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After Media Try To Provoke Trump-Rubio Rift, Sec. Of State Nominee Pledges Loyalty To America First


By: Jordan Boyd | January 15, 2025

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/15/after-media-try-to-provoke-trump-rubio-rift-sec-of-state-nominee-pledges-loyalty-to-america-first/

Marco Rubio at his confirmation hearing
Rubio plans to follow through on President Trump’s promises to secure the homeland and re-stabilize the globe.

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President Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State Sen. Marco Rubio doubled down on his commitment to the America First foreign policy agenda during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, despite a corporate media effort to cause a rift between him and the incoming president.

Politico published a piece one day before the hearing attempting to kiss Rubio’s role as Secretary of State goodbye before it even begins. In the gossip column masquerading as an article, Politico’s Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Nahal Toosi uses the alleged analysis of a dozen unnamed “current and former U.S. and foreign officials” to claim that Rubio won’t last as Trump’s Secretary of State because “the odds are high that the two will differ on policy.” Toosi also invokes Trump and Rubio’s history as presidential primary rivals in 2016 as a potential problem for the pair’s ability to strategize effectively.

The only way Rubio will survive leading the State Department, the author insists, “may be to take the punches from his internal rivals, suffer through whatever insults Trump lobs at him, stick to the lanes that are open, and simply let the State Department fade into irrelevance.”

While it’s true that Rubio and Trump ran against each other and that the former used to take more of an interventionist and neocon approach to foreign policy than he does now, a lot has changed politically and globally in the last decade. The ongoing transformation of the Republican party from an arm of the establishment to a party of and for the people, paired with the rapid rise of China’s hegemony, has pushed Trump and Rubio’s visions for the globe much closer together than they were nearly 10 years ago. Both care deeply about projecting U.S. strength to the world while keeping American tax dollars from funding endless wars.

Rubio spokesman Dan Holler told Politico that Rubio is far more focused on executing Trump’s “ambitious foreign policy agenda that will put Americans first and correct the failures of the past four years” than devoting time to corporate media’s “silly games or gossip.” Rubio confirmed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that his new job will center on putting America first.

“Under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States,” Rubio said in his opening statement. “The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be justified by the answer to one of three questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?”

On Rubio’s agenda is executing Trump’s vision to curb China’s global influence, end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, and address the vast problems exacerbating the U.S. border invasion.

“In our very own hemisphere, narcoterrorists and dictators, and despots take advantage of open borders to drive mass migration, to traffic in women and children, and to flood our communities with deadly fentanyl and violent criminals,” Rubio said.

The biggest foreign threat facing the U.S. today, he told senators, is the Communist Party of China, “the most potent and dangerous, near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.”

“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order, and they took advantage of all of its benefits. And they ignored all of its obligations and responsibilities. Instead, they have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status. And they have done so at our expense and at the expense of the people of their own country,” Rubio said.

When it comes to Eastern Europe, Rubio says he echoes Trump’s desire for “people to stop dying” and for the U.S. to stop funding a conflict with no end in sight — especially when its own border is compromised.

“I think it should be the official position of the United States that this war should be brought to an end,” Rubio said. “My differences with the Biden administration throughout this process, is that they never clearly delineated what the end goal of the conflict was — what exactly were we funding? What exactly were we putting money towards? On many occasions, it sounded like however much it takes, for however long it takes — that is not a realistic or prudent position.”

Corporate media outlets, anonymous foreign policy officials, and America’s adversaries alike are trying to drive a stake between Rubio and the man who named him to be the face of the nation’s foreign relations with hopes of hampering their effectiveness. Yet, Politico’s own pages admit that Trump and Rubio have successfully worked together to secure their foreign policy goals before.

Rubio’s public commitment to following through on Trump’s promises to secure the homeland and restabilize the globe suggests that, if he is confirmed, productivity is the priority, not pretend personal strife.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and 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 X @jordanboydtx.

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Telling Kamala to Lie About Her Radicalism Isn’t Good for Democracy


By: Mark Hemingway | October 15, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/15/telling-kamala-to-lie-about-her-radicalism-isnt-good-for-democracy/

Kamala Harris on "60 Minutes"

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Last week, Politico ran a headline. Once upon a time, it would have been tempting to attach some superlative to said headline, such as “astonishing,” “remarkable,” or “crazy.” Now such headlines are commonplace and illustrative of the information warfare that defines American politics. Anyway, here it is:

One of the biggest political problems in America is the complete disconnect between what passes for “conventional wisdom” inside the beltway and how most Americans’ perception of reality affects how they vote. Roughly half the country identifies as politically conservative, and beyond that, there are supermajorities involving good chunks of the Democrat party that think that elite opinion has gone too far left on several key issues. And yet, nearly all discussions that take place context of our “media-run state” basically start from the premise that radicalism on the right is a clear and present threat to the republic, whereas radicalism on the left is never threatening to prosperity and our way of life. Rather, it’s just a messaging problem, where the establishment left must be given broad latitude to say whatever it needs to say to get elected and stave off the absurdly broad category of candidates labeled dangerous right-wing extremists. And it doesn’t matter if what is said is fundamentally dishonest because the threat justifies the deception.

This is why an army of fact-checkers, misinformation experts, censors, and journalists — and good luck telling the difference between those four ostensible vocations, as they are frequently rolled into one indistinguishable blob — exists to create the illusion of retroactive continuity between what’s being said now and what we all know actually happened.

And so, we have the headlines such as the one above. In the real world, we’ve had record inflation, and anyone looking to buy a house or car has taken note of the fact interest rates are about three times higher than they were before Harris and Biden took office. But it’s not enough to say that the economy is good; before you can even choke down that obvious falsehood, we’ve moved from an incorrect cause to an offensive effect. The real problem isn’t that people can’t afford groceries; no, the real problem is the voters themselves, who are presumed ignorant for not believing a lie. Without even getting past the headline, you’re experiencing more gaslighting than a winter solstice in Victorian London.

Which brings me to another Politico headline, which even ran on the same day, natch. This time it’s a column by Jonathan Martin, a former New York Times political reporter, who is currently Politico’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. Martin is here to tell us “Here’s What Harris Must Do to Seal the Deal.” To that end, he’s hatched a plan where Harris can “prove to skeptics that she’s committed to bipartisan government” by, among other things, preemptively announcing Mitt Romney is going to be her Secretary of State.

Of course, the idea that Mitt Romney, who for years now has been a professional malcontent who’s entire public persona revolves around attacking nearly all of his senate GOP colleagues, has bipartisan cred is wishful thinking. And that’s without even going into how spectacularly Martin’s proposal validates the concern that ideological extremism is forever a one-way street. In 2012, when Mitt Romney was running for president against Obama, he was a racist, gay-bullying, dog-abusing, extremist who gave his employees cancer. Without exhuming what Martin himself said during Romney’s failed presidential bid, it sure says something that many of his peers who dutifully smeared Romney for threatening a Democratic president’s hold on power have no problems with now soliciting the guy that did all these terrible things to help elect a Democrat president.

Regardless, the whole point of Martin’s cockamamie scheme to retrofit Harris as a bipartisan moderate ultimately boils down to this assessment: “These voters don’t want white papers, they just crave reassurance Harris isn’t a lefty.”

Well, Martin has correctly identified the problem, and he’s even come up with a plan to remedy it — even if an unconvincing, last-minute feint at bipartisanship is unlikely to sway voters. But before we get on with hatching a plan to reassure voters “Harris isn’t a lefty,” Martin is skipping a pretty crucial question that anyone concerned with truth-telling would probably try and address.

Is Harris, in fact, a lefty?

The answer is unequivocally yes. She’s a creature of San Francisco politics, and she had the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. One of the most effective ads Trump has run so far involves video footage of Kamala Harris saying, in her own words, that taxpayers should pay for the sex change operations of prisoners. Because she’s running away from her liberal record, she’s flip-flopped on several major issues since she was installed as the Democrat presidential candidate because her previously articulated positions were electorally damaging. She’s even now committed to building a border wall, for crying out loud.

Unsurprisingly, Martin and his peers have put precious little pressure on Harris to explain how and why her sudden attempt to hot swap radical leftist policies with more moderate policies is remotely sincere.

To the extent that Martin even deigns to acknowledge this might be an issue, his response is something: “I know from having covered her for a decade that she’s no faculty club progressive, much more comfortable dropping a ‘motherf–ka’ than taking care to say ‘Latinx.’”

I don’t know what world Martin is envisioning where people that swear are somehow so transgressive they’re anathema to people that police gender neutrality. Speaking of gender cops, it’s probably worth mentioning Harris, who I am assured is no “faculty club progressive,” currently has her pronouns listed in her Twitter bio. Regardless, it’s more likely that those that insist neutering the lexicon are very much the same people who consider objecting to use of the word “motherf–ka” a matter of kink shaming.

In case you were wondering, though, the word “Latinx” is used in Harris’ 2019 campaign book, The Truth We Hold, seven times — it’s eight times, if you count the fact the word has its own entry in the index. (It must be said that this is a different book than the one Harris now stands accused of plagiarizing; the book where she stole other people’s ideas amusingly titled Smart On Crime.) Anyway, maybe this is all pedantic. I’m just a guy who CTRL-F’d her book, and Martin probably knows her well enough to have her cell number. As such, I’m sure Martin would advise me to take Harris seriously, not literally.

In any event, I don’t think Martin is intentionally deceiving anyone or endorsing the idea that Kamala should openly deceive people by telling her to present herself as moderate. Alas, he’s not a cartoon villain, and if he was, that would be an easier problem to address. Unfortunately, the fact remains that deception is the logical outcome when journalists’ default assumption is that radicalism among Democrats is something to be massaged and contextualized, not called out for what it is.

As it is, Kamala Harris is pretty radical. If voters are concluding that the supposed mango monster opposing her, who thinks taxpayer-funded sex changes are bad and has long opposed letting millions of largely unvetted illegal immigrants into the country, might be the more moderate choice, well, it’s not an occasion to assail them for noticing the wrong things. It’s an invitation to state the facts fairly for once and get out of way and let democracy take its course.

Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @heminator

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If This Is ‘Christian Nationalism,’ Sign Me Up!


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/27/if-this-is-christian-nationalism-sign-me-up/

John Locke

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The other day, Politico writer Heidi Przybyla appeared on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” to talk about the hysteria de jour, “Christian nationalism.” Donald Trump, she explained, has surrounded himself with an “extremist element of conservative Christians,” who were misrepresenting “so-called natural law” in their attempt to roll back abortion “rights” and other leftist policy preferences. What makes “Christian nationalists” different, she went on, was that they believe “our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority.”

As numerous critics have already pointed out, “Christian nationalism” sounds identical to the case for American liberty offered in the Declaration of Independence. Then again, the idea that man has inalienable, universal rights goes back to ancient Greece, at least. The entire American project is contingent on accepting the notion that the state can’t give or take our God-given freedoms. It is the best kind of “extremism.”

None of this is to say there aren’t Christians out there who engage in an unhealthy conflation of politics and faith or harbor theocratic ideas. It is to say that the definition of “Christian nationalism” offered by the people at Politico and MSNBC comports flawlessly with the mindset that makes the United States possible.

Conservatives often chalk up this kind of ignorance about civics to a declining education system. It’s not an accident. It’s true that Przybyla, a longtime leftist propagandist — and I don’t mean a biased reporter; I mean a propagandist whose reporting is often transparently ludicrous — followed up her MSNBC appearance with an embarrassing clarification. But even if Przybyla were fluent in the philosophy of natural rights, one strongly suspects she, like most progressives (and other statists), would be uninterested. It’s a political imperative to be uninterested.

If natural rights are truly inalienable, how can the government create a slew of new (positive) “rights” — the right to housing or abortion or health care or free birth control? And how can we limit those who “abuse” free expression, self-defense, and due process if they are up to no good? You know, as Joe Biden likes to say — when speaking about the Second Amendment, never abortion — no right “is absolute.”

The most telling part of Przybyla’s explanation, for example, was to concede that “natural law” had on occasion actually been used for good. When natural law is used to further “social justice” it is legitimate, but when applied to ideas the left finds objectionable (such as protecting unborn life) it becomes “Christian nationalism.” It’s almost as if she doesn’t comprehend the idea of a neutral principle. It’s the kind of thinking that impels the media to put skeptical quotation marks around terms like “religious liberty,” but never around “LGBT rights” or “social justice” and so on.

It’s also true that the “Christian nationalism” scare is a ginned-up partisan effort to spook non-Christian voters. And, clearly, to some secular Americans, the idea that a non-“earthly authority” can bestow rights on humans sounds nuts. As a nonbeliever myself, I’ve been asked by Christians many times how I can square my skepticism of the Almighty with a belief in natural rights.

My answer is simple: I choose to.

“This is the bind post-Christian America finds itself in,” tweeted historian Tom Holland. “It can no longer appeal to a Creator as the author of its citizens’ rights, so [he] has to pretend that these rights somehow have an inherent existence: a notion requiring no less of a leap of faith than does belief in God.”

No less but no more. Just as an atheist or agnostic or irreligious secular American accepts that it’s wrong to steal and murder and cheat, they can accept that man has an inherent right to speak freely and the right to defend himself, his family, and his property. History, experience, and an innate sense of the world tell me that such rights benefit individuals as well as mankind. It is rational.

The liberties borne out of thousands of years of tradition are more vital than the vagaries of democracy or the diktats of the state. That’s clear to me. We still debate the extent of rights, obviously. I don’t need a Ph.D. in philosophy, however, to understand that preserving life or expression are self-evident universal rights in a way that compelling taxpayers to pay for your “reproductive justice” is not.

John Locke, as far as I understand it, argued as much, though he believed that the decree of God made all of it binding. Which is why, even though I don’t believe my rights were handed down by a superbeing, I act like they are. It’s really the only way for the Constitution to work.

The question is: How can a contemporary leftist who treats the state as the source of all decency– a tool of compulsion that can make the world “fair” — accept that mankind has been bequeathed a set of individual liberties by God, regardless of race or class or political disposition? I’m not sure they can anymore.

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


BY: EDDIE SCARRY | JANUARY 09, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/09/bidens-campaign-doesnt-brief-the-media-it-colludes-with-them/

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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Biden Administration: War Is Very Good For Business


BY: JOHN LUCAS | OCTOBER 30, 2023

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/biden-administration-war-is-very-good-for-business-2666096121.html/

Joe Biden getting help from Antony Blinken

Has a single member of the White House staff ever held a dying American soldier in his arms as he bled out, calling for his mother? Have any of them ever loaded the blood-soaked bodies of his wounded and killed onto a medivac helicopter and then endured sleepless nights thinking about the visits their families are about to get and the ensuing destruction of their lives and dreams? 

These were the first questions that popped into my mind when I saw the report from Politico that the Biden administration is promoting the war in Ukraine because it is good for American business. I think the members of the administration could not have experienced these things because, if they had, and if they had one ounce of humanity in them, they could not possibly have promoted war on the “it’s good for business” rationale.

Apparently, multiple White House aides have been involved in this abomination because Politico is quite specific:

The White House has been quietly urging lawmakers in both parties to sell the war efforts abroad as a potential economic boom at home.

Aides have been distributing talking points to Democrats and Republicans who have been supportive of continued efforts to fund Ukraine’s resistance to make the case that doing so is good for American jobs, according to five White House aides and lawmakers familiar with the effort and granted anonymity to speak freely.

The Biden administration is fearful that it cannot sell its most recent aid package on the merits and on national security grounds, because “The talking points are an implicit recognition that the administration has work to do in selling its $106 billion foreign aid supplemental request — and that talking about it squarely under the umbrella of national security interests hasn’t done the trick,” Politico states.

The reprehensibility of these comments cannot be overstated. Biden’s administration is peopled with a number of “elites” who probably are familiar, at least in a theoretical, intellectual sense, with John Stuart Mill’s dictum, “War is an ugly thing.” But, hey, if it’s good for business, particularly in electoral swing states, let’s go for it.

I am old enough to remember how the left tarred George Bush, Dick Cheney, and others in the GOP with the argument that they wanted war because it was good for their supporters in big business. I never put any stock in these arguments because I thought no American could be so evil as to support war as a sop to big business. The Biden administration has changed my mind.

My contempt and revulsion for these people knows no bounds.

John Lucas is a retired attorney who has tried and argued a variety of cases, including before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted man, later graduating from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger who fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. He is married with five children. He and his wife now live in Virginia. John also is published at johnalucas6.substack.com.

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Politico Pretends Culture War Doesn’t Win School Board Races, But Dozens Of Pro-Parent Candidates Just Prevailed


BY: JORDAN BOYD | APRIL 19, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/19/politico-pretends-culture-war-doesnt-win-school-board-races-but-dozens-of-pro-parent-candidates-just-prevailed/

Classroom
Whether corporate media like it or not, conservative messaging on education resonates with voters and has done so for years.

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Conservatives who ran on culture war issues won dozens of school board elections in battleground and Democrat-controlled states last week, but you wouldn’t know that from Politico’s coverage of the races. The outlet claimed pro-parent candidates who ran against racist curricula in classrooms, lockdowns, and radical gender ideology “flamed out.”

Politico not-so-subtly concluded, based on recent school board election results in Illinois and Wisconsin, that “leaning on school-based wedge issues to court primary voters in a crowded White House campaign” won’t bode well for 2024 front-runner Republicans including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not yet announced his candidacy.

Not long after publication on Monday, the article gained traction with leftist talking heads and organizations such as Rachel Maddow, the Lincoln Project, the nation’s largest teachers union, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who were thrilled to share about the potential demise of the issues that made them a target of public scrutiny for the last three years.

“Parents, educators, and community members are all looking for candidates who are committed to strengthening public schools, not abandoning them,” the National Education Association’s elections arm tweeted.

The public school activists were specifically thrilled that the publication’s education reporter, Juan Perez Jr., pointed to Democrat wins in recent school board elections as evidence that the right’s culture war issues were a brief and unsustainable phenomenon.

“General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe,” Perez Jr. asserted.

“General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe,” For your information Mr. Perez Jr., in 2023, The Federal Government is funding $45 BILLION for public schools. With approximately 49.7 million students enrolled in public schools in 2023, that’s a whopping $9,375.00 per child. How many PRIVATE SCHOOLS COST LESS, WITH SUPERIOR SCHOLASTIC RESULTS AND SUPERIOR SECURITY?

He evidenced this claim by noting that Democrats and teachers’ unions in both Wisconsin and Illinois celebrated the wins of many of their preferred candidates in the more than 100 races they endorsed. Many of those wins came in districts in or near Democrat stronghold cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee, but that didn’t stop the author from concluding that Republicans “lost big.”

Perez Jr. included data from political action committees that clearly showed candidates on the right claimed several victories but discounted those results by claiming that at least “two conservative national education groups did not dispute that their candidates posted a losing record.”

Just seven paragraphs into the article, Perez Jr. included a half-sentence quote from 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky — “We lost more than we won” — that seemingly backed up his belief that these results “offer lessons to both parties as they eye even more board elections this year.”

“We had an hour-long conversation. [Perez Jr.] left it to one edited half sentence,” Girdusky told The Federalist.

Poorly framing quotes from Girdusky wasn’t Perez Jr.’s only mistake.

Leaning in

Leftist school board wins may have dominated corporate media coverage, but there’s no denying they were rivaled by dozens of triumphs by conservative-backed school board candidates who ran on fighting the radical racial and LGBT indoctrination infecting the nation’s government schools.

Overall, school board candidates endorsed by Girdusky’s 1776 Project PAC won 30 out of their 63 races.

“The seats that we did lose in Illinois were because of a third-party conservative candidate. So it wasn’t that conservatives lost, we split the vote,” Girdusky explained. “It wasn’t a rejection.”

Politico’s article fails to mention this nuance — likely because it would undermine the article’s purpose.

Winning nearly half of the elections it participated in is not “losing big,” especially when readers consider that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Democrats, and their teachers’ union allies in both Wisconsin and Illinois outspent conservative challengers by hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also got a helping hand from corporate media, which gave supporters of left-wing school board members plenty of TV time to help protect eligible seats from pro-parent candidates.

Handpicking the results from one off-year election and selling it as gospel truth about the future of culture war issues in local and national politics isn’t just incredibly ignorant. It’s deliberately deceitful and helps teachers’ unions keep their monopoly on making decisions about children’s lives that should fall under parents’ jurisdiction.

Whether corporate media like it or not, conservative messaging on education resonates with voters and has done so for years now. In 2021, dozens of parents concerned about the rise of racist curricula in government schools curried enough support to secure landslide victories against left-wing incumbents in states such as Texas, Kansas, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and many more. The same momentum was found in 2022 in states like Wisconsin.

Perez Jr. can repeat the prevalent lie that conservatives simply “seized on transgender students to rejuvenate a social agenda,” but the truth is even he couldn’t deny that parents’ frustration with the education bureaucracy is responsible for changing the course of countless elections including Virginia’s gubernatorial race in 2021.

Contrary to what Perez Jr. and his sullen quotes from “GOP activists” would have you believe, the organizations propping up pro-parent candidates aren’t backing down from the culture war. As Girdusky said: “I think that there’s clearly a message there that education is an important issue that Republicans can overperform in substantially.”

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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Joe Biden’s EV Edict Isn’t Just Harmful, It’s Fascistic


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | APRIL 12, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/12/joe-bidens-ev-edict-isnt-just-harmful-its-fascistic/

President Joe Biden test drives the Hummer EV

According to the contemporary left, it’s “authoritarian” for local elected officials to curate school library collections but fine for a powerful centralized federal government to issue an edict compelling a major industry to produce a product and then force hundreds of millions of people to buy it.

President Biden is set to “transform” and “remake” the entire auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks”— notes the Washington Post, as if dictating the output of a major industry is within the governing purview of the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing draconian emissions limits for vehicles, ensuring that 67 percent of all new passenger cars and trucks produced within nine years will be electric. This is state coercion. It is undemocratic. We are not governed; we are managed.

In fascist economies, a powerful centralized state — often led by a demagogue who plays on the nationalistic impulses of people — controls both manufacturing and commerce and dictates prices and wages for the “common good.” Any unpatriotic excessive profits are captured by the state. All economic activity must meet state approval. And crony, rent-seeking companies are willing participants. Now, I’m not saying we already live in a fascist economic state. I’m just saying the Democratic Party economic platform sounds like it wishes we were.

The coverage of Biden’s edict has gone exactly as one might expect. “Biden makes huge push for electric vehicles. Is America ready?” asks Politico, for instance. The conceit of so much modern media coverage rests on the assumption that the left’s ideas are part of an inevitable societal evolution toward enlightenment. The only question remaining is when will the slaw-jawed yokels in Indiana and Texas finally catch on.

I’m sorry, EVs are not a technological advancement — or much of an environmental one — over vehicles with internal combustion engines. Most of the comforts EV makers like to brag about have been a regular feature of gas-powered cars for decades. At best, EVs are a lateral technology. And, as far as practicality, cost, and comfort go, they’re a regression. If EVs are more efficient and save us money, as administration officials claim, manufacturers would not have to be compelled and bribed into producing them.

The problem for Democrats is that consumers already have perfectly useful and affordable gas-powered cars that, until recently, could be cheaply fueled and driven long distances without stopping for long periods of time. Fossil fuels — also the predominant energy source used to power electric cars — are the most efficient, affordable, portable, and useful form of energy. We have a vast supply of it. In recent years, we’ve become the world’s largest oil producer. There are tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of fossil fuels here at home and vast amounts around the world. By the time we run out, if ever, we will have invented far better ways to move vehicles than plugging an EV battery — which is made by emitting twice as many gases into the air as a traditional car engine — into an antiquated windmill.

“I want to let everybody know that this EPA is committed to protecting the health and well-being of every single person on this planet,” the EPA’s Michael Regan explained when announcing the edicts. No one is safer in an EV than a gas-powered vehicle. The authoritarian’s justification for economic control is almost always “safety.” But the entire “safety” claim is tethered to the perpetually disproven theory that our society can’t safely — and relatively cheaply — adapt to slight changes in climate. If the state can regulate “greenhouse gases” as an existential threat, it has the unfettered power to regulate virtually the entire economy. This is why politicians treat every hurricane, tornado, and flood as an apocalyptic event. But in almost every quantifiable way, the climate is less dangerous to mankind now than it has ever been. And the more they try to scare us, the less people care.

So let the Chinese communists worry about keeping their population “safe.” Let’s keep this one innovative, open, and free.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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REPORT: Justice Roberts ‘Likely’ To Order FBI Investigation Into SCOTUS Leak


Reported by DIANA GLEBOVA | ASSOCIATE EDITOR | May 03, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/report-justice-roberts-likely-to-order-fbi-investigation-into-scotus-leak-2657253222.html/

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Speaks At University Of Miami
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts will likely launch an investigation involving the FBI into the SCOTUS leak from the Dobbs abortion case, according to CBS News’ Elizabeth Campbell. The apparent Feb. 10 draft opinion obtained by Politico published Monday shows that the initial majority opinion of the court is poised to strike down the landmark Roe V. Wade decision granting women the right to an abortion. 

“This is an unprecedented leak from SCOTUS. It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond,” Campbell tweeted.

“Sources tonight tell  [CBS News’ Jan Crawford] he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source,” Campbell added.

This is an unprecedented leak from #SCOTUS. It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond. Sources tonight tell @JanCBS he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source.

The draft opinion showed that five justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted to overturn, while three — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — dissented, according to Politico. Roberts has reportedly not yet made his decision.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the draft opinion, according to the outlet.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the opinion reportedly continued. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

No draft opinion in modern history has ever been leaked while the case was still pending, according to Politico.

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Hurricane Harvey Cartoon Explains what the Media Really Thinks of Christians, Conservatives, and Texans


Reported By Onan Coca August 31, 2017

Politico made a very big mistake on Wednesday when they decided to publish what may be one of the most bigoted, unAmerican, and despicable political cartoons published in recent memory.

Let’s start with the cartoon itself so that you can get a sense of what the liberal media actually thinks about people like us:

That image really has it all, doesn’t it?

This was published by the mainstream “news” publishers at Politico on a day when people were still getting rescued by the Coast Guard and by their neighbors.

Confederate flag? Check. Gadsden Flag? Check. Hillbilly redneck? Check. Texas Secession sign? Check. Mocking Christianity while praising government? Check.

This cartoon ticks all of the leftwing boxes, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, it ignores the fact that the vast majority of people saved during and after the storm were rescued by friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. (That’s the small government way, if you’re keeping score.) Then the government actually told those heroic citizens to STOP saving their neighbors. It also ignores the fact that conservatives have never said that there is no place for government in a situation like this, in fact, this is one of the actual functions the government is supposed to take care of. Finally, it ignores the reality of a Sovereign God who “works in mysterious ways” and as the Bible teaches uses believers and non-believers alike to accomplish His Will.

Politico eventually realized their mistake and deleted the Tweet… but they kept the cartoon on their website.

The artist also tried to deflect the backlash from his bigoted cartoon by claiming it was just about secessionists:

The first problem with the cartoon is it’s crassness. People are still being saved, and it’s making fun of those same people.

The second problem is the stereotypes. It’s almost a caricature of what you’d expect a liberal cartoonist to draw in response to conservative Texans relying upon the government in their time of crisis. The Confederate flag T-shirt. The Gadsden Flag. The reference to being saved by God (which seems extremely dismissive of Christianity). The Texas secession banner. It’s all kind of … predictable? …

But the cartoon suggests that normal people who believe in small government should essentially forfeit government help in their time of need — or, at least, that they should suddenly recognize that their belief in smaller government is wrongheaded. It’s all very smug, and it gives extremely short shrift to very complex issues.

To make matters worse, the cartoon just isn’t very good. It’s ham-fisted and un-nuanced, there is nothing to think about as HotAir’s Ed Morrissey points out.

If you want a good analysis of what is taking place in Texas created by a political cartoonist with actual talent, look no further than Michael Ramirez:

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FBI steps up interviews in Clinton email probe


waving flagBy ; 11/10/15

151109_hillary_clinton_2_AP_1160.jpg

Democratic presidential candidate HillaryClinton listens to a question at town hall meeting in New Hampshire. | AP Photo

hillary-prison-or-potusEven as Hillary Clinton tries to put questions about her private email server behind her, the FBI has stepped up inquiries into the security of the former secretary of state’s home-made email system and how aides communicated over email, POLITICO has learned.

The FBI’s recent moves suggest that its inquiry could have evolved from the preliminary fact-finding stage that the agency launches when it receives a credible referral, according to former FBI and Justice Department officials interviewed by POLITICO.

“This sounds to me like it’s more than a preliminary inquiry; it sounds like a full-blown investigation,” said Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI. “When you have this amount of resources going into it …. I think it’s at the investigative level.”

The FBI declined to respond to questions about the scope of its ongoing work.

But POLITICO learned that around early October, the FBI requested documents from a company involved in the server arrangement after Clinton left State. It also interviewed a former high-ranking policy official at State about the contents of top Clinton aides’ emails.

The official, who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity, said the questions explored whether anyone at State was concerned about classified information being put at risk by communicating via email. The source did not know of any such concerns.

Confirmation of the interview and document requests is the first public indication that the agency is moving ahead with its inquiry – and possibly expanding it.

The former State official interviewed by the FBI, for example, had little to do with the Clinton server set-up or any approval process allowing her to use personal email for work — suggesting the FBI’s initial inquiry about the actual physical security of Clinton’s home-made server now also includes looking at the content of messages shared by staff.

Former FBI and Justice officials familiar with the investigative procedures on such matters said the agency must determine two main things: whether the use of an outside email system posed any risks to national security secrets and, if so, whether anyone was responsible for exposing classified information.

FBI Director James Comey acknowledged in October that his agency was probing the server matter generally and believed it had the resources to look into the issues, though he didn’t give specifics.

Over the summer, the Department of Justice said it received a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General about potentially exposed classified information on Clinton’s home-made email server. The referral, Justice said at the time, was not criminal in nature but focused on the counterintelligence law governing national security secrets.

The matter at the time was considered a “preliminary” inquiry.

Clinton’s campaign and lawyers have said they are cooperating, turning over her server and a thumb drive backup of her messages to the FBI. They’ve also said they’re encouraging everyone who worked on the server issue to do the same. Platte River Networks, the Denver-based company that housed her server since she left State in 2013, for example, has said it’s cooperating; so has Datto, another tech company that provided a cloud backup of Clinton’s messages.

But exactly who they’re talking to at the staff level has been unclear. For example: Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff at State and lawyer who helped determine which of her emails were personal and work related, wouldn’t say in a recent Washington Post interview whether she had been contacted due to confidentiality surrounding the FBI’s work.

The FBI ultimately decides whether to take a preliminary inquiry to a full-fledged investigation — and if it does so, it is under no obligation to say so publicly. The classification level of any compromised information “may be a factor in determining whether an FBI investigation is warranted,” reads an overview of FBI procedures.

In its review of Clinton’s emails, the State Department has classified more than 400 messages so far — materials that would not therefore be allowed on a homemade email system, although Clinton has said that none of them were marked classified at the time she or her staff received or sent them.

POLITICO reported on Friday that some of the original messages that triggered the referral — a couple messages the ICIG said were “top secret,” the most sensitive national security material — were no longer considered that protected.

Sources told POLITICO this week that as of a month ago, the Justice Department had not determined how to proceed with Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s top IT expert who oversaw her server but took the Fifth and refused to answer questions when subpoenaed by Congress earlier this year.

Republican lawmakers have weighed an immunity agreement for Pagliano, which would bar him from prosecution and allow him to talk about what he knew of the server: who approved it, why and the security surrounding the system.

His lawyer, reached Thursday, would not confirm whether he’s even been contacted by the FBI.

The agency has asked for documents from Tania Neild, the New York-based technology broker for millionaires, who put the Clintons in touch with Platte River Networks.

Neild confirmed the FBI request in an interview with POLITICO, saying the agency asked her to appear with written documents relating to the advice she gave to her client about negotiating with Platte River. Her company, InfoGrate, acts as a middle man between high-worth individuals and companies that oversee their personal technologies, such as emails.

Neild operates under a confidentiality agreement with all her clients. She said the nondisclosure arrangement precluded her from cooperating with the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is also investigating the server issue and reached out to her for an interview. But the FBI notice, she said, trumped her confidentiality agreement.

Her lawyer would not confirm any contact they may or may not have had with the Department of Justice or the FBI.

“What we did receive were inquiries from [the Senate Homeland Committee] that are looking into various things,” said Ron Safer, of Chicago’s Schiff Hardin. “And whether we have had communications with anybody else, I really can’t say at this point.”

Due to secrecy surrounding any FBI investigation, it is impossible to know exactly where the FBI stands. And since the issue involves the 2016 Democratic front-runner, the work is even more sensitive.

Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, said Justice is likely worried about issuing formal legal notices “because they know it will get out, and then you’re talking about a grand jury investigation.” But he said it’s “not uncommon” for companies to require subpoenas, court orders or other legal notices to cooperate to save their corporate reputation, which could otherwise be jeopardized for sharing personal information.

“I am sure there is hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth across the street at the Hoover Building because you’re going to have people saying ‘I don’t want to produce X documents. Give me a piece of paper that covers me.’ And that’s where push is going to come to shove,” Hosko said.

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Kasich Befuddles The Public Over His Stance On Global Warming


waving flagPosted by Photo of Michael BastaschMichael Bastasch, 08/10/2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/10/kasich-befuddles-the-public-over-his-stance-on-global-warming/#
Potential Republican 2016 presidential candidate Ohio Governor John Kasich speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Conference in Nashua, New Hampshire April 18, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

rino alertGov. John Kasich’s campaign has been scrambling to clear up the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on whether or not he believes in global warming after he told NBC News Sunday he didn’t want to “destroy people’s jobs based on some theory that’s not proven.”

Kasich told NBC’s Chuck Todd he believes humans have an impact on the environment, but cautioned against punitive regulations that could cripple the economy and kill jobs.

“Well, I think that man absolutely affects the environment. But as to whether, you know, what the impact is, the overall impact, I think that’s a legitimate debate.” Kasich said, touting his state’s environmental record. “So of course we have to be sensitive to it. But we don’t want to destroy people’s jobs based on some theory that’s not proven.”

Interestingly enough, liberal news outlets criticized Kasich for saying global warming was “some theory that’s not proven.” This forced his campaign to respond over social media, tweeting out a remarks Kasich made about global warming in 2012.

tw

“He believes it is real and that humans play a significant factor and we need to do something about it,” a Kasich campaign spokesman told Politico in an emailed response, regarding the governor’s position on man-made global warming.

Kasich’s campaign also pointed Politico to other recent interviews where the governor talked about global warming without questioning the science. Kasich has been trying to position himself as a moderate Republican who believes in trying to find solutions to global warming.

“I am a believer—my goodness, I am a Republican—I happen to believe there is a problem with climate change,” Kaisich said in 2012. “I don’t want to overreact to it, I can’t measure it all, but I respect the creation that the Lord has given us, and I want to make sure we protect it.” no more rinos

 

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Cruz DESTROYS Couric: Hillary Started the Anti-Obama Birther Movement


waving flag07.01.2015 | by

 inconvenient truth

Left-wing anchor Katie Couric discussed a wide range of issues with Republican Senator  Ted Cruz (R-TX) during a full-hour Yahoo! interview Monday. Couric introduced Cruz as a historic candidate — potentially the first American president to be born in Canada and questioned Cruz on his citizenship later in the interview.

Cruz unnerved Couric by reminding her that it was the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008 that birthed the anti-Obama Birther movement. “You know it’s interesting, the whole Birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008  against Barack Obama,” Cruz said.

couric-350x225Couric was clearly ticked her off, judging by her folded arms and the how look on her face crumbles, when Cruz informs her that it was the Clinton camp that created the anti-Obama birther movement, a fact that even the the left-wing Politico acknowledges:

Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there?

The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama. …

The original smear against Obama was that he was a crypto-Muslim, floated in 2004 by perennial Illinois political candidate and serial litigant Andy Martin. Other related versions of this theory alleged that Obama was educated in an Indonesian “madrassa” or steeped in Islamist ideology from a young age, and the theories began to spread virally after Obama appeared on the national stage – to the casual observer, from nowhere – with his early 2007 presidential campaign. …

Then, as Obama marched toward the presidency, a new suggestion emerged: That he was not eligible to serve.

That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth,” asserted one chain email that surfaced on the urban legend site Snopes.com in April 2008.Clinton Democrat Party

Cruz goes on to remind Couric of all the times in history that a candidate for U.S. president has been born abroad. John McCain, George Romney, and Barry Goldwater were his other examples.

Katie responds, “So, you’re basically saying you don’t believe it’s an issue at all?”

“I think there will be some who will politically try to push it as an issue, but as a legal matter, it is quite straightforward,” Cruz replied.

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“Journalist” Says Rick Perry Wants to Shoot Children: There’s no media bias?


Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2014/07/media-bias-theres-no-media-bias/#2OiwLr1UFiBkcyWA.99e

Roger Simon is one of the stars at Politico.  If there was ever any doubt in your mind about media bias or where Simon – and more importantly, Politico, are on the political spectrum, just keep reading.

On Monday, because the Obama administration has refused – for six years – to secure the southern US border Governor Perry called up 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to work with the Border Patrol.  He noted, in his announcement, that the troops would be there primarily for administrative duties to free up Border Patrol officers to work on securing the border.

Here’s what Roger Simon had to say.

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Boehner Camp’s Threats Could Spark Battle


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/29/Boehners-Threats-Could-Spark-Battle

by

29 May 2014

Speaker John Boehner’s friends are trying to design new, more effective punishments for the conservative members that might vote against him on the House floor come January, but the message from the right is, “don’t even try it.”

“Look, intimidation tactics and threats do not take the place of leadership,” Rep. Jeff Dunacn (R-SC) told Breitbart News.

“I feel like the embers are gathered on the fire pit, and there just needs to be a spark for the flames to go up,” a senior GOP aide said, predicting the move could backfire.

Boehner’s allies, as first reported by Politico, have been quietly plotting how to prevent a small group of conservatives from denying Boehner a victory in the speakership election next January, something that members on the right have been actively discussing.

Under House rules, an absolute majority of members voting for a person is required to be elected Speaker, making it possible for a small group to cause a deadlocked vote.

Top Boehner allies have considered releasing a letter – it doesn’t exist yet, but the idea was discussed – with a few dozen signatures vowing to only vote on the floor for the person elected by the GOP conference in a closed-door, secret ballot leadership election that precedes the floor vote, according to several GOP sources familiar with the talks.

They’re also talking about altering GOP conference rules to punish members who don’t vote on the floor in accordance with the secret ballot results, such as stripping committee assignments.

Republicans said Boehner didn’t initiate the talks, and a senior lawmaker said Boehner had since signaled to his friends he didn’t want them to pursue the plan.

But the issue is already prompting pushback on the right.

In a radio interview with Laura Ingraham, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), a key member among the Boehner dissidents on the right who recently participated in a bull session with a group of conservatives in Sen. Ted Cruz’s Capitol Hill office, said the threats are pervasive.

“There are [conservative House members] who think, ‘My God, should I speak up? Should I speak up in a Republican Conference meeting because they might cut off my money? They might kick me out of committee,’” Huelskamp said.

But Huelskamp, who was thrown off of the House Agriculture and Budget Committees in 2013, said he was undeterred. “I think we need new leadership,” he said. “Cantor, McCarthy and Boehner all come from blue states….We need some folks from red states that understand what most Americans are thinking, especially grassroots conservatives.”

“Don’t make threats of committee assignments or removals – convince me of how you will lead going forward, especially in the pivotal times of the last two years of an Obama Administration when we need clear action,” Duncan added.

Huelskamp, in particular, has long drawn the ire of Boehner’s circle. Republicans close to Boehner said their latest plans to demonstrate strength and raise the cost of opposing him in a high-stakes floor vote are intended to offset members like Huelskamp who will go to extraordinary lengths to exert their will.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW BELOW:

laura

The logic of the move, a former leadership aide with knowledge of the situation said, is to make the point that “I’m going to be as f***ing idiotic as Tim Huelskamp” and do whatever it takes, including a series of deadlocked speaker votes, to get him and others in his camp to back down.

The timing of the Politico story drew speculation, since it came as Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who has been working to consolidate internal support of late, is locked in a high-profile primary battle with a long-shot opponent. However, Jake Sherman, the reporter who wrote the story, had been working on it for several weeks, sources said, putting its origin before Cantor’s primary race really got on the national media’s radar screen.

Interestingly, the criticism Cantor is facing from the right has prompted key conservative lawmakers to seriously consider whether Boehner might be preferable to Cantor, his heir apparent, Republicans said.

Their rationale: Boehner would be a lame-duck with a clear time horizon, while Cantor could consolidate support and serve for any number of years before the right got a chance to put one of their own in the speakership. During the end of Boehner’s reign in the next Congress, potential leaders on the right – Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the names most often mentioned – could continue to gain strength to take on Cantor when Boehner departed.

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