally flawed and politically shady” cases against former President Donald Trump over classified documents and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith also demanded the court gag Trump from criticizing him, President Joe Biden, and other deep-state bureaucrats for their hyperpartisan prosecution of his First Amendment right to claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, which D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan eagerly agreed to do.

2. Letitia James

James is on the naughty list for following through on her campaign promise to sue Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization for allegedly “grossly” inflating their assets in financial statements by billions of dollars.

Despite bringing a case with “no merit” and “no evidence,” James continues to work with Arthur Engoron, a judge of the Supreme Court 1st Judicial District in New York, to silence Trump and keep him from conducting business in the state of New York.

3. David Weiss

Every time a bell rings, a corrupt Department of Justice official like Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss gets named special counsel.

Weiss and the DOJ deliberately choked the IRS’s tax crime investigation and charging recommendations for Hunter Biden because they didn’t want to damage the elder Biden’s presidential chances.

After a federal judge denied Hunter’s initial sweetheart plea deal, the Biden son was eventually charged with several tax-related felonies and misdemeanors, but Weiss failed to indict him for any foreign influence-peddling or registered foreign agent violations.

House investigators warned the tax charges would never have happened without the testimonies of IRS whistleblowers the DOJ tried to silence.

4. Joe Biden

Biden may not technically have a stocking since his family was publicly shamed into ditching the tradition after leaving their seventh grandchild out of last year’s display, but he’s for sure getting coal for Christmas (for the second year in a row!) for repeatedly denying his role in the Biden family influence-peddling scheme.

There’s plenty of evidence that Joe, the Biden family brand, financially benefitted from arrangements his brother and son made with foreign oligarchs. Emails, texts, voicemails, bank records, receipts, White House visitor logs, photos, and sworn witness testimonies from Biden business associates suggest businessmen with ties to some of the nation’s top adversaries eagerly lined the Biden family’s pockets with cash, diamonds, and coveted board positions in exchange for proximity to the then-vice president.

5. Senate Republicans

Senate Republicans certainly don’t deserve presents this year. They may not even deserve your votes.

Their gravest 2023 mistake by far was working to take down one of their own, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, for daring to hold the Department of Defense accountable for its embrace of Biden’s radical abortion agenda. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer later thanked the GOP senators for curbing Tuberville’s protest of the Pentagon’s baby-killing activism.

The upper chamber GOP didn’t stop there. They were also indefensibly silent on Biden family corruption and impeachment, ignored their constituents’ feelings about taxpayer-funded abortion, and spent a majority of the year simping for Ukraine. It was only when it was no longer politically beneficial to put a foreign country over their own — a move many Americans have long opposed — that they started to pivot.

6. Elite Universities

Presidents from three of the nation’s top universities refused to admit that student calls for Jewish genocide following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel violate their schools’ codes of conduct. Backlash ensued, prompting both University of Pennsylvania President M. Elizabeth Magill, who faces a forced resignation, and Harvard President Claudine Gay to issue apologies days after the hearing.

In an interview with the student newspaper The Crimson, Gay blamed her delayed condemnation of antisemitism on a failure to “return to my guiding truth.” As one clever X user noted, Harvard’s slogan is “veritas,” not “veritas mae.”

7. Los Angeles Dodgers

Who doesn’t love a good baseball game? There are rowdy fans, Cracker Jacks, and — drag queens? Well, at least at Los Angeles Dodgers’ games there are.

Instead of focusing solely on the sport — which is what any real fan cares about — the Dodgers decided to honor an anti-Christian drag group during this year’s “pride night” game. Known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, this group’s members mock Christians by dressing up as so-called “queer and trans nuns” and performing highly offensive acts on biblical symbols, including the cross.

While initially disinviting the group after public backlash, the Dodgers caved to the leftist mob by apologizing to the Sisters and begging them to attend the “pride” event.

If that’s not worthy of coal this Christmas, I don’t know what is.

8. Bud Light

What better way to make the Yuletide gay than by chugging down a cold can of Bud Light?

After partnering with woman-pretender and TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney this year, the Anheuser-Busch brand’s sales tanked, with drinkers abandoning the beer quicker than Hunter Biden left town when he found out the stripper he had sex with was pregnant.

Sales got so bad that retailers could hardly even give Bud Light away for free. But that didn’t stop the beer giant from doubling down on its LGBT obsession by sponsoring various “pride” events throughout the country.

9. Target

Target and the naughty list go way back, but the company’s partnership with a Satan supporter who called for the eradication of critics of transgenderism, and its “pride month” displays featuring “light binding effect” tops and “tuck-friendly” bottoms, angered millions of Americans.

A boycott prompted by Target’s alphabet endorsement sent the once-beloved company’s sales spiraling. Despite the clear connection between its embrace of radical gender ideology and flailing financials, Target ended the year promoting its line of LGBT-themed Christmas products, including gay and trans nutcrackers.

10. Taylor Swift

Miss Americana Taylor Swift may have won Time’s Person of the Year, but that doesn’t mean she won over everyone’s hearts. The pop star’s presence at boyfriend Mr. Pfizer’s — er, Travis Kelce’s — NFL games stole the TV cameras, sports announcers, and fantasy football apps away from America’s favorite Sunday evening pastime.

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

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2023-12-04 JDJ MT to Burns … by federalistzoom

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Jim Jordan To CIA: How Many Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Signatories Were On Your Payroll?

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 08, 2023

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is investigating whether the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter were paid by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop surfaced during the 2020 election, more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter in Politico saying the computer “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” In a letter to CIA Director William Burns on Monday, Jordan, who leads the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, demanded the CIA chief come clean about the agency’s alleged involvement in branding the laptop as Russian disinformation, which plainly amounted to election interference.

“We understand that former intelligence officials often return to the intelligence community under private contract for their previous agencies,” Jordan wrote. “It is vital to the Committees’ oversight to understand whether any of the signatories of the public statement were actively employed by CIA as contractors or consultants at the time they signed the public statement.”

“If so,” Jordan added, “this information would raise fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA as it pertains to the October 19, 2020, ‘Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails’ signed and published by 51 former intelligence community officials in the weeks preceding the 2020 presidential election.”

A report from the Weaponization Committee in May revealed the CIA’s covert involvement in orchestrating the letter. Evidence that surfaced from Hunter Biden’s laptop unveiled blockbuster details about the Biden family’s influence-peddling operations now at the center of a Republican impeachment inquiry.

[READ: CIA Solicited Signatures For Hunter Biden Laptop Letter, Congressional Testimony Shows]

In his Monday letter to the CIA chief, Jordan demanded a list of all signatories to the letter “who were on active contract or consulting for the CIA at any time from January 1, 2020, to the present,” as well as whether any of those potential contracts “pertained to Hunter Biden’s business dealings, Biden family influence-peddling, Ukraine, or the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.”

Several of the intelligence letters’ signatories have since doubled down on the debunked claims of Russian interference despite the laptop having been verified even by news outlets that first dismissed the computer’s legitimacy. Charges that the laptop stemmed from a Kremlin campaign were even debunked by rare on-the-record statements from the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of National Intelligence, and the State Department before Election Day. However, the laptop was suppressed by major online platforms, at least in part over the allegations that it was Russian propaganda.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper defended signing the letter in an interview with New York Magazine last fall, with the magazine noting that “Clapper was not pleased to be asked about the letter two years after its release.”

“What are you trying to get me to say, that I screwed up and I shouldn’t have signed the letter? I’m not going to say that,” Clapper told the paper. “As far as I was concerned, we were waving the yellow flag. At the time, it was fishy to me. It had the characteristics of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, who led the agency under President Barack Obama, likewise told Fox News in October, “No, I don’t have any regrets” about signing the letter.

Last week, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., became the latest to peddle the fake Russia narrative at a hearing on censorship with the House Weaponization Committee.

“The problem,” Goldman said about the laptop, “is that hard drives can be manipulated by Rudy Giuliani or Russia.”

In April, House Republicans expanded oversight inquiries surrounding the Politico letter to include Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In a letter to Blinken, lawmakers wrote, “[W]e have learned that you played a role in the inception of this statement while serving as a Biden campaign advisor, and we therefore request your assistance with our oversight.”

Jordan gave CIA Director Burns until Dec. 15 to comply with the congressional request for records.

Read the full letter from Jordan to the CIA below:https://www.scribd.com/embeds/690706131/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-Tbq648AcGGRZj45uKoS7

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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The BorderLine: Biden Prefers to Put Your Safety at Risk and Play Recidivism Roulette With Criminal Aliens

By: Simon Hankinson / December 07, 2023

ICE agents arrest illegal immigrant — With his virtual revolving door of a southern border, Joe Biden is allowing untold numbers of illegal aliens who’ve already committed crimes in their home countries to enter the United States to commit more here. Pictured: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehend an illegal immigrant with a criminal record in an early morning raid on Sep. 8, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Simon Hankinson

Simon Hankinson, a former foreign service officer with the State Department, is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.

The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.

———————————————————

Thanks to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, every American is forced to play a game of “recidivist roulette” with criminal aliens. In addition to installing a virtual revolving door at the border, the Biden administration has spiked immigration law enforcement in the interior of the country, putting the lie to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ oft-repeated whopper that “our border is not open, that crossing irregularly is against the law, and that those who are not eligible for relief will be quickly returned [to their home countries].”

More than two years ago—before the Biden administration started mass releases and parole of illegal aliens caught at the southern border—there were already over 400,000 convicted criminal foreigners walking free throughout the United States. That’s 400,000 convicted criminals out of around 5 million illegal aliens on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket,” meaning all the aliens involved in deportation proceedings who, under U.S. law, should be detained while awaiting their hearings but are not.

With today’s social media, facial recognition, and amazing data tools, a lot of the 400,000 could be found, but ICE officers are so constrained by their political bosses that they are barely able to arrest anyone. The Biden administration has given ICE the paltry target of deporting just under 30,000 criminal aliens this fiscal year and the same for next year.

Roughly 4 million illegal aliens have been allowed into the U.S. since Biden took office, at least an estimated 1.8 million of whom were “gotaways”—those thought to have entered the U.S. but not identified or arrested. Given the number, age, and origin of all the illegal aliens entering the country, it’s certain that a percentage of them have criminal records and that Biden is thus adding more convicts per year to our population than ICE is subtracting.

Over 70% of U.S. state prisoners (both citizens and foreigners) are re-arrested within five years of release. It’s a fair bet that released or paroled aliens with foreign criminal records (that are undiscoverable or unknown to the Department of Homeland Security), re-offend at similar rates. And logically, it would be even higher for the gotaways who deliberately avoid detection.

The costs of recidivism, or re-offending, by criminal aliens are borne by Americans, including physical and financial harm to victims, diverted law enforcement resources, and burdens on the entire criminal justice system.

Just a few of the many examples of preventable crimes resulting from Biden’s border policies will illustrate the risk we all put up with.

In August 2018, Jose Gonzalez-Flores, an illegal alien from Guatemala, rear-ended a family van near Chesterfield, Virginia, killing 4-year-old Elias Camacho. He was drunk—at 5 in the afternoon—and fled the scene of the accident. For that “involuntary manslaughter,” Gonzalez-Flores served 3 1/2 years in prison, after which ICE deported him back to Guatemala. A year later, he was back in the U.S. as a gotaway.

The Biden administration’s deliberate decision to divert all possible staff and money to processing illegal aliens at the border (to let them into the U.S. rather than turning them away) has allowed gotaway numbers to rise from the decade-long average of about 125,000 a year to at least 600,000 now.

Recidivist criminals like Gonzalez-Flores, and the cartels that smuggle them in, know that. So that their U.S. criminal records are not discovered, they avoid ports of entry and easily evade a Border Patrol thinned out by re-assignments off the border. ICE eventually found Gonzalez-Flores and re-arrested him in Virginia. He was charged with unlawful re-entry after deportation. After serving his latest 4-year sentence, he should be deported again.

On Nov. 24 of this year, ICE deported Cesar Antiono Rafael Lopez, an illegal alien wanted in Guatemala for rape. Border Patrol encountered him in Arizona in 2019 and was able to deport him a few days later under an expedited removal process created in 1996.

That process was intended to limit the release of illegal aliens into the U.S. at the border and to allow them to be more quickly deported. However, illegal aliens claiming that they have a “credible fear” of returning to their home countries for fear that they would face violence or government persecution can avoid removal and apply for asylum in the U.S. There is a very low bar for aliens to claim credible fear and avoid this quick process, and around 75% pass the test to enter the U.S. and the years-long asylum process.

Lopez illegally came back three more times, on June 3, June 8, and June 12, 2021. He was removed each time—most likely to only over the border to Mexico, given the speed of his re-entries. On his fourth try, he made it back as a gotaway. There had been no consequences for his earlier fails, although the government should have prosecuted him for the crime of illegal reentry.

Lopez remained in the U.S. for two years until this September, when he was arrested in Michigan on unspecified “local charges.” As often happens, local jail officials didn’t honor the detainer ICE had lodged with them. Detainers are a law enforcement courtesy where ICE asks state authorities to let it take custody of prisoners before they are released, so that the government can enforce federal immigration law. Probably due to local “sanctuary city” policies, the jail failed to inform ICE before it released Lopez, but ICE found and arrested him in October. A month later, Lopez was deported to Guatemala.

In September, Honduran illegal alien Kevin Castro-Garcia was charged with two murders in Nashville. Authorities found the burned body of victim Brandon Rivas-Noriega inside a torched car and the decomposing body of a second victim, Elmer Nahum Miranda-Martinez, in the trunk of a different car. Castro-Garcia is a member of Sur 13, a transnational criminal organization. He had already been deported from the U.S. twice before, in 2010 and again in 2018, but for him and other dangerous aliens, re-entering the U.S. illegally as a gotaway has never been easier.

In July, a 25-year old Haitian gotaway was released with a Notice to Appear before an immigration judge in Boston to explain why he should not be deported. But there are 55,000 asylum cases pending in Boston. The average wait there from court filing (assuming he bothered to file for asylum) to asylum hearing is about four years and growing. He didn’t make it that far, as on Oct. 3, police in Massachusetts arrested him for assaulting someone in his own household.

DHS knows it is releasing potential human time bombs into American communities every day. U.S. citizens only learn the risk when it’s too late. Unless we get control of our border by ending the flow of migrants making fraudulent asylum claims, enforcing immigration law in the interior, and getting Border Patrol back on the border, thousands of high-risk illegal aliens like those mentioned above will keep coming. Under Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security is failing at its “one job”—securing the American people from preventable threats.

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A Short History of Joe’s Long Record of Lying About Biden Inc.

BY: DAVID HARSANYI | DECEMBER 05, 2023

Biden Has Tense Exchange With Voter Over Age, Son Hunter: ‘You’re A Damn Liar’

Author David Harsanyi profile

DAVID HARSANYI

VISIT ON TWITTER@DAVIDHARSANYI

During a 2020 campaign event, then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden was asked by an Iowa man if the former’s son Hunter Biden had ever had “access to the Obama administration.” The future president, who had vowed to bring decorum and decency back to the White House, called the man a “damn liar” and “fat” and told him he was “too old” before insulting his IQ. This act of projection from Biden should have been a warning. It was modus operandi for Joe, whose preternatural dishonesty was impressive even for a politician, to question the mental fitness of those who caught him in a lie. Biden had done much the same to a reporter during his 1987 failed presidential run.

Biden would go on to contend on numerous occasions that he never once even spoke to his son Hunter about the family’s influence-peddling business. Joe claimed never to have “discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That’s a fact.”

As a Chicago ABC affiliate and the AP reported in an October 2019 story — helpfully headlined, “Joe Biden defends himself, son Hunter on Ukraine during Democratic debate following Trump accusations” — the former veep said he “never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We’ve always kept everything separate.”

Not a single thing.

When the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, indicating that Joe had lied, virtually the entire left-wing media regurgitated the claims of former intelligence officials — including known liars like James Clapper and John Brennan — that the story smacked of Russian “disinformation.” The story, allegedly discredited, was then censored by Big Tech and big media companies. Even Joe noted that the “vast majority of the intelligent people have come out and said there’s no basis at all.”

Well, we soon found out there was plenty of basis to the story. Hunter had hosted a dinner in a private room at Café Milano in D.C. with his dad and an executive from Burisma, the company that had enriched the Biden business. And in an email dated the next day, the Ukrainian exec thanked Hunter for the meeting with his dad.

In scores of other emails and texts, Hunter talks about his dad helping him secure payments and taking a cut. One of Hunter’s former business partners contends Joe was involved in the family business, as does Hunter’s former close friend, who testified under oath that Joe was on upwards of 20 calls with business associates.

At this point, there was overwhelming direct evidence that Joe was a willing participant, at the very least, in creating the impression that influence trading was happening and plenty of circumstantial evidence that the elder Biden was getting a 10 percent cut for the troubles.

As evidence of the president’s lies about his family’s influence-peddling business mounted, “fact-checkers” and the media began struggling to calibrate their defenses to correspond with the fresh information. While at first there had been “no evidence” that Biden knew anything — to say differently, was to peddle misinformation — suddenly there was “no evidence” that Biden had personally benefited from Hunter’s scheming (as if enriching your entire family wasn’t personal).

And this is when the partisan defenses of Joe began to see a dramatic decline in quality. One of my favorites was The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, who was not alone, arguing: “We know how important family is to the president. So, do you hang up on your son?”

It was probably familial love that induced James Biden to write brother Joe a personal check for $200,000, that — by complete happenstance – was the exact amount James had received from the failed Americore family venture on that very same day. Talk about crazy coincidences.

It was around this time, as well, that White House language began subtly shifting from blanket denials to finely tuned Clintonesque turns of phrase about Joe never being “in business with his son.”

This week, the House Oversight Committee released financial documents illustrating that Hunter signed off on monthly transfers to Joe through Owasco PC, a Biden shell company that pulled at least $5 million from the Chicom energy concerns in 2017 and 2018. The Daily Mail reports there were at least three payments, from September to November 2018, or a few months before Biden announced he was running for president.

Listen, the Biden family operated through at least 20 shell companies — as one does when running a completely above-board legit business venture. It’s not easy to keep up. Or, as Jon Hamm’s character quipped in “The Town,” you need a Venn diagram for these people.

You might recall that in 2020, Biden had claimed Hunter never “made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about — China.” But Hunter had not only tagged along on an Air Force Two trip to China in 2013, he’d introduced his dad to the Chinese banker he was teaming up with for a private equity fund.

So, I eagerly look forward to fact-checkers, media, and the White House clarifying why this is all just fine. It’s been a wild ride so far, so I bet the explanation is going to be amazing.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Bank Records Show China-Linked Company Made Direct Payments to Joe Biden

By: Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / December 04, 2023

This is at least the third example of a direct payment to Joe Biden that stems from a family-owned business entity. The difference is that these monthly payments came directly from a Biden company. Pictured: Biden departs Ireland’s Dublin Airport on Air Force One on Aoril 14 with his sister Valerie and son Hunter. (Photo: Julien Behal/Irish Government/Getty Images)

A Hunter Biden business entity tied to China made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden in the months leading up to the former vice president’s announcement that he would run for president in 2020, according to newly released subpoenaed bank records from the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. The monthly payments came from Owasco PC, which Hunter Biden set up as a business entity.

Biden, the president’s 53-year-old son, is under federal investigation for using Owasco PC’s corporate account to commit alleged tax crimes. Owasco PC has links to Chinese energy company CEFC, where the younger Biden was a partner. This is at least the third example of a direct payment to Joe Biden that stems from a family-owned business entity. What appears to be different here is that the payments came directly from a Biden company. Two previous payments appeared to filter indirectly through the president’s younger brother, James Biden.

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., noted in a video statement that the president previously claimed there was an “absolute wall” between his official government duties and his family’s business; claimed his family didn’t receive money from China; and claimed he didn’t talk to his son about his business dealings.

On each, Comer said, “This was a lie.”

🚨BREAKING🚨

Hunter Biden’s business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. The bank records don't lie.

Owasco PC received payments from Chinese-state linked companies & other shady entities. Joe Biden knew & benefitted from his family's business schemes. pic.twitter.com/MfvtA4yEZU
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) December 4, 2023

“Now, Hunter Biden’s legal team and the White House’s media allies claim Hunter’s corporate entities never made payments directly to Joe Biden,” Comer said. “We can officially add this latest talking point to the list of lies.”

“Today, the House Oversight Committee is releasing subpoenaed bank records that show Hunter Biden’s business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden,” the Kentucky Republican said.

“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer added.

The oversight panel is one of three House committees leading an impeachment inquiry into the senior Biden’s activities for evidence of influence peddling. The committee subpoenaed the financial records of Hunter Biden and of James Biden in September.

OwascoSubpoenas Download

The House-obtained records show that Hunter Biden’s business account, Owasco PC, received payments from companies linked to Communist China and from other foreign nationals and companies.

Records released by the committee show one monthly payment in September 2018 for $1,380. Also that year, James Biden wrote two separate checks to Joe Biden for $200,000 and $40,000, respectively. The checks were marked as “loan repayments,” but Comer’s committee has tied the payments directly to Biden family business transactions.

An FBI confidential informant said in a formal document that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden and another $5 million to Hunter Biden in 2016 when Biden was still Barack Obama’s vice president.

While he was vice president, Biden met with or communicated with several of his son’s business partners, records show.

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The Fight Against Sexualizing Kids Doesn’t Just Win Debates, It Wins Elections

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 01, 2023

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

During his debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday night, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was at his strongest on contentious culture-war issues, such as the merits of transgender medical interventions for kids and parental rights.

The governors from two of the nation’s most populous states offered Americans a preview of a 2028 White House showdown on Fox News, debating red and blue state governance. Both are popular two-term governors presiding over colossal coastal states with overwhelming control of their respective state legislatures, and both are also relatively young (Newsom is 56, DeSantis is 45) and well-funded, with presumably long careers ahead. So, while only one of the men on stage Thursday night is officially running for higher office, both eagerly capitalized on the opportunity to frame up a presidential race that’s still five years out. DeSantis was at his best when topics landed on hot-button cultural issues, from parents’ rights in education to California’s endless sexualizing of children.

Fox moderator Sean Hannity brought up Florida’s parental rights bill — which Democrats dishonestly branded as “Don’t Say Gay” — that DeSantis signed last year. The new law bans teachers from bringing mature sexual topics and transgender propaganda into kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.

“Should schools be focused on reading, writing, math, science, history, computers — and maybe leaving values, considering parents might have different values than teachers at school?” Hannity asked. “What is the role?”

“The role of the school is to educate kids, not indoctrinate kids,” DeSantis said. “It’s not to impose an agenda, it’s to do the basics.”

“What we’ve said in Florida is it’s inappropriate to tell a kindergartner that their gender is a choice, it’s inappropriate to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body,” DeSantis added. “California has that. They want to have that injected into the elementary school.”

DeSantis went on to highlight a book used to teach kids about gay sex called Gender Queer.

“Some of its blocked out,” DeSantis said with an image held up of a graphic illustrated porn scene. “You would not probably be able to put this on air.”

Gov. DeSantis (R-FL) and Gov. Newsom (D-CA) debate parental rights and book bans.

DeSantis: "This is a book that's in some of the schools in California … This is pornography, it's cartoons"

Newsom: "I don't like the way you demean and humiliate people you disagree with, Ron." pic.twitter.com/Vw63cD0OFq
— The Recount (@therecount) December 1, 2023

The demonstration was DeSantis’ second most-effective use of a visual after the poop-map moment highlighting human feces in San Francisco.

"Human feces is now a fact of life. Except when a communist dictator comes to town.”

Ron DeSantis brought a San Francisco poop map to the debate to illustrate California’s decline.

(Courtesy of Fox News Channel)

pic.twitter.com/CdTPDgqhXF
— The First (@TheFirstonTV) December 1, 2023

Newsom sought to justify the salacious content in K-12 classrooms, calling DeSantis’ efforts to sanitize leftist activists’ curricula a “banning binge.” The West Coast governor went on to list a series of authors Democrats falsely claim are prohibited in Florida.

[READ: There Are No Banned Books]

A moment later, DeSantis called out California’s radical efforts to become a refuge for trans-identified kids. Last year, Newsom signed a bill allowing gender-confused teens to seek irreversible medical interventions in the Golden State without parental consent.

“How in the heck is that honoring parents’ rights when you’re bringing people in from out of state to go around their parents’ backs and getting life-altering surgeries?” DeSantis asked. “It’s not for you to decide. It’s for the parents to decide.”

Ron DeSantis SKEWERS Gavin Newsom over his "radical" and "extreme" policy overriding parental rights in the name of "gender-affirming care." His bill prioritizes sterilizing drugs that will medicalize kids for the rest of their lives. #Debate https://t.co/PGdw9oRDSL pic.twitter.com/spEvUuGaQe
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) December 1, 2023

Newsom turned to emotional blackmail, citing the debunked left-wing talking point that transgender-identifying children are more prone to suicide. The data points to the contrary, however, with individuals more likely to suffer mental anguish when given easier access to transgender medical interventions.

Transgenderism and parental rights in education are winning issues for Republicans. The twin topics let the party go on offense just as the Virginia GOP did in 2021 with statewide triumphs in what had become a blue state.

Recent polls suggest more and more Americans are with Republicans on transgenderism and parental rights. A March survey from Parents Defending Education found, “75% of registered voters support legislation requiring schools to get parental consent before helping a student change their gender identity at school, while only 18% oppose this policy” (emphasis theirs).

A Gallup poll in June found that 55 percent of Americans believe it is “morally wrong” to attempt to “change” one’s sex, up from 51 percent two years ago. An overwhelming majority opposed bending sex requirements for athletic competitions.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Rep. Jim Jordan to Newsmax: Official Inquiry Vote Gives GOP Leverage

By Charlie McCarthy | Thursday, 30 November 2023 10:04 AM EST

A formal vote by the full House to authorize an impeachment inquiry will make “for a stronger case” against President Joe Biden for peddling influence through his family’s foreign business dealings, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Newsmax on Thursday. Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which is helping the Oversight and Accountability Committee probe the Bidens’ business dealings.

It was reported Wednesday that House Republicans are considering holding a formal vote next month to authorize the impeachment inquiry as the party looks to legitimize its investigation into wrongdoing.

“We would like to go to a formal vote for an impeachment inquiry. You don’t have to do that. We’re in an impeachment inquiry,” Jordan told “Wake Up America” co-host Rob Finnerty. “

“The speaker of the House said that there’s no requirement, but it’s a stronger case if you have to go to court to fight these things.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed some caution about the impeachment push, warning against a rush to judgment. But he says the evidence already uncovered by Republican chairmen is “alarming.”

Jordan told Finnerty that work remained before the House could consider an impeachment vote.

“We learned so much when we actually had Devon Archer, one of his [Hunter Biden’s] business partners, under oath in a deposition earlier this year … there’s a handful of key people that I think we do need to talk to, and then we make a decision based on all the facts, and what we may learn from those individuals, and how that squares with other testimony we’ve received and the documents.”

Jordan stressed that getting to a vote on impeachment “depends on the facts” and must be done properly.

“I do think this impeachment inquiry vote that we want to take in the House, and I think we’re gonna have the votes for it,” he said, “I think will be helpful when we inevitably have to go to court to get documents and to get these depositions done in the sequence that they need to be done,” the chair said.

Before his appearance concluded, Jordan was asked whether embattled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., should be expelled from the House. The chamber is expected to vote Friday on whether to expel Santos, who faces criminal corruption charges and new accusations that he misspent campaign money.

“I’m against it,” Jordan said. “I think that’s always a decision between the person in office and the voters back in his or her district. That’s how our system works, and we have due process. I’m against it.”

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Charlie McCarthy | editorial.mccarthy@newsmax.com

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Taking A Stand

A.F. BRANCO | on November 21, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-taking-a-stand/

Biden Age Issue — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023

Today, as I’m drawing this cartoon (November 20th, 2023), Joe Biden is celebrating his 81st birthday, so obviously, many are bringing up the question, “How old is too old to be president? But is age really the issue? There are many his age and older, much more mentally fit to be President than he is.

Trump, 77, is still cognitively vibrant, shows no sign of letting up, and is a stark contrast to stumbling bumbling Joe. In my opinion, Joe Biden has never been mentally fit to be president. So, I don’t think age is the issue, but instead of judging by age, maybe a mental test of some sort that I’m sure Biden wouldn’t be able to pass today.

DONATE to A.F. Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – 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.

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GOP Rep. Comer: Biden’s ‘Transparent’ Vow ‘Just Hot Air’

By Eric Mack | Monday, 20 November 2023 12:07 PM EST

In a potential foreshadowing of blocking responses to House Oversight Committee subpoenas, Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., took to X to call out President Joe Biden’s vow to be the most “transparent” president.

“The White House is withholding over 82,000 pages of Joe Biden’s pseudonym emails, refuses to provide proof that Joe loaned his brother money, and now seeks to block the Bidens and former staff from testifying before Congress,” Comer wrote Monday on X, sharing a video from his Newsmax appearance last week.

“@POTUS’s pledge to be transparent was just hot air.”

In that “Wake Up America” appearance, Comer announced Hunter Biden is expected to testify before House investigators before Dec. 4 under the orders of the subpoena. Though Hunter Biden’s lawyers had expressed an eagerness for Hunter Biden to testify, Comer said he has not gotten a reply on his subpoena.

One of the most recent subpoenas to Patrick Kevin Morris last week gives them until Wednesday to respond to Comer’s committee.

“If President Biden has nothing to hide, then he should make his current and former staff available to testify before Congress about his mishandling of classified documents,” Comer wrote in a statement Friday after receiving a letter from the special counsel to the president that told the committee, in its words: “The White House intends to continue obstructing our investigation.”

Eric Mack | editorial.mack@newsmax.com

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

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Biden Fell for China’s Empty-Promises Playbook at The San Francisco Summit

BY: HELEN RALEIGH | NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Author Helen Raleigh profile

HELEN RALEIGH

VISIT ON TWITTER@HRALEIGHSPEAKS

President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping met this week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. The Biden administration touted the meeting as a significant foreign policy achievement, even though it accomplished little but photo ops.

Leading up to the APEC meeting, Xi had a weak hand, while the leverage was on the U.S. side. China’s economic growth has slowed down significantly. Its once high-flying property sector crashed and exports dropped. The youth unemployment rate reached 22 percent in June 2023 before Beijing stopped publishing the data altogether out of fear of causing public panic. Foreign firms have pulled billions out of China, concerned over its weak economy, hostile regulatory environment, and geopolitical tensions with the U.S. China risks prolonged economic stagnation as consumers are unwilling to spend money due to financial and political uncertainty.

In contrast, the U.S. economy grew almost 5 percent in the third quarter despite facing its own

challenges, such as inflation and ballooning national debt. Since China needs American companies’ investments and technologies to revive its weak economy, Biden could have waited for Xi to plead for a summit and used it as leverage to demand some behavioral changes from China. Preconditions could have been that China’s military stops its harassment of Taiwan and the Philippines in the South China Sea, or no more funding Russia and Iran’s geopolitical aggressions by purchasing their oil.

Sadly, Biden and his foreign policy team are known to turn U.S. leverage into weakness by focusing on the wrong priorities. For example, they continue to believe that climate change is the world’s biggest challenge and that the U.S. needs China’s cooperation to save the planet, even though China remains the world’s biggest polluter after signing the Paris Climate Agreement.

Biden’s green initiatives have only deepened the U.S. economy’s dependency on China since the communist regime dominates the global supply chain for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries for electric vehicles due to its willingness to exploit slave laborers (most are ethnic minorities) and the nation’s abundant supply of coal.

Biden, led by misguided policies, sent several cabinet-level officials to China, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They practically begged Xi for a meeting. Xi, of course, played hard to get. Rather than reciprocating senior U.S. government officials’ multiple visits, Xi waited until last month to send Wang Yi, China’s minister of foreign affairs, to visit the U.S. and only recently agreed to a meeting with Biden.

A few days before the summit, China’s People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), faulted the U.S. for the deterioration of the Sino-U.S. relationship and demanded the U.S. “abandon its aggressive Cold War and aggressive mindset, fix the ‘action deficit’ with practical actions and concrete policies,” even though China is the one who has an action deficit as wide as the Grand Canyon. Remember when Xi promised President Barack Obama not to militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea and then armed those islands anyway and claimed 90 percent of the international waterway is Chinese territory?

Communist Party’s Playbook

What Xi has been doing is following the typical CCP playbook. Miles Yu, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, points out that CCP leaders, starting with Mao, love to “use international gatherings to lend legitimacy to [a] beleaguered regime at home.” By playing hard to get with the Biden administration, Xi hid his weakened hand behind a strongman image. He “seeks to send the message to his caged people — aided by the CCP’s relentless propaganda machine — that their supreme leader is respected, even revered, on the global stage,” according to Yu. Another CCP go-to tactic is to make vague and unenforceable pledges for the distant future in exchange for concessions from the other side now.

Unfortunately, the Biden team fell for the CCP’s trick. In a post-summit press conference, Biden put on a brave face and claimed the summit was “among the most constructive and productive we’ve had,” with three key agreements: to restart cooperation on controlling fentanyl, to resume direct (high-level) military-to-military contact, and to set up expert exchanges on risks and safety issues in artificial intelligence (AI).

But none of these represent any meaningful achievement, since the CCP is known for making empty promises, and the joke is on whoever believes them. On the fentanyl issue, many China observers, including Kelley Currie, a former diplomat, quickly pointed out on X, “Don’t forget that China agreed to do this exact thing in 2019 and dramatically reduced the flow of fentanyl out of China, only to switch tactics and instead supply mass amounts of precursor chemicals to Mexican cartels.”

On the AI issue, China promised nothing. Xi has made enhancing the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities through AI a national priority and has already committed plenty of resources for AI research and development. Xi will not change his course because of some experts’ exchanges on AI with Americans. If such a discussion occurs, China will exploit it to identify which American AI expert to poach and what latest AI technology China should steal.

Military Aggression

Biden clearly believes that resuming direct, high-level military-to-military contact between the U.S. and China was a significant accomplishment. He tweeted, “Clear and open communication between our defense establishments is vital to avoid miscalculation by either side and prevent conflict.” But it was Chinese military leaders who refused to pick up phone calls from the U.S. side, and they did so under Xi’s order.

Chinese pilots frequently made dangerous maneuvers near the U.S. and its allies’ military assets in the South China Sea, not because of a lack of communication but because of Xi’s deliberate policy decision: China regards the international water as its territory and tries to block the U.S. and its allies from accessing it through intimidation. According to Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, “China wants the United States and its partners to feel worried about rising military and security risks in East Asia.”

It’s unlikely the Chinese military’s aggressive behavior in and above the South China Sea will stop after the Biden-Xi summit. Furthermore, Elbridge Colby, a former Pentagon official, points out that military-to-military communication is “not vital. It’s not the key issue.” Responding to Biden’s self-congratulatory tweet, Colby wrote, “The key issue is China undertaking a historic military buildup and increasingly using that military to get ready for a war, as your own appointees and generals point out. Just really nowhere near the seriousness we need.”

President Biden and his foreign policy team want Americans to believe that his meeting with Xi in San Francisco was successful. But in truth, the U.S. gained nothing from the Biden-Xi summit. Don’t expect Xi to fulfill any promises or change his policies. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s recent 753-page report to Congress presented evidence that Xi is preparing his military forces and the rest of the country for war and treats diplomacy with the United States, such as the most recent Biden-Xi summit, “primarily as a tool for forestalling and delaying U.S. pressure over a period of years while China moves ever further down the path of developing its own economic, military, and technological capabilities.”

If anything, the world is becoming more dangerous after the Biden-Xi summit, and we are on Xi’s timeline.

Helen Raleigh, CFA, is an American entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. She’s a senior contributor at The Federalist. Her writings appear in other national media, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Helen is the author of several books, including “Confucius Never Said” and “Backlash: How Communist China’s Aggression Has Backfired.” Her latest book is the 2nd edition of “The Broken Welcome Mat: America’s UnAmerican immigration policy, and how we should fix it.” Follow her on Parler and Twitter: @HRaleighspeaks.

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Biden Can’t Be Trusted to Confront the Chinese Communists Who Pay His Family Millions

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Biden and Xi raise a toast at luncheon at the White House

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

President Joe Biden met Chinese dictator Xi Jinping for high-level talks in California on Wednesday, marking the first time the two leaders have spoken face-to-face in a year. While specific details of the conversation will assuredly remain under wraps, a White House readout of the discussion indicates that Biden and Xi covered a variety of hot-button issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s defense against Hamas terrorists in the Middle East, and Taiwan. The two leaders also agreed to revive communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.

Given Biden and his administration’s history of getting humiliated in talks with their Chinese counterparts, it wasn’t surprising that Wednesday’s meeting didn’t produce any headway on holding China accountable for its human rights violations, military aggression, or cover-up of Covid-19’s origins. But aside from Biden’s incompetence at juggling U.S. foreign policy, Wednesday’s U.S.-China talks raised a far more concerning question. How can Biden be trusted to manage U.S. relations with China when he and his family have received millions of dollars from Chinese entities connected to the Chinese Communist Party?

The Paper Trail

Despite Joe Biden claiming on national television that his son, Hunter, “has not made money” from Chinese entities, the New York Post published a bombshell story in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, sourced to Hunter’s laptop, which called Biden’s assurances into question. Emails from the laptop showed Hunter had “pursued lucrative deals” with CEFC China Energy Co., a Chinese energy giant that operates as “an arm of the Chinese Government.”

As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, one email obtained by the Post showed Hunter describing a business transaction as “interesting for me and my family.” Another listed the younger Biden as “‘Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC’ with pay at ‘850’ and could offer monetary compensation for six people.”

“Those involved in the email from James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR, including Hunter, were allegedly part of the four people who created a ‘provisional agreement’ to split 80 percent of the ‘equity’ of the company equally with ’10 for Jim’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy,’” Boyd wrote. While “Jim” is in reference to Joe’s older brother James Biden, a highly credible confidential human source has since corroborated that “big guy” was a moniker used to refer to Joe Biden.

Hunter’s dealings with CEFC often involved Ye Jianming, the since-arrested head of CEFC who has ties to China’s military. In early 2017, Hunter worked for Ye “as a counselor and adviser” and was later hired by CEFC in September 2017 to serve as defense counsel for Chinese businessman Patrick Ho, “despite his little experience in criminal defense.” Ho — who served as Ye’s “top lieutenant” and whom Hunter referred to as “the f-cking spy chief of China” — was arrested and later convicted by the Justice Department for bribing the presidents of several African countries.

Bank records obtained by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office indicate that Hunter was paid $1 million for representing Ho. According to Yahoo News, however, “it is not clear what work, if any, [Hunter] did for Ho,” with court records of Ho’s case “show[ing] no indication that Biden or his law firm at the time … participated in Ho’s legal defense.”

A bevy of communication records released by the House Ways and Means Committee in September included a December 2018 WhatsApp text exchange between Hunter and Hallie Biden — who was the widow of Joe’s other son, Beau, and dated Hunter after Beau’s passing — lamenting Ho’s arrest and Ye’s disappearance. The records also showed how Hunter sold the Biden “brand” to overseas business associates to increase the family’s fortunes.

But as additional evidence released by House Republicans has shown, the Bidens’ financial connections with CEFC and its associates run deeper than previously known, and in several cases, further implicate Joe Biden. Despite the elder Biden repeatedly denying involvement in his family’s foreign business ventures, Hunter’s communication records indicate that Joe was keenly aware of his son’s overseas financial interests and served as a primary force behind the operation.

A series of July 2017 WhatsApp messages sent by Hunter to Chinese businessman Raymond Zhao show the younger Biden leveraging “his father’s name and threaten[ing] CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with Ye.” In his messages, Hunter explicitly stated, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.” He further threatened to leverage “the man sitting next to me and every person he knows” to punish Zhao should he fail to follow through on the arrangement.

Within 10 days of that conversation, a CEFC subsidiary poured roughly $5 million into a Biden-linked bank account. Bank records recently obtained by House Republicans show that on the same day, Hunter “transferred $400,000 out of [that account] and into his corporation, Owasco P.C.,” before wiring $150,000 of these CEFC-tied funds to a company owned by James and his wife, Sara, who withdrew $50,000 from said company and deposited the money into their personal checking account. Less than a month later, on Sept. 3, 2017, Sara signed a $40,000 check to Joe, claiming it represented a “loan repayment.”

As noted by The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland, “the $40,000 Joe ‘the Big Guy’ Biden received was exactly 10 percent of the $400,000 Hunter Biden received from CEFC.”

Untrustworthy at Best

OMG… is this real? pic.twitter.com/wqSUp1RK2l
— @amuse (@amuse) November 15, 2023

At a time when China is becoming increasingly aggressive towards the U.S. and its allies, Americans need leaders doing everything in their power to stand up for U.S. interests and limit threats to their security. But with Biden at the helm, that’s no longer a guarantee.

Lunch Bucket Joe and his family’s financial ties to individuals and entities connected to Beijing’s communist government make him a liability for the United States. Americans can’t — and shouldn’t — trust that Biden’s judgment over anything having to do with U.S.-China relations is fully within their best interests.

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

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Why Joe Biden’s Poll Numbers Are Even Worse for Democrats Than They Think

BY: KYLEE GRISWOLD | NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Author Kylee Griswold profile

KYLEE GRISWOLD

VISIT ON TWITTER@KYLEEZEMPEL

Democrats have one huge, unavoidable problem. And his name is Joe Biden.

According to recent polls, GOP front-runner and former President Donald Trump would beat Biden if the 2024 election were held today. A Quinnipiac poll out Wednesday shows Biden with 46 percent and Trump with 48 percent among registered voters, still within the margin of error and too close to call. However, a new Fox News poll, also out Wednesday, shows that in a head-to-head, the former president would prevail with 50 percent to Biden’s 46 — a number Trump has never garnered in a Fox poll going back to October 2015.

Do these numbers and thin margins mean anything? Maybe not. We are still a year from the election. And if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that polls are traditionally garbage and are used far more often as tools to shape public opinion than to reflect it. But there are deeper and far more meaningful insights to mine from the survey, and they don’t spell good things for the Democrat Party.

For instance, it’s worth noting that not only does Biden appear to be losing generally to Trump, but the incumbent is losing his own dependable voters to his rival. Polls show Biden is hemorrhaging black, Hispanic, suburban, and young voters — all demographics that reliably vote Democrat. It could have something to do with how Biden has handled major crises he’s either caused or exacerbated. According to Quinnipiac, voters disapprove of his response to the Hamas attack and subsequent fallout (54 percent disapproval to 37 percent approval), his economy (59 to 37 percent), his foreign policy (61 to 34 percent), his border crisis (65 to 26 percent), and his response to the Russia-Ukraine war (49 to 47 percent).

The implications are simple. Voters are confronting a rare moment in U.S. history in which they can actually compare what it’s like to live under the leadership, or lack thereof, of the two major presidential candidates. Do they want Bidenomics or the affordable grocery and gas prices of the Trump era? Do they want war in the Middle East — or Eastern Europe or the South China Sea — or peace? Do they want an open border or national security? The Trump-Biden decision is an increasingly easy calculation for voters to make.

So, Democrats are stuck. And they did this to themselves, largely by closing off the possibility of a primary and instead committing to dragging Joe’s corpse across the finish line.

And yes, that really is the strategy. It’s not that Biden is a strong candidate by any measure, save for maybe his incumbency, but again, even that’s in doubt after his disastrous first term. He’s a demonstrably weak candidate, especially compared to Trump — another reality easily extrapolated from the polls.

On the Republican side — which, in contrast to Democrats, is still choosing to slog through primary election theatrics — the second-tier candidates are a notable governor and former governor, both beloved by their states and beyond. And Trump is still leading them by some 50 points. He’s got 48 points on Ron DeSantis and 51 on Nikki Haley. If prominent leftist governors such as Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer were to challenge Biden for the Democrat nomination, there’s no way he’d have that kind of lead.

This week there have been murmurs of a potential challenger — just maybe not who you would have expected. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was on Capitol Hill hobnobbing with Sen. Chuck Schumer on Wednesday and refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he’ll run for president. This after he divulged last week that the parties did approach him last year. And you can see the twinkle in Democrats’ eyes at the thought of dumping weak, old Biden for his antithesis. Here’s Schumer flirting with The Rock on X after their meeting, posting cutesy little lyrics from one of the actor’s Disney roles.

But while Democrats might view The Rock as an exit strategy, they still have a monumental problem to overcome: Voters aren’t just fed up with Biden, they’re fed up with Democrat policies both foreign and domestic.

There’s no denying Democrats have become the party of mass illegal immigration. Every town is a border town, and even urbanites are done with the Democrat policies overrunning their cities with aliens who suck resources dry. Speaking of cities, left-wing policies have destroyed them, from Portland and Seattle to Washington, D.C. Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies have caused violence in these places to skyrocket, with carjackings up more than 100 percent since last year and violent crime up 40 percent in our nation’s capitol. In fact, just this week D.C.’s disaster of a mayor declared a state of emergency because youth violent crime has gotten so bad. Meanwhile, Democrats have also become the party of inflation, war, no-limits abortion, transing kids, weaponizing the federal government, terrorist sympathizing, and every other anti-America policy position you can imagine.

That takes a strong leader to overcome. Sure, The Rock does a magnificent job at the role he plays in every movie, but he’s not that leader. And besides, would today’s Democrat Party really vote for a candidate who’s a Joe Rogan bro and friends with Trump supporters?

So, Democrats are left to lie with sleepy Joe in the bed they made for themselves. It’s hard to feel sorry for them.

Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.

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FOX NEWS POLL: SUPPORT FOR TRUMP HITS 62% IN GOP PRIMARY

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Latest national poll spells more trouble for Biden, shows him trailing all 3 top GOP candidates

By Thomas Catenacci Fox News | Published November 16, 2023 4:00pm EST

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley weighs in on President Biden’s upcoming visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., not running for re-election.

A new national poll released Wednesday showed President Biden trailing all three lead GOP presidential candidates: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

According to the survey, conducted this month by Marquette Law School, Trump has an advantage of 52% to 48% over Biden among registered voters, while DeSantis holds a 51% to 49% advantage in a head-to-head matchup with the president. And Haley, who also previously served as governor of South Carolina, holds a 55% to 45% edge over Biden, the largest lead among Republican candidates.

The survey showed that Trump’s edge over Biden has grown considerably since July, when Marquette’s poll showed the pair tied at 50%. It further showed DeSantis’ lead over Biden has remained consistent in that same time span.

And while all three of the top Republican candidates lead Biden, Trump is the only one who leads among Independent voters. Haley, meanwhile, has the largest support among Democrat voters compared to Trump and DeSantis.

Trump has an edge of 54% to 46% over Biden among independents. Biden leads DeSantis 53% to 47% and Haley 51% to 49% among Independents.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

At the same time, Haley draws the support of 15% of Democrat voters, while Trump gets 11% and DeSantis gets 8%.

In addition, the Marquette poll showed Trump, for the first time this year, has taken a lead among registered voters who report being reluctant to choose either him or Biden. Trump leads Biden in that category by a margin of 53% to 47%, a big shift from Biden’s 55% to 42% lead as recently as September.

Haley and DeSantis — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley holds a 10-point lead over President Biden, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a two-point lead over the president, the Marquette poll showed. (Getty Images)

The most recent poll comes as the White House continues to claim it is not concerned about polling, which continues to show Biden’s approval rating falling and his 2024 prospects waning.

JAMES CARVILLE WARNS DEMOCRATS OF DANGER LOOMING WITH SINKING BLACK TURNOUT IN 2024: ‘ABYSMALLY LOW’ IN 2022

“I mean, look, I spoke to this yesterday,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this month. “And what I said is you have to take these polls… with a grain of salt, right? And I talked about 2020… and what we saw in 2020 and what was being reported then. And what we saw is a president that was… able to bring an incredibly strong, diverse coalition to win in 2020. We saw the same thing in 2022.”

“So, look, we don’t put much stock in… polls,” she continued. “The president is going to focus on delivering for the American people. He has an agenda that is incredibly popular, and that matters. And that’s going to be what the president is going to focus on: How do we continue to deliver for the American people? And that’s the focus.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month that the White House doesn’t “put much stock” in polls. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Democrat strategists, though, warned that Biden’s poor polling performance shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I want [Biden] to consider what is best in terms of the goal that I know he is committed to, which is defeating Donald Trump,” David Axelrod, a former senior Obama campaign adviser, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Nov. 6.

“And if he believes, based on not just what [is] in his heart but what’s in the data and what he’s being told, that he has the best chance to do it, then he should run. But you know, the thing that irritates me a little bit, Wolf, is this notion that people who are concerned are ‘bedwetters.'”

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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The Gun Joe Biden Doesn’t Want You To Have Just Protected His Own Granddaughter

BY: REBEKA ZELJKO | NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Secret Service reportedly opened fire Sunday night on three suspects attempting to break into an unmarked government vehicle parked in front of the Georgetown home of Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter. Reports allege that the three offenders fled the scene after the gunfire started.

These types of scenarios are exactly why Americans advocate for the Second Amendment, but unfortunately, not all citizens have the same protection the Biden family is afforded.

The average DC resident does not have protection from the Secret Service, as Naomi Biden does:

– 760 carjackings occurred in 2023

– 65% of those arrested for carjacking are juveniles

– Graves prosecuted only 56% of those arrested in 2023 pic.twitter.com/3atphWS9oS
— Wendell Husebø (@WendellHusebo) November 13, 2023

Residents of Washington, D.C., are forced to navigate an onslaught of regulation and red tape before they can use firearms for self-preservation. According to D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, residents have the “authority to carry firearm[s]” only in “certain places and for certain purposes.” Concealed carry requires a variety of applications and training, while “open carry is prohibited.”

IMAGE CREDITMPDC / DC POLICE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE

Meanwhile, crime in the District of Columbia is out of control. So far, violent crime is up almost 40 percent in 2023 over 2022, according to D.C.’s preliminary reports. Homicide and robbery are up 32 and 68 percent, respectively, while motor vehicle theft is up nearly 100 percent over last year. On Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency over the juvenile crime crisis.

Yet stringent gun laws are especially common in high-crime areas, making it even more difficult for citizens to protect themselves. And in the face of rampant crime, many law-abiding citizens are left defenseless at the direction of lawmakers and an executive branch that enjoys the protection of armed security details. The Council on Criminal Justice reports that across 37 U.S. cities, violent crime is up since 2019, with “24% more homicides during the first half of 2023” compared to the first half of 2019, and “motor vehicle thefts more than doubled (+104%).”

Naomi Biden isn’t the only one getting special treatment when it comes to firearms, however. Her dad, Hunter Biden allegedly lied about his drug use on a federal form to purchase a revolver in 2018 — a bombshell the public didn’t learn about until a few months after his father was safely installed in the White House in 2021. Later, Joe Biden’s DOJ struck a sweetheart plea deal with Hunter, which posited that if the Biden son pled guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges, he would get broad immunity for other crimes, including no prosecution for his illegal possession of a firearm. Luckily, that deal fell apart thanks to an astute federal judge.

Then last month, Hunter Biden pled not guilty to three federal firearms charges. And while his lawyers claim the underlying law is unconstitutional, even Politico recognizes that argument “stands in stark contrast to President Joe Biden’s advocacy for stricter gun laws.”

The double standard is clear: gun rights for the Biden family and their elite friends, not for everyone else. As Biden said of the Second Amendment last year, it’s “not absolute” — for you, at least.

Jesse Watters EXPOSES how Deep State is really PROTECTING Biden by charging Hunter with gun crime… pic.twitter.com/oQo3pECqG9
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 15, 2023

The firearm hierarchy is not unique to the Bidens. Political and cultural elites alike have benefitted from guns while simultaneously pushing anti-gun legislation. Along with the Bidens, other Democrat politicians are some of the worst offenders. For instance, the notoriously anti-gun former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had her own armed security detail to protect her home and office. Former New York City Mayor and Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg also demanded gun control while being protected by armed guards. Both lived comfortably under the protection of firearms while the citizens of their crime-ridden cities were left facing unmanageable gun regulations — and these politicos are just the tip of the iceberg.

This blatant hierarchy reveals the truth that Biden and other Democrats refuse to acknowledge: Guns can preserve life. And though Biden claims gun control is “about protecting children. It’s about protecting families. It’s about protecting whole communities,” his family’s own security details are proof that guns are actually the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones.

REBEKA ZELJKO

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Willfully Blind David Weiss Pinky Promises Political Favoritism Didn’t Affect Hunter Biden Probe

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | NOVEMBER 13, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

Politics absolutely, positively had no bearing on the Hunter Biden investigation, Delaware U.S. Attorney-turned-Special Counsel David Weiss assured the House Judiciary Committee last week. Yet Weiss also acknowledged it would be a “problem” if someone had warned Joe Biden’s transition team of FBI agents’ impending plan to interview the president-elect’s son, as whistleblowers say occurred. Weiss just didn’t bother to ask anyone about the leak or any other concerns of political favoritism, showing the federal prosecutor has opted for willful blindness over oversight of the Hunter Biden criminal probe — even after his appointment as special counsel.

On Tuesday, Weiss sat for an interview before the House Judiciary Committee. A transcript of Weiss’s testimony, which The Federalist has reviewed, shows the special counsel faced several questions about claims that political favoritism infected the Hunter Biden investigation.

But even before the questioning began, in a brief opening statement, Weiss declared that “political considerations played no part in our decision making.” Rather, the Delaware U.S. attorney, doing double duty as special counsel, assured the committee that “throughout this investigation, career prosecutors on my team and I have made decisions based on the facts and the law.”

Weiss repeated that mantra several times during questioning about specific steps his team took — or didn’t take — in the Hunter Biden investigation. “Again, I’m not going to comment on any aspect of the investigation or a prosecution, and from my perspective, the prosecutors who participated in this case followed the law and the facts. That was the motivation.”

Of course, that was Weiss’s “perspective” because, even after the IRS whistleblowers provided concrete examples of the politicization of the Hunter Biden investigation, the U.S. attorney buried his head in the sand rather than inquire about the veracity of the claims. The totality of Weiss’s testimony confirms this reality, but it is best exemplified in an exchange about the warning given to President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team that agents intended to interview Hunter Biden.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley had previously testified that the day before their Dec. 8, 2020 “day of action,” when agents planned to interview a host of relevant witnesses, he learned someone had tipped off Joe Biden’s transition team of the plans to interview Hunter Biden and another 10-plus witnesses. “This essentially tipped off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses,” Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee.

The House Judiciary Committee asked Weiss if he knew “who made the decision to tip off the presidential transition team about the day of action, and that the investigators wanted to try to speak with Hunter Biden.” Weiss initially responded that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to comment on the matter but that he would address the question in his special counsel report.

A Concerning Connection

However, additional questioning soon reviewed a concerning connection between the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office and the Biden transition team, in the person of Alexander Mackler, whom Weiss acknowledged had been one of his assistant U.S. attorneys from 2016 through about mid-2019. According to the committee’s questioning, Mackler had at one point served as Joe Biden’s press secretary, had been Beau Biden’s campaign manager during his reelection campaign, and from 2014-2016 served as deputy counsel to then-Vice President Biden. While Weiss testified, he knew Mackler had worked for Biden, he said he didn’t know many of those specifics. However, Weiss acknowledged learning that Mackler had been named to Biden’s transition team, although he said he couldn’t remember when or how he had learned of that fact.

The House Judiciary Committee then pushed Weiss on whether he or anyone else from his office had any communications with Mackler while he was working with the transition team. While Weiss stated he was “very confident” he “had no conversations” with Mackler about the latter’s work on the transition team or about the Hunter Biden case, Weiss said he had “no idea whether anyone else has spoken to Alex Mackler period or about the case.”

Weiss further testified that he was actually unaware of whether the transition team had been tipped off, as IRS whistleblowers claimed. But if so, Weiss confirmed it would be “a concern” and “a problem” and that “it shouldn’t happen.” Yet when pushed on what he would do to address the problem if he “found out that something like that did occur,” Weiss refused to answer the question, saying it was “a hypothetical” that he would not “speculate on” other than saying that “as a general matter, it’s problematic.”

Willful Blindness

On first blush, Weiss’s non-answers about the tip-off to the transition team seem like inconsequential, unhelpful responses that merely lead to a dead end. But Weiss’s acknowledged ignorance is explosive news: The man that Attorney General Merrick Garland named as special counsel to supposedly ensure independence in the investigation and prosecution of the president’s son failed to inquire of his team about whether someone had leaked to the transition team details about the impending questioning of Hunter Biden. In fact, according to Weiss, he didn’t even bother to confirm the tip-off had occurred — much less seek to determine who bore responsibility for the leak — even though he knew that a former Delaware assistant U.S. attorney served on the Biden transition team.

Weiss’s failure in this regard was not an aberration. Rather, throughout his House Judiciary Committee testimony last week, Weiss confirmed he has ignored the whistleblowers’ claims of politicization. For instance, when asked whether “any of the attorneys on your team, whether it’s a Special Counsel team or before the Special Counsel team was stood up, have any ties which you would consider close to the Biden family,” Weiss said he doesn’t “delve into those kinds of things,” but that he is “unaware of any such thing.”

Weiss’s failure to inquire about his staff’s relationship with the Biden family may have made sense initially but given the two whistleblowers’ detailed allegations of political favoritism, not asking some basic questions to ensure an unbiased staff is inexcusable.

Weiss’s failures extend much further, however, with his Tuesday testimony confirming he has not reviewed his staff’s handling of the investigation in light of the whistleblowers’ testimony that there were “politically-motivated decisions made in the Hunter Biden case.” Specifically, while Weiss acknowledged the whistleblowers’ claims, his responses to questions show he disregarded the claims without any inquiry. For instance, when asked, “If an investigator or prosecutor makes what is believed to be a politically-motivated statement or decision, how is that reviewed in your office?” Weiss responded that he was “not aware of such a situation.”

The House committee pushed the special counsel more on this point, asking: “For example, on the Hunter Biden case, if one of your assistant United States attorneys was exhibiting favoritism towards the Biden family or towards Hunter Biden, and that was brought to your attention, what would be the process to sort that out?”

“My office has no process or protocol for dealing with something like that. It’s not something we have engaged in, participated in, or that I have experienced,” Weiss countered. Weiss held firm under additional questioning, stating he was “not aware of any such reviews.”

“I’ve told you. I have no such process. We haven’t experienced it in our office,” Weiss insisted.

Head in the Sand

This testimony establishes that Weiss has done nothing to review his team’s handling of the Hunter Biden investigation for possible political bias, notwithstanding the whistleblowers’ detailed claims of such favoritism. No wonder then that Weiss can say he has confidence in his prosecutors and believes they acted “in a professional and unbiased manner without partisan or political considerations.”

Ironically, if this were a criminal case in which federal prosecutors needed to establish the defendant’s knowledge of some sort of “shady dealings,” the U.S. attorney’s office would seek what is collegially called the “ostrich instruction.” The “ostrich instruction” informs the jury that a deliberate effort “to avoid guilty knowledge is all the guilty knowledge the law requires,” and that a defendant who knows or strongly suspects “he is involved in shady dealings” cannot avoid criminal liability by making sure “he does not acquire full or exact knowledge of the nature and extent of those dealings.”

While there is no suggestion that Weiss is a co-conspirator in some criminal enterprise, he is similarly burying his head in the sand when it comes to the politicization of the Biden investigation exposed by the IRS whistleblowers and congressional oversight committees. Thus, his assurances that “political considerations played no part in our decision making” are meaningless.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Clean For Xi but Not for Thee: Democrats Hastily Clean Up San Francisco Ahead of Chinese Visit

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | NOVEMBER 13, 2023

California Democrats hastily cleaned up San Francisco last week ahead of the upcoming state visit between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Friday, The New York Times described the scene in the city as one of “teenagers frantically cleaning up after a house party with their parents on the way home.”

“On Market Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, maintenance workers resurfaced uneven sidewalks and installed plywood over empty tree wells,” the Times reported. “Nearby, a crew gave a long-derelict plaza a makeover by turning it into a skateboard park and outdoor cafe with pingpong tables, chess boards and scores of potted plants. Elsewhere, workers painted decorative crosswalks and new murals, wiped away graffiti, picked up piles of trash and removed scaffolding to show off a refurbished clock tower at the Ferry Building.”

Why the sudden clean up after years of decay? Xi will be arriving Wednesday. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, which began Saturday, will draw 21 world leaders from Pacific nations along with 30,000 people to the Golden City. Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted last week the quick cleanup effort was provoked by “fancy leaders” who are “coming to town.”

“That’s true,” Newsom said.

Gavin Newsom just admitted that they only cleaned up the streets of San Fran because "fancy leaders" were coming to town.

The reality: They were always capable of this but they don’t care about your safety. They care about the safety of the elite. You’re expendable to them. pic.twitter.com/BPedyEjn3q
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 13, 2023

As government officials work to power wash transit stations and clear homeless encampments in major areas, residents openly wondered what took leaders so long to clean up one of California’s largest cities.

“What about the people who are here year-round?” Marc Savino asked a local Fox affiliate.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed pledged cleanup efforts will continue even after the conference closes.

“We will continue to do everything we can to maintain cleanliness in our streets,” Breed said at a press conference.

There is not enough discussion about this.

They managed to clean up San Francisco using existing budgets in just a matter of days to prepare for Xi’s visit. No one can explain why they couldn’t have done this a long time ago.

pic.twitter.com/nJB8B1XRKB
— AG (@AGHamilton29) November 12, 2023

San Francisco’s homeless population was entirely cleared out for Xi Jinping.

The government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to.pic.twitter.com/tBGmWCbwtX
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 12, 2023

San Francisco finally fixed the homeless crisis. All it took was a visit from a world dictator.

Before Xi: After: pic.twitter.com/2WimoNHC49
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 12, 2023

For years, deteriorating health and safety conditions in California’s fourth-largest city have made San Francisco an emblem of American decline. Rampant crime and homelessness have left residents exposed to safety hazards while the jewel city of the West Coast remains prohibitively expensive to live in. Instead of implementing aggressive efforts to clean up, as residents saw last week ahead of visits from foreign leaders, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors prioritized leftist activism. In March, San Francisco leadership moved forward with a plan to hand out slavery reparations for $5 million per person to people who never were slaves, paid for by residents who never owned slaves.

In August, The Wall Street Journal published a feature on San Francisco’s downward spiral, openly wondering in the headline, “Can San Francisco Save Itself From the Doom Loop?”

“Downtown San Francisco now trails nearly every other major urban center in economic health,” the paper reported. “Retailers like Nordstrom and Banana Republic have announced in the past few months that they are closing their downtown San Francisco stores. The owner of the city’s biggest mall, located downtown, is handing it back to the lender rather than continue to make debt payments.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

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